Memoirs of the Maxwells of Pollok > Correspondence

310 FAMILY AND DOMESTIC LETTERS. [1662.
I may follow it quhil I breath, as also for your inerese in all spiritual! grace
and outward prosperity. This shal be the harti wishe of him who is, and ever
quhil he breathes, right honorable,
Your most humble servant and loving brother,
J. Maxwell, Doctor of Physick.
For the right honorable Sir Georg Maxwell of Nether Pollock,
at Nether Pollock.
Sir George Maxwell of Pollok to William ninth Earl of Glencairne,
Lord High Chancellor of Scotland, 23d May 1662.
312. Please your Lordship, the first line bears the Petition, when your Lordship
considers time and person, and being prompted from necessitie entreats the
patience to be reade. I have long debated in myself what to doe ; and having
first composed myself against all perturbatione of mynde about the ishue, I
resolwed that to vse no means wer a crime of follie against my self and familee,
and to follow any without your lordship's assistance would be altogither fruitles.
I reckoned that either your Lordship's oune generositie would bow and incline
your favor, or else it would be hard to prevaill by solicitationes. And your
Lordship having nobly granted me your act of indemnitie for by pasts, I nothing
doubted of negative respects, that is, that your Lordship would not be my un-
freinde unles I should be found guiltie of the violatione of the tacite proviso of
" quamdiu se bene gesserit," hi quhich caice I give sentence against my self to
perish by your oune hands. I have made reflection on the pardon I have
known freely granted from your goodnes for guilte greater then mine ; and
the inward testimoney I have that in a time when my ends could not be so
sinistrous, nor my foresight so deepe as to look at this paiche, my zeall was to
doe- your Lordship service, wherof I could give demonstratione by arguments
that shall forever he buried rather then to come under the scandall of ane ap-
pearanc of founding theron a pretension of desert. I concluded, if I come
speed, your Lordship shall impose ane veritie vpon a romance hath run in my
fancie, to set ane inscription over my gates, with some variatione not unlike