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 on proving his descent from Macduff, Earl of Fife. His mother was his father's second wife, Jean, daughter of Sir James Grant of Grant, bart. He was born 29 Sept. 1729. In 1754 he was elected M.P. for Banff, and was re-elected in 1761, 1768, 1774, and 1780, and in the parliament of 1784 represented the county of Elgin. He succeeded his father in the title and estates in September 1763, and devoted himself to the improvement of the property, which he largely increased by the purchase of land in the north of Scotland. He was twice awarded the gold medal of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, for his plantations, with which he covered fourteen thousand acres. He offered the farmers on his estate every inducement to cultivate their land on the most approved principles, and himself set the example by instituting near each of his seats a model farm, where agriculture and cattle-breeding were carried on under his personal supervision. In 1782 and 1783, when all crops failed, he allowed his highland tenants a reduction of twenty per cent. on their rents, and disposed of grain to the poor considerably below the market price, importing several cargoes from England, which he sold at a loss of 3,000l. He was created a British peer by the title of Baron Fife, 19 Feb. 1790. He held the appointment of lord-lieutenant of county Banff, and founded the town of Macduff, the harbour of which was built at a cost of 5,000l. He died at his house in Whitehall, London, 24 Jan. 1809, and was buried in the mausoleum at Duff House, Banffshire. He married, 5 June 1759, Lady Dorothea Sinclair, only child of Alexander, ninth earl of Caithness, but he had no issue, and his British peerage became extinct on his death. He was succeeded in his Irish earldom by his next brother, Alexander.

[Douglas and Wood's Peerage of Scotland, i. 578; Scots Mag. lxxi. 159; Foster's Members of Parliament (Scotland).] 

DUFF, JAMES (1752–1839), general, only son of Alexander Duff of Kinstoun, N.B., entered the army as an ensign in the 1st or Grenadier guards on 18 April 1769. He was promoted lieutenant and captain on 26 April 1775, and made adjutant of his battalion in 1777, and on 30 April 1779 he was knighted as proxy for the celebrated diplomatist Sir James Harris, afterwards first earl of Malmesbury, at his installation as a knight of the Bath. He was promoted captain and lieutenant-colonel on 18 July 1780, colonel on 18 Nov. 1790, and major-general on 3 Oct. 1794, and in 1797 received the command of the Limerick district. While there he rendered important services during the insurrection of 1798, and managed to keep his district quiet in spite of the state of affairs elsewhere. He was promoted lieutenant-general on 1 Jan. 1801, and general on 25 Oct. 1809, and at the time of his death, at Funtington, near Chichester, on 5 Dec. 1839, he was senior general in the British army, and was one of the few officers who held a commission for over seventy years. It is noteworthy that he had as aides-de-camp during his Limerick command two famous officers, William Napier [q. v.] and James Dawes Douglas [q. v.] There are numerous allusions to him in the 'Life of Sir William Napier.'

[Royal Military Calendar; Gent. Mag. March 1840; Life of Sir William Napier.] 

DUFF, JAMES, fourth (1776–1857), Spanish general, elder son of the Hon. Alexander Duff, who succeeded his brother as third Earl Fife in 1809, was born on 6 Oct. 1776. He was educated at Edinburgh and was not intended for the army. On 9 Sept. 1799 he married Mary Caroline, second daughter of John Manners, who died on 20 Dec. 1805. Thereupon Duff sought distraction in 1808 by volunteering to join the Spaniards in their war against Napoleon. His assistance was gladly received, especially as he came full of enthusiasm and with a full purse, and he was made a major-general in the Spanish service. He served with great distinction at the battle of Talavera, where he was severely wounded in trying to rally the Spanish runaways, and was only saved from becoming a prisoner by the gallantry of his lifelong friend, Major (afterwards Lieutenant-general Sir) S. F. Whittingham. In that year, 1809, he became Viscount Macduff on his father's accession to the Irish earldom of Fife, but he still continued to serve in Spain, and was present during the defence of Cadiz against Marshal Victor, and was again severely wounded in the attack on Fort Matagorda in 1810. On 17 April 1811 he succeeded his father as fourth Earl Fife, and as lord-lieutenant of Banffshire, and returned to England, after being made for his services a knight of the order of St. Ferdinand. He was elected M.P. for Banffshire in 1818, and made a lord in waiting in the following year, and he was created a peer of the United Kingdom as Lord Fife on 27 April 1827, in which year he was also made a knight of the Thistle. He soon afterwards retired altogether to Scotland, where he lived at Duff House, Banffshire, much beloved by his tenantry and greatly interested in farming and cattle raising, and there he died, aged 80, on 9 March