We sent for more books, and yet more, still intent on Mr.Garrow, whose subtle cross-examination of witnesses and masterly, if sometimes startling, methods of arriving at the truth seemed more thrilling to us than any novel.
Occasionally other trials than those of the Old Bailey would be included in the package of books we received from London; among these my husband found and read with avidity:-- THE TRIAL OF JAMES STEWART in Aucharn in Duror of Appin FOR THE Murder of COLIN CAMPBELL of Glenure, Efq; Factor for His Majefty on the forfeited Estate of Ardfhiel.
My husband was always interested in this period of his country's history, and had already the intention of writing a story that should turn on the Appin murder.

The tale was to be of a boy, David Balfour, supposed to belong to my husband's own family, who should travel in Scotland as though it were a foreign country, meeting with various adventures and misadventures by the way.

From the trial of James Stewart my husband gleaned much valuable material for his novel, the most important being the character of Alan Breck.

Aside from having described him as "smallish in stature," my husband seems to have taken Alan Breck's personal appearance, even to his clothing, from the book.
A letter from James Stewart to Mr.John Macfarlane, introduced as evidence in the trial, says: "There is one Alan Stewart, a distant friend of the late Ardshiel's, who is in the French service, and came over in March last, as he said to some, in order to settle at home; to others, that he was to go soon back; and was, as I hear, the day that the murder was committed, seen not far from the place where it happened, and is not now to be seen; by which it is believed he was the actor.

He is a desperate foolish fellow; and if he is guilty, came to the country for that very purpose.