As a reward for his eminent services to the Government he was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of the County of Ross, and, on the 26th of October, 1797, raised to the dignity of a peer of the United Kingdom, by the titles of Lord Seaforth and Baron Mackenzie of Kintail, the ancient dignities of his house, with limitation to the heirs male of his body. His Lordship, having resigned the command of the 78th, was, in 1798, appointed Colonel of the Ross-shire Regiment of Militia. In 1800 he was appointed Governor of Barbadoes, an office which he retained for six years, after which he held high office in Demerara and Berbice. While Governor of Barbadoes he was for a time extremely popular, and was distinguished for his firmness and even-handed justice. He succeeded in putting an end to slavery, and to the practice of slave-killing in the island, which at that time was of very common occurrence, and deemed by the planters a venal offence punishable only by a small fine of œ15. In consequence of his humane proceedings in this matter he became obnoxious to many of the colonists, and, in 1806, he finally left the island. In 1808 he was made a Lieutenant-General. These were singular incidents in the life of a man who may be said to have been deaf and dumb from his youth but who, in spite of these physical defects - sufficient to crush any ordinary man - had been able, by the force of his natural abilities and the favour of fortune, to overcome them sufficiently to raise himself to such a high and important position in the world. He took a lively interest in all questions of art and science, especially in natural history, and displayed at once his liberality and his love of art by his munificence to Sir Thomas Lawrence, in the youth and struggles of that great artist and famous painter, and by his patronage of others. On this point a recent writer says - "The last baron of Kintail, Francis. Lord Seaforth, was, as Sir Walter Scott has said, 'a nobleman of extraordinary talents, who must have made for himself a lasting reputation had not his political exertions been checked by painful natural infirmities.' Though deaf from his sixteenth year and though labouring under a partial impediment of speech, he held high and important appointments, and was distinguished for his intellectual activities and attainments ... His case seems to contradict the opinion held by Kitto and others, that in all that relates to the culture of the mind, and the cheerful exercise of the mental faculties, the blind have the advantage of the deaf. The loss of the ear, that 'vestibule of the soul,' was to him compensated by gifts and endowments rarely united in the same individual. One instance of the chief's liberality and love of art may be mentioned. In 1796 he advanced a sum of L1000 to Sir Thomas Lawrence to relieve him from pecuniary difficulties. Lawrence was then a young man of twenty-seven. His career from a boy upwards was one of brilliant success, but he was