ceased to be an honourable occupation, such humbler marauders drifted away into the wide world, leaving no trace behind, save the grey ruins of their grim fortalices, and the incidental mention of some probably disreputable scion in a chapman’s ballad.  Neither mark nor memory of the Jacksons remains in Scotland.  We only know that some members of the clan, impelled probably by religious persecution, made their way to Ulster, where a strong colony of Lowlanders had already been established.

Under a milder sky and a less drastic government the expatriated Scots lost nothing of their individuality.  Masterful and independent from the beginning, masterful and independent they remained, inflexible of purpose, impatient of justice, and staunch to their ideals.  Something, perhaps, they owed to contact with the Celt.  Wherever the Ulster folk have made their home, the breath of the wholesome North has followed them, preserving untainted their hereditary virtues.  Shrewd, practical, and thrifty, prosperity has consistently rewarded them; and yet, in common with the Irishmen of English stock, they have found in the trade of arms the most congenial outlet for their energies.  An abiding love of peace can hardly be enumerated amongst their more prominent characteristics; and it is a remarkable fact, which, unless there is some mysterious property in the air, can only be explained by the intermixture of races, that Ireland “within the Pale” has been peculiarly prolific of military genius.  As England has bred admirals, so the sister isle has bred soldiers.  The tenacious courage of the Anglo-Saxon, blended with the spirit of that people which above all others delights in war, has proved on both sides of the Atlantic a most powerful combination of martial qualities.  The same mixed strain which gave England Wolfe and Wellington, the Napiers and the Lawrences, has given America some of her greatest captains; and not the least famous of her Presidents is that General Jackson who won the battle of New Orleans in 1814.  So, early in the century the name became known beyond the seas; but whether the same blood ran in the veins of the Confederate general and of the soldier President is a matter of some doubt.  The former, in almost every single respect, save his warm heart, was the exact converse of the typical Irishman, the latter had a hot temper and a ready wit.  Both, however, were undeniably fond of fighting, and a letter still preserved attests that their ancestors had lived in the same parish of Londonderry.* (* This letter is in the possession of Thomas Jackson Arnold, Esquire, of Beverly, West Virginia, nephew of General “Stonewall” Jackson.)

1748.