‘My Lord, despond not for this disappointment, but show resolution in all you do. When my affairs go wrong, I remember that saying of Lucan, “Tam mala Pompeii quam prospera mundus adoret.” One has occasion to show their vigour after a wrong step to make a nimble recovery. You have done nothing amiss, but trusted too much to honour, and thought all the world held it as sacred as you do. ‘My dear Lord, I hope you will do me the honour to let me hear from you, for if there be nothing for your service here I will be in Scotland immediately, for now I am pretty well recovered. I know my Lord Montrose will endeavour to misrepresent me to your Lordship, but I hope he has forfeited his credit with you, and anything he says to you is certainly to abuse you. My Lord, I have both at home and abroad sustained the character of an honest and frank man, and defy the world to reproach me of anything. So, my Lord, as I have never failed in my respect to your Lordship, I hope you will continue that friendship for me which I have so much ambitioned. When I have the honour to see you I will say more of my inclination to serve you. I will beg the favour of a line with the first post. ‘I am, my Lord, your Lordship’s most faithful and humble servant, J. GRAHAME. ‘Excuse this scribbling, for I am in haste, going to Windsor, though I write two sheets.’ This long letter was followed at short intervals, by others to the same effect, full of protestations on the part of Claverhouse of his desire to serve the Earl. It would appear, however, that Menteith was not fully satisfied as to his correspondent’s sincerity and disinterestedness. No direct reply to the latter’s denunciation of Montrose has been preserved; but there is a communication addressed to the young Marquis himself, in which the Earl expresses himself very strongly and very plainly with regard to the ‘malicious letters’ too often written to him, and in which he assures him that his generous actings and noble endeavours for the standing and good of the Menteith family, vindicate to the world his Lordship’s honour and reputation from the false and unjust aspersions that some unworthy and seditious persons, though they were of no mean quality, would make all men believe. It is true that the Earl of Menteith himself had good reason for wishing to conciliate Montrose. He was not without hope that the Marquis would ‘effectuate a speedy and right course and method for the relieving of the pressing debts of his poor, though ancient, family.’ Moreover, he had a special favour to beg, and one which illustrates how greatly fallen from its high estate the noble house of Menteith really was. The wording and the spelling of the letter which contained it are scarcely less remarkable than the request itself.