THE DAM/II:PLEB OF STAIR (CONCLUDED).
SIR JAMES DALRYMPLE, Lord President Stair, the father of the unfortunate bride of Baldoon, accompanied William of Orange from Holland in 1688, and went down to Scotland, where he had first entrusted to him the important duty of pro- curing a majority of Parliament. This he secured by the pro- visions that none but " papists " should be excluded from voting at the elections, and that the commissioners for the boroughs should be chosen by a poll of freemen, thus throwing the choice on the body of the people, instead of the great landed pro- prietors. He also wrote to William strongly urging that the question of a Presbyterian Church government for Scotland should be settled by the Scottish nation itself, before the King formally assumed the administration, so as to free William from the difficult
and delicate task of displacing Episcopacy in one country while he established it in the other. On the 1st of November, 1689, Dal- rymple was re-appointed to his old post of President of the Court of Session. A combination of parties in Scotland, however, under the title of "the Club," now banded together itt opposition to the Government, and especially to the two Dalrymples. "They laid on the table of the Parliament" a law which interdicted the King from ever employing in any public office any person who
had ever borne any part in any proceeding inconsistent With the Claim of Right, or who had ever obstructed or retarded any good design of the Estates. This law, "which," Macaulay observes, "unites within a very short compass almost all the faults which a law can have, was well known to be aimed at the new Lord Presi- dent, and at his son, the new Lord Advocate. Their prosperity and power made them objects of envy to every disappointed can- didate for office. That they were new men, the first of their race who had risen to distinction, and that nevertheless they had by mere force of ability become as important in the State as the Duke of Hamilton of the Earl of Argyll, was a thought which galled the heart of many needy and haughty patricians. To the Whip of Scotland the Dalrymples were what Halifax and Carmarthen were to the Whigs of England. Neither the exile of Sir James nor the zeal with which Sir John had promoted the Revolution was received as an atonement for old delinquency. They had both served the bloody and idolatrous House. They had both oppressed the people of God. Their late repentance might per- haps give them a fair claim to pardon, but surely gave them no right to honours and rewards." The Act of Incapacitation was carried by seventy-four votes to twenty-four, and next the Club aimed a still more direct blow at the Dalrymples, by laying claim for the Parliament to a veto on the nomination of the Judges, and assuming the power of stopping the Signet, so sus- pending the whole administration of justice till this claim should be allowed. They also refused to grant any supplies till the obnoxious Act should have received the Royal assent. The Parliament was adjourned, and during the recess the Club attempted to agitate the public mind against the Government, but gradually it lost ground and public support to such an evident extent that the Government ventured to open the Courts of Justice, which the Estates had closed. The Lords of Session appointed by the King took their seats, and Sir James Dalrymple presided. In vain did the Club attempt to incite the mob to make a forcible attack on the Bench. Their power had for the present gone by, and the Dal- rymples and the Government triumphed. On the 21st of April, 1690, Sir James was raised to the Peerage as Viscount of Stair, Lord Glenluce and Stranraer, with limitations to the heirs male of his body. He died on the 25th of Nov-ember 1695, in the seventy-fifth year of his age, and was buried in St. Giles's Cathedral Church at Edinburgh.
Besides Sir John Dalrymple, "the Master of Stair," Lord Stair had four other sons and four daughters. The second son, Sir James Dalrymple of Borthwick, became an advocate, was one of the principal clerks of the Court of Session, and on the 28th of April, 1698, was created a baronet. He is well known as the author of the carious and valuable work, Collections concerning the Scottish History, and is the ancestor of the present Earl of Stair. The third son, Sir Hugh Dalrymple of North Berwick, also became an advocate, and one of the Commissioners of Edinburgh. He was created a baronet April 29, 1698 (the day after his brother James), and on the 7th of June succeeded to his father's office of President of the Court of Session. He served in Parlia- ment for North Berwick, and supported the Union ; and died February 1, 1737, in his eighty-fifth year. He was consequently about sixteen at the time of his sister Janet's unlucky wedding, and may have been the younger brother who carried her to church. He is the ancestor of General Sir Hew Dalrymple—the unlucky and unpopular colleague of Sir Arthur Wellesley in Portugal—of the present Baronet of the same name, and of Sir James Dalrymple Horn Elphinstone, Bart., who has been well known in late years as a debater on naval affairs, and has just lost his seat for Portsmouth. Thomas, the fourth son of the first Viscount Stair, was Physician in Ordinary to the King in Scotland. The fifth son, Sir David Dalrymple of Hailes, was also an advo- cate, and created a baronet May 8, 1700. He was Solicitor General to Queen Anne, a Commissioner for the Union, and entered the united Parliament in February, 1707. He was also
Queen's Advocate and Auditor of the Exchequer in Scotland, and died in 1721. His grandson, Sir David Dalrymple of Hailes, third baronet (born October 19, 1726), became a Lord of Session, and was the well-known Lord Hailes, the distinguished antiquary and historian, who died November 29, 1792.
