name given to an unknown writer who lived about the end of the reign of Edward II. and beginning of Edward III. and who being a prisoner in the Fleet, wrote there an excellent treatise on the common law of England.

Fletcher. See Beaumont and Fletcher.

Fletcher, Andrew, of Salton, a celebrated Scots patriot and political writer, was descended from an ancient family who trace their origin to one of the followers of William the Conqueror. He was the son of Sir Robert Fletcher of Salton and Innerpeffer, and born in the year 1653. The tuition of our author was committed by his father, on his deathbed, to Mr (afterwards Bishop) Burnet, then his parish minister; by whose care he received a pious, learned, and polite education. Endowed with uncommon genius, and possessed of virtues and abilities peculiarly suited to the times in which he lived, Mr Fletcher quickly shone forth the ornament of his country, and the champion of its freedom. Having in the course of his classical studies and historical reading been impressed with an enthusiastic admiration both of ancient and modern republics, he had early contracted an ardent love of liberty, and an aversion to arbitrary rule. Hence his spirit the more readily took alarm at certain measures in the reign of Charles II. Being knight of the shire for Lothian to that parliament where the duke of York was commissioner, he openly opposed the designs of that prince and the bill of accession. He had a share with lord viscount Stair in framing the test act, by which the duke of York complained that he lost Scotland. On these accounts he became peculiarly obnoxious to the duke; and was at last obliged to flee to Holland, to avoid the fatal consequences of prosecutions which on various pretences were commenced against him. Being cited before the privy council and judiciary courts, and not appearing, he was declared traitor, and Fletcher, his estate confiscated.

In Holland, he and Mr Baillie of Jerviswood were the only persons whom the earl of Argyle consulted concerning the designs which were then in agitation. In 1681 they came over to England, in order to concert matters with their party in that country; and were the only two who were intrusted to far as to be admitted to the secrets of Lord Ruffell's council of five. Mr Fletcher managed his part of the negotiation with so much address, that administration could find no pretext for seizing him; nor could they fix upon him those articles on account of which Mr Baillie was condemned; to whose honour let it be remembered, that although offered a pardon on condition of his accusing his friend, he persisted in rejecting the proposal with indignation.

Mr Fletcher having joined the duke of Monmouth upon his landing, received a principal command under him; but the duke was deprived of his services on the following occasion, as related by Sir John Dalrymple. Being sent upon an expedition, and not Great Britain esteeming "times of danger to be times of ceremony" and Ireland, he had feigned for his own riding the horse of a country gentleman [the mayor of Lynne] which stood ready equipped for its master. The matter, hearing this, ran in a passion to Fletcher, gave him opprobrious language, shook his cane, and attempted to strike. Fletcher, though rigid in the duties of morality, having been accustomed to foreign service both by sea and land, in which he had acquired high ideas of the honour of a soldier and a gentleman, and of the affront of a cane, pulled out his pistol, and shot him dead on the spot. The action was unpopular in countries where such refinements were not understood. A clamour was raised against it among the people of the country; in a body they waited upon the duke with their complaints; and he was forced to desire the only soldier, and almost the only man of parts, in his army, to abandon him. With Fletcher all Monmouth's chance of success in war left him." But, in a manuscript memoir belonging to the family, we have the following notice concerning Mr Fletcher's connection with Monmouth, in which his separation from that prince is very differently accounted for: "To Lord Marischal Mr Fletcher explained the motives which first induced him to join, and afterwards abandon, the duke of Monmouth. The former he ascribed to the duke's manifesto in Scotland relating to religion, and in England to liberty. For the latter he accounted by the dilguit produced in his own mind and that of his associates, when the duke declared himself king, and broke faith with all who embarked with him on his principles. He complained heavily of the account commonly given of the death of the mayor of Lynne; and mentioned to Lord Marischal, in proof of the contrary, that he did not leave the duke till he came to Taunton, where he was proclaimed king, several weeks after the death of the mayor of Lynne."

