Episode 9 - Begin The World Again A Newe

Your Most Obedient & Humble Servant
Episode 9: "Begin The World Again A Newe"
Published on October 13, 2020

Note: This transcript was generated by Otter.ai with light human correction

Kathryn Gehred 

Hello, and welcome to Your Most Obedient and Humble Servant. This is a Women's History podcast where we showcase eighteenth and early nineteenth century women's letters that don't get as much attention as we think they should. I'm your host, Katherine Gehred. This week, I am very excited to introduce you to a special guest. This is Dr. Jim Ambuske. Jim is the current digital historian at Mount Vernon, and he hosts the podcast Conversations at the Washington Library. He was good enough to have me as a guest on his podcast, and he contacted me with this letter, so that was pretty exciting. We're going a little bit outside of my wheelhouse for this episode and talking a little bit about eighteenth century Scottish history, which I am very excited to dig into. And it was the subject of Jim's doctoral thesis. So this is somebody who knows what they're talking about. So Jim, hi.

Jim Ambuske

Hi there.

Kathryn Gehred

Tell me a little bit about your work as a digital historian at Mount Vernon.

Jim Ambuske 

Yeah, sure. Well, thanks. First of all, Kathryn for having me. I'm delighted to be on the show. And I'm very excited to talk about my work at Mount Vernon, and also about the topic of today's podcast Flora MacDonald and as to what I do at Mount Vernon, as the digital historian, so I lead the Center for Digital history, and so it really that takes two facets, one is a kind of a public history angle, you might say. So as you said, I am the host of conversations at the Washington library. It's a weekly show, where I talk to folks such as yourself, actually, you are recent guests, so I was really delighted to have and it was lovely to be on. Well, great. I'm sometimes you never know how it goes. You're just sort of like, well, we did it. Let's put it out there. And so yeah, you'll be part of our upcoming season five, which actually should debut this week, this week being the second week of September. And so we're very excited to bring that back. And, and, and folks will be able to hear your thoughts about this show and your work at the Washington or at the papers of George Washington soon. So I do that. I also produce and occasionally co host our digital live streams. And so since we've been in quarantine, and the library was close to the public, therefore we couldn't have our digital or we couldn't have our in person talks, we switched to a digital format. So I've been very fortunate to interview folks like Serena Sabin and Vincent Brown and talk about some really exciting books that have come out recently. And, then there's the other the other aspect of my work is trying to create resources or possibilities for research using digital means, and so a lot of what I do is working with, or building databases, or trying to refurbish them. And I also edit the Encyclopedia of George Washington, we have at the library, it is a digital product, we work with scholars, we work with other historians, we work with librarians, we work with students, actually at universities to write encyclopedia entries on a variety of topics that speak to George Washington and the early American world in which he lived. So it's a very public facing role. It's a very exciting role. And, and I get to do a little bit of everything. So I get pulled in several different directions. So it's, it's actually kind of nice to be here today, so I can talk about my research.

Kathryn Gehred 

Well, I was gonna ask, so you're currently working on a book yourself? Right? Yeah.

Jim Ambuske 

Well, trying to. Slowly but surely.

Kathryn Gehred 

Well, tell me about that.

Jim Ambuske 

So, I am writing a book about immigration from Scotland during the Revolutionary period, that's when or that is what I wrote my dissertation on, I'm really interested in this mass movement of Scots out of the highlands and lowlands and the islands in the period between really the the end of the Seven Years War, in 1763, in the eve of the American Revolution into 1775, actually, when the war starts, it's a way I think it's a different way to look at what we often call the Imperial Crisis, sort of the dispute between the Patriot Americans and the British over British authority that says sort of simple opposition, a way to look at it, but this is really an empire that's in crisis itself. And there are there are multiple constituent parts of this empire, of which Scotland plays a critical role. Since, since it joined with England to create Great Britain in 1707, the Scots in a lot of ways are the agents of empire they are and also they, they are the architects of the Empire, and they, they have a lot to lose. If the Empire comes apart, at least they believe so, but they also have a lot to lose at least some people think in Scotland, they think they have a lot to lose, if a lot of people are fleeing Scotland to the American colonies, right at the wrong time.

