|
Andrew Douglas (d. 1725),
naval officer, was born in Glasgow but became domiciled in Ulster,
probably in Coleraine. In 1689 he was master of the merchant ship
Phoenix, which was laden with provisions and stores for the
relief of
Londonderry, besieged by the forces of James II.
For some weeks a
squadron of English ships had lain in Lough Foyle, unable or unwilling to
attempt to force the boom with which the river was blocked. Positive
orders to make the attempt were sent to Colonel Percy Kirke, who commanded
the relieving force; and two masters of merchant ships, Browning in the
Mountjoy of Londonderry and Douglas in the Phoenix(1), volunteered
for the service. With them also went Captain John Leake in the frigate
Dartmouth. As the three ships approached the boom the wind died away;
they were becalmed under the enemy's batteries, and were swept up by the
tide alone. Their position was thus one of great danger; but while the
Dartmouth engaged and silenced the batteries, the Mountjoy
first, and after her the Phoenix, crashed through the boom. The
Mountjoy ran aground and for the moment seemed to be lost. She was
exposed to a heavy fire, which killed Browning; but the concussion of her
own guns shook her off the bank, and on a rising tide she floated up to
the city. With better fortune the Phoenix had passed up without
further hindrance, and brought relief to Londonderry's starving
inhabitants, by whom Douglas was hailed as a saviour. A certificate signed
by the town's governor, George Walker, and others recommended him to the
king, and in February 1690 he was accordingly appointed to the command of
the sloop Lark.
On 30 August 1691 Douglas was promoted
captain of the frigate Sweepstakes in which, and afterwards in the
Dover, Lion, and Harwich, he served continuously
during the Nine Years' War, employed, it would appear, on the Irish and
Scottish coasts, but without any opportunity for distinction. The
Harwich was paid off in November 1697, and for the next three years
Douglas was unemployed, during which time, with no alternative profession,
he wrote repeated letters to the Admiralty, asking for his case to be
taken into consideration. At last, in February 1701, he was appointed to
the Norwich (60 guns) which he commanded for eighteen months in the
channel, and in July 1702 he sailed for the West Indies with a
considerable convoy. He arrived at Port Royal, Jamaica, in September,
where for the next eighteen months he remained senior officer; and in July
1704 he sailed for England with a large convoy. He arrived in the Thames
at the end of September, and while preparing to pay off wrote on 4 October
of his desire to be moved with his crew to the soon-to-be-launched
Plymouth. Douglas's request is curious, for at the time of his writing
many of his officers and men were combining to try him by court martial on
charges of sutling, trading, hiring out the men to merchant ships for his
private advantage, and punishing them ‘exorbitantly’. He was tried on
these charges at Deptford on 16 November 1704, and the court, holding them
to be fully proved, ‘in consideration of the meanness of his proceedings’,
sentenced him to be cashiered.
Douglas was reinstated in his rank
on 24 September 1709 (with effect from 25 January 1710) by the earl of
Pembroke, then lord high admiral, on the consideration of fresh evidence.
In March 1711 he was appointed to command the Arundel, in which he
was employed in the North Sea, and as far as Göteborg with convoy. While
in her, on 15 December 1712, he was again tried by court martial, on this
occasion for using indecent language to his officers and confining some of
them to their cabins undeservedly, and for these offences he was fined
three months' pay. He seems indeed to have been guilty, but under great
provocation, especially from the lieutenant, who was at the same time
fined six months' pay. In the following March the Arundel was paid
off, and in February 1715 Douglas was appointed to the Flamborough,
also on the home station. She was employed, mostly in the channel, in the
operations concerned with the Jacobite rising of that year. The ship was
paid off in October, and he had no further service. After several years on
half pay as a captain he died on 26 June 1725. From: Dictionary of
National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 15 Of his family we know
but little. He had with him in the Norwich and afterwards in the
Arundel a youngster, by name Gallant Rose(3), whom he speaks of as
his wife's brother, ‘whose father was captain in the army in
Cromwell's time.’ He also on different occasions applied for
leave to go to the north of Ireland on his own affairs, which
fact would seem to imply that, notwithstanding his
Scotch-sounding name, he was an Ulster Irishman.
