Douglas was born at Pittenweem, Fife, the second son of shopkeeper Archibald Douglas, and Isabel, daughter of Robert Melvill of Carsendor. His father was later Wagon-Master-General to the British Forces and died at the Battle of Dettingen in Frankfurt in 1743. Douglas was educated at Dunbar, East Lothian, and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he gained his M.A. degree in 1743.[1]
Douglas was not an outstanding churchman. He preferred to stay in London in winter and at fashionable watering places in summer.[1] Under the patronage of the Earl of Bath he entered into several literary controversies. He defended John Milton against William Lauder's charge of plagiarism (1750), and attacked David Hume's rationalism in his Letter on the Criterion of Miracles[1] (1754); he went on to criticise the followers of John Hutchinson in his Apology for the Clergy (1755). He also edited Captain Cook's Journals, and Clarendon's Diary and Letters (1763). A volume of Miscellaneous Works; prefaced by a short biography, was published posthumously in 1820.[1]
Family
In 1752, Douglas married Dorothea Pershouse, daughter of William Pershouse (or Persehouse) of Reynolds Hall, Stafford, but she died within three months. In 1765, he married secondly Elizabeth Rooke, daughter of Henry Brudenell Rooke.[2] They had one son, Rev. William Douglas (1768–1819), Archdeacon of Wilts from 1799–1804.[3]
