[299] Curious Tracts in the British Museum, vol. iv. Scotland. [300] Jacobite Memoirs, p. 447. [301] A small isle about eight miles to the westward of South Uist. [302] Forbes. Narrative of Captain Donald Macdonald. [303] Scots' Magazine for 1749. [304] Note in Chambers' Memoirs of the Rebellion. [305] Preface to the Jacobite Memoirs by Mr. Robert Chambers, to whom the public owe so much on this and other subjects. [306] Brown's Hist. of the Highlands, vol. iii. p. 309. [307] Preface to Jacobite Memoirs, xi. [308] Chambers, p. 106. Taken from the Lyon in Mourning, MSS. [309] Boswell's Tour to the Hebrides. [310] Dr. Johnson's Tour to the Hebrides, p. 319. [311] Dr. Johnson's Tour to the Hebrides, p. 217. [312] From the Collection of Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Esq. They were printed, on the occasion of the Queen's visit to Scotland, in the Edinburgh Advertiser for 1844. [313] So named, in compliment to Sir Alexander Macdonald of Slate, or rather to his wife, Lady Margaret, the friend of Flora Macdonald. [314] This alludes to the attention paid him when young, and under the care of Mr. Mackenzie, by that gentleman and his family. [315] The late Sir Alexander Muir Mackenzie of Delvine, Bart. WILLIAM BOYD, EARL OF KILMARNOCK. The unfortunate nobleman who is the subject of this Memoir, could boast of as long line of ancestors as most families in Europe. Among his forefathers were men eminent for loyalty, and distinguished for bravery, and of honour as untainted as their blood; but when William, fourth Earl of Kilmarnock, succeeded to his title, there was little except this high ancestry to elate him with pride, or to raise him above dependence upon circumstances. The Earl of Kilmarnock derived his title from a royal borough of the same name, in the shire of Cunningham in Ayrshire; and, in former times when the chieftainship was in repute in that part of Scotland, that branch of the family of Boyd, or Boyde, from whom the Earl was descended, claimed to be chiefs. The greatness of the Boyd family commenced with Simon, the brother of Walter, first High Steward of Scotland, and founder of the Monastery of Paisley, in 1160. Robert, the son of Simon, is designated in the foundation church of that monastery, as nephew of Walter, High Steward; and is distinguished on account of his fair complexion, by the word Boyt, or Boyd,[316] from the Celtic Boidh, signifying fair, or yellow. "He was," says Nisbet, "doubtless, predecessor to the Lords Boyd, and Earls of Kilmarnock."[317]