General Gregor John MacGregor, Procer

Scotlands People: Baptism Record:

MCGREGOR GREGOR DANIEL CAPTAIN/MCGREGOR ANN AUSTIN FR2899 (FR2899) M 17/02/1787 685/2 110 12 St Cuthbert'

Dispensa de matrimonio en 1812 La fecha de matrimonio que dan los historiadores para el matrimonio son las de esta dispensa. Es probable que los haya casado el capellan del ejercito y no hay registro indexado por los mormones.

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9RR1-9MRP?i=2688&w...

General Gregor John MacGregor (1786-1845)

Hero of "Quebrada Honda, Los Alacranes, El Juncal" - recipient of the " Order of the Liberators of Venezuela" - also sadly the mastermind of the Poyais Scheme Scandal and other less-than-shameful confidence tricks -

General Gregor MacGregor (24 December 1786 – 4 December 1845) was a Scottish soldier, adventurer and confidence trickster who attempted from 1821 to 1837 to draw British and French investors and settlers to "Poyais", a fictional Central American territory that he claimed to rule as "Cazique". Hundreds invested their savings in supposed Poyaisian government bonds and land certificates, while about 250 emigrated to MacGregor's invented country in 1822–23 to find only an untouched jungle; more than half of them died. MacGregor's Poyais scheme has been called one of the most brazen confidence tricks in history.

From the Clan Gregor, MacGregor was an officer in the British Army from 1803 to 1810; he served in the Peninsular War. He joined the republican side in the Venezuelan War of Independence in 1812, quickly became a general and, over the next four years, operated against the Spanish on behalf of both Venezuela and its neighbour New Granada. His successes included a difficult month-long fighting retreat through northern Venezuela in 1816, for which he was praised highly by Simon Bolivar. He was later given the Order of the Liberators of Venezuela, though it is still a mystery whether or not he ever found out about this (that is, immediately after he was awarded such ubiquitous venera. In his posterior years he must have learnt of it, because even though Bolivar banned him from ever returning after the Poyais scheme, and the shams of Porto Bello and Rio Hacha, he did come back to die in Venezuela, in 1845). He captured Amelia Island in 1817 under a mandate from revolutionary agents to conquer Florida from the Spanish, and there proclaimed a short-lived "Republic of the Floridas". He then oversaw two calamitous operations in New Granada during 1819 that each ended with his abandoning British volunteer troops under his command.

On his return to Britain in 1821, MacGregor claimed that King George Frederic Augustus of the Mosquito Coast in the Gulf of Honduras had created him Cazique of Poyais, which he described as a developed colony with a community of British settlers. When the British press reported on MacGregor's deception following the return of fewer than 50 survivors in late 1823, some of his victims leaped to his defence, insisting that the general had been let down by those whom he had put in charge of the emigration party. A French court tried MacGregor and three others for fraud in 1826 after he attempted a variation on the scheme there, but convicted only one of his associates. Acquitted, MacGregor attempted lesser Poyais schemes in London over the next decade. In 1838, he moved to Venezuela, where he was welcomed back as a hero. He died in Caracas in 1845, aged 58, and was buried with full military honours in Caracas Cathedral.

Napoleonic veteran. Early independent volunteer. Charismatic yet immoral. A trickster. Married to one of Bolivar's nieces.

Ref:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_MacGregor

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peninsular_War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_American_wars_of_independence

Biographical Summary

"Sir Evan John Macgregor-Murray (brother), afterwards Murray-Macgregor, Baronet [1795], of Clangregor Castle, co. Perth, only s. and h., b. Jan. 1785, suc. to the Baronetcy early in 1822 and by royal lic. a few months later, 22 Deo. 1822, took the name of Macgregor after that of Murray. He had, long previously, entered the Army; was Lieut., 15th Dragoons, 1803 ; Assistant Adjutant-General in Spain and Portugal, 1810 ; Deputy Quartermaster-General in the East Indies, 1813 ; Assistant Adjutant-General and afterwards Deputy Adjutant-General at Madras, 1817, being severely wounded, in Hislop's engagement, 27 Feb. 1818 ; K.H , 1821 ; Colonel, 1825; Aide-de-Camp to George IV and William IV ; K.C.H., 1831 ; Major-General, 1837 ; Governor of Dominica, 1831; of Antigua, 1832, of Barbadoes, etc., 1836, and of Trinidad, 1839; being cr. K.C.B., July 1838. He m. 28 May 1808, in London, Elizabeth, 4th da. of John Murray), 4th Duke of Atholl [S.] by his 1st wife Jean, da. of Charles Sohaw (Cathcart), 9th Lord Cathcart [S.]. He d, at the Seat of Government, in Barbadoes, 14 June 1841, aged 56. Will pr. Dec. 1841. His widow, who was b. 14 April and bap. 5 May 1787, at Dunkeld, d. in Hanover square, London, 12 April 1846, and was bur. at Balquhidder."

SOURCE: Complete baronetage; Cokayne, George E. (George Edward); 1906; Vol. V; page 303