being done. Every body in the place thought it so good of you to go and the general opinion is that if Mr McLean takes the hand to assist that fool Whitmore something will be done. Robert says that you never were in a better posission [sic] in the country than you are now and that the more your enmeys try to undo your work the more they bring out their own folly. Mr Strang spent Christmas day with us. He keeps wonderfully well. I am delighted with Douglases likeness. What a big boy he is getting and how he found out his relations.