ENGRAVED FOR THE BEE. Sir William Lockhart of La Kn . Com 7 Called Ambasador Lockhart Published by J Anderson Nov. 7th 1792 MEMOIRS OF SIR W. LOCKHART, OF LEE, COMMONLY CALLED AMBASSADOR LOCKHART. With a portrait. BIOGRAPHY may be termed the history of the human mind, by the study of which men may become ac“quainted with characters, and the different manner in which peculiar mental energies operate and influence the conduct of individuals. E Sir William Lockhart, commonly called ambafsador Lockhart, descended from an illustrious line of ancestors, who had long acted a conspicuous part in Lanarkshire, was the third son of Sir James Lockhart of Lee, one of the senators of the College of Justice, in the reign of Charles I. was born in 1621, died 1676. The first incident that tended to mark the character of this singular man, occurred at a very early period of his life. He had been put under the care VOL. Xii. of a pedagogue at Lanark, who exercised his authority with the most despotic severity. Having committed some boyish trespass, young Lockhart, who had been witness to the humiliating indignities that others were obliged to undergo on similar occasions,, could not brook the idea of submitting to them. In order to fhun this, he fled and concealed himself for some days among the woods, supporting himself on wild plants, and the occasional supply that some country people gave him. His father, informed of this, was highly incensed against him, raised a possé of people, and sent them out in quest of him, with the ferocious pedagogue at their head. They surrounded the wood as in a royal Asiatic chace; and being thus hemmed in on every side, he had no other way to escape, but by throwing himself from the top of a steep rock, many fathoms high, into a small river below. Regardlefs of peril, as he ever afterwards was, when it stood in the way of his designs, he hesitated not on this occasion, but took the leap, and, by a fortunate chance, a million, at least, to one, he escaped unhurt. No one durst follow him; and he made the best of his way to Leith. There he took fhipping for Holland, where, unfriended and unknown, he supported himself by labour, without complaining for some time to any one. At the time when this incident happened, he was in the thirteeenth year of his age. He returned home in the year 1636; but finding his situation there far from agreeable, he soon went to France, and entered into the service; where, by the singular gallantry, intrepidity, and judiciousness of his conduct in every enterprise that was intrusted to him, he was quickly ad |