disruption of order, they judged it safest to abstain from taking any prominent part. This gave an immense ascendency to the Revolution party, who further proceeded to strengthen their position by inviting to Edinburgh large bodies of the armed population of the west. After defending for several days the cause of his master with as much eloquence as vigour, Dundee, finding that the majority of the Convention were resolved to offer the crown of Scotland to the Prince, and having moreover received sure information that some of the wild fanatic Whigs, with Daniel Ker of Kersland at their head, had formed a plot for his assassination, quitted Edinburgh with about fifty horsemen, and, after a short interview--celebrated by Sir Walter Scott in one of his grandest ballads--with the Duke of Gordon at the Castle Rock, directed his steps towards the north. After a short stay at his house of Duddope, during which he received, by order of the Council, who were thoroughly alarmed at his absence, a summons through a Lyon herald to return to Edinburgh under pain of high treason, he passed into the Gordon country, where he was joined by the Earl of Dunfermline with a small party of about sixty horse. His retreat was timeous, for General Mackay, who commanded for the Prince of Orange, had despatched a strong force, with instructions to make him prisoner. From this time, until the day of his death, he allowed himself no repose. Imitating the example, and inheriting the enthusiasm of his great predecessor Montrose, he invoked the loyalty of the clans to assist him in the struggle for legitimacy--and he did not appeal to them in vain. His name was a spell to rouse the ardent spirits of the mountaineers; and not the Great Marquis himself, in the height of his renown, was more sincerely welcomed and more fondly loved than "Ian dhu nan Cath,"--Dark John of the Battles,--the name by which Lord Dundee is still remembered in Highland song. In the mean time the Convention, terrified at their danger, and dreading a Highland inroad, had despatched Mackay, a military officer of great experience, with a considerable body of troops, to quell the threatened insurrection. He was encountered by Dundee, and compelled to evacuate the high country and fall back upon the Lowlands, where he subsequently received reinforcements, and again marched northward. The Highland host was assembled at Blair, though not in great force, when the news of Mackay's advance arrived; and a council of the chiefs and officers was summoned, to determine whether it would be most advisable to fall back upon the glens and wild fastnesses of the Highlands, or to meet the enemy at once, though with a force far inferior to his. Most of the old officers, who had been trained in the foreign wars, were of the former opinion--"alleging that it was neither prudent nor cautious to risk an engagement against an army of disciplined men, that exceeded theirs in numbers by more than a half." But both Glengarry and Locheill, to the great satisfaction of the General, maintained the contrary view, and argued that neither hunger nor fatigue were so likely to depress the Highlanders, as a retreat when the enemy was in view. The account of the discussion is so interesting, and so characteristic of Dundee, that I shall take leave to quote its termination in the words of Drummond of Balhaldy: