House of Lords, that the act of attainder was ineffectual, because of the misnomer'; and the sentence appealed from, decreeing to him the property of his estate, was affirmed. This Gentleman came to me this morning, and told me, that, tho' ever since the date of that judgement, which was in the year 1720, he looked upon himself as at liberty to return with safety to Scotland; yet he chose rather to withdraw from those persons with whom he had been formerly confederated, and to live retired at Buloigne, in France, whilst any jealousy or suspicion might be entertained in respect to his coming over; but now, perceiving a general prospect of universal peace and tranquility, and observing the King placed upon the throne with the unanimous consent and approbation of his people, he apprehended his return to his native country would give no manner of umbrage, and therefore he had chosen the party of coming over, with an intention to pass the remaining part of his life at home in quiet and obscurity. He said, it was his design, in talking to me, that I might, if I thought fit, lay his case before his Majesty; protesting that, however secure he thought himself in the protection of the laws, yet if it was his Majesty's pleasure that he should withdraw from his dominions, he would readily give him that mark of his obedience. I thought it my duty to acquaint your Grace with this matter, to the end that if you think proper you may lay it before his Majesty. Ed, August 8th 1727. I am, with the greatest duty and respect, May it please your Grace, Your Grace's most obedient and most humble serv', Dr Sir, No. CCCLXXXIV. General Wade to the Lord Advocate. London, Novemr y 23, 1727. I WAS in hopes, by delaying to answer your kind Letter, I should have been able to have acknowledged your favour by sending you some news; but my old distemper the ague has confined me to my chamber for a fortnight past; so that I know nothing of what passes in y Grand Monde. They tell me, S Robert Walpool is very much mortified, to find, at his comeing to town, that Lord Townshend is in so very bad a way. The Physitians are not agreed in the nature of his distemper; but most of them are of opinion, that his life is in great danger, and Freind only seems to be of a contrary sentiment. The town take the liberty to name severall persons as his successor, according to the severall inclinations of the polititians. Some say Methuen, others Horace Walpool, Ld Carteret, and Ambassador Stanhope. I hope they will all be disappointed; but believe, if the vacancy happens, Methuen may have it if he pleases. Stanhope was with me two days agoe, and says, the difficultys that hindred the meeting of the congress are in a fair way of being removed, and he expects his instructions very soon for proceeding to Cambray. I hope my Governor has discharged his commission, and wrote you a budget of news. I am told, that Orders are actually sent to recall Dormer, and that the Marquis of Montendre will be sent to Lisbon in his place. I hope you continue in the good state of health I left you in, and hope to meet you at St Stephen's Chappell after Christmas. I am, D' Duncan, ever your's, GEORGE WADE. I spoke to the D. of Newcastle concerning your examining the two state prisoners now in the Castle. He told me, he would send you an order to doe it; but I fear he has either changed his mind, or forgot it. London, 19th Aprill 1728. I AM just now going out to the Duke of Argyll's, to enjoy a few days the recess that the Easter holidays give us; and that I may not miss to-morrow's post, I write this note to-day. The chief intent of it is, to complain of you, for not letting me know that you was ill; when most people here, who belong to our country, assert that they have Letters saying that you was very much out of order. You know I have courage to bear the worst news tollerably; but it pains me to think that you can hide any ailment from me, and that I should possibly be merry when you are pining. This, dear Brother, is easily mended. Letting one know when one is touched with a slight indisposition eases the mind, because it prevents suspicions & fears; whereas permitting the same news to be heard from other hands awakens apprehensions. Sir Robert Walpole has taken advantage of the recess, which is to endure till Monday se'nnight, to go down to Norfolk. The King goes down next Tuesday to Newmarket, and to visite Cambridge. We have no tidings of consequence. My Lord, No. CCCLXXXVI. I am, your's, &c. M' Hamilton to the Lord Advocate. AS the friendship you have shewed me in several instances occasions trouble, so I hope your goodness will at this time excuse it. you this It is generally believed here, that our Attorney and Soll' Generalls will in a very few days be advanced; the first, to be La Chief Justice, with a considerable encrease of the sallary of that office, and be created a Peer; the other, to be Lord Chancellor, and be also created a Peer. The Attorney to have the Peerage first; occasioned partly (as it's said) by a generous declaration of his, that he would receive no pension from the crown, but such a sallary as his successors in office should for ever after be entitled to. It is alwise usual, upon the coming in of a new Chancellor, for him to appoint about fifty or sixty gentlemen, some of them counsel and some of them sollicitors, to be commissioners in matters of bankruptcy; which is not only an advantage to each of them of near one hundred pounds p' ann. but is also an introduction and increase to their business in other respects. The favour therefore I would humbly beg of your Lordship is, to let me have a Letter from you to Mr Talbot (the Chancellor that is to be); wherein you will be so good as to recommend me to his favour, to be one of such Commissioners of bankruptcy, or in any other station he should think proper. I have no reason to doubt, but such a recommendation from your Lordship, with some others I shall be able to pro7 cure, cure, will, together with M' Talbot's knowledge of me, be sufficient to procure me success. To prevent your letter being either too early for congratulating, or too late to be of use to me, I beg you'll please to send it under cover for me to deliver at a proper juncture; for my success may in a great measure depend on that. It is generally believed, the sealls will be delivered to M' Talbot ab' the 5th of next month; so that I must beg your Lordship's letter by the return of the post. Please to believe I am, My Lord, Your most obed' and most humble Servant, IT is with the greatest pleasure I learn from M' Hamilton, who will deliver you this, that you are speedily to quit the station wherein for some years I had the happiness of your acquaintance, to fill another wherein you are to make the whole nation happy. By the change, I may lose the familiarity of conversation I enjoyed; I hope I shall not lose your friendship; and I am sure no change of fortune can make you lose in me a very sincere humble Servant. What brings you this trouble is an opinion of Mr Hamilton's, that I have some interest with you. He is desirous to be appointed by you one of the Commissioners in matters of Bankruptcy; and believes that my intercession for him may add some weight to his own merit. If you did not know him personally, I should trouble you with his character; but as he has had the honour often to have waited on you, I need say nothing on that subject; but content myself with recommending him to your favor as a friend of mine, to whom a good office done will very much oblige, My Lord, Dear Sir, Your most faithfull & most obedient humble Ser*. No. CCCLXXXVIII. Mr. William Grant to the Lord President. The last time I had the honour to see your lop at your own house, you was so good as to promise me some private advice, which I was resolved to claim as soon as your leisure shou'd permit; and the rather, that I had no conjecture touching the subject of it, but I was sure it must be well worth my hearing. Since that time, the incidents of Friday & Saturday last, in the case of Brechin, have probably given your lop more to say to me, & have given me a fresh occasion to wish for an audience, which I rather choose than any message; tho' Lo. Elches told me, he had a kind one from your lop to be deliver'd to me. I am one of the sincere admirers of your lop's virtues, proud of the kindness you are pleased to express towards me, & ambitious to deserve it; &, that I may do this, ready to to receive any advice or admonition from your lop with the utmost submission, thank. fulness, & docility. I desire opportunity both to hearken, & to get audience of my apology, where I any have; and the errors of which I am convinced, I will confess, & strive to amend. As to the Brechin affair, suffer me to anticipate, so far as to say a little before I hear the grounds of my charge. Against a 2 diligence craved by petition, & that intimated on purpose that the respondent might show cause viva voce, I was entitled to be heard. I intended to have set forth briefly the very matters in the petition from my side, signed by three of us, only to show that we all thought the matter thereof pertinent & competent to be urged:-of the merits you were to judge. On the 27th, I was not heard out; & once & again moved, or pressed, that I might be heard. So far I apprehended I was using my right, & that of the subject, to be heard out, at an occasion when to be at all heard was surely competent. This, I thought, the meanest or youngest of my brethren might crave or insist for. I do not know or remember that I did more than this, or used any improper terms. If I did, I apprehend it to be so contrary to my temper & practice, that I should hardly forgive myself for being so indecent, or undutiful towards the Court; but if there was nothing of this sort, is it not pardonable in any man at the bar to be upon occasion somewhat earnest for audience in it? My spirit, God knows, is none of the most keen or violent; nor am I conscious, that it is incident to