148 MR. WILLIAM FAIRBAIRN : MEMOIR 



brought up her children respectably, and laid the founda- 

 tion of those qualities which distinguished them through 

 life. 



Mr. Kennedy was occasionally subject (like his father) 

 to low spirits. He seems in early life to have been an 

 observant, thoughtful child, and he always retained a most 

 vivid recollection of the home life of his native district. 

 He frequently, in later years, when speaking of the im- 

 provements which have been effected in the management 

 of land and stock, used to tell how as a boy he felt for the 

 poor cattle in the spring, which, from want of food, had 

 become so weak that when once down they could not get 

 up again, but had to be helped to rise from sheer weakness 

 and want of support. 



At the age of fourteen he and his brothers, excepting 

 the eldest, who took to the farm, began to look about 

 them for some employment by which they could earn a 

 living ', as it was then the custom in the great majority of 

 Scottish families for the younger branches to emigrate, 

 and make their way as best they could in a foreign land. 

 At that time the great openings for employment were 

 England, the West Indies, and America. The late Adam 

 and George Murray, the founders of the well-known firm 

 of that name in this city, who came from the same locality, 

 and had settled as apprentices with Mr. Camian, the 

 machine maker at Chowbent, excited a strong desire in 

 Mr. Kennedy to see new places and new things. He 

 became ambitious to do something for himself, and to 

 look beyond the still glens and blue mountains by which 

 he was surrounded. With these feelings Mr. Kennedy 

 was engaged as an apprentice to Messrs. Cannan and 

 Smith, at Chowbent. 



Early in February 1784, he started for England, with 

 his mother's blessing. She told him " always to conform 

 to the Presbyterian confession of faith, but (she said) to 



