Frasers of Philorth > Volume 1

THE FRASERS OF PHILOETH, LORDS SALTOUN. 201
promises with Hugh Eraser; and no further objection was offered to his
assuming the title of Lord Lovat, although there was still such uncer-
tainty as to his right, that when brought to his last trial for high treason
in 1747, it was matter for deliberation as to how he should be tried, lest
if impeached as a Peer he might claim to be a commoner, and if as a
commoner, assert himself a Peer. Ultimately he was tried, and sentenced
as a Peer, which, without being absolute proof of the justice of his claim,
yet affirms the last decision of the Court of Session upon the question in
1730. 1
At the general election of 1734, Lord Saltoun was one of the twenty
Peers who adhered to the protest made by the Duke of Hamilton and
Brandon against the undue influence of the ministry of the day in the
election of Eepresentative Peers, but he declared that in signing the protest
lie did not include the names of the Marquis of Lothian and the Earl of
Balcarres in the list therein mentioned.
Another protest against the election of the sixteen Eepresentative
Peers on the same grounds was signed by the same twenty Peers, and a
petition to the House of Lords followed ; but the petitioners being required
to name the persons they accused, and declining to do so, the petition was
dismissed. 2
Lord Saltoun seems, upon the whole, to have been a consistent supporter
of the established Government and reigning royal family ; the only evidence
of his ever having in any way approached the Jacobite party is found in a
letter from Simon, Lord Lovat.
Lord Lovat thus writes, in 1 741, from Edinburgh to a cousin of his own,
but his well-known duplicity renders any statement of his doubtful, and it
may have been only an attempt to implicate one he regarded as an enemy : — 3
" At the same time that I received your letter I had the honor to receive
a most gracious and most oblidging letter from my Lord Saltoun. No
Stratherrick man could write to me in more kindly terms. He begs my
advice in the present criticall situation of affairs.
" I took the libertie to show his letter and yours to the Earl of Aberdeen
1 State Trials. 3 Spalding Club Miscellany, vol. ii. p.
2 Robertson's Proceedings of Scottish Peers. 23.
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