last the D. of Newcastle took it from me, to show to the Chancellor; and I am told, they do not propose to bring in any Bills relative to Scotland this Session, except the Meeting-house bill, and that for discharging the Highland dress; which, I am just now told, would be brought into our house by the Attorney General in a day or two. For my own part, I am yet, in my private opinion, for the bill; not being convinced against it; but as I understood that your Lo'p & my friend McLeod were against it, I have objected to it, and asked the Duke of H what Crimes had the Campbells, Sutherlands, McLeods, Munro's, M'Kays, &c. been guilty of, that they should be punished by the legislature whilst they were in arms for the Government? which did puzle; & was answered, the Whig Clans might be excepted; which I said would not do; the thing must be general, or could have no effect. Meantime, I should be glad to be convinced, & armed with proper objections. As to the Meeting-house bill, my Lords Tweeddale, Winchelsea, & Sandys, have shown great zeal; & at first insisted on all those forfeiting their employments who had been twice at a Meeting-house since Sept. 1745. But this is over-ruled; only they have this day agreed to incapacitate for the future all persons in Scotland from holding employments that resort to the nonjuring Meeting-houses; and to incapacitate Peers from voting in Elections that have been twice at a nonjuring Meeting-house since Sept. 1745. And in short no such person can vote in the chusing of a magistracy at Edin' & other places, whereby they think they can secure a Whig magistracy. I have mentioned your Lop's great expenses in this and the last Rebellion; and I find the Duke of Newcastle chooses to see you here, before any further Scotch laws are made, of which you will be more properly acquainted. My Lord Stair, who opposes the Dress Bill, bids me make you his Compliments; . and the Duke of Newcastle assures me, that, notwithstanding his differing with you as to Mercy, that you are a great favourite of the Duke's. I have the honour to be, London, July 1" 1746. Your's most faithfully, ALEX BRODIE. No. CCCXXVIII. Dr G. The Lord President to Mr. George Ross. 2d July 1746. THO' I have very litle time, I cannot abstain from transmitting to you the inclosed Copy of so much of a letter from S' Everard Fawkner as I received this afternoon, in answer to mine concerning Mr W Murray. I presume his Brother has seen a Copy of the Letter from me, to which the enclosed extract is an answer; and as I (for the reasons which I mentioned in my last to you on this subject) have not as yet forwarded my Lord's to Fort Augustus, I am still in doubt, whether it is better now to do it, or to let it alone untill I have the honour to see the Duke; unless my Lord should direct otherways upon seeing my last to you on this subject; and it is my present purpose, to keep my Lord's in my hands untill the Duke come this way, if I shall not be otherwise directed; as judgeing that teizing the Duke at present is not so likely to have a good effect, as suffering things to cool a litle. I shall, however, depend upon it that I shall soon hear from you what my Lord wishes, & I shall conduct myself accordingly. . Let my Lord know that by the very first opportunity I shall write again as from myself to S' Everard. No. CCCXXIX. No. CCCXXIX. Copy of the Paragraph of S' E. Fawkner's Letter referred to in the preceding. My Lord, AS the bag was opened under his Royal Highness's Tent, I laid before him the letter your Lop did me the honour to write to me of the 21s, before I had read it. Since, his R. Highness has been pleased to tell me, I might send your Lop's Letter to the D. of Newcastle; but how far he may think fit to interfere by application to his Majesty, I cannot take upon myself to say. Your Lop's Letter sets poor Lord Dunmore's distress in a very strong light, & I feel for him sensibly; but there is a wildness in the conduct of those people that one does not know how to account for, but from the blind dependance they are all in upon France. I suppose the late very extraordinary Letter we have seen will make them quite mad, &c. Fort Augustus, June 25th My Lord, 1746. No. CCCXXX. The Duke of Newcastle to the Lord President. Whitehall, 3rd July 1746. I HAVE received the honour of your Lordship's Letter of the 19th past; and have acquainted his Majesty with the Representation which the Court of Session had desired you to make, with regard to the appointing a Judge to supply the place of the late Lord Balmerino. Your Lordship, I believe, is acquainted with his Majesty's intention to nominate Mr Craigie, late Lord Advocate of Scotland, to supply that vacancy; and I conclude it will not be long before that Promotion is made. In the mean time, I hope the Judges of the Court of Seffion, who have been indisposed, will be so far recovered as to be able to attend the duty of their Office; and that the delay there has been in supplying the present Vacancy will not have been attended with any Inconvenience to the public Service. I take this opportunity of returning your Lordship my thanks for your Letter of May the 19th from Inverness. The several points therein mentioned (relating chiefly to the Commissions which were sent to your Lordship in September last, for Twenty Independent