ORIGIN AND EARLY OBJECTS. 4/ 



at which these office-bearers were elected, the committee 

 sent letters to several noblemen and gentlemen, inviting 

 them to become Original Constituent Members. There- 

 after various meetings of the committee took place in the 

 Royal Exchange Coffee House — a common resort for 

 lawyers, physicians, surgeons, and merchants, for trans- 

 acting their ordinary business — and the first General Meet- 

 ing of the Society was held there on the 12th of March 

 1784, when the proceedings of the committee were reported 

 and approved, and Mr Macdonald of St Martin's was 

 appointed Secretary. The meetings of the Society con- 

 tinued to be held in the Royal Exchange Coffee House 

 for some years, but were afterwards transferred to the 

 Merchants' Hall. A notice of the places of meeting of the 

 Society, and of their properties, will be found in a special 

 chapter. 



Several meetings of the Society and its Acting Com- 

 mittee were held to define the objects to be aimed at by the 

 Society, and to frame regulations. The formal definition 

 of the objects contemplated by the Society was sanctioned 

 at a meeting of all the members held in the Exchange 

 Coffee House on the nth January 1785. 



At the date at which the Society was thus formally 

 constituted, the membership numbered above a hundred. 

 The first on the list of original constituent members is 

 John, Duke of Argyll. The second name is that of a lady, 

 Elizabeth, , Countess of Sutherland and Gower, Then 

 follow the Earls of Eglinton, Moray, Breadalbane, Dun- 

 more, and Glasgow, Lord Seaforth, and the Baronets of 

 Pitsligo, Craigievar, Menzies, Balnagown, Ochtertyre, Grant, 

 Penicuik, Monymusk, Ardnamurchan, and Ardoch. A list 

 of original constituent members, with notes regarding them, 

 will be found in the chapter on * Membership.' 



The objects of the Society, as defined at the meeting 

 on nth January 1785, were somewhat aspiring. The 

 first object is stated to be 'an enquiry into the present 

 state of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, and the 

 condition of their inhabitants.' The second object is very 

 wide in its scope, being ' an enquiry into the means of the 



