Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 2.djvu/209

Rh opposition to the schism bill, against which, along with a number of the greatest names England has ever produced, he entered his protest upon the journals of the house. Subsequently, in a debate on the bill for vesting the forfeited estates in Britain and Ireland in trustees for the public behoof, we find him speaking and voting against it with the Jacobite lords North and Grey, Trevor, and Harcourt, but he was now out of all his employments and pensions, and the Jacobite Lockhart was every day expecting to hear that he had declared for James VIII. which there is every probability he would have done, had that imbecile prince been able to profit by the wisdom of his advisers. In the beginning of the year 1718, when the Pretender became again a tool in the hands of Cardinal Alberoni for disturbing the tranquillity of the British government, Argyle was restored to favour, appointed steward of the household, and created duke of Greenwich, when he again lent his support to the ministry in bringing forward the famous peerage bill; another insane attempt to subvert the balance of the constitution. By this bill the peerage was to be fixed so as that the number of English peers should never be increased above six, more than their number at that time, which, on the failure of heirs male, were to be filled up by new creations. Instead of the sixteen elective Scottish peers, twenty-five were to be made hereditary on the part of that kingdom, to be also kept up by naming' other Scottish peers on the failure of heirs male. This bill was introduced by the duke of Somerset, seconded by Argyle, and being also recommended by his majesty, could not fail of passing the lords, but met with such violent opposition in the commons that it was found expedient to lay it aside for the time. When again brought forward it was rejected by a great majority. After this his grace seems for a long period to have enjoyed his pensions, and to have lived for the most part on peaceable terms with his colleagues. Only, in the year 1721, we find him, in order to supplant the Squadrons and secure to himself and his brother the sole and entire patronage of Scotland, again in treaty with Lockhart of Carnwath, and the tories, in consequence of which, Lockhart assures the king [James] that if there is to be a new parliament, the tories will have the half of the sixteen peers, and Argyle's influence for all the tory commons they shall be able to bring forward as candidates. "I also inserted," he adds, "that matters should be made easy to those who are prosecuted for the king's [James] sake, and that Argyle should oppose the peerage bill, both of which are agreed to." The ministry, however, contrived to balance the Squadrons and his grace pretty equally against one another, and so secured the fidelity of both, till 1725, when the Squadrons were finally thrown out, and the whole power of Scotland fell into the hands of Argyle and his brother Hay; they engaging to carry through the malt tax, as the other had earned through the forfeiture of the rebels' estates. From this, till the affair of captain Porteous, in 1737, we hear little of his grace in public. On that occasion we find him again in opposition to the ministry; defending the city of Edinburgh, and charging 1 the mob upon a set of upstart fanatical preachers, by which he doubtless meant the seceders. The effect, however, was only the display of his own ignorance, and the infliction of a deeper wound upon the Scottish church, by the imposition of reading what was called Porteous' Paper upon all her ministers. Edinburgh, however, contrary to the intentions of the court, was left in the possession of her charter, her gates and her guards; but the lord provost was declared incapable of ever again holding a civil office, and a mulct of two thousand pounds sterling was imposed upon the city funds for the captain's widow. In the succeeding years, when the nation was heated into frenzy against Spain, his grace made several appearances on the popular side; and, in 1740, after an anti-ministerial speech on the state of the nation, he was again deprived of all his employments. On the resignation