Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

cclxxiv -WILLIAM, FIRST MAKQUIS OK A^NA^1KVLE, 1C7-2-1721.
Annaudale and Lis distinguislieil Jolmstonc cadet became very intimate
friends about the time tbat James Johnstone was appointed secretary for
Scotland. The cadet seemed proud of his chief, and the chief seemed equally
proud of his cadet, ^vho used his personal influence to bring the earl into the
goverumeut of Scotland. The correspondence between these two Johnstone
friends was close and intimate. JIany letters of the secretary to Annandale
have been i^reserved, and a selection of them appears in the second volume
of this work. These will show the confidential terms in v.hich they
stood to each other. In a letter from ^Iv. Fairholm of Craigiehnll, dated
Westminster, 1st December 1692, to his son-in-law, Annandale, he
explains that he was then in close communication with Secretary Johnstone,
from whom he learned that " there were groat tilings on the wlieels," and
that the secretary was going to Kensington with many papers, being near
the close of his waiting, and his head full of business. "He, his brother,
and his men, this nioueth bygone, lies bcenc wrytiug everio day betwixt four
and five in the morneing, and just now we hear he hes not now at seven
o'clock put on his cloathes." " He has a hand in all things now of con-
secjuence, and rises dail}'."^ Much of the correspondence of James the
secretary was conducted by his brother Alexander, his assistant in his ofilce
as secretary, who was the medium of intimating to Annandale that he was
appointed a member of the privy council and an extraordinary lord of
session. The tone of Alexander Johnstone's letter to the earl show^s his own
personal satisfaction wilh the success of his chief. He writes : "The prize is
wone. The tyde is turned. Yourself is in councell and one of the extra-
ordinary lords of session too, and this is but, T hope, only an earnest of
what will follow for your advantage." He urges the earl to hasten to Edin-
burgh to take possession of these posts in so critical a time, and to make
himself useful if not necessary to the government for the future.- To this
' Vol. ii. of this work, j). 50.
-• Ltttei-, 2a Febru.iry 1G93, ihid. p. 57.