As to the assistance that is necessary for Scotland in particular, we should have preferred that His Most Christian Majesty might have been willing to grant us French troops, who would have renewed among us the lessons of heroic bravery and incorruptible fidelity, that our ancestors have so often learned in France itself, but since Your Eminence thinks fit to send subjects of our King, we will receive them with joy as coming from him, and we will endeavour to make them feel the value that we attach to their devotion to our legitimate Sovereign, and the honour that they have acquired in treading so long in the footsteps of the best subjects and of the bravest troops in the Universe. The Baron of Balhaldies knows so perfectly our situation, the plans that we have concerted, and everything that affects us, that it will be unnecessary to enter into any detail. We implore Your Eminence to listen to him favourably, and to be assured that he will have the honour of reporting to you with the utmost accuracy. If the ministers of the Government were only less suspicious of our actions or less watchful, we would willingly pledge all our belongings to defray the cost of this expedition, but as no contracts (of loan or sale) are binding by our customs unless they have been inscribed in the public registers, it is not possible for us to raise a sum that would be sufficient, with the necessary secrecy that present circumstances require. It is this consideration alone that prevents us from raising a fund for the necessary expense, the raising of which would bear further proof of our zeal, which we should give with pleasure, and of the confidence with which we place ourselves under the standard of our natural King; but the good of the service obliges us to restrain our wishes and to have recourse to the generosity of His Most Christian Majesty until it is possible to establish the royal rights in our country in a regular manner. We are persuaded that it would be possible to accomplish this three months after the arrival of the Irish troops, and we do not doubt that our country, reunited under the Government of its king, so much desired, would make such efforts as would enable Your Excellency to prove to His Most Christian Majesty that the modern Scots are the true descendants of those who have had the honour of being counted during so many centuries the most faithful allies of the kings, his predecessors.