Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 3.djvu/29

Rh so much distinction. But, on returning in 1701, from his continental travels, he accepted a commission as lieutenant-colonel of the Scottish regiment of foot guards. In the succeeding year, he served as aid-de-camp to the duke of Marlborough at the taking of Venlo and Liege, and the attack on Peer. In the course of 170G, he successively obtained the command of the Cameronian regiment and the Scots Greys. His father dying suddenly, January 8, 1707, he succeeded to the family titles, and was next month chosen one of the Scottish representative peers in the first British parliament. In the subsequent victories of Marlborough—Oudenarde, Malplaquet, and Ramilies—the earl of Stair held high command, and gained great distinction. But the accession of the tory ministry, in 1711, while it stopped the glorious career of Marlborough, also put a check upon his services. He found it necessary to sell his command of the Scots Greys, and retire from the army. As one who had thus suffered in the behalf of the protestant succession, the earl was entitled to some consideration, when that was secured by the accession of George I. He was, on that occasion, appointed to be a lord of the bed-chamber, and a privy councillor, and constituted commander-in-chief of the forces in Scotland, in the absence of the duke of Argyle. Next year he was sent as ambassador to France, with the difficult task of conciliating the government of the duke of Orleans to the new dynasty of Britain. It is allowed on all hands that his lordship conducted this business with unexampled address and dignity, his diplomatic skill being only equalled by the external splendours of his cortege. Unfortunately, his usefulness was destroyed in 1719, by the Mississippi enthusiasm. His lordship could not stoop to flatter his countryman, Mr Law, then comptroller-general of the French finances, but whom he probably recollected as a somewhat disreputable adventurer on the streets of Edinburgh. The British government, finding that the hostility of this powerful person injured their interests, found it necessary—if a mean action can ever be necessary—to recal the earl of Stair, notwithstanding their high sense of his meritorious services. He returned to his native country in 1720, and for the next twenty-two years lived in retirement, at his beautiful seat of Newliston, near Edinburgh, where he is said to have planted several groups of trees in a manner designed to represent the arrangement of the British troops at one of Marlborough's victories. He also turned his mind to agriculture, a science then just beginning to be a little understood in Scotland, and it is a well attested fact, that he was the first in this country to plant turnips and cabbages in the open fields. On the dissolution of the Walpole administration in 1742, his lordship was called by the king from his retirement, appointed field-marshal, and sent as ambassador and plenipotentiary to Holland. He was almost at the same time nominated to the government of Minorca. In the same year, he was sent to take the supreme command of the army in Flanders, which he held till the king himself arrived to put himself at the head of the troops. His lordship served under the king at the battle of Dettingen, June 16, 1743; but, to use the indignant language of lord Westmoreland, in alluding to the case in parliament, he was reduced to the condition of a statue with a truncheon in its hand, in consequence of the preference shown by his majesty for the Hanoverian officers. Finding himself at once in a highly responsible situation, and yet disabled to act as a free agent, he resigned his command. France, taking advantage of the distraction of the British councils respecting the partiality of his majesty for Hanoverian councils, next year threatened an invasion ; and the earl of Stair came spontaneously forward, and, on mere grounds of patriotism, offered to serve in any station. He was now appointed commander-in-chief of the forces in Great Britain. In the succeeding year, his brother-in-law, Sir James Campbell, being killed at the battle of