ORIGIN OF CLUNIES-ROSS FAMILY 9 



He mentions that he had petitioned his late Majesty to 

 recognise " KeeHng's Isles " as a part of the British Empire, and 

 then he goes on to tell his own history in the following words : 



" To begin then at the beginning — I am a native of 

 Zetland, descended maternally from a Norwegian family, 

 and lineally on the paternal side from one of those ignorant, 

 and therefore misguided, men Avho in the last century led 

 forth many of the tribes of N.W. Scotland to assist with 

 their swords, hundreds opposed to millions, Royal hereditary 

 pretension against National Constitutional rights ; and were in 

 consequence mostly ruined, cut off, and expatriated. 



" I may almost say that I was born at sea (Aug. 1785) the 

 walls of my parents' bedchamber being often wetted by its 

 spray — most of my waking hours were however spent in and 

 on its waves from the age of towards three at most to thirteen, 

 when I proceeded to serve apprenticeship to the Greenland 

 whale fishery, from whence after making voyages to the Baltic 

 and to China, etc., I proceeded to the whaling business in the 

 Southern Sea department; where I was in May 1813 mate 

 and harpooner of the ship Baroness Longueville of London^ 

 S. Chace master — -and when she was put into the port of 

 Coupang in the Island of Rimer to obtain refreshments and 

 water before starting for England, the full cargo of rpermaceti 

 having been acquired in the space of sixteen months from 

 thence, there lay in that anchorage a small Brig called the 

 Olivia in want of a Commander and being hired and armed as 

 a dispatch and coasting convoy vessel by the British Java 

 Government. 



" The resident of Coupang applied to Mr. Chace for an 

 oflficer to supply that want, and I resolved to accept the offer altho' 

 I had been what is called ' very lucky ' in my vocation, being 

 chiefly induced to take that resolution by consideration of the 

 intelligence which had then been first received by us of the 

 war, commenced by the American republic against Great 

 Britain, and the consequent risk of capture in a single sailing 

 and nearly unarmed vessel all the way to St. Helena, where 

 only convoy Avas to be had. 



