Boswell and Dr Johnson met Lt-Col Pennington, as he then was, at Fort George on August 28, 1773, while on their tour of Scotland. They dined with the then commander of the Fort, Sir Eyre Coote, and several of his officers, including Pennington and Major Brewse of the Royal Engineers. 

Boswell and Dr Johnson met Coote at Fort George near Inverness while on their tour of Scotland in late august 1773. In the afternoon, they had dinner with Sir Eyre and several officers. Boswell described Eyre as having "something between the Duke of Queensberry and my late worthy friend Captain Cuninghame in his manner," and as being "a most gentlemanlike man". Boswell wrote that Eyre "had come from the East Indies by land, through the deserts of Arabia," and that he told the assembled company about the Arabs' ability to live for days without victuals, praising their virtue.

As Boswell and Johnson left the fort in the early evening, Sir Eyre went downstairs and saw them into their chaise. According to Boswell, "[t]here could not be greater attention paid to any visitors".

While on the tour of Scotland in 1773, Boswell and Dr Johnson met Major Brewse, as he then was, at Fort George near Inverness. In his journal, Boswell described him as "a man who seemed to be very intelligent in his profession, and spoke with uncommon deliberation and distinctness.". 

During their conversation Brewse said "he believed [Brewse] was originally the same Norman name with Bruce. That he had dined at a house in London where were three Bruces, one of the Irish line, one of the Scottish, and himself of the English line. He said he was shown it in the Herald Office spelled fourteen different ways. I told him the different spellings of my name. Mr Johnson observed that there had been great disputes about the spelling of Shakespeare’s name."1

• 1

While on their tour of Scotland, Boswell and Dr Johnson received a letter of introduction to George Fern, then Master of Stores at Fort George, from Valentine White at Cawdor on August 27. On the next day, the travelling companions continued from Cawdor to Fort George, where they were immediately introduced to Fern and a Major Brewse. According to Boswell, Fern "was a brisk civil man. He had been in the Fort for twenty years, but had been at different intervals in London and other places."

After a tour of the Fort and a meeting with Sir Eyre Coote, commander of the 37th Regiment, Boswell and Johnson reposed themselves for a bit in Fern's quarters. According to Boswell, "[Fern] had everything in neat order as in England. He had a tolerable collection of books. I looked at Pennant. He says little of this fort but that the barracks, etc., form several streets. This is aggrandizing. Fern observed if he had said they form a square with a row of buildings before it, he would have given a juster description." At three, they joined Sir Eyre for supper together with Fern and several officers, discussing various subjects including the stage and the virtues of Arabs. They "had a dinner of two complete courses, variety of wines, and the regimental band of music playing in the square before the windows after it," and according to his journal, Boswell "enjoyed this day much.".

They stayed at the Fort until early evening before going on to Inverness.

Boswell and Dr Johnson met White at the Manse of Cawdor between Nairn and Inverness on August 27, 1773. White invited them to his home, but they had not time to accept. He provided them with an introduction to Mr Fern, master of stores at Fort George, one of the next stops on their journey through Scotland.

White later informed his employer, John Campbell, the laird of Calder, who himself lived in Stackpole, Wales, about his meeting with the two famous visitors. The laird wrote back, that "The weakness of Mr Boswell, in regard to the foolish and absurd stories which abound in the Highlands, and indeed in all very remote and lonely places, amazes me. Mr Johnson is a learned and ingenious man, and his Dictionary a useful book ; but there are some things in it which, I fancy, he now wishes were not there. For instance the articles on ' oats ' and ' excise/ which are both silly and impertinent ; and I observed two or three things in Mr Boswell's books which I thought wrong ; but no man is or can be without failings."1

• 1 Cf. George Bain's History of Nairnshire (1893), p. 371

Boswell and Dr Johnson met Alexander Grant at the Manse of Cawdor on August 27, 1773, as they stayed there for the night as guests of Kenneth Macaulay, the local minister. Boswell described him as "an intelligent and well-bred minister". According to Boswell, Grant told them "a story of an apparition, which he had from the Rev. Mr Grant at Nigg, who saw it.". Later, Dr Johnson went with Grant to see their host's library, which Johnson thought "rather a lady’s library, with some Latin books in it by chance." In the evening, Grant said prayer, and he and Boswell slept in the same room for the night, while Dr Johnson had a room for himself.1

Grant joined them again at Mr Keith's in Inverness on the 29th, where he had tea with them, and he and Keith supped with them at their inn in the evening.

• 1Some passages taken from

Boswell and Johnson visited Kenneth Macaulay at his home in Cawdor on Friday, August 27, 1773, while on their tour of Scotland. The conversation naturally turned to Macaulay's History of St Kilda, of which Johnson said that it was "a very pretty piece of topography." According to Boswell, in his Tour of the Hebrides, "from his conversation Mr Johnson was persuaded that [Macaulay] had not written the book which goes under his name. I myself always suspected so. Mr Johnson said there was a combination in it of which Macaulay was not capable, and he said to me privately, “Crassus homo est.”" 

Even so, Macaulay gave them a "good hospitable dinner", and in the afternoon they went to the nearby Old Castle of Cawdor. In the evening, at the Manse, they were joined by Mr Grant, minister at Daviot and Dunlichity, and Mr White, a Welshman who had been factor on the estate of Cawdor. Macaulay also advised Boswell as to their travelling route further through the Highlands and the Hebrides, and Boswell later recounted their visit and conversations with Macaulay in some detail in his Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides.

Boswell's comments on Macaulay in Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, or rather, his recounting of Johnson's opinion of him, were to have lasting consequences, as, almost 50 years after its publication, in 1831, they probably influenced Macaulay's grand nephew, Thomas Babington Macaulay's review of the, then, new edition of The Life of Johnson edited by John Wilson Croker. Lord Macaulay wrote in his review that "[o]f the talents which ordinarily raise men to eminence as writers, Boswell had absolutely none", "Many of the greatest men that ever lived have written biography. Boswell was one of the smallest men that ever lived, and he has beaten them all. He was, if we are to give any credit to his own account or to the united testimony of all who knew him, a man of the meanest and feeblest intellect." and "impertinent, shallow and pedantic, a bigot and a sot, bloated with family pride, and eternally blustering about the dignity of a born gentleman." These remarks by T. B. Macaulay are generally considered to be greatly responsible for Boswell's poor reputation for the ensuing century, until the discovery of his personal papers in the 1920s.