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• George Douglas, Master-gunner of Fort William, in Scotland: Account of goods smuggled by his company: 1755.
(Held in British Library)
• Douglas, George, fl 1755, of Fort William,
master-gunner and smuggler
• George J. Douglas, Master Gunner to Lieutenant-General
Humphrey Bland, Fort William, 23 December 1747
• George Douglas was Sheriff Substitute of Inverness,
1752, at the time of the murder of Colin Campbell of Glenure
on 14 May (the ‘Appin murder’) This George Douglas was the first
secretary of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge.
Starting with the above records, I found the following (unedited)
references.
• In 1 April 1755, Lord Deskford, Commissioner of the Customs,
and the main opponent of Argyll, broadened his campaign to ensure
that George Douglas was maintained as Sheriff -Substitute of
Inverness-shire. General Humphrey Bland backed him up, yet on 4 October
1755, Argyll bluntly and successfully told Newcastle he wanted Douglas
removed from his post.
• In April 1755, Mungo Campbell,
factor on the forfeited estates of Callert and Locheil, informed Lord
Milton that George Douglas, Sheriff .Substitute in Fort William had
received orders to press suitable men into the garrison regiment. Fort
William was chosen because military officers were already present to
receive the men. On 9 March 1756, a conscription act was passed in
parliament. It was revised in late 1756, and implemented comprehensively
across Scotland for three successive years. It involved co-operation
with civilian commissioners chosen from local gentry, who, after due
legal process, passed men to military officers for conscription into
designated battalions.
• Throughout the 1750s,
Sheriff-Substitute George Douglas in Fort William had used the proximity
of garrison battalions to implemented a policy whereby "all those
suspected, [or convicted] of theft were once engaged in his Majestys
service "- a decision continued by his successor Duncan Macvicar
• Two other quarrels developed during the spring of 1755-
One was over Joseph Tudor's proposal that the board purchase the Duke of
Argyll's yacht for use as a customs cutter; 'as good a battle as I have
seen at our Board', Colin Campbell declared to Lord Milton. The other
concerned George Douglas, Justice of the Peace and Sheriff Substitute at
Fort William; and spy for General Bland, Governor of Fort William. This
became a test of strength between the General and Argyll; Bland,
supported at the board by Deskford, claiming that Douglas was
indispensible; Argyll and Colin Campbell, supporting the Collector of
Customs as Fort William, who wanted Douglas charged as a smuggler. Bland
claimed that the object 'was to make me appear little and insignificant
in the country'; and certainly, Argyll did make Douglas's dismissal as
Sheriff Substitute one of his conditions for continuing to support
Newcastle in October 1795.
For a time, I thought that George
Douglas, 7th of Friarshaw
was the Sheriff Substitute of Inverness. However, he died in October
1753 and so could not have been active in 1755. Fort William is in
Inverness-shire, and so being Sheriff -Substitute of Inverness-shire
would make him Sheriff -Substitute in Fort William, I assume.
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