Earls of Cromartie > [NSLBLANK]

clviii GEORGE FIRST EARL OF CROM ARTIE. [1630-
CHAPTER SEVENTH.
FROM THE UNION IN 1707 TILL THE DEATH OF LORD CROMARTIE IN 1714.
Wi
HEN the Union was at length accomplished, Lord Cromartie wrote to
Lord Godolphin, High Treasurer of England, a long letter on the subject,
and as his Lordship thought that this might probably be his last letter to
the Treasurer, he bespeaks his indulgence while offering him his candid
opinion after an employment of fifty-six years in public affairs. He says
that buying of servants in Scotland, by enlarging their salaries, had seldom
made any of them better servants, but made many others worse subjects.
He suggests the abolition of useless offices, and several other measures for
the purpose of carrying out the Union. 1
Before the British Parliament assembled under the Union, Lord Cromartie
wrote to Lord Mar his opinion on various subjects, and he alludes to his
wish to serve Lord Mar and his family, which he says may partly lie in
Erskine, partly in Mackenzie blood, 2 an expression which may be readily
understood from the explanation already given, that Lord Cromartie's mother
was an Erskine, and Lord Mar's grandmother a Mackenzie. He beseeches
Lord Mar to adhere to his fondness for the Union, for he is persuaded that
it was, and is, the chief politic good of Britain. Lord Cromartie adds : —
" I labourd (and with as much heat somtymes as discretion) in it for 40
years, through good report and ill report. I was often scornd by some who
now glorie in it. I am farr from repenting it : it hath in it the true nature of
good : it is good in its worst view. But no sublunary thing is at first perfect.
It is ane infant as yett, and needs a nurse. It was exposed as a Moses, in
1 Letter, vol. ii. pp. 27-30. "- Ibid. pp. 36-38.