Kathryn Gehred 

Is this like the exact era that the show that like that

Jim Ambuske

Outlander.

Kathryn Gehred

Outlander. Anyway, I was like, Jim Ambuske 

Well, no, but it is this is a period of a fundamental change and actually will get to some of that, I think when we talk about the letter and a little bit, but this as much as this is an era in which British America itself is transforming, so is Scotland and there is there's a deep connections between the two, and they're influencing each other in ways that some people think is great. And some people think is a really terrible, it's all part of this process of people trying to decide what they want the Empire to be, and what they wanted to do for them both individually, but also as a collective British people.

Kathryn Gehred 

So So what sparked your interest in this? Why? Why did you decide to focus on this,

Jim Ambuske 

It was kind of by accident. So to make a long story short, my wife actually has a PhD in history, she studies gender and treason under the reign of Henry the Eighth. And in 2008, when she was going for her first big research trip, I went along for a week. And so we kind of had actually a pre-honeymoon because we were we were going to get married later that year when she got back. So we went to England and then eventually went to Scotland, because I always wanted to go to Scotland. And we went to the castle in Edinburgh. And during the tour, down in the dungeon, we learned that some American sailors who had been captured during the Revolutionary War had been imprisoned in that castle, and on the door to one of the holding cells some Americans had carved a nascent Stars and Stripes. So I thought, you know, I do want to go back to graduate school, that's pretty cool. I wonder if I can find information about that. There wasn't a whole lot of source material, which, if you don't have that, you really can't do much with it. So but over the course of actually doing so I came across a man named John Witherspoon, who many listeners might recognize is the one time President of the College of New Jersey, which becomes Princeton. He was a radical Presbyterian minister, and a lot of ways he emigrated in 1768, to assume the presidency of Princeton after a lot of cajoling from people like Benjamin Rush. And while he's in America, he begins to actively promote emigration from Scotland, encouraging his countrymen to come resettle in the colonies. And there was some pushback from that, and a lot of newspapers, you know, accusing him of being an enemy to his country for seducing Scots, to leave Scotland where they could be productive, and then go to America where they might do something else. And so that was kind of my start. I was really interested in that question. A lot of a lot of historians have looked at emigration from sort of the social aspect, looking at it from, you know, community dynamics and community networks. And I'm very much interested in that too. But I'm really interested in the political aspect. And I'm really curious about how people like Witherspoon, elites in Scotland, like Henry Dundas, who was Lord Advocate, how they are trying to understand and interpret this mass movement of people through the lens of what they see as a fracturing or potentially fracturing empire in this period. So I was off to the races off to Edinburgh several times in Glasgow as well in other places to to find, find documents.

Kathryn Gehred 

I thought you're gonna say, when you're talking about your pre-honeymoon, that you wandered off and you touched a magical rock, you went back in time?

Jim Ambuske

Exactly. I climbed Arthur's Seat, and suddenly the voices spoke to me. And but I mean, it's kind of actually, it's not far off. I mean, you climb Arthur's Seat at the right time of day when the daylight hits.

Kathryn Gehred

Yeah.

Jim Ambuske

And the sun's going down. And it's, it's, it's pretty magical. So in a way, yes. That actually that did happen too.

Kathryn Gehred 

So, this this particular letter, how does how did this come up in your research? And how does it tie into what you're working on,