The Old Scots Navy from 1689 to 1710
The
Revolution, March - August, 1689, with an Account of the
Pelican and the Janet to November, 1690
Extract
INTRODUCTION
The extreme exercise of prerogative
by James, the last Stuart King, and his Romanizing policy
alienated the majority of his subjects in England and
Scotland, who brought over from Holland his Protestant
nephew and son-in-law, William of Orange. That prince landed
at Torbay on 5th November, 1688. James, deserted by his
army, on nth December fled to France, and the Revolution was
inaugurated in England and Scotland without a blow. In
Ireland alone, with a predominant Roman Catholic population,
the adherents of James, under Tyrconel, were able to uphold
his government, and Protestants were either driven out of
the island or behind the walls of Enniskillen and
Londonderry. Convoyed by a French fleet, James landed from
France at Kinsale in the south of Ireland on 12th March,
1689, and war with France, though not formally declared
until later, began, Great Britain corning into line with the
European confederacy banded against Louis XIV and the then
French ascendancy.
In Scotland, where the Duke of
Hamilton and General Mackay managed for William, the
Convention Parliament met on 14th March, 1689. On the 18th
Viscount Dundee rode out of Edinburgh, ' whither the spirit
of Montrose might direct,' to the Highlands to raise the
standard of James. Next day the Convention declared for
William, and immediately took strong measures, with the aid
of General Mackay, to suppress Dundee's rising, to prevent
the Jacobites in Ireland from assisting him, and to help the
distressed Protestants of Ireland. The command of the Irish
Channel and of the western seas of Scotland was therefore of
great importance to the new government, if they were to
maintain themselves and their policy, and were not to be
entirely dependent on the English fleet. Measures were
accordingly taken on 21st March to create and put to sea
something of the nature of a small Scots fleet, consisting
of two hired frigates, the Pelican and Janet, both of
Glasgow. These were commissioned on 13th April, and were
ordered to keep the western seas from Cornwall to Skye.
Minute details are given in the Acts of the Convention
Parliament of Scotland of the hiring, victualling and arming
of these two frigates. So scarce were munitions of war that
Captain Hamilton, the commodore, and Captain Brown were
authorised to seize for the frigates any suitable cannon
that could be got, and on 19th April cannon-ball and '
granadoes,' seized in the house of an Edinburgh Jacobite,
were given out for their use.
After the indecisive
engagement of 1st May, 1689, between the French fleet under
Admiral Chateau Renaud and the English fleet under Admiral
Herbert (afterwards created Lord Torrington), in Bantry Bay,
Captain Rooke of the English Navy, afterwards Sir George
Rooke who captured Gibraltar, was sent north with a small
squadron to assist in keeping command of the seas between
Scotland and Ireland. On 7th May instructions were given to
the Scots frigates then lying at the mouth of the Foyle, and
intending for Dublin Bay, to cruise on the coasts of Kintyre
and Mull to prevent a landing in Scotland from Ireland, and
on the 18th they were directed to co-operate with Rooke.
Their service was not ineffective. Early in June they
captured a party of Scots Jacobite Highlanders on their way
from Argyll to Ireland. That same month, after refitting,
they were employed in carrying dispatches to Major-General
Kirke, who was then charged with the duty of relieving
Londonderry. On 10th July, in a gallant though ineffectual
attempt to prevent a landing in the west of Scotland of
Jacobite reinforcements from Ireland for Viscount Dundee,
they were overwhelmed by three French frigates of superior
power. A graphic account of this obscure sea-fight, printed
in London on 2nd August, 1689, and found by the Editor bound
up with contemporary London Gazettes in the British Museum,
seems to overstate the number killed. The closing papers of
this chapter tell the story of the 143 Scots seamen captured
in this fight, and their relatives' endeavours to recover
arrears of pay during their captivity in Kinsale and Duart
in Mull, and correct the broadside account of the number
killed. An interesting incident, a fitting termination to
this episode, was the daring recapture of the Pelican in
Dublin Bay by Sir Cloudesley Shovell in the Monmouth on 18th
April; 1690. Later in July the Pelican was lying in the
Catwater, Plymouth—an effective unit of the squadron under
Sir Cloudesley Shovell, and her log is still preserved in
the Public Record Office, London.[Admiralty, Captains' Logs,
4284, in Public Record Office] Classeci as a fireship of two
decks, after some short service in the English Navy she
ended her career as a breakwater at Sheerness in September
1692.
