Agnews of Lochnaw

vm PREFACE.
intercourse, styled Sheriffs of Galloway, and custom so
far prevailed over technicality that, although the desig-
nation "of Wigtown" is to be found in their original
commissions, they are addressed, nevertheless, in many
royal proclamations, official letters, and even in Acts of
Parliament, as " Sheriffs of Galloway."
On the title-page, consequently, the style has been
adopted by which these old Sheriffs were known to their
contemporaries, and which, even now, runs the smoothest
in native ears.
Our best genealogists — such as Crawford, Douglas, and
Playfair — are not to be implicitly trusted in the matter of
Galloway descents ; and as for Chalmers — high authority
as his learned work, the Caledonia, is generally supposed
to be — not only is he inaccurate in various particulars as
to almost every individual Sheriff of Wigtown, but his
book is really as remarkable for its omissions as for its
errors in all that concerns Wigtownshire. I am well
aware that so audacious an assertion cannot be allowed
to pass without some explanation, and I will endeavour
to vindicate my own pretensions to correctness.
I am far from wishing to depreciate the merits of any
of the authors referred to ; but, in the prosecution of
researches over a very limited range, I am obliged to
pick holes in sundry small corners of their works. It is
generally understood (and pretty evident from his own
remarks) that Chalmers of the Caledonia was never in
Wigtownshire. He is said to have trusted for all his
information as to Galloway to Mr. Joseph Train, an intel-
ligent revenue officer much devoted to antiquarian re-