“During his visit, Currie, who held the castle of Dunskey, was declared a rebel, as an incorrigible robber and pirate. A proclamation was made that whoever should produce Currie, dead or alive, should be rewarded by his lands. Robert Adare saw an opening by which to retrieve his fortunes, and watched the castle of Dunskey by day and night. At length the redoubtable robber issued one evening from his hold with few attendants, and was instantly followed by Adare, who, engaging him hand to hand, got the better of him, drove him slowly backwards and at last dispatched him outright by a blow from the hilt of his sword. Possessing himself of the robber’s head, Adare hastened to court with all convenient speed, and, presenting his trophy to the king, (as tradition says) on the point of his sword, his Majesty was pleased to order his enfestment in the lands and castle of the rebel. His family was known as the Adairs of Portree, and when a castle was built on the spot [in Dumfrieshire] where Currie was struck down, it was called Kilhilt, from which the Adairs took designation.”[i2] Alexander Adair of Kilhilt held the barony, so obtained from Robert I of Scotland, during the reign of James V of Scotland, and the barony was in the possession of the family in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. A Sir Robert Adair was a member of the public committee of Wigtonshire during the factious period of 1642 to 1649.[i3] Sir Robert Adair, perhaps son of the above, removed from Scotland to Ireland before the battle of the Boyne, which was fought in July, 1690, he having sold his Scottish estate to Lord Stair. It is inferable that he settled in county Antrim, where our author James Adair was born, about 1709. James Adair is silent on the point of his parentage and birth-date; but it is probable that he was a younger son of this last mentioned Sir Robert Adair; and that, as has been the case with so many scions of noble and other houses of Great Britain, facing the vice-grip of the law primogeniture, he preferred the freedom and opportunities of distant climes. Animated by something of the spirit of his distant ancestor, James Adair migrated and appeared in South Carolina in 1735, landing at Charles Town, in high probability.[i4]