, upon which he formed
his taste, and whose various graces he seems to have understood. King
James of Scotland, who with but few regal qualities, yet certainly had
a propension to literature, and was an encourager of learned men, took
Mr. Alexander early into his favour. He accepted the poems our author
presented him, with the most condescending marks of esteem, and was so
warm in his interest, that in the year 1614, he created him a knight,
and by a kind of compulsion, obliged him to accept the place of Master
of the Requests[2]; but the King's bounty did not stop here: Our
author having settled a colony in Nova Scotia in America, at his own
expence, James made him a grant of it, by his Royal Deed, on the 21st
of September, 1621, and intended to have erected the order of Baronet,
for encouraging and advancing so good a work; but the three last years
of that prince's reign being rendered troublesome to him, by reason
of the jealousies and commotions which then subsisted in England, he
thought fit to suspend the further prosecution of that affair, 'till a
more favourable crisis, which he lived not to see.

As soon as King Charles I. ascended the throne, who inherited from his
father the warmest affection for his native country, he endeavoured to
promote that design, which was likely to produce so great a benefit
to the nation, and therefore created Sir William Alexander Lord
Lieutenant of New Scotland, and instituted the order of Knight
Baronet, for the encouraging, and advancing that colony, and gave
him the power of coining small copper money, a privilege which some
discontented British subjects complained of with great bitterness;
but his Majesty, who had the highest opinion of the integrity and
abilities of Sir William, did not on that account withdraw his favour
from him, but rather encreased it; for in the year 1626 he made
him Secretary of State for Scotch affairs, in place of the earl of
Haddington, and a Peer, by the title of Viscount Stirling, and soon
after raised him to the dignity of an Earl, by Letters Patent, dated
June 14, 1633, upon the solemnity of his Majesty's Coronation at the
Palace of Holy-rood-house in Edinburgh. His lordship enjoyed the place
of secretary with the most unblemished reputation, for the space
of fifteen years, even to his death, which happened on the 12th of
February, 1640.

Our author married the daughter of Sir William Erskine, Baronet,
cousin german to the earl of Marr, then Re