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B02615 Information for the master of Stair Dalrymple, Hew, Sir, 1652-1737. 1695 (1695) Wing D141A; ESTC R175897 8,419 4

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INFORMATION For the Master of STAIR HIS Majesties Commissioner having thought fit to Communicat to the Parliament the Report with the Evidences and Instructions taken and adduced before the Commission of Glencoe and the Master of Stair's Freinds conceiving that he is mightily Prejudged by that Report which notices particular Sentences or Periods of certain Letters of His suppressing or not expressing other Material Periods of the same Letters and from whence Consequences are drawn which cannot follow upon a due consideration of the whole The Masters Friends had no Opportunity to see these Letters or know the Tenor of them till they were read in Parliament and then being satisfied that they do not answer to the Rumors and Commentars that are spread abroad upon them it was earnestly desired that the Letters might be Printed for the Masters Vindication which was not obtained nor doubles allowed to be taken but the Grounds of the Report only allowed to be seen in the Clerks Hands There has been so much discourse about Glenco that little needs to be said to state the Case It s known they were very ill Men Rebells Papists Robbers and Theivs which did not justifie any Inhumanity in their Execution but did expose them more to legal Severity than other Subjects His Majesty being justly displeased that many Rebels had dispised two Indemnities did resolve in the next place to apply the severity of the Law and none were found more fit to fall under it than those of Glenco To that end His Majestie granted Instructions to Sir Thomas Livingstoun on the 11th January 1692 whereof the first runs in these Terms You are hereby Ordered and Authorized to march our Troops which are now posted at Inverlochie and Inverness to act against these High-land Rebels who have not taken the benefit of our Indemnity by Fire and Sword and all manner of Hostility to burn their Houses seize or destroy their Goods Cattle ●lenishing and Cloaths and to cut off the Men And the fourth Article bears That the Rebels may not think themselves absolutly desperat We allow you to own Powers to give Terms and Quarters But We are so convinced of the necessity of Severity and that they cannot be reclaimed That We will not allow you to give any other Terms to Chistans Heretors or Leaders but to be Prisoners of War whereby their Lives are saved But for all other things they must surrender on Mercy and take the Oath of Allegiance And the fourth Article of additional Instruction the 16th of January 1692 bears If Mckean of Glenco and his Tribe can be well separated from the rest it will be a proper Vindication of the Publick Justice to exstirpat that Sect of Theives The Highland Rebels who had not accepted of the Indemnity might lawfully have been cut off without Quarters but His Majesty molifies that Rigour by allowing Sir Thomas Livingston to give Terms and Quarters yet Glenco was by these Orders to ly nearest to the just Vengeance of the Law Old Mckean of Glenco did not take the Oath in due time but six days after he prevailed with Arkinglass to Administer the same which Arkinglass did and desired that his Case might be represented to the Privy Council But the rest of his Clan and Followers did not take the Oaths at all yet upon his taking the Oath he and his People did look upon themselves as secure and Glenlyon and his Company was Lodged among them in a peaceable manner from the 1. to the 13. of February and it appears against the Rules of Hospitality and Humanity that he with his Company and others did Barbarously Murder five and Twenty Men and a Woman and particularly his own Land-lord and many aggravating Circumstances do clearly appear particularly that men of great Age and a Boy of Fourteen years were cut off and that Captain Drummond was very forward in that cruel Execution The Parliament has considered his Majesties Instructions and the Execution and have voted that the Instructions contain a Warrand for Mercy to all who offer to take the Oath of Allegiance and come in upon Mercy without exception though the Dyet prefixed was elapsed and that the same contained no Warrand for the Execution of the Glenco men made in February thereafter It was also Voted that the said Execution as it was represented in Parliament was a Murder It was further Moved That the Parliament should proceed to Consider the Persons guilty of the said Murder and the Report does load the Master of Stair as if his Letters had given the Occasion of it In the first place the Report of the Commission is noways to be reguarded to I●fluence any Member of Parliament being privatly done without access allowed to any Party that might be Interessed but the Grounds and Instructions upon which it is Founded are only to be considered If the Parliament shal proceed to Consider the Instructions and Probation adduced the first and most Natural Point to be co●sidered is who were the Executors for if these Executors had no suffficient Warrand for what t●ey did or if they did that which no Warrand could Authorize then certainly as they were the Executors so they ly nearest to and most justly under the Censure of the Nation And the Probation as re-presented to the Parliament bears that Glenlyon Captain Drummond Lieutenant Lindsay and others being most peaceably Lodged and Quartered among the Glenco men from the first of February and being civily received and entertained for the space of 13 days they got access in a friendly manner to come in to old Glencoe's Chamber where he lay and killed him treacherously behind his back and that Glenlyon's Land-lord was killed by him and that old men superannuated two Children and a Woman were killed This Execution was so Barbarous that no Warrand could authorize it the Laws of Humanity being the strongest of all Tyes and whatever Obligations may ly upon Soldiers under Pay to execute Commands without disputing yet they are rather obliged to give up their Commissions than to fly in the face of Nature 2. Though the Command of Superior Officers be very absolute yet no Command against the Laws of Nature are binding so that a Soldier retaining his Commission ought to refuse to execute any Barbarity as if a Soldier should be commanded to shoot a Man passing by inoffensively upon the Street no such Command would exeem him from the Punishment of Murder 3. There is no pretence of any warrand for killing of Women or Children under age neither did Glenlyon so much as ever remonstrat to the giver of the Order that he and his men were under the confidence of Hospitality which the giver of the Order might not have considered so well as he who received it was bound to do before the Execution The Parliament having found the Kings Order legal and the Execution illegal so soon as the Executors are found to have exceeded either their Warrand or the Laws of Humanity the Work and Design
