Parliamentary Legislation, Lobbying and the Press in Eighteenth-Century Scotland

B O B H A R R I S

Recent years have seen much attention devoted by historians to the legislative activities of the eighteenth-century parliament at Wesmiinster.' Because of this work, we now know much more about the strengths, as well as the weaknesses, of the unreformed parliamentary system. Parliament has been revealed as the central institution in what some historians, at least, have depicted as a 'reactive' state, one which was responsive to a surprisingly diverse range ofinterests and alliances.' Annual parliamentary sessions after 1689, and the growing corpus of legislation, also gave rise to an expanding body of print concerned with legislation. Before the 173Ch, this typically took the form of single-sheet printed cases, which were circulated to M.P.s and other interested parties by From the 173Os, these 'cases' were increasingly dropped in favour of a more extended representation of interests. usually in pamphlet forni, and an extension of the lobby. again by means of print, beyond the ambit of Westnlinster.'

However, in describing this 'reactive state', and contemporary lobbying tactics, historians are vulnerable to the objection that what they are really describing was an English, not a British, state or political dispensation. The view from Scotland would seem to have been a different one. Scots after 1707 may have been very successfbl in colonizing area$ of the British eighteenth-century fiscal-military state - through the army or the East India Company, or the venerable roll call of individuals who flourished in the interstices of this state-but many historians have argued that the record in relation to Westminster was very different. Put simply, Scots lacked the political leverage to be anything other than reactive in relation to

See irrrrr did. Paul Langtbrd. Riblir Q k atid rltr Propcnird Er!@s/iinw, 1689- 1798 (<>?rtbrd. W91); Julian Hoppit. 'l'rttems of Prrliaaientary Legislrtion, 166+ I X( HI'. H;srorirctl~li,rmtlrl./, XXXIX (1'9%). 109-31; Stuart Hatidey. 'Local Initiatives for Ecoriomic and Social I)en.lopnient in I.ancashire, 1689-1731', ~iJdidtftC1ttMy Himry. IX ( I 9'41). 14-37; Joanna Innes, 'Parliament and the Shaping o f Eighteenth Century English Social Policy'. Iiatrsuificltts I$ rltr Ksp11 Hisroritiil Sw'q , 5th x r . , XXXIX (1 9%)). 63-92; Julian Hoppit and Joanna Inner. 'Introduction'. in F"clikd Lqislmi~rt, 1660- 1800. Esrrmd.krti 111c Cosirtiotts attd Lird-\otirrids. ed. Julian Hoppit (1997). pp. 1 4 1 .

- The notion of il 'reactive' state is advanced in the introduction to Stil/it!q tlw C;nctt~C/ir!y Hive. Thr Kqwtisi* r o Swkl tstd Emtotrtii Probliws itt Ey&ttd, 1689- I7.W. ed. Lee l h i s o n , Tin1 Hitchcock, Tim Keirn. and Robert Shoemaker (Stroud. 1Y92).

.' Although not a11 such cases \vere printed in the early eighteenth century. for an emniple of which x e Penh and Kinross Council Archives. A.K. Bell Public Library. Perth [hereatier P.K.C.A.I.B59/24/8/12: menioriJl of linen dealers against an act pedlars and hawkers in England. 1)rawn up in 1730, this was circulated to others involved in the Scottish linen trade.

'Johii Braver, 77tr Sittc~r~s qf Poitw. 11 br, .Ifortry 8td rltc Btglish Sm*, 16811- 1783 (1989), esp.

-.

pp. 241-4.

Purliuvieritary Legislation, Lobbying and the Press in Eiqliteenth-Century Scotlarid 77

legislation.’ Moreover, before the final third of the eighteenth century, there was notably little legislation passed with specific application to Scottish interests and constituencies. Westminster, it seems, did not matt’er that much to Scots. The achievement of the Argyll interest was, for most of the time, ‘semi-autonomy’ for Scotland, a position with which most Scots appear tcl have been perfectly happy.6 In so far there was argument about this, it was about who should preside over this partial independence and thereby control Scots’ access to patronage disposed from London. In the later eighteenth century, several notable Scottish magnates, including the third duke of Buccleuch, eschewed involvement in politics in London to become improvers on their Scottish estates. Improvement provided the better outlet for their patriotic energies, or so they thought.’

Further symptomatic of the divergent political paths taken by Scotland and England were the very different position and role of print in th’e political cultures of the two countries. There are, for example, few Scottish pamphlets on measures of social reform; in so far as this debate took place it was mostly in the governing bodies of the Kirk, the court of session, and, by the later eighteenth century, county meetings of freeholders.8 Judge-made law had an importance in Scotland in this and other fields - for example, commercial practice -which was largely (although not completely) lacking south of the border.‘’ The court of session, along with the general assembly of the Church of Scotland, have been described as quasi-parliaments for Scotland after 1707, and the eighteenth-century Scottis,h press covered, respectively, important cases and their debates in considerable detail. For most urban interests, at least before the 1780s, what lobbying of parliament and M.P.s took place was prosecuted through the convention of royal burghs and its agents and through personal contacts.‘”

In defending Scottish interests a t Westminster, the second and third dukes ofArgyll operated in similar fashion; this was the politics of access and of the closet. The aim or strategy was one of ‘mutual co-operation with the political centre’ in the interests of Scotland, at least as defined by the politically influential. We should not exaggerate national differences, of course, and many English lobbying campaigns were organized

‘See esp. John S. Shaw, The Management c$ Scottish Society, 1707- 1764. Pouw, h‘obles, Lawyers, Edinbuyh Aptits and English Ir@ences (Edinburgh, 1983). See also the comments made by David W. Hayton in Eveline Cruickshanks, Stuart Handley arid D.W. Hayton, The History of Parliamenr. Tlw H011sc qffornnrons 16YO- 1715 [hereafter H.P., 1690-1715] (5 vols, Cambridge, 2002), I , 505-25.

The authoritative discussion remains Alexander Murdoch, ‘The People Above’. Politics amfildminirtration in Mid Ei&tcrnth Centwy Scotlarzd (Edinburgh, 1980). ’ For Buccleuch, see O.D.N.B., XLIX, 389-91. See also Brian D. Bonnyman, ‘Agricultural Improve-

ment in the Scottish Enlightenment: The Third Duke of Buccleuch, Willlam Keir and the Buccleuch Estates’, Universrty of Edinburgh Ph.D., 2004. Other niagnates who opted for ‘improvement’ instead of politics in the same period include the 5th duke ofArgy11, the 3rd duke ofAtholl, the 4th duke of Gordon, and the 4th earl, later 1st marquess of Breadalbane. ’ Successive attempts to Impose a poor rate in Edinburgh did, however, provoke widespread discussion

in pnut. See the discussion of this in Rosalind Mitchison, T h e Old Poor Laup in Scotland. nie Experietic? (f

Poverty, 1574- 1845 (Edinburgh, 2000). ‘“On this, see the present author’s ‘The Scots, the Westminster Parliament, and the British Stare in

the Eighteenth Century’, in Parliaments, Nations and Identitres in Briraiil and Ireland, 1660- 1850, rd. Juliaii Hoppit (Manchester, 2003), pp. 124-45.

78 Ebb Hawis

along similar lines.” Nevertheless, even if the difference is one of degree, it was st i l l an important one.

The purpose of this paper is not to argue that this picture is hdamentally incorrect, although several qualifications to it will be proposed. A major focus, consistent with the main theme of this volume, will be the developing relationship between, on the one hand, print and the press and, on the other, parliamentary legislation relating to Scotland. The crux of the argument is relatively straightforward: that the final third of the eighteenth century saw a change in the scale and importance of parliamentary lobbying and discussion in print and elsewhere of legislation, which cumulatively began to tradorm the nature of the ‘public sphere’ in Scotland. One important dimension of this process was a significant deepening of Scotland’s assimilation to a British political culture, a development more usually discussed in the political history of this period in terms of the career of Henry Dundas, Scotland‘s political manager from 1784, British minister and close colleague of William Pitt the Younger.

