Thomas Pennant to George Paton

3 February 1776

ID: 0203 [see the .xml file]
Identifier: NLS ADV. MSS. 29.5.5 (2 vols.) i, 149
Notes:

Pennant appears to have supplied the wrong month when dating this letter (see note below). For editorial purposes the letter has been re-dated to 3 February 1776.
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Cite: 'Thomas Pennant to George Paton 3 February 1776' in Curious Travellers Digital Editions [editions.curioustravellers.ac.uk/doc/0203]

Dear Sir

I beg leave to return your congratulations of the seasons &c & the same time to hope to receive better accounts of the health of poor Mr Low than the last. I most sincerely regret his ill state of health; on several reasons; for his own sake, & the loss which the public will sustain by that of his labors. I wrote to him immediately but not in such a manner as to alarm him. I thank you for the offer of magazines. I shall be glad to pay for a years set; but not to receive them singly.

I see in days [sic] paper a very angry Letter from a Macgregor relating to my acct of his clan.1 I believe all can be supported from history. I never mean to enter the pit with any one but shall be glad of any additional proofs to refer to. a new edition of my Tours &c will soon be wanted: adieu 2

yrs most truly

T. Pennant

Jan. 3d. 1776.

Editorial notes

1. The letter Pennant refers to was printed in The London Chronicle on January 25(and in The Scots Magazine for the same month) under the title, 'Extract of a Letter from Edinburgh to a Gentleman in London, dated Jan. 19, 1776.' The former instance is referred to in Paton's reply of March 25 1776. The letter itself takes issue with Pennant's account of an alleged massacre of the Colquhoun clan by the MacGregors near Luss in 1603 (specifically as it appeared in the quarto edition of A Tour in Scotland 1769 (1774), pp.243-44). The author of the letter makes reference to an extract from Pennant's Tour in Scotland 1769 (Warrington: 1774), pp.243-46, which was published under the title: 'Description of LOCH-LOMOND. From Pennant's Tour.' in The weekly magazine, or, Edinburgh amusement, vol. 30, (Sep 28, 1775): 7-8. The chronology of the letter's publication in The London Chronicle suggests that Pennant supplied the wrong month when dating this letter, and that it was actually written on February 3 rather than January 3.
2. New editions of A Tour in Scotland 1769 and A Tour in Scotland and Voyage to the Hebrides 1772 Part I were published in 1776, alongside a new edition of British Zoology and the first edition of A Tour in Scotland and Voyage to the Hebrides 1772 Part II