Help him to a master that may come to him once a day and give him a lesson on the Instituts; and for the language I beseich you assist him in it.  If their be no accommodation for him at your house, I pray you place him wheir he may be weil used and in good company.  Let him not want what he stands in neid of for monyes or other necessaries, all which I sall make good to you thankfully upon advice from you.  Thus recommending him to your care as my oune.  Kissing your hand wt madam Ogilvyes, your daughters, and al your families, I rest your real friend and servant,

  FRANCIS KINLOCH.’

At my arrival heir I fand in pension wt him the Mr. of Ogilvy[58] wt his servant, a very civil lad[59] James Hunter, young Thirlestan[60] wt his man Patrick Portues:  besides them also their ware English, French, and Germans.  The city (called Aurelia ather a bonitate auroe, or from Aurelian the emperor who keipt a station heir) I fand to be as big as Edinborough laying wt it also the next greatest citty of Scotland.  I discovered likewise the city to abound wt such a wast number of lame folk, both men and women, but especially women, even many of them of good quality, that I verily beleive their are more lame women their at Orleans then is in all Scotland or much of France.  Enquiring what the reason of this might be, the general woice was that it proceeded from the nature of the Aurelian wine, which they alledge to have such influence on the sperm of man as to produce a creature imperfect in their legs.  Others sayd it was the purity of the air about Orleans whence the city has the name of Aurelia.  But what influence the air can have in this point is hardly explicable.  Monsieur Ogilvy more rationally informed me that he took it to be a race and generation of peaple who transmitted it haereditarly to their posterity, for which I meit after[6l] a wery strong presumption:  I saw a mother lame, not only the daughters lame, but in the very same faschion that the mother; and this I saw confirmed seweral tymes.

    [58] Apparently David, afterwards third Earl of Airlie.  His
        grandfather was already dead, and he is afterwards called Lord
        Ogilvy in the Journal.

    [59] Probably the servant, though the punctuation is as in the text.

    [60] Thirlestan, probably Thurston in East Lothian, belonging to the
        family of Hunter.

    [61] Meit after, i.e. met afterwards.

Just the morrow after my arrival was keipt very solemly by the whole toune in remembrance and commemoration of the valiant maid of Orleans, who, when the English had reduced al France excepting only Orleans to their obedience, and ware so fair for Orleans that they gained to the mids of the bridge over Loyer, most couragiously animated the citizens and beat them shamelesslie back:  for which when the English got hir in their power they brunt hir at Roan quick.