Salt-foot controversy

74 REMARKS ON THE LETTER TO
ment have perceived, in the appendix to a late
edition of Crawfurd's History of Renfrewshire, a
new statement of the pedigree of what is there
styled ' the most extensive branch of the House of
Steuart? for it is thus that your family are designat-
ed, &c. &c. ; in short, all the exploded nullities
which, as I imagined, I had for ever swept away."
— Now, independent of the ludicrous self-sufficiency
implied in supposing that no one is to presume to
state a fact which he has called " a nullity," I have
said nothing like what is here alleged. I have said
merely, that the family in question is a most ex-
tensive, that is, a very extensive branch of the
House of Steuart, which is entirely a different
thing. To misquote a man first, and then to repre-
hend him for saying what he never said, is an old
but rather a stale trick in controversy, which I
could scarcely have expected Mr J. R. to have been
so weak as to have had recourse to.
At the same page, 439 5 in the foot-note, what is
quoted from me there dees not apply to the Steuarts
at all, but " to the proprietors of the county of
Renfrew," among whom I do not understand that
there ever was a single Steuart of the house of
Allanton. This trick is pretty nearly of the same
complexion as the preceding.*
Respecting the Celtic compounds supposed to be
connected with the conflict of Morningside, Mr
J. R. asks, with an air of triumph, " what would
* [This has already been adverted to in the previous article.
J.R.]