Captain Hay asked if I could inform him of the day when the Prince set out from the Isle of Sky to the mainland.[215] I told him it was July 5th, and likewise remarked to him what difficulty I had with Captain Malcolm MacLeod to adjust this matter of a precise date.[216] 'Surely then,' said the Captain, 'we behoved to be very near the Prince in his crossing the ferry to the mainland.' I told him I did not doubt that at all, and then I gave him an account (as exactly as I could) of that narrative given me by Mrs. MacDonald of Kingsburgh, and afterwards confirmed to me by Malcolm MacLeod himself,[217] anent the Prince's desiring Malcolm MacLeod to have no fear, for that the wind would soon change, and make the ships of war, [Sidenote: _fol._ 482.] then in view upon the coast of Sky, steer a direct contrary course, so that it would not be in their power to come near him at that time. At this Captain Hay, with an asseveration, assured the company that that was literally true; for that when they were sailing along the coast of Sky with a pretty brisk gale, all of a sudden the wind changed upon them and forced them to sail a direct contrary course. He said he remembered nothing better.
Here I remarked that some would be ready to attribute this in the Prince to the second sight or some such uncommon supernatural cause; but that for my own part I believed there were some who could tell a little time before that the wind would blow from this or the other point of the compass, being in the use of making observations in that way. Captain Hay replied that sailors and others who dealt in observations of that kind could exactly enough tell from the [Sidenote: _fol._ 483.] motion of a cloud, or the like, when the wind would veer about to this or the other quarter; and from what had been said he remarked that the Prince behoved to have skill in that way. I then told the company that Malcolm MacLeod had said that he never knew a man in all his life that had such a firm and steady trust in the providence of God as the Prince was remarkably blessed with.[218]
The conversation happening to turn upon the subject of Rorie MacKenzie's death, it was said that it was certain enough that Rorie MacKenzie had been taken by a party of Cumberland's army for the Prince, and that he had been actually butchered by them; but as to the particular circumstance of the butchery, that was an affair not so easily to be discovered. Here I told the company that particular story given me by Kingsburgh anent the officer's talking to him at Fort Augustus [Sidenote: _fol._ 484.] about the young Pretender's head.[219] Upon this Captain Hay said that in visiting his friends lately in the south country he had discovered a story well worth the remarking, and the more so because it had come from the Duke of Cumberland's own mouth. The Captain informed the company that he had met with a gentleman in the south who told him that when the Duke of Cumberland was on his way from the north to Berwick he had gone to that town to wait upon him, that accordingly he paid his court to him, and after he had done so, he asked his highness if he had entirely finished the whole affair, and left the country in peace. The Duke answered he had done so. Then the gentleman asked what was become of the Pretender's oldest son? The Duke replied that he had taken care to leave such orders behind him that the Pretender's [Sidenote: _fol._ 485.] eldest son would never be more heard of. Captain Hay said that as he had this particular narrative from the gentleman's own mouth, it deserved the more credit, for he could depend upon the truth of it; but he did not chuse to name the gentleman.