2 THE LITE OF JAMES D. FORBES. [CHAP. 



The great-great-grandson of the first Baronet of Mony- 

 musk, John Forbes, married Mary Forbes, daughter of 

 Alexander Lord Pitsligo, through whom, on the failure of 

 the male line of Pitsligo in 1781, her descendants became 

 nearest heirs and representatives of that noble and 

 attainted House. 



John Forbes, however, died before his father, and 

 therefore never succeeded to the Baronetcy ; but the 

 grandson of John was the Sir William Forbes, who 

 by his energy and character raised the family to an 

 eminence which it had never- before attained. Sir 

 William was the grandfather of James David Forbes, 

 whose life the following pages will attempt to describe. 



The father of Sir William had married a lady of 

 his own kindred and name, and died early, leaving 

 his family young and poor. Left thus, while still a 

 boy, the young Sir William migrated with his widowed 

 mother from Aberdeenshire to Edinburgh, and there took 

 to banking ; in which business he showed such energy 

 and enterprise, that he in time founded the well-known 

 banking-house in Parliament Square, which long bore 

 his name. His birth and circumstances combined the 

 conditions of the two extremes of society the high 

 bearing of an old race with that discipline of poverty 

 and thrifty training which belong to the humblest. And 

 perhaps no circumstances are more fitted to form an 

 energetic and noble character. Sir William not only 

 succeeded in restoring the decayed fortunes of his family, 

 but was known as one of the most influential and bene- 

 ficent men of Scotland in his day. His high character 

 and well-used influence are not even yet forgotten in 

 Edinburgh and in the South of Scotland. 



His paternal grandmother was, as has been said, a 

 daughter of one of the attainted Lords of Pitsligo, famous 

 for the part they took and the sufferings they endured in the 

 '15 and the '45. On the failure of the male line of Pitsligo 

 in 1781, Sir William, as we have seen, in right of his 

 grandmother became representative of that ancient Jacobite 

 House, and was henceforth known as Sir William Forbes 



