of Douglas. When I was introduced to him at Holyrood House by appointment, he met me at the top of the stairs with his hat and sword. Lord Dunmore, General Scot, the father of Lady Tichfield, and Mr. John Home, the poet, went with me. He spoke occasionally to Lord Dunmore, but not much, and did not open his lips to General Scot. When anything was said about his family he nodded to Mr. John Home to narrate what regarded it. I happened to say something about the Highlands, which I had misapprehended or been misinformed about, at which Lord Dunmore laughed. The Duke drew up and vindicated fully what I had said, signifying by his manner to Lord Dunmore his disapprobation. I told him that I had seen a new house he was building in the Highlands. He said he heard that the Earl of Northumberland was building a house in the north of England, the kitchen of which was as large as his whole house, upon which the Duchess of Douglas, an enterprising woman, as may be seen from the famous Douglas Cause,[1] observed that, if the Douglases were to meet the Percys once more in the field, then would the question be, whose kitchen was the largest? Upon this, the Duke nodded to Mr. Home to state some of the great battles in which the Douglas family had distinguished themselves. I told him that I hoped to wait upon him in London. He said he feared not; he could be of no use there; he was not sufficiently informed to carry any weight there; he could neither read nor write without great difficulty. I told him that many of the greatest men in the history of both kingdoms could do neither, to which he assented.
"Under the circumstances I have described, I had no great chance of a very liberal education; no great example before me; no information in my way, except what I might be able to acquire by my own observation or by chance; good-breeding within my own family, which made part of the feudal system, but out of it
- ↑ I conceived such a prejudice upon the sight of the present Lord Douglas's face and figure that I could not allow myself to vote in this cause. If ever I saw a Frenchman he is one. (Note by Lord Shelburne.)
