iSyi.] PRESENTATION TO MR W. THOMSON. 331 



by personal and professional ties in expressing their high esteem for his charac- 

 ter, and their grateful sense of the value of bis services. Permit me now, Mr 

 Thomson, in name of the friends present and absent who have contributed to this 

 testimonial, to ask you to accept of the same, and to receive from me, in their 

 name, the assurance of our cordial esteem, our grateful sense of the services you 

 have rendered to the community, and our warm and friendly wishes for your 

 success and happiness in the extensive and important enterprise in which you are 

 about to engage. 



The presentation was made amid great cheering. 



Mr Thomson rose amid loud cheers to reply. He said that he had now for a 

 long course of years followed an arduous pursuit — a pursuit requiring great 

 mental and bodily exercise— and he certainly had to-day received an unexpected 

 reward for his labours. He had only had two employers in his lifetime, and he 

 had every reason to believe that he received and retained their confidence. That 

 of itself was a sufficient reward for anything he had been able to do. He had 

 received unexampled kindness from gentlemen in various ranks of society ; and 

 to be in contact with many of these and associate with them, would be a suffi- 

 cient reward to any man for any extra labour he might take in promoting what- 

 ever science he might be connected with. His esteemed friend Mr Mitchell, 

 ■with whom it had been his lot to associate in many matters since he came to 

 Dalkeith, and for whose private and public character he had the most profound 

 respect — he said a great deal about him which he could hardly accept for him- 

 self. That he had been useful in some degree to the inhabitants of Dalkeith in 

 those social gatherings to which he had referred, he was ready to admit. In 

 doing all that he simply took a keynote which was struck by his noble em- 

 ployers when he entered their service. He had no doubt that many would 

 imagine that one like himself, coming, a comparative stranger, to take the 

 management of such a place as he had occupied, would receive a great many 

 orders and commands, but all that the Duke of Buccleuch said the first day he 

 walked through the grounds with him was of a very general character. His 

 Grace touched very lightly on anything that affected himself; and the only de- 

 cided and emphatic order he gave was that he had not long before given the 

 Dalkeith Cricket Club permission to exercise their noble game on his lawn, and 

 he wished that he (Mr Thomson) would constantly keep it in good order for them. 

 When he saw the Duchess of Buccleuch a few days previously in London, she 

 gave him some general orders, and said that although they were not always at 

 Dalkeith, they wished the grounds round the palace and lawns kept in nice order ; 

 for although they were not always thei'e to enjoy them themselves, they wished 

 the public to enjoy them and see them in good order. He therefore felt that he 

 was fulfilling their desire when he did what lay in his power to add to the enjoy- 

 ment and elegance of any little gathering held in Dalkeith. He believed that 

 anything he had done in that way had had their Graces' consent, and that there- 

 fore any thanks were not so much due to him, and to anything within himself, as 

 to the liberality of those whom it was his honour to serve. As to his connection 

 with horticulture, and especially to the men under him, he believed that they 

 had numbered between two and three hundred ; and he was happy to say that, 

 out of his own family, his greatest pleasure had been in his contact with his men. 

 Of all that number, as far as he could remember, he had not had occasion to 

 dismiss above three or four for any misconduct, and not one of them was ever 

 guilty of a crime that came to his knowledge. Many of them were occupying 

 the first positions in the kingdom in the calling they followed. One of them was 

 with the Queen at Frogmore, another with the Duke of Devonshiie ; his brother 



