Of this Sir Charles Douglas, Howard was the eldest son by a second marriage. Sir Charles’s first wife, a foreign lady, had brought him two sons and a daughter, so that Howard’s prospects, so far as title and fortune were concerned, could not have been in his infancy very bright: and they would have been entirely overcast by the early death of his mother, had not her place been well supplied by a maternal aunt. Under the roof of this lady, Mrs Bailey of Olive Bank, near Musselburgh, the little fellow grew and prospered, repaying all the tenderness with which he was reared by his affectionate and gentle disposition, as well as by his industry and success over his books. Howard’s brothers both entered the navy. This was natural, and it was perhaps equally so that Howard should desire to follow their example; but Sir Charles considered that, if his three sons were all to embrace the same profession, the chances were that they would only stand in each other’s way. He gave directions, therefore, that Howard should be educated for a different walk in life, and the boy ascended in due time from the charge of the governess to the grammar-school. Yet the child’s tastes were entirely naval all the while. He built toy ships, and sailed them on a pond in the garden; he made friends of the fisher-lads and cabin-boys along the coast, and became so initiated into the mysteries of their craft that none among them could better manage than he a fishing-boat or a ship’s yawl. It thus became clear to Sir Charles Douglas, who visited his sister in 1789, previously to assuming the command on a foreign station, that nature had designed his youngest son for a career similar to his own, and he made up his mind to take Howard with him, and to rate him as a midshipman on board the flag-ship. But the coveted flag he was never destined to hoist. A sudden illness carried him off while the guest of his sister, and Howard’s lot was cast for him in the army. The Royal Academy at Woolwich was more easily entered in those days than it is now. A pass examination was, however, required; and young Douglas, strange to say, in spite of his marked bias for practical mechanics, failed in the elements of geometry. But he had made so good a figure in other respects, and appeared so cast down by the circumstance, that the examiner, Dr Hutton, encouraged him to try again; and three weeks spent with a clever crammer sufficed to bring him up to the mark. He therefore presented himself a second time, passed, and was admitted.