Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 8.djvu/251

Rh become renowned and powerful by their victories in Prussia and Lithuania, whose inhabitants were still benighted pagans. Sir William resolved to become a soldier in what he doubtless considered a holy war, and enlist under the banner of the Teutonic order. He accordingly set sail, and landed at Dantzic, which was now the head-quarters and capital of these military monks. It appears, from the history of the period, that the order at present was filled with bold adventurers from every quarter of Europe; but, among these, the deeds of the young lord of Nithsdale were soon so pre-eminent, that he was appointed to the important charge of admiral of the fleet—an office that placed him in rank and importance nearest to the grand-master of the order. Two hundred and forty ships, such as war-ships then were, sailed under his command—an important fact, which Fordun is careful to specify. But even already the career of Sir William was about to terminate, and that too by an event which made it matter of regret that he had not fallen in his own country upon some well-fought field. Among the adventurers from England who had come to the aid of the Teutonic knights, was a certain Lord Clifford, whose national jealousy had taken such umbrage at the honours conferred upon the illustrious Scot, that he first insulted, and then challenged him to single combat. The day and place were appointed with the usual formalities; and as such a conflict must be at outrance, Sir William repaired to France to procure good armour against the approaching trial. His adversary then took advantage of this absence to caluminate him as a coward who had deserted the appointment; but hearing this rumour, Sir William hastily returned to Dantzic, and presented himself before the set day. It was now Clifford's turn to tremble. He dreaded an encounter with such a redoubted antagonist; and to avoid it, he hired a band of assassins, by whom Sir William was basely murdered. This event must have happened somewhere about the year 1390–1. In this way Sir William Douglas, like a gigantic shadow, appears, passes, and vanishes, and fills but a brief page of that history which he might have so greatly amplified and so brightly adorned. At his death he left but one child, a daughter, by the Princess Egidia, who, on attaining maturity, was married to William, Earl of Orkney.

.—Among the many distinguished engineers of whom Scotland has been so prolific in the present age, the subject of this notice will always hold a conspicuous place. He was born at Edinburgh, in October, 1797, and was the second of three sons; and being deprived of his father while still in infancy, the care of his education devolved upon his mother, who discharged her duty in that respect so effectually that the Captain ever afterwards spoke of her with affectionate gratitude, and attributed much of his professional success to her careful and efficient training. After having undergone the usual course of a classical education at the High School of Edinburgh, he was entered at Woolwich as a cadet in 1813; and such was the persevering energy and diligence with which his home training had inspired him, that he soon distanced his school-fellows, and passed through the successive steps of the military college with a rapidity altogether unusual in that institution. It was not in mathematics alone, also, that he excelled, but in every other department of science to which he turned his attention; for such was his intellectual tenacity and power of application, that he never relinquished a subject until he had completely mastered it. Of this he once afforded a striking proof while still in one of the junior academies of the college. Not being satisfied with a difficult demonstration in conic sections contained in Hutton's "Course of Mathematics,"