My dear Friends,
Since, by all appearances, this is the last time of my life I shall
have occasion to write to you, I being now very ill of a dangerous
fever, I do declare to you before God, before whom I must apear, and
all of us at the great day of Judgement, that I loved you all, I
mean you and all the rest of my kindred and family who are for the
standing of their chief and name; and, as I loved you, so I loved
all my faithful Commons in general more than I did my own life or
health, or comfort, or satisfaction; and God to whom I must answer,
knows that my greatest desire and the greatest happiness I proposed
to myself under heaven was, to make you all live happy and make my
poor Commons flourish; and that it was my constant principle to
think myself mutch hapier with a hundred pounds and see you all live
well at your ease about mee than have ten thousand pounds a year,
and see you in want or misery. I did faithfully desire and resolve
to make up, and put at their ease Allexander Fraser of Topatry, and
James Fraser of Castle Ladders and their familys; and whatever
disputs might ever be betwixt them and me which our mutual hot
temper occasioned, joyned with the malice and calomny of both our
ennemies, I take God to witness, I loved those two brave men as I
did my own life for their great zeal and fidelity they showed for
their chief and kindred; I did likewise resolve to support the
families of Struy Foyers and Culdithels families, and to the lasting
praise of Culdithel and his familie. I never knew himself to sarwe
from his faithfull zeal for his chief and kindred, nor none of his
familie, for which I hope God will bless him and them and their
posterity. I did likewise desyring to make my poor Commons live at
their ease and have them always well clothed and well armed after
the Highland maner, and not to suffer them to wear low country
cloths, but make them live like their forefathers with the use of
their arms, that they might always be in condition to defend
themselves against their ennemies, and to do service to their
friends, especially to the great Duke of Argile, and to his worthy
brother the Earl of Illay, and to that glorious and noble famyly who
were always our constant and faithful friends; and I conjure you and
all honest Frasers to be zealous and faithfull friends and servants
to the family of Argile and their friends, whilst a Campbell and a
Fraser subsists. If it be God's will that for the punishment of my
great and many sins and the sins of my kindred, I should now depart
this life before I put these just and good resolutions in execution;
yet I hope that God in his mercy will inspire you and all honest
Frasers to stand by and be faithfull to my cousin Inverlahie and the
other heirs male of my family, and to venture your lives and
fortunes to put him or my nearest heirs male named in my Testament
written by John Jacks, in the full possession of the estate and
honours of my forefathers, which is the onely way to preserve you
from the wicked designs of the family of Tarbat and Glengary joyned
to the family of Athol: and you may depend upon it, and you and your
posterity will see it and find it, that if you do not keep stedfast
to your chief, I mean the heir male of my famyly; but weakly or
falsely for little private interest and views abandon your duty to
your name, and suffer a pretended heiresse, and her Mackenzie
children to possess your country and the true right of the heirs
male, they will certainly in les than an age chasse you all by
slight and might, as well Gentlemen, as Commons, out of your native
country, which will be possessed by the Mackenzies and the
Mackdonalls, and you will be, like the miserable unnatural Jews,
scattered, and vagabonds throughout the unhappy kingdom of Scotland,
and the poor wifes and children that remains of the name, without a
head or protection when they are told the traditions of their
familie will be cursing from their hearts the persons and memory of
those unnaturall cowardly knavish men, who sold and abandoned their
chief, their name, their birthright, and their country, for a false
and foolish present gain, even as the most of Scots' people curs
this day those who sold them and their country to the English by the
fatal union, which I hope will not last long.
I make my earnest and dying prayers to God Almighty, that he may, in
his mercy, thro the merits of Christ Jesus, save you and all my poor
people, whom I always found honest and zealous to me and their duty,
from that blindness of heart that will inevitably bring those ruins
and disgraces upon you and your posterity; and I pray that Almighty
and Mercifull God, who has often miraculously saved my family and
name from utter ruin, may give you the spirit of courage, of zeal,
and of fidelity, that you owe to your chief, to your name, to your
selves, to your children, and to your country; and may the most
mercifull, and adorable Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three
persons, one God, save all your souls eternally, throu the blood of
Christ Jesus, our Blessed Lord and Saviour, to whom I heartily
recommende you.
I desire that this letter may be kept in a box, at Beaufort, or
Maniack, and read once a-year by the heir male, or a principale
gentleman of the name, to all honest Frasers that will continue
faithfull to the duty I have enjoined in this above-written letter,
to whom, with you and all honest Frasers, and my other friends, I
leave my tender and affectionat blessing, and bid you my kind, and
last farewell.