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A Scotch poet (1732?-69). All his family but himself were deafmutes. He was orphaned in boyhood, and at 18 was a seaman on board a Mediterranean vessel that foundered in a storm off Cape Colonna, Greece. He with two others was saved, and his poem "The Shipwreck" (1762) commemorates the event: it was received with great favor. The author was made midshipman and afterward purser in the navy through the influence of the Duke of York; and in gratitude he wrote "The Demagogue" (1765), a satire against Chatham, Wilkes, and Churchill. He wrote other poems (odes, satires, etc.); and a valuable "Universal Dictionary of the Marine" (1769).