Ayrshire

County

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1790-1820, ed. R. Thorne, 1986
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Background Information

Number of voters:

220 in 1790, 110 in 1791, 151 in 1811

Elections

DateCandidateVotes
19 July 1790SIR ADAM FERGUSSON, Bt. 
17 June 1796HUGH MONTGOMERIE30
 William Fullarton26
30 Nov. 1796 WILLIAM FULLARTON vice Montgomerie, called to the Upper House 
20 July 1802WILLIAM FULLARTON 
5 Apr 1803 SIR HEW DALRYMPLE HAMILTON, Bt., vice Fullarton, appointed to office 
21 Nov. 1806SIR HEW DALRYMPLE HAMILTON, Bt. 
5 June 1807DAVID BOYLE57
 Sir Hew Dalrymple Hamilton, Bt.44
22 Mar. 1811 SIR HEW DALRYMPLE HAMILTON, Bt., vice Boyle, appointed to office56
 James Montgomerie50
23 Oct. 1812SIR HEW DALRYMPLE HAMILTON, Bt.56
 James Montgomerie54
6 July 1818JAMES MONTGOMERIE 

Main Article

With one of the largest county electorates in Scotland, owing to competitive enrolment after 1779, Ayrshire was also one of the most keenly contested seats, even when the fictitious votes fell away after 1790. The Earl of Eglintoun retained the major interest, but he needed allies to carry the county, in which the Earls of Cassillis, Glencairn and Dumfries, Sir Adam Fergusson and Sir John Whitefoord also had considerable interests; but in which election contests were nevertheless decided by the ‘non-declarants’, the independent freeholders who might be swayed either way. (Dr Gilbert Blane, for instance, claimed that his family, having five votes, swayed the election of 1796 ‘and brought in the Member’. This was one of his claims for a baronetcy in 1809. The Blane votes were much canvassed.) Electoral pacts were in fact the only deterrent against continuous contests as, at least at the beginning of this period, there was no shortage of aspirants to the seat.

In 1784 Henry Dundas had contrived to keep out the Whig candidate John Craufurd by a pact between the 11th Earl of Eglintoun and Sir Adam Fergusson, whereby the earl’s heir male, Hugh Montgomerie, was to come in for that Parliament and Fergusson for the next. In 1789, when Montgomerie resigned on appointment to office, Sir Andrew Cathcart, a kinsman of Cassillis, was already in the field, while Sir John Whitefoord, who hoped at least to share a parliament with Cathcart, and James Boswell of Auchinleck were aspirants. Dundas again thwarted his political opponents by securing the return of William McDowall of Garthland as a stopgap for Fergusson, who was thus enabled to come in, according to agreement, at the general election of 1790. Eglintoun had gone over to opposition on the Regency question, but he stood by Sir Adam Fergusson, ‘less from inclination than from an adherence to his agreement with Sir Adam’. Opposition hopes had been dampened by their failure to win the by-election of August 1789 and by the realization then that, even acting in unison, they could only beat Sir Adam ‘provided the Parliament is not dissolved for more than a year after this time’. On this premise, Cathcart and Boswell declined a contest.1

Fergusson was not expected to come in again. In November 1790 he was rumoured to be about to accept a place and Hugh Montgomerie expressed some anxiety to Henry Dundas as to what would happen: if Fergusson obtained a place compatible with Parliament, there was no doubt of his securing re-election; but, if he had to resign his seat, ‘we cannot see, after considering the roll with attention, any person he could fix on who is at all likely to succeed, or that we can have any hope of being able to carry through’.2 On this occasion, James Boswell applied to Dundas for his backing, in vain. It was thought that Col. William Fullarton of Fullarton would be the Whig candidate. Fullarton, who had hitherto been neutral in county politics, had lost his seat at the general election. As it happened, Fergusson declined the place offered him in January 1791—nor would it have vacated his seat. At the Michaelmas head court in 1791, James Boswell succeeded in expunging 106 ‘fictitious’ votes from the roll by a majority of 25 to 6, and in 1792 he was still thinking of offering himself, but he died before the next election. There were other changes too: the Whig 10th Earl of Cassillis died in 1792 and his cousin who succeeded to the title had an heir (Lord Kennedy) who was anxious to be in Parliament: ‘if administration will bring him in he is your man for ever’, so the prime minister was informed. Pitt was also advised that the Cassillis interest in Ayrshire was ‘now that nominal voters are so much out of the question, the most effective and powerful of any in that county’.3 Kennedy, however, succeeded his father as 12th Earl of Cassillis in 1794 and was thus eliminated. By then, too, William Fullarton had found a seat elsewhere.

