rders, it will be a great ease to my
heart to think they are not to lose by me, as too many have done in
the course of that year; but had I lived, I might have made some
enquiry after it; but now it is impossible, as their hardships in
loss of horses, and such things which happened through my soldiers,
are so interwoven with what was done by other people, that it would
be very hard, if not impossible, to separate them. If you will write
to Mr. Jones of Dalkinty, at Elgin, (with whom I was quartered when
I lay there,) he will send you an account of the shoes, and if they
were paid to the shoemakers or no; and if they are not, I beg you'll
get my wife, or my successors, to pay them when they can.

"Receive a letter to me from Mrs. Boyd, my cousin Malcomb's widow; I
shall desire her to write to you for an answer.

"Accept of my sincere thanks for your friendship and good services
to me. Continue them to my wife and children.

"My best wishes are to you and yours, and for the happiness and
prosperity of the good town of Kilmarnock, and I am, sir, your
humble servant,

"KILMARNOCK."

Tower of London, August 16th, 1746.

On the Saturday previous to the execution of Lord Kilmarnock, General
Williamson gave his prisoners a minute account of all the circumstances
of solemnity, and outward terror, which would accompany it. Lord
Kilmarnock heard it much with the same expression of concern as a man of
a compassionate disposition would read it, in relation to others. After
suggesting a trifling alteration in the arrangements after the
execution, he expressed his regret that the headsman should be, as
General Williamson informed him, a "good sort of man;" remarking, that
one of a rougher nature and harder heart, would be more likely to do
his work quickly. He then requested that four persons might be appointed
to receive the head when it was severed from the body, in a red cloth;
that it might not, as he had heard was the case at other executions,
"roll about the scaffold and be mangled and disfigured." "For I would
not," he added, "though it may be but a trifling matter, that my remains
should appear with any needless indecency after the just sentence of the
law is satisfied." He spoke calmly and easily on all these particulars,
nor did he even shrink when told that his head would be held up and
exhibi