Seeing all the efforts of himself and his friends in favour of liberty frustrated at Taunton, he endeavoured to secure his own personal freedom by taking his passage in the first ship bound to a foreign country. It was his misfortune to land in Spain; where he was immediately arrested, cast into prison, and guarded by three Fletcher, three different bands of soldiers, till a vessel should be prepared to carry him a victim in chains to the court of London. But on the morning before the ship could fail, whilst he looked pensive through the bars that secured the window of his room, he was hailed by a venerable personage who made signs to speak with him. The prison doors he found open; and whilst his friendly conductor waved to him to follow him, he passed through three different guards of soldiers all fast asleep. Without being permitted to offer his thanks to his deliverer, he found himself obliged to prosecute with all speed the journey, in which he was directed by a person concerning whom he could never collect any information; and in disguise he proceeded in safety through Spain. He felt a peculiar pleasure in relating to his friends instances of the care of Providence which he had experienced during his exile; and entertained them often with narratives of this kind, which he always mingled with religious reflections. Of these, another may be here mentioned. Happening in the evening to pass the skirt of a wood at a few miles distance from a city where he intended to lodge, he came to a place where two roads met. After he had entered upon the road on the right, he was accosted by a female of a respectable figure, who warned him to turn back, and take the road on the left; for that in the other there was danger which he could not escape if he continued to proceed. His friendly monitor suddenly retired into the wood, out of which he had issued no less unexpectedly. Having arrived at the city, the inhabitants were soon after alarmed by an account of the robbery and murder of several travellers who that evening had fallen into the hands of a banditti upon the very way in which he had intended to travel. From these and other instances of preservation from dangers, the devotion of his mind, habituated from his infancy to an intercourse with heaven, led him to conclude that he was in a peculiar manner the care of Providence, and that in critical cases his understanding received its direction from a supernatural impulse.

During his exile, he maintained a frequent and extensive correspondence with the friends of liberty at home; and he partly employed himself in making a curious collection of books, which compose the best private library in Scotland. But his genius also prompted him to engage in more active employments. He repaired to Hungary, and served several campaigns as a volunteer under the duke of Lorraine with great reputation. At length, understanding that the great design then projecting in Holland, and upon the issue of which he considered the liberties of Britain to be suspended, had attained a considerable degree of maturity, he hastened thither; where his councils and addresses were of eminent service. He came over with King William; and in zeal, activity, penetration, and political skill, proved inferior to none of the leaders in the Revolution.

Such, however, was his magnanimity, that from a survey of King William's papers it appears, that while others laboured to turn this grand event to the emolument of themselves and the aggrandisement of their family, Mr Fletcher asked nothing. His estate had been forfeited, and his house abandoned to military discretion; his fortune was greatly shattered, and his family reduced to circumstances of distress. Nothing was given him in recompense of all his sufferings. On the contrary, he, together with the duke of Hamilton, was distinguished by marks of royal and ministerial dislike. Still, whatever private resentment he might entertain, it appeared that his ruling principle was the good of his country; and that to this grand object of his heart he was willing to sacrifice all personal considerations. For when, in 1692, the abdicated king meditated an invasion, Mr Fletcher addressed a letter (preserved in Sir John Dalrymple's collection) to the duke of Hamilton, in which every argument is employed with skill and energy to engage his grace to forget his injuries, and in the present crisis to employ the extensive influence and authority he then possessed in the cause of freedom and of his country. This letter produced its full effect; and the duke returned to his duty, from which he had in part begun to deviate.

To follow our author through all the mazes of his political life subsequent to the Revolution, is beyond our purpose, and would exceed our limits. One or two circumstances more shall therefore suffice. Being elected a member for the parliament 1683, he showed an uniform zeal for the interest of his country. The thought of England's domineering over Scotland was what his generous soul could not endure. The indignities and opprobrium which Scotland lay under galled him to the heart; so that in his learned and elaborate discourses, he exposed them with undaunted courage and pathetic eloquence. In that great event, the Union, he performed essential service. He got the act of security passed, which declared that the two crowns should not pass to the same head till Scotland was secured in her liberties civil and religious. Therefore Lord Godolphin was forced into the Union, to avoid a civil war after the queen's demise. Although Mr Fletcher disapproved of some of the articles, and indeed of the whole frame of the Union; yet, as the act of security was his own work, he had all the merit of that important transaction.

