Frasers of Philorth > Volume 1

202 THE FBASEES OF FHILOETH, LORDS SALTOUN.
who spoke most kindly of you, and laughed heartily at your postscript ; but
he is very much afraid that my Lord Saltoun may be led astray, and he
instructed me to write to you that, when you see my Lord Saltoun, you may
speak strongly to him, that he should take care not to bring a disgrace and
stigma upon his noble family that was always loyall to their king and
country, by abandoning now the interest of his country and the noble farnilys
that stand up for it, and that for a pitiful pension that perhaps he would
never receive a sixpence of. 1 am resolved to write all this to my Lord
Saltoun myself, which I will do, and send at the same time with your
letter."
It does not appear, however, that any overtures that may have been made
to him were successful in inducing Lord Saltoun to join the Jacobites, and
he certainly did not take part in the rising of 1745, and in 1746 was on the
Government side, as the following letter, which is taken from the diary of
the Eev. John Bisset, a clergyman of Aberdeen, will show : — January 8,
1746. — "I hear it likewise said, but I believe it is a story, that one in the
habit of a gentleman came in the Kinghorn boat to Fraserburgh, asking
about Lord Stricken, and was told he was then at Philorth, Lord Saltoun's,
whereupon he immediately went thither. The Jacobites in Fraserburgh,
repenting they had let him out of their grips, came to Philorth, would
have the stranger, who, seeing that, called Lord Strichen to another room,
gave him despatches, returning to where they were, gave his watch and
money to Lord Strichen, then gave himself up to the Fraserburghers, who
made him their prisoner, but finding nothing about him, could have been
content they had not made him their prisoner.
" Immediately Lord Strichen horsed for London.
" I write you such stories as an amusement for lack of news, but I have
seen the day when the Fraserburghers would not have dared to surround
Lord Saltoun's house. It was a pity they did not carry the two Lords with
them prisoners also." 1
Although his sympathies seem to have been on the side of the established
Government during the rising, yet he is not found to have taken any active
part at the time, and this may have been due to failing health, for his last
1 Spalding Club Miscellany, vol. i. p. 36S.