Jim Ambuske 

In a lot of ways actually got pretty lucky because the the letter that we're talking about is from Flora McDonald, to a man named John MacKenzie of Delvine, it was actually already online and transcribed. And the reason why is because immigration plays a very powerful role in Scotland's national memory. There's this thing that they call the Scottish diaspora. And you know, some of them joke that, you know, it's like Scotland such a great place. Why? Why can't they keep anybody. And so over the centuries, there has been a great deal of movement from Scotland to other places, particularly in the empire in the eighteenth/nineteenth century. And it's particularly notorious in the nineteenth century, when there's this thing called the clearances where instead of people sort of making the choice themselves to leave, like many of the people in my story, they're being actively pushed and cleared off the land and replaced with sheep, which is a much more productive thing, at least for the landowners in that period. So the immigration this diaspora plays a very powerful role in Scottish national consciousness, and so at the National Library of Scotland, they have several databases but also they've they've made an effort to digitize and transcribe some of the important letters from each of these periods and Flora MacDonald's letter was one of them. So in that sense, I got lucky, I knew it was already there. But I did, actually, you know, go and look at it myself. This is in the era before, you could take pictures in the National Library of Scotland. And of course, after my last trip there, they started letting you do that. So thank you guys, I love you, but that would have been helpful when I was there. But it was significant, though, that this letter was in, in the papers of the MacKenzie of Delvine, because the man she's writing to is a lawyer. He's what's called a Writer to the Signet, which is the equivalent of an English solicitor. These are lawyers who can prepare writs that can prepare their legal documents on behalf of their clients. And many of the individuals in my project are lawyers, what I what I came to realize over the last few years as I worked on other things related to this is the centrality of lawyers in the story and how important it is that many of the major figures who are trying to, quote unquote, combat immigration and stop it from becoming an imperial problem are lawyers in Edinburgh, where they are wielding enormous power. And so in MacKenzie of Delvine, this particular iteration of him because there's, you know, Scotland so they there's like twelve of the same people the same name. He is writing to various people like the McDonald's, or like, like the Countess of Sutherlands. tutors, basically her estate trustees who are dealing with a similar problem. And so he's kind of a nexus in a lot of ways of activity where people are reporting on some of the issues that a lot of people are facing

Kathryn Gehred 

And and flora Tell me a little bit more about her. 

Jim Ambuske 

Oh, she's great. Flora MacDonald, a lot of people he's, speaking of Outlander, she does show up actually in one of the books and I think she's, she is a minor character in the in the series, she has a very fascinating figure. And she if you look at some of the paintings of her by Alan Ramsay, and there's some in the National Portrait Gallery of Scotland, and it's very clear that she's a very assertive and very competent figure. And, you know, I think that often comes through and a lot of her work and a lot in the history is about her, you know, she stares at you with these fierce eyes. And, and you know that, you know, she kind of means business which is which is terrific. She is born in the early eighteenth century and on the island called South Uist, which is in the Outer Hebrides, which is sort of the big island chains that are on the western coast of Scotland. And she's born into a family which is a member of the minor Gentry essentially, she occupies her, her family occupies kind of a middle rung of Scottish landed society. You know that you think the clan chief or the or the Laird or or in a sense, the landlord at the top. That's minor Gentry in the middle and then the tenant tree at the bottom. And so she's she and her family are kind of in between. And she actually becomes kind of a minor celebrity in the 1740s, and celebrity status that persists at least in Scotland through the eighteenth century, she when she actually helps conceal. Charles Edward Stewart, who many of your listeners will better know is Bonnie Prince Charlie, following his escape from the Battle of Culloden in 1746. You know, Prince Charlie was the son of the man who would have been King James the third have the Stewart's managed to reclaim the British throne earlier in that century. But of course, you know, we get the German speaking, George who is the Elector of Hanover, he becomes George the First of Great Britain in 1714. And that doesn't really sit well with a lot of Scots, but not an inconsiderate amount of Englishmen either. And these people become known as Jacobites, people who support James the First thing you do after Jacobus for Latin for James and so there's, there's an uprising and 1715 There's a an attempt in 1719. And then there's the the massive one which really threatens the stability of Great Britain in 1745. This is when Bonnie Prince Charlie comes from France, he rallies men to his standard, he begins winning a number of stunning victories and actually gets pretty close to London before before English forces begin to push them back. And they are eventually crushed in June of 46, at the Battle of Culloden, which is just outside Inverness, which if you ever get a chance to go it's it's a speaking of magical and it's it really is but then also, you find yourself remembering that this is a place of great slaughter and so how could to you know how could a place of such beauty coexist with what you know happened there. And it does it but it's sort of invites reflection and there and it's it's a powerful moment in which the British government finally puts an end to Jacobite threats to the Hanoverian line, Bonnie Prince Charlie manages to escape he managed to start slinking away to the outer islands and the process actually, young Flora MacDonald actually helps conceal him for a time he is he's dressed up in women's clothing actually, as an Irish maiden name Betty Burke he actually manages to get away get out of Scotland get back to France and avoid way to capture a florist not so lucky. She actually gets arrested along with her soon to be father in law, a man named McDonnell of Kingsburg. She's actually held in the Tower of London for a little bit. I know right and it's like they still did that at that point. It seems very Elizabeth and but she's put in the Tower of London for a time. She's eventually allowed to live in London on a kind of house arrest and she actually has some supporters in the in the in the former of the Prince of Wales Frederick, who is George the Third's father, who would have been king had he not died at a young age, and eventually she's pardoned as part of an amnesty act in 1747. She goes back to the Isle of Skye, which is a site of delicious whiskey if anyone is interested. She marries a man named Allan MacDonald, who is heir to the Kingsburg estate on Skye. It's one of the largest land estates on Skye. And Allan was a captain of the British army he serves in the Seven Years War. He's, you know, as I said earlier, part of this minor Gentry as well, where he is sort of sandwiched in between his clan chief and, and the tenantry. And so he used to have what's called a taxman, which is a fun term. It's essentially a means is that there's a deal between this minor Gentry figure and his clan chief that this taxman gets attacked, or to the right to rent out and control land, in exchange for managing that land on essentially on behalf of the clan chief or the or the Laird. And that's where we find her in about 1772. And she writes this letter,