Westminster may have been remote fiom many specifically Scottish concerns, but this did not mean that Scots could afford to ignore it in the years and decades which followed 1707. Partly, and in the years which preceded the 1715 Rebellion especially, this was because of the habit of politicians in London of sponsoring legislation which threatened key Scottish interests and institutions, a record sufficiently well known not to require rehearsing here.’* Less often emphasized are the benefits which the eighteenth-century British ‘fiscal-military’ state had to confer on branches of the Scottish economy. Indeed to an extent that is still not properly acknowledged, Scottish economic development in the eighteenth century was directed by a h e w o r k of mercantilist legislation passed at Westminster or by financial support facilitated by parliamentary statute.” Pre-eminently, this was true of the linen industry- the motor of industrial growth in Scotland in this period. As the ‘national’ manuficture, Scots appear to have looked to Westminster to provide similar support to the Scomsh linen industry as was extended to the English woollen ind~stry,’~ a fact which partly explains the level of discontent created by the imposition of a new duty on printed linen in 1711, although this was also a focus for widespread disillusionment with the political as well as economic consequences of ut1i0n.I~ From 1742, the industry was the beneficiary of a bounty paid on the export of coarse linen, albeit with a brief, and for the industry disastrous, intermission of 1754-6; the ‘very best thing . . . got for

l 1 See the cautionary words in Brewer, Sinews of P o w , esp. p. 238, where he writes: ‘Mart lobbies recognized that larpe-scale demonstrations were not the means to achieve their ends. It was far better to employ a smal l body of well-informed and well organized lobbyists’.

l2 Patrick W. J. Riley, The English Ministers and Scotland, 2 707- 1727 (1964). l3 But see Christopher A. Whatley, The Scottish Salt Itidustry, 1570- 1850 (Aberdeen, 1987); idettt., ‘Salt.

Coal and the Union of 1707: A Revision Article’, Srottish Historiral Rpview, LXVl(1987). 26-45; Gordon Jackson, ‘Government Bounties and the Establishment of the Scottish Whaling Trade, 1750-180’, in Srortish Tltnttes, ed. John Bun and John T. Ward (Edinburgh, 1976). pp. 46-66. Two historians of an earlier generation who emphasized the importance ofthe economic role ofthe state were Henry Hamilton, An J3otiomir History of Srofhd in the Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 1963) and Edward Hughes, Shcdicc itt

Adminisrraariott and Finance, 1558- 1825 (Manchester, 1934). l4 See esp. P.K.C.A., B59/24/8/7/2: petition of the provost, magistrate-s and common council of Penh

about making ofand trading in linen, 1721. Is For contemporary comment on this, see National Archives of Scotland fiereafter N.A.S.1, Montrose

Papm. GD 220/5/468/19 Charles Cockburn to John Cockburn, 9 July 1715.

Parlinmerrtary Le‘qislation, Lobbying arid the Press irz E~~litecrztli-Ceriti.rry S c o t h d 79

Scotland since ye Union’ was how one Scot described this bounty in July 1742.’” Fine linen manufacturers, concentrated in and around Glasgow, benefited from high duties imposed on imports of French cambrics. In 1779, the introduction into parliament of a bill to remove these duties led to a major demonstration against the proposed measure on the streets of Glasgow by weavers from the city and surrounding villages, although, in the event, the bill did not proceed. Looking back from 1798, an early historian of the city wrote, the bill had ‘threatened the starvation of many families, [and] could not fail of meeting with a powerful opposition’.” A year later, Robert Frame reflected on the strength of the opposition in Paisley to another proposal to allow the import of French cambrics and lawns. ‘What a cry’, he asked, ‘did it not justly raise in this country? We all, then, foresaw the ruin of our infant manufactures established at Paisley.”’ Other strategically important sectors, for example, whaling and fishing, depended on similar incentives and supports.” The fortunes of the tobacco trade were also powerfully affected by successive pieces of customs legislation, if only in a negative sense in that had measures under contemplation been passed which favoured English interests then the Scottish tobacco merchants could have found themselves very adversely affected.20

Elsewhere, I have described the lobbying on behalf of Scottish interests in relation to this legislation, stressing the importance of the role of the convention of royal burghs and the role of its agents in London.” Some agents were employed for specific campaigns, while at other times the convention had a full-time agent in London. In 1769, Thomas Allan, Lord Townshend’s political agent in London - Townshend was currently lord lieutenant of Ireland-observed, ‘The Scotch have no less than three ambassadors from the royal burghs to solicit the continuance of their bounty on the exportation of their coarse linens.’*’ Scottish M.P.s, meanwhile, were expected to act both individually and collectively to support or defend Scottish interests at Westminster, often in response to instruction from burgh authorities prompted by the convention. Some of them appear to have been notably diligent in keeping constituents informed about any business at Westminster which affected their interests. A substantial amount of correspondence between successive M.P.s for Perth Burghs and the provosts of Perth survives which details this role. The former included some notably resourceful and active members on behalf of Scottish and local interests, nien

“I Glasgow City Archives, Mitchell Library, Glasgow [hereafter G.C.A.], Hamilton of Barns Papers. TI) 589/588: William Hamilton to James Hamilton of Barns, 10 July 1742. The ongins of the 1742 bounty have yet to be fully investigated, but it steinnied froiii a campaign in 1737 launched by the Irish m d Scottish linen industrics to have drawbacks on the exports of foreign linens to the colonies withdrawn. On pdrlianientary support for Scottish linen, see Hamilton, Erononiir History, pp. 144, 160-9, 255.

17Jaines Denholm, The History qf Glaspij and Sirhurhs (Glasgow, 17Y8), p. 41.

I ” See n. 13, above. See also Bob Harris, ‘Scotland’s Herring Fisheries and the Prosperity of the Nation.

20See esp. the discussion of this in Jacob M. Price, ‘Glasgow, the Tobacco Trade and the Scottish

21 Harris, ‘Scots, Parliament and the British State’. 22 Thomas Bartlett, Marartwey in Irrland, 1768- 72. A Calrniiar q f f l i r ChiPfSecrrtaryship Pnpers i f s i r Giyqc

Matarrncy (P.R.O.N.I., 1978), p. 68: Allan to Macartney, London, 30 Nov. 1769. Allan was compdring Scottish diligence with Irish backwardness in defending the bounty.

Robert Frame, G~nsiderations on rhr hrertsts o j f h e Courrty o jhr rark (1799), p. 32.

c. 1660-1760’, Scottish Historical Review, LXXIX (2000), 39-60.

Cuctoms, 1707-1730’, Scotorttish Historical Review, LXlIl (1984), 1-29.

80 &dl Hanis

such as George Yeaman. promoter ofa bill for the regulation of staniped linen, passed at the second attempt in 17 12, and most famously George Denipster of Dunnichen.23 Denipster's career a t Westminster is comnionly portrayed in terms of his political independence - a rare coniniodity for an eighteenth-century Scottish M.P. -and his growing disillusionment with Westminster, which led him to leave parliament in 17W to concentrate on the 'improvement' of his Skibo estate in Sutherland.2' Yet his lobbying activities, which have never been properly investigated, were continuous and may have been niore influential and constructive than his own negative vie\i of his record as an M.P. would hint at.25 Typical of his strong sense of respomibility as member of the Coninions was a letter sent by him to the provost of Perth in February 1783. This was in response to a letter received several days earlier regarding the current scarcity of grain in Scotland. In it, Dempster provided infom~ation about a Conlmons coninlittee on the state of corn, a committee fiom which he declared lie was 'never a minute absent'. He also enclosed a nlinute of a iiieeting of members for royal burghs which had examined the likely impact on the linen industry of a new commercial treaty with Spain. A copy of the letter and minutes were also sent to the provost of Dundee 'for his &- the Towns in fornia tion'. ''I

If M.P.s for Yerth Burghs appear to have been quite assiduous-in some cases very assiduous - in representing local and national economic interests at Westminster. Glasgow and Edinburgh representatives. as well as the representatives for coun- ties which included important mercantile and manufacturing interests - Midlothian, I'erthshire. Angus. Fife, and Aberdeenshire in the east, Renfiewshire and Lanarkshire, as wcll as Ayrshirc in the west, especially in the second half of the eighteenth century, seem to have been similarly diligent. As we will see further below, Ilay Campbell, M.P. for Glasgow Burghs (1784-October 1789), and lord advocate (December 1783-0ctober 1789). w a s very active in support of Glasgow and Scottish economic interests in the 1780s. A supporter of the ministry, he nevertheless opposed new duties on printed linens in August 1784, while in early 1785 he supported a motion for delaying the Irish resolutions until Scottish representations had been heard, and in the following year opposed any reduction in the bounty on the Greenland fishery."

