Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 9.djvu/215

Rh peaceful avocation and study, were obliged to settle upon the conclusion that his mind must have been of such a singularly precocious character as to be able to finish its education at the early age of seventeen! He commenced his career as a politician in 1823, when he was chosen member of parliament for the county of Perth, and in 1826 he changed his condition in life, by becoming a husband and a father, at the age of fifty-four, his wife being Lady Louisa Erskine, sister of the Marquis of Anglesey, and widow of Sir James Erskine, by whom he had one daughter. In 1828 he resigned the command of the army in Ireland for the office of secretary of state for the colonies—and it was in this department especially that he astounded his cotemporaries by his political sagacity, aptitude for business, and talents as an orator and debater. "He possessed," we are told, "the power of logical arrangement in a remarkable degree; and though his speeches did not ’smell of the lamp,' they always had a beginning, middle, and conclusion; besides that, they possessed a coherence and congruity rarely found in parliamentary speeches, a force and appropriateness of diction not often surpassed, an eloquence and copiousness which a soldier could not be expected to attain, and an agreeable style of delivery which many more professed speakers might imitate with advantage."

After these explanations, it becomes the less necessary to enter into a full detail of Sir George Murray's political proceedings. His office of secretary for the colonies was discharged with ability and success; and his ascendency in the House upon general questions was universally felt and acknowledged. He supported the Roman Catholic Relief Bill, and opposed the Liberal govern- ment in 1830 and 1831. In 1832, upon the passing of the Reform Bill, and dissolution of Parliament that followed, Sir George was again candidate for Perthshire, to which he had been repeatedly elected as representative; but on this occasion the tide was against him and in favour of Lord Ormelie; but when the latter succeeded to the peerage in 1834 as Marquis of Breadalbane, Perthshire again presented a parliamentary vacancy, to which Sir George was called, in preference to Mr. Graham, the Whig candidate. This seat he again lost under Sir Robert Peel's administration in 1834-5, Mr. Fox Maule, now Lord Panmure, being the successful candidate; but Sir George held the important appointment of master-general of the Ordnance to console him under his defeat. Such were the political fluctuations of this stirring period, in which the chief war that was waged by the country ^was one of hot and hard words, with the floor of the House of Commons for its battle-field. In 1837, when there was a general election, in consequence of the accession of Queen Victoria, Sir George Murray stood for Westminster ; but his political opinions were so different from those of the many in this stronghold of Liberalism, that he was unsuccessful. Scarcely two years afterwards he was tempted to stand for Man- chester, which had become vacant by the promotion of its representative, Mr. Paulett Thompson, to the peerage; but here again Sir George was unsuccessful. Still, however, he remained a minister of the crown, as master-general of the Ordnance, to which he was reappointed in 1841. His last public effort was in a literary capacity, when he edited five volumes of the Duke of Marlborough's despatches, by which an important addition was made to the historical annals of Britain.

After so long a course of active exertion, Sir George's strong constitution gave way, so that for more than a year previous to his death, he was unable to leave his house in Beljgrave Square: there, however, he continued to attend to