Kathryn Gehred 

She's sort of famous in her own right, which is why a lot of her letters have been saved.

Jim Ambuske 

Yeah, I think, you know, certainly, yeah. If people recognize, you know, her her status, I mean, in the 1773, when James Boswell, the famous author and Samuel Johnson, that famous English author, do their famous tour of the outer islands in the Highlands, they go and visit her. And they Johnson writes of her as kind of was kind of reverentially you know, he recognizes that that she commands a kind of status and aura. He's kind of, you know, very taken by her. As I said, you know, if you look at her portraits, you know, it's clear that she'll be in charge if she wants to be. There's, there's no, there's no getting around that. That comes through clearly. And a lot of the material.

Kathryn Gehred 

I think it comes through clearly in this letter for sure even.

Jim Ambuske 

Yeah, it's, it's very good. Yeah.

Kathryn Gehred 

All right. So, I think that sets up the context. And now we'll dig right into the letter.

Jim Ambuske 

Alright. So, this is the National Library of Scotland. This is for MacDonald's to John Mackenzie of Delvine, 12 August 1772, written at Kingsburgh on the Isle of Skye.

"Dear Sir

This goes by my Son Johnie who thank God tho I am missfortunat in othere respects is happy in his haveing so good a freind as you are to take him under his protection, he seemed when here to be a good natured bidable Boy, without any kind of Vice; make of him what you please and may the Blessing of the almighty attend you alongs with him which is all the retourn I am able to make for your many and repeated freindships shown to me and this family; of which there will soon be no rememberanc in this poor miserable Island, the best of its inhabitance are making ready to follow theire freinds to america, while they have any thing to bring them; and among the rest we are to go, especially as we cannot promise ourselves but poverty and oppression, haveing last Spring and this time two years lost almost our whole Stock of Cattle and horseis, we lost within there three years, three hundred and twenty seven heads, so that we have hardly what will pay our Creditors which we are to let them have and begin the world again, a newe, in a othere Corner of it. Allen was to write you but he is not well with a pain in his Side this ten days past Sir I beg of you if you see any thing amiss in the Boys condut to let me know of it as some Children will stand in awe of ther parents more then any body Else, I am with my respects to you and Mrs McKenzie, Sir with esteem your most obedient humbe Servant

Flora McDonald

Kigsburgh, agust th12 1772."

Kathryn Gehred 

So in your own words, what is going on in this letter?

