WORLD GENEALOGY EXPRESS

A Part of Genealogy Express

 


Welcome to
SCOTLAND
History & Genealogy
 


 

HE
SCOTTISH NATION;
OR THE
SURNAMES, FAMILIES, LITERATURE, HONOURS,
AND
BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY
OF THE
PEOPLE OF SCOTLAND
By
WILLIAM ANDERSON,
AUTHOR OF LIFE, AND EDITOR OF WORKS, OF LORD SYROW, &C, &C
44 South Bridge, Edinburgh; and
115 Newgate Street, London.
----
1867
----------
VOLUME III
 

     MACRIMMON, the surname of a minor sept, (the siol Chrimminn,) who were the hereditary pipers of Macleod of Macleod.  They had a sort of seminary for the instruction of learners in bagpipe music, and were the most celebrated bagpipe players in the Highlands.  The first of whom there is any notice was Ian Odhar, or dun-coloured John, who lived about 1600.  About the middle of the 17th century, Patrick Mor MacRimmon, having lost seven sons, (he had eight in all,) within a year, composed for the bagpipe a touching 'Lament for the children,' called in Gaelic Cmhadh na Cloinne.  In 1745 Macleod's piper, esteemed the best in Scotland, was called Donald Ban Macrimmon.  When that chief, who was opposed to Prince Charles, with Munroe of Culcairn, at the head of 700 men, were defeated by Lord Lewis Gordon, and the Farquharsons, at Inverury, 12 miles from Aberdeen, Donald Ban was taken prisoner.  On this occasion, a striking mark of respect was paid to him by his brethren of the bagpipe, which at once obtained his release.  The pipers in Lord Lewis' following did not play the next morning, as was their wont, and on inquiry as to this unusual circumstance, it was found by his lordship and his officers that the pipes were silent because MacRimmon was a prisoner, when he was immediately set at liberty.  He was, however, shortly afterwards killed in the night attempt, led by the laird of Macleod, to capture the prince at Moyhall, the seat of Lady Macintosh near Inverness.
     On the passing of the heritable jurisdiction abolition bill in 1747, the occupation of the hereditary bagpipers was gone.  Donald Dubh MacRimmon, the last of them, died in 1822, aged 91.  The affecting lament, Tha til, tha til, tha til, Mhic  Chruimin, "MacRimmon shall never, shall never, shall never return,"  was composed on his departure for Canada.
--- Pg. 71
     MAC RORY, a surname derived from the name Roderick called Ruari in the Highlands.  The clan Rory were so styled from Roderick, the eldest of the three sons of Reginald, second son of Somerled of the Isles y his second marriage.  This Roderick was lord of Kintyre and one of the most noted pirates of his day.  His descendants became extinct in the third generation.  The clan Donald and clan Dougall sprung from Roderick's brothers.
---Pg. 71
     MONTGOMERY, the surname of the noble family of Eglinton, which traces its descent from Roger de Mundegumbrie, Viscount de Hiesmes, son of Hugh de Mundegumbrie and Joceline de Beaumont, niece of Gonnora, wife of Richard, duke of Normandy, great-grandmother of William the Conqueror.  Rogger de Mundegumbrie, thus nearly allied to the ruling house of Normandy, after having obtained great distinction under the Norman banner of France, accompanied his kinsman, William the Conqueror, into England, and  commanded the van of the invading army at the decisive battle of Hastings in 1066.  In reward of his bravery he was, by the Conqueror, created earl of Chichester and Arundel, and soon after of Shrewsbury.  He also received from him large grants of land, becoming, in a short time, lord of no fewer of fifty-seven lordships throughout England, with extensive possessions in Salop.  Having made a hostile incursion into Wales, he took the castle of Baldwin, and gave it his own name of Montgomery, a name which both the town in its vicinity and the entire county in which it stands have permanently retained.
     It is not known whence the name was derived.  Eustace, in his 'Classical Tour,' vol. i, p. 298, mentions a lofty hill, called Monte Gomero, not far from Loretto; and in the old ballad of 'Chevy Chase,' the name is given as Mongon-byrry.
     The first of the name in Scotland was Robert de Montgomery, supposed to have been a grandson of Earl Roger.  When Walter, the son of Alan, the first high steward of Scotland, whose castle of Oswestry was in the vicinity of Shrewsbury, came to Scotland to take possession of several grants of land which had been conferred upon him by David I., Robert de Montgomery is a witness to the foundation charter of Walter, the high steward, to the monastery of Paisley in 1160, and to other charters between that year and 1175.  He died about 1177.
     In the Ragman Roll appear the names of John de Montgomery, and his brother Murthaw, as among the barons who swore fealty to Edward I. in 1296.  The former is designated of the county of Lanark, which then comprehended the county of Renfrew.  The latter was the reputed ancestor of the Montgomeries of Thornton.
     Sir John Montgomery, the seventh baron of Eaglesham, one of the heroes of the battle of Otterburn, married Elizabeth, only daughter and sole heiress of Sir Hugh de Eglinton, justiciary of Lothian, and niece of Robert II., and obtained with her the baronies of Eglinton and Ardrossan.  He was the ancestor of the earls of eglinton, as mentioned under that title, where the lineage of that noble family has been already given, (see vol. ii. page 119).

----------

     A baronetcy of the United Kingdom was possessed by the family of Montgomery of Macbeth Hill, Peebles-shire descended from Troilus Montgomery, son of Adam Montgomery of Giffen, a cadet of the Eglinton family, living in the reigns of James V., and Mary queen of Scots.  It was conferred, 28th May, 1774, on William Montgomery of Magbie Hill, but expired on the death of his son, Sir George Montgomery, second baronet, 9th July 1831.
     Sir William's brother, Sir James Montgomery, of Stanhope, Peebles-shire, an eminent lawyer, was also created a baronet.  Born at Magbie Hill, in 1721, he was educated for the Scottish bar, and attained to Considerable distinction as an advocate.  On the abolition of the heritable jurisdictions in Scotland in 1748, he was one of the first sheriffs then named by the crown, and he was the last survivor of those of this first nomination.  He rose gradually to the offices of solicitor-general, and lord-advocate, and in 1775 was appointed lord-chief baron of the court of exchequer in Scotland.  Upon his retirement from the bench in 1801, he was created a baronet of the United Kingdom.  His exertions in introducing the most improved modes of agriculture into Peebles-shire gained for him the title of 'Father of the county.'  He died Apr. 2, 1803, at the age of 82.  his eldest son, William, lieut.-col. 43d foot, having predeceased him, he was succeeded by his 2d son, Sir James, 2d baronet, born Oct. 9, 1766; appointed lord-advocate in1804, resigned in1806; at one time M. P. for Peebles-shire.  He died May 27, 1839.
     His sons by a first wife having predeceased him, he was succeeded by his eldest son by his 2d wife, daughter of Thomas Graham, Esq. of Kinross.  This son, Sir Graham Graham Montgomery, 3d baronet, born July 9, 1823, graduated at Christ Church, Oxford, B. A.; m. in 1845, Alice, daughter of John James Hope-Johnston, Esq. of Annandale, M. P.  Issue 4 sons and 4  drs.  Sons: James Gordon Henry, born Feb. 6, 1850, Basil-Templer, Charles Percy, and Arthur Cecil.  M. P. for Peebles-shire, 1852; lord-lieut. of Kinross-shire, 1854.

Page 183 -

     The first of the family of Montgomerieof Anmuck Lodge, Ayrshire, was Alexander, second son of Hugh Montgomerie of Coilsfield, brother of Hugh, twelfth earl of Eglinton.  His son, William Eglinton Montgomerie, succeeded him in1802.  The eldest sister of the latter, Elizabeth, was the first wife of the Right Hon. David Boyle, lord-justice-general of Scotland, and died in 1822.

----------

     The Irish family of Montgomery of Grey Abbey, county Down, is descended from Sir Hugh Montgomery, sixth laird of Braidstone, in the parish of Beith, Ayrshire, a cadet of the noble house of Eglinton, and the principal leader in the colonization of Ulster in 1606.  The insurrectionary disturbances in Ireland before the death of Queen Elizabeth, had placed a large extent of confiscated property at the disposal of the crown.  The laird of Braidstone, with a view of obtaining some portion of it, effected the escape of Con O'Neil, the chief of Ulster, from the castle of Carrickfergus, where he had long been imprisoned.  O'Neil, in consequence "granted and assigned one half of all his land estate in Ireland" to him "his heirs and assigns."  Thereafter, O'Neil and Braidstone went to Westminster, when, through the influence of Braidstone's brother, George, who was chaplain to his majesty, O'Neil received pardon of the king; Braidstone was knighted, and orders were given that the agreement betwixt them should be confirmed by letters patent, under the great seal of Ireland, "at such rents as therein might be expressed, and under condition that the lands should be planted with British protestants, and that no grant of fee farm should be made to any person of mere Irish extraction."
     In the winter of 1605, Sir Hugh Montgomery obtained from O'Neil a deed of feofment of all his lands.  Amongst the gentlemen who joined Sir Hugh in the enterprize were, John Shaw of Greenock, Patrick Montgomerie of Blackhouse, Colonel David Boyd, Patrick Shaw of Kerseland, Hugh Montgomerie, junior, Thomas Nelvin of Monkreddin, Patrick Mure of Dugh, Sir William Edmiston of Duntreath, and Messrs. Neill and Calderwood; besides a great many retainers.  In 1610, only four yeas after the first planting, Sir Hugh brought before the king's muster-master 1,000 able fighting men.
     The success of his Scotch enterprise led to the formation of the London companies in 1612, and thus was founded the protestant province of Ulster, which, says Hume, from being "the most wild and disorderly province of all Ireland, soon became the best cultivated and most civilized.
     In 1622, Sir Hugh Montgomery was raised to the peerage of Ireland as Viscount Montgomery of Ardes, county Down.  He was grandfather of Hugh, third Viscount Montgomery of Ardes, created in 1661, earl of Mount Alexander.  These titles expired with Thomas, seventh earl, in 1758.
     The Montgomeries of the Hall, county Donegal, possessing a baronetcy of the united kingdom, of the creation of 1808, and the Montgomeries of Convoy House, in the same county, are also descended from the Eglinton family, their progenitors in Ireland being among the settlers in Ulster in the reign of James VI and I.

