A Naval Biographical Dictionary/McDougall, John (b)

by William Richard O'Byrne

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M‘DOUGALL. (Captain, 1836. f-p., 19; h-p., 26.)

John M‘Dougall, born in 1790, at Edinburgh, is eldest surviving son of the late Patrick M‘Dougall, Esq., of Dunolly Castle, co. Argyle, by Louisa Maxwell, youngest daughter of John Campbell, Esq., of Achalader, in Perthshire, and sister of the late Generals Sir Alex. Campbell, Commander-in-Chief at Madras, and Archibald Campbell, Governor of Fort Augustus, N.B. His elder brother, Alexander, a Captain in the 5th Regt. of Foot, was killed at the storming of Ciudad Rodrigo in Jan. 1812; and his next, Patrick, is now a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Army. Capt. M‘Dougall’s family are the undisputed lineal representatives of the M‘Dougalls Lords of Lorn, or of Argyle, and are the admitted chiefs of that name.

This officer entered the Navy, 16 Dec. 1802, as Fst.-cl. Vol., on board the Cruizer 18, Capt. John Hancock, and in the course of the following year was five times in action with the enemy between Calais and Flushing, once in particular, 14 June, when the Cruizer, in company with the Immortality 36 and Jalouse 18, assisted at the capture of the French gun-brigs L’Inabordable and La Commode after an hour’s engagement with the batteries on the east part of Cape Blanc-nez. In June, 1804, after having been in frequent contact with the enemy in the Doris 36, Capt. Patrick Campbell, he became Midshipman of the Foudroyant 80, bearing the flag in the Channel of Rear-Admiral Thos. Graves. He went back, however, in the following Dec. to the Doris, and was in that frigate in Jan. 1805 when she was set on fire and abandoned near the mouth of the Loire, in consequence of her having struck upon a sunken rock in the vicinity of Quiberon, and sustained so much damage as to render her preservation impossible. Joining then the Hero 74, Capt. Hon. Alan Hyde Gardner, he shared in the action fought by Sir Robt. Calder with the combined fleets of France and Spain off Cape Finisterre 22 July, 1805; after which he joined the Chiffonne 36, Capt. P. Campbell, Donegal 74, Capt. Pulteney Malcolm, and, in June, 1806, the Unité 36, Capt. P. Campbell. He commanded, during his attachment to the latter ship, a boat at the destruction of five vessels under a battery near the town of Omago, in the Adriatic, 18 Oct. 1806; assisted, ten days afterwards, at the storming of a battery and the capture of several sail of merchantmen near Point Salvooy; was present at the reduction, 28 April, 1807, of the island of St. Piedro de Niembo; had charge, 12 June following, of a division of boats at the capture of several vessels in the river Po, and the annihilation of two signal posts; participated, in command of a boat, in a successful attack made upon a French privateer near Ancona, 12 Jan. 1808; contrived, in an eight-oared cutter, to take possession, 24 March in the same year, after a sharp engagement, of another privateer, carrying 2 guns and 36 men; contributed, 2 May ensuing, to the capture of the Italian brig-of-war Il Ronco, of 16 guns and 100 men; aided, three days later, in cutting out several vessels from under the batteries at Paran; enacted a part, on 1 June, at the simultaneous capture of the Nettuno and Toulie brigs, equal in force to Il Ronco; took command of the boats on 4 of the same month, and succeeded in making prize, notwithstanding a desperate and mutually destructive conflict, of three Turkish ships and several coasting-vessels under Cape Palero; was on board the Unité when she beat off, 18 Dec. 1808, a flotilla of 12 gun-boats, by whom she had been attacked during a calm; conducted, 12 Jan. 1809, a virtually successful attack made on six vessels lying under the protection of two batteries in the harbour of Vieste, and secured by cables from their mast-heads to the shore; had charge of the boats, on 23 April, in an attempt to cut off some vessels full of troops from the island of Fano, near Corfu, under a heavy fire of musketry from the shore; was similarly employed at the bringing out, 30 July ensuing, of two large merchantmen from under a fort at Citta Nuova, where the boats suffered considerably; and, on the night of 31 Oct., had command of one of the boats of a squadron under Lieut. John Tailour at the capture and destruction, after a violent struggle, and a loss to the British of 15 killed and 55 wounded, of the French armed store-ship Lamproie, of 16 guns and 116 men, bombards Victoire and Grondeur, with a convoy of seven sail, defended by numerous strong batteries in the Bay of Rosas.