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the artillery in succession, becoming captain in 1804, after which he
was placed on half-pay to serve at the Royal Military College. Douglas
was at this time (1804) appointed to a majority in the York Rangers, a
corps immediately afterwards reduced, and he remained on the roll of its
officers until promoted major-general. The senior department of the
R.M.C. at High Wycombe, of which he was in charge, was the forerunner of
the Staff College. Douglas, since 1806 a brevet lieutenant-colonel,
served in 1808-1809 in the Peninsula and was present at Corunna, after
which he took part in the Walcheren expedition. In 1809 he succeeded to
the baronetcy on the death of his half-brother, Vice-admiral Sir William
Henry Douglas. In 1812 he was employed in special missions in the north
of Spain, and took part in numerous minor operations in this region, but
he was soon recalled, the home government deeming his services
indispensable to the Royal Military College. He became brevet colonel in
1814 and C.B. in 1815. In 1816 appeared his _Essay on the Principles and
Construction of Military Bridges_ (subsequent editions 1832, 1853); in
1819, _Observations on the Motives, Errors and Tendency of M. Carnot's
System of Defence_, and in the following year his _Treatise on Naval
Gunnery_ (of which numerous editions and translations appeared up to the
general introduction of rifled ordnance). In 1821 he was promoted
major-general. Douglas's criticisms of Carnot led to an important
experiment being carried out at Woolwich in 1822, and his _Naval
Gunnery_ became a standard text-book, and indeed first drew attention to
the subject of which it treated. From 1823 to 1831 Sir Howard Douglas
was governor of New Brunswick, and, while there, he had to deal with the
Maine boundary dispute of 1828. He also founded Fredericton College, of
which he was the first chancellor. On his return to Europe he was
employed in various missions, and he published about this time _Naval
Evolutions_, a controversial work dealing with the question of "breaking
the line" (London, 1832). From 1835 to 1840 Douglas, now a G.C.M.G., was
lord high commissioner of the Ionian Islands, where, amongst other
reforms, he introduced a new code of laws. In 1837 he became a
lieutenant-general, in 1840 a K.C.B., in 1841 a civil G.C.B., and in
1851 a general. From 1842 to 1847 Douglas sat in parliament, where he
took a prominent part in debates on military and naval matters and on
the corn