d in preserving in a little traditionary
work published a few years after his death. I was much a favourite with
Uncle James,--even more, I am disposed to think, on my father's account
than on that of his sister, my mother. My father and he had been close
friends for years; and in the vigorous and energetic sailor he had found
his _beau-ideal_ of a man.

My Uncle Alexander was of a different cast from his brother both in
intellect and temperament; but he was characterized by the same strict
integrity; and his religious feelings, though quiet and unobtrusive,
were perhaps more deep. James was somewhat of a humorist, and fond of a
good joke. Alexander was grave and serious; and never, save on one
solitary occasion, did I know him even attempt a jest. On hearing an
intelligent but somewhat eccentric neighbour observe, that "all flesh is
grass," in a strictly physical sense, seeing that all the flesh of the
herbivorous animals is elaborated from vegetation, and all the flesh of
the carnivorous animals from that of the herbivorous ones, Uncle Sandy
remarked that, knowing, as he did, the piscivorous habits of the
Cromarty folk, he should surely make an exception in his generalization,
by admitting that in at least one village "all flesh is fish." My uncle
had acquired the trade of the cartwright, and was employed in a workshop
at Glasgow at the time the first war of the French Revolution broke out;
when, moved by some such spirit as possessed his uncle,--the victim of
Admiral Vernon's unlucky expedition,--or Old Donald Roy, when he buckled
himself to his Highland broadsword, and set out in pursuit of the
Caterans,--he entered the navy. And during the eventful period which
intervened between the commencement of the war and the peace of 1802,
there was little either suffered or achieved by his countrymen in which
he had not a share. He sailed with Nelson; witnessed the mutiny at the
Nore; fought under Admiral Duncan at Camperdown, and under Sir John
Borlase Warren at Loch Swilly; assisted in capturing the Generoux and
Guillaume Tell, two French ships of the line; was one of the seamen who,
in the Egyptian expedition, were drafted out of Lord Keith's fleet to
supply the lack of artillerymen in the army of Sir Ralph Abercromby; had
a share in the danger and glory of the landing in Egypt; and fought in
the battle of 13th March, and in that which deprived our country of one
of her most popular generals. He served, too, at the siege