Jim Ambuske 

Well, there's a lot of delicious things going on here, and it really speaks to the broader context of what's happening in Scotland and the empire but also for them personally. You know, as I think, actually, when we talked when you were on my show, we talked about sort of the format of the letter and it sort of makes this nice sandwich, and so there's the you know, the introduction, that's about her son, Johnny, who is in Edinburgh, and he's in high school and John MacKenzie of Delvine is kind of watching over him, and making sure he's behaving himself. Johnny actually goes on to pretty successful career in British India. It turns out to be pretty helpful in his parents, to his parents later in life. And so what aspect is she's, she indicates that that that they have a relationship that puts that where she feels comfortable putting John under his tutelage, there's, you know, very makes very clear that they have had a long standing personal but also you know, probably prefer some relationship giving the John MacKenzie of Delvine as a lawyer, but really the the meat and potatoes of this is she's talking about what's happening in Skye, what's happening more broadly both in Scotland. So there's a few things that we see happening here. She's talking about all of her friends, and including possibly them going to America. This is 1772. This is at the moment when there are many people leaving from the outer islands. And they're doing so for a few reasons. One are sort of short term changes in Scottish society, but also some long term changes. To make a long story short, what is happening is that, since the 17th century, what we think of as the traditional Scottish clan is breaking down, it's it's fracturing, the clans are traditionally thought of as a reciprocal relationship between the clan chief and his people, and so thinking about it as a kind of feudal relationship. You know, you give me military service, I promise you protection, and whatnot. Well, for a variety of reasons, in part because Scotland is in a union with England and because Scots are much more engaged in the empire that begins breaking down clan chiefs actually begin to act much more like landlords than they do clan chiefs, and so they're, they're much more concerned with things like rental income, you know, shoring up their finances, a lot of them are spending a lot more time in Edinburgh, but more importantly, in London, spending beyond their means. And, so as a consequence of that, they're jacking up rent rates on their tenants, and that's, that's putting people in a very difficult position. And while that's also happening, that middle part of the gentry that we talked about, they're getting squeezed out. Because a lot of these clan chiefs turn landlords, they don't necessarily want to have to deal with the middlemen anymore, they're beginning to think that, well, maybe we can deal directly with tenants. And that's not to say that this is happening all at once. Actually, it's a process that takes a long time. But, but people like the MacDonald's are a lot under a lot of pressure because they feel that they're losing their status, and they're and they're losing their position in Scotland. Now, fortunately, for a lot of Scots in this position, who are who are laboring under economic hardship because of jacked up Britain rates or they feel just merged because their, their position in society is waning, they are making ready to follow their friends to America. And this is great for them. Because this is another British place that they can go to this is a place where they can still be subjects of the King, they can still participate in the bounty of the Empire, but they don't have to deal with landlords anymore. And they might actually become landlords and landowners in their own right. And so that's very appealing to a lot of people, both in the tenant free class, but also the people like the MacDonald's who are who are getting squeezed out.

Kathryn Gehred 

Oh, I was gonna ask when she talks about poverty and oppression, who is who does she see as oppressing her?

Jim Ambuske 

Well, in part, the oppression is coming from those clan chiefs. I mean, Alan, at this point in Florida are in a quarrel with their clan chief over these very issues, and so you begin to see that middle gentry talk about clan chiefs as oppressing them, but also the tenant tree as well. I mean, they see rent rates going up as a form of oppression, which they cannot financially afford. But the poverty also comes from the fact she's talking about the loss of all their stocker cattle, what compounds all of this in the 1770s, particularly on 1772, and 1773, it happens again, there's a series of harsh winters that really hurt Scottish agriculture and animal husbandry kills a lot of cattle, which is a primary agricultural product makes it impossible as Flora says, here to pay their creditors, if you can't get those cattle to market because they're all dead. You can't pay your creditors. And then and then you know, people who would depend on that cattle for food, you you can't eat either. So, there's and this is happening elsewhere in the highlands as well up in the Northern Highlands and the southern United States, they face the same issue just very hard winters that compromise agricultural productivity.

Kathryn Gehred 

And she mentioned shall pay what her creditors what she can and big in the world again, a new in other corner of it, but I just thought was a nice, poetic little line there.

