So much was he trusted by the king, that when the scheme for the descent of the Prince of Orange became known, the chancellor, Lord Perth, was ordered to rely on his advice and that of the Earl of Cromarty in the measures to be adopted for the defence of Scotland.

Lord Melfort, secretary of state, however, who was jealous of Balcarres's influence, rejected his suggested plan of defence as too expensive, and it was determined instead to send the forces then available in Scotland southwards.

At the request of the king they accompanied him on a walk in the Mall, when, having expressed his final determination to leave the country, he stated that on his arrival in France he would send Balcarres a commission to manage his civil affairs, and Dundee one to command the troops in Scotland.

[1] The Duke of Gordon was already negotiating the surrender of the castle, when Balcarres and Dundee waited on him, and persuaded him to hold out till he saw what the Convention of Estates intended to do.

[3] His request for permission to live in England was refused, and on account of further compromising letters sent to him by Melfort, he was confined for four months in the common gaol of Edinburgh.

[1] He landed at Hamburg, and while journeying to the Dutch Republic, through Flanders, was seized by a party of banditti, who, however, agreed to free him on payment of a hundred pistoles, which he succeeded in obtaining from the jesuits at the Catholic college of Douay.

[1] Ultimately, through the interposition of William Carstares and the Duke of Queensberry, who wrote of him pityingly, as an 'instance of the folly of Jacobitism',[4] he was permitted towards the close of 1700 to return to Scotland.

He had latterly so recovered his pecuniary position as to be able to purchase several good pictures by the Dutch masters and others, to add considerably to his library, and also to found the village which he named after himself Colinsburgh.

His 'Memoirs touching the Revolution in Scotland,' published originally in 1714, reprinted 1754, and again, more correctly by the Bannatyne Club, in 1841, are invaluable as a narrative of the proceedings and negotiations of the supporters of the king in 1688–90.

By his second wife, Lady Jean Carnegie, Balcarres had a daughter Anne, married to Alexander, Earl of Kellie, and afterwards to James Seton, 3rd Viscount of Kingston.