THREE:Meanwhile, Charles, compelled to wait the course of events in Edinburgh, endeavoured to render himself popular by his moderation and magnanimity. Volunteers began to flock to his standard, the chief cause, however, being, no doubt, the prestige of his victory. Fresh reinforcements poured down from the Highlands. Altogether, Charles's army now amounted to nearly six thousand men. It would have amounted to ten thousand had the Macdonalds and Macleods of Skye and Lord Lovat joined him. But though Charles sent a Macleod of Skye over to the island chiefs, urging them now to join his standard as certain of victory, they refused to move. He then went over from Skye to Castle Dounie to stimulate Lord Lovat, but that deceitful old miscreant was playing the double game, and waiting to see which side would be the stronger. At length his army had received the last reinforcements that he expected, by the arrival of Menzies of Sheen with a considerable body of men, and he was impatient to march southwards. He was the more ready to quit Scotland because Lord Lovat had now sent him word that though he could not, from the state of his health, join the march into England, both he and the Macdonalds and the Macleods of the Isles were prepared to defend his interests in the Highlands. The greater part of this intelligence was false, entirely so as regarded the Islesmen, and it was now well known that the English Government had got together twelve thousand veteran troops, besides thirteen regiments of infantry and two of cavalry newly raised. The Highland chiefs, therefore, strenuously opposed the march till they should receive the reinforcements which he had promised them from France, as well as more money. Others contended that he ought not to invade England at all, but to remain in Scotland, make himself master of it, and reign there as his ancestors had done. But it was not merely to secure the Crown of Scotland that he had come; it was to recover the whole grand heritage of his race, and he determined to march into England without further delay. The Highland chiefs, however, resolutely resisted the proposal, and at three successive councils he strove with them in vain to induce them to cross the Border and fight the army of Marshal Wade, which lay at Newcastle, consisting of Dutch and English troops. At length Charles said indignantly, "Gentlemen, I see you are determined to stay in Scotland; I am resolved to try my fate in England, and I go, if I go alone."
FORE:[See larger version]But Hastings had scarcely terminated these proceedings, when the new members of Council, appointed under the Regulating Act, arrived. On the 19th of October, 1774, landed the three Councillors, Clavering, Monson, and Francis; Barwell had been some time in India. The presence of the three just arrived was eminently unwelcome to Hastings. He knew that they came with no friendly disposition towards him, and that Philip Francis, in particular, was most hostile. The letter of the Court of Directors recommended unanimity of counsels, but nothing was further from the views of the new members from Europe. As they were three, and Hastings and Barwell only two, they constituted a majority, and from the first moment commenced to undo almost everything that he had done, and carried their object. They denounced, and certainly with justice, the Rohilla war; they demanded that the whole correspondence of Middleton, the agent sent to the court of Oude by Hastings, should be laid before them. Hastings refused to produce much of it, as entirely of a private and personal nature; and they asserted that this was because these letters would not bear the light, and that the whole of Hastings' connection with Sujah Dowlah was the result of mercenary motives. In this they did the Governor-General injustice, for, though he drew money sternly and by every means from the India chiefs and people, it was rather for the Company than for himself. They ordered the recall of Middleton from Oude, deaf to the protests of Hastings that this was stamping his conduct with public odium, and weakening the hands of government in the eyes of the natives. Still, Middleton was recalled, and Mr. Bristow sent in his place. Hastings wrote home in the utmost alarm both to the Directors and to Lord North, prognosticating the greatest confusion and calamity from this state of anarchy; and Sujah Dowlah, regarding the proceedings of the new members of Council as directed against himself, and seeing in astonishment the authority of Hastings apparently at an end, was so greatly terrified that he sickened and died.
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