Douglas, who sat for the county on the interest of the 3rd Duke of Roxburghe, was described in February 1788 as ‘dull, indifferent and inattentive’. Unlike his competitor for the next election, John Rutherfurd, whose unpopularity was ‘positive’, Douglas’s was ‘negative’: which served him well, for though both were supporters of Pitt’s government he was, in his own words, ‘no party man, wishing to see my friends in Parliament, without caring what side they take when there’, and it was the support of Sir Gilbert Elliot and his Whig friends that ensured Douglas’s success in the contest.
Douglas continued his unobtrusive support of the ministry. After a prediction that he would vote for it, he was either absent or voted against the exemption of Scotland from the Test Act, 10 May 1791. It was readily supposed by Sir Gilbert Elliot’s friends—and Henry Dundas concurred—that he would stand down in Elliot’s favour at the next election but, assured of the support of the Dukes of Roxburghe and Buccleuch, he denied any such intention and was returned unopposed in 1796. On 4 Jan. 1798 he was in the government majority on the assessed taxes. In the preceding July Sir Gilbert Elliot thought—and Henry Dundas again concurred—that Douglas might be bought out of his seat with provision of £400 or £500 a year, but nothing came of it.
Douglas’s support of Addington’s and Pitt’s second ministries was silent. He was in the government majority on the additional force bill, 18 June 1804,