After a notable maritime career, including a daring escape from French capture in 1812, he visited Sydney in 1822 and decided to settle there.
[1] The life of the clans had been suppressed, after the Jacobite Rebellion, under legislation including the Act of Proscription, 1746.
[1][4] In 1822, Mackellar visited Sydney while commanding Clydesdale,[5][6] a ship sailing under the license of the East India Company.
[10] Mackellar resigned from his seafaring career and decided to stay in New South Wales as a settler during the administration of Governor Darling in 1828.
Mackellar gave evidence to a committee of the Legislative Council in June 1837, supporting this idea.
[7] He returned to Scotland in 1837 and published An Emigrant's Guide to Australia in 1839, detailing his farming experiences in New South Wales.
[1] His nephew, Duncan Mackellar, Junior, died in 1838,[23] with his landholding held in trust for his three sons.
[24] Although Mackellar did not remain long in New South Wales, he is remembered as one of the first colonial settlers of the Braidwood district.