126

HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

ch^p. skirmished successfully with Athol’s troops, and was about to1685- advance on Inverary, when alarming news from the ships andfactions in the Committee forced him to turn back. TheKing’s frigates had come nearer to Ealan Ghierig than hadbeen thought possible. The Lowland gentlemen positivelyrefused to advance further into the Highlands. Argylehastened back to Ealan Ghierig. There he proposed to makean attack on the frigates. His ships, indeed, were ill fittedfor such an encounter. But they would have been supportedby a flotilla of thirty large fishing boats, each well mannedwith armed Highlanders. The Committee, however, refusedto listen to this plan, and effectually counteracted it by raisinga mutiny among the sailors.

All was now confusion and despondency. The provisionshad been so ill managed by the Committee that there wasno longer food for the troops. The Highlanders consequentlydeserted by hundreds; and the Earl, brokenhearted by hismisfortunes, yielded to the urgency of those who still per-' tinaciously insisted that he should march into the Lowlands.

The little army therefore hastened to the shore of LochLong, passed that inlet by night in boats, and landed inDumbartonshire. Hither, on the following morning, camenews that the frigates had forced a passage, that all the Earl’sships had been taken, and that Elphinstone had fled fromEalan Ghierig without a blow, leaving the castle and stores tothe enemy.

All that remained was to invade the Lowlands under everydisadvantage. Argyle resolved to make a bold push forGlasgow. But, as soon as this resolution was announced, thevery men, who had, up to that moment, been urging him tohasten into the low country, took fright, argued, remonstrated,and, when argument and remonstrance proved vain, laid ascheme for seizing the boats, making their own escape, andleaving their General and his clansmen to conquer or perish