Military Governors and Imperial Frontiers C. 1600-1800: A Study of Scotland and Empires (History of Warfare, V. 17)

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MILITARY GOVERNORS AND IMPERIAL FRONTIERS C. 1600-1800

HISTORY OF WARFARE General Editor

kelly devries Loyola College Founding Editors

theresa vann paul chevedden VOLUME 17

MILITARY GOVERNORS AND IMPERIAL FRONTIERS C. 1600-1800 A Study of Scotland and Empires EDITED BY

A. MACKILLOP and STEVE MURDOCH

BRILL LEIDEN BOSTON 2003 •

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

On the cover: Field-Marshal Robert Douglas (Kungliga Biblioteket, Stockholm).

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Military governors and imperial frontiers c. 1600-1800 : a study of Scotland and empires / edited by A. Mackillop and S. Murdoch. p. cm. — (History of warfare ; v. 17) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 90-04-12970-7 (acid-free paper) 1. Scotland—History, Miliary. 2. Scotland—History—17th century. 3. Scotland—History—18th century. 4. Scotland—Politics and government—17th century. 5. Scotland—Politics and government—18th century. I. Mackillop, Andrew, 1969- II. Murdoch, Steve. III. Series. DA767.M55 2003 941.106--dc21 2002044052

ISSN 1385–7827 ISBN 90 04 12970 7 © Copyright 2003 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910 Danvers MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations ...................................................................... vii List of Abbreviations .................................................................. ix List of Contributors .................................................................... xi Foreword by John M. MacKenzie ............................................ xiii Acknowledgements ...................................................................... xxiii Introduction ................................................................................ xxv 1. Scotsmen on the Danish-Norwegian Frontiers c. 1580–1680 .......................................................................... Steve Murdoch

1

2. At the Edge of Civilisation: John Cunningham, Lensmann of Finnmark, 1619–51 .......................................................... Rune Hagen

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3. A Century of Scottish Governorship in the Swedish Empire, 1574–1700 .............................................................. Alexia Grosjean

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4. An Irish Governor of Scotland: Lord Broghill, 1655–1656 .............................................................................. Patrick Little

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5. Field-Marshal James Keith: Governor of the Ukraine and Finland, 1740–1743 .............................................................. Atina L.K. Nihtinen

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6. Gabriel Johnston and the Portability of Patronage in the Eighteenth-Century North Atlantic World .......................... 119 Tim Hanson 7. James Glen and the Indians ................................................ 141 Alex Murdoch

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8. Governor Robert Dinwiddie and the Virginia Frontier, 1751–57 ................................................................................ 161 Robert Cain 9. Robert Melville and the Frontiers of Empire in the British West Indies, 1763–1771 .......................................... 181 Douglas Hamilton 10. Fashioning a ‘British’ Empire: Sir Archibald Campbell of Inverneil and Madras, 1785–9 ............................................ 205 Andrew Mackillop Index ............................................................................................ 233

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Plates Plate 1: Vardø Castle in Finnmark, seat of Lensmann John Cunningham. This painting is by Hans Hansen Lilienskiold, Governor of Finnmark 1683–1701. (University Library of Tromsø, Norway) Plate 2: John Cunnigham’s Government of Finmark, 1619–1651 (University of Tromsø, Norway) Plate 3: Field-Marshal James Keith: Jacobite Exile and Russian Imperial Oﬃcial (Marischal College Museum, Aberdeen) Plate 4: Robert Dinwiddie: Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, 1751–1757 (By courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London) Plate 5: Sir Archibald Campbell of Inverneil: Governor of Madras, 1786–1789 (National Army Museum, London)

Maps Map 1: Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Scotland Map 2: Scottish Governors and Commandants in Scandinavia c. 1580–1700 Map 3: Scottish Governors in ‘Central Europe’ c. 1600–1700 Map 4: Britain’s North American Colonies in the Eighteenth Century Map 5: The Windward Archipelago and the Eighteenth-Century Caribbean Map 6: India in the 1780s

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

AUSC BL CRNC CSPV

DBL DCA DCM DH DNCB DRA, TKUA EUL GCA HCA HL HMC IOR KCFB KFH KRA MS, IB NAS NCCR NCSA NLS PRO RAOSB SAÄ SRP ST SUL TSP

Aberdeen University Special Collections. British Library, London. The Colonial and State Records of North Carolina, eds. W.L. Saunders et al. Calendars of State Papers and Manuscripts relating to English aﬀairs, existing in the archives and collections of Venice and in other libraries of Northern Italy. Dansk Biograﬁsk Leksikon, eds. C.F. Bricka, et al. Dundee City Archives. Dunvegan Castle Muniments, Skye. Dumfries House, Ayrshire. Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, ed. W.S. Powell. Danish Rigsarkivet, Foreign Chancery, Copenhagen. Edinburgh University Library. Glasgow City Archive, Mitchell Library, Glasgow. Highland Council Archive, Inverness. Huntington Library, Pasadena, CA. Historical Manuscripts Commission. India Oﬃce Records, British Library, London. Kong Christian den Fjerdes Egenhaendige Breve, eds. C.F. Bricka and J.A. Fredericia. Kungliga Fortiﬁkationens Historia, L.W. Munthe. Stockholm Krigsarkivet. Mountstuart, Isle of Bute. National Archive of Scotland, Edinburgh. North Carolina Colonial Records, ed. W.L. Saunders. North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh, N.C. National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh. Public Record Oﬃce, London. Rikskansleren Axel Oxenstiernas Skrifter och Brefvexling. Svenska Adelns Ättartavlor, G. Elgenstierna. Svenska Riksrådets Protokoll. Statsarkivet i Tromsø. Sheﬃeld University Library. A Collection of the State Papers of John Thurloe Esquire, ed. Thomas Birch.

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LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Robert Cain: North Carolina State Archives, Editor of Colonial Records of North Carolina. Alexia Grosjean: Research Fellow, Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies, University of Aberdeen. Douglas Hamilton: Research Fellow, University of York. Tim Hanson: Towson University, Maryland. Rune Hagen: University of Tromsø. Patrick Little: The History of Parliament, London. John MacKenzie is Emeritus Professor of Imperial History at Lancaster University and Honorary Research Professor at Aberdeen University. He specializes in the social and cultural history of imperialism. His most recent edited book is ‘The Victorian Vision’ (V & A Publications, 2001) and he is the general editor of the Manchester University Press ‘Studies in Imperialism’ series. Andrew Mackillop: School of History and History of Art, University of Aberdeen. Alex Murdoch: Scottish History Department, University of Edinburgh. Steve Murdoch: Research Fellow, Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies, University of Aberdeen. Atina L.K. Nihtinen: University of Helsinki.

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FOREWORD John M. MacKenzie

Nations imagine themselves through their histories. And the presentist orientation of such history ensures that, to subsequent generations, omissions are as signiﬁcant as inclusions. The tradition of writing such national histories, often with a neo-Hegelian thrust embodying visions of a world order, has its origins in the nineteenth century. As a result, the histories of the major European nations also became, in eﬀect, imperial histories. They were constituted of myths and memorials, key moments and images, all rendered coherent through the organising principle of progress. Most British histories of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries reﬂect all these trends. And these committed histories ﬁltered down through school texts, children’s novels, and many other aspects of popular culture. In the major simpliﬁcations of such works, at both intellectual and popular levels, the disaggregation of home society, the stresses of its frontiers, the distinctive contributions of its ethnic constituents, and the instrumental and conﬂicting power of patronage networks had little place. It is only in comparatively recent times that these phenomena have become the subject of intensive study. This volume oﬀers a good deal of detailed evidence for, and sophisticated analytical responses, to these hitherto largely hidden agendas. A key myth of the older historical tradition, and the prime impulse to its simpliﬁcation, was the myth of unity. According to European historical propaganda, other peoples were distinguished by their lack of unity, by their heterogeneity and inability to form nations on the Western model. In such ways did the British, for example, explain their rule in India to themselves. A united people was able to conquer a disunited one. This oﬀered a historical explanation with a prime justiﬁcation embedded within it. Looking out on a dangerously competitive world, the British could reﬂect upon other European states that had aspired to a unity matching their own. Only the French exhibited a centralised system embodying an alleged ethnic and cultural homogeneity which seemed to precede and even exceed their own. After the long era of Spanish and Portuguese decline, the

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Germans and Italians had put this historical imperative into eﬀect through their processes of uniﬁcation and the Russians and Americans were aspiring to similar status through imperial expansiveness. A central part of the myth, and of pseudo-scientiﬁc racist thought, was that only Europeans, so far at any rate, were capable of producing such nation states. Moreover, only Europeans had aspired to the projection of such nations into global communities, of which the anglophone seemed to be the most extensive and successful. Thus, in the imperial vision, the ‘imagined community’ was capable of a near-universal expression. Benedict Anderson’s location of the origins of nationalism in the rebellious territories of South America was perhaps a conscious reaction to the European ethnocentrism of such a historiography. But the argument, however emotionally appealing, must seem unconvincing to anyone who has examined the language of the Declaration of Arbroath of 1320, or who has looked at the processes of national myth-making that were going on during the imperial wars of the eighteenth century. Art and statuary, theatre and popular excitements ﬁrst became linked in that period to the elevation of national endeavour into a grander project sanctiﬁed and underpinned by new visions of a national destiny. History painting was now able to encompass a geographically distant present, such that the death of Wolfe at Quebec, as depicted by Benjamin West, could hold heroic parity with the grand images of the classical and medieval worlds. Hence this distant imperial present was now seen as a set of key moments on a great continuum through which the national destiny was worked out. It was upon these foundations, together with the socially evolutionary principles of the Scottish Enlightenment, that nineteenth century history was to be written. Yet those legendary constructions of national purpose were designed to obscure, or had the eﬀect of obscuring, much more complex sets of national and international realities. These developments ensured that the writing of the histories of nations would stress national endeavour over aspects of international co-operation, ethnic unity of purpose over ethnic diversity and multilateral connections with other peoples. The histories of the Welsh, the Scots and the Irish could be portrayed not as counter-narratives but as progresses towards the consummation of British power and imperial strength. This historical plotting, even including necessary sub-plots, could be linear, with apparently rebellious counter-plots

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(such as the Jacobite rebellions) petering out as the dying gasps of old and hopeless systems. It is indeed no coincidence that the supposed resolution of these counter-plots took place at just the point at which the great staged pictures of the imperial world became the norm. In the next century, in the era of Free Trade, new protectionist myths about the past could be constructed. ‘Mercantilism’ became another convenient organising principle which again stressed competing national designs in which international co-operation could have little place. Of course there were celebrations of peripheral cultures within this national project. Both the late eighteenth and late nineteenth centuries saw interests in Celtic culture revived or manufactured. Moreover, in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the ﬁrst publications on the Scottish contribution to the imperial design began to appear. But generally these were destined for synoptic rather than separatist purposes. Strands were identiﬁed in order to understand the weave. There was little impulse to consider ﬁssiparous international projects. Moreover, in the Scottish case, the Union of 1707 remained the deﬁning moment, as a result of which Scottish fortunes were transformed and the Scots, despite glances at the Stuart past, threw themselves—not always inspiring popularity as they did so—into the imperial project. Such an interpretation required a severe disjunction between Scottish fortunes in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, allegedly stagnating in the one and galvanised in the other. This contrast has already been assaulted in many areas of Scottish historiography. It comes in for close scrutiny in this volume too. In more recent times, the Scots contribution to international military and other endeavours, as well as to the British Empire, has been examined much more closely for the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This was the era of the major migrations, of the Scots overproduction of graduates from the four universities, of the Scots domination of professions such as the maritime, missionary, and medical, engineering and scientiﬁc. It was also a period when the Scots participation in some of the senior echelons of the administrative, commercial, technical, and educational branches of imperial activity seemed far to outrun the numbers proportionate to their population. A lively historical debate has surrounded these Scottish eﬀorts to render the Empire truly British. Migration studies have observed the cyclical problems of the Scottish economy, the step migratory

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patterns through the various geographical regions, the inﬂuence of Irish migration into Scotland, the interaction of rural and urban phenomena, and the relative input of Highlands, Lowlands, and Borders. But although the numbers do indeed seem to conﬁrm disproportionate involvement, it is also the case that the Scots were visible, or made themselves so, that they were ‘noisy’ in the sense that they were highly active in the press, in publishing, and in other cultural forms that heightened that visibility. This is perhaps conﬁrmed by the fact that although their numbers in the British army were in this case not disproportionate, they constituted the most visible, certainly the most frequently illustrated, portion of the military, particularly in imperial settings. Such Scottish entryism has become something of an imperial cliché. But the activities of Scots in international as well as imperial contexts at an earlier period has also been known, if in less detail. The fact that the North Sea and the Baltic constituted high roads for Scots into Scandinavia, Russia, the Baltic littoral, and the Low Countries, particularly in the seventeenth century, has been familiar for some time. The involvement of Scots in the East India Company, particularly in maritime, medical and diplomatic contexts, has been highlighted for the late eighteenth century and has more recently been projected back into the earlier part of that century. Equally, the role of Scots in the Hudson’s Bay Company has long been known. The remarkable success of the Scots in securing governorships at the end of the Seven Years’ War has been noticed, as has the number of Scots active in the thirteen American colonies and in the Caribbean. But less has been made of this in terms of analytical detail and interpretative insights. This book goes some considerable way towards redressing this. The research showcased here demonstrates that before the Scots were British imperialists, they were involved in the international dimensions of national and imperial conﬂict in northern Europe. Dynastic relationships with Protestant co-religionists took Scots into military and gubernatorial positions in Norway-Denmark and Sweden in remarkable numbers, securing their destinies with the Oldenburg and Vasa dynasties. Explanations for this must lie in the relative lack of opportunities within a virtually non-existent Scottish Empire or in English colonies, in legal aspects of land holding and inheritance, as well as in patterns of mutually enforcing kingship and kinship. Scots were sent out through the medium of a self-interested dynamic

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of dynastic relations, through key family connections, and through knowledge gleaned in existing commercial relationships. But if such explanations seem ready to hand, much more complex questions present themselves. This exchange was occurring between early modern states that faced many similar problems. They were conglomerate or heterogeneous states that were in the process of extending royal authority to new frontiers. Those frontiers were seaborne as well as landward, and they required personnel with experience of the naval, military, and administrative problems such zones threw up. Scots seemed to oﬀer just such valuable experience. Elite ﬁgures seem already to have been marked out as military stereotypes, as they were to continue to be at a later date in British imperial history. In a foreign setting, their loyalty seemed conveniently absolute and their susceptibility to faction less pronounced. They also invariably oﬀered up followers to swell armed forces. Sometimes, as in Finnmark, they were preceded by Scots settlers in coastal communities, reﬂecting the international character of economic activities like ﬁshing. It would be wrong to suppose that these international activities of the Scots ended with Union in 1707 when all the opportunities of the British Empire were opened up to them. Scots continued to be employed in Scandinavia and Russia in the eighteenth century, as the careers (among others) of James Keith in Russia (examined in this volume) and John Mackenzie, Lord MacLeod (who became Earl Marishal of Sweden after his exile from Scotland in the wake of the 1745 rebellions) illustrate. Moreover, even the prominence of Scots in governorships in North America, the Caribbean and India had isolated precedents, such as the strange and fated career of William Drummond in North Carolina in the 1660s and 1670s. But nevertheless, there was an undoubted shift from the European to the imperial theatre. Yet there were continuities too. What almost all these ﬁgures shared was military expertise. Whether in the Baltic lands, in Atlantic colonial territories or in India, the prime requirement of governorships was to deal with frontiers and with indigenous peoples. Since all such frontiers were contested, the needs of oﬀence and defence repeatedly drew on gubernatorial skills. Such contest placed obligations on governors to create forms of accommodation with peoples, settlers and indigenous, within the frontier or in the zones of contact. The contributors to this book spot interesting parallels between peoples in Scandinavia, Russia, and the British colonies. It is certainly

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tempting to speculate, as they do, that the frontiers of the Celtic regions in metropolitan Britain, notably Scotland, oﬀered a forcing ground for expertise in such complex multi-lateral relations. Whether such speculation can ever be placed on a more solid footing is a moot point, but what is unquestionably interesting is the manner in which we can analyse the Highland and Lowland origins of these Scots ﬁgures. In each case, they would have been well aware of the geographical, ethnic, religious, cultural and linguistic divisions within Scotland itself. We have here several examples of Scots dealing with native Americans. Another would be James Grant of Ballindalloch, governor of East Florida in the 1760s, and active oﬃcer in American theatres in the Seven Years’ War and the War of American Independence. Yet another characteristic of these Scots is that they had, in modern parlance, educational and cultural ‘hinterland’. It is striking that many of them secured an education in disciplines other than the purely military. Among these governors, many had an interest in economic botany and agriculture. One or two had some medical and botanical training. The law and practical skills like engineering featured in their education. Often these attainments and skills were put to use in their military and administrative activities. These combinations of expertise mark them out as distinctive ﬁgures representing an educational and cultural climate in Scotland that was, perhaps, unique in its period. However, as the essays in this collection make clear, it would be wholly inaccurate to see Scots as representing some kind of ‘liberal’, enlightened stream of governorship. While it is true that ﬁgures like Keith became the subject of a favourable, even romantic myth-making, others were notably autocratic, spurning advice and doing their best to confound colonial assemblies. Thus, they oﬀer examples of brutal approaches as well as diplomatic ﬁnesse in their relations with indigenous peoples. As well as being in the business of patronage (though often with limited power and eﬀect), they were also in pursuit of personal fortune. The acquisition of land was a key aspect of their aspirations in the Baltic and the American or Caribbean colonies. They were slave-owners and often opposed legislative amelioration of slavery. They were involved in witch-hunts and in the brutal suppression of revolt. Of course, given the technologies and moral conditions of the age, these were generally the necessary requirements of survival on a turbulent frontier.

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Another intriguing factor which emerges from these essays is the relationship of many of these ﬁgures to particular locales within Scotland. Here one can move beyond mere consideration of Highlands and Lowlands, with their alleged distinctions between the communal and the individual, the military and the commercial. It is indeed possible to home in on more speciﬁc towns and estates. Connections with Glasgow, Edinburgh, or Linlithgow, or again with estates and groups of estates reﬂecting particular kin relationships were clearly important in forging attitudes and in creating patronage networks. The concept of ‘municipal imperialism’ is a familiar one in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is suggestive to consider whether there was a degree of ‘burgh imperialism’ at an earlier period. The commercial relationships of Glasgow, already well formed in the seventeenth century, but due for a tremendous growth in the eighteenth, are particularly interesting here. Figures with a connection with Glasgow, or with its university, cannot have been unaware of the commercial and social networks that such a relationship entailed. Often patronage ﬂowed within these burgh and estate channels. We are also becoming aware of other networks which oﬀer a degree of analytical continuity with later periods. One is the signiﬁcance of a variety of societies which manifested themselves in both metropolitan and colonial contexts. Often these were speciﬁcally Scottish and cultural. Sometimes they were intellectual, as in the Society of Arts. But above all, masonic associations were important milieux for social and political interaction. Freemasonry is well established as a prime imperial phenomenon, as characteristic of the eighteenth as of the nineteenth centuries. As well as its social advantages, it oﬀered a complex of orientalist, ‘craft’, architectural, and internationalist ideas which provided an apparently relevant and useful ideological basis for imperial rule. It is striking that the Scots were so prominent in freemasonry and so frequently established lodges wherever they went. To the aﬃliations of town, society, and lodge, one can add education, regiment, and, once again, kin. The writers of these essays and the editors of the volume pose the question whether Scottishness mattered. Generally, they come to the conclusion that it did. What is certainly the case is that, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as in the later period, Scots were identiﬁed as such. The endemic Scottophobia of eighteenthcentury London, so prominent in the era of Bute, Wilkes and Hogarth,

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but manifesting itself at other times too, had its peripheral expression in the colonies. Scots were not only clearly demarcated as such, but were seen as representing the problems of home, including divided loyalties, strongly stated religious divisions, and a threatening clannishness. Yet, through it all, they knew that their bread was buttered on the British side. As Hamilton points out, these ﬁgures clearly represent the many layerings of identity which were possible in the colonial context. ‘Othering’ is a highly complex business, very far from the severely binary model to which some scholars have recourse. These case studies oﬀer evidence for a number of propositions that are rightly taking hold of a modern historiography. The ﬁrst is that Scots were highly active, both at elite and at more ordinary levels, in the military events and commercial activities of the Baltic and eastern Europe, among other places, well before they became such notable exponents of British imperialism. At the same time they were at least making inroads into the trade and military/administrative complexes of the English Empire, while attempting, if usually vainly, to create an empire of their own. We should note, therefore, a degree of continuity between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The notion of a supposed considerable historical caesura of 1707 receives a further dent. Secondly, the essays in this volume indicate the extent to which any separation between imperial and domestic history is essentially unreal. The two have to be comprehended together, both in terms of their economic, social, and intellectual, essentials, and also in terms of matters of identity and self-perception. Thirdly, these international and imperial connections oﬀer many insights into the dynamic of the frontiers of metropolitan society, as well as the inter-relations of diﬀerent regions of Scotland, of Scotland and Ireland, and of Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom. Fourthly, they reveal the manner in which the Scottish ‘other’ set about establishing, or in some cases after the ’45, re-establishing its credibility in respect of the dominant English society through imperial service, often military. Although these relations were often turbulent, competitive and even oppositional (particularly in English eyes), the cultural foundations were being laid for the strange emergence of the Scots as the acceptable face of the imperial alliance, oﬀering skills, muscle, and alleged ﬁghting prowess that were to be such a characteristic of the later British Empire. More case studies, however, are needed before we can make advances in further areas of interpretation. We are still unclear as

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to whether Scottish ‘entryism’ represented remarkable success or in a sense a degree of failure. Do these overseas activities demonstrate that there were relatively few opportunities at home, particularly for younger sons of aristocratic families? Do they indicate that Scots were successful in acquiring military and gubernatorial posts faut de mieux, that they secured jobs because senior English ﬁgures did not want them, preferring the comforts and political inﬂuence of home? There is evidence either way on this, with some undoubted English jealousies for Scots success after 1763, as well as English refusals to take up jobs that they were reasonably happy for Scots to hold. Were the Scots viewed as having particularly valuable skills and abilities or not? Was their education and intellectual milieu signiﬁcant in any way? Or were these developments merely a function of political patronage, perquisites of London ‘interests’ seeking to consolidate power, objectives that Scots were all too eager to pander to in order to feather their own often depleted nests? And how far were the speciﬁc requirements of burgh and regional landed objectives vital in this? Finally (though this list is far from exclusive) to what extent was there a distinctive Scots approach to indigenous peoples, to the problems of frontier, to the aspirations of assemblies, and to religious relationships within the colonies? These questions are probably always going to have mixed answers, but it is only through the kind of case study oﬀered in this volume that the lineaments of an answer can be discerned at all. This collection of important essays, by an international group of scholars, oﬀers an important leap in the understanding of these current and highly germane issues. It also marks a signiﬁcant contribution to the diaspora studies which have become such an important characteristic of post-colonial studies. Just as migrations, as well as military and gubernatorial careers, proceeded by geographical steps, so is modern imperial scholarship marking out key and dynamic stages, replacing the old imperial historiographical certainties and simplicities with a new complexity and multi-faceted approaches. Of course what is appropriate for this generation may not suit the historical requirements of future ones, but at least these modes of analysis reveal as much about ourselves at the beginning of the twenty-ﬁrst century as they do about these actors in the imperial past.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The editors would like to thank the Arts and Divinity Faculty Research Committee of the University of Aberdeen and the University Principal’s Young Scholar’s Travel Fund for ﬁnancial assistance in running the one-day conference from which this collection is derived. We would also like to express our appreciation to Professors Allan Macinnes, Paul Dukes and Bruce Lenman for their plenary contributions and suggestions and similarly to Dr David Worthington for his paper on the day but which, unfortunately, cannot be included. The production of this book could not have been completed without the positive input of numerous colleagues. We warmly thank Alison Duncan for her comments on the text and for compiling the index. Alison Sandison and Jenny Johnston were both diligent and patient while working on the maps. Further, Drs David Ditchburn, Alexia Grosjean and Douglas Hamilton all contributed positive reﬁnements to the introduction and areas of the text. Finally, we are pleased to have had the support of Professor John Mackenzie, University of Stirling, who also provided this collection with a most insightful foreword. To you all our most heartfelt thanks.

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INTRODUCTION

This collection examines the role of Scottish governors over a two hundred year period of history which includes Scotland’s last century as an independent kingdom and ﬁrst century as a component nation, along with England, of the new United Kingdom of Great Britain. The aim of this book is to highlight more speciﬁc aspects of Scotland’s trajectory within the general phenomenon of European expansion from 1600 to 1800. Scotland’s imperial experience during this period was one of apparent extremes. Until 1707 and its incorporation within the United Kingdom, Scotland possessed neither a mercantile, nor a territorial empire for any meaningful length of time. Thereafter, it obtained unimpeded access to England’s substantial overseas trade and territories, save for the monopolies exercised by the Hudson’s Bay and East India Companies. Given Scotland’s geographic situation, it is unfair to contrast this seventeenth-century lack of colonies or colonial commerce with the success of England and the other great Protestant power, the Dutch Republic.1 However, even in comparison with states of a similar population and northerly European situation, such as Denmark-Norway and Sweden, Scotland appears a failure in imperial terms.2 One explanation for this failure arguably lies in the process of state formation. Although the Stuart regime had unquestionably increased its authority by the later 1630s, ‘the coercive powers of the state were minimal,’ especially in the localities, where legal authority was controlled largely by the nobility and landed gentry.3 The country was viewed by every one of its seventeenth-century monarchs as unruly and frustratingly prone

1

R. Mitchison, Lordship to Patronage: Scotland, 1603–1745 (London: 1983), 1–2. For an earlier work that stressed the failure of Scotland’s formal imperialism see G. Donaldson, The Scots Overseas (London: 1966), 38. After several decades of emphases on the country’s progress and development, the extent of Scotland’s relatively poor international standing and commercial performance by the 1690s has been reiterated recently. See C.A. Whatley, Scottish Society, 1707–1830 (Manchester: 2000), chapter 1. 3 K.M. Brown, Kingdom or Province? Scotland and the Regal Union, 1603–1715 (London: 1992), 2. 2

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to internal political disorder.4 Above all, Scotland was not a state with a centralised form of government. It did not produce experienced gubernatorial personnel, skilled in the arts of provincial administration, of the kind required in intractable frontier localities. Nor, in the absence of an overseas Scottish empire, was there an opportunity for a distinct culture of Scottish governorship to emerge in the period prior to 1707. Yet, as the ﬁrst three chapters of this volume demonstrate, Scottish governors operating within an imperial environment were an explicitly acknowledged feature of the country’s seventeenth-century experience. The careers, policies and backgrounds of Scottish governors in the eighteenth century also provide a means of addressing current debates regarding the British Empire. By the 1970s and 1980s concerns had emerged that imperial history had lost its sense of direction and intellectual justiﬁcation. Decolonisation between the late 1940s to 1970s had witnessed the emergence of ‘national’ historiographies, as new Asian and African countries sought to provide their nations with meaning and legitimacy. Building upon a well-established tradition of American colonial history, which stressed indigenous rather than metropolitan inﬂuences, these developments undermined the concept of an overarching British imperial history.5 Meanwhile, the fragmentation of imperial historiography found a resonance in domestic British history, as historians began to question the impact of Empire upon the mother country itself. Instead, socio-economic, labour, urban, feminist and, indeed, national histories in Ireland, Wales and Scotland developed sophisticated academies. Only in the 1980s did this revision begin to be challenged as a new generation of historians asserted the need to recognise imperial expansion as a factor

4

For discussion of the various ‘problems’ facing central government over the century, see J. Goodare and M. Lynch, ‘James VI: Universal King?’, in idem, eds., The Reign of James VI (East Linton: 2000), 4–6, 9–12, 21–27; A.I. Macinnes, Clanship, Commerce and the House of Stuart, 1603–1788 (East Linton: 1996), 46–51; P. Hopkins, Glencoe and the End of the Highland War (Edinburgh: 1986), 41–44, 56–9; R. Lee, ‘The Scottish Parliament and the Restored Monarchy’, in J.R. Young, ed., Celtic Dimensions of the British Civil Wars (Edinburgh: 1997), 187–91, 198; W.J. Riley, King William and the Scottish Politicians (Edinburgh: 1979), 3–8. 5 For discussion of imperial history’s de-emphasis in the face of alternative perspectives, see D. Kennedy, ‘Imperial History and Post-Colonial Theory’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 29 (1996), 345–8; D.K. Fieldhouse, ‘Can HumptyDumpty be put back together again? Imperial History in the 1980s’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 12 (1984), 9–10.

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that shaped England, the United Kingdom and Ireland.6 Increasingly, it has been acknowledged that this seemingly divergent stress on overseas and domestic British exceptionalism need not be detrimental to imperial studies, and that historiographic ‘disaggregation can help re-integration’.7 This more sophisticated evaluation of how colonies developed, and then interacted with the component parts of the European homelands, can ultimately facilitate a better understanding of both imperial core and colonial periphery. This collection examines Scottish governors with this approach in mind. A governor was the oﬃcial charged with representing and defending imperial authority and its interests within dependent territories. While their duties varied from empire to empire and over time, there were certain basic tasks all governors were expected to fulﬁl, whether stationed in the Ukraine, northern Norway, Germany, North America or the Caribbean. While often limited by constitutional custom, governors were the executive oﬃcer responsible for ensuring that a territory accepted imperial authority, was adequately defended, and was generally proﬁtable. As with their European counterparts, governors of English and British colonies supervised legislation, acted as head of the local judiciary, and initiated (although did not necessarily levy or control) the imposition of taxation.8 Central to their remit was their role as commander of the armed forces, a responsibility that explains why many soldiers gravitated into such proconsular posts.9 The extent of a governor’s duties was thus considerable and diverse. Yet their responsibilities extended beyond the formal functions of government in the narrow sense. They had also to ensure that territories were suﬃciently populated with those loyal 6 P.J. Marshall, Imperial Britain: The Creighton Lecture, 1994 (London: 1994), 1–19. For a useful summary on the general place of imperial history and its relationship with domestic British history, see D. Cannadine, Ornamentalism: How the British Saw Their Empire (London: 2001), xv–xviii. 7 J.M. Mackenzie, Empires of Nature and the Nature of Empires: Imperialism, Scotland and the Environment (East Linton: 1997), 12. 8 For a summary of the authority and duties of British colonial governors (which can generally be taken as indicative of the tasks most imperial governors were required to implement), see L.W. Labree, Royal Government in America: A Study of the British Colonial System before 1783 (London: 1930), 92–107. For often severe strictures and weakness in the Governor’s position, see O.M. Dickerson, American Colonial Government, 1696–1765 (New York: 1965), 154–58. 9 For a particularly strong emphasis on the military nature of imperial governorship, see S.S. Webb, The Governors-General: The English Army and the Deﬁnition of the Empire, 1569–1681 (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: 1979), 4–6.

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to the imperial centre. This was accomplished either through sympathetic treatment of existing communities, or, in the case of North America and the Caribbean, the transfer of emigrants from the mother country. Viable population levels generated manpower and a diversiﬁed economy capable of paying for the colony’s administrative and military expenditure. The governor was, therefore, something of a social engineer, charged with developing the governmental, military, commercial and social resources of his territory.10 Because they were involved in such a broad range of activities, governors provided an entry or starting point for Scots seeking to participate in overseas expansion. In exercising their extended remit they often commenced or, alternatively, consolidated Scottish political, military and commercial contact with a wide range of territories. As Steve Murdoch highlights, the successful maritime career of Andrew Mowatt acted as a spearhead for wider Scottish involvement in DanishNorwegian imperialism. Likewise, Douglas Hamilton shows that the administration of Robert Melville in the Ceded Islands after 1763 facilitated a wider Scottish presence in Britain’s newest Caribbean colonies. As Alex Murdoch and Robert Cain also reveal, governors like Glen and Dinwiddie blurred the line between government and commerce, often providing favourable commercial protection and opportunities to less privileged individuals. The regimes of governors can, therefore, illuminate more than just narrow issues of formal administration. They provide a manageable case group for addressing some of the historiographical fractures and neglect of imperial diversity discussed above. Ultimately, examining Scots on a variety of imperial frontiers highlight how a seemingly ‘disaggregated’ and relatively distinctive area, such as Scotland, operated and integrated within wider imperial polities. Of course the frontier is a well-established aspect of imperial studies. It has long been seen as forcing adaptation in local colonial societies, most notably in North America, that led eventually to marked social and economic diﬀerences to the imperial core. The classic characteristics of this new culture—self-reliance, relative egalitarianism and individualism—often caused problems for the central authorities as colonists increasingly interpreted their interests diﬀerently from 10 For the range of speciﬁc instructions given to governors, including military, economic, political and legal objectives, see C.W. Labaree, ed., Royal Instructions to British Colonial Governors, 1670–1776, vols. 1–2 (London: 1935), passim.

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those of the mother country.11 The dominance of this essentially American interpretation of frontier theory was such that for many years the British Empire’s frontier seemed to have no meaningful impact upon the home society. It was simply an agency shaping North America, not Britain.12 Where frontier theory was applied elsewhere, as in India, it tended also to be viewed as an overseas phenomenon with no direct bearing on the metropolis itself.13 Such an analysis is indicative of the disconnection between the imperial centre and overseas possessions noted previously. It is also insensitive to the fact that frontiers are now understood to have existed in a multitude of political, economic, social and cultural forms. Indeed, historians have long since recognised the concept of the internal frontier within the British states.14 Such frontiers diﬀered radically from their colonial counterparts. Domestic areas, for instance, experienced greater degrees of negotiation and accommodation with the expansionist English core.15 Moreover, Britain’s internal frontiers developed as increasingly ambiguous ‘provincial’ regions which under certain circumstances, and certainly in relation to overseas colonies, altered their status to that of ‘metropolitan’.16 Yet for all their obvious diﬀerences, it is useful to connect these distinct types of frontier localities

11

The literature on the American West is vast and not the focus of this volume. For a classic treatment see F.J. Turner, The Frontier in American History (New York: 1920). Also D.E. Leach, The Northern Colonial Frontier, 1607–1763 (New York: 1966), 16–17, 88–89, 134–35. 12 Ironically, a point well made in a study of the Czarist Empire’s eastern frontier. See G.V. Lantzeﬀ and R.A. Pierce, Eastward to Empire: Exploration and Conquest on the Russian Open Frontier to 1750 (Montreal: 1973), 228. 13 J.S. Galbraith, ‘The ‘Turbulent Frontier’ as a factor in British Expansion’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 11 (1959–60), 151–168. 14 M. Hechter, Internal Colonialism: The Celtic Fringe in British National Development, 1536–1966 (London: 1975), 62–81; J.H. Ohlmeyer, ‘‘‘Civilizinge of those Rude Partes”: Colonization within Britain and Ireland, 1580–1640s’, in N. Canny, ed., The Oxford History of the British Empire, vol. I: The Origins of Empire: British Overseas Enterprise to the Close of the Seventeenth century (Oxford: 1998), 124–27. 15 John Brewer has noted that even nominally ‘core’ areas like Ireland experienced versions of frontier administration and that, ‘the heavy handedness of British rule increased the further it extended beyond the metropolis’. See J. Brewer, The Sinews of Power: War, Money and the English State, 1688–1783 (London: 1989), xviii–xix. For recent discussion on the idea of ‘colonial frontier accommodation’, but also the need to stress the largely one sided nature of this relationship see M. Daunton and R. Halpern, eds., Empire and Others: British Encounters with Indigenous Peoples, 1600–1850 (Philadelphia: 1999), 53–54, 127. 16 For an argument that ‘provincial’ areas were more receptive to cultural, political and social assimilation see J. Clive & B. Bailyn, ‘England’s Cultural Provinces:

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at home and abroad. Doing so reveals how recently incorporated or contested societies within the metropole, such as Scotland, operated in relation to more distant territories. As such, they underscore the multiple origins and diverse levels of overseas and domestic integration that shaped the imperialism of the British Isles. Scotland’s altered status after the regal union of 1603, and how this resonated with the situation in Europe, illustrates how diﬀering forms of expansion could operate alongside the more obvious imperialism of countries like England. For example, the course of seventeenth-century state formation created problems for political authorities in the management of their territorial boundaries both at home and abroad. Precisely which monarchical or representative institutions formed the primary mechanism of sovereignty could determine whether aristocratic or urban elites ‘appropriated’ oﬃcial tasks like taxraising, military mobilisation, the central bureaucracy, and local administration. When such appropriation occurred, and it was most prone to do so during conditions of international war and imperial expansion, a ‘patrimonial’ state emerged. In such circumstances, aristocratic elites could gain hereditary control over the state functions mentioned above. Monarchs in diﬀerent kingdoms found that one method by which they could prevent this domination was to utilise dependent foreigners to preserve the royal grip, or at least lessen the tendency towards elite appropriation. Amongst the most important agencies of state was the army, an institution that naturally played a signiﬁcant role on imperial frontiers. In 1625, Christian IV of Denmark-Norway discovered that his military mobilisation against the Holy Roman Empire heightened his nobility’s demands for an increase in tax concessions in return for their support. In these circumstances, enlisting soldiers from a dynastically linked, religiously similar and diplomatically allied Protestant state seemed the option with the least distasteful implications for the domestic constitution. In Sweden the scenario was quite diﬀerent. The fourth chamber of the country’s Riksdag represented the wealthier peasantry, who often

Scotland and America’, William and Mary, 9, 3rd series (1954), 200–1; B. Bailyn and D. Morgan, ‘Introduction’, in idem, eds., Strangers within the Realm: Cultural Margins of the First British Empire (London: 1991), 1, 7; N.C. Landsman, ‘The Provinces and the Empire: Scotland, the American colonies and the development of British provincial identity’, in L. Stone, ed., An Imperial State at War: Britain from 1689 to 1815 (London: 1994), 260.

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criticised the cost of the monarchy’s imperialist policies in northern Germany. The Swedish monarchy sought to counterbalance the inﬂuence of the fourth chamber through other social elements that would ally with its overseas agenda. Thus, Gustav II Adolf and his successors had good reasons to employ foreigners and to incorporate an alien elite within an expanded service aristocracy that, due to its lack of domestic roots, was ultra-loyal to the political centre.17 State development and balancing external expansion with domestic stability help explain why Scots could often be found in substantial numbers on the frontiers of foreign empires. Murdoch demonstrates that, following the appointment of several Stuart-patronised Scots from 1589 as governors in Denmark-Norway perhaps as many as 300 Scottish oﬃcers were serving in Christian IV’s army by the mid 1620s. Similarly, Alexia Grosjean reveals that the large number of Scottish governors operating in Swedish territory represented only the elite of a large body of military emigrants, totalling around 30,000. In other words, the emergence of governors from a Scottish background could either presage or parallel a wider pattern of participation within the administrative and military machines of empires. Consequently, the notion that seventeenth-century Scotland was an imperial failure requires reconsideration. It is certainly the case that the country neither possessed its own colonies nor secured maritime control over commercially lucrative trade routes and colonial commodities. Yet, using the model of a formal ‘national’ empire to evaluate the success of imperial expansion is clearly an unsatisfactory approach. It limits the imperial experience to states like Portugal, England, Spain and the United Provinces. However, these countries had entirely diﬀerent constitutional experiences from Scotland. Most obviously, they were endowed with an executive (either monarchical or oligarchic) which pursued a proactive and often aggressive foreign policy of acquiring formally recognised empires. After 1603, however, Scotland had no such leadership. In this respect it was handicapped during precisely the decade in which the United Provinces and England embarked on a crucial phase of oceanic expansion in North America and Asia. Crucially, the Stuart monarchy had to consider England’s overseas ambitions when developing strategies for

17 For a summary of these processes see T. Ertman, Birth of the Leviathan: Building States and Regimes in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: 1997), 8–10, 309–14.

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their northern kingdom. It needed to calculate carefully how it could manage any Scottish tendency towards similar expansion. Such considerations led to Nova Scotia being ceded to France by Charles I in 1632 largely for English diplomatic reasons. By contrast, a Scottish company founded in late 1634 to trade with Guinea in West Africa received formal support from Charles. Its failure was ultimately ensured by Portuguese actions rather than by nefarious English fears of competition.18 A more blatant sacriﬁce of potential Scottish colonial-oceanic trade occurred when James VI and I rescinded a charter granted to Sir James Cunningham in 1618 to erect a Scottish East India Company. Again, this was largely in order to avoid alienating the ﬁnancially powerful English East India Company.19 Yet, although doomed, these ventures demonstrate that Scots were eager to engage at both an ideological and a practical level with imperial projects organised along exclusively Scottish lines.20 The Stuart response was to sponsor an informal mode of external Scottish expansion which would ensure the practical beneﬁts of imperialism for Scots, without the creation of an actual empire that might conﬂict with that of England. Scotland’s distinct position vis-à-vis its own executive strengthens the case for exploring alternative models of imperialism that did not necessarily rely upon the existence of a nation’s own formal empire. This volume argues that large-scale overseas Scottish service was just such an alternative form of empire by proxy. Indeed, the presence of Scottish governors in positions of considerable authority in European empires show the strategy was not without success. The usual perception of seventeenth-century Scots engaged with foreign empires tends to emphasise erroneously the ‘mercenary’ nature of their

18

R. Law, ‘The First Scottish Guinea Company, 1634–9’, Scottish Historical Review, 76 (1997), 185–202. 19 P. Lawson, The East India Company: A History (London: 1993), 33. For a glimpse at the routes employed by the Scots to access the East India trade after the collapse of Cunningham’s scheme see S. Murdoch, ‘The Good, The Bad and The Anonymous: A Preliminary Survey of the Scots in the Dutch East Indies 1612–1707’, Northern Scotland, vol. 22 (2002), 63–76. 20 It is noticeable, although inexplicable, that even those historians of the British Empire most alive to Scotland’s distinctive seventeenth-century experience still tend to assume either a lack of oceanic vision or alternatively date colonial impulses to post-1660, or even Darien. See N. Canny, ‘The Origins of Empire: An Introduction’, in The Oxford History, I, 18–19; D. Armitage, The Ideological Origins of the British Empire (Cambridge: 2000), 158–64.

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participation.21 However, recent research has highlighted the wealth of alternative motivations, including political and religious aﬃliation, as well as direct prompting from their own monarch, which encouraged Scots to serve in foreign empires.22 This seriously challenges the well-rehearsed assertion that the country lacked any experience of empire in the century before the British union of 1707. Steve Murdoch and Rune Hagen demonstrate just how attractive Stuart-sponsored service in Denmark-Norway became during the early quarter of the seventeenth-century. The appointment of 20 Scots as len governors underlines how this avenue of employment provided expatriate Scots with substantial political and social gains, even in peacetime. This total equates almost exactly with the number of Scots appointed as governors of the 13 North American colonies between 1707 and 1776.23 In her chapter, Grosjean deals with the most signiﬁcant Scottish colonisation of a seventeenthcentury European empire. There are two striking features about this particular Scottish-Swedish link. Firstly, its scale: 30 Scots served as governors of important provinces such as Livonia and Pomerania, which the Swedes acquired during a phase of intensive expansion from 1629–48. This does not, moreover, include the numerous lesser military commandants and garrison fort commanders of Scottish extraction [See Maps 2–3]. The second point relates to the geographic and national focus of this recruitment. Why did Scots choose to serve Sweden in such numbers? Crucially, a contrast can be drawn between the ad hoc and often transitory service that characterised employment with the Oldenburg dynasty and the more regulated rewards on oﬀer from their Swedish Vasa counterparts. This is not to underestimate the very real beneﬁts of Danish-Norwegian employment. Hagen illustrates the example of John Cunningham and the almost vice-regal status and prestige he acquired and then projected through his oﬃcial title of Hans Kønigh, which eﬀectively meant that people talking about him were calling him ‘his majesty’. Cunningham’s plenitude of power over a huge area invites general comparison with 21 The mercenary nature of Scots in foreign service has been robustly challenged in S. Murdoch, Britain, Denmark-Norway and the House of Stuart, 1603–1660 (East Linton: 2003), 208. 22 See the various chapters on the subject in S. Murdoch, Scotland and the Thirty Years’ War, 1618–1648 (Leiden: 2001). 23 J.W. Raimo, Biographical Directory of American Colonial and Revolutionary Governors, 1607–1789 (Westport: 1980).

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the Scottish Crown’s own regional powerbrokers, the earls of Huntly and Argyll. Even allowing for the crucial diﬀerence that Cunningham’s position was not hereditary, it is hard to conceive how he could have felt anything other than that he had gained immeasurable social prestige from Oldenburg aggrandisement on Denmark-Norway’s northern frontier. The ﬁrst three chapters in this collection suggest that while the Scandinavian kingdoms appeared to oﬀer similar opportunities, Sweden in fact held out better prospects. Although Scots in Denmark-Norway, like Alexander Durham, were recipients of substantial len, this was often in lieu of a paid salary. Social and material gains, meanwhile, such as ennoblement and the grant of estates to Scots, was overly reliant on the inﬂuence of the Stuart court at Copenhagen. Once this waned, however, subsequent Scottish governors in Oldenburg service were concentrated in the less remunerative occupation of last ditch frontier defence. In Sweden, by contrast, the promotion structure was more systematic. Scots could reasonably expect to progress through the oﬃcer ranks to the post of colonel. Only then was it usual to receive a governorship. Promotion prospects within the Swedish military compensated for the lack of British-Stuart court sponsorship which characterised the careers of Scots in DenmarkNorway. In summary, the avenues whereby Scots emerged as military-administrative personnel within the Scandinavian kingdoms reveal something of the Scottish response to a lack of empire as normally deﬁned. In Denmark-Norway there was Stuart court sponsorship of Scots, while Sweden was characterised by a relatively freelance, unoﬃcial pattern of military entrepreneurship. Unburdened by the vicissitudes of Stuart-Oldenburg diplomacy, informal Scottish participation in Swedish imperialism was unquestionably more successful. A focus on the material beneﬁts of military service suggests that Scottish overseas activity was characterised by its non-ideological, mercenary nature. This has been rigorously challenged in recent research on seventeenth century Scottish military involvement in Europe.24 Many contemporaries believed that Vasa Sweden, through its all-out assault on the Holy Roman Empire’s inﬂuence in north-

24

Murdoch, ed., Scotland and the Thirty Years’ War, passim.

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ern Germany, was the true saviour of Protestant Europe.25 Given their military presence in Swedish service during the Thirty Years’ War, Scots could claim a meaningful role in this northern European version of Protestant imperialism. Indeed, it is telling that in the following century John Ker of Kersland, when denying Scotland’s need for a British union as part of a common Protestant defence, cited the earlier Swedish-Scottish link. Here was evidence, he argued, of his country’s independent and disproportionate contribution to the Protestant ideal of empire.26 The European perspective suggests that the notion of Scotland’s imperial ‘failure’ rests upon two assumptions. The ﬁrst is that from 1600 until the consolidation of the Swedish Empire in the 1670s, Scots automatically took an Anglocentric view of imperial development and sought their future largely within an English orbit. Secondly, Scots assumed that the discrete ‘national’ empire, as constructed by their southern neighbour, was the most eﬀective model of expansion and to be copied accordingly. Seventeenth-century Scots certainly hoped to replicate the overseas expansion of their European counterparts. However, the country’s elites also understood that the regal union made oﬃcial, executive-sponsored colonialism diﬃcult and ultimately impossible to achieve. As a consequence, Scots experimented with various other methods of expansion. Notwithstanding surrogate Scottish empires in Europe and purely Scottish eﬀorts like Darien, there was also enthusiasm for attempting ventures on a British stage. The most prominent example in this respect was, of course, in Ulster. From a Scottish perspective the plantations commenced in 1609–10 formed a westward parallel to the mass movement of Scots to Sweden and other Baltic destinations, such as PolandLithuania.27 Yet Ulster remained very much an English possession.

25 S. Pincus, ‘The English Debate Over Universal Monarchy’, 37–8 and J. Robertson, ‘Empire and Union: Two Concepts of the Early Modern European Political Order’, 17–18, in J. Robertson, ed., A Union for Empire: Political Thought and the British Union of 1707 (Cambridge: 1995). 26 J. Ker, The Memoirs of John Ker of Kersland in North Britain Esq. relating to Politicks, Trade, and History (London: 1726), 116, 134–5. 27 M. Perceval-Maxwell, The Scottish Migration to Ulster in the Reign of James I (London: 1973); R. Gillespie, Colonial Ulster: The Settlement of East Ulster, 1600–1641 (Cork: 1985); Ohlmeyer, ‘“Civilizinge of those Rude Partes”: Colonization within Britain and Ireland, 1580s–1640s’, 139–40.

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Administrative arrangements, such as sheriﬀs, Justices of the Peace and the church establishment, were unremittingly English in character. Crucially, therefore, the province was never the equal partnership for which Scots hoped. Moreover, although never hermetically sealed and always assimilating with their English co-colonisers, ‘the Scots planters in Ulster sought to compensate for this inferiority by constructing a Scottish microcosm within the larger English dominated plantation’.28 This distinctive pattern of informal expansion by Scots re-merged in the Restoration period. In an eﬀort to control their three kingdoms both Charles II and James VII & II sought to cultivate centres of political inﬂuence that made them less reliant on the English Parliament. The result was something akin to the resurrection of the court-based sponsorship of Scots evident earlier in Denmark-Norway. The crucial diﬀerence was that this courtly imperialism now directed the Scots to the Atlantic. The resultant settlements in South Carolina and East Jersey in 1682 and 1685 demonstrate that lessons had been learned from Ulster. In North America there was an emphasis on a separate government system based on Scottish law. While the short life of the Carolina settlement at Stuartstown was due to Spanish counter-measures, the vulnerability of the East Jersey colony became clear after 1689 and the truimph of English parliamentary interests. This manifested itself in 1696 when the new Navigation Act cast doubt on the legality of Scots holding governorships in English North America. Shortly afterwards East Jersey’s Scottish governor was removed and replaced with an individual promising to end the formal Scottish presence in the colony’s administration.29 The failure of Stuart sponsorship of Scottish imperialism on the east coast of North America stands in marked contrast to the success of the less direct Scottish colonisation of the Hudson’s Bay Company. It is instructive that James did not use his interest with the company’s governor, Prince Rupert, to oppose the Scot John Nixon, a client

28

This important observation is made in Canny, ‘The Origins of Empire: An Introduction’, The Oxford History, I, 13–15. 29 A.I. Macinnes, ‘Union failed, Union accomplished: the Irish union of 1703 and the Scottish union of 1707’, in K. Whelan & D. Keogh, ed., The making of the British-Irish Union of 1801 (Dublin: 2001), 74–5; T. Keith, ‘Scottish Trade with the Plantations before 1707’, Scottish History Review, 6 (1909), 33–45; N.C. Landsman, ‘The Middle Colonies: New Opportunities for Settlement, 1660–1700’, in Canny, The Oxford History, I, 366–67.

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of Shaftesbury, from being made governor of overseas operations in 1679.30 Nixon initiated the wider use of Scottish personnel within the company, ensuring that as early as 1708 the systematic recruitment of Orcadians had been ﬁrmly established.31 If the earlier Scandinavian situation is compared with developments in Ulster and the Atlantic, an overall pattern emerges. Informal networking by Scots, often with a governor at their centre, developed as a compensatory tactic for the lack of legally secure access to empire. This opportunistic but ﬂexible approach to imperial participation emerged as the central lesson of Scotland’s seventeenth-century overseas experience. The question remains whether these methods carried over into the radically diﬀerent context of British imperialism. The 1707 Union represented a very real break with previous conditions, not least because it provided Scots with a fully legalised position within the new British Empire. The scale and scope of Scottish participation within British imperialism has been described as ‘quite startling’.32 The Scottish presence was evident in many diﬀerent imperial areas and in diﬀerent forms of imperial activity, giving it both a quantitative and qualitative character that need not be elaborated upon here.33 Suﬃce to say that seventeenth-century Scotland’s problem of lacking a recognised place within European imperialism had

30 Being the son of a Scot himself, Elizabeth of Bohemia, and having commanded Scottish ships and crews at sea in 1649 as well as troops in Germany and at Worcester in 1651, Rupert was actually quite well disposed to the Scots. For his command of Scottish mariners see R.C. Anderson, ed., The Journals of Sir Thomas Allin, 1660 –1678 (2 vols., London: 1890), II, 214. For more on Rupert with the Scottish army, or with the Hudson’s Bay Company and Royal African Company see P. Morrah, Prince Rupert of the Rhine (London: 1976), 277, 382–386, 425. 31 E.E. Rich, The History of the Hudson’s Bay Company, 1670 –1870, I (London: 1958), 82–3, 389. 32 J.M. Mackenzie, ‘Empire and National Identities: The Case of Scotland’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, sixth series, 8 (Cambridge: 1998), 221. 33 The diversity of Scottish involvement in British imperialism has produced an equally diverse body of literature. See J.M. Price, ‘The Imperial Economy, 1700–1776’, in P.J. Marshall, ed., The Oxford History of the British Empire, vol. II: The Eighteenth-century (Oxford: 1998), 92–5; B. Bailyn, ‘Voyagers to the West’: Emigration from Britain to America on the Eve of the Revolution (London: 1987), 59, 93; J. Horn, ‘British Diaspora: Emigration from Britain, 1680–1815’, in Marshall, The Oxford History, II, 31; A.L. Karras, Sojourners in the Sun: Scottish Emigrants in Jamaica and the Chesapeake, 1740–1800 (London: 1992), 11, 125; P.J. Marshall, East Indian Fortunes: The British in Bengal in the Eighteenth-century (Oxford: 1976), 12–13; D. Hancock, Citizens of the World: London Merchants and the integration of the British Atlantic community, 1735–1785 (Cambridge: 1995), 44–57; J. Riddy, ‘Warren Hastings: Scotland’s Benefactor?’, in G. Carnall & C. Nicholson, eds., The Impeachment of Warren Hastings (Edinburgh: 1989), 34–7;

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been solved. Yet some elements of continuity persisted, including the fact that the imperial world remained, like Ulster, English by tradition and practice. As noted in the Cambridge History of the British Empire, it was ‘chieﬂy from England that the methods used in making our empire have been derived’.34 Because colonial government was overwhelmingly English in character, the Empire can be seen, in one respect, as an Anglo-British, rather than as a British entity. When active in its conﬁnes Scots had to operate with a dual administrative mentality. These were Anglo-British abroad and distinctively Scottish legal and political systems north of the border. This point is emphasised by Hanson, who argues that this aﬀected the emphasis Scots placed on certain types of imperial patronage.35 Since none of Scotland’s distinctive civic institutions had any direct constitutional authority within the Empire, a governor’s Scottishness was arguably irrelevant. Yet how governors obtained their appointments, and how they fared overseas reveal the means by which the numerically insigniﬁcant and initially marginalised Scots were able to colonise England’s Empire. By 1763–4 the opposition press in London was using an impolitic series of gubernatorial appointments by John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, to argue that the number of Scots within both domestic and overseas administration was excessive. As Hamilton and Mackillop note, in 1763 Scots were appointed as the ﬁrst British governors of the newly acquired colonies of Quebec, East and West Florida and the French Ceded Islands. Opposition elements argued that the natural consequence of this was a growth in authoritarianism, a charge that reﬂected the popular association of Scotland with Stuart despotism. By illustrating the accusation of Jacobitism against Gabriel Johnston, Hanson makes it clear this was in fact nothing new. Yet these largely hysterical reactions masked a more prosaic reality. Between 1707 and 1776 Britain’s 13 North American colonies had 22 governors hailing from a Scottish background—one in eight.36 In P.J. Marshall, ‘A Nation deﬁned by Empire, 1755–1776’, in A. Grant & K.J. Stringer, eds., Uniting the Kingdom? The making of British History (London: 1995), 210; L. Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837 (London: 1992), 126; J. Hayes, ‘Scottish Oﬃcers in the British Army, 1714–1763’, Scottish Historical Review, 37 (1958), 25; J.E. Cookson, The British Armed Nation, 1793–1815 (Oxford: 1997), 127. 34 J. Holland Rose, A.P. Newton & E.A. Benians, eds, The Cambridge History of the British Empire, I (Cambridge: 1929), 3. 35 B.H. McPherson, ‘Scots Law in the Colonies’, Juridical Review: The Law Journal of Scottish Universities, pt. 1 (1995), 191–207. 36 Raimo, Biographical Directory, passim.

