Comments in refutation of pretensions advanced for the first time, and statements in a recent work "The Stirlings of Keir and their family papers"

42 COMMENTS ON KEIR PERFORMANCE,
7. — LETTER, Chaelbs Stirling (brother to Keir) to William Stirling.
" Glasgow, 22d January 1818.
" I yesterday had the pleasure to receive your letter of the 19 th, and the
same post brought one from Mr Dundas.
" I think it right to be candid and explicit on the subject of your letter, by
frankly communicating that your request for having permission to examine
the papers in the Keir charter-chest cannot be gone into. However un-
pleasant it may be to my feehngs, in the discharge of a duty I feel I owe to
my tM'o elder brothers and our family, yet, nevertheless, I deem it but fair
to acquaint you that I have by this post instructed Mr Dundas, my brother's
agent, to oppose in every fair way yom- father's claim for being second heir
to the heiress of Cadder, or her uncle. I shall only add that no personal
motive to yourself has induced me in adopting the measure to be pursued in
this business; and I am persuaded that, when you coolly survey it in all its
bearings, you will then be fully sensible that I could not have acted otherwise
than I have done, notwithstanding how opposite that may be to your wishes.
" C. S.
" (Brother of Keir.)"
Without stopping to consider how Mr William Stirhng would, as suggested,
cooUy acquiesce in the admonitory conclusion di-awn for him by his corre-
spondent at the end of the letter, there would seem to have been an undis-
cernible under-current in the business that may have regulated it. And the
former unconsciously, owing to no fault or want of possible prevoyance of his,
bandied from the one party mentioned to the other, who had a mutual corre-
spondence — as Mr Charles Stirling to Mr Dundas, and Mr Dundas to Mr
Charles Stirhng — like a shuttlecock between two battledores. But be that
as it may, he being so peremptorily and unexpectedly refused the inspection
in question — the gauntlet having been thrown down, and war openly pro-
claimed by the last gentleman (with what prudence and success will after-
wards be so plain) — Mr WilUam Stirling could now only write the following
appropriate and conciliatory letter in return : —