Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 19.djvu/418

 two or three hours was no extraordinary thing for him.'

Forbes himself published nothing, but in 1658 a posthumous work, 'Considerationes Modestae et Pacificae Controversiarum de Justificatione, Purgatorio, Invocatione Sanctorum Christo Mediatore, et Eucharistia,' was published from his manuscripts by T. G. (Thomas Sydeserf, bishop of Galloway). Other editions appeared at Helmstadt (1704) and Frankfort-on-the-Main (1707); while a third, with an English translation by Dr. William Forbes, Burntisland (Oxford, 1856), forms part of the 'Anglo-Catholic Library'. Though lacking the author's final touches, and in parts a mere fragment, it is yet a work of great depth and learning; it deals with what may be called the imperial questions of the Christian church, and from its combined seriousness and moderation it has powerfully affected many who have had at heart, like Forbes, reunion of the church on a catholic scale. Besides the 'Considerations,' Forbes wrote 'Animadversions on the works of Bellarmine,' which was used by his friend and colleague at Marischal College, Dr. Baron (1593?-1639) [q. v.], but the manuscripts seem to have perished in the 'troubles' which so soon began. A summary of his sermon before Charles I is given in the folio edition (1702-3) of the works of Dr. John Forbes.

[Vita Auctoris, prefixed to Considerationes Modestae; Records of Town Council and Kirk Session of Aberdeen; Gordon's Scots Affairs (and other publications of the Spalding Club), Calderwood, Burnet, Wodrow MSS. (Glasgow Univ. Libr.); Bayle's Dictionary; Irving's Lives of Scottish Writers; Grub's Eccles. Hist. &c.] 

FORBES, WILLIAM (1739–1806), of Pitsligo, banker and author, was born in Edinburgh 5 April 1739. His father, although heir to a Nova Scotia baronetcy, was an advocate, being constrained to follow a profession, as the family estate, Monymusk, Aberdeenshire, had been sold by his grandfather. Forbes's maternal grandmother was a sister of Lord Pitsligo, whose activities in 1745 led to the forfeiture of his estate, also in Aberdeenshire. His mother, Christian Forbes, was a member of a collateral branch of the Monymusk family, and was left a widow when William, the elder of two surviving boys from a family of five, was only four years old. She settled in Aberdeen in 1745 for the education of her children, who were brought up as Scottish episcopalians. The younger boy died in 1749, and in October 1753 Lady Forbes, with her surviving son, settled in Edinburgh. A staunch friend of the family, Sir Francis Farquharson of Haughton, had arranged with Messrs. Coutts, an eminent firm of bankers in Edinburgh, to admit Forbes as an apprentice, and he entered their service at Whitsunday 1754. The apprenticeship lasted four years, then he was clerk in the counting-house for two years more, at the end of which he got a small share in the business as a partner. Meanwhile his mother and himself lived strictly within their limited means, though their society was still in keeping with their birth.

In 1761 John Coutts, the principal partner of the firm, died, and as his brothers, who had settled in London, severed their connection with the business, a new partnership, considerably to the advantage of Forbes, was proposed and established in 1763. After seven years (in 1770) he married Elizabeth Hay, eldest daughter of Sir James Hay of Smithfield, bart., and then separated from his mother, who died in 1789. In the ‘Narrative of the last Sickness and Death of Dame Christian Forbes,’ 1875, Forbes pays a tribute to his mother's worth with pathetic earnestness.

From 1763 to 1773 the active members of the firm, still under the original name, were Sir Robert Herries, Sir William Forbes, and James Hunter, afterwards Sir James Hunter Blair. The name of the Messrs. Coutts was retained till 1773, when a new contract was made, and the firm was designated Forbes, Hunter, & Co., Sir William Herries having settled in London to conduct in St. James's Street the business afterwards notable as Herries & Co. Forbes now being at the head of his firm resolved to confine the transactions of the house to banking alone. The house speedily became one of the most trusted in Scotland, and proved its claim to public credit by the excellence of the stand it made during the financial crises and panics of 1772, 1788, and 1793. In 1783 the firm, after difficult preliminaries, began to issue notes, and the success of the experiment was immediate, decided, and continuous. Forbes had now come to be regarded as an authority on finance, and in this same year he took a leading part in preparing the revised Bankruptcy Act. Pitt used to consult him, and adopted in 1790 several of his suggestions regarding augmentation of the stamps on bills of exchange. In 1799 Pitt offered him an Irish peerage, which he declined. The company in 1838 became the Union Bank Company.

Forbes early aspired to win back some of the alienated possessions of his ancestors. Lord Pitsligo's only son, the Hon. John Forbes, had bought Pitsligo. William Forbes bought about seventy acres of the upper barony (the lower barony having passed by