     MONTGOMERY, ALEXANDER, a celebrated poet of the reign of James VI., supposed to have been a younger son of Montgomery of Hazlehead Castle, in Ayrshire, a branch of the noble family of Eglintoun, was born probably about the middle of the 16th century.  Of his personal history there are no authentic memorials.  In his poem, entitled 'The Navigatioun,' he calls himself "ane German born."  Dempster describes him as "Equus Montanus, vulgo vocatus;" but it is certain that he was never knighted.  In the titles to his works he is styled "Captain," and it is conjectured that he was at one time a commander in the body guard of the Regent MortonMelvil, in his 'Diary,' mentions him about 1577, as "Captain Montgomery, a good honest man, and the regent's domestic."  His poetical talents procured him the patronage of James V., from whom  he enjoyed a pension.  In his majesty's 'Reulis and Cautelis to be observit and eschewit in Scottish Poesie,' published in 1584, the royal critic quotes some of Montgomery's poems, as examples of the different styles of verse.
     In his latter years, he seems to have fallen into misfortunes.  His pension was withheld from him.  He was also involved in a tedious law-suit before the court of session, and he was for some time the tenant of a gaol.  One of his minor pieces is entitled 'The Poet's Complaynte against the Unkindnes of his Companions, when he wes in Prissone.'  His best known production is his allegorical poem of 'The Cherrie and the Slae,' on which Ramsey formed the model of his 'Vision,' and to one particular passage in which he was indebted for his description of the Genius of Caledonia.  It was first published in 1595, and reprinted in 1597, by Robert Waldegrave, "according to a copie corrected by the author himselfe."  Another of his compositions is styled 'The Flyting betwixt Montgomrie and Polwart.'  He also write 'The Minde's Melodie,' consisting of Paraphrases of the Psalms, two of which were printed by Ramsay in his Evergreen.  Foulis of Glasgow published, in 1751, an edition of his poetry, and Urie of the same place brought another in1754.  He composed a great variety of Sonnets in the Scottish language; and among the books present by Drummond to the university of Edinburgh is a manuscript collection of the poems of Montgomery, consisting of Odes, Sonnets, Psalms, and Epitaphs.  His death appears to have taken place between 1597 and 1615, in which latter year an edition of his 'Cherrie and Slae' was printed by Andrew

Page 184 -
Hart.  In 1822 a complete edition of his poems was published at Edinburgh, under the superintendence of Mr. David Laing, with a biographical preface by Dr. Irving.

     MONTGOMERY, JAMES, an eminent religious poet, was born in Irvine, in Ayrshire, Nov. 4, 1771.  His father, the Rev. John Montgomery, of Irish birth though of Scottish extraction, was a preacher in the church of the United or Moravian brethren.  When the poet was about four years and a half old, his parents returned to their native parish in the county of Antrim, in the north of Ireland.  About two years afterwards he was sent to the seminary of the United Brethren at Fulneck, near Leeds, for his education, and he remained there for ten years.  In 1783, his parents went to preach the gospel among the slaves in the West Indies, where they both died, his mother at Tobago in 1790, and his father at Barbadoes in 1791.
     He was early inspired with a desire to write poetry by hearing a portion of Blair's 'Grave' read.  When only ten years old, the bent of his mind was shown by his composition of various little hymns.  About 15 he began to write a heroic poem on the subject of Alfred.' He was first placed as an assistant in a general dealer's shop, at Mirfield near Fulneck, but anxious for a higher occupation, he one day set off, with three shillings and sixpence in his pocket, to walk to London.  He was at a little public house at Wentworth, when a youth of the name of Hunt, entered and getting into conversation with him, informed him that his father, who kept a general store at Wath, in a neighbouring village, required an assistant.  He accordingly applied, and was successful.  The following year (1790) he obtained an introduction to Mr. Harrison a London publisher, and having offered him a manuscript volume of his verses, the latter took him into his shop as an assistant, although he declined to publish his poems.  In two years more, namely in 1792, he was fortunate enough to obtain a situation in the establishment of Mr. Gales, a bookseller of Sheffield, who had set up a newspaper called the Sheffield Register.  In a short time his employer had to leave England, to avoid imprisonment for printing articles too liberal for the then government, and Montgomery at the age of twenty-two, became the editor and publisher of the paper, the name of which, on its becoming his part property, he changed to the more poetical one of The Sheffield Iris.
     At that period, the government, apprehensive of the diffusion in England of the democratic and republican principles of the first French revolution, watched with a jealous eye the freedom of the press.  In January 1794, amidst the keen political excitement that prevailed, Montgomery was prosecuted by the Attorney General on a charge of having reprinted and sold to a street hawker, six quires of a ballad, written by a clergyman of Belfast, commemorating 'The fall of the Bastile' in 1789, which by the crown was interpreted into a seditious libel.   Being found guilty, notwithstanding the innocence of his intentions, he was sentenced to three months imprisonment, in the castle of York, and to pay a fine of £20.  In the following January he was again tried, for a second imputed political offence, the publication in his paper of a paragraph which reflected on the conduct of a magistrate in quelling  riot at Sheffield.  He was again convicted, and sentenced to six months' imprisonment in York castle, to pay a fine of £30, and to give security to keep the peace for two years.  "All the persons," said Montgomery, writing in 1825, "who were actively concerned in the prosecutions against me in 1794 and 1795, are dead, and, without exception, they died in peace with me.  I believe I am quite correct in saying that from each of them distinctly, in the sequel, I received tokens of good will, and from several of them substantial proofs of kindness.  I mention not this as a plea in extenuation of offences for which I bore the penalty of the law; I rest my justification, in these cases, now on the same grounds, and no other, on which I rested my justification then.  I mention the circumstance to the honour of the deceased and as an evidence that, amidst all the violence of that distracted time, a better spirit was not extinct, but finally prevailed, and by his healing influence did indeed  comfort those who had been conscientious sufferers."
     After his release, his health having been affected by the confinement, he went for a few weeks to Scarborough, and then resumed his duties as editor of the Iris.  The proprietorship of

Page 185 -
that paper up to July 3d, 1795, had been a co-partner between the poet, and Benjamin Naylor but at that date the partnership was dissolved.  Montgomery, who thence became sole proprietor, giving an engagement for the payment of £1,600, the sum originally paid for the property; and although he considered the terms somewhat hard, a few years of industry and prosperity enabled him to liquidate the bond.  To the columns of his paper he had contributed occasional pieces of poetry, as well as written for it a series of Essays, of an entertaining or satirical nature, entitled 'The Enthusiast.'  Between 1790 and 1796 he had written a novel in four volumes, which was never printed, and was ultimately committed to the flames.  He had also composed various hymns, both political and religious, and written four addresses, which were spoken at the theatre at Sheffield.  At the beginning of 1797, he published his first work, entitled 'Prison Amusements, by Paul Positive,' a name which he early adopted for his juvenile pieces, and the initials of which were often mistaken for those of Peter Pindar the celebrated satirist of the day.  The volume contained twenty-four poems, many of which, as the Preface states, were composed in bitter moments, amid the horrors of a gaol, under the pressure of sickness.  One of the most conspicuous pieces in the volume was entitled the 'Pleasures of Imprisonment.'  It was afterwards corrected and greatly abridged by the author.  The largest and most elaborate piece, however, was "The Bramin,' in two cantos, and in heroic verse.  The same year he commenced a new series of Essays, in the columns of the Iris, under the designation of 'The Whisperer, or Hints and Speculations by Gabriel Silvertongue, Gent.'  These incubrations were, the following year, collected by the author, and published in a volume at London.  He afterwards got ashamed of the work, and did all he could to suppress it.
     In 1801, with the view of extending his poetical claims, he transcribed three of his poems, from the columns, he transcribed three of his poems, from the columns of the Iris, and with the signature of Alcæus, sent them to the editor of the Poetical Register.'  These were the 'Remonstrance to Winter,' 'The Lyre,' in blank verse, and 'The Battle of Alexandria.'  In the following year he also contributed some pieces to the same publication, and on both occasions his poems were highly eulogised by Dr. Aikin, in noticing that work in the 'Annual Review,' and quotations given.  From this period till 1806, he wrote and inserted in the columns of the Iris many of the best of his minor pieces, such as 'The Pillow;' 'The Thunder Storm;' 'The Joy of Grief;' The Snowdrop;' 'The Ocean;' 'The Grave;' 'The Common Lot,' &c.  In that year appeared 'The Wanderer of Switzerland, and other Poems,' among which were the pieces named and others.  On its publication, it was at once acknowledged that a new poet had arisen whose claims to have his name inscribed on the bard-roll of his country could not be disputed.  The work was most favourably received, and in the course of a few weeks very copy of the first edition was sold.  A second edition was also speedily exhausted.  A third edition of a thousand copies was issued by Messrs. Longman and Co., the eminent London publishers, who had entered into an arrangement with the author for the purpose.  Among other periodicals which welcomed Mr. Montgomery's work with high and discriminating praise, was the 'Eclectic Review,' then conducted by Mr. David Parken, a barrister.  This gentleman soon entered into a correspondence with the poet, which led to his becoming one of the regular contributors to that publication, when he had for his associates such men as Robert Hall, Adam Clarke, Olinthus Gregory, and John Foster.
     On the appearance in 1807, of the third edition of 'The Wanderer of Switzerland,' the Edinburgh Review opened its batteries upon it, and in a most abusive critique predicted "that in less than three years nobody would know the name of the 'Wanderer of Switzerland,' or any of the other poems in the collection."  As in the memorable case of Lord Byron, however, the judgment of the public reversed the decision of the critic.  Within eighteen months, a fourth edition of 1,500 copies of the condemned volume was passing through the press where the Edinburgh Review itself was printed, and fifteen years afterwards, namely in January 1822, it had reached its ninth edition  At that period Montgomery acknowledged that so great had been the success of the work that it had

Page 186 -
produced him upwards of £800, and more than twelve thousand copies had been sold, besides about a score of editions printed in America.
     In Byron's 'English Bards and Scotch Reviewers,' published in 1809, Montgomery found himself noticed in this strain:
     "With broken lyre and cheek serenely pale,
       Lo! sad Alcaeus wanders down the vale!
       Though fair they rose, and might have bloomed at last,
       His hopes have perished by the northern blast:
       Nipped in the bud by Caledonian gales,
       His blossoms wither as the blast prevails!
       O'er his lost works let classic Sheffield weep;
       May no rude hand disturb their early sleep!"

