[320:3] His grandfather distinguished himself by his resolute and skilful defence of William Veitch, one of the nonconforming clergy, who suffered in the persecutions of the reign of Charles II. Elliot acting as the persecuted man's agent, made an appeal to the feelings of the English statesmen, on the barbarity of the measures of their Scots colleagues; and was so far successful, that the sentence of death pronounced against Veitch, was commuted to banishment. He thenceforth became, of course, a marked man, and an act of forfeiture passed against him in 1685, as an accessory in Argyle's rising. He afterwards obtained a remission of his sentence, and on 22d November, 1688, he was received as a member of the faculty of advocates. He was created a baronet in 1700, and on 25th July, 1705, was raised to the bench. (_Brunton and Haig's account of the Senators of the College of Justice._) In Dr. M'Crie's curious "Memoirs of Mr. William Veitch," (p. 99) it is stated, that when the evil days were passed, and the condemned nonconformist was parish minister of Dumfries, he was occasionally visited by the judge, when the following conversation passed between them,--"Ah Willie, Willie, had it no' been for me, the pyets had been pyken your pate on the Nether-bow Port;" to which the retort was, "Ah Gibbie, Gibbie, had it no' been for me, ye would ha'e been yet writing papers for a plack the page." This Sir Gilbert's son, and the father of Hume's correspondent, was raised to the bench on 4th June, 1726, and became Lord Justice Clerk on 3d May, 1703. He died on 16th April, 1766. [321:1] He was chosen member for the county of Selkirk in 1754, and 1762, and for Roxburghshire in 1765, 1768, and 1774. He succeeded to the baronetcy on his father's death in 1766. He was made a lord of the admiralty in 1756, treasurer of the chamber in 1762, keeper of the signet in Scotland in 1767, and treasurer of the navy in 1770. He died in 1777. _Collins' Peerage. Beatson's Parliamentary Register._ [322:1] Minto MS. [322:2] See as instances, Washington Irving's "Salmagundi," and Morier's "Hajji Baba." [324:1] Discours sur Théophraste, where there are some bitter and just remarks on the Parisian manners of La Bruyere's day, as an appropriate introduction to the exhibition of the follies of the Athenians. [324:2] Scroll, Minto MSS.