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the nineteenth-century the number of governors of Scottish origin grew even higher. It has been calculated that between 1850 and 1939 they made up around one third of all colonial governors.37 Unlike the eighteenth century, however, this situation did not provoke any particular reaction, either positive or negative. This was because Britishness had become a far more established concept, with its sub-nationalities celebrated for providing a complementary inﬂuence on Britain’s overseas destiny.38 Yet simply illustrating that the claims made by the likes of John Wilkes had little basis in fact is rather missing the point. Anti-Scottish rhetoric was a form of a political discourse with a wide circulation in the eighteenth century. Ironically, it signiﬁed the increasing acceptance of Scots by leading elements in British society.39 Nevertheless, its legacy was that until the end of the century Scottish governors and Scots more generally remained prone to the accusation of authoritarianism. This hostile reaction was compounded by the sense that Scots were concentrated in imperial activities that undermined traditional English constitutional ideals, such as North American garrison government or the East India Company Board of Control.40 Alternatively, but in much the same vein, Scots seemed particularly evident in new frontier colonies such as Quebec and the French Ceded Islands that posed real challenges to established English methods of rule. The issue was not that the Scots were particularly numerous, but rather that their prominence on the Empire’s frontiers left them intimately associated with the most suspect innovations in colonial rule. Yet this relatively concentrated presence on the fringes of British imperialism was a crucial indicator of how Scotland’s integration was achieved, and it forms a common underlying theme to chapters six to ten. Scots never actually faced exclusion from any area of oﬃcial or private imperial endeavour, religious tests notwithstanding. It was equally true that established patterns of trade, as well as pre-existing echelons of government, continued to be dominated for decades after

37 The editors are grateful to Dr Robert Blyth of the National Maritime Museum, London, for highlighting this interesting change in attitudes towards Scots in imperial service. For a general list of British imperial governors see D.P. Henige, Colonial Governors from the Fifteenth century to the Present (Madison: 1970), 73–190. 38 R.J. Finlay, ‘The Rise and Fall of Popular Imperialism in Scotland, 1850–1950’, Scottish Geographical Magazine, 113 (1997), 16. 39 Colley, Britons, 121. 40 NAS, Melville Castle Papers, GD 51/17/69, 4.

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1707 by the metropolitan English elites who had originally fashioned and run them. Faced with this entrenched position, Scots found it easier to move into underdeveloped sectors of trade or recently acquired geographic territories where they could operate without facing established English interests.41 This ‘frontierism’ strongly suggests that the ‘complementary’ versus ‘competitive’ model of integration more usually applied to the domestic British economy, can be used cautiously for the Empire also.42 It was certainly the case that immediately after the Union in May 1707 Scots believed that colonial oﬃces like the governorship of Virginia were the most realistic and obtainable elite employment options.43 By contrast, diplomatic postings to the premier courts of Europe required substantial political inﬂuence at the court of St James, and Scots did not acquire a particularly high proportion of such posts until the later decades of the century. Indeed, as late as 1773 Horace Walpole noted that the heavy incidence of Scots in overseas and colonial employment was because they would appear ‘less ostensible and invidious’ within Britain itself.44 Although indicative of success at one level, this pattern suggests a certain Scottish weakness in lobbying for more lucrative and prestigious Westminster oﬃces. Senior English politicians, by contrast, often refused to accept what were seen as overseas jobs that carried little inﬂuence. In 1802 Charles Yorke, brother to the Earl of Hardwicke, declined the governorship of Madras, one of the most sought-after posts within the Empire. He acknowledged its importance, but added that to accept meant his removal from the centre of domestic British politics where reputation and proﬁle were

41

For a discussion of ‘complementary’ verses ‘competitive’ economics and the tendency for specialisation in particular regional/colonial trades as a means of understanding Britain’s development, see Hechter, Internal Colonialism, passim. For speciﬁc discussion see Hancock, Citizens of the World, 14–16, 44–5 and H.V. Bowen, Elites, Enterprise and the making of the British Overseas Empire, 1688–1775 (London: 1996), 156, 160–2. 42 Colley, Britons, 125, 128–30. For the need to use the complementary/competitive model with care in the context of the domestic Scottish and English economies see Whatley, Scottish Society, 96–7. 43 NAS, Clerk of Penicuik, GD 18/3135/17. 44 D.B. Horn, ‘Scottish Diplomatists, 1689–1789’, Historical Association Publications, 132 (1944), 3–9; A. Cunningham, ‘Robert Liston at Constantinople’, in E. Ingram, ed., Anglo-Ottoman Encounters in the Age of Revolution (London: 1993), 51–4.

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conﬁrmed.45 Whilst in London colonial governorships appear to have been considered of minor importance, by the mid-1730s they were ﬁrmly established as important political patronage in Scotland’s domestic management. This can be seen in the fact that only four out of 24 major colonial appointments made by the Secretary for the Northern Department, Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle, between 1724 and 1739 arose from political lobbying within the United Kingdom itself. Of these four, however, two went to Scots.46 Dislocation into frontier employment through an inability to compete on the domestic front was encapsulated neatly by Captain James Campbell from Argyll in 1771: I see little encouragement for me to live in this country. I am much disposed to try what I can do in another and with that view mean to apply to his Grace [the 5th Duke of Argyll] to procure me some clever place in some of the American provinces that would not strike against my half pay . . . I think his Grace will have more interest to procure some handsome place in that continent than on this Island as there are fewer people of interest seeking to cross the Atlantic.47

As the last ﬁve chapters demonstrate, one result of this readiness to contemplate a colonial posting was that Scottish governors came from a variety of social backgrounds. Robert Dinwiddie’s concern with the colonial customs and revenue reﬂected Scottish ‘provincial’ engagement with issues of commercial regulation and political authority. Individuals like James Abercrombie and Henry McCulloh corelated Scotland’s rapid economic and social development to that of the colonies and in the process made a distinct contribution towards imperial government in North America.48 Events in Dinwiddie’s town of Glasgow can be linked directly to his preference for a closely regulated colonial trade. Just as he commenced his career in the early to mid-1720s, Dinwiddie would have been aware of the political

45 E. Ingram, Britain’s Persian Connection, 1798–1828: Prelude to the Great Game in Asia (Oxford: 1992), 4–5. 46 NAS, Seaﬁeld Muniments, GD 248/47/5/31; P. Haﬀenden, ‘Colonial Appointments and Patronage under the Duke of Newcastle’, English Historical Review, 78 (1963), 423–29. 47 NAS, Campbell of Inverneil Muniments, RH 4/121/1: Letter Book of James Campbell, 1771–74, 50–3. 48 Landsman, ‘The Provinces and the Empire: Scotland, the American colonies and the development of British provincial identity’, 260–4.

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controversy over the lax and corrupt state of Glasgow’s customs. Ineﬀective regulation, it was feared, produced an ad hoc, under-capitalised and non-specialist pattern of trade. The abolition of the Scottish Customs Board and the imposition of standardised duties in 1723 rationalised but, in the long run, also toughened Glasgow’s companies and aided their rise to dominance within the Atlantic tobacco trade.49 Dinwiddie’s Scottish background taught the lesson that a strict, centrally controlled customs was not despotic, but was commercially liberating. His concern over monetary issues and who controlled Virginia’s currency similarly reﬂected conditions in Scotland. Even more than was the case with the Bank of England, the ﬁnance sector in Scotland was intertwined with issues of political authority and commercial progress. Argathelian sponsorship of the Royal Bank of Scotland in 1727 and the British Linen Bank in 1746 conﬁrmed to Dinwiddie that regulating currency helped promote economic and social development whilst aiding political management—the exact job description of a colonial governor.50 The way in which background could inﬂuence oﬃcial policy is also central to Alex Murdoch’s chapter on James Glen. Its emphasis on the existence and impact of Scotland’s own internal frontier of Highland and Lowland warns against assumptions that Britain was a homogeneous imperial core. This diﬀerentiation is also evident in Hanson’s chapter, which discusses Highland reliance on military employment while Lowlanders favoured a more civilian, commercial direction. Both chapters show that ideas for imperial rule were formed and justiﬁed from a multiplicity of sources, some inspired by metropolitan culture and others that were not. This is given further credence by the actions of General Robert Melville in the French Ceded Islands and Dinwiddie in Virginia. Both, for instance, espoused noticeably anti-Catholic sentiments. Hamilton makes it clear that Melville’s Presbyterian outlook and his Scottish contacts in the Grenada Assembly enabled him to perform the delicate balancing act required of a colonial governor. This saw him— the imperial centre’s representative—condone and assist a campaign of colonial opposition to religious freedoms advocated by London. 49 J.M. Price, ‘Glasgow, the Tobacco Trade, and the Scottish Customs, 1707–1730’, Scottish Historical Review, 63 (1984), 1–36. 50 J.S. Stuart, The Political History of Eighteenth-century Scotland (London: 1999), 93, 100–105.

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An important qualiﬁcation, however, is necessary at this point. Just because Scottish inﬂuences could impinge on issues of imperial policy does not mean that their impact was constant or, more importantly, coherent. Scotland was the scene of multiple religious, cultural and political traditions. Scots within the Empire were not a monolithic ethnic block, endowed with exactly the same attitudes towards any given issue. Dinwiddie was extremely hostile to Glen’s policies for the Ohio frontier. Meanwhile, Lieutenant-Governor Young clashed with his countryman, Melville, on several crucial issues. Likewise, Scots on the Madras presidency council opposed and supported Lord Pigot’s overthrow in equal measure. This point can be illustrated by comparing Melville’s stance with that of an immediate contemporary, General James Murray, governor of Quebec. Murray faced many of the same issues as Melville: namely, ensuring British and Protestant rule over an almost wholly French and Catholic population. Yet even more so than in the French Ceded Islands, the relative strength of rival community interests in Quebec was weighted heavily in favour of the original French colonists. This meant that the adoption of Melville’s ‘Protestants-only’ policy was unlikely, even counter-productive. However, Murray also came from a radically diﬀerent Scottish background. His family were steeped in a Jacobite, Episcopalian tradition: indeed, his father, the 4th Lord Elibank, and his older brother, Alexander, were condemned routinely in the later 1740s as disaﬀected.51 This family context links James to developments in Scotland which were to mirror his later eﬀorts at reconciling Quebec to Britain. Scottish Episcopalians willing to abjure the Stuarts were given toleration. More practically, the 3rd Duke of Argyll’s rehabilitation of hostile Jacobite networks of local kinship pointed to a model of colonial government that coopted the loyalty of those that had previously been anti-British. The integration of Scotland’s own internal frontier thus provided clear lessons for its equivalent in British Quebec. The result was that Murray’s religious policy diametrically opposed that of Melville. It was matched, moreover, by his willingness to adapt French institutions as mechanisms of British control, much as Argyll had re-directed the local power of Highland lordship.52

51 52

A.C. Murray, The Five Sons of ‘Bare Betty’ (London: 1936), 25, 109–110. L. Kerr, ‘Creation of Empire: James Murray in Quebec’, in S. Taylor, R. Connors

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The careers of Murray, Melville, Inverneil and James Grant in East Florida also raise questions over our current understanding of how ideas for colonial rule evolved. Traditionally, it has been argued that the only role for Scotland and the other peripheries of the British Isles was as laboratories for methods of imperial administration. Thus, for example, 15 British generals who served in the subjugation and policing of Ireland from 1689 to 1727 later became colonial governors in North America. The garrisoning of Scotland from 1707 to 1727, meanwhile, produced another 12. The Protectorate’s policy of attacking the prestige of the nobility in occupied Scotland, outlined by Patrick Little, was later used as the basis for constructing the social hierarchy in recently acquired Jamaica.53 This scenario, however, assumes that imperial policy originated solely from the metropole. It is here that Little’s chapter is particularly helpful. By reversing the focus of this collection and examining an Irish governor on the frontier of Cromwell’s domestic British Empire, the exclusive role of the metropole becomes far less convincing. Instead, a far more complex and subtle process emerges whereby a colonial area like Ireland nonetheless supplied policies that aided the imposition of rule in similarly marginalised Scotland. The chapter shows how Broghill absorbed the lesson that Crown policy had alienated the natural governing party in Ireland and thus set the context for the rising of 1641. By seeking to win over the mainstream Presbyterian party, his aim was to prevent the same situation occurring in Protectorate Scotland. The model here is of cross-fertilisation and the transfer of ideas between peripheral parts of the British Isles. This meant, in eﬀect, that the Protectorate’s ‘metropolitan’ and uniﬁed Britain owed something intrinsic to Ireland, undoubtedly its most despised and marginalised domestic province. The argument that peripheries could contribute to the formulation of imperial rule can be extended into the eighteenth century. Murray’s conciliatory policies in Quebec, for instance, were transferred back into domestic metropolitan policy, inspiring the 1778 and C. Jones, eds, Hanoverian Britain and Empire: Essays in Memory of Philip Lawson (Woodbridge: 1998), 229–47; NAS, Correspondence of Sir James Montgomery, RH 4/56/40, ‘Governor James Murray’s report on Quebec province, 1765’; D. Milobar, ‘Quebec Reform, the British Constitution and the Atlantic Empire, 1774–1775’, in P. Lawson, ed., Parliament & the Atlantic Empire (Edinburgh: 1995), 82. 53 Ohlmeyer, ‘“Civilizinge of those Rude Partes”: Colonization within Britain and Ireland, 1580s–1640s’, 146; Webb, The Governors-General, vii–viii, 49–55, 443–4.

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Catholic Relief proposals of Lord North’s government. These constituted a similar co-option of religious identities for imperial purposes as had been implemented in Quebec in 1774. Now, however, limited toleration for Scotland and Ireland’s Catholic peasantry was designed to augment reserves of military manpower. By contrast, reaction in Grenada towards toleration presaged the noticeably extreme hostility in Scotland to North’s relief proposals. Indeed, the opposition of Governor Melville and the planter elites foreshadowed, albeit with considerably less violence, the Gordon riots which ultimately brought the campaign against Catholic relief right into the metropole itself.54 C.A. Bayly has summarised such developments as a crucial diversiﬁcation in the elites who supplied the Empire’s practical and ideological policies, adding with a touch of stereotype, that ‘the hard men of the peripheries had rushed to the support of the centre’.55 These Scottish inﬂuences underscore how imperial rule no longer originated exclusively at the political metropole. Yet, equally, to assume one overriding characteristic for Scottish inﬂuence is unhelpful. Scotland’s contribution to British expansion has traditionally been viewed as an anti-monopolistic attitude, and the promotion of commercial liberty and its subsequent civic and moral social virtues.56 Yet as Hamilton and Mackillop reveal, the post-1757 governors tended to be military men and supportive of the army’s role as the institution best suited for regulating the Empire’s growing diversity. Thus, one dimension of the Scottish input into British imperial rule was a suspicion of assemblies or any form of representative government that espoused unfettered commercial and ﬁscal privileges. A natural corollary of this was a belief that the army needed to be unencumbered by ineﬀective civilian authority of the type that had often characterised England’s pre-1763 Empire. The Scottish army oﬃcer Charles Cathcart noted as much in 1755 to John Campbell, 3rd Earl of Loudoun, the new commander-in-chief of North America.

54 R.K. Donovan, ‘The Military Origins of the Roman Catholic Relief Programme of 1778’, Historical Journal, 28 (1985), 83, 90; M. Fry, The Dundas Despotism (Edinburgh: 1992), 70–6. 55 D. Nelson, General James Grant: Scottish Soldier and Royal Governor of East Florida (Gainsville, Florida: 1993), 69–70; C.A. Bayly, Imperial Meridian: The British Empire and the World, 1780–1830 (London: 1989), 6. 56 M. Fry, ‘A Commercial Empire: Scotland and British Expansion in the Eighteenth-century’, in T.M. Devine and J.R. Young, eds, Eighteenth-century Scotland: New Perspectives (East Linton: 1999), 56–64.

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He stressed the need to avoid ‘a set of Governor merchants who give up the nation in many occasions in complaisance to the colony that pays them’ adding that there could not ‘be any other method but that used by Spain of sending a man of rank and character with great powers and great appointments’.57 Certain other continuities link the various chapters. The change in Scotland’s status, from a seemingly non-imperial society between 1600 and 1707 to a leading component of the world’s largest global empire by 1800, can suggest that parliamentary union was a dramatic break with the past. Yet, as Atina Nihtinen highlights through her examination of James Keith, foreign state service remained prominent, particularly amongst those who lost out in the 40 years of postunion upheaval. The Scots-Dutch Brigade remained a major employer and actually expanded in the 1740s, attracting Scottish lairds whose landed estates had not responded eﬀectively to economic change.58 Two less obvious continuities become apparent if the chapters are compared as a whole. One is the role of unoﬃcial, informal networks of association that assisted Scots in their diﬀering imperial contexts; the second is the continuing importance of kinship. Grosjean and Nihtinen highlight institutions such as the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft or the Freemasons which enabled Scots (and other foreigners) to promote their assimilation into the host societies. This naturalising process was an important stage in any strategy that relied on foreign imperial service. Field-Marshal James Keith’s use of quasi-masonic clubs like the Order del Toboso is particularly instructive. They gave Keith the ability to acquire trustworthy colleagues and, equally important, to be trusted by others. His masonic and Toboso connections were instrumental in determining how his Russian masters would deploy him during his expedition to Sweden in 1743. This incident substantially reinforced his prestige and illustrates the eﬀectiveness of such private associations. Likewise, it conﬁrmed the eﬃcacy of the Russian Empire deploying foreign nationals in certain delicate frontier situations. Being foreign meant that individuals like John Cunningham in Norway and James Keith in Finland were not associated with frontier groups or with entrenched domestic interests

57

HL, Loudoun (Scottish) Collection, LO 7087, LO 7088. BL, Hardwicke Mss, Add Ms 35509, f. 309; DCM, 4/391, Golpsie, 22 December 1772, Martin Macpherson-Norman Macleod of Macleod. 58

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from the imperial society itself, such as the Danish-Norwegian or Russian nobility. As such, they could be portrayed as more disinterested and detached. This enhanced their ability to win over recently incorporated communities while also representing the political centre in a way that national elites with their own internal political agendas and interests might not. The blending of informal networks and public function evident in the case of Keith ﬁnds resonance in Hamilton’s discussion of Robert Melville. His membership of clubs was underpinned by a twin track rationale. Metropolitan respectability was sought and conﬁrmed through organisations like the Royal Society and the British Board of Agriculture. The need to remain attentive to local contacts in Fife, Scotland or the colonies was achieved through involvement in the Beggars’ Benison, the Hob or Nob society and, like Keith, the Freemasons. Inverneil retained his ﬁnger on the pulse of developments in Scotland through his membership of the Glasgow Highland Society. This enabled him to keep abreast with networks in the west of Scotland that related closely to his own political interest.59 The founding of the Highland Society of Edinburgh, meanwhile, was the culmination in a spate of club inauguration in Scotland. Its explicit function was to act as a lobbying forum to end the country’s ‘dependency’ and save ‘Scotland and Scotsmen from imputations to which they have been too long exposed’.60 Clubs were of course a British and European-wide phenomenon, although the societies formed in the 1770s and early 1780s were arguably unusual in being Scottishwide clubs rather than organisations with a narrow scientiﬁc, cultural or economic remit. One consequence of these non-institutional agencies was the reinforcement amongst Scots of residual tendencies towards mutual reliance. This does not contradict the earlier position that Scots were politically diverse in their opinions and as prone to division as other British nationals; rather that through this web of multifaceted contacts Scots could and did associate with fellow countrymen while operating within a deﬁnitively British context. Nowhere was this more the case than in London. All but one of the governors covered in the British period, namely James Glen, had

59 Glasgow Highland Society, Glasgow Highland Society, Rules and regulations and list of members, 1727–1902 (Glasgow: 1902) passim. 60 A Letter to the Founders of the Highland Society of Edinburgh (Edinburgh: 1784), 10.

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a Scot acting on his behalf at the politic centre. Even Johnston, who had not acquired his post through any Scottish inﬂuence, still used the ﬁnancial and political interest of Henry McCulloh. As Robert Cain observes, Governor Dinwiddie’s ﬁrst contact with the London authorities came via another Scottish governor, while he and Johnston both used James Abercrombie as their colonial agent. James Murray, meanwhile, employed the Ross-shire army contractor George Ross as his agent, a close associate of the 3rd Duke of Argyll and the 3rd Earl of Loudoun.61 It is important that these Scottish connections are not viewed in isolation or as evidence of a deliberate attempt to retain a kind of clannish ethnic solidarity. By their very nature they were ﬂexible and often used only when formal channels of inﬂuence failed. A perfect illustration of this was the reaction of Loudoun to complaints against him, including the standard charge of favouritism towards other Scots. Whilst commander-in-chief in North America, Campbell’s main patron in London was the Duke of Cumberland. The latter’s fall in autumn 1757 was an event that all colonial governors dreaded; namely the loss of support at the metropole. Faced with the end of his oﬃcial link to authority, Loudoun fell back on his Scottish contacts by writing to his political manager and kinsman, Argyll, for support and lobbying assistance.62 These forms of networking for political leverage were the eighteenth-century equivalent of the court connections that had lubricated the push into DenmarkNorway over a century earlier. In both eras, retaining favour at the centre was vital: given this, reliance on purely oﬃcial channels was simply too risky and more responsive lines of communication and lobbying were generated for insurance. Ultimately, the foundation underlying these non-oﬃcial layers of club and socio-political aﬃliation was kinship. Right through the period from 1600 to 1800 its inﬂuence was clearly important. Hagen has shown that John Cunningham relied upon and delegated authority to his cousin Tamis, even to the extent of defying local interest groups in Finnmark. Both kinship and his nationality were central to the career development of Sir Andrew Melvill who fought in Poland and Flanders during the 1630s and 1640s. Obtaining commissions and discharges from service were accomplished ‘through

61 62

Kerr, ‘Creation of Empire: James Murray in Quebec’, 238. S.M. Pargellis, Lord Loudoun in North America (New Haven: 1933), 340–5, 350.

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mediation of one of my kinsmen whom I had the good luck to fall in with’. His escape from England after his participation (on the losing side) at Worcester in 1651 again involved his appealing to a familial contact in London. He solicited for assistance given that ‘I am of your kith and kin, as your name is Melvill. [. . .] I am certain, for you to have compassion on a poor member of your family’. Once his departure to Europe was secured he reverted to the use of nationality and found employment in Königsburg with a Scottish colonel of one of the city’s garrison regiments.63 Keith was another governor who used his kin in order to make up for his lack of secure contacts within the Russian Empire’s administration and society at large. His brother George kept him informed of other foreign-service options. His cousins John and Robert deepened his knowledge of aﬀairs in St Petersburg—a wise tactic in light of their collective dependence on the political centre’s goodwill. Despite the beneﬁt of their now oﬃcially legal status as Britons, Scots continued such actions after 1707. Hanson highlights Johnston’s lack of interest in assisting his fellow nationals generally. In contrast, however, in 1749 his governor’s council of four contained two Scots, one of whom was a relation, James Murray. By 1751 his now seven-strong council still contained three Scots, two of who were kin, Murray and John Rutherfurd.64 The legacy of Johnston’s patronage was that back in Scotland, Rutherfurd, Murray and Forbes were seen as a deﬁned Scottish political group, however far this may have been from the truth. In 1758 it was noted: Your acquaintance and my near relation John Rutherfurd has, with all the other Scotsmen one only excepted, been dismissed from the Council of North Carolina by the Governor. . . . The cause of the Governor’s displeasure with the Scots I can learn to be owing to their want of complaisance in some things proposed by him and judged to be improper.65

Reliance on immediate kin was an obvious tactic used by Sir Archibald Campbell of Inverneil. Mackillop notes that Campbell was well aware of the political unreliability of the Madras oﬃcer corps and their 63

T. Ameer-Ali, ed., Memoirs of Sir Andrew Melvill (London: 1918), 74, 90–1, 134,

158. 64 W.L. Saunders, ed., Colonial Records of North Carolina, 4 (New York: 1968), 959, 1236. 65 NLS, Minto Papers, Ms 11015, f. 55.

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abrupt removal of Governor Pigot in a military coup. As a consequence, Inverneil surrounded himself with Argyll kinsmen and associates. Several wider points arise from these examples of state appointed governors using kinship as a buttress. It has become a commonplace assertion that the rise of the British state in the eighteenth century took place alongside the complete subordination and eventual destruction of kin-based systems of political and social organisation.66 This collection points to a radically diﬀerent scenario. While its inﬂuence declined appreciably within domestic Britain, kinship’s eﬀectiveness continued to be appreciated in the far more testing environment of frontier colonies. It was also operative both before and after the emergence of the British Empire. Kinship had, in eﬀect, evolved as a method used by Scots to organise in frontier areas where the protective mechanisms of formal government were weak or still in an early state of development. This is not to suggest that kinship was an exclusively Scottish method of social, economic or political association. The Irish governor of North Carolina who succeeded Gabriel Johnston, Arthur Dobbs, appointed his own nephew and son to the colony’s militia. Likewise, as late as 1802, Henry Dundas warned the Anglo-Irishman Richard Wellesley, Governor-General of India, that the appointment of his brother Henry as commissioner to the Kingdom of Oudh had generated considerable opposition amongst East India Company directors.67 The distinctiveness of the Scottish experience cannot be gauged by simply isolating any one element of governorship. An examination of Scots as imperial administrators in the seventeenth century consistently reveals that kinship, unoﬃcial networking and foreign service emerged as responses to the lack of a ‘national’ empire. Crucially, this bequeathed a legacy that was to prove instrumental in the Scottish colonisation of the British Empire. The key lay in combining old unoﬃcial tactics with new oﬃcial status—a blend that arguably gave the Scots a unique position within the British world. Scottish governors could unite their now secure legal status with a host of other tried and tested non-institutional tactics to sustain their

66

Macinnes, Clanship, Commerce and the House of Stuart, 1603–1788, 205. W.L. Saunders, ed., Colonial Records of North Carolina, 5 (New York: 1968), viii–ix; E.B. Greene, The Provincial Governor in the English Colonies of North America (New York: 1966), 114; NLS, Melville Papers, Ms 1060, ﬀ. 95–100. 67

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own gubernatorial regimes whilst assisting the placement of their countrymen. If the type of connections highlighted by this study hold true for other sectors of overseas activity, then Scotland’s imperial failure pre-1707 actually generated responses that assisted its success thereafter. In conclusion, this volume highlights three aspects of early modern Scotland’s response to imperialism. Firstly, the tendency to rely on ad hoc, transportable networks of political association and kinship. These partly shaped the second characteristic; namely, the country’s highly opportunistic and ﬂexible approach to expansion overseas. Thirdly, these forms of expansion often found the space to operate most eﬀectively within a frontier context where formalised and settled methods of organised imperialism had not yet emerged. By providing initial direction and patronage, Scottish governors were often the vital link and buﬀer between these informal networks and the oﬃcial world of the British Empire. It is surely imperative to establish whether these methods of expansion characterised Scottish involvement in the other military, administrative and commercial sectors of British imperialism.

CHAPTER ONE

SCOTSMEN ON THE DANISH-NORWEGIAN FRONTIERS C. 1580–1680 Steve Murdoch

In the year 1652, Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty sat as a prisoner in the Tower of London writing his classic text, The Jewel. As part of his idiosyncratic view of the world, and the place of Scotsmen in it, he compiled one of the most comprehensive contemporary lists of Scots who had contributed to the development of civilisation as Urquhart saw it.1 In doing so he provided us with evidence that some Scots at least had knowledge of the station and achievement of their countrymen abroad. His text gives us a starting point from which to understand the role of Scotsmen on the Danish-Norwegian frontiers for in it he wrote that there were: besides ten governors at least, all Scots, intrusted [sic] with the charge of the most especial strengths and holds of importance, that were within the conﬁnes of the Danish authority.2

What Urquhart did not tell us was how he deﬁned a governor. In Denmark-Norway at this time there were several layers of governorship which diﬀered considerably in various parts of the Oldenburg monarchy. In Norway for instance power was devolved to the statholder or viceroy, under whom there was an array of town governors, regional governors and military commandants. Elsewhere, such as in the three Danish regions east of the Sound, general-commissioners were employed who had power over all the town and county governors in their region, the equivalent, in fact, to the governor-general later employed in the British Empire. Before the introduction of

1

For an assessment of Urquhart’s ‘unclassiﬁable’ work see D. Reid, ‘Prose after Knox’ in R.D.S. Jack, ed., The History of Scottish Literature, vol. 1; Origins to 1660 (Aberdeen: 1989), 194–5. 2 S.D. Stirling, ed., The Works of Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty, Knight (Edinburgh: 1834), 215.

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absolutism in 1660, there were also administrative units called ‘len’ which can roughly be equated to a county in England or a region of Scotland. These came in two forms, mindre len and stor len. The former could be as small as a parish controlled by a lensmand who acted as the bailiﬀ or constable of a parish, similar in status to a Scottish laird.3 Mindre len could even be subdivided between several individuals. The Scotsman Alexander Lyall, toll oﬃcer and mayor of Elsinore between 1550 to 1566, had a share of a len in Denmark amounting to four farms in Horserød, part of Ydernæs len and later supplemented by nine more farms in the parish of Nørre Bedstrup.4 Lyall’s status as a lensmand was therefore quite limited. While partly being granted for the purposes of local administration, the part-len served really as a bonus form of income as a reward for his service to the Danish Crown. While being only a minor grant, this example contributes to our understanding of Scottish governorship in Denmark-Norway as it exempliﬁes the ‘len for service’ model that applied to all of the later Scottish civic governors. A stor len could either be a much larger estate, or collective of estates for which the lensmand served as feudal overlord being granted lensregering (feudal rights and privileges) through a charter of enﬁeﬀment called a lensbrev. The number of len varied throughout the century, some of the mindre len being absorbed into stor len. However, in 1650 there were altogether 28 lensmænd in Norway, and 49 lensmænd in Denmark.5 The importance of these men varied, and only nine of the Norwegians were considered hovedlensmand or senior governors for a stor len. After 1660, Denmark-Norway became an ‘absolute monarchy’ with the king’s power being crystallised in Kongeloven (the Act of Royalty) of 1665. Instead of despotism, Frederik III used his power to introduce uniﬁed systems of local administration and legislation among a host of other measures.6 With the loss of power of the nobility, the role of the lensmand was diminished. The geographical unit of the len remained intact, but after 1662 the name changed

3 The spelling lensmand and other administrative positions varies between older and modern documents and between Danish and Norwegian references. 4 K. Erslev, Danmark-Norges Len og Lensmænd (2 vols, Copenhagen: 1885), I, 95. 5 Karl Peder Pedersen, Enevældens amtmænd (Copenhagen: 1998), 18. 6 Bengt Rying, ed., Denmark: An Oﬃcial Handbook (Copenhagen: 1970), 74 and 108. I would also like to thank Rune Hagen for discussing Danish and Norwegian administration with me at great length and clarifying the numerous points I raised with him on the subject.

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to amt, and the duties of a lensmand were transferred to an amtmand.7 Beneath the amtmænd were bailiﬀs called fogd and a ‘sworn writer’, or sorenskriver. Indeed the larger amt could often be subdivided into smaller districts called fogderi so that each amtmand might have several bailiﬀs working for him. All of these civil servants were referred to as embedsmænd and were appointed by the king. Of course, fortiﬁcations still required commandants, and captured cities required governors in times of war, but the feudal power of the nobility was broken and the Council of the Realm dissolved. The Oldenburg monarchy held control over vast tracts of territory, but equally importantly, huge swathes of water. Indeed, the sea provided the Oldenburg sovereign with signiﬁcant economic wealth directly through income from whaling and the rich North Sea and Atlantic ﬁsheries. Another waterway, the Danish Sound, also provided huge revenues to the Crown that more than compensated for the lack of mineral wealth within the kingdom. The Sound constituted a part of Denmark exposed to the threat of attack from neighbouring powers and, though at the geographic centre of the state, it remained a frontier to be protected at all costs. Since the House of Oldenburg viewed the sea as an integral part of their kingdoms, those employed to govern those areas were eﬀectively governors of the maritime marches. It was in this area that the Scots began to make their inroads into the administration of the Oldenburg monarchy.

Patronage and the Regal Alliance 1589–1645 Even before the regal marriage between James VI of Scotland and Anna of Denmark-Norway in 1589, the Scots had established a relationship with the Oldenburg monarchy largely based around improving trading links between the kingdoms. The royal wedding, coupled with a regal alliance and continued Stuart patronage for Scots in the Oldenburg monarchy ensured that opportunities for promotion in the service of Christian IV were often more frequent, and of greater status, than those available at home for the enterprising 7 In the Routlege Danish Dictionary, the following deﬁnitions are oﬀered which make the understanding of the term clearer for those residing in England and Scotland; amt et sv.t. county; (i Skotland ) region; ~mand en sv.t. prefect. See A. Garde, ed., Danish Dictionary (Routlege: 1991), 363.

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Scot.8 Indeed, between 1589 and King James’ death in 1625, some 40 Scottish gentlemen were commissioned into the Danish-Norwegian armed forces while numerous others served both James VI and Christian IV as diplomats and royal servants in both the Stuart and Oldenburg courts.9 The opportunities for these men to achieve social advancement was clearly demonstrated by the ennoblement of Scots into Danish-Norwegian society. Alexander Durham of Højsgaard, Andrew Mowatt of Hovland, John Cunningham of Gjerdrup, Axel Mowatt of Hovland, Andrew Sinclair of Ravenscraig and Sincklarsholm and Patrick Dunbar of Spannerup were all Scotsmen raised into the Danish-Norwegian nobility. With the exception of Christian Maccabæus MacAlpine who was ennobled in mid 1580s, all the Scots in Denmark became ennobled after the dynastic marriage of 1589 and during the reign of Christian IV.10 Accompanying the new noble status of these men came additional responsibilities which often included a role in the administration of the kingdom; on land, at sea or both.

The Maritime Frontier Throughout the seventeenth century, the Oldenburg monarchy sought to present itself as a signiﬁcant naval power.11 As the century progressed, the Danes and Norwegians sought to protect their maritime frontiers from encroaching nations, especially the English and the Dutch.12 Christian IV speciﬁcally laid claim to Dominium Maris Septentrionalis, or the domination of the Northern Seas and Dominum Fluminis,

8 See S. Murdoch and A. Grosjean, Scotland Scandinavia and Northern Europe, 1580– 1707 Database (Aberdeen: 1998). Published on the Internet at <www.abdn.ac.uk/ssne>. 9 See S. Murdoch, Britain, Denmark-Norway and the House of Stuart, 1603–1660 (East Linton: 2003), passim. 10 See A. Thiset and L. Wittrup, eds., Nyt Dansk Adelslexicon. Fortegnelse over Dansk Adel i Fortid og Nutid (Copenhagen: 1904) passim; H.C. Wolter, Adel og Embede. Embedsfordeling og karriermobilitet hos den Dansk-Norske Adel, 1588–1660 (Copenhagen: 1982), 87–103. A. Fabritius, Danmarks Riges Adel (Copenhagen: 1946), 136–145. 11 M. Bellamy, ‘Danish Naval Administration and Shipbuilding in the reign of Christian IV, 1596–1648’, unpublished Ph.D., (Glasgow: 1997). 12 In response to ongoing disputes with the Dutch and the Danes over maritime issues, King James exhorted John Seldon to produce his work Mare Clausum, and by so doing he staked his claim to his rights in the seas around his coast. See J. Wormald, ‘The Union of 1603’, in R.A. Mason, ed., Scots and Britons: Scottish Political thought and the union of 1603 (Cambridge: 1994), 35.

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domination of the Elbe river.13 He also conﬁrmed his claim to the Baltic with the publication of Mare Clausum in 1638.14 In order for these claims to be upheld, the Oldenburg monarchy required a strong navy which often meant looking abroad for expertise to man it. From the earliest days of the minority of James VI, Scots found their way into the Oldenburg navy. The ﬁrst of any real signiﬁcance was Alexander Durham who arrived in Denmark as early as 1569. After serving as a captain from 1573, he commanded the entire Danish Baltic ﬂeet as its admiral between 1578–86. He followed this by taking overall command of the North Sea ﬂeet throughout the years 1587–99.15 Durham’s long, successful defence of the maritime marches opened the door to more Scots wishing to serve the DanishNorwegian Crown. Andrew Mowatt received permission from James VI to move to Bergen and ﬁnd a suitable wife there in June 1587.16 This was perhaps an example of James VI hoping to place one of his own middle ranked gentlemen into a foreign society in the hope that he might make good there and prove useful to the House of Stuart at a later date. This was a tactic that bore fruit in the establishment of the Jacobean Stuart diplomatic corps in Scandinavia.17 In any case, Mowatt thereafter served as an admiral in Christian IV’s service in the North Sea until his death around 1610, returning to his native Shetland on numerous occasions. He started something of a naval dynasty in Norway with many of his sons and grandchildren becoming senior naval oﬃcers, including Admiral Axel Mowatt and Vice-Admiral Christoﬀer Mowatt.18 Axel followed in the

13 D. Lockhart, Denmark and the Thirty Years’ War, 1614–1648; King Christian IV and the decline of the Oldenburg State (Selinsgrove: 1996), 250. 14 J. Lisk, The Struggle for Supremacy in the Baltic (London: 1967), 30–38; Bellamy, ‘Danish Naval Administration’, 15–39; Lockhart, Denmark and the Thirty Years, 250. 15 Thiset and Wittrup, Nyt Dansk Adelslexicon, 70; A. Espelland, Skottene: Hordaland og Rogaland fra aar 1500–1800 (Norhemsund: 1921), 19; T. Riis, Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot (2 vols, Odense: 1988), II, 87; Probst, Den Danske Flådes Historie, 80, 81 and 87. 16 C. Owe, ‘Anders Mowat og hans slegt’ in Norske Slekts Historisk Tidskrift, vol. 36, (1998), 211. 17 For more on this point see S. Murdoch, ‘Diplomacy in Transition: StuartBritish Diplomacy in Northern Europe, 1603–1618’ in A.I. Macinnes et al., eds., Ships, Guns and Bibles in the North Sea and the Baltic States (East Linton: 2002), 93–114. 18 KCFB (8 vols, Copenhagen: 1878–1947), VII, 45. List of Warships and oﬃcers, March–April, 1628; Espelland, Skottene i Hordaland og Rogaland, 58; A.M. Wiesener, ‘Axel Movat og hans slegt’ in Bergins Historiske Forening Skrifter, no. 36 (Bergen: 1930), 95–98.

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wake of his father and rose to become admiral of all the ships in the seas between Iceland, the Faeroes and Norway. In 1632–33 he personally commanded all the ships in the North Sea, and variously used his ﬂeet as far down as the rivers Elbe and Weser and, on occasions, through the Danish Sound and into the Baltic.19 Another Scottish admiral, John Cunningham, left Scotland in 1603 and served Christian IV and Frederik III in Norway until his death in 1651.20 In addition to simply protecting existing Oldenburg territory, Cunningham was actually responsible for expanding it. He set oﬀ for Greenland in April 1605 and made landfall at 67 degrees north at ‘Denmarks Havn’, south of a place long known to Europeans as ‘Cunningham’s Mount’, but called Qaqatsiaq by the indigenous population. The following year Cunningham led the exploration of Greenland’s coast as commander of the ‘Den Røde Løve’. On this trip he is reported to have made a landing on the Labrador coast of modern Canada.21 By laying claim to Greenland on behalf of Christian IV he ironically placed his two benefactors at loggerheads. Greenland thereafter proved to be a recurring thorn in the side of Stuart-Oldenburg relations. King James strongly protested against Christian’s ban on foreigners ﬁshing and whaling around Greenland, arguing that the region was a legitimately acquired possession of the English Crown since English sailors had remained in the region without competition before the year 1578. In the ongoing debate over ﬁshing rights, James eventually yielded to Christian in the disputes regarding Iceland, Faeroe and Spitzbergen, but not Greenland, and he continued to press his claim to it. Indeed a concord was not reached between the two monarchs until 1621.22 Cunningham was the last of the Scots appointed during the reign of James VI to serve as an admiral, although other Scots continued to join Christian’s navy thereafter. Between 1580 and 1660 Scotland

19 E. Marquard, Kancelliets Brevøger, 1637–1639 (Copenhagen: 1949), 338. Orders to Admiral Mowatt from Christian IV, 11 April 1638; Probst, Den Danske Flådes Historie, 166–168 and 177. 20 Espelland, Skottene i Hordaland og Rogaland, 19–20. DRA, TKUA Anglica, James VI to Christian IV, 18 February 1605. DBL (16 vols: 1979–1984, 3rd edition), IV, 121; Probst, Den Danske Flådes Historie, 96–96, 102–103, 138–140. 21 Dictionary of Canadian Biography (Toronto: 1966), I, 243. 22 Danmark-Norges Traktater, III, 370–371 and 387–389. James VI and I to Christian IV, 9 October 1621; Meldrum, The Letters of King James, 222–3; CSPV, XV, 1617–1619, 179. Piero Contarini, 21 March 1618.

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produced at least 35 senior naval personnel for the Oldenburg navy who worked to preserve the territorial integrity of Danish-Norwegian waterways. Their presence dwindled to only three oﬃcers by the time of the Swedish wars in the later 1650s including Axel Mowatt who served intermittently until his death in 1661. Although retired from naval operations, Mowatt still commanded such an inﬂuence in Norway that Sir Thomas Urquhart felt compelled to write of the Scotsman ‘Mouat living in Birren, in whose judgement and ﬁdelity, such trust is reposed, that he is as it were vice-king of Norway’.23 He was not, of course, but he did manage to acquire an incredible amount of wealth, status and land. It was possible to hold a particular estate or manor without being granted feudal rights to it. Hence Axel’s father, Andrew Mowatt of Hoveland was known as a ‘Skotsk Herremand’ or manor owner, and not as the lensmand of Hoveland.24 This was because his manor lay in a len belonging to someone else. However, other Scots did receive these rights as a direct result of their service at sea, most notably admirals Alexander Durham and John Cunningham. Using Alexander Durham as an example, we can see exactly how the transfer of land in return for service actually worked. He received a grant for Saltens len on 1 June 1579, but in exchange had to give up the 300 rixdaler he was receiving annually in pension from the chancellery.25 This was a mutually advantageous arrangement, as it meant he could collect the rent, while the chancellery could both save the pension and leave the administration of the len to Durham. The following year, Durham received royal permission to take 300 ‘voger’, that is 10,800 Danish pounds of ﬁsh from the len which he undoubtedly did and sold for a handsome proﬁt.26 He held on to this len until March 1586 when a reorganisation saw many of Norway’s small len amalgamated into larger units of administration.27 Salten len, among others became part of the new expanded Trondheim len. As compensation for this, Durham received 200 rixdaler from the treasury, but also the rights to the rents of the united parish of 23 Stirling, The Works of Sir Thomas Urquhart, 215. Birren/Birrane is the proper Scots name for Bergen. 24 Norske Rigs-registranter, III, 429. 20 July 1596. 25 Norske Rigs-registranter, II, 340. 1 June 1579. 26 Norske Rigs-registranter, II, 371. 21 February 1580. One ‘voger’ is equal to 36 old Danish or Norwegian pounds. 27 Norske Rigs-registranter, II, 655. 16 March 1586.

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Skibthveit and Spydeberg in Norway.28 In addition to his entitlement to the rent and taxes of the parish, the inhabitants were also ordered by the king to answer to Durham and his wife, Mette Urne, in all matters, as if he were their lensmand. By 1588, Durham’s status was formalised when he received his oﬃcial title as lensmand of the parish to which the parish of Vemb Skibrede was also added.29 Durham and his wife were granted this len free for their lives in exchange for property they owned on the Danish island of Zealand, which they had inherited from the Urne family. This did not mean an end to their property rights in Denmark as the same year Durham received the len of Derup and Flemøse parish on the island of Fyn, for which he paid the Crown 35–36 rixdaler per annum.30 The granting of Skibthveit and Spydeburg to the Durhams highlights the importance of the Scottish nobleman’s Danish spouse. Without being married, Alexander would not have had access to enough property to exchange for a len. It is telling that the land rights were granted to both of them, not just to the man, and indeed, Mette Urne continued to collect the rent from the len until her death in 1612. This was despite the fact that the property was re-granted on Alexander’s death in 1601 to someone else who had to sit back and wait patiently for Mette’s passing before they could hold the len outright. So while this len is usually mentioned in the context of Alexander Durham, we can surmise that the grant was partially provided to secure an income for Mette Urne. The len granted to Durham in 1588 were either granted for cash or in exchange for property of equal value, and therefore in return for Durham’s own investment in them. Durham’s fourth len, that of Ide and Marker Skibrede, was more like his ﬁrst in that it was granted to him free for life in 1593 in lieu of his pension which he was due for his services in the navy.31 Durham’s tax contribution for Derup was also cancelled as part of the transfer to him of this len. This grant shows that at some point Durham began to draw a naval pension again, though it is unclear if this was for his continued ser-

28

Norske Rigs-registranter, II, 705. 28 April 1587. Norske Rigs-registranter, III, 2–3. 21 June 1588; Erslev, Danmark-Norges Len og Lensmænd, II, 91. 30 Erslev, Danmark-Norges Len og Lensmænd, I, 116 and II, 61. 31 Norske Rigs-registranter, III, 287. 23 June 1593; Erslev, Danmark-Norges Len og Lensmænd, II, 82. 29

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vice for the navy, or as part of the compensation package for the loss of Salten len in 1586. In any case, the similarity of that grant should not go unnoticed as the lensmand status came as a result of services rendered and reﬂected a form of payment more common for foreigners in Swedish service rather than Danish. This is also the len which aﬀords a glimpse into the everyday duties Durham got involved with beyond collecting revenues. On 5 June 1597, for instance, Durham received orders, as lensmand, from Christian IV to defend Jon Olsson against Jens Jakobsen, burgess of Oslo, but the nature of the case has not been recorded. Clearly, however, he was to act in some form of legal capacity. Another letter from the king nine months later shows that Durham took his time in settling the issue as the case remained unresolved!32 It was not only sailors who found themselves in the position of lensmand. Christian Maccabæus MacAlpine became lensmand for Ringsted between 1584 and 1587, complementing his appointment as Abbot of Ringsted.33 Another Scot, Andrew Sinclair of Ravenscraig and Sincklarsholm, arrived in Danish service around 1591 when he became a Gentleman of Christian IV’s Bedchamber.34 He retired from Court service in 1600 to pursue his civic and diplomatic responsibilities. Indeed he became an accredited diplomat to and from DenmarkNorway and the Stuart Court for the next 22 years. Sinclair’s marriage to the Danish noblewoman Kirsten Kaas facilitated his own entry into the Danish nobility.35 His status as a Gentleman of the Queen’s Bedchamber also led him to be granted, free, the position of lensmand of Gladsaxe in Skåne where he remained between 1600 and 1620.36 His service here shows us that, on occasion, a len could be extended beyond its existing geographic bounds to cover some extraordinary expense or other. On one such occasion, in June 1616, an additional 22 farms were added to the Gladsaxe len from the parish of Jærestad. The purpose of this extension was to compensate Sinclair for the personal resources he spent on maintaining soldiers

32

Norske Rigs-registranter, III, 497 and 528. 9 August 1587 and 7 April 1598. Erslev, Danmark-Norges Len og Lensmænd, I, 149; Riis, Should Auld Acquaintance, I, 114–20 and II, 68–69. 34 DBL, 1933–44, vol. 3, 399–400; Riis, Should Auld Acquaintance, II, 74; Sir James Balfour Paul, The Scots Peerage (8 vols, Edinburgh: 1904–1911), VII, 575. 35 Thiset and Wittrup, Nyt Dansk Adelslexikon, 261–262. 36 Erslev, Danmark-Norges Len og Lensmænd, II, 2. 33

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on his property, probably during the Kalmar War of 1611–1613.37 Sinclair also received important appointments as lensmand of Landskrone between 1619–1621, and of Hammershus and Bornholm between 1621–1625.38 While he paid some money for the latter len, his appointment to Landskrone included a free one-year appointment in compensation for expenses incurred by his embassy to James VI and I on behalf of Christian IV. Sinclair, like Durham before him, therefore received a len in lieu of cash payment for services rendered. The position of lensmand was not a hereditary one. Therefore when Sinclair died, his len passed outwith his family while his non-feudal property passed to his sons. Andrew Sinclair’s heir, James, inherited the land of Sinklarsholm in 1625, but spent so much time in the service of the House of Stuart that the administration of the estate was left to others, initially, Hendrik Gyldenstjerne.39 Andrew’s other son, Christian, followed in his father’s footsteps by becoming a lensmand in his own right. After several years of service as secretary in the Danish Chancellery between 1634–9 he was created lensmand of Hørje in Skåne, in November 1639, in which position he remained until 1642.40 Once more there was a deﬁnite association between the grant of a len coming after a period of service for the Oldenburg monarchy.

Wartime Military Governors While the Scots can be shown to have established an important pedigree in the area of civil administration in peacetime, they also fulﬁlled the role of military governor in times of war. The Kalmar War (1611–1613) was fought ostensibly to prevent the spread of Swedish

37

Erslev, Danmark-Norges Len og Lensmænd, II, 2. See Riis, Should Auld Acquaintance, II, 75. 39 Kancelliets Brevbøger, 1625. 26 April 1625, 383; Thomas Riis believed that Christian Sinclair inherited Sinklarsholm directly from Andrew, but the previous reference proves that cannot have been the case. See Riis, Should Auld Acquaintance, I, 111–112. Sinklarsholm was eventually sold to Otte Marsvin, who certainly owned it by 1635 while Christian Sinclair apparently inherited Sandbygård in Skåne from his father. See KCFB, III, 354 and E. Marquard, ed., Prins Christian (V)s Brev (2 vols, Copenhagen: 1952), I, 483. 16 January 1641, pass for Ejler Bulow to Christian Sinklar’s gård in Skåne. 40 Riis, Should Auld Acquaintance, II, 75. 38

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inﬂuence in the Finnmark region of northern Norway. The Danish authorities objected to growing Swedish inﬂuence over the Sami people and feared the possibility that the Swedes might try to annexe the region in order to gain access to the North Sea. Though Finnmark was the spark for the conﬂict, the majority of the ﬁghting took place further south, predominantly around the Swedish border fortress of Kalmar which lent its name to the war. A contemporary report from Antonio Foscarini to Venice showed that there was a belief in Britain that the Danish king had placed all the cities and fortresses he had captured into the hands of German or Scottish governors. The reason cited for this stemmed, apparently, from Christian’s trusting none of his own subjects as much as he did these foreigners.41 Such reports are intriguing since they do not make clear whether they stemmed from a lack of trust by Christian in his own subjects or whether he simply placed an above average degree of trust in his Scots and Germans. At any rate, these reports were not without some foundation. The Kalmar War brought a new phase in the career of Andrew Sinclair. The experience he had gained through his civil administration of Gladsaxe len prepared him for similar responsibilities during the Kalmar War. It appears that Sinclair had never held a military command before the outbreak of the war. His status as a Danish nobleman meant that he was expected to participate and so, despite his high civic rank, Sinclair joined the army at the less than aristocratic level of captain.42 Very soon he displayed the leadership qualities for which his courtly, civic and diplomatic service had groomed him. He participated in the attack on the city of Kalmar with a large Danish force and, after a long siege, the garrison capitulated and Sinclair became the governor of the both the city and surrounding region.43 This was a premier appointment indeed by Christian IV, and Sinclair continued as governor between September 1611 and April 1613 in addition to maintaining control of his own len of Gladsaxe.

41 CSPV (38 vols., London: 1864–1947), 12, 1610–1613. 239–340. Antonio Foscarini to Venice, 20 November 1611. 42 G. Lind, Danish Data Archive 1573; J.C.W. Hirsch and K. Hirsch, eds, ‘Fortegnelse over Dansk og Norske oﬃcerer med ﬂere fra 1648 til 1814’ (12 vols, Copenhagen, manuscript compiled 1888–1907), vol. 10, 4; DBL, 1933–44, vol. 3, 399–400; Riis, Should Auld Acquaintance, II, 74. 43 Erslev, Danmark-Norges Len og Lensmænd, II, 5; DBL, 1933–44, vol. 3, 399–400.

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Sinclair’s was not the only appointment of a Scot made by Christian IV. Elsewhere, and throughout the war, Scotsmen also featured as a part of Christian IV’s occupation and defence strategy. In Finnmark, the region felt to be most at threat from Swedish attack, Christian IV sent the Scot, Tamis Cunningham, to the royal fortiﬁcations in Altafjord to prevent the region from falling to the Swedes.44 He took with him a fellow Scot to act as his second in command, Captain John Robertson. Tamis Cunningham held military command of the region throughout the war. He also retained his position for six years before he moved to Vardø in 1619 to join his cousin, and new lensmand for the region, John Cunningham.45 Despite a systematic search of the military and naval archives, it appears that Andrew Sinclair and Tamis Cunningham were the only Scots appointed governors during the course of the Kalmar War. Other Scots continued to command important positions of authority such as John Cunningham’s role in the Baltic ﬂeet. However, Antonio Foscarini’s claims for the captured Swedish towns does not stand up to close scrutiny. His report, while having some substance to it, was ﬂawed. Jørgen Lunge, for instance, was installed as governor of the captured city of Älvsborg in 1612 while other towns were governed by the Danes themselves. But the importance of Kalmar to the conﬂict perhaps went a long way in perpetuating the idea that the Scots might continue to gain preferential treatment from Christian IV.

Kejserkrigen 1625–1629 The 1620s brought a more turbulent and less successful period for the Danish-Norwegian realm. Indeed it saw the integrity of the Danish frontier challenged and breached, testing the military resources of the state to the limit. A variety of factors lay behind Christian IV’s decision to declare war against Emperor Ferdinand II in 1625.46

44 O. Solberg, Finnmark Omkring 1700, Tredie Bind: Lilienskiolds Speculum Boreale, Del II (Oslo: 1945), 61; J.P. Nielsen, Altas Historie, Bind 1: De glemte århundrene, 1520–1826 (Alta: 1990), 102. 45 C.C.A. Lange et al., eds, Norske Rigs-Registranter Tildeels i Uddrag (12 vols, Christiania: 1861–1891), V, 12–14; R. Fladby, Hvordan Nord-Norge ble styrt: NordNorske administrasjonshistorie fra 1530–åra til 1660 (Tromsø: 1978), 65. 46 J.A. Fridericia, Danmarks ydre politiske historie i tiden fra freden i Lybeck til freden i Prag, 1629–1635 (Copenhagen: 1972). A modern evaluation is given by Lockhart, Denmark in the Thirty Years’ War, 1618–1648, passim.

