Note 102 — Chapter XI

Among the Nairne Papers is what purports to be a copy of Dundee's speech. It has been contemptuously rejected by some writers as a manifest forgery, on the ground that no Highlander would have understood a word of it. But there were Dundee's own officers and men to be addressed; and, moreover, his language would have been perfectly intelligible to some, at least, of the chiefs, who would have conveyed its purpose to their men. It was still the fashion for a general to harangue his troops before leading them into action, and it was a fashion particularly in vogue among the Highlanders. I see no reason, therefore, to doubt the general authenticity of this speech. Exactly as it stands in the Nairne Papers probably Dundee did not deliver it; the style being somewhat more grandiloquent than he was in the habit of employing. But its general purpose, which I have endeavoured to give in a paraphrase, seems to be very much what such a man would have said at such a moment. The authority for Mackay's speech will be found in his own despatch to Lord Melville after the battle.