The letters from Scotland, he says, described that kingdom as perfectly tranquil, except that there was still some grumbling about ecclesiastical questions.

The Dutch ministers regularly reported all the Scotch news to their government.
They thought it worth while, about this time, to mention that a collier had been taken by a privateer near Berwick, that the Edinburgh mail had been robbed, that a whale, with a tongue seventeen feet long and seven feet broad, had been stranded near Aberdeen.

But it is not hinted in any of their despatches that there was any rumour of any extraordinary occurrence in the Highlands.

Reports that some of the Macdonalds had been slain did indeed, in about three weeks, travel through Edinburgh up to London.

But these reports were vague and contradictory; and the very worst of them was far from coming up to the horrible truth.