Meantime, in the summer of 1689, the Scots
Parliament and Privy Council took strong measures to support
their kinsmen, the Protestants of Ulster, in their
resistance of James and his forces beleaguering Londonderry.
Embargoes were imposed on Scots and Irish shipping, and
were removed as expediency suggested. More important was
the issue of letters of marque to adventurous friends. On
28th May commissions were issued by the Privy Council to the
captains of three privateers, the Dogarvine, the Phoenix and
another unnamed against the French and Jacobite Irish. On
the 31st of July, 1689, the first to bring relief to
Londonderry was the Phoenix privateer under the command of
Captain Andrew Douglas, a Scots-Ulsterman of Coleraine.
Macaulay recounts in graphic language how, after the boom
across the Foyle was broken, the Phoenix arrived first, and
how from the relieving ships there were rolled on shore
barrels containing six thousand bushels of meal for the
famished inhabitants. The Privy Council records of 30th May
recount that these barrels of oatmeal came from the garrison
store-house in Stirling and were carried by the Phoenix. For
his gallant services at Londonderry Douglas subsequently
received a captain's commission in the English Navy. The
English Admiralty minutes [Admiralty 3, No. 2, in Public
Record Office.] of 30th September, 1689, bear : 'My Lord
Carbery, one of the members of the Board attending his
Majesty yesterday at Hampton Court, his Majesty delivered to
his Lordship Lieutenant-General Kirke's recommendation to
his Majesty of Captain Douglas, commander of one of the
ships that relieved Londonderry, for a better employment,
with his pleasure to his Lordship that the Board should take
care therein.' A minute [again Admiralty 3, No. 2, in Public
Record Office.] of 25th October, 1689, bears: 'Upon my Lord
Shrewsbury's letter of this day's date signifying his
Majesty's pleasure that Captain Andrew Douglas of the
Phoenix, who did good service at the relief of Londonderry,
have such employment in the fleet as the Board shall judge
him capable of : Ordered that this be considered when Lord
Torrington shall be at the Board.' After some delay he was
by the King's intervention appointed in February 1690 to the
command of H.M. sloop Lark in the English Navy.
During that year he was engaged on the west coast of
Scotland under Captain Pottinger of H.M.S. Dartmouth, and
chapter ii contains various references to the services of
the Lark. On 30th August, 1691, he was posted to the
Sweepstakes frigate, and thereafter to the Dover, Lion, and
Harwich, doing service during the French war on the coasts
of Ireland and Scotland. In November 1697, after the peace
of Ryswick, the Harwich was paid off, and for three years
Douglas was unemployed. In February 1701 he was posted to
the Norwich of 60 guns, and for eighteen months was on the
English Channel station. In July 1702 he sailed on convoy
duty for the West Indies, where he remained for eighteen
months commodore on the station, returning to England in
July 1704 to be paid off. While on the West Indian station
he quarrelled with his officers and crew, and on his return
to England they brought a series of charges against him, on
which he was court-martialled on 16th November, 1704, Sir
John Jennings presiding. He was found guilty (1) of sutling
on board his ship the Norwich by selling to his men rum and
sugar, &c, and being paid therefore out of their short
allowance money ; (2) of bearing men unduly on board his
ship, who were put on board a sloop for his private
advantage; and (3) of exorbitantly punishing his men. He was
found guilty, and was dismissed from employment as commander
of the Norwich, at the same time losing his post in the rank
of captains of the English Navy. At this time the feeling in
England was bitter against Scotsmen, and, whatever the
merits of the case, as a Scotsman Douglas would get scant
justice. Convinced that he had been unjustly dealt with,
Douglas tried every means to get the sentence set aside, and
in July 1706 a petition [See S. P. Dom. Naval, 1703-8 (3rd
July, 1706), in the public Record Office.] of his, ' setting
forth his services [Assisting at the relief of Londonderry.]
in the late reign, in consideration whereof he was preferred
to the command of a man-of-war in the Royal Navy, from
whence he was dismissed upon misrepresentation exhibited
against him by some of his seamen for ill-usage of them, and
other irregularities, and praying to be restored,' was
considered by the Admiralty but was not entertained. Three
years later, on 24th September, 1709, the Lord High Admiral,
Lord Pembroke, in view of fresh evidence reinstated him in
his rank of captain, and in March 1711 he was posted to the
command of the Arundel, and was engaged on convoy duty in
the North Sea. In 1712 he stood a second court-martial on a
charge of using indecent language to his officers, and of
confining some of them to their cabins undeservedly. He was
fined three months' pay, but his lieutenant—his chief
accuser—was at the same time fined six months' pay. In March
1712 the Arundel was paid off. In February 1715 Captain
Douglas was appointed to the Flamborough on the home
station. She was paid off in October of the same year, and
Douglas received no further command thereafter, but remained
on half-pay until his death on 26th June, 1725.