The obvious solution, adopted by Eglintoun, was to put up Hugh Montgomerie, though the latter informed Dundas in September 1795 that he did not wish and could not afford to be in Parliament, which meant that Eglintoun would feel obliged to support Fullarton, who had by now given up opposition and who had canvassed him.4 Montgomerie was persuaded in November 1795 to stand and was opposed by Fullarton, whom Eglintoun could not draw off and who was supported by Cassillis and by Kennedy of Dunure. Fullarton persuaded himself that he had Dundas’s support, but in this he was mistaken, for it went to Montgomerie; though Dundas, like Eglintoun, had been prepared to support Fullarton if Montgomerie did not stand.5 The contest was a keen one. In Michaelmas 1795 the roll was reduced to 112, and in 1796, after Montgomerie had carried the election of praeses by only three votes, Fullarton objected to seven votes as being cast by revenue officers and a purge and enrolment of new claimants ensued; yet Montgomerie won by four votes. Fullarton petitioned, but gave it up when the death of Eglintoun, 30 Oct. 1796, and the succession of Hugh Montgomerie to the title, opened the county to him unopposed; he was assured of the powerful support of Cassillis and Dundas.6

Subsequently this combination was strained; in 1797 Dundas was informed that Cassillis, whose ambition was a British peerage, was rebellious, ‘owing entirely to private feelings of neglect and county politics’, though Cassillis denied it. Nevertheless, Fullarton, now hostile to Dundas who, he complained, discounted his efforts to support ministers, was re-elected unanimously in 1802. He then accepted a colonial appointment, which, Dundas (now Lord Melville) discovered, vacated his seat, though Fullarton claimed that he had been assured to the contrary. This occurred while he was in Trinidad and, so he subsequently claimed, ruined his prospects in Ayrshire for ever.7

The vacancy was filled by Sir Hew Dalrymple Hamilton of North Berwick, who had some interest in the county and whose pretensions Melville had claimed credit for postponing at the election of 1802. Dalrymple Hamilton’s mainstay was his connexion with Eglintoun by marriage to his niece, apart from the current blessing of Melville, his wife’s uncle. When in February 1803 Cassillis wrote to Melville in favour of the candidature of Thomas Kennedy of Dunure, brother-in-law of William Adam who was computed to have a fair chance, he attempted to gloss over their estrangement, but Melville informed him that since 1796 ‘many concurrent circumstances’had induced him ‘to form intimate political connections with the family of Eglintoun’, and that though he was not now so active in politics, he would be guided by the Eglintoun interest in this case. It was in vain that Kennedy assured Melville that he would not be fettered by Cassillis. The supposition that he would be, implying support for Cassillis’s bid to topple the Eglintoun interest in Ayrshire, he realized had done him no good. He tried to secure, through Melville, a compromise with Sir Hew, whom he thought a reluctant candidate, whereby Kennedy came in first and Sir Hew on the second occasion. The ministry refused to intervene and on 9 Mar. Kennedy gave up.8 Sir Hew was not opposed. He understood from Melville that he was promoting his prospects of a peerage. Eglintoun’s support of Sir Hew, according to Cassillis, was strengthened by the fear that Cassillis meant to start a candidate in opposition to Sir Hew; his politics certainly differed from Sir Hew’s, though on 25 Jan. 1806 the latter obtained an assurance of Eglintoun’s continued support in the county.9 When Eglintoun’s friends formed a government the following month, he was assured of a British peerage, to the dismay, he discovered, of Cassillis who ‘expected to be everything, I do believe minister for Scotland’ and who had to wait until the next creation for his British peerage.10