^[1] For his conduct in the latter affair, in which he was wounded, Mr. M‘Dougall, on the earnest recommendation of his Captain, was nominated by Lord Collingwood to a Lieutenancy, 25 Nov. 1809, in his own flag-ship the Ville de Paris 110 – an act sanctioned at home by a commission dated 3 Jan. 1810. In March, 1811, having been latterly under the flag of Rear-Admiral Thos. Fras. Fremantle, he removed to the Tigre 74, Capt. Benj. Hallowell, but he had not been long in that ship before he again, in the month of May, joined the Unité, then commanded by Capt. Edwin Henry Chamberlayne. On 4 of the ensuing July we once more find him serving in the boats, and co-operating with Lieut. Joseph Wm. Crabb, at the cutting out, from under a shower of grape from a 2-gun battery near Port Hercule, on the Roman coast, of the St. François de Paule, a vigorously-defended brig, mounting 8 six and three-pounders. Towards the close of the next Nov., while in charge of a large detained Austrian ship, and on his way to Malta, Lieut. M‘Dougall fell in with three French men-of-war, on perceiving whom he immediately, with a judgment and zeal which did him infinite credit,^[2] put back for the purpose of communicating the intelligence to the Senior officer in the Adriatic, Capt. Murray Maxwell of the Alceste. The result was the capture, by the latter ship, of the Pomone, of 44, and, by the Unité, of La Persanne, of 26 guns. On 16 June, 1812, Lieut. M‘Dougall, who had rejoined his ship previously to the last-mentioned event, presents himself to our notice as effecting, with the boats of a frigate squadron under his orders, the capture and destruction of three vessels and several field-pieces in a small port near Cape Otranto. He invalided from the Unité in Sept. 1812, and was next appointed – 22 Dec. 1813, as Senior, to the Leander 50, Capts. Gordon Thos. Falcon and Sir Geo. Ralph Collier, under the latter of whom he came several times into action with the enemy on the coast of North America – 12 Dec. 1815, to the Superb 74, Capt. Chas. Ekins, in which ship he received two wounds at the bombardment of Algiers 27 Aug. 1816^[3] – 23 June, 1818, as First (after ten months of half-pay), to the Tartar frigate, fitting for the broad pendant of Sir G. R. Collier – and, 4 Aug. following, as Flag-Lieutenant, in the Salisbury 50, to Rear-Admiral Donald Campbell on the West India station, where his conduct in 1819, in saving, during a hurricane at the island of St. Thomas, the crew of a Danish vessel, after numerous unavailing efforts had been made from the shore, procured him the thanks of the King of Denmark, conveyed through the Lords of the Admiralty. Obtaining a second promotal commission 9 Feh. 1820, Capt. M‘Dougall did not again go afloat until Aug. 1833, on 27 of which month he assumed command of the Nimrod 20. In that vessel he served in the river Douro and on the coast of Spain and Portugal during the revolutionary commotions, and ultimately accompanied the Stag frigate, with Don Miguel on board, from the neighbourhood of Lisbon to Genoa. He continued in the Nimrod^[4] until 1835; and on 16 Aug. 1836, within a short period of his appointment to the Salamander steamer, was advanced to Post-rank. Since 15 Feb. 1845, he has been in command of the Vulture steam-frigate, of 470 horse-power, on the East India station.

Capt. M‘Dougall is a Magistrate and Deputy-Lieutenant for Argyleshire. He married, 22 Aug. 1826, Elizabeth Sophia, only daughter of the late Retired Commander Chas. Sheldon Timins, R.N., of Oriel Lodge, Cheltenham, by whom he has issue six sons and three daughters. Agents – Collier and Snee.

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1. Vide Gaz. 1809, p. 1908.
2. Vide Gaz. 1812, p. 566.
3. Vide Gaz. 1816, p. 1792.
4. In Jan. 1834 the boatswain and twelve of the Nimrod’s crew were swamped in the barge while Capt. M‘Dougall was endeavouring, with the rest of his boats, to save the Spanish frigate Lealtad from being lost off Santander.