one son, and expected to lose the other, when the author of this painful tribute to his memory parted from him with tears in his eyes, little hoping to see him again in a perishable state.
"As he perceives without affectation that his tears now steal from him, and begin to moisten the paper on which he writes, he reluctantly leaves a subject which he could not soon have exhausted; and when he also shall resign his life to the great Giver of it, he desires no other decoration of his humble gravestone than this honourable truth:—
With none to flatter, none to recommend,
Dunning approved and marked him as a friend."
After the death of Dunning, his widow, Lady Ashburton, resided at Spitchwick, and on her decease it was occupied by Miss Baring.
If Dunning hoped to found a family and transmit his manors and lands and houses and wealth to a long line of descendants, his hope was frustrated. His son, Richard Barré, second Baron Ashburton, married in 1805 Anne Selby, daughter of William Cunninghame, of Lainshaw, co. Ayr, and he died in 1823 without issue, and bequeathed his estates to his wife for life, then to his wife's nephews for life, and then to his wife's nieces, Margaret, Elizabeth, Anna Maria Isabella Macleod, in succession for life, the survivor having the estates in fee simple. The nephew, James Edward, Baron Cranstoun, who died in 1869, and Charles his brother, who succeeded to the title and died soon after, had but a life interest in the estates. These now passed to Margaret, Baroness de Virte, daughter of Robert Macleod, of Cadboll, co. Cromarty, who had married Isabella Cunninghame, sister of Lady Ashburton. Baroness de Virte died in 1904. Her youngest sister, Anna Maria
