Years before, Dundonald had laid a charge of cowardice before the enemy against his own superiors in the British Navy which gained him years of disgrace, even voluntary exile. Dundonald's family held land in Trinidad. His father appear to have bankrupted the family with experiments in gas lighting on the basis of Trinidad pitch. Yet there was sense of a sort here, for in the 1840's, thanks partly to the ruthless efficiency of the New England whaling fleet, whale oil, the illuminant of choice, was becoming increasingly scarce and costly. Thus it may well have been at the suggestion of Dundonald that Gesner began to work on lighting.
Probabilities point strongly to the former.