Companies, and to the pay of these Companies) will not fail to be duly considered, and settled as soon as possible. Your Lordship will give me leave to congratulate you most heartily (as I think I may now do) upon the total suppression of the late wicked Rebellion. His Royal Highness the Duke has upon all occasions done ample Justice to the active and unwearied Zeal your Lordship has shewn for promoting His Majesty's Service, & for defeating & disappointing the views and designs of the Rebels. I have already, by the King's Order, expressed to his Royal Highness His Majesty's entire satisfaction in your Lordship's Conduct; and it is with great pleasure I take this opportunity of assuring you, that the King has the truest sense of the great and useful Services your Lordship has performed in this critical Conjuncture. I am with the greatest truth and respect, My Lord, Your Lordship's most obedient humble Servant, No. CCCXXXI. No. CCCXXXI. The Duke of Cumberland's Commiffion to Mr. James Fraser, of Castle Leathers. (His Royal Highness's Seal.) A WHEREAS Simon Lord Fraser, of Lovat, has been guilty of various treasonable practices & acts of Rebellion against his Majestie & his Government, and is for the same detained in Custody in order to abyde the tryall of his Peers; and as he is possest of several Lands now in Culture, many of which have now quantities of Grain and Corns growing on them, and likewise of the Rights of Salmond Fishing in various waters : To the end, therefore, that the Corn and Grain growing upon the Lands, and the fish, may be preserved for the use & support of his Majesty's forces in these parts, till his Peers shall have given sentence upon those matters he stands charged with; it is fitting & convenient that a proper person should be appointed to take care of the same. verie good Report having been made of the sufficiency & ability of you, James Fraser, of Castle Leathers, you are hereby authorized & impowered to take into your Charge the several Lands belonging or lately belonging to Lord Lovat hereafter named; that is to say, the Lands of Castledouny, Westerdouny, Cullrinie, Fanellan, Tomach, Lovat, Muniack, Bruiack, and the fishings of the water; and you shall carefully preserve the Grass growing thereon for the Use of the Troops in the Winter, and the Corn of the several sorts you shall cause to be gathered for the use of the Troops likewise, keeping ane Account thereof; nor shall you suffer any Cattle to graze on the ground, but such as ther may be orders for from the Commanding Officers of His Majesty's forces at Inverness. And such Fish as may be taken in the Waters you shall send to be divided among the King's Troops at Invernes; except such Quantitys as it may be necessary to sell, to raise Money for defraying the expence of fishing. And you are hereby likewise impowered to appoint such other persons as you may think fitt in the performance of this service. And for your so doing this shall be to Intents and Purposes your full and sufficient Warrant and Authority. Head Quarters at Fort Augustus, the 4th day of July 1746. By his Royal Highness the Duke's Command. Signed Everard Fawkener. To My very good Lord Lyon, No. CCCXXXII. The Lord President to the Lord Lyon. I AM obliged to you for yours of the 1st Ins'. I think our Ministers do well in not precipitating the projected Bills, which I understand are intended for preventions of any future Rebellion, until the projects are well weighed, & so adjusted as to have the Effect without doing any considerable Mischief. I am not satisfied that what I have heard spoken of, relating to the Ward-holdings and jurisdictions could be of any great Service. The Meeting-house Bill bids fair to put an end to a practice, illegal in itself, which has been attended with bad Consequences. The most important Medicine for the Evil under which the Nation has so long suffered, & from which it has lately been in so great Danger, is the Disarming Bill; which I am told is ordered to be brought in. If this Bill is properly framed, & the due Execution of it judiciously provided for, it may be of infinite of infinite service; as it must in time make the Inhabitants of the Mountains as inoffensive & as little dangerous to the State, as their Neighbours in the Low Country; and I hope the Undertakers of this Bill know the Condition, the Temper, & the Manners of the Highlanders, together with the Defects of the former provisions, & the Ways of supplying them, well enough to enable them to make the Scheme now projected complete. With respect to the Bill for altering the Highland dress, which, if I understand any thing, is no more than a chip in porridge, which, without disarming, fignifies not one halfpenny; and, an effectual Disarming supposed, is of no Sort of Inconvenience to the neighbouring Country or to the Government; I do not wonder that you, & a great many wise men where you are, who know nothing at all of the Matter, should incline to it. The Garb is certainly very loose, & fits Men inured to it, to go through great fatigues, to make very quick Marches, to bear out against the Inclemency of the Weather, to wade through Rivers, & shelter in Huts, Woods, & Rocks upon Occasion; which Men dress'd in the Low Country Garb could not possibly endure. But then it is to be considered, that as the Highlands are