AT length the perplexed Professor pleaded that his son was very young, and in an infirm state of health, and not yet able to endure the hardships of a mountain life; but that in another year or two he hoped he would be in a fitting condition to follow out the splendid destinies to which he opened the way. This agreement being made, the cousins parted, — Rob Roy pledging his honour to carry his young relation to the hills with him on his next return to Aberdeenshire, and Dr Gregory, doubtless, praying in his secret soul that he might never see Rob’s Highland face again.*
James Gregory, who thus escaped being his kinsman’s recruit, and in all probability his henchman, was afterwards Professor of Medicine in the College, and, like most of his family, distinguished by his scientific acquirements.* He was rather of an irritable and pertinacious disposition; and his friends were wont to remark, when he showed any symptom of these foibles, “Ah! this comes of not having been educated by Rob Roy.”
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Rob was soon too busy to pay social calls. The rebellion failed at Sheriffmuir on November 13th, 1715, and Rob was excluded by name from the subsequent amnesty in 1717. He eventually turned in his weapons, only to be declared an outlaw after defaulting on a debt to James Graham, 1st Duke of Montrose — Rob had borrowed heavily to enlarge his cattle herd (unscrupulously acquired, it should be said), and his chief herdsman had made off with the money. After a spell in gaol Rob was pardoned in 1727, and died seven years later at his home in Inverlochlarig Beg, Balquhidder, Stirlingshire.
James succeeded his father in the post in 1732. His brother John Gregory (1724-1773) was a controversial writer on medical ethics and a Professor of Medicine at Edinburgh University. John’s son James (1753-1821) succeeded his father in the Chair of Medicine, and was one of the founders of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1783. Gregory’s Powders were a popular specific for stomach complaints well into the twentieth century.