Note 616 — An ACCOUNT of Money disposed by WALTER GROSETT, Esqr., in the Service of the Government during the late Rebellion, upon Particular Occasions and by Directions hereafter mentioned.

This is very misleading. Lord George Murray’s scheme was to wait till the Government troops came up, and tempt them over the bridge: when half had crossed he intended to turn and cut them off. Lord Elcho had kept the enemy in sight all the time, and records that the Jacobites retired ‘in such order that the dragoons never offered to attack them’; moreover, before the highlanders ‘had passed the bridge the dragoons, who were in front of the regulars, drew up close by the bridge and very abusive language passed betwixt both sides.’

Even the picturesque touch of the substituted dinner must go. Lord George particularly mentions both in a private letter to his wife and in his historical letter to Hamilton of Bangour that they had dined at Linlithgow, and the journals of the day state that the affair occurred about 4 o’clock. Maxwell of Kirkconnell considers that if the dragoons had been very enterprising they might have cut off Lord George’s rear. (Elcho, Affairs of Scotland, p. 370; Jac. Mem., p. 79; Chron. Ath. and Tullib., iii. 141; Kirkconnell’s Narrative, p. 98.)