BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 433
‘(Sir S. Rmilly showed that the Lord Advocate was perfectly in order.
“The Lord Advocate continued that he had never delayed bringing prisoners to trial.
Within a week after the prisoner had been committed, he attended to the settling of the indictment.
He thought it fair that everything
should be put on the record, to give the prisoner a fair notice ; and this was done. There were
long debates on this addition to the indictment ; and in consequence of this, though not of
anything that fell from the Court, a new indictment was framed ; and so far from any complaint
being made on the score of delay, the prisoiier asked fifteen days more. The Court then desired
to consider whether the felony were merged in the treason (for the English law of treason was
not well understood there), and subsequently suggested an alteration in the form of the indictment
; and no objection was made to the relevancy of this latter altered indictment. He trusted
the statement he had now made would corroborate what he had said on a former occasion.”
It was at first drawn up to a charge of felony.
On the death of Lord Reston, in 1819, Mr. Maconochie was promoted to
He was at the same time
Lord Meadowbank married the eldest daughter of Lord President Blair, by
His eldest, a member of the Scottish bar,
the bench, and took his seat as Lord Meadowbank.
constituted a Lord of Justiciary.
whom he had several children.
married, in 1836, Miss Wiggan, an American lady.
No. CCCXVIII.
THE HON. FRANCIS WILLIAM GRANT OF GRANT,
COLONEL OF THE INVERNESS-SHIRE XILITIA.
FRANCWISI LLIAMG RANTb, orn 6th March 1778, was the second son of the
late Sir James Grant of Grant, and brother and heir-apparent to the fifth Earl
of Seafield.’
regiment of militia were stationed at Edinburgh.
counties of Elgin and Nairn in Parliament from 1807 till 1840.
At the time the Print was executed, 1804, the Colonel and-hi s
Colonel Grant was Lord-Lieutenant of Inverness-shire, and represented the
He married,
And the world which has laugh’d at the fool of eighteen,
Will laugh at the fool of three-score.
“ ’Tis not while you wear a short coat of light-brown,
Tight breeches, and neckcloth so full,
: That the absolute blank of a mind can be shown,
Which time will but render more dull.
“ Oh ! the fool, who is truly so, never forgets,
But still fools it on to the close ;
Just as dark as it was when he roae.’’
As Ponsonby leaves the debate, when he sets,
On the demise of the last Earl of Findlater and Seafield, who died without issue at Dresden, on
the 5th October 1811, his estate and title of Seafield devolved on Sir Lewis Alexander Grant of
Grant, Bart., elder brother of the Colonel, who died unmarried in 1840. The earldom of Findlater,
which is limited to heirs-male, was claimed by the late Sir William Ogilvie, Bart.; but his claim
was never investigated by the House of Peen.
VOL II. 3 9
434 B I 0 G R AP H I CA L S K E T C HE S.
20th May 1811, Mary Anne, only daughter of John Charles Dunn, Esq., who
realised a fortune in India, by whom he had several sons and one daughter.
The eldest son, Francis William, commonly called ‘‘ Master of Grant,” was
some time member of Parliament for the county of Inverness, and died unmarried
in 1840.’
The Colonel generally resided at Cullen-House, Banffshire, where he was
very much respected, and greatly beloved by his clan. He managed the very
extensive family estates in: Inverness, Banff, and Morayshires, and was particularly
esteemed as a liberal and indulgent landlord.
NO. CCCXIX.
REV. DAVID DICKSON, D.D.,
ONE OF THE DIINISTERS OF ST. CUTHBERT, OR WEST KIRK, EDINBURGH.
DE DAVID DICKSON, eldest son of the Rev. David Dickson, of New North
Church, Edinburgh, was born, 23d February 1780, at the manse of Libberton,
Lanarkshire, of which parish his father was then minister. He received his
elementary, literary, and classical education under the very excellent tuition of
Mr. Mitchell, the parochial schoolmaster of Bothkennar, Stirlingshire, whither
Mr. Dickson had by that time removed. He entered the University of Edinburgh
in session 1793-4 ; and prosecuted his studies there till their completion
in 1801, on the 8th December of which year he was licensed by the Presbytery
of Edinburgh.
In January 1802 Mr. Dickson received an unanimous call to be minister of
the then Chapel of Ease (now High Church), Kilmarnock, and was ordained
to the sacred office there on the 10th March following. Here he remained
little more than a year, having, on the death of the Rev. William Paul, been
presented by the Crown, on application by a majority of the heritors, to the
vacancy in the collegiate charge of the parish of St. Cuthbert, or West Kirk,
Edinburgh. He was admitted to it on the 16th May 1803, and during the
long period which intervened, it is only due to the character of Dr. Dickson to
say, that he discharged the pastoral duties of his office with a fidelity that
justly endeared him to the congregation. Indeed, the largeness of the flock
among whom he laboured, and the uniform affection with which not they only,
but the parishioners in general, regarded him, after more than thirty-five
years’ service, are sufficient testimonies of his worth.
Among other instances of his zeal for the interests of religion in the parish,
Colonel Grant succeeded his brother aa 6th Earl of Seafield in 1840. After the death of his
first wife he married Louisa-Emma, daughter of the late Robert George Maunsell, Esq. of Limerick
He was Lord-Lieutenant of the county of Inverness, and died 30th July 1853.
