Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 30.djvu/81

 medica and therapeutics at Queen's College in 1841, and extraordinary physician to the General Hospital, a post which he held for more than thirty years. On the visit of the British Medical Association to Birmingham in September 1865, Johnstone was chosen president. The best-known of his writings are ‘A Therapeutic Arrangement and Syllabus of Materia Medica,’ 1835, which had an extensive circulation; and ‘A Discourse on the Phenomena of Sensation as connected with the Mental, Physical, and Instructive Faculties of Man,’ 1841. He died at Leamington on 11 May 1869. He was the last of his family who distinguished himself in medicine in the midland counties, his grandfather, James, his father, Edward, and two uncles, John and James, having practised in Kidderminster, Worcester, and Birmingham. He married in 1834 Maria Mary Payne, daughter of Joseph Webster of Penns, Warwickshire, and by her, who died in 1859, left twelve children. His eldest son was Colonel Sir James Johnstone, K.C.S.I.; his third son Charles Johnstone, R.N.; and his third daughter Catherine Laura Johnstone, an authoress. 

JOHNSTONE, GEORGE (1730–1787), commodore, born in 1730, was fourth son of Sir James Johnstone of Westerhall, Dumfriesshire, third baronet, by Barbara Murray, daughter of Alexander, fourth lord Elibank. He passed his examination for lieutenant in the navy on 2 Feb. 1749–50. He was then described as apparently twenty-one, as having served upwards of six years at sea, part of the time in the merchant service, and the rest, amounting to nearly six years, in no less than eleven different ships, under different captains. Yet he had certainly distinguished himself on some occasions, and notably in the Canterbury, under Captain David Brodie [q. v.], at the attack on Port Louis on 8 March 1747–8, when he boarded a fireship and made fast a chain, by which she was towed off clear of the squadron (, Naval and Military Memoirs, i. 402; A Letter to Lord Viscount Howe, &c., p. 38 n.) He was also in the Lark with Captain John Crookshanks [q. v.] on her meeting with the Glorioso on 14 July 1747; and on leaving her is said to have challenged, fought, and wounded Crookshanks, who had refused to give him a certificate. In October 1755 he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant and appointed to the Sutherland, from which he was moved a few months later into the Bideford on the West Indian station. While in her he is said to have killed the captain's clerk in a duel, and on 22 Feb. 1757 he was tried by court-martial for insubordination and disobedience; he was found guilty, but ‘in consideration of his former gallant behaviour in the service’ was only reprimanded. In October 1757 he was transferred to the Augusta with Captain Arthur Forrest [q. v.]; in August 1758 to the Trial; and on 6 Feb. 1760 was promoted to command the Hornet sloop, in which he was employed in the North Sea and afterwards on the Lisbon station. On 11 Aug. 1762 he was advanced to post rank, and appointed to the Hind, then at Gibraltar. While waiting for her return he fell over ‘a precipice’ seventeen feet high at Chatham, spraining his foot and ankle badly, so as to be confined to bed for twelve weeks. When the Hind came home he was thus unable to join her; another captain was appointed; and Johnstone was placed on half-pay.

On 20 Nov. 1763 he was formally appointed governor of West Florida, ceded by Spain on the conclusion of the peace. Virtually, however, the appointment had been made some months before, Colonel James Grant (1720–1806) [q. v.] being at the time appointed governor of East Florida. A ‘North Briton’ extraordinary of 17 Sept. commented on the appointments of the two Scotsmen with customary scurrility; they were, it said, ‘partial and flagrant,’ ‘incongruous to justice,’ ‘repugnant to policy,’ and ‘baneful to liberty.’ Grant was in America, but Johnstone wrote to the writer of the article to request ‘the favour of a meeting,’ when, he said, he ‘would endeavour to convince the writer, by arguments best adapted to his sensations, how much he was mistaken in the man he had endeavoured to injure without provocation.’ The ‘North Briton’ considered this a challenge, but being impersonal, no one answered it. Johnstone's friends denied that it was a challenge, for a hostile meeting, they declared, could not be called a favour, nor could a sword and pistol be termed arguments. Johnstone, however, afterwards insisted on a Mr. Brooke saying whether he was the author; and upon Brooke's declining