Descended from a cadet branch of the family of the Lords Forbes and, more recently, of that of the Forbes of Pitsligo, Forbes returned from India in 1811 and established himself at Newe, where he built a castle and acquired other lands.
Forbes, who was granted one month’s sick leave, 26 May 1820, made no known speeches or votes during that session. He supported the Aberdeenshire petition in praise of ministers’ conduct towards Queen Caroline, 31 Jan., and voted in this sense, 6 Feb., but on the question of her grant, 1 Feb. 1821, he stated that
many reasons had hitherto induced him to support the smaller, rather than the larger sum; but on further consideration, he had thought it advisable to give way to his feelings, which were, however, in this case, still in opposition to his sounder judgement.
He condemned the reduction of Britain’s naval forces, 2 Feb. He voted against a proposal to disqualify civil officers of the ordnance from voting in parliamentary elections, 12 Apr., and reform of the Scottish county representation, 10 May. He sided with opposition for repeal of the additional malt duty, 21 Mar., 3 Apr., and divided for economies in the armed services, 30 Apr., 4, 25 May, and against further pensions from the four-and-a-half per cent Barbados fund, 24 May. According to Henry Grey Bennet’s* diary for 4 June, Forbes, ‘a staunch friend of the government’, declared he would ‘sit in the House to the last to stop the jobs they were in the habit of introducing at that period of the session’.
Forbes voted against opposition motions for more extensive tax reductions to relieve distress, 11, 21 Feb., but for reducing the number of junior lords of the admiralty, 1 Mar. (when he supported the naval estimates), and abolition of one of the joint-postmasterships, 2 May 1822.
He voted against parliamentary reform, 20 Feb., ridiculed Lord Archibald Hamilton’s attempts to reform the Scottish burghs, 26 Mar., and divided against his motion for alteration of the Scottish representative system, 2 June 1823. He added his voice to those claiming that ministers had pledged themselves to appoint a select committee on the equalization of East and West Indian sugar duties, 3 Mar., when he described it as a question ‘of paramount interest to the public at large’.
Forbes voted with ministers against the production of papers on Catholic office-holders, 19 Feb., and reform of the representation of Edinburgh, 26 Feb. 1824. He divided for permitting defence by counsel in felony cases, 6 Apr. Though not in favour of unrestricted freedom of the press in India, he called the existing limitations, especially the power of deportation, unnecessary and impolitic, 25 May; on this subject a Letter to Sir Charles Forbes and a Second Letter were addressed to him that year. He deplored the practice of Members voting in private bill committees and on the floor of the House when they had not heard the preceding debate, 27 May.
missionaries, if not narrowly watched, would cause our expulsion, not only from the West, but from the East Indies. In that opinion he knew he was not singular: nay, he would venture to say, that the majority of the House were of the same sentiments, if they had only the candour to avow them.
He voted with ministers for the second reading of the Irish insurrection bill, 14 June. He cast aspersions on the negotiations conducted with the Dutch over the East Indies, 17 June, when he suggested that the secretary of the board of control be granted a pension. He moved for papers to vindicate the conduct of the recorder of Bombay, 21 June 1824, but the previous question was passed against him.
He intervened on the address, to attack the prosecution and incompetent handling of the Burmese war, 4 Feb., and criticized the failure of ministers to reduce duties on Indian commodities, 28 Feb. 1825. He divided for the Irish unlawful societies bill, 25 Feb. Named as a defaulter on the call on Catholic relief, 28 Feb., he was present to be excused, 1 Mar., when he explained that, although he had supported the moderately espoused cause for 13 years, he would not be bullied by the Catholic Association.
He repeated his concerns about India in the debate on the address, 3 Feb. 1826. He stated his opposition to government plans to alter the system of Scottish banks, 13 Mar., but, although he was against the idea of a select committee on small notes, 16 Mar., he declared that ‘he approved so highly of the plain, downright, John Bull statements of the chancellor of the exchequer [Robinson] on most occasions, that he would not now oppose him’.
