BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 407
On the ceremony being finished, three cheers were given, when the procession
marched back in reverse order. The number of spectators, it is stated, could
not be less than 30,000 ; and, notwithstanding such a vast concourse, the utmost
order was observed.
In the evening a sumptuous dinner was given in the Assembly Rooms, by
the Lord Provost and Magistrates, at which upwards of three hundred noblemen
and gentlemen were present.
Almost immediately after this auspicious event, Lord Napier was presented
with the freedom of the city by the Magistrates ; and had the degree of Doctor
of Laws conferred upon him, along with the Right Hon. Henry Dundas, then
Treasurer of the Navy, by the University.
In 1793, when the Hopetoun Fencibles were embodied, Lord Napier was
appointed Lieut.-Colonel of the corps, and continued to hold the commission until
the regiment was disbanded in 1799. At the general election in 1796 he was
chosen one of the Representative Peers of Scotland ; and, on subsequent occasions,
was again repeatedly returned. His lordship. was appointed Lord-Lieutenant
of the county of Selkirk in 1797; and, in 1802, was nominated Lord High
Commissioner to the General Assembly. This office he continued annually
to hold for nearly twenty years. On the loth of November 1803, Lord
Napier was elected a member of the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian
Knowledge; and, on the 3d of January 1805, he was unanimously chosen
President of that Society, in the room of the Earl of Leven and Melville, whose
time for being in office had expired. He was also a member of the
Board of Trustees for the Encouragement of Scottish Manufactures and the
Fisheries.
Lord Napier was not distinguished in Parliament as an orator or statesman’;
but there are yet many who remember the uncompromising integrity and
dignity with which he supported the representative character of his order. The
following correspondence, between the Secretary of State for the Home
Department and his lordship, immediately prior to the general election in 1806,
affords the most honourable testimony to the independence of his conduct :-
U PRIVATE. ‘‘ Whitehall, 18th October 1806.
MY DEAR $oxD-Though it is not improbable that the reports of a dissolution of Parliament
may have reached your lordship before this letter, I thought it might not be uninteresting to you to
learn the truth of them from a more authentic source than the newspapers ; and I therefore trouble
you with this, to inform you that Parliament will certainly be dissolved in the course of a few days.
I hope I am not taking too great a liberty if, at the same time, I express my earnest wishes that your
lordship may be found among the supporters of the friends of Government, on the occasion of the
election of Representative Peers for Scotland.-I have the honour to be, with great trnth and regard,
your lordship’s very obedient humble servant, SPENCER.
“Edinburgh, 2lst October 1806.
“LORD NAPIER, etc etc. etc.”
“MY DEm LORD-I have this day had the honour of receiving your lordship’s letter of the 18th
instant ; and am very sensible of your attention, and the trouble you have had the goodness to take
in giving me information of the certainty of an immediate dissolution of Parliament. Having on
several occasions experienced the good will of the Peers of Scotland, I feel it my duty again to offer