MISS FLORA MACDONALD
Jo. Seawell James, of North Carolina
Providence Patriot, Columbian Phenix (Providence, Rhode Island), Saturday, September 20, 1834
Contact: Myrtle Bridges May 5, 2016

	The romantic story of this celebrated Heroine is not confined to Scotland, nor to the fortunes of the house of Stuart. 
The banks of the Cape Fear, in North Carolina, were for several years distinguished by her residence; and it is this circumstances 
which will link her name with the history of that State, almost as it already is with her own Scotland.
	The rebellions of Scotland had contributed to the population of the Cape Fear counties, long before the famous revolt of the 
Highland Clans, under the chivalrous banner of Prince Charles Edward, in 1745, after which much of the nobility and gentry of the 
Stuart party sought a refuge amidst the solitudes of our forests. The fatal battle of Culloden annihilated the power and independence 
of the Highland 'Lairds;' and, in the year 1747, a colony of five thousand Highlanders arrived, and settled on the banks of the Cape 
fear. They came originally from hard necessity, but, even, up to this time, from ties of relationship, or the still deeper sympathy 
of mutual origin, the Highland emigrants are prone to seek the sandy region of their countrymen. He who cannot go to Scotland may 
penetrate into the counties of Cumberland, Moore, Richmond, Robeson, and indeed into nearly all the Cape Fear counties, where he will 
find even the Gaelic tongue, in all its native purity.
	Flora McDonald was the daughter of MacDonald of Milton, in the Island of South Uist; but her father having died in her infance, 
and her mother having married Macdonald of Armadale, in Skye, an adherent of the government, she was thus endeared to both parties, 
the government and that of Prince Charles, the young Pretender. Her more usual residence was with her brother, the proprietor of Milton; 
but such seems to have been the estimation of her character, that she was beloved by every clan, rebellionists or not.
	She did not see the Prince Charles until after the battle of Culloden, when he was a wanderer without a home, and without friends 
or adherents. His forces had been slaughtered and routed, and he himself driven to the hills and caves of his kingdom, to find a hiding 
place; and, at such a moment, Flora MacDonald adopted him and his cause. She disguised him in a female dress, and guided him from island 
to island; and, after encountering every hard-ship and every peril, put him into the way to escape to France, where he had friends on and 
around the throne.
	Flora MacDonald was arrested, confined in prison, and after a year, was released, and then carried into the court society of London 
by Lady Primrose, a jacobite lady of wealth and distinction. It is recorded that twenty coaches, of the proudest names of the realm, stood 
at the door of Lady Primrose to pay their respects to the heorine of the Scottish rebellion, only a few days after her release. A chaise 
and four was fitted up to take her back to Scotland; and when she was consulted as to who should escort her home, she selected her fellow 
prisoner, General Malcolm McLeod, who boasted that "he came to London to be hanged, but rode back in a chaise-and-four with Flora McDonald"
	She afterwards married Kingsburg Macdonald, of Kingsburg, the son of one of her old associates in the perilous salvation of Prince 
Charles; and he, like all the highland gentlemen, was encumbered with heavy obligations, in the way of private debts, and still heavier 
oaths of fealthy to the House of Hanover. In 1723, Dr. Johnson and Mr. Boswell visited the house of Kingsburg Macdonald, and were entertained 
by the generosity and hospitality of the proprietor and his noble spouse. She was then a fine, genteel looking woman, full of the enthusiasm 
of her early life; and she was now the mistress of the house in which both the fugitives and herself had once been entertained by the father 
of her husband; she put the great living patriarch of English letters in the same bed in which the unfortunate prince had on that occasion 
slept. In the tour to the Hebrides, it is related that Kingsburg Macdonald was embarassed in private affairs, and contemplated a migration 
to America.
	I think it was in 1775, when she arrived in North Carolina and settled at Cross Creek the seat of the present town of Fayetteville. 
It was a stormy period of our history, and those who came among us at that time to seek peace and contentment were disappointed, for they 
met, at their landing, civil and intestine war. The policy of the royal governor, too, was to carry along with him the Highlanders, whom 
he represented as still liable to confiscation of estate for their former rebellion. The prudent emigrants were too recently from the bloody 
field of Culloden to run heedlessly into another war of extermination. They measured the strength of the English Government by their own 
experience, and seeing around them no prince of their own blood to lead them on to battle, they nearly to a man joined the royal standard.
	The truth is, the countrymen of Flora McDonald were incapable of appreciating the nature of our Revolution. They had come to North 
Carolina, in quest of fortune and undisturbed peace, and clung to the government from a double sense of interest and fear. The sublime 
idea of an American empire, was not within the range of their hopes or anticipations; but Scotland was again to be their home, when King 
George should have forgotten their rebellion, and fortune should have restored to them wealth and importance.
	Kingsburg Macdonald entered with much zeal into the cause of the royal government and assisted his kinsman, General Donald McDonald, 
in his extensive preparations for the famous battle of Moore's Creek. Flora, too, is said to have embraced, with much enthusiasm, the same 
cause, and to have exhorted her countryment to adhere to their king. The settlement of Cross Creek was the metropolis of the Highlanders, 
and there they congregated to listen to the counsels of their aged chief. The MacDonalds, the MacLeods, the Camerons, the MacNeils, and 
the Campbells, were all represented there, in the person of some beloved and hereditary chieftain.