In March 1806 Eglintoun, as lord lieutenant, fell out with Sir Hew over county patronage, complaining that Sir Hew had monopolized it while he was in opposition and was making it a lever for building up his own interest. When in the following month Sir Hew canvassed by circular, Eglintoun privately advised his friends not to engage themselves, to ‘keep in a body and show our weight’. Then Melville alienated Eglintoun by detaching from him the support of his close connexion John Hamilton of Sundrum and attempting, through the latter, to sway Eglintoun to support a candidate of Melville’s choice. Eglintoun inveighed against Melville: ‘The country of Scotland has long groaned under his political weight. Must the county of Ayr be now haunted with his political ghost?’; he hoped ‘to endeavour to form other political connections’. He believed that Sir Hew ‘only wishes to be seated as Member to take a decided part against us’, and his ambiguous conduct confirmed it; nor did his supposition that Cassillis, who in fact professed neutrality, now supported Sir Hew endear the latter to him. He thought D— [? Sir Alexander Don] might be a proper candidate; but a few days later he approved of Sir David Blair. No strong candidate was, however, available and Eglintoun evidently tried to extract from Sir Hew a pledge of his support for administration in exchange for backing in the county. Sir Hew was reported to be reluctant to bind himself ‘to act with any set of men’, though he was sufficiently uneasy to consult Cassillis and, on his advice, saw Lord Grenville. Reporting this to Earl Spencer, Cassillis insisted that Sir Hew could not be a reliable friend of the present administration, as his ‘natural connections and inclinations both lay the other way’, although it would be impossible to turn him out of the county at present, ‘let him take what part he pleases at the next election’. Spencer claimed that Sir Hew had given him a different impression and thought ‘that considering the manner in which he has been supported in the county he would not think it consistent to enter into opposition to government, even though Lord Melville may be unwise enough to do so’.11

In stating his case to Lord Grenville in July 1806, Sir Hew reported that he had quashed Eglintoun’s attempt to threaten him with opposition if he did not pledge himself to a more unqualified support of ministers than he had proposed, by producing Eglintoun’s pledge to support him in January 1806, ‘which was no sooner brought to his lordship’s recollection than he declared it to be perfectly binding’. He added that he had since canvassed the county and found a majority in his favour. Despite this, he had both voted for and gratified government by placing his brother’s seat at their disposal. He deplored Eglintoun’s effort to wrest county patronage from him and asked if the peer was authorized to dispose of government interest against him, as he had another seat to fall back on. Grenville’s reply was that a ‘decided and active support’ would be a better guarantee to Sir Hew of government interest than ‘a neutral conduct’. Soon afterwards Sir Hew tried to bargain with Grenville for the peerage he had not obtained from Pitt. If it were made out in his mother’s name he might continue to sit for Ayrshire, but he also had four votes to offer in exchange, three in the House of Commons and one in the House of Lords. When this request was not acceded to, Sir Hew, after a further interview with Grenville in October 1806, asked for a place until the peerage was obtainable. In the following month, he was returned unopposed, Eglintoun having honoured his pledge, and there was no ‘open rupture’ between them, a circumstance which Cassillis proposed to exploit in future.12

In the ensuing Parliament Sir Hew loyally supported Grenville’s ministry, even in defeat. This circumstance deterred William Cunninghame of Enterkine, who had thoughts of standing next time as a friend of the outgoing ministry, from coming forward, so he informed Grenville. Grenville had in fact given his blessing to Sir Hew, but the latter was put out of countenance by the candidature of David Boyle who, he informed Lord Lauderdale on 2 May, ‘without one inch of property in this county has been selected by my Lord Melville to oppose me in Ayrshire. He has actually begun his canvass and pretends to say he has some reason to hope for Lord Eglintoun’s support.’ Sir Hew could not believe this; he preferred to think that Eglintoun was so enraged at Melville’s interference without consulting him, that he wished [? Sir David] Blair to stand. But the latter would not oppose Sir Hew, who was also convinced that Eglintoun regarded Boyle, though married to his niece, as a personal enemy for having carried counter-resolutions against him at a county meeting and for attempting to become an elder of Irvine against Eglintoun’s nominee. Boyle, moreover, was gazetted solicitor-general for Scotland, which enabled him to throw out ‘hints of the power he will have’, and assured him of government backing. Against this formidable opposition Sir Hew thought his only hope lay in obtaining the Eglintoun interest, and he tried to secure it both through the earl’s heir and through Lords Lauderdale and Grenville, the earl having been surprised by the dissolution while in Devon.13 David Cathcart advised Grenville to apologize to Eglintoun for the fact that he had not been previously consulted on the renewed candidature of Sir Hew; it was too late for Eglintoun to put up a candidate of his own, and Sir Hew must have his interest. This was also proved to Grenville by Cunninghame of Enterkine, who showed that, of 115 effective voters on a roll of 128, Hamilton had 34, Boyle 36 and 32 were doubtful, while Eglintoun had 13 votes to dispose of. If the doubtfuls were shared equally and Eglintoun did not support Sir Hew, Boyle would win by two votes.14

