The first commission of this officer was an ensigncy in the first foot guards, dated 4th of April 1775, and in May 1777 he joined the army in North America, was present at the battle of Brandywine on the 11th of September of that year, and in that of Germantown on the 4th of October following, also at the siege of ten forts on the river Delaware, and after their reduction in December the detachment of guards employed on that service rejoined the army, and went into winter quarters at Philadelphia. On the 23d of January 1778 he received a lieutenancy, with the rank of captain, in the first foot guards. Captain Dundas served the campaign of that year, and was present in the action of Monmouth Court-House on the 28th of June 1778, fought during the march of the British army from Philadelphia to New York, in which the second battalion of the first foot guards was principally engaged. Having soon after been appointed to the light company of that corps, he was employed on various detached services in 1778 and 1779, in the course of which the company to which he belonged sustained considerable losses.
The corps of guards being detached into South Carolina, joined the army under Lieut.-General the Earl Cornwallis, in 1780, and the light company forming his lordship’s advanced guard, it was almost every day engaged. Captain Dundas commanded it at the battle of Guildford and at York Town.
Captain Dundas was promoted to a company in the first foot guards, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, on the 11th of April 1783, and on the 6th of June following exchanged into the forty-fifth regiment, from which he was transferred to the first foot on the 31st of March 1787. With the first battalion of the latter regiment Lieut.-Colonel Dundas embarked for Jamaica in January 1790, and returned to England in July 1791. In October 1793 he was appointed aide-de-camp to King George III., and received the brevet rank of colonel.
Colonel Dundas was employed in that rank in the West Indies as adjutant-general to the army under General Sir Charles (afterwards Earl) Grey, and was present at the siege of Martinique and the other adjacent islands in 1794. Upon his return to England, being appointed on the 9th of October 1794, colonel of the Scots brigade, afterwards numbered the ninety-fourth regiment, he joined it in Scotland, and raised a new battalion.
Major-General Dundas, to which rank he was advanced on the 26th of February 1795, was employed on the staff in North Britain until ordered to join the army preparing for foreign service under Lieut.-General Sir Ralph Abercromby, at Southampton. Having returned to Portsmouth with the expedition, he was soon afterwards appointed to the command at the Cape of Good Hope, and in August 1796 he embarked for that colony. Being appointed lieut.-governor, with the command of the troops under the governor, he continued to hold that appointment until Lord Macartney returned to England in November 1798, leaving him to act as civil governor. Upon the arrival of Lord Macartney’s successor, in December 1799, Major-General Dundas resumed his former situation; but that officer being recalled in 1801, the civil with the military authority again devolved on Major-General Dundas, and he held both until the Cape was restored to the Dutch by the treaty of peace concluded in 1803. Upon his return to England in June 1803, Lieut.-General Dundas, to which rank he had been promoted on the 29th of April of the previous year, was placed on the staff in the southern district of Great Britain, under General Sir David Dundas, K.B. Towards the end of 1805 Lieut.-General Dundas was appointed to the command of a division ordered to join the army assembling in Hanover under Lieut.-General Lord Cathcart, and on his return, in 1806, he was again appointed to the staff in the southern district. On the 7th of January 1809, Lieut.-General Dundas was appointed by His Majesty to be colonel of the Seventy-first regiment, and on the 1st of January 1812 was advanced to the rank of general. He had been appointed governor of Carrickfergus in Ireland in 1787, and was transferred in January 1817 to the governorship of Dumbarton Castle in Scotland.
The decease of General Dundas occurred at Edinburgh on the 16th of January 1824.
Sir Gordon Drummond, G.C.B.
Appointed 16th January 1824.
Removed to the forty-ninth regiment on the 21st of September 1829, and to the eighth foot on the 24th of April 1846.