and declared it could not come on sooner than the first of June; but I told him that if, as I understood was designed, the May circuit were suspended this year by act of parliament, I would require his lordship to assign a dyet sooner." In 1722, with the acquiescence of the ministry, he was returned to sit in parliament for the Inverness district of burghs; and in 1725, he obtained the high and responsible appointment of lord advocate. As the office of secretary of state for Scotland was at this time discontinued, it became part of his duty to carry on, with his majesty's ministers, the correspondence regarding the improvements necessary to be made in her civil establishments, which he did, in a manner highly creditable to himself, and with the happiest effect for his country. The year in which he was appointed lord advocate, was marked by the introduction of the malt tax into Scotland, and the mob at Glasgow, known by the name of Shawfield's rabble, by which its introduction was attended. This was a riot of a very scandalous character, (the magistrates of the city being deeply implicated in fomenting it,) in which nine persons were killed outright, and the soldiers who had been brought from Edinburgh for its suppression, were chased out of the city, and were glad to take refuge in Dumbarton castle. General Wade, who was in
Edinburgh at the time, on his way to the Highlands, was immediately ordered to Glasgow with all the troops he could muster, and he was accompanied by the lord advocate in person, who first committed the whole of the magistrates to their
own tolbooth, and afterwards, under a strong guard, sent them to Edinburgh, where they were thrown into the common jail, and it was certainly intended to proceed against them before the justiciary court Doubts, however, were entertained of the legality of the proceedings, and whether the lord advocate had not exceeded his powers in committing the whole magistracy of a city, upon the warrant of a justice of peace, to their own jail; public feeling at the same time recovering strongly in their favour, they were by the justiciary admitted to bail, nor was their case ever again called.
In 1734, he lost his brother, John Forbes, in consequence of whose death, he fell heir to the extensive and valuable estate of Culloden. In 1736, a disgraceful affair, termed the Porteous mob, occurred in Edinburgh, in consequence of which, it was resolved to deprive the city of her privileges. Mr Forbes, on this occasion, exerted himself to the utmost in behalf of the city, and was successful in procuring many modifications to be made upon the bill before it passed the two houses of parliament When we contemplate the condition of Scotland in those days, we scarcely know whether to wonder most at the good which Forbes was able to achieve, or the means by which he accomplished it. The period might properly be called the dark age of Scottish history, though it contained at the same time, the germs of all the good that has since sprung up in the bind. The pretensions of the house of Stuart were universally received, either with favour from direct affection to their cause, or at least without disfavour, the result of a justifiable disgust at the political status into which the country had been thrown by the union, and the unpopularity of the two first Brunswick princes. The commencement of a strict system of general taxation was new; while the miserable poverty of the country rendered it unproductive and unpopular. The great families still lorded it over their dependents, and exercised legal jurisdiction within their own domains, by which the general police of the kingdom was crippled, and the grossest local oppression practised. The remedy adopted for all these evils, which was to abate nothing, and to enforce everything, under the direction of English counsels and of Englishmen, completed the national wretchedness, and infused its bitterest ingredient into the brimful cup. How Forbes got his views or his character amidst such a scene, from the very heart of the very worst part of which he came, it is difficult to conceive;