Being of no party, and anxious only to do my duty conscientiously towards my king and country, I think I may be permitted to say ... when a man enters that House, he ought to divest himself of all feelings and considerations, except those which may conduce to the welfare of the nation. Upon this principle I have endeavoured to act.
Bath and Cheltenham Gazette, 27 June 1826.
Forbes contended for the impartial system of distributing patronage in the army to be extended to the navy, 30 Nov. 1826.
Forbes has engaged to retract, in his place in the House of Commons, the observations he made against the company and has expressed his regret to me ... for any offence he may have given me from his supposed allusion to my family. This was all that could be desired. He is a very indiscreet and absurd old man to whom no one pays attention in the House, and he was certainly scarcely heeded, although deservedly so, at the time he made his observation.
Mitchell Lib. Sydney, Macarthur mss ML A 2911.
He spoke in praise of shipbuilding at Bombay, 12 Feb. 1827, and the following day urged an improvement in humane discipline on Company ships and the ending of impressment.
whenever questions of this description came before the House, he invariably voted against them. He opposed them because he could never bring himself to punish partial, petty cases of alleged corruption, and leave the enormous ones untouched.
He declared that it would be fairer to introduce a general plan of reform, which he would then support, and he damned the hypocrisy of Members pretending that the representation was immaculate, and
that they never heard of such a thing as paying for votes, that they never heard of places where, not merely money, but conscience was sacrificed, where candidates were bound down, on pain of forfeiting their seats, to vote, whatever the case might be, in favour of the minister.
He used very similar arguments in opposing the East Retford disfranchisement bill, since it was a case of ‘punishing people, not because they were guilty, but because they were found out’, 11 June, and he opposed the transfer of the seats to Birmingham, ‘as manufacturing towns were the very hot-beds of corruption’, 22 June, when he was teller for the minority against the bill’s second reading. On the Preston election bill, 14 June, he again objected not to reform as such, but to ‘this pettifogging mode of effecting it’, and he suggested that every Member on entering the House should swear an oath that he had not obtained his seat by corrupt means. He presented an East Retford petition for the suppression of suttee, 16 June. He divided with ministers in favour of the grant to improve water communications in Canada, 12 June, and against the third reading of the Coventry magistracy bill, 18 June. He asserted that anyone found guilty of forging signatures on an election petition should be ‘served with the same sauce’ as Thomas Flanagan, 19 June 1827, but apparently voted in the minority of seven against his committal to Newgate.
He paired in favour of Catholic claims, 12 May 1828. He may have been the ‘Mr. Forbes’ who defended the Bombay shipping interest, 19 May, and it was certainly he who spoke of his 25 years’ experience of life in India when urging the inclusion of natives on grand juries, 22 May 1828. The duke of Wellington, the prime minister, dismissed out of hand a suggestion made that autumn that Forbes should be appointed president of the board of control.
Forbes was listed by ministers among the ‘doubtful doubtfuls’ and marked ‘more yes than no’. He declared that despite the feelings of the House, 8 Nov. 1830, Wellington was worthy of respect for his military prowess and conversion to the cause of Catholic emancipation. He divided with ministers on the civil list, 15 Nov. 1830, when he teased Hume for his former dependence on Brechin burgh, and referred critically to the Perth Burghs election (as he did again, 8, 10 Feb. 1831). He was appointed to the select committee on the East India Company, 4 Feb. On Evesham, 17 Feb., he made his by now customary remarks against the disfranchisement of individual boroughs, and, in what Thomas Gladstone* described to his father John Gladstone* the next day as ‘a foolish speech’, he insisted that he could compile a lexicon of boroughs which Members knew to be corrupt. He told the chancellor, Althorp, that in ‘endeavouring to benefit everyone, he pleased nobody’, but in advising him to persist in his plan to tax steam vessels, he was the only Member not to be ‘upon him’ that day.
Forbes was elected for Malmesbury in absentia, despite an opposition, at the subsequent general election, and, expecting a short Parliament, he refused to pay as much as he had previously done for the seat.
