Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 39.djvu/114

 Querqueville, with the basin, built at considerable expense, were all destroyed. Bligh sailed for England on 15 Aug. On 31 Aug. Morrison again sailed with General Bligh with troops for St. Malo, and took part in the action of 9 Sept., and in the battle of St. Gas on 11 Sept. At the termination of these expeditions Morrison returned to court.

On 22 Feb. 1761 he was promoted lieutenant-colonel in the army and appointed deputy quartermaster-general on the headquarters staff. On the death of General Bland in June 1763 he was appointed quartermaster-general to the forces, and was in frequent attendance on the king. He was appointed equerry to the Duke of York, and travelled with him in 1764. He accompanied the duke when he left England on 7 July 1767, and attended him assiduously during his illness at Monaco, and was present at his death in September of that year. Morrison was ill himself, and it was with much difficulty that the dying prince could be prevailed on to accept his services. 'Your life, Morrison,' he said, 'is of more importance than mine. You have a family. Be careful of your health for their sake, and shun this chamber.' Morrison was much attached to the prince. He accompanied his remains to England, and attended their interment on the night of 3 Nov. in Westminster Abbey.

In 1769 he was a member of a committee appointed to consider the defences of Gibraltar. On 22 Dec. 1772 Morrison was promoted colonel in the army, and on 2 Feb. 1775 he was promoted to be sub-director and major in the corps of royal engineers. He was made a major-general on 29 Aug. 1777. In 1779 he was appointed colonel of the 75th regiment. In 1781 he attended Lord Amherst, the commander-in-chief, on an inspection of the east coast defences on the outbreak of the war with Holland. On 29 May 1782 he was transferred from the colonelcy of the 75th foot to that of the 17th regiment, and on 20 Nov. was promoted to be lieutenant-general. On 8 Aug. 1792 he was transferred from the colonelcy of the 17th foot to that of the 4th king's own regiment of foot. But little more is recorded of the ancient quartermaster-general except the changes of his residence. In 1792 he resided at Sion Hill near Barnet. On 3 May 1796, when he was promoted general, he was living at Fairy Hall near Eltham. He died at his house in Seymour Street, London, on 26 Nov. 1799, at about the age of ninety-five. He was married and had six children.  MORRISON, JAMES (1790–1857), merchant and politician, born of yeoman parentage in Hampshire in 1790, began his career in a very humble capacity in a London warehouse. His industry, sagacity, and integrity eventually secured him a partnership in the general drapery business in Fore Street of Joseph Todd, whose daughter he married. The firm latterly became known as Morrison, Dillon & Co. and was afterwards converted into the Fore Street Limited Liability Company. Morrison was one of the first English traders to depend for his success on the lowest remunerative scale of profit. He thus endeavoured to secure a very rapid circulation of capital, his motto being 'small profits and quick returns.' He made an immense fortune, a great part of which he expended in buying land in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Kent, Wiltshire, Yorkshire, and Islay, Argyllshire. Southey saw him at Keswick in September 1823. He was then worth some 150,000l., and was on his way to New Lanark on the Clyde with the intention of investing 5,000l. in Robert Owen's experiment, 'if he should find his expectations confirmed by what he sees there' (, Life and Correspondence, v. 144-5).

From his earliest settlement in London Morrison was associated with the liberal party in the city. In 1830 he entered parliament as member for St. Ives, Cornwall, which he helped to partially disfranchise by voting for the Reform Bill. He did not return to his offended constituents, but in 1831 he secured a seat at Ipswich for which he was again elected in December 1832. He was, however, defeated there on the 'Peel Dissolution' in January 1835. On an election petition, Fitzroy Kelly and Robert Adam Dundas, the members, were unseated, and Morrison with Rigby Wason headed the poll in June 1835. At the succeeding dissolution, in July 1837, Morrison remained out of parliament, and in the following December on the occasion of a by-election for a vacancy at Ipswich, he was defeated in a contest with Joseph Bailey. In March 1840 he re-entered the House of Commons as member for the Inverness Burghs, and was again returned unopposed in the general election of 1841,