'' For Ycutun. see H.P.. 1690- 1715. V. 9-13-5. See also N.A.S.. Sniyth of Methven Papen, GD 11A~;3/285: Yranian to the nia~strates of Penh. 21 Mar. 171 1. where yea ma^^ gjvcu details of the bill's n l ~ i n provisions ~ i i d calls for any recommrnd.itiotis. and also iiifoniis the niagistrates that he is to meet with linen tnerchants on rhe hill.

"'There is further niatcrial on this role in the Perth and Kinross C~ouncil Archives. Dempster was cspcckdly active in defence ofthe linen industry. It w a s .~lniost certainly for this reacon that he was nude an honorar). nicniher of the C;lasgo\v Chanibcr of Conltiierce in Oct. 1 7 X h an honour which followed clcisely his role in securing the continuation ofa bouncy on printed linen<. I n August 1784. he was one of several individuals to whom the Chaniber voted their thanks for their role in opposing I'itt's so-called cotton us. See also National Library of Scotland Ihcrcafrrr N.L.S.J. MS 653: Denipstrr to Henry Lhmdas. 31 Jan. 1788. enclosing the 'Memorial representing the expediency and necessity ofcontinuing the pment duties on foreign linen and the bounties granted hy parlianient on the exportation of British linen and enacting the same for fist period of years. By the committees ofthe merchants, rnanufacturers. and dealers in linen. in the shire of Forfar. North Britain specially appointed for that purposc'.

2''P.K.C.A.. 859/67/1. Denipstrr to George Fachney, provost of Perth, 12 Fcb. 1783. - Lewis Naniier and John Brooke. 77tc How t!fCwttttotts 1754- 1790 (3 vols, I%+, 11, 184. 3-

Parliamentary Legislatian, Labbyirg and the Press i r i Eighfeenth-Centnry Scotland 8 1 In the case of Edinburgh, this expectation also reflect’ed the fact that the M.P. for the city was expected to provide leadership to the representatives from the royal burghs. In 1783, it was, for example, Edinburgh M.P. James Hunter Blair who convened the other members for the royal burghs in London to consult about measures which might be required during the grain shortage of that year. It was also Hunter Blair who communicated with ministers on various issues of concern to the Scots. A set of minutes survive from one meeting of the M.P.s during the parliamentary session of 1783-4, and it appears that these meetings were regular events, a t least at that time.28 Much earlier in the century, during the crisis and discussions surrounding the malt tax in the mid 1720s, several county M.P.s sent letters regularly to constituents, which were then passed around.29 How consis- tently this was done outside of moments of crisis and. particular strain in relations between Scotland and Westminster, remains to be discovered. O n the other hand, the Scottish parliamentary tradition conceived of M.P.s as ‘delegates’ and as such accountable to their constituents for representing local interests in the legislature. In the 1720s, Midlothian and Stirling were two counties which kept standing commit- tees to correspond with their members. At their election, Scottish candidates were on occasion tendered long lists of their electorate’s particular interests, although this was a practice which became less common after the first third of the eighteenth century.”’

However, what role did print play in the process of lobbying and in focusing public attention in Scotland on parliamentary legislation before the final third of the century? The answer is a strictly limited one. Inevitably perhaps, controversial pieces of legislation inspired some individuals to publish their thoughts, but on a notably small scale. For example, the malt tax, imposition ofwhich in 1726 unleashed a storm of protest in Glasgow and several other Scottish burghs, appears to have stimulated publication of four pamphlets which discussed the merits (or demerits) of the impost as opposed to the resulting riots in Glasgow and their aftermath. A further printed letter to M.P.s, published in London, protested about supposed misrepresentations of the role of the magistrates in the disturbances and the (dis)loyalty of Glaswegians.3’

lX P.K.C.A. , 859/67/2, minutes of meeting of meniben of parliament for the royal burroughs of Scotland, held at the British Coffee House, London, 10 Feb. 1783. Hunter Blair was another Scottith M.P. who opposed new duties on linen and cotton in the 1780s. Indted, his only recorded xpeech was on thit i su t . For tiniilar expectations in the early 1790s, see a letter from Thomas Elder, the lord provost, to Henry Dundas, the Edinburgh M.P. in Edinburgh City Archives, McLeod Collection, D, 124, item 11: Elder to Lhndas, 9 June 1793, relating to the Coal Bill then going through parliament. Elder had earlier written to Dundas about the city’s interests enclosing a niemoranduni on the measure. In his second letter, he urged: ‘I beg you will regularly advise every step taken in this essential piece of business, and as there is a chance of my being in the Country, address your letter to the Magmrates.’

2L’See e.g. correqmndence between George Gordon and Archihald Grant of Monymusk, M.P. for Aberdeenshire in N.A.S., Grant of Monymusk Papers, GD 345/578. At the height of the crisis, Grant was writing to correspondents in Aberdeenshire every few days.

3” Nicholas Phillipson, The Scottish W‘h@ a n d the R+tn u f h e Court CjSession 1785- 1830 (Edinburgh, 1990), p. 67.

31 A Leftrrfroni a Fyfe Gentleman, at Present in Edinburgh, to the Ci’ziejfagistratr qf Burgh in Fvfe, Uporr our Present Sitrration, with regard to the Malt Tax (Edinburgh, 1725); Some Thoughts Concernin2 the Malt Tax, Humbly OJered to the Consideratioti o f t ke Landed Interest c!f Scotland (Edinburgh, ?1725); Menlorial Coiirrrttiri~y thr Mdt Tax (Edinburgh, 1726); Copy . f a Letterjiom a Gentleniun in 13ditiburgh, to his Friend in the Cuioitry ui i the Sihjecr ufthe Malt 7 a x (Edinburgh, 1725); [Glasguensis], Lettrr.frotn a Citizrn qf Glasgow (1725).

82 &d~ Hitnis

The lobbying against the tas was mostly personal in nature - it involved, for example, conferences between Scottish M.P.s and Sir Robert Walpole - and, as already alluded to, correspondence and personal coniniunication constituted a much more important form of political coniniunication than print during the crisis.3' Less controversial legislation presents a similar picture. In 173 1, the printed resolutions of a 'considerable body of merchants in Edinburgh' against an additional duty on the distilleries in Scotland. a fear raised by the campaign for restricting use of spirituous liquors then being mounted at Westminster - a campaign which was to result in the famous Gin Act of 17.51 -were circulated to burghs through the convention of royal burghs. Burgh authorities were urged to write to their M.P.s to use their interest against any new or additioiial Successive measures or campaigns regarding the linen industry were not much different: the odd printed memorial stating the Scottish case for support; a small number ofpamphlets; but no extended discussion or airing of the issues in print."' Even in the early 1770~ and 1780s. this did not change ~narkedly.~' Informal influence or influence with the centre was the preferred course of action. In 1787, Dempster. referring to current discussions about lowering duties on imports of foreibm linen. informed the provost of Dundee that he had had several 'conferences' with Lord Hawkesbury, president of the board of trade, on the subject, and had been assured that 110 tinil resolution would be made until the towns of Perth and Dundee had had an opportunity to have their cases heard before the board. This represented, he went on to argue, a better approach than petitions to parliament once the measure had been decided on:"'

I n a sense, there should be little surprise about this state of affairs. There was discussion. but it kvas in person and by letter, and facilitated by the convention of royal burghs, which had the role of representing most Scottish trading as well as urban interests: but not in print. The goal was to create consensus around measures in a narrow political world. This consensus was then represented at London by agents, M.P.s, and members of the Scottish nobility. Except for the purpose of informing interested M.P.s, the exploitation of print was otiose in such circumstances.

