Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 35.djvu/359

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nor of Grenada in 1805, and except when absent on active service as above, administered the civil government of the island until 1810. He was an upright and painstaking administrator. Although his legal knowledge was self-acquired, his decisions as vice-chancellor were never reversed save in a solitary instance on a technical point of law. His private views were opposed to the abolition of slavery. He became a lieutenant-general in 1811, and on 1 Jan. 1812 was appointed second in command in the Mediterranean under Lord William Bentinck [see Bentinck, Lord William Cavendish, 1774–1839]. In that capacity he commanded the Anglo-Sicilian army sent from Sicily to the east coast of Spain to make a diversion on Suchet's left flank (Napier, revised edit. iv. 188). The state of affairs in Sicily prevented Bentinck from detaching a force of the dimensions expected by Wellington, and the motley corps of nine thousand British, German Legion, Swiss, Sicilians, and Neapolitans, with which Maitland arrived off Palamos on 31 July 1812, was too ill-provided as regarded commissariat and field-train to justify a landing there. Maitland proceeded to Alicante, landed his troops, and opened communication with the Spanish generals in Murcia. After some desultory movements he began to entrench his camp at Alicante at the end of August (ib. iv. 305 et seq.) But his health was broken, and at the beginning of November, having done nothing, he resigned the command to General Mackenzie (ib. iv. 394), and returned home. He received the lieutenant-governorship of Dominica on 30 June 1813, in recognition of his past services.

Maitland, a full general in 1825, was appointed in 1810 colonel in succession of the 1st Ceylon regiment (afterwards the late Ceylon rifles) and in 1833 of the 58th foot. A memoir by him on the defences of Mount's Bay, Cornwall, is in the ‘Wellington Correspondence,’ vii. 149–51. He died at Tunbridge Wells on 27 Jan. 1848, aged 84. His eldest brother, Sir Alexander Maitland-Gibson (or Gibson-Maitland), second baronet, deputy governor of the Bank of Scotland, only survived him a few days (cf. Gent. Mag. 1848, i. 435). He married at Barbados, in November 1790, Catherine, daughter of John Prettijohn of that island, who with three out of her nine children survived him.

[Foster's Peerage, under ‘Lauderdale;’ Foster's Baronetage, under ‘Maitland;’ Philippart's Royal Military Cal. 1820, vol. ii.; Napier's Hist. of Peninsular War, revised ed. vol. iv.; Gent. Mag. 1848, pt. i. 437.]

H. M. C.

MAITLAND, Sir FREDERICK LEWIS (1777–1839), rear-admiral, born at Rankeilour in Fife 7 Sept. 1777, was the third son of Frederick Lewis Maitland (d. 1786), captain of the royal navy, sixth son of Charles, sixth earl of Lauderdale [see under Maitland, John, fifth Earl]. Maitland's father, the godson of Frederick Lewis, prince of Wales, commanded with distinction the Lively in 1760, the Elizabeth in 1778, and served under Rodney in 1782. Between 1763 and 1775 he was in command of the royal yacht. He was promoted rear-admiral in 1786, but died before the news reached him. Maitland's mother was Margaret Dick, heiress in tail general to James Crichton, viscount Frendraught [q. v.], and heir of the family of Makgill of Rankeilour.

Maitland's elder brother Charles (d. 1820) inherited the estates of his mother's family, assumed the surname Makgill, and left by his wife, Mary Johnston, a son David Maitland-Makgill-Crichton (1801–1851), who assumed the additional name Crichton in 1837 as heir to his ancestor, James Crichton. He was called to the Scottish bar in 1822, and took a prominent part in the formation of the Scottish free church. A monument was erected to his memory at Cupar (J. W. Taylor, Memoir, 1853).

After serving some time in the Martin sloop with Captain George Duff, and with the Hon. Robert Forbes in the Southampton frigate, in which he was present at the battle of 1 June 1794, Maitland was promoted to be lieutenant of the Andromeda 3 April 1795. He was shortly afterwards moved into the Venerable, flagship of Admiral Duncan in the North Sea, and in April 1797 went out to the Mediterranean to join Lord St. Vincent, by whom he was appointed to the Kingfisher sloop. In her he assisted at the capture of several privateers (cf. Marshall, iii. 184) with such gallantry that the ship's company subscribed 50l. to present him with a sword. In December 1798 the Kingfisher was wrecked as she was leaving the Tagus. Maitland, who was in temporary command, was tried by court-martial and honourably acquitted. Immediately afterwards he was appointed flag-lieutenant to Lord St. Vincent, then residing on shore at Gibraltar. On 7 July 1799, as the combined fleets of France and Spain were retiring from the Mediterranean [cf. Elphinstone, George Keith, Viscount Keith], Maitland was sent by St. Vincent to order the Penelope, hired cutter, ‘to go, count and dodge them.’ As the lieutenant of the cutter was sick, Maitland took the command, but the next day, owing to the cowardice and