448 
Proceedings of the Iioyal Society 
in a writer’s chambers, as well as the friendships which he there 
formed, were eminently useful to him at the bar. 
Lord Colonsay passed advocate in 1816, and amidst a great 
number of eminent contemporaries and rivals he soon became dis- 
tinguished in his profession. He devoted himself with special dili- 
gence to the study of criminal law, which he thoroughly mastered, 
and made himself so formidable as an opponent in defending 
prisoners that the Crown authorities saw the advantage of securing 
his services on their side, and in 1820 he was made an Advocate- 
depute by Lord Meadowbank, then Lord Advocate. 
In 1822 he was appointed Sheriff of Perth, in room of Lord 
Medwyn, promoted to the Bench. He continued in that office with 
great efficiency and usefulness down to 1834, when he became 
Solicitor-G-eneral under Sir Bobert Peel’s administration. That 
ministry retained office for only a few months ; but when they 
returned to power in 1841, he was again made Solicitor General. 
In October 1842 Sir William Rae, then Lord-Advocate, died, and 
M‘Neill succeeded him in that office. In 1843 he was elected Dean 
of the Faculty of Advocates, and became Member of Parliament for 
Argyllshire, holding that position from 1843 to 1851, when he was 
promoted to the Bench by the Whig Ministry at the same time 
with Lord Rutherfurd. In 1852 he was made Lord Justice- 
General and President of the Court of Session. After serving in 
that high position for fifteen years he was created Baron Colonsay 
in 1867, when he retired from the bench. 
Thus it is that Lord Colonsay passed through all the grades and 
honours of his profession, from that of a simple advocate to the 
Presidency of the Court. We do not know if this is unprecedented, 
but it certainly has rarely happened that a member of the bar has 
become successively, as Lord Colonsay did, a Depute-Advoeate, a 
Sheriff, Solicitor- General, Lord Advocate, Dean of Faculty, an 
ordinary Judge, and finally Lord Justice-General and Lord Pre- 
sident. The varied functions and wide experience which these 
successive positions involved, could not fail to qualify him in the 
highest degree for the discharge of all his duties, and above all, of 
those which ultimately devolved upon him when placed at the head 
of legal administration of Scotland. Every professional man 
knows that the inferior grades of legal preferment are eminently 