Public campaigning, meanwhile, including petitioning and estensive use of print, tended to indicate weakness. not strength, or be an aspect ofa defensive campaign. The bcst illustration ofthis is a campaign conducted in 1719 to defend the Scottish linen industry ti0111 attempts by the powerful English woollen industry to ban the wearing of printed calicoes and linens. News of this potential threat arrived in Scotland in

Parliauncwtary Legiclation, Lobbyiry,J arid the Prr3.s iri EISIiteeritli-Ceririiry Scotland 83

November 1719 via a series ofletters to individuals in Perth, Aberdeen and Glasgow?' The response was immediate and impressive in scope and energy, encompassing linen manufacturers, their factors in London, town councils (particularly in Glasgow as well as in Fife, Angus and Perthshire), the convention of royal burghs, and Scottish M.P.s. The role of the London factors was critical, as a source of advice and influence at the political centre.38 The Scottish campaign mirrored very deliberately that of the woollen industry, as is made clear in a letter written from London on 14 November 1719 and sent to the provost of Perth. The letter is worth quoting at length:

We have for these ten days passed applyed our selves towards finding out and using the best measures to withstand the Weavers of Silks and Stuffs, who for these twelve months past have made such Clamours and LJtrages against the Wearing of Printed Calicoes and Linnens, and are now very busie throughout this Kingdom making Interest to have both prohibited being worne by ane Act of the Ensuing Parliament, They have already begun a Petition to the Lords Justices, who have Refered the same to the Lords Commissioners of trade, upon which we found it very expedient to draw up a Representation in Eivour and defence of Printed Brittish Linnen which we signed and delivered unto the saids Lords on Thursday last, who gave it a very favourable Hearing, And said there was much Reason in what we alleadged, And that we might expect the Parliament would take care of us, We have now given Orders for printing three Hundred Copies of our Representation in order to transmit to the severall towns and persons of Interest in Scotland, To the End that being fully Apprysed of the very great Endeavours now on foot amongst those concerned in the silk and woolen manufacturies to Prohibite the use of Printed Linnnens And amongst other methods are preparing numbers of Petitions against them to be presented I:O the Parlianient So the like may be done in Scotland in Defence of the Printing or Improving our Linnen after any manner so as may best promote the Consumption of it, As being the Ancient and principal1 Manufacture and great support and Iniployment of the poor, If our Nation is not wanting to theniselves in this affair, but are Active in sending up Petitions, and securing the Votes and Interest of our own Members, we doubt not but we shall gett our Scots Linnen Exempted from any such prohibition . . . .39

In the event, 40 petitions were forthcoming from Scotland between December 1719 and the end of the following January, including from weavers' incorporations as well as burgh and county authorities."' The threat to the industry was duly seen OK as the correspondent quoted above had predicted. The result was the famous Calico Act

'' P.K.C.A., B59/24/8/5: provost of Perth to Patrick Haldane, Perth, 2 Nov. 1719 '* P.K.C.A., 859/24/8/5/9: provost of Perth to Bailie James Morrison, merchant, Aberdeen, 21 Nov.

1719; B59/24/8/5/10: provost of Perth to duke of Atholl, 23 Nov. 1719; B59/24/8/5/11: same to same, 25 Nov. 1719; B59/24/8/5/14: provost of Prrth to magistrates of Montrose, 27 Nov. 1719; B59/24/8/5/17: provost of Perth to Lord Kinnoul, 7 Dec. 1719; B5'3/24/8/5/1Y: John Come and John Cdlder, London, to magistrates of Perth, 19 Dec. 171V. '') P.K.C.A., B5V/24/8/5.

Hamr, 'Scotr, Parliament and the British State', p. 128

8.1 &)b Hnrns

(1721), which explicitly excluded printed linens made in Britain and Ireland &om its provisions.

If the modalities of Scottish lobbying and sectional pressure generally left little role for print in the first six decades or so of the eighteenth century, by the mid century at least, the Scottish press did begin to show greater interest in parliamentary legislation affecting Scottish interests, especially economic interests.'" Even before the inid century, there are isolated examples of this. In the mid century, two pieces of legislation which seeni to have attracted particular attention in Scotland, although the initiative behind them came fioni individuals south of the border, were new bounties on herring (1750) and whale fishing (1749)." Some Scottish newspapers began including a regular report from a correspondent in London who, during the parliamentary session, provided a commentary on business of special interest to Scottish readers. In its issue of 2 May 1749, for example, the Cclkdorriarr Mercury's London correspondent reported on the fate of the Glasgow petition for conipensation for losses suffered during the '45 rebellion, noting that 'All Scots members in town were present' at the relevant debate in a committee of the whole House.'3 We should not exaggerate the continuity and extent of interest, which is probably best seen niaitdy as a symptom of a maturing Scottish press. However, it does appear to have reflected strong interest in specific parliamentary nieasures, such as the legislation promoting the herring fisheries passed, at the second attempt, in 1750. O n 20 February 1730, the Ediiihg/r Evrrritg C C I I ~ I ~ noted of the bill which established the bounties for herring fishing, 'a more important bill, for the Bcncfit of these Nations, has not perhaps at any time passed the House'. From the 1770s. regular reporting of parliamentary debates and the proceedings of both houses niade such letters a less singular and important feature of Scottish press coverage, although they continued to appear on a fairly regular basis.

There was also one parliamentary cause which in the mid eighteenth century began to illustrate how the press night be exploited to support lobbying, and in doing so, served to show how this might push politics in new directions. This instance was the lobbying for a Scottish militia launched in 1759. This campaign has been very well covered elsewhere, so the details do not need rehearsing here.u What does need stressing is, firstly, the extent to which its supporters called on the press in different ways, both to publicise the cause, but also to channel opinion in support of

'' The Burghs had been sent the livc*s and .iits from 1707 or shortly thereatier. For example, on 19 May 1708, the .im of f4tr/iurririrr were ordered to be bought for Dundee's use (Dundee Archives and Krcords Centre: Dnndee Burgh Council Minutes. 1707-). Before 1707, they had been regular wdpients ofparli.n~~rntary news froni Edinburgh. It is highly likely that newsletters were circulating quite widely in towns in the early eighteenth century which contained news of parliamentary proceedings. These were, howver. not written speciitcally h r a Scottish readenhip. " Scc Ihb H J ~ S . Pctliri1.i nrtd rlir S,itiott. Brit& in thr M i d E[&wrr/r C h r r r ~ (CMord, 2002). pp.

I XS-6, 233-66. '' For other esamples. see e.g. Edirrbrr~/i Eivtiiyq Coriruiit, 2 Feb., 20 May. 6, 12, 13 June 1749; 20, 22 Feb.. 17 Mar.. 1 0 . 12 Apr. 17%); Culedwimt .\fcrrirry. 2, 18 May 1749; 8, 19, 22 Mar., 2 May 1750. Froin the mid c.enNr).. abstracts of various acts of Interest in Scotland were a regular feature of the contents of rhc Srtw .thgu:itrc*. first published in 1739. " See csp. John Robemon. nrr Sottish Etr/i,yliteitraiorr atid tlrr Ml i r iu Issitc (Edinburgh, 1985); Richard

13. Sher. C/rirrcdr uttd L i t i i w s i r y irr rlrc Sortish Err/~~/ireirirrertr. 77rc .clunerJre Utrruti of Edirrba~h (Edinburgh, 1985). ch. 6.

Parlianmtary Lqiclatiorz, h b b y i q and the Prcrs iui E~~iteenth-Ceritirry S c o t h d 85 it. Secondly, the use of the press is partly explained by origms of the campaign and its timing. It was not orchestrated by the Argyll interest, which in any case collapsed on the death of the third duke in 1761, although Lord Milton, Argyll’s principal agent iii Scotland, was a participant. As is well known, it emerged from the deliberations of representatives of the moderate enlightenment. It wals also mounted in the face of the opposition of most ministers in London. Nor was it the product of a consensus in Scotland, which partly explains its failure.

