expense.

author would be affronted by such a publication. I am therefore determined to prevent it by all possible means. You will remember that you and your clan engaged to contribute among yourselves the expenses of publishing it, which will be no great burden to such a number of people. I have been conversing with some printers about it, and they assure me that it will stand above L.100; for the book will consist of above 500 pages in 8vo, whereof the introduction will take up near 100; and I design that it shall be done in a large beautiful type and fine paper. I could easily procure as many subscriptions as will make the up But that method is now thought very dishonourable for you and the family, for it is a kind of begging; and as we shall be obliged to print the names of the subscribers, so it will transmit it to posterity. The late Duke of Gordon, though the meanest and narrowest of mankind, chose rather to be at the charge of publishing the History of his family than lie under such a censure. It is a wretched, dull, confused collection in two vols., at 12s. price; and as there is little in it that relates particularly to the Gordons, so it is nothing but a farrago of poor stuff, collected from public history without judgment, order, or style. I was so weak as to buy it, thinking to find something in it to my purpose; but I was miserably disappointed, but would not have been surprised had I been sooner acquainted with the author. However, if you and your people don't incline to be at the charge

of publishing yours, be so good as to inform me as soon as possible, and I shall set about getting subscriptions, which I will easily procure, or I shall sell the MS. to a printer, who will do it for me, by which I will make up my charges, and have considerable advantage."

66 TO THE HONOURABLE DONALD CAMERON OF LOCHEIL, ESQ.

"SIR,-After finishing the Life of Sir Ewen Cameron, your grandfather, of glorious memory, I thought the work would be deficient without some introductory account of his predecessors -because there are several things in it which cannot be well understood, unless the reader is first made acquainted with these antiquitys. Besides, as all the nobility and most of our gentry of any long standing have lately published, at great charges, genealogical accounts of their several families, in the new edition we have of Mr Nisbet's Heraldry,* I thought it a loss that yours should be unknown, since you have as just a claim to the highest antiquity as the oldest of them. These, and some other reasons, have worked upon me to set about the work, and though I mett with great and almost insuperable difficulties in adjusting the chronology, and in fixing true dates to some of the most important actions, which proceeded from a deficiency

This evidently refers to the Appendix of the second volume of Nisbet's Heraldry, published in the year 1742; but it is believed copies were privately circulated previously.

of records and vouchers, yet I have att last brought it to such a conclusion as I hope will satisfy the unbyassed part of mankind, as well of the antiquity of your family, as of the bravery and loyalty of your predecessors.

"But, as this will necessarily take up some time before it can be published, I presumed, that a superficial prospect of these matters would not onely be in the meantime agreeable, but also give some idea of the discovereys I have made of the lives and characters of these brave gentlemen that preceded you. To have a passionate love for one's country is the character of a generous spirit. 'Tis a quality peculiar to patriots and heroes. But to love our predecessors and parents is in effect to love ourselves. We are the heirs as well of their blood as of their familys and estates, and have a just title to whatever was theirs. Thence arises the extream pleasure we have in hearing of any thing that was worthily done by them. Our predecessors' actions reflect honour upon ourselves if we have merit enough to relish them. And as they quicken and impregnate these seeds of virtue which we derive from their blood, so they powerfully invite us to imitate them. For example makes allways the strongest impression when we have it from persons whom we honour and love. In this short view you have the succession of your ancestours in a genealogical line from the reign of the great Robert the Bruce, though the antiquity of the family is of a much higher date. Here you will have the pleasure to

find, that the most polite and ingenious poet whom I have quoted on the title-page understood nature well, and that he spoke truth in affirming, that the qualities of the sire descended to the issue. Thus, the same merit that gave your predecessour, Angus, a title to match with the blood royall, broke out with equal lustre in his son, Gillespick, and advanced him to the dignity of Peer, among the very first that received the honourable distinction from the Crown. The next of that succession that is mentioned in antient records we find acting the glorious part of a true patriot as well in the camp as in the cabinet. Nor did the spirit of heroic valour degenerate in their posterity, though the circumstances of the times sometimes putt it out of their power to exert it in so glorious a manner. You will find them often supporting, but never in rebellion against the State, and I believe their enemys will be hard put to it to discover one coward or poltroon in the whole race.

66

But all this will appear much better from the Introduction to Sir Ewen's Life, where you will meet with a fuller account of their actions, which I have only glanced att in the abstract. However, in order to rectify a common mistake that prevails in the Highlands of Ewen M'Allan's destroying the charters of the family, I have enlarged somewhat on the actions of that prudent and brave gentleman, but more especially with respect to the many estates and charters he acquired by the favour of three succeeding kings, and his interest with the great Lord of

the Isles. I have likeways shown by what unlucky steps the famous Allan M'Coilduy came to lose these extensive acquisitions, and how the remainder that is still in the possession of the family was recovered, which induced me to touch upon severall actions that I should have otherways omitted. In a word, as I have led you to expect a more copious detail of all these particulars in the foresaid Introduction, which I have illustrated with all such relative actions as have any connection or dependence upon these matters, so my intention in this is to give you such a survey of your brave predecessours, as will be proper to insert in the register wherein the inventory of the writes of the family is contained; so as the one may be a commentary on the other. To conclude, my aim in all these writings being to revive the honour and advance the interest of yourself, family, and posterity, I presume to offer you this as a prologue to the rest, and beg that you may accept of it with the same goodness wherewith you used to favour,

The intention of the Author to publish this Work was never carried into effect, probably the intrigues connected with the projected Rebellion, in which all the parties were so deeply im