1808.] 
wife, who after bringing you. into the 
world, survived only a month. Such, my 
dear nephew, were the seezets and de- 
lorable motives which reduced me to 
that obscurity in which I have since 
lived, and of which you are alone ac- 
quainted. Judge now, my friend, if after 
the care I have taken of your infancy, 
and the education I have procured you, 
“say, can you devote your fortune’ and 
‘arms to the author of so many calamities, 
to a barbarian who has carried death into 
the breasts of your parents, and into mine 
eternal remorse?” No! cried 1, by God! 
‘no! the wretch is unworthy of life, and 
he shall die by my hand! To tell you, 
~~ 
‘my Lord, by what means as refined as 
‘dangerous, my fury against the King con- 
tinually increasing, was at last’ able to 
fulfil my revenge and execrable oath; to 
tell you all the events, and the excess 
‘of remorse’ which soon fullowed my 
crime, would be now too grievous in 
my weak state to relate. Be satisfied 
with knowing, that you may abhor me as 
much as I detest myself; that the execu-- 
Proceedings of Public Societies. 
47 
tioner of King Charles I. who appecred 
on the scaffold under a Mask, was in, fuct 
no other than your unworthy too guilty 
great-grandjather, Sir George Stair.” 
From 1649 (when Charles I. was be- 
headed) and 1743 (when the battle of 
Dettinghqe was fought) there is an ia- 
terval of 94 years, On a supposition that 
Sir George Stair was 20 years old when 
he committed his crime, his age in 1743 
‘mnst have been 114 years. 
The anonymous author of these Me- 
moirs, adds; that whatever were the 
emotions of Lord Stair at reading this 
letter, fis first care was to look for the 
street and bouse where he had seen his 
great grand-father ; but finding the house 
empty, he had learnt from the) neigh- 
bours that it had only been occupied 
“since eight days; that it was never, known 
‘by whom ; that since the preceding night , 
the servants had abandoned it, furnished | 
as it was; that they could not tell of 
whom the tenant held the house; the 
proprietor being long since settled ia 
America, 
aaa 
PROCEEDINGS OF PUBLIC SOCIETIES. 
eee 
ADDRESS to the BOARD Of AGRICULTURE, 
by stR JOHN SINCLAIR, BART. the PRE- 
SIDENT, at the conciusion of the 
SEsston, on the 7th of JUNE, 1808. 
GENTLEMEN, Shas 
N conformity to the usual practice, at 
the termination of the meetings of 
the Board for the year, I now beg leave 
to submit to your consideration a short 
detail, of the various particulars which 
have principally occupied our attention, 
during the session about to terminate, 
and which it is impossible to reflect on 
for a moment, without a deep conviction 
of the many public advantages which 
must necessarily be derived from this 
institution. 
1. County Reports—The idea of as- 
certaining the agricultural state of every 
district in the kingdom, and of printing 
each survey, according to one uniform 
model, is the greatest undertaking ever 
aeempred by any institution; and 
though carried on with funds extremely 
inadequate to such an attempt, yet it is 
at last in a fair way of being happily ac- 
pomplished ; all the counties in fingland 
will be completed in the course of this 
year. Several will remain to be done in 
Seodaud, for the execution of which, 
fit persons can be procired, as soon as 
- 
adequate funds are obtained for that pure 
pose. In the course of this year, five 
Reports have been already printed, and 
eight transmitted ta the Board in a state 
ready for publication; so that the pro- 
gress has been considerable, and the ter- 
mination of this most important underta- 
king, by which so large a proportion. of 
the funds of the Bozrd has hitherto been 
absorbed, is probably at no great dis- 
tance. 
The advantages to be derived from 
these Reports, are universally recognized 
in foreign countries ; for the same plan 
has been already adopted in France ‘and 
Russia, and wiil probably be imitated in 
every other civilized country. A letter 
has lately been received from a celebra- 
ted agriculturist in France, in which he 
states his opinion, “ that such a measure 
is the most useful that can be underta- 
ken, for bringing, in a short space of 
time, agriculture to a high degree of per- 
fection.”* Indeed the information. fure, 
nished by the various reports and. com- 
* The French expressions are, ** Je crois 
que ce travail est Je plus utile de tous ceux 
qu’on peut entreprendre, pour amener, dans 
un trés court espece de temps, lagriculture a 
un grand degré de perfection, 
. ee munications 
