Chiefs of Grant > Correspondence

350 IV. — LETTERS FROM SIMON LORD LOVAT. [1737.
mine ; for if by bad advice (for I must call it so whatever art or person it comes from) you
neglect to punish the persons guilty of this horrid crime, you will not be angry at me to put
all the laws in execution as far as I am able, both as shirref and as captain of the Indepen-
dent Company, against those wicked, insolent madmen that have insulted you as well as me.
I have received this day a very strong letter from the Laird of Glengerry, desiring justice of
me as shirref of the county, for the horrid usage that his namesake met with. He thinks he
has got bad returns for his lenity to Glenmoristone's family, and I wish from my heart my
poor cousin Allan may not suffer in revenge of this last action. I will write to Glengerry
that I have acquainted you of the affair, and that I am very sure you will punish that horrid
crime with all the rigour that the laws can allow, which I 'wish to God you may do upon
many accounts.
I had a letter this day from your father, and by all the publick and private accounts
that I have from London and Edinburgh, the poor remains of the liberty of Scotland are at
the agony, for since Ewadward the First's days, who ruin'd our country by falshood and
oppression, there was never such an affront done to Scotland as calling up the Judges of our
Supream Court to appear at the English Bar for their misdemannours ; and the taking away
by the arbitrary power of the House of Peers the essential priviledge of our metropolis, is
giving us the finishing stroke. What the consequences will be, he is wiser than I that can
tell ; but he sits abun the lift that guides the gully.
I beg to know what time you think to be at Edinburgh ; and believe that I am, whither
in peace or war, and whither in a storm or in a calm, either in Church or State, with unalter-
able zeal and attachment, my dear nephew,
Your most affectionate uncle and most faithfull slave,
Lovat.
447. To Sir James Grant of Grant — Calumnies against Lord Lovat that he was disaffected
to the Government.
Beaufort, the 6t of May 1737.
My dear Sir James, — . . . The known notorious common lyar and monster of ingratitude,
Major Cracks, came to Inverness three nights ago, and he did not deny to a friend of mine
and his own but he made complaints of me to the Earle, etc. It is the greatest tryal that
ever my patience met with, that I do not yeild to my just passion in allowing his nose and
his eares to be cut of. No man ever deserv'd it so much ; but I will indeavour to keep my
temper, at least till I writ to the Earle when I know his hurry is over. I will make a fathfull
memorial with the true history of this ruffian since I knew him ; and if after that the Earle
grants him his countenance or any favour, I may than say to all mankind that I am us'd like
a desspicable scundral, and that a common lying madman is us'd as if he was Lord Lovat.