That other Lewis spread about that the man brought him thanks from Lord Perth and Lord Melfort (two lords with the Pretender), for his great services, etc.  The Lords will examine that t’other Lewis to-morrow in council; and I believe you will hear of it in the prints, for I will make Abel Roper give a relation of it.  Pray tell me if it be necessary to write a little plainer; for I looked over a bit of my last letter, and could hardly read it.  I’ll mend my hand, if oo please:  but you are more used to it nor I, as Mr. Raymond says.  Nite MD.

27.  I dined to-day with Lord Treasurer:  this makes four days together; and he has invited me again to-morrow, but I absolutely refused him.  I was this evening at a christening with him of Lord Dupplin’s[6] daughter.  He went away at ten; but they kept me and some others till past twelve; so you may be sure ’tis late, as they say.  We have now stronger suspicions that the Duke d’Aumont’s house was set on fire by malice.  I was to-day to see Lord Keeper, who has quite lost his voice with a cold.  There Dr. Radcliffe told me that it was the Ambassador’s confectioner set the house on fire by boiling sugar, and going down and letting it boil over.  Yet others still think differently; so I know not what to judge.  Nite my own deelest MD, rove Pdfr.

28.  I was to-day at Court, where the Spanish Ambassador talked to me as if he did not suspect any design in burning d’Aumont’s house:  but Abbe Gaultier, Secretary for France here, said quite otherwise; and that d’Aumont had a letter the very same day to let him know his house should be burnt, and they tell several other circumstances too tedious to write.  One is, that a fellow mending the tiles just when the fire broke out, saw a pot with wildfire[7] in the room.  I dined with Lord Orkney.  Neither Lord Abercorn nor Selkirk will now speak with me.  I have disobliged both sides.  Nite dear MD.

29.  Our Society met to-day, fourteen of us, and at a tavern.  We now resolve to meet but once a fortnight, and have a Committee every other week of six or seven, to consult about doing some good.  I proposed another message to Lord Treasurer by three principal members, to give a hundred guineas to a certain person, and they are to urge it as well as they can.  We also raised sixty guineas upon our own Society; but I made them do it by sessors,[8] and I was one of them, and we fitted our tax to the several estates.  The Duke of Ormond pays ten guineas, and I the third part of a guinea; at that rate, they may tax as often as they please.  Well, but I must answer oor rettle, ung oomens:  not yet; ’tis rate now, and I can’t tind it.  Nite deelest MD.