     And in a note he adds, "Poor Montgomery though praised by every English Review, has been bitterlly reviled by the Edinburgh!  After all, the Bard of Sheffield is a man of considerable genius; his 'Wanderer of Switzerland' is worth a thousand 'Lyrical Ballads,' and at least fifty 'Degraded Epics.' "
     Mr. Montgomery's next work was "The West Indies,' a poem in four parts and in the heroic couplet, written in honour of the abolition of the African slave-trade by the British legislature in 1807.  It was produced at the request of Mr. Bowyer, the London publisher, to accompany a series of engravings representing the past sufferings and the anticipated blessings of the long-wronged Africans, both in their own land and in the West Indies, and appeared in 1809 in connection with poems on the same subject, by James Grahame author of 'The Sabbath,' and Miss Benger.  When Montgomery's poem was republished by itself, accompanied by about twenty occasional poems, upwards of ten thousand copies were sold in ten years.  His parents had laid down their lives in behalf of the enslaved and perishing Negro, and in this poem, their son, with a vigour and freedom of description and a power of pathetic painting entirely his own, raised his generous appeal to public justice in the negro's behalf, which, no doubt, had its effect when, twenty years after, slavery itself was abolished in all the colonies belonging to Britain.
     In the spring of 1813, Mr. Montgomery published 'The World before the Flood,' a poem in ten cantos in the heroic couplet, suggested to the poet by a passage in the eleventh book of Paradise Lost referring to the translation of Enoch.  He had now begun to take an active and prominent part in the religious and benevolent meetings of Sheffield and its neighbourhood, particularly in connexion with missionary movements, the Bible Society, and the Sabbath School Union, and in 1814 he was regularly admitted a member of the Moravian church, of which his brother, the Rev. Ignatius Montgomery, was a minister.  He himself had been intended for the ministry in connexion with the United Brethren, had not his early tendency to poetry prevented his entering upon the studies necessary for it.  Another of his brothers, Robert Montgomery, was a grocer at Woolwich.  They were all three educated at the Moravian seminary at Fulneck.  While the poet was there, the institution was on one occasion visited by no less a personage than Lord Monboddo the celebrated Scottish judge.  None of the boys had ever seen a lord before, and Monboddo was a very strange-looking lord indeed.  He wore a large, stiff, bushy periwig, surmounted by a huge, odd-looking hat; his very plain coat was studded with broad brass buttons, and his breeches were of leather.  He stood in the schoolroom, with his grave absent face bent downwards, drawing and redrawing his whip along the floor, as the Moravian teacher pointed out to his notice boy after boy.  "And this," said the Moravian, coming at length to young Montgomery, "is a countryman of your lordship's."  His lordship raised himself up, looked hard at the little fellow, and then shaking his huge whip over his head, "Ah," he exclaimed, "I hope his country will have no reason to be ashamed of him."  "The circumstance," said the poet, "made a deep impression on my mind, and I determined, - I trust the resolution was not made in vain, - I determined in that moment that my country should not have reason to be ashamed of me."
     In January 1817 a volume was published, entitled 'The State Lottery, a Dream,' by Samuel Roberts, a friend of Montgomery, directed against that species of national gambling, which, too long authorized by government, was some years after put an end to by act of parliament.  The book

Page 187 -
contained 'Thoughts on Wheels, a poem in five parts,' by James Montgomery, in which he introduced an 'Ode to Britain,' written in a lofty strain of patriotism, which was included in the first edition of the poet's collected poems in 1836, and a quarter of a century after its first  publication he recited of a century after its first publication he recited it at a public breakfast given to him at Glasgow, when he visited Scotland in 1841.
     In 1819 he produced 'Greenland and other Poems.'  The principal piece is in five cantos, and contains a sketch of the ancient Moravian church, its revival in the 18th century, and the origin of the missions by that people to Greenland in 1733.  The poem as published is only a part of the author's original plan.  It consists of a series of episodes, some of which are very beautiful, while the glowing descriptions of the peculiar natural phenomena of the arctic regions are striking and original.  In 1822 appeared his little volume of 'Songs of Zion,' being imitations or paraphrases of the Psalms of David.  In the following year he was elected vice-president of the Sheffield Literary and Philosophical Society, then newly formed, when he delivered the opening lecture; "thus," says his biographers, "presenting himself for the first time in that interesting character which he was destined so often afterwards to sustain, not only before his own townspeople, but in various other places."  In this address, speaking of the literature of some of the celebrated nations of antiquity, whose political vicissitudes fill so large a space in the page of history, he made this striking remark: "There is not in existence a line of Verse by Chaldæan, Babylonian, Assyrian, Egyptian, or Phœnician bard.

"They had no poet, and they died."

In December of the same year, he delivered a 'Lecture on Modern English Literature' before the same Society.  It is comprised in the series afterwards published.
     In 1824, a request having been made to him by his publishers, Messrs. Longman and Co., to supply them with as much matter in prose as would make two volumes, appeared anonymously his 'Prose by a Poet.'  Some of the most interesting portions of this work had been reconstructed out of the best written of his newspaper articles, and for a time it sold well, but did not long retain its popularity.  Montgomery himself remarked that 'Prose by a Poet' would probably fail to please either of two large classes of readers, namely, persons of taste merely, who would be disgusted with the introduction of religious sentiments; and individuals of a decidedly religious character, who would consider much of the matter too light or sentimental; and he was not mistaken.  The same year was published a volume entitled 'The Chimney Sweeper's Friend, and Climbing Boys' Album,' containing pieces by different authors, 'arranged by James Montgomery,' and dedicated to the king, George IV.  The work was got up, mainly by Montgomery's exertions, to aid in effecting the abolition, at length happily accomplished, of the cruel and unnatural practice of employing boys in sweeping chimneys.
     In 1825 his connexion with the Iris terminated, as he that year disposed of the newspaper and his printing business and materials to Mr. John Blackwell, who had been at one time a Methodist preacher, but afterwards became a dealer in old books, and was then a printer and stationer.  On his retirement from the paper, which he had conducted for thirty years, every class of politicians in the town of Sheffield united in giving him a public dinner, Lord Milton, afterwards Earl Fitzwilliam in the chair, as a testimony that there was among them but one feeling of goodwill towards him, and but one opinion as to the integrity with which he had for so long a time discharged his duties as an editor.  The dinner took place on the poet's birthday, November 4th, 1825, when 116 gentlemen sat down to the table.  In returning thanks, the poet entered into some details relative to his early life, as well before as after his residence in Sheffield; alluding also to his varied labours and ultimate success as a poet, in which character his name will be known to all time.  He spoke with pardonable pride of the success which had crowned his labours as an author, 'Not indeed," he said, "with fame and fortune, as these were lavished on my greater contemporaries, in comparison with whose magnificent possessions on the British Parnassus my small plot of ground is no more than Naboth's vineyard to Ahab's kingdom, but it is my own; it is no

Page 188 -
copyhold; I borrowed it, I leased it from none.  Every foot of it I enclosed from the common myself; and I can say that not an inch which I had once gained have I ever lost."  Some of his friends who could not attend, including many ladies, afterwards presented him with 200 guineas, to be applied to the revival of a mission which his father, the Rev. John Montgomery, had begun in Tobago, but which had been suspended since his death in 1791.  The proprietor of the estate on which it as situated, Mr. Hamilton, a Scotchman, had in his will bequeathed £1000, contingent on the renewal of the mission.  To this sum, the two hundred guineas were to be added, and the gift was accompanied by the delicate request that the renewed mission should be distinguished by the name of Montgomery, in honour of himself and his father.
     At the close of 1825 appeared 'The Christian Psalmodist; or Hymns, Selected and Original.'  These compositions, 562 in number, are from a great variety of authors, including one hundred from his own pen,  which form part fifth of the collection.  The compilation was made for Mr Collins, the Glasgow publisher (who died Jan. 2, 1853) and for it he received one hundred guineas.  The prefatory essay contains some judicious remarks on the writing of hymns, as one branch of the poetic art, and one the works of Bishop Kenn, Dr. Isaac Watts, Addison, Toplady, Charles Wesley, and others who have excelled in it.  Montgomery also wrote an Introductory essay to an edition of Cowper's poems, then about to be issued by Messrs.  Chalmers and Collins.
     In 1827, appeared 'The Pelican Island,' by Mr. Montgomery, a poem in blank verse, suggested by a passage in Captain Flinders' 'Voyage to Terra Austrailis,' describing the existence of the ancient haunts of the pelican in the small islands on the coast of New Holland.  The narrative is supposed to be delivered by an imaginary being who witnesses the series of events related after the whole has happened.  To the 'Pelican Island' was added, as usual, some of his smaller poems.  Previous to its publication a work called 'The Christian Poet' was issued by Mr. Collins of Glasgow, with an admirable introductory essay by Mr. Montgomery, a species of writing in which he excelled.  He also wrote the Introductory Essays to new editions of 'The Pilgrim's Progress,' 'The Olney Hymns,' the 'Life of the Rev. David Brainerd,' and other works published by the same firm.  In 1830 he contributed to the Cabinet Cyclopedia the brief memoirs of Dante, Ariosto, and Tasso, which appeared in the series of 'Literary and Scientific Men of Italy.'   The same year he compiled for the London Missionary Society, 'The Missionary Journal,' from a vast mass of valuable materials which had been placed in his hands, for which he received £200.  He also delivered a course of lectures on the History of English Literature before the members of the Royal Institution of Great Britain at London.  The following years he lectured on Poetry at the same Institution.  Both courses he prepared  for the press and published in 1833.
     In 1841 he visited Scotland, for the first and only time since his childhood.  On this occasion he accompanied the Rev. Mr. Latrobe.  Their main object was the promotion of the missions of the United Brethren, but Montgomery had also a great desire to see the land of his birth.  "Scotland." he said, in a letter written in July 1844, to the committee of the Burns' Festival, "took such early and effectual root in the soil of my heart that to this hour it appears as green and flourishing, in the only eyes with which I can now behold it, as when, after an absence of more than threescore years, I was favoured to see it with the eyes that are looking on this paper.  Though scarcely four and a half years old when removed.  I have yet more lively, distinct, and delightful recollections of little Irvine, its bridges, its river, its street aspect, and its rural landscape, with sea-glimpses between, then I have equal reminiscences for any subsequent period of the same length of time, spent since then in fairer, wealthier, and more familiar, and therefore less romantic, England.  Yet those fond recollections of my birth place, and renewals of infant experience had become, through the vista of retrospect, so ideal, that when, in the autumn of 1841, for the first time, I returned to the scenes of my golden age, the humble realities, though as beautiful as heaven's daylight could make them in the first week