From the final third of the eighteenth century, several separate, but overlapping, developments served together to transform and expand the Scottish public sphere for discussion of legislation. Partly, it was simply a function of an increase in the volume and range of Scottish legislation or legislation affecting Scotland and Scottish interests, an increase which began in the 1770s, but which gathered pace from the subsequent decade.45 This included general, public legislation, as well as local legislation relating to improvement. Some of the former legslation was controversial, pitting important interests against one another. This was above all true of successive Corn Acts, which set agricultural producers or the ‘landed interest’ in opposition to manufacturers and consumers. Alteration of the condicions under which grain was imported and exported affected in crucial ways a rapidly growing section of the population - the urban and semi-urban manufacturing classes - and not surprisingly it had the capacity to arouse strong emotions, as well as to engender a great deal of public discussion. In 1773, an attempt by Scottish M.P.s to exclude Scotland from a new corn bill was defeated ‘on account’, as one contemporary report put it, ‘of the great discontent shewn by their c~nstituents’’.~‘ O n hearing of the M.P.s opposition, Glasgow merchants had sent circular letters to all the burghs to instruct their representatives to have the clause excepting Scotland from the legislation removed. In Glasgow, there was a major demonstration amongst the manufacturing population involving an effigy of a Scottish M.P. which was carried to the common place of execution and hanged. There is a hint of class anger in the protest in that the effigy was of ‘a portly well dressed man’.47 Four years later (in 1777), it was again Glasgow that provided the lead to Scottish opposition to proposed changes to the corn laws contained in a bill introduced into parliament by Sir Adam Ferguson. News of the bill appears to have reached the city in late April in a letter to the lord provost.4x This triggered a series of meetings of the trades house, merchants house, and town council, as well as a general meeting of traders and manufacturers called by the chief magistrate. A letter widely reprinted in the press describing the response complained:

“Joanna Innes, ‘Legislating for Three Kingdoms: How the Westminster Parliament Legislated for England, Scotland and Ireland, 1707- 1830’, in Parliaments, Nations arid Ideritities, rd. Hoppit, esp. pp. 22-9.

4h Dun$ies Weekly M a p z i n e , 12 Apr. 1773. 47 I M . , 16 Mar. 1773.

For the role of the provost of Glasgow in orchestrating the opposition a t the convention of royal burghs. cee Dunf in Weekly Magazine, 6 May 1777.

86 Bid) HNI~S

We do not like a bill of this importance to be brought in in this nlanner at the end of the session. It ought to have been printed long ago, and dispersed all over Scotland. and the opinion of the inhabitants at large taken upon it."9

A joint committee was also formed in Glasgow to oppose the bill, which it was widely believed would have the effect of raising the price of grain. The Glasgow merchants and manufacturers issued a detailed iiieinorial against the measure, which was sent to the other royal burghs, and printed in several Scottish papers.5" Of this document, one critic remarked: 'It is filled with the vulgar opinions upon the subject, and probably contains all the objections made against the present law, as wc*U as the proposed bill.'" In May, the annual committee of the royal burghs iiieeting in Edinburgh, directed by the lord provost of Glasgow. resolved to oppose the bill. On 1 May the Coninions ordered the bill to be printed, postponing hrther consideration of it for six months. An abstract of the bill duly appeared in the Scottish press.52 In Dundee, the appearance of the bill appears to have provoked a street demonstration involving a crowd carrying an efligy through the town with a paper in one hand with the words 'Corn Bill' on it and in the other one with the words 'Destruction of Scotland'. The efigy \vas canied to the mArket cross at the heart ofthe burgh where it was b~rn t .~ ' In November. on the eve of the new parliamentary session, the Glasgow committee, formed in the previous spring, went to Edinburgh, where it held meetings with the lord advocate and 'some of the landed interest', as well as attending meetings of the annual comnlittee ofthe convention of royal burghs, a general meeting of the 'landed gentlemen of the most of the countys [sic]' of Scotland, and a committee appointed by this meeting." No consensus could be found at these meetings. As a result, the Glasgow committee determined to continue to oppose Ferguson's bill, an opposition in which it was joined by representatives ofthe trades from severai other burghs. The opposition was sufficiently strong for the measure to be dropped. Later changes, and proposed changes, to the corn laws, for example in 1786, 1790 and 1791, provoked similarly strong public reactions and intense, public debates.55 From the middle of the eighteenth century, and more especially from the 177Os,

the corn laws also stimulated the publication of a considerable number of pamphlets and quantity of correspondence in different Scottish newspapers.'" Notable works

Parliawzerttary Legislation, Lobbyir;q and the Press irt Ei~qhteetitlz-Certtirry Scotlarid 87

on this topic written and first published south of the border were also reprinted and published in Edinburgh and other towns in Scotland."

If public legislation, actual and proposed, could be controversial and set interest against interest, thereby provoking a new level and type of public debate from the later eighteenth century, specific measures of iniprovement - building of roads, canals, commutation of statute labour, police bills, construction of bridewells - could have similar effects a t the local or regional level. In the 179Os, police bills €or Glasgow and Aberdeen, which raised the issues of representation and accountability, as well as liability for payment of local taxes, engendered extensive debate, public meetings, petitioning of parliament, and widespread discussion in the press5* A few years earlier, a bill on poor relief in Edinburgh, which would have led to the imposition of a compulsory poor rate in the city, produced a lengthy exchange of views in the Edinburgh press.59 Turnpike proposals, and measures to commute statutory labour duties to monetary payment, which grew in number markedly from the final two decades of the century, could easily set landowner against farmer, and landowner against burgh. In 1777, the provost ofDumfries sent a letter to Sir Williani Maxwell of Springkell requesting that the county road bill then under consideration in parliament have a clause inserted exempting the inhabitants from paying tolls on peats. In this case, the county gentry had anticipated this request and had !such an exemption inserted.'" Matters were not always so smooth or different views so readily accommodated. In July 1797, the Fife Farming Society was forced to issue a declaration that their opposition to a county statute road bill was not motivated by a 'factious, turbulent, and democratic spirit'.6' The measure had provoked bitter, very public exchanges concerning how far the farmers had been properly consulted prior to the legislation being passed.62 From the 1790s, farmers' societies, which were being founded in increasing numbers across Scotland in this period, often served to channel the views of the farmers on transport proposals, as well as on other measures affecting their

June 1773; Aherdren WreklyJiumal, 12 Apr. 1773; 15, 22 Dec. 1777; Caledonian Mercury, 21, 28 Jan. 1778; Considerations ori the Ow Corn Laws and the Bill Proposed to Amend T I i w i (Aberdeen and Edinburgh, 1777); Alexander Dirom, An Inqrriry irrto the Corn Lows and Corn Trade and Grear Britain, atid their Ir$iwce oti the Prosperity of the Kingdom (Edinburgh, 1796); George Skene Smith, Tracts on the Corn Lnua of Great Brirniii (1792); Third Report of the Committee ofthe Chamber of Commerce and ~ U a w f i m r e s iri Claspw, relatiucz to the C'orrr Laws (Glasgow, 1790); John Girvin, AJI Iwestipfiorr of the Pran'ice $the Sherii, Commissioners of the C u s t o m and t h Merchants, under the Preserit Corw Laiu (Glasgow, 1787).

57 See e.g. Charles Smith, A Short Essay oti the Corn Trade and the, Curri Laws (Edinburgh, 1758). This wac first published in London in the same year.

For the Aberdeen Police Bill, see Aberdeen &fire 1800. A New History, ed. E. Patricia Denniwn, David Uitchburn, and Michael Lynch (East Linton, 2002), pp. 283--5. The measure was only passed a t the price of a concession of a wider degree of representation on the police board established to adniinister the act. Opposition to the original proposal also overlapped with opposition to a proposal to expand the water supply which was seen as imponng an unjust burden on poor and middling householders to improve upp ply to the upper ranks. The main vehicle for debates on the nieasiires wac the Aberdecvz WreklyJirrrnal. For Glasgow, see The National Archives, Kew [hereafter T.N.A.], Chatham Papers, PRO 30/8/13/78-9: John Dunlop to William Pitt, n.d., but 1789.

"See also Scc7ts M q a z i n e , XLVIII (1786), 651-6. '" Diiyfriict.5 Weekly M a p z i n e , 8 Apr. 1777, p. 150, where Maxwell's response to the Provost's letter is

"' The H e d d awd Chronick, 13 J~i ly 1797, notice dated 5 July. 62 See esp. Edir?bn<q/i Evcnin-q Post, 11 Fcb.; 20 May; 1, 20 June 1707.

published.

88 &)b H t ~ k

interests, for example, taxes on horses and tolls. On occasion, the farmers demonstrated a high level ofpolitical awareness and indeed sophistication. In February 1797 the Fife Famiing Society declared, refcrring to its opposition to the statute road bilk 'They hope to shew that redress is always to be had when constitutional means are taken to attain it.' The society ainied to prove. in other words, the validity of loyalist or conservative defences of the constitutional srntrrs qiro, a minor cameo illustration of how conservative rhetoric could be e-uploited to legitimate public dissent in a period of political reaction. Ironically perhaps, it may well have been farmers' involvement in the defensive patriotism of this and the subsequent decade, as well as the increasing tax burden, which helped them find a much stronger political voice.

