With this force, such as it was, Dundee set forth.

On his march he was joined by succours which had just arrived from Ulster.

They consisted of little more than three hundred Irish foot, ill armed, ill clothed, and ill disciplined.
Their commander was an officer named Cannon, who had seen service in the Netherlands, and who might perhaps have acquitted himself well in a subordinate post and in a regular army, but who was altogether unequal to the part now assigned to him, [358] He had already loitered among the Hebrides so long that some ships which had been sent with him, and which were laden with stores, had been taken by English cruisers.

He and his soldiers had with difficulty escaped the same fate.

Incompetent as he was, he bore a commission which gave him military rank in Scotland next to Dundee.
The disappointment was severe.