of the Parliament is done But because the Master of Stair hath been named in the Matter for his Vindication it is to be considered First That there is a great difference in the Circumstances of Affairs betwixt the time and the Supposition upon which he wrote and what fell out about the same time or shortly thereafter Glencoe and his Son had been obstinat R●bells forefaulted in the Parliament 1690 irreconcilable to the Government he himself a Murderer all his Tribe hereditary Thieves he and they had slighted two gracious Indemnities the King was resolved to make an Example of Justice as many had been made of his Mercy And it was thought that the same could be no where exercised more fitly to the Terror of others and two of the Master of Stairs Letters the first and third of December 1691 do expostulate that these Men were deluded by hopes of Better Terms and longer Dyets whereby they would fall into the Net which was a sufficient Warning to beware yet they did not imbrace the Indemnity 2. All the Secretaries Letters were wrote upon the supposition that they were still obstinat and irreconcilable Rebells and no man can reasonably say that Rebells in such Circumstances might not be cut off for an Example of publick Justice neither was that Severity so much the Secretaries proper Sentiment as that his Endeavour to bring in the Highlanders without Blood was misconstructed as flowing from Good-will and tenderness to the Jacobite Party whom he would not have disabled from their old Interprizes and it was loudly discoursed at that time that this Opportunity should be taken to rid the Nation of the Barbarous Highlanders The Masters Project not taking full Effect and many rejecting the Offered Mercy such as obstructed the Negotiation were ready to mis-represent his Measures to the King and there being Resolution to make an Example of Severity on these very People the Mr. was obliged to enter in it the more frankly because the Persons to whom the Letters were directed and had the Trust of Execution had not been favourable to that Negotiation and if he had appeared indifferent in that matter he might have lyen under greater Censure another way 3. As the Master did not know that Glencoe had taken the Oathes even after the Dyet elapsed but looked upon all the Tribe as in open Rebellion so much less did he know that the manner of Execution would be by a man lodged as a Friend thirteen Nights in their Bosom or that they would kill Women or Children in which the Inhumanity doth really consist for suppose the case that they all had been standing out obstinat Rebels and never taken the Oathes nor so much as offered Submission and that in such Circumstances Military Forces had gone in and destroyed them all no man can say there was any thing illegal or cruel in that and it was the Opinion of all who advised the King and it was His Majesties Pleasure it should be so and the Variation of Circumstances without the Masters Knowledge did not alter the case as to him The Circumstances that altered were two the one that old Glencoe took the Oath after the Dyet which should have prcoured him Mercy and next the manner of Execution by Souldiers lodged in the Place both were altogether unknown to the Master No Body loads the Master with the last and great Circumstance which relates to all the Persons slain but the other Circumstance of Old Glencoes having taken the Oath is alledged to have been known to the Master and the Report of the Commission is not positive in that Point but it sayes that it appears the same was knowen To this it s answered I. That if it can be instructed that the Master did know of Old Glencoes taking the Oath whether legally or not legally at the time of writing any of the Letters preceeding the Slaughter whereof the last is dated the 30. of Jan. 1692. in that case the Master would be willing to forefeit his Reputation Life and Fortune so that it is still positively and peremptorly asserted that the Master was wholly ignorant of that Circumstance The Evidence upon which the Report of the Masters Knowledge of that Circumstance proceeds is the same Letter of the thirtieth of January bearing I am Glad Glencoe did not come in within the time prescribed c. from whence it is inferred that he knew of Glencoes coming in after the time elapsed which is a very wide Consequence First The embraceing the Indemnity supposes the coming in in due time and the Indemnity being in his view he had no eye nor Consideration of what followed 2. That Letter could never be the Warrand of Sir Thomas Livingstons Order upon which the Execution followed because Sir Thomas his Order is upon the 23 of the said Moneth seven days preceding 3. His Letter of the same date direct to Collonel Hill bears in the beginning that he doubted not the Collonel would make the best use of the present Circumstance and where Glencoe is mentioned it is said he is fallen in the Mercy of the Law and shortly after he adds these false People will do nothing but as they see you in condition to do with them by the first and last of which Clauses which afterwards will be more largely related it is evident that the Master leaves all to the Collonells Management to whom the Order was also directed and by the middle Clause that Glencoe was still considered as in the mercy of Law which clears that the Master did not understand him to be under any Security by taking the Oaths neither can these Letters be reckoned peremptor because all is thereby left to the Discretion and Management of the Persons to whom they are directed And whereas it hath been further said that whether the Master knew of Glencoes taking the Oaths or not yet his Letters are more peremptor than the Kings Instructions in so far as the Kings Instructions are qualified and bear power to give Terms and several of the Masters Letters are peremptor for the Destruction of Glencoe without mentioning the Quality which the Instructions do contain and even the most peremptor Instruction against Glencoe bearing that if they could be well separat from the rest it would be a proper Vindication of publict Justice to exstirpat that Sect of Theives does not take off the Quality that they might be received upon Mercy It is answered 1. Though the Masters Letters were more Peremptor than the Kings Instructions yet if they were within the Terms and not exceeding the Rigours which the Law allows the Master could never be quarreled upon these for either they were to be considered as writ by the Master of Stair a privat Person in which case they could afford no Authority or Warrand to Impair or Extend the Kings Instructions and these to whom the Instructions were directed were bound to obey them and not privat Letters Or if the Masters Letters were considered as flowing