Glenfinlas and Glenfruin, in one or both of which fights Dumbarton citizens were involved, raised such a noise in the Lowlands that, for the moment, anything would be believed against the Macgregors. James’s parting legacy to them was a persecution that aimed at exterminating the “viperous clan,” as a Campbell styles them in a letter to the king. Their very name was prohibited. They were forbidden to carry any arms but a pointless knife for eating their victuals. Not more than four of them might be suffered to show themselves together. Other offenders were offered pardon on condition of quelling Macgregors, whose heads, in one instance at least, were put to a price like wolves’. Within a year after Glenfruin, more than thirty of them had been executed at Stirling alone. The chief was hanged at Edinburgh; after one daring escape from treacherous arrest, he had fallen into the hands of Argyll, who is said to have promised to send him to England, a promise kept to the letter by taking the captive over the Border, but at once bringing him back to his doom. Hostile clans were set to hunt down the sons of Alpin, as Uncle Sam has employed Cheyenne scouts against the Sioux. As with runaway slaves, bloodhounds were employed in the chase of the proscribed rebels, some of whom took refuge on an island of Loch Katrine, no doubt the same as figures in the _Lady of the Lake_. Severe penalties were denounced against “resetters” of those outlaws, and all holding friendly intercourse with them. They did not want for sympathisers as well as persecutors. It had to be expressly forbidden to ferry any of the fugitives across the lochs to the south of their country, where they might else seek refuge in the wilds of Dumbarton and Argyll.