In fact, Eglintoun had already been approached by Grenville through Lord Moira, who, however, regarded himself as a free agent in the matter and hinted to Eglintoun that he might avoid supporting Sir Hew if he had a pre-engagement. Eglintoun asked for time to consult his friends, but privately resolved to oppose Sir Hew and thereby show Grenville that he felt insulted: ‘I shall certainly oppose Sir Hew’, he wrote, ‘and exert every power on earth to turn him out of the county; there is no length I will not go’. Yet he had no candidate to propose; he considered Thomas Brisbane of Brisbane, Sir Andrew Cathcart and Richard Oswald (who refused); and lamented, in Devon, the imposition on Ayrshire of a ministerial candidate ‘in opposition to the old county interests’. ‘This,’ he claimed, ‘is following up the principle of Lord Melville—No patronage but what comes from the minister.’ The receipt from Sir Hew of ‘a full and complete apology for his conduct at the last election’ did not move Eglintoun, who regarded it as a mere election manoeuvre:

Lord Grenville shall not force me to play a second fiddle. I will rather break the strings, or burn the fiddle. In the situation I am put I feel very uneasy. I will not join Sir Hew—and it would be not a little disagreeable to me to join the other party. I do not see however that I have an alternative ... I do not mean to desert my party ... but simply to show Lord Grenville &c that I will not be pissed upon—or submit to Sir Hew and him to dictate to the county.

In the same strain, he accused Sir Hew of seeking, in collusion with Grenville, to establish his own interest in the county ‘on the ruin of the old establishment of my family and myself’. By 11 May, having come up to London, Eglintoun had decided to support Boyle for the county, though not in political agreement with him. He was sorry if his friends disliked the decision, but for want of time and propinquity he had not been able to find another candidate, and ‘Mr Boyle having declared his intentions to be to support, not to hurt my interest, to join him was the safest—for had Sir Hew got in on the footing he set up on, he would probably [have] enjoyed it for his life’. In answer to those who doubted Boyle’s qualification, he replied that if he had no property himself, his family had; many younger brothers were ‘daily returned for Parliament in every part of the United Kingdom’. To Grenville Eglintoun wrote that, having failed to find a candidate on his own interest, he had decided to take the line that would be ‘the least hurtful to the interest of my family in future’; Sir Hew’s putting himself forward ‘as the leading interest in the county’, without consulting him, was more than he could stomach, though his politics were unchanged.15

William Fullarton complicated matters by offering to stand. He was at first wrongly suspected to have had encouragement from Lord Moira, who had the disposal of the Loudoun interest, and certainly disliked supporting Sir Hew, or Eglintoun, but in the event he declined. Sir Hew protested strongly about Eglintoun’s reasoning: ‘he says he never can sanction a minister’s interference in county politics. How he can reconcile this with throwing himself into the arms of Lord Melville’s candidate I cannot imagine.’ In his view, Melville’s interference reduced Ayrshire ‘to the state of a close borough’. He noted that ‘the cry of Popery’ had lost him votes and that Melville had stated that driving Sir Hew out of the county was ‘the object nearest his heart’. He claimed that in his apology to Eglintoun he had offered to withdraw in favour of another candidate acceptable to Eglintoun, rather than risk losing a seat for the party, but to no avail. As it was, Eglintoun’s ‘unnatural junction’ with Boyle and ‘the promises of ministry’—for he was confident that Ayrshire had cost ‘more in the way of promises than any county in the United Kingdom’—told against him. He was able to compute his inevitable defeat before the election.16 The Whigs licked their wounds. Cassillis, who Melville had thought might have been won over by a green ribband, consoled himself that the combination of Treasury, Melville and Eglintoun was not to be withstood, but his ‘political blood’ was now stirred. William Cuninghame of Enterkine, who regretted that he had not been adopted by the party as candidate, protested at the election about Melville’s interference in the county: ‘it was not contradicted, though loud professions of answering’. Sir Hew discovered that he did not have case enough for a petition.17