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The Danish king’s personal ambitions in Germany were being compromised by the success and presence of Habsburg forces in the area. The hostile reactions this caused Christian IV were compounded by the plight of Christian’s Scottish niece, Elizabeth of Bohemia, sister of Charles I of Great Britain. Diplomatic pressure from the British king coupled with a desire by Christian to beat Gustav II Adolf to the leadership of the Protestant cause led Denmark-Norway to a war footing despite strong protest from the Danish ruling classes. They could do little to prevent war between Denmark-Norway and the Emperor since Christian IV did not declare war as King of Denmark, but famously as Duke of Holstein. In November 1626, as the result of a request put to him by James Sinclair, Baron Murckle, Christian IV made a direct application to Charles I to raise two regiments of Scottish soldiers to replace his losses from the battle of Lutter-am-Bamberg in August.47 By March 1627, patents had been issued for the raising of 9,000 Scots to be levied in three regiments; one under Robert Maxwell, Earl of Nithsdale, one under Alexander Lindsay, Lord Spynie and one to be commanded by Baron Murckle.48 These troops joined the 2,000–3,000 Scots raised by Donald Mackay, which had been intended for Mansfeld’s army but were diverted into Danish service.49 In addition to the sheer number of troops from Scotland, no single country provided such a large proportion of the military elite to DenmarkNorway as Scotland did between 1625–1629. During those four years, over 300 Scottish oﬃcers were taken into service by Christian IV.50 This meant that Scotsmen outnumbered the Danish and Norwegian oﬃcers combined by a staggering 3:1 in their own army.51 Many of these men were granted senior positions and included the two generals, Robert Maxwell, Earl of Nithsdale and Sir Robert Scott,

47 PRO, SP75/7, f. 235. Christian IV to Charles I, 17 November 1626. See also f. 228. Anstruther to Charles I, 2 November 1626 and f. 230. Anstruther to Conway, 2 November 1626. 48 PRO, SP75/8, f. 42. Anstruther to Buckingham, 9 March 1627; RPCS, second series, I. Nithsdale’s levy, 531 and 565, Spynie’s levy, 556 and 565 and Sinclair’s levy, 563–565; Nithsdale’s recommendation to Christian IV from Charles I can be found in DRA, TKUA, England A I 3. Charles I to Christian IV, 8 February 1627. 49 Registers of the Privy Council of Scotland, Second Series, 1625–1660 (8 vols, Edinburgh: 1899–1908), I, 244; Tandrup, Svensk agent ved Sundet, 546–547. Anders Svensson to Axel Oxenstierna/Gustav II Adolph, 14 March 1625. 50 Murdoch, Britain, Denmark-Norway and the House of Stuart, 219. 51 Murdoch, Britain, Denmark-Norway and the House of Stuart, 219.

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General of Artillery.52 On occasion they served as bodyguards both to Christian IV and to the Dowager Queen Sophia.53 For a variety of reasons, only a few of these men received appointments as commandants and even fewer as governors. In some cases the installation as commander arose out of Danish desperation. Major Wilson became the commandant of the castle of Loven in Holstein with only two companies of men. He withdrew after making terms with the Count of Tilly whose army outgunned him and outnumbered him about 20:1.54 He later left Denmark in disgrace, not for giving up the castle, but for handing over the regimental colours for which he had not made any provision in the treaty. In July 1627, four companies of Mackay’s regiment were stationed at Boitzenburg, defending a strategic Elbe crossing. Command of the skonce went to Major James Dunbar who was almost immediately put under siege by the Count of Tilly.55 Dunbar’s garrison of 800 men forced Tilly’s army of some 10,000 to retreat after inﬂicting between 1–2,000 casualties on them.56 Yet these companies of Scots were not then put into garrison to recuperate. Within weeks, Major Dunbar took command of the late Field-Marshal Gert Rantzau’s castle of Breitenburg.57 Rantzau has been described as the Danish realm’s greatest magnate and had been responsible for raising the Holstein regiments.58 Before his death Rantzau had been FieldMarshal of all Danish forces, and second in command to the king himself.59 Given that fact one might ask why there had not been a strong Holstein garrison placed in command of the castle. After all, inside were many of the local civilian population seeking shelter from

52 For Nithsdale’s appointment see PRO, SP75/8, f. 42. Anstruther to Buckingham, 9 March 1627; PRO, SP75/8, f. 45. Anstruther to Charles I, 9 March 1627; PRO, SP75/8, f. 61. The State of the King of Denmark’s Army, March 1627; O. Blom, ‘Smaa Bidrag til Artilleriets Historie under Kristian d. 4de; I. Robert Scott og Læderkanonerne’ in Historisk Tidskrift, VII, III, 1900–1902, 322–344. 53 This was a point noted in see R. Monro, His Expedition with the Worthy Scots Regiment called Mackeye’s (London: 1637), I, 81, for Christian IV ‘trusted our Nation more than his owne, or the Dutch’. See also 54 and 58. 54 Monro, His Expedition, I, 12. 55 Monro, His Expedition, I, 7, 10 and 11. 56 PRO, SP 75/8, f. 252. General Morgan to Secretary of State, 6 August 1627. 57 Monro, His Expedition, I, 38. 58 G. Lind, Hæren og Magten i Denmark, 1614–1662 (Odense: 1994), 33. 59 Lind, Hæren og Magten, 291 and 296.

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the encroaching army of Count Tilly.60 Dunbar’s total garrison only amounted to some 400 men yet they held out despite oﬀers of terms. Tilly conducted a seven-day siege before the walls were breached and the majority of the defenders and civilians killed.61 Not all appointments were as desperate as those of Majors Dunbar and Wilson. The following month, Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Monro took four companies of Mackay’s regiment to garrison the island of Lolland.62 In eﬀect this made Monro military governor since there were no Danish troops there. More importantly, the Danish QueenMother lived in the town of Nykøping on Falster, guarded by a company of Scots under a Captain Monro. However, any notion of the regiment being allowed to rest in garrison, or the commanders given any appointment in respect of their service were short lived. All these companies were ordered to take part in the attack on the neighbouring island of Fehmarn. Once secured, Monro noted that fresh troops were brought in, the island brought under contribution and a governor and garrison installed.63 Neither the governor nor the garrison were to be Scots on this occasion despite their earlier role on the neighbouring islands. Instead, Mackay’s regiment were prepared for an assault on the enemy elsewhere. The events described above suggest that the Scots were only considered suitable for combat roles, yet that is not the case. In December 1627, Christian IV named three new general-commissioners for the regions of Skåne, Halland and Blekinge in eastern Denmark.64 Alexander Lindsay, Lord Spynie received orders to take over Skåne.65 The letter of appointment makes his role as ‘governor-general’ quite clear. In addition to assuming overall command of the garrisons in his region, he was also responsible for the defence of the countryside surrounding them. Good relations were to be maintained between the soldiers and civilians. To ensure the preservation of discipline Courts of Justice, war trials and executions arising from them were 60

Monro, His Expedition, I, 12 and 35. Monro, His Expedition, I, 38–39. 62 Monro, His Expedition, I, 41–42. 63 Monro, His Expedition, I, 59. 64 E. Marquard, ed., Kancelliets Brevbøger Vedrørende Danmarks Indre Forhold i Uddrag 1627–1629 (Copenhagen: 1929), 259. Letter of appointment, 1 December 1627. 65 This is not made explicit in the letter of appointment, but is conﬁrmed in other letters written to him as ‘Kommissarier’ in Skåne. See Marquard, Kancelliets Brevbøger, 435. Missive til Kommissarierne i Skaane, 26 May 1628. 61

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to be held on a weekly basis. We know from other royal missives that Scottish regiments comprised the majority of Spynie’s garrisons, but that he also had 250 Danish soldiers under his command. These, the king insisted, were to be accommodated as comfortably as the Scots!66 The reason for appointing a Scot is not recorded. However, given the restlessness of the Danish nobility who saw large sections of their country overrun by Habsburg forces, a foreigner was probably chosen to ensure that Skåne, and Skåne alone, would be the focus for the commissioner-general’s attention. After all, if any of the suitable Danes found one of their, or their families estates elsewhere under siege, they might be tempted to intervene and thus detract from the defence of Skåne. Spynie, as an outsider, had no such concerns and this may have contributed to his appointment. While Lord Spynie and his men moved into Skåne, Christian IV sent Mackay’s regiment to secure the island of Stralsund. After much ﬁerce ﬁghting, the governor of Stralsund, Colonel Holke, left the garrison to arrange for reinforcements. In the interim period his job fell to Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Seaton.67 He maintained this position for only a brief period of time before Christian IV released the defence of Stralsund to Gustav II Adolf of Sweden.68 Seaton relinquished his position to a fellow Scot, Alexander Leslie, the future Earl of Leven.69 The retirement of Danish-Norwegian forces from Stralsund proved to be one of the ﬁnal acts of Christian IV in the war. Within only a few weeks he concluded the Treaty of Lübeck with the Emperor.70 This treaty restored the Danish monarch to all his pre-war possessions so long as he promised not to interfere with the interests of the Habsburg Empire again.71 The majority of Scots who survived either returned to Scotland or transferred into Swedish service to continue the war from there.

66

Marquard, Kancelliets Brevbøger, 406. Missive, 1 May 1628. Monro, His Expedition, I, 74. 68 Monro, His Expedition, I, 93. 69 Monro, His Expedition, I, 74, 78 and 79; A. Grosjean, ‘Scots and the Swedish State: Diplomacy, Military Service and Ennoblement’, unpublished Ph.D., (Aberdeen: 1998), 79, and Grosjean’s article in this volume. 70 L. Laursen and C.S. Christiansen, eds, Danmark-Norges Traktater, 1523–1750, med dertil hørende aktstykker (11 vols., Copenhagen: 1907–1949), IV, 77–86. Treaty between Christian IV and Emperor Ferdinand, 12/22 May 1629; KCFB, II, 203. Copy of dispatches from Christian IV, 30 May 1631. 71 T. Munck, Seventeenth century Europe, 1598–1700 (London: 1990), 64. Analysis of the treaty is given in J.A. Fridericia, Danmarks Ydre Politiske Historie; i tiden fra freden 67

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The use of Scottish commanders by Christian IV raises many interesting points. Kejserkrigen was a war fought largely on the defensive by the Danes, indeed much of it on Danish soil. The DanishNorwegian army made no signiﬁcant gains into enemy territory and therefore had few governorships to award to their oﬃcers. When the Scottish troops arrived, all the cities and castles already had commandants and governors. One would think that none of them would have wanted to relinquish their positions to foreigners, but some must have done just that.72 With the exceptions of Cunningham in Finnmark and Spynie in Skåne, all the other Scots who became defacto governors of given locations had something in common. When Wilson and Dunbar occupied their various castles, they did so because the local magnate who should have been responsible for their defence was, for whatever reason, absent. Colonel Holke left Stralsund to Alexander Seaton whilst he retired to seek reinforcements. He never returned to his command and thus handed control to the Scot uncontested. Scottish governorship in the front line during this period can therefore be seen, for the most part, in terms of an emergency measure caused by the departure of the indigenous incumbent governor.

The Torstensson War (1643–1645) Between 1629 and 1643, Denmark-Norway remained in a precarious neutrality trusted neither by the agents of the Habsburg Empire, nor by the government of Sweden. Indeed, as the Swedes prosecuted their campaigns in Germany they felt they always had to cast an eye over their shoulder to Denmark fearing that Christian IV would launch an attack on them in support of the Emperor. The Swedish commander, Lennart Torstensson, attacked Holstein in December 1643 as a pre-emptive strike against that very possibility.73 At the outbreak of hostilities there were already Scots serving on the Danish-Norwegian frontiers. John Cunningham continued to act i Prag til freden i Brömsebro, 1635–1645 (Copenhagen 1881: 1972 reprint), 38–60; See also Lockhart, Denmark in the Thirty Years’ War, 198–207. 72 Lind, Hæren og Magten, 287. Lind notes that there was a deﬁnite preference only to employ Danish and Holstein nobles in positions of authority during this war. 73 Fridericia, Danmarks Ydre Politiske Historie, 293–447. A comparative Swedish view is presented in W. Tham, Den Svenska Utrikes Politikens Historia, 1:2, 1560 –1648 (Stockholm: 1960).

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as lensmand of Finnmark, protecting Norway’s northern borders from the Swedes. Due to his age, Cunningham transferred military control of Finnmark over to his cousin.74 Tamis Cunningham was an obvious choice to serve as military governor having already served in a similar capacity in Alta during the Kalmar War and having governed Finnmark in John Cunningham’s absence on several occasions dating back to the 1620s.75 It is interesting to note that he was appointed by his cousin during the war and not by the DanishNorwegian government. His authority was only conﬁrmed retrospectively by the Norwegian viceroy, Hannibal Sehested, in 1648, three years after the war was over.76 Another Scottish governor during this war could be found in the person of Patrick Dunbar. A veteran of the 1625–1629 conﬂict, he took up a commission in a Danish regiment in 1628.77 Dunbar married Maren Munk in 1638 which resulted in his being naturalised as a Danish nobleman as the Count of Spannerup.78 This position brought new responsibilities and opportunities. In view of his military experience and social position, Dunbar became commandant of Halmstad between August 1641 and May 1642.79 On the eve of the Torstensson War, he took over command of the fortress of Christianopel in Blekinge, right on Sweden’s south eastern border with Denmark.80 During the peace negotiations conducted throughout 1644, Christian IV ordered his envoys to base themselves there under the protection of the Scottish count.81 Dunbar maintained control of his command for the duration of the war, never yielding to Swedish pressure to capitulate.82

74 Statholderskabets extrakt protokol af supplicationer og resolutioner, 1642–1652 (Christiania: 1896–1901), II, 38. Notes by Hannibal Sehested, February 1648. 75 NRA, Danske Kanselli: Norske Kansellinnleg for 1660, 1121/50. Letters dated 29/08/1623 and 30/08/1623. 76 Statholderskabets extrakt protokol, II, 38. Notes by Hannibal Sehested, February 1648. 77 Monro, His Expedition, I, 82. 78 Thiset and Wittrup, Nyt Dansk Adelslexicon, 70; Riis, Should Auld Acquaintance, II, 86. 79 Lind, Hæren og Magten, 437. Lind describes Halmstadt as a class B castle. That is a small but modern bastion fortress. 80 Lind, Hæren og Magten, 475. Christianopel was a class B fortress. 81 The meetings themselves were to take place in Brømsebro. See KCFB, V, 513–514. Christian IV to Korﬁts Ulfeldt, 13 October 1644. 82 Hirsch and Hirsch, ‘Fortegnelse over Dansk og Norske oﬃcerer’, III, vol. 2; Thiset and Wittrup, Nyt Dansk Adelslexicon, 70; Riis, Should Auld Acquaintance, II, 86.

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The relative poverty of the Danish-Norwegian Crown at the start of the war meant that, unlike previous wars, they were unable to hire foreign regiments. The poverty of the war chest meant that sometimes oﬃcers were granted a len in addition to their salary. A lieutenant-colonel, for instance, should have been paid 600 rixdaler per year. However, sometimes they only got 400 rixdaler and had to make up the rest of their salary by taking over a len somewhere in their vicinity. Given that many Norwegian len were on the Swedish frontier, this would have acted as an added incentive for oﬃcers to defend their territory. Lose your len, lose your income!83 No Scottish oﬃcers are so far known to have been paid in such a way, but then no record survives as to how the likes of Tamis Cunningham were paid or enforced their military command in Finnmark. Indeed, we do not even know by which rank he addressed himself, so some kind of informal payment such as the part rent from a len is quite possible. Many Scottish oﬃcers served the Oldenburg monarchy in this war, particularly in the Norwegian theatre. Between 1644 and 1645, Colonel George ‘Jost’ Mackenzie commanded the Akershus National Infantry regiment and brought his son James into Norwegian service with him.84 Colonel Andrew Spang commanded ‘Spang’s’ regiment in Norway which was made up of Scottish oﬃcers and foreign recruits.85 Similarly, Colonel James Wilson also formed ‘Willson’s’ regiment which was recruited from Båhus len, but oﬃcered by Scots including his own son, Captain James Wilson and kinsman Ensign Matthew Wilson.86 Another Scot, Colonel James Murray, arrived in Norway in 1644 bearing a testimonial from Charles I. In this late example of Stuart-Danish patronage, Charles asked that Murray be

83 Many junior oﬃcers were often not paid their salaries, but instead exempted from paying taxes on property and goods. See J.O. Wahl, Det Gamle Bergenhusiske Regiments Historie (Oslo: 1901), 8. 84 NRA, O. Ovenstad, ‘Den Norske Hær, 1628–1900’, unpublished regimental chart collection, 3 and 4; O. Ovenstad, Miltærbiograﬁer: Den Norske Hærs Oﬃcerer (2 vols, Oslo: 1948), II, 148. 85 NRA, Danske Kanselli: Skåpsaker I, 1122/01. Skåp IX, pakke 62 A, 4A08326; Ovenstad, Miltærbiograﬁer, II, 426; NRA, Ovenstad, ‘Den Norske Hær, 1628–1900’, 3 and 4. The Scottish oﬃcers were Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Gray, Lieutenantcaptain Richard Gordon, Captain William Maitland as well as Lieutenant Daniel Marchonell who was probably from Ireland. 86 Ovenstad, Miltærbiograﬁer, II, 571. The other Scots included Captain John Forbes, Captain John Barclay and Lieutenant Alexander Skeen. See NRA, Ovenstad, ‘Den Norske Hær, 1628–1900’, 3.

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given expenses usual to his status and granted ‘above the usual protection’ which Christian would normally extend to one of Charles’ subjects.87 Murray commanded all the ﬁeld artillery in the Norwegian army as well as having speciﬁc command of the artillery battery in Akershus, the premier fortiﬁcation in Norway.88 Despite slanders against his reputation, the viceroy, Hannibal Sehested, appointed him as ‘stadsoberst’, city governor of Marstrand at the mouth of the river Göta from 26 May 1645.89 This signiﬁcantly contributed to the presence of Scottish soldiers in key positions along the Danish-Swedish frontier. Under cover of Murray’s stronghold of Marstrand, Scotsmen led the oﬀensive against Gothenburg by land and sea. Colonel John Taylor, colonel and chief of the Smaalenske National Infantry Regiment since 1644, distinguished himself when he commanded the assault on Gothenburg in August 1645.90 Colonel Alexander Seaton, former governor of Stralsund, now served as an admiral and commanded a squadron of eight ships with which he prosecuted the ‘Norwegian’ oﬀensive against Gothenburg by sea.91 The Murray-Taylor-Seaton oﬀensive illustrates an episode where Gothenburg was bombarded from both maritime and land based Oldenburg territories controlled by Scottish frontier guardians. Despite the low numbers of Scots involved in the conﬂict compared to Kejserkrig, the Torstensson War produced a Scottish governor or commandant on every major frontier with Sweden, backed by several Scottish-led regiments. John and Tamis Cunningham maintained control of Finnmark; James Murray held Marstrand, Alexander Seaton commanded the ﬂeet on the maritime marches with Sweden while Patrick Dunbar commanded the symbolic and strategic garrison of Christianopel for the duration of the war. As with the earlier periods of service, the arrival of Scots into Oldenburg service came as a direct result of royal patronage between the houses of Stuart and Oldenburg. Some, like the Cunninghams, were hang-

87

DRA, TKUA, England A I. Charles I to Christian IV, 16 January 1644; Ovenstad, Miltærbiograﬁer, II, 192. 88 NRA, Ovenstad, ‘Den Norske Hær, 1628–1900’, 4. 89 NRA, Ovenstad, ‘Den Norske Hær, 1628–1900’, 4. 90 O. Ovenstad, ‘Den Norske Hær, 1628–1900’, 3 and 4; Ovenstad, Miltærbiograﬁer, II, 478; Wahl, Det Gamle Bergenhusiske Regiments Historie, 10–14. 91 Wahl, Det Gamle Bergenhusiske Regiments Historie, 8–10; Espelland, Skottene i Hordaland og Rogaland, 34.

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overs from the Jacobean period. Others, such as Seaton, had previously served in Denmark due to the relationship between Charles and Christian IV. Many of the ‘new’ Scots, as exempliﬁed by Murray, were Royalists who objected to the radical Covenanting regime in Scotland and who had been displaced from their homeland due to the ongoing civil war there. We also know that Charles I hoped that if he helped his uncle win his war against Sweden, then perhaps Danish-Norwegian help would be forthcoming in return. Another factor in attracting Scots was that, as in previous wars, Christian IV found them to be among his most favoured choice of oﬃcer. He put his request thus: If our envoy [Colonel John Henderson] should ﬁnd Your Highness’s aﬀairs in such a state that from your army you could possibly do without four thousand Scotsmen and pass them on to us, then he shall make that request to you on our behalf [. . .]. In the case however that he ﬁnds matters to be in other circumstances there, he shall mention nothing to Your Majesty, but inform himself most dilligently whether he can otherwise obtain a few regiments of Scottish soldiers there, and whether one can do recruiting more easily and cheaply there than in Germany. Otherwise we will stay with the German soldiers and we shall only exert himself as to which Scottish oﬃcers are to be obtained for us for Norway.92

As in previous periods of service, there could be reward for those who chose to remain in the Oldenburg monarchy after the war was over. Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Gray took over command of the Bergenhus regiment after the departure of fellow Scot, Colonel Lawrence Blair.93 He also took over as the governor of Bergen Castle when the commissioned governor, Henrich Thott, was absent. This was conﬁrmed in writing in 1646 and probably also occurred during other periods when Thott was away.94 When Thott ﬁnally left Bergen for good, Gray again took over. However, his position there was short lived due to his decision to leave Norway to take part in the ill-fated Montrosian expedition to Scotland of 1649–1650.95

92 DRA, TKUA, England, A II 15. Instructions to Henderson from Christian IV, 28 November 1644. 93 Ovenstad, Miltærbiograﬁer, II, 361. 94 N. Nicolaysen, Norske Magasin Skrifter og Optegnelser angaaende Norge og forfattede efter Reformationen. Bind II (Christiania: 1868), 210. May 1646. 95 S. Murdoch, ‘The Search for Northern Allies: Stuart and Cromwellian

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His appointment was never conﬁrmed and instead the governorship of the town went to another Scottish veteran, Donald Mackay, (now Lord Reay). He died soon after, probably before he ever reached the city.96

The Swedish-Danish Wars 1658–1660 There were several Scottish oﬃcers of note in Danish-Norwegian service during the Swedish-Danish wars of the 1650s. Two of them became military governors, Captain Thomas Haliburton and MajorGeneral John Henderson. Haliburton is interesting, for despite only holding a middle rank, he acted in the capacity of commandant of the garrison at Steireburge.97 Unfortunately very little else is known of his success or failure in this position. Henderson is a diﬀerent matter altogether since he is the only one of the Scottish governors to have surrendered his command in dubious circumstances. John Henderson came to Denmark-Norway from Polish service with a good reputation at the Oldenburg court. He was best known for his diplomatic activities between 1643 and 1651 when he served both the Stuart and Oldenburg Crowns as an ambassador.98 Henderson commanded his own regiment during the Swedish-Danish wars of the 1650s and, as part of his duties, he was given command of the garrison of Hindsgavl. After a short siege he surrendered the garrison to the Swedes. Henderson was court-martialled for his part in the surrender though he was released due to diplomatic pressure.99 It is not clear if this pressure came from the exiled Stuart court or from the Cromwellian government for whom he had served as a Propagandists and Protagonists in Scandinavia, 1649–1660’, in B. Taithe and T. Thornton, eds, Propaganda: Political Rhetoric and Identity, 1300–2000 (Gloucestershire: 1999), 79–90. 96 H. Murryat, One Year in Sweden including a visit to the Isle of Gotland (2 vols, London: 1862), 467. 97 The location of this garrison is elusive. It is not listed in Lind’s compilation of Danish fortresses. See Lind, Hæren og Magten, 478. 98 Calendars of State Papers, Domestic Series, First Series, 1547–1625, (13 vols, London: 1856–1992), 1644–1645, 392–393, Proceedings of the Committee of Both Kingdoms, 8 April 1645; DRA, TKUA, England A II 15. Charles I to Christian IV, credentials for Henderson, 6 September 1642 and 28 November 1644, Instructions to Henderson from Christian IV; DRA, TKUA, England A I, Charles I to Christian IV instructions for Cochrane, May 1644 and letter from the English Parliament to Christian IV, 25 June 1645; KCFB, VIII, 352. 99 DBL, VI, 344–5; Riis, Should Auld Acquaintance, II, 146.

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covert agent under the name of Peter von Berg.100 His relationship with the Cromwellian government and the Swedish Court make it possible that Henderson’s actions were motivated more through his loyalties lying outside Denmark rather than the will of his garrison. In May 1653, Edward Hyde noted that he was surprised that Henderson retained so much inﬂuence with the Swedish Court ‘as to procure a large sum of money for his own use’.101 Yet given his family connections there, such support is not really surprising. After all, Henderson was the brother-in-law of the Swedish noble and fellow Scot, Patrick Ruthven, Earl of Forth and Brentford.102 He was also one of many Scots who felt betrayed by Charles II and were abandoned in Sweden after the failed Montrosian invasion of 1650. As such, some British Royalists worked against the Stuart interest, and that of their allies thereafter, particularly Colonel John Cochrane.103 Given family interest, loyalty, ﬁnancial support from Sweden and a potential desire to hurt perceived allies of the exiled House of Stuart, Henderson’s selection as governor of Hindsgavl can only be described as unfortunate.

The Scanian War, 1675–1679 War broke out between Denmark-Norway and Sweden once more in 1675 as the Danes sought to recover their former territories east of the Sound. The Treaty of Copenhagen had ceded these to the Swedes in 1660. This war saw perhaps the fewest Scottish soldiers in the Danish-Norwegian armed forces of any conﬂict in the seventeenth century. Most of these, however, held high military rank and social status. Robert Hamilton joined the Norwegian cavalry as a captain in 1658. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1661 after a recommendation by Charles II. After this last act of Stuart patronage for a Scottish soldier in the Oldenburg monarchy, Hamilton was

100 Thomas Birch, ed., A Collection of the State Papers of John Thurloe esq. (7 vols, London: 1742), IV, 242, 24, 407, 467. 101 O. Ogle et al., Calendar of the Clarendon State Papers preserved in the Bodleian Library (5 vols., Oxford: 1872–1970), II, 81, 220–1, 1085–9, 1126, 1314, 1323; III: 37. 102 This relationship is noted in the articles relating to Patrick Ruthven in DNB, XVII, 513; Sir James Balfour Paul, The Scots Peerage (Edinburgh: 1907), IV, 105. 103 Murdoch, ‘The Search for Northern Allies’, 79–90.

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named a Knight of the Elephant that same year by Frederik III. Between 1670 and his death in 1677, Hamilton was mentioned as commander of the large modern bastion fortress of Kronborg as well as being appointed amtmand of Lister in 1671.104 These appointments, a military governorship and charge of a civic administrative region, both followed after years of service to the Oldenburg monarchy. They may well have been the ﬁnal such appointment which can be shown to have a pedigree founded on the Stuart-Oldenburg alliance of 1589 as Hamilton’s recommendation from Charles II occurred before war broke out between the two monarchies in 1665. Hamilton was not the only Scottish veteran in service at this time, and there was perhaps one other claimant to the title of last survivor of the Stuart-Oldenburg alliance. While he could not boast a Stuart recommendation to an Oldenburg king like Hamilton, Thomas Meldrum is worthy of note in that he was probably the longest serving Scot (or soldier) in the Danish-Norwegian army. He cut his teeth as a private soldier during Kejserkrig in the 1620s and retired with the rank of general in the late 1680s after 60 years in the ﬁeld. He had enlisted in Denmark initially as a consequence of Charles I’s military commitment to Christian IV in 1625 and remained in continental service thereafter. Meldrum took an active part in the Danish campaign against Sweden in 1675 and earned the title of commander and full colonel at the battle of Lund in 1676. He acted as vicecommander of the newly captured Swedish town of Landskrona the following year, and ﬁnally as military governor of the fortress itself.105 It was from this strategic position that Christian V conducted his devastating campaign against Swedish Skåne for much of the war. James Duncan was perhaps the most surprising Scotsman of note in the Scanian Wars. Duncan accepted a colonelcy from Christian V in 1671 and became colonel and chief of the Fyn cavalry. He later rose to become a Knight of the Order of Dannebrog in 1683 and commander of the Holstein army the following year. His role during the Scanian Wars began as colonel of a dragoon regiment.

104 Hirsch and Hirsch, ‘Fortegnelse over Dansk og Norske oﬃcerer’, IV, vol. 3; Svenskt Biograﬁskt Lexicon, XXIV, 632; Riis, Should Auld Acquaintance, II, 89; Lind, Danish Data Archive 1573. 105 Hirsch and Hirsch, ‘Fortegnelse over Dansk og Norske oﬃcerer’, VII, vol. 2; Lind, Danish Data Archive 1573; Riis, Should Auld Acquaintance, II, 92 and 115; DRA, Kanc. B 150, fol. 116r.–v. no. 155.

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In 1676 he was sent to Halmstad with a Danish regiment where he and his wife were captured by the Swedes. On his release the following year, Duncan became inspector of cavalry on Sjaelland and Fyn. He actively sought the governorship of Fyn in December 1677, which some sources suggest he was granted, while others make no mention of this fact.106 His choice for any type of command in the Danish-Norwegian army, let alone that of governor, is actually surprising given his strong Swedish connections. This is especially so given the actions of Major-General Henderson in the previous war. Not only was Duncan a long-time veteran of the Swedish army, but he had actively fought against the Danes during the Swedish-Danish wars of the 1650s. Furthermore, Duncan was married to Maria Sophia Maclean, the daughter of Sir John Maclean, Scottish merchant and Swedish baronet of Gothenburg. Her brothers Gustaf and Peter, were both Swedish colonels who served contemporaneously in the opposing army to Duncan.107 Nonetheless, Duncan appears to have been a man of integrity and chose not to let these factors interfere with his position in the Danish-Norwegian army. He saw out the war taking an active part in anti-Swedish campaigns launched from Norway between 1678–79 which have become known in Scandinavia as Duncanskrig.108 Yet despite Danish and Norwegian success in the campaign, the French brokered the Peace of Lund in 1679 which ensured that Sweden retained the former Danish provinces. As for Duncan, despite being one of the most prominent leaders in the war, there appears to have been no governorship, no commandant’s position and no granting of an amt in reward for his services and we can only speculate as to why that might be. There are several notable things about the Scottish governors during the Scanian wars. Hamilton, Duncan and Meldrum were all veterans of Oldenburg service who were in Christian V’s service before war was declared. Perhaps lessons had been learned after MajorGeneral Henderson’s surrender of Hindsgavl in the 1650s after all. Hamilton and Meldrum were placed in charge of the two largest fortresses of the war while Duncan commanded, militarily at least,

106 DBL, IV, 363. In Erslev’s compilation, no mention is made of Duncan either on Fyn or elsewhere. See Erslev, Danmark-Norges Len og Lensmænd, II, passim. 107 Svenskt Biograﬁskt Lexicon, XXIV, 632. 108 Å.F. Jensen, Kavaleriet: Norge 1200–1994 (Trondheim: 1995), 171–172.

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a major island in the Danish archipelago and conducted a notoriously bloody campaign with the Norwegian army in 1679. Most importantly, Meldrum’s appointment in Landskrone was the ﬁrst of a Scot in a captured enemy fortress and town since Andrew Sinclair in Kalmar in 1611. This brought Scottish governorship in DenmarkNorway full circle and left a Scot in charge of a Swedish city on behalf of the Oldenburg monarchy.

Conclusion This chapter opened with a quote from Sir Thomas Urquhart claiming that by 1652 he could account for at least 10 Scottish governors in the service of Denmark-Norway. Certainly the evidence collected for this chapter shows that Urquhart was correct. Indeed there were over 20 appointments of Scottish governors by the time Urquhart made his statement. If we rather think of guardians of the frontiers rather than simply those appointed ‘governor’ of a speciﬁc location, then Urquhart understated the case. The Scottish mariners of the Danish-Norwegian ﬂeet defended, explored and enlarged the maritime marches. Alexander Durham, and the two admirals Mowatt were not included in his ﬁgures, though as shown already, Urquhart recognised Axel Mowatt’s high standing and Scottish identity. In addition to ‘Urquhart’s Ten’, this chapter has also highlighted that at least another ﬁve Scottish governors were appointed by Frederik III and Christian V after The Jewel was published in 1652. While the issue of numbers has been veriﬁed, the question still remains as to why Scots found themselves on the Danish-Norwegian frontier. The answer to that varied considerably as the century progressed. First and foremost has to be the strong court patronage from the House of Stuart. In the early years of the Scottish alliance with Denmark-Norway, Scots often gained their appointments because they had married into the indigenous nobility. Indeed all the Scots who served as lensmænd under Christian IV were ennobled in DenmarkNorway, yet ennoblement was no guarantee of becoming a lensmand. Andrew Mowatt, Axel Mowatt and Patrick Dunbar were all ennobled and owned estates. None became lensmænd although all took on roles on the Oldenburg frontier either as admirals or governors. Once in place, the Scots could deploy their own family patronage networks. When John Cunningham was absent from his len in 1623,

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he ensured that his power devolved to his cousin Tamis, as he did again between 1643–1645. When Tamis upset other Danish oﬃcials, they found that the cousins closed ranks against them to freeze them out.109 Yet for the most part the Scots behaved as any other Danish or Norwegian governors and were as likely to promote their Danish or Norwegian relatives as their Scottish ones. It must also be pointed out that they were not employed just because they were Scots. After all, 99% of Scots who entered Oldenburg service never received a castle, city or len to control. However, being Scottish gave them a head start and those selected for a recommendation from James VI were placed into contention alongside indigenous candidates for vacant positions. Of the 30 or so Scots pushed into the Oldenburg monarchy by James VI, ﬁve became Danish-Norwegian noblemen, several became lensmænd while Andrew Sinclair also joined the Danish Rigsråd. Throughout the post-Jacobean period, regardless of numbers involved or the rank and contribution of an individual to a particular campaign, it was only on the rarest of occasions that a Scot might be granted a len or amt. Militarily, desperation was a feature of Danish wars after 1625. The Oldenburgs lost four consecutive wars and were consistently on the defensive. Their position was such that they would employ whichever military men they could get their hands on. Sometimes this paid dividends such as with the appointment of colonels Spang, Taylor and Murray in the 1640s. Other times they were too trusting as the case of General John Henderson illustrates. Yet, out of over 20 individuals discussed here, his was the only questionable incident that has been unearthed to date. However, it can also be diﬃcult to deduce the success of many of the others. With the exception of the lensmænd Durham, Sinclair and Cunningham, references to the Scots in their frontier capacity are elusive in Danish-Norwegian sources. It is telling that to date we know more of Major James Dunbar’s seven day occupation of Breitenburg in 1627 than Robert

109 NRA, Danske Kanselli: Norske Kansellinnleg før 1660, 1121/50. Mortern Ifuersen to the Chancellor, 29 August 1623. Ifuersen complained about the injustice Tamis Cunningham, acting lensmand in John Cunningham’s absence, had done to him by arresting him in Vardø without reason. Worse than the arrest was that John Cunningham backed up his cousin; Ibid., Bastian Hess to the chancellor 30 August 1623. Hess had been appointed foged in Vardø by John Cunningham, but after a ﬁght with his relation, Tamis, he could not get satisfaction since John Cunningham closed ranks with Tamis against him.

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Hamilton’s seven year governorship of Kronborg. Until further research can be undertaken we can only conclude that the Scots received their appointments because they had already expressed both loyalty and ability and were backed in nearly all instances by court patronage from the House of Stuart. After the death of James VI, the very nature of the Stuart alliance with Denmark-Norway began to change radically. Christian thought little of his nephew, Charles I, and eﬀectively broke oﬀ diplomatic communication with him between 1629–1639.110 A brief return to positive Stuart-Danish relations followed between 1641–1645.111 However, Christian IV scrapped the old 1589 alliance in favour of a trade agreement with the English Parliament in 1645 which was reconﬁrmed by his son Frederik III in 1654.112 By the late 1650s therefore Scotsmen were less inclined to Danish-Norwegian service. The outbreak of war between Britain and Denmark in 1665 closed the book on the Stuart-Oldenburg alliance of 1589 and Scots tended to look elsewhere when contemplating foreign service. Denmark-Norway had entered the seventeenth century as a great power but declined to such a degree by the reign of Christian V that it simply had nothing left to oﬀer Scots in terms of political aﬃliation, social status or ﬁnancial reward. With the end of the Scanian Wars, the day of the Scottish governor in Denmark-Norway was over. As the other contributors to this book demonstrate, by the close of the seventeenth century, other locations oﬀered greater possibilities to the Scottish military (and civic) elite.113

110

Murdoch, Britain, Denmark-Norway and the House of Stuart, 64–89. Murdoch, Britain, Denmark-Norway and the House of Stuart, 117–129. 112 DRA, TKUA, England II 15, f. 49b, Trade and Toll agreement between Christian IV and the English Parliament of 26 April 1645. An English version can be found in M. Sellars, ed., The Acts and Ordinances of the Eastland Company (London: 1906), 159–165; A printed German version can be found in Danmark-Norges Traktater, 412–418; Danmark-Norges Traktater, V, 152. Treaty between Oliver Cromwell and King Frederik III of Denmark-Norway, 15 September 1654. 113 I would like to thank Dr Douglas Hamilton for his very useful comments on this chapter. 111

CHAPTER TWO

AT THE EDGE OF CIVILISATION: JOHN CUNNINGHAM, LENSMANN OF FINNMARK, 1619–51 Rune Hagen

The Scotsman John Cunningham (c. 1575–1651) was appointed district governor (lensmann) of Vardøhus Len early in the springtime of 1619.1 He remained in this position for 32 years, until the summer of 1651. Neither before nor after this period did anyone retain this position for such a long time in Finnmark. This was the case for those who, in the past, were called district governor (lensmann), county prefect (amtmann) or—as is the case today—chief administrative oﬃcer ( fylkesmann). There are, in fact, very few people in the history of Denmark-Norway who held this kind of oﬃce for so many years. Remaining in this position for 32 years is in itself compelling evidence for his success in carrying out the Crown’s territorial, political and economical policy in the north of Norway. Not only did he use all available lobbying channels to make his demands and his proposals known, but these were often considered so appropriate that the Crown sought to ﬁt his proposals into existing law and policy. His solid position was in fact never even seriously challenged: in this Cunningham stands out among the local governors in Norway, both predecessors and successors. Not only did he tackle his task with great enthusiasm but as the King’s most faithful servant he was allowed to govern the county with few restrictions from Copenhagen while exercising authority almost like a feudal lord. As district governor of Finnmark (Vardøhus Len), he even chose the appropriate

1 John Cunningham (or Hans Kønigh, as his name often was written in DenmarkNorway) got his letter of appointment to ‘Vardøhuus and Finmarken’ on 26 March 1619. See O.Gr. Lundh and J.E. Sars, eds., Norske Rigs-registranter: 1619–1627, bind 5 (Christiania: 1874), 12–14. Before the introduction of absolutism in 1660, Len was the name of the largest administrative unit in Norway. In 1650 there were, altogether, 28 lensmen in Norway, nine of them were hovedlensman like Cunningham. At the same time there were 49 lensmen in Denmark, see K.P. Pedersen, Enevældens amtmænd (København: 1998), 18.

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name Hans Køning (cf. king). On the other hand, the relationship between the state centre and the northern province constituted a dynamic interplay that, while oﬀering this opportunity for heightened prestige, could also place certain strains upon his governorship. The overall task of the lensmann was to carry out the DanishNorwegian policy of penetrating and consolidating its control of a region which was variously claimed by Sweden and Russia. During the early modern period it was of uttermost importance for the Crown to tie Finnmark and the north Atlantic sea closer to the realm. For this the King needed a strong man who had experience with the conﬂicts that related to the Arctic and the northern part of Europe. This chapter seeks to point out some of the central issues related to Cunningham’s political platform and the success of his administration. The paper also draws attention to a local governor’s role in the decision-making processes within the kingdom of the dual monarchy. Indeed, in the Danish-Norwegian context, Cunningham was an important ﬁgure in the crucial process whereby previously hazy frontiers were transformed into precise borders. This development is part of the important transition from what Anthony Giddens has called the traditional state to the emergence of a nation-state.2 In order to evaluate Cunningham’s administration a short overview is necessary of the topographical surroundings, and the political and economic situation in the high north during the early modern age.

Geopolitical framework The geographic framework for Cunningham’s governorship centres upon a hovedlen (main county) in the very far north of DenmarkNorway. In the seventeenth century this border district was called ‘The Crown’s len of Vardøhus and Finnmarken’, being the northernmost part of the Kingdom, situated in a peripheral area of adjoining states [See Map 2]. At this time the borderline to the east of the region was problematic. Indeed, none of the countries in the

2 A. Giddens, The National-State and Violence: A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism, vol. 2 (Cambridge: 1985), 50. See also H. Gustafsson (Trans. by Alan Crozier), Political Interaction in the Old Regime. Central Power and Local Society in the Eighteenth-Century Nordic States (Lund: 1994), 24.

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region knew the exact location of their respective borders. Neither the Russian nor Swedish borders had been settled: indeed such an agreement with Sweden came only in 1751, and the frontier with Russia was ﬁxed only in 1826. During Cunningham’s time in Finnmark some communities populated by the indigenous people of the north, the Sami, paid taxes to three masters; Russia, Sweden and DenmarkNorway. Finnmark is part of a larger region known today as the North Calotte (Nordkalotten). Both before and after the early seventeenth century, this region helped generate important trade networks. The policy of governments, both in Denmark and Sweden, was to break down the old established networks of the people living in the area. From about 1595 Sweden made strong eﬀorts to gain access to the North Sea by expanding its borders towards the north Norwegian coast. The Russian Tsar claimed that Vardø, and the whole region of the Varanger peninsula, belonged to Russia adding that the fortress in Vardø should be destroyed or handed over to Russian control. On the other hand, the Danish king claimed that the whole district of the Kola peninsula was Norwegian territory.3 Conﬂict between the three powers of the north over trade, taxes and territorial claims was thus the crucial background to the region’s history throughout the seventeenth century. Almost inevitably, this process of statebuilding and territorial expansion in the far north of Europe created a number of problems between the diﬀerent peoples of the region— the Sami, Russians, Norwegians, Swedes and the Finns. These factors all helped shape the administration of any individual governor. To the west of Finnmark lay the North Sea or the Barents Sea, as it is called today. From about the middle of 1550 merchants from Scotland and England began to trade with the northern part of Russia. Explorers also tried to ﬁnd the north east passage to the golden lands of Cathay and other places in Asia. Merchants from the Netherlands soon followed suit to become the dominant sea traders in the area from the turn of the seventeenth century. From this time on whaling in the Arctic also became a central issue for the Danish-Norwegian monarchy. During the ﬁrst half of the 1600s

3 O.A. Johnsen, Finmarkens politiske historie (Kristiania: 1923), 142. For historical accounts of the conﬂicts in early modern North Calotte (Nordkalottkonﬂikten), see N. Bjørgo, Ø. Rian and A. Kaartvedt, Selvstendighet og union. Fra middelalderen til 1905 (Oslo: 1995), 152–161; Ø. Rian, Den aristokratiske fyrstestaten, 1536–1648 (København and Oslo: 1997), 211–220.

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trade with Archangel (founded in 1584) and other places along the coast of Northeast-Russia became increasingly important. Sweden had, from 1581, blocked all the Russian harbours throughout the Baltic Sea, so the only way for western European sea-borne powers to trade with Russia was to sail north and beyond the North Cape. As these new sea routes went around the north coast of Finnmark, the consequence was that many of the ships passed or stopped at the county’s main outpost of Vardø. Because of the territorial threat on land and the attraction of controlling these developing sea routes (as well as the possibility of naval invasion), the Copenhagen authorities feared they could easily lose control of the county. The aggressive Danish-Norwegian king, Christian IV (1577–1648) decided to resolve this situation, not least the issue of illegal commerce in this distant part of his realm. The conﬂicts in the north, and relations with Sweden became the king’s primary preoccupation in foreign politics during the ﬁrst years of his reign. Christian insisted that the ocean outside northern Norway was an integral part of his kingdom. Merchants who sailed through the ‘King’s streams north of Vardø’ to Russia required a passport and had to pay customs to the Crown. The purpose of this move was to protect and claim the king’s territorial interests against Russia, Sweden and any other European seaborne trading nations. The implementation of these objectives can, in fact, be called Cunningham’s foreign policy while he served as the district governor of Finnmark. The location of the frontiers and the levying of taxes were certainly still unresolved questions when the Scotsman took up his position in 1619. Early modern Finnmark played a special political role in the dual monarchy. The overall goal was obviously to defend the territory of the realm, but Cunningham also had to implement something akin to a command economy within his area of jurisdiction. As long as he took care of the king’s demands for territorial integration and fought local resistance to these aims, the governor and indeed the social and political elites of the county could hope to maintain a strong position for themselves. Finnmark’s special status sprang from the prominence of this frontier-mercantilism, in which the local governor, as the interpreter or link between centre and province, enjoyed far-reaching internal autonomy. Cunningham’s role can thus be seen as essentially intercessionary. Just how important the region was considered can be seen from attitudes towards the annual presentation by the bailiﬀ. Every year

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the bailiﬀ of Finnmark used to travel to Kola (Malmis) to present the Danish-Norwegian territorial claims on land and taxation in the north-eastern part of Russia. In a letter to the King in 1621, Cunningham wanted to suspend this form of ceremonial travel, which he believed was far too costly. The King replied on 4 January 1622 that such journeys were very important and that they should continue trying to collect taxes and claim the Crown’s territorial rights in Russia.4 Indeed, these trips of pretension continued right up to 1813.

Cunningham’s activities before his appointment to Finnmark Before being honoured with the governorship and ﬁefdom in Finnmark, John Cunningham had, as the previous chapter illustrates, already been in the Danish Crown’s service for more than 15 years, mostly as an admiral. He was appointed initially as a military captain in 1603 with a salary of 300 dalers to perform duties at sea and on shore. Through his participation in and leadership of many dangerous sea-borne operations he had been of great importance for the king in diﬃcult situations, not least through confrontation and war against the arch-enemy, Sweden. By his involvement in these naval expeditions to the north, among other places to Greenland in 1605 and 1606, to Spitzbergen in 1615 and to the Faeroes and Iceland in 1616, Cunningham had acquired an excellent knowledge of the maritime balance of power in the region. The purpose of the expeditions had not only been to conﬁrm Danish-Norwegian frontiers, but also to extend and recover lost colonies. Cunningham’s experience with maritime frontiers was in fact an element that groomed him perfectly for oﬃce in Finnmark. He was, it seems, the right man for the task, eﬀectively dealing with freebooters, pirates and others who acted as they pleased in and around Danish-Norwegian coastal waters and lands. Cunningham came to serve Christian IV of Denmark-Norway when the latter’s brother-in-law, the Scottish king, James VI, recommended him. This connection with James VI suggests that John Cunningham knew how to communicate and promote his interests with royalty.

4 Jonhsen, Finmarkens politiske historie, 140 and Lundh and Sars, Norske Rigsregistranter: 1619–1627, bind 5, 190.

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Christian IV was so satisﬁed with Cunningham’s eﬀorts that he personally thanked James for his excellent nomination. In a letter to Christian IV, written from Westminster on 18 February 1605, James VI & I replied that he was pleased to hear of John Cunningham’s kind reception, and thanked Christian IV for having accepted Cunningham ‘by our request and recommendation’.5 Other contemporary sources also exist which give some indication of his early career at sea, and not all of them ﬂattering. An account by a riﬂeman and seaman from Iceland who sailed with Cunningham described him as a strange and peculiar type of person, especially when intoxicated.6 The on-going ﬁght for territorial control both on land and sea in the north had proven to be the dominant element within Swedish and Danish foreign politics during the years just before Cunningham’s arrival in Finnmark. Concerning relations with Sweden, speciﬁcally, Cunningham had orders to see that the Swedes did not break the Knærød Peace Treaty of 20 January 1613, signed after the Kalmar War (1611–1613). While in Finnmark, a copy of the treaty was sent to him so that he could familiarise himself with the various clauses. The king told Cunningham to warn the Swedes (and Russians) not to act against these prescriptions. He also received instructions to clear His Majesty’s northern seas of illegal traders and pirates.7 On the occasion of Cunningham’s oﬃcial appointment oaths were taken that included him agreeing to strike down harshly upon the enemies of God. To the Danish-Norwegian state, such adversaries were inevitably found in these precarious borderlands of the realm. Although essentially a secular oﬃcial, Cunningham undertook this religious

5

R.M. Meldrum, ed., Letters from James I to Christian IV, 1603–1625 (Sussex: 1977), 41. John Cunningham came from the manor of Barns west of Crail in Fife, Scotland. He seems to have been an illegitimate son of John Cunningham senior who had his son legitimated on 16 April 1596: ‘REX dedit literas legitimationis JOANNI CUNYNGHAME bastardo, ﬁlio naturali Joannis C. De Bernis’ in J.M. Thomson, ed., Registrum Magni Sigilli Regum Scotorum, a.d. 1593–1608, (The Register of the Great Seal of Scotland) (Edinburgh: 1890), 147. Before he took up service in Denmark he is known to have travelled a lot in European countries. There are also some indications that he sailed as a captain to Newfoundland in Scottish service in 1600. For a biography see my article in Norsk Biograﬁsk Leksikon, bind 2, (Oslo: 2000) and a forthcoming article in New Dictionary of National Biography (Stuart area). For other biographical references, see Steve Murdoch’s chapter, footnotes 20–21. 6 J. Olafsson (Trans. S. Bløndal), Oplevelser som bøsseskytter under Christian IV, in J. Clausen and F. Rist, eds., Memoirer og Breve (København: 1905), no. 1, 131. 7 O.G. Lundh and J.E. Sars, eds., Norske Rigs-registranter: 1628–1634, bind 6 (Christiania: 1877), 167.

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oath to ensure that god-abiding citizens would not fear settling in the region on account of Sami sorcery. Indeed, when it came to dealing with the particular problem of an indigenous group, Cunningham already had previous experience. On a 1605 expedition to Greenland he had shot and killed an Inuit prisoner. He and his expedition had captured four of the inhabitants before leaving Greenland. These were to be taken to Denmark by force and put on display as exotic creatures from the northern archipelago. On the return journey to Copenhagen, the four Inuits went on the rampage and ‘they screamed and behaved like trolls’. One of them was shot by Cunningham himself to frighten the others. But Cunningham was not just harsh with indigenous peoples. One of the expedition’s Danish sailors was left abandoned on an isolated island as a result of his role during an onboard riot.8 In all, it might be said that this type of draconian behaviour made him ideal for the job in northern Norway.

The local policy of the district Governor in Finnmark, 1619–1651 Beyond his obvious experience and qualiﬁcations, there remains the question of how Cunningham was able to stay in power for such a long period: years that, after all, witnessed economic and demographic crises, and serious conﬂict at all levels of society in northern Norway? It can be said that he found his own particular and eﬃcient way to uphold the King’s authority in this vast region. To run local business and to make the administrative system work, he was dependent on support from the monopolised merchants trading in the area and from the local population. It is worth mentioning that in some of the small ﬁshing communities along the coast of Finnmark, Cunningham could co-operate with other Scotsmen. Evidence of Scottish settlements can be found in some of these small ﬁshing villages. By the ﬁrst half of the seventeenth century it appears that as many as 15 to 20 Scottish families resided in these communities: and, more signiﬁcantly, some of them had the position of Deputy Bailiﬀ (underfogd ) in these local villages.9 8 Grönlands historiske Mindesmærker, Udgivne af det kongelige nordiske Oldskrift Selskab, tredie Bind, (Kjøbenhavn: 1845), 678 and 685. 9 See the index of Scottish names in H. Sandvik and H. Winge eds., Tingbok for Finnmark: 1620–1633 (Oslo: 1987), 375.

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Above all, the political culture of the early modern Oldenburg monarchy was that of the ‘conglomerate state’, and, as such, people with diﬀerent interests and agendas felt perfectly entitled to go to the local elite and have their demands heard. Cunningham, it seems, managed to remain in oﬃce for a long period through a careful and eﬃcient balancing act between four diﬀerent local segments of the community. Indeed, as local governor he found himself having to construct frequently very diﬀerent relationships with the diﬀerent constituencies of his domain.10 It might deepen our understanding of how Cunningham’s government functioned by showing how he reacted towards these four groups, each of which displayed their own particular interests and concerns.

Building up a local elite The ﬁrst of the four main political issues or connections Cunningham had to deal with was the relationship between the local and central level of administration. Through his many trips to Denmark, Cunningham had direct access to Christian IV, the Danish council and other important political elites. Through these contacts he must have had a considerable inﬂuence on the Crown’s policy in the north. With this legitimising link and his own local administration he could control people and territory and bring information to the central 10 The Swedish historian Harald Gustafsson has deﬁned the conglomerate state as being the dominate type of state in early modern Europe: ‘It was a state composed of territories standing in diﬀerent relations to their rulers . . . It was a political, judicial and administrative mosaic, rather than a modern unitary state’. In another section of his article Gustafsson points to some topics that may be considered particularly relevant in the Cunningham context: ‘It was a state area consisting of several territories, usually brought together by a ruling house, but kept together by a few other factors. Each territory—or rather the social elite of each territory—had its distinctive relation to the ruler, its privileges, its own law code, its administrative system staﬀed by that same local elite, and often its own estate assembly’, in H. Gustafsson, ‘The Conglomerate State: A perspective on State Formation in Early Modern Europe’, Scandinavian Journal of History, vol. 23, Nos 3–4, (1998), 189 and 195. See also H. Gustafsson, ‘Reﬂexioner över Danmark-Norges historia’, (Norsk) Historisk Tidsskrift Bind 78, Nummer 4, (1999), 542–543 and his book Political Interaction in the Old Regime, 162. In this context Anthony Giddens has spoken of the early modern state as a state based on regional diﬀerentiations and internal heterogentiy, and as a collection of provinces that were both culturally and linguistically distinct, see Giddens, The National-State and Violence, vol. 2, 52 and 119. ‘Composite monarchies’ and ‘multiple kingdoms’ has also been used to describe the same phenomenon, see Gustafsson The Conglomerate state, 197.

    

37

authorities. The interest of the Danish centre in northern Norway became more and more evident as time progressed: indeed, there was no place along the coast of Norway during the seventeenth century where the Danish state maintained so strong a presence as in Finnmark.11 One of the reasons for the strong inﬂuence of central power at this local level can be found in Cunningham’s way of ruling the county. First, through the appointment of various important local administrators with strong ties to him, Cunningham tried to create for himself an aura of personal power, authority and prestige. The ﬁrst magistrate or sworn writer (sorenskriver) of Finnmark, Niels Jensen Saell, was appointed by Cunningham early in 1620, and in May the same year he replaced the old bailiﬀ with a new man called Søren Nielsen. In 1624 Cunningham appointed a personal servant as bailiﬀ of West-Finnmark. Two years later this man, Niels Knutsen, became bailiﬀ over the whole of Finnmark. For the ﬁrst time a new local elite was established in Finnmark that was designed to buttress the governor. Through the reshaping and modernisation of the local administration Cunningham could act quite independently of the Crown, thereby balancing the periphery’s concerns against those of the central power. He ensured control over the structure of the local elite by always appointing persons with strong ties to him, including family members. The employment of John’s cousin, Tamis Cunningham, as suggested in the previous chapter, was not merely a tried and tested tactic of Scots in Danish-Norwegian service generally, but in this case was clearly important in the process of moulding a pliant local administrative group. John Cunningham’s son-in-law, Hans Jenssen Ørbech, moreover, became a bailiﬀ in 1641. While Ørbech continued to hold very important positions in the administration even after Cunningham left Finnmark in 1651, becoming a councillor in Bergen in 1663, for instance, he and his brother Knud Jenssen Ørbech certainly acted as the governor’s assistants and helped forward the Scotsman’s policy. At an extraordinary court meeting in Vardø in late November 1649, Cunningham registered his daughter, Kirsten, in ‘sex and batch’ (tinglyst uti kjønn og kull ). By this oﬃcial declaration she and her husband Hans Jenssen Ørbech became the

11 A. Nedkvitne, Mens Bøndene seilte og Jægterne for. Nordnorsk og vestnorsk kyst-økonomi, 1500 –1730 (Oslo: 1988), 154.

38

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Governor’s rightful heirs.12 It is also of interest that in 1625 Cunningham himself married a noble lady named Ellen Clausdatter Hundermark. The marriage facilitated his entry into the Danish nobility; he became owner of the manor of Gerdrup in Zealand in the process, a jump in status that meant his foreign background would not necessarily diminish his social authority in the north.

