This man owes his notoriety to an audacious scam, the 'colonisation' in the 1820s of an inhospitable part of the Mosquito Coast of Central America. MacGregor's venture was at best misleading, at worst criminal, costing many lives and swindling hundreds of thousands of pounds in loans on the back of fraudulent land sales. This handsome portrait, however, predates these scandalous events. MacGregor is shown as a young soldier, in the uniform of the 57th Regiment of Foot, but perhaps his features already suggest extreme self-confidence.