Jacobitism, Enlightenment and Empire, 1680–1820 by Douglas J Hamilton

Author:Douglas J Hamilton [Hamilton, Douglas J]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General, Europe, Great Britain
ISBN: 9781317318187
Google: DXZECgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2015-10-06T16:11:44+00:00

II

At Westminster, despite some qualms, all seemed to be going well enough. The 1722 election went according to Whig plans and rather than making the mark they hoped for, Stuart sympathizers virtually disappeared. Many, like Allen, first Baron Bathurst and James, Lord Ogilvy, elder son of the third Earl Ogilvy, deserted the Old Pretender. The Atterbury Plot failed and all sixteen Scottish peers and an overwhelming number of Scotland’s forty-five MPs were well disposed towards the Ministry.5

Everything changed with the 1725 Shawfield riots over the Malt Tax. Walpole, now First Minister, became thoroughly alarmed. The riots in Glasgow (and elsewhere) really startled him; he became fully aware that more than mere annoyance at the tax was involved. Scotland bristled with anger.6 Walpole also realized the collapse and eventual bailout of the South Sea Company in 1722 had sent out the wrong kind of message to Scots further up the social ladder.

Discussions with fellow Whigs led to rejection of a military approach to the crisis and it was decided to turn a blind eye to anything other than deadly earnest and violent Jacobite opposition. The main policy advocated was to give Stuart followers access to as much patronage as could be found within the bounds of security. That this route was a possibility dawned on the First Minister as he contemplated using favours the EIC could muster. These added enormously to the existing pool of sinecures, lay and clerical. He also knew he could have access to these posts (and to others) via John Drummond of Quarrel and his friends in the EIC Direction. By conferring them on the right people, Walpole believed he could win the day.

Nor was there any real problem envisaged in bringing all this about by the 1720s. Although Scots had forfeited the possibility of forming a Scottish EIC by the Act of Union, they were able to enter the various branches of the English EIC.7 The Company itself, its General Court of Proprietors as well as its associated shipping and insurance interests, were certainly open to invasion from the north. Would-be Scottish proprietors invested their funds (handled through London-based agents) and gradually the General Court was penetrated, ostensibly by Scots Whig supporters. In fact, even the Court of Directors was opened up from the 1720s, in the person of John Drummond, as this chapter shows.

Walpole put his plan into action in 1725. He managed to loosen the grip of John Ker, fifth Duke of Roxburgh, on the king and secured his dismissal. Control over Scotland was given to John Campbell, second Duke of Argyll (aided and then followed by his brother, Islay, the third Duke). They were given all the favours and sweeteners that could be mustered, including EIC patronage. This (at least temporarily) bound the Argyll group to Walpole, and he could count on Argathelian influence at Westminster. Robert Dundas was replaced as Lord Advocate by Duncan Forbes of Culloden, and together with henchmen like Baron John Scrope, they were mobilized to ‘bring in the Scottish tumults’ and nullify Scotland as a ‘potential centre of trouble’.

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