were, when Argyll left office in 1742, while Walpole fell from power, Carteret and the Duke of Newcastle succeeding.  In 1743 Murray found that France, though now at war with England over the Spanish Succession, was holding aloof from the Jacobite cause, though plied with flourishing and fabulous reports from Balhaldy and the Jacobite Lord Sempill.  But, in December 1743, on the strength of alleged Jacobite energy in England, Balhaldy obtained leave from France to visit Rome and bring Prince Charles.  The Prince had kept himself in training for war and was eager.  Taking leave of his father for the last time, Charles drove out of Rome on January 9, 1744; evaded, in disguise, every trap that was set for him, and landed at Antibes, reaching Paris on February 10.  Louis did not receive him openly, if he received him at all; the Prince lurked at Gravelines in disguise, with the Earl Marischal, while winds and waves half ruined, and the approach of a British fleet drove into port, a French fleet of invasion under Roqueville (March 6, 7, 1744).

The Prince wrote to Sempill that he was ready and willing to sail for Scotland in an open boat.  In July 1744 he told Murray that he would come next summer “if he had no other companion than his valet.”  He nearly kept his word; nor did Murray resolutely oppose his will.  At the end of May 1745 Murray’s servant brought a letter from the Prince; “fall back, fall edge,” he would land in the Highlands in July.  Lochiel regretted the decision, but said that, as a man of honour, he would join his Prince if he arrived.

On July 2 the Prince left Nantes in the Dutillet (usually styled La Doutelle).  He brought some money (he had pawned the Sobieski rubies), some arms, Tullibardine, his Governor Sheridan, Parson Kelly, the titular Duke of Atholl, Sir John Macdonald, a banker, Sullivan, and one Buchanan—­the Seven Men of Moidart.

On July 20 his consort, The Elizabeth, fought The Lion (Captain Brett) off the Lizard; both antagonists were crippled.  On [July 22/August 2] Charles passed the night on the little isle of Eriskay; appealed vainly to Macleod and Macdonald of Sleat; was urged, at Kinlochmoidart, by the Macdonalds, to return to France, but swept them off their feet by his resolution; and with Lochiel and the Macdonalds raised the standard at the head of Glenfinnan on August [19/30].

The English Government had already offered 30,000 pounds for the Prince’s head.  The clans had nothing to gain; they held that they had honour to preserve; they remembered Montrose; they put it to the touch, and followed Prince Charlie.

The strength of the Prince’s force was, first, the Macdonalds.  On August 16 Keppoch had cut off two companies of the Royal Scots near Loch Lochy.  But the chief of Glengarry was old and wavering; young Glengarry, captured on his way from France, could not be with his clan; his young brother AEneas led till his accidental death after the battle of Falkirk.