We must not omit mentioning, that in the ardour of his political career Mr Fletcher forgot not the interests of the place that gave him birth. He esteemed the education of youth one of the noblest objects of government. On this subject he wrote a treatise, still extant, most characteristic of himself; and he established at Salton a foundation for the same purpose, of great utility while it lasted.

This great man died at London 1716, aged 66. His remains were conveyed to Scotland, and deposited in the family vault at Salton.

That Mr Fletcher received neither honours nor emoluments from King William, may perhaps be in part attributed to himself; a circumstance, however, which must add greatly to the lustre of his character. His uncomplying virtue, and the firmness of his principles, were ill calculated to conciliate courtly favour. He was so zealous an adherent of the liberties of the people, that he was too jealous of the growing power of all princes; in whom he thought ambition so natural, that he was not for trusting the best of kings with the power which ill ones might make use of against their subjects; he was of opinion that all princes were made by, and for the benefit of, the people; and that they should have no power but that of doing good. This, which which made him oppose King Charles and invade King James, led him also to oppose the giving so much power to King William, whom he would never serve after his establishment. So we are told by the author of Short Political Characters, a M.S. in the library of the late T. Rawlinson, Esq.—Mr Lockhart, in his Memoirs, p. 72, expresses a belief that his aversion to the English and to the Union was so great, that, in revenge to them, he was inclined to side with the abdicated family: “But (adds he) as that was a subject not fit to be entered upon with him, this is only a conjecture from some inuendos I have heard him make; but so far is certain, he liked, commended, and conversed with high-flying Torics, more than any other set of men; acknowledging them to be the best countrymen, and of most honour, integrity, and ingenuity.” It seems difficult to reconcile this with Mr Fletcher’s avowed principles and the general tenor of his conduct. May we suppose, that, chagrining, if not at the neglect or the ill treatment which he had himself received from government since the Revolution, yet at the public measures relating to his native country, might have occasioned him to relent in his sentiments with regard to the exiled family?—In the family memoirs already quoted, we are informed, That “Lord Marischal held Mr Fletcher’s character in high admiration;” and that, “when governor of Neufchatel, where Rousseau resided about the year 1766, he prevailed with this very extraordinary genius to write the life of a man whose character and actions he wished to have transmitted to posterity with advantage. For this purpose, his lordship applied to an honourable relation of Mr Fletcher’s for materials; which by him were transmitted to Lord Marischal; but the design failed through Rousseau’s deftly and capricious disposition.” This anecdote must appear incompatible with the known loyalty and attachments of the Earl Marischal, unless we suppose him to have been privy to some such sentiments of Mr Fletcher as those alluded to by Mr Lockhart; for how could we suppose him anxious to promote a composition, in which the task would be to celebrate principles diametrically opposite to his own, and to applaud actions subversive of that royal family in whose cause he had ventured his life, and forfeited his fortune, and foregone his country!—But however these circumstances may be reconciled, as the integrity, disinterestedness, and public spirit of Mr Fletcher, have been universally acknowledged, there is reason to believe, that all his sentiments and actions were founded in honour, and that he never once pursued a measure rather than he judged it to be for the interest of his country.

Mr Fletcher was master of the English, Latin, Greek, French, and Italian languages; and well versed in history, the civil law, and all kinds of learning. In his travels, he had not only acquired considerable knowledge in the art of war, but also became versant in the respective interests of the several princes and states of Europe. In private life, he was affable to his friends, and free from all manner of vice. He had a penetrating, clear, and lively apprehension; but is said to have been too much wedded to opinions, and impatient of contradiction.—He possessed an uncommon elevation of mind, accompanied with a warmth of temper, which would suffer him to brook from no rank among men, nor in any place, an indignity. Of this Fletcherwood he exhibited a singular proof in the Scots parliament. The earl of Stair, secretary of state and minister for Scotland, having in the heat of debate used an improper expression against Mr Fletcher, he seized him by his robe, and inflicted upon public and immediate satisfaction. His lordship was obliged instantly to beg his pardon in presence of parliament.

Mr Fletcher was by far the finest speaker in the parliament of Scotland; the earl of Stair alone rivalled him. The latter was famed for a splendid, the former for a close and nervous, eloquence. He formed his style on the models of antiquity; and the small volume of his works, Sir John Dalrymple observes, though imperfectly collected, is one of the very few classical compositions in the English language.