To our Right Trusty Well-beloved Ewen Cameron of Lochiel, and to the rest of the Gentlemen and Friends of the Name of Cameron.

CHARLES R.

Right Trusty and Well-beloved Cousin, and Trusty and Well-loved, wee greet you well.  The condition and calamity of this Kingdom cannot but be too well known unto you.  Ane insolent enemy having gott so great ane advantage against the forces that were raised for the defence of it, and having overrun the parts upon the South sides of the Forth and the Clyde, and having of late also gotten into their hands the Castle of Edinburgh, by the treachery of those that commanded in it; which city they before desolated, ruined the church, and maliciously and insolently burnt our Palace there.  These injureys, and the maney other grevious pressures lying upon our good subjects in the South, East, and Western Shyres, cry alowd for relief, assistance, and revenge.  Therefore wee have, with the Estates of our Parliament, been consulting and adviseing for remedys; and have emited the act of levey which comes to your Shyrs, and which wee  thought fitt to accompany with our own letter: Conjureing and desireing you, by all the bands of your duty to God, love to your country, and respect to our person, that you will speedily and effectwally rise and putt yourselves in arms for the relief of your distressed brethren, and to revenge their bloodshed by the sword in diverse corners of the countrey; besides the multitudes starved to death in prissons, and famished and dying every day for want of bread in each town and village.  These things, wee know well, exceedingly affect you; therefore wee will not lay any thing more before you but our own resolutions, which is, either, by the blessing and assistance of God, to remedy and recover these evils and losses, revenge what these insolent enemys have cruewlly and wickedly done, vindicate this hitherto unconquered Nation from the ignominy and reproach it lyes under; or to lay down our life in the undertaking, and not to survive the ruine of our people, for whose protection and defence we would give, if we had them, as many lives as wee have subjects.  And wee are assured and perswaded you will not be wanting in your duties, but will cheerfully come to offer your lives for the defence of your Religion, your Countrey, your King, your own honours, your wives, your children, your liberty, and will be worthy your forefathers and predecessors, and like them in their virtue, and brave defending their countrey.  We will, therefore, in assurance you will strive who shall be soonest in sight of the enemy, march with the present forces wee have towards Stirling (where the nixt assault will certainly be), and either make good that place till you come to us, or die upon the place; and if the handful we carrey with us shall be overborn by greater numbers throwgh your slackness in comeing to our assistance, you will have the shame that yow have not already come upon the call of a redoubled defeat given to your naturall and convenanted brethren, and that yow have not now used extraordinary dilligence, being so earnestly prest by your king on his part.  But wee confidently expect from you all imaginable expressions and effects of duty, dilligence, loyalty, and courage.  And so wee bid yow heartily fairwell.

Given att our Court att Perth, the 24th of December, 1650, and in the second year of our reign.