Some Lrerrers oF Patrick MILLER. 125 
Some Letters of Patrick Miller. 
By Mr R. C. Rep. 
In these days when our country has just emerged from 
the greatest war in its history, it is not without interest to 
look back a little more than a century, when our long struggle 
with the French Revolution and Napoleon was drawing to a 
close. That struggle had not the intensity of the one through 
which we have just passed, neither were our exertions on so 
tremendous a scale, but it was much longer and more exhaust- 
ing. Further, it is extraordinary how the same conditions 
have repeated themselves, and when from old diaries and 
correspondence we can recreate the conditions of a century 
azo, we find our forebears actuated by the same motives, filled 
by the same fears and doubts, and dominated by the same 
patriotic instincts as ourselves; we can follow them from 
initial success, through waning confidence and dogged dis- 
may, to an ultimate triumph as great as our own. 
It is not often that the veil that covers the past can be 
lifted, but recently, during researches relating to the trials of 
Patrick Miller’s steamboat, a bundle of his letters that throws 
some light on those times came to light, and were shown to 
me. They throw but little light on his steamboat or his other 
inventions, they tell us scarce any of the local gossip that 
renders so racy the correspondence of C. K. Sharpe. But 
they give so much insight into his character, his temperament 
and opinions, as to enable us to envisage a very clear picture 
of the man himself. At least one of the letters is of auto- 
biographical value. Forty-nine in number, all the letters 
save four, from the pen of Mrs Miller, are written by Patrick 
Miller to his eldest son, Patrick Miller, junior, known as 
““ Peter ’’ in family circles. | Peter was a worthless fellow 
who had been placed by his father in the Army. Later, as 
will be seen, he entered Parliament with the rank of a Captain 
in 1790 as the representative of the Burghs, and became a 
hanger-on at the Court of the Regent. Recklessly extrava- 
gant, he failed to bring off a marriage which would have re- 
established his finances, and had to resort to his father. These 