An
account of Captain Douglas is given in Charnock's Biographia
Navalis, vol. ii, p. 387, in Lediard's Naval History, p.
627, and by Sir John Knox Laughton in the Dictionary of
National Biography, while additional information about him
will be found in this volume.
Minutes of the Privy
Council of Scotland.
Edinburgh. 29th May, 1689.
Act in Favour of Andrew Douglas[Sometimes written '
Douglass ' and ' Dowglas.']
The Lords of his
Majesty's Privy Council having considered the petition
presented to them by Andrew Douglas, master of the good ship
called the Phoenix of Coleraine in Ireland, shewing that
where the petitioner being a Scotsman, born at Glasgow,
descended of the Douglas of Keystowne, and having been bred
a skipper and lived there ten years bygone at Coleraine in
the county of Londonderry, in the Protestant faith with his
partners, above thirty in family, and having been by the
Irish army plundered and robbed of all the goods and gear
they had in the world except the said ship, which at the
time was in Londonderry for to lade goods for France, and at
the breach of Belfast and Antrume[Antrim] did stop the said
ship for to carry off passengers for Scotland, who, amongst
many others, was the Lord Maserine and several loads of
passengers more to Clyde, and seeing the petitioner with
concurrence of some other gentlemen that are in the like
circumstances with himself intend, God willing, to get off
from Ireland some of their near relations and other poor
Protestants that are now under the cruelty of the Irish, to
endeavour to obtain some reparations from the enemy, whether
French or Irish, by land or by sea, of what they have lost,
and further to obtain the best intelligence they can from
Ireland or otherwise, and to that end also to stop and
examine all Highland birlines, &c. [as in the Act in favour
of Captain William Burnsyde, except that the Phoenix is not
stated to have any cannon of her own].
Edinburgh.
30th May, 1689.
The Lords after consideration of the
petition given in by the Irish Protestants and having heard
the report by the Earl of Crafurd[William 18th Earl was
about this time appointed President of the Scots Parliament,
on the Duke of Hamilton's appointment as Lord High
Commissioner. Also written ' Craufurd,' ' Crauford,' or'
Crawford.'] and Sir Robert Sinclar, grant warrant to Sir
Patrick Murray, general receiver, to give out 800 bolls of
meal from the storehouse in the garrison of Stirling to be
transported to Londonderry for the use of the poor
Protestants in and about that city. It is to be sent to
Dumbarton and shipped thence. Sir Patrick Murray is to take
bond from the petitioners and from Mr. Alexander Leckie,
merchant, alderman in Derry, Mr. Horras Kennedie, sheriff of
Derry, Thomas Knox, late of Belfast, now merchant in
Glasgow, and Captain Andrew Douglas, who transports the said
victual, that should they be stopped by pirates or otherwise
prevented from getting the meal to Londonderry, they will
bring it back to Scotland, sea hazards excepted.
Edinburgh. 30th May, 1689.
Commission in Favour of
Captain Andrew Douglas.
The like commission granted
to Captain Andrew Douglas to be captain of the ship called
the Phoenix of Glasgow [See earlier, where the ship is
described ' of Coleraine.'] of fifty tons of burden and
eight pieces of ordnance. |
Notes:
1. The Phoenix is described as a 'ship of Coleraine',
which carried 6,000 bushels of oatmeal, possibly from Scotland. 2. A
Captain Andrew Douglas of Mains
(lineage uncertain) was involved in the slave trade of the late 17th
and early 18th centuries.
A well-known former slave was Scipio Kennedy. He had been brought to
Scotland by Captain Andrew
Douglas of Mains
in 1702
from the West Indies, where he had been transported as a young boy from
the African west coast. It is not known if this is the same officer.
This Andrew Douglas's daughter, Jean married married Sir John
Kennedy, 2nd Bt Of Culzean.
3. Possibly
Ross, not Rose?
|
