the casket to Bordeaux but near Toulouse a group of French soldiers opened the coffin and disturbed the body. He closed the casket and returned home to deposit her remains in a mausoleum, which he built in the churchyard of Methven. Graham would himself be laid in the same tomb fifty years later. Mary Graham is commemorated in a four-part Scottish fiddle tune composed in her honor, entitled "The Honourable Mrs. Graham of Balgowan." The loss of his wife preyed deeply upon Graham's mind, and first he set out for twelve months of foreign travel. However, still overwhelmed by great sorrow, and now in his forty-third year, he tried to drown the thought of his loss by adopting a military career. Before the incident with Mary's coffin near Toulouse, Graham had sympathised with the French and their revolutionary ideals but from that point on he detested them and saw his military career as a way to take revenge. Sir Walter Scott, in his The Vision of Don Roderick, refers to the romantic motive which led the grieving husband of Mrs. Graham to devote himself to a military career: Career Defence of Toulon In early 1793 he wrote to Charles O'Hara, seeking passage to Gibraltar, of which the latter was lieutenant-governor and sailed aboard the Resistance with Lord St Helens, ambassador to Spain. After France declared war on Great Britain and the Dutch Republic on 1February 1793, the British fleet under Admiral Samuel Hood assembled at Gibraltar. On his arrival there, Graham volunteered and went with the navy to Toulon, where he acted as aide-de-camp to Lord Mulgrave and fought in the defence of the town. According to Sir Gilbert Elliot, Graham "left the highest character possible both for understanding and courage". At Toulon, Graham distinguished himself by his courage and energy: for instance, on one occasion, when a private soldier was killed, Graham snatched up his musket and took his place at the head of the attacking column. In a general order referring to the repulse of an attack by the French on an important fort, Mulgrave expressed "his grateful sense of the friendly and important assistance which he had received in many difficult moments from Mr. Graham, and to add his tribute of praise to the general voice of the British and Piedmontese officers of his column, who saw with so much pleasure and applause the gallant example which