Between 1731 and 1735 he attended Marischal College, Aberdeen, gaining a MA.
In January 1748 he published an account of the Jacobite rising of 1745, The History of the Rebellion, 1745 and 1746.
This brought him into controversy with Tobias Smollett.
He also attacked William Guthrie's History of Scotland in a Dissertation on the Royal Line of Scotland (1771).
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