Yet, as a countryman, he never affected to disregard
those local predilections which identified him with the County
of Ross, as the genuine representative of Kintail, possessing an
influence which, being freely ceded and supported, became paramount
and permanent in the county which he represented in the Commons
House of Parliament, till he was called to the peerage on the 26th
October, 1797, by the title of Lord Seaforth and Baron of Kintail,
with limitation to heirs male of his body, and which he presided
over as his Majesty's Lord-Lieutenant. He was commissioned, in
1793, to reorganise the 78th or Ross-shire Regiment of Highlanders,
which, for so many years, continued to be almost exclusively composed
of his countrymen. Nor did his extraordinary qualifications and
varied exertions escape the wide ranging eye of the master genius
of the age, who has also contributed, by a tributary effusion, to
transmit the unqualified veneration of our age to many that are
to follow. He has been duly recognised by Sir Walter Scott, nor
was he passed over in the earlier buddings of Mr Colin Mackenzie;
but while the annalist is indebted to their just encomiums, he may
be allowed to respond to praise worthy of enthusiasm by a splendid
fact which at once exhibits a specimen of reckless imprudence
joined to those qualities which, by their popularity, attest
their genuineness.
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