and sudden; better not meddle with them than not to purpose;" and again, in a still later communication: "I hope the soldiers will not trouble the Government with prisoners." Acting on these sinister injunctions, Captain Campbell of Glenlyon marched his men to Glencoe, and, pretending that he came as a friend and not as an enemy, quartered them upon the Macdonalds, by whom they were cordially received and hospitably entertained. After a twelve days' sojourn among the clan, Glenlyon received orders from his superior officer to proceed to his bloody work, and at five in the morning of the 13th of February the soldiers fell upon their unsuspecting hosts in their sleep. The massacre, however, was less skilfully executed than it had been cunningly planned. The greater portion of the Macdonalds, including the sons of the chief, effected their escape; but MacIan himself, with his wife and thirty-eight of his clansmen, including some women and children, were ruthlessly murdered. As many more, in all probability, fell victims to the rigours of a Highland winter in their attempted flight. In those days of slow communication it was long before the story of the savage deed became known, or at least before it was recognised as possessing a more trustworthy character than the ordinary Jacobite fables of the day; and it was eagerly caught up, of course, by the political enemies of the King and the Government. History has acquitted William of all complicity with the crime in the precise form in which it was committed, as indeed it would only be reasonable to acquit any ruler possessing, we will not say common humanity, but the common instincts of the soldier. But Burnet's attempt to exonerate his master on the plea of having signed the order of "extirpation" through inadvertence, and Macaulay's half-suggestion that it was his general incuriousness in Scotch affairs which made him Stair's unquestioning instrument in the matter, must be alike dismissed. It was not William's practice to affix his signature to public documents of which he knew not the purport; and the mere fact that the Macdonalds of Glencoe were excepted by name from the submitted clans, and with the careful proviso that the proposed measure should only be taken against them "if they could well be separated from the rest," seems to afford sufficient proof that to this particular matter of Scotch administration, at any rate, his attention was specially called.