The companions of Pickle: Being a sequel to 'Pickle the spy'Lang, Andrew
History
The companions of Pickle: Being a sequel to 'Pickle the spy'
Lang, Andrew
Jacobites
‘In No. 2. You see Angus in his proper Colours appointing the
Congress with Cluny (in December 1749); and it would not be
amiss that the Name of the Place, Catlaick, should be well
observed on that worthy Gentleman’s Account. You see that
Loch Gary was in the Country, and on what accounts; likewise
the errand of young Glengary. Whether the “Crookshanks” there
aludes to Cluny as a Cant word for his having a wry Neck, or to
a Brother of Glen Evis [Samuel, the spy] who is an officer in
the French Service, and has crooked legs, I am not certain, but
I believe it is to the Latter.
‘You will likewise observe by this letter that a correction is
to be made in the key of your Intercepted Letter, that Angus is
Brother to Glen Eves and not to Fassifarn. I daresay you are no
stranger to the part that Angus has Acted from the beginning in
relation to the great Money Affair, and that no one excepting
Cluny knows more of it. I am fully persuaded that Mrs. Chalmers
(Mrs. Archibald Cameron) is charged with orders upon his Bank
stock, however unwilling he may be to part with it⸺’
On October 14, Glenevis tired of hiding, and surrendered himself to
Crawfurd. No harm was found in Fassifern’s papers, which had been seized,
and he, with Angus MacIan, a brother (or half-brother) of Lochgarry, was
admitted to bail.
On October 22, Colonel Crawfurd wrote an account of Glenevis’s
examination to Churchill, who forwarded it to the Duke of Newcastle. Now
we must ask how Government, which in 1749-50 knew only the anonymous
account of the treasure already quoted, was, in 1751, informed that
Lochgarry, Young Glengarry, Cameron of Glenevis, and his brother Angus,
had meddled with the spoil in December 1749? Readers of ‘Pickle the Spy’
will remember that Pickle (that is, _ex hypothesi_, Young Glengarry)
dates his services as a paid informer from 1750-51. Young Glengarry,
then, may have been himself the source of the intelligence about the
plunder, and that, as we shall see, was the strong opinion of Glenevis.
In any case this is the earliest hint of suspicion against the honour
of Young Glengarry which we have encountered. The eternal feud of
Macdonnells and Camerons may have suggested the notion of Glengarry’s
treachery to the mind of Glenevis; Cluny being out of the question, and
he not knowing any one out of prison, except Young Glengarry, who had the
necessary information. Glenevis’s brother, Angus, and Angus MacIan were
in prison with himself, and Lochgarry was with his regiment in France.
Crawfurd says of Glenevis, and his suspicions:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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