I’m sorry that Captain Campbell should make objections to the payment of his Bill; he brought me 3 * * * for which I cleared him all his charge and gav * * * at that time 20 guineas over for his own trouble * * * expense this he knows and will appear by my * * * which you can see; * * * this indeed I thought suitable any expense he coud incur in Mull and that it * * * my power to give him or not the raising of an * * * rather than have any difference about it let h * * * what I had allowed me by the Regiment which was £3 per man for the first two years and two guineas for the remaining years that at a medium or the full as you please but I hope he’ll allow interest upon what Ballance may be due by him upon such an amot from the time it fell due April 46 when he went to the Regt.
I am,
My dear Sir,
Your affect, humble servant.
Dun. Campbell.
To
John Campbell of Cloichombie Esqr.
Inveraray,
North Brittain.
(edge of letter torn off—hence gaps) (J.F.C.)
The letter bears the Inverawe arms on seal and is endorsed, probably by the addressee “14th March 1758, from Inveraw concerning his familie and affairs and Lieut. Collonel Dugd. Campbell’s Bill.”
This letter will bear reading and re-reading. The first and to the writer the most important part of the letter was some financial and family problem. Unfortunately his guarded and cryptic message caused by the fear that the letter might be opened by another than the addressee will perhaps leave it always an unsolved mystery. It would be interesting to know what success attended the planting of the two barrels of timber seed. His guess that the Black Watch might be used in the Ticonderoga campaign rather than the Lewisburgh as planned, proved correct. It would be interesting to know what the malady of the previous winter was, to prevent a relapse of which it had been necessary to travel to the Southard. The letter closes with another financial problem. If he means that he was allowed ten or fifteen dollars per man for the thousand men in the Regiment, that would be a very sizable income for those days and the bill must have been a large one. The allowance, however, might have been for recruits secured or some other regimental activity. But aside from the interesting contents of this letter its real value is that it gives an opportunity to learn something of the character of its writer. One can read between the lines that Duncan of Inverawe was a reserved man of a strong but a quiet, kindly nature, he would suffer loss himself rather than make trouble for others, and after having done his best was willing to take whatever came without complaint. It quite matches the Inverawe of the ghost story who promised to protect a fugitive and then stood by his oath even though the refugee was the murderer of his cousin. The reader of this letter can not help but feel drawn towards its writer.
The Black Watch of Canada at the dedication of the Black Watch Memorial Tablet July 8, 1925, the inscription of which reads:
A. D. 1925. The Saint Andrews Society of Glens Falls, N. Y., erected this tablet to commemorate the heroic gallantry of the 42nd Regiment of Foot, better known as “The Royal Highlanders” or “THE BLACK WATCH” who on July 8, 1758, lost here in killed and wounded over six hundred of the thousand men engaged. Mortally wounded on that day was their Major, DUNCAN CAMPBELL OF INVERAWE, the hero of one of the most noted ghost stories of Scottish history and of Robert Louis Stevenson’s poem, “Ticonderoga.”
Now what was the immediate family and what was the background of our hero. One version of the ghost story was that he made his will the night before the battle, but no sensible man waits until death is at the door for this very important transaction and we find the following in Vol. XV, Abstract of Entry in Sheriff Court Books of Argyll at Inveraray.