Ballacholis, 12 February, 1692.

“SIR,—­You are hereby ordered to fall upon the rebels, the M’Donalds of Glencoe, and putt all to the sword under seventy.  You are to have special care that the old fox and his sons doe upon no account escape your hands.  You are to secure all the avenues, that no man escape.  This you are to put in execution att five o’clock in the morning precisely, and by that time, or very shortly after it, I’ll strive to be att you with a stronger party.  If I doe not come to you at five, you are not to tarry for me, but to fall on.  This is by the king’s speciall command, for the good and safety of the country, that these miscreants be cutt off root and branch.  See that this be putt in execution without feud or favour, else you may expect to be treated as not true to the king’s government, nor a man fitt to carry a commission in the king’s service.  Expecting you will not faill in the fulfilling hereof as you love yourself, I subscribe these with my hand.”  ROBERT DUNCANSON.

      “For their Majestys’ service. 
  To Captain Robert Campbell of Glenlyon.”

This order was but too literally obeyed.  At the appointed hour, when the whole inhabitants of the glen were asleep, the work of murder began.  M’Ian was one of the first who fell.  Drummond’s narrative fills up the remainder of the dreadful story.

“They then served all within the family in the same manner, without distinction of age or person.  In a word—­for the horror of that execrable butchery must give pain to the reader—­they left none alive but a young child, who, being frightened with the noise of the guns, and the dismal shrieks and cries of its dying parents, whom they were a-murdering, got hold of Captain Campbell’s knees, and wrapt itself within his cloak; by which, chancing to move compassion, the captain inclined to have saved it, but one Drummond, an officer, arriving about the break of day with more troops, commanded it to be shot by a file of musqueteers.  Nothing could be more shocking and horrible than the prospect of these houses bestrewed with mangled bodies of the dead, covered with blood, and resounding with the groans of wretches in the last agonies of life.

“Two sons of Glencoe’s were the only persons that escaped in that quarter of the country; for, growing jealous of some ill designs from the behaviour of the soldiers, they stole from their beds a few minutes before the tragedy began, and, chancing to overhear two of them discoursing plainly of the matter, they endeavoured to have advertised their father, but, finding that impracticable, they ran to the other end of the country and alarmed the inhabitants.  There was another accident that contributed much to their safety; for the night was so excessively stormy and tempestuous, that four hundred soldiers, who were appointed to murder these people, were stopped in their march from Inverlochy, and could not get up till they had