Much had passed which William disliked—­the abolition of patronage, the persecution of Episcopalians—­and Melville, in 1691, was removed by the king from the Commissionership.

The Highlands were still unsettled.  In June 1691 Breadalbane, at heart a Jacobite, attempted to appease the chiefs by promises of money in settlement of various feuds, especially that of the dispossessed Macleans against the occupant of their lands, Argyll.  Breadalbane was known by Hill, the commander of Fort William at Inverlochy, to be dealing between the clans and James, as well as between William and the clans.  William, then campaigning in Flanders, was informed of this fact, thought it of no importance, and accepted a truce from July 1 to October 1 with Buchan, who commanded such feeble forces as still stood for James in the north.  At the same time William threatened the clans, in the usual terms, with “fire and sword,” if the chiefs did not take the oaths to his Government by January 1, 1692.  Money and titles under the rank of earldoms were to be offered to Macdonald of Sleat, Maclean of Dowart, Lochiel, Glengarry, and Clanranald, if they would come in.  All declined the bait—­if Breadalbane really fished with it.  It is plain, contrary to Lord Macaulay’s statement, that Sir John Dalrymple, William’s trusted man for Scotland, at this time hoped for Breadalbane’s success in pacifying the clans.  But Dalrymple, by December 1691, wrote, “I think the Clan Donell must be rooted out, and Lochiel.”  He could not mean that he hoped to massacre so large a part of the population.  He probably meant by “punitive expeditions” in the modern phrase—­by “fire and sword,” in the style current then—­to break up the recalcitrants.  Meanwhile it was Dalrymple’s hope to settle ancient quarrels about the “superiorities” of Argyll over the Camerons, and the question of compensation for the lands reft by the Argyll family from the Macleans.

Before December 31, in fear of “fire and sword,” the chiefs submitted, except the greatest, Glengarry, and the least in power, MacIan or Macdonald, with his narrow realm of Glencoe, whence his men were used to plunder the cattle of their powerful neighbour, Breadalbane.  Dalrymple now desired not peace, but the sword.  By January 9, 1692, Dalrymple, in London, heard that Glencoe had come in (he had accidentally failed to come in by January 1), and Dalrymple was “sorry.”  By January 11 Dalrymple knew that Glencoe had not taken the oath before January 1, and rejoiced in the chance to “root out that damnable sect.”  In fact, in the end of December Glencoe had gone to Fort William to take the oaths before Colonel Hill, but found that he must do so before the Sheriff of the shire at remote Inveraray.  Various accidents of weather delayed him; the Sheriff also was not at Inveraray when Glencoe arrived, but administered the oaths on January 6.  The document was taken to Edinburgh, where Lord Stair, Dalrymple’s father, and others caused it to be