Earls of Cromartie > [NSLBLANK]

PREFACE.
tea, under the plea of promoting ale, raises the idea that he was afraid of his
own famous Ferintosh whisky, of which, it is stated in the " Culloden
Papers," more was made than in all the rest of Scotland, and that it yielded
the President an annual income of about £18,000.
One of the noblest letters in the entire collection of the Cromartie
Correspondence is that which was written to the third Earl of Cromartie by
his son, Lord Macleod, announcing his intention of going into foreign service
to push his fortune as a soldier. 1 The " poor boy," as his uncle, Sir John
Gordon, called him, when he went abroad, had not sufficient means for his
outfit, which had to be supplied by his friends. After his successful,
chivalrous, and even romantic career abroad, he returned and was able to
raise the popular regiment named after him, the Macleod Highlanders.
The First Volume, in addition to the Correspondence, contains the
Memoirs of the Tarbat or Cromartie Branch of the Mackenzie Family,
with an Introduction on the Origin of the Mackenzies, a subject which
has caused much discussion. The Memoir of the first Earl of Cromartie com-
prehends the whole of his official and domestic life, with an account of his
numerous literary works, and he is necessarily the most prominent figure in
the book. The memoirs of his immediate ancestors, his father, Sir John, and
his grandfather, Sir Eorie Mackenzie, are given comprehensively, as well as
the memoirs of his immediate successors, the second and third Earls of
Cromartie, and of the eldest son of the latter, John Lord Macleod.
The Second Volume, besides the Correspondence already mentioned, con-
tains a selection of ancient Charters, chiefly connected with the Earldom of
Eoss, Patents of Honour, also notices of the Grandvale and Cromartie and
1 Vol. ii. p. 226, No. 443.