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his profession, consumed his time in convivial meetings and the company of his friends and acquaintances. Readers of Guy Mannering' will remember that Scott justifies and illustrates the picture which he there draws of the high jinks of Mr. Pleydell and his friends at the Cleriheugh Tavern, by a note in which he relates a striking anecdote of the drinking habits of this same Robert Dundas. Yet, withal, when in the vigour of life and manhood, he must have been a man of commanding intellect and no ordinary powers of application.

Like his father, he remained a steady adherent of the Whig party; but it is not necessary to follow his career with any minuteness. The political life of Scotland between 1715 and 1745 was of the dullest and least inviting imaginable. It would interest no mortal to have the details of correspondence with relation to the election of Scottish representative peers, the adjustment of the Malt Tax and the Sinking Fund, and measures for the improvement of the Excise. As little would it interest us to detail Dundas's quarrels with either those same representative peers, or, to pass from great things to small, the town councillors of Edinburgh. Even the long correspondence that precedes Dundas's appointment to the Lord Presidentship is dreary in the extreme, and serves only to show the hungry scramble for office which then, as now, agitated from time to time the legal coteries of Parliament Close.

It is not till we approach the rebellion of 1745 that affairs in Scotland assume a higher degree of historic interest; but at the same time the centre of attraction in the Dundas annals is shifted from the father, Lord Arniston, to his son Robert, who, at the early age of twenty-nine, was already filling the important post of Solicitor-General for Scotland. He was appointed to the office in 1742, when he had been but five years at the bar, thus carrying on the system of nepotism which abundantly characterises the history of this family during the last century. When at school and college this Robert Dundas is said by a writer in the 'Scots Magazine' to have been a very good scholar, owing to his quick apprehension and natural genius; but after'wards he was never known to read through a book, except perhaps (and that but seldom) to look at parts out of 'curiosity, if he happened to know the author.' We hope this account is a little overdrawn; he must at least have studied his law books, for he was a good lawyer and an able judge, though, we may add, a very indifferent letter writer,

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as, indeed, all the Dundases appear to have been. This literary defect is noticeable in a family that produced so many men of remarkable forensic and administrative ability.

A trying period for Scottish officialdom was now approaching. The Marquis of Tweeddale was at this time Secretary of State for Scotland-an important appointment, for the patronage of all offices had been conferred upon the holder of it. The Under-Secretary of State was Mr. (afterwards Sir Andrew) Mitchell. The Lord Advocate was Robert Craigie of Glendoick, and he, having been more than thirty years at the bar, might have been for that reason regarded as a man of experience; but his young subordinate, SolicitorGeneral Dundas, seems not to have treated him with a high degree of respect. It is amusing to find Dundas, in his official correspondence with the Government, writing of his senior thus: I hope a little more practice, not in the law 'but among men, will make him more cautious.' It should also be added that Dundas, while thus disparaging the Lord Advocate, was at the same time not on good terms with the Lord Justice Clerk, Lord Milton (Milton belonging to the Argyll faction), a condition of things which will perhaps help us to account for the deplorable state of official mismanagement under which Scotland suffered in 1744 and 1745. For some time there had been constantly recurring rumours of a rising among the Jacobites, and there could not be any doubt that emissaries from the court of St. Germains were busy all over the country. Yet the Scottish Department, with the blindness of fatuity, failed entirely to read these signs aright, and regarded all reports of a rising on the part of the Highland clans with the most ill-judged incredulity. We shall shortly see some of the fatal consequences of their culpable indifference on the one hand, and of their mutual jealousies and mistrust on the other.

The Government in London appear to have become alive to the necessities of the hour, when in February 1744 they began to prepare for the defence of Scotland, the unfortunate Sir John Cope being sent down as Commander-in-Chief. This appointment had been made, writes Under-Secretary Mitchell to Solicitor-General Dundas, without much con'sultation.' and contrary to the wishes of the Duke of Argyll. Mitchell goes on to say:

This gentleman (Sir John) has been what the world calls lucky in his profession. He has rose fast to considerable rank and preferment, without much service, and his success has been attended with the usual concomitants, envy and slander. But he certainly has both parts and

address, to acquire the friendship of the great, and to make it useful to himself. . . . You will find him easy, well bred, and affable, and I fancy it will be an easy matter to gain his confidence. Some early civilities will make him yours, he being an absolute stranger in the country.' (P. 120.)

The officials in London continued to press upon the Scottish Department the necessity of being vigilant. Lord Tweeddale was in the belief that some desperate enterprise had been resolved upon by the Jacobites. He wrote to Dundas saying that he was glad to hear there has yet appeared no disturbance in Scotland; yet, as I wrote to you in my last, I even suspect that dead calm.' 'We know for certain,' he adds, that there are many French 'officers, Irish, and others, come over here, and are lurking ' about this town. I believe, upon inquiry, the same will be found so in Scotland. I have myself intelligence of two, 'whom I know to be there;' and he gives their names and where they are likely to be found. The Secretary is also, every now and again, under the necessity of imploring the Scotch officials to be at peace with each other, their petulant jealousies being constantly breaking out. He urges upon the Solicitor-General the necessity of preserving, in appear'ance at least,' a good correspondence with the Justice Clerk. Thus the year dragged on till we come to the winter and spring of 1745, when renewed rumours of an invasion began to spread. Tweeddale was still urgent as before. There were, he writes to Dundas, no doubt some ridiculous stories' going about; but such stories and persons are not to be altogether neglected.' One cannot help feeling, in reading the correspondence, that the Government in London were much more alive to the duties of the moment than the

officials in Edinburgh. And the crisis was rapidly approaching.