circumstanced at present, it is, at least it seems to me to be, an utter Impossibility, without the advantage of this Dress, for the Inhabitants to tend their Cattle, & to go through the other parts of their Business, without which they could not subsist; not to speak of paying Rents to their Landlords. Now, because too many of the Highlanders have offended, to punish all the rest who have not, and who I will venture to say are the greatest Number, in so severe a manner, seems to me unreasonable; especially as, in my poor Apprehension, it is unnecessary, on the supposal the disarming project be properly secured; and I must confess, that the Salvo which you speak of, of not suffering the Regulation to extend to the well-affected Clans, is not to my taste; because, tho' it would save them from Hardships, yet the making so remarkable a Distinction would be, as I take it, to list all those on whom the Bill should operate for the Pretender; which ought to be avoided if possible. It is for these reasons, which my Occupations make it impossible for me to explain at length, that I wish this Clause might be dropp'd; the rather that if any Reasons of State, which I cannot judge of, because I have not been acquainted with them, make it necessary, a Bill to that purpose might be contrived, with much less harm to innocent persons than probably the framers of this project have thoughts of. I cannot possibly take time to say any more than that Edinburgh, 8th July 1746. I am your DUN. FORBES. Note.-President Forbes's ideas regarding that part of the bill affecting the Highland dress seem very just. The English Readers, and most of the Scotch, will be surprised to understand that the Kilt or Pheliebeg was not the antient Highland garb, but was introduced into the Highlands about 1720 by one Thomas Rawlinson, an Englishman, who was overseer to a Company carrying on iron-works in Glengarry's Country. The convenience of the dress soon caused it to be universally adopted in the Highlands. This circumstance is fully explained in a letter from Evan Baillie Esq. of Aberiachan, a gentleman of undoubted veracity, dated 1769, and inserted in the Edinburgh Magazine for 1785. The Earl of Dunmore to the Lord President. My Lord, PP Fawkener upon the same subject, and to give the Letter to H. R. H. that I had the honor of writing to him, when he comes to Edinburgh. Both which, with your Lop's friendship and intercession, I hope will have the wish'd-for success; for which I shall have such obligations to you that I can never forget. I am extremely concerned to hear, Reports have been raised to my Brother's disadvantage, which is not of a piece with his surrendering himself to [the] King's mercy, and remaining three weeks without a Guard; nor with a Letter I have had from him since he surrendered himself prisoner; and I flatter myselfe it is so inconsistent with his Character in generall, that I hope those Reports are not well founded; and that therefore they will not be added to his too great follies and crimes already committed. He has acquaintances who know more of his private Character than I do; and I hope, if there should be occasion for it when H. R. H. comes to Edinburgh, that they may be asked about it. I am, with the greatest truth and regard, Your Lordship's most obedient humble Servant, DUNMORE. No. CCCXXXIV. My Lord, The Lord President to the Earl of Dunmore. Ed' 220 July 1746. THO' the Duke has been long expected, he did not arrive till late last night; & his stay was no longer than between nine that night, & 3 this morning. I waited on his R. H. & thought it was proper to deliver to him your Lop's Letter; which, I told him, confounded for your Broỹr's offences, you would not have taken the liberty of writeing unless I had sollicited you to do it. I said what appeared to me to be fit on that occasion; & H. R. H. said, he was concerned for what you must feel, & that he would speak to you so soon as he saw you. I take hold of the quickest conveyance I can meet with, to let you know what happened on this occasion. As the Duke exprest himself with sentiments of great kindness to your Lop, I doubt not you will feel the effects of it in relation to what you have so much at heart, & with so great reason. I delivered yours also to S Everard. Your Lop will not doubt, that on this occasion I have done what you had reason to expect from Your most faithfull & most humble Sert, D. F. No. CCCXXXV. My Lord, Lady Margaret Macdonald to the Lord President. YOUR Lordship can't yet be a Stranger to the trouble which has been lately brought upon this Island by the indiscretion of a foolish Girl, with whom the unhappy disturber of this Kingdom landed at this place; tho' I cannot but look on myself and family as peculiarly favoured by Heaven, in drawing that unlucky Visitant so quickly away from the place of his landing, that there was no room for considering Him as a Person in Disguise; far less my knowing any thing of it. I must, at the same time, not only look upon myself, but the whole Country, as greatly suffering from the hurt it is likely he has done to the Man into whose House he intruded himself that night; I mean Kingsborrow; a Man well known for his singular honesty, integrity and prudence, in all occurrencies of Life, before that unhappy night; a man of such con sequence, |