THE ORDER IS EXECUTED

The massacre commenced about five o'clock in the morning at three different places at once. Glenlyon, with a barbarity which fortunately for society has few parallels, undertook to butcher his own hospitable landlord and the other inhabitants of Inverriggen, where he and a party of his men were quartered, and despatched Lieutenant Lindsay with another party of soldiers to Glencoe's house to cut off the unsuspecting chief. Under the pretence of a friendly visit, he and his party obtained admission into the house. Glencoe was in bed, and while in the act of rising to receive his cruel visitors, was basely shot at by two of the soldiers, and fell lifeless into the arms of his wife. The lady in the extremity of her anguish leaped out of bed and put on her clothes, but the ruffians stripped her naked, pulled the rings off her fingers with their teeth, and treated her so cruelly that she died the following day. The party also killed two men whom they found in the house, and wounded a third named Duncan Don, who came occasionally to Glencoe with letters from Braemar.

While the butchery was going on in Glencoe's house, Glenlyon was busily doing his bloody work at Inverriggen, where his own host was shot by his order. Here the party seized nine men, whom they first bound hand and foot, after which they shot them one by one. Glenlyon was desirous of saving the life of a young man about twenty years of age, but one Captain Drummond shot him dead. The same officer, impelled by a thirst for blood, ran his dagger through the body of a boy who has grasped Campbell by the legs and was supplicating for mercy.

A third party under the command of one Sergeant Barker, which was quartered in the village of Auchnaion, fired upon a body of nine men whom they observed in a house in the village sitting before a fire. Among these was the laird of Auchintriaten, who was killed on the spot, along with four more of the party. This gentleman had at the time a protection in his pocket from Colonel Hill, which he had received three months before. The remainder of the party in the house, two or three of whom were wounded, escaped by the back of the house, with the exception of a brother of Auchintriaten, who having been seized by Barker, requested him as a favour not to despatch him in the house but to kill him without. The sergeant consented, on account of having shared his generous hospitality; but when brought out he threw his plaid, which he had kept loose, over the faces of the soldiers who were appointed to shoot him, and thus escaped.

Besides the slaughter at these three places, there were some persons dragged from their beds and murdered in other parts of the Glen, among whom was on old man of eighty years of age; in all, 38 persons were slaughtered. The whole male population under 70 years of age, amounting to 200, would in all likelihood have been cut off, if, fortunately for them, a party of 400 men under Lieutenant-colonel Hamilton, who was principally charged with the execution of the sanguinary warrant, had not been prevented by the severity of the weather from reaching the Glen till eleven o'clock, six hours after the slaughter, by which time the whole surviving male inhabitants, warned of their danger and of the fate of their chief and other sufferers, had fled to the hills. Ignorant of this latter circumstance, Hamilton, on arriving at the pass, appointed several parties to proceed to different parts of the Glen, with orders to take no prisoners, but to kill all the men that came in their way. They had not, however, proceeded far when they fell in with Major Duncanson's party, by whom they were informed of the events of the morning, and who told them that as the survivors had escaped to the hills, they had nothing to do but burn the houses, and carry off the cattle. They accordingly set fire to the houses, and having collected the cattle and effects in the Glen, carried them to Inverlochy, where they were divided among the officers of the garrison. That Hamilton would have executed his commission to the very letter, is evident from the fact, that an old man, above seventy, the only remaining male inhabitant of the desolate vale they fell in with, was put to death by his orders.

After the destruction of the houses, a heart-rending scene ensued. Ejected from their dwellings by the devouring element, aged matrons, women with child, and mothers, with infants at their breasts and followed by children on foot, clinging to them with all the solicitude and anxiety of helplessness, were to be seen wending their way, almost in a state of nudity, towards the mountains in a quest of some friendly hovel, beneath whose roof they might seek shelter from the pitiless tempest and deplore their unhappy fate. But as there were no houses within the distance of several miles, and as these could only be reached by crossing mountains deeply covered with snow, a great number of these unhappy human beings, overcome by fatigue , cold, and hunger, dropt down and perished miserably among the snow.

Part 4
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