226 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
near Portobello. Being, however, unable to compete with the English manufacturers,
the speculation proved unsuccessful.
Mr. M'DowaIl entered the Town Council in 1775, and in politics took the
same side as his friend Sir James Hunter Blair. He was several times in the
magistracy ; and, before his retirement, was offered the Provost's chair, which
he prudently declined, in consequence of the depressed state of his manufactory.
He was a very public-spirited man, and devoted much of his time to the improvement
of the city.
The eldest, after
being unsuccessful as a merchant, settled in Van Diemen's Land, where he
obtained a grant of land, which he has denominated, after that of his ancestor,
the estate of Logan. For two of his sons Mr. M'Dowall obtained appointments
in the East India Company's Service. One of them (Colonel Robert) was nearly
thirty years in India, during which time he distinguished himself at the siege of
Seringapatam, and on various other occasions-particularly in the surprise and
complete dispersion of above 3000 Pindaries-for which he received the thanks
of the Governor-General in Council, and of the Court of Directors. He afterwards
was at the capture of Tavoy and Mergui, of which he was appointed
Governor ; but was unfortunately killed, in command of two brigades of native
infantry, at the conclusion of the Burmese war. The other son who went to
India (Mr. TNilliam), after being about twenty years in the Madras Medical
Establishment, returned to Edinburgh, taking up his residence at Bellevue
Crescent. Two other sons of Mr. M'Dowall entered the mercantile, and his
youngest son (Charles) the legal profession as a Writer to the Signet.
In the back-ground the Lord Provost (Sir James Hunter Hair) is represented
as busily employed in digging and shovelling out the earth ; while Mr.
Hay, Deacon of the Surgeons, and L most violent anti-leveller, is as eagerly
engaged in shovelling it back again. Mr. Hay was a leader of the opposition in
the Council.
This civic squabble gave birth to various local effusions j and, among others,
to a satirical poem in Latin doggerel, entitled "Streeturn Eclinense, carmen
Macaronicum,'ll-in which Mr. Hay is made to sustain a prominent part. After
alluding to the zeal displayed in the matter by Sir James Hunter Blair, and
just at the moment that assent has been given to the measure by the Councillors
present, the Deacon is represented as bursting into the Council Chamber,
backed by a posse of anti-levellers, and in a harangue of most uncouth hexameters,
declaims against the project, and dares his brethren to carry it into
effect.
Mr. M'Dowall died December 1816, leaving six sons.
'
1 This mock-heroic poem was the joint production of the late Mr. Smellie, printer, and of Mr.
Little of Liberton. It will be found in " Kerr's Memoira of Smellie."