Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/95

Rh 1856, written by various members of the family, and a few by other people, viz., three from Dr. John Cameron (1579-1625), the famous Principal of Glasgow University; three by ancestors of the Butt family, dated 1686, 1709, and 1717, &c. Many of these letters are of great interest; for instance, two written by Francis Cameron, Lieut. R.N., give accounts of the battle of Cape St. Vincent, in which he took part, and the attack on Teneriffe, in which Nelson lost his arm; one from Mary Martha Butt (Mrs. Sherwood), dated 1800, describes a visit which she paid to the Camerons at Worcester; another from Ewen Henry Cameron, dated July 21, 1834, describes at great length the wedding of his cousin Lucy Sherwood to William Bagnall; another from Charles Marriott to Charles Cameron (1807-1861) gives Newman's reasons for a refusal of the latter's offer of a contribution to the "Tracts for the Times"; one by Lucy Lyttelton Cameron (1781-1858), dated June 18, 1856, describes her golden wedding-day. Some of these letters have more than a family interest.

In addition to these, I have seen and catalogued a quantity of relics which have been inherited by various members of the family, many of them of special interest. I have unearthed a very interesting account of the curious life led by the ancestors of Mrs. Charles Cameron (Anne Ingram) during the closing years of the seventeenth century, when Richard Baxter ministered to the spiritual needs of the household; besides records of visits of Queen Elizabeth and Charles II. to White Ladies, which had been inhabited by ancestors of Anne Ingram for two hundred years. There is also a list of Mrs. Charles Richard Cameron's books, and the opinion of them expressed by Dr. Arnold and J. H. Shorthouse.

I have further been able, owing to the discovery of Timothy Butt's will, dated 1703, to throw fresh light on the origin of the Butt family, a subject about which there was much controversy at the time of the publication of the 'Life of Mrs. Sherwood,' in the middle of last century.

During the past ten years I have made copies of the most interesting of the letters above mentioned, and have also in my spare moments written a short family history, which includes a copy of the Birth Brief of Thomas Cameron (1704-77), in the Lyon Office, Edinburgh, showing his ancestry to the point (in 1540) where the family broke off from the Camerons of Lochiel. The history gives fairly complete accounts of the lives of John Cameron (1579-1625); Archibald Cameron (1586-1662); John Cameron, Non- juror (1653-1719); his son-in-law, Robert Keith (1681-1757), Bishop of Fife, and afterwards Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church; and of Thomas Cameron and his son Charles Cameron, and their descenddants at Worcester from the year 1727 to about the middle of the nineteenth century. It also contains notes on the histories of the following families, into which some of our ancestors have married, or with whom they were connected, viz. : Boyd of Portencross; Macaulay of Ardincaple; Keith of Pittendrum; Raitt of Halgreen; Severne of Shrawley; Plowderi of Plowden; Lyttelton of Hagley; Temple of Frankton; Ingram of White Ladies, Worcester; Lyster, Marten, Butt, Waller, Moor, &c.

My manuscript (exclusive of the letters) covers about 200 pages of closely written foolscap paper, and I propose to add an appendix which will, if possible, include, in pedigree-form, the names of all the known descendants of John Cameron (1653-1719), e.g. the descendants of Bishop Keith, who married Isobel Cameron; of Capt. Raitt, who married Isobel Cameron's sister; of Thomas Cameron and his wife Barbara Anne Plowden, &c. For this portion of the book I must perforce depend on the assistance of the living descendants of these people. I have a fairly complete list of Thomas Cameron's descendants, and am indebted to Canon Keith Douglas for a list of the descendants of Bishop Keith and Isobel Cameron, and to Major-General Henry Raitt for those of the Raitt-Cameron marriage; but the two last-mentioned lists are lacking in details, and I shall be very grateful to the present members of these families for further and fuller particulars.

But the main and immediate purpose of this letter is to ascertain whether my relations and connexions, who claim descent from our common ancestor, John Cameron, the last Episcopal incumbent of Kincardine, Perthshire, as well as others connected with the Camerons by marriage, have sufficient interest in the family history to justify the publication of what I have written. I shall therefore be most grateful for communications on the subject. Nothing will be done until 1917 or 1918, when I hope to spend six months in England. If I receive sufficient encouragement to justify me in proceeding further, I shall obtain estimates of the cost of printing and publication, and then submit a definite proposition. I shall