led his landed estate by purchasing the barony of Ferintosh and the estate of Bunchrew. He died a little before the Revolution, leaving, by his wife, Ann IHinbar, a daughter of Dunbar of Hemprigs, in the county of Moray, a large family, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Duncan, who had received a liberal education on the continent, by which he was eminently qualified for performing a conspicuous part in that most auspicious of modern transactions. He was a member of the convention parliament, a decided presbyterian, and strongly condemned those temporizing measures which clogged the wheels of government at the time, and in consequence of which many of the national grievances remained afterwards unredressed. He was, of course, highly obnoxious to the Jacobites, who, under Buchan and Cannon, in 1689, ravaged his estates of Culloden and Ferintosh; destroying, particularly in the latter district, where distillation was even then carried on upon an extensive-scale, property to the amount of fifty-four thousand pounds Scots. In consequence of this immense loss, the Scottish parliament granted him a perpetual license to distil, duty free, the whole grain that might be raised in the barony of Ferintosh, a valuable privilege, by which Ferintosh very soon became the most populous and wealthy district in the north of Scotland. He died in 1704, leaving, by his wife, Mary Innes, daughter to the laird of Innes, two sons; John, who succeeded him in his estates, and Duncan, the subject of this memoir, besides several daughters.
Of the early habits or studies of Duncan Forbes, afterwards lord president, little has been recorded. The military profession is said to have been the object of his first choice, influenced by the example of his uncle John Forbes, who was a lieutenant-colonel in the army. He had also an uncle eminent in the law, Sir David Forbes of Newhall, and, whether influenced by his example or not, we find that he entered upon the study of that science at Edinburgh, in the chambers of professor Spottiswood, in the year that his father died, 1704. The university of Edinburgh had as yet attained nothing of that celebrity by which it is now distinguished, its teachers being few in number, and by no means remarkable for acquirements; of course, all young Scotsmen of fortune, especially for the study of law, were sent to the continent. Bourges had long been famous for this species of learning, and at that university, Scotsmen had been accustomed to study. Leyden, however, had now eclipsed it, and at that famous seat of learning Duncan Forbes took up his residence in 1705. Here he pursued his studies for two years with the most unremitting diligence; having, besides the science of law, made no inconsiderable progress in the He- brew and several other oriental languages. He returned to Scotland in 1707, where he continued the study of Scottish law till the summer of 1709, when he was, upon the 26th of July, admitted an advocate, being in the twenty-fourth year of his age.
The closest friendship had all along subsisted between the families of Argyle and Culloden; and, the former, being at this time in the zenith of power, displayed its fidelity by bestowing upon Mr Forbes, as soon as he had taken his place at the bar, the respectable appointment of sheriff of Mid-Lothian. The duke, and his brother the earl of Hay, from the very outset of his career, intrusted him with the management of their Scottish estates, which he is said frankly to have undertaken, though, from professional delicacy, he declined receiving any thing in the shape of fee or reward, for services which ought to have brought him some hundreds a year.
Mr Forbes, from his first appearance at the bar, was distinguished for the depth of his judgment, the strength of his eloquence, and the extent of his practice, which was such as must have precluded him from performing anything like the duties of a mere factor, which the above statement evidently supposes. That