Parliamentary convention regarding private legislation served to reinforce the role of publicity and discussion surrounding legislative proposals and measures. Not only were there orders of the House establishing stringent provisions regarding giving proper notice of intention to petition for legislation, in order to pass such legislation required a consensus behind it; where this did not esist, the Commons would postpone passage of the ~iieasure.".~ In 1777, a petition fiom the county and burgh ofstirling complained about a petition which had been presented for leave to bring in a bill for altering the law with regard to repair of highways and bridges in the county. In calling for a delay, the new petitioners urged that they had not been given 'proper Intimation of the Purport of the [former] Petition, nor the Intention of the Petitioners'."" Such a situation seems to have been unusual, however. Most measures were properly advertised and l l l y canvassed before they reached the Commons in the knowledge that they required agreement to pass through the House and reach the statute book. This was one reason proposals could take such a long time to become law. Proposals for a bridewell in Perth, first mooted in 1793, were still being discussed in 1802 because of arguments about the rights of iiiagistrates over the disposal of property on which the building was to be situated."< There was also a convention peculiar to Scotland which strengthened these developnients in that the definition of what was considered local legislation was wider than south ofthe border; local legislation included measures affecting the whole ofScot- land. As Nicholas Phillipson has argued, in 1785 it was the failure of Henry Dundas and Ilay Campbell to remember this, and the need to consult fieeholders, which in part caused the denilnient ofa proposedbill to refonii the court ofsession.'" In 1778, writing under the pseudonyni 'A Country Gentleman', a contributor to the Cdedotriua M a r y powerfully encapsulated this expectation in comments provoked by the Scottish Game Bill, then passing through parliament, urging: 'It is submitted, whether or not it would be proper the opinion of the Landed Gentlenian should be taken before it [the bill] passes the House of Peers? Or, whether the landed Gentlemen of Scotland are to have so public an act forced upon them without ever being consulted by any oftheir repre- sentative~.'~)' In 1797, Colonel William Fullarton, opposition whig M.P. for Ayrshire,

'L' Joanna Inncs, 'The Local Acts of a National Parliament: The Rolc of Parliament in Sanctioning Locd Legislation'. P~~r/i.tiiicit?~~ry Himry, XVIl (1998). 23-47; Jul in Hoppit, 'Patterns of Parliamentary Lrgklation. 1660- 1800'. Hi.~?~,rizn/]l~ttnid, XXXIX (IYN), 109-31. '4 CJ, XXXVI. 737. ' G I'.K.C.A., B59/24/ll/l 16.

Phiilipson, Smrrish IV/t(p litid the R&tr t?jt/ic Court t?jsc.Ssioti. ch. 3. Cukdmiiw .Wmcry. 25 Mar. 1778. 07

Parliamentary Legislation, Lobbying and the Press in E:ighteerith-Centirvyy Scotland 89

announced that he would be opposing the Small Debts Bill which had been put before parliament in that year, unless and until it had been submitted to all the counties for the views of Scotland’s freeholders.68

Partly in response to the new set of opportunities and pressures arising in relation to legislation, but also in response to the emergence of other challenges -for example, mass emigration from the Highlands, the rise of new and increasingly diverse manufacturing industries and interests - the nature of Scottish parliamentary lobbying changed. From the later 1770s, new regonal and national lobbying bodies emerged or took on an enhanced role. Some of these have already been referred to: county meetings; and farmers’ clubs and societies. The Glasgow Chamber of Commerce was founded in 1783, followed two years later by an Edinburgh counterpart. Other bodies included the Highland Society of Scotland, founded in 1784, and the British Fisheries Society, established in 1786. Around the same time, a new club began meeting in Edinburgh, called the ‘Monthly Club’, which sought to provide a forum for the ‘Landed Interest’ to discuss issues of common concern.6y Designed to include four representatives from all counties in Scotland, and at one stage considering changing the name to the ‘National Club’, some appear to have envisaged it as no less than the collective expression of the national interest as defined by the landed elites. And, while the club fairly quickly lost momentum, as measured by sparse attendance, its establishment was indicative of the new divisions of interest, or perception of these, emerging in the 1780s. In the early nineteenth century, the multiplication of interest bodies continued, reflecting a more complex, variegated economic, social and political body.

Much about sectional interest lobbying remained unchanged in the later eighteenth century; personal connexion and access continued to be crucial assets in the lobbying game. Henry Dundas, for example, seems to have maintained very open lines of communication between himself and the Glasgow merchant and manufacturing cla~ses.~” Andrew Mackillop has recently written of the British Fisheries Society and the Highland Society: ‘They focused on working with government, or where possible, “colonizing” the echelons of the state that had immediate authority over the regon as a hole.'^' The lord advocate, Ilay Campbell, was an important channel of communication between the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce and the government

E d i ~ b i r @ Evening Cmiranr, 8 May 1797, notice of 1 May. ”‘ N.L.S., MS 196. Original members included many of the leading magnates and landed miprovers of

the period. Attendance quickly became patchy, however, and the body seems to have fallen in abeyance in the mid 179Os, before a final attempt was made to revive it in 1803.

”’See e.g. T.N.A., PRO 30/8/157, part 1: William McDowall to Henry Dundas, 30 Oct. 1789; N.A.S., Melville Castle Papers, CD51/16/83/1: same to same, 20 Mar. 1794, enclosed a letter from the chairnman of the Clasgow Chamber of Comnierce to McDowall and a memorial of the local muslin and cotton manufacturers complainlng of ‘unfair’ competition from India. McDowall infomied Dundas: ‘ I will send you the enclosed and will be glad to have a conversatlon with you on the subject which 1s more delicate and interesting as the memorial is signed by the principal inhabltants of the C~ty of Glasgow.’ See also relevant comment in Douglas Hamilton, ‘Scottish Trading in the Caribbean’, in Nu‘ation and Prouirrce i r ~ the First British Empire. Srotland and t h ~ Americas 1600-1800, ed Ned C. Landsman (2001), pp. 115-18. ” Andrew Mackillop, ‘The Political Culture of the Scottish Hig,hlands from Culloden to Waterloo’,

HisroriraalJ~urrral, XLVI (2003), 523.

90 Bllb Hclrr3

in thc niid 17M k, on a range of measures, including new taxes and, more particularly, Pitt's restructuring of the custonis regime and assault on smuggling?'

Continuity w a s apparent in other ways. Indeed, the lobbying style and practices pursued by the Clasgow Chamber resembled in many key respects those followed by the convention of royal burghs, with which it sought to co-operate on several issues.'" The convention issued printed letters for circulation to the burghs; so did the Chamber, as well as printed reports. Agents in London were employed; there was much correspondence with town council. and M.P.s; printed iiieniorials were drawn up stating cases for distribution to M.P.s or ofticials at the treasury; there was much reliance on personal coniniunication with ministers and officials as the first and preferred means of influencing treasury measures and legislation. In 1785, Patrick Colquhoun. then in London as the Chmiber's agent, representing its interests on a range of issues, but most notably the Irish comnicrcial propositions, had a meeting with Pitt on 20 March before establishing, in his words, 'a regular and fair system of opposition'. I t was Yitt's discouraging response at this meeting which also led the Chamber to associate with the Chamber of Manufactures of Great Britain, founded in London on 8 March to tight Pitt's Irish proposals.'' The latter had reached a siinilar position earlier in March.';

The 'regular and fair system of opposition' blended the old and the new, the privatc and the public, as such niirroring the broader campaign of which it was one element.'" In Glasgow and other manufacturing towns in the west, Paisley and Hamilton, large meeting of merchants and manufacturers were held and petitions subscribed against the Irish resolution and the tas on linens and calicoes. O n 31 March, the Glasgow Chamber of Coniiiierce met and agreed a further set of resolutions." Several days later at a meeting of merchants, manufacturers and traders of Glasgow, these resolutions werc endorsed, and, at the same time a petition was agreed, a resolution of thanks w a s voted to Colquhoun and his fellow representative of the west of Scotland iiianufacturing interest in London, Alesander Brown, and the

His role i q docuniented in some detail in the minutes of the Ghsgo!orv <:hatnber of Coniniercc (G.C.A., GI3 243!TD 76; I ) .

