The next event in Dougal’s career of which we have any information, and that which, it is most likely, he would himself consider the crowning success of his life, is his appointment as bellman to the city of Glasgow. Of this it might be thought that the date, or a close approximation to it, might be found in some of the public records of the city, for at that time the office was one of considerable importance; and many duties connected with the municipality, as the ringing of the Skellat bell and attending the meetings of the Town Council, in the livery of his office, were discharged by the bellman. The emoluments also were considerable, for, besides his official salary of ten pounds, and many valuable perquisites, the bellman was then the chief advertising medium. The year 1772 is assigned as the most probable date of the election; and as the candidates for the office were unusually numerous, the competition was keener than ordinary. As the selection was to be made after a public trial of the fitness of the candidates before the magistrates, the arrangement was all in Dougal’s favour, for he was just the man to undergo such an ordeal triumphantly. But his connection with the Rebellion, and suspicions, not without foundation, that he still sympathized with the Jacobite cause, were election weapons not likely to be overlooked by his opponents, to rouse the Hanoverianism of the magistrates against him, so that, notwithstanding the toning down of political asperity, and Dougal’s advances in popular favour, as a poet and a wit, it needed all his address to overcome what George Caldwell, his Paisley publisher, called the _ill brew_ (ill will) of the Glasgow bailies against Highlanders and anybody that _melled_ (associated) with the rebels. The trial of skill took place in the court behind the old Town’s Hospital, near the Clyde; and the popular traditional account of the event represents Dougal as the hero of the occasion. After the other candidates had tried the strength of their lungs and the reach of their voices on the announcement of “Fresh herrings at the Broomielaw,” he sang out at the top of his voice, with simulated gravity, in a manner that put them all in the shade-- “Caller herring at the Broomielaw, Three a penny, three a penny.” But remembering that it was not the season for fresh herring, he added, with the comic confidence for which he was distinguished-- “But indeed, my friends, it is a’ a blawflum, For the herring’s no catch’d and the boat’s no come.”