Page 189 -
of a serene October, I could hardly reconcile with the ideal of themselves, into which they had been transmuted by frequent repetition and retouching - every time with a mellowing stroke - in the process of preserving the identity of things, 'that were to me more dear and precious,' which had been so soon and so long removed out of sight, but never out of mind.  I can, however, say that with the brief acquaintance which on that occasion I made with my country and my birthplace, and especially with what is the glory and the blessing of both, the frank, and kind, and gracious inhabitants, - my brief acquaintance, I was going to say, with these had more than ever endeared to my better feelings the land that gave me birth and the blood kindred with whom I felt myself humbly but honestly allied."  In a postscript he explained that by "blood kindred," he meant his kinship to all the blood of Scotland, neither less nor more, pretending to no affinity with the noble house of Eglinton.
     He was received with great enthusiasm by the magistrates and inhabitants of Irvine.   That town is distinguished as 'the only spot in Scotland where the United Brethren first found a footing."  The house in which the poet was born is still (1856), standing in Halfway Street.  In his father's time the dwelling-house was under the same roof with the little chapel in which he ministered.  The latter was afterwards converted into a weaver's shop.  A tablet has been placed on the wall to remind visitors that that humble dwelling was the birthplace of the author of 'The World before the Flood.'  His reception in Edinburgh and Glasgow was also most gratifying to his feelings.  In the latter city a public breakfast was given to him.
     A collected edition of his works with autobiographical and illustrative notes, had been published in 1841, and in 1851 the whole of his works appeared in one volume 8vo.  In 1853 he issued a collection of 'Original Hymus, for Public Private, and Social Devotion.'  In his latter years he enjoyed a pension of £150.
     One of his last public appearances was at the meeting of the Wesleyan Conference at Sheffield in October, 1852.  He entered leaning heavily on the arm of Dr. Hannah and was by him conducted to a seat in front of the platform.  A few appropriate words from Dr. Hannah introduced him to the Conference.  The president addressed him in simple and graceful terms.  Then the aged and hoary poet, somewhat bent and very feeble in body, with the silver hair shining in flakes as it fell thin upon his temples, or waved slightly upwards from the side of his head, stepped forward to the front of the platform, and, raising his hands in prayer and blessing, pronounced the words - "The Lord bless and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and give you peace."  The beautiful and impressive way in which he uttered the last words of this prayer was said to have been inexpressibly affecting.

     Mr. Montgomery, who was never married, died at his residence, The Mount, Sheffield, May 1st, 1854, and was buried at Sheffield.  His portrait is subjoined:


JAMES MONTGOMERY

     His funeral was a public one, and a monument was afterwards erected to his memory in the town of Sheffield.  'Memoirs of the Life and Writings of James Montgomery, including Selections from his Correspondence, remains in prose and verse,

Page 190 -
and Conversations on various subjects; by John Holland and James Everett; have been published in six volumes 8vo, London, 1854-56.
--- Pp. 184 - 190

Page 223

     MURRAY, a very common surname in Scotland, the origin of which has already been explained; see ATHOL, duke of, (vol. i, p. 164,) and moray, a surname, (page 204 of this volume).  An account of the Murrays of Tullibardine, the ancestors of the Athol family, is given under the former head, and those of Bothwell and Abercairney under the latter.

----------

     The first baronet of the family of Murray of Blackbarony was Sir Archibald Murray, who was created a baronet of Nova Scotia, May 15, 1628.  He was the son of Sir John Murray, eldest son of Andrew Murray of Blackbarony, whose ancestors had been seated at Blackbarony for five generations prior to 1552.  Sir John was the brother of Sir Gideon Murray, lord-high-treasurer of Scotland and a lord of session, father of the first Lord Elibank, (see vol. ii, p. 128) and of Sir William Murray, ancestor of the Clermont family.  Lieutenant-colonel Sir Archibald John Murray, baronet of Blackbarony, formerly of the Scots fusilier guards, son of Sir John Murray, baronet of Blackbarony, by his wife, Anne Digby, of the noble family of Digby, died, without issue, May 22, 1860.  He was succeeded by his brother, Sir John Digby Murray, baronet, born in 1798, married, 1st, in 1823, Miss Susannah Cuthbert, issue one son, John Cuthbert; 2dly, in 1827, Frances, daughter and coheiress of Peter Patten Bold, Esq., M. p., of Bold hall, Lancashire; issue, 8 sons and 4 daughters.

----------

    The family of Murray of Clermont, Fifeshire, which possesses a baronetcy (date 1626), is a branch of the ancient house of Murray of Blackbarony, whose baronetcy is dated two yeas later.  Sir William Murray, 4th and youngest son of Sir Andrew Murray of Blackbarony, who lived in the reign of Mary, queen of Scots, was knighted by James VI., and having acquired the estate of Clermont in Fifeshire, it became the designation of his family.  His only son, William Murray of Clermont, was created a baronet of Nova Scotia, July 1, 1626.  Sir James Murray, 5th baronet, receiver-general of the customs in Scotland, died in February 1699, without issue, when the title devolved on his nephew, Sir Robert Murray, 6th baronet, who died in 1771.  His eldest son, Sir James Murray, 7th baronet, a distinguished military officer during the first American war, was adjutant-general of forces serving on the continent in 1793.  He married in 1794 the countess of Bath in her own right, and in conse-

Page 224 -
quence assumed the surname and arms of Pulteney.  He subsequently held the office of secretary of war; was colonel of the 18th foot, and a general in the army.  He died Apr. 26, 1811, leaving no issue, when his half-brother, Sir John Murray, became 8th baronet.  Sir John was a lieuenant-general in the army, and colonel of the 56th foot.  He died, without issue, in 1827, when the title and estates devolved upon his brother, the Rev. Sir William Murray, who died May 14, 1842.  The eldest son of the latter, Sir James Pulteney Murray, 10th baronet, died unmarried, Feb. 2, 1843.  His brother, Sir Robert Murray, born Feb. 1, 1815, became 11th baronet; married, in 1839, Susan Catherine Sanders, widow of Adolphus Cottin Murray, Esq., and 2d daughter and co-heir of John Murray, Esq., of Ardeleybury, Herts, lineally descended from Sir William Murray, father of 1st earl of Tullibardine; with issue, a son, William Robert, 23d fusiliers, born in 1840, and a daughter.

----------

     The first baronet of the Stanhope family was Sir William Murray of Stanhope, and active supporter of the royal cause during the civil wars, who for his loyalty was created a baronet of Nova Scotia, after the Restoration, with remainder to his heirs male whatsoever, 13th February 1664.  His ancestor, John Murray of Falahill, descended from Archibald de Moravia, mentioned in the Chartulary of Newbottle in 1280, was known in history as the outlaw Murray.  He died in the early part of the reign of James V.   His exploits are commemorated in one of the ballads of the 'Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.'  He married Lady Margaret Hepburn, and had, with three daughters two sons.  His eldest son, John Murray of Falahill, was ancestor of the Murrays of Philipbaugh.  His second son, William Murray, married Janet, daughter and heiress of William Romanno of that ilk,  Peebles-shire, and had a son, William Murray of Romanno, living in December 1531.  The great-grandson of the latter, Sir David Murray, who was knighted by Charles I., acquired the lands of Stanhope in the same county, and was the father of Sir William Murray, the first baronet of Stanhope.  Sir David Murray, the fourth baronet, was implicated in the rebellion of 1745, and received sentence of death at York the following year, but was subsequently pardoned on condition of his leaving the country for life.  The family estates were sold under the authority of the court of session.  Sir David died in exile, without issue, when the representation of the family devolved on his uncle, Charles Murray, collector of the customs at Borrowstownness, who, had the title not been forfeited, would have been fifth baronet.  His son, Sir David Murray, died without issue at Leghorn, 19th October 1770.  The representation of the family then devolved on John Murray of Broughton, the well-known secretary of Prince Charles.  This personage having assumed the title after the general act of revisal, became Sir John Murray of Broughton, baronet.  He married Margaret, daughter of Colonel Robert Ferguson, brother of William Ferguson of Carloch, Nithsdale, and had three sons, David, his heir, Robert, and Thomas, the last a lieutenant-general in the army.  Sir John died 6th December 1777.  His eldest son, Sir David, a naval officer, was succeeded, on his death in June 1791, by his brother, Sir Robert, ninth baronet.  The son of the latter, Sir David, became the tenth baronet in 1794, and on his death, without issue, was succeeded by his brother, Sir John Murray, eleventh baronet; married, with issue.

----------

     The first baronet of the Ochtertyre family was William Moray of Ochtertyre, who was created a baronet of Nova Scotia, with remainder to his heirs male, 7th June 1673.  He was descended from Patrick Moray, the first styled of Ochtertyre, who died in 1476, a son of Sir David Moray of Tullibardine.  The family continued to spell their name Moray till 1739, when the present orthography was adopted by Sir William, 3d baronet.  Sir William Murray, 5th baronet, married Lady Augusta Mackenzie, youngest daughter of 3d earl of Cromartie; issue, 3 sons and 2 daughters.  He died in 1800.  Of General Sir George Murray, G. C. B., his second son, a memoir is given at page 232 in larger type.
     The eldest son, Sir Patrick Murray, 6th baronet, born Feb. 3, 1771, passed advocate at the Scottish bar in 1793, and was appointed a baron of the court of exchequer in Scotland in 1820.  He died June 1, 1837.  By his wife, Lady Mary Hope, youngest daughter of the 2d earl of Hopetoun, he had 5 sons and 4 daughters.  Capt. John Murray, the 2d son, assumed the name of Gartshore, on succeeding to the estate of that name in Dmbartonshire.  (See vol. ii, page 284.)
     Sir William Keith Murray, the eldest son, 7th baronet of Ochtertyre, born in 1801, married 1st, Helen Margaret Oliphant, only child and heiress of Sir Alexander Keith of Dunnottar, knight marischal of Scotland; issue, 10 sons and 3 daughters; 2dly, Lady Adelaide, youngest daughter of 1st marquis of Hastings.  He assumed the name of Keith, on his marriage with his first wife, and on her death in Oct. 1852, his eldest son, Patrick, born Jan. 27, 1835, captain grenadier guards, (retired in June, 1861,) succeeded to the estates of Dunnottar, Kincardineshire, and Ravelston, Mid Lothian.  Sir William died Oct. 16, 1861, when his eldest son, Sir Patrick, became 8th baronet.