I n early 1784. for esanmple. the ckunber sought the mncurrence of the convention and thc board of trustee~ for the iniprovenient of niani~factnres and fisheries for action to support the continuation of the bounty oti the export ofprinted linens. There was also co-operation benveen the three bodies on a bill to rcgdate the thread industry. (C.C..\.. G B 243iT13 7 0 i l . f. 38. 172). At the first meeting ofthe chamber, (:olquhoun. as zluinnan. inioniicd tneniben that a list of thc nienibership hdd been conitnunicated to the boxd of trusteet :I< well as to the lord justice clerk .ind lord advocate. The annual reports of the board were .IIW 1-onveyed to the clnnibcr. where they were commented on.

"G.C.A.. GB 243/TI) 76'1. ff. 136-45. Colquhoun's report on work ;IS agent in London, given at .I general meeting held on 5 July 178.5. Colquhoun w a s joined in London by Alesander Brown, a Paisley n~niiitjc-turer.

a A ineeting with I'itt on 1(, March led to J notice ofopposition being published in the prrcs nvo days later (lohri Ehmian, 771~- 1i)iittgtr Pirr. ??tc lkm c!f.&~f~iiiii (1969). p. 2W).

On this wider canipaip we John M. Norrir. 'Samuel Garbett and the Early Uevelopnient of Industrial Lobbying in Britain'. Eitvtcrwii Hihry R c t h . X (I%%). 45(l-60: Wia Bowden. 'The Influence of the Manufacturers on Sonic of the Early Policies of Williani Pis', ..liticrirati Hisftirim1 Rcikw, XXlX (102.1). 635-74: John Money. EX~M*~~I*IIII* 'tiid 8 b i r i r y . Bimiiii!&iii mid rlic W ? f f .\/idlnitds. 1760- 1800 (Manchrxcr. 1977). zh. 2.

' G.C.A.. CB 24.VTl) 76fl . K. 131-1. T h e e resolutions were printed in thc Glasgow and Edin- burgh p r e s

-1

-.a

--

:<,

--

Parliamerrtnry Lqqislation, Labbyin3 nrid the P r m in EiRlzteenth-Centur~ Scorlarid 91 lord advocate. Four thousand were said to have signed the petition and resolution. These activities were publicized fully in the Scottish and English press, and were part of a wider British petitioning effort producing more than 60 petitions between March and early May, when the Commons voted on the resolutions. Meanwhile in London, counsel pleading the case of the manufacturers in the Commons was instructed; resolutions and papers were fiamed, printed and circulated to M.P.s and ministers; conferences with Pitt continued to be sought through those who possessed his ‘confidence’ and through the lord advoc.ate. Alliances were also forged with powerful English economic interests, notably with the most ‘opulent wholesale drapers and printers in London and Lancashire’, and the printers and manufacturers from Lancashire and Cheshire. With respect to the interests of the iron industry, Colquhoun and Brown held ‘several conferences’ with the lord advocate, and the Birmingham manufacturer, Samuel Garbett. Colquhoun promoted the general report of the Chamber of Manufactures, which was ‘universally made public’. An additional case relative to the Irish resolutions was prepared for Henry Dundas, who on 15 June promised Colquhoun his help to remove future sources of complaint.” O n 10 May, Pitt conceded partial defeat on the cotton tax, repealing the excises on plain cottons and fustians. Colquhoun and others, including George Dempster, continued to lobby on behalf of printed goods, and a compromise was, with some difficulty, contrived regarding exemption of low priced printed good from the tax. As is well known, Pitt was also forced to concede amendments to the Irish resolutions, which only led to further opposition once they returned to Ireland for consideration by the Irish parliament.”

The new lobbying bodies, formed in the 1780s, were transparent in their activities and more attuned to the role ofpublicity and accountability in their activities than their earlier counterparts, although this is again a matter of degree not absolute difference. From the outset, the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce publicized its activities in the press. One of the resolutions, agreed at its inaugural meeting on 1 January 1783, was that the names of the directors of the Chamber should be ‘published in the Glasgow News Papers to morrow’.xo In one sense, these bodies were more British in their mode of operation, and in their horizons, as well as more middle class, the case that Stana Nenadic has argued elsewhere.81 They united reason and argument, as well as print, to make their case, whilst not eschewing, as stated above, older methods of pursuing their interests. They were also part of a growing trend in society of exploiting the press as a vehicle of publicity by bodies as diverse as county meetings, farmers’ societies, and a growing number of interest groups and charities, some of which were purely Scottish - burgh reformers, anti-patronage committees - and some British in operation and scope - abolitionist societies, Sir John Sinclair’s Society for the Improvement of British Wool (founded in 1790). In February 1785, to cite one possible example from many, committees of farmers from various parishes in

“G.C.A. . GB 243/TD 76/1, ff. 136-40. “’See Ehmman, Yorriip Pit/, pp. 209-13; James Kelly, Prelude to Vnioii. Anglo-Irish Politics in the 1780s

“‘G.C.A., GB 243/TD 7611, f. 9. ’‘ Stana Nenadic, ‘Political Reform and the “Ordering” of Middle Class Protest’, in Cui!$ift arid Siabiliiy

(Cork, 1992), chs 3-5; Gerard O’Bnrn, Anglo-Irish Polifics irt flic A p c$Gmtfari orid Pirf (Dublin, 1987).

i t r Srotrish Sociery 1700- 1850, ed. Thomay M. Devine (Edinburgh, 1990), pp. 65-82.

92 Ebb H ~ n i s

Renfiewshire met to protest against a new tax on riding horses. The resolutions fiom the meeting, published in the Edinburgh and Glasgow press, declared ‘And they wish that their Brethren in the different counties would publish their resolutions, that the sentiments of the nation be known.’’? Several years earlier, the royal burghs had resolved to send printed copies of the famous bill on entails to their M.P.s along with instructions on how to vote on the measure. This resolution was to be published in the Edinburgh newspapers ‘that the whole nation may be apprized of the sense of the royal burrows upon a matter of so great importance to the country‘.x3

Accompanying these changes, the Scottish newspaper press began to show more concerted interest by the 1780s in the activities of parliament a t Westminster. As in the rest of the British press in the later eighteenth century, great attention was devoted to the Commons and Lords debates?‘ but particular papers also responded in other ways to obvious public interest in particular legislative measures and proposals. In addition to carrying notices of public meetings on the Irish resolutions and cotton a x in 1785. the inclusion of which was almost certainly paid for, the Glmptu Memry, to give one example, followed the debates in the Irish parliament on the resolutions; provided accounts of the activities of the General Chamber of Manufacturers of Great Britain, as well as a sketch of the plan of the body in August; included a letter &om Manchester in early April regarding a petition against the cotton tax; published two sets of separate queries regarding respectively the proposed commercial treaty with Ireland and its consequences for Scotland, the second of which may have been drawn up by Colquhoun in London; gave full accounts of the Commons and Lords debates on the resolutions; and in its issue for 19-26 May printed an ‘Authentic Copy of the Irish Resolutions, with Amendments, as proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer’. There were letters from Dublin regarding the faltering progress of the amended resolutions in the Irish parliament?’ In 1778, the same paper had printed the heads of the five bills introduced by Lord North to relax restrictions on Irish coniinerce with Britain, an initiative which also aroused very strong opposition amongst Glasgow’s merchants and nianufltcturers.xh These were unusually contentious measures, arousing an unusual degree of public interest, but information on other legislation of obvious interest to different groups in Scotland was also increasingly printed in Glasgow and other Scottish newspapers fioni around the same period.x7

By the later eighteenth century, then, the press and print had come to assume a more important role in lobbying and the public discussion of parliamentary legislation. The Scottish press did remain a weaker, less vigorous presence than its English counterpart.

’’ Clqf~~tr~ Mcriury. 12-17 Feh. 1785.

“See Hob Harris, Politic? mid the Rise c$t/tc Press. Brifaitt urid Fratin 1620- 1800 (19%). p. 41. 1)uriny parliamentary sessions. the inclusion of other material w a s regularly postponed to allow coverage of parlinmentar). debatcs. ‘’ C;f~~s~~~rc~dfcmrry, 24-31 Mar.: 7-14. 14-28 Apr.; 28 Apr.-5 May; 16-13 June: 14-21.21-28 July;

28 July4 Aug.. 11-18. 18-25 Aug. 1785. *. Cldsfi~iv Mmitry. 7 May 1778.

x3 P.K.c.A.. ~59/17/37/2.

