A step too far
Oh, dearie, dearie me. Lachlan now took a step which threatened to tumble him right back down the stairs to where he had begun. Flat on his face on a dirt floor.
Lachlan's clan chieftain was now nearly 90, but Lachlan, by now himself the oldest Lieutenant-Colonel in the army at the grand old age of 42 or so, recommended the chieftain be commissioned into the Horse Guards on full pay, but without any duties. This was a matter of duty to the clan, as Macquarie saw it. The chieftain was struggling, so it was his responsibility to look after him as, he believed, the chieftain would have looked after Lachie if their situations were reversed.
The English, who controlled the military, did not, of course, understand this matter of tribal loyalty. To them, there were only two loyalties, the King and the Army. Unless, of course, they were able to do a bit of profiting on the side. And they couldn't let a bloody Scotsman get away with any of that. Just not cricket, y'know. And he'd already managed to swindle the King by arranging a victory over the taxman. Mind you, that was acceptable because it just meant the taxman would make up the deficit by more successful plundering of those a bit further down the income stream.
But Macquarie's constant sucking at the Crown's teat was becoming potentially scandalous, and some of his frauds could've had the consequence in wartime (the Napoleonic Wars were raging over these years, albeit with a spell of armistice in the middle) of causing the common soldiers to go French and revolt. And after all, Lachlan was no more than an extremely uppity Scot.
The scandal of Macquarie's attempt to earn his very elderly clan chieftain a steady income was brought to attention of the army officer second only to the King, or perhaps more accurately third after the Regent, the fat fart known as Prinnie, who often acted in his father's name while his father was locked up in a small room in a strait jacket, the poor old bugger. This was the the army's commander-in-chief, the King's second son, and Prinnie's younger brother, the Duke of York. Obviously a member of the royal family, if I actually need to emphasise and reinforce that fact to truly illustrate the full seriousness of Lachie's situation. Why the heck has no-one made a film or a biopic of this bloke's life, for goodness sakes?
Oh, by the way, I'm given to understand this is the same Duke of York who allegedly marched his men up the hill, then marched them right down again. In other words, his level of competence as a military commander was about the same as a snail you've just crushed under your boot. In fact, it was probably a good bit less. Nonetheless, he had the power. Almost, next to the aforementioned King and Regent, the absolute power to destroy Lachlan Macquarie completely.
And to make things all the worse for Macquarie, the Duke of York and his arse-licking lackeys had Lachlan bang to rights. Just to add to York's armoury for use against Lachlan, his underlings had, while checking out the elderly clan chieftain's position, also unearthed evidence of some young Macquaries already on the Horse Guard's payroll. This is, other than the various Macquaries Lachlan had recruited as officers under various names fighting and dying in the King's often-insane service in diverse areas of the world.
Upon being questioned by York regarding the difficulties his lackeys had finding the Macquarie Horse Guard recruits in the London locale of the Horse Guards, Lachlan claimed they weren't present in London as they had only just gone to the Caribbean to manage a sugar mill (as if apparent desertion explained why these soldiers weren't parading on horses in London for the amusement of the London crowds, or the suppression of possible riots and revolutions, Cossack style - or maybe only members of lesser military units were able to be hanged or shot for desertion), thus lying to a member of the royal family, potentially an extremely serious misstep indeed.
If he was unmasked.
And he was.
The Duke may have been a blundering great doofus with the usual English male royal intelligence of a pork pie, but he wasn't quite so bound up in cold gelatine as to believe Macquarie's obvious bullock dray-load of old dogs' bollocks. He went so far as to tell Lachlan he (York) believed he (Macquarie) was lying. And make no mistake, this was not the same as calling a 21st century politician a liar, in which the label "politician" is almost proof of truth. Anyone other than the third most senior army officer or above saying such a thing stood the very real risk of being called out to a duel, illegal and all as they supposedly were. And if one of the participants was nutty enough, he might actually shoot to kill.
At hearing this accusation, Lachlan, presumably perceiving the shit-filled midden into which he was about to leap, and the fact the Duke had the facts, or at least sufficient of them to convict, finally admitted both his role in engaging these young officers, and they would not currently be found anywhere near the Hose Guards'barracks. However, he did, apparently, make clear the fact the reason they could not be found in close location with their supposed horsie comrades wasn't because they didn't exist, nor, as the Duke correctly pointed out, in the Caribbean managing a Macquarrie sugar mill, but that they were actually still attending primary school back in Scotland.
Unbelievably, cheekily, and rather attractively, Macquarie pleaded that the young recruits be permitted to continue to receive their payments.
It's possible the fact Macquarie's fraud, at least this one (!), was committed in an act of clan loyalty, and his gall in asking the payments continue because of the poverty of his clan members may have been what saved him. At least to a degree. Mind you, the Duke was Stinking Billy of Cumberland's nephew. Remember Stinking Billy? The war criminal of Culloden?
So, sadly, the clan chieftain missed out on his commission, and the two tiny officers lost theirs.
But Lachlan's only punishment was to be sent back to India. An action to which there would be no choice, nor any appeal. Not if he wanted to maximise his chances of avoiding having his bum sitting on an old stool, if he could afford one, resting rock-and-rollingly on a Scottish dirt floor again, if he could afford a cottage with a dirt floor, while he ate the rest of his life's dinners, if he could afford them. Or his life! Afford it, that is. I don't think his life was directly in threat, although a return to disease-ridden India was not necessarily a way to avoid death, nor was starvation in the Highlands and Islands beyond possibility.
But, it could've been worse, India, while being a hotbed of disease, which had already lost Lachlan a wife, was nowhere near as deadly as the Caribbean, from which his wife had come. And it had earned Lachlan rather a large sum already. So, although well-and-truly tired of India, as a sentence it was better than being cashiered and bankrupted. Or hanged!
