MOODIE, James (d.1724).

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1715-1754, ed. R. Sedgwick, 1970
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

2nd s. of James Moodie of Melsetter, Orkney by his 1st w., ?a da. of James Douglas, 11th Earl of Morton [S]. unm.

Offices Held

Sec. to commrs. for stating army debts, 1715-22.

Biography

Returned for Orkney and Shetland in 1715, Moodie, the son of a naval captain, voted with the Administration in all recorded divisions except on the septennial bill, when he was absent. On 17 July 1721 he wrote to Sunderland that at the beginning of the 1719 session,

Sir William Gordon came to me, as he said from your Lordship, and assured me in your name that four hundred pounds should be paid me at the end of that session, this sum being in place of the original sum promised to me annually by the Duke of Roxburgh; by this means the difference was that the Earl of Sunderland was to be my paymaster.

Gordon had then advanced part of the sum, since when Moodie had ‘received nothing but promises and delays’. Sunderland had referred him to Walpole and George Baillie

for the despatch of my affair. It is fit I acquaint you that if it came to either of their hands I shall still be delayed, and the reasons are, the first I have still opposed, and the latter opposes me and has all along delayed the performances of the Duke of Roxburgh’s promises.

On 29 Aug. 1721 Moodie gave a receipt for £200 from Gordon, completing the £400.1 He lost his seat in 1722 and died in his father’s lifetime 4 Feb. 1724.

Ref Volumes: 1715-1754

Author: J. M. Simpson

Notes

  • 1. Sunderland (Blenheim) mss D. II, 4.