In the old narratives of the affair, it is stated that Grange felt his position to be the more dangerous, as some letters had been intercepted tending to inculpate him with the Jacobites on the Continent. It is singular that this should also be pretty satisfactorily proved by the present correspondence. It will be remembered that Grange was a brother of the Earl of Mar, whose prominence in the affairs of 1715 had driven him into exile. A strong attachment to this unfortunate man is, on the whole, the most pleasing feature in the character of the more cautious and more fortunate judge. It was natural that the brothers should keep up a correspondence, and quite as natural that Sir Robert Walpole should be particularly anxious to discover what they said to each other. Grange conducted some negotiations with the government for his brother's pardon and restoration, and we find him defeated in his aim, and receiving some very significant hints about the nature of his correspondence. "Sir Robert told me in wrath that he would have nothing to do with Lord Mar, that he had dealt ill with him, and he should not have his pardon; and he would by no means give me any reason for it, but Lord Townsend did, whom they had stirred up; for he in anger told me Sir Robert had intercepted his letters to me with very odd things in them, injurious to Sir Robert and his friends.... Soon after this, Ilay, with cloudy looks, began to make insinuations of some discoveries against me too, and at length told me that Sir Robert said that he had also intercepted bad letters of mine to Lord Mar, but confessed they were not directed to Lord Mar, and neither subscribed by me nor in my hand of write, but that by the contents they knew them to be mine to Lord Mar. I answered that they might assert what they pleased of letters said to be directed to me, and which they owned I had never seen, but that I must know of letters wrote by myself, and that I ever wrote any such was a damned, villainous, malicious lie; and let Sir Robert or any else be the asserter of it, whoever did assert it, was a liar."[26] This is a very successful outbreak of virtuous indignation, and does considerable credit to its author, as a pupil of that school of which his dear friend Lord Lovat was the undoubted head.