Page:The Ancestor Number 1.djvu/28

 lO THE ANCESTOR ' The Duke ' referred to in this letter was his Royal Highness William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, the second son of King George IL, who two months after this date finally crushed the followers of ' bonnie Prince Charlie ' at CuUoden. Of some of the events which followed, and which were closely connected with the defeat of the young Pretender, we must leave it to the ' legal member ' of the Harris family to give us a description. The letters of Mr. Thomas Harris, a master in Chancery, and the second of the three brothers, are few and far between. He was a busy man, and presumably had much less time to write than his ' gossiping * clergyman- brother, ' the Rev. William,' who appears moreover to have been a special favourite with his sister-in-law, * Mrs. James*, to whom most of his letters were addressed. Thomas Harris, all the same, has left us a business-like con- temporary account of the trial of that arch-hypocrite and cunning plotter, Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat. It would be entirely out of place in these pages to glance even hastily at the career of this remarkable personage ; suffice it to say that he was one of the most extraordinary characters of his time. Shamefully unscrupulous and criminally dishonest. Lord Lovat stands out from among the adherents of Charles Edward Stuart as one who deserves no pity. If any man ever tried to run with the proverbial hare and hunt with the metaphorical hounds it was he. Thomas Harris, writing from Lincoln's Inn in March, 1747, informs his sister-in-law that every one is ^ ' taken up with Lord Lo vat's trial.'. . . ' I was there yesterday,' he says, ' but cannot pretend to give you a full account of the ceremony, which might take up a volume in the Heralds' books.' Lord Lovat, true to his nature, procrastinated much, raising every petty objection he possibly could, one of which at once enlisted ' the lawyer's sympathy ' ; for goes on Thomas Harris : ^ — Lord Lovat spoke a good deal of the harshness of not having counsel to help him, being so old and infirm ; but the law being against him (though, I think, most unreasonably) it was not allowed. Thomas Harris however will doubtless possess a far greater attraction for the reader when regarded in the light of his long and close intimacy with one of the greatest musicians of the ^ Letters of the first Earl of Malmesbury (Bentley). Ibid.