Sir John Dalrymple, who succeeded his father, the First Lord President Stair, as second Viscount Stair, and concerning whose character and career we have already said something in speaking of his father, was born about the year 1648, and became a member of the Faculty of Advocates in 1672. He soon rose to eminence in his profession, and was one of the counsel for the Earl of Argyll in his trial for treason in 1681. When his father retired to Holland he fell under suspicion at Court, and in 1682 was committed to the castle of Edinburgh and fined 500/. ster- ling, on pretence that he, as heritable bailie of the regality of Glenluce, interfering with the sheriff of Galloway's jurisdiction, had amerced his own and his father's tenants too low for haunting conventicles. Again, in 1684, on other pretences, he was seized at his country house, and committed a close prisoner to the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, where he lay from the 11th of September to the 11th of December. Apparently he was sickened by this time of martyrdom in the cause of freedom, and his paternal estate being, as we have seen, in jeopardy from his father's proceedings, John Dalrymple made his peace at Court, and on the removal of Sir George Mackenzie for not complying with the King's design in taking away the penal laws against "papists," Sir John was made Lord Advocate, and arrived in Edinburgh, February 14, 1687, bringing with him an order from King James for 1,2001., of which 500/. was for the fine he paid in 1682, and the remainder for his charges in his journey and his loss of practice during his absence. He also brought a comprehensive pardon to his father, mother, brothers, and sisters, particularly for their con- verse with traitors, and to his little son, who had accidentally shot his brother. As Lord Advocate, Sir John Dalrymple complied with all the measures of the Court, and on the 23rd of February, 1688, was appointed a Lord of Session and Lord Justice Clerk. The Revolution came, and, as we have seen, Sir John changed sides at once, and co-operated with his father in establishing the throne of William and Mary. He was very active in the Convention Parlia- ment of Scotland, where his eloquence gave him great power. He will be always remembered as having borne the chief part in passing the resolution of the Convention declaring the throne vacant, and he was one of the three Commissioners sent up to London to offer the Crown of Scotland to the Prince and Princess of Orange in 1689. In 1690 he was re-appointed to his office of Lord Advocate, and in 1691 he was named as an additional Secretary of State for Scot- land, to reside near the King, and to have the real direction of affairs for that kingdom, Melville, the other Secretary, being left for a short time in the enjoyment of his secretaryship, but losing all but the mere name of office.
The Master of Stair, as he was nnw called, continued to govern Scotland for William with great ability and success, until he became involved in 1692 in the atrocity known in history as the Massacre of Glencoe. Macaulay thus attempts to explain his motive in becoming the chief author of this great crime. "The Master of Stair," he observes, "was one of the first men of his time, a jurist, a statesman, a fine scholar, an eloquent orator. His polished manners and lively conversation were the delight of aristocratical societies, and none who met him in such societies would have thought it possible that he could bear the chief part in any atrocious crime. His:political principles were lax, yet not more lax ,than those of most Scotch politicians of that age. Cruelty had never been imfruted to him. Those who most dis- liked him did him the justice to own that where his schemes of policy were not concerned he was a very good-natured man. There is not the slightest reason to believe that he gained a single pound Scots by the act which has covered his name with infamy. He had no personal reason to wish the Glencoe men ill. There had been no feud between them and his family. His property lay in a district where their tartan was never seen. Yet he hated them with a hatred as fierce and implacable as if they had laid waste his fields, burned his mansion, and murdered his child in the cradle. To what cause are we to attribute so strange an antipathy? The question perplexed the Master's contemporaries, and any answer which may now be offered ought to be offered with diffi- dence. The most probable conjecture is that he was actuated by an inordinate, an unscrupulous, a remorseless zeal for what seemed to him to be the interest of the State. The Master of Stair seems to have proposed to himself a truly great and good end, the pacification and civilization of the Highlands.. He was by the ac- knowledgment of those who most hated him a man of large views. He justly thought it monstrous that a third part of Scotland should be in a state scarcely less savage than New Guinea, that letters of fire and sword through a third part of Scotland should be century after century a species of legal process, and that no attempt should be made to apply a radical remedy to such evils. The independence affected by a drowd of petty sovereigns, the contumacious resistance they were in the habit of offering to the authority of the Crown and of the Court of Session, their wars, their robberies, their fire-raisings, their practice of exacting black mail from people more peaceable and useful than themselves, naturally excited the disgust and indignation of an enlightened and politic gownsman, who was both by the constitution of his mind and by the habits of his pro- fession a lover of law and order. His object was no less than a com- plete dissolution and reconstruction of society in the Highlands, such a dissolution and reconstruction as two generations later followed the battle of Culloden. In his view the clans as they existed were the plagues of the kingdom, and of all the clans the worst was that which inhabited Glencoe. He had, it is said, been