----------

     The Murrays of Touchadam are supposed to derive from the Morays, lords of Bothwell.  Their progenitor, Sir Willliam de Moravia, designed of Sanford, joined Robert the Bruce, but being taken prisoner by the English, was sent to London in 1306, and remained in captivity there until exchanged after the battle of Bannockburn.  His son and successor, Sir Andrew de Moravia, called by David II. "our dear blood relation," obtained from that monarch a charter of the lands of Kepmad in Stirlingshire, dated 10th May 1865.  This was his first acquisition in that county.  On 28th July 1869 he received another royal charter of the lands  of Tonulcheadam, as Touchadam was then called, the Tulchmaler, in the same county.  His great-grandson and representative, William Murray of Touchadam, was scotifer? to James II., and was appointed constable of Stirling castle under James III.  His eldest son, David Murray of Touchadam, having no issue, made a resignation of his whole estate to his nephew, John Murray of Gawamore, captain of the king's guards and lord provost of Edinburgh, who succeeded to the same on the death of his uncle, about 1474.  He was a firm and devoted adherent of James III., and after the battle of Sauchieburn he was deprived of a considerable portion of his lands.  A great number of the family writs were at the same time embezzled or lost.  His son, William Murray, the seventh from the founder of the family, Sir Andrew de Moravia, about 1568, married Agnes, one of the daughters and coheiresses of James Cuninghame of Polmaise, Stirlingshire, whereby he acquired that estate.  His son and successor, Sir John Murray, knight, got a charter under the great seal of the lands and barony of Polmaise, 8th April 1588.  His grandson, Sir William Murray of Touchadam and Polmaise, obtained from Charles I. a charter of the lands of Cowie in 1636.  During the civil wars, he supported the royal cause, and was at the battle of Preston in 1648, when the army of the royalists under the duke of Hamilton was defeated.  In 1654 he was fined by Cromwell  £1,500.

Page 225 -

     William Murray of Touchadam and Polmaise succeeded his father, William Murray of Touchadam, Polmaise, and Pitlochie in Fife, in 1814.  He died in 1847, when his cousin, John Murray, born in 1797, the 19th from Sir Andrew de Moravia succeeded.  He died suddenly at London, Apr. 15, 1862, in his 65th year, and was succeeded by his eldest son, John, lieutenant-colonel grenadier guards, both in 1831.

----------

     The first on record of the family of Murray of Philiphaugh in Selkirkshire, Archibald de Moravia, mentioned in the chartulary of Newbottle in 1280, was also descended, it is supposed, from the Morays, lords of Bothwell.  In 1296 he swore fealty to Edward I.  His son, Roger de Moravia, obtained in 1321, from James, Lord Douglas, the superior, a charter of the lands of Fala, subsequently designated Falahill, for many years the chief title of the family.  The 5th in direct descent from Roger was John Murray of Falahill, the celebrated outlaw, who took possession of Ettrick Forest with 500 men,

"__________ a' in ae liverye clan.
  O' the Lincome grene sae gaye to see;
"He and his ladye in purple clad,
  O! gin they lived not royallie!"

     The king James IV., sent James Boyd to him,

"The earle of Arran his brother was he,"

to ask him of whom he held lands, and desiring him to come and be the king's "man,"

"And hald of him yon fireste free."

  On Boyd delivering this message to him,

"Thir landis are mine! the outlaw said;
  I ken nae king oin Christentie;
Frae Soudron I this foreste wan.
  When the king nor his knightis were not to see."

And he declared his intention to keep it

"Contrair all kingis in Christentie."

The king, in consequence, set forth at the head of a large force, to punish the outlaw, and force him to submission.  The outlaw summoned to his aid his kinsmen Murray of Cockpool and Murray of Traquair, who hastened to Ettrick with all their men.  The barony of Traquair before it came into the possession of the Stuarts (earls of Traquair) was the property of the family of Murray, ancestors of the Murrays of Blackbarony.  The lands of Traquair were forfeited by Willielmus de Moravia previous to 1464.  They were afterwards, by a charter from the crown dated 3d February 1478, conveyed to James Stewart, earl of Buchan, son of the black knight of Lorne, from whom they descended to the arls of Traquair.  On the approach of the royal force, the outlaw, "with four in his cumpanie," came and knelt before the king and said,

"I'll give thee the keys of my castell,
  Wi' the blessing o' my gay ladye,
Gin thou'lt make me sheriffe of this Foreste,
  And a' my offspring after me."

To this the king consented, glad to receive his submission on III.
any terms, and the usual ceremony of feudal investiture was gone through, by the outlaw resigning his possessions into the hands of the king, and receiving them back, to be held of him as superior.

"He was made sheriffe of Ettricke Foreste,
  Surely while upward grows the tree;
And if he was na traitour to the king,
  Forfaulted he suld never be."

It is certain that, by the charter from James IV., dated November 30, 1509, John Murray of Philiphaugh is vested with the dignity of heritable sheriff of Ettrick Forest, which included the greater part of what is now Selkirkshire, an office held by his descendants till the abolition of the heritable jurisdictions in 1747.  "The tradition of Ettrick Forest," says Sir Walter Scott, in his introduction to "The Sang of the Outlaw Murray,' in the 'Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.' "bears that the outlaw was a man of prodigious strength, possessing a baton or club, with which he laid lee (i. e. waste) the country for many miles round, and that he was at length slain by Buccleuch, or some of his clan, at a little mount, covered with fir trees, adjoining to Newark castle, and said to have been part of the garden.  A varying tradition bears the place of his death to have been near to the house of the duke of Buccleuch's gamekeeper, beneath the castle, and that the fatal arrow was shot by Scott of Haining from the ruins of a cottage on the opposite side of the Yarrow.  There was extant, within these twenty years, some verses of a song on his death.  The feud betwixt the outlaw and the Scotts may serve to explain the asperity with which the chieftain of that clan is handled in the ballad."  The laird of Buccleuch had counselled "fire and sword" against the outlaw; for, says he,

"He lives by reif and felonie!"

But the king gave him this rebuke:

"And round him cast a wilie ee, -
Now, haud thy tongue, Sir Walter Scott,
  Nor speak of reif nor felonie: -
For, had every honest man his awin key,
  A right puir clan thy name wad be!"

The outlaw's wife, Lady Margaret Hepburn, was the daughter of the first earl of Bothwell.  He had two sons, James, his heir, and William, ancestor of the Murrays of Romanna, afterwards Stanhope, baronets, (see previous page).
     James Murray of Falahill, the elder son, died about 1529, and his son, Patrick Murray of Falahill, obtained, under the great seal, a charter, dated 28th January 1528, of the lands of Philiphaugh, situated near the royal burgh of Selkirk, and celebrated as the scene of the signal defeat of the marquis of Montrose, 15th September 1645, by General Leslie.  The hollow under the mount adjoining the ruins of Newark castle, mentioned above as the place where the outlaw Murray is said to have been slain, is called by the country people Slain-man's lee, in which, according to tradition, the Covenanters, a day or two after the battle of Philiphaugh, put many of their prisoners to death.  A number of human bones were, at one period, found there, in making a drain.
     Patrick's great-great-grandson, Sir John Murray of Philiphaugh, knight, was appointed by the Scottish Estates one of the judges for trying those of the counties of Roxburgh and Selkirk, who had joined the standard of Montrose in 1646.  In 1649 he claimed £12,014, for the damages he had sustained from Montrose.  He died in 1676.

Page 226 -

      His eldest son, Sir James Murray of Philiphaugh, born in 1655, was admitted a lord of session in 1689, and appointed lord-register in 1705.  On his death in 1708, he was succeeded by his eldest son, John Murray of Philiphaugh, M. P. from 1725 till his decease in 1753.  His gentleman's fourth son, Charles, married a sister of Robert Scott, Esq. of Danesfield, Bucks, and was grandfather of Charles Robert Scott Murray, Esq. of Danesfield, M. P. for that county.
     The eldest son, John Murray of Philiphaugh, was several times M. P. for the county of Selkirk, and once for the Selkirk burghs, after a severe and expensive contest with Mr. Dundas.  He died in 1800.  His eldest son, John Murray of Philiphaugh, died, unmarried, in 1830, and was succeeded by his only surviving brother, James Murray of Philiphaugh, the 17th of the family, in a direct line; married, with issue.

----------

     The Murrays of Lintrose, Perthshire, are a junior branch of the Murrays of Ochtertyre, being derived from Mungo Murray, born 15th July 1662, youngest son of Sir William Murray of Ochtertyre, baronet, by Isabel, his wife, the daughter of John Oliphant, Esq., of Bachelton.  Captain William Murray, a son of this family, served with the 42d Highlanders, under Wolfe, in America, and afterwards in the West Indies.  Subsequently, with the rank of major in the same distinguished regiment, he served under General Howe against the American revolutionists.  On the 15th September 1776, when the reserve of the British army were in possession of the heights above New York, Major Murray was nearly carried off by the enemy, but saved himself by his strength and presence of mind.  Attacked by an American officer and two soldiers, he kept his assailants at bay for some time with his fusil; but closing upon him, his dirk slipped behind him, and being a corpulent man, he was unable to reach it.  Snatching the sword of the American officer from him, he soon compelled the party to retreat.  He wore the sword as a trophy during the campaign.  He became lieutenant-colonel 27th regiment, and died the following year.

