Examination of the claim of John Lindsay Crawfurd

JOHN LINDSAY CRAWFURD. J 7
with no lack of scurrility and abuse, and the claimant himself held
up as a much-injured persecuted man, deprived of his just rights by
perjury and bribery. Under all circumstances, it has been thought
advisable to meet these clamorous vituperations of the claimant, by
a calm enquiry into the origin of his claim, and an examination of
the evidence, with which he has endeavoured to support it. The
reader is requested to follow this investigation with patience, to
take no statement of this answer without the evidence referred to,
to weigh the whole with candour, and then to judge upon whom
the accusations of perjury and falsehood ought to fall. It is not
doubted, that the result will be a conviction, that these accusations
must be retorted upon the claimant himself; and as in the case of
him who would communicate a deadly draught to another, so in
this will it appear, that
Even-handed justice
Commands the ingredients of the poison'd chalice
To his own lips.
ancestor,
SECTION SECOND.— OF THE HISTORY OF THE HONOURABLE
JAMES CRAWFURD.
The claimant's uniform account of his ancestor, James Crawfurd, The claim,
is, that he was the third son of John, first Viscount of Garnock : CO unt»f „is
That in early life he fell in love with Lady Susan Kennedy, daugh-
ter of Sir Archibald Kennedy of Culzean ; but being opposed by an
English gentleman, they quarrelled and fought a duel, in which Mr
Crawfurd having acted unfairly, by firing before the seconds gave
the signal, and, having killed his antagonist, was held guilty of
murder, and absconded from justice. It is said that he fled to Ire-
land ; that, being known to the family of Dawson of Castle Dawson,
he was taken into their employment, at their residence in the north
of Ireland, and that soon after his arrival there he married a Miss
Mary Jamieson. That he continued chiefly, and almost uninter-
ruptedly, to live at Castle Dawson, and died at Anaghmore, in that
neighbourhood, in 1765. By his wife, Mary Jamieson, he is said to
have had two sons, 1st, Andrew, who died without issue, and, 2d,
c