par- ticularly struck by one frightful instance of the lawlessness and ferocity of those marauders. To the Master of Stair it seemed the people among whom such things were done and were approved ought to be treated like a pack of wolves, snared by any device, and slaughtered without mercy." The means he took to effect the extirpation of the people of Glencoe were as reprehensible as the act itself. "The evidence of Maelan's tardy submission was sup- pressed. The certificate which the sheriff of Argyllshire had transmitted to the Court at Edinburgh was never laid before the Board, but was privately submitted to some persons high in office, and particularly to Lord President Stair, the father of the Secretary. These persons pronounced the certificate irregular, and indeed absolutely null, and it was cancelled." The Master then, with Argyll and Breadalbane, contrived a plot for the destruction of the clan. An order was laid before the King, and signed by him, which empowered the Ministers to deal with Glencoe by martial law. "It vas fortunate, the Secretary (Dalrymple) wrote, that it was winter. This was the time to snare the wretches ! The nights were so long, the mountain tops so cold and stormy, that even the hardiest men could not long bear exposure to the open air without a roof or a spark of fire. That the women and the children could find shelter in the deseri was quite impossible. While he wrote thus," continues Macaulay, "no thought that he was committing a great wickedness crossed his mind. He was happy in the approbation of his own conscience.. Duty, justice, nay, charity and mercy, were the names under which be disguised his cruelty ; nor is it by any means improbable that the disguise imposed upon himself." "Better,' Better,' he wrote, 'not meddle with them, than meddle to no purpose. When the thing is resolved, let it be secret and sudden.' He was obeyed, and it was determined that the Glencoe men should perish, not by military execution, but by the most dastardly and perfidious form of assassination." In February the atrocious design was carried out, though not so completely as Stair had desired. The news of the event spread with extraordinary slowness and indistinctness, and it was nearly a year before a narrative of the facts appeared in. print, and still longer before they were generally believed. Some of the actors in the deed soon began to exhibit signs of remorse and fear, but the Master of Stair was above all such feelings.. "The only thing I regret," be writes, "is that any got away !" For some time the matter excited little public attention, but at last," towards the close of the year 1693, the reports which had at first been contemptuously derided as factious calumnies began to be gene- rally thought deserving of serious attention." The Queen, Mary, had been much shocked by them, and at her request William appointed. Hamilton and other Scotchmen of note to investigate the matter; but- Hamilton died, and the matter was again allowed to drop by the Go- vernment. But all Scotland was at last aroused, party feeling stimu- lating the natural feelings of humanity. The Scottish Parliament- which was about to assemble in 1695 was bent on investigation, and the King, who was about to leave for the Continent, foundit necessary to anticipate them by a Royal Commission, at the head of which was Tweeddale, and after considerable delays it was also found neces- sary to present the report to the Parliament without sending it pre- viously to the King for his consideration. The conclusion to which_ the Commissioners came was that the massacre of Glencoe was a. barbarous murder, and that of this barbarous murder the letters of the Master of Stair were the sole warrant and cause. The Estates. thereupon resolved, without a dissentient voice, that the order signed by William did not authorize the slaughter of Glencoe, and, though not unanimously, that the slaughter was a mur- der. They then passed several votes, the sense of which was to be embodied in an addrees to the King. There was great debate as te what should be demanded respecting the Master of Stair, but his friends so far prevailed as to prevent anything affecting him, beyond his official position. "They censured him, but censured him in terms far too soft. They blamed his immoderate zeal against. the unfortunate clan, and his warm directions about performing
the execution by surprise. But instead of demanding that he should be brought to trial as a murderer, they declared that, in consideration of his absence and of his great place, they left it to the Royal wisdom to deal with him in such a manner as might vindicate the honour of the Government." As usual, the sub- ordinate agents bore the chief brunt of the storm. The Master of Stair was merely dismissed from his offices. The same year he succeeded his father as second Viscount Stair, but did not take his seat in Parliament for some years. He wished to do so in 1698, but was dissuaded by Queensberry, Argyll, and other friends, and by his brother, the new Lord President, who went to NewEa- ton for that purpose, as the Justice Clerk was determined, if he offered to take his seat, to call for the vote and address respecting the Glencoe massacre. But the lapse of time and a new reign proved favourable to Stair. He took the oaths and his seat on the 21st of February, 1700, and on the accession of Anne was sworn a Privy Councillor, and on the 8th of April, 1703, was created Earl of Stair, Viscount Dalrymple, Lord Newliston, Glenluce, and Stranraer. He warmly supported the Union, and was one of the Commissioners for that treaty in 1705. But it is said that the anxiety and fatigue, as well as the unpopularity attending the accomplishment of this act, were too much for his strength. On the 8th of January, 1707, he spoke very earnestly on the twenty- second article of the treaty, and afterwards walked home, and dined very cheerfully with company, but died suddenly the same day.
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