be remembered for his travails in the church, which, out of the zeal he had for
the truth, he undertook, preaching and advancing it by all means. A baron he
was of good rank, wise, learned, liberal, of singular courage; who, for diverse resemblances, may well be said to have been another Ambrose."
ERSKINE, John, eighteenth lord Erskine, .and eleventh earl of Man', was the son of Charles, tenth earl of Marr, and lady Mary Maule, daughter of the earl of Panmure. He was born at Alloa, in the month of February, 1675. Having lost his father ere he had reached his fourteenth year, and his estates being greatly embarrassed, he devoted himself to civil affairs; and as soon as he came of age, entered upon public life under the patronage of the duke of Queensberry, whose interest and whose measures he seems to have uniformly supported till his grace's death, which happened in 1711. In 1702, queen Anne, then just raised to the throne, appointed the earl of Marr one of her privy councillors for Scotland, and gave him the command of a regiment of foot, and a riband of the most noble order of St Andrews.
Marr had been carefully educated in revolution principles, and from his first entrance upon public life, had been understood to be zealously affected to the new order of things ; but in 1701, his patron Queensberry being dismissed from office, he headed the friends of that nobleman in opposition to the marquis of Tweeddale and the Squadron, who had succeeded to the administration of Scottish affairs, and this opposition he managed with so much dexterity as to gain over to his views almost all the tories, "who now," in the significant language of Lockhart, "believed him to be an honest man, and well inclined to the royal family." The Squadron, however, unable to carry on the affairs of the nation in the face of so much opposition, were compelled to resign; Queensberry again came into place, and Marr, according to Lockhart, "returned like the dog to his vomit, and promoted all the court of England's measures with the greatest zeal imaginable." In the business of the union he was certainly very active. He brought forward the draught of an act for appointing commissioners to carry it into effect, and was not only on all occasions at his post, publicly to support it, but was supposed to have secretly managed some of the bitterest of its enemies, particularly the duke of Hamilton, so as to render their opposition wavering, feeble, and in the end ineffective. For his signal services during this session of parliament, he was advanced to be secretary of state in room of the marquis of Annandale, who was dismissed on suspicion of carrying on a secret correspondence with the Squadron.
When the commissioners for treating of the union came to be named, which, principally through the influence of Marr and Argyle upon the duke of Hamilton, was left wholly to the queen, he was named third upon the list; and in all the public conferences with the English commissioners upon the articles to which they had separately agreed on the part of the Scots, Seafield, the chancellor, and Marr, the secretary, were alone employed. In the struggle that ensued in carrying the treaty through the Scottish parliament, Marr exerted all his oratory and all his influence in its behalf, which was the more honourable, that he had not a farthing of the money that was issued from the English treasury and divided among the Scottish nobility and gentry on that memorable occasion. From the whole history of Marr's life, however, it would be altogether ridiculous to ascribe his conduct to any thing like enlightened views of policy or even such patriotism as was common in those turbulent times. His motive was unquestionably of the most selfish character, most probably the preserving the good opinion of the queen, through whose favour he hoped to have his ambition gratified with the sole administration of the affairs of Scotland. With this view he attached himself in the outset of his career to the duke of Queensberry,
