TRIAL OF PATRICK SELLAR. 195 



LETTER SIR GEORGE ABERCROMBY of Birkenbog, Bart., to 

 JAMES GORDON, Esq. 



FORGLEN HOUSE, 2ist April, 1816. 

 MY DEAR SIR, 



I received your letter of the igth yesterday. Indisposition 

 prevents me from attending the Circuit Court at Inverness at present. 

 This I very much regret, on account of the circumstance you mention, 

 as I should have been glad to have given my testimony in person to the 

 good opinion I have always entertained of Mr. Sellar. Mr. Sellar I 

 have known from a boy. He acted as an agent before the Sheriff court 

 of Elgin for several years, very much to my satisfaction, and was 

 appointed procurator-fiscal. I have always thought him a young man 

 of great humanity, and I think him incapable of being guilty of the 

 charges brought against him, and trust, upon trial, they will turn out 

 to be unfounded, and put a stop to that clamour which was so dis- 

 agreeable. I am, with great regard, 



My dear Sir, 



Your most obedient Servant, 



GEORGE ABERCROMBY. 



LETTER GEORGE FENTON, Esq., to Mr. GORDON. 



ELGIN, 2oth April, 1816. 



SIR, As I understand you are employed as counsel for Mr. Patrick 

 Sellar, indicted to stand trial at the ensuing Circuit Court of Justiciary 

 at Inverness, and I having got a citation as an exculpatory witness, 

 which, I presume, is for the purpose of bearing testimony to Mr. 

 Sellar's character. I have unfortunately been unwell for some time 

 past, that prevents my attendance, as will appear, from a certificate I 

 have transmitted by the Sheriff-Substitute of the county of Nairn, or 

 otherwise I would readily have obeyed the summons, and done that 

 justice to his good character I consider him entitled to. I have known 

 Mr. Sellar from a boy ; for many years an agent before the Sheriff- 

 court, where I presided as Sheriff-Substitute, and I never, in the course 

 of his practice, knew him to do an oppressive act, or one likely to do so, 

 and I have always known him to be a man of sympathy, feeling, and 

 humanity. While in this county, he was considered as a most respect- 