	On the first of February, 1776, Donald MacDonald issued a proclamation, calling upon all loyal Highlanders to join his standard at 
Cross Creek, and on that day fifteen hundred men mustered under his command. The enthusiastic spirit of Flora forgot that it was not for 
"her Charlie" she was warring, and tradition says she was seen among the ranks, encouraging and exhorting them to battle. Loyalty seems 
to have been a strange principle in the bosom of the Highlanders. Thrity years before this period, they had fought against the cause of 
freedom.
	Kingsburg MacDonald was a captain of the army of Donald MacDonald, and his wife followed the fortunes of the camp.-She proceeded with 
the army towards the camp of Gen. Moore, on Rick Fish River and was with her husband on the morning of the 26th of February, on the banks 
of Moore's Creek, a small stream in the county of Hanover. The whig army, under the command of Col. Lillington, was encamped on the other 
side of this stream; and on the morning of the 27th, the celebrated battle of Moore's Creek was fought . The Highlanders signally routed,
Colonels MacLeod and Campbell both slain, Kingsbury MacDonald taken prisoner, and Flora once more a fugitive and indeed an outlaw. The 
Highlanders were a brave and loyal race, but, poor fellows, they had their Colloden in North Carolina as well as in Scotland.
	Flora MacDonald returned to Cross Creek with her husband; and there found the whig banner triumphant, under the command of Col. 
Alexander Martin, afterwards Gobernor of the State. The sad reverse of her fortune seemed to have begun. Tradition says her house was 
pillaged, and her plantation ravaged by the curelty of the whigs, and there is too much reason to believe it true. The Highland population 
was for many years, conquered, and kept in subjection by the remembrance of this defeat and it was only during the latter part of the war, 
when the contest became more doubtful, that they again joined in the heat of the battle.
	The Highlanders, and with them the husband of Flora MacDonald, there is too much reason to fear, shared the fate of the unfortunate 
rebellionists of 1745. Their estates were ravaged by force, and as soon as a State government was organized, the ravages of the whigs 
were legalized by an act of confiscation. Kingsbury MacDonald remained in North Carolina but a few years, when he embarked in a sloop of 
war for Scotland. Mr. Chambers, in his admirable history of the Rebellion of 1745, records a circumstance that occurred during the voyage, 
illustrative of her character. The sloop encountered a French ship, and in the thickness of the battle, Flora was on deck, encouraging 
the crew until the contest ceased. She afterwards philosphized, by saying that she had endangered her life for both the house of Stuart 
and the house of Hanover, but that she did not perceive that she had profited by her exertion.
	There is one anecdote connected with the battle of Moore's Creek, and with Donald McDonald, who was a kinsman of Flora, the Highland 
chief, which deserves to be here recorded. He was an old veteran in the art of war, having been engaged as an officer in the army of the 
young Pretender, in 1745, in which character he appeared in the battle of Culloden. He was sick at the moment of the battle of Moore's Creek, 
and committing the fate of his countrymen into the hands of his aid-de-camp, Colonel McLeod, he remained in his camp. After his forces had 
been entirely routed, the Whig commanders found him alone seated on a stump, and, as they walked up to him, he waved the parchment scroll 
of his commission in the air, and surrendered it into their hands.
	The town of Fayetteville now covers the spot formerly the metropolis of the Highland clans. There lived Flora MacDonald, and a host of 
others, whose names appeared in the history of Scotland as brave and warlike spirits. To me it was a beautiful spot, as seen in 1828, before 
its destruction by fire, when the spring time of year contributed to embellish the banks of the small stream that winds its way through the 
very streets of the town. I remember one view which would have been a fit spot even for the romantic genius of Flora MacDonald. There was 
a small bridge that spanned the stream, connecting the court-house and the city-hall, and standing upon the bridge, you had first the office 
of Mr. Eccles, an accomplished attorney at law, immediately before you, suspended over the creek, and connected with the street by a bridge; 
the stream then flowed on thro' a spacious and richly cultivated garden, and then hid itself amidst a profusion of the richest shrubbery. 
On the left was the Episcopal church, and away down the creek the high steeple of the Presbyterian meeting house shot up into the air, as 
if it had been the monument of the spot. A beautiful chrystal stream, which embroidered banks, winding its way through the heart of the 
city; such an ornament had the Cross Creek of the Highlanders.
	There is another creek, that courses along the southern extremity of the town, and just below the city the two streams apparently cross 
at right angles. The superstition was of old, that the waters actually crossed each other, but by a little observation, you will perceive 
that the streams have, as it were, accidently touched, and without further conflict, separated, and gone off quietly on their serpentine 
courses. Hence the name of Cross Creek. The surrounding country is a sandy baren, with but little undergrowth; and but for the lofty pines 
that cover it, would pass for a Lybian desert. In the midst of this wide waste of sand stands the American home of Flora MacDonald, a city 
in a wilderness, an oasis in a sandy desert. The life of no female in history of any country, was ever more deserving the attention of the 
historian. The adventurous deeds in the service of the unfortunate prince have been celebrated by almost every poet of the age, and have more 
than any single object, infused a spirit of love and war into the minstrelsey of her own political country.