Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 3.djvu/161

Rh In December, 1795, general Dundas was removed from the command of the 22d foot, to that of the 7th dragoons. He was also appointed governor of Languard-fort, and on the resignation of general Morrison, he was nominated quarter-master-general of the British army.

In the expedition to Holland in the year 1799, general Dundas was one of the general officers selected by the coinmander-in-chief; and he had his full share in the actions of that unfortunate campaign. On the death of Sir Ralph Aber.crombie, general Dundas succeeded him in the command of the 2d North British dragoons, and also in the government of Forts George and Augustus. In the summer of 1801, he was second in command of the fine army of 25,000 men, which assembled in Bagshot heath ; and made uncommon exertions to bring it to the high state of discipline which it displayed on the day it was reviewed before his majesty, George III., and the royal family.

On the 12th of March, 1803, he resigned the quarter-master-generalship, and was put on the staff as second in command under the duke of York, when his majesty invested him with the riband of the order of the Bath. In the year 1804, he was appointed governor of Chelsea Hospital, and on the 1st June of that year, he, along with many others, was installed as a knight of the Bath in Henry VII. 's chapel. On the 18th of March, 1809, he succeeded the duke of York as commander-in-chief of the forces, which high appointment he held for two years. He was made a member of the privy council and colonel of the 95th regiment The last of the many marks of royal favour conferred on him, was the colonelcy of the 1 st dragoon guards.

General Dundas died on the 18th of February, 1820, and was succeeded in his estates by his nephew, Sir Robert Dundas of Beechwood, Bart.

, the right honourable Henry, viscount Melville and baron Dunira, was, born in the year 1741. He was the son of the first, and brother to the second, Robert Dundas of Arniston, each of whom held the high office of lord president of the court of session. His father's family, as has been mentioned in the notice of Sir James Dundas of Arniston, derived their origin from the very ancient family of Dundas of Dundas; his mother was the daughter of Sir Robert Gordon of Invergordon, Bart. After receiving the preliminary branches of education at the high school and university of Edinburgh, and having gone through the usual course of legal study, Mr Dundas was admitted a member of the faculty of advocates in the year 1763. It is related of him that after paying the expenses of his education and his admission to the faculty, he had just sixty pounds of his patrimony remaining. He commenced his professional career in chambers situated at the head of the Flesh-market close of Edinburgh; and such was the moderate accommodation of Scottish lawyers in those days, that his rooms did not even front the High street. The meanness of his apartments, however, is to be attributed rather to the habits of the times, and the state of Edinburgh, than to pecuniary obstacles, or to any distrust of success; for the member of a family so well connected in the country, and so highly distinguished in the courts before which Mr Dundas proposed to practise, enjoyed every advantage which a young lawyer could have desired as an introduction to his profession. In Mr Dundas these recommendations were happily combined with great talents and persevering application to business; so that, although he did not resist the temptations to gaiety and dissipation which beset him, he on no occasion allowed the pursuit of pleasure or amusement, to interfere with the due discharge of his professional duties. Nor did he lose any opportunity which presented itself of cultivating his oratorical powers. With that view he early availed himself of the opening afforded for that species of display, in the annual sittings of the general assembly of the church of Scotland, As a