Note 736 — Chapter XXVI

This officer appears to have been very suspicious of Argyle’s motives, and did not hesitate to communicate his opinion to his superiors. In a letter to the Duke of Marlborough, he says: “Argyle grows so intolerably uneasy, that it is almost impossible to live with him any longer; he is enraged at the success of the expedition, though he and his creatures attribute to themselves the honour of it. When I brought him the news of the rebels having ran from Perth, he seemed thunderstruck; and was so visibly concerned, that even the foreign officers that were in the room took notice of it.... Since the rebels quitting Perth, he (Argyle) has sent 500 or 600 of his Argyleshire men, who go before the army a day’s march, to take possession of the towns the enemy have abandoned, and to plunder and destroy the country, which enrages our soldiers, who are forbid under pain of death to take the value of a farthing, though out of the rebels’ houses. Not one of these Argyle-men appeared whilst the rebels were in Perth, and when they might have been of some use.”—Cox’s Marlborough, vol. iii. p. 612.