Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Macrae, James
MACRAE, JAMES (1677?–1744), governor of Madras, was born in Ayrshire about 1677 of very poor parents. His father died during his infancy, and his mother gained her living as a washerwoman. He owed what little schooling he received to the kindness of Hew M'Quyre, 'violer' or musician in Ayr. About 1692 he went to sea, and forty years elapsed before he was again heard of in Scotland. In 1720 he is found serving under the Hon. East India Company as 'Captain Macrae,' conducting a special mission to the English settlement on the west coast of Sumatra, and dealing so successfully with the commercial abuses rampant there that he was appointed deputy-governor of Fort St. David, with reversion to the governorship of Fort St. George. On 15 Jan. 1725 he took over the government of the presidency of Madras, as successor to Nathaniel Elwick. He was emphatically a commercial governor, effecting reforms on all sides in the fiscal administration. He greatly reduced expenditure, and effected a thorough revision of the abuses at the mint and in connection with the rate of exchange and the export of silver. His rule is described as stern and arbitrary, but highly acceptable to the company, who saw their revenues on all hands augmented. The first protestant mission was inaugurated at Madras during his rule in 1726, and a general survey of the town and suburbs was made under his direction in 1727. Previous to his resignation on 14 May 1730 great dissatisfaction had been expressed at the corruption and oppression of his chief Dubash, Gooda Anconah, but Macrae does not appear to have been personally implicated. On 21 Jan. 1781 he set sail for England, taking his fortune, estimated at over 100,000l. in specie and diamonds, 'as his best investment.
On his return to his native country, a wealthy nabob, Macrae purchased several estates in the west of Scotland, fixing his own residence at Oranzefield in Monktoun, Ayrshire. He was admitted a burgess of Ayr on 1 Aug. 1733, when he was described as 'James MacCrae, late governor of Madras.' In 1735 he presented Glasgow with a bronze statue of William III (Cleland, Annals of Glasgow, i. 102). He died at Orangefield on 21 July 1744 (Soots Mag. 1744, pp. 346 r 394), and was buried in Monktoun churchyard, where he is commemorated by a monument erected by John Swan in 1750. In December 1745 his adoptive son-in-law, Lord Glencairn, lent the borough of Glasgow 1,500l., at 4½ per cent., to make up the sum levied by Prince Charles Edward — an act which has been erroneously attributed to Macrae himself (see Cochrane Corresp., Mainland Club, p. 123).
When Macrae arrived in England after so many years' absence, he found none of his own relatives living, but he diligently sought out the family of his old benefactor, Hew M'Quyre or Macguire, whose five grandchildren he generously adopted. James, the eldest, was left the barony of Houston, on condition that he assumed the name of Macrae; his son, Captain. James Macrae, became notorious as a duellist. In April 1790 'Captain Macrae' became involved in a quarrel with Sir George Ramsay, one of whose servants he had chastised. A duel took place at Musselburgh Links, in which Ramsay was killed. Macrae had to flee the country, was outlawed, and died in France on 10 Jan. 1820. He was married to Maria Cecilia Le Maistre, by whom he had a son and a daughter. In Kay's 'Edinburgh Portraits' he is depicted practising with a pistol at a barber's block (cf. Chambers, Traditions of Edinburgh, ii. 45). The granddaughters of the old Ayr violer (children of Hugh Macguire of Drumdow) were similarly educated and amply dowered by Macrae. The eldest, Elizabeth, to whom as 'tocher' the ex-governor gave the valuable barony of Ochiltree, married in 1744 William Cunningham, thirteenth earl of Glencairn, and was thus mother of the fourteenth earl, subject of Burns's immortal 'Lament;' the second, Margaret, married James Erskine, lord Alva [q. v.]; and the third, Macrae, became the wife of Charles Dalrymple, sheriff clerk of Ayr, who succeeded to Orangefield upon Macrae's death.
[Handbook to Madras Records, p. xiv; Wheeler's Madras in the Olden Time, vols. ii. and iii. passim; Prinsep's Record of Services of Madras Civilians, p. xxv; Paterson's Hist. of the County of Ayr, ii. 385-7; W. Robertson's Historic Ayrshire, 1891, i. 214; A. Fergusson's Henry Erskine, p. 280; materials kindly furnished by W. A. S. Hewins, esq.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.190
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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