This sketch of the great chief cannot better be closed than in the words of one already repeatedly quoted: "It was said of him by an acute observer and a leading wit of the age, the late Honourable Henry Erskine, the Scotch Dean of Faculty, that 'Lord Seaforth's deafness was a merciful interposition to lower him to the ordinary rate of capacity in society,' insinuating that otherwise his perception and intelligence would have been oppressive. And the aptness of the remark was duly appreciated by all those who had the good fortune to be able to form an estimate from personal observation, while, as a man of the world, none was more capable of generalizing. 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. Lord Seaforth for a time became emulous of the society of the most accomplished Prince of his age. The recreation of the Court was play; the springs of this indulgence then were not of the most delicate texture; his faculties, penetrating as they were, had not the facility of detection which qualified him for cautious circumspection; he heedlessly ventured and lost. It was then to cover his delinquencies elsewhere, he exposed to sale the estate of Lochalsh; and it was then he was bitterly taught to feel, when his people, without an exception, addressed his Lordship this pithy remonstrance - 'Reside amongst us and we shall pay your debts.' A variety of feelings and facts, unconnected with a difference, might have interposed to counteract this display of devotedness besides ingratitude, but these habits, or his Lordship's reluctance, rendered this expedient so hopeless that certain of the descendants of the original proprietors of that valuable locality were combining their respective finances to buy it in, when a sudden announcement that it was sold under value, smothered their amiable endeavours. Kintail followed, with the fairest portion of Glenshiel, and the Barony of Callan Fitzgerald ceased to exist, to the mortification, though not to the unpopularity of this still patriarchal nobleman among his faithful tenantry and the old friends of his family." [Bennetsfield MS.]
He married on the 22d of April, 1782, Mary, daughter of the Rev.
Baptist Proby, D.D., Dean of Lichfield, and brother of John, first
Lord Carysfort, by whom he had issue -
I. William Frederick, who died young, at Killearnan.
II. George Leveson Boucherat, who died young at Urquhart.
III. William Frederick, who represented the County of Ross in Parliament, in 1812, and died unmarried at Warriston, near Edinburgh, in 1814.
IV. Francis John, a midshipman in the Royal Navy, who died unmarried at Brahan, in 1813.
V. Mary Frederica Elizabeth, who succeeded her father and of whom presently.
VI. Frances Catherine, who died without issue.
VII. Caroline, who was accidentally killed at Brahan, unmarried.
VIII. Charlotte Elizabeth, who died unmarried.