Policy towards the merchants In Finnmark, trade was run as a monopoly by a few privileged merchant companies from Bergen. They made considerable proﬁts by selling stockﬁsh from the north of Norway on the European market: indeed, the merchants trading in Finnmark were among the richest men in Bergen.13 One of the most problematic issues facing Cunningham was the function of this trading system, where the individual ﬁsherman and his family were bound to these privileged merchants by debts. This system imposed important restrictions on the governor’s room for manoeuvre with these local elites. Many of the men in the position of district governor of early modern Finnmark, both before and after Cunningham, were dismissed from that post after becoming embroiled in this local arrangement, especially trying to support claims by the ﬁshermen against the class of important merchants from Bergen. These governors only remained in power for a few years at a time because they failed to handle the built-in conﬂict between the mercantilism of the Crown, which gave the trading monopoly to the Bergen merchants, and the merchants’ obligation to supply the population with food. Cunningham is, in fact, one of the few district governors who managed to deal with the situation without any serious problems. Again, we see the role of the governor as both an arbiter and a referee. His policy towards the traders could be described as ‘careful criticism’ while still trying to avoid any real threat to their vital interests. In the late 1620s and early 1630s, problems between the population and the merchants did arise. During the court sessions in 1630 there were strong reports and claims about a subsistence crisis, espe-

12 13

S.T., Thingbog oﬀuer Wardøehuus lehn, 1648–1654 (np., nd.), 7a–8a. A.B. Fossen, Borgerskapets by: 1536–1800 (Bergen: 1979), 380.

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39

cially in the western part of the region.14 After a report written by Cunningham to the central government about living conditions in Finnmark, the Crown insisted that merchants who did not supply the local people with food should not be allowed to trade. In his report Cunningham had stressed the obligations of merchants to bring grain and other kinds of food into Finnmark. According to the reply from Copenhagen, the Bergen merchants had no right to stop others who wanted to supply the people. The merchants reacted by complaining to the king about Cunningham’s behaviour towards them. They wailed about their rights and privileges being sold to ‘strangers’. In addition, they complained that a considerable amount of selling and buying was undoubtedly going on in Finnmark against the trading monopoly of the city of Bergen.15 The king wrote to Cunningham for an explanation. During the court sessions in Finnmark in 1631 the bailiﬀ, on behalf of Cunningham, asked the merchants in each local community the following questions: Did they have any complaints about Cunningham? Did they ﬁnd any faults with his local administration? Had he done anything to harm the interests of the merchants from Bergen? No-one came forth with critical remarks about Cunningham at any of the places.16 In 1635 the king ordered Jens Bjelke, governor of Bergen, to speak to the merchants of the city and tell them that they had an obligation to furnish the people in Finnmark with grains and other goods. In another case we can see Cunningham defending his bailiﬀ when merchants from Bergen complained that he had been involved in unlawful trading.17 Apart from these incidents, which really involved the defence of their mercantilist monopoly, the privileged merchants of Bergen did not seriously challenge his governorship throughout his tenure.

Relations with the Norwegian people of Finnmark To control the people placed under his authority one of Cunningham’s ﬁrst edicts was an order for the population to stay in the main ﬁshing 14

Sandvik and Winge, Tingbok for Finnmark, 243 and 248. See their letter dated 9 March 1629 in Lundh and Sars, Norske Rigs-registranter: 1628–1634, bind 6: 1628–1634, 125–126. 16 Sandvik and Winge, Tingbok for Finnmark, 271–289. 17 O.G. Lundh, Norske Rigs-registranter: 1635–1640, bind 7 (Christiania: 1880), 95 and 408. 15

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villages, and not move into the fjords or other remote places (avkroker).18 Those who already had moved, meanwhile, were told to return. To have all the ﬁshermen and their families living in about ﬁfteen local villages meant that the collection of taxes became considerably easier. The orders to enforce this kind of demographic policy, which severely restricted mobility, were repeated several times at court sessions during the 1620s. Yet Cunningham also sought popular support among the people of Finnmark by presenting himself like a local king. In doing this he could balance his position against the local trading elite. With some important exceptions, it is in fact diﬃcult to ﬁnd examples of direct resistance among the population to his form of governorship. He secured their loyalty by taking notice of their particular problems, supporting supplications and trying to improve their often miserable situation. There are some important examples of how Cunningham reacted to demands from the ordinary people. First, he gave the people food in times of famine and hunger, and when the merchants were not able to supply families with grain and wheat. When the court arrived in an isolated community called Kjelvik in June 1631, it heard reports about the famine conditions that had existed the year before. The people said that Cunningham had sent them wheat to avoid a more serious famine. They also said that their poverty would have been worse without the district governor’s relief supplies.19 This is in fact an indictment of the merchants who were unable or unwilling to meet their obligations regarding the distribution of subsistence. A second factor in the relative popularity of Cunningham’s authority with the local populations sprang from the occasional use of his power to pardon people after they had been convicted in court and sentenced to death, banishment or ﬁnes for a variety of crimes. Third, by his accurate reports to the king and the Danish council of the declining economical situation and poor living conditions, especially in the 1630s and 1640s, he ensured that the population of Finnmark obtained some reductions in taxes and were relieved of their obligations regarding the building of warships for defence. Cunningham’s local regime was thus to a certain degree based on the premise of co-operation with the ﬁshermen and their communities. The concept of Herrschaft

18 19

Sandvik and Winge, Tingbok for Finnmark, 45. Sandvik and Winge, Tingbok for Finnmark, 279.

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41

mit Bauern (government based on co-operation with the peasantry) might be useful to explain this kind of rule and paternalism.20

Integration and suppression of the Sami minority group When assessing the administration of Cunningham, the impression left is that he was a religious man who took his work seriously. He displayed his personality in a strong, ﬁrm but also friendly way. The people of Finnmark respected him, had trust in him, but, it must be said, they also feared him. It appears that he faced serious rebellion among the Norwegians only once. Of course he had now and then to get rid of individual troublemakers. A brutal aspect of his way of dealing with opposition, on the other hand, was the tendency to demonise dissenters: a tactic that could be applied to all of Finnmark’s diﬀerent social groups. At this frontier of civilisation one group of people—the Sami—found themselves divided between three states. Within the conglomerate state of Denmark-Norway they faced processes of territorial formation and integration that placed considerable and complicating pressure on their own ethnic identities. As a collective group, the Sami undoubtedly posed a threat to the expansion of Denmark-Norway, its state building, and its endeavours to spread ‘civilisation’ in the northern outpost of Europe. Fearful of Sami sorcery, the Norwegians did not dare inhabit the fjords of Finnmark even before restrictions were later placed on them, at least according to reports forwarded to the king in 1608. Thus the king commanded his northern-Norwegian governors to hunt down and eradicate all kinds of Sami sorcery. Those who practiced this form of ‘evil’ magic would be put to death, according to a decree of 1609.21 The policy of forcing a thorough integration of this ethnic minority into Danish-Norwegian society thus started at the beginning of the seventeenth century and lasted for the next 200 years. Indeed, in contrast to Cummingham’s policy of Herrschaft mit Bauern with the Norwegian ﬁshing communities, the suppression and integration of 20 S. Imsen, ‘Communalism and State-Building in Norway, 1537–1648’, Scandinavian Journal of History, vol. 22, No. 1, (1997), 24. The concept of Herrschaft mit Bauern has been contrasted with the concept of Herrschaft über Bauern (regime based on rule over peasants) by H. Wunder, Die bäuerliche Gemeinde in Deutschland (Göttingen: 1986). 21 O.G. Lundh, ed., Norske Rigs-registranter: 1603–1618, bind 4 (Christiania: 1870), 300.

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the Sami was predicated upon the concept of Herrschaft über Bauern (government based on rule over peasantry). To make this indigenous people faithful subjects of the Danish Crown, Cunningham had to use strong and sometimes brutal measures. It must be remembered, however, that serious conﬂicts between the Sami and the DanishNorwegian authorities during this period only emerged when their interests clashed irreconcilably. As Anthony Giddens has pointed out, the general case in conquest states was that indigenous populations would be left to carry on their pre-existing patterns of conduct so long as they paid their taxes and did not try to hinder territorial expansion.22 Occasionally, however, the Sami people suﬀered greatly under the treatment of Cunningham, especially during the second half of the 1630s. Their demands at this time included the end to certain taxes, and the freedom to hunt and ﬁsh according to custom in local mountains and rivers. Cunningham treated opposition harshly among rebellious Sami of the Porsanger Fjord area. Accusations of witchcraft were but one of many tactics used in such confrontations. The conﬂict of the 1630s between Danish-Norwegian commercial trading ventures, on the one hand, and the livelihood of the Sami on the other were among the most serious in the region during the early modern era. While ﬁshing for salmon in the rivers Alta and Tana, tenants of these waters were threatened with murder by the Sami of the two regions. That said, salmon ﬁshing in the Alta River had been so intensive and the exploitation of natural resources so thorough that catches declined steeply toward the end of the 1600s. The Sami felt that the Norwegian company of salmon ﬁshermen violated their ancient rights and, as a result, they attempted to sabotage their activities.23 The problems had arisen when Cunningham, without consulting the Sami, had granted ﬁshing rights in these rivers to a few monopolised salmon companies from Bergen. Doubtless this was partly to accommodate interests he had alienated through his support for the ﬁshing communities. Simultaneously, the Norwegian local ﬁshermen remonstrated against the duty taxes that the Sami were charging on their catches from the Porsanger area. Cunningham was

22

Giddens, The Nation-State and Violence, vol. 2, 51–52. J.P. Nielsen, Altas historie, bind 1 (Alta: 1990), 141. See also Lundh Norske Rigsregistranter: 1628–1634, Bind 6, 609. 23

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43

given the assignment of dealing with this embittered situation. He treated the indigenous people ruthlessly. A number of Sami were ﬁned and sentenced to death for having deﬁed those who shipped the salmon and having bewitched (diabolicus gandus) Norwegian ﬁshermen and oﬃcials. As a result several witchcraft cases involving Sami individuals were brought to trial between 1634 and 1638.24 It has been suggested that Christian IV appointed John Cunningham to hunt down witches and prevent the spread of witchcraft in the region. Such reports, while never conﬁrmed, can however be traced back to Jon Olafsson (1593–1679), an Icelandic sailor-soldier, who served in the Danish-Norwegian ﬂeet. Olafsson is known to have sailed with Cunningham before the latter became district governor. In 1661, when he retired to Iceland, Olafsson wrote that Cunningham had been sent to Vardøhus by the king to deal with the Sami people and their sorcery. According to his testimony, the previous district governors had not dared challenge the sorcery for which these people were known. But Cunningham, by contrast, was reported as coping well with his struggle against the perceived powers of darkness. He was said to have burned many witches every year, to King Christian IV’s great satisfaction.25 It was certainly the case that witchcraft was deemed as much a problem of administration as religion. District Governor Hans Olufsen Kofoed was apparently murdered in Vardøhus at the beginning of the seventeenth century after having been bewitched. A Norwegian and a Sami, it was said, had joined forces in order to bewitch the king’s emissary. The eﬃcacious Kofoed died suddenly under mysterious circumstances in May 1601. At the time of his death he had initiated a number of new political strategies on behalf of the Danish-Norwegian Oldenburg regime which were directed at the northern regions. The sorcerers involved were accused of having bewitched Kofoed and impaired King Christian IV’s plans for the north. As a result, the ﬁrst witches were burned at the stake in Vardø. The account of Olafsson is supposedly based upon eyewitness testimony, but it is not necessarily reliable and indeed, should be taken with a grain of salt. Yet if not completely true, it is nonetheless interesting that such a perception not only

24 H.H. Lilienskiold, Trolldom og ugudelighet i 1600-tallets Finnmark, eds., R. Hagen and E. Sparboe, Ravnetrykk nr. 18 (Tromsø: 1998), 121–125, 135–137. 25 J. Olafsson, Oplevelser som bøsseskytter (København: 1905), 131–132.

44

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existed of the Sami group but also of Cunningham and, through him, the more general reaction of the Danish-Norwegians to the religion of these indigenous people.

Cunningham and witchcraft Just how far Cunningham’s use of the accusation of witchcraft as a tool of statecraft can be traced to his Scottish background can never be proven. We do not know if Cunningham was involved in any witch-trials in Scotland, but it is worth noting that his home district of Fife had many witch-hunts and trials. Indeed, during the intensive Scottish witch-hunts of 1591–1597 Fife was, according to Christina Larner, one of the major centres of witchcraft in Scotland.26 The Cunningham family in Scotland were, it seems, involved with a case of witchcraft around the middle of the 1650s. An architect who assisted the Cunninghams in building a lighthouse tower on the Isle of May was drowned on his return from the isle in a storm supposed to have been raised by some women, who were subsequently burned as witches.27 The wider context of the Scottish-Scandinavian witchcraft connection should also be remembered. James VI believed he had been plagued by Danish, Norwegian and Scottish witches due to his having wed Anna, Christian IV’s sister, in Oslo in November 1589. The two kings exchanged letters about their views on witchcraft, and James VI even wrote a whole book about it, Daemonologie issued in Edinburgh 1597. There were, in fact, few if any kings in early modern Europe so obsessed by witches as James VI & I and his brother-in-law Christian IV.28 Relating the witchcraft attitudes of his two sovereigns to Cunningham himself is ultimately speculative, but it is worth noting that, given the low size of the population, the region of Finnmark had one of the most severe witch-hunts in the whole of Europe. There can be no doubt that whole populations in the small, crammed local communities were directly or indirectly

26

C. Larner, Enemies of God. The Witch-hunt in Scotland (London: 1981), 89. W. Wood, The East Neuk of Fife (Edinburgh: 1862), 226. 28 R. Hagen, ‘Heksemakt mot kongemakt. En stormfull historie om kjærlighet, uvær, nautisk trolldom og kongebryllup i Oslo 1589’, Historie, nr. 2 (1998), 40–50. The article deals with James and Anna’s wedding and the Norwegian connection to the so called North Berwick witch-trials. 27

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45

aﬀected by what may be called witchcraft hysteria in the far north. For many of the small townships the witch-trials could have had important demographic consequences. From 1598 to 1692 research has registered 137 trials of this kind altogether.29 Moreover, elements of severe brutality and pacts with the devil—diabolism—make the witch trials of the north similar to those of Scotland and Germany. There were 52 witch trials in Finnmark during the 32 years of John Cunningham’s period as district governor. Nine of these trials aﬄicted the Sami population. There may have been even more that are unaccounted for due to the lack of records dating from the 1640s.30

Witchcraft trials in Finnmark, 1619–1651    Sami-Male Sami-Female Norwegian-Male Norwegian- Female Total

  6 3 0 33 42

 6 3 5 38 52

Looking through the records of court proceedings there is some evidence that proves Cunningham was an active participant in the persecution of witches. He was certainly present at some of the hearings of women suspected of witchcraft. He attended, for instance, a Lagting Court session as early as 13 May 1620, at a place called Omgang on the eastern coast, which proved to be his ﬁrst witch trial in Finnmark. The court was summoned to determine the fate of a woman called Karren Edisdatter alias ‘Findt-Karri’ (‘Sami-Karri’). She was said to have raised the wind so that one, Abraham from Hop, fell from a boat and drowned. This had occurred in 1619 on Abraham’s return from Vardø. Unfortunately for Karren it appears

29

E. Niemi, Vadsøs historie, bind 1 (Vadsø: 1983), 228; Nielsen, Altas historie, 116. My numbers are based on a systematically study of all available sources; that is, legal documents from court sessions (rettsakter), court books (tingbøker), annual ﬁscal records (lensregnskaper), archival records (arkivlister) and accounts from the seventeenth century. In the late 1620s there were about 3,000 people living in Finnmark, including both Norwegians and Sami. Population ﬁgures varied somewhat during this century, but declining numbers were representative of a general tendency. 30

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that Abraham had been among those who had ﬁrst guided Cunningham on his journey to Vardø. Karren’s indictment ultimately led to her failing the water test, and she confessed in court to having made a pact with the Devil himself. The Devil, she said, appeared to her as a large headless man, and whenever Karren wished to inﬂict pain upon someone the Devil disclosed himself and was ready to assist her. Karren was sentenced to death and burned at the stake.31 Likewise, on 11 January 1621, Siri Knudsdatter confessed that she had used sorcery on one of Cunningham’s own servants, with the boy dying subsequently. Cunningham himself was in court during the hearings against Mari Jørgensdatter on 29 January 1621. Together with other witches she had participated in sabbaths at both Vardø and Bergen. With the aid of the Devil she had also drowned ﬁshermen at sea. At the session in Vardø on 26 and 28 April 1621 Cunningham took part in the witch-trial of a woman called Kirsten Sørensdatter. She was about 50 years old and married to Anders Johansen, a merchant from Bergen. In the witch-trails against nine women in January and February the same year, many of the women said that Kirsten was their leader or ‘admiral’ as they preferred to call her.32 Mari, Siri and Kirsten were all sentenced to burn at the stake. Such personal authorisation continued beyond the initial years of Cunningham’s governorship. He attended court on 14 November 1624 when Ana Edisdatter confessed that, together with other witches, she had raised the wind so that some of Cunningham’s own men drowned at sea. In May 1625 Cunningham was present at the Lagting session in Vardø. Three men from Hamningberg were convicted and ﬁned for having practised healing or white magic. A woman called Ingeborg Jørgensdatter was questioned about rumours of witchcraft, but there was no proof against her.33 However, in 1634 the case against Ingeborg was reopened and she was found guilty and burned. Cunningham again participated at the court session in Vardø in September 1632. Three women were denounced for the crime of witchcraft. Cunningham ordered the cases to be postponed (no reason is given): nonethe31 Lilienskiold, Trolldom og ugudelighet, 75–77; Sandvik and Winge, Tingbok for Finnmark, 31–33. 32 About the witch-trials of Mari Jørgensdatter and Kirsten Sørensdatter, see my article published on the internet at <www.ub.uit.no/fag/historie/christma.htm>. See also Lilienskiold, Trolldom og ugudelighet, 77–79, 83–85 and 93–97, and Sandvik and Winge, Tingbok for Finnmark, 50–52. 33 Sandvik and Winge, Tingbok for Finnmark, 131–132.

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47

less, some years later the women were sentenced to death. At this court session Cunningham himself asked one of the women, Lisbett, Oluﬀ Nielsen’s wife, if she could do any signen, manen eller mallen (healing by white magic). She replied ‘no’, but also said that she could heal people using lawful means. No verdict was given in 1632, but Lisbett was burned in 1638. At the witch-trial of Maren, the wife of Jon Dass, in Vardø on 28 March 1638, Maren told about a rope she and Lisbett had pulled taut over a path where Cunningham was about to walk. He fell to the ground and broke his leg as a result of the witches’ conspiracy against him. They had done this, they claimed, for no better reason than because Cunningham had talked to Lisbett in an angry and hard way. For their malevolent deeds, in pact with the Devil, Maren was sentenced to death and burned together with Lisbett.34 According to the written sources these trials are where direct links to Cunningham exist. Yet the Scotsman’s involvement with the judicial persecution of ﬁshing village women is probably greater than the records document. It should also be mentioned that he participated in some hearings of suspected witches that could be characterised as extremely prejudicial inasmuch as women accused of having joined conspiracies against the power structure were convicted through the use of torture. Given that both Norwegian women and Sami men were regarded as instruments of disorder, accusations of witchcraft were an eﬀective means of breaking down various forms of protest and solidarity among common citizens. Prosecution of witches undertaken as part of a severe moral code was seen as working hand in hand with the process of state-building. Steinar Imsen, the Norwegian historian, has noted how instances of demonstration against authority in early modern Finnmark were seemingly few and, for the most part, not well organised. Imsen is of the opinion that oﬃcial demands were met with passive resignation. Explaining this, he suggests that the Norwegian coastal villages in Finnmark ‘. . . lacked social stability and local political traditions that were necessary in order to instigate collective movements as we know them from the history of farming and village life in Norway’.35 This was the case in Sami as well as Norwegian 34 Lilienskiold, Trolldom og ugudelighet, 133–135, and for the case in 1632 see Sandvik and Winge, Tingbok for Finnmark, 304. 35 S. Imsen, Norsk bondekommunalisme: fra Magnus lagabøte til Kristian Kvart. Del 2: Lydriketiden (Trondheim: 1995), 158–159.

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settings. Such a context suggests that the belief in witchcraft may have fulﬁlled the function of a social protest movement across all parts of the country. However, while this meant there was in fact resistance in seventeenth-century Finnmark to the centre’s intrusion, Cunningham and his successors appear to have been extremely successful in countering such dissent through the tactic of simply demonising it. What thus distinguishes witchcraft persecutions of the north from most other regions within the Danish-Norwegian authority is its characteristic of being conducted by a centrally appointed power system with the aim of ﬁrming up control over an unsecured cultural and political frontier. This agenda is recorded in the legal sources of the witchcraft trials, not least through concerted attacks on female unity and solidarity.36 Reports of witch gatherings could be interpreted as sublimated forms of social revolt and as some sort of secret society of womens’ groups organised in military-like units. This threatened both the male patriarchy and the authorities, not least because the latter’s power and legitimacy was projected through Holy sanction. Confessions abounded, too, of how the Devil oﬀered the accused witches a better life. This could easily be seen as a way of obtaining power and freedom from economic marginalisation and the overturn of local governmental authority. Magic, as viewed by the authorities, was a portentous force capable of destabilising the political order in the north. This particular interpretation of witchcraft obviously explains why Cunningham played his part in these trials. But the sources do not imply that he was an unusually zealous witchhunter or witch-ﬁnder, especially if we compare him with the next two district governors in Finnmark the Dane, Jørgen Friis and the Norwegian Christoﬀer Orning. Friis in the 1650s and Orning in the 1660s took a very active part in trials against suspected witches. In fact Orning did little else other than hunting and burning women while he was in Finnmark. Clearly, the attitudes, mentality and actions of members of the local authorities constructed a tradition of witch-hunting within early modern Finnmark. Cunningham was an important part of this brutal tradition, but he was not alone. If he did not participate directly in many of the trials, Cunningham

36 L.H. Willumsen, ‘Witches of the High North’, Scandinavian Journal of History, vol. 22, no. 3 (1997), 215.

    

49

did on the other hand have responsibility for the working of the district justices: in this sense, it is clear that he did nothing to call a halt to the witch-hunt. Conclusion In mid-April 1599 eight naval vessels departed from Copenhagen for a dramatic voyage to the northern part of Norway and Russia. The young king, Christian IV, led this substantial coastal operation. He wished to conduct a personal inspection of conditions in the northernmost part of the dual-monarchy and mark his sovereignty over these distant regions.37 The captain of one of the largest ships, the 36-gun Josaphat, was the Scotsman, Alexander Durham, who had been in Danish service since 1573 and was known for his successful expeditions to the north. When the ﬂeet reached Vardø in the middle of May 1599 the king and his men held a great drinking session. While imbibing, Durham had a stroke from which he never recovered: indeed, he died the next year in Copenhagen. This stern and energetic man had been both Fredrik II and Christian IV’s right-hand man. It was a hard blow for Christian when this trusted man fell ill and later died. He had to be replaced by a man who could take care of the Crown’s northern and Arctic policies. After Durham’s death it is perhaps unsurprising that Christian IV looked to Scotland for a new reliable man. As demonstrated in the ﬁrst chapter there were sound dynastic and diplomatic reasons why such an important appointment within the Oldenburg state would go to a Scot rather than an Englishman, German or Irishman. Yet John Cunningham also received the appointment because Scotsmen before him had proven to be loyal and capable of fulﬁlling the king’s demands in a highly satisfactory manner. Since Scotland was one of the few countries that had re-established communications with Greenland, the Danish king was naturally eager to secure the service of Scottish seamen who might be familiar with this north-westerly route.38

37 For this voyage see my article Christian IV’s Northern Voyage in 1599 published on the internet at <www.ub.uit.no/northernlights/eng/christian4.htm>, and also R. Hagen, ‘Kongen, Katten og Presten. Christian IVs møte med samisk trolldomskyndighet’, Historie, nr. 2 (1999), 12–23. 38 T.J. Oleson, ‘Cunningham, John’, Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 1, 1000 to 1700 (Toronto: 1966), 243.

50

 

After the two valuable expeditions to Greenland, the king had gained trust and conﬁdence in Cunningham and developed close ties with him. As a royal naval captain Cunningham had been involved in the Kalmar War and also made some important voyages of inspection to the north. Through these operations he had proven himself to be a loyal, eﬃcient and competent royal servant. His position in Finnmark thus came as a result of many years service to the DanishNorwegian monarchy. As a district governor in Finnmark Cunningham not only conﬁrmed the conﬁdence placed on him but ensured the future status of the county as part of the Norwegian landscape. There can be no doubt that his administrative career in Finnmark was extremely successful, not least because he received preferential treatment from Copenhagen. But can we in any way attribute his eﬃciency to his Scottishness? Was the fact that Cunningham was a Scotsman important in his job? Could a Dane or a Norwegian have taken such eﬀective control at that time? We can attempt a possible answer to these questions by comparing how Cunningham actually governed Finnmark with his predecessors and successors. Obviously it helped that he, at least, was a foreigner. It would have been easier for a man coming from within Danish-Norwegian society to be too favourable to one strata over another. Coming from outside the Danish nobility Cunningham could act, and be seen to act, as an impartial intercessionary. To remain in this position for such an unusually long time, any governor had to be in a sense detached in order to balance the interests of four segments of the local society. Without too much trouble Cunningham was able to handle the conﬂicting interest groups within Finnmark society. And coming from Scotland meant that the Crown, for sound political and diplomatic reasons, placed a good degree of trust in him. It is also possible there would have been problems getting noblemen from the DanishNorwegian elite to accept such a distant posting and remain in that oﬃce at the edge of the European civilisation. The county governors in early modern Denmark-Norway stand out as key ﬁgures with true political power. Their opinions were of great importance for the decision-making process. According to Harald Gustafsson, oﬃcials in Norway appear to have exercised greater local power than their colleagues in Denmark: ‘They took the initiative, and in conﬂicts between diﬀerent groups they could successfully force through their own line of policy by using their mastery of the chan-

    

51

nels to the central government’.39 Cunningham’s strong and politically independent personality seems to have ﬁtted the position in Finnmark hand in glove. His chances of asserting and unfolding his interests as an oﬃcial were easier in the more peripheral parts of Denmark-Norway. The remote but important province of Finnmark, where the lensmann was practically the only operative channel between the central power and local society, gave him considerable inﬂuence on the decisions concerning the demands of diﬀerent interest groups. Cunningham’s position allowed him to implement the central government’s decisions and to a certain degree determine how these decisions were actually executed. His personal attitudes and rich experience provided an extremely suitable background for mastering the issues involved in ruling his subjects; and, ultimately, the Scotsman had the personal authority to block or assist local initiatives and enforce disciplinary punishment if necessary.

39

Gustafsson, Political Interaction in the Old Regime, 93.

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CHAPTER THREE

A CENTURY OF SCOTTISH GOVERNORSHIP IN THE SWEDISH EMPIRE, 1574–1700 Alexia Grosjean

The Scottish governor and commandant was a familiar face in the Swedish army from the late sixteenth through the seventeenth century. That the Scots were appreciated for their martial skills is demonstrated by their ubiquitous presence in various European armies, which became particularly evident in Sweden during the Thirty Years’ War.1 A contemporary newsletter reported that in the ﬁrst eight months of the Swedish activity in the war, Gustav II Adolf took ‘full 80 Cities, Castles, and Sconces in Pomerland, and in Mecklenburg’.2 Such rapid territorial advances imposed a need for reliable governors. Gustav II Adolf developed the use of siege tactics based on establishing many smaller redoubts and fortiﬁed ramparts, tactics which continued well after his death.3 Scottish oﬃcers were frequently engaged in designing, building, maintaining and defending these sites.4 Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty wrote some years later that during the German campaigns there were ‘the number of more then threescore of the Scotish (sic) nation that were governors of cities, townes, citadels, forts and castles in the respective conquered provinces of the Dutch Empire’.5 Although this number has not been conﬁrmed, more than 90 governors or commandants of Scottish origin did serve

1 For the most recent work on the subject see A. Grosjean, ‘Scots and the Swedish state: diplomacy, military service and ennoblement, 1611–1660’, unpublished Ph.D., (Aberdeen: 1998) and S. Murdoch, ed., Scotland and the Thirty Years’ War, 1618–1648 (Leiden: 2001), in particular A. Grosjean, “Scotland: Sweden’s closest ally?”, 143–171. 2 The Swedish Intelligencer (London: 1632), part i, 85. 3 KFH, vol. 1, 339–40, 593. 4 Francis de Traytorrens, believed to be a Scotsman, was Gustav II Adolf ’s main designer for the Swedish fortiﬁcations throughout the German territories from 1630–2, see KFH, I, 196–8. He was named as the ‘General of Fortiﬁcations’ in 1631. 5 Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty, The Jewel, ed. R.D.S. Jack and R.J. Lyall, (Edinburgh: 1983), 94.

 

54

the Swedish Crown from 1574 to 1700, in locations spanning Sweden’s four frontiers with Denmark-Norway, Poland-Lithuania, Russia and the German states. They also manned safe areas where Sweden’s sovereignty was already established. Remarkably, the constant and signiﬁcant support that these Scots provided for the expansion and defence of Sweden’s Empire has not been systematically described before.6 This paper seeks to identify the Scottish governors and examine the nature of their service—the variety of forms it took and how eﬀective these oﬃcers were, comparing and contrasting their roles in home garrisons, allied strongholds, and captured fortiﬁcations. Table 1 illustrates the earliest employment of Scotsmen as governors and commandants by the Swedish monarchy, in a period covering the reigns of three Vasa kings: Erik XIV, Johan III and Karl IX. Stockholm, Kalmar and Viborg were the only heavily fortiﬁed towns in Sweden-Finland during this time, and Scots served at the latter two. The starting date of 1574 is by no means arbitrary as it coincides with the tail end of the ﬁrst large-scale Scottish enlistment into Swedish service, and it also reveals the Swedish practice of employing foreign governors as well-established by the time of the Thirty Years’ War.7

Early appointments for governorships Table 1. Scottish Governors and Commandants, 1574–1612 (Source: SSNE Database)8 

()



()

Andrew Keith William Wallace James Neave

Vadstena Castle Jamagorod Västmanland and Dalecarlia

Sweden Ingermanland Sweden

1574 1583 1583–98

6 A recent work investigating high-ranking oﬃcers in the Swedish army from 1654–1700 neglects this aspect of Scottish oﬃcer service in Sweden, see J. Cavallie, De Höga Oﬃcerare, studier i den svenska militära hierarkien under 1600-talets senare del (Stockholm: 1981). 7 See J. Dow, Ruthven’s army in Sweden and Esthonia (Stockholm: 1965). 8 Scotland, Scandinavia and Northern Europe, 1580 –1707, database compiled by A. Grosjean and S. Murdoch, Aberdeen 1998, available at www.abdn.ac.uk/ssne. This database was compiled largely using the muster rolls at Krigsarkivet, Stockholm.

    

55

Table 1 (cont.) 

()



()

Thomas Abernethy Andrew Keith Henry Camhus Andrew Stuart Andrew Stuart George Irving Henry Camhus

Viborg Brokind Nyköping Castle Fellin Dorpat Kalmar Kalmar

Sweden-Finland Sweden Sweden Livonia Livonia Sweden Sweden

1591 1593 1598–1606 1600 1601–2 1608 1610

There were seven Scots appointed as governors during the 1574–1612 period, albeit that some of them held the position in diﬀerent places. The locations involved reﬂect Sweden’s volatile foreign policies of the time, dominated as they were by hostilities with one or more of its neighbours: Denmark-Norway, Russia and Poland. It was only after Sweden broke away from the Kalmar union with DenmarkNorway in the 1520s that the need to strengthen existing and build new defensive fortresses arose, creating a demand for governors and commandants. Erik XIV had already begun to push into the Baltic in the sixteenth century to create a Swedish foothold there. Soon after this problems with Poland came to a head, as Johan III’s son not only married a member of the Polish royal family, but also became King Sigismund of Poland. When, on his father’s death, he claimed the Swedish throne as well, war was inevitable. Circumstances dictated Sweden’s almost constant engagement in war during the ﬁrst half of the seventeenth century, and this provided ample scope for employment for Scottish military migrants. Of the ﬁrst ten governorships held by Scotsmen working for the Vasa monarchy, most of the surviving information concerns Andrew Keith, a Scot of noble descent, who came to Sweden to serve during the Nordic Seven Years’ War. Although Johan III was keen to release his foreign troops afterwards, Keith stayed on and became the commandant at Vadstena in 1574, and 20 years later was a district governor in Brokind.9 Vadstena was the only fortress of signiﬁcance

9 See B. Schlegel and C.A. Klingspor, Den med sköldebref förlänade men ej å riddarhuset introducerade Svenska Adelns Ättartaﬂor (Stockholm: 1875), 143; Svenskt Biograﬁskt Lexicon, ny följd (Örebro: 1865–8), VI, 16; T. Fischer, The Scots in Sweden (Edinburgh: 1907) 55; and J. Berg and B. Lagercrantz, Scots in Sweden (Stockholm: 1962), 18–20.

56

 

which was radically improved during Johan’s reign.10 Keith was accepted as a baron in Sweden on the strength of his Scottish title, and was employed as an ambassador to the English court in 1583. This combination of loyal military experience, ennoblement and diplomatic service became common to many of the Scottish governors, but did not always guarantee uneventful careers. Keith’s support for Johan III’s son, Sigismund, during his struggle with his uncle duke Karl for control of the Swedish Crown, resulted in Keith’s exile from Sweden. One of Keith’s soldiers, James Neave, or Näf as he was known in Sweden, became the governor of Västmanland and Dalecarlia from 1583–98.11 Neave was well liked at the Swedish court and received a land donation from Johan III for his services, and he was probably aﬀorded noble privileges on the strength of his Scottish connections.12 However, he too suﬀered for his loyalty to that king which led not only to Neave’s murder in 1598, but also to his son’s murder in 1607.13 Keith’s and Neave’s positions can at least in part be explained by personal friendship with the Swedish king—Keith’s wedding was apparently paid for by Johan III, and Neave’s Catholicism and support of Sigismund endeared him to Johan. It was not long before the Swedes began to tactically place a Scot in or near a war zone. William Wallace, who had been in service for ten years, was made responsible for securing the castle at Jamagorod in 1583 while Johan III fought Russia over possessions in Estonia and Livonia.14 Indeed, during the later campaigns of 1591–5, Thomas Abernethy governed Viborg, the most important defence for Finland against Russia. Abernethy’s signiﬁcance extended to his use as a Swedish envoy to Russia in 1591 when a truce was achieved.15 Similarly, during war with Poland in 1600 Andrew Stuart served as commander at two of the ﬁrst strongholds seized in Livonia, at Fellin and Dorpat.16 10

KFH, I, 79. Fischer, The Scots in Sweden, 68; Berg and Lagercrantz, Scots in Sweden, 18. 12 Schlegel and Klingspor, Svenska Adelns Ättartaﬂor, 201. 13 His daughter married Gustav II Adolf ’s tutor, Johan Skytte, and their children became leading members of Swedish society, see H. Hofberg, Svenskt Biograﬁskt Handlexikon (Stockholm: 1906), II, 472–4. 14 KFH, I, 96–7, and KFH, VI:1 (Stockholm: 1916), 116. The fortress was lost in 1590. See KRA, Militieräkenskaper microcard S 0212, 10/12. 15 Fischer, The Scots in Sweden, 66. See also A. Kan, Sverige och Ryssland ett 1200–årigt förhållande (Stockholm: 1996), 53; KFH, I, 83 and 170. 16 H. Börjeson and G. Hafström, Skeppshövidsmän vid örlogsﬂottan under 1500–talet biograﬁska anteckningar (Uppsala: 1949), 73. 11

    

57

Of the remaining two Scots employed in domestic positions during this early period little more is known of them other than their ranks and location. Karl IX had founded Nyköping castle during the reign of Johan, and it was still being built while Henry Camhus served there.17 Karl IX also had the castle defences at Kalmar improved, after he regained the castle from his archenemy, Sigismund of Poland.18 George Irvine and Camhus’ appointments there, at one of Sweden’s most important defences, again reveals the Swedish trust in their Scottish oﬃcers. As Sweden’s conﬂicts with Russia and Poland continued, so did the appointments of Scottish governors.

From Knäred to Stralsund—the Russian and Polish campaigns Table 2. Scottish Governors and Commandants, 1613–1629 (Source: SSNE Database) 

()



()

Patrick Ruthven Samuel Coburn Patrick Ruthven Alexander Leslie William Burt William Burt John Kinnemond John Kinnemond David Drummond

Pleskau/Pskov Cobron, nr Riga Marienburg Pillau Christburg Osterrode Nöteborg Pillau Kalmar

Russia Livonia Livonia East Prussia Prussia Prussia Ingermanland East Prussia Sweden

1616 1621 1626–29 1626–27 1629 1629 1629 1629–32 1629

In the period leading up to Swedish entry into the Thirty Years’ War it appears that six Scots were appointed as governors. From 1616 onwards, continued hostilities with Russia and Poland involved campaigns in Estonia, Livonia, Kurland, and Eastern Prussia, which is mirrored in the locations being governed by Scots. In August 1626 the Swedes had established garrisons at 12 separate locations in Prussia, several of which were being held by Scottish troops under Colonels Seaton, Grey, Cunningham, Ruthven and Leslie. Colonel James Spens, General of all British Isles troops in the Swedish 17 Donner has Camhus listed as a Scot, but I have not been able to obtain any further information on him. 18 For Irvine see SAÄ, vol. 4 and for Camhus see G.V. Sylvander, Kalmar Slotts och stads historia part 1 (Kalmar: 1864), 302; KFH, I, 132 and 139.

58

 

army, stated that there were over 500 Scots in command positions in the mid 1620s.19 This underlines the faith that the Swedish leaders had in promoting their Scottish oﬃcers to positions of command at home or on the frontier. The Peace of Altmark in 1629 left Livonia as a Swedish possession, along with Elbing, Braunsberg, Pillau and Memel. The Scots in the Swedish army thus where not only in charge of fortiﬁed strongholds but also commanded troops garrisoned there. Sweden became involved in Russia’s internal problems, known as ‘the time of troubles’ in the early seventeenth century. While the Swedes were besieging Pskov, the most fortiﬁed of Russian towns on the Livonian border, Patrick Ruthven served as the commandant of the nearby ramparts which controlled passage on the Pskov river.20 This siege, lasting eight years, was one of the linchpins of the war with Russia. Ruthven’s experience after eight years in the Swedish army must have inﬂuenced his appointment there. Livonia was a hotly contested area which Sweden had militarily defended since 1561, and was a fulcrum of wars with both Russia and Poland. Sweden resumed its war with Poland in 1621 as Sigismund of Poland still sought recognition as king of Sweden. When Gustav II Adolf resolved to capture Riga, which was under Polish protection at the time, Colonel Samuel Cockburn (also known as Cobron) proved instrumental in the campaign. His troops captured a position along the Düna river known as the Red Tower and then proceeded to establish a series of ramparts called ‘Cobron skans’ where Cockburn was the commandant.21 From the fort and surrounding area heavy cannon ﬁre rained on Riga, which ﬁnally capitulated a month later.22 The capture of Riga was noted as a particular military accomplishment at the time and, in 1632, the town was still being governed by a Scotsman called Colonel James Scott.23 Cockburn had entered Swedish service in 1606 as part of a recruitment drive and fought

19 G. Westin, Negotiations about church unity, 1628–1634. John Durie, Gustavus Adolphus, Axel Oxenstierna (Uppsala: 1934–6), 67. 20 KFH, I, 327; Berg and Lagercrantz, Scots in Sweden, 40. 21 Donner, A Brief Sketch of the Scottish Families, 23; KFH, I, 346; Svenskt Biograﬁskt Lexicon, vol. 8, 686. 22 G. Göransson, Gustav II Adolf och hans folk (Stockholm: 1994), 118–121. 23 See G. Parker, ed., The Thirty Years’ War (London: 2nd ed., 1997) 62. For Scott see KRA, muster roll 1632/8,9; and SAÄ, VII, 120.

    

59

previously in Livonia, Russia and Poland, usually commanding all the Scottish troops in these campaigns.24 The Swedish war with Poland continued until 1629. Gustav II Adolf was well aware of the Polish alliance with the Habsburg Empire, and that any territorial advances he made would serve Sweden well in a future German campaign. The king speciﬁcally ordered Chancellor Oxenstierna to ensure the security of Osterode, one of the most recent conquests.25 Despite a great defeat of Swedish cavalry in 1628, the town was immediately recaptured and William Burt, who had also served at Christburg for a time, became its governor.26 Marienburg, which had capitulated to the Swedes in 1625, had become a Swedish garrison with Colonel Patrick Ruthven serving as its quartermastergeneral in 1626. He was ordered to guard the town and castle in 1628 and remained until 1629.27 Colonel Alexander Leslie ﬁrst became a commandant from 1626–7 when he served at Pillau, a harbour town in East Prussia, serving as a handy landing point for the Swedish army for its Polish campaigns.28 Pillau, which belonged to Gustav II Adolf ’s brother-in-law, George William of Brandenburg, was not militarily ‘captured’. The Swedish king simply ordered Leslie to safeguard the town with 1,800 men and four warships.29 Leslie’s duties, apart from maintaining the town, included strengthening the existing fortiﬁcations, sending the sick to Elbing, and checking the ships passing through the port.30 Although the governor’s primary objective was to retain control of a town or fort and to defend it, a role with which they became very familiar in the following 20 years, they also served wider functions. Pillau was eventually handed over to Sweden in 1629, and the governorship passed to another Scot, John Kinnemond.31 These early governors were but forerunners to the

24 H. Almquist, Sverige och Ryssland, 1595–1611 (Uppsala: 1907), 271; Svenskt Biograﬁskt Lexicon, VIII, 679; Fischer, The Scots in Sweden, 72. 25 KFH, I, 388. 26 Axel Oxenstierna’s instructions to Burt in RAOSB, IV, 442, 457, 513, 529, 561. 27 See Axel Oxenstierna’s instructions to Ruthven in RAOSB, III, 420–1 and IV, 318, 320, 321, 328, 330, 331, 353, 354, 392; KFH, I, 385. 28 M. Roberts, Gustavus Adolphus a history of Sweden, 1611–1632 (London: 1953), I, 251–254, where he notes that gaining Pillau was ‘one of the great turning points in the history of Sweden’, 253. 29 Göransson, Gustav II Adolf och hans folk, 167; KFH, I, 366. 30 RAOSB, III, 767–8. 31 See the many references to Leslie’s role as governor, including personal

 

60

ﬂood of Scottish military expertise that would support and strengthen Sweden’s military claims in northern Europe. Interestingly, none of them had been ennobled at the time of their governorship, although Ruthven and Leslie were both veteran oﬃcers, having both joined around 1606 and later knighted by Gustav II Adolf in 1627. The bulk of governors were to be appointed during the following twenty years.

The Thirty Years’ War campaigns Table 3. Scottish Governors and Commandants, 1629–1648 (Source: SSNE Database)  Alexander Leslie John Hepburn James MacDougal Patrick Ruthven John Leslie

()

Stralsund Rugenwald Stralsund Memel Frankfurt an der Oder James MacDougal Frankfurt an der Oder Alexander Leslie Frankfurt an der Oder James King Stargard James Ramsay (Dark) Colberg Alexander Hamilton Hanau John Hepburn Landshut Thomas Kinnemond Augsburg Patrick Ruthven Ulm George Douglas Creuznach Alexander Ramsay Creuznach David Drummond Stettin John Hepburn Munich James MacDougal Silesia James Scott Riga James Ramsay (Fair) Breisach Francis Ruthven Monell/Memel



()

Pomerania Pomerania Pomerania Prussia Pomerania

1629–30 1630 1630 1630–32 1631

Pomerania

1631

Pomerania

1631

Pomerania Pomerania Hessen lower Bavaria Bavaria Bavaria Palatinate Palatinate Pomerania Bavaria Silesia Livonia Baden Prussia

1631 1631 1631–34 1631/32 1632 1632–33 1632/33 1632–33 1632 1632 1632 1632 1630s 1633

letters from Axel Oxenstierna, in RAOSB, III, 387, 461, 527, 538, 549, 550, 558, 572, 586, 660, 720; KRA, muster roll 1626/1, 6, 8–10; 1627/11–14; Fischer, Scots in Sweden, 99–100. See multiple references to Kinnemond as governor of Pillau in RAOSB, IV, 229, 332, 354, 388, 434, etc.; SRP, II, 59.

    

61

Table 3 (cont.) 

()



()

William Legge James Lumsden Alexander Irving John Kinnemond James Scott Alexander? Cunningham James Ramsay (Dark) Mattias Forbes Johan Stuart Robert Cunningham James King Thomas Kinnemond George Leslie Patrick Kinnemond Thomas Thompson Patrick Traill John Gunn Francis Johnston James Johnston Arvid Forbes Jöns Smith Tobias MacDougal Henry Burtt John Bordon Hugh Hamilton Andrew Dunn Alexander Garden Patrick Moore Alexander Garden James Drummond John Nairn William Forbes Thomas Kinnemond

Bremen Osnabruck Regensburg Nöteborg Narva Heiligenstadt, nr. Erfurt Hanau, Osnabruck Johannisborg Castle Demmin Vlotho-on-Weser Koporie Vechta Anklam Hagelberg Kalmar Ohlau Narva Koporie Upper Pomerania Åbolän Gardelegen Greifswald Bornholm Greifswald Älvsborg Brix Buxtehude Dupau Femern Erfurt and Leipsig Burg Nyenmunde, Dunamünde Pomerania Pomerania Schwaben

Bremen Hannover Bavaria Ingermanland Estonia Prussia

1633 1633–39 1633 1633–34 1634 1634

Hessen Hannover Sweden Pomerania Prussia Ingermanland Bremen Pomerania Württenberg Sweden Silesia Estonia Ingermanland Pomerania Sweden-Finland Altmark Pomerania Sweden Pomerania Sweden Bohemia Bremen Bohemia Denmark Saxony Bremen Livonia

1634–38 1635 1635 1636 1637 1637 1638 1638 1638 1638 1638–49 1639 1640 1641 1642 1642–48 1643 1645 1646 1644 1646 1646–76 1647 1640s 1640s 1640s 1640–49

Pomerania Pomerania Prussia

1648 1648–52 1648–50

Arvid Forbes Axel Forbes Robert Douglas

Table 3 shows the 44 Scotsmen appointed as governors during Sweden’s involvement in the Thirty Years’ War, from their ﬁrst campaign in Stralsund to the demobbing of troops after the peace of

62

 

Westphalia.32 This was the time when the majority of Scottish governors and commandants were active as Gustav II Adolf quickly developed a system of establishing garrisons in the German states, stretching from Stralsund to Augsburg [See Map 3]. As a contemporary newsheet noted: ‘if a Fort to be stormed, or any desperate peice (sic) of service to be set upon; the Scottish have hitherto had the honour and the danger, to be the ﬁrst men that are put upon such a business’.33 This then placed the Scots on location, ready to take up positions of governorship. The ﬁrst and most important site held was Stralsund, a Baltic port on the coast of Northern Germany, which became allied with Sweden in 1628. By defending and ultimately controlling this port the Swedes had a safe harbour and landing point for their troops. As Steve Murdoch has discussed, Denmark’s attempts at raising the Imperial siege of Stralsund ended in peace with the Emperor in 1629. Thus the defence of Stralsund, and consequently of Scandinavia, from Imperial invasion, was left in Sweden’s hands. When Alexander Leslie became the governor of the Stralsund garrison from July 1628 where he was in charge of 4–5,000 men, he replaced another Scot in Danish service, Alexander Seaton, who was withdrawn just before Denmark signed the treaty of Lübeck.34 Although Leslie was a hardworking governor, he had trouble with the locals who apparently would not accept Swedish copper as payment for goods. To add insult to injury, Leslie’s salary was so poor as to elicit an angry request to be released from the post.35 Eventually Colonel James MacDougal, in Swedish service since 1614, took over Alexander Leslie’s position as governor at Stralsund in late summer 1630.36 The port remained under Swedish control until the 1800s, often under Scottish governorship. Peter Maclean, of the Gothenburg-based family, became the commandant there from 1679 until his death in 1697.37

32 Three of these men were Swedish-born: Arvid, Mattias and Axel Forbes, but Arvid and Mattias were both ennobled on the strength of a patent of nobility from Scotland. 33 The Swedish Intelligencer, part ii, 13. 34 RAOSB, V, 88, 647, 660–1; KRA, muster roll 1629/3, 24; 1630/34–36, 38; 1631/22–26; The Swedish Intelligencer, part i, 47; Fischer, The Scots in Sweden, 101. 35 RAOSB, IX part ii, 421. Alexander Leslie to Axel Oxenstierna, 4 July 1629. 36 Svenskt Biograﬁskt Lexicon, XI. 37 Maclean also acted as the Swedish envoy to Brandenburg in 1688. See SAÄ,

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63

Perhaps Leslie, often noted as the ‘governor over the whole cities alongst the Baltic coast’,38 can be taken as one of the most signiﬁcant Scottish governors for Sweden’s success in the Thirty Years’ War campaigns.39 Indeed Colonel Robert Monro highlighted Gustav II Adolf ’s choice of Leslie over a Swede for the position at Stralsund: that in the end they may expect so great a reward, from so great a Master, as we see here bestowed for valour and ﬁdelitie upon our Country-man, being trusted with such a charge on a frontier Garrison, though a stranger, before his Majesites own country-men.40

Here a contemporary Scot notes the three essential aspects of Scottish governorship in Swedish service: that employment as a governor was sometimes used as a reward for service; that the importance of such a frontier position was well understood; and that the selection of a foreigner above a Swede was noteworthy. Not all Scottish governorships occurred by appointment. Indeed some territory was even gained accidentally as when troops under Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Monro were shipwrecked on Rügen oﬀ the coast of Pomerania in 1630.41 They defeated the Imperialists garrisoned there and Colonel John Hepburn was placed as governor of the nearby castle of Rügenwald, after ﬁve years in Swedish service.42 This proved to be one of the ﬁrst strongholds gained in the German campaigns, and Hepburn was only the ﬁrst in a long line of Scottish governors guaranteeing that Sweden retained her hardearned conquests. In 1630 Ruthven was moved from Marienburg to be governor in Memel, a town in Prussia which had become Swedish after the truce of Altmark in 1629. Here he was authorised to carry out Swedish administration in the town on behalf of the Swedish Chancellor, Axel

V, 143; Svenskt Biograﬁskt Lexicon, XXIV, 631; and J.P. Maclean, A History of the Clan Maclean from its ﬁrst settlement at Duard Castle in the Isle of Mull to the present period (Cincinatti: 1889), 315. 38 Monro, His Expedition, part ii, 108. See also C.S. Terry, Life and campaigns of Alexander Leslie, ﬁrst Earl of Leven (London: 1899), 20. 39 In 1634 Leslie was ordered to undertake an inspection of all fortiﬁed sites in Pomerania, Bremen and Mecklenburg up to the Werben. See Leslie’s request for instructions in RAOSB, IX part ii, 444–5. 40 Monro, His Expedition, part i, 79. 41 Monro, His expedition, part ii, 3–11. 42 KRA, muster roll 1630/22–33; The Swedish Intelligence, part i, 47–74.

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Oxenstierna.43 Ruthven was in charge of customs, a vital source of income for the Swedish army, and one of his ﬁrst requests from the Swedish Chancellor was for a customs oﬃcer. He also requested a master of artillery and military supplies, which he was still seeking several months later.44 One of Ruthven’s regular complaints was the lack of funds and thus his inability to pay the soldiers under his command. This led to violent clashes between the soldiers and locals as the army was forced into living oﬀ the land, and Ruthven’s duties came to include mediation.45 Although Ruthven was never ennobled in Sweden, the Swedes certainly rated his service as by 1631 he was appointed second-in-command of the Swedish army in Schwabia.46 As the Swedish army moved further into Pomerania against the will of George Wilhelm of Brandenburg, the taking of Frankfurt on the Oder was viewed as a special victory.47 Colonel John Hepburn’s and Robert Monro’s troops were involved in storming the town, and Major-General John Leslie was placed as its governor in 1631. His ﬁrst orders were to strengthen the defences and bury the dead, many of whom had died as a result of excessive plunder.48 The turnover for positions such as governor was rapid as already by the following year Colonel James MacDougal replaced Leslie as commandant of Frankfurt.49 Alexander Leslie became the third Scottish governor of the city in a row.50 Leslie’s main duty involved securing provisions for the neighbouring towns also under Swedish protection, and to defend Gustav II Adolf ’s rearguard in his march southwards.51 When Ruthven became the commandant of Ulm upon its surrender to Swedish forces in 1632, he faced similar problems as experienced at Memel, although his ﬁrst concern was to strengthen and

43 RAOSB, IX part ii, 200, and 362–374, and VI, letter from Oxenstierna to Gustav II Adolf, 31 March 1631, 194, where Ruthven was listed among the ‘godhe karlar’ (good men) who were in service at the time. See further 323 and 337; Fischer, The Scots in Sweden, 102; The Swedish Intelligencer, part ii, 138 refers to Ruthven as governor of Donauworth. 44 29 March 1630 and 3 July 1630, RAOSB, IX part ii, 362 and 372 respectively. 45 18 May 1630, RAOSB, IX part ii, 367–8. 46 Berg and Lagercrantz, Scots in Sweden, 41. 47 4 May 1631, SRP, II, 81. 48 Monro, His Expedition, part ii, 35. 49 KRA, muster roll 1631/22. 50 J. Grant, The Scottish Soldiers of Fortune (Edinburgh: 1890), 193. 51 Monro, His expedition, part ii, 33; Fischer, The Scots in Germany, 104.

