Cumberland's lack of humanity or mercy in dealing with the defeated people earned him the universal hatred of the Scots. Of course, as it has ever been in history, he was aided and abetted in his evil by many Scots who saw advantage in associating with the English opressors. Such 'rogues' as the 31 Scottish commissionaries who 'sold' Scotland to England in the 1707 Act of Union. That event was the principal motivation for Burns to write these stinging lines about those who have betrayed their people and nation down through history.

What force or guile could not subdue,
Thro' many warlike ages.
Is wrought now by a coward few
For hireling traitors' wages.
The English steel we could disdain,
Secure in valour's station;
But English gold has been our bane -
Such a parcel o' rogues in a nation!

O' would, or I had seen the day
That treason thus could sell us,
My auld grey head had lain in clay,
Wi' Bruce and loyal Wallace!
But, pith and power, till my last hour,
I'll mak' this declaration -
We're bought and sold for English gold -
Such a parcel o' rogues in a nation!
Such a Parcel o' Rogues in a Nation (first published13 August 1792)