In 1810 it was anticipated that Boyle would obtain legal promotion and be obliged to vacate his seat. Cassillis had reservations about supporting Sir Hew again; to Earl Spencer he pointed out that Sir Hew had already turned coat once and thereby been the means of giving Melville the foothold in Ayrshire politics that had ended in his own defeat in 1807. He thought Sir Hew could be won over if his personal ambitions were satisfied and might ‘take up his old ground if once fairly seated for the county’. He expected Eglintoun’s candidate to be Sir David Hunter Blair, 3rd Bt. In the absence of a more promising candidate, Cassillis nevertheless deferred to the party leaders and supported Sir Hew Hamilton. Hamilton angled for Eglintoun’s support through Grenville, Lauderdale and Moira:

It is thought if Mr Boyle is only made advocate and that we both stand, that he will bring forward Sir D. Blair as a third candidate, and that if Mr Boyle becomes a judge that he will still support Sir David in preference to me. Sir David certainly was made a captain of the Ayrshire militia by Lord Eglintoun and he would in return support Lord Eglintoun’s views in the county, but if Sir David were ever returned he must act with Lord Melville who made his father a baronet, and gave the family an office of £2,000 a year for forty years, which he is now enjoying. Besides the other gentlemen of the county not connected with Lord Eglintoun would not give him their support but upon the understanding that he was to support ministry.

Hamilton’s argument was that Eglintoun would compromise his political principles again by supporting Blair, and ‘unless therefore his object [be] to prevail upon the county to bring in some dependant of his own, he can have no possible reason to oppose myself or the party who have the goodness to support me’.18

Eglintoun did wish to bring in a dependant of his own however, and as Boyle’s promotion drew near in October 1810 he canvassed in favour of his brother James Montgomerie, on whose behalf he hoped to secure Melville’s and the government’s support, through his brother-in-law John Hamilton of Sundrum, Melville’s chief agent in the county. Little attention was paid to a public notice from Boyle, who warned Eglintoun that, if still eligible, he would stand again, even against the peer’s brother, and that he might yet need his friends’ votes next time. Hamilton began his canvass on 1 Nov., expecting ‘a desperate hard contest’: of nearly 150 voters, Eglintoun had 30, ministry 32 and 10 would be absent, while there were about 20 doubtful. As James Montgomerie did not qualify as a freeholder until February 1811, Sir Hew hoped that Boyle’s immediate promotion would let him in lightly, through Eglintoun’s being persuaded not to put up a substitute candidate: this method would further ‘enable us to resist proposals of every description from the calculating politicians’. A change of government would also operate in his favour. But none of these hopes was realized. Boyle’s promotion to a judgeship was delayed until February 1811, when James Montgomerie stood, supported by the Eglintoun and ministerial interests. On 18 Feb. Eglintoun asked Melville to support his brother, and Melville’s son overcame his father’s reluctance to do so, having no doubt that government should support Eglintoun against Sir Hew, although they were not sure of Eglintoun’s brother’s support. Yet Moira reported afterwards that

Lord Eglintoun is furious at the notion that his brother should be thought to have stood in Lord Melville’s interest. General Montgomerie’s profession was distinct, that he attached himself to the Prince’s friends; a declaration which Sir Hew Hamilton refused to make, saying he looked to Lord Grenville alone.

