(d. 1767), 4th s. of James Graeme of Bucklyvie; officer in the Dutch Brigade; groot-maj. 1749.
1755 - 67 Venice [visits to Albania and Grecian Islands Jul. 1757 - Sep. 1758, and England Feb. - Jun. 1760]
A relation of the 3rd Earl of Bute, in 1755 General Graeme was appointed commander of the Venetian land forces in succession to Marshal Schulenberg. In September 1756 he met Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in Venice, Lady Bute having particularly asked him to look into her mother's wayward affairs. He was also a friend of Algarotti, who was then in Bologna.1 In July and August 1757 he received Robert Adam (whom he had previously met at Tournai) in Pola,2 Graeme then being in the course of a fourteen months tour of military establishments in Istria, Dalmatia, Albania and the Grecian Islands, from which he returned to Venice in September 1758.3
Between February and June 1760 Graeme took leave in England, and he returned with James Adam, who found him rather 'crabbed' (they reached Turin on 13 June and Venice on the 25th).4 From Venice in November 1760 Graeme was advising Lord Bute that Joseph Smith's collections might come up for sale when he retired.5 His name frequently recurs in Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's letters between 1758 and 1761, primarily because of his precarious state of health. In August 1761 she thought him 'mortally ill'; she had previously described his comfortable circumstances at Venice as having 'at least £;900 sterling hand pay, nothing to do, and [he] may, if he pleases, shine in this Country for that Sum'.6 In December 1764 James Martin saw him at Lady Wentworth's in Venice,7 and in July 1765 Lord Mountstuart with James Boswell stayed in his country house at Monigo, Boswell saying the General was a 'very sensible polite man'.8 Graeme's portrait with an aide-de-camp by Pietro Longhi is in the Museo Correr.
1. R. Halsband, Life of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, 257, 260. 2. Fleming, Adam, 237 - 9. 3. Montagu Letters, 3:144n1. Fleming, Adam, 328, 365. 4. Montagu Letters, 3:231, 242n1. Fleming, Adam, 267 - 8. 5. See F. Vivian, Consul Smith Collection, exh. cat. [1989], 33 - 4. 6. Montagu Letters, 3:278, 270 (14 Aug. and 29 Apr. 1761). 7. Martin jnl.mss (21 Dec. 1764). 8. Boswell, Italy, 109.