PRINCIPAL OR HONORARY SECRETARIES. 513 



to consider how the appointment of Secretary should be 

 filled up. At the first General Meeting, held on the 12th 

 of March 1784, the committee reported that they had pre- 

 vailed on Mr Macdonald of St Martins, Writer to the 

 Signet, one of their own number, to accept of the office of 

 Principal Secretary, on the condition of being empowered 

 to name a deputy, or Assistant Secretary, for carrying on 

 the business under his direction, who should receive such 

 an annual allowance for his trouble as might afterwards be 

 deemed reasonable and proper. On this being reported to 

 the General Meeting on 12th March 1784, the meeting 

 expressed their satisfaction in the prospect of having this 

 important department so properly filled, and unanimously 

 made choice of Mr Macdonald as Principal Secretary, with 

 power to name his deputy or assistant. At the General 

 Meeting on 29th June 1792, the Society unanimously 

 resolved, as a mark of the grateful sense which they enter- 

 tained of the Secretary's unremitted and spirited attention 

 to the objects and prosperity of the institution, that a piece 

 of plate should be presented to him, with a suitable device 

 and inscription. The Secretary expressed his acknowledg- 

 ments to the Society for their intended compliment to him, 

 but wished to have the motion deferred until a more ad- 

 vanced state of the Society's funds, as in the meantime he 

 considered their repeated approbations of his conduct as a 

 very agreeable and sufficient return for his endeavours to 

 promote the views of a patriotic Society of Highlanders. 

 The proposed presentation was not carried into effect ; but 

 several members having insisted to have a committee ap- 

 pointed, four gentlemen were named. At the General 

 Meeting on ist July 1799, Mr Henry Mackenzie stated 

 that, on going over the sederunt books for the purpose of 

 drawing up the History of the Society, there was one thing 

 that struck him very forcibly, and this was that the merits 

 of Mr Macdonald of St Martins, the Secretary, appeared in 

 the strongest light possible ever since the institution of the 

 Society, and that he had acted throughout without salary or 

 emolument of any kind. Mr Mackenzie submitted, there- 

 fore, that it would be highly becoming the dignity of the 



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