tenants a reduction of twenty per cent. on their rents, and disposed of grain to the poor considerably below the market price, importing several cargoes from England, which he sold at a loss of £3,000. In 1787 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. Family James Duff married on 5 June 1759, Lady Dorothea Sinclair, only child of Alexander Sinclair, 9th Earl of Caithness, but he had no issue, and his British peerage became extinct on his death. He was succeeded in his Irish earldom by his next brother, Alexander. However he had three children by his mother's personal maid, Margaret Adam, of Keith, all of whom were born before his marriage to Sinclair. The eldest, James, became a general and a Member of Parliament. Death He died at his home, Fife House, Whitehall, London, on 24 January 1809, and was buried in the mausoleum at Duff House, Banffshire. Notes References Attribution Endnotes: Douglas and Wood's Peerage of Scotland, i. 578 Scots Magazine lxxi. 159 Foster's Members of Parliament (Scotland). |- 1729 births 1809 deaths Peers of Great Britain created by George III Duff, James, 2nd Earl of Fife British MPs 1754–1761 British MPs 1761–1768 British MPs 1768–1774 British MPs 1774–1780 British MPs 1780–1784 British MPs 1784–1790 Lord-Lieutenants of Banffshire Fellows of the Royal Society Earls Fife