"Beyond the fact that he is a Kennedy, and that his father had to
fly from Ireland, two years after the siege of Limerick, owing to
a participation in some plot to bring about a fresh rising in
favour of King James, he is unacquainted with his family history.
He has never heard from his father, and only knows that he made
for France after throwing the usurper's spies off his track, and
there can be little doubt that it was his intention to take
service in this brigade. There have been several Kennedys in the
service, and I have little doubt that this young gentleman's
father was the Murroch Kennedy who joined the third regiment,
about that time, and was killed a few months afterwards at the
battle of Breda. His death would account for the fact that his son
never received a letter from him. At the time when he left
Ireland, the child was some two years old, and, as communication
was difficult, and the boy so young, Murroch might very well have
put off writing until the boy grew older, not thinking that death
might intervene, as it did, to prevent his doing so.

"This is all simple and straightforward enough, and you will, I am
sure, have no hesitation in extending the hand of friendship to
the son of a gallant Irishman, who died fighting in the ranks of
the Irish Brigade, exiled, like the rest of us, for loyalty to our
king.

"Still, gentlemen, you might, perhaps, wonder how it is that he
knows no more of his family, and it was that this question might
be disposed of, once for all, that I am making this statement to
you on his behalf. He was not brought up, as you might expect,
with some of his father's connections. Whether the family were so
scattered that there was no one to whom he could safely entrust