Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 19.djvu/303

  Critical, and Political, 1792; Bishop Burnet's History of his own Time, ed. 1823; Wodrow's History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland, 1829–30; Fountainhall's Historical Observes of Memorable Occurrences in Church and State, 1840, and Historical Notices of Scottish Affairs, 1847–8 (Bannatyne Club); Sir David Hume of Crossrigs' Diary of the Proceedings in the Parliament … of Scotland, 1700–7 (Bannatyne Club); Lockhart Papers, 1817; Macky's Memoirs, 1733; Sir John Dalrymple's Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, ed. 1790; G. Roberts's Life, &c., of James, Duke of Monmouth, 1844; J. Ferguson's Robert Ferguson the Plotter, 1887; Howell's State Trials; J. Hill Burton's History of Scotland, 2nd edit. 1873, and History of the Reign of Queen Anne, 1880; R. Chambers's Domestic Annals of Scotland, 1858–61; Allardyce's Scotland and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth Century (from the manuscripts of John Ramsay of Ochtertyre), 1888; G. Buchan Hepburn's General View of the Agriculture and Rural Economy of East Lothian, 1794; Smiles's Lives of the Engineers, ‘Andrew Meikle;’ other authorities cited; family information; communications from Sir W. Fraser, deputy-keeper of the Records of Scotland. The chief authority for a life of Fletcher is the quasi-biographical rhapsody of David Steuart Erskine [q. v.], the eccentric (eleventh) earl of Buchan (1742–1829), who did not turn to much account the papers relating to Fletcher which were lent to him from the family archives, and which were afterwards, unfortunately, lost. When Lord Buchan's statements can be tested, he is too often found untrustworthy. Before the papers were lost they were also consulted by the writer of the memoir of Fletcher in the third edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, 1797. He extracted from them the interesting statement that while the Jacobite George Keith, the well-known (tenth) earl marischal, who had been with Fletcher a member of the Scotch parliament of 1703–7, was governor of Neufchatel, he asked Rousseau to write a life of Fletcher, for which he promised the needful material. There are brief reports of several of Fletcher's parliamentary speeches, sometimes given as those of a nameless ‘member,’ in Boyer's Annals of Queen Anne, 1703–7, but the most instructive indications of his parliamentary career are in Sir David Hume's Diary. Some depreciatory remarks on Fletcher's parliamentary influence and tactics in the manuscript memoirs of Sir John Clerk are quoted in Somerville's History of Great Britain during the Reign of Queen Anne, p. 204 n., and in Howell's State Trials, xi. 1050 n. The Retrospective Review (first series), vol. iv. part i., contains an article on ‘Fletcher's Political Writings.’ There are interesting references to Fletcher and his schemes, political and social, in Lord Macaulay's History of England, and still more of the kind in Dr. Hill Burton's History of Scotland. A brief notice appears in Anderson's Scottish Nation.] 

FLETCHER, ANDREW, (1692–1766), lord justice clerk, was the eldest son of Henry Fletcher of Salton, Haddingtonshire, by his wife Margaret, daughter of Sir David Carnegie of Pittarrow, bart., and nephew of Andrew Fletcher of Salton [q. v.] He was born in 1692, and having been educated for the bar was admitted an advocate on 26 Feb. 1717. In the following year he was nominated a cashier of the excise. In 1724, when only thirty-two years of age, he was appointed an ordinary lord of session in the place of Sir John Lauder of Fountainhall, and took his seat on the bench on 4 June in that year. On 22 June 1726 he became a lord justiciary on the resignation of James Hamilton of Pencaitland, and by patent dated 7 July 1727 was nominated one of the commissioners for improving the fisheries and manufactures of Scotland. On 21 June 1735 he succeeded James Erskine of Grange as lord justice clerk, and on 10 Nov. 1746 was appointed principal keeper of the signet. In 1748 he resigned the office of justice clerk, ‘but retained the charge of superintending elections, which he considered as his masterpiece’ (Scotland and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth Century, 1888, i. 89). The acuteness of his judgment, and his accurate knowledge of the laws and customs of Scotland, early recommended him to the notice and confidence of Lord Islay, afterwards Archibald, third duke of Argyll, to whose hands the chief management of Scottish affairs was then entrusted, and for a number of years Milton acted as his confidential agent in Scotland. As lord justice clerk he presided at the trial of Captain Porteous in 1736, and in May of the following year was examined at the bar of the House of Lords with regard to matters arising out of those proceedings. During the rebellion of 1745 he acted with great leniency and discretion, and after its suppression strenuously exerted himself in the promotion of the trade and agriculture of the country. He took an active part in the abolition of the exceptional heritable jurisdictions, and under his advice the greater part of the government patronage in Scotland was dispensed. Milton died at Brunstane, near Edinburgh, on 15 Dec. 1766, in the seventy-fifth year of his age, after a long illness. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Francis Kinloch of Gilmerton, bart. His mother appears to have been a woman of great energy and enterprise. Taking with her a millwright and a weaver she went to Holland, where ‘by their means she secretly obtained the art of weaving and dressing what was then, as it is now, commonly called holland (fine linen), and introduced the