Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Craig, Robert
CRAIG, ROBERT (1730–1823), political writer, born in 1730, was the second son of James Craig, professor of law in the university of Edinburgh. He was admitted to the Scotch bar in 1754, and about 1756 he was appointed one of the judges of the Edinburgh commissary court. This office he resigned in 1791. For many years he and his elder brother Thomas lived together, neither ever marrying. On his brother's death in 1814 he succeeded to the estate of Riccarton, being the last male heir in the descent of Sir Thomas Craig the feudal lawyer [q. v.] He was a whig in politics. In 1795 he published anonymously ‘An Inquiry into the justice and necessity of the present War with France.’ This pamphlet is a vindication of the right of nations to remodel their institutions without external interference. He died in Edinburgh on 13 Feb. 1823 in his ninety-third year.
[Scots Mag. xii. 647; Anderson's Scottish Nation, i. 687.]