Patrick Smith professed to have found out a secret ‘whereby malt may be dried by all sorts of fuel, whether coals, wood, or turf, so as to receive no impression from the smoke thereof, and that in a more short and less expensive manner than hath been known in the kingdom.’ He averred that ‘the drink brewn of the said malt will be as clear as white wine, free of all bad tincture, more relishing and pleasant to the taste, and altogether more agreeable to human health than the ale hath been heretofore known in the kingdom.’ Seeing how ‘ale is the ordinary drink of the inhabitants thereof,’ the public utility of the discovery was obvious. Patrick announced himself to the Privy Council as [Sidenote: 1704.] willing to communicate his secret for the benefit of the country, if allowed during a certain term to use it in an exclusive manner, and sell the same right to others. Their Lordships granted the desired privilege for nine years. [Sidenote: AUG. 30.] Ever since the year 1691, there had been a garrison of government soldiers in Invergarry House, in Inverness-shire, the residence of Macdonald of Glengarry. The proprietor esteemed himself a sufferer to the extent of a hundred and fifty pounds a year, by damages to his lands and woods, besides the want of the use of his house, which had been reduced to a ruinous condition; and he now petitioned the government for some redress, as well as for a removal of the garrison, the ‘apparent cause’ of planting which had long ago ceased, ‘all that country being still peaceable and quiet in due obedience to authority, without the least apprehension of disturbance or commotion.’ The Council ordered Macdonald to be heard in his own cause before the Lords of the Treasury, in presence of Brigadier Maitland, governor of Fort-William, that a statement might be drawn up and laid before the queen. ‘His circumstances,’ however, ‘being such, that he cannot safely appear before their Lordships without ane personal protection,’ the Council had to grant a writ discharging all macers and messengers from putting any captions to execution against him up to the 20th of September. Before the time for the conference arrived, the Duke of Argyle put in a representation making a claim upon Glengarry’s estate, so that it became necessary to call in the aid of the Lord Advocate to make up the statement for the royal consideration. [Sidenote: SEP. 16.] The family of the Gordons of Gicht have already attracted our attention by their troubles as Catholics under Protestant persecution, and their tendency to wild and lawless habits. After two generations of silence, the family comes up again in antagonism to the law, but in the person of the husband of an heiress. It appears that the Miss Gordon of Gicht who gave birth to George Lord Byron, was not the first heiress who married unfortunately.