1st Duke of Gordon

S3
if our affairs where you are prove more consider-
able than where the Duke of Gordon be, and
that he shall have a desire to remain with you,
wee doe hereby heartily recommend him to your
care as a person for whom we have a particular
regard, both upon the account of his experience
in the employment he has had and his personal
inclination for our service.
The King followed up this letter with one to
the Privy Council of Scotland, dated Whitehall,
June 8: —
Whereas the rendezvous given to George, Duke
of Gordon, at the head of Lochnesse on the 9th of
this instant, has detained him from entering into
the shire of Argyll as soon as otherwise he might
have done, if with hdis friends and followers and
others next adjacent in his division he had been
ordered to march thither with all diligence. So
that before he can now be there the rebel Is in
all appearance will have quitted that county to
land on some of our western shires by south
Clyde. In which case we judge it proper for our
service, that with so many of his friends and
followers as he can bring on horseback, and with
the remanent horse of his lieutenancy, he march
directly to our army there, or that part thereof
which is likest to come to action. Of this our
pleasure you are to give him notice, and to order
his march accordingly.
The Duke's own account of the situation is dealt
with in a series of very interesting letters in the
"A'tholl and Tullibardine Chronicles." Writing
on June 8, to 'the Marquis of Atholl, from "St
George Castle in Badenoeh," hesay6: —
My Lord, — I had orders from the Counoell to
correspond with your Lordship in the affairs con-
cerning your lieutenancy off Argyll. I did wreet
to your Lordship the other day about sum bussi-
nes, but the pacquet was miscarried, and in itt a
letter to the Earll of Dumbarton, deeyrring muni-
tions off pouder, bullette, and sum other
necessarrys for the expedition aboutt which I am
now going.
This inclos'd is to the seam purpus, which I
intret your Lordship wo\ild cans dispatch, itt
beeing for His Majesty's servis, and I have the
Councell's command to coni'municate with my
Lord Dunbarton by your Lordship's adress. The
berar I have sent to weatt off your Lordship, by
whom I expect your Lordship will inform me
off the affairs in the cuntrey wher your Lordship
is.
I am extremly satisfy'd with hopps of seeing
your Lordship or Long, and I am, your Lordship's
most humble servant,
GOEDON.