sagacious to propose such a rencontre in reality. This letter was written
in the year 1719.

In the following year Rob Roy composed another epistle, very little to
his own reputation, as he therein confesses having played booty during
the civil war of 1715. It is addressed to General Wade, at that time
engaged in disarming the Highland clans, and making military roads
through the country. The letter is a singular composition. It sets out
the writer's real and unfeigned desire to have offered his service to
King George, but for his liability to be thrown into jail for a civil
debt, at the instance of the Duke of Montrose. Being thus debarred from
taking the right side, he acknowledged he embraced the wrong one, upon
Falstaff's principle, that since the King wanted men and the rebels
soldiers, it were worse shame to be idle in such a stirring world, than
to embrace the worst side, were it as black as rebellion could make it.
The impossibility of his being neutral in such a debate, Rob seems to lay
down as an undeniable proposition. At the same time, while he
acknowledges having been forced into an unnatural rebellion against King
George, he pleads that he not only avoided acting offensively against his
Majesty's forces on all occasions, but, on the contrary, sent to them
what intelligence he could collect from time to time; for the truth of
which he refers to his Grace the Duke of Argyle. What influence this plea
had on General Wade, we have no means of knowing.

Rob Roy appears to have continued to live very much as usual. His fame,
in the meanwhile, passed beyond the narrow limits of the country in which
he resided. A pretended history of him appeared in London during his
lifetime, under the title of the Highland Rogue. It is a catch-penny
publication, bearing in front the effigy of a species of ogre, with a
beard of a foot in length; and his actions are as much exaggerated as his