Royal Highness the Princess Charlotte of Wales; and on the Discussion to which it has given rise in Edinburgh. By Scoto Britannus." 1817.
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MACDONALD, Lieutenant-Colonel John, F.R.S., F.A.S.—This scientific soldier and voluminous writer possessed, by the mere accident of birth, a distinction which his productions in authorship, excellent though they were, would have failed to acquire; for he was the son of Flora Macdonald, that heroine whose name is so intimately connected with the romantic history of "the young Chevalier." All know the dangers she underwent, and the address she exhibited, in procuring his escape from his pursuers in 1746, and the enthusiasm which her romantic fidelity excited among the Jacobites of the day, after her exertions had been successful. She was the daughter of Mr. Macdonald, a tacksman or gentleman farmer of Melton, in South Uist; and in 1746, the period of her adventurous career, she was about twenty-four years old. After her return from London, whither she was summoned to answer for her political offence in effecting the escape of such an enemy, she married; but notwithstanding the rich gifts with which her generous conduct had been rewarded by the adherents of the Stuart cause in the great metropolis, she and her husband had become so poor at the time of Dr. Johnson's visit to her in 1773, that they had resolved to emigrate to America. This they afterwards did; but either having not succeeded to their wish, or finding the love of country too strong for voluntary exile, they returned to Skye, where Flora died, on the 4th of March, 1790, leaving behind her a son, John, the subject of the present memoir, and a daughter, married to a Mr. Macleod, a distant relation to the chief of that name. "It is remarkable," writes Sir Walter Scott, "that this distinguished lady signed her name Flory, instead of the more classical orthography. Her marriage contract, which is in my possession, bears the name spelled Flory."
At an early period John Macdonald went to India, and on his way thither had occasion to reside for a short time in London. This was at a period when the alarm of the Jacobite war of 1715 and 1745 had ceased to be remembered, and when the Celtic dress had not as yet become familiar to the English eye. At this transition period, the Highland costume of our young Scottish adventurer appears to have excited as much astonishment, and also displeasure, as the kaross of the Caffre, or the sheep-skin of the Tartar would have done, had they been paraded upon the pavement of Cheapside. Writing of this event in the "Gentleman's Magazine," in 1828, he says, "I well recollect my arrival in London, about half a century ago, on my way to India, and the disapprobation expressed in the streets of my tartan dress; but now I see with satisfaction the variegated Highland manufacture prevalent, as a favourite and tasteful costume, from the humble cottage to the superb castle. To Sir Walter Scott's elegant and fascinating writings we are to ascribe this wonderful revolution in public sentiment."
As it was to the scientific departments of the military profession that Macdonald devoted his labours, his career to the close was that of a studious observer and philosophic writer, rather than a stirring, adventurous soldier. He passed many years in the service of the East India Company, and attained the rank of Captain of Engineers on the Bengal establishment. While thus employed, the
