to treat
with him;" but the measure appears from the following letter to have
been unavoidable. It was written after the news of the defeat at Preston
had reached Perth. It bespeaks some degree of compassion and
consideration for a man whose councils were distracted by dissensions,
and who was embarrassed beyond measure by the absence of the Chevalier,
to whose arrival he looked anxiously to give some hopes of revival to a
sinking cause. The Master of Sinclair, to whom Lord Mar refers as a
"devil," and who, since the disaster at Preston was known, "appeared in
his own colours," was the eldest son of Henry, eighth Baron Sinclair, a
devoted adherent of the House of Stuart, and one of those who had
withdrawn from the Convention of 1689 when the resolution to expel James
the Second was adopted. John, Master of Sinclair, was afterwards
attainted, and never assumed the title of his father, although pardoned
in 1726.

"November 27th, 1715.

"Sir,

"I had yours of the twenty-second, the twenty-fifth, and also spoke
with the person you mention in it; I suppose he wou'd see you, as he
returned. The disaster of our friends in England is very unlucky,
both to affairs there and here. Since we knew of it here a _devil_,
who I suspected for some time to be lurking amongst us, has appeared
openly in his own colours. I forsaw this a-comeing some days ago. I
have endeavoured to keep people from breaking amongst themselves,
and was forced to go into the first step of it; but I hope we shall
be able to have the manadgement of it, and prevent its doing any
hurt, but to confounde in time comeing the designs of those who were
the promoters of it. It was by the advise of all your friends what I
have done, so let not our folks be alarmed when they hear of it from
I----g. It is odd where the K----[115] can be all this time, since,
by all appearance and all the accounts we have, he has left France
long ago; but that must quickly appear, and I hope to get things
staved off til it does. But without his comeing what can be done?
Tho' I hope that will not be the case. It is odd that others write
of Col. H----y and Doctor Abor--y, both at Parise, and that they do
not write themselves, tho' I'm told to-day that there's a letter
from them to me at Edinburgh, which I long for. We are told of
troops comeing from Engl