Mountstuart 29^th Aug^t 1790

Dear Sir

While here upon a visit to the Marquiss of Bute, I embrace the opportunity of dropping you a few lines franked by his Lordship —

I now beg leave to return you many thanks for the entertainment I received from the perusal of your ingenious Account of the Parishes of Holywood [sic] &c, an Account which to me is the more entertaining, that it contains a particular description of the Family and Place of a Gentleman, whose acquaintance and friendship I have now been so long honoured with, and whose welfare & prosperity I will always rejoice at. My friend M^r M^cIntyre, the Minister of Glenorchay, has likewise had the perusal of the book, for which he desires I will return you his best thanks. He is at present in good health. But in December last he met with one or two of those severe tryals, from which in this world even the best men are not often exempted. About two or three weeks after receiving the accounts of the death of a very promising young man, a son of his, in the West Indies, M^rs. M^cIntyre, who upon the forenoon of the 25^th. day of said month paid a visit along with him to a Family in the neighbourhood, seemingly in her usual health, in the evening retired to her room, where not long after she was found by her Family upon her knees, and in a swoon. Every effort was used to recover, but without effect. She expired immediately without a sigh or a groan ––––– When you was here in 1772, I remember you was much pleased with this place. It is now still a finer place than it was then, the plantations having grown so considerably since that time, and the present Lord Bute having with much taste improved it in many respects. I will always recollect, with pleasure, the happy hours I spent with you here that year, and in the other islands and places you visited. But it is with pain I reflect that our worthy and ingenious friend M^r. Lightfoot, whose memory will always be dear to me, is no more.

I am, with great esteem
Dear Sir,
Your most obliged and
humble Servant

John Stuart