When he learned printing, and the date of his setting up in that art, in the Saltmarket, are not known. A second edition of his “History of the Rebellion” having been published in 1752, it is very natural to suppose that he learned type-setting and the other details necessary for printing the class of publications in which he dealt, during its progress through the press. Like his better known predecessor, Ramsay, whom he resembled in many traits of character, he relinquished the reputedly less respectable profession as soon as he found that he could depend upon the more dignified one of printer. It is obvious, also, that, to a person of his constitution, travelling must have been attended with difficulties which would create a strong desire to quit it as soon as possible.
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.”
Dougal was elected unanimously, and the traditional fame of his bellmanship leaves no doubt that he discharged the duties of the office to the satisfaction of the magistrates, and the advantage and entertainment of the public. He was imbued with all the love of fun and drollery of an Irishman, and all the pawky sarcastic humour, and independent sagacity of a Scot; and invariably drew large crowds to hear his rhymed or otherwise queerly-worded notices, to which his laugh-provoking manner gave additional point.
His appointment as bellman did not necessitate the giving up of his business; and he still continued to write and print with unabated vigour; indeed, some of the most popular productions of his pen are assigned to this date. In 1774 he issued a third edition of his History of the Rebellion, with “amendments,” and the addition of “a description of the dangers and travels of the Pretender through the Highland isles after the break at Culloden.” It extends to 189 pages, and contains plans of the battles of Prestonpans, Clifton, Falkirk, and Culloden; with a full-length woodcut portrait of the author, in his bellman costume, fronting the title-page; and bears to have been printed by John Robertson, Glasgow. This edition, there is every probability in supposing, was the last issued during his lifetime, for between it and the second there is a space of twelve years, and, allowing for his increased popularity, six years is a short enough time to allow for the disposal of it. We are unable to get any trace of the fourth—the third, of which, probably, there was a much larger edition, being the oftenest met with of the early editions; but the fifth, we learn from Campbell’s History of Scottish Poetry, was issued by John Robertson in 1787, eight years after the author’s death, and is, no doubt, along with the fourth, a reprint of the third. Besides the additions already indicated, this last has a new preface, very much in Ramsay’s style, in which he gives his motives for having written the book. “First, then, I have an itch for scribbling; and having wrote the following for my pleasure, I had an ambition to have this child of mine placed out in the world; expecting, if it should thrive and do well, it might bring credit or comfort to the parent. For it is my firm opinion that parental affection is as strong towards children of the brain as those produced by ordinary generation. I have wrote it in vulgar rhyme, being not only what pleased my own fancy, but what I have found acceptable to the most part of my countrymen, especially those of common education like myself. If I have done well, it is what I should like; and if I have failed, it is what mankind are liable to. Therefore, let cavilers rather write a better one, than pester themselves and the public with criticisms on my faults.”