    

65

extend the fortiﬁcations.52 He successfully suppressed two attempted rebellions and was rewarded with estates in Kilchberg. However, his strict and oppressive measures and the lack of supplies led to continued diﬃculties with the locals who were loath to allow him to recruit.53 His nephew, Francis Ruthven of Redcastle, also held the rank of governor of Memell at some point during the Thirty Years’ War.54 The Swedish encroachment into Bavaria resulted in the placement of three Scottish governors. Colonel John Hepburn was appointed the governor of Munich, having already had a taste of Bavarian governorship as the interim governor of Landshut until the arrival of King Gustav II Adolf.55 As one of the major towns in Bavaria, Munich was a particularly important appointment, perhaps made more signiﬁcant by the fact that Hepburn was himself a Catholic.56 Thomas Kinnemond was placed as the city major in Augsburg in 1632 upon the town’s capitulation to the Swedes, and he established the reformed church there.57 Advances into Bavaria continued after the king’s death when Colonel Alexander Irving was governor of Regensburg, which fell after only a nine-day siege in 1633. At this time Colonel James MacDougal became the over-commandant in Silesia in 1632, coordinating the Saxon and Brandenburg troops along with his own, which were mostly German recruits.58 That year the Swedes also captured Osnabruck, placing Colonel James Lumsden in as governor, who in turn was temporarily succeeded by a second-generation Scot, Colonel Mattias Forbes in 1634.59 Thus there was a sweep of

52 KRA, muster roll 1632/10–21; The Swedish Intelligencer, part ii, 176; RAOSB, VII, 27, 73, 325, 767; Westin, Negotiations about church unity, 1628–1634, 200–202; Fischer, The Scots in Sweden, 104. 53 RAOSB, IX part ii, 375–40. Fischer, The Scots in Sweden, 104–5. 54 J. Grant, Memoirs and Adventures of Sir John Hepburn (Edinburgh: 1851), 255. 55 For Münich see KRA, muster roll 1632/28–30; The Swedish Intelligencer, part ii, 171; Fischer, The Scots in Germany, 84; Grant, Scottish Soldiers of Fortune, 214. For Landshut see The Swedish Intelligencer, part ii, 166. 56 Not much later Hepburn fell out with Gustav Adolf and then joined the French forces to continue his ﬁght against the Imperial army. See Monro, His Expedition, part ii, 148; Grant, Memoirs of Sir John Hepburn, 190–2. 57 SAÄ, IV, 15. 58 KRA, muster roll 1630/18, 34–36, 38; 1631/22; 1632/22. He is noted as the commander of the Swedish army in Silesia in RAOSB, VII, 825. 59 For Lumsden see Fischer, The Scots in Germany, 113 and 283; and Grant, Memoirs of Sir John Hepburn, 254. For Forbes see SAÄ, II, 788; A. and H. Taylor, eds., The House of Forbes (Bruceton Mills: 1987); K. Conermann, Die Mitglieder der Fruchtbringenden

66

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Scottish governors across Swedish-occupied Germany. Having governed a captured city and dealt with hostile citizens, Lumsden’s experience as a city governor in Swedish service groomed him perfectly for a similar appointment during the British civil wars. When the Scots occupied Newcastle in 1644 as part of the army of the Solemn League and Covenant, the experienced Lumsden was a perfect candidate for the position of governor of the garrison.60 In 1634 Sir James Ramsay was given the governorship of Hanau as a reward for his troops’ actions in capturing Marienburg in Prussia.61 Ramsay’s governorship of Hanau is an example of Scottish tenacity in the face of overwhelming odds, resulting both in success and tragedy. He formed a positive personal relationship with the local authorities and citizenry as he saw the town through several years of siege by the Imperialists. The strength of his reputation was such that the burgesses and town council of Nürnberg speciﬁcally requested that he become their governor.62 The request had to be rejected, because of Ramsay’s commitments in Hanau, but it demonstrated the positive repute of Scottish governorship. Although Alexander Leslie’s forces relieved Hanau in 1636, bringing sorely needed victuals and other supplies, the town was soon under siege again. Finally, when the Count of Hanau, Prince Philip Maurice, made peace with the Emperor, Ramsay was forced to surrender the town. Oxenstierna lauded the governor for all his eﬀorts over the years and promised compensation for the lands he lost, as well as safe conduct back to Swedish quarters. However Ramsay did not believe that the Count and his Imperial allies would honour the conditions of his surren-

Gesellschaft, 1617–1650 (Wienheim: 1985), 679–680; Fischer, The Scots in Sweden, 127–8. Forbes’ brother, Arvid, attained the rank of general and ﬁrst served as chief commandant in Upper Pomerania before acting as commandant of Stralsund and ﬁnally as governor of Pomerania in 1648. See J. Kleberg, Krigskollegii historia biograﬁska anteckningar, 1630 –1865 (Stockholm: 1930), 13; Fischer, The Scots in Sweden, 128; Hofberg, Svenskt Biograﬁskt Handlexikon, I, 346. 60 E. Furgol, A Regimental History of the Covenanting Armies, 1639–1651 (Edinburgh: 1990), 145. 61 There is a wealth of material on James Ramsay, particularly in the Hanau archives: Bestand C1, 765–767. See also Hanauer Geschichtsblätter, nr 3/4, 1919, 157–159. Hanau was taken by Swedish forces in 1631 when Sir Alexander Hamilton, also known as ‘Dear Sandy’ and builder of a canon-foundry, served as its governor temporarily. See W. Fraser, Memorials of the Earls of Haddington (Edinburgh 1889), I, 111 and Fischer, The Scots in Germany, 109–110. 62 See the Chancellor’s letter to that eﬀect dated 20 October 1634, RAOSB, XII, 585.

    

67

der, and so he took the Count hostage as security. Ramsay was then surprised and captured by Count Dillenburgh, dying a prisoner in Dillenburgh castle the following year.63 Hanau’s defence until 1638 was a rare success for Sweden after the defeat at Nördlingen in 1634. The Peace of Prague in 1635 removed many German allies to the Imperial side, with the result that many of the southern conquests were rapidly lost.64 More Scottish troops were needed to replace the lost German ones and to support the newly obtained French soldiers, so recruitment was renewed.65 In addition to this, the outbreak of civil war in Britain and Ireland severely reduced the availability of Scottish recruits, and many serving oﬃcers left Swedish service.66 Despite this decrease, governors continued to be appointed, such as Colonel Robert Cunningham, who was in place in Demmin in 1636 to receive the ambassador Sir George Douglas on his ﬁnal mission.67 Colonel James King became the governor of Vlotho-on-the-Weser that year, probably as a reward for service as he was knighted shortly thereafter, although records of his involvement with the town remain elusive.68 In contrast, Colonel David Drummond and his troops were actively engaged in capturing Gartz where Drummond became governor in 1637. Colonel John Gunn became the governor of Ohlau in Silesia from 1638 until his death in 1649, and he was noted for rebuilding the fortiﬁcations which the Imperialists had destroyed.69 Toward the end of the German campaigns, when peace deliberations had already started, the Swedes were keen to hold onto as much territory as they could. The three last appointments of governorships in Germany during the Thirty Years’ War were given to three high-ranking and longstanding oﬃcers. As late as 1646 Major Alexander Garden was given speciﬁc orders to govern and maintain the castle of Brix ‘to the last man’, and a year later was rewarded for his diligence by being made governor of Dupau.70 In 1646 Colonel 63

Fischer, The Scots in Germany, 94–100. KFH, I, 599. 65 10 October 1635, SRP, V, 194. 66 See Grosjean, ‘Scots and the Swedish state’, 174–178. 67 Douglas died suddenly of an unexplained illness upon his arrival at Demmin. See A. Douglas, Robert Douglas (Stockholm: 1957), 57. 68 Berg and Lagercrantz, Scots in Sweden, 39; Conermann, Fruchtbringenden Gesellschaft, 239–240 and Fischer, The Scots in Germany, 316. 69 KRA, muster roll 1638/21, 25–27; 1639/13–17. 70 NAS, Burnett and Reid Papers, GD57/336/1–11, especially f. 3 and f. 4. 64

68

 

Hugh Hamilton took the commandant’s position at Greifswald, which became part of the Swedish Empire under the Treaty of Westphalia. Hamilton had been a steadfast soldier during the Thirty Years’ War and became ennobled just two years later.71 The third and perhaps most important Scottish oﬃcer to hold a governorship at this point was General Robert Douglas, who later became a baron and then a count, and served on the Riksråd and Krigsråd (the state and military councils of Sweden). His appointment in Schwaben from 1648 to 1650, and the fact that he and his wife had in essence lived there since 1646, meant he had intimate knowledge of the area and its people, which he exploited as a ﬁeldmarshal during the Swedish-Polish war in 1655.72 The Schwabian Circle was the most disunited of the German entities, and as governor Douglas’ duties extended far beyond the military concerns of the troops under his command and in neighbouring garrisons. He was also responsible for administrative and ﬁnancial dealings with the other German leaders of the circle, whilst acting as the oﬃcial Swedish representative to them as well.73 After the Treaty of Westphalia was signed in 1648, Douglas also undertook the reduction and dismissal of troops. The success of Douglas’ term as governor resulted in a lasting good relationship between his family and the council of Ulm in Schwaben.74 Even during the peak of Sweden’s engagement in the German campaigns Scots were governing other parts of the Swedish Empire. Colonel David Drummond governed Stettin, a Pomeranian town forced to ally with Sweden in 1630.75 He had been in service since 1618 and was knighted in 1627 along with Ruthven and Leslie. 71 KRA, muster roll 1646/2, 17. Later Colonel John Nairn, commandant of Erfurt and Leipsig from 1648–9, served as the translator for Ambassador Bulstrode Whitelocke on his embassy to Sweden in 1653, see KRA, muster roll 1648/9,26 and 1649/5, 16–18; Conermann, Fruchtbringenden Gesellschaft, 677–8. 72 See The History of the late warres in Denmark (London: 1670), part i, 29; Douglas, Robert Douglas, 119; 2 November 1655, SRP, XVI, 312; and Conermann, Fruchtbringenden Gesellschaft, 502–3. Douglas is credited with inventing a battle tactic for a cavalry charge known as the ‘charge en muraille’, see Grant, Memoirs of Sir John Hepburn, 252. 73 Douglas, Robert Douglas, 120. 74 When his third son was born in Stockholm the council was invited to be his godfather, see Douglas, Robert Douglas, 134. 75 RAOSB, X, 49, 113–4, 628, 664; John Durie to Thomas Roe, 26 April 1633, quoted in Westin, Negotiations about church unity, 243–5; Fischer, The Scots in Germany, 282.

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69

Drummond was considered important enough to personally receive the body of Gustav II Adolf after his death at Lützen in November 1632. Two years later Colonel James Scott was moved from Riga to command at the Estonian castle of Narva, which had belonged to Sweden since 1581.76 Tobias Macdougal, the brother of James, became the commandant of Gardelegen in Altmark from 1642–48.77 In addition to the Pomeranian frontier, Scottish commandants were employed in positions particularly vulnerable to Russian attack. From 1633 Colonel John Kinnemond, moved from Pillau to serve as the governor of Nöteborg, or Orechovetz, in Ingermanland, which was Sweden’s most easterly border at the time.78 A few years later Colonel Thomas Kinnemond was the governor at Koporie, also in Ingermanland, in 1637.79 Both these towns had been ceded to Sweden by Russia in the peace of Stolbova in 1617. Kinnemond continued in Swedish service as a commandant in Livonia at Nyenmünde fort in 1640–49.80 Oxenstierna bore witness to the importance of Kinnemond’s role by stating that no foreigner would be granted access to Nyenmünde, while the security of Livonia as a whole was to be guaranteed in part by Kinnemond’s governorship.81 Jöns Smith, the Swedish-born son of a Scot, became the vice-governor of Åbo province, on the gulf of Bothnia, in 1642.82 He had been ennobled two years previously. Colonel Johan Anders Stuart, another Swedish-born Scot, served as the commandant at Johannisborg castle in Sweden in 1635.83 These two, along with the Forbes family of Arvid, Mattias and Axel, are indicative of the developing trend of appointing Swedishborn sons of Scottish immigrants to governorships. Sweden’s frontiers with Denmark-Norway became particularly vulnerable during the largely naval war from 1643–5, and two Scots

76

SAÄ, VII, 120. Svenskt Biograﬁskt Lexicon, XI, 608. 78 See Krigskollegiets registratur 1631–1654, which contains two letters regarding the state of repair of the fort. See also SRP, III, 2, 6, 20, 29, 91 and IV, 20 and 215. 79 SAÄ, IV, 126. 80 KRA, muster roll 1640/11 and 1650/6. Soon after this he was ennobled, see SAÄ, IV, 126 and KFH, I, 576. 81 See two meetings of the Riksråd on 18 November 1640, SRP, VIII, 322 and on 27 May 1646 and SRP, XI, 368; KFH, I, 576. 82 J. Ramsay, Frälsesläkter i Finland intill stora ofreden (Helsingfors: 1909), 352. 83 SAÄ, VII, 784. 77

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70

were in place as island commandants. Colonel John Bordon was in charge of the Bornholm garrison and Colonel James Drummond held this position at Femern, both islands witnessing much of the Danish-Swedish sea-battles.84 Bordon had been ennobled in 1643, and although Drummond himself was not ennobled, his children were raised to the nobility in reward of their father’s loyal service to the Swedish Crown. Further, Major Andrew Dunn served as viceCommandant at Älvsborg the same year.85 The end of the Thirty Years’ War did not bring an end to Scottish governorship however, as the following table shows.

Post-Westphalian governorship Table 5. Scottish Governors and Commandants, 1649–1700 (Source: SSNE Database) 

()



()

James Lundie Thomas Kinnemond

Bremerverde Dunamünde (Kinnemunde) Nyslott Kalmar Johannisborg Castle Vechta Vaxholm Stade Birsen Demmin, Stettin Narva Stuhm Stettin Landskrona Vänersborg Keksholm Marstrand and Kalmar Nyenskans Falun

Bremen Livonia

1649–57 1650

Sweden-Finland Sweden Sweden Bremen Sweden Hannover Livonia Pomerania Estonia Prussia Pomerania Sweden Sweden Sweden-Finland Sweden

after 1650 1650s 1651–61 1653 1653–73 1654–56 1655 1656 after 1657 1657–59 1658 1658 1660 1660 1660–78

Ingermanland Sweden

1661 1662–91

Robert Gardner Jacob Sinclair Henry Primrose William Bonar Hans Clerck Alexander Irving John Urquhart William Philp William Philp Alexander Anderson William Bonar William Philp John Belfrage Patrick Ogilvie Andrew Sinclair Alexander Anderson Gustaf MacDougal 84

For Drummond see Fischer, The Scots in Sweden, 244 KRA, ‘Krigscollegium brefbok’ 725/1643. Dunn is noted as the ﬁrst ‘stadsmajor’ (city major) and second in command of the garrison in Älvsborg in H. Fröding, Berättelser ur Göteborgs äldsta historia (Gothenburg: 1908), 211. 85

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71

Table 5 (cont.)  Anders Fraser Thomas Hamilton Jakob MacDougal Thomas Hamilton Jakob Huup Hans Hansson Clerck Alexander Lagergren Henrik Johan Belfrage Paul Beaton Andrew Sinclair Andrew Sinclair Andrew Melville Alexander Lagergren David Edingtoune Andrew Sinclair James Ogilvie Peter Maclean Henry Hay Gustaf Maclean Hans Hansson Clerck Robert Lichton Henry Hay Hans Hansson Clerck Robert Lichton

()

Nyenskans Malmö castle Österbotten Varberg castle Borgholm Castle Vaxholm Kalmar nystad Vänersborg Stettin Marstrand Kalmar Gifhorn Christianopel Bohus Halmstad Kristianstad Stralsund Kokenhusen Gothenburg Västerbotten Reval and Estonia Cobron Kalmar Kronoberg and Jönköping Paul Beaton Dalarö David Maclean Malmö Gustaf Douglas Västerbotten David Maclean Älvsborg Hans Hansson Clerck Södermansland Henry Hay Kokenhusen Johan Maclean Gothenburg Malcolm Hamilton Västernorrland



()

Ingermanland Sweden Sweden Sweden Sweden Sweden Sweden Sweden Pomerania Sweden Sweden Hannover Sweden Sweden Sweden Sweden Pomerania Livonia Sweden Sweden Estonia Livonia Sweden Sweden

1664–89 1665 1668 1669 1669 1673–80 1674 1675 1675 1675 1676 1677 1677 1678 1678 1679 1679–97 1680 1680–1701 1680–83 1681–85 1682 1683–93 1685

Sweden Sweden Sweden Sweden Sweden Livonia Sweden Sweden

1685 1691 1692–1705 1693–1708 1693–1710 1695 1695 1698–9

Table 4 displays the continued use of Scottish oﬃcers for governorships (35 individuals) within the newly extended Swedish-FinnishBaltic homelands from the end of the Thirty Years’ War right through to the end of the seventeenth century. The focus here was on retaining recent acquisitions as well as defending home territory against potentially hostile neighbours. Two further Swedish-Danish conﬂicts occurred from 1657–60 and 1675–79.

72

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It now became more frequent that the sons of Scots who had immigrated to Sweden were being employed as governors. In the majority of cases either they or their fathers were ennobled. Although their integration into Swedish society is reﬂected in the preponderance of Swedish forenames, there is plenty of evidence to demonstrate the continued importance of their Scottish origins. An example is Major Anders Fraser, who was the commandant of Nyen. He was only naturalised as a Swede in 1663 on the strength of his father’s services to the Swedish Crown as a member of James Spens’ embassy and later of Spens’ regiment in Germany.86 Similarly two of James MacDougal’s sons, Gustaf and Jakob, who were raised to the nobility on his behalf forty years after his death, became the county governors of Stora Kopparbergen region and Österbotten respectively.87 Gustaf played an important role in the Swedish government, dealing with exports and state ﬁnances, as Kopparbergen was the main centre for copper mining. There was a family link between several of the later governors in Swedish service, for example Lieutenant-Colonel Paul Beaton, the governor of Stettin in the 1670s, was the father of Lieutenant Paul Beaton who governed at Dalarö in Sweden the following decade.88 The Maclean brothers of Gothenburg virtually ‘ran’ the province from the late 1660s onwards: Johan ( justice mayor),89 Gustaf (commandant 1668 to 1701),90 David (provincial governor), and Peter who was mentioned above.91 Robert Douglas’ son Gustaf succeeded Hans Hansson Clerck as the governor of Västerbotten.92 Clerck was

86

SAÄ, II, 818; KFH, VI part ii, 321, 608, 614. See SAÄ, II, 357, and Svenskt Biograﬁskt Lexicon, XI, 608 and 614. They had also served as marshals on Swedish embassies to London and Frankfurt: KFH, VI part ii, 470. 88 ‘Förteckning över Landshövdingens i Jönköpings Län Skrivelser till Kung. Maj:t. 1640–1840’, Stockholm, Riksarkivet; SAÄ, I, 352. 89 See SAÄ, V, 143. 90 ‘Generalguvernörer och riksståthållare, guvernörer, landshövdingar och ordningmän i Sverige och dess besittningnar samt över- och underståthållare i Stockholm’, Stockholm, Riksarkivet. See also SAÄ, V, 143 Svenskt Biograﬁskt Lexicon, XXIV, 631: Maclean, A History of the Clan Maclean, 315. Gustaf accompanied Elizabeth of Bohemia to England in 1661. 91 See SAÄ, V, 139; Svenska Män och Kvinnor (Stockholm: 1949), V, 184; O. Donner, A Brief Sketch of the Scottish Families in Finland and Sweden (Helsingfors: 1884), 34. 92 Atina Nihtinen’s paper shows that the Douglas family continued to play a vital role in Swedish government with the appointment of Otto Douglas as the governor of Finland in 1717. See also Donner, A Brief Sketch of the Scottish Families, 14–15. 87

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the son of Major Hans Clerck who had also been the commandant at Vaxholm in 1673.93 Despite the inﬂux of the Swedish-Scots the Swedes were still employing Scots in occupied territories in the later half of the seventeenth century. Thomas Kinnemond moved to a new post as the commander at Dunamünde, just outside Riga, in 1650.94 He built the fortiﬁcations himself and it was duly renamed ‘Kinnemünde’ in his honour. William Bonar became the governor of Vechta, near Bremen in 1653; Alexander Irving took over at Stade from 1654–6; and Paul Beaton was an under-commander at Stettin during this period.95 Little more is known of these Scots. With many of Sweden’s foreign conﬂicts temporarily resolved there was a greater return to postings in domestic castles and forts. In 1660 there were two civic oﬃcers appointed. John Belfrage became the city mayor of Vänersborg on the west coast of Sweden, having lived and traded there since 1648.96 He was ennobled in 1666, having provided proof of his noble Scottish ancestry from Culross. Belfrage contributed to his adopted homeland by ﬁnancially supporting and recruiting for the Swedish Crown. He also participated in the defence of the western coast of Sweden from Danish attack in the 1670s. Colonel Patrick Ogilvie, who had been in service since 1624 and ennobled in 1642, was the civic governor of Kexholm.97 This stronghold had been gained from the Russians in the late sixteenth century, and actively fought over during the 1656–8 RussianSwedish war. Although a civic position entailed duties of government administration as opposed to military concerns, the location and frontier position again indicates the unstable nature of the situation in this town.

93 For Clerck see J. Kleberg, Amiralitetskollegium Marinförvaltningen biograﬁska anteckningar, 1634 –1934 (Stockholm: 1934), 15 and 17; Biograﬁska Anteckningar om Oﬃcerare vid Orlogsﬂottan 1600–1699, 108; A. Cyrus, Biograﬁska Anteckningar om Vaxholms fästings kommendanter, 1572–1927, 27–8; and Svenskt Biograﬁskt Lexicon, VIII, 620. 94 KRA, muster roll 1650/6. Soon after this he was ennobled, see SAÄ, IV, 126 and KFH, I, 576. 95 Donner, A Brief Sketch of the Scottish families, 20 and 30. Beaton was ennobled in 1693. 96 SAÄ, I, 265. 97 I.M. Matley, ‘The Scots in Finland’, Terra, 98:1 (1986), 76; Donner, A Brief Sketch of the Scottish Families, 35. For more information on the Swedish engagement in Russia see Kan, Sverige och Ryssland, 70–2.

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Other domestic positions held included Major Henry Primrose, a veteran from 1623, who became the governor of Johannisborg castle from 1651–61. During this time he was ennobled.98 In addition, Captain Jakob Huup, a Stralsund-born Scot, commanded at Borgholm Castle in 1669, and he was ennobled in 1678 as Hupenfelt.99 There were still Scots arriving in Sweden toward the end of the seventeenth century. For example, Malcolm Hamilton, who had arrived in Sweden in 1654, became the governor of Västerbotten, which borders the bay of Bothnia, in 1698.100 As a relative of the wellestablished and respected Hamilton family in Sweden he became ennobled only ten years after his arrival and earned recognition for his successes during the war with Denmark-Norway from 1677–9. Major Andrew Sinclair became probably the most important domestic Scottish governor of the later period, commanding both at Marstrand in 1676, and then at Halmstad in 1678.101 These places were hot-points during the 1676–9 war with Denmark-Norway, which resulted in Marstrand being temporarily taken by the Danes from 1677–9. Halmstad, on the other hand, which had been ceded by the Danes in 1645, witnessed a great Swedish defeat over DenmarkNorway led by Karl XI in 1676. The year of Sinclair’s commandancy a diet was held in the town. To entrust such a highly sensitive position to a Scot was by now a normal policy for the Swedish government. Alexander Lowrie, who was ennobled under the name of Lagergren, was appointed to nearby Kalmar Nystad in 1674, and three years later he moved to Christianopel to oversee works on the fortiﬁcations there.102 Scottish oﬃcers and their sons thus played a central role in the Swedish government’s defence and fortiﬁcations policy throughout the seventeenth century.

Why Sweden? It may seem odd that so many Scots undertook such high-proﬁle roles in Sweden’s history yet have gone relatively unnoticed and 98

SAÄ, IV, 52; Fischer, The Scots in Sweden, 134. SAÄ, III, 707. 100 Donner, A Brief Sketch of the Scottish Families, 29. 101 Fischer, The Scots in Sweden, 132. Andrew was born in Scotland in 1614 and came to Sweden with Robert Stewart’s regiment. 102 SAÄ, IV, 459. 99

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uncelebrated. Only a small number of the governors became famous in their own time for their military successes, while many of them have been anonymously accredited as Swedish oﬃcers. Often little more is known of them other than their names and ranks, and as many of them settled or died in Sweden, not much information on their activities appears to have survived in Scotland. One reason for this was integration. For example, the elite German organisation, the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft, whose members represented the higher classes of diplomats, oﬃcers and intellectuals at this time, numbered seven Scottish members.103 Of these James King, Robert Douglas, and John Nairn all served as governors. The aims and purpose of this organisation have been discussed elsewhere, but that Scots were welcomed in a purely German-speaking association illustrates their complete absorption into the wider society they lived and worked in.104 Although Scots were by no means the only foreigners to take service in Sweden—German, French, Dutch, Livonian, English and Irish troops also enlisted—they appear to have been the most successful and the most trusted. English and Irish soldiers formed a very small percentage of the total number of British Isles troops in Swedish military service during the Thirty Years’ War. Scots were employed virtually to the exclusion of other British Isles nationals in the capacity of governors and commandants.105 A large portion of the Swedish army did comprise German mercenary troops, especially during the Thirty Years’ War period, but unlike their Scottish counterparts they get no speciﬁc mentions for the quality of their service.106 Indeed when it came to comparing the Scots with their German contemporaries Oxenstierna told Gustav II Adolf that the Scots served just as well as the Germans.107

103 Conermann, Die Mitglieder der Fruchtbringenden Gesellschaft, 1617–1650. For references to King, Douglas and Nairn see 239–40, 502–4, and 677–8 respectively. 104 For further discussion see R.J.W. Evans, ‘Learned Societies in Germany in the seventeenth century’, European Studies Review, 7 (1977), 131. 105 The one notable exception is Arthur Aston, noted as the commandant of Nienburg in 1636, see RAOSB, XV, 165 and 290. 106 This is for good reason; Gustav II Adolf pondered the value of recruiting German soldiers who would be forced to ﬁght against their own people in their own lands, 27 October 1629, SRP, I, 221. 107 ‘jagh menar E. Kongl. M:ytt medh dhen Skottske nationen i dette Tyske krijget fuller vara så väl tiänt på alla händelserna så som medh Tyskerne sielﬀve’, RAOSB, V, 468–9. This positive attitude toward the Scottish soldiers even impacted

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Scottish oﬃcers were found in both the Scandinavian armies at the time, although the Scottish-Swedish relationship diﬀered signiﬁcantly from that of Denmark-Norway with Scotland. During the late sixteenth century the Swedish Crown initiated a custom of rewarding its oﬃcers with improved social prospects in the form of land donations and ennoblement, which, as Steve Murdoch discusses in his chapter was not forthcoming in Denmark-Norway.108 This became a major catalyst for Scottish service in Sweden, as illustrated by the private oﬀers of enlistment which came to characterise the ScottishSwedish military relationship.109 Indeed the very presence of a Scottish community, of both a military and social nature, facilitated the continuous absorption of new recruits.110 The Scottish desire to follow the cause of the Stuart princess and Bohemian queen, Elizabeth, also provided motivation for service in the Thirty Years’ War, and after Denmark’s withdrawal Sweden became the only regular recipient for Scottish volunteers.

Conclusion This brief investigation into Sweden’s use of governorship from 1574 to 1700 has demonstrated that the Scots played a multifaceted role in this function. The tables of distribution of these governors provide a full impression of the spread, both in time and place, of these oﬃcers. Indeed this distribution largely follows Sweden’s military expansion eastward and southward, and the increase in numbers is consistent with the territorial growth which the Swedish Empire experienced during these years. These tables list over 100 governorships, albeit that sometimes the same individual is involved more than once,

on the British Isles merchants active in Sweden. In 1631 Oxenstierna advised the king in January 1631 to treat the British merchants favourably as ‘månge af dhem och serdeles Skottska nationen ähre i E. K.M:tts tiänst’ (many of them, particularly of the Scottish nation, are in your Majesty’s service), RAOSB, VI, 30. 108 T. Fischer noted that as early as 1578 two Scottish oﬃcers, Henry Leyell and a certain Wallace received land as security for their pay, The Scots in Sweden, 50. 109 See Dow, Ruthven’s army in Sweden and Esthonia, and A. Grosjean, ‘The Alternative Band; Scotland’s ties wi Sweiden, 1550–1599’, Cairn, no. 1, (1997) and A. Grosjean, ‘Scottish-Scandinavian Seventeenth Century Naval Links; A case study for the SSNE database’, Northern Studies, no. 32, (1997) for some discussions of these early Scottish military enterprisers. 110 See Grosjean, ‘Scots and the Swedish state’, 132–145.

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which fall into three distinct groupings. The ﬁrst, in the pre-Thirty Years’ War period, contains 13 individuals, all Scottish-born immigrants. The second, covering the Thirty Years’ War period, contains 44 people where all but ﬁve were Scottish-born emigrants. The third, from 1649–1700, contains 35 people. This group noticeably includes the sons of Scotsmen who had emigrated to and settled in Sweden, and sometimes even their grandsons. This trend of Scottish governorship developed in the late sixteenth century, and once a pattern of Scottish migration had been established, the Scots soon became an integral part of the Swedish military machine. The appointments initially reﬂected the personal friendship between monarch and oﬃcer, and sometimes governors were placed in recognition of loyal service. It evolved into a Swedish government policy to place the best of these individuals in sensitive areas, in an eﬀort to consolidate and maintain a Swedish presence. Given that there were at least 30,000 Scottish troops in Swedish service alone during the 1630–1648 period of the Thirty Years’ War it would have been more remarkable had there not been any Scots employed as governors. Those who entered Swedish military service came from a variety of backgrounds. From experienced soldiers, to members of the nobility or gentry seeking social prospects abroad, to adventurers simply working their way up the military ladder. However in most cases it was usual for a Scotsman to have attained the rank of colonel before he held the position of governor or commandant. As ennoblement often went hand-in-hand with military service in the seventeenth century, some of these governors and commandants already were or became members of the Swedish nobility in the course of their activities. This placed these Scotsmen in amongst the highest echelons of Swedish society. Not all the Scottish governors were consistently successful and they did not always reap the beneﬁts of loyal service. Two of the earliest governors, Andrew Keith and James Neave, were respectively exiled and murdered for their adherence to a particular branch of the Vasa family. Neither Keith’s nor Neave’s duties or roles as governors were at fault, they simply chose the wrong member of the Vasa family to swear allegiance to. James MacDougal’s later years of governorship did not pass smoothly. Not only did his German peers dislike him, blaming him for the undisciplined actions of his troops, but his career ended in disgrace when the Imperial General

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Wallenstein took him prisoner in a drunken stupor during a surprise attack at Steinau. Although he escaped, he spent the following years trying to clear his name of the responsibility for the loss of Steinau, and he died two years later.111 James MacDougal and James Ramsay died with blemishes on their military records—MacDougal for losing a Swedish garrison, and Ramsay for breaking the conditions of a surrender—however MacDougal’s children were later ennobled on the strength of his merits, and Ramsay is still remembered positively as ‘the Defender of Hanau’.112 These four appear to be the only negative examples of governors, and indeed their careers up to their oﬀending behaviour are all uniformly laudable. Although the Scottish governors and commandants were largely employed in a military frontier capacity, where their main purpose was fortiﬁcation and defence, they also provided a vital service in ‘safe’ locations both within Sweden proper and in its newly gained territories. Their placements were often of a sensitive nature and must reﬂect the level of trust and conﬁdence the Swedish leaders had in their Scottish oﬃcers. That two of the fortiﬁcations were actually named after their Scottish governors—Cobron and Kinnemünde— indicates how integral a part of the Swedish military machine these Scots were. From the Russian-Swedish wars in the late sixteenth century, right through to the Danish-Swedish wars in the late seventeenth century, the evidence proves that the locations of their deployment was highly indicative of their value to the Swedish state.

111

Svenskt Biograﬁskt Lexicon, XI, 608. For a re-evaluation of Ramsay’s actions at Hanau see H. Ruﬀer and K. Zickermann, ‘German Reactions to the Scots in the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years’ War’, in Murdoch, ed. Scotland and the Thirty Years’ War, 283–287. I wish to thank them for sharing their research notes on Ramsay with me. 112

CHAPTER FOUR

AN IRISH GOVERNOR OF SCOTLAND: LORD BROGHILL, 1655–16561 Patrick Little

When Roger Boyle, Lord Broghill, travelled south from Scotland in August 1656, he left a lasting impression on the Scottish people. Robert Baillie called him ‘a man exceeding wise and moderat . . . [who] hes gained more on the aﬀections of the people than all the English that ever were among us’.2 John Nicoll believed him ‘ane very worthy nobleman of great judgement, and weill beloved of all our Scottish natioun’.3 Alexander Brodie even suspected that Broghill ‘was to be cald to London from his charge, for his inclination to the people of this nation’.4 Such plaudits reﬂected the success of Broghill’s year-long service as president of Cromwell’s Scottish Council. His tenure had seen improvements in the eﬃciency and fairness of the ﬁnancial and judicial systems, and a far-sighted attempt to reconcile the Scottish people (and above all the ministers of the Presbyterian church) to the protectoral regime. In many of these areas Broghill was able to build on the policies of his immediate predecessors, the English military governors Robert Lilburne and George Monck; but he also brought something distinctive—in terms of the style of his government and his attitude towards the Scots— which set him apart from the other rulers, and contributed to the success, and popularity, of his schemes. In this chapter I shall argue that this distinctiveness can be traced to Broghill’s own background, 1 In this chapter ‘Irish’ is used in its geographical, rather than ethnic, sense. For the distinctiveness of the Irish Protestant community as a social and political group see P. Little, ‘The First Unionists? Irish Protestant attitudes to union with England, 1654–1659’, Irish Historical Studies 32 (2000), 44–58; also P. Little, ‘The Irish Independents and Viscount Lisle’s lieutenancy of Ireland’, Historical Journal 44,4 (2001), 941–61. 2 D. Laing, ed., The Letters and Journals of Robert Baillie (3 vols, Edinburgh: 1841–2), 3, 315. 3 D. Laing, ed., A Diary of Public Transactions . . . by John Nicoll (Edinburgh: 1836), 183. 4 D. Laing, ed., The Diary of Alexander Brodie of Brodie (Aberdeen: 1863), 187.

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as a Protestant from that other kingdom conquered by Cromwell: Ireland. Lord Broghill was born in the Irish province of Munster in 1621, the third surviving son of the 1st Earl of Cork. Cork was one of the most inﬂuential of the Protestant settlers who had come to Ireland in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and he shared the Calvinist beliefs, and anti-Catholic prejudices, of many of his contemporaries. Such principles guided his public policies when serving as Lord Justice of Ireland between 1629 and 1632; they also inﬂuenced his attitude towards his children, who were brought up under a strict regime of godly observance, undergirded by a strong sense of cultural superiority. Broghill’s early life was dominated by his father. Educated at Trinity College Dublin, he travelled to the continent in the mid-1630s, studying at the Calvinist academies of Geneva and Saumur. After a brief and uneventful career in the royal army during the Bishops’ Wars of 1639–40, he joined the younger set at court, and in 1641 married Margaret Howard, daughter of the 2nd Earl of Suﬀolk, whose family shared the godly aspirations of the Boyles. At the outbreak of the Irish Rebellion later in 1641, Broghill joined his father’s defence of the Protestant enclave in the southern province of Munster, and held the family’s home at Lismore Castle against assault by Irish Catholic forces. The death of the 1st Earl of Cork in 1643 caused a split within the Boyle family. Broghill’s eldest brother, now 2nd Earl of Cork, sided with the king and remained in England. Broghill, appalled by the king’s attempts to make peace with the Catholic rebels, joined the local Protestant commander, Lord Inchiquin, in defecting to Parliament in July 1644. In the later 1640s Broghill’s political views became more extreme, as he fell in with a group of his father’s old associates, who called for harsher measures against the native Irish, based on conquest and conﬁscation, the suppression of Catholicism and the incorporation of Ireland into an English ‘Empire’. Such an agenda alienated not only the king’s lord lieutenant, the Marquess of Ormond, but also the president of Munster, Lord Inchiquin, and may have contributed to the latter’s defection to the Royalists in 1648. It also caused few problems for Broghill and his allies when deciding to throw their weight behind the Cromwellian invasion of Ireland in 1649.5

5

P. Little, ‘The Political Career of Roger Boyle, Lord Broghill, 1636–1660’,

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Despite Broghill’s initial enthusiasm for English intervention, Cromwell’s rule in Ireland proved a great disappointment. He retained a strong sense of personal loyalty to the new lord lieutenant, but increasingly found himself at loggerheads with the English oﬃcers and parliamentary commissioners who took charge of the government when Cromwell left to organise the invasion of Scotland in May 1650. Broghill was passed over for promotion in the army and excluded from positions of inﬂuence; and the defeat of the Catholic forces in 1652–3 brought in a land settlement which threatened the estates of Protestant Royalists as well as Catholic Confederates, and from which those who had fought for parliament before 1649 were deliberately excluded. Broghill was especially alarmed by the growing importance of a clique of senior oﬃcers, who supported religious radicalism in the army and the civilian population. They were tolerated by Cromwell’s son-in-law, Charles Fleetwood, who governed Ireland from 1652. In the face of such threats, Broghill and his friends lobbied the English government for a change in policy, which would give power back to the Irish Protestants and curb the excesses of the army and the sectaries. Important concessions followed: Irish Protestants were able to increase their role in the local administration as justices of the peace and revenue commissioners; in 1652 Broghill won a signiﬁcant victory by saving the lands of his Royalist brother, the 2nd Earl of Cork, from sequestration—setting a precedent which beneﬁted many other Protestant families; and in the elections for the 1654 Westminster parliament, the Irish Protestants and their allies took 19 of the 30 seats allocated for Ireland.6 In this parliament, the Irish Protestants tried to cement their gains by supporting an act of union, which promised to establish a parity of trading privileges and taxation between the two nations, and which continued Irish representation in future parliaments. The premature dissolution of this parliament prevented the act being passed, but Broghill remained conﬁdent that the prosperity and security of Ireland lay with closer association with England. And his conﬁdence was further increased by the recall of Fleetwood from Ireland in the summer of 1655, to be replaced by the protector’s son, Henry Cromwell. With a more sympathetic governor installed in Dublin, Broghill unpublished Ph.D., (London: 2000), chapters 1, 2 and 3; Little, ‘Irish Independents,’ Passim. 6 P. Little, ‘Irish Representation in the Protectorate Parliaments’ (forthcoming).

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journeyed to Edinburgh in August 1655 with a feeling that the tide had at last turned in his favour.7 Before examining Broghill’s policies in Scotland, and the extent to which they were inﬂuenced by his Irish experiences, it is necessary to determine how far the political initiative really lay with him, rather than being dictated by the Protector and his advisers in London, or inherited from his predecessors at Edinburgh. Was Broghill the initiator or merely the enforcer of Scottish policy? The hierarchical nature of protectoral government meant that Broghill was inevitably restricted by the English Council, which operated in a similar way to the Privy Council under James VI and I and Charles I, and its Scottish committee, which took over the running of speciﬁc policies. The composition of the Scottish Council, and two sets of instructions for its conduct, were decided at Whitehall in the spring and summer of 1655; and Broghill’s year of oﬃce was punctuated by further orders from London or requests for clariﬁcation of policy from Edinburgh. On certain issues, Broghill had little room to manoeuvre. The rate of assessment was ﬁxed by the English Council or Parliament, with the Scottish Council having only limited scope to abate or exempt individuals.8 Equally, orders to bring the judicial system or the Exchequer into line with English practice were determined at Whitehall, although Broghill was happy enough to implement them.9 Yet there are indications that Broghill was able to take the initiative over other policy matters. He ensured the inclusion (at Monck’s request) of a clause conﬁrming the recent articles of war in the ﬁrst set of instructions, and he modiﬁed the direction of church policy in the additional instructions drafted shortly before he left London.10 When in Scotland, Broghill had little compunction about departing from his brief, overturning his initial instructions and provoking direct opposition and deliberate obstruction by the English council—a situation which hardly suggests that he was a mere puppet governor. Broghill’s relationship with George Monck also needs clariﬁcation. Before the creation of the Scottish Council, power had rested with 7

Little, ‘The First Unionists?’, passim; Little, ‘Broghill’, chapter 4. F. Dow, Cromwellian Scotland, 1651–1660 (Edinburgh: 1979), 171–2. 9 Dow, Cromwellian Scotland, 166; T. Birch, ed., A Collection of the State Papers of John Thurloe Esq. [ hereafter TSP ], 7 vols. (1742), IV, 56, 105, 268, 324. 10 C.H. Firth, ed., Scotland and the Protectorate (Edinburgh: 1899), 295; Dow, Cromwellian Scotland, 167. 8

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successive commanders-in-chief, who combined control over the civil government with their military duties. Some historians have identiﬁed Broghill and Monck so closely, that in key policy areas they seem almost to be the same person.11 This presupposition, which masks the real diﬀerences between the two men, cannot be supported by their words or actions. On the appointment of Broghill in March 1655 Monck was prepared to hand over the civil government to him, and although he remained as a member of the new council, his voice was merely one of many. In the months between Broghill’s appointment and his arrival in Edinburgh, Monck acted accordingly, insisting that he would not take decisions that might compromise the new president, and telling petitioners that answers were ‘being deferr[e]d as yet to bee determined in when the Councill come’.12 As late as November 1655 he continued to make a show of his reticence, telling Cromwell that he could not comment on non-military issues as ‘for the Civill aﬀaires I make noe question but my Lord Broghill will acquainte your Highnesse more perticularlie of them’.13 This self-denying ordinance was to prove increasingly diﬃcult for Monck to observe, as it became clear that Broghill was intent on making his own policy in Scotland, without reference to his predecessor. The general, like the English Council, soon found his own measures being overturned by the new president, and in the autumn of 1655 Scottish commentators were aware of ‘som jealousies betwixt the President and General’, which by January 1656 had led to ‘som[e] gumme among themselves in the Counsel’.14 These areas of tension—principally over local administration, security and the church— reﬂect diﬀerences in policy which conﬁrm Broghill’s independence; and in each case, these diﬀerences can be seen to stem from his distinctive approach to Scottish aﬀairs, inﬂuenced by his own experiences in Ireland. When it came to the administration of the Scottish provinces, Broghill and Monck diﬀered more than has been allowed.15 For example, the establishment of Justices of the Peace, introduced by 11

Dow, Cromwellian Scotland, 168, 187–94. Worcester College, Oxford, Clarke MS 3/10, unfol.: 9 July 1655; see also entries for 1 June, 16 and 24 July 1655. 13 Clarke MS 3/2, fo. 138v (6 Nov. 1655). 14 Laing, ed., Brodie, 154; J.D. Ogilvie, ed., Diary of Archibald Johnston of Wariston, 1655–60 (Edinburgh: 1940), III, 26. 15 Dow, Cromwellian Scotland, chapter 8. 12

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Broghill in September 1655, although implementing a policy ﬁrst proposed by Monck in April 1654, did not meet with the general’s whole-hearted approval.16 After the suppression of Glencairn’s revolt in 1654 Monck seems to have lost conﬁdence in the eﬃcacy of commissions of the peace staﬀed by Scottish oﬃcials, and preferred to rely instead on military justice.17 Such doubts also inﬂuenced his attitude to the regular circuit courts, created along English lines in 1652, which he felt interfered with more eﬀective martial law, administered by local garrison commanders. Indeed, Monck even allowed his military subordinates to compete with the civilian justices, creating what has been described as a ‘parallel system of administering justice’.18 Broghill’s decision to revive the JP system seems to have been inﬂuenced by three factors: a desire to challenge the army’s involvement in justice;19 a commitment to promoting traditional answers to Scottish problems, by basing his plan on that of James VI;20 and a recognition that Scotland would beneﬁt from reforms which had proved successful in Ireland. These three were interconnected. The return of power to local people had been a central theme of attempts by Broghill and his allies to bring settled government to Ireland, and commissions of the peace—reintroduced to the island in 1651, and already widespread by 1655—had done much to reduce military interference in local justice.21 Broghill certainly drew on Irish parallels when changing another aspect of local administration: the collection of the Scottish assessment tax. When introducing his reforms in October 1655, he was deliberately following ‘an expedient I got the gentlemen of my cuntry [ i.e. county] in Ir[e]land to accept of . . . that the gentry of the cuntry, quarterly by turnes, take the paynes and care of levyinge it gratis’.22 Scottish enthusiasm for this project, lukewarm at ﬁrst, increased after December 1655, when Broghill ordered that all JPs would also serve as assessment commissioners.23 The uniﬁcation of the judicial and ﬁnancial roles, and their placement in the hands of the Scots, may also have 16 For the Scottish JPs see Lesley M. Smith, ‘Scotland and Cromwell: a study in early modern government’, unpublished D.Phil. (Oxford: 1979), chapter 7. 17 Smith, ‘Scotland and Cromwell’, 170–1. 18 Ibid., 155–60. 19 Ibid., 181. 20 TSP, IV, 57. 21 T. Barnard, Cromwellian Ireland (Oxford: 1975), 257. 22 TSP, IV, 127. 23 Dow, Cromwellian Scotland, 172; TSP, IV, 342–3.

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been inspired by Broghill’s Irish experience, where the separation of functions had caused conﬂict between JPs and revenue commissioners—the latter usually dominated by the army.24 Such examples highlight diﬀerences in thinking between the ‘civilian’ Broghill and the ‘soldier’ Monck, and how Irish inﬂuences were beginning to have a profound inﬂuence on Scottish policy. For Broghill the stability of the Scottish provinces was jeopardised not only by the army but also by the survival of powerful vested interests in the form of the Gaelic magnates who dominated the Highlands and the western seaboard. These had enjoyed judicial and administrative autonomy under the Stuarts, and in the 1650s maintained close links not only with the Royalists on the continent but also with the Gaelic families of Ulster. The Cromwellian conquest of 1650–1, the 1652 act abolishing heritable jurisdictions, and the punitive measures which followed the Royalist rising led by William Cunningham, 9th Earl of Glencairn in 1653–4, had cut down the potential threat from the Earl of Seaforth and many other Highland lords, but there remained one obvious exception to this rule— Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess of Argyll. Since the early sixteenth century, Clan Campbell had steadily increased its inﬂuence over the Western Isles, taking over MacDonald lands in Islay and Kintyre, and undermining the MacLeans of Mull, while consolidating their own power base in Argyllshire, centred on Inveraray [See Map 1]. A leading covenanter in the 1640s, Argyll had kept his local inﬂuence by a timely defection to the Cromwellians in 1650, and both Lilburne and Monck came to rely on him for the maintenance of order in the west, despite the involvement of his son, Lord Lorne, in Glencairn’s rebellion. Far from trying to limit Argyll’s power, the English military commanders did their best to bolster his hegemony in the region. They allowed him to take over the government-held castle of Dunollie near Oban, to organise essential supplies to another important stronghold, Dunstaﬀnage, and to administer the assessment of Argyllshire himself. A good example of the trust given Argyll is Monck’s decision to leave a blank for Argyllshire in the list of assessment collectors for April 1654 with a note that ‘the blanke to bee ﬁll’d by the Lo[rd] of Argyle’.25 The English commanders also

24 25

Barnard, Cromwellian Ireland, 258. Little, ‘Broghill’, 176–8; Clarke MS 3/10; ibid. 3/5, fo. 21v.

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allowed the marquess to continue his judicial control over the region (despite the abolition of such heritable sheriﬀdoms in 1652), and no circuit judges were sent into the western highlands until the end of the decade.26 Argyll’s repeated (and often successful) attempts to lobby Whitehall also received Monck’s assistance; and with Monck’s backing the marquess secured the conﬁrmation of his articles of 1652 and the payment of various sums—including £12,000 from the Scottish excise—promised to him in the 1640s.27 Broghill’s attitude to Argyll was, by contrast, one of ill-concealed hostility. With the marquess absent in London on yet another round of lobbying, Broghill took the opportunity to undermine his judicial and ﬁnancial autonomy. When the new JPs were nominated in November 1655, Broghill told Thurloe that although he had not intervened as a general rule, he had ‘hindred my lord Argile being made one’;28 and by the new year of 1656 Monck’s lenient assessment arrangement had been reversed, with the collection of the tax being put into the hands of an independent sub-collector.29 In March Broghill called in the arrears of Argyll’s assessments, and in the same month the marquess’s hereditary jurisdiction as sheriﬀ of Argyll was challenged by the Council’s plan to divide the region into smaller units.30 Broghill also promoted Argyll’s subordinates, allowing the MacLeans to reassert their position on Mull and the Campbells of Glenorchy to encroach on the government of Argyllshire.31 As a ﬁnal insult, in August 1656 Broghill intervened to ‘put a spoke in [Argyll’s] wheele’ and prevent his election for Dunbarton, Argyll and Bute in the Second Protectorate Parliament.32 In Argyll’s place was elected John Lockhart, brother of Broghill’s ally on the Council, Sir William Lockhart, who had his own reasons to snub the marquess.33 As Broghill’s campaign against Argyll progressed, relations between them were further complicated by the marquess’s involvement with the

26

Smith, ‘Scotland and Cromwell’, 143–52. Little, ‘Broghill’, 180–1. 28 TSP, IV, 250. 29 Clarke MS 3/10, unfol.: 7 Feb. and 20 Mar. 1656. 30 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1655–6, 224. 31 Little, ‘Broghill’, 179–80; for the complexity of relations between the various families see A.I. Macinnes, Clanship, Commerce and the House of Stuart, 1603–1788 (East Linton: 1996), 38–9, 60–5, 73–6, 95–7, 100–1. 32 TSP, V, 295. 33 DNB., s.v. Lockhart. 27

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president’s enemies, both in the Scottish church and the English Council. But this was the eﬀect, rather than the cause, of Broghill’s hostility to the marquess, which seems to have been derived from his Irish experience in two ways. The ﬁrst was his innate suspicion of territorial lordship. In Ireland, the English government and the Irish Protestant community had long been in contention with the Gaelic and Old English lordships, such as the earldoms of Desmond, Kildare, Ormond, Clanricarde, Thomond and Tyrone, which had limited the extent of English control in the localities, and incessant feuding had brought periodic warfare and lawlessness. In the sixteenth century the English government had tried to harness the power of one or more of these lords, but this had meant alienating others, and the period saw the rebellions of the earls of Kildare (in the 1530s), Desmond (in the 1570s) and Tyrone (in the 1590s). Broghill’s father, the 1st Earl of Cork, had proﬁted from the second of these, and had played a part in suppressing the third; he had also been instrumental in remoulding the earldom of Kildare before the Irish Rebellion of 1641, encouraging the 16th Earl (who became his son-in-law in 1630) to become a pillar of the Protestant government. As Lord Justice of Ireland (1629–32), Cork had matched these private initiatives with a concerted attempt to limit the power of lordships in general, through an extension of the plantation system, notably into the patrimonial lands of the earls of Ormond. The 1641 rebellion had shown just how incomplete and unsatisfactory such attempts at conversion had been. In the Irish wars, Broghill had encountered a revived ‘clan’ system in Ireland among his adversaries in the Confederate party, and his suspicion of traditional lordships may have contributed to his personal animosity with the king’s lord lieutenant, the Marquess of Ormond, and with the president of Munster, the Gaelic (but Protestant) Lord Inchiquin. With this Irish context in mind, the position of Argyll in the west of Scotland must have seemed alarmingly familiar. Broghill voiced his general hostility to Scottish lordship when setting up the commissions of the peace in September 1655. In his own words, the original, Jacobean scheme, had failed because ‘the greate lords, who were sheriﬀs by inheritance, ﬁndeinge thos[e] diminshed ther power, let them soon fall again’.34 He was determined not to let this happen

34

TSP, IV, 57.

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again. The instructions issued to the new JPs brought the nobility under their jurisdiction—thus expanding their competence beyond what James VI had envisaged.35 This, and other local reforms, were soon deployed against Argyll. In November 1655 Broghill intervened to prevent the marquess’s appointment as JP; and in the new year he was planning the destruction of the hereditary sheriﬀdom of Argyll. The second reason for Broghill’s innate antagonism to the Marquess of Argyll was a more immediate one: the threat of Scottish and Irish royalists making common cause against the protectorate, and joining forces across the bare twelve miles of sea which separated Antrim from the Mull of Kintyre.36 In this, Argyll and Lorne—with their dominance of the Western Isles and their excellent connections with the Ulster Scots—were part of a much larger security problem. Frances Dow has rightly portrayed 1655–6 as a period beset by fears of invasion and Royalist conspiracy, although in retrospect it was apparent that ‘Monck and Broghill had grossly overestimated the danger to Scotland from Charles’s schemings abroad, and had been prone to take too seriously evidence of plans which had little hope of realisation’.37 Both men were eager to maintain spies within royalist circles, and were vigilant for any sign of unrest on the Scottish mainland. But Broghill and Monck did not always see eye to eye on security matters. Beneath their general sense of unease they had rather diﬀerent priorities, for while Monck was preoccupied about continental support for the Stuart cause, Broghill consistently ‘professed to discern a close connection between events in Ireland and in Scotland’.38 The diﬀerence between the concerns of Broghill and Monck, noted by Dow but not developed, is worth exploring. Evidence from Monck’s order books suggests that he did not share Broghill’s worries about a Royalist coalition spanning the Irish Sea. On 22 March 1655, for example, he responded to reports of Royalist plots by restricting passes for those going abroad, but on the very same day allowed a pass for ‘one of Glencairn’s p[ar]tie’ to go to Ireland.39 In July 1655 he resisted the unilateral measures of the actinggovernor of Ulster, Colonel Barrow, in ordering the oﬃcers at Carrick-

35 36 37 38 39

Smith, ‘Scotland and Cromwell’, 172. Dow, Cromwellian Scotland, 191–2. Ibid., 194. Ibid., 190. Clarke MS 3/9, unfol.: 22 Mar. 1655.

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fergus and other ports ‘nott to pmitt any passengers to come into Ireland from Ayr or other ports in Scotland without p[ar]ticular passes from the Gen[e]rall’, arguing that this would be inconvenient for Scots living on the western coast.40 He only conceded the point when he realised that Barrow had the backing of the Irish Lord Deputy, Charles Fleetwood, and even then told Colonel Cooper at Ayr that ‘hee could be glad to be [saved] ye trouble if other passes would goe there’.41 Broghill’s experiences in Ireland had taught him not to be complacent. The Irish Confederates may have been defeated and their leaders banished to the western province of Connaught, but bands of tories still operated near the Boyle estates in Munster, and there were periodic scares of a repeat of the rebellion and massacres of 1641. In October 1655, soon after his arrival in Scotland, Broghill warned Thurloe of Spanish inﬂuence in Ireland, and urged him to ‘have, I pray, an eye to the Irish of Connaught’.42 Henry Cromwell, now acting-governor of Ireland, was at this time increasingly worried by ‘the Scotts comeinge into the north of Ireland’, which was seen as ‘a growing evill’.43 Unlike Monck, Broghill was ready to put preventive measures in place, telling Thurloe in December of the Scottish Council’s intention ‘to publish a proclamation against the Scotch of this country, transplantinge them into Ulster, whither they dayly resort in such thronges, that its apprehended both ther[e] and heere ther[e] is som ill intended therby’.44 This proclamation was produced in early January 1656—the same month that the former governor of Ayr, Colonel Cooper, arrived in Ireland to take over as governor of Ulster.45 Throughout January 1656 Broghill was worried that ‘possibly Ireland and this place may understand each other better then we could beleeve’—a possibility conﬁrmed by news of agents ‘to be sent from some lords in Scotland to some very considerable persons in Ireland’.46 In response, Broghill was eager to collaborate with Henry Cromwell and the Irish authorities, ‘to prevent

40 41 42 43 44 45 46

Clarke MS 3/10, unfol.: 9 July 1655. Clarke MS 3/10, unfol.: 7 Aug. 1655. TSP, IV, 73; see also Dow, Cromwellian Scotland, 160. TSP, IV, 191 & 198. TSP, IV, 343. TSP, IV, 403, 407–8, 418–9. TSP, IV, 372 and 403.

