Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 5.djvu/79

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of July, 1702, (Marchmont Papers') will be found a full vindication of his conduct in this matter, and a statement of that held by his friends, and the commissioner, the duke of Queensberry, differing essentially from Lockhart's. He was on this dismissed from his office of chancellor, the place being conferred on the earl of Seafield.

Having thus sacrificed his office to his principles, he pursued the latter in the ensuing parliaments with the consistency and fervour which might have been expected from such a man. The protestant succession in the house of Hanover, and the union of the two divisions of the island under one legislature, were the two objects on which he now centered his attention and energies. It is hardly necessary to remind the reader that the general temper of the Scottish people was perversely opposed to both of these measures, and that it was only the minority of such consistent whigs as lord Marchmont, who, reposing more upon great abstract principles than narrow views of immediate advantage, saw them in their proper light, and gave them the weight of their influence. An attempt of the earl to introduce an act for the Hanover succession, at a time when his fellow statesmen were chiefly bent on asserting by the act of Security the abstract independence of their country, was so ill received that there was even some talk of consigning this noble patriot to the state-prison in Edinburgh castle. Afterwards, however, when the government of queen Anne was obliged to adopt the measure of a union, his lordship had the pleasure of contributing his aid and most willingly Mas it rendered towards what had been the grand object of his political life. The selection of the Scottish commissioners, upon which the whole matter hinged, was effected in obedience to a sagacious advice tendered by lord Marchmont namely, that they should be " the most considerable men, provided they were whigs, and therefore friends to the Revolution; but such alone, with disregard to their feelings respecting an incorporating union, as hostile to it or not." The reasonings he employed to enforce this principle of selection are to be found in the Marchmont Papers ; and we learn from Lockhart to how great an extent they were acted on. Speaking of the commissioners, this gentleman says, that "all were of the court or whig interest except himself," an ardent Jacobite, an exception only made in the hope of gaining him through his uncle, the whig lord Wharton. It is universally allowed that this principle, though the author of it has not heretofore been very distinctly known, achieved the union.

We are now to advert to a circumstance of a painful nature respecting the earl of Marchmont, but which we have no doubt has taken its rise either from error or from calumny. As a leader of the independent party in the Scots parliament called the Squadrone Volante it is alleged that his lordship was one of those individuals who were brought over to the government views by bribery; and Lockhart actually places the sum of 1104l. 15s. 7d. against his name, as his share of the twenty thousand pounds said to have been disbursed by the English exchequer, for the purpose of conciliating the chief opponents of the measure. Sir George H. Rose has made an accurate and laborious investigation into the foundation of these allegations, from which it would not only appear that lord Marchmont has been calumniated, but that a very incorrect notion has hitherto prevailed respecting the application of the money above referred to. We must confess that it has always appeared to us a most improbable story, that, even in the impoverished state of Scotland at that time, noblemen, some of whom were known to entertain liberal and enlightened views, and had previously maintained a pure character, were seduced by such trifling sums as those placed against them in the list given by Lockhart. Sir George Rose has shown, to our entire satisfaction, that the sum given on this occasion to the earl of Marchmont