Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 20.djvu/314

Fullarton Paper Office. 32. ‘Notes upon Antoninus's “Itinerary.”’

[Wren's MS. Lives of the Masters of Pembroke Hall; Strype's Annals, Life of Parker as quoted; Fuller's Church History, v. 79; Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr. ii. 57–61.]  FULLARTON, JOHN (1780?–1849), traveller and writer on the currency, was the only child of Dr. Gavin Fullarton, who died in 1795, by his wife, the daughter of Alexander Dunlop, professor of Greek in the university of Glasgow. He went to India as a medical officer in the service of the East India Company, became an assistant surgeon in the Bengal presidency in 1802, but resigned his appointment in 1813. During this period he became the part owner and editor of a newspaper at Calcutta. On leaving the service Fullarton entered the house of Alexander & Co., bankers of Calcutta, as a partner, acquired an immense fortune in a few years, and returned to England to live. Meantime he had travelled widely over India, and about 1820 made an extensive and systematic tour through the empire, which is believed to have been the first complete progress ever made through our eastern possessions. During the voyage he collected copious memoranda, but they were never published. In 1823 he purchased Lord Essex's house, 1 Great Stanhope Street, Mayfair. The reform crisis led him to contribute several articles to the 'Quarterly Review' in defence of the tory party, and he is said to have been one of the founders of the Carlton Club. During these years he made extensive tours through Great Britain and the continent in a coach fitted up with a library and other luxuries. In 1833 he went again to India, and in the following year was entrusted with an important mission to China. On his return to Europe he visited Egypt, where at Memphis his wife, Miss Finney of Calcutta, died in 1837. In 1838 having lost a considerable part of his fortune by the failure of his bankers, he moved to 12 Hyde Park Street. In 1844, during the progress of the Bank Charter Act through parliament, he published in support of the doctrines of Mr Tooke a book 'On the Regulation of Currencies, being an examination of the principles on which it is proposed to restrict the future issues on credit of the Bank of England.' It is undoubtedly an able work (for criticism see Economist, 28 Sept. 1844). Fullarton was a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society, and took great interest in art, literature, and the drama. He died on 24 Oct. 1849.

[Information from Mr. Fullarton James; Athenæum, 3 Nov. 1849.]  FULLARTON, WILLIAM (1754–1808), commissioner for the government of Trinidad, only son of William Fullarton of Fullarton, a wealthy Ayrshire gentleman, was born in 1754, and after spending some time at the Edinburgh University was sent to travel on the continent with Patrick Brydone [q. v.], at one time the travelling tutor of William Beckford, and visited Sicily and Malta. Fullarton was at first intended for the diplomatic service, and was attached as secretary to Lord Stormont's embassy in Paris; but on his accession to the family estates he came to England and secured his election to parliament for the borough of Plympton in 1779. In the following year he did not seek re-election, for he had combined a plan of operations which the government did not hesitate to accept. This plan was that he and his most intimate friend, Thomas Humberstone Mackenzie, de jure Earl of Seaforth, should each raise and equip a regiment on their Scotch estates at their own expense, which should be transported in government ships towards the coast of Mexico, in order to wait for and capture the Acapulco fleet. The regiments were accordingly raised, and Fullarton was gazetted lieutenant-colonel-commandant of the 98th regiment on 29 May 1780. The outbreak of the war with Holland changed the destination of these regiments, which were then ordered to form part of the expedition against the Cape of Good Hope under the command of Commodore Johnstone and General (afterwards Sir William) Medows. This plan also came to nothing, owing to the arrival of the French admiral, the Bailli de Suffren, at the Cape before the English expedition. The regiments then went on to India, to take their part in the second Mysore war against Haidar Ali. Mackenzie's regiment disembarked at Calicut, to make a diversion by invading Mysore from the Malabar coast, while Fullarton's went round to Madras. He remained in the neighbourhood of the capital of the presidency until after the battle of Porto Novo, when he was sent south in command of the king's troops, in order if possible to attract the Mysore troops away from the Carnatic. In June 1782 Fullarton was gazetted a colonel in the army for the East Indies, with Sir Robert Barker, Norman Macleod, John Floyd, and many others, in order to put an end to the perpetual disputes between the king's and the company's officers, and he co-operated in the winter campaign of 1782–3 in the suppression of the Kollars, or wild fighting tribes of Madura, and in the capture of Karur and Dindigal. In May 1783 he succeeded to the general command of all the troops south of the Coleroon, and