_Murray, titular Earl of Dunbar_ (Vol. vi., p. 11.).--In correcting Lord
Albemarle's mistake respecting "James Murray, _titular_ Earl of Dunbar,"
your correspondent C. (2.), Portsmouth, seems to have fallen into a similar
error, which I hope he will pardon me for pointing out.
The Christian name of _Murray of Broughton_ was not _James_, but _John_;
and the ancient Border family to which he belonged was so distinctly
connected with that of Stormont (a branch of Tullibardine), that even
genealogical tradition was silent. His activity as an agent recommended him
to Prince Charles, who employed him as his secretary during the campaign of
1745, to the misfortunes of which he added by fomenting the Prince's
distrust of Lord George Murray: and his final treachery to his master and
his cause has condemned him to an immortality of infamy. He had nothing in
common with "James Earl of Dunbar," save the name which he disgraced and
the cause which he betrayed.
James Murray, second son of Lord Stormont, and elder brother of the famous
Lord Mansfield, escaped to the court of the exiled Stuarts after 1715. He
became governor to the prince; and under the title of Earl of Dunbar, chief
minister and secretary to his father. He never returned to Scotland, but
died in 1770 at Avignon, at the age of eighty. His honorable fidelity to a
ruined cause is admitted even by Junius, when, "willing to wound," he
taunts Mansfield with this Jacobite connexion; while the intensity of
loathing with which Scotland viewed his infamous namesake is illustrated by
the anecdote of old Walter Scott throwing the cup out of the window, lest
"lip of him, or his, should come after John Murray of Broughton."