174 A JACOBITE EXILE

we like to have a peace-loving king, it matters little to us
whom the diet may set up over us. If we were once to
put the tips of our fingers into Polish affairs we might give
up all thought of trade. They are for ever intriguing and
plotting, except when they are fighting; and it would be
weary work to keep touch with it all, much less to take
part in it. It is our business to buy and to sell, and so
that both parties come to us it matters little; one’s money
is as good as the other. If I had one set of creditors
deeper in my books than another, I might wish their party
to gain the day, for it would, maybe, set them up in funds,
and I might get my money; but as it is, it matters little,
There is not a customer I have but is in my debt; money
is always scarce with them; for they are reckless and ex-
travagant, keeping a horde of idle loons about them, spend-
ing as much money on their own attire and that of their
wives as would keep a whole Scotch clan in victuals. But
if they cannot pay in money, they can pay in corn or in
cattle, in wine or in hides.

“I do not know which they are fondest of—plotting, or
fighting, or feasting; and yet, reckless as they are, they
are people to like. I£ they do sell their votes for money,
it is not a Scotchman that should throw it in their teeth;
for there is scarce a Scotch noble since the days of Bruce
who has not been ready to sell himself for English gold.
Our own Highlanders are as fond of fighting as the Poles,
and their chiefs are as profuse in hospitality and as reck-
less and spendthrift. But the Poles have their virtues, they
love their country and are ready to die for her. ‘They are
courteous and even chivalrous, they are hospitable to an
excess, they are good husbands and kindly masters, they
are recklessly brave; and if they are unduly fond of finery,
I who supply so many of them should be the last to find
fault with them on that score. ‘They are proud and look
down upon us traders, but that does not hurt us; and if