Volume 2 > Half-Volume 4

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tunes, and said she must soon relinquish cards, her
favourite amusement. I immediately thought I might
strike an advantageous bargain with this dear creature,
and satisfy all mankind. I therefore agreed to attack
Dame Fortune with my money and her fingers; and
now she plays her three parties every day in my
name, and at my risk; and I am now one of the
prettiest card-players in Vienna�by proxy!" All
this was dull enough at the best; but one of his
official duties was to endure it with a contented
countenance, and appear happy with everything
around him. His chief consolation consisted in
epistolary correspondence with his friends at home,
and while he freely imparted to them those lively
communications in which his duties of political
secrecy were not compromised, he was urgent for a
full requital. Amidst these interchanges, also, the
thought of his own country, of which he had seen so
little, was always uppermost, and he was anxious for
its improvement; so that amidst his diplomatic cares
he would attend to the welfare of Scottish plantations
as zealously as if he had been a retired country gentle-
man. Upon this head, among many other topics,
he thus writes to his only sister, the Margaret
Bethune Baliol of Sir Walter Scott: "And now
pray, my dear Anne, let me appoint you my substi-
tute with G------(his bailiff in Tweeddale), to din
into his ears ' Trees, trees, trees,' every time you meet
him. I have not a twig of his planting at the hall,
and I own I expected a forest. This is no joking
matter; I would rather be master of a handsome
plantation and hedgerows, than a mine of gold; so
you know you can and will pursue it. You shall be
the ranger of the new forest in Tweeddale, and your
husband, when you get one, shall be lord-warden of
the marches." Want of trees at this time did indeed
constitute the nakedness and the shame of Scotland;
and though exertions had for some time been going
on to repair the deficiency, all that had as yet been
done was little better than Adam's fig-leaf. It is
pleasing to contrast with this the gay costume of
foliage with which our country is clothed in the pre-
sent day.
After having ably discharged his duties of envoy
at Vienna, Sir Robert was a second time appointed
to the office. The sky of Europe was already lower-
ing with the coming French revolution, so that
the utmost political foresight and circumspection
was necessary; and here he showed himself a states-
man fitted for the crisis. In his duties he was griev-
ously hampered by the remissness of the home
government, that left his despatches unanswered;
and in 1788 we find him writing to the Marquis of
Caermarthen, then secretary of state, upon the sub-
subject, with an honesty somewhat rare in diplomatic
correspondence, and with a strict stern disinterested-
ness which few of our envoys would venture to use
towards their official superiors. Fifty-three letters
he had already written to the secretary's office,
without receiving an answer to any of them. After
an indignant remonstrance at such neglect, he adds:
"A complete change of system, in regard to German
politics, has become not only expedient, but indis-
pensably necessary. But that it should have taken
place in the king's councils without any secretary of
state's having ever given me the most distant intima-
tion of such a decision, is what I cannot comprehend.
I am bold to say (and I should not deserve the
honour of serving the king as his minister at the first
court of Germany if I refrained from saying it loudly),
that such concealment is disgraceful to me in the
position in which the king has placed me, and like-
wise prejudicial to his service." The conclusion to
this remonstrance was inevitable:�unless the injury
was "immediately repaired by confidential informa-
tion and instructions," he must tender his resignation
of an office for which he was thus declared unfit.
The integrity and decision of the justly offended
statesman were too well known to be trifled with,
and his appeal was followed with due acknowledg-
ment.
The political career of Sir Robert Murray Keith
was closed with the pacification of Austria, Russia,
and Turkey, previous to the excesses of the French
revolution�a pacification which his labours tended
greatly to accomplish. He died at Hammersmith,
near London, in 1795, in the sixty-fifth year of
his age.
KEITH-ELPHINSTONE, GEORGE (Viscount
Keith, K.B., Admiral of the Red, &c.), a distin-
guished naval officer, was the fifth son of Charles,
tenth Lord Elphinstone, by the Lady Clementina
Fleming, only child of John, sixth Earl of Wigton,
and niece and heir-of-line to the last Earl Marischal.
His lordship was born on the 12th January, 1746,
at Elphinstone in East Lothian, the ancient but now
dismantled seat of the family of Elphinstone.
Mr. Elphinstone was early taught, by his remote-
ness from the chance of family inheritance, to trust
to his own exertions for the advancement of his for-
tune ; and having from his earliest years shown a
predilection for the navy, he was at sixteen ranked
as a midshipman in the Gosport, commanded by
Captain Jervis, afterwards Earl St. Vincent. The
peace of 1763 soon put an end to his immediate
hopes of naval glory�though not before he had ex-
perienced much advantage from the tuition of his
eminent commander. He subsequently served in
the Juno, Lively, and Emerald frigates, and, enter-
ing on board an Indiaman, commanded by his elder
brother, the Honourable W. Elphinstone, made a
voyage to China, where, however, he suffered con-
siderably from the climate. Notwithstanding this
latter circumstance, he did not scruple to make a
voyage to the East Indies in 1767, under Commodore
Sir John Lindsay, by whom he was promoted to a
lieutenancy.
In 1772 he was advanced to the rank of com-
mander in the Scorpion of fourteen guns. In the
spring of 1775 he was made post-captain on board
the Marlborough, seventy-four guns, and soon after
he obtained, first, the command of the Pearl, and
then of the Perseus frigate. In the Perseus, which
was remarkable as the first ship in the British navy
that was sheathed with copper, he made a con-
spicuous figure during the early years of the contest
with America as an active and intrepid officer on the
coast of that country, under Lord Howe and Admiral
Arbuthnot. He was likewise often engaged in the
services, in this unhappy war, where sea and land
forces were united�in particular, at the reduction of
Charleston, he conducted himself with such gal-
lantry in the command of a detachment of seamen as
to gain frequent and most honourable mention in the
official despatches of General Sir Henry Clinton.
The experience which he thus acquired was of great
service to him long afterwards, when he had a more
prominent and distinguished part to perform.
In 1780, having returned to England with de-
spatches from Admiral Arbuthnot, he was on his
arrival appointed to the command of the Warwick
of fifty guns. In the general election which took
place this year, he was chosen member of parliament
for Dumbartonshire, where his family possessed some
influence; and he was one of those who met at the
St. Alban's Tavern to attempt a reconciliation be-
tween Fox and Pitt and the Duke of Portland, with