BIOGRAPHI GAL SKET.CHES. 46 1
No. cccxxv.
MR. ROBERT NACGACHEK,
ACCOUNTANT OF EXCISE.
HOWth is gentleman should have been designated ‘‘ The Knowing One ” we are
at a loss to conjecture. Kay states that the likeness was taken at the request
of a person who suggested the title. He was known to be remarkably expert in
the use of figures, and it is probable that to his talent for calculation the allusion
refers.
MR. MACGACHEwNa s born at Gibraltar, where the 21st regiment, or Royal
Scots Fusileers, in which his father held a commission, was stationed at the
time. Captain Macgachen, of Dalwhat and Marwhirns, in the vicinity of Dumfries,
was the representative of a family that had been in possession of these
estates for niore than four hundred years ; and his ancestors had long manifested
an attachment for the military service of their country. His son, the
subject of our notice, was at an early period presented with an ensigncy in the
same regiment, but the Captain, having resolved upon devoting him to a mercantile
life, would not permit him to accept of it. The latter had previously
parted with his estates, and his resolution was probably a good one; but he
erred in the mode by which he sought to subvert the family bias for the profession
of arms. Instead of being brought up to those habits more essential to
the successful prosecution of commercia1 enterprise, young Macgachen was
educated at a fashionable boarding-school in the neighbourhood of London, and
instructed in all the accomplishments fitted for a nobleman. The consequences
of such an oversight soon became apparent in the subsequent career of Mr.
Macgachen. Entering into business, he lost, in the course of a few years of
fruitless exertion, about ten or twelve thousand pounds which had been left
him by his father ; and was eventually compelled to abandon pursuits which he
never relished, and for which he was completely disqualified. He was subsequently
appointed one of the Accountants of Excise, a situation which he filled
with much ability till the period of his death, which took place on the 19th
January 1807.
Mr. Macgachen married his cousin-german, Miss Nercer, daughter of Archibald
Mercer, Esq., wine-merchant, Leith, whose father was one of the Commissaries
of Edinburgh. Eg this marriage he had a number of children, of whom
only a very few survived. The eldest was a Captain in the 22d Regiment, and
George, a member of the Faculty of Advocates.’ A third son, John, was the
’
George so much resembled this etching of his father, that it might serve for a portraiture of both.