In the days of the Protectorate, he had been a judge.

After the Restoration, he had made his peace with the royal family, had sate in the Privy Council, and had presided with unrivalled ability in the Court of Session.

He had doubtless borne a share in many unjustifiable acts; but there were limits which he never passed.

He had a wonderful power of giving to any proposition which it suited him to maintain a plausible aspect of legality and even of justice; and this power he frequently abused.
But he was not, like many of those among whom he lived, impudently and unscrupulously servile.

Shame or conscience generally restrained him from committing any bad action for which his rare ingenuity could not frame a specious defence; and he was seldom in his place at the council board when any thing outrageously unjust or cruel was to be done.