His education and early training fitted him for the sea, and in 1805, through the influence of a maternal uncle, he received a commission in the Woolwich division of the Royal Marines.
[1] His associates included Robert Chambers, Patrick Maxwell, and David Vedder.
Several of these poems were set to music by Peter M'Leod, and in one of them—"When Autumn has laid her sickle by"—he makes almost the only pointed allusion to his life at sea.
About 1845 he contributed to the Glasgow Citizen some "Notes on Scottish Song", which include passages on Robert Burns.
[1] Gray married early, his wife, Jessie Carstairs, being sister of the Rev.