B I OGR AP H I C AI, SRE T C H E S. 37
No. CLXXXIV,
JAMES ALEXANDER HALDANE, ESQ.,
MINISTER OF THE TABERNACLE, LEITH WALK.
THIS Portrait, taken at the period of his greatest popularity, represents MR.
JAMEASL EXANDERH ALDANaE , gentleman who for more than forty years
devoted himself gratuitously, and with exemplary assiduity, to the preaching of
the gospel ; and whose proceedings, as well as those of his elder brother, Robert
Haldane, Esq. of Airthrey, at one time at least, attracted much interest, not only
in Edinburgh, but throughout Scotland.
Mr. James Haldane was the posthumous son of Captain James Haldane of
Airthrey, and an immediate descendant of the Haldanes of Gleneagles, in
Perthshire, one of the most ancient and highly connected baronial families in
Scotland. His mother was the daughter of Alexander Duncan, Esq., of Lundie
Castle, near Dundee, and the sister of Admiral Lord Yiscount Duncan. He
was born on the 14th July 1768, at Dundee, within one fortnight after the
death of his father, who was cut off at the early age of thirty-nine, by a sudden
illness, in the bloom of manhood. His widow only survived the death of her
husband about six years, when her two sons were left under the guardianship of
her brothers, Colonel Duncan of Lundie and the Admiral.
Both were educated at the High School and College of Edinburgh, and
boarded with Dr. Adam, the well-known Rector. At the age of sixteen Mr.
James Haldane entered the service of the East India Company as a midshipman,
on board the Duke of Jfontrose. He made four voyages to Bengal, Bombay,
and China ; and at the age of twenty-five, the earliest period at which the
rules of the service permitted him to command a ship, he was appointed to the
command of the MeZvVille Castb, previously commanded by Lord Duncan's
brother-in-law, Captain Philip Dundas?
His life at sea was distinguished by many of those narrow escapes to which
a sailor is often exposed. On one occasion, when ordered to go aloft to reef
the sails, the man next him was knocked from the yard and drowned in the
sea. At another time he fell out of a boat at night, and was only saved by
keeping fast hold of the oar with which he had been steering the boat. On
It was on board the MeZviZZe Castle, when lying at Gravesend, that hfr. Pitt and Mr. Dundas
had dined on that well-known occasion, when Yr. Fox moved the adjournment of the House, and
which gave rise to various satirical lampoons about " Palinurus nodding at the helm ;" and also to
the caricature in which Mr. Pitt was made to say, on entering the House of Commons-" I do not
aee the Speaker, Harry, do you ?" To which Nr. Dundaa replies-" Not see him, Billy-I see two I"