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The witnesses from Australia and from South America unhesitatingly identified the defendant with Orton; but it is more important to observe, that their testimony was supported by records and documents of various kinds, including the ledgers of Mr. Foster of Boisdale, letters under the defendant's own hand, and writings which it could not be denied were from the hand of Arthur Orton.
Resisting all advice to turn back, as Æneas Macdonald, who accompanied him, narrates, he held on in La Doutelle, and reached Erisca, an islet between Barra and South Uist, on August 2, 1745. An eagle hovered over his ship, and Tullibardine hailed the royal bird as a happy omen. But he found himself unwelcome. Boisdale bade him go home; "I am at home," said the prince.
Now, it being a fact as well known as any in his history, and, so far as I know, entirely undisputed, that the Prince's personal entreaties and urgency positively forced Boisdale and Lochiel into insurrection, when they were earnestly desirous that he would put off his attempt until he could obtain a sufficient force from France, it will be very difficult to reconcile his alleged reluctance to undertake the expedition, with his desperately insisting on carrying the rising into effect, against the advice and entreaty of his most powerful and most sage partisans.
Next morning they shot some ducks for breakfast, and then proceeded on their journey. Next morning he crossed the river in a canoe, made out of a hollow log, to Boisdale, Lachlan Macalister's station, and went to the milking yard. The management was similar to that of Dancer at Greenmount.
Now, it being a fact as well known as any in his history, and, so far as I know, entirely undisputed, that the Prince's personal entreaties and urgency positively forced Boisdale and Lochiel into insurrection, when they were earnestly desirous that he would put off his attempt until he could obtain a sufficient force from France, it will be very difficult to reconcile his alleged reluctance to undertake the expedition with his desperately insisting upon carrying the rising into effect against the advice and entreaty of his most powerful and most sage partizans.
Before taking leave of the Prince, Boisdale again urged his returning 'home. 'I am come home, replied Charles passionately, 'and can entertain no notion of returning. I am persuaded that my faithful Highlanders will stand by me. On July 19 the 'Doutelle' cast anchor in Loch na-Nuagh, in the country of the loyal Macdonalds.
William Foster, and went with him at once to Gippsland, under the assumed name of Thomas Castro, the lady declared that her husband did not settle at Boisdale, or have anything to do with that property till two years later than that date, and that they never had any herdsman named Thomas Castro. The ledgers and other account books of Mr.
Before they left the ship the hesitating chieftains had pledged themselves to risk property, influence, freedom, and life itself in the Prince's cause. These gallant Macdonalds were now willing to run all risks in receiving the Prince even before a single other clan had declared for him. Old Macdonald of Boisdale entertained Charles as an honoured guest in his bare but hospitable Highland house.
But Duncan Forbes of Culloden, the lord president, had influence enough to hold back the Macleods of Skye, to paralyze the shifty Lovat, and to secure the Sutherland house for the Hanoverian cause. Charles left Boisdale for Kinlochmoidart, "the head of Loch Moidart," where an avenue of trees, the prince's walk, is still shown, though the old house was burned after Culloden.
Foster's widow had specimens of Arthur Orton's writing, and other mementoes of his two years' service among them, and she unhesitatingly identified a portrait of the Claimant as that of the same man. Among other witnesses, a farmer named Hopwood deposed that he had known Arthur Orton at Boisdale under that name, and again at Wagga-Wagga under his assumed name of Thomas Castro.
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