MACLEOD, Robert Bruce Aeneas (1764-1844), of Cadboll, Cromarty.

Macleod, described in 1788 as ‘a Pittite’, was a token candidate for Sutherland in 1790, almost certainly acting in collusion with the successful ministerialist. He possessed a substantial estate and leading interest in Cromarty, where he came in unopposed in 1807. He is not known to have opposed the Portland ministry and in 1810 was numbered among those Members who would ‘probably support any line of politics Lord Melville might decidedly adopt’. He voted with the Perceval ministry on the address, 23 Jan., the Scheldt inquiry, 26 Jan., 23 Feb., 5 and 30 Mar. 1810, when the Whigs classed him as ‘against the Opposition’, and on the Regency, 1 Jan. 1811. He divided against the release of John Gale Jones, 16 Apr., sinecure reductions, 17 May, and parliamentary reform, 21 May 1810. In the debate on Whitbread’s parochial schools bill, 4 Aug. 1807, he vaunted the Scottish practice of basing education on intensive religious instruction. He voiced the alarm of his constituents at the proposal to ban grain distillation, 13 Apr. 1808, and had something to say on the punishment clause of the mutiny bill, 12 Mar. 1811. He left the House at the dissolution of 1812, when the return passed from Cromarty to Nairnshire. Macleod died 6 Dec. 1844.1Pol. State of Scotland 1788, p. 84.