n Edinburgh lawyer who had never been at sea
invented the system of naval tactics which gave Rodney his victories,
and here is a Highland laird, who had spent his days among his herds
in Skye, writing Smith about a treatise he has composed on
fortification, which he believes to contain original discoveries of
great importance, and which he sends up to Smith and Henry Mackenzie,
with a five-pound note to pay the expenses of its publication. The
author was Charles Mackinnon of Mackinnon, the chief of his clan, who
fell into adverse circumstances shortly after the date of this
correspondence, and parted with all the old clan property, and the
treatise on fortification itself still exists among the manuscripts of
the British Museum. It is certainly a poor affair, from which the
author could have reaped nothing but disappointment, and Smith, who
seems to have held Mr. Mackinnon in high esteem personally, strongly
dissuades him from giving it to the press. This opinion is
communicated in the following candid but kind letter:--

DEAR SIR--I received your favour of the 13th of this month,
and am under some concern to be obliged to tell you that I
have not only not got out of the press, but that I have not
yet gone into it, and would most earnestly once more
recommend it to your consideration whether upon this
occasion we should go into it at all. It was but within
these few days that I could obtain a meeting with Mr.
Mackinzie, who was occupied with the Exchequer Business. I
find he had seen your papers before, and was of the same
opinion with me that in their present condition they would
not do you the honour we wish you to derive from whatever
work you publish. We read them over together with great care
and attention, and we both continued of our first opinion. I
hope you will pardon me if I take the liberty to tell you
that I cannot discover in them those original ideas which
you seem to suppose that they contain. I am not very certain
whether I understand what you hint obscurely in your former
letter, but it seems to me as if you had some fear that some
person might anticipate you, and claim the merit of your
discoveries by publishing them as his own. From the
character of the gentleman to whom your property has been
communicated, I should hope there is no danger of this. But
to prevent the Possibility of the