Sholto Douglas, 15th Earl of Morton explained

Sholto Charles Douglas, 15th Earl of Morton (c. 1732 - 25 September 1774) was the son of James Douglas, 14th Earl of Morton.

He was Colonel of a regiment of light dragoons, the 17th Regiment of Light Dragoons, raised in Scotland in 1759 and disbanded in 1763.^[1]

In February 1754 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society^[2]

On 19 November 1758, he married Katherine Hamilton and they had two sons:

• George Douglas, 16th Earl of Morton (1761 - 1827)
• Lt. Hon. Hamilton Douglas Halyburton (10 October 1763 – 31 December 1783), who died of exposure while commanding the barge of HMS Assistance. His party was caught in a snowstorm while looking for deserters and wrecked on Sandy Hook.^{[3] [4]}

Notes and References

1. Web site: 17th Regiment of (Light) Dragoons . regiments.org . 9 February 2017 . bot: unknown . https://web.archive.org/web/20051227084707/http://regiments.org/regiments/uk/cav/D17a.htm . 27 December 2005 .
2. Web site: Library and Archive Catalogue. Royal Society. 28 November 2010.
3. Book: Weintraub, Stanley . Stanley Weintraub . General Washington's Christmas Farewell . 2003 . The next morning, the bodies of all but one of them, including Lieutenant Hamilton Douglas Haliburton, brother of the Earl of Morton, washed up on a beach ... . 0-7432-4654-3 .
4. News: Admiralty Acknowledges Kindness in Burying Bodies of Officers Frozen in 1783. . Fourteen from the Assistance Searching for Deserters Died. French Vandals Destroyed Their Monument. The Admiralty has issued a notice recalling a lamentable and unfortunate occurrence which took place in December, 1783, just after the declaration of peace with the United States of America. The circumstance is thus describe in Brenton's "Naval History," (Vol. I., Page 261, 1837,) although the date is incorrectly given, probably a misprint. . . 6 September 1908 . 23 January 2009 .