me to be often or much heated; and whenever I am at all warmed, it is excited by nothing but the apprehension of some wrong done, or a doing. I may surely be much mistaken, & doubtless often am so ; as every counsel has a side, or a party, which naturally & almost necessarily gives some bias to his judgment.. But sometimes mistakes will fall out in the most knowing & upright judges, who are but men; and what must the bar become if some scope be not allowed, even to genius,. & at all times a just liberty, & a calm & patient audience till the thing be understood,, & providing we do not trespass by prolixity or repetition. But I fear I am now trespassing one of these ways, & writing too much for a letter, which was intended singly to beg the favour of your lop's sending me word when you will have a leisure hour to be attended by, My Lord, Your Lop's, most humble. & most obed' servant, Ed' Feby 3 1741. No. CCCLXXXIX. General Wade to the Lord President. [No Date; but seems to have been about the latter end of 1742.] My dear Lord President, ALTHOUGH I have not been so successfull in obeying your commands as I could wish, I can with sincerity assure you, that had what you desired been in my power to have obtained, I should have had more pleasure in serving or oblidging you, than any man who inhabits between London and John of Grott's. When George Ross delivered me your oblidging letter, he imparted to me the state of the agreement between his friend Gordon and Čap' Price, without entering into particulars; & I was in hopes this had been so secretly managed, as not to be known to the Master Generall; but when I waited on his Grace this morning, I found he had been apprised of the agreement agreement between them from the time he first entered upon his office; & told me, he had been often solicited both by Gordon's & Price's friends, whom he had absolutely refused that, as there was an express paragraph in his instructions against the buying or selling any offices or employments in the Ordnance, he would never give his consent. to establish a president so pernicious to the service, and directly repugnant to his Majesty's orders; and as I had nothing to alledge on the other side of the question, L was fors'd to give up the cause: however, if it happens at any time that I can be of service to him, it will be a sufficient inducement to me, when I remember he was recommended by my good friend Colloden; for whose former civilitys, & present kind remembrance, I shall ever retain the utmost sence of gratitude & respect. As to Caulfield's affair, I can hardly think of it with patience: I had obtained the Royal Consent, & the commission was drawn & at the closet door in order to be sign'd; when a malicious gent", to put a stop to it for the present, positively asserted, that the L' Goy' was not dead. This I had heard, but took no notice of it, since I knew the next post would clear up that matter; but fresh objections was raised every day, & the nation raised, to support the most malicious & ill-natured act ever was done by one gentleman to another; & was very near determining me to turn country gentleman; which when it was apprehended, to palliate matters, I had my new employment given me, without asking. The L' Governm' is not yet given to any body, & the commission remains unsign'd in the Secretary's bagg. There are some other circumstances not proper to be committed to writing. Matters have a very good aspect both in Germany & Italy. The army of Malebois is to be at Neuremberg the last of this month, O. S.: & then they have 15 days march to Prague; & nobody imagines they can hold out near so long. I wish this prosperity don't elevate us too much, & draw us into a warr with France. But let the world goe as it will, I shall ever remain, d' Sir, Your most faithfull & obedient humble serv GEORGE WADE. Dear Sir, No. CCCXC. The Lord President to General Clayton. [About the end of 1742.] WHEN I first heard of the orders given to the Highland regiment to march southwards, it gave me no sort of concern, because I supposed the intention was only to see them; but as I have lately been assured, that they are destined for forreign service, I cannot dissemble my uneasiness at a resolution that may, in my apprehension, be attended with very bad consequences; nor can I prevaill with myself not to communicate to you my thoughts on this subject, however late they may come; because, if what I am to suggest has not been already under consideration, it's possible the resolution may be departed from; and if those, who see clearer & farther into such matters than I in my situation possibly can, are not moved with the apprehensions that alarm me, and shall think proper to persist in the measure, their doing so with their eyes open will go far to remove my fears; and I am confident the liberty I am now takeing, pretty much out of my sphere, cannot be misconstrued to proceed from any oỹ cause than my unalterable regard for his Majestie & the peace of his kingdoms. What |