Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 3.djvu/162

190 lay member of that venerable body, Mr Dundas gave a foietaste of that manly eloquence and address, which in after life rendered him the able coadjutor of Mr Pitt in the management of the house of commons during a period of unexampled difficulty.

The first official appointment which Mr Dundas held, was that of one of the assessors to the magistrates of the city of Edinburgh. He was afterwards depute-advocate, that is, one of the three or four barristers who, by delegation from the lord advocate, prepare indictments, attend criminal trials, both in Edinburgh and on the circuits of the high court of justiciary; and in general, discharge, under the lord advocate, his function of public prosecutor. The office of solicitor general for Scotland, was the next step in Mr Dundas' promotion; and with regard to this part of his career it is sufficient to observe, that his sound judgment, sagacity, and prompt discernment as a lawyer, obtained for his pleadings the respect and attention of the ablest judges on the bench, (no small praise, considering the manner in which the bench of the court of session was at that time occupied,) and held out to him the certainty of the highest honours of the profession in Scotland, had he limited his ambition to that object.

To the high estimation in which Mr Dundas was held, at a period comparatively early in life, lord Kames bears flattering testimony in the dedication to his "Elucidations of the common and statute law of Scotland." That dedication is dated in 1777, and the following are the terms in which this distinguished lawyer and philosopher addresses Mr Dundas: "Though law has been my chief employment in a long and laborious life, I can, however, address my young friend without even a blush, requesting his patronage to this little work. As in some instances it pretends to dissent from established practice, I know few men, yourfg or old, who have your candour to make truth welcome against their own prepossessions; still fewer who have your talents to make it triumph over the prepossession of others." Mr Boswell, the biographer of Johnson, furnishes another contemporary account of Mr Dundas as a Scottish barrister, which is equally laudatory. In reference to the celebrated case of Knight, the negro, who claimed his freedom as a consequence of setting his foot on the soil of Scotland, Mr Boswell, writing also under the date of 1777, mentions that Mr Dundas had volunteered his aid to Knight. The leading lawyers were retained on both sides, and exerted themselves to the uttermost, and the following is Mr Boswell's account of the impression made on him by Mr Dundas' eloquence: "Mr Dundas' Scottish accent, which has been so often in vain obtruded as an objection to his powerful abilities in parliament, was no disadvantage to him in his own country. And I do declare, that upon this memorable question, he impressed me, and I believe all his audience, with such feelings as were produced by some of the most eminent orations of antiquity. This testimony I liberally give to the excellence of an old friend, with whom it has been my lot to differ very widely upon many political topics; yet I persuade myself, without malice, a great majority of the lords of session decided for the negro" Boswell's Johnson.

We have now reached a stage of Mr Dundas' life, at which he may be almost said to have taken leave of the Scottish bar, and of law as a profession, and to have entered on a scene where objects of still higher ambition presented themselves. In 1774, he stood candidate for the county of Edinburgh in the general election of that year, and was returned in opposition to the ministerial influence. But he soon joined the party then in power, and became a strenuous supporter of lord North's administration. He frequently spoke in the house of commons, and notwithstanding the disadvantage? of an ungraceful manner, and