----------

     The Murrays of Cringletie, Peebles-shire, are descended from a junior branch of the family of Murray of Blackbarony.  James Wolfe Murray, Esq. of Cringletie, born in 1814, eldest son of James Wolfe Murray, Lord Cringletie, a senator of the College of Justice, by Isabella Katherine, daughter of James Charles Edward Stuart Strange, Esq., (godson of Prince Charles Edward.) succeeded his father in 1836; appointed to 42d Royal highlanders in 1833; married in 1852, Elizabeth Charlotte, youngest daughter of John Whyte Melville, Esq., and grand-daughter of 5th duke of Leeds, with issue.  His son, James Wolfe Murray, born in 1853.

----------

     Other old families of the names of Murrays of Broughton, Wigtownshire; Murray of Murraythwaite, Dumfriesshire; and Murray of Murrayshall, Perthshire.  The family of Murraythwaite have been settled there since about 1421.
     The Murrays of Murrayshall derive in the male line from the ancient family of Græme of Balgowan, and in the female, from that of Murray, Lord Balvaird, (see vol. i, p. 231,) whose eldest son succeeded as Viscount Stormont, (see STORMONT, Viscounty of).  John Murray, advocate, son of Andrew Murray of Murrayshall, at one period sheriff of Aberdeenshire; born in 1809, succeeded in 1847; m. in 1853, Robina, dr. of Thomas Hamilton, Esq.; educated at Edinburgh university, M. A. 1828.  Passed advocate in 1831.

     The Murrays of Henderland, Peebles-shire, have given two judges to the court of session, namely, Alexander Murray, Lord Henderland, who died in 1795, and his second son, Sir John Archibald Murray, appointed in 1839, when he assumed the judicial title of Lord Murray.  He had previously been lord-advocate, and recorder of the great roll, or clerk of the pipe, in the court of exchequer, Scotland, a sinecure office which had also been held by his father, and was resigned by Lord Murray, some time before first appointment as lord-advocate in 1834.  He was M. P. for the Leith district of burghs from 1832 to 1838.  He died in 1859.

     MURRAY, SIR ROBERT, one of the founders and the first president of the Royal Society of London, was the son of Sir Robert Murray of Craigie, by a daughter of George Halket of Pitferran.  He is supposed to have been born about the beginning of the seventeenth century, and received his education partly at St. Andrews and partly in France.  Early in life he entered the French army, and became so great a favourite with Cardinal Richelieu that he soon obtained the rank of colonel.  He returned to Scotland about the time that Charles I. took refuge with the Scots army; and, while his majesty was with the latter of Newcastle in December 1646, he formed a plan for the king's escape, which was only frustrated by Charles' want of resolution.  "The design, "says Burnet, "proceeded so far that the king put himself in disguise, and went down the back stairs with Sir Robert Murray; but his majesty, apprehending it was scarce possible to pass through all the guards without being discovered, and judging it highly indecent to be catched in such a condition, changed his resolution with Charles II., he was appointed justice-clerk, an office which appears to have remained vacant since the deprivation of Sir John Hamilton in 1649.  A few days after he was sworn a privy counciller, and in the succeeding June was nominated a lord of session, but he never exercised the functions of a judge.  At the Restoration he was reappointed a lord of session, and also justice-clerk, and made one of the lords auditors of the exchequer; but these appointments were merely nominal to secure his support to the government; for, though he was properly the first who had the style of lord-justice-clerk, he was ignorant of the law, and it does not appear that he ever sat on the bench at all.  He was high in favour with the king, Charles II., by whom he was employed in his chemical processes, and was, indeed, the conductor of his laboratory.  He was succeeded in the office of justice clerk in


W. MURRAY

Page 227 -
1663 by Sir John Home of Renton; and in 1667 he had a considerable share in the direction of public affairs in Scotland, when, not being so obstinately bent on the establishment of Episcopacy as some of his colleagues, an unusual degree of moderation marked for a time the proceedings of the government.  Sir Robert's principal claim to distinction, however, consists in his having been one of the founders of the Royal Society of London, and its first president.  "While he lived," says Bishop Burnet, "he was the life and soul of that body."  He was a member of almost all its obtaining its charter, in July 1622, and in framing its statutes and regulations, was indefatigably zealous in promoting its interests in every respect.  Several of is papers, chiefly on the phenomena of the tides, on the mineral of Liege, and on other scientific  subjects, are inserted among the early contents of the Philosophical Transactions.  Sir Robert Murray, who had married a sister of Lord Balcarres, died suddenly, in his pavilion, in the Garden of Whitehall, July 4, 1673, and was interred at the king's expense in Westminster Abbey.

     MURRAY, THOMAS, an eminent portrait painter, was born in Scotland in 1666; and at an early age went to London, where he became a pupil of Riley, state-painter to Charles II., and successor to Sir Peter Lely  He studied nature carefully, and in his colouring and style imitated his master, Riley.  He painted portraits with great success and credit; and being employed by the royal family, as also by many of the nobility, he acquired, in the course of time, a considerable fortune.  The portrait of Murray, by himself, is honoured with a place in the gallery of painters at Florence.  He died in 1724.

     MURRAY, PATRICK, fifth Lord Elibank, a learned and accomplished nobleman, see ELIBANK, Lord, VOL. II, P. 130.

     MURRAY, WILLIAM, first earl of Mansfield, a celebrated lawyer and statesman, the fourth son of David, fifth Viscount Stormont, was born at Perth, Mar. 2, 1705.  He was removed to London in Mar. 2, 1705.  He was removed to London in 1708, and in 1719 was admitted a king's scholar at Westminster school.  In June 1723 he was entered at Christ church, Oxford, where he distinguished himself by his classical attainments.  In 1730 he took the degree of M. A., and afterwards travelled for some time on the Continent Having become a student at Lincoln's Inn, he was called to the bar at Michaelmas term 1731.  His abilities were first displayed in appeal cases before the House of Lords, and he gradually rose to eminence in his profession.  In 1736 he was employed as one of the counsel for the lord provost and town council of Edinburgh, to oppose in parliament the Bill of Pains and Penalties, which afterwards, in a modified form, passed into a law against them, on account of the Porteous riots.  For his exertions on this occasion, he was presented with the freedom of the city of Edinburgh in a gold box.  In November 1742 he was appointed solicitor-general in the room of Sir John Strange, who had resigned.  About the same time he obtained a seat in the House of Commons, as member for Boroughbridge, in Yorkshire.  His eloquence and legal knowledge soon rendered him very powerful in debate, and as he was a strenuous defender of the duke of Newcastle's ministry, he was frequently opposed to Pitt, afterwards earl of Chatham; these two being considered the best speakers of their respective parties.  In March 1746 he was appointed one of the managers for the impeachment of Lord Lovat, and the candour and ability which he displayed on the occasion received the acknowledgments of the prisoner himself, as well as of the Lord-chancellor Talbot, who presided on the trial.
     In 1754 Mr. Murray succeeded Sir Dudley Ryder as attorney-general, and on the death of that eminent lawyer, in November 1756, he became lord-chief-justice of the king's ben__.  Immediately after he was created a peer of the realm, by the title of Baron Mansfield, in the county of Nottingham.  He was also, at the same time, sworn a member of the privy council, and, contrary to general custom, became a member of the cabinet.  During the unsettled state of the ministry in 1757, his lordship held, for a few months, the office of chancellor of the exchequer, and during that period he effected a coalition of parties, which led to the formation of the administration of his rival Pitt.  The same year, on the retirement of Lord Hardwicke, he declined the offer of the great seal, 

Page 228 -
which he did twice afterwards.  During the Rockingham administration in 1765, Lord Mansfield acted for a short time with the opposition, especially as regards the bill for repealing the stamp act.  As a judge his conduct was visited with the severe animadversions of Junius, and made the subject of much unmerited attack in both houses of parliament.  He was uniformly a friend to religious toleration, and on various occasions set himself against vexations prosecutions founded upon oppressive laws.  On the other hand, he incurred much popular odium by maintaining that, in cases of libel, the jury were only judges of the fact of publication, and had nothing to do with the law, as to libel or not.  This was particularly shown in the case of the trial of the publishers of Junius' letter to the king.
     With regard to his thrice refusal of the great seal, Lord Campbell, in his Lives of the Chief Justices of the King's Bench, (vol. iii. p. 469,) says, "in 1770, the king and the duke of Grafton, repeatedly urged Lord Mansfield to become lord chancellor, but whatever his inclination may have been when Lord Bute was minister, in the present ricketty state of affairs he peremptorily refused the office, and suggested that the great seal should be given to Charles Yorke, who had been afraid that he would snatch it from him.  By Lord Mansfield's advice it was that the king sent for Charles Yorke, and entered into that unfortunate negotiation with him which terminated so fatally - occasioning the comparison between this unhappy man, destroyed by gaining his wish, and Semele perishing by the lightning she had long for.  For some months the chief justice presided on the woolsack as Speaker of the House of Lords, and exercised almost all the functions belonging of the office of Lord Chancellor."
     In October, 1776, having been previously created a knight of the Thistle, Lord Mansfield was advanced to the dignity of an earl of the United Kingdom by the title of earl of Mansfield, with remainder to the Stormont family, as he had no issue of his own.  During the famous London riots of June 1780, his house in Bloomsbury Square was attacked and set fire to by the mob, in consequence of his having voted in favour of the bill for the relief of the Roman Catholics, and all his furniture, pictures, books, manuscripts, and other valuables were entirely consumed.  His lordship himself, it is said, made his escape in disguise, before the flames burst out.  He declined the offer of compensation from government for the destruction of his property.  The infirmities o_ age compelled him, June 3, 1788, to resign the office of chief-justice, which he had filled with the distinguished reputation for thirty-two years.  The latter part of his life was spent in retirement, principally at his seat at Caen Wood, near Hampstead.  He died Mar. 20, 1793, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.  The earldom, which was granted again by a new patent in July 1792, descended to his nephew, Viscount Stormont.  (See STORMONT, Viscount of.)  A life of Lord Mansfield, by Holliday, was published in 1797, and another, by Thomas Roscoe, appeared in 'The Lives of British Lawyers,' in Lardner's Cyclopædia.

