Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 16.djvu/192

  [q. v.], and it was considered best to choose some one who would at once carry out the great reforms begun by the duke, and be ready to resign to the duke when the scandal should have blown over. Dundas was chosen, because as the duke's right-hand man at the Horse Guards he thoroughly understood his military policy, besides being a most intimate friend. Dundas was accordingly sworn of the privy council, and held the post of commander-in-chief of the army from 18 March 1809 to 26 May 1811, a period signalised by the victories of Talavera and Busaco and the retreat to Torres Vedras, and he was then perfectly ready to resign to the Duke of York. He was transferred to the colonelcy of the 1st or king's dragoon guards in 1813, and lived quietly at Chelsea Hospital until his death there, at the age of eighty-five, on 18 Feb. 1820. Dundas, who married Charlotte, daughter of General Oliver de Lancey, barrackmaster-general, left no children. His widow died in April 1840, and his property devolved on his nephew, Robert Dundas of Beechwood in Midlothian, one of the principal clerks of the court of session in Scotland, who was created a baronet in 1821, and died 28 Dec. 1835.

Sir Henry Bunbury devotes the following passage to Sir David: 'General Dundas had raised himself into notice by having formed a system for the British army, compiled and digested from the Prussian code of tactics both for the infantry and the cavalry. This work had been eagerly adopted by the Duke of York, as commander-in-chief, and had become the universal manual in our service. The system was in the main good, and written on right principles, though the book was ill-written, and led the large class of stupid officers into strange blunders. But a uniform system had been grievously needed, for no two regiments, before these regulations were promulgated, moved in unison. Dundas was a tall, spareman, crabbed and austere, dry in his looks and demeanour. He had made his way from a poor condition (he told me himself that he walked from Edinburgh to London to enter himself as a fireworker in the artillery); and there were peculiarities in his habits and style which excited some ridicule among young officers. 'But though it appeared a little out of fashion, there was "much care and valour in that Scotchman"' (Narratives of some Passages in the Great War with France, 1799-1810).



DUNDAS, DAVID (1799–1877), statesman, the eldest surviving son of James Dundas of Ochtertyre, Perthshire, by his marriage with Elizabeth, daughter of William Graham of Airth, Stirlingshire,was born in 1799. Admitted on the foundation of Westminster at the age of thirteen, he was elected to Christ Church, Oxford, in 1816, where he graduated B.A. 3 Feb. 1820, and was elected a student of the society; he proceeded M.A. 2 Nov. 1822. He was called to the bar at the Inner Temple, 7 Feb. 1823, and went the northern circuit. He was also a member of the Scotch bar. In March 1840 he was elected member of parliament for Sutherlandshire, and in the following April was appointed a queen's counsel, being elected a bencher of his inn in due course. He represented Sutherlandshire for twelve years till 1852, and sat for it again from April 1861 until May 1867. He entered parliament as an adherent of the liberal party, and on 10 July 1846 was appointed solicitor-general under Lord John Russell, receiving the customary knighthood on 4 Feb. 1847. Indifferent health obliged him to resign office 25 March 1848, when it was thought he would have accepted the more comfortable and permanent post of principal clerk of the House of Lords. He, however, declined it. In May 1849 he again took office, this time as judge-advocate general, was sworn a privy councillor on the following 29 June, and retired with his party in 1852. Thereafter it was understood that he did not care for further professional or political advancement. An accomplished scholar, he lived a somewhat retired life at his chambers, 13 King's Bench Walk, Inner Temple, where he had brought together a fine library. He died unmarried on 30 March 1877, aged 78. Dundas was an honorary M.A. of Durham University, and from 1861 to 1867 a trustee of the British Museum. He always gave his steady support to Westminster School, and was a constant attendant at its anniversaries and plays. He was one of those 'Old Westminsters' who most strongly opposed the proposal of removing the school into the country.



DUNDAS, FRANCIS (d. 1824), general, of Sanson, Berwickshire, colonel 71st highland light infantry, was second son of of Arniston the younger [q. v.], who held various important judicial posts in Scotland and died in 1787, by his second wife, Jean, daughter of William Grant, lord