Duncan Kennedy’s collection is described by John Francis Campbell as ‘the most interesting collection that I know’ (Adv.MS.72.3.10, page vi). Kennedy collected between the ages of 12 and 20 while travelling through Argyll and Lochaber. The poems are written down in a standardised fashion, i.e. in quatrains throughout and always preceded by an ‘argument’ (introduction) in English. Page references in each of the records are to the beginning of the ‘argument’.

Adv.MS.72.3.9 was written for Kennedy by another, possibly his father. In 1778 (Adv.MS.73.2.13, folio 69) he lent it to the Reverend Dr John Smith of Campbeltown, who then used it for his English translations of Ossianic verse in ‘Galic Antiquities’ and the originals of these in ‘Sean Dana (1787). Kennedy, a litigious man, threatened to sue him for a share of the profits (of which there were in fact none), pointing out that the manuscript included passages of his own composition. By now schoolmaster at Kilmelfort, he had revisited many of his informants and rewritten many of the poems in what is now Adv.MS.72.3.10, with the object of publishing them himself. In 1785 he ‘had an intention of emigrating to North America, and carry these Poems along with him for his own Private amusement’. (Adv.MS.73.2.13, folio 162). He therefore had his ownership of Adv.MS.72.3.10 attested at pages 90 and 166 by the Reverend John Macfarlane of Kilbrandon and Kilchattan. However, he moved only to Glasgow, where in the following year he published the first edition of his hymns, “Co ‘-chruinneachadh-Laoidhe agus chantaicibh Spioradail”. He there entered commercial life as a merchant, becoming an accountant and lawyer’s agent. He received various commissions in regular and volunteer regiments, and achieved the position of adjutant. (Adv.MS.73.2.13, folio 161; Adv.MS.73.2.15, folio 144). He produced a revised edition of his hymns, ‘An Laoidheadair Gaelic’, in 1836, by which time he had retired to live in Lochgilphead. He was then preparing for publication on annotated collection of Gaelic proverbs, but this never appeared.

His Ossianic collection came to the notice of the ‘Ossian Committee’ in 1798, when Archibald Fletcher (compiler of Adv.MS.72.2.17) wrote that ‘He has shown me Two large Manuscripts and several small ones, along with a heap of loose and detached Sheets in an ill state, and ill wrote, as drawn out on Hills, Shiellings, Shores, Peatmosses and Barns etc., which he never was at the pains to transcribe nor publish, on account (he says) he could not pretend to become an Author for want of Good Education, nor make them compare literally with the translations of Mr McPherson nor Dr. Smith’s: altho’ he has many Poems and Passages that will (in part) compare with both. I requested him for the lend of them, but his answer to me was, that he was determined not to lend them to any Individual”. (Adv.MS.73.2.13, folio 84).

Kennedy’s respectable world was shattered by the appearance in 1805 of the Ossian Report. In the body of the work (pages 107-129) was an account of his collection, and in the Appendix were some longish extracts, as noted below. But also printed (Appendix, page 88) was a letter from the Reverend Dr John Smith, dated 21 June 1802, revealing (without mentioning his name) the circumstances of the threat to sue him. Kennedy’s identity was soon disclosed by reviewers, and in conversation with Sir John Sinclair and subsequent correspondence with Henry Mackenzie he admitted ‘that many Verses, parts of Poems and a few short ones have been composed by myself’. (Adv.MS.73.2.11, folio 1; Adv.MS.73.2.15, folio 143). He reluctantly agreed to go to Edinburgh to point out these additions in the manuscripts.

On 28 January 1806 he appeared before a sub-committee. He made over Adv.MSS.72.3.9-72.3.10 to the Society for good and submitted a tabulated summary of his interpolations, an explanatory statement and a supporting letter to Mackenzie. All three documents are affixed to page 200 of Sederunt Book 4, part 1. In them he explains that the additions were chiefly taken from the ‘Tale, or prose account, necessary to the understanding of the Poem, and this Tale was always recited before the Poem… the Tales… were in general compleat…’ He points out that this prose ‘in general was figurative and recited by the Highlanders with nearly the same enthusiasm as the poetical part’. He classifies the stanzas in the collection as 986 ‘originals’ and 349 ‘imitations’. The ‘imitations’ were marked off with inverted commas in red ink. This rough-and-ready procedure led William Forbes Skene in 1862 to dismiss the confession as vanity, on noticing lines of such stanzas in collections as genuine as the Book of the Dean of Lismore, (page liii). In 1871, however, John Francis Campbell noted: ‘I believe that his claim was well founded and that it is easy to recognise the interpolations’ (Adv.MS.72.3.10, page vi).