     MURRAY, LORD GEORGE, lieutenant-general of the rebel Highland army in 1745-6, was the fourth son of the first duke.  Born in 1705, he took a share in the insurrection of 1715, though then but ten years old, and he was one of the few persons who joined the Spanish forces which were defeated in Glenshiel in1719.  He afterwards served several years as an officer in the king of Sardinia's army; but having obtained a pardon he returned from exile, and was presented by George I. by his brother the duke of Athol.  He joined Prince Charles at Perth in September, 1745, and was immediately appointed lieutenant-general of the insurgent forces.  The battle of Preston, where he commanded the left wing of the prince's army, was, in a great measure, gained through his personal intrepidity.  "Lord George," says the chevalier Johnstone, in his 'Memoirs of the Rebellion,' "at the head of the first line, did not give the enemy time to recover from their panic.  He advanced with such rapidity that General Cope had hardly time to form his troops in order of battle when the Highlanders rushed upon them, sword in hand, and the English cavalry was instantly thrown into confusion."
     On the advance of the rebel army into England, Lord George had the command of the blockade of Carlisle, which soon surrendered.  Owing to the

Page 229 -
intrigues of Murray of Broughton, secretary to the prince, whose "unbounded ambition," we are told, "from the beginning aimed at nothing less than the whole direction and management of every thing," Lord George was induced, at this time, to resign his command as one of the lieutenant-generals of the army, acquainting the prince that thenceforward he would serve as a volunteer.  At the siege of Carlisle, the duke of Perth had acted as principal commander, and Lord George, it was thought, was not willing to serve under him for the rest of the campaign.  The duke, however, subsequently declined the principal command, when Lord George, who had resumed his place, became general of the army under the prince.
     He was the first to recommend the retrograde movement from Derby, of which he offered to undertake the conduct.  In that memorable retreat he commanded the  rear-guard, and contrived to keep the English forces effectually in check.  Being delayed by the breaking down of some baggage waggons, the enemy came upon him at Clifton in Cumberland.  His force consisted of about a thousand men, and he applied to the prince, who was then at Penrith with the main body of the army, for a reinforcement.  Instead of receiving it, however, orders were sent to him to pursue his retreat; but, after requesting the messenger to keep secret the orders he had brought, he determined to attack the enemy with what force he had.  He, therefore, drew up his troops in order of battle, and the English, under the duke of Cumberland, came up just as the sun was setting.  After making his hasty arrangements, which were not completed till it was quite dark, he made a powerful charge upon the English, lighted by the moon which broke at intervals through the dark clouds.  The English cavalry were forced back with a severe loss, while the Highlanders lost but twelve men.
     At the battle of Falkirk, Lord George had the command of the right wing, and took his place at the head of the Macdonalds of Keppoch, with his drawn sword in his hand, and his target on his arm.  When the English dragoons came within ten or twelve paces of him, he gave orders to fire.  "The cavalry closing their ranks, which were opened by this discharge," says Johnstone, "put spurs to their horses, and rushed upon the Highlanders at a hard trot, breaking their ranks, and throwing down everything before them.  A most extraordinary combat followed.  The Highlanders, stretched upon the ground, thrust their dirks into the bellies of the horses; some seized the riders by their clothes, dragged them down, and stabbed them with their dirks; several of them again used pistols, but a few of them had sufficient space to handle their swords."  This victory, like that at Preston, was, in a great measure, achieved by the personal bravery of Lord George Murray, though the prince himself commanded.
     On arriving at Inverness, Lord George received information of various cruelties practised by the English troops on the people of Athol.  He "set off instantly," says Johnstone, "with the clan of Athol, to take vengeance for these outrages, and be conducted his march so well passing through byeways across the mountains, that the enemy had no information of his approach.  Having planned his march so as to arrive at Athol in the beginning of the night, the detachment separated, dividing itself into small parties, every gentleman taking the shortest road to his own house," and in this way all English were surprised at their posts.  Many were put to the sword, and about 300 were made prisoners.  Sir Andrew Agnew, who held the castle of Blair, marched out with a detachment to ascertain who they were that had attacked his posts, but owing to the precautions taken by Lord George, he returned to the castle, without venturing on an attack.  Lord George then invested the castle, which he blockaded, and the garrison, reduced to great distress from want of provisions, were expected soon to surrender, when his lordship received an order from the prince to return to Inverness, in consequence of the advance of the duke of Cumberland.
     It was Lord George Murray who proposed the night march to Nairn, the evening before the battle of Culloden, with the view of surprising the army of the duke of Cumberland.  He led the van for that attack, but finding that the rear of the Highlanders did not come up in time, he at once advised a retreat.  At the battle of Culloden Lord George commanded the right wing of the prince's army.  The English artillery was rapidly

Page 230 -
thinning his ranks when he gave orders to charge.  The first line of the English army reeled and gave way before them.  But their opponents were so numerous that before the Highlanders could reach the second line of the English they were entirely destroyed.  On this occasion Lord George displayed all his former heroism.  While advancing towards the second line, in attempting to dismount from his horse, which had become unmanageable, he was thrown; but, recovering himself, he ran to the rear and brought up two or three regiments from the second line of the Highlanders, to support the first; but although they gave their fire, nothing could be done, - all was lost.
     After their defeat, Lord George and the other chiefs who remained with the army retired to Ruthven, where they assembled a force of about 3,000 men, but two or three days after the battle they received orders from the prince to disperse.  His lordship had written to Charles, pointing out the principal causes which had led to the loss of the battle, and requesting him to accept of the resignation of his commission, but when he found that it was the intention of the prince to depart for France, he sent a message to him earnestly dissuading him from such a course, and advising him to remain in Scotland and try another campaign.  He maintained that the Highlanders "could have made a summer's campaign without the risk of any misfortune;" and "though they had neither money nor magazines, they would not have starved in that season of the year so long as there were sheep and cattle."
     On the prince's escape, Lord George Withdrew to the Continent, and having spent some years in France and Italy, died in Holland on the 8th July 1760.  His character is thus sketched by Johnstone: - "Lord George Murray, who had the charge of all the details of our army, and who had the sole direction of it, possessed a natural genius for military operations; and was a man of surprising talents, which had they been cultivated by the study of military tactics, would unquestionably have rendered him one of the greatest generals of his age.  He wa tall and robust, and brave in the highest degree; conducting the Highlanders in the most heroic manner, and always the first to rush, sword in hand, into the midst of the enemy.  He used to say, when we advanced to the charge, 'I do not ask you, my lands, to go before, but merely to follow me.'  He slept little, was continually occupied with all manner of details; and was, altogether, most indefatigable, combining and directing alone all our operations: - in a word, he was the only person capable of conducting our army.  He was vigilant, active, and diligent; his plans were always judiciously formed, and he carried them promptly and vigorously  into execution.  However, with an infinity of good qualities, he was not without his defects: - proud, haughty, blunt, and imperious, he wished to have the exclusive ordering of everything, and, feeling his superiority, he would listen to no advice.  Still, it must be owned, that he had no coadjutor capable of advising him, and his having so completely the confidence of his soldiers enabled him to perform wonders."

     MURRAY, ALEXANDER, D. D.,  a celebrated self--taught philologist, was born at Dunkitterick, in the parish of Minnigaff, stewardtry of Kirkcudbright, Oct. 22, 1775.  His father was the humble Galloway shepherd, an occupation followed by his ancestors for several generations, and for which he himself was originally designed.  He was taught to read by his father, who was in his seventieth year at the time of his birth.  The method which the old man adopted was to draw the figures of the letters on an old wool card with the ends of the burnt roots of the heather that grew on the hills.  After thus learning the letters by means of the burnt sticks, he was advanced to the catechism, which was the child's primer in those days.  Then he somehow obtained a New Testament, and afterwards a whole Bible, by going to a place where an old tattered copy of it lay, which he carried off bit by bit.  In the wild solitary glen where his father lived, he made himself master of the whole contents of the sacred volume, and also devoured every printed scrap of paper on which he could lay his hands, and so strong was his memory that even when he was but a boy he could repeat the names of the patriarchs and scripture characters from Adam to our Saviour without omitting one.  When about seven years old, he was employed on the hills in herding sheep.  The poverty of the family, and the

Page 231 -
remote situation of their hut, prevented his being sent early to school, and in fact he would never have obtained any regular instruction at all, had not a brother of his mother, named William Cochrane, offered, in May 1784, to be at the expense of sending him to school, and boarding him for a short time in New Galloway.  Bad health, however, obliged him to return home before he had been six months at school, and for more than four years after this he had no opportunity of resuming his attendance.  In the meaintime he was employed as usual as a shepherd boy, and for about three years the Bible, and what "ballads and penny stories" he could pick up, formed his only reading.
     In the end of 1787 he engaged to teach throughout the winter the children of two neighbouring farmers, and as a remuneration, he received sixteen shillings, part of which he immediately laid out in the purchase of books.  Soon after he began to give irregular attendance for a short time at the school of Minnigaff, chiefly for the purpose of improving his arithmetic, with the view of becoming a merchant's clerk.  In 1790, having obtained a cheap copy of Ainsworth's Dictionary, he began the study of Latin, and in May of that year commenced to learn French.  In the summer of 1791 he again attended school for about three months, and read with avidity whatever books he could anywhere borrow, whether in English, French, Latin, Greek, or Hebrew, for so great was his application, that he had made himself master of all these languages within the space of only about eighteen months, and that chiefly by his own unaided exertions.
     In the winter of 1792-3 he again engaged in teaching, when he received, as he informs us, for his labours, about thirty shillings.  During the same winter he went in the evenings to a school at Bridgend of Cree, where he remained for about three months and a half.  The whole period of his school attendance, scattered over a space of eight years, did not exceed thirteen months; but every spare hour was given to study, and as he himself tells us, French, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew occupied all his leisure time.  In 1791 he had made himself acquainted with the Abysainian alphabet, from an inaccurate copy which he transcribed from an odd volume of the Unifersal History.  The Arabic letters he had learned previously from Robertson's Hebrew Grammar.  He had purchased the same year, for a trifle, a manuscript volume of the Lectures of Arnold Drackenburg, a German professor, on the lives and writings of the Roman authors, from Livius Andronicus to Quintilian, which he afterwards  translated, and in 1794 offered his version to the book-sellers at Dumfries, with a number of poems which he had composed, chiefly in the Scottish dialect, but neither of the two booksellers in that town would undertake the publication.  During this visit to Dumfries he was introduced to Burns, the poet, who treated him with great kindness, and gave him some useful hints as to his poetry.
     The fame of his extraordinary acquirements having extended to Edinburgh, in November 1794 he was invited to that city, when he underwent an examination before Principal Baird and two of the other city clergymen.  The extent and accuracy of his classical attainments made such an impression on these gentlemen, that they exerted their influence to procure for him a free attendance at the classes in the university, and contributed to his means of subsistence during the first two years of his academic career.  At the end of that period he obtained a bursary, or exhibition, from the city, and soon after was able to support himself by private teaching.  He continued to devote himself with all his wonted enthusiasm to the study of languages, and after having attained to a knowledge of all those spoken in Europe, he commenced his investigations into the Oriental tongues, and of the six or seven dialects of the Abyssinian or Ethiopic language, in particular, he made himself completely master.  The latter circumstance induced Mr. Constable, the publisher, to employ him in 1802 to superintend a new edition of 'Bruce's Travels to discover the Source of the Nile,' which appeared in seven volumes 8vo, in 1805, with a Life of the author prefixed, and a mass of illustrative notes.  The Life of Bruce he afterwards enlarged and published separately.  He had previously contributed several miscellaneous pieces to the Scots Magazine, of which he was at one time editor.
     Having passed through the usual college course, to qualify him for the ministry in the Church of

