Note 85 — Chapter III · THE WAR OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE

This may probably have been the Major Preston referred to in Horace Walpole’s letter to the Countess of Upper Ossory, December 27, 1775. ‘Adam Smith told us t’other night at Beauclerk’s, that Major Preston, one of two, but he is not sure which, would have been an excellent commander some months since, if he had seen any service.’

This and other quotations from Horace Walpole’s letters are taken from Mrs. Paget Toynbee’s edition, Clarendon Press, 1904.