In 1713 he had become somewhat notorious from his vigorous pamphleteering attack on the fashion of drinking healths, especially "to the glorious and immortal memory."
In 1643, being upon business at a fair, and having accompanied some friends to the village public-house, he was troubled by a proposal to "drink healths," and withdrew in grief of spirit.
The Jacobites surrounding James in Rome never ceased to weave at the endless tissue of their plot, but in Scotland nothing more substantial than the drinking of loyal healths was done, between the flight of Lockhart of Carnwath, the manager of the party, and the years of 1737-1744.
