After being entertained by the university professors at Glasgow, the travellers arrived in a few days' time at Auchinleck. Boswell was very nervous about the meeting between his father and Dr Johnson. Lord Auchinleck was a Whig and Presbyterian and commonly referred to Johnson as 'a Jacobite fellow.' Johnson promised to avoid awkward subjects of conversation, and all went well for a time; but politics cropped up at length and, to Boswell's distress, "Whiggism and Presbyterianism, Toryism and Episcopacy, were terribly buffeted."
"Monday, November 8.
Notwithstanding the altercation that had passed, my father, who had the dignified courtesy of an old Baron, was very civil to Dr Johnson, and politely attended him to the post-chaise, which was to convey us to Edinburgh. Thus they parted. They are now in another, and a higher, state of existence: and as they were both worthy Christian men, I trust they have met in happiness. But I must observe, in justice to my friend's political principles, and my own, that they have met in a place where there is no room for Whiggism...."
"Tuesday, November 9.
... We arrived this night at Edinburgh, after an absence of eighty-three days. For five weeks together, of the tempestuous season, there had been no account received of us. I cannot express how happy I was on finding myself again at home."
Johnson stayed at Edinburgh for a fortnight and then returned to London "without any incommodity, danger, or weariness."
The expedition to the Hebrides, he said, was the most pleasant journey he ever made.