Jim Ambuske 

I love it too. And it's just it's a theme you see recurring in a lot of these letters from Scots who are preparing to go to America or, or Scots who are already in America, and they're encouraging their friends and family to come over. You know, they say you can start over again, you have the possibility, as I said, of acquiring land on yourself, you know, people recommending which colonies will probably give you the cheapest land and where where you can get it, you know, the McDonald's end up going to North Carolina, because a lot of islanders actually end up going there. There's, there's a kit and kin network that it's an operation there too. And so people are going where their friends and family are encouraging them to. So, it's a very real theme. And one of the points I think is important to make is that, you know, one time I was telling somebody about my project, it was a public audience. And so I was saying you know, they have a lot of Scots and the 1770s were wanting to go to America and one person said because they wanted freedom and it's like, no, you can't read the American Revolution back on to this what they wanted, they wanted to be British, they very much believed that because the king had his Dominions in America, they had a decent shot of rebuilding their lives in this place. This isn't a group of people for the most part who are really looking to up end the imperial order. They're using it to their advantage to accomplish their objectives and and pursue a better lives for themselves. Two years after she writes this letter, she and Allan and their family go to Anson Kelly, North Carolina, they show up right at the wrong time, because of course, the next year the war breaks out.

Kathryn Gehred

Right.

Jim Ambuske

The American Revolution that becomes the war for independence, and the MacDonald's remain loyal to the crown. So it which was fascinating, right? Because this is this is her second rebellion against British authority in a sense.

Kathryn Gehred

Yeah.

Jim Ambuske

You know, she's a participant in the Jacobite rebellion. But, but here, interestingly enough, like many former Jacobites, they do remain loyal to the King in this war. So, the war breaks out, Allan raises a militia company of loyalists to fight in defense of the king's authority. He eventually becomes part of a British regiment, and he's captured at the Battle of Morris Creek Bridge in February 1776. And, this was a kind of a moment that takes the wind out of the sails of a lot of loyalists and British hope for loyalists in their cars at this point, because there's so many Scots in North Carolina and a lot of them rally to the King Standard, and then the patriot forces actually win a pretty important victory in this battle Horse Creek Bridge that kind of takes the wind out of their sails. Allan is captured by patriots. He's eventually imprisoned in Philadelphia. He's released a few years later, and in the meantime, the North Carolina provincial government confiscates Flora MacDonald's property and Allan's property as so many happened to so many loyalists, they eventually both make their way to Nova Scotia in the late 1770s, and Flora returns to Great Britain in 1779, and eventually makes her way back to Skye but, you know, they're for this to their lives, they still are dealing sort of with the consequences of the American Revolution and the financial fallout of the American Revolution. So, it did not work out as they had planned or it hoped.

Kathryn Gehred 

I just think it's always interesting reading loyalist perspectives of the American Revolution, and somebody who had just moved to North Carolina, from Scotland is not usually how you envision this, like in the American sort of mythos, like, hottie loyalist person, you know. So, it's interesting sort of face to that.

Jim Ambuske 

Oh, yeah. And you know, and a lot of a lot of times too, you see a distinction between sort of Scots immigrants who emigrated in the early eighteenth century. And they, they tended to ya know not all of them, but a lot of them that sided with the Patriot cause, in part because they become sort of acclimated to American politics and sensibilities. But, then a lot of the folks in my story who were leaving between the in the Seven Years War and the outbreak of the American Revolution, they a lot of them stayed loyal, despite the fact that a lot of these folks were former Jacobites, but they saw, as I mean, my colleague, Matthew Dziennik, who's at the Naval Academy has written a really wonderful book on the highland soldier in North America during this period, he argues pretty persuasively, that the Scots, you know, we're grateful that they had the opportunity, as I was saying earlier, to go to another place where they could, you know, enjoy the fruits of their labors. But, you know, the the American War for Independence cause a bit of a problem in that plan.

Kathryn Gehred 

And I also, I like Andrew O'Shaughnessy, his take on the sort of English perspective of the American Revolution, in which I was very convinced by the fact that so a lot of English people really didn't think that it was as serious of a revolution as it was because of the people who had their corresponding with for the most part, are these loyalists, and so from somebody like Flora's perspective, or from somebody like some of these more recent immigrants, who are riding back home to their families, they're like, 'Oh, this isn't this is gonna blow over, we can make this work.' And they don't necessarily see the level of support that revolution actually had in different areas.