’‘ Grayson Ditchfield has noted, for example, the interest in the dissented bills of the 1770s in the Scottish press (Ditchfield, “‘How Narrow will the Linua of Toleration Appear?” Dissenting Petitions to Parlirnient, 1772- 1773’. in I’clrfiutitcttr mid Dissno. ed. Stephen Taylor and David L. Wykes (Edinburgh, 2OU5). pp. 98-9).

Panvliantmtavy Legislation, Lobbying and the Prms in Ei,~~hteefzth-Cettrirvyy Scotlar?A 93

It also struggled against growing competition from English newspapers circulating in Scotland. However, during the final third of the eighteenth century, it was maturing fast as a political force and vehicle for public debate.”8 The relatively low number of newspapers, and their modest circulation where known, can disguise this reality. More generally, there was significantly greater discussion in print, pamphlets as well as newspapers, about issues of public policy, prompted by the growing range of public and private legislation passed by parliament relating to Scotland.

In one sense, what we have been and are describing is, in the English context at least, very familiar. By the final third of the century, Scotland was converging on an English or even British pattern of lobbying practices and discussion about legislation. Underlying this convergence was also a growing fusion between different aspects of political life north and south of the border. At a party political level, this had begun to accelerate from the 1770s, and quickened once again in the 1790s. Sectional interest lobbying, especially in the economic sphere, always had, in any case, the potential to transcend national boundaries. From an early stage, the Scottish coarse linen interest had sought to forge alliances with the Irish linen interest. This occurred as early as the later 1730s as part of a campaign to have drawbacks on the export of foreign linen removed.” It continued in later campaigns. In 1769, seeking the renewal of the bounty on the export of coarse linen, the Scots wrote to the Linen Board in Ireland urging their co-operation.’(’ Linen interests in the north-west of England were quickly drawn into lobbying efforts, for example, in the campaign to have the linen bounty restored, following its non-renewal in 1753.9’ This was simply good politics; it increased chances of success. It was on occasion largely opportunistic. In 1744, the convention of royal burghs had encouraged co-operation with the West India lobby.’* This had been prompted by a proposal for a new tax on foreign linen as an alternative to a proposal of Pelham’s to raise further customs duties on sugar. By the 1780s, what is striking is how often and how automatically Scottish economic interests were prepared to engage in campaigns which cut across national boundaries where it was in their interest to do so. Such tendencies are well documented in the minutes of the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, and the impetus came from England as well as Scotland. The foundation of the Glaljgow Chamber of Commerce is often discussed in purely Scottish terms; yet it was one of a wave of such bodies founded in manufacturing towns and large ports in Brit.ain and Ireland. These bodies were very conscious of one another and their shared interest in supporting trade and manufacturing. In early March 1783, the Glasgow Chamber considered a plan for establishing a similar chamber in Dublin. Colquhoun, as chairman, was directed to write to the president of the Dublin Chamber ‘desiring a friendly communication with it for the benefit of Trade in general’.’3 In its early months, the Glasgow Chamber

”’ See Bob Harris, ‘Scotland’s Newspapers, the French Revolution and Domestic Radicalism, c.1789-1794’, Scottish Historid Revirtu, LXXXIV (2005), 38-62. ’’ Harris, ‘Scots, Westminster, and the British State’, p. 132. ”” See n. 22 above. ’‘ Murdoch, ‘People Above’, pp. 68-73. y2 P.K.C.A., B59/24/8/4: provost of Edinburgh to provost of Perth, 1 Nov. 1744, printed letter on

behalf o f the convention of royal burghs. ‘ I 3 G.C.A., GB 243/TD 76/1,f. 18.

94 &>/I HIWIS

corresponded and sought co-operation with merchants in London, the chambers of commerce in Bristol, Liverpool, as well as other manufacturing towns in England on a variety ofissues.

The campaigns of 1783. therefore, against the Irish resolutions and to repeal the tax on linens and calicoes, and Scottish participation in the short-lived General Chamber of Manufacturers of Great Britain, were a natural extension of this process, albeit it did also mark a strengthening ofthe disposition amongst important manufacturing interests to look to co-operate with their English counterparts in lobbying the political centre. The opposition to the cotton tax had emerged first in and around Manchester in the summer of 1784; as similar opposition emerged amongst the Glasgow manufacturers and merchants, they decided to 'join the powehl opposition at present forming in Lancashire and elsewhere'. As Colquhoun noted, the case made to Pitt regarding the Irish resolutions and the tax was that its substance was not only based on the 'true, just. and fair principle of Equality', but also that it was for the 'utmost niapitude to Great Britain' not just Scotland or England. In 1790, Colquhoun led the Glasgow manufacturers' opposition to the East India monopoly and iniport of cotton goods fiom India in co-operation with Lancashire manuficturers." Historians who have looked at industrial and economic lobbying in the 1780s have tended to stress an inherent tendency to fragmentation and disagreement, understandably so perhaps given, for example. the collapse of the General Chamber of Manufactures and Commerce just two years after its foundation over divisions regarding the commercial treaty with France signed in 1786. In Scotland, there was talk in late 1785 of the establishment of a Scottish Chamber, but nothing came of thisy5 Equally, however, it would be wrong not to emphasize the importance of the new level of contact between representatives of industries and region.. across Britain from the final third of the eighteenth century.

The 1780s were a moment of iniportant transition in industrial and economic lobbying in Britain, as many historians have observed, a transition which was focused on the rapidly developing manufacturing regions of provincial England and indeed Scotland."" The petition, prepared at a large public meeting, and publicized in the press. was an important element and instruiiient ofchange in this context. In Scotland, it was Glasgow and, to a lesser extent, Paisley which led the way in this new mode of petitioning fioni the mid 1770s.. The emphasis should be on transition, however; older inodes of seeking influence did not disappear immediately, as has been emphasized above. Indeed, in some ways, the mid 1780s was a peculiar moment in that it was Pitt's teniporarily bsnlissive attitude towards manufacturers that lay behind the formation of the General Chamber and the decision amongst different manufacturing interests to mount a public opposition to his policies. Afier 1785-6, manufacturers appear to have found access to ministers much easier, and in a Scottish context this pattern is

"'(';.C:.A.. GI3 213/T1) 7h/ 1, K 136-45: i&/wy/i Hrrdd. 22 Dec. 1791). Notice of lwolutions of iiiertiap d ( ; l a s p \ v tnanuhcturen. This notice was published in the London. Manchester. Edinburgh and Glrsgow press.

For thew proposals. see the Siots .\ft+y:bct.. XLVIl (1785). 625-7. see 11. 71 ahow.

< I ;

''6

Parliarwntary Legislation, Lobbying and the Press in Eighteenth-Cetitury Scotland 95

certainly borne out by the minutes of the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce.” As emphasized earlier, in the 1790s Glasgow’s merchants and manufacturers, and indeed their counterparts elsewhere, appear to have found that Dundas was listening carefully to their concerns.

The processes and changes described in this paper, and their chronology, have, finally, one further broad historical importance. No.rmally, and not unreasonably, portrayed as a period of powerful political reaction and resistance to change, the 1790s did not see any halt to a series of deeper-lying shifts taking place in the nature of political life and of the public sphere in Scotland. If discussion or talk of political reform froze for a number of years, under the impact: of conservative reaction after 1792, politics of a different sort, as focused on proposed measures of improvement or economic matters, continued. The political spaces opened up by the new modes of lobbying and creating consensus around legislative proposals were not closed down after 1792. While this did not automatically or necessarily produce demands for wider political change - indeed, it could have the opposite effect - liberalizing and liberal currents in Scottish life were able to regroup quickly after 1801. Moreover, in the longer term, the new public sphere emerging in Scotland from the final third of the eighteenth century signalled the end of the narrow, frequently sterile political world over which first the second and third dukes of Argyll and then, from 1784, Henry Dundas had presided as Scotland’s eighteenth-century political managers.

”See also the letter from Alexander MacAlpine to Pitt of 10 Feb. 1788 (T.N.A., PRO 30/8/154/1, ft 3-4). MacAlpine has in the spnng of 1785 been part of the deputation from the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce on the muslin tax and had given evidence on the Chamber’s petition at the bar ofthe Commons. By 1788, however, he could declare: ‘Convinced as I mi, That the great dim of your Adminisrration is

directed to the public good - and the advancement of Trade & Commerce of the country . . .’