Like many members of the Tory party, he was a Jacobite sympathiser and his brothers Erskine (c. 1725-1791) and Francis (c. 1726-1793) participated in the 1745 Rising. He was arrested in August 1746 after Murray of Broughton provided evidence he visited Charles outside Stirling in January. Released in 1748 without charge, he was excluded from the 1747 Act of Indemnity and forced to resign his seat.