Jim Ambuske 

No, it's It's a terrific example, or a terrific point, and I see that too. And a lot of the letters that I work with, there's a couple of brothers named Donald and William McLeod, who were in Virginia and Maryland and the writing back home to their family just outside of Glasgow and the other their merchants in the tobacco trade and whatnot, which the Scots essentially control in this period. And they're like, you know, if folks are thinking about coming, probably not a good time, but we're pretty sure that kings troops are going to put down this rebellion and then ya know the dispute will be over and it'll be hopefully fine. But there's, as you rightly say, there's this sense that we're going to take care of this pretty quickly and it's not going to be a problem. It's a problem, but we you know, we'll deal with it.

Kathryn Gehred 

We'll deal with that. There's a few upstarts but you Is there anything that sort of struck you as really evocative or sort of relatable when you're reading the letter?

Jim Ambuske 

Yeah, I think so, you know, I think anybody can relate to trying to figure out a way out of a desperate situation, and, you know, I think too, I do often think about immigration in our own time, you know, especially in recent years, that's been a significant part of our political landscape thinking about legal or illegal immigration and, you know, building walls to keep people out. And when a lot of people are in the same position, you know, the MacDonald's have, as I said, they're minor gentry. So they've got, they've got more money that they can probably tap into, and they've got familial and professional connections that they can leverage. But then, you know, a lot of folks who are coming in the 70s, 60s and 1770s are kind of at that lower class who are looking for a fresh start. You know, a lot of the people try and come into the United States the same way, but what's interesting here is that a lot of the part of my story that I tell is about how some of the landed elite in the political elite in Scotland are trying to keep people in, you know, it's it's much different problem, political problem and legal problem when you can move about freely of the King's dominion's when you are, in a sense, one political entity, but you know, now, in our modern era, and when we're talking about immigration, and when we're talking about people moving from one sovereign country to another, it's a whole different ballgame. But in a lot of ways, the people who were experiencing and are going through the same things.

Kathryn Gehred 

Yeah, I personally like the sort of book and segments about her son also, as well, just I like how she describes him as, without any kind of vice. I've read a lot of letters from others, that would not be so kind of their sons.

Jim Ambuske 

Oh, yeah. And I love the part to where she's like, listen, we all know that children are going to behave in front of their parents, but the real test is when they're outside of their parents eyes. And so let me know if he's screwing up I, you know, I think about without, with my own kids, and like, you know, because we always ask, you know, grandparents or when they go for a playdate, like, did they behave? Well, you know, generally, you know, they're not going to try anything funny with mom and dad of the room, but in she's doing the same thing. So, I find that totally relatable as a parent. And I, you know, I as much as I like, you know, the middle part of that letter where it's speaking directly to my project like it that that part really appeals to me.

Kathryn Gehred 

Yes. And just just let me know if he's....

Jim Ambuske 

If he's being a jerk, I want to know about it.

Kathryn Gehred 

Well, thank you so much, Jim, for joining me.

Jim Ambuske 

Well, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. This is a lot of fun. 

Kathryn Gehred 

It's really fun to hear somebody who knows so much about a subject be able to talk about it, and he really introduced me to some pretty cool stuff.

Jim Ambuske 

Well, I'm, I'm more than happy to and, you know, it's been, it's been fun to talk about the ghosts of projects past. It's not a nice way to put it up because I'm writing a book about it. But, you know,

Kathryn Gehred 

We talk a lot about Washington. So it kind of, it's fun to get step away for a little bit of something else. 

Jim Ambuske 

Exactly. It's fun to take off the tri corner hat, put on the kilt, drink some whiskey, and play some bagpipes.

Kathryn Gehred 

Oh, thank you so much. And for my listeners, as always, make sure you check for show notes. I will definitely share that portrait of Flora if I'm able to find that anywhere. And we can put some citations up. and as ever I am as, Flora wrote so beautifully, your most obedient and humble servant. Thank you very much.