Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/273

 sures of the government. James II was resolved to secure the repeal of the test and penal laws, and of nine judges who held seats in parliament, Pitmedden was the only one who opposed the royal will. He was consequently removed from office by a royal letter dated 12 May 1686. At the revolution he declined reappointment as a judge, holding it to be inconsistent with the oath of allegiance which he had taken to James; and, retiring into private life, he died in 1719. He married Margaret, daughter of William Lauder, one of the clerks of session, by whom he had five sons and five daughters (, Baronage, p. 184).

According to Wodrow, Pitmedden possessed a vast and curious library. He wrote ‘A Treatise of Mutilation and Demembration and their Punishments’ as an appendix to the 1699 edition of Sir George Mackenzie's ‘Laws and Customs of Scotland in Matters Criminal.’ He was also the author of ‘Explication of the XXXIX Chapter of the Statutes of King William concerning Minors,’ Edinburgh, 1728, 8vo.

(d. 1744), second baronet of Pitmedden, the eldest son, was in his father's lifetime chosen to represent the county of Aberdeen in the Scots parliament from 1702 till 1706, when the queen named him one of the commissioners to treat of the union between Scotland and England. He was also made one of the commissioners to adjust the equivalent to be allowed to Scotland in recognition of the agreement by the Scots to equality of duties, and consequently to liability for a share of the English debt. He died in 1744, having married Catherine, daughter of Sir Thomas Burnet of Leys, by whom he had issue four sons and four daughters. Sir William wrote: 1. ‘The Interest of Scotland in Three Essays,’ 1700, 8vo. 2. ‘Some Thoughts on Ways and Means for making this Nation a Gainer in Foreign Commerce,’ 1705, 8vo. 3. ‘Scotland's Great Advantages by an Union with England,’ 1706, 4to (reprinted in Scott's edition of ‘Somers Tracts’). He also published a ‘Speech on the First Article of the Treaty of Union,’ 1706.

[Brunton and Haig's Senators of the College of Justice; Anderson's Scottish Nation, iii. 440; Seton's Memoir of Alexander Seton, earl of Dunfermline; Douglas's Baronage, p. 184; Mackinnon's Union of England and Scotland, p. 218; Catalogue of Advocates' Library.]

 SETON, ALEXANDER (1814–1852), lieutenant-colonel, born at Mounie in Aberdeenshire on 4 Oct. 1814, was the second but eldest surviving son of Alexander Seton of Mounie, by Janet Skene, his wife, daughter of Skene Ogilvy, D.D., minister of Old Machar, Aberdeenshire. He was descended from Sir Alexander Seton, lord Pitmedden [q. v.] Alexander was educated at home until the age of fifteen, and then studied mathematics and chemistry for some months under Ferdinando Foggi at Pisa. On 23 Nov. 1832 he was gazetted second lieutenant in the 21st or royal North British fusiliers, and next year he was sent with part of his regiment to the Australian colonies. He returned to Scotland on leave in 1838, and was promoted to a first lieutenancy on 2 March. He rejoined his regiment in India, and received a company on 14 Jan. 1842. Shortly after he exchanged into the 74th, and was stationed at Chatham. There he studied for two years in the senior department of the Royal Military College, and in November 1847 received a first-class certificate. In 1849 he proceeded to Ireland as assistant deputy quartermaster-general of the forces there. He held this post till 24 May 1850, when he was promoted to a majority. On 7 Nov. 1851 he obtained the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and about the same time was ordered to take command of the drafts destined for the Cape of Good Hope, where his regiment was engaged in the Kaffir war. He sailed in the steam troopship Birkenhead, which on the morning of 26 Feb. 1852 struck on a rock in False Bay, twenty miles south of Cape Town, and foundered in little more than ten minutes. In spite of the sudden nature of the catastrophe, Seton issued his orders with perfect calmness. The scene is said by an eyewitness to have resembled an embarkation, with the difference that there was less confusion. The boats could only contain the women and children, and out of 638 persons 445 were lost, Seton himself being killed by the fall of part of the wreck. He died unmarried, and his property descended to his younger brother, David. The heroism displayed by Seton and the rest of those on board the Birkenhead was commemorated by Sir Francis Doyle in a poem on ‘The Loss of the Birkenhead,’ in ‘The Return of the Guards and other Poems’ (1866; cf., Essay on Admirals, and , Seven Seas).

[A Short Memoir of Alexander Seton, 1854; Burke's Landed Gentry, 6th edit.; Annual Register, 1852, pp. 470–2; Notes and Queries, 8th ser. ix. 492; Cornhill Mag. February 1897.]

 SETON, CHARLES, second (d. 1673), was the son of Alexander Seton, first earl of Dunfermline [q. v.], by his third wife, Margaret Hay,