The Patriot by Nigel Tranter Page B

Fletcher was in fact something of a misfit.
    The organisation of the delivery of the letters was a major headache and expense.
    Keeping Captain Graham in ignorance of the letter project was difficult, for he was apt to be very much present with them that autumn and winter at Saltoun. Excellent company, he frequently dined and spent the evening with the brothers - nor did they seek to freeze him out. He made no secret of the fact that he disliked his present duties; he was a fighting soldier not a billeting-officer or quartermaster. And he was a useful source of information, able to tell them much of current affairs that they were interested to hear. He had friends at Court, in especial his kinsman the present Marquis of Montrose, commander of the royal horse guards, who had indeed obtained for him this present command; and he seemed to hear of much that went on at Whitehall and Westminster. He revealed that Lauderdale was indeed in ever worsening odour, had lost his English position as First Commissioner of the Treasury, with the King under strong pressure from Shaftesbury to set up a House of Commons enquiry into corruptions and misappropriations of Treasury funds - which Lauderdale could hardly deny, but asserted were perpetrated wholly to carry out the royal policies in Scotland. But he was still a Lord of the Bedchamber. Just how much money he had brought back from Scotland, in July, was a secret between him and his royal master; but it was known that it was vastly less than had been expected. The committee of enquiry set up by the convention had quite quickly tabled its findings; and while undoubtedly its members were largely in Lauderdale's pocket, they had come to a compromise, acceding that troop-raising was necessary but suggesting, as a first payment, only £150,000 not £1,800,000. Of the 22,000 troops the money was alleged to pay for, only one quarter, 5,500, were presently authorised. Whether even these would materialise, who could tell, with how much of the £150,000 going into King Charles's pocket, or Lauderdale's own? John Graham personally hoped that the troops would be raised - and himself given a decent command, commensurate with his status in the Continental wars. An interesting blow-by-blow of the entire business was that Shaftesbury was, for his own purposes, now claiming that the entire 22,000 were in the process of being raised, not to put down Scots rebels but to be available to invade England. In the Titus Oates atmosphere and Popish plotting, this went down well with the House of Commons, however unfair to Lauderdale.
    Henry Fletcher declared that he did not know why Andrew wanted to get mixed up in politics, from all that he had so far learned of them.
    Captain Graham had some further and more inspiring information for them. It seemed that the Earl of Southesk and his household came south each year from his seat of Kinnaird in Angus, to winter at his town-house in Edinburgh. Almost in the same breath the Fletchers demanded to know whether Sir David Carnegie came also - to be assured that usually he did.
    Presumably John Graham would pay visits to his kinsfolk in Edinburgh . . . ?
    "I read your letter with much interest," Sir David said, having to raise his voice above the jigging strains of the fiddles and the skirling and stamp of the dancers. "You made a good case. Whether many will agree or no, I cannot say. But I think that you have convinced me, at least."
    "You . . . you realised that the letter was mine, sir?"
    "My dear Fletcher, it could not have been from anyone else! It was but an enlargement of what you said when last you were in this house. Besides, I could hear your voice in every line of it."
    "M'mm. Will others recognise it so easily, think you?"
    "I daresay - unless they are exceeding dull! Although few heard you here that night, to compare. But I warrant that Rothes and the Privy Council have copies before them, and have few doubts as to who wrote it! As well that you did not sign,