He sided with opposition against O’Connell’s motion that the original Dublin election committee be sworn, 29 July 1831, and, having called for an inquiry, voted in the minority for postponing the writ, 8 Aug. He divided in the minority of six in favour of Hunt’s motion for receiving the Preston petition on the corn laws, 12 Aug. He strongly advocated the provision of colonial constituencies, 16 Aug., claiming that Hume’s proposal to introduce four Members for India was inadequate and that, if the existing bill passed, its interests ‘would at once be cut off from any kind of representation in the House’. He voted in the majority against the second reading of the Irish union of parishes bill, 19 Aug. He was listed as voting with ministers for the prosecution of those guilty of bribery at the Dublin election, 23 Aug., but that day he also voted in the minority for Robert Gordon’s motion to censure the conduct of the Irish government. He sided with opposition to preserve the existing rights of voting, 27 Aug., to allow non-resident freeholders to remain voters for their lives, 30 Aug., and to continue as electors the non-resident voters of Aylesbury, Cricklade, East Retford and New Shoreham, 2 Sept. He divided in favour of making legal provision for the poor of Ireland, 29 Aug. He presented and endorsed a petition from the natives of India to allow them to serve on grand juries, 1 Sept., when he noted that there would be insufficient seating for Members at the coronation. He remarked that it was ‘a rather curious instance of inconsistency’ that ministers had ‘proposed uniting the Scottish counties whilst they are for dividing the English counties’, 3 Sept. He spoke in favour of Hume’s motion for a select committee on the discharge of small debtors, 6 Sept., and objected to the extension of the truck bill to Scotland, 13 Sept. He voted against the third reading, 19 Sept., and passage of the reform bill, 21 Sept. He complained of hasty progress on the Scottish bill, 23 Sept., when he voted against its second reading. He again opposed it, 26 Sept., and the following day asserted that
the freeholders of Scotland have just as good a right to their superiorities as any Member in this House has to his estate, and the legislature would be as much justified in depriving the one of his superiorities as the other of his land, for the right to vote and the right to sell that privilege have ever been annexed to the land. By depriving the freeholder of his superiority, you deteriorate the value of the land to the extent of the superiority.
He assured the House that his tenants had no wish for the vote and promised that ‘I will take care so to frame my leases that they shall not have a vote inflicted upon them. They shall not be liable to be carried away from their proper occupation, and from the care of their farms, to attend to elections’. On 4 Oct., when he said that the expressions ‘the people’ and ‘property’ were meaningless, he explained the system of superiorities, denied that he was a dealer in them and called for an increased county representation. He commented on the timing of the Irish reform bill, 27 Sept., supported maintaining the salary of the president of the board of control and praised the current governor-general, 29 Sept., spoke against the vestry bill, 30 Sept., agreed with the general register bill, 4 Oct., and opposed the bankruptcy court bill, 17 Oct. As a professed friend to the West India interest, he favoured the appointment of a select committee of inquiry, 6 Oct., and he supported the petition against the pilgrim tax in the East Indies, 14 Oct. On the Scottish exchequer court bill, 7 Oct., he stated that it would add to the destruction of ‘our ancient institutions’, told Peel that he had never set so bad an example, and asserted that ‘I am opposed to all reform and a change in the laws of my country’, the greatness of which he suspected would soon decline. He deprecated government intimidation of anti-reform independent Members, and the removal of office-holders who had voted against the bill, 20 Oct. 1831.
Forbes regretted that there was no mention of the East India Company in the king’s speech, 6 Dec. 1831. He rejected the revised reform bill as ‘nothing but an old monster with a new face’, 12 Dec., and voted against its second reading, 17 Dec. 1831. He rose immediately after the lord advocate to oppose leave for the Scottish bill, 19 Jan. 1832, because of the extensive Scottish opposition to the county representation and the annihilation of the rights of freeholders. He voted against going into committee on the English bill, 20 Jan., when he called for further information, and declared that, should Peel persist in his opposition, ‘I will remain by his side until seven in the morning’. He opposed the Vestry Act amendment bill as unnecessary and voted in the majority against its second reading, 23 Jan. On 27 Jan. he intervened on the general register bill, again condemned the Scottish reform bill and gave notice of a motion relating to the Deccan prize money, which, however, he did not press, 1 Feb. He was again reappointed to the select committee on the East India Company, 27 Jan., and was present at sittings of the subcommittee on its revenue affairs, to which he gave evidence on the opium trade at Bombay, 25 June.
