Series 5 > Miscellany of the Scottish History Society, Volume 12

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MISCELLANY XII
faulty memory, unlikely in a man of Tweeddale’s acumen so soon after the
events described. Somewhere in Tweeddale’s enormous correspondence there
may be a reference to the manuscript that some future scholar will turn up. I
hope so. In the meantime the manuscript must remain undated, the witness of
Burnet’s ‘cautious and fearful’ man’s record of the first forty-five years of his
life.
I here cheerfully and gratefully acknowledge the immense contribution of
my friend and collaborator Michelle Witte to the successful completion of this
piece of scholarship. She transcribed the text, chased down innumerable
references, and produced the final version on her word-processor, a machine
utterly mysterious to me. I could not have done the job without her. Whatever
shortcomings there are in what follows are my responsibility. In preparing the
text we have not corrected spelling or grammar, nor supplied punctuation save
where absolutely necessary.
M.L.