ORIGIN OF CLUNIES-ROSS FAMILY 7 



The grandsire was the prototype of the grandson, and to-day 

 Ross Tertius stands out a man remarkable among men — a 

 monarch and a father among his own people and in his own 

 islands ; a strong man, and an able, in any company, in any 

 land. George Ross to-dav has all the masterful attributes of 

 John Ross a hundred years ago, has all his ability and his 

 dexterity, and his inborn power to rule : but to-day George 

 Ross has his enterprise centred in a quiet and peaceful tropic 

 isle, whilst a hundred years ago his grandsire fought and lived 

 in those stirrinaf scenes enacted under the flasc of the Old East 

 India Company. 



Like many another notable race of men the Ross family 

 shows in a remarkable degree the phenomenon of inherited 

 prepotency, and the dominant features, both mental and 

 physical, of the family type show a most wonderful persistence. 



So far as concerns the origin of the race that has pioneered 

 this strange enterprise, we need go no further back in history 

 than the year 1715 : for the events of that year were 

 instrumental in shaping the after-destinies of the family, and 

 without the '15 and its subsequent disasters, the Clunies-Ross 

 family might still be treading the easy pathway of the Scottish 

 gentry. 



The year of the ill-fated rising of the Scots in defence 

 of the rights of " James, son of James II, of England," found 

 Alexander Clunies — called Clunies-Ross by right of his wife — ■ 

 doing great deeds for the Clan Chattan in Sutherlandshire : but 

 one short year after, both he and his cause were in sorry straits. 



When on February 5, 1716, James sailed from Montrose, 

 he left a hopeless cause behind him : and when the English 

 came by sea, nothing was left to the broken clans save to 

 disperse ; and to the broken leaders save to seek their homes 

 — or their hiding-places. 



It was a hiding-place that Alexander sought, and with his 

 two young sons he went to the Orkneys, to tarry till time 

 should heal the wound where a cannon-ball had removed 

 his right leg, and in some measure mend the fortunes of 

 his cause. But long before his wound was healed, his cause 