Lachlan's clan chieftain was now nearly 90, but Lachlan, by now himself the oldest Lieutenant-Colonel in the army at the grand old age of 42 or so, recommended the chieftain be commissioned into the Horse Guards on full pay, but without any duties. This was a matter of duty to the clan, as Macquarie saw it. The chieftain was struggling, so it was his responsibility to look after him as, he believed, the chieftain would have looked after Lachie if their situations were reversed.
The English, who controlled the military, did not, of course, understand this matter of tribal loyalty. To them, there were only two loyalties, the King and the Army. Unless, of course, they were able to do a bit of profiting on the side. And they couldn't let a bloody Scotsman get away with any of that. Just not cricket, y'know. And he'd already managed to swindle the King by arranging a victory over the taxman. Mind you, that was acceptable because it just meant the taxman would make up the deficit by more successful plundering of those a bit further down the income stream.
But Macquarie's constant sucking at the Crown's teat was becoming potentially scandalous, and some of his frauds could've had the consequence in wartime (the Napoleonic Wars were raging over these years, albeit with a spell of armistice in the middle) of causing the common soldiers to go French and revolt. And after all, Lachlan was no more than an extremely uppity Scot.
The scandal of Macquarie's attempt to earn his very elderly clan chieftain a steady income was brought to attention of the army officer second only to the King, or perhaps more accurately third after the Regent, the fat fart known as Prinnie, who often acted in his father's name while his father was locked up in a small room in a strait jacket, the poor old bugger. This was the the army's commander-in-chief, the King's second son, and Prinnie's younger brother, the Duke of York. Obviously a member of the royal family, if I actually need to emphasise and reinforce that fact to truly illustrate the full seriousness of Lachie's situation. Why the heck has no-one made a film or a biopic of this bloke's life, for goodness sakes?
Oh, by the way, I'm given to understand this is the same Duke of York who allegedly marched his men up the hill, then marched them right down again. In other words, his level of competence as a military commander was about the same as a snail you've just crushed under your boot. In fact, it was probably a good bit less. Nonetheless, he had the power. Almost, next to the aforementioned King and Regent, the absolute power to destroy Lachlan Macquarie completely.
And to make things all the worse for Macquarie, the Duke of York and his arse-licking lackeys had Lachlan bang to rights. Just to add to York's armoury for use against Lachlan, his underlings had, while checking out the elderly clan chieftain's position, also unearthed evidence of some young Macquaries already on the Horse Guard's payroll. This is, other than the various Macquaries Lachlan had recruited as officers under various names fighting and dying in the King's often-insane service in diverse areas of the world.
Upon being questioned by York regarding the difficulties his lackeys had finding the Macquarie Horse Guard recruits in the London locale of the Horse Guards, Lachlan claimed they weren't present in London as they had only just gone to the Caribbean to manage a sugar mill (as if apparent desertion explained why these soldiers weren't parading on horses in London for the amusement of the London crowds, or the suppression of possible riots and revolutions, Cossack style - or maybe only members of lesser military units were able to be hanged or shot for desertion), thus lying to a member of the royal family, potentially an extremely serious misstep indeed.
If he was unmasked.
And he was.
The Duke may have been a blundering great doofus with the usual English male royal intelligence of a pork pie, but he wasn't quite so bound up in cold gelatine as to believe Macquarie's obvious bullock dray-load of old dogs' bollocks. He went so far as to tell Lachlan he (York) believed he (Macquarie) was lying. And make no mistake, this was not the same as calling a 21st century politician a liar, in which the label "politician" is almost proof of truth. Anyone other than the third most senior army officer or above saying such a thing stood the very real risk of being called out to a duel, illegal and all as they supposedly were. And if one of the participants was nutty enough, he might actually shoot to kill.
At hearing this accusation, Lachlan, presumably perceiving the shit-filled midden into which he was about to leap, and the fact the Duke had the facts, or at least sufficient of them to convict, finally admitted both his role in engaging these young officers, and they would not currently be found anywhere near the Hose Guards'barracks. However, he did, apparently, make clear the fact the reason they could not be found in close location with their supposed horsie comrades wasn't because they didn't exist, nor, as the Duke correctly pointed out, in the Caribbean managing a Macquarrie sugar mill, but that they were actually still attending primary school back in Scotland.
Unbelievably, cheekily, and rather attractively, Macquarie pleaded that the young recruits be permitted to continue to receive their payments.
It's possible the fact Macquarie's fraud, at least this one (!), was committed in an act of clan loyalty, and his gall in asking the payments continue because of the poverty of his clan members may have been what saved him. At least to a degree. Mind you, the Duke was Stinking Billy of Cumberland's nephew. Remember Stinking Billy? The war criminal of Culloden?
So, sadly, the clan chieftain missed out on his commission, and the two tiny officers lost theirs.
But Lachlan's only punishment was to be sent back to India. An action to which there would be no choice, nor any appeal. Not if he wanted to maximise his chances of avoiding having his bum sitting on an old stool, if he could afford one, resting rock-and-rollingly on a Scottish dirt floor again, if he could afford a cottage with a dirt floor, while he ate the rest of his life's dinners, if he could afford them. Or his life! Afford it, that is. I don't think his life was directly in threat, although a return to disease-ridden India was not necessarily a way to avoid death, nor was starvation in the Highlands and Islands beyond possibility.
But, it could've been worse, India, while being a hotbed of disease, which had already lost Lachlan a wife, was nowhere near as deadly as the Caribbean, from which his wife had come. And it had earned Lachlan rather a large sum already. So, although well-and-truly tired of India, as a sentence it was better than being cashiered and bankrupted. Or hanged!