of England, and for having prayed for King James. In 1693, according to his own account, he was for some time imprisoned in the common gaol of Edinburgh for exercising his ministerial functions. On receiving his liberty he went to Aberdeen, where he officiated in his own house, using the Book of Common Prayer. On the order shortly after the union to shut up all episcopal chapels in Scotland he was compelled to leave Aberdeen, and went to Elgin, where he officiated for some time. To obstruct his celebration of the Lord's Supper on Easter day 1707, he was summoned before the privy council at Edinburgh on Good Friday. Not complying he was sentenced to be banished from Elgin under a severe penalty should he return within twelve miles of the city. He now settled at Edinburgh, where he officiated to a congregation in Toddrick's Wynd. During his incumbency in Edinburgh he engaged in a keen controversy with the Rev. John Anderson, minister of Dumbarton, regarding whom he advertised the intention of preaching a sermon, with the view to proving that he was ‘one of the grossest liars that ever put pen to paper.’ He died on 28 May 1723, aged 73. He was the reputed author of ‘Scottish Presbyterian Eloquence displayed,’ 1693, a collection of citations intended to expose the irreverent liberties indulged in by the presbyterians in their prayers and sermons. In 1713 he published ‘Miscellany Numbers relating to the Controversie about the Book of Common Prayer, Episcopal Government,’ &c., forty numbers appearing successively. He was also the author of ‘Three Single Sermons,’ 1701; ‘Reasons for Toleration to the Episcopal Clergie’ (anon.), 1703: ‘The Divine Right of Episcopacy’ (anon.), 1705; ‘Letter to a Nonconformist Minister of the Kirk,’ 1705; ‘The Lawfulness and Expediency of Set Forms of Prayer,’ 1706; ‘The Lawfulness and Necessitie of observing the Anniversary Fasts and Festivals of the Church maintained,’ by R. C., 1710; ‘A Letter to Mr. James Hog of Carnwarth,’ 1710; ‘The Countryman's Idea of a Gospel Minister,’ 1711; ‘The Spirit of Slander exemplified in a scandalous Pamphlet called the Jacobite Cause,’ 1714; ‘The Priesthood of the Old and New Testament by Succession,’ in seven letters, 1716; ‘The Second Part … or a Challenge to all that want Episcopal Ordination to prove the validity of their ministerial acts,’ 1717; ‘The Anti Counter-querist counter-queried,’ n.d.; ‘Queries to the Presbyterians,’ n. d.
[Lawson's History of the Scottish Episcopalian Church since 1688; Hew Scott's Fasti Eccles. Scot. i. 468; Catalogue of the Library of the Faculty of Advocates, Edinburgh; Works of Calder.]
CALDER, Sir ROBERT (1745–1818), admiral, directly descended from the Calders of Muirtown in Morayshire, was the fourth son of Sir James Calder, bart., who had settled in Kent, and who in 1761 was appointed by Lord Bute to be gentleman-usher of the privy chamber to the queen. His mother was Alice, daughter of Admiral Robert Hughes. In 1759 he entered the navy on board the Chesterfield, with Captain Sawyer, whom he followed to the Active, and thus participated in the capture of the Spanish register-ship Hermione on 21 May 1762, probably the richest prize on record, even a midshipman's share amounting to 1,800l. On 31 Aug. 1762 he was made lieutenant. On 27 Aug. 1780 he was advanced to the rank of post-captain, and during the next three years successively commanded the Buffalo, Diana, and Thalia, all on the home station. The Thalia was paid off at the peace, and Calder had no further employment till the outbreak of the revolutionary war, when he was appointed to the Theseus of 74 guns for service in the Channel. In 1796, when Sir John Jervis was appointed commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean, Calder was appointed captain of the fleet, and served in that capacity at the battle of Cape St. Vincent, after which he carried home the admiral's despatches, and was knighted, 3 March 1797. It has been positively stated, by writers in a position to know the opinions of the day, that the despatches, as first written, gave very high praise to Commodore Nelson for his conduct in the action; but that, at the instance of Calder, they were modified, and the name of Nelson left out. The story is, however, mere hearsay. Calder and Nelson were never intimate, but there does not seem to have been any bad feeling between them, nor is there any evidence that Nelson expected special notice in the ‘Gazette;’ and Sir John Jervis, who had the very highest opinion of Nelson, was a most unlikely man to yield to persuasion or submit to the dictation of an inferior (Nicolas, Nelson Despatches, ii. 337, vii. 120 n. 121).
On 22 Aug. 1798 Calder was made a baronet, and on 14 Feb. 1799 advanced to the rank of rear-admiral. In 1800 he hoisted his flag on board the Prince of Wales of 98 guns, in the Channel fleet, then commanded by Lord St. Vincent; and in February 1801 was detached in pursuit of a French squadron, which slipped down the coast into the Mediterranean, while Calder, with seven ships of the line and three frigates, followed
