as the lord advocate, took part in reforming the constitution of the court of session, and was appointed one of the thirteen commissioners who sat for the first time on 30 Nov. 1808 for the purpose of inquiring into the administration of justice in Scotland. The correspondence between him and Erskine, the late lord advocate, on the subject of the respective merits of Lord Grenville's and Lord Eldon's bills for the reform of legal procedure will be found in the 'Scots Magazine' for 1808, pp. 70-2, 149-52. On the death of Lord Frederick Campbell, Colquhoun was appointed lord clerk register on 4 July 1816, much to the disappointment of Erskine's friends, who had hoped that the post would have been offered to him.
Colquhoun died on 8 Dec. 1820, after an illness of a few days, at the house of his son-in-law, Walter Long, at Hartham, Wiltshire, and was buried in the parish churchyard of New Kilpatrick near Glasgow. In 1796 he married Mary Ann, daughter of the Rev. William Erskine, episcopalian minister at Muthill, Perthshire, and sister of William Erskine, afterwards Lord Kinneder, by whom he had six daughters and two sons, viz. John Campbell-Colquhoun of Killermont and Garscadden [q. v.], and William Laurence Colquhoun, who died on 16 Jan. 1861. Their eldest child died within a year of her birth, and it was on this occasion that Carolina Oliphant, afterwards Baroness Nairne, wrote 'The Land of the Leal,' which she sent to her old friend Mrs. Colquhoun. Colquhoun was a good classical scholar, a sound lawyer, and an eloquent pleader. Being a man of independent fortune and of reserved manners, he hardly took the position at the bar to which his abilities entitled him. His only reported speech does not appear to have been a great success. He rose 'amidst a tumultous cry of Question! Question!' to take part in the debate on the Duke of York's conduct, and had not got very far when the house became 'so clamorous for the question that the hon. member could no longer be heard' (Hansard, Parl. Debates, 1809, xiii. 577-8). His wife survived him for many years, and died at Rothesay on 15 May 1833. His portrait by Raeburn is in the possession of his grandson, the Rev. J. E. Campbell-Colquhoun of Killermont, and a capital etching of him by Kay will be found in the second volume of 'Original Portraits' (No. 317).
[Kay's Original Portraits and Caricature Etchings (1877), ii. 431; William Fraser's Chiefs of Colquhoun and their Country (1869), ii. 253-4, 258; Omond's Lord Advocates of Scotland (1883), ii. 224-9; Anderson's Scottish Nation (1863), i. 666; Statistical Account of Scotland (1845), viii. 43; Cockburn's Memorials of his Time (1856), pp. 228-9; Life and Songs of Baroness Nairne, edited by Rev. C. Rogers (1869), pp. xxx, 3-4, 181-4; Scots Mag. lxix. 134, lxx. 69-70, 953, lxxviii. 555, viii. (N.S.) 96; Burke's Landed Gentry (1879), i. 348; Official Return of Lists of Members of Parliament, pt. ii. pp. 253, 269, 281, 295; Notes and Queries, 7th ser. i. 69, 157.]
COLQUHOUN, JANET, Lady (1781–1846), religious writer, was the second daughter of the Right Hon. Sir John Sinclair. of Ulbster, bart., by his first wife, Sarah, only child and heiress of Alexander Maitland of Stoke Newington. She was born in London 17 April 1781, but, together with her elder sister Hannah, passed her childhood at Thurso Castle with their grandmother, Lady Janet Sinclair, daughter of William, lord Strathnaven. This lady took the sisters to live in the Canongate of Edinburgh, whence they went to complete their education at a school at Stoke Newington. The younger of the two was about fifteen when they returned to be introduced into Edinburgh society. In June 1799 Janet was married to Major James Colquhoun, eldest son of Sir James Colquhoun of Luss, bart., on whose death, in 1805, her husband succeeded to the title, and Rossdhu, on Loch Lomond, became her home. Here she took a keen interest in all philanthropic and religious schemes, especially in the Luss and Arrochar Bible Society. In 1820 her health became enfeebled, and she was prevented from taking any active share in these or other benevolent objects, but she devoted herself to the composition of religious works, the first of which was published anonymously in 1822 under the title of 'Despair and Hope.' This was followed by 'Thoughts on the Religious Profession,' 1823; 'Impressions of the Heart,' 1825; 'The Kingdom of God,' 1836; and 'The World's Religion,' 1839. It was not until the death of her husband, in 1836, that her name was appended to her books. Dr. James Hamilton, her biographer, quaintly apologises for defects of artistic skill in Lady Colquhoun's books, but insists on their graceful ease and natural truthfulness. 'Like the conversation of their compiler, they are genuine and inartificial, spontaneous and heartfelt.' At the time of the disruption of the Scotch church in 1843, she took an ardent interest in the question at issue, throwing herself heart and soul into the Free church cause. She died at Helensburgh, on 21 Oct. 1846, and was buried on the 27th at Luss.