Prince Charles, says Mr. Omond, landed among the 'Western Islands on August 2, or a few days before.' But this date is much too late. He touched the Western Islands on July 17 or 18, and dropped anchor in Lochnanuagh on the 19th. From that day he was in constant communication with the chiefs of the West Highlands and Isles, and on the 25th he set foot on Scottish ground at Borodale. Three weeks later, on August 19, he unfurled his standard at Moidart, and the civil war was begun. was begun. And what amount of knowledge had the officials in Edinburgh of all this? Nothing whatever. One would think they would have had scouts placed at every likely point on the western coast, to

bring them information of any suspicious person or event. In London, by August 17, the report of Charles's landing had made so great a noise as to occasion a falling of the 'stocks.' So writes the Under-Secretary to Dundas on the date mentioned. Three days later, and within a month of the battle of Prestonpans, Mitchell again writes, saying that he still doubts the identity of the person said to have landed on the west coast, and that the scheme appeared to him so 'absurd and hitherto so ill supported,' that it seemed more like a drunken frolic than a serious design.' On August 19 the news did reach Edinburgh that the Young Pretender was beyond doubt in the Highlands; and Sir John Cope at once started for Stirling. The Government in London seems to have been maddened with the tardy and dilatory officials in Scotland. I don't know,' exclaims Lord Deskford in a letter to Dundas, 'I don't know what the devil possessed you all not to send Sir John north as soon as you at first ' intended.'

By September the rumours which reached Edinburgh showed that the rebels were rapidly gathering force, and were on their march southwards. It was also learned that Sir John Cope, instead of meeting them and giving battle, had marched first to Inverness, then to Aberdeen, and was now sailing back to the Forth! Blundering Whig officialdom in Parliament Close now began to see the result of its inactivity and incredulity, and was fast becoming as helpless through its alarm as it had formerly been in its self-satisfied idleness. The Jacobites were rejoicing in secret over the hopeless muddle into which the authorities had brought themselves. The citizens of Edinburgh were clamouring for leave to take up arms, but were not allowed to do so by the provost and magistrates until the Lord 'Advocate and Solicitor-General had given a formal opinion that it was lawful'! The Under-Secretary on September 12 writes from London to the Solicitor-General, complaining of this most foolish delay. I wish,' he says, 'you had been 'a little more explicit about the resolution of the burgesses ' of Edinburgh, and how they came to have a dispute about a proposition in itself so clear.' He would be ashamed,' he goes on to say, to mention the stories which are indus'triously and maliciously spread' in London as to the dispute in question. He states that the Lord Justice Clerkwith whom, it will be remembered, Dundas was not on good 'terms'—had written, complaining that no legal authority had yet been given for the citizens arming themselves. The

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Under-Secretary goes on to express his opinion that things had been invented and published on purpose to justify the 'lethargy into which the Whig clans seem to have fallen;' and he winds up with this pithy statement: It is impossible to persuade an Englishman that self-defence can be high 'treason' (p. 129). Still two other letters follow, equally angry and equally animated, concerning this same delay in 'arming-the second being dated, Whitehall, September 21, the very day on which Sir John Cope's army had been ignominiously beaten at Prestonpans, and Sir John himself off, a fugitive to Dunbar, carrying the first news of his defeat everywhere with him. That was how the authorities in Edinburgh managed to keep the Government in London posted up. It is a lamentable story.

There is no doubt that the members of the Government in Scotland had serious difficulties to contend with; but this fact should have stimulated them to more vigilance. Their weakness may be traced in part to the want of agreement and cordial co-operation among themselves, and in part to the circumstance that the Lord Provost and some of the magistrates were masked Jacobites. Edinburgh had been entered by the Highlanders on the morning of September 17, and was got with much ease.' The chief representatives of the Government then quitted the Scottish capital, if they had not already done so. Mr. Omond says:

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'Dundas had left Edinburgh some time before, along with the Lord Advocate, and had, since the occupation of the city by the Pretender, been at Haddington, Dunbar, and Berwick. He accompanied Sir John Cope on his march from Dunbar to Prestonpans, and was by his side during the movements of the day before the battle. Late on the evening of the 20th he and Craigie [the Lord Advocate] left the royal army preparing to bivouac for the night, with the rebels about a mile to the west, and rode off to spend the night at Huntington, the country seat of Mr. Thomas Hay, the Keeper of the Signet. Early next morning they heard the sound of guns, and soon learned that the force under Sir John Cope had been totally routed by the Highlanders. They then made the best of their way southwards to Berwick, stopping for a short time at Haddington, where Dundas assisted the Lord Advocate to write a hurried note to Lord Tweeddale with the news of Cope's defeat.' (P. 131.)

Tweeddale received the intelligence in Whitehall at midnight of the 24th. Half an hour afterwards, the UnderSecretary (Mitchell) wrote to Dundas. 'It was,' he says, with unexpressible concern that I read this morning the accounts of the battle near Preston. God only knows what may be the consequences of it to our country.' In further

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