Montgomerie tried to secure letters from Melville’s son to freeholders, but the latter claimed that the premier counselled against this and that ‘everything has been done that can with propriety’, though Montgomerie had started too late. Hamilton was insecure enough to endeavour to procure the notorious Blane votes with promises of office—a clerkship of session worth £600-£800 a year—but Grenville repudiated this move, even when it was proved to him by Hamilton that the Blanes would win him the election. In the event they did not require ‘a specific promise’, and by straining every nerve Hamilton surprised himself by carrying the praeses by 55 to 47 and winning the election by six votes, in what he called ‘a desperate struggle of the independent interests of the county against the oppression of a powerful family backed by government’.19

Hamilton found himself obliged to start a fresh canvass immediately after his victory, as ‘the Eglintoun family and the present ministry are so incensed with their defeat that there is no exertion they will not make to remove me at the general election’. Moira blandly claimed, ‘We shall seat Montgomerie at the general election’. Eglintoun at first concurred and informed Melville that his brother would stand again and would not oppose ministers, but he developed doubts: his brother’s qualification was thought to be bad in the autumn of 1811 and his own son and heir was ‘a decided oppositionist’, a fact that Melville pointed to as a reason for not committing himself as he would otherwise have done, to Eglintoun, who admitted that ‘no candidate can be found who can carry the county against the party Sir Hew Hamilton has formed’. He discounted the claims of Sir David Hunter Blair, who was ‘not very popular’, and thought of lying low at the election, concentrating on keeping his friends together ‘united and firm’ and on emerging as the predominant party when Sir Hew carried his ‘point’ of a peerage, which would, whatever he might think to the contrary, put an end to his interest in Ayrshire.20

In March 1812 Eglintoun’s brother’s qualification was sustained by the court of session and he announced his candidature. The election of 1812 was even more of a cliff-hanger than the by-election of 1811: the numbers were known beforehand to be ‘nearly equal’. Montgomerie arrived ‘with the whole weight of ministers’, which caused Cassillis to remark: ‘Never was anything like Lord Eglintoun’s conduct’. Yet soon afterwards he was able to exult:

Notwithstanding the great exertions of ministry, Lord Eglintoun and all the personal efforts of Lord Melville, we have carried the county of Ayr by a majority of two for Sir Hew Hamilton.

Thanks to an ailing Berkshire voter’s absence, Hamilton carried Thomas Francis Kennedy of Dunure as praeses by 57 votes to 56 against Hamilton of Sundrum. Montgomerie protested about four of his votes (one premature by 19 days and three old life-renters) being struck off the roll. Hamilton maintained that these were ‘nominal and fortuitous votes which had been struck off our roll twenty years ago’ and scorned the threat of a petition.21 It came to nothing; but by October 1817 Hamilton had had enough of the cost of Ayrshire elections and secretly informed his friends of his intended retirement. He declined to interfere in the election. Eglintoun’s brother was returned unopposed in 1818. As early as 28 Oct. 1812 Eglintoun had assured Melville: ‘should another election take place before long, I think I can assure your lordship that we will have the county by a considerable majority’.22 Soon after the election Alexander Boswell of Auchinleck had promised his candidature at the next vacancy and was still reported to be interested in standing in 1816, but he soon found an English seat; so Sir Hew Hamilton’s prediction that his retirement ‘will be the signal for General M[ontgomerie] and Mr Boswell to begin breaking one another’s heads’ was not fulfilled.23 On the death of Eglintoun in December 1819 Cassillis, who had lately joined his friend Lord Grenville in supporting ministers, regarded himself as his natural successor to the lieutenancy, with which he expected a green ribband. What he termed ‘Scotch jobbing’ by Melville frustrated his wishes.24

