who translated into English the 'Letters of Madame de Sévigné,' published in London, 12 mo, 8 vols. 1802. She died at Vevay in 1819, leaving one son and one daughter. Mackie was a religious man and an attached member of the church of England, notwithstanding his Scottish parentage and education. He was most liberal to his patients, and at Southampton showed great kindness to numerous French emigrants. He was fond of reading, and was very popular in society. Miss L. M. Hawkins, in her 'Memoirs, Anecdotes,' &c. (i. 310), calls him a most agreeable conversationist. A fine portrait of him was painted in miniature by George Engleheart [q. v.] in 1784 (the date of his marriage); another by Marchmont Moore in 1830 was engraved by Samuel Freeman [q. v.] in the same year, and a drawing in water-colours was executed by Slater in 1808.
[Gent. Mag. 1831, pt. ii. p. 276; Ann. Biog. and Obit. vol. xvi. 1832; Georgian Era, vol. ii. 1833.]
McKINLAY, JOHN (1819–1872), Australian explorer, born in 1819 at Sandbank, on the Clyde, emigrated in 1836 to New South Wales to join an uncle who was a prosperous squatter. He took up several runs near the South Australian border, and quickly made a reputation as an expert bushman.
When in 1861 the government of South Australia decided to send an expedition to trace the fate of Robert O'Hara Burke and Wills, and effect further exploration, the command was offered to McKinlay. He left Adelaide on 16 Aug. 1861, and within three weeks of the date of the grant of the assembly was at Kapunda. His party consisted of about ten men, and besides horses he took bullocks and camels, as well as sheep for food. He proved that Lake Torrens did not exist, but came upon several new lakes, one of which was named after him. At Cooper's Creek he found the remains of Gray, the first victim of the Burke and Wills expedition: under the impression, afterwards corrected, that he had discovered the graves of the leaders, he proceeded to carry out the second part of his instructions, and explore the country between Eyre's Creek and Central Mount Stuart. He struck the coast at Gulf Carpentaria on 19 May 1862, but did not actually get to the sea. Turning southwards, he made his way over the mountains of Queensland, and across the Burdekin River to Port Denison, which he reached on 25 Sept. 1862. He had lost none of his party, but they had been reduced to the greatest straits, and had eaten most of the camels and horses, as well as the other animals that they brought with them. ‘The peculiar incidents met with threw an entirely new light upon the physical geography of some parts of the desert; … and we must add that for cool perseverance and kind consideration for his followers, for modesty, and yet for quiet daring, McKinlay was unequalled as an explorer’ (Wood). For this expedition the South Australian government voted McKinlay 1,000l.; the public of the colony presented him with a testimonial, and the Royal Geographical Society with a gold watch.
In September 1865 McKinlay was again despatched by the South Australian government to explore the northern territory in a peculiarly rainy season, from the perils of which McKinlay's extraordinary ingenuity seems alone to have saved his party.
On his return from this journey McKinlay returned to pastoral occupations, but his hardships had worn him out, and he died on 31 Dec. 1872. He was married. A monument was erected to him at Gawler, South Australia, not far from the point of his departure on his great expedition.
[Davis's Tracks of McKinlay across Australia, ed. Westgarth; Wood's Hist. of the Discovery and Exploration of Australia, vol. ii.; Mennell's Dict. Austral. Biog.]
MACKINNON, DANIEL (1791–1836), colonel and historian of the Coldstream guards, born in 1791, was son of William Mackinnon, chief of the clan Mackinnon (see Anderson, iii. 27). William Alexander Mackinnon [q. v.] was his elder brother, and Daniel Henry Mackinnon [q. v.] was his first cousin. On 16 June 1804 he was appointed ensign in the Coldstream guards, in which his uncle, Henry Mackinnon, author of 'A Journal of the Campaign in Portugal and Spain' (1812), who fell as a major-general at Ciudad Rodrigo, in 1812, was then a lieutenant-colonel. He became lieutenant and captain in the regiment in 1808, and captain and lieutenant-colonel on 25 July 1814, junior major 1826, senior major 1829, and regimental lieutenant -colonel and colonel in 1830. He served with his regiment at Bremen in 1805; at Copenhagen in 1807; in the Peninsula from 31 Dec. 1808 to August 1812; in North Holland, August to December 1814; and was captain of the grenadier company and acting second major of his battalion at Waterloo, when he was despatched from Byng's brigade in the afternoon (of 18 June) with two companies, to reinforce Hougoumont, after Foy had put the Nassau troops to flight. He received a severe wound in the knee, and had his horse shot under him. When lieutenant-colonel of the regiment he compiled