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any breakings for the either frome Scots or Irish’.47 Such worries were not conﬁned to Broghill and Henry Cromwell. The fear of joint operations was also shared by some at Whitehall, including Thurloe and Fleetwood, who kept in close contact with Broghill, and commended Cooper as ‘A happy instrum[en]t in ye north’.48 Their concern contrasted with the apparent indiﬀerence of George Monck, who showed little interest in the Irish dimension until August 1656, when there were fears that a Spanish ﬂeet was trying to intercept troop ships from Irish and Scottish ports en route for the West Indies.49 In Broghill’s eyes any contact between Scotland and Ireland was sinister; but the possibility of Irish Catholics making common cause with their Scottish counterparts raised his worst fears. Broghill’s hatred of Catholicism—inherited from his father and fostered by his Calvinist upbringing—increased still further after his experiences of sectarian conﬂict in Ireland during the 1640s and early 1650s. Indeed, Broghill had himself participated in atrocities against the Catholic Irish, and hanged the Bishop of Rosse in cold blood in 1650.50 Monck did not share Broghill’s fanaticism. For him, the Catholics were less of a threat than those Presbyterians who remained loyal to the Stuarts, and he was unsympathetic to allowing more jurisdiction to the Kirk Sessions, which traditionally dealt with religious misdemeanours, including recusancy.51 While banning the meeting of the General Assembly and ordering local commanders to suppress ministers who prayed publicly for the king,52 Monck was less willing to pursue tough policies against the Catholics in the north and west of Scotland, and he was attacked in April 1655 by ‘some Ministers in those p[ar]ts [who] have given out that hee hath protected popish preists’, because he refused to prosecute them.53 Robert Baillie saw this leniency to papists as part of a wider scheme by a tolerationist government which let sectarians run riot, and he complained that ‘Popery encreases

47

TSP, IV, 483. BL, Lansdowne MS 821, fos. 70v, 74r, 78r: Fleetwood to Henry Cromwell, 8, 15 and 22 Jan. 1656. 49 Dow, Cromwellian Scotland, 192–3. 50 Little, ‘Broghill’, 202–3. 51 For Kirk Sessions see Smith, ‘Scotland and Cromwell’, 219–42. 52 See, for example, Clarke MS 3/2, fo. 139r: Monck to Oliver Cromwell, 10 Jan. 1656; 3/9, unfol.: 3 Nov. 1654, 10 Mar. 1655, 20 Mar. 1655; 3/10, unfol.: 27 Apr. 1655. 53 Clarke MS 3/9, unfol.: 25 Apr. 1655. 48

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more than these seventy years’.54 In March 1656, however, once the latest scare about Royalist plots had died down, Broghill started to address the problem of ‘the Increase & Grouth of Papists’. He laid the blame for this at his predecessors’ door, saying that the ‘usuall way of Discovering & Convicting of a Papist’ had been removed with the suppression of the judicial function of the Presbyterian church, and suggesting instead the introduction of an ‘Oath of Abjuracon’ based on English models.55 The English Council agreed to this proposal on 16 May,56 and on 5 June Broghill ordered the local commanders to ﬁnd all Catholics, take their weapons, and impose bonds for good behaviour.57 He also allowed the Kirk Sessions to work alongside the new JPs to ensure that church discipline (including measures against Catholics) could proceed without jurisdictional disputes.58 As with the attempt to reduce the inﬂuence of Argyll and the policy of isolating Scottish and Irish Royalists, the move to suppress Catholicism was very much Broghill’s own policy, and one coloured by his Irish background and experience. The church was the area in which Broghill’s ‘Irishness’ had the greatest impact. Unlike some aspects of secular administration, it is clear that the religious policy of 1655–6 originated with Broghill, rather than with Monck or the English Council. Historians have disagreed about the details of this policy, but there is consensus that his main innovation was to court the majority party which remained loyal to Charles Stuart, known as the Resolutioners, at the expense of the Protesters, who had decided to cooperate with the Cromwellian regime, and who been favoured by previous rulers, including George Monck.59 Broghill’s ﬁrst success, within weeks of arriving in Scotland, was to persuade the Resolutioners to stop praying for Charles Stuart: an achievement described by Secretary Thurloe as ‘a great wonder’

54

Laing, ed., Baillie, III, 291 and 304. NLS, Yester Papers, Ms 7032, fo. 73r–v: Broghill to English Council, 8 Mar. 1656. 56 NLS, Yester Papers, Ms 7032, fo. 79r: report of Scottish cttee, 16 May 1656. 57 Clarke MS 1/16, fos. 39v–40r; for response of Resolutioners, see W. Stephen, ed., Register of the Consultations of the Ministers of Edinburgh, 1652–7 (Edinburgh: 1921), I, 201–2 (Aug. 1656). 58 Smith, ‘Scotland and Cromwell’, 224. 59 Dow, Cromwellian Scotland, 195–210; J. Buckroyd, ‘Lord Broghill and the Scottish church, 1655–1656’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 27 (1976), 359–68; Little, ‘Broghill’, chapter 5. 55

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and ‘a great conquest’.60 By the summer of 1656 he had gained their agreement for the government to control the allocation of stipends in return for an end to discrimination in favour of the Protesters under the ‘Gillespie Charter’, established by Monck and the English Council in 1654.61 In both cases, Broghill hoped to encourage the Resolutioners to ‘have owned ye Civill magistrate in their Kirke aﬀairs’,62 and in the summer of 1656 he even predicted, perhaps over-conﬁdently, that ‘all thes ministers, which hitherto have bin soe averse, will openly pray for your government’.63 Throughout the period, Broghill was opposed by Monck, who remained suspicious of the Presbyterian church as a focus for resistance to the regime, and resented the fact that the Resolutioners had made concessions to the new president, ‘as if we had yielded to Broghill what we had denyed to him’.64 This disagreement over religious policy continued throughout 1655–6, and in the winter of 1656–7 Monck still held to his view that the Protesters ‘are better to be trusted then the other partie w[hi]ch. are called the Gen[era]ll Resolucon men’,65 while Broghill said he believed the opposite: ‘Really I thinke the publike resolution-men will proove the honnester of the two’.66 Broghill’s success in church matters has been attributed to his skills as a hard-nosed politician. According to Frances Dow, he was inﬂuenced by ‘not only the cold calculation of an ‘English’ politician, but also the intellectual contempt of a man who cared little for the principles and interests of the parties he was manipulating’.67 This analysis is wrong on both counts. Broghill was not acting as an ‘English’ politician, but as an Irish Protestant; and, like his father, his public policies were the outward manifestation of his personal commitment to Calvinism and his deep animosity to Catholicism. As I have argued elsewhere, Broghill’s religious beliefs are central to understanding his political activities in the 1650s; and these beliefs were derived from his family background and his education on the

60

TSP, IV, 88. Little, ‘Broghill’, 167–71. 62 NLS, Yester Papers, Ms 7032, fo. 83r: Broghill to English council, 10 June 1656. 63 TSP, IV, 558–9. 64 Laing, ed., Baillie, III, 296; see Little, ‘Broghill’, 161–2 for the full story. 65 Clarke MS 3/3, fo. 1v: Monck to OC, 3 Jan. 1657. 66 TSP, V, 656. 67 Dow, Cromwellian Scotland, 195. 61

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continent—both of which were heavily inﬂuenced by his father— and by his experience in the Irish wars.68 In additional to such general inﬂuences, we know that Broghill received advice on the Scottish church from two men with connections in both Ireland and Scotland. The ﬁrst was John Durie, the Scottish irenicist, who had married the sister of Broghill’s Irish ally, Sir Robert King, in 1645. In May 1655 Durie warned Broghill (via their mutual friend, Samuel Hartlib) that ‘hee will have a diﬃcult piece of work to deale with a stiﬀ necked generation of men; but love Prudencie & patience will at last conquer all’, and in December Durie enquired about the Resolutioners’ conduct, saying ‘I would be gladde to heare that they would not meddle any more with state matters in the pulpit’.69 Broghill also received practical support from the Antrim landowner, Sir John Clotworthy, who was linked to the Boyles by marriage. Clotworthy had been connected with Scotland since the 1630s, had supported the Covenanters in the 1640s, and in the 1650s helped the Antrim Presbytery recruit ministers from Scotland.70 It was Clotworthy who put the leading Resolutioners in touch with Broghill in September 1655, ‘lest y[ou]r not beeinge knowne to his Lo[rdshi]p should p[ro]duce somw[ha]t oﬀ a strangeness’, and he was able to reassure them that ‘y[o]u will ﬁnd him a man oﬀ cleere understandinge & well able to make a Judgmt of w[ha]t is oﬀer[ed]’.71 This conﬁrms Robert Baillie’s view that Broghill had already gained ‘a good impression’ of the Resolutioners from his ‘sister-in-law, the Ladie Clotworthie’, and that this was the reason for his success in persuading them to stop praying for the king.72 Such Irish inﬂuences reinforced the obvious political parallels between the Irish and the Scottish Presbyterian churches. Broghill’s initiatives were deliberately designed to complement those of Henry Cromwell in Ireland, who was also trying ‘to create a party favourable to the Protectorate in Ulster’ at this time.73 Signiﬁcantly, Clotworthy

68

Little, ‘Broghill’, chapter 6. SUL, Hartlib MS 4/3/97A (13 May 1655); ibid., 4/3/135B (11 Dec. 1655); Little, ‘Broghill’, 158. 70 Little, ‘Broghill’, 158–9. 71 NLS, Wodrow Folio Mss, vol. 26, fo. 11r: Clotworthy to David Dickson et al., 4 Sept. 1655. Wodrow misdated this letter as 4 February 1655, although the original clearly reads ‘4: 7bris: 55’. 72 Laing, ed., Baillie, iii., 295. 73 Barnard, Cromwellian Ireland, 123. 69

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was also involved in an Irish scheme to persuade the Presbyterian ministers to accept salaries from the government, and this had been agreed in November 1655—a few months before Broghill introduced a similar plan to Scotland.74 And Broghill certainly had Irish parallels in mind when negotiating with the Resolutioners in February 1656, telling Oliver Cromwell that ‘heerby the presbiterians of England and Ireland, who are not inconsiderable, might probably be wonn unto your highnes’.75 The interaction between the governments of Ireland and Scotland at this time is often obscured by the lack of direct evidence, and, speciﬁcally, the loss of the correspondence between Henry Cromwell and Broghill before the beginning of 1657. But in church policies, as in other matters, the similarities between the two regimes are compelling; and it was not for nothing that both men came under ﬁre from their superiors at Whitehall. Henry Cromwell was accused of being ‘too gentle to ye Scotch and revolting English of Ireland’,76 while Broghill’s departure for London in August 1656 was suspected by some Scots to be the result of ‘his inclination to the people of this nation’.77 The general popularity of Broghill’s government in Scotland was a by-product of his attempt to rule not as an English soldier, but as an Irish Protestant. Whether in local administrative reforms, the attempt to control the over-mighty Marquess of Argyll, to tighten security or settle the church, Broghill’s innovations in policy all have an Irish ﬂavour. It is telling that in many of these areas Broghill’s plans were implemented in the teeth of ﬁerce opposition not only from the English Council but also from his predecessor as governor (and colleague on the Scottish Council), George Monck. Broghill’s recognition of the similarities between Scotland and Ireland encouraged sympathetic policies, which contrasted with the imposition of solutions which characterised English approaches to government north of the border—and, indeed, across the Irish Sea. In terms of Scottish domestic aﬀairs, Broghill’s year-long rule had a lasting impact. Although in Broghill’s absence eﬀective control of Scottish aﬀairs passed back to George Monck, the next few years saw no attempt by the general to reverse the move towards civilian rule. Despite 74 75 76 77

Barnard, Cromwellian Ireland, 124. TSP, IV, 557. BL, Lansdowne Ms 822, fo. 51, cited in Barnard, Cromwellian Ireland, 124. Laing, ed., Brodie, 187.

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continuing ﬁnancial problems, and periodic friction with Whitehall, until the autumn of 1658 ‘the Council and its agents concentrated now on implementing decisions already taken’, while in the ‘political turmoil’ of 1658–60, ‘the day-to-day running of the country at a local level continued independently of, almost in isolation from, the political upheavals in England’.78 While much of this stability was due to Monck’s ﬁrm hand over the army and the civilian administration alike, it was based on the sympathetic reforms introduced by Broghill in 1655–6.79 Broghill’s term of oﬃce also had a long-term aﬀect on the whole Cromwellian state. During 1655–6 tensions emerged between the increasingly moderate governments in Scotland and Ireland and the major-generals—a radical and unpopular experiment in military rule—introduced in the English provinces in the same period. Such strong counter-currents, with the governments of Scotland and Ireland running against the military ‘experiment’ in England,80 created political turbulence which was to have a dramatic eﬀect on the Second Protectorate Parliament, which met in September 1656. This parliament witnessed the rejection of the major-generals (with the voting down of the militia bill), and the oﬀer of the crown to Oliver Cromwell as part of a new constitution, known as the Humble Petition and Advice. Broghill was a central ﬁgure in promoting such changes and ensuring they were passed by the Commons. The factional divisions in these controversies replicated the party-politics within the Protector’s councils in earlier years, with Broghill once again coming into conﬂict with the army interest led by John Lambert, who had opposed so many of his Scottish reforms through the English Council. Further tensions were created by the presence of agents from both Resolutioner and Protester camps at Whitehall, who courted the diﬀerent factions, and added to the personal animosity already apparent between Broghill and Lambert in the Commons. In many respects, the earlier factional divisions over Scottish policy were being played out again, but on a much larger stage. 78

Dow, Cromwellian Scotland, 162, 211–2, 227–8, 232. There are signs that Monck was starting to agree with Broghill on some policy matters, such as the inadvisability of trusting the Marquess of Argyll: see Little, ‘Broghill’, 182; and in 1659–60 he ﬁnally acknowledged the importance of working with the authorities in Ireland: A. Clarke, Prelude to Restoration in Ireland: the end of the Commonwealth, 1659–60 (Cambridge: 1999), chapters 4 and 5. 80 Smith, ‘Scotland and Cromwell’, 254–6. 79

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Broghill’s Scottish connections were of great practical use in his attempts to manage this parliament. Of the 30 Scottish MPs elected to serve at Westminster, Broghill is known to have intervened to secure the election of at least six, and it is likely that he had a hand in the return of at least eight more.81 The 14 MPs included Broghill’s allies on the Scottish Council, Samuel Disbrowe, George Downing, Sir Edward Rhodes and Sir William Lockhart, and at Westminster they formed a coherent group, which worked together in the Scottish committee and were at the forefront of attempts to gain a smooth passage for the bill of Scottish union during the winter of 1656–7.82 The Scottish MPs also came together in opposition to the militia bill, and in support of the Humble Petition. In all, 15 Scottish MPs were listed as having voted for Cromwell to be crowned, and nine of these ‘kinglings’ were native Scots.83 Perhaps the most striking evidence of Scottish support for Broghill’s programme is an anonymous Scottish version of the Remonstrance—the precursor to the Humble Petition—which boldly requested ‘That yo[u]r highnes wilbe pleased to assume the name, style title dignity and oﬃce of the King of Scotland Ingland & Ireland’ and which described a Cromwellian monarchy as the will of the ‘God quch pulls downe on[e] and sets up another & gives the Kingdomes of the world to qmsoever he pleiseth’.84 This kind of endorsement, backed by the loyal support of a majority of the Scottish MPs, was not only a justiﬁcation of Broghill’s policies in 1655–6 (which had sought to encourage the Scots to ‘own’ the Cromwellian government), but also a demonstration of the political beneﬁts he was able to reap after his term of oﬃce in Scotland had ended. An important by-product of Broghill’s attempt to bring an Irish perspective to Scottish politics was the increasing amity between the governments in Edinburgh and Dublin. By the end of 1655 the two administrations were working in parallel on matters of common concern such as security and the Presbyterian church, as we have seen. 81 P.J. Pinckney, ‘The Scottish Representation in the Cromwellian Parliament of 1656’, Scottish Historical Review, 66 (1967); Little, ‘Broghill’, 224–5. 82 Little, ‘Broghill’, 227–8. 83 BL, E.935(5), A Narrative of the Late Parliament (February 1658) 22–3. George Downing and Richard Beake and are listed under other headings. 84 NLS, Wodrow Folio Mss, vol. 30, fo. 126r; heading says 1654, but obviously 1657. Provenance unknown, but position of Scotland ﬁrst, and use of Scottish spelling, conﬁrms that it originated north of the border.

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They were drawn together by the hostility both had received from the army interest in the English Council; and their collaboration would continue, and its scope would broaden, during the 1656 parliament. Henry Cromwell (who remained in Dublin) kept in contact with Broghill through correspondence and through meetings with his brother, the Earl of Cork, and assured him of his full support, saying, ‘I must & will steere your Course, wherefore have a Care how you lay it’.85 Henry Cromwell managed the Irish elections to great eﬀect, ensuring the return of 19 Irish Protestants—many of whom were Broghill’s friends—alongside eight of his own supporters.86 In parliament, the Irish and Scottish MPs worked together over such issues as the militia bill, with one contemporary noting that ‘the major-generalls are much oﬀended at the Irish and Scottish members, who being much united doe sway exceedingly by their votes’.87 Among the ‘kinglings’ of March 1657, 15 Irish MPs were listed alongside the same number of Scots, and together they made up nearly a quarter of the 123 MPs who voted in favour of the motion to create a Cromwellian monarchy.88 It was entirely appropriate that the tellers in favour of this crucial vote, passed on 25 March, were Broghill’s friend on the Scottish Council, Charles Howard, and Henry Cromwell’s agent, Sir John Reynolds.89 A further mark of the success of this Irish-Scottish collaboration in the 1656 Parliament was the ferocious debate in the Parliament of 1659, when opponents of the protectorate tried to remove MPs of both nations from the Commons, fearful of the inﬂuence such a ‘British’ ﬁfth column might have over crucial votes. By 1659 Irish and Scottish concerns had become an important, and for some deeply disturbing, fact of political life; and the origins of this growing ‘British’ inﬂuence over the Cromwellian regime can be traced back to a single source: Broghill’s attempts to introduce Irish solutions to Scottish problems in 1655–6.

85 BL, Lansdowne Ms 823, fo. 328r: draft letter, n.d. [c. Apr. 1657]; see also Little, ‘Broghill’, 234. 86 Little, ‘Irish Representation’ (forthcoming). For Henry Cromwell’s eﬀorts to defend Irish Protestants secluded from parliament by English council see TSP, V, 477–8; vi. 71. 87 TSP, VI, 37. 88 Narrative of the Late Parliament, 23. John Brett and Walter Waller are included under those ‘Not known to what counties they belong’. 89 Commons Journals, VII, 511; the two had collaborated as tellers before: see ibid., 498.

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CHAPTER FIVE

FIELD-MARSHAL JAMES KEITH: GOVERNOR OF THE UKRAINE AND FINLAND, 1740–17431 Atina L.K. Nihtinen

The Finns were used to the civic administration of Scotsmen by the mid-eighteenth century. During the previous 100 years, a number of Scots had acted as governors and commandants of Finnish towns. One particularly high-proﬁle governor in Finland was a Swedishborn Scot called Gustav Otto Douglas (1687–1771), the grandson of Count Robert Douglas.2 Otto had fought against the Russians at Poltava in 1709, but had been captured during the rout of the Swedish army. He afterwards entered Russian service and in 1717, at thirty years of age, became governor of the newly acquired Russian province.3 Douglas succeeded in creating some semblance of order within the region’s administration and ensured the emergence of a stable legal and taxation regime, in Western Finland in particular.4 He was, however, extremely unpopular and his name was held in fear and contempt among the Finnish population.5 Renowned for his temper and violence, his tenure as governor was to witness Finns being taken by force during the conscription levies of 1720 and sent to the battleﬁelds of Astrakhan on the Russian Empire’s south eastern frontier. Many of these men hid themselves in the forests, but

1

I would like to thank Dr Steve Murdoch and Dr Andrew Mackillop of the University of Aberdeen for their help in the preparation of this article. 2 Robert Douglas came to Sweden in 1627 where he became a colonel in the army of Gustav II Adolph. He later served under Charles X in a campaign in Poland. In 1657 he became Field-Marshal and died in 1662; I. Matley, ‘The Scots in Finland’, Terra (Helsinki: 1986), 76; The Scottish origin of Otto Douglas is mentioned in just a few Finnish sources, e.g. K.O. Lindeqvist, Isovihan aika Suomessa (Porvoo: 1919), 477. 3 At ﬁrst, the military governed all civil matters, but a civil administration was set up in the western parts of Finland in 1717 and in the eastern regions in 1719. 4 Y. Blomstedt, ed., Suomen historia. Suurvalta-aika (Espoo: 1985), III, 266. On the positive aspects of his administration see also Lindeqvist, Isovihan aika Suomessa, 481. 5 See H. Marryat, One Year in Sweden (London: 1862), 463.

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numerous others were to die in enforced Russian service.6 Douglas was also the one who suggested that about 20,000 Finns be sent to help with the ongoing building of St. Petersburg. Finland’s economy was in a fairly bad condition at that time, and a lot of people died as a result of associated problems, including plague-epidemics. These wider economic problems were, however, certainly compounded by Russia’s military annexation, which brought with it a general demoralisation amongst the population, administrative corruption, and lack of justice. The fact that the Russians accepted Douglas into their service from that of their enemy, Sweden, was part of an accepted procedure amongst the northern powers. Indeed, many oﬃcers were oﬀered Russian service once in captivity. However, he was doubtless chosen for the job due to his knowledge of the Swedish language and his contacts in the region, both of which were deemed essential for that position. Some knowledge of native language and local conditions was inevitably required to ensure a reasonably eﬀective implementation of both civil aﬀairs and justice.7 Although Gustav Otto Douglas is the best known Scottish governor of Finland, he was neither the last nor certainly the most popular.8 He was in fact to be followed within a generation by a governor of some brilliance, Field-Marshal James Keith, Governor of the Ukraine, Finland and later Governor-General of Berlin. The question of Keith’s military and civil administration in Finland seems to be one of the least studied and known periods of his life.9 6 About one-third of the number called up avoided conscription by going into hiding, while the rest were either killed or convicted. See E. Jutikkala, K. Pirinen, A History of Finland ( Juva: 1996), 216. 7 Jutikkala and Pirinen, A History of Finland, 216. 8 For an alternative view on Douglas see Lindeqvist, Isovihan aika Suomessa, 477–478, 481–482. According to Lindeqvist, Douglas has been described far too negatively and usually with a great deal of exaggeration. The Finnish historian assumes that many of the unfavourable aspects of Otto’s personality are questionable and that there is not enough proof for many statements associated with him and his administration. Nonetheless, Lindequist argues that problems such as general demoralisation, corruption and lack of justice, although connected to Douglas, were not his fault. Yet he was the convenient person to be accused and blamed for the political and economical situation in the country. 9 Although Keith’s administration is less well known than that of Douglas, the fact he was Scottish appears to be one of the ﬁrst notes mentioned on him in Finnish sources. See e.g. J.R. Danielson-Kalmari, Suomen, Valtio-ja Yhteiskuntaelämää 18: nnella ja 19: nnellä vuosisadalla (Porvoo: 1929), 42–44 and A.R. Cederberg, Suomen historia vapauden ajalla (Porvoo/Helsinki: 1942), 362. Keith is known as Scottish, whereas Douglas is not always presented as such being the grandson of a Scot.

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Although it is mentioned in a few sources the details on this period are in general less familiar, perhaps because his governorship in Finland covered such a brief span of time or because his exploits elsewhere have proved more attractive to historians. This chapter will focus on Keith’s career during his Russian service, particularly on where and how he acted as governor. The questions of why he was selected for both military and civil jobs, who his contacts were in Sweden and how he used these to ensure his authority, and ﬁnally how he was regarded by the civic populations in both the Ukraine and Finland during his governorship will be addressed. James Francis Edward Keith (1696–1758), brother of George Keith and Earl Marischal of Scotland, was a Scottish Jacobite known among other things as a military commander under Frederick II of Prussia. Before he entered Russian service in 1728 he had been forced into exile for his activities on behalf of James Stuart, titular King of Great Britain of which much has been written elsewhere. Keith had taken part in the failed Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1719 after which he entered Spanish service, where he served for nine years reaching the rank of colonel. In Russia, Keith was appointed Major-General and, in 1730, took up a prestigious appointment as lieutenant-colonel of the personal bodyguard of the Empress Anna considered ‘one of the greatest trust in the empire’.10 Keith had only been one year in service when he was raised to one of the most important posts within the Russian military. During the period of his service Keith distinguished himself in various campaigns against the Ottoman Turks and Sweden. By 1732 he had been promoted to Inspector General of the region bordering on the frontier of Asia, along the rivers Volga and Don.11 In the Polish War of Succession (1733–5) General Peter de Lacy, an Irish Catholic, was placed in overall command with Keith acting as second in command to him. The discipline of the army led by Lacy and Keith amazed Europe when it was deployed in a conﬂict between Austria and France in 1735. This improved Anna’s credibility with the other European powers, not least when the eﬀectiveness of her forces was demonstrated consistently and drew admiring comments 10 See e.g. K.A. Varnhagen von Ense, Leben des Feldmarschalls Jacob Keith (Berlin: 1844), 42. 11 Anon., Memoir of Marshal Keith with a sketch of the Keith Family (Peterhead: 1869), 45.

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from contemporaries.12 Military knowledge and experience was thus the springboard that ensured Keith’s ongoing rise through the service. Keith taught the Russian troops not only order and discipline, but also humanity: he made it clear he was against the unnecessary cruelty and barbarous methods that the Russians had traditionally deployed while conducted their campaigns.13 The improved discipline of the Russian military owed much to Keith and the other foreign nationals who helped develop both the country’s army and navy.14

Keith’s kinship ties and social networks Despite their obvious success and high proﬁle promotion, there remains the question of how men like Keith operated and sustained their position while in service abroad. Such a situation, after all, was a curious and not entirely stable one. Employment for foreigners in Russia had the beneﬁts of strong court support and sponsorship, but this had to be oﬀset against ongoing social diﬀerentiation and possible jealousy from the indigenous service nobility. It is against this environment that kinship needs to be seen. Among the many foreign nationals in Russian service were a number of individuals tied to Keith by familial or fraternal bonds. In fact, the strength of his family ties was a crucial feature in the networks that Keith surrounded himself with, and which were, in turn, central to his success. Keith exploited his contacts to his best advantage and relied on his family to support his activities. When Keith arrived in Russia he brought with him many members of his own family. In addition to his cousin John Keith, another cousin, Sir Robert Keith, came with him and served the Russians for 15 years. In a sense, kinship, by extending the number of personnel available for service, made the family doubly attractive to the Russians who were, after all, des-

12 S. Murdoch, ‘Soldiers, Sailors, Jacobite Spy: Russo-Jacobite Relations 1688–1750’, Slavonica, 3/1 (1996–97), 14. 13 Anon., Memoir of Marshal Keith, 46–47. During various campaigns Keith observed the barbarous and cruel manner in which the Russians destroyed everything through which they were passed. He became determined to teach them both eﬀectiveness and humanity in warfare. 14 For more on these men see ‘Murdoch, Soldiers, Sailors, Jacobite Spy’, 7–18.

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perate to attract as much foreign talent as possible to expedite the modernisation of their military machine.15 This kin inﬂuence continued when George Keith, his brother, eventually got him accepted into Prussian service on his departure from Russia. Indeed, Keith’s family connections were so strong that he later wrote to Empress Elizabeth of Russia that: If I am partial to my own kinsman, it is because I knew their nature, their spirit and the digniﬁed sentiments with which they were, and continue to be inspired.16

Kin ties were not the only method of association that Keith maintained abroad. Indeed, James Keith is often regarded as the founding father of Freemasonry in Russia and became involved in several other important Orders. Within these fraternal groups, Keith was joined by a variety of other Scottish exiles including leading admirals, physicians and diplomats. This overlapping of associations through diﬀerent social forums ensured that the émigrés were able to maximise their leverage abroad, tighten acquaintances and trust amongst each other, and thus enhance their value and prestige in the host society. Keith is said to have attended a St. Petersburg Lodge as early as 1732. In any case he is recorded as being Master of a Lodge in that city between 1732–34.17 The mutually reinforcing nature of kinship and freemasonry is exempliﬁed by the fact that his Masonic career in Russia was promoted both by other members of the exiled community and his family network in Britain. In 1740 Keith rose to become the Provincial Grand Master of Russia due to an appointment made by the Grand Master of England. This was in fact Keith’s cousin, John Keith, the Earl of Kintore, whose appointment in the English Grand Lodge dated from March 1740.18 Keith’s role in Russian Freemasonry is celebrated in a Masonic hymn sung during the reign of the Empress Elizabeth:

15 J.H. Burton, The Scot Abroad (Edinburgh: 1881), 113. Robert Keith participated in most of the campaigns in Poland, Germany, Turkey and Sweden. 16 AUSC, Ms 2709/8, 119. Letter, Berlin, 10 December 1754, James Keith to Empress Elizabeth. 17 The ﬁrst recorded names of Lodges in Russia date from 1750. See also C.N. Batham, ‘Russian Freemasonry 1731–1979’, in The Year Book of the Grand Lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons of Scotland. (Edinburgh: 1985), 73. 18 A.G. Cross, ‘British Freemasons in Russia during the reign of Catherine the Great’, in The Year Book of the Grand Lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons of Scotland

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  Ogon’ svjashchennyj zdes’ vozzhog, Hram premudrosti postavil Mysli i serdca ispravil I nas v bratstve utverdil19 [Holy ﬁre here was lit, temple of wisdom built, thoughts and hearts corrected, and us in brotherhood strengthened ]

Running parallel to Freemasonry in Russia, both in terms of time and membership, were other orders such as the ‘Order del Toboso’. This group was quasi-Masonic in organisation and blatantly Jacobite in orientation. As early as 1731, Keith had initiated the young Stuart princes, Henry and Charles Edward Stuart, into Toboso.20 The two young Stuart princes were protectors of the Order, and there is ample evidence to show that there were other members of the Order in Russia. This is apparent from letters dated between 1732 and 1734 authored by William Hay and Don Ezekiel Hamilton del Toboso.21 In one addressed to Admiral Sir Thomas Gordon, Sir Henry Stirling of Ardoch and Sir Thomas Saunders, Ezekiel Hamilton sent greetings to ‘all our Brother Knights’ stationed in Russia.22 One letter dated 22 April 1734 included, among others, the signatures of Don G. Keith (very likely James Keith’s brother George) and Don Juan Stuart, perhaps James Stuart himself.23 At the same time as Toboso and Scottish Freemasonry developed in Russia a similar group, the ‘Order of Awazu’, was formed in Sweden.24 The net-

(Edinburgh: 1973), 115–116. At the Quarterly Communication of 28 March 1740, John was proposed for election as Grand Master. His cousin, James Keith, was present at the same meeting and was appointed Provincial Grand Master of Russia. 19 Cross, ‘British Freemasons in Russia’, 115–116. 20 HMC, Report on the Manuscripts of the Earl of Eglington, eds. Sir John StirlingMaxwell, Drummond Moray et al. (London: 1885), 178. William Hay to Admiral Gordon, 20 February 1735; Murdoch, ‘Soldiers, Sailors, Jacobite Spy’, 13–14. 21 According to Murdoch this was the Grand Master of the Order of Toboso. See Murdoch, ‘Soldiers, Sailors, Jacobite Spy’, 13–14; HMC, Earl of Eglington, 184. A letter from Don Ezekiel Hamilton to Admiral Sir Thomas Gordon dated 22 April 1734 conﬁrms this position. 22 HMC, Earl of Eglington, 178. William Hay to Admiral Gordon, 20 February 1735. For the integration of commercial and kinship networks in St. Petersburg by Scots such as Henry Stirling see NAS, Abercairny Muniments, GD 24/1/454/1. 23 See Murdoch, ‘Soldiers, Sailors, Jacobite Spy’, 13–14; HMC, Earl of Eglington, 184. Don Ezekiel Hamilton to Admiral Sir Thomas Gordon, 22 April 1734. 24 M.K. Schuchard, ‘Charles Edward Stuart as Chevalier de Soleil ‘D’or. (A

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works developed by Keith in Russia during the 1730s thus transcended national frontiers, an important characteristic that enabled him to maximise his utility in diﬀerent diplomatic sectors, and thus increase his value to the Russians. Keith’s contacts through such clubs had a great impact in his relations with Sweden-Finland during the 1740s, for example. More generally, it underpinned the basic humanity and belief in the brotherhood of man that were fundamental to James Keith’s character and his ability to operate on the international stage. Moreover, these qualities can account, in part, for the nature of his later roles in the Ukraine in 1740–41 and Sweden-Finland between 1743–44.

Keith in the Ukraine The troops that had served with Keith on the Rhine crossed Bohemia and Poland in 1736, moving towards the Ukraine.25 In 1737 Keith was promoted to General of Infantry, though it was not long before he received a serious wound in the knee. When the Empress heard of this she demonstrated the admiration which she felt by declaring she would ‘sooner lose ten thousand of my best soldiers than Keith’.26 Unable to receive proper attention in Russia, Keith went to Paris to receive medical treatment and to recuperate. He thereafter travelled to London where he met George II, his erstwhile enemy, and his cousin the Earl of Kintore.27 On Keith’s return, the defence of the Ukraine was delegated to him. He also became the civic governor of the Ukraine in 1740. One of the reasons for his appointment lay in the general situation of the Russian army. As one historian put it, ‘The Empress was so delighted with the run of unprecedented victories that she handed

paper presented at Conference on ‘Jacobitism, Scotland, and the Enlightenment’, University of Aberdeen: 1995), 5. 25 J. Grant, The Scottish Soldiers of Fortune (London: 1890), 22. 26 A.F. Steuart, Scottish Inﬂuences in Russian History from the End of the Sixteenth century to the beginning of the Nineteenth century (Glasgow: 1913), 109. 27 It is said that George II oﬀered to pardon Keith but he refused the approach, implying he was not in London as a Jacobite, but as a Russian general. See S. Noble, ‘Soldiers of the North-East’, in J.F. Tocher, ed., The Book of Buchan (Aberdeen: 1943), 183; Cross, ‘British Freemasons in Russia’, 115–116; Murdoch, ‘Soldiers, Sailors, Jacobite Spy’, 15.

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out promotion to almost everyone. Many were therefore shunted oﬀ into civilian duties. At the conclusion of the war General Rumiantsev, civilian governor of the Ukraine, was sent to Constantinople as Ambassador. James Keith, arriving back in June, was appointed to replace him as civil governor of the Ukraine’.28 Another reason was that a man like Keith was particularly appropriate for the job. The Ukraine had suﬀered from both the large Russian armies operating there and from the general breakdown in social order that usually occurred in a war zone. H. Godfrey wrote that ‘to save this otherwise wealthy province from being completely ruined, and to start rebuilding its wealth, needed ﬁrm, honest and disinterested government’.29 James Grant concluded that; he did not reside one year; but in that time he dispatched more business than his predecessors had done in ten. The Ukraine received great beneﬁt from the mildness of his government and the order that he established in the administration of aﬀairs. He began to introduce, even among the Cossacks, a sort of discipline which till then had been unknown; but he had not time to complete that work, for, the war coming on with Sweden, he was recalled.30

It appears that the only reason for his recall was the outbreak of the war with Sweden (1741–1743) since the Russians valued his military leadership above the needs or wishes of the Ukrainian population. After Keith’s departure, it was reported that the whole country regretted his recall. His humane and wise administration made many people consider him to be one of the best governors the Ukraine had ever known. Indeed they themselves are reported to have lamented that ‘the Court should never have given them a governor who made them learn the diﬀerence between him and his predecessors [or] it should never have taken him away’.31 Nonetheless, in the Ukraine, Keith had had the opportunity to test his civic administrative skills. These he would be allowed to develop later, but not before another prolonged military campaign.

28 AUSC, H. 3163, 138. 29 AUSC, H. 30 Grant, The 31 AUSC, H.

Godfrey, ‘Fieldmarshal James Keith, Mercenary and Jacobite’, Ms Godfrey, Ms 3163, ‘Fieldmarshal James Keith’, 138. Scottish Soldiers of Fortune, 25. Godfrey, Ms 3163, ‘Fieldmarshal James Keith’, 139.

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Keith in Sweden-Finland 1741–1743 The year 1741 witnessed intense Russian preparations for their forthcoming attack against Sweden-Finland.32 Lacy and Keith were called to St. Petersburg with the aim of being sent to that particular theatre. Sweden went to war almost completely unprepared and Russia attacked before the Swedes and Finns were ready. Russia had deployed small forces in Estonia and Livonia under General Woldemar Löwendahl and the main force on the borders of Finland. Keith as second in command to Lacy was sent against the Swedes at the head of an army of 50,000 men. He led the successful assault against Villmanstrand (Lappeenranta) fortress in September 1741, where he distinguished himself and was much admired for his bravery. After Lacy returned to St. Petersburg, Keith assumed full command of the Russian forces.33 In quick order, Nyslott, Helsingfors [Helsinki] and Åbo [Turku] surrendered. The Swedes and Finns’ morale crumbled as their traditional military superiority in the ﬁeld evaporated. This can be attributed in some measure to Lacy and Keith whose improvements had made Russian warfare more eﬀective through better organisation. This, in turn, had led to higher discipline and morale. Keith served throughout the campaign, the result of which was that a large part of Finland became Russian-occupied territory. The campaign of 1742 proved, from the point of view of the Finns and Swedes, to be a disastrous aﬀair. They abandoned one strong defensive position after another almost without a ﬁght. By this time their commander in chief, General Charles Emil Lewenhaupt, had been recalled to Stockholm where he and General H.M. von Buddenbrock were put on trial for the collapse of the Swedish army.34 The Swedish force in Helsingfors capitulated in a short period of time, although the Swedes were about equal in numbers to the Russians assaulting them. Seventeen thousand Swedish soldiers became prisoners as a result of that one defeat. According 32 For general information on that period from Finnish point of view see Blomstedt, et al, Suomen historia; K. Virtanen, H. Pohjolan-Pirhonen, Kansakunnan historia. Kivikaudesta kustavilaiseen aikaan (Porvoo: 1983); J.R. Danielson and J.R. Kalmari, Suomen Valtio. 33 Lacy returned to St. Petersburg with the main part of the army while Elisabeth went back there with her court in December. AUSC, H. Godfrey, Ms 3163, ‘Fieldmarshal James Keith’, 150. 34 For more details see Den Svenska Historien. Frihetstiden, 1719–1772 (Stockholm: 1967), 109.

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to James Keith himself, they could have forced the Russians back due to the onset of the winter if they had retired to Åbo, instead of letting themselves be shut up in the lesser fortress of Helsingfors.35 Swedish morale was further devastated by internal disagreements over strategy, desertions, and counter-productive interference from the Army Council in Stockholm. Keith entered Åbo, the capital of Finland, in September 1742 and occupied it with a strong garrison. In addition to his land based military forces, 21 galleys guarded the coast. Keith never received an oﬃcial appointment as civic governor of Finland. Nonetheless, he played a signiﬁcant role in its civil government and his administration was particularly successful. He was the ﬁrst one who drew attention to the aspirations of the Finns and who improved their chances of serving as civil servants or in other key positions in society.36 Keith made use of Finns in his administration, for which he was unusually appreciated. Although he represented the occupying Russians, Keith retained a deep understanding of the aspirations of the local people. He used his position as defacto governor for their beneﬁt. He promised that in Finland there would be ‘from this moment on only Finnish men’ in civil servants’ positions.37 The Russians were familiar with the political situation in Finland, but it was Keith who exploited the opportunity to fulﬁl the wishes and expectations of the Finnish population.38 According to the Finnish historian, A.R. Cederberg, Keith was admired by the Finnish people for creating discipline and order and for being sympathetic to the indigenous population.39 It is worth speculating how far Keith’s Jacobitism, with its sense of resentment at the alleged Anglicisation of sectors of Scottish government like the customs, may have made him particularly aware of the need to accommodate local

35 Statement of James Keith in a memorandum prepared by him in 1749 for Frederik II of Prussia. AUSC, H. Godfrey, Ms 3163, ‘Fieldmarshal James Keith’, 150. Keith described to Frederick the Great how the Russians were capable of defeating Finland in six weeks. After obtaining this information, the Swedish government ‘undertook the unprecedented measure of shipping a force of 8,000 men, in a time of peace and without any intention of attacking, to reinforce the defences of Finland’. See E. Jutikkala, K. Pirinen, A History of Finland ( Juva: 1996), 241. 36 See Blomstedt et al., Suomen historia, 95–96. 37 A statement of James Keith, 8 November 1742 quoted in A.R. Cederberg, Suomen historia vapauden ajalla (Porvoo/Helsinki: 1942), 370–372. 38 Blomstedt et al., Suomen historia, 95–96. 39 Cederberg, Suomen historia, 397.

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interests within the Russian administration established in the aftermath of the occupation. He did not make Russia’s domination more painful than it had to be and apparently also made sure he was available for meetings with ordinary people twice a week. Despite the military occupation, Cederberg has argued that the end of 1742 actually turned out to be a period of economic growth.40 James Keith’s contemporary, Henrik Wegelius, said about Keith that by creating order and justice, and by his humanity, he deserves to be remembered with respect all over Finland.41 Several modern Finnish historians have come to the same conclusion and provide us with the generally positive memory that he left in Finland. K. Virtanen and H. Pohjolan-Pironen recently published that Keith, although a representative of the enemy, left behind a bright memory in the history of the Finnish nation whilst acting as governor.42 Johan Balthasar von Campenhausen eventually replaced Keith as civil governor in October 1742, though Keith still retained his military position as supreme commander of the Russian forces in Finland. Von Campenhausen is supposed to have been extremely nervous and short-tempered. Keith would have probably been a better choice than Campenhausen to continue in his job, not only because of his admirable personal qualities, but also because he held Finns in favour. After Keith stepped down, many foreigners were taken into Finland’s administration against his earlier policies for civil government. According to the Finnish historian, Y. Blomstedt, the reason Campenhausen replaced Keith in the civil administration was: Pian tämän jälkeen oli selvää, että miehitys päättyisi jonkinlaiseen poliittiseen ratkaisuun ja että koko Suomea ei liitettäisi Venäjään. Tällöin katsottiin tarpeelliseksi vapauttaa sotilasjohto siviilihallinnon taakasta.43 [because it became obvious that the military occupation would end through a political agreement and that Finland would not be annexed to Russia. The release of the military government from the burden of the civil administration also became necessary at that moment]

40

Cederberg, Suomen historia, 397. Virtanen and Pohjolan-Pirhonen, Kansakunnan historia, 123. 42 Virtanen and Pohjolan-Pirhonen, Kansakunnan historia, 122–123; Jutikkala and Pirinen, A History of Finland, 234 and 241, agree and state that Keith ‘left behind a favourable memory and was a man whose expert knowledge could not be doubted’. 43 Blomstedt et al., Suomen historia, 98. 41

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Thus ended the governorship of James Keith in Finland. He had, however, one more duty to perform in relation to the SwedishRussian frontier.

War and Peace: Keith in Sweden, 1743–44 War between Sweden and Russia broke out again in 1743, on this occasion over the succession of Duke Adolphus Frederick of Holstein, Prince Bishop of Lübeck, to the throne of Sweden. Keith acted as a naval commander in several engagements and left Hanko on 18 May. Some smaller engagements between Keith’s galleys and those of the Swedes took place until 1 June. Finally Keith arrived at Sottunga, one of the Åland islands (Ahvenanmaan saaristo) where he stayed until Lacy joined him on 23 June. This series of battles eﬀectively moved the Swedish-Russian frontier to within striking distance of the Stockholm archipelago. This obviously panicked the Swedish government into considering fresh peace negotiations. After the news that a treaty would indeed be signed, Keith organised the return of the Russian troops to Finland, which he did at the end of August. A ﬁnal peace treaty was drawn up in Åbo on 7 August 1743, together with the extensive withdrawal of Russia from the occupied Finnish territories.44 In a bid to reorganise the buﬀer zone between Sweden and the Russian Empire, Russia included a clause which permanently left them parts of Finland up to the river Kymijoki, the fortresses of Villmanstrand and Fredrikshamn (Hamina). As part of the same desire to normalise this sector of Russia’s frontier, the Swedes were also required by the peace treaty of Åbo to accept the Russian candidate for king, Duke Frederick of Holstein. The election of Frederick as king proved to be an extremely controversial decision in Stockholm. After a suppressed rising, King Frederick asked for Russian help to conﬁrm his new position. This led to the remarkable situation where Keith left Finland destined for Sweden in command of an army of some 11,000 men. Oﬃcially he

44

See H. Cedercreuz, Berättelse om fredcongressen i Åbo 1743 (Uppsala: 1781). During the peace negotiations Sweden was represented by Baron Herman Cedercreuz and Baron Erik Mattias von Nolcken and Russia by General J. von Luberas and General A. Rumjantsev. Mihail Bestushef, who was former ambassador in Stockholm and regarded as an expert on Sweden, also played an important role.

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was there on a Russian embassy, but there were not many ambassadors who kept such a large entourage, and nobody was fooled. The fact that he sailed into Stockholm with such a force shows that the Swedes had a substantial level of trust in Keith, that they clearly believed he would not allow his Russian force to sack what, after all, was the capital of the former enemy. This trust stemmed in part from his many contacts in Finland and Sweden, which he made through his governorship, social networks and associative Jacobitism. That said, it also left Keith in uncharted military and diplomatic territory. In essence, he was protecting Russia’s frontier integrity in peacetime from within the capital city of the potential aggressor-state! This, however, also meant that he was operating in a frontier situation that was detached from the formal territory, and thus immediate military support, of his own monarch. Yet, this radically diﬀerent context also retained some of the traditional problems of a frontier in that it remained extremely volatile in political terms and thus highly militarised. That Keith was able to operate in such a delicate context, and one so obviously favourable to Russia underlines the fact that it was his non-Russian attributes that were, ironically, of real value to his employers. The leaders of the pro-Frederik government in Sweden, the Hat party, worked with Keith during his stay in Stockholm. The fact that he arrived as a general in the service of Russia and in command of a large contingent of Russian troops did not trouble them in the least. One reason for their trust possibly lies in their shared passion for ‘Ecossaise Freemasonry’. John Hamill recently produced an article entitled ‘The Jacobite Conspiracy’ which set out to ‘lay a tiresome ghost’ to rest—that of a Jacobite-Masonic conspiracy in support of the Stuart cause.45 This present article does not set out to wake that ghost, but it cannot help but challenge some of Hamill’s twee assertations that the exiled Jacobite community ‘were simply practising a pastime that they had adopted before their exile and which may well have reminded them of happier times’.46 Despite his claims to have looked for all the facts, Hamill did not look at the other organisations to which Stuart-supporting Freemasons belonged, such as the Order del Toboso. As shown above, Keith was both 45 J. Hamill, ‘The Jacobite Conspiracy’, Ars Quartor Coronatorum: Transactions of the Quatuor Lodge No. 2076, vol. 113 (2000), 97. 46 Hamill, ‘The Jacobite Conspiracy’, 103.

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a dedicated Mason and a Toboso founding member. On his arrival in Stockholm in 1743 Keith founded a new Masonic lodge that maintained contact with French, Russian, Prussian and Scottish lodges. Keith’s senior position among the Order of Freemasons, to which many of the leaders of the Hat Party belonged even before Keith’s service in Finland, must have enhanced his position greatly. At least four of them were Brother Masons including Counts Carl Gyllenborg, Gustav Tessin and Carl Frederik Scheﬀer.47 Carl Fredrik Sheﬀer had lived in France since the 1730s and had been a Swedish minister since 1743. The deputy chancellor Carl Gustav Tessin had become a member of a Masonic lodge in 1735. The chancellor, Count Carl Gyllenborg actually entered James Keith’s own lodge in Sweden in 1743. Not only was Keith able to use such informal contacts to secure Russia’s frontier interests in a non-threatening way, but the non-institutional, personal nature of his relationship with Sweden’s political leaders allowed ﬂexibility in other areas outside his Russian employer’s own concerns. Marsha Keith Schuchard has thus argued that James Keith met secretly with the Masonic Hats to discuss plans for a combined Swedish-Russian invasion of Scotland, perhaps in support of the ill-fated 1745 rebellion in Scotland.48 This is a hard point to prove, and one that Hamill believes should be dismissed, particularly given his apparent lack of awareness of numerous published sources on the subject.49 Nonetheless, Keith certainly corresponded with Counts Gyllenborg, Tessin and Scheﬀer concerning political aﬀairs.50 He was, among others, asked for advice on how best to ‘provide some means of satisfying the Empress’ [Elizabeth of Russia] over Swedish-Russian relations.51 His opinion was highly valuable to the Swedes and they sought it often and the fact that they all belonged to the same covert society is likely to have had some role in that fact. On other occasions, as Sweden settled down after its military and constitutional upheavals, Keith did not have any par-

47 G. Behre, ‘Gothenburg in Stuart War Strategy’, in G.G. Simpson, ed., Scotland & Scandinavia, 800–1800 (Edinburgh: 1990), 113–114. 48 Schuchard, ‘Charles Edward Stuart’, 9. 49 Hamill, ‘The Jacobite Conspiracy’, 97–104. 50 See HMC, IX Report (London: 1883), 226. Letters between James Keith and Count Gyllenborg, Swedish Minister, and Memoranda of a conference between Count Gyllenborg with other Swedish noblemen, and General Keith; Behre, ‘Gothenburg in Stuart War Strategy’, 113–114. 51 HMC, IX Report, 226. Letters between James Keith and Count Gyllenborg.

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ticular orders from the Empress or the Russian government.52 This left him free to pursue his intriguing with the Masonic Hats, although their designs ultimately came to nothing. Nonetheless, during his stay in Stockholm, Keith proved he was an excellent diplomat and added to the considerable reputation he already had for his military and social skills. In August 1744, Keith returned from his nine months’ embassy at Stockholm, and was loaded by the new empress, Elizabeth, with presents and honours. Unfortunately, the favour Keith was held in by Elizabeth resulted in considerable Russian envy towards him as a foreigner and gradually Keith’s commands were removed from him. Nothing better illustrates how foreign service remained an unstable and often problematic form of livelihood. At that time personal loyalty became something to be suspected, especially when coming from foreigners, and 1745 was the year of a new Jacobite rising. James Keith’s Jacobite associations probably made his loyalty suspect in the eyes of Elizabeth’s advisor Bestoucheﬀ. Godfrey wrote that ‘the latter [Bestoucheﬀ ] would not comprehend the meaning of honourable conduct and loyalty, and believe that such could reside in James Keith’.53 This was one of the reasons why he decided to quit the Russian service in 1747. Service under Elizabeth certainly proved less agreeable to foreigners than that of Anna, and several other generals also expressed a wish to retire at around the same time.54 Rumours abounded that the Empress oﬀered to marry Keith and raise him to the highest position in the state if he would stay. Keith however refused and left the Russian service for good.55 Another important reason to leave service was the fact that George Keith was refused permission to enter Russia. James wrote to his brother; ‘on the refusal you met with I resolved absolutely to quit the Russian service’.56 Keith can be seen here once more to be putting his familial ties before that of any future career in the Empress’ service.

52

HMC, IX Report, 226. Letters between James Keith and Count Gyllenborg. AUSC, H. Godfrey, MS 3163, ‘Fieldmarshal James Keith’, 157. 54 In addition to Keith, Löwendahl, Lieven and Douglas wished to retire. Steuart, Scottish Inﬂuences in Russian History, 111. 55 On Keith’s reasons and the details on his decision to leave Russian service see also Keith’s letter to his brother on his entering Prussian service, dated Potzdam, 28 October 1747. HMC, IX Report, 222. 56 The Elphinstone Papers, 222–23, No. 319. See Murdoch ‘Soldiers, Sailors, Jacobite Spy’, 16. 53

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Keith’s activities outside his service in the armies of Russia and Prussia were amongst the most signiﬁcant, if neglected, of his life and career. In the space of only four years he was governor of two huge tracts of recently acquired territories. Both locations were right on the frontiers of the Russian Empire and both acted as buﬀer zones between Russia and other great powers. Yet it is also a fact that Keith held neither of his ‘Russian’ governorships very long, only a few months in the case of Finland, and less than a year in the Ukraine. This raises the question of why? It is perhaps ironic that in both cases the governor was not stripped for his inability to govern, but because of his greater competency in other areas of state aﬀairs. James Keith’s achievements were considerable. His leadership qualities had been tested on the ﬁeld leading to numerous victories on both land and sea. Keith’s successful administration in both Finland and the Ukraine gained him prestige and admiration within and outwith the particular areas he governed. Accounts of both his Ukrainian and Finnish terms of oﬃce appear to agree on the nature of his character. There are several possible reasons for Keith’s success and for the way in which the civic population regarded his governorship. The administrative gentleness of this soldier-governor, his mildness and compassion for local people, left a favourable impression in the collective memory of both nations. Nevertheless, these admirable features of James Keith’s character are not surprising given his Freemasonry, to which his respect for the Ukrainians and the Finns can perhaps be attributed. A statement given by Keith’s ﬁnal employer, Frederick the Great, may describe most exactly the way Keith felt about his fellow man: When the Freemason returns from his lodge where he has received the lessons, the object of which is the good of humanity, he will be in his home a better father to his family.57

The relationship between governor James Keith and the civic population of the Russian Empire’s recently acquired territories can be likened to a paternal relationship between him and his newly adopted 57 R.L. Karter, ‘Frederick the Great’, in The Year Book of the Grand Lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons of Scotland (Edinburgh: 1985), 98.

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family. The earlier experiences of the Finns during the brutal governorship of Gustav Otto Douglas in 1717 were in complete contrast with Keith’s sympathetic administration. Finnish historians have long argued that since foreign commanders were expected to demonstrate their loyalty to the Russians and their political masters at St. Petersburg, there was a strong temptation for them to show a special disregard for the Finnish population.58 Therefore, episodes such as the conscription of 1720 were undertaken on the initiative of Douglas to prove himself to his Russian paymasters. The acceptance of bribes also became a prevalent custom among the ruling classes, which seriously detracted from positive administration. Douglas was known for being particularly rude, unfriendly and high-handed, as opposed to Keith, who was extremely personable, sympathetic and distinguished by his humanity. Despite being endorsed by the populations of Finland and the Ukraine as the perfect choice of governor, he controlled both for only a limited period. The Russians were more concerned with his military skills than the welfare of the occupied regions. This suggest that for employers like the Russians, whose Empire was now expanding steadily, foreigners were eﬀectively specialists who could be deployed in particular frontier theatres and contexts. Once secured and ﬁrmly aligned along lines of Russian control these territories could revert to more orthodox administrations, and their governorships given out as patronage posts to satisfy domestic Russian political needs. In neither scenario, however, had Russian government matured to the point where it either could, or would tolerate liberal administration. The reality that his governorships were, at the last resort, underpinned by military power has not prevented the emergence of an extremely favourable, almost romantic view of Keith. Owing to the brevity of his civil government in Finland his time there is less well known than his military achievements. Keith is, however, remembered in Finland today both in history books and works of ﬁction. This latter category has highlighted his relationship with Eva Merthen, (1723–1811), not least the novel by the Finnish author Zacharias Topelius, Duchess of Finland, based on the love story of Merthen and Keith.59 According to some

58

Jutikkala and Pirinen, A History of Finland, 216. Zacharias Topelius, Suomen herttuatar. Romanimainen kertomus vv. 1741–43 sodan ajalta (Helsinki: 1874). 59

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sources, Eva Merthen was an orphan among the Swedish prisoners taken after the capture of Villmanstrand. Keith is supposed to have educated her and later married her. Eva was a daughter of Karl Merthen who served as mayor of Åbo when Keith captured the town.60 Although an oﬃcial marriage never took place, Eva and James Keith had several children. She followed Keith to Russia and later to Prussia and lived with him until his death.61 Whatever emphasis exists in literary ﬁction, Keith’s kinship ties and the use of sociopolitical networks were an important characteristic of his life and career. His various networks aided his advancement through military and civic life in Russia. They also made it easier for the Swedes to accept him both as governor of Finland and throughout his extended embassy to Stockholm the following year. The Swedish mission of 1743–44 has to be considered as a landmark in the experience of frontier governorship anywhere. Keith had been the ﬁeld commander of an army that conquered a crucial frontier of the Swedish Empire, and then administered the area as governor. That much was a common experience. The real leap came when he moved beyond the frontier of the competing empires and into the capital city of the country he had just been at war with, with a huge army, in a friendly capacity. Yet ironically, it was precisely the abilities that enabled him to complete such a feat which eﬀectively forced Keith to leave the Russian service. He had proved to be a brilliant soldier, naval commander, civic administrator and governor. As often happens in such cases, his impressive success aroused the hostility of many indigenous Russians blinded to the beneﬁts that such a man brought to their country. It was Russian jealousy and the pursuit of private agendas that saw him recalled from his military and civic duties abroad and reduced in military and social status in Russia. The departure of Keith did not see the end of Scottish interest in Finland’s administration. Indeed, Anders Johan Ramsay took part in several engagements during the Finnish wars of 1788–90, and he later became governor of Finnish Karelia.62 Of his sons, Carl August 60 See also Varnhagen von Ense, Leben des Feldmarschalls Jacob Keith, 82–83 and Matley, ‘The Scots in Finland’, 77. 61 Eva Merthen spoke several languages well, among others French and Latin, and was well known as especially beautiful and intelligent. After Keith’s death Eva received through his will most of his property before she married the Land Chancellor of Stralsund, J.D. von Reichenbach. 62 The Ramsays played a signiﬁcant role in Finland’s history. Many of them dis-

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became governor of Wiborg in 1825 and a member of the Finnish senate by 1835. Gustav Adolf Ramsay served as colonel and governor of Kuopio in 1833.63 During the twentieth century, Carl Henrik Ramsay was a member of the Finnish government from 1941 to 1944 as well as a foreign minister.64 All these men served longer than James Keith. None, however, had more respect for the Finnish people or such an impact on the self-esteem of the Finnish nation. For that alone Keith’s brief administration deserves to be remembered.

tinguished themselves as soldiers in the military service of Finland. Two of them died in the war of 1808–09 against Russia and their death was immortalised by the Finnish national poet Runeberg in his ‘Tales of Ensign Stål’. Other Ramsays were prominent in politics, business and science in the nineteenth century. See Matley, ‘The Scots in Finland’, 76. 63 A third son, Anders Edward, who was an oﬃcer in the Russian army, became general of infantry and a Finnish baron in 1834. His son George Edward Ramsay served in the Turkish war of 1877 as commander of the Finnish Guards and as commander-in-chief of the Finnish military forces 1884; O. Donner, A Brief Sketch of the Scottish Families in Finland and Sweden (Helsingfors: 1884), 14. 64 Matley, ‘The Scots in Finland’, 76.

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CHAPTER SIX

GABRIEL JOHNSTON AND THE PORTABILITY OF PATRONAGE IN THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY NORTH ATLANTIC WORLD Tim Hanson

Lowlander Gabriel Johnston’s gubernatorial administration lasted from November 1734 until his death on 17 July 1752 and, as such, was the longest tenure of any of North Carolina’s royal governors. Johnston was born ca. 1698 in Southdean, Scotland, to Reverend Samuel and Isobel Hall Johnston, who were probable descendants of the Elsieshields branch of the Johnstons of Annandale [See Map 1]. Johnston’s father was the minister for the Church of Scotland in Southdean. While Gabriel was still a child Reverend Johnston took a similar position in Dundee. For four years starting in 1711 Gabriel studied at the University of Edinburgh. In 1717 he entered the University of St. Andrews as a divinity student, graduating with a Master of Arts degree per supplicationem in 1720. Johnston held the Patrick Yeaman Bursay Chair while at St. Andrews. In 1721 he began attending the University of Leiden with the intent to study medicine, but only a month into his studies he applied for a patent to teach Hebrew at St. Andrews. A royal appointment in 1722 allowed him to occupy the chair of Hebrew at St. Andrews. In 1724 he was made Burgess and Guild Brother (gratis) of the city of Glasgow. Johnston’s ambitions and career interests, however, propelled him out of academia, and in 1727 he left St. Andrews to pursue political opportunities in London. For the next seven years Johnston would live in the household of his benefactor, Spencer Compton, 1st Lord Wilmington—President of the Privy Council—through whom he developed acquaintances with ‘the Earl of Bath, Lord Anson, the Bishop of Worcester and a great many other Persons of Distinction’.1 Johnston’s primary occupation in London was as a political writer

1

NCCR (New York: 1968) 4, 935.

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for the Tory Craftsman. Perhaps as a reward for his political writings, Wilmington helped him obtain the appointment to the post of governor for North Carolina on 27 March 1733. Nineteen months later, on 27 October 1734, Johnston arrived in North Carolina for the ﬁrst time and assumed his oﬃcial duties seven days later.2 When Johnston arrived in North Carolina he was almost penniless. He obtained a much-needed loan from Henry McCulloh to establish himself in the colony, but it would be a loan that would cost him dearly in a variety of ways, primarily in political frustration. However, by the time Johnston died he owned thousands of acres of land in six counties, over 100 slaves, and, together with his brother, created one of the largest libraries in North Carolina held at his brother’s Hayes Plantation. Still, while Johnston did obtain wealth and status, he encountered signiﬁcant economic diﬃculties, of which the arrears of his governor’s salary was the most signiﬁcant. At his death, Johnston had yet to collect over £13,000 sterling in back pay. Johnston’s problem obtaining his annual salary was so pronounced and public that the next governor, Ulster Irishman Arthur Dobbs, successfully persuaded the Board of Trade to cease funding the North Carolina governor’s salary through the collection of the colony’s quitrents. Instead, funding for his and subsequent successors’ salaries would accrue from taxes on the Crown’s lucrative Barbados exports. Thus, Johnston’s experience was fairly typical of other place-seekers in the eighteenth century North American colonies.3 He depended on the patronage of others, in his case Thomas PelhamHolles, 1st Duke of Newcastle, Lord Wilmington, William Pulteney, 1st Earl of Bath, and the London merchant Henry McCulloh to obtain what he hoped would be a lucrative position in the Empire’s bureaucratic machinery. He was also fairly typical in that he used marriage to advance himself and expand his patronage and kin networks. Once in North Carolina, Johnston married one of the wealthier women in the province, Penelope Galland, former proprietary governor Charles Eden’s stepdaughter.4 2 J.D. Nash, ‘Gabriel Johnston’, in DNCB (6 vols., Chapel Hill, North Carolina: 1979–1996), III, 300–301. 3 See chapters seven and eight below on South Carolina Governor James Glen and Virginia Governor Robert Dinwiddie. 4 B.P. Robinson, The Five Royal Governors of North Carolina, 1729–1775 (Raleigh, North Carolina: 1963, reprint 1968), 25.

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North Carolinian society experienced many changes during the eighteenth century. It transformed from a society that had a primarily Anglo-orientation in the early century, to one that was increasingly British by the American Revolution, to one that ﬁnally went through a wrenching cultural transition from British to American after the Revolutionary War. Scots, one of the primary ethnic groups of North Carolina, greatly inﬂuenced the development of the colony’s communities and institutions. Even they, almost always described incorrectly as a broad, uniﬁed culture, had a range of experiences. Scots in the North Atlantic World underwent many identity changes, from being Scots to British-Scots to Scottish-Americans. Their experiences in colonial North Carolina and during the early national period are instrumental in understanding the development of American identity in the eighteenth century. Thus as Scots poured into the colony from overseas an important facet of civic life in North Carolina was the cultural politicking that came with the creation of Scottish dominions, especially in the Cape Fear River Valley, from Wilmington to Cross Creek/Campbeltown [See Map 4]. They lived under an English political system that formed a fundamental organising principle of the British Atlantic world. The English established the framework of politics in North America, but British North Americans adapted the framework to their unique needs and uses. When addressing the ability of colonial governors to provide patronage for friends and family in the colonies, a primary point to keep in mind is the diﬀerence between authority and power. Although North Carolina’s governors had the authority of patronage, few had the true power to provide positions to place seekers. There were few positions that a governor could appoint permanently, so the notion that Scots, or any ethnic group for that matter, could provide places so as to entrench their ethnicity, family, or friends is incorrect. In fact, for most governors, the main problem was that they lacked enough power. Governors were continually forced to negotiate with colonial assemblies and, on rare occasions, their executive council, to get legislation passed and quitrents and other taxes collected. Probably no other appointed position in the Empire was more overrated and problematic than that of governor, which was almost never as proﬁtable as expected. Able to provide only meagre patronage for kin and friends, the best that most governors could hope to achieve was economic relief for themselves and a few close allies at

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home and in the colonies.5 Their distance from the Empire’s seat of power, coupled with their economic and authoritative impotence, left them weak and unproductive. Few sought the position for any longer than needed, and even fewer wanted to stay in the colonies longer than necessary. For the North American colonists on the colonial periphery, the ability to gain and dispense patronage was an integral facet of social, political, religious, and economic advancement. Access to patronage made civic, economic, and religious careers. The layered patronage networks that the Scots deployed are essential in understanding how they participated in the civic life of the colony. A not yet fully explored aspect of Scottish life in the eighteenth-century British Empire, but being explored in this collection of essays, is how patronage facilitated political, economic, and social advancement in the North Atlantic world, along a Scoto/American axis of inﬂuence. To better understand patronage and the political cultures surrounding it, this chapter examines the role of patronage in the careers of Scots in the Cape Fear River Valley of North Carolina during the early period it was a royal colony from 1729 to 1760. This chapter does so by exploring the following intertwined themes: the ability of royal governors to provide various types of patronage; assessing Scottish eﬀorts at obtaining patronage from colonial governors and how this inﬂuenced the political development of Scottish communities in North Carolina. Finally, it will address how local patronage networks functioned in relation to provincial and transatlantic patronage networks.6 By looking at patronage networks at the local and provincial levels and their ties to the North Atlantic world, this study provides a better understanding of the role Scots and Scottishness played in the development of a truly transatlantic empire. Analysis seeks, there-

5 There is a plethora of books on the topic of imperial administration in the eighteenth century, but see C.M. Andrews, The Colonial Period of American History (New York: 1934–8); L.W. Labaree, Royal Government in America (New Haven: 1930); A. Calder, Revolutionary Empire (New York: 1981); J.P. Greene, The Quest for Power (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: 1963); and J. Brewer, The Sinews of Power: War, Money and the English State, 1688–1783 (London: 1989). 6 D. Hancock, Citizens of the World (Cambridge: 1995); B. Bailyn, Voyagers to the West (New York: 1986); B. Bailyn and P. Morgan, eds., Strangers in the Realm (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: 1991); D.H. Fischer, Albion’s Seed (New York: 1989); J.P. Greene, Peripheries and Center (Athens, Georgia: 1986); L. Colley, Britons (New Haven: 1992); and K. Wilson, The Sense of the People: Politics, Culture and Imperialism in England, 1715–1785 (Cambridge: 1995).

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fore, to explore the dynamic, protean role patronage played in the Scoto/American world, as well as addressing the existence and function of patronage axises other than Anglo/American ones. Recent studies such as David Hancock’s Citizens of the World, the P.J. Marshall edited Oxford History of the British Empire: volume II, The Eighteenth Century, and Bernard Bailyn and Philip D. Morgan’s Strangers in the Realm point towards new understandings of the eighteenth-century North Atlantic world where the cultures of North America, Scotland, Ireland, England, Europe, and Africa were intertwined. The inﬂuence and various methods of patronage force us to rethink who made the empire work and who worked the Empire. Another area examined is the public and private functions of patronage. Understanding the dense webs of patronage and political inﬂuence requires an analysis of all levels of North Carolina’s political society. One way is through the extralocal nature of political patronage networks in North Carolina and how the broader North Atlantic world inﬂuenced their development and administration. While the governor’s role in the various layers of the patronage networks may have been the most visible and prominent, he was by no means the only person wielding patronage, and, in many cases, he was not always the most inﬂuential. In addition, the political culture of North Carolina also demonstrates how borderland cultures developed and adapted outside the metropolitan inﬂuence of the Empire, particularly as a result of the needs of areas at the periphery. How these adaptations occurred, with the inﬂuence of Scottish culture, to shape the political culture of North Carolina is central to understanding the Scottish experience in the colony. The political culture of Scotland and British North America not only varied greatly between these two societies, but both also varied greatly from the Anglo-political/cultural model that dominated the eighteenth-century British world. Patronage between Scotland and North Carolina functioned diﬀerently from patronage between England and North Carolina. While part of Britain, Scotland did not enjoy equal status in the Empire. Scottish institutions such as the sheriﬀ court and the Church of Scotland did not share the same status that English Justices of the Peace or the Church of England had within the Empire’s institutions and bureaucracy. For example, North Carolina’s governors had a large, direct inﬂuence over religious patronage through the appointment of ministers. However, while they seemingly had many institutional resources and powers at their disposal, North Carolina remained one of the least

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churched colonies in the British Empire. Nor was it possible in many respects for a governor’s patronage to overcome this problem. Low pay, few attractive positions, little prominence and respect, and diﬃculties getting placed back in Britain all worked to make it diﬃcult to attract ministers to the colony. While colonial governors were thought to have the most patronage at their disposal, it was their lack of patronage that proved to be one of their great weaknesses. Few governors had signiﬁcant placing power with which to solidify and strengthen themselves in the society they supposedly controlled. Not only were most of them able to provide little to no patronage to their British friends and kin, they had little to oﬀer colonial elites. This lack of patronage played a primary role in the political culture of the colonies, and accounted for many of the diﬃculties colonial governors experienced in managing and directing the civic life of a colony. The use of incidental patronage to temporarily ﬁll positions or placate the colonial elite was essential for a governor’s political survival. Despite their ability to place people temporarily into positions with the hope of that person gaining the position long-term, the governors were still dependent on the Crown for the ultimate decision on who would receive the various places in a colony’s bureaucracy. Their attempts to build political power through patronage could collapse due to the domestic political needs of an MP or a Board of Trade member seeking to place a loyal supporter or an irritating relative. To better understand Governor Johnston’s problems of patronage, three areas need to be addressed: provincial politics, county politics, and religious appointments. The executive council and colonial assembly similarly had limited patronage opportunities, and all three groups vied for what little existed. One position that was highly contested in North Carolina was that of colony treasurer. It was meant to be a position given out by the governor, but with Gabriel Johnston willing to trade this privilege for favorable legislative gains, the oﬃce was allowed to become the domain of the Assembly and Executive Council, and both houses tried to control who received this powerful position. However, this was hardly the limit of patronage. In fact, patronage at the local level is an often overlooked aspect of the transatlantic world because of the narrowness of its base, and because its spatial limitations appear to oﬀer only partial insights into the functioning of the broader North Atlantic world. Yet, it is often at

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the local level that North Atlantic patronage networks can best be analysed and understood.7

Gabriel Johnston and North Carolina Politics The Scottish presence in trade and government in the colonies grew throughout the eighteenth century. In North Carolina Gabriel Johnston became the most prominent Scottish politician when he was appointed governor of the colony. His tenure as governor was long and tumultuous. He was involved in several controversies with various factions of the colony’s elite, as well as managing diﬃcult negotiations with the House of Burgesses on several issues. Some of the major conﬂicts he had to contend with were the quitrent controversy, northern and southern county factionalism, Assembly apportionment, the location of the capital, blank patents, immigration, and education. North Carolina’s political and economic elites initially welcomed Johnston when he arrived at Edenton, North Carolina. His arrival in 1734 meant an end to the controversial tenure of Governor Burrington, and was supposed to usher in stability for North Carolina’s frontier society. Once in the colony, Johnston tended to long overdue colony business such as ﬁlling vacant positions on the Executive Council and, under directions from the Privy Council, he established two courts of Oyer and Terminers to be held yearly. John Montgomery, North Carolina’s Attorney General, was given the Seal of the Province, while the appointment of justices of the peace in various counties was completed.8 Johnston also noted in November Council minutes how during the ﬁrst month of his tenure as governor he had been acquainted by several of the principal Merchants and Traders of [North Carolina] of the many and great inconveniences that have and do still arise to the Trade and Commerce of this province by the great Multiplicity of Counterfeit Bills of Credit issued by Vagabond and Idle people passing from part of the Government to another. To the End therefore that the said vagabond and idle

7 See I.K. Steele, ‘The Anointed, the Appointed, and the Elected: Governance of the British Empire, 1689–1784’, in P.J. Marshall, ed., The Oxford History of the British Empire, vol. II, The Eighteenth Century (Oxford: 1998), 105–127. 8 NCCR, IV, 3–4.

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Johnston’s relationship in the General Assembly started oﬀ well, but by 1737, it had most deﬁnitely soured with some of the political elite. Five petitions were sent to the Board of Trade complaining of Johnston’s actions against a variety of Assembly members and ‘Protestants of Germany’ (Moravians).10 Ultimately, the Board of Trade rejected the petitions when the complainants failed . . . to produce their Evidence and proofs they owned they had not the least Evidence to make out any one of the said Articles and therefore concluded with only renewing the same request which had been before made by the Agents for the Petitioners requesting . . . a commission.11

The Committee further asserted that they would not allow the petitioners a further delay to gather and present evidence because ‘the said complaints had raised great Discontent in the said Province which were likely to Subsist as long as the same remained unheard’ and that in the opinion of the committee any further delay on this issue would only ‘further Delay and . . . [keep] up a Spirit of Clamour and Discontent in the said province’ and ‘that the said petitioners are vexatious Scandalous Seditious and Groundless and ought to be dismissed’.12 Johnston took his responsibilities to and instructions from the Crown seriously. As a result, he encountered diﬃculties with the colonists soon after his arrival. He inherited controversies from the previous governor, George Burrington. The ﬁrst was the colony’s abominably bad system of collecting quitrents. North Carolinians had contested Crown quitrent policies since becoming a royal colony in 1729. On that occasion, North Carolinians saw their quitrent rate rise to four shillings, twice the rate of Virginia, and they had to pay quitrents in specie, not in kind (payments made with goods grown on their

9

NCCR, IV, p. 2. NCSA, Petition to the Lords of the Committee of Council, 8 May 1739, Phillips Collection, PC 1168.1. 11 NCSA, Petition to the Lords of the Committee of Council, 8 May 1739, Phillips Collection, PC 1168.1. 12 NCSA, Petition to the Lords of the Committee of Council, 8 May 1739, Phillips Collection, PC 1168.1. 10

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farms, as was allowed in Virginia).13 Johnston also exacerbated the situation by disallowing the practice of collecting quitrents at individual farms and demanding that quitrents be paid at designated collection places. Any initial good will Johnston had received from colonists, who hoped he would end the period of strife that occurred during Burrington’s governship, was used up by quitrent controversies which started in 1735 and developed as a running sore between Johnston, the General Assembly, and the general population until 1739. During the General Assembly that year, a compromise on the issue was achieved when Johnston relented and allowed quitrents to be paid in kind.14 Although this legislation improved the relationship between Johnston and the General Assembly, when the Crown disallowed this legislation quitrents again became a problem in North Carolina and remained so throughout the colonial period. Johnston also became embroiled in the blank patent controversy. Essentially, to make it easier for people to ﬁle land patents, the proprietors allowed blank land patents to be printed and signed by the proper oﬃcials, but left the number of acres, amount of purchase, and location of land blank.15 Unfortunately, many of the patents fell into the hands of unscrupulous land speculators and at least 150,000 acres of land were claimed fraudulently between the proprietors closing their Carolina land oﬃce and the territory becoming a royal colony. Johnston had to deal with an intransigent faction led by Maurice Moore, Edward Moseley and some members of the Assembly. Johnston wanted to disallow all of the patents because he had no record of them for tax purposes. Ultimately, Johnston compromised on this issue in the same l739 legislation that had improved quitrent collection. Largely to get the Assembly to agree to better quitrent collection procedures, Johnston conceded legal title to the blank patents if the Assembly would agree to produce an updated rent roll and designated collection places.16 Both sides found this acceptable and a compromise was achieved.

13 Robinson, The Five Royal Governors, 14–15; R. Ekirch, “Poor Carolina”: Politics and Society in Colonial North Carolina, 1729–1776 (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: 1981), 67–69. 14 Ekirch, “Poor Carolina”, 91–92. 15 H.T. Leﬂer and W.S. Powell, Colonial North Carolina: a History (New York: 1973), 120. 16 Leﬂer and Powell, Colonial North Carolina, 120.

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Two other issues created controversy for Johnston during the last six years of his governship, establishing a permanent capital and breaking the political power of counties of the Albemarle region of North Carolina.17 His attempts to settle these two long-standing problems disrupted the remainder of his tenure as governor and would not be resolved until after his death. The counties of the Albemarle Sound region of North Carolina had been given ﬁve members each to the General Assembly, while each new county was only allowed to elect two members. This resulted in the Albemarle counties wielding political power in the colony far in disproportion to their population. While the northern counties dominated the Assembly membership, the southern part of the colony, primarily along the coast from Edenton to Wilmington and from Wilmington inland along the Cape Fear River, was steadily becoming a larger population centre of the colony. [See Map 4] Not wanting to give up their power or travel to a capital in the southern part of the colony, the Albemarle counties repeatedly blocked Johnston’s and the southern Assemblymen’s eﬀorts to reduce their power and create a capital in New Bern. Johnston managed to momentarily outmanoeuvre the Albemarle counties when he called an Assembly meeting in Wilmington in November 1746.18 As Johnston hoped, the northern delegates did not attend; instead he used their absence to get a rump Assembly to pass legislation limiting each county’s representation to two members each and to establish New Bern as the capital of the colony. When the next Assembly was called, the Albemarle counties sent their customary ﬁve representatives. This induced a prompt refusal on the part of the Assembly to sit. The Albemarle counties recalled their representatives and refused to send any more until the Board of Trade ruled in their favour and reinstated each county’s allotment of ﬁve representatives in 1754, two years after Johnston’s death. While he had placated the southern and western counties, Johnston was never able to eﬀect working political arrangements with the entire colony again. The problems of the mid to late-1730s and Johnston’s eﬀorts to break the power of the Albemarle counties in the mid-1740s often 17 By 1746 the Albemarle region representation was comprised of Bertie, Chowan, Currituck, Pasquotank, Perquimans, and Tyrrell Counties and the town of Edenton in Chowan County. All had ﬁve representatives except Bertie County, which had three and Edenton which had one. 18 Ekirch, “Poor Carolina”, 93–95.

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resulted in him having to hire agents to defend himself before the Board of Trade and Privy Council. Johnston also had to deal with a growing number of placemen in North Carolina he had neither appointed nor requested, such as Francis Corbin, the personal agent of the Earl of Granville. Added to this were his growing diﬃculties in London, where his North Carolina political opponents threatened to outmaneuver him at the Board of Trade and the Privy Council.19 During the crises of the 1730s Johnston succeeded in London for several reasons. Firstly, Lord Wilmington remained a powerful ally and supporter. Secondly, Johnston hired an eﬀective agent, James Abercrombie (who was aided by Joshua Sharpe, an English solicitor) who represented him well before the Board and Privy Council.20 Finally, although the colonists did not like Johnston’s stand on quitrents he was following the directions of the Board of Trade and the requirements of his Governor’s commission. As long as he continued to do so, he had every reason to expect the Board’s support.21 As Johnston wrote to the Board of Trade on 10 July 1735, ‘if I have any Enemies they are Enemies to the just Rights and Revenues of the Crown and while they remain such their friendship shall never be courted’.22 While Johnston fared well in London during the 1730s, he began to suﬀer from erosion of support during the 1740s. First, a former patron, Henry McCulloh became dissatisﬁed with how Johnston was administering his property in North Carolina, then in excess of 1.2 million acres. In particular McCulloh was angered by Johnston’s delay in having the lands surveyed, which he believed, rightly, was preventing him from legally acquiring some prime land in North Carolina he could sell to settlers. McCulloh’s connections with Martin Bladen, a Board of Trade member, and his subsequent work as an agent for the northern interests of the colony worked to limit Johnston’s eﬀectiveness at the board.23 A second problem, which will be discussed further below, was the strategy adopted by Corbyn Morris, an agent for the northern interests and a conﬁdante of the Duke of Newcastle, of falsely linking Johnston to the Jacobite Rebellion.24 19

Ekirch, “Poor Carolina”, 98. Ekirch, “Poor Carolina”, 96. 21 Gabriel Johnston’s Commission, Library of Congress: PRO, CO 5, pt. 4, microﬁlm reel vi; Board of Trade’s Instruction to Gabriel Johnston. 22 NCCR., IV 15. 23 Ekirch, “Poor Carolina”, 96–99. 24 Ekirch, “Poor Carolina”, 98. 20

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This tactic took Johnston and Abercrombie years to overcome. Finally, after Wilmington’s death in 1747, Johnston had only Lord Anson to defend him before the Duke of Bedford and the Duke of Newcastle, both of whom did not particularly like Johnston.25 Thus, while patronage and political connections were essential to Johnston getting the North Carolina governor’s position, his lack of patronage and political connections at the metropole worked against him towards the end of his tenure.

A Governor’s Problems of Scottishness In 1769, Scottish-born Samuel Johnston, sixth governor of the state of North Carolina and nephew of Gabriel Johnston, wrote to his fellow North Carolinian Alexander Helmsley, an English colonist who was visiting London. Samuel admonishing him about the way the English perceived and treated their British brethren the Scots, stated that It gives me pleasure to ﬁnd by [your letters] of Septr and Octr last, both which are comt to hand, that your Passage was so agreeable and that nothing has happened contrary to your expectations, what you say of the Genius of the English I believe to be strictly true and yet was it not for their particular dislike of Scotsmen which must proceed from a low Spirit of Envy, I could be pleased with their disposition in other respects, for if I am not much mistaken in my Observations on Mankind those who are at ﬁrst sight somewhat diﬃcult to be acquainted with do not make the worst friends, whereas those who are more pliant and easy texture of mind and readily insinuate themselves into the good Opinion of all Strangers soon grow weary which aﬀords them nothing new . . .26

Thus, even when they moved to the periphery of the British world, the cultural distinctions between Scotsmen and Englishmen not only continued to exist but in many ways were exacerbated. As nativeand foreign-born colonists negotiated their identities in the colonies, ethnic stereotypes played an important role in how they understood and adapted to their new world.27 The lack of respect Scots 25

Ekirch, “Poor Carolina”, 98. CRNC, 30 vols. (Raleigh, Winston, Goldsboro, and Charlotte, North Carolina: 1886–1914, reprint 1968), VIII, 8. 27 On identity in the eighteenth-century British Empire, see J.P. Greene, ‘Empire 26

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experienced from the English in Great Britain also occurred in the colonies. Some of the attacks on Johnston demonstrate how well the colonists inculcated the ethnic chauvinism of the British North Atlantic world. Several times Johnston was smeared for being too favorable to Scots and being a Jacobite sympathiser. Thus, his colonial opponents knew to trot out concerns about Scottish loyalty to the Hanoverian Crown in attempts to undermine his authority in the colony and with the Board of Trade. Several of Johnston’s political opponents including Francis Corbin and future North Carolina governor Arthur Dobbs, sought to discredit Johnston in the late 1740s by tying him to Jacobitism. It was their contention that Johnston’s sympathy for the Jacobite cause was behind all of his inaction and problems in the colony. They sought to portray him as wilfully trying to undermine the Hanoverian Crown. For example, in a letter to the Duke of Bedford, Francis Corbin stated that the said Governor during the time of the late Rebellion notoriously countenanced and favoured Scots Jacobites, by placing them in Chief Oﬃces of Trust and Power, particularly one [William] MacGregor, who had been attainted Rebel in the year 1715, and who was appointed a Justice of the Peace, and Colonel of Militia, during the late Rebellion in Scotland, to the great scandal and Consternation of the loyal Inhabitants of the said Province. . . . and the whole Province is become little better, than a Receptacle and Asylum for Fugitives, and Persons of desperate Fortunes & Characters.28

Further, a Mr. Danbus testiﬁed to the Board of Trade that he was the ﬁrst to tell Johnston of the news of the rebels’ defeat at Culloden and that upon showing Johnston a list of the Jacobite leaders captured or killed, he received the news ‘very coldly’ and that the Governor exprest a concern for them saying many of them were his acquaintances and schoolfellows, [and] that [Danbus] had several times been with the Governor before and was always kindly received till this time and that altho’ this was the ﬁrst news of this event there was no rejoicings made which occasioned much surprise.29

and Identity from the Glorious Revolution to the American Revolution’, in Marshall, ed., The Oxford History of the British Empire, II, 208–230. 28 CRNC, IV, 925–926. 29 CRNC, IV, 933.

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Corbyn Morris told the Board of Trade ‘that the Governor might justly be suspected of disaﬀection to his Majesty’ and that ‘the Governor’s contempt of the Crown’s orders . . . . [and] proof of his disobeying them’ could be found in Johnston’s attempt to take away the northern counties privilege of ﬁve representatives to the Assembly.30 Clearly it was not only Britons who knew the impact the epithet Jacobitism could wield against a Scottish political opponent. North Carolina’s Palatine colonists equally understood the power behind an assertion of Jacobite sympathies. When the heirs of Colonel Thomas Pollock claimed the lands of Palatine settlers in January 1747, the Palatines, in their appeal to the Board of Trade, asserted that Pollock’s heirs had no standing to do this. They added that his heirs were taking this action in order ‘to settle the Rebels the Scots in our Possessions’.31 The Palatines did not believe Governor Johnston was behind these actions, but Johnston’s political foes did not miss the opportunity to further brand Johnston as a Jacobite rebel.32 Johnston did defend himself over the assertions of his being a Jacobite to the Board of Trade through his agent, James Abercrombie. One opponent’s claim against Johnston’s loyalty rested on the fact that he had not called for rejoicing throughout the province when he heard of the rebels’ defeat at Culloden. Johnston did not deny that he did not call for a celebration, but he pointed out that he was at his plantation, about 100 miles from the seat of government. Johnston further explained that he had two visiting witnesses who heard him daily hope for the Duke of Cumberland’s success. Johnston realised these attacks for what they were, a series of innuendoes ‘made to represent the Governor under the base and vile character of a Jacobite and having turned out the poor Palatines from their Lands to make room for Scotch Rebels’.33 To which Johnston responded that ‘this is only a sequel to the many attempts he [Francis Corbin] had made’.34 The Board of Trade ultimately believed

30 Journal of the Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, from January 1741–2 to December 1749 (London: 1931, reprint 1970), 373. 31 CRNC, IV, 956; Journal of the Commissioners for Trade, January 1741–2 to December 1749, 249. 32 NCCR., IV, 1083–1091; Journal of Commissioners for Trade, January 1741–2 to December 1749, 373–4. 33 NCCR., IV, 1087. 34 NCCR., IV, 1087.

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Johnston’s side of the story, but this example reﬂects just how tenuous a Scottish governor’s authority could be, and how easily it could be undermined in the eighteenth century. Even a loyal Lowlander such as Johnston had to be wary of the intertwining in many people’s minds of Scottishness and Jacobitism. Johnston’s ability to provide patronage for Scots was uneven, and through all the records his interest in recruiting Scots emigrants is unclear. He appointed or recommended several Scots on to the executive council, encouraged Scottish emigration through favorable land grant and quitrent suspension policies, and placed Scots in lesser spots in the government. Still, he had limited resources, power, and authority to greatly assist North Carolina in becoming a Scottish colony, had he even the wish to do so. Even with the arrival of 350 emigrants from Argyllshire in 1739, Johnston had limited success in attracting Scots to the colony. There was a host of reasons for this, from the wars of the 1740s and 50s with Spain and then France, to the slow response of Scots towards emigration opportunities in British North America before 1750.35 Two Scots Johnston did attract to North Carolina were cousins James Murray and John Rutherfurd. Murray was a native of Unthank, Roxburgshire in the Valley of the Ewes. Born on 9 August 1713, he was the oldest son of John and Anne Bennet Murray, the daughter of the laird of Chesters. Murray was apprenticed to a London merchant active in the West Indian trade after his father’s death. Murray moved to the Cape Fear region of North Carolina in 1736, apparently due to his acquaintance with Governor Johnston. He started a mercantile business in Newton (Wilmington) and purchased a 500–acre plantation on the Cape Fear River. Between 1737 and 1765 Murray held a host of posts in North Carolina, starting as a Justice of the Peace of New Hanover in 1737. Johnston then appointed him a deputy naval oﬃcer for the port of Brunswick, and 1739 placed him on the colony’s executive council. He later became a commissioner of Fort Johnston and became a secretary and clerk of the Crown in 1753. In 1754 he became president of the governor’s Executive Council.36

35 See D. Meyer, Highland Scots in North Carolina, 1732–1776 (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: 1961). 36 D.R. Lennon, ‘James Murray’, in DNCB, IV, 351.

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John Rutherfurd also had an active political and business life in North Carolina similar to his cousin James Murray. Born at Bowland, Midlothian, on 25 January 1724, Rutherfurd was a 20th-generation descendant of Robertus de Rodyrforde, the 12th founder of the Rutherfurd family [See Map 1]. Born to James and Isabella Simpson Rutherfurd, again, like his cousin James Murray, Rutherfurd was an oldest son. In 1739, he followed Murray to North Carolina where James helped get him established in the mercantile business. With the assistance of the Surveyor General of the Customs, another Scot, Robert Dinwiddie, Rutherfurd obtained the position as Receiver General of Quitrents. In 1752 the Crown approved his appointment to the governor’s Council. Two years later he married Frances Johnston, widow of Governor Gabriel Johnston. John and Frances had three children, a daughter, Frances, and two sons, John, Jr. and William Gordon. Upon their mother’s death in 1768 all three were sent to Scotland for their schooling. Both boys joined the British military, with John, Jr. joining the army and William receiving a commission in the navy.37 Both Murray’s and Rutherfurd’s careers, not least the latter’s marriage to Frances, demonstrate the layered webs of Scottish kin and patronage networks built up in North Carolina. An additional beneﬁt for Rutherfurd was that, with his marriage to Frances, he also became entitled to the £12,500 of arrears in back salary owed the Johnston family. Between 1761 and 1776 Rutherfurd was able to collect over £10,000 sterling in back payments. Rutherfurd heirs would collect the remaining £2,018.19.2 in 1798. While Gabriel Johnston was directly responsible for Lowlanders Murray and Rutherfurd’s emigration to North Carolina, there were few other similar stories. Johnston, like most colonial governors, worked with and rewarded colonists who helped him achieve his and the Crown’s political and economic goals. While Johnston did not discourage Highland and Lowland Scots emigration to North Carolina, he did little to directly facilitate the move of Scots into the colony during his tenure in oﬃce. The putative 1739 Argyll Colony of over 350 Highlanders was the only signiﬁcant group of Scots to migrate to North Carolina before the massive tide of emigration in the 1760s and 1770s hit North Carolina’s shores.38 Busy with the political and 37

A.D. Watson, ‘John Rutherfurd’, in DNCB, V, 276–278. For the best study of the 1739 Argyll Colony and its inﬂuence on the Scottish population of North Carolina, see Meyer, Highland Scots in North Carolina, passim. 38

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economic machinations of North Carolina, Johnston expended little eﬀort beyond getting the Assembly to pass an act in 1740 suspending the payment of quitrents for ten years for groups of 40 or more foreign Protestants. While the act was worded to aid all foreign Protestants, the legislation was passed as a direct result from a petition requesting economic relief for the Argyll Colony by its leaders, Dugald McNeal and Colonel McAlister.39 No other records exist of Johnston assisting this or any other group of Scots emigrants. There is also no other record of Johnston either recruiting Scots to North Carolina or assisting Scots once in the colony. When the Argyll Colony sought a Gaelic-speaking Presbyterian minister in the early 1740s there is no evidence that Johnston interceded on their behalf with the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge, the Church of Scotland, or even with his Church of England connections in London. While Johnston did assist Scots, he was not the only North Carolina governor who sought to bestow aid on the colony’s loyal Scottish members. In the late 1760s and early 1770s the government of Governor William Tryon received so much support from Scottish colonists during the Regulator crisis that he tried to reward them with two favorable pieces of legislation.40 The ﬁrst was ‘An Act for Founding Establishing and Endowing of Queen’s College in the Town of Charlotte, In Mecklenburg County [North Carolina]’.41 The second act was ‘for authorising Presbyterian Ministers regularly called [by] any Congregation within this Province, to solemnise the Rites of Matrimony under the Regulations therein mentioned’.42 If the

39

NCCR., IV, 489–90. During the 1760s and early 1770s many residents in North Carolina’s backcountry protested against what they perceived to be the provincial government’s excessive taxation, interference in their local politics, and the disproportionate control of the Executive Council by the colony’s eastern planters and merchants. These frustrations led to a series of riots and demonstrations in the North Carolina backcountry, primarily from 1765 to 1771. The culmination of several years of conﬂict occurred on 16 May 1771 when approximately 2,000 Regulators were defeated by the colony’s better armed and trained militia, led by Governor William Tryon at the Battle of Alamance (near present day Hillsborough, Alamance County, North Carolina). 41 W.S. Powell, ed., The Correspondence of William Tryon and Other Selected Papers, Volume II, 1768–1818, (Raleigh, North Carolina: 1981), 628. 42 William Tryon to the Earl of Hillsborough, Newbern, 12 March 1771 in Powell, Correspondence of William Tryon, II, 629. 40

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Empire had been truly British the proposed legislation would have created no problems at Westminster and have been allowed. However, this was not the case. Tryon, an Englishman, knew both pieces of legislation would probably fail. In a letter to the Earl of Hillsborough, Tryon tried to defend the need for a college in the colony, even if it was to be ‘generally Presbyterian’. He argued that the act Is but the Out Lines of a Foundation for the Education of Youth. The necessity for such an Institution in this Country is obvious, and the propriety of the mode here adopted must be submitted to His Majesty. Though the President is to be of the established Church and licensed by the Governor, The Fellows, Trustess and Tutors I apprehend will be generally Presbyterians. The College being promoted by a respectable Settlement of that persuasion from which a considerable Body marched to Hillsborough in September 1769 in support of Government.43

While Tryon acknowledged that Queen’s College might be dominated by Presbyterians, merely asserting it would be headed by someone from the established church and that the colony needed an institution of higher learning was a weak case. He held out even less hope for the Board of Trade and the Privy Council allowing Presbyterian ministers to legally perform marriage ceremonies. Again, Tryon argued for the legislation because he felt the Presbyterians had earned it, writing to Hillsborough that This Act I apprehend might be found by the Bishop of London, to whom I presume it will be referred, liable to great Objections, therefore it was passed with a suspending Clause, till His Majesty’s pleasure was known. If it is not thought too much to interfere with, and check the Growth of the Church of England, I am sensible the Attachment the Presbyterians have shewn to Government merit the Indulgence of this Act. The House of Assembly by their Journals set forth at large for framing this Bill. A Testimony that plainly evinced the Presbyterians were the strongest Party in the House [of Burgesses].44

Tryon’s unsuccessful attempt to get favorable legislation for Presbyterians in the colony, as well as his acknowledgment that neither act had any chance of passing, calls into doubt recent discussions about the importance of Protestantism in uniting the British people.45 When

43 44 45

Powell, Correspondence of William Tryon, II, 628–629. Powell, Correspondence of William Tryon, II, 629. Colley, Britons, passim, but especially chapter one.

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an English governor could not reward loyal Scottish Presbyterians as late as 1771, the Anglo domination of the Empire’s institutions becomes clearer. Obviously, a large chasm still existed between the toleration of a dissenting religion such as Presbyterianism (the established Church in Scotland), and advancing the cause of the Empire’s established religion, Anglicanism. British Protestants may have been united in their opposition to Catholicism, but within Britain and the British Empire, not all state-sanctioned religions were equal. Presbyterianism’s lack of oﬃcial status created diﬃcult problems of patronage for Scots. If they sought to receive religious positions and authority within the Empire, it would have to be through Anglicanism. Presbyterianism would be allowed, and even ﬂourish in colonies such as North Carolina and New Jersey, but the lack of state sanction made Presbyterianism diﬃcult to maintain. Above all it ensured that it faced particular problems securing ﬁnance and formally recognised positions in the colonial world.46 Nearly two decades after Johnston’s death even non-Scottish governors still faced an imperial leadership unwilling to allow the creation of institutions that would assist provincial leaders in providing patronage for Scots in North Carolina. Therefore, if Gabriel Johnston set out to turn North Carolina into a Caledonian beachhead for mass Scottish migration as his political opponents asserted throughout his tenure as governor, he failed miserably. While the Argyll Colony was a good start, no other signiﬁcant group of Scots emigrated to North Carolina until the 1760s. Johnston also did not appoint political positions solely on ethnic background. While many of his appointments were Scots, the majority of them were friends and relatives, or Scots already in the colony. Scots did hold a disproportionate amount of positions on the Governor’s Council relative to their proportion in the North Carolina population. However there appears to have been no desire on Johnston’s part to establish North Carolina’s provincial government as a haven for Scottish place seekers or to signiﬁcantly expand the colony’s Scottish population. The Scots who came to North Carolina, like Johnston, followed their own personal ambitions for wealth and standing and

46 On this point see N.C. Landsman, ‘The Legacy of British Union for the North American Colonies: Provincial Elites and the Problem of Imperial Union’, in John Robertson, ed., A Union for Empire (New York: 1995), 311–315.

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were not part of any grand plan to Scotticise North Carolina. Ronald Sunter notes of the political culture of Johnston’s era, ‘the true key to managing a Scottish county [or a British colony] in the eighteenth century was the ability of the politician to make and retain friends, and the manner in which this was accomplished owed more to social contacts than to the mere distribution of place’.47 This political reality held true in both Scotland and North Carolina. Eﬀective control could never be ethnically exclusive; nor could it aﬀord to ignore existing interests and hierarchies. The situation for Johnston in North Carolina was little diﬀerent. Confronted with an elite and a constituency that he had little to no connection with prior to his arrival, Johnston was forced to place local aspirants. The few Scots to receive positions in the government were not part of any formal attempt to bring Scots to Carolina, but rather the few friends and kin that were encouraged to follow Johnston. Coming in the impoverished state that he did, Johnston had to establish himself before he could begin to extend patronage across the Atlantic. After arriving in North Carolina Johnston was faced with several contentious political issues. His need to develop an adequate system for quitrent collection, settle the representation controversy between the southern and western counties versus the Albemarle interests, and the blank patent controversy, are all examples demonstrating how he was required to placate and develop allies with the local planters ﬁrst. As a result, his ability to reach out to Scots was limited from the start. In addition, Johnston never seemed interested in creating a Caledonia Carolina. Johnston himself was the recipient of patronage largesse from his English patron, Spencer Compton, Lord Wilmington. As such, it seems highly unlikely that there was ever a grand plan to bring Scots over. Johnston’s administrative tenure in North Carolina was fairly typical of other governors’ experiences throughout the colonies, English, Scottish, or Irish. His was a terribly individualised experience in which there was that no grand scheme for his countrymen other than immediate friends and kin. The one signiﬁcant emigrant group that came to North Carolina came independent of Johnston’s encouragement. While he did get favorable legislation passed for them and placed the community’s leaders in

47

R.M. Sunter, Patronage and Politics in Scotland, 1707–1832 (Edinburgh: 1986), 234.

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political positions in Bladen County, he did little else on their behalf. His time and interests were spent on provincial political machinations. Thus, when considering Scottish governors in the eighteenth century British Empire, assessing their motivations for seeking oﬃce is equally important. By looking at the patronage they dispensed and received we can develop a clearer picture of how they functioned within the Empire. Finally, Johnston’s experiences are also an important reminder that analysis must include whether a Scot was a Lowlander or Highlander. So much of the emigration literature is dominated by the Highlanders’ experiences that Lowlanders are often left out of the story. However, in the case of North Carolina, while the Highland experience would be the dominant narrative of the colonial era, the Scots in positions of power throughout the ﬁrst half of the eighteenth century, and many of the prominent leaders up to the American Revolution, were Lowlanders. Indeed, Lowlanders dominated the Scottish merchant and provincial experience in North Carolina. In fact this is an aspect of the history of Scots in North Carolina that is seldom analysed. However, as Ned Landsman and others have pointed out elsewhere, we need to know more about how Lowlanders functioned and established themselves in North Carolina. From the few examples in this chapter we can see that they were able to achieve positions of prominence as planters, merchants, and politicians. The biggest diﬀerence appears to be that for Lowlanders emigration was much more individualised, while for Highlanders it was much more communal and group oriented. This suggests the need to study more extensively two things. First, the Lowland emigration experience: the North Carolina context demonstrates an important diﬀerence between the way Highlanders and Lowlanders approached emigration. Second, we need to understand the interactions between Highlanders and Lowlanders in the colonies. Patronage networks and the use of patronage are a good way into these and other topics relating to Scots. Therefore, if we follow the money, we ﬁnd that Johnston sought his own success ﬁrst and then that of his acquaintances and family. The nature of obtaining place in the Empire often meant that the most successful Scots were those most able to make important Anglo- contacts. Thus, while Highlanders dominated the Scottish emigration and military experience, it was the Lowlanders who achieved positions of prominence in the civil machinery of the empire. Johnston

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seems to be fairly typical of this type of Scot aspirant. Therefore, patronage could be, and was, portable, but how portable depended on the governor and his metropolitan connections. The study of Scottish governors can allow diﬀerences between Scots and English to become clearer while also conﬁrming some real diﬀerences that existed between Scots Lowlanders and Highlanders.

CHAPTER SEVEN

JAMES GLEN AND THE INDIANS Alex Murdoch

Professor W. Stitt Robinson’s biography of James Glen was published in 1996, presenting a rounded survey of all aspects of Glen’s life. Some account was taken, for instance, of Glen’s Scottish associations and long identiﬁcation with the Royal Burgh of Linlithgow.1 Robinson wrote, however, from the primary perspective of an historian of the British American southern frontier, and was in eﬀect building upon his 1979 monograph, The Southern Colonial Frontier, 1607–1763.2 There is nothing wrong with that perspective, which allowed Robinson to pursue very interesting lines of enquiry regarding Glen’s achievements as a diplomat in negotiations with native American peoples and as an imperial administrator attempting to defend royal prerogative in America. The purpose of this essay is to try to build on Robinson’s work by further pursuing the inﬂuence of Glen’s Scottish origins and identity on his career in North America. This is particularly evident in Glen’s success as a negotiator with the well-established tribes of native Americans he encountered when he arrived in South Carolina in 1743. Glen was a member of a family long prominent in Linlithgow and his background was indisputably Lowland. But he took with him to America the Scottish experience of living near enough to the Highlands to be aware of the frontier between diﬀerent cultures, languages, and economies and indeed environments. We do not have a record of any direct experience of living in the Highlands during Glen’s early life in Scotland. Robinson does record, however, that Glen was a friend of Duncan Forbes of Culloden, whose ideas on legal and political reform in the

1

W. Stitt Robinson, James Glen: From Scottish Provost to Royal Governor of South Carolina (Westport, Connecticut: 1996). See my review in Scottish Historical Review, 77 (1998), 111–113. 2 W. Stitt Robinson, The Southern Colonial Frontier, 1607–1763 (Albuquerque, New Mexico: 1979).

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Highlands were so inﬂuential in eighteenth century Scotland.3 During his time of active involvement in Linlithgow burgh politics, Glen also became associated with the political interest of the 2nd and 3rd Dukes of Argyll. Although not highlanders themselves, these premier Scottish and British aristocrats remained closely associated with the Highlands through the vast estates in their possession in Argyll. Indeed, political opponents often referred to the Campbells’ political interest in Scotland as ‘Highland’ due to their supposed favouritism towards highlanders such as Forbes or more dubious associates such as Simon Fraser Lord Lovat, eventually executed for his involvement in the Jacobite (and very Highland) rebellion in Scotland in 1745.4 First impressions suggest that the Scottish political scene oﬀered little in the way of practical lessons which could be applied in South Carolina, where Glen was appointed Royal Governor. South Carolina was a colony that had long been a centre of Indian trade. This was its ﬁrst major area of activity long before a plantation economy built around the production of rice and indigo began to develop in the eighteenth century.5 As soon as Glen arrived in South Carolina he took a keen interest in the Indian trade between Charleston and the great tribes of southeast North America. Yet he also arrived at a time of war between Britain, France and Spain and thus took an equally keen interest in retaining the political and military loyalty of tribes who were part of the Charleston trading network. Much of his subsequent time as Governor was spent winning over those tribes who had previously looked to the French or the Spanish for their trade goods. The argument of this essay is that many of the attitudes Glen brought to this frontier diplomacy in America reﬂected by implication his experience of the Lowland/Highland frontier in Scotland between 1715 and 1740.6

3 Robinson, James Glen, 10, 13, 18; R. Mitchison, ‘The Government and the Highlands 1707–1745’, in N.T. Phillipson and Rosalind Mitchison, eds., Scotland in the Age of Improvement (Edinburgh: 1970, reissued 1996), 24–46. 4 A. Murdoch, The People Above: Politics and Administration in Mid-Eighteenth Century Scotland (Edinburgh: 1980), 40; Mitchison, ‘The Government and the Highlands’, passim; A.I. Macinnes, Clanship, Commerce, and the House of Stuart, 1603–1788 (East Linton: 1996), 45, 166–7, 194, 201. 5 E. Sirmans, Colonial South Carolina: A Political History, 1663–1763 (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: 1966); J.E. Buchanan, ‘The Colleton Family and the Early History of South Carolina and Barbados, 1646–1775’, unpublished Ph.D., (Edinburgh: 1989). 6 Robinson, James Glen, 18, refers to ‘cultural baggage’, by which he means what people bring to new situations and environments, and discusses several points in

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The Indians of the American southeast frontier had not yet become the ‘ﬁve civilised tribes’ of later U.S. history.7 There were more than ﬁve for a start, as the Catawbas, later almost extinct, were still a factor in regional aﬀairs, chieﬂy because they had earlier aligned themselves emphatically with the British in Charleston. They lived along the Catawba river near the present boundary between North and South Carolina. While relatively small in number (Glen estimated 300 men in his reports) they spoke a wide variety of dialects amongst their separate settlements, suggesting that their unity was political and territorial rather than ethnic and linguistic. On the other hand, the Yamassee Indians that had seriously threatened South Carolina as a colony in 1715 had ﬂed to the protection of the Spanish at St. Augustine in Florida. Later they would become part of what were know as the Seminoles, but in Glen’s time they were still emphatically the Yamassee, and still implacably opposed to the British in Charleston and the new colony of Georgia founded south of South Carolina 13 years before Glen’s arrival in America. The four tribes who in addition received the majority of Glen’s attention while he was in America were the famous ‘nations’ of the Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw and Choctaw, all confederations rather than tribes in a more conventional sense. All were later to win the title of ‘nation’ in their long struggle to retain a degree of native American autonomy in southeast North America through ceaseless warfare and diplomacy with the European powers who sought inﬂuence in the region from Louisiana, Florida or the Carolinas and Georgia. The Chickasaw lived at some distance from Charleston, west of the Creek and Cherokee confederations and east of the Mississippi River. They were a small group, in origin part of the Choctaw nation, but pro-British and brave warriors. The much larger Choctaw tribal grouping in the same area, however, was pro-French. This suggests that the distinction between Chickasaw and Choctaw was more political than it was ethnic or linguistic, as both spoke Muskhogean languages closer to the Creeks than the Cherokee.8 The Choctaw relation to Glen. In this essay I wish to emphasise the impact of Glen’s knowledge of and early experience of the Lowland/Highland frontier in Scotland as a factor of particular signiﬁcance in understanding his career in South Carolina. 7 Robinson, James Glen, 37–40, presents a good overview which draws on Glen’s lengthy reports to London on the native population he encountered in South Carolina. 8 Ibid., 39, which makes several references to W.R. Jacobs, ed., Indians of the

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were a formidable military force numerically. Glen thought that they could raise at least 6,000 warriors, although the estimate by the Charleston merchant Edmond Atkin submitted to the Board of Trade in 1755 drew on a captured French document to advance the lower but still substantial ﬁgure of 3,500 men. Part of Glen’s policy in America was to try to shake the Choctaw’s traditional French allegiance and incorporate them into a network of alliances with native American tribes throughout the region which would protect the British settlements in Georgia and South Carolina in particular. In 1748 Glen wrote to one of the British Secretaries of State, Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle, defending his wartime Indian policy as Governor and advancing his claims of success in creating a network of Indian alliances which eﬀectively defended British interests in the region.9 Glen’s time in North America coincided with the decline of the last great native confederations which had prevented European settlement from expanding inland from the coastal areas under the authority of the British. His work was to prove instrumental in the process whereby native Americans east of the Mississippi began to see the British Crown as their ally rather than their adversary. Central to this realignment in native perceptions was the attempted preservation of their traditional trading economy through embracing the exchange of furs and skins for European guns and goods. Although Glen did not state the model within which he worked to the English Duke of Newcastle, the analogies with Lowland relations with the Highland clans are very strong, and must have been a factor in his success. Arguably, this was also the case with several of his contemporaries such as John Stuart of Inverness who became Superintendant for Indian Aﬀairs after Glen’s departure back across the Atlantic. Stuart, who arrived in Charleston the year Glen sent his analysis of Indian aﬀairs to London, was in fact to become prominent in the very same region and politics where Glen had already made his mark.10

Southern Colonial Frontier: The Edmond Atkin Report and Plan of 1755 (Columbus, South Carolina: 1954). 9 NAS, GD 45/2/1, Letterbook of James Glen (1746–52), 71–74, James Glen to ‘My Lord’, April 1748. The author wishes to thank the Earl of Dalhousie, Brechin Castle, Brechin, Angus for permission to refer to this manuscript in this essay. 10 J.R. Alden, John Stuart and the Southern Colonial Frontier (Ann Arbor, Michigan:

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Glen wrote that he had reported so often on ‘the state of our Indian Aﬀairs’ that it was not necessary ‘to repeat anything to shew either how beneﬁcial the commerce with them is to Great Britain or how dangerous and destructive a Rupture with them would be to this Province.’11 Newcastle should . . . see how much more numerous our Indians are than all the other Indians in the British Interest in all parts of America put together for tho’ in former times these countrys swarmed with Inhabitants it is far otherwise at this day . . . this may probably be attributed to their continual wars and the use of ﬁre arms, or to the use of spiritous Liquor or it may be owing to the havock that the small Pox and other diseases imported from Europe make among them for which they have no cure.12

Nevertheless, Glen emphasised that the Indian nations still posed a threat to the settlements. Despite their decline in numbers during the early eighteenth century, the Indian nations ‘would be an overmatch for twice the number of Inhabitants that are in this Province even in a fair ﬁeld far more if their superiour knowledge in the Woods and swamps and their Indefatiguableness is considered.’13 Glen’s survey described the Catawbas as ‘a very brave and warlike People and ﬁrmly attached to the English’, and subjected to harassment from the French and their Indian allies because of this.14 At another point, in page 65 of his report, Glen refers to the Catawbas as ‘our northern barrier’.15 Of the larger tribes the Cherokee were generally in the British interest, although Glen reported French eﬀorts to win them over and his conviction that only by building a fort in the Cherokee country could the British ensure that their interests remained uppermost and that their trade predominated amongst this powerful tribal group. He added that a request for such a fort had ‘often’ been made to him by the Cherokee ‘to prevent the French from coming amongst them’.16 On the other hand one might have

1944); J.R. Snapp, John Stuart and the Struggle for Empire on the Southern Frontier (Baton Rouge, Louisiana: 1996). 11 NAS, GD 45/2/1, Letterbook of James Glen, April 1748, 71. 12 NAS, GD 45/2/1, Letterbook of James Glen, April 1748, 72. 13 NAS, GD 45/2/1, Letterbook of James Glen, April 1748, 72. 14 NAS, GD 45/2/1, Letterbook of James Glen, April 1748, 72. 15 NAS, GD 45/2/1, Letterbook of James Glen, April 1748, 65, James Glen to ‘My Lord’, 29 December 1748. 16 NAS, GD 45/2/1, Letterbook of James Glen, April 1748, 65 and 74.

