said to give my friends a general idea of what had happened to me,
and at least to make them suspend the fixing any opinion till such
time as I should be able to write more fully and plainly to them
myself. To condemn no person unheard is a rule of natural equity,
which we see rarely violated in Turkey, or in the country where I am
writing: that it would not be so with me in Great Britain, I
confess that I flattered myself. I dwelt securely in this
confidence, and gave very little attention to any of those
scurrilous methods which were taken about this time to blast my
reputation. The event of things has shown that I trusted too much
to my own innocence, and to the justice of my old friends.

It was obvious that the Chevalier and the Earl of Mar hoped to load
me with the imputation of treachery, incapacity, or neglect: it was
indifferent to them of which. If they could ascribe to one of those
their not being supported from France, they imagined that they
should justify their precipitate flight from Scotland, which many of
their fastest friends exclaimed against; and that they should
varnish over that original capital fault, the drawing the
Highlanders together in arms at the time and in the manner in which
it was done.

The Scotch, who fell at once from all the sanguine expectations with
which they had been soothed, and who found themselves reduced to
despair, were easy to be incensed; they had received no support
whatever, and it was natural for them rather to believe that they
failed of this support by my fault, than to imagine their general
had prevailed on them to rise in the very point of time when it was
impossible that they should be supported from France, or from any
other part of the world. The Duke of Ormond, who had been the