Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 32.djvu/241

Law at the meeting of the charity school children, 1797. He founded prizes for the study of mathematics in Dublin University.

[Graduati Cantabr.; Burke's Peerage, 'Ellenborough;' Cotton's Fasti Eccles. Hib.; Dublin Univ. Cal.]  LAW, ROBERT (d. 1690?), covenanting preacher, was the son of Thomas Law, minister of Inchinnan in Renfrewshire, by Jean, daughter of Sir Robert Hamilton of Silvertonhill, and the grandson of James Law [q.v.], archbishop of Glasgow from 1615 to 1632. He studied at the university of Glasgow, graduating M.A. there in 1646. The parish of New or Easter Kilpatrick, Dumbartonshire, called him to be their minister in 1652; but as his trials were unsatisfactory the presbytery refused to induct him. On appeal to the synod, a committee of that court was appointed to try him anew, and he was admitted by them without the consent of the presbytery (, Letters, iii. 186, 294). Law inherited the lands of Balernok and others from his father in 1657, together with his library, valued at 366l. 13s. 4d. Scots. He took the side of the protesters, and, declining to conform to episcopacy at the Restoration, was deprived of his benefice by the act of parliament of 11 June 1662. On the charge of preaching at conventicles he was arrested in his bed on 9 July 1674, and after suffering imprisonment in Glasgow for eight days was removed to the Tolbooth at Edinburgh. He admitted having preached in the vacant church of Kilsyth on the invitation of the people, and was placed under caution of five thousand marks to appear before the council when required (, History, ed. Burns, ii. 270). Law accepted the indulgence of 1679, and on the petition of some heritors was permitted to return to his parish, though it would appear that another minister retained possession of the benefice (New Statistical Account of Dumbartonshire, 'Parish of New Kilpatrick'). He was married, and had at least one son, John, who became a regent in the university of Glasgow. He must have died before 1690, as on 28 Feb. of that year his son was served his heir in Balernok. He was buried in Glasgow High churchyard (, Collection of Epitaphs, Scotland, p. 293).

Law was author of 'Memorialls, or the Memorable Things that fell out within this Island of Brittain from 1638 to 1684,' a work which was edited in 1818 by Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, who, in his extensive annotations, shows an entire want of sympathy with his author. Burns, the editor of Wodrow, states that the work was published by Sharpe to discredit Wodrow and the presbyterians, and the statement is fully borne out by the recently published correspondence of Sharpe.

[Law's Memorialls; Scott's Fasti Ecclesiæ Scoticanæ, iii. 219, 363, 364; Abbreviatio Inquisitionum, Lanark, Nos. 265, 268, 386; Kirkpatrick Sharpe's Correspondence.]  LAW, THOMAS (1759–1834), of Washington, born 23 Oct. 1759, was the seventh son of Edmund Law [q.v.], bishop of Carlisle, by Mary, daughter of John Christian of Unerigg, Cumberland, and brother of Edward Law, first baron Ellenborough [q.v.]. Having obtained an appointment in the service of the East India Company, he proceeded in 1773 to India. In January 1788, when collector of Bahar, he submitted to the board of revenue at Fort William his plan for a mocurrery or fixed settlement of the landed revenues of Bengal. By a fixation of land tax and an abolition of all internal impositions, he hoped to insure security of property in Bengal, Bahar, and Benares. The system was embodied in the Cornwallis settlement in 1789. Law was appointed a member of the board of revenue at Fort William. Ill-health obliged him to resign and to return to England in 1791. During a brief stay in London he became a member of the Association for Preserving Liberty and Property, and was placed on the committee. He came, however, to disapprove of their procedure, and gave his reasons in a long letter addressed to Mr. Reeves, the chairman, which was printed in the 'Morning Chronicle' of 24 Jan. 1793, and separately. Shortly afterwards he went to the United States, out of admiration for American institutions and reverence for Washington, with whom he soon became acquainted. He married as a second wife Anne Custis, granddaughter of the Mrs. Martha Custis who married Washington as her second husband in 1759. Law and his wife were among the chief mourners at Washington's funeral at Mount Vernon on 18 Dec. 1799. He invested most of his savings in lots and houses in Washington city, and made only two or three short visits afterwards to England. In America he distinguished himself by his efforts to establish a national currency, and in 1824 he was one of a committee who presented a memorial on the subject to congress. In 1826 two addresses delivered by him to the Columbian Institute on the same subject were ordered to be printed. In 1828 he published in pamphlet form a third address to the Columbian Institute on currency, and had it widely circulated.

Owing to the failure of his investments Law became in his latter years comparatively 