1790-2, and was shot through the arm and body in the attack on Tippoo's camp before Seringapatam in 1792. He was appointed lieutenant-colonel in the newly raised 91st foot in 1794 (disbanded in 1796), and in 1796 was transferred to the 60th royal Americans. He served with his battalion of that corps in the West Indies, and commanded a brigade under Sir Ralph Abercromby at the capture of Trinidad and the attempt on Porto Rico. Exchanging into the 48th foot he commanded that regiment in Minorca, at Leghorn, and at the reduction of Malta. In 1803 he was appointed a brigadier-general in North America, commanded the troops in Nova Scotia, and acted for a time as lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick. He was appointed colonel of the New Brunswick Fencibles in 1803, and in 1810 was made colonel of the old 104th foot, formed out of the New Brunswick Fencibles at that time and disbanded at Montreal in May 1817. He became lieutenant-general in 1812, and general in 1825. He was a knight-bachelor, G.C.M.G. and G.C.H., and governor of Stirling Castle.
Hunter married, on 13 Sept. 1797, Jean, daughter and heiress of James Dickson of St. Anton's Hill, Berwickshire; she died in 1845, leaving a large family. At his death, which took place at his seat, St. Anton's Hill, on 9 Dec. 1846, at the age of 90, he was said to be the last urvivor of the officers present at the battle of Bunker's Hill, 17 June 1775.
[Burke's Landed Gentry, 1886 ed., under 'Hunter of Medomsley;' Moorsom's Hist. of the 52nd Light Infantry, where the details of the services of that famous regiment in America and India are extracted from Hunter's unpublished journals; Royal Mil. Calendar, 1820; Gent. Mag. 1847, pt. i. p. 424.]
HUNTER, RACHEL (1754–1813), novelist, born in London about 1754, married an English merchant resident in Lisbon, but after ten years of married life her husband died, and Mrs. Hunter returned to England. She took up her abode in Norwich in either 1794 or 1795, and devoted herself henceforth to literary pursuits. She died at Norwich in 1813. She wrote a series of childish novels, characterised by a 'strictly moral tendency.' The chief of these were: 1. 'Letitia, or the Castle without a Spectre,' 1801, 12mo. 2. 'History of the Grubthorpe Family,' 1802, 12mo. 3. 'Letters from Mrs. Palmerstone to her Daughter, inculcating Morality by Entertaining Narratives,' 1803, 12mo. 4. 'The Unexpected Legacy,' 1804, 12mo. 5. 'The Sports of the Genii,' 1805, 4to. 6. 'Lady Maclain, the Victim of Villany,' 1806, 12mo. 7. 'Family Annals, or Worldly Wisdom,' 1807, 12mo. 8. 'The Schoolmistress, a Moral Tale,' 1810.
[Biog. Dict. of Living Authors, p. 168; Watt's Bibl. Brit.; Larousse's Dictionnaire Encyc.; Biog. Universelle.]
HUNTER, ROBERT (d. 1734), governor of New York and Jamaica, belonged to the family of Hunter of Hunterston, Ayrshire (see Burke, Landed Gentry, 1886 ed.) Paterson describes him (Hist. of the Counties of Ayr and Wigton, iii. 354) as one of the children of James Hunter, who was a son of the laird of that ilk, and married Margaret, daughter of the Rev. John Spalding of Dreghorn. It appears probable that Hunter was the 'Robert Hunter, esquire,' appointed major of Brigadier-general Charles Ross's dragoons(5th royal Irish dragoons) on 13 April 1698 (Home Office Mil. Entry Book, vol. iv.) Major Hunter was present with that regiment at the battle of Blenheim (Treas. Papers, vol. xciii. Blenheim Roll), and was afterwards lieutenant-colonel of the regiment until about 1707 (Chamberlayne, Angliæ Notitiæ). Owing probably to the influence of George Hamilton, earl of Orkney [q. v.], one of Marlborough's generals at Blenheim and governor of Virginia 1704-34, Hunter was appointed lieutenant-governor of Virginia, and sailed for that province on 20 May 1707 (Treas. Papers, civ. 39), but was taken prisoner on the voyage by a French privateer and carried to France. He was an acquaintance of Addison and Swift. The latter appears not to have known Hunter personally in 1708 (Swift, Works, xv. 310), but in January-March 1709 two letters written by the dean to Hunter in Paris (ib. xv. 326, 337) rallied him pleasantly on his social successes there, and falsely suggested that Hunter was the author of the famous 'Letter concerning Enthusiasm' (London, 1708), which had been attributed to Swift. Hunter was exchanged for the French bishop of Quebec soon after. Between May and December 1709 large numbers of poor protestant refugees from the palatinate of the Rhine sought an asylum in England, and became a source of much trouble to the government. In a letter dated 17 Dec. 1709 (Treas. Papers, civ. 39) Hunter proposed to take three thousand of the people out to New York and settle them on the banks of the Hudson. The plan was approved. Hunter was appointed governor of New York, and sailed with the refugees early in 1710. In November of the same year (ib. cxxv. 45) he reported that the refugees were settled on the banks of the Hudson, close to the great pine woods, and that 15,000l. a year for the next two years was all that was needed for the success of the great
