IT is believed that in 1665, James Stevenson in Nether Carsewell,parish of Neilston, county of Renfrew, and presumably a tenant farmer,married one Jean Keir; and in 1675, without doubt, there was born to thesetwo a son Robert, possibly a maltster in Glasgow. In 1710, Robertmarried, for a second time, Elizabeth Cumming, and there was born tothem, in 1720, another Robert, certainly a maltster in Glasgow. In 1742,Robert the second married Margaret Fulton (Margret, she called herself),by whom he had ten children, among whom were Hugh, born February1749, and Alan, born June 1752.With these two brothers my story begins. Their deaths weresimultaneous; their lives unusually brief and full. Tradition whispered mein childhood they were the owners of an islet near St. Kitts; and it iscertain they had risen to be at the head of considerable interests in theWest Indies, which Hugh managed abroad and Alan at home, at an agewhen others are still curveting a clerk's stool. My kinsman, Mr.Stevenson of Stirling, has heard his father mention that there had been`something romantic' about Alan's marriage: and, alas! he has forgottenwhat. It was early at least. His wife was Jean, daughter of David Lillie,a builder in Glasgow, and several times `Deacon of the Wrights': the dateof the marriage has not reached me; but on 8th June 1772, when Robert,the only child of the union, was born, the husband and father had scarcepassed, or had not yet attained, his twentieth year. Here was a youthmaking haste to give hostages to fortune. But this early scene ofprosperity in love and business was on the point of closing.There hung in the house of this young family, and successively inthose of my grandfather and father, an oil painting of a ship of many tonsburthen. Doubtless the brothers had an interest in the vessel; I was toldshe had belonged to them outright; and the picture was preserved throughyears of hardship, and remains to this day in the possession of the family,the only memorial of my great- grandsire Alan. It was on this ship that