Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 39.djvu/395

 in Nicolson Street, Edinburgh, on 22 July 1820.

His works comprise: 1. 'Elements of Chemistry,' 2 vols. 8vo, Edinburgh, 1801; 6th ed. 1828. 2. 'A Comparative View of the Huttonian and Neptunian Systems of Geology' (anon.), 8vo, Edinburgh, 1802. 3. 'Elements of Materia Medica and Pharmacy,' 2 vols. 8vo, Edinburgh, 1804; 6th ed. 1832. 4. 'A System of Chemistry,' 4 vols. 8vo, Edinburgh, 1806–7; 6th ed. 1832.

His son, (1798–1873), who edited the later editions of his father's works, was born on 19 April 1798, graduated M.D. of St. Andrews in 1815, and became a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh, in November 1826. He afterwards emigrated to Melbourne, where he died on 4 June 1873.

 MURRAY, JOHN (1768?–1827), eighth baronet of Clermont, Fifeshire, general, born about 1768, was eldest son by his second wife, Susan, daughter of John Renton of Lamerton, of Sir Robert Murray, sixth baronet, and was half-brother of Sir James Murray, afterwards Pulteney [q. v.] He was appointed ensign 3rd footguards (Scots guards) 24 Oct. 1788, and became lieutenant and captain in that regiment 25 April 1793. He served in Flanders in 1793-1794, as aide-de-camp first to the Hanoverian field-marshal Freytag, and afterwards to the Duke of York {see ], and was present at St. Amand, Famars, the sieges of Valenciennes and Dunkirk, Tournay, &c., and in the winter retreat through Holland to Bremen. On 15 Nov. 1794 he was appointed lieutenant-colonel 2nd battalion 84th foot (now 2nd York and Lancaster regiment). He commanded the 84th at the capture of the Cape of Good Hope in 1796, and took it on to India. In 1798 he was sent into the Red Sea with a small force, which, on the urgent solicitations of the Ottoman government to the sultan of Sana, then sovereign of the peninsula of Aden, was allowed to remain awhile in that stronghold. In 1799 Murray was appointed British commissioner in the Red Sea, and was sent with three hundred men to occupy Perim in the straits of Bab el Mandeb, so as to intercept all communication with India by way of the Red Sea. The troops landed 3 May 1799, and remained until 1 Sept. Finding, after every practicable exertion, that the island yielded not a, drop of fresh water, and that the shore batteries could not command the straits, Murray withdrew his detachment to Aden, where they were most hospitably entertained, and remained till March 1800 (the Rev. G. P. Badger in the Times, 31 May 1858). Early in the following year Murray was appointed quartermaster-general of the Indian army proceeding to Egypt under Major-general David Baird [q. v.], which, after many delays in the Red Sea, arrived at Kosseir in June 1801, crossed the desert to Cairo, and descended the Nile. Returning to India with Baird's troops, Murray commanded the Bombay division, which joined Major-general Arthur Wellesley's force at Poona in May 1803, and commanded in Guzerat during the subsequent operations against the Mahrattas. From Guzerat he moved into Malwa, and on 24 Aug. 1804 seized and occupied Holkar's capital (see, Well. Desp. vols. i. and ii. passim). Wellesley disapproved of many of Murray's proceedings, and in September 1804 recommended that he should be relieved from the command in Malwa (ib. i. 462). Murray advanced to Kota, where his force was in a dangerous position, in January 1805 (ib.) On notification of his promotion to major-general from 1 Jan. 1805 he returned home. He commanded a brigade in the eastern counties in 1806-7, and the troops of the king's German legion with Sir John Moore in the expedition to Sweden in 1808, and afterwards in Portugal. He joined Sir Arthur Wellesley's army in Portugal in 1809, and distinguished himself at the passage of the Douro in May that year (ib. in. 227). When Beresford was made a local lieutenant-general, Murray, who was his senior, was indisposed to serve under him, and returned home.

In 1811 Murray succeeded his elder half-brother, Sir James Murray Pulteney, in the baronetcy and a fortune of over half a million, and also as member for the boroughs of Weymouth and Melcombe Regis, which he represented until the dissolution of 1818. Murray appears to have applied for employment in the Peninsular army. But in a letter in February 1811 Lord Wellington recommended that his application should be passed over : 'He is a very able officer, but when he was here before he was disposed not to avoid questions of precedence, but to bring them unnecessarily to discussion and decision' (ib. iv. 588). Murray became a lieutenant-general 1 Jan. 1812, and later was appointed to the army in Sicily under command of Lord William Bentinck [q. v.] On 26 Feb. 1813 he arrived at Alicante, and took command of a motley force of Anglo-Sicilians there, of which Major-general John Mac- 