[1] Although admitted a member of the Faculty of Advocates in 1722, he soon turned from legal to military pursuits, becoming an ensign in the army, and subsequently major in Ponsonby's foot and lieutenant-colonel in John Wynyard's Regiment of Marines.

He was long in intimate relations with Lord Kames and David Hume, and the three were regarded in Edinburgh as a committee of taste in literary matters, from whose judgment there was no appeal.

He was the early patron of Dr. Robertson, and of John Home, the tragic poet, both of whom were at one time ministers of country parishes near his seat in East Lothian.

This plan was, however, foiled by a severely sarcastic article by John Wilkes in the North Briton on his presumed services to the Pretender.

Wilkes had been an unsuccessful candidate for the governorship of Canada when that office was conferred on Elibank's brother, General James Murray.