BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 277
however, might have taught him to form a different estimate. The fact is,
Wesley’s Arminianism and soft persuasive eloquence were ill-suited to the
genius of a people stern, fervid, and passionate; and accustomed to regard
the doctrines of Calvin as the only doctrines which could teach a man how
to be saved.
No. CXIII.
SIR JAMES GRANT OF GRANT, BART.,
WITH A VIEW OF HIS REGIMENT, THE STRATHSPEY OR GRANT FENCIBLES.
AT a period when many of the extensive Highland proprietors, actuated by a
violent frenzy for improvement, were driving whole districts of people from the
abodes of their forefathers, and compelling them to seek for that shelter in a
foreign land which was denied them in their own-when absenteeism, and the
vices of courtly intrigue and fashionable dissipation, had sapped the morality of
too many of our landholders, SIR JAMES GRANT escaped the contagion ; and,
during a long life, was distinguished for the possession of those virtues which
are the surest bulwarks of the peace, happiness, and strength of a country.
Possessed of extensive estates, and surrounded by a numerous tenantry, his
exertions seemed to be equally devoted to the progressive improvement of the
one, and the present comfort and enjoyment of the other.
Sir James was born in 1’138, and succeeded to the family estates and title
on the death of his father, Ludovic, in 1773. He represented the county of
Moray in Parliament so early as 1761, and for several years afterwards. He
was also sometime menber for Banff; and, although he made no attempt
to figure in the political arena, or to become an intriguing partisan of either
party, his zeal for constitutional liberty, in the hour of danger, was neither
less prompt nor less efficient than that of some blustering persons, misnamed
patriots, who attempted to make their local influence the pedestal of future
elevation.
On the declaration of war in 1793, Sir James was among the first, if not
the very first, to step forward in the service of the country with a regiment of
Fencibles, raised almost exclusively among his own tenantry, and with such
alacrity, that in less than two months eyen more than the complement of men
were assembled at Forres, the head-quarters of the regiment. Almost immediately
after the Fencibles were embodied, Sir James raised another corps, called
the 97th, or Strathspey Regiment, for more extended service, which consisted
of eighteen hundred men. This regiment was embodied in 1794, and immediately
marched into England. Of both these regiments Sir James was, of course,
appointed ColoneL Next year, the 97th were drafted into other corps-the
