28

HISTOEY OF ENGLAND,

CHAP.XVIII.I £92.

circumstances which give a peculiar character to the slaughterof Glencoe, the breach of faith, the breach of hospitality, thetwelve days of feigned friendship and conviviality, of morningcalls, of social meals, of healthdrinking, of cardplaying; werenot mentioned by the Edinburgh correspondent of the ParisGazette; and we may therefore confidently infer that thosecircumstances were as yet unknown even to inquisitive and busymalecontents residing in the Scottish capital within a hundredmiles of the spot where the deed had been done. In the southof the island the matter produced, as far as can now be judged,scarcely any sensation. To the Londoner of those days Appinwas what Caffraria or Borneo is to us. lie was not more movedby hearing that some Highland thieves had been surprised andkilled than we are by hearing that a band of Amakosah cattlestealers has been cut off, or that a bark full of Malay pirates hasbeen sunk. He took it for granted that nothing had been donein Glencoe beyond what was doing in many other glens. Therehad been a night brawl, one of a hundred night brawls, betweenthe Macdonalds and the Campbells; and the Campbells hadknocked the Macdonalds on the head.

By slow degrees the whole truth came out. From a letterwritten at Edinburgh about two months after the crime hadbeen committed, it appears that the horrible story was alreadycurrent among the Jacobites of that city. In the summerArgyle’s regiment was quartered in the south of England, andsome of the men made strange confessions, over their ale,about what they had been forced to do in the preceding winter.The nonjurors soon got hold of the clue, and followed it re-solutely : their secret presses went to work; and at length, neara year after the crime had been committed, it was published tothe world.* But the world was long incredulous. The habitual

* I believe that the circumstances which give so peculiar a characterof atrocity to the Massacre of Glencoe were first published in print by