MONTGOMERIE, John (1680-1731), of Giffen, Ayr.

Returned as a Whig on the interest of a first cousin, the 9th Earl of Eglintoun, Montgomerie entered the service of the Prince of Wales at George I’s accession. In 1715 he obtained a company in the guards, which he lost in 1717 for voting against the Government in the debate on the charges of corruption against Lord Cadogan.Pol. State, xiv. 80; Sunderland (Blenheim) mss D. II, 16. He voted for the repeal of the Occasional Conformity and Schism Acts but against the peerage bill in 1719, when he was put down as to be spoken to by the Duke of Argyll. He figures in the list of Members found by the secret committee on the South Sea bubble in 1721 to have accepted stock from the Company while the South Sea bill was before Parliament but he was able to show that the transaction was a bona fide one, for which he had given security.CJ, xix. 569, 572. He owed his promotion in 1723 to the Prince of Wales, who ‘sent for Cadogan and spoke for John Montgomery, whereupon he altered a whole scheme of promotions he had before settled’.Coxe, Walpole, ii. 291. About 1725 financial difficulties forced him to sell his estate to Sir John Anstruther. In 1727 he gave up his seat to become governor of New York, where he died 1 July 1731.