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 pamphlets could have created enemies, or have been regarded as a serious contribution to controversy. The former, however, was answered anonymously in ‘The Tory Quaker, or Aminadab's new vision in a Field after a drop of the Creature.’ Mordington married Catherine, daughter of Dr. Robert Lauder, rector of Shenty, Hertfordshire, and by her he had a son, Charles, and two daughters, Mary and Campbellina. He died in Covent Garden, London, on 10 June 1741. His son Charles did not assume the title on his father's death, having no landed property; but on being taken prisoner in the rebellion of 1745 and put on trial he pleaded his peerage, and the trial was put off. He died, however, in prison, and with him the male line of the family became extinct. His sister Mary, who was married to William Weaver, an officer of the horse guards, then assumed the title of Mordington; but she dying without issue, it finally lapsed in July 1791.

[Douglas and Wood's Peerage of Scotland, ii. 263; Park's Walpole, v. 147; Lord Mordington's publications.]  DOUGLAS, HOWARD (1776–1861), third baronet, of Carr, Perthshire, general, colonel 15th foot, son of Vice-admiral Sir Charles Douglas, first baronet [q. v.], by his second wife, Sarah, daughter of James Wood, was born at Gosport in 1776. Having lost his mother when he was three years old, and his father being away at sea, he was brought up by his aunt, Mrs. Helena Baillie of Olive Bank, Musselburgh. He was sent to the grammar school at that place, but his early boyhood was chiefly spent with the fishermen, from whom he gained his first knowledge of the sea. He was intended for the navy, but his father dying suddenly in 1789, young Douglas's guardians obtained for him a nomination to the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. A simple entrance-examination in reading, writing, and arithmetic to the rule of three had lately been established, and in this he failed outright, to his sore distress. He passed a few weeks later, entering the academy as cadet 29 June 1790. He speedily showed ability in mathematics, and became a favourite with Dr. Charles Hutton [q. v.] Douglas appears to have been a daring boy, and he spent all his spare time on the river, and improved his knowledge of seamanship by practically working his passage to and from the north at holiday times in the Leith and Berwick smacks. He passed out of the academy as a second lieutenant royal artillery 1 Jan. 1794, and became first lieutenant 30 May 1794. According to some accounts he served under the Duke of York on the continent, but this appears doubtful (see, Hist. Roy. Art. ii. 57–8). As a subaltern of nineteen years of age he commanded the artillery of the northern district during the invasion alarms rife there after the return of the troops from Bremen in the spring of 1795. In August the same year he embarked for Quebec as senior officer of a detachment of troops on board the Phillis transport, which was cast away at the entrance of the St. Lawrence. The sufferings of the survivors were intensified by their failure to reach a settlement, and an attempted mutiny of the soldiers, which was stopped by the resolute conduct of Douglas. The castaways were rescued by a trader and carried to Great Jervis, a remote unvisited fishing station of Labrador, where they passed the winter. Subsequently they were rescued and carried to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where Douglas served three months, thence proceeding to Quebec, where he remained a year, during which time he was employed in command of a small cruiser, scouting for the French fleet said to be making for Quebec. In 1797 he was detached to Kingston, Upper Canada, where he passed two years chiefly hunting and fishing among the Indians, and was employed by the Canadian government on a mission to the Cherokees. On one occasion he skated all the way from Montreal to Quebec to attend a ball, a feat which cost the life of a brother-officer who accompanied him. Douglas returned home in 1799, and his ready seamanship saved the timber-laden vessel in which he made the voyage. Full details of Douglas's earlier career are given in his biography by Fullom.

In July 1799 Douglas married Anne, daughter of James Dundas of Edinburgh. By her, who died 12 Oct. 1854 (Gent. Mag. new ser. xlii. 643), he had a family of three daughters and six sons, the eldest survivor being the fourth baronet, General Sir Robert Percy Douglas, colonel 2nd Prince of Wales's North Staffordshire regiment (late 98th foot) and late lieutenant-governor Cape of Good Hope, a distinguished officer, born in 1805 (, Baronetage).

Douglas became a captain-lieutenant royal artillery 2 Oct. 1799. He acted for two years as adjutant of the 5th battalion royal artillery; was in charge of a company at Plymouth for one year; served a year and a half with one of the newly formed troops of horse artillery at Canterbury and Woolwich; and ten months with Congreve's mortar-brigade in 1803–4 (see, Roy. Mil. Cal. 1820). The latter, organised by General Congreve, father of the inventor of the 