Page 232 -
Scotland, he was appointed in 1806 assistant and successor to the Rev. Mr. Muirhead, minister of Urr, in the stewartry of Kirkcudbright, and on the death of the latter in 1808, he succeeded to the full incumbency of the parish.  In 1812 he became a candidate for the vacant professorship of Oriental Languages in the university of Edinburgh, and among the numerous testimonials of his qualifications which were published on the occasion, was one from Mr. Salt, formerly envoy to Abyssinia, whose admiration of the deep erudition and extensive research displayed in his edition of Bruce's Travels, caused him, on his return to England in February 1811, to recommend him to the marquis of Wellesley, as the only person in the British dominions” adequate to translate an Ethiopic letter which he had brought from the governor of Tigre to George III.  In remembrance of Mr. Murray's services in translating this letter, a pension of £80 a -year was after his death grant ed by his majesty to his widow.  He was elected professor of Oriental Languages on July 8, by a majority of two votes, and a few days thereafter the senatus of the university conferred on him the degree of D.D.  He was not destined, however, to occupy long a chair which he was so admirably qualified to fill.  On October 31 he entered upon the discharge of his professional duties in a weak state of health, and continued with the utmost ardour to teach his classes during the winter.  At that commencement of the session he published his 'Outlines of Oriental Philology,' an elementary work, designed for the use of his students.  In the beginning of February a new impression of his edition of Bruce's Travels also made its appearance.  Soon after, his illness assumed such an alarming aspect as to prevent his lecturing, though he continued his literary labours to the last, having been the very day before his death engaged nearly twelve hours in arranging his papers, &c.  He died on the morning of Apr. 15, 1813, in his 37th year.  In his latter years he had written a work of great learning, entitled 'History of European Languages,' which was published after his death in 2 vols. 8vo, under the auspices of Sir Henry Moncreiff and the Rev. Dr. Scot of Corstorphine.  By his wife, whom he married while residing at Urr, Dr. Murray had a son and daughter, the latter of whom died in 1821.  Subjoined is his portrait, from a painting by Geddes, engraved by Burnet:


ALEXANDER MURRAY

     MURRAY, Sir George, an able military officer and diplomatist, the second son of Sir William Murray, the fifth baronet of Ochtertyre, was born at the family seat in Perthshire, Feb. 6, 1772.  He was educated at the high school and university of Edinburgh, and on 12th March 1789, was gazetted an ensign in the 71st foot.  Soon after, he removed to the 34th regiment, and in June 1790 to the 3d Guards.  In 1793 he was in the army under the duke of York which was employed against the French in Flanders, and in January 1794 he was promoted to a lieutenancy, with the rank of captain.  In April of that year he returned to England, but having rejoined the army in Flanders during the summer, he was present in the retreat through Holland and Germany.  In 1795 he was appointed aide-de-camp to Major-general Sir Alexander Campbell, on the staff of Lord Moira's army in the expedition intended for Quiberon.  In the autumn of the same year, he proceeded to the West Indies under Sir Ralph Abercromby, but in consequence of ill-health he soon returned, and he served on the staff in Eng-

Page 233 -
land and Ireland during the years 1797 and 1798.  In August 1799 he was appointed a captain in the guards, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel.  He participated in all the dangers and disasters of the expedition to Holland that year, and was wounded at the Helder.  He was soon, however, able to proceed with his regiment to Cork, whence he embarked with it to Gibraltar, as part of the force under the orders of Sir Ralph Abercromby.  Having been placed in the quarter-master-general's department, he went to Egypt for the purpose of making arrangements preparatory to the celebrated expedition against the French in that country, and while there he displayed so much gallantry and skill that the Turkish government conferred upon him the order of the crescent, second class.
     He was present in every one of the engagements in Egypt, at Marmorice and Aboukir, at Rosetta and Rahanieh, at Cairo and Alexandria, and had the good fortune to escape without a wound.  In 1802 he went to Egypt to the West Indies, and remained there a year as adjutant-general to the British forces in those colonies.  On his return to England, he filled a situation at the Horse Guards.  In 1804 he was appointed deputy quarter-master-general in Ireland.  In 1806 he was engaged in active service in the expedition to Stralsund, but that design was rendered abortive by the successes of the French in Poland.  About two years thereafter, Colonel Murray was intrusted with a diplomatic mission to Sweden, and being there at the time that the expedition under Sir John Moore went to that country, he received from that distinguished commander the appointment of quarter-master-general.  Very soon afterwards, the troops under Sir John Moore joined the army in Portugal, and Colonel Murray, who went along with them, served all through the peninsular war.  On new year's day 1812, he became a major-general, and on 9th August 1813 he was appointed colonel of the 7th Battalion of the 60th regiment.  In 1817 he was removed to the 72d foot, and on Sept. 11, 1813, was nominated a knight of the Bath, before the enlargement of that order.
     After serving for a short time as adjutant-general in Ireland, Sir George was appointed governor of the Canadas.  He had not been long there when the secretary of state announced to him that the Emperor Napoleon had landed at Cannes from Elba.  He had the choice of either remaining in Canada, or returning to Europe, to engage in active service.  He preferred the latter, but the delay occasioned by the embarkation of a large body of troops, and the slow progress made in sailing with a fleet of transports, prevented his arriving in time, and he did not join the duke of Wellington's army till it had nearly reached Paris, after the battle of Waterloo.
     During the stay of our army of occupation in France, Sir George remained with them, with the local rank of a lieutenant-general.  While in Paris he received seven orders of knighthood, besides those conferred by his own sovereign, so highly were his character and services held in estimation by continental monarchs.  He became a knight Grand Cross of Hanover; knight Grand Cross of Leopold, St. Alexander Newski, and the Red Eagle; a commander of the Tower and Sword, Maximilian Joseph, and St. Henry.
     On the return of the army of occupation to England in 1817, Sir George Murray was appointed governor of Edinburgh castle, but he held that office only for a year, as on 18th August 1819, he was nominated governor of the Royal Military College at Woolwich.  On 14th June 1820, the university of Oxford conferred on him the degree of D. C. L., and in January 1824 he was chosen a fellow of the Royal Society.  In September 1823 he had been appointed to the command of the 42d foot, and on 6th March following he became lieutenant-general of the ordnance.  The same year (1824) he was chosen M. P. for the county of Perth.  at this time he filled the office of commander of the forces in Ireland.
     At the general election of 1826, he was again returned for Perthshire.  In January 1828, when the duke of Wellington became prime minister, Sir George Murray was appointed secretary of state for the colonies; on which occasion he resigned the command of the army in Ireland, and was sworn a member of the privy council.  From that period he distinguished himself as a ready and fluent speaker in the House of Commons.  He supported the Roman Catholic emancipation.

Page 234 -
bill of 1829, and after the whig government came into power in November 1830, he was one of the principal members of the opposition.  In that year, and again in 1831, he was re-elected for Perthshire, but on the dissolution of parliament in 1832, after the passing of the Reform Bill, he was defeated by the earl of Ormelie, afterwards marquis of Breadalbane.  In 1834 his lordship became a member of the House of Lords, and Sir George Murray was again elected M. P. for Perthshire.
     In Sir Robert Peel's administration of 1834-5, Sir George held the office of master-general of the ordnance.  At the general election which ensued he was opposed by Mr. Fox Maule, afterwards Lord Panmure, who defeated him by a majority of 82.  At the general election of 1837, Sir George stood for Westminster, but was unsuccessful.  Two years subsequently he became a candidate for Manchester, and was again defeated.
     On the death of Lord Lynedoch in 1843, he succeeded him as colonel of the 1st or Royal regiment of foot.  He attained the rank of lieutenant-general May 27, 1825, and that of general, Nov. 23, 1841.  He was editor of 'The Duke of Marlborough's Letters and Despatches,' from 1702 to 1712, which were published in 1845.  He will be remembered as a successful soldier, and able minister, and a skilful and fluent debater.  He died in London 26th July 1846, aged 74, and was buried at Kensal Green.  At the time of his death he was governor of Fort George and president of the Royal Geographical Society.  He had married in 1826, in the 54th year of his age, Lady Louisa Erskine, sister of the marquis of Anglesey and widow of Lieutenant-general Sir James Erskine, baronet.  Lady Louisa was then 48.  She died 23d January 1842.  They had one daughter, who married H. G. Boyce, Esq., of the 2d life guards, and died in 1849.
--- Pp. 223 - 234

 

< CLICK HERE to RETURN to TABLE of CONTENTS >
.



 

CLICK HERE to Return to
SCOTLAND
INDEX PAGE

CLICK HERE to Return to
GENEALOGY EXPRESS

FREE GENEALOGY RESEARCH is My MISSION
GENEALOGY EXPRESS
This Webpage has been created by Sharon Wick exclusively for Genealogy Express  ©2008
Submitters retain all copyrights