Chiefs of Grant > Correspondence

388 IV. — LETTERS FROM SIMON LORD LOVAT. [1739.
Evan Baillie and Commissary Munro have been here examining witnesses on the thefts,
robberys and depredations done by the late Phopachie, this Phoppachie and his mother,
against me, by which they found out the greatest villanys that ever were perpetrate in
Scotland. They have got a connected proof by several concurring witnesses, of a very honest
character in the country, of their stealling the best goods and effects that were in this house
and in the kiln of Lovat, to the value of several thousand pounds, for the inventory and
estimates that were made of those goods by Dumballoch, before Fraserdale's lady went
south, was of £68,000 Scots, which Thomas Fraser of Dumballoch delivered to me out of
his own hand; for there was the furniture of four familys in this house and in the kiln of
Lovat, that of the Archbishop of Glasgow, Sir George M c Kenzie's, the Lord Prestonhall's
and the late Lord Lovat's, which the family of Phopachie all robbed and plundered ; for I
never got £30 worth of the whole, and yet that young rogue Phoppachie pursues me for
money after his father plundered me of my estate, and he and his mother of my effects, with
his father's concurrence and advice. It is well known in the country that his father had not
£10 on earth when I came home in the year 1715, nor had any earthly way to make it but
by plundering of me. This I earnestly beg you may represent in a true light to the Earl
when he is not in a hurry ; for I am very certain, as he is a very just and equitable man, if
he knew the hundred part of the villanys that were done by those people against me, he
would never hear of them nor see their faces. I shall oblige Evan Baillie to write to you,
and Commissary Munro to Sir Robert, their sincere opinion of what they have examined
which would make any honest man to shrink to hear of it.
I think, my dear Sir James, there should not be the least shadow of ceremony or
jealousy betwixt you and me, for I think your family and mine are so linked together by the
tyes of nature and friendship, that it would be madness and distraction in either of us to
discord with the other, or make a breach betwixt our friendships. It will never happen in
my days ; for tho' you and your son should happen to use me ill, which I hope never will
be the case, that would not be capable to make me seperate from your family ; for where I
have begune and continued since I came to Scotland, there I will end, and after I am gone, I
hope your nephew will be Lord Lovat, and then you become his nearest parent, with a
natural right to manage him more than any man in this countiy, so by all humane probability
we have no reason to suspect but our familys will be unite in the strictest friendship for
severall generations, which are my earnest prayers and wishes.
I give you many thanks for your news ; but I grow now indifferent about any news,
for I am not yet recovered of my last indisposition. My tongue continues still inflamed and
swelled ; but my cousin Balhadie, who is an excellent physician, and to whom, under God,
I ow my life this winter, assures me that I am in no danger by it, providing I don't
catch the least cold, which makes me keep the house too much, and hurt my health by
confinement.