The Sivintons of that Ilk, by A. Campbell Swinton. 345 



coat, rapier, and other parts of a fashionable young gentleman's 

 dress at the time. In consequence of the forfeiture, he never, of 

 course, had possession of the family estate, and dying unmar- 

 ried, was succeeded by 



XXII. John Swinton, his brother, who was a considerable 

 merchant in Holland. He also carried on business in London, 

 and is designed " of Lombard street, Merchant," in the register 

 of his marriage in 1674, to Sarah, daughter of William Welsh, 

 generally said to have been a merchant in London, but described 

 by one authority as " a minister of some note." Of this marriage 

 there was a large family, none of whom survived childhood, 

 except one daughter, Frances, who married eventually the Eev. 

 Henry Yeitch, Minister of Swinton. In 1690, John Swinton 

 presented to the Scottish Parliament a petition praying that his 

 father's forfeiture might be rescinded. The case was considered 

 with much deliberation, the Earl of Lauderdale, who had suc- 

 ceeded his brother the Duke, being heard for his interest. An 

 Act of Parliament was ultimately passed annulling the two 

 Decrees of Forfeiture of 1651 and 1661*; and Swinton, now, or 

 shortly afterwards a widower, returned to Scotland, and resumed 

 possession of the family estate, which he found denuded of its 

 old timber, and otherwise greatly dilapidated. Probably to 

 retrieve in some measure the shattered fortunes of the family, he 

 sold the estate of Cranshaws in 1695, to John Watson, merchant 

 in Edinburgh, from whom it has descended through his mother 

 to Lord Aberdour, the eldest son of the Earl of Morton. Not 

 long afterwards we find Swinton styled " Sir John," having no 

 doubt, according to the fashion of the day, been knighted by the 

 Royal Commissioner. He was one of twelve persons in whose 

 favour the act establishing the Bank of Scotland was passed in 

 1695. f It has been noticed^ that he was nevertheless a large 

 holder of the stock of the unfortunate Darien company, in rival- 

 ry of which the bank seems to have been started. In 1706 he 

 sat in parliament for Berwickshire, and voted in favour of the 

 Union. Of his sayings and doings and those of other Merse 

 lairds, a curious record is contained in a MS diary by George Home 

 of Kimmerghame, preserved in the Marchmont repositories. * ' Sir 



* Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, vol. ix., p. 221. 



t lb., p. 494. 



X Burton's History of Scotland from the Revolution, vol, i., p. 285. 



