Note 111
From Chapter 25 of the Decline & Fall

The Irish descent of the Scots has been revived, in the last moments of its decay, and strenuously supported, by the Rev. Mr. Whitaker (Hist. of Manchester, vol. i. p. 430, 431; and Genuine History of the Britons asserted, etc., p. 154-293). Yet he acknowledges,

1. That the Scots of Ammianus Marcellinus (A.D. 340) were already settled in Caledonia, and that the Roman authors do not afford any hints of their emigration from another country.
2. That all the accounts of such emigrations, which have been asserted or received, by Irish bards, Scotch historians, or English antiquaries (Buchanan, Camden, Usher, Stillingfleet, etc.), are totally fabulous.
3. That three of the Irish tribes, which are mentioned by Ptolemy (A.D. 150), were of Caledonian extraction.
4. That a younger branch of Caledonian princes, of the house of Fingal, acquired and possessed the monarchy of Ireland.

After these concessions, the remaining difference between Mr. Whitaker and his adversaries is minute and obscure. The genuine history, which he produces, of a Fergus, the cousin of Ossian, who was transplanted (A.D. 324) from Ireland to Caledonia, is built on a conjectural supplement to the Erse poetry, and the feeble evidence of Richard of Cirencester, a monk of the fourteenth century. The lively spirit of the learned and ingenious antiquarian has tempted him to forget the nature of a question which he so vehemently debates, and so absolutely decides.