He gave his ‘unqualified dissent’ to the second reading of the Scottish reform bill, 21 May 1832, when he declared that
however His Majesty’s ministers, backed by the mob, may coerce this House, however they may coerce the votes of its Members, I tell them they shall not coerce me. I am well aware that my individual vote is of very little importance on this occasion to any party in the House, but ... it is of some importance to me that I should preserve my own consistency and my own character, and I should be ashamed of myself if I could sit in this House and allow this bill to pass without giving it my most decided opposition.
He insisted that he would divide the House on it, but apparently decided against doing this at Sir George Murray’s request. He voted against the second reading of the Irish bill, 25 May. He continued strenuously to oppose the Scottish bill in committee, 4 June, when he admitted that he had bought superiorities ‘for the purpose of supporting my friends in both Houses’, and 6 June, when he urged Scottish Members to ‘fight every inch for the honour, independence, and dignity of their native country’. He opposed delay of the Indian juries bill, 18 June, voted for permanent provision to be made for the Irish poor by a tax on absentees, 19 June, and suggested an amendment to the coroners bill, 20 June. He divided in minorities for creating a system of representation for New South Wales, 28 June, and preserving the rights of freemen under the Irish reform bill, 2 July. He urged reduction of the duties on East Indian commodities to increase the prosperity of trade there, 3, 25 July, though he acknowledged the validity of the competing West India interests and did not persist in his motions knowing that government had the matter under consideration. He spoke against part of the tithes prescription bill, 5 July, asked whether ministers would withdraw the Irish tithes bill in return for the support of Irish Members on the Russian-Dutch loan, 9 July, and praised a Preston petition against the sending of troops to Ireland to enforce tithes, 3 Aug. His only other known votes were with opposition against the Russian-Dutch loan, 26 Jan., 12 July, when he was also teller for the minority for the order of the day for a call of the House. However, he argued that Britain was honour bound to pay the loan, 16 July, and presumably voted in this sense, 16, 20 July. He criticized the appointment of military governors of colonies, 23 July, objected to Hume’s bill to disqualify the recorder of Dublin from sitting in Parliament, 24, 31 July, opposed the Aberdeen colleges bill, 1 and 3 Aug., and made suggestions about half-pay officers, 8 Aug. He supported the granting of compensation to Sir Abraham Bradley King, 3 Aug., to petitioners for Deccan prize money, 6, 7 Aug., and to the family of the Poona banker Outia for the illegal seizure of his property, 10 Aug. In his last known intervention in debate, 11 Aug. 1832, he said that he was not surprised if people had not paid their rates as Members had encouraged them to protest in this fashion, and it was their own fault if they now found themselves disfranchised.
Forbes was once described as ‘a perfect anomaly: as a politician, he is always wrong; as a private individual, full of good qualities’.
he had been called all sorts of names, he had been loaded with abuse, but he treated the thing with contempt. His opponents might call him Tory, anti-reformer, Conservative, anything but Whig or Radical ... He had come forward, heart and purse, for the purpose of saving his country from the impending destruction which threatened it, to save it from the destruction which had been threatened to it by such men as Mr. Hume. All that remained of our religion or liberties he considered to be threatened ... He considered the reform bill, as he always had considered it, a revolutionary measure, the consequences of which we could not see. He trusted that the electors would consider that he had come forward only for the purpose of preserving them from the thraldom in which they were likely to be placed.
Ibid. 18, 19, 24, 25 Dec. 1832.
He was considered as a possible Conservative candidate for Aberdeen or Edinburgh at the general election of 1835, but nothing came of this, and he never sat again.
After a lengthy legal process he was finally denied his claim to the attainted peerage of Pitsligo, but was served heir male general in 1833.