LORD WOODHOUSELEE. 543 



which the course of political ambition has been sometimes de- 

 graded. In the year 1790, he was appointed Judge- Advocate 

 of Scotland, in the room of Mr Charles Hope. 



The office of Judge- Advocate, it had hitherto, (I believe), 

 been usual to execute by deputy ; but Mr Tytler was not of 

 a character to make any compromise with duty, or to accept of 

 office, without accepting of all its obligations. He made it his 

 business, therefore, to attend upon every trial : he gave to every 

 case his most careful and considerate attention ; and so anxious 

 was he to fulfil his duty to the utmost, that he took the trouble 

 of drawing up, for his own direction, a Treatise upon Martial 

 Law, which afterwards, when he retired from the office, he 

 gave to the public, and which has (I understand) been found 

 of the most important use in. the decision of cases- of this 

 kind. 



Into the detail of Mr Tytler's conduct in the discharge of 

 this delicate but important office, it would be presumptuous in 

 me to enter ; but I may be permitted to relate, from his corre- 

 spondence, a single incident, which illustrates both the con- 

 sciousness with which he discharged his duty, and the respect 

 in which his opinion was held by those who were then at the 

 head of the Military Department. 



A court-martial had been held at Ayr, with the sentence of 

 which Mr Tytler was extremely dissatisfied, and to- the injus- 

 tice of which, he had anxiously, but in vain,, endeavoured at 

 the time to awaken the attention of the Court. Upon trans- 

 mitting the proceedings to London, Mr Tytler thought it his 

 duty to communicate the grounds of his dissatisfaction with 

 the sentence to Sir Charles Morgan, then Judge- Advocate- 

 General, and, in the most earnest terms, to implore his atten- 

 tion to the case, if his Majesty should (as was probable) refer 

 it to his decision. Sir Charles Morgan cheerfully undertook 



the 