Author: R. G. Thorne

Notes

  • 1. Pol. State of Scotland 1788, p. 18; Prince of Wales Corresp. vi. 2649; Ginter, Whig Organization, 28-29, 68, 174; Yale Studies in English, clv., F. Brady, ‘Boswell’s Political Career’, 160-1; Jnl. of James Boswell, 1789-94, pp. 61, 67.
  • 2. SRO GD51/1/198/3/2.
  • 3. Brady, 166-7, 171; Letters of James Boswell ed. Tinker, ii. 524-5; Edinburgh Advertiser, 7 Oct. 1791; PRO, Dacres Adams mss 1/73; SRO GD51/1/198/3/3.
  • 4. SRO GD51/1/198/3/4.
  • 5. SRO GD51/1/198/3/7, 11, 12; NLS mss 1053, f. 61; 2257, f. 50.
  • 6. Edinburgh Advertiser, 17-21 June; True Briton, 23 May, 22 June, 7 Dec. 1796; SRO GD51/1/198/3/5, 14.
  • 7. SRO GD51/1/198/3/16-18; Add. 33049, f. 350; Spencer mss, memo on Scottish elections; Fortescue mss, Fullarton to Wickham, 28 Oct. 1806.
  • 8. SRO GD51/1/198/3/19-22, 24, 26, 28; 51/3/31; Blair Adam mss, Kennedy to Adam, 4, 10, 12, 13, 18, 28 Feb., 12 Mar. 1803.
  • 9. Fortescue mss, Hamilton to Grenville, 21 July, 9 Oct.; Spencer mss, Cassillis to Spencer, 8 July 1806.
  • 10. Eglintoun mss, Eglintoun to ?, 12 Feb., 8 Apr., Fortescue mss, Cassillis to Grenville, 3 Feb. 1806.
  • 11. Eglintoun mss, Eglintoun to ?, 23 Mar., 9, 14, 17, 26 Apr.; Spencer mss, Cassillis to Spencer, 8 July, reply 21 July 1806.
  • 12. Fortescue mss, Hamilton to Grenville, 21 July, reply 23 July, 7 Aug., 9 Oct., Eglintoun to Grenville, 28 Oct.; Spencer mss, Cassillis to Spencer, 19 Oct. 1806.
  • 13. Fortescue mss, Cuninghame to Grenville, 3 May; Hamilton to Lauderdale, 2 May, Lauderdale to Grenville, Thurs. [May]; Spencer mss, Hamilton to Lauderdale, 6 May 1807.
  • 14. Fortescue mss, Cathcart to Grenville, 4 May, Cuninghame to Grenville, 6 May 1807.
  • 15. Eglintoun mss, Eglintoun to ? 26, 29, 30 Apr., 1, 9, 11, 12 May, to Dawson, 21 May; Fortescue mss, Eglintoun to Grenville, 14 May, Erskine to same, 17 May 1807.
  • 16. Fortescue mss, Cuninghame to Grenville, 10, 16 May; Edinburgh Advertiser, 8-12 May; Spencer mss, Moira to Spencer, 11 May, Hamilton to Spencer, 17, 21, 24, 27 May, Spencer to Cassillis, 21 May, to Hamilton, 21 May; Blair Adam mss, Hamilton to Adam, Fri. [May 1807].
  • 17. Fortescue mss, Cassillis to Grenville, 29 June, Cuninghame to same, 8 June; Blair Adam mss, Fraser to Adam, 7 July 1807.
  • 18. Spencer mss, Cassillis to Spencer, 8 June, Hamilton to same, 20 May, 26 Aug. 1810; Fortescue mss, Hamilton to Grenville, n.d.
  • 19. Fortescue mss, Hamilton to Grenville, 20 Oct., 8 Nov., 2 Dec. 1810, 24, 27, 28 Feb., 1, 3, 9 Mar., reply (copy) 5 Mar. 1811; NLS, Lynedoch, box 37(2), Boyle to Sir P. Murray (copy), 6 Apr. 1812; SRO GD51/1/195/119-21; 51/1/198/3/43, 56; NLS mss 1, ff. 240, 246-8; Morning Chron. 30 Mar. 1811; Prince of Wales Corresp. vii. 2969.
  • 20. SRO GD51/1/198/3/57, 59-61, 64-66; Fortescue mss, Hamilton to Grenville, 30 Mar. 1811; Prince of Wales Corresp. vii. 2969; Blair Adam mss, Kennedy to Adam, 18 Aug.; Eglintoun mss, Eglintoun to ?, 22 Sept. 1811.
  • 21. SRO GD51/1/198/3/68; Edinburgh Advertiser, 13 Mar., 6, 13, 20, 27 Oct., 3 Nov.; Fortescue mss, Cassillis to Grenville, 11, 24 Oct., Hamilton to Grenville, 24 Oct.; NLS, Lynedoch mss, box 38(3), Cathcart to Graeme, 24 Oct. 1812.
  • 22. SRO GD51/1/198/3/76.
  • 23. NLS mss 9, f. 237; SRO GD46/17/48, Hamilton to Stewart Mackenzie, 14 Oct. 1817.
  • 24. Fortescue mss, Cassillis to Grenville, [6], 16, 30 Dec. [1819].