THE CREATURE HAD DIED THE NIGHT BEFORE.
One Highlander who had become possessor of a gold watch sold
it the following day for a trifling sum, triumphantly remarking,
on the close of the bargain, that "the creature had died
the night before. " This may be true; if so, it is evident
the plunderer had known nothing about a watch. It had run
down the preceding night, and stopped for want of winding.
The day after the battle Charles returned to Holyrood House,
and his reception by the people of Edinburgh was great. His
father was proclaimed at the Cross James VIII. of Scotland
and III. of England. But public rejoicings in honour of his
victory were forbidden, "on account of the great slaughter
of his father's subjects. " He remained in Edinburgh
till October, and spent his time there right royally.
On 3131 October 1745 he left Edinburgh with about 6000 men.
He crossed the Borders, and on 9th of November he invested
Carlisle, which surrendered to his forces after a three days'
siege.
Charles proceeded on the 27th to Manchester, thence to Derby.
Here he is said to have "awoke from his dream of ambition
and paused, " the reception he met with being chilling
in the extreme.
Leaving Derby he retreated into Scotland before a harrassing
enemy with a celerity and good order almost unparalleled.
He defeated General Hawley at Falkirk, and met with several
other successes. But his short, if hitherto successful, career
was rapidly drawing to a close. His exchequer was almost exhausted
and his provisions rim out. His men too were getting mutinous,
clamouring for arrears of pay, etc. To crown all, at this
turning-point, he was compelled to give battle to a superior
army under the Duke of Cumberland, and on the fatal field
of Culloden, 16th April 1746, his forces were totally routed.
With a few attendants he escaped on horseback, got to the
Highlands, where he continued to wander till, about a year
after the Battle of Preston, 20th September 1746, when, after
many romantic adventures and hairbreadth escapes, he finally
embarked in a privateer, and, accompanied by the brave Lochiel,
miraculously eluded the British squadron during a fog. He
eventually landed on the coast of Bretagne; and thus ended
the Rebellion of 1745.
PETITION.
The following is a copy of a petition presented to the editor
of the Scots Magazine by certain enthusiastic towns
and villages against the misnomer of Preston Battle. It tells
its own story: —
"To THE AUTHOR OF THE 'SCOTS MAGAZINE, '
" The Petition of Prestonpans, Preston, Cockenzie,
Seton,
and Tranent, —
"Humbly sheweth, —That, whereas from all antiquity
it has been and still is the universal custom to denominate
battles from the field on which they were fought, or from
some town or village near to such fields, and whereas some
dignity is thereby added to such fields, towns, or villages,
their names made remarkable in the maps and recorded in history;
witness the small village of Dittingen, which was never of
such consideration as to find a place in the maps of Germany
until it was celebrated by the engagement which happened near
a few years ago.
"And whereas, on 21st September last, there was a battle
fought on a field which is in a manner surrounded by the petitioning
towns and villages, from one or other of which the said battle
ought undoubtedly to derive its title.
" Nevertheless, the publishers of a certain newspaper,
entitled The Caledonian Mercury, have most unjustly
denominated the said battle from a moor on which it was not
fought, nor near to it; in which they are followed by several
people who, either through malice against your petitioners
or through stupidity, have affected to call and still call
it 'The Battle of Gladsmuir, ' by which practice your petitioners
are, conjunctly and severally, deprived of that honour and
fame which of right pertains to them, and which in all histories,
future map?, and almanacs, ought to be transmitted as theirs,
to latest posterity.
"Your petitioners humbly apprehend that even the conquerors
themselves have no right, after a battle is once fought, to
determine that it was fought on any other field than where
it really was.
"Shall, then, our fruitful fields and meadow ground be
called by the name of a barren moor? This, sir, is downright
transubstantiation, and can be enforced by nothing less than
the late fashionable argument of military execution.
" Your petitioners could have put up with such encroach-
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