plicity, and for a time kept to his mask (ib. pp. 227–42). Forbes was meanwhile left, by Cope's departure to the south in September, the sole representative of government in the north of Scotland. Blank commissions were sent to him for distribution among the loyal clans. After Prestonpans his position became very difficult. He was joined by the Earl of London, and they raised a force of two thousand men. When the highlanders moved northwards in the beginning of 1746 Forbes and Loudon retreated into Ross-shire, and ultimately to Skye, where they heard of the battle of Culloden. Forbes then returned to Inverness. He protested against the cruelties of the Duke of Cumberland, who showed his spirit by calling Forbes ‘that old woman who talked to me about humanity’ (ib. p. 382). Forbes had been obliged to raise sums upon his own credit. ‘Small sums’ amounted to 1,500l., and he advanced besides three times his annual rents. The consequent anxiety and the labours which he had gone through seem to have broken his health. He died 10 Dec. 1747. A statue by Roubiliac was raised to him in the parliament house at Edinburgh.
He left an only son, John, who was a friend of Thomson's, and is said to be described as the ‘joyous youth’ who kept the Castle of Indolence in a ‘gay uproar.’ He entered the army, served at Fontenoy, and after his father's death lived in retirement at Stradishall, Suffolk, slowly paying off the encumbrances upon his paternal estates.
Forbes is also known as the author of some theological works. As lord advocate he had been engaged in 1728 in the prosecution of James Carnegie of Finhaven, who had been grossly insulted during one of the usual convivial parties at a funeral by a Mr. Bridgeton, and, trying to stab Bridgeton, had killed Lord Strathmore (Howell, State Trials, xvii. 73–154). Carnegie was acquitted after long arguments, in which frequent reference was made to the Mosaic law and Jewish cities of refuge. Forbes, according to his anonymous biographer, was so much impressed by these arguments that he set to work to learn Hebrew. The result of his studies appeared in three treatises, which were published soon after his death as his ‘Works, now first collected’ (undated). They contain:
- ‘A Letter to a Bishop, concerning some important Discoveries in Religion and Theology,’ 1732 (an exposition of Hutchinson's ‘Moses's Principia’).
- ‘Some Thoughts concerning Religion, natural and revealed … tending to show that Christianity is, indeed, very near as old as the Creation,’ 1735 (an answer to Tindal's ‘Christianity as Old as the Creation,’ chiefly from prophecy).
- ‘Reflections on the Sources of Incredulity with respect to Religion’ (posthumous).
The two first were translated into French by Charles François Houbigant in 1769; but, it is said, ‘the solidity of a Scottish lawyer could not be expected to suit with the vivacity of French reasoners.’ Another peculiarity perhaps had more importance. Forbes was a follower of the fanciful school founded by John Hutchinson (1674–1737) [q. v.], and afterwards represented by Bishop Horne, Jones of Nayland, Parkhurst, and others, with which his translator seems to have been in sympathy. His piety was superior to his scholarship, but his books show an attractive enthusiasm and seriousness. Warburton in 1750 (Letters, 2nd edition, p. 40) recommends the posthumous work on incredulity as ‘a little jewel. I knew and venerated the man,’ he adds; ‘one of the greatest that ever Scotland bred, both as a judge, a patriot, and a Christian.’ Though Warburton is not a safe critic, he seems to have expressed a general opinion.
[Memoirs of the Life, &c., of the late Right Hon. Duncan Forbes, 1748; Culloden Papers, with memoir by Duff, 1815; Tytler's Life of Kames, 1814, i. 45–8; Elchies's Notes on Jurisdiction, No. 14; Brunton and Haig, pp. 508–12; Lives of Simon, Lord Lovat, and Duncan Forbes of Culloden, by John Hill Burton, 1847. The last is founded upon an examination of original papers preserved at Culloden, many extracts from which are given.]
FORBES, DUNCAN (1798–1868), orientalist, was born of humble parentage at Kinnaird in Perthshire on 28 April 1798. His parents emigrated to America in the spring of 1801, taking only their youngest child with them, while Duncan was consigned to the care of his paternal grandfather in Glenfernate. His early schooling was of the scantiest, and he knew no English till he was about thirteen years old, but he soon showed intellectual independence and plain commonsense. When barely seventeen years old he was chosen village schoolmaster of Straloch, and soon after began to attend Kirkmichael school as a student. In October 1818 he entered Perth grammar school, and qualified himself to matriculate two years after at the university of St. Andrews, where he took the degree of M.A. in 1823. In the summer of the same year he accepted an appointment in the Calcutta Academy, then newly established, and arrived at Calcutta in the following November. Ill-health, however, obliged him to return to England early in 1826, when he became, soon after his arrival in London, assistant to Dr. John Borthwick
