The Swintons of that Ilk, by A. Campbell Swinton. 351 



character, who knew him " as much as a youth can know an old 

 man ;" " he was a very excellent person ; dull, mild, solid, and 

 plodding. It is only a subsequent age that has discovered his 

 having possessed adegreeof sagacity for which he didnot get credit 

 while he lived. So far back as 1765, he published an attack on 

 our system of entails; in 1779 he explained a scheme for a 

 uniform standard of weights and measures ; and in 1789 he put 

 forth considerations in favour of dividing the Court of Session 

 into more courts than one, and of introducing juries for the trial 

 of civil causes." "All these improvements," adds Lord Cock- 

 burn,* "have since taken place, but they were mere visions in 

 his time ; and his anticipation of them, in which, so far as I ever 

 heard, he had no associate, is very honorable to his thought- 

 fulness and judgment." The "mild" Judge lived on terms of 

 close intimacy with Henry Erskine ; and his slowness in apprehend- 

 ing a joke is illustrated by the habit, which has been attributed to 

 him, of listening in silence to the brilliant sallies of his witty 

 friend, and long after the rest of the company had regained their 

 gravity startling them by a hearty laugh, and the exclamation, 

 "Ihaeye noo, Harry." In his time the Mansion House of 

 Swinton was burned to the ground — tradition says for the second 

 time — and rebuilt in a plain but substantial style in 1800. He 

 married Margaret, daughter of John Mitchelson of Middleton, 

 by whom he had six sons and six daughters. The sons were ( 1 ) 

 John, his heir; (2) Samuel, a general in the army and colonel of 

 the 74th Eegiment; (3) Archibald, Writer to the Signet ; (4) 

 Eobert, Major, H.E.I.C.S. ; (5) George, chief secretary to the 

 government of Bengal, who married Anne Elizabeth, daughter 

 of his cousin Samuel, and now, as already mentioned, Mrs Swin- 

 ton of Swinton ; (6) William, colonel in the East India Com- 

 pany'sarmy. All the daughters died unmarried except the fourth, 

 Elizabeth, who became the wife of the Honble. Colonel Carnegie, 

 3rd son of the 6th Earl of Northesk. They had a son, who 

 married, but died without issue. Lord Swinton died on the 5th 

 of January, 1799, and was succeeded by his eldest son, 



XXV. John Swinton of Swinton, Advocate, Sheriff of Ber- 

 wickshire from 1793 till his death in 1820. He married his 

 cousin Mary Anne, daughter of Eobert Hepburne of Clerkington, 



* Memorials of his Time, p. 112. 



