edient and most humble servant."

To the President, whom he always addressed with some allusion to his
brief military service,--"My dear General." "Your own Lovat." In 1716
such professions as these are made to Mr. John Forbes.

"My dearest Provost (we must give you your title, since it is to last
but short), my dear General's letter and yours are terrible; but I was
long ere now prepared for all that could happen to me on your
illustrious brother's account: I'll stand by him to the last; and if I
fall, as I do not doubt but I will, I'll receive the blow without
regret. But all I can tell you is this, that we are very like to see a
troublesome world, and my Generall and you will be yet useful; and I am
ready to be with you to the last drop, for I am yours eternally, Lovat."
His frequent style to the President was thus,--"The most faithfull and
affectionat of your slaves." It is indeed evident, in almost every
letter, what real obligations Lovat received from both Culloden and his
brother; and how strenuously they supported his claim against
Fraserdale.[225]

At the hospitable house of Culloden he was a frequent guest,--"a house,
or castle," says the author of "Letters from the North," written
previous to the year 1730, "belonging to a gentleman whose hospitality
knows no bounds. It is the custom of that house, at the first visit or
introduction, to take up war freedom, by cracking his nut, as he terms
it; that is, a cocoa-shell, which holds a pint, filled with champagne,
or such other sort of wine as you shall chuse. You may guess, by the
introduction, of the contents of the volume. Few go away sober at any
time; and for the greatest part of his guests, in the conclusion, they
cannot go at all."

"This he partly brings about artfully, by proposing, after the public
healths (which always imply bumpers), such private ones as he knows will
pique the interest or inclination of each particular person of the
company, whose turn it is to take the lead, to begin it in a brimmer;
and he himself being always cheerful, and sometimes saying good things,
his guests soon lose their guard, and then--I need say no more."[226]

In this hospitable house, a strange contrast to the penuriousness and
despotic management of Castle Downie, Lord Lovat was on the most
intimate footing. His professions of friendship to the laird were
unceasing. "I dare freely say," he observes in one of his characteristic
letters, "that there is not a Forbe