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some sympathy for those among the Cherokee who doubted the value of the British connection in light of Glen’s report of his success in extending British inﬂuence in their traditional South Carolina lands. A modern reader of Glen’s report on his success in civilising the Cherokee might doubt just how much more civilised his idea of the rule of law was than the native culture he encountered and over whom he felt so superior. He reported that: . . . an Englishman had lately been shot in one of the Towns of the Cherokees, and . . . I had sent up to demand satisfaction, but I had no great hopes of receiving any by their putting the guilty Person to Death, more especially as the Englishman that was killed was but a Worthless drunken fellow a Packhorseman and the Person who killed him a man of note a great hunter and Warriour, . . . but the aﬀair was managed by the Indians with great circumspection procedure and Justice, the Town in which this happened did not incline to have the guilty person put to death, but there were consultations in every Town in the Nation about it and many of them sent Deputys to the Town to give them notice that unless they put him publickly to Death in the sight of the English Traders that they would come and destroy their town and kill Man, Woman and Child at length they gave orders to shoot him which was accordingly done and his head cut oﬀ with a hatchet and when his relations desired leave to bury him, they were told by the headmen that he must lye & rot above ground, that all the English that passed might see their Justice and how punctually they fulﬁlled their Engagements, it is a great step towards civilizing savage and barbarous Nations when they can be brought to do public Acts of Justice upon their Criminals.17

Of course not all observers would agree that leaving the corpse of an execution to rot in public was civilised. However, it did reﬂect some of the punishments under Scots and English criminal law with which Glen and his correspondents were familiar, but which were already beginning to be seen as feudal and atavistic in Europe. In the aftermath of this Glen had met with some 40 of the Cherokee, who had argued . . . that their Overhills Towns lay naked and open to the Incursions and Inroads of the French and their Indians from the Mississippi, Nabash and other Rivers, that they had long opposed them, by which

17 NAS, GD 45/2/1, Letterbook of James Glen, April 1748, 76–77, James Glen to ‘My Lord’, 26 July 1748.

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they were greatly thinned, and no longer in any condition to make head against them, . . . that they had hitherto refused them the liberty to settle amongst them and to Trade with them, but it was now no longer in their power to refuse them whatever they asked, that we the English were no strangers to all this, they having for this two or three years represented this to us praying of us for our own sakes as well as theirs to build a Fort in their Overhills Towns, which would forever shut out the French, . . . that they had often been made to believe they should have a Fort but were determined to know exactly what they had to trust to.18

Glen felt, he confessed in 1748, that he had promised a fort which he could not get the South Carolina assembly or the British government to build. As for the Creek confederation in the backcountry of what later became the western districts of South Carolina and Georgia, Glen had made special eﬀorts to overcome both their traditional neutrality in relation to European interests and their antipathy to the Cherokee. The Creek Nation is divided into the Upper and lower Creeks at about four score miles or more from one another, the upper Creeks are by far the most numerous, and the best Warriours, and all of them ﬁrm friends to the English except a few near the Alabama Fort [a French outpost], the lower Creeks consist of many Towns, the Chief of which are the Coweta Town and the Cusseta Town, the headman of the Coweta Town is named Malatichi, and he has also a very good sway in the Cusseta he has been aﬀected to be called by some People the King and Emperor of the Creek Nation, but is in truth no more than headman of the Cowetas.19

For Glen, Malatichi was at the root of Lower Creek reluctance to genuinely commit the confederation to Britain. It was his inﬂuence that protected the French outpost in Alabama as part of his balancing policy towards Europeans, despite receiving favours and presents from the colony of Georgia as well as South Carolina. The Choctaws and the Chickasaw were much more remote from South Carolina—but were a key part of the regional balance of native power that Glen sought to integrate into a British system of native alliances. This was to be accomplished by removing the

18

NAS, GD 45/2/1, Letterbook of James Glen, April 1748, 77. NAS, GD 45/2/1, Letterbook of James Glen, April 1748, 105, James Glen to ‘My Lord’, 2 October 1750. 19

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Choctaw from French inﬂuence and convincing them of the superior basis on which they could trade with the British.20 This way the Chickasaw would no longer be preoccupied with fending oﬀ the attentions of their far more numerous neighbours, and the Creeks and Cherokees would no longer be distracted by the fear of attack by the Choctaw in alliance with the French from the west. During his initial period in North America Glen had some success with this policy, endeavouring in particular to convince the Choctaw that ammunition and powder for their guns could be more readily supplied from Britain than France. In 1748 he reported ‘a perfect battle betwixt’ the pro-French and pro-British Choctaw, ‘the only one that ever I heard of amongst Indians, for they generally carry on their Wars by stratagem and surprize’. Reporting casualties of about 30 on each side, Glen apologised to Newcastle for attaching such importance to an encounter that was so insigniﬁcant in relation to the pitched battles of the European campaigns of the day. Your Grace will laugh when I tell you this was a bloody engagement when Alexander the Great conquered the East and every battle was decisive of the fate of some ancient kingdom or great country it diverted him to read the news that were constantly sent him from Greece that some important pass had been forced with the loss of but one or two of his friends . . . he used to say that it put him in mind of the Wars of the Mice and the Frogs but in these parts of the World these minute matters must be minded.21

However, Glen’s accounts to London of his diplomatic eﬀorts amongst the Indians never mentioned his own commercial interests in extending British trade with the Choctaw through his own company, fronted by a trader named Charles McNaire.22 Viewed negatively, Glen was using his public oﬃce to circumvent established and experienced Charleston traders, such as James Adair, who were well connected to the neighbouring and loyally pro-British Chickasaw. His intentions seem to have centred on a monopoly of Charleston trade with

20 NAS, GD 45/2/1, Letterbook of James Glen, April 1748, 11, James Glen to Board of Trade, n.d. 21 NAS, GD 45/2/1, Letterbook of James Glen, April 1748, 67, James Glen to ‘My Lord’, 29 December 1748. 22 Robinson, James Glen, 44–53, presents a fascinating account of what can be discovered to date of Glen’s private involvement in the Choctaw trade and the opposition to his policy he encountered from the South Carolina Assembly.

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the Choctaw for his own company as much as the purpose of winning the confederation over from the French to the British. Viewed more positively, Glen’s personal involvement tallied with his strong belief in the importance of drawing the southeastern tribes into the British imperial network through trade rather than force of arms. Rather than viewing them as a hostile component of an intractable frontier problem, Glen dwelt on their potential as economic and military partners in a regional economy with a distinctive role within the larger British Empire. Part of the broader ramiﬁcations of this are illustrated in Glen’s use of ‘a Reward of a piece of strouds’ to encourage Catawba Indians to apprehend ‘Northward’ (meaning Iroquois) and ‘French’ (meaning Choctaw) Indians who had penetrated the settled areas of South Carolina under the pretext of waging war on the Catawba. ‘At ﬁrst these Forreign Indians kept sculking in the Woods, but at length they were so emboldened as to break into some of our Planters houses’.23 Glen was using the same esteemed red Stroud cloth from Gloucestershire as a reward that the Iroquois of the north demanded in payment for their fur and skins. To all these native American tribes such cloth represented the physical and visual symbol of the power of the British military presence in North America.24 Goods such as Stroud- made cloth and Birmingham guns formed the material basis of a trading relationship which was to bind the native peoples of southeastern North America ever closer to the British imperial matrix developing in the eighteenth century. W. Stitt Robinson concluded that ‘while initially critical of Native American culture in ethnocentric terms, he [Glen] came to appreciate the Indians’ for their vital role in the international struggle for North America.25 However it is clear Glen overestimated the possibilities of winning over the Choctaw to the British interest. When his support of the Choctaw war chief Shulashummashtabe, know as souber rouge or ‘Red Shoes’ to the French and British, failed with the chief ’s assassination in 1747, he tried to cover up the extent of his involvement. When Indian traders James Adair and Charles McNaire claimed

23 NAS, GD 45/2/2, Letterbook of James Glen, 108–9, James Glen to ‘My Lord’, 2 October 1750. 24 D. Rollison, The Local Origins of Modern Society: Gloucestershire, 1500–1800 (London: 1992), 21 citing F. Jennings, The Invasion of America (New York: 1975), 100, and E. Wolf, Europe and the People Without History (Berkeley, California: 1985), 2. 25 Robinson, James Glen, 135.

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expenses from the South Carolina Assembly Glen distanced himself from the speciﬁc details of trade with particular Indian confederations. In the longer term the majority of the Choctaw remained loyal to France in the face of what they perceived to be a British incitement to civil war.26 Critics of Glen in the South Carolina Assembly, meanwhile, felt that he was at the very least guilty of an overoptimistic view of winning over the Choctaw from the French, and possibly also of abusing his public position in pursuit of private gain. We can get some sense of Glen’s views on an ideal relationship with native tribes through study of his dealings with the Catawba of South Carolina, the subject of James Merrell’s important monograph. Although a work liberally bestowed with references to Glen, it fails to note either his Scottish origins or identity. Merrell’s indictment of Glen is that ‘Indians approached colonists because they wanted help. Colonists went along because they wanted control.’ Merrell quotes Glen’s hope that he could put ‘‘a bridle in the Mouths of our Indians’ so that instead of ﬁnding them chargeable by presents they might easily in a little time be made Tributaries.’27 To Merrell this demonstrated the predatory nature of British imperialism. From another perspective, however, it could be seen as not that diﬀerent from traditional Lowland attitudes towards the clans of the Scottish Highlands. After all, in the eighteenth century the latter were reduced from cattle rustling and blackmail in Lowland border areas to paciﬁc sources of soldiers and cheap labour for the expanding British state and the Lowland Scottish economy that so beneﬁted from it. Similarly, Merrell records Glen’s determination ‘to master Indian rhetoric’ in relation to the failure of the British and the colonial population to grasp native languages in any meaningful sense. Glen, in Merrell’s words, was ‘saying the same words without speaking the same language.’28 Glen and fellow South Carolinian William Bull equated the enemies of the Catawbas and South Carolina as ‘a Herd of numerous Deer’ who should be hunted. On another occasion Glen and a North Carolina oﬃcial assured the Catawba that ‘we and our Brethren the brave Catawbas shall stand ﬁrm together like 26

Robinson, James Glen, 48. J. Merrell, The Indians’ New World: Catawbas and Their Neighbors from European Contact Through the Era of Removal (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: 1989), 150. 28 Merrell, The Indians’ New World, 148–9. 27

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a large mountain which cannot be moved’. This Merrell describes as ‘a metaphor unknown in surviving samples of Catawba speeches.’ Glen also used ‘ﬁre’ in his speeches to denote destruction, according to Merrell, ‘as in ‘the devouring ﬂame of war,’ which must have left his listeners bewildered since, among the Catawbas, the term called up images of peace or council, or a tool for hunting or warming a dwelling’.29 But what was the Scottish Lowland experience of communication with their fellow Highland Scots other than that of uneasy use of Gaelic phraseology in Scots and English terms? Here, too, Lowlanders were arguably attempting to master Highland rhetoric as part of their eﬀorts to ‘civilise’ and pacify the region. From this perspective Glen is not just the cynical imperial outsider sent to South Carolina to exploit the native peoples. He was someone using previous experience of negotiating with fellow Scots who had a diﬀerent language as a template for coping with the frontier situation he found himself responsible for in South Carolina. Other scholars working in a Gaelic-speaking tradition might push the point further.30 Just as it has been argued that the English in Virginia used the lessons of Ireland to establish their plantation there, so Glen was simply re-deploying the hostile aggression of the Lowland lawyer and politician that had been directed towards the Highlands. ‘A Highland connection will pervert a saint’, as the 3rd Duke of Argyll himself (a correspondent of Glen’s) put it in 1754.31 Merrell points out the very name ‘Catawba’ only came into common usage in South Carolina between 1710 and 1720 as ‘colonial shorthand for the communities—Esaw, Sugaree, Shuteree, and others—at the conﬂuence of the Catawba River and Sugar Creek.’ ‘James Glen informed his superiors in 1751’, wrote Merrell, ‘that those nations called by us Catawbas, Creeks, Chickasaws, are sometimes called by other names,’ and added that Glen ‘did not even list the alternatives to ‘Catawbas’’.32 Any student who reads more than superﬁcially about the Camerons, the

29

Merrell, The Indians’ New World, 148–9. Macinnes, Clanship, Commerce, see the index entries under ‘Lowland, estates’ and ‘Lowland peripheries, raiding in’. 31 MS, IB, Bute Papers, bound volume ‘Letters and Papers Relating to Estate and Family of Bute’, Argyll to third Earl of Bute, 3 Nov. 1754; there is a copy of a letter James Glen wrote to the third Duke of Argyll (on botany and natural history) from South Carolina in NAS, GD 45/2/1, Letterbook of James Glen, 50–51, ‘his Grace the Duke of Argyle’, n.d. 32 Merrell, The Indians’ New World, 94. 30

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Macgregors and Clan Chattan may not ﬁnd the usage of the term Catawba in South Carolina entirely unfamiliar.33 Merrell’s study also discussed Glen’s fears in 1749 that the Catawbas, ‘that poor Nation’, would become extinct. Nor was this verdict the product of wishful thinking. If Catawba society was indeed on the edge of the abyss that already had swallowed so many native groups, Glen (who needed allies) was more interested in snatching it back than shoving it over. Nor could his words be written oﬀ as the rantings of an ignorant man. Glen was an avid student of Indians in general and Catawbas in particular. He learned his lessons not only from what he termed ‘attentive and intimate observation, by occular inspection’ of visiting Indians but also from [ John] Evans, tutor of every South Carolina governor since Francis Nicholson, and from [Matthew] Toole, another old Catawba hand.’34 Merrell adds that; ‘Glen, Evans and Toole had not hope for the Nation because they failed to see that they themselves were the Nation’s hope. They were the answer to the Catawbas problems; the Nation, recognising this, came to rely on the very men writing its obituary.’35 Thus Glen became one of only two people (the other was a trader named Christopher Gist) to earn the right to be called ‘father’ by the Catawba nation despite the use of the same words but not the same language that Professor Merrell ascribes to him.36 It could be argued that the role adopted by Glen towards the Catawba and Cherokee was not dissimilar to that of Duncan Forbes in Scotland towards the clans of the Great Glen 20 years previously, or John Campbell, 1st Earl of Breadalbane in his negotiations with the Macdonalds in 1691. That is, all acted in their diﬀerent ways as agents of central political power but also a protector and mediator of the change that had to come.37 Another example of Glen’s adoption of this role in South Carolina was his long campaign to build a fort in the Cherokee ‘Overhill’ country beyond the Appalachian Mountains. For Glen, this would

33 Macinnes, Clanship, Commerce, see index entries under ‘Cameron of Lochiel’, ‘Clan Chattan confederation’, ‘Clan Gregor’; B. Lenman, The Jacobite Clans of the Great Glen, 1650–1784 (London: 1984, reprinted Aberdeen: 1995), passim. 34 Merrell, The Indians’ New World, 134. 35 Merrell, The Indians’ New World, 135. 36 Merrell, The Indians’ New World, 148. 37 P. Hopkins, Glencoe and the End of the Highland War (Edinburgh: 1986, reissued 1998), chapters 8 and 9; Lenman, Jacobite Clans, chapters 5–7.

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bring peace for southern British colonies by ensuring that the French in Alabama remained at more than arm’s length from the powerful Cherokee settlements most distant from Charleston. In this instance we can do more than infer his use of Scottish experience of Lowland negotiation with Highland clans as a means of making sense of the Southern colonial frontier. We know that he used his personal knowledge of ‘riding the bounds’ of his own burgh of Linlithgow (a symbolic exclusion of all rival claims to sovereignty within the circle so identiﬁed), to establish the site of the Overhills fort (later known as Fort Loudoun). In this way British authority would be present in Cherokee country without being of it.38 Much as Inverness or Fort William (previously Inverlochy) were in the Highlands of Scotland but not really of it.39 When Glen began to negotiate in earnest with the Cherokee in 1753, he decided to secure ‘Overhill’ Cherokee support for a fort by ﬁrst building another fort in the ‘Underhill’ Cherokee settlements east of the Appalachians closer to Charleston. As Robinson relates, ‘the Cherokee were willing to donate land for a fort, but Glen stated his intent to purchase ‘a spot of Ground’ along with enough land for soldiers to plant corn and potatoes, ranges for horses, pasturage for cattle, and adequate timber for ﬁrewood. The cession was also to include a 200-foot road as a right of way for 60 miles from the fort to Long Canes settlement, the point of the last purchase in 1747.’40 Once this had been agreed, with The Raven of Toxaway, one of the Underhills chiefs, he and Glen ‘rode the boundaries’. ‘In response to Glen’s information about the tradition of sealing transfers with exchanges of earth, the Raven dismounted and donated a handful of earth and added a hat full of water from the river. . . .’ Glen then ‘closed negotiation with the contribution of goods worth almost £100 in duﬀels, strouds [see above], shirts, guns, powder, bullets and paint.’41 So Fort Prince George (named after the future George III) came to be established in Cherokee country [See Map 4].

38

For Glen and the Cherokee see below. For Glen and Linlithgow see Robinson, James Glen, chapter 1; for the tradition of riding the bounds in Scotland see K.R. Bogle, ‘Riding the Marches in Scotland c. 1500–1996’, unpublished Ph.D., (Edinburgh: 1997). 39 Macinnes, Clanship, Commerce, see index entries under ‘Fort William’ and ‘Inverness’; Hopkins, Glencoe, see index entries under ‘Fort William’ and ‘Inverness’. 40 Robinson, James Glen, 96. 41 See note 24.

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If the initial reception of The Raven of Toxaway for Glen and his party of ‘a hundred warriors in a solemn eagle dance with eagle tails’ had nothing to do with Scotland, ‘riding the bounds’ most certainly did. Through its symbolism Glen transferred a custom of his own country which was rooted in the need to demarcate identity in a Lowland Scottish culture on the frontier between England and the Scottish Highlands.42 In 1755 Glen ﬁnally acquired his site for an Overhills fort. A conference between the Cherokee and an entourage led by Glen culminated on 2 July, with 500 men present on each side. The Cherokee spokesman was Glen’s friend Attacullaculla, ‘The Little Carpenter’. Robinson’s account makes clear that Attacullaculla drew on Glen’s Scottish experience in ritualising the transfer of a little part of Cherokee land to the British Crown in South Carolina. ‘He delivered an oration of such dignity and grace that some contemporaries, probably with some exaggeration, compared him to a Roman or Greek orator. Holding a bow in one hand and a shaft of arrows in the other, the Little Carpenter declared that the Cherokee were now ‘Brothers with the People of Carolina’ and their children were the children of King George. He even had a little child brought forth and presented to Governor Glen with assurance that the child could be a witness to this agreement for the next generation.’43 In Scotland children were often present when boundaries were established between neighbouring farms or between urban burghs and the estates of the aristocratic elites that surrounded them. The extent of the practice was such that beating them to ensure they preserved the memory of what had been established was not uncommon.44 ‘The Little Carpenter continued by opening a small leather bag with earth and presenting a parcel of dirt to be sent to the King to signal the transfer of territory. He then opened another small bag with a similar donation of parched corn ﬂour as evidence of submission of all to the King. Next he presented his bow and arrow as a token of obedience but with the appeal to have better English arms and ammunition to supplement the limited weapons the Indians were able to create. Strings of wampum were added near the end

42 43 44

Robinson, James Glen, 97; Bogle, ‘Riding the Marches’. Robinson, James Glen, 101. Bogle, ‘Riding the Marches’.

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of the Indian presentation. One ﬁnal request was to have the agreements of the conference written down, read to the Indians, and then ﬁnalised by their signatures.’ Robinson comments that ‘it is not certain exactly what the Indians meant by their territorial cession’, but the argument presented here is that comparison with the ceremony two years earlier at Fort Prince George reveals exactly what was meant.45 Attacullaculla was conceding space for an Overhills Fort, and a British presence amongst the Cherokee, rather than ceding or selling land for future settlement. Four years later the Cherokee went to war with the British and massacred the retreating garrison of Fort Loudoun after its surrender. Attacullaculla, however, personally saved the only survivor, John Stuart from Inverness, who later became the superintendent for Indian aﬀairs of the southern American frontier.46 For Attacullaculla, the Cherokee attack of 1759 broke the solemn treaty of 1755 based on Glen’s explanation to him of the signiﬁcance in Scotland of riding the bounds of burghs like his native Linlithgow.47 For Glen, the establishment of what became Fort Loudoun amongst the Overhills Cherokee marked the culmination of his long work for frontier security in South Carolina. To others, such as the neighbouring governors of North Carolina and Virginia, Glen was seeking personal glory through Indian diplomacy at a time when he should have been concentrating on securing Catawba and Cherokee aid for General Braddock’s march on the French at Fort Duquesne in the Ohio River Valley [See Map 4]. The governors concerned, Dobbs and Dinwiddie, had land interests in the Ohio Land Company which ultimately aimed at expropriation of the Cherokee. By contrast, the model for native/British relations Glen was pursuing was that of the Catawba (or the Great Glen clans in Scotland), in which native peoples became part of the imperium rather than excluded and expropriated by it.48 In fact, Glen created the British Indian policy that would distinguish British relations with native peoples on the North American continent long after British authority in the southeastern corner of that continent had passed to an independent United States. The latter, however, chose to take up the Ohio Land Company’s

45 46 47 48

Robinson, James Glen, 101. Alden, John Stuart, 118–120; Snapp, John Stuart, 56. Snapp, John Stuart, 56–7, 86–7; Bogle, ‘Riding the Marches’ Robinson, James Glen, 102.

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assumption that the only means of dealing with native peoples was to push them further west.49 Shortly afterwards Glen’s authority in South Carolina came to an end in 1756, as formal war was declared between Britain and France. Glen remained in North America, however. In the aftermath of Braddock’s defeat on the Pennsylvania frontier he joined his cousin John Forbes (a veteran of Culloden) as he prepared to lead a second British expedition against Fort Duquesne. Glen travelled there from South Carolina when Archibald Montgomery’s 77th Highlanders left Charleston for the north in 1758. When Glen learned of Forbes’s diﬃculties in retaining Cherokee assistance for his march west he oﬀered to help. In the process he pointed out to Forbes that unlike Braddock and his conventional regiments of the line who were dismissive of American colonial assistance in 1755, the British now had the beneﬁt of a force spearheaded by Scottish Highlanders, whose military expertise was more suited to American conditions. The accuracy of such observations would be amply demonstrated in the performance of these units as light infantry from 1759–61. He wrote to Forbes shortly after arrival in Pennsylvania that ‘the great superiority that the French have in Indians can hardly be compensated but by Colonel Montgomery’s Scots Highlanders and Colonel Washington’s American Highlanders.’50 Glen went on to explain that Virginian eﬀorts to secure Cherokee assistance so far to the north were in his opinion misconceived. William Byrd ‘could not prevail upon one Cherokee Indian to follow him but 5 and 2 of which soon returned.’ Facetiously, after complaining of the money Byrd had advanced to Indian traders Glen did not trust in the hope they could inﬂuence the Cherokee. By way of alternative Glen suggested that ‘I think the best way will be to send for a thousand or two of Croatts or pandowrs, I am sure they will be cheaper and more under

49 Robinson, James Glen, 102, see the entries in the indexes under ‘Glen, James’ in Alden, John Stuart and Snapp, John Stuart. More research is needed on the continuity in native diplomacy of Glen and that which Stuart led from the time Glen left South Carolina in 1761. Glen’s work also relates to the impact of Scottish imperialists discussed by Ned Landsman, ‘The Provinces and the Empire: Scotland, the American Colonies and the Development of British Provincial Identity’ in L. Stone, ed., An Imperial State at War: Britain from 1689 to 1815 (London: 1994), 267. 50 NAS, GD 45/2/44/ James Glen to John Forbes, 13 July 1758 (written from Fort Cumberland).

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command than as many hundred Indians.’51 ‘Pandours’ were a military force raised by Baron Trenck in Croatia in 1741 and which became a regiment in the Austrian army notorious for their rapacity and brutality in central Europe during the ensuing decade.52 ‘Notwithstanding of what I have said’, Glen continued . . . till the Croats and Pandowrs arrive, I have ventured to send Expresses with letters to the Cherokee Nation for 200 or 300 Indians, I have promised the person who went 30 shillings for each Warrior provided they be of the principle men of the Nation, and if he brings any of the Leaders that I have written for I shall answer for their behaviour in every respect, and they will answer for their men, as they are persons of authority, and who are allwayes obeyed by their young men.53

The letter concluded by expressing his surprise that Byrd should oppose this, and his mistrust of those advising Byrd on Cherokee aﬀairs. We have no record of Glen’s involvement in the decision to send Montgomery’s Highlanders back to South Carolina after the Cherokee turned against the British in 1759. This temporary reversal in Britain’s fortunes arose partly because French agents had convinced the Cherokee of British intentions to encroach upon their lands. We do know that through Forbes Glen had become a friend of Colonel Henry Bouquet, who took command of the Fort Duquesne expedition after Forbes’s sudden death. Glen was also well known to John Campbell, 4th Earl of Loudoun (another veteran of the ’45), who had overall command of British forces in North America until 1758.54 He was thus well connected to the military authorities and in an ideal position to oﬀer advice and inﬂuence their decisions. It is probable that Glen advised Bouquet that Highlanders were the most

51 NAS, GD 45/2/44/ James Glen to John Forbes, 13 July 1758 (written from Fort Cumberland). 52 Oxford English Dictionary entry for ‘Pandour’. 53 NAS, GD 45/2/44/ Glen to Forbes, 13 July 1758. 54 NAS, GD 45/2/44/ James Glen to John Forbes, South Carolina, 22 March 1758: in the conclusion of this letter Glen wrote that ‘perhaps I may soon see you, and your friends at New York, I esteem John Young, I love you, I honour Lord Loudoun, and if ever I am happy enough to meet that triumvirate, I shall be more full, more open, and perhaps may throw light upon somethings that have hitherto been much shaded. This will be delivered by Col. Bouquet a Gentleman every way worthy of the command with which Lord Loudoun honoured him of a cool head good sense and good manners. . . .’

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suitable troops available to him for Indian warfare. Certainly Montgomery led his regiment against the Cherokee in 1759 after shipping them coastwise from Philadelphia back to Charleston and then marching them up country. He was not in time to save Fort Loudoun, and Montgomery’s decision to retreat after harrying operations in the Cherokee Underhills country has attracted subsequent criticism from American historians. Part of the regiment returned to South Carolina under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel James Grant of Ballindalloch in 1760 to lead renewed eﬀorts to secure peace with the Cherokee. This second eﬀort met with considerable success, providing the basis for John Stuart’s subsequently successful career as Superintendent of Indian Aﬀairs.55 Robinson does not record whether Glen returned to South Carolina with either the Montgomery expedition of 1759 or the Grant expedition of 1760, but he does note that Glen returned to Britain from South Carolina in 1761, ﬁve years after handing over his post as governor.56 Although Glen retained some property interests and family links with South Carolina, the remainder of his life was divided between his estates in Linlithgow and time in London.57 He participated to some degree in political aﬀairs, submitting a paper on American policy to Lord Hillsborough in 1770.58 There is no evidence of Glen recording his views on the Scottish Highlands after his return to Scotland. But by 1761 the agenda he represented had in eﬀect already become common currency. Improvement and cultural change were assumed as manifest destiny for a region that was in the process of being fully incorporated into modern Britain.59 It is the contention of this paper that Scottish Lowland experience of interaction with Scottish Highland

55

P.D. Nelson, General James Grant (Gainesville, Florida: 1993), 16–40. Grant was major in Montgomery’s regiment, later promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. He was second-in-command of the 1760 expedition, and commanded the detachment led by Montgomery’s highlanders sent against the Cherokee in 1761. There are, however, no references to Glen in Nelson’s book. Also see Richard C. Cole, ‘Montgomerie’s Cherokee Campaign, 1760: Two Contemporary Views’, The North Carolina Historical Review, 74 (1997), 19–36. 56 Robinson, James Glen, 119. 57 Robinson, James Glen, 119–131. 58 NAS, GD 45/14/482, Glen to Earl of Dalhousie, 29 March 1770. 59 Macinnes, Clanship, Commerce, chapter 8; A. Mackillop, ‘Highland Estate Change and Tenant Emigration’, in T.M. Devine and J.R. Young, eds., Eighteenth Century Scotland: New Perspectives (East Linton: 1999).

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Gaelic culture over the course of the ﬁrst half of the eighteenth century forms the essential context for any informed analysis of James Glen’s career as governor of South Carolina and his diplomatic successes and failures at the cutting edge of British imperial expansion from 1744 to 1761.

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CHAPTER EIGHT

GOVERNOR ROBERT DINWIDDIE AND THE VIRGINIA FRONTIER, 1751–57 Robert Cain

As editor of a series of record publications, the Colonial Records of North Carolina, it might well be reasonably expected that this short essay would address the career and experience of a Scottish governor in North Carolina. Yet there is in fact good reason for not doing this. Colonial North Carolina had a grand total of three Scottishborn governors. The ﬁrst was William Drummond, governor from 1664 to 1676, and about whom almost nothing is known other than that he was hung by the governor of Virginia as a rebel in 1677. His memory survives largely in the name given a lake in the Great Dismal Swamp on the border between North Carolina and Virginia. The short administration of Thomas Pollock, meanwhile, lasted from 1712–14. The paucity of knowledge concerning Drummond and Pollock is in contrast to the last Scottish governor, Gabriel Johnston, who is admittedly a far better known individual. This is hardly surprising given that he served in that post longer than anyone else in North Carolina’s colonial history—18 years, in fact, from 1734 to 1752. His career, however, is discussed in Chapter 6. Instead, this chapter focuses on a governor of Virginia, Robert Dinwiddie, a colonial administrator who amply qualiﬁes under the themes covered in this collection. Firstly, he was a Scot: secondly, he was very much involved in two developments that were of the ﬁrst importance to the history of the American frontier and westward expansion. These two events were the birth of the Ohio Company of Virginia, and the French and Indian War—a conﬂict lasting nine years (1754–1763) and known on the European side of the Atlantic as the Seven Years War. As governor of Virginia, Dinwiddie administered a colony that had already experienced Scottish individuals as the Crown’s executive oﬃcial. Through the army, the one British institution they had already inﬁltrated in large numbers before 1707, Scots increasingly secured access to colonial employment in the years

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immediately after the Union.1 As early as 1710 Alexander Spotswood was commissioned as deputy-governor to another Scottish military man, Virginia’s absentee governor, George Hamilton, 1st Earl of Orkney.2 By contrast, Dinwiddie’s purely civilian background and career can belie the fact that his governorship coincided with a crucial period in the colony’s military history. Because of the events that occurred during his tenure, Dinwiddie has been remembered as a relatively high proﬁle colonial governor whose career can be gleaned in some detail from both secondary and primary sources. There are two biographies, both of them considerably less than deﬁnitive. Robert Dinwiddie: His Career in American Colonial Government and Westward Expansion by Louis Knott Koontz appeared in 1941. The author’s adulation of his subject was almost total, which cannot but make the reader wonder about his objectivity. The other biography was written by John R. Alden, a distinguished scholar who taught at Duke University for many years: published in 1972, Robert Dinwiddie, Servant of the Crown, is a little over a 100 pages in length and is elegantly written. It also is bare of citations of any kind, and appears to be based almost exclusively on printed sources. In brief, it is time for a new comprehensive biography of Dinwiddie. As for primary sources, Dinwiddie’s personal papers are mostly missing—which is a great pity, since they must have constituted an immense archive. The single noteworthy exception to this paucity is his out letter book for the period of his Virginia governorship, 1751 to the end of 1757. This letter book of oﬃcial correspondence is held by the Virginia Historical Society, and is a vitally important source for the history of the French and Indian War. It was published in two volumes in 1883.3 His oﬃcial dispatches and reports are scattered in various places in the records of the Colonial Oﬃce and of the Customs in the Public Record Oﬃce. But it is regrettable that the absence of correspondence with family and friends has made Dinwiddie the man a very elusive being indeed, particularly 1 N.C. Landsman, ‘The Provinces and the Empire: Scotland, the American colonies and the development of British provincial identity’, in L. Stone, ed., An Imperial State at War: Britain from 1689 to 1815 (London: 1994), 262. 2 B.P. Lenman, “Garrison Government?’: Governor Alexander Spotswood and Empire’, in G.G. Simpson, ed., The Scottish Soldier Abroad, 1247–1967 (Edinburgh: 1992), 68. 3 R.A. Brock, ed., The Oﬃcial Records of Robert Dinwiddie, vols. 1–2 (Richmond: 1883).

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in understanding how he envisaged his role as governor and how he came to construct his policies.4 Robert Dinwiddie was born in 1692, the son of a Glasgow merchant of no particular distinction, also named Robert, and was one of at least nine children. Although Glasgow had become increasingly involved in the Atlantic trade from the 1670s, there were no notable colonial connections in the family as far as we know.5 Yet it is clear that the family did beneﬁt from the burgh’s commercial expansion. In March 1696, a total of 87 Glasgow merchants invested in the Darien scheme then being organised by the Company of Scotland trading to Africa and the Indies. Robert senior was one of only 25 individuals with suﬃcient capital to invest £500 or more. Robert senior’s brother, Lawrence, meanwhile, subscribed another £100.6 Young Robert received a serviceable education at the University of Glasgow. He seems never to have had any particular interest in the classics or in scholarly pursuits. Very little is known of him during what must have been the formative eight years following his leaving the university around 1711. What is known is that he followed his father in the mercantile way, and he may have had an interest in the ﬁrst vessel to enter the American trade from Glasgow in (according to one account) 1718. What is certain is he arrived in Bermuda soon after 1718 and that within a few years he was well established on the island. He was a ship owner and commanded a vessel on a trip to Newfoundland, and probably to Virginia as well. He sold goods at retail in Bermuda, and according to one of his biographers he eventually became ‘the most substantial man of business’ on that island.7 He acquired inﬂuence in London, as well as in Bermuda. Unfortunately, the processes by which this took place are largely unknown. Interestingly, however, he became an intimate friend of the governor of Bermuda, John Bruce Hope, a fellow Scot. He also contracted an advantageous marriage to the only child of

4 The National Register of Archives and National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections report only a few scattered items in various collections. 5 T.C. Smout, ‘The Development & Enterprise of Glasgow, 1556–1707’, Scottish Journal of Political Economy, 7 (1960), 204–11. 6 The Darien Papers: Being a Selection of Original Letters and Oﬃcial Documents Relating to the Establishment of a Colony at Darien by the Company of Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies, 1695–1700 (Edinburgh: 1849), 410–17. 7 L.K. Koontz, Robert Dinwiddie, His Career in American Colonial Government and Westward Expansion (Glendale, California: 1941), 29–32.

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the president of the island’s council, who also happened to be the most prominent Anglican clergyman there. Clearly, his association with Hope was important in ensuring an important initial career step; namely, gaining the attention of the authorities in London. Hope secured him the oﬃce of collector of customs, and recommended him to London for appointment to the council—to which body Dinwiddie was duly posted. So it was that by his late thirties Dinwiddie had risen to the upper rungs of Bermudan society.8 But the future governor set his sights higher. In his capacity as customs collector he began to bombard the Board of Trade with reports on various topics, including illegal trade by the French and Dutch, and the need for a colonial currency. He also suggested that the board employ an itinerant special agent to roam the colonies inspecting and reporting on whatever struck him as newsworthy— somewhat as Edward Randolph had done a generation before. He obviously wanted the job himself, but the Board of Trade did not take him up on his idea. The board did, however, give him a rather handsome appointment in 1738, probably thanks at least in part to the fact that he got along well with Hope’s successor—Alured Popple, of the famous dynasty of Popples at the Board of Trade. The position was that of ‘Surveyor General of the Southern part of the Continent of North America’, a sprawling district comprising the colonies of North and South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Bahama Islands, and Jamaica [See Maps 4 & 5].9 As part of his new employment Dinwiddie sailed to England late in 1739, and there presented the Board of Trade with yet more reports on general imperial matters. These included such eﬀorts as a long essay on the population, trade, and value of British possessions in the New World, and one on British territorial rights in the Caribbean. Having drawn further notice to himself, he departed for the New World, where he established his residence in Virginia. By this time Robert Dinwiddie was well known in London as a capable, blunt, and honest oﬃcial who both thought and cared about Britain’s emerging empire. As a measure of the Board of Trade’s conﬁdence in him, he was entrusted with several special missions to various Caribbean islands looking for incompetence and fraud in the

8 9

Koontz, Robert Dinwiddie, 33–37. Koontz, Robert Dinwiddie, 37–57.

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customs service—and he found plenty of both in Barbados and St. Kitts. He suspended several customs oﬃcials there who had powerful mercantile family connections in London. These connections included the Lascelles family, two of whom were found guilty of fraud against the customs in Barbados. Dinwiddie returned to London in 1746, probably in order to defend himself against the machinations and accusations from the Lascelles and others. He consigned his surveyor-generalship to one of the Virginia grandees (Peter Randolph) and spent the next ﬁve years in London.10 To all appearances he seemed set to reside in London for the remainder of his life, and he gave no indication that he had any plans to return to America. Then the lieutenant governorship of Virginia fell vacant with the resignation of Sir William Gooch, who held the post from 1727 to 1749. (The Lieutenant Governor was the real chief executive, the governorship being an absentee sinecure and held at this time by William Keppel, 2nd Earl of Albemarle. For convenience, therefore, the technically subordinate position will hereafter be referred to as the ‘governor’). Throughout his life Dinwiddie had been adept at cultivating acquaintances and friendships with those who might be useful. Certainly by the 1750s he was known favorably to Henry Pelham at the Treasury; Horatio Walpole; John Carteret, 1st Earl of Granville, President of the Privy Council and a large landowner in North Carolina; and especially to George Dunk, 2nd Earl of Halifax, the expansionist inclined President of the Board of Trade.11 Thus, despite the seemingly peripheral nature of Dinwiddie’s employment in the colonial customs, its centralised structure and stringent accountability to London facilitated his ability to make himself known to prominent Westminster individuals.12 It was not, therefore, a matter of the greatest diﬃculty for him to secure the appointment as lieutenant governor of Virginia. A highly intriguing question is why would he want such a post? At mid-century the colony had a white population estimated at some 231,000 and a black population of around 101,000—which made Virginia by far the most populous of

10 J.R. Alden, Robert Dinwiddie, Servant of the Crown (Williamsburg: 1973), 11–13; Koontz, Robert Dinwiddie, 67–95. 11 Alden, Robert Dinwiddie, 14. 12 For a description of the customs service see J.R. Brewer, The Sinews of Power: War, Money and the English State, 1688–1783 (London: 1989), 101.

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the mainland British colonies. Indeed, almost 20% of the whites in British North America, and over 40% of the blacks, lived in Virginia in 1750. In terms of the extent of area settled in 1750, Virginia was indisputably the leading province. Historically, it also had pride of place as the ﬁrst permanently settled English possession in North America. The colony’s high demographic, social, economic and cultural proﬁle meant that the governor’s post was arguably the most prestigious and prized colonial oﬃce in British North America. This was reﬂected in the fact that, unlike many other such oﬃces where an annual or periodic Assembly vote of supply was required, the governor’s salary was a permanent debit on the colony by virtue of a special tax on tobacco. However, for these very reasons the appointment came at a stiﬀ price. Dinwiddie paid the Earl of Albemarle £3,300 per annum for the honour. This was a tidy sum that Dinwiddie probably would be lucky to recover either from his salary or through perquisites, such as fees for marriage or the one third value of impounded cargoes, which were due to him. In all, it has been estimated that his income was around £2,500.13 Nonetheless, he was in his 60th year when he arrived in Virginia as governor—an age at which one would not normally be expected to seek responsibilities as demanding as those entailed by the governorship of such an important colony. Virginia was not really what one would think of as a frontier colony in terms of density of population, or in the sense that most of its economic and psychic orientation was westward, or that its governmental, legal, commercial, and religious institutions were rudimentary. But Virginia did have a frontier, a quite extensive one, and one that was extremely attractive to the entrepreneurial mind in its undoubted possibilities for exploitation. Furthermore, its frontier and the lands to the west of its frontier were areas of the ﬁrst importance strategically in the chronic struggle between Britain and France for control of North America. The colony’s formal geographic, military and strategic problems, as well as the possibilities for private frontier enterprise, formed the deﬁning backdrop to Dinwiddie’s time as governor. Indeed, the central issue of his administration was how British territorial control and political sovereignty on the one

13 E.B. Greene, The Provincial Governor in the English Colonies of North America (New York: 1966), 59, 61–3.

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hand became ever more indistinguishable from those of private land speculation and proﬁt on the other. Robert Dinwiddie served as governor from his arrival in November 1751, to his departure in January 1758—a bit over six years. His tenure was not without conﬂict and controversy, the most famous of which was over his insistence on receiving a fee for granting land. This policy was driven no doubt by concerns for his own income as well as fears over the Crown’s lack of ﬁnancial security within the colony and the possible repercussions this could have on imperial authority. This chapter, however, will focus fairly narrowly on Governor Dinwiddie and his relationship to the Virginia frontier. He brought undoubted gifts to his task of governing the colony. He had a wealth of colonial experience, one way and another, having been involved in both trade and government since his mid-20s, some 35 years before. Admittedly none of this experience had ever involved him in direct contact with a frontier; indeed, he never in his life set foot near an American frontier, as far as can be determined. However, his mercantile activities would have suggested to him the possibilities for an immense return from investment in the Indian trade on the western fringes of the Empire. Dinwiddie also brought the point of view of a convinced British imperialist. This is unmistakably apparent from many of his writings—especially his reports to the Board of Trade—and such a conviction could not but be a goad to his zeal in prosecuting the imperial war that would be such an important part of his experience as governor. Another signiﬁcant aspect of his tenure, and one that undoubtedly shaped his administration’s character was that he was known to people who mattered, both in government and in the mercantile world. And by and large he was respected in both spheres as someone who did not mind stepping on toes if that was what he thought duty required.14 In short, Robert Dinwiddie brought some important advantages with him to the position of governor of Virginia. It is most probable that he continued to carry on private trading ventures while he held his oﬃcial position. This would not necessarily have been seen at the Board of Trade as a conﬂict of interest, unless it happened to be accompanied by overtly and excessively corrupt activity. While there was an obvious conﬂict of interest over

14

Koontz, Robert Dinwiddie, 51–67.

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his involvement in the Ohio Company and his formal role as manager of the frontier, the only time he was actually accused of mixing proﬁt and oﬃcial position related to the Atlantic trade. In 1757 John Campbell, 4th Earl of Loudoun, commander-in-chief of the British army in North America and successor to Albermarle as titular governor of Virginia, imposed an embargo on civilian shipping in order to acquire military transports. Dinwiddie almost certainly sanctioned the contravention of this policy by sections of Virginia’s merchant community. Loudoun believed he did so because of his continuing concern in Atlantic commercial ventures. This was certainly possible given that Dinwiddie had remained engaged in business of various kinds, not least a joint investment with his brother, Lawrence, in a delft pottery factory in Glasgow.15 More immediately perhaps, his uncharacteristic ﬂexibility over the contravention of British regulations on maritime trade was doubtless an attempt to shore up support within a particular constituency in Virginia. Such support was necessary as Virginians came increasingly to believe that the colony had been dragged into an expensive and unproﬁtable war as a direct result of the governor’s personal commercial interests on the western frontier. This impression arose because his entrepreneurial concerns were engaged in a very signiﬁcant way, indeed from the very beginning of his time as governor, as a shareholder in the Ohio Company of Virginia, as it was called. The ‘Ohio country’ comprised much of Virginia’s northwest frontier, as Virginia was constituted at that time. It took its name from the Ohio River, a tributary of the Mississippi River formed by the conﬂuence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers. The area was west of the Allegheny Mountains, which were the last hurdle for settlers before reaching the fertile rolling plains of the Ohio Country [See Map 4]. In the late 1740s several companies were organised with a view to exploiting the riches of the Virginia frontier by engaging in large-scale speculation in land, while at the same time developing a trade with the Indians. Although clearly a rather contradictory combination of economic pursuits, such activities were nonetheless understood to hold out the prospect of fabulous returns. The Ohio Company of Virginia came into being informally in 1747 when a dozen prominent Virginians

15 S.M. Pargellis, Lord Loudoun in North America (New Naven: 1933), 266–7, 278; Alden, Robert Dinwiddie, 74.

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(‘the cream of Virginia aristocracy’ one source called them), including several Washingtons, a Lee, and a Fairfax, petitioned the Crown for 500,000 acres on the southern bank of the Ohio River. The Privy Council granted 200,000 acres at the forks of the Ohio, in the region of present-day Pittsburgh, and promised 300,000 more if the conditions of the ﬁrst grant were met—most notably building two forts and settling 100 families on the land.16 And since success begets success, if these ventures went well there might well be further grants in the region. In reality, the exact aim behind the company was interpreted along separate and potentially contradictory perspectives. King George’s War (The War of the Austrian Succession) ended in the same month that the company was formally organised—October 1748. To those with interests in the organisation it seemed that London had assessed its utility with at least one eye on actual or possible French aggression. In this respect the fact that the war was inconclusive, at least as far as America was concerned, tended to work to the company’s advantage. Shareholders could easily suggest, without seeming to over-exaggerate, that the French still stood in the way of westward expansion, still controlled the Mississippi River, still seriously interfered with expansion of the Indian trade, and still posed a military threat to the British colonies. It is signiﬁcant that the company could claim to defend Britain’s interest in any one of these particular frontier problems. Thus, while clearly centred on immediate proﬁt, the company was also a vehicle by which provincial economic interests could solicit support in London by playing upon Britain’s strategic paranoia. This process of wrapping up colonial activities in metropolitan sanction often disguised local expansionist impulses on the frontier. This in turn meant policy could seem to be driven by the political centre, not local ﬁgures like Dinwiddie or the land speculators. Certainly, it has been argued that interest groups like the Ohio Company, even with the support of the governor, could not direct London’s strategy and use peripheral leverage to force the metropole into war.17 Yet clearly the message emanating from Virginia was designed to tap into pre-existing London concerns while undermining 16 J. Titus, The Old Dominion at War: Society, Politics, and Warfare in Late Colonial Virginia (Columbia: 1991), 12–14. 17 T.R. Clayton, ‘The Duke of Newcastle, the Earl of Halifax and the American Origins of the Seven Years War’, Historical Journal, 24 (1981), 571–2.

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Newcastle’s preference for peaceably re-establishing the Treaty of Utrecht balance of power.18 Ultimately, it was the Board of Trade that ordered the settlement of German and Swiss Protestants on the frontier in November 1752. Yet this was, in many respects, the metropole validating the Ohio Company’s alarmist assessment of Britain’s declining commercial and demographic control.19 However, whilst those involved in the Ohio venture could play upon Britain’s paranoia, they were not entirely representative. It has been argued that Virginia’s later reluctance to mobilise in 1754–55 sprang from a belief within the colony that only landed families like the Washingtons, Lees, Fairfaxs, as well as the governor would ultimately beneﬁt.20 William Gooch was lieutenant governor of Virginia when the Ohio Company came into being. Gooch favoured two rivals of the organisation when obtaining grants and also sought desperately to avoid annoying the French, lest they be provoked into a war. Gooch had served long and well in Virginia, and the last thing he wanted was to have to deal with a war in the concluding months of his distinguished career there. He was well aware of the real potential for trouble posed by the company’s expansion into territory claimed by France. Consequently, the governor gave the Ohio Company no encouragement whatever, and he was quick to let London know of his deep reservations concerning its project. The company meanwhile undertook a survey of its 200,000 acres (employing in this task young George Washington, only in his late teens at the time), and was opening negotiations with Indians for establishing trade. Governor Gooch resigned his post late in 1749. Robert Dinwiddie was not an organising member of the Ohio Company, but on 27 March 1750 he became a full partner. Each of the 20 partners held the same amount of stock (5%), so Dinwiddie owned as much of the Ohio Company as any other individual.21 Dinwiddie was then in London, where he had resided for four years and appeared content to stay. In 1749 he had divested himself of the oﬃce of surveyor general in the colony. He also relinquished his seat on the council in Virginia, 18 19

BL, Newcastle Mss, Add Ms 32996, f. 25. O.M. Dickerson, American Colonial Government, 1696–1765 (New York: 1962),

330. 20

Titus, The Old Dominion at War, 15. K.P. Bailey, The Ohio Company of Virginia and the Westward Movement, 1748–1792: A Chapter in the History of the Colonial Frontier (Glendale, California: 1939), 35, 325. See also generally A.P. James, The Ohio Company: Its Inner History (Pittsburgh: 1959). 21

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since councillors had to reside in the colony. Signiﬁcantly, he also wrote to the Board of Trade that he had no intention of returning to Virginia. However, the close succession in time of Governor Gooch’s resignation (1749), Dinwiddie’s becoming a partner in the Ohio Company (March 1750), his seeking the appointment as lieutenant governor, and the appointment itself ( July 1751), is certainly worthy of note—although oddly enough neither of his biographers commented on it. The conclusion is inescapable that Robert Dinwiddie wanted the lieutenant governorship of Virginia in almost total measure because of his involvement in the Ohio Company. Given his earlier notiﬁcation to the Board of Trade it is diﬃcult to conceive any other plausible reason for his wanting to return to Virginia. As if in conﬁrmation of this, shortly after he became governor he wrote to the other partners that he was anxious to perform what services he could for the company. There can be little doubt that the activities of the Ohio Company in the area of the forks of the Ohio and, even more importantly, the prospect of its future activities, were the twin engines driving the events culminating in the ‘Great War for Empire.’ The role of Governor Dinwiddie in driving this process forward was to prove crucial. The obvious question therefore arises: how much, if at all, did the governor’s concern with advancing the interests of the Ohio Company inﬂuence his oﬃcial actions on the Virginia frontier? There is no way to give a deﬁnitive answer to this question given the paucity of documentation. Not only are there almost no known Dinwiddie papers that bear on this question, but the archives of the Ohio Company have also for the most part disappeared. (A small cache of them was uncovered and published in the 1950s). It is possible to state with certainty, however, that removal of the French from the region of the forks of the Ohio would be of incalculable importance to the company’s prospects for success, most obviously by securing the Indian fur trade. And Robert Dinwiddie did take active measures that were unmistakably designed to remove the French presence from the region. No less a witness than George Washington stated that there were suspicions in Virginia at the beginning of the war that Dinwiddie had started the conﬂict in order to advance the interests of the Ohio Company.22 The French had begun to occupy

22

Alden, Robert Dinwiddie, 50.

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lands drained by the Ohio River in 1749, shortly after the conclusion of the War of the Austrian Succession. They did this largely in an attempt to eliminate the increasing inﬂuence of British traders in what the French considered their legitimate sphere of interest. Partly as a consequence of the timidity of Governor Gooch in addressing the situation, the French and their Indian allies became increasingly provocative in their activities on the frontier, forcing British traders back across the Allegheny Mountains and killing British settlers in the most gruesome ways imaginable. Governor Dinwiddie’s view of the danger posed to British interests in the region by French incursions was stated trenchantly in a letter of 1754. That it was written to two of his fellow partners in the Ohio Company only gives further credence to the thesis that Dunwiddie’s governorship was driven by a tightly knit interplay of oﬃcial and private interests. ‘If they [the French] have a quiet settlement for two years, we shall never be able to root them out’. Whether the ‘we’ refers primarily to the British nation or to the Ohio Company is unclear. It is telling that when he informed London and other colonial governors of Virginia’s need for men and arms to prosecute the war, the emphasis was exclusively on Britain’s wider imperial interests. By contrast, the Ohio Company was never mentioned explicitly.23 As for the war and Governor Dinwiddie’s place in its history, one is tempted to say that the initiative and energy demonstrated by the governor in the opening phases of this ﬁnal encounter between Great Britain and France over empire in North America ensured ultimate victory for Britain. Certainly a reasonable argument could be made for this thesis. It is plain that with or without the robust actions of the governor, war was inevitable; yet the war would probably not have taken place when and perhaps even where it did without the presence on the scene of Robert Dinwiddie. It was Dinwiddie who in 1752 negotiated a treaty with the Six Nations of Indians, allowing the Ohio Company to build a fort and begin settlements on the southeastern side of the Ohio River. And it was Dinwiddie who kept up an unremitting stream of dispatches to the Board of Trade and secretary of state, pleading for permission to build forts and for the urgent dispatch of British regulars to the frontier. With the demar-

23 See Brock, The Oﬃcial Records of Robert Dinwiddie, passim; P.L.R. Higonnet, ‘The Origins of the Seven Years War’, Journal of Modern History, 40 (1998), 62–5.

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cation between Ohio Company and British interests hopelessly blurred, the Pelham government could do little else but authorise him to build two forts and to employ Virginia’s militia in repelling French incursions by force of arms, if necessary. Furthermore, it was Robert Dinwiddie who sent young George Washington, a lieutenant colonel of the militia, on the fateful mission to stop the French. Thus it was that in May 1754, the unit commanded by Washington killed ten Frenchmen near the forks of the Ohio, and the war was up and running.24 Until he resigned his post and returned to London three and half years later, Dinwiddie exhibited an almost religious fervour in doing everything he could to inspire, wheedle, goad, shame, and frighten his own colony of Virginia into doing battle with the French. And he attempted the same with neighbouring colonies through a staggering volume of correspondence.25 He suﬀered crushing disappointments time after time in trying to get his assembly to vote funds or to raise troops, and equally crushing disappointments in his attempts to persuade the Carolinas and Maryland and Pennsylvania to do the same. Circumstances varied from colony to colony, but assemblies usually appeared to think that curbing the French was some other territory’s business rather than its own. It was with good cause, then, that he peppered his letters and dispatches to London with such phrases as ‘Lethargic Stupidity’ and ‘intolerable obstinacy’ in condemning the inactivity of the colonies. He once wrote, in a striking and perhaps revealing turn of phrase that the colonists’ ‘great Neglect in preserving their private Properties is not to be paralleled in History’. His exertions yielded successes, to be sure, but more often they did not. Nevertheless, his tenacity remained almost unshakeable, even after the stunning defeat in June 1755 of General Edward Braddock and his force of 2,200 men, two-thirds of whom were British infantry and artillery, not colonials.26 Dinwiddie, according to his own account, read the news of the catastrophe with tears in his eyes. The adverse military situation from 1754–7 served to entrench the centralising, regulatory emphasis that already characterised his preferred method

24

B.P. Lenman, Britain’s Colonial Wars, 1688–1783 (London: 2001), 121–22. The Oﬃcial Records referred to above contain what appears to be the entire body of Dinwiddie’s correspondence with London and with governors and others in America relating to the prosecution of the war. 26 Alden, Robert Dinwiddie, 82; NLS, Minto Papers, Ms 11005, f. 34. 25

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of governorship. He was in fact lukewarm to the Albany federation plan with its proposals for an American General Council and British appointed President. Yet, to Dinwiddie, the war clearly exposed the weakness of the North American empire’s political structure. Already unhappy at the assemblies’ commercial privileges, such as their ability to print paper currency, the need to mobilise for hostilities convinced him of the necessity for greater regulation over their ﬁscal powers. More generally, it brought home to him the need for a fundamental reappraisal of the whole political relationship between the colonies and the metropole. The failure of Pennsylvania in June 1754 to supply £20,000 for Braddock’s expedition prompted a proposal by him to London that Parliament oblige the colonies to raise defence funds. This was to be accomplished through a poll tax of one shilling. He repeated the idea to his patrons Granville and Halifax in July of the same year, and again in February 1755. This tendency to critically review the colonies’ commitment to imperial defence was intensiﬁed by Dinwiddie’s belief that British regulars were the only real military solution, especially given the problem of mobilising colonial militias. On 4 January 1756 he asked London for two new regular battalions. Well aware that Halifax was unhappy at internal colonial division over the war eﬀort, he knew this request would highlight the issue of who was to pay for such men. This explains why his next policy statement on ﬁnance in February followed hard on the heels of his plea for regulars. He suggested that Parliament order the assemblies to levy a poll tax of two shillings per acre of settled land to pay for a permanent garrison in North America of 1,850 men.27 This suggests that Dinwiddie’s relationship with military conﬂict was both subtle and ambiguous. He clearly believed that war was a useful expedient to augment and reinforce the basis of his ﬁnancial resources. Yet, simultaneously, the war prevented serious consideration of Dinwiddie’s ﬁscal suggestions. Nonetheless, they serve to underline how a governor faced with a frontier almost inevitably had to deal with military issues. Similarly, although from a ‘civilian’ background, it is telling that Dinwiddie came to the same conclusions as military men like Lord Loudoun. All increasingly espoused a less sympathetic, more authoritarian British attitude towards colonial administration after 1757.28 Despite the constant frustration,

27 28

BL, Newcastle Mss, Add Ms 32996, ﬀ. 3, 350; Alden, Robert Dinwiddie, 79–86. Pargellis, Lord Loudoun, 186, 348.

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he persevered until January 1757 when, in his 67th year, he returned to London. From there he could observe the tide of battle turn decisively against the French. The eventual British victory in the contest was thanks in no small part to the labours of this formidable Scotsman. It is worth remarking at this point that his Scottishness did not go unnoticed in the colony. An anonymous satirist wrote that Dinwiddie was a ‘staid elderly Mon, that has been bred up on the way of turning the penny the rite way, into his own pocket.’ And a frontiersman was arrested for calling the governor a ‘Scotch peddling son of a bitch’.29 Such attacks extended across many aspects of his controversial administration and were in fact hardly surprising. Virginian society was self consciously