JET. 51.] SIR ALEXANDER BOSWELL. 503 



though by degrees co-operation against the Duke's 

 Government brought us more together than our just 

 indignation at their junction with the ministers on 

 their succeeding to Goderich. The most important 

 subject of our discussions was the most important of 

 all that time and of all times before 1829 Ireland 

 and the Catholic question. Beside conferring and 

 corresponding with Grey, I had frequent communica- 

 tion with Eosslyn, my intimacy with whom which 

 began in 1806, when we were in the Portuguese Com- 

 mission at Lisbon was continued and increased ever 

 after. 



My brother James also became his friend. On a 

 very melancholy occasion he had accompanied him, 

 when he went out as second to Stuart in his duel with 

 Boswell, which arose out of the proceedings of the 

 Edinburgh Tory party, some of whose leaders had 

 given a bond to save harmless a newspaper (the 

 'Beacon'), devoted to violent personal attacks, as well 

 as political, like papers of the same kind established 

 by the King's friends in England on the loss of their 

 bill against the Queen. As generally happens, the 

 party violence and the personal attacks reached a 

 greater height, and were of longer continuance, in 

 provincial places than in the capital ; and both Edin- 

 burgh (in the 'Beacon') and Glasgow (in the ' Sentinel') 

 were examples of this. The charge of cowardice was 

 brought against Stuart, and he traced to Boswell the 

 authorship of the song in which it was made, with 

 other scurrilities. His unhappy death occasioned the 

 prosecution of Stuart, and warrants were issued against 

 him, Eosslyn, and James. I was on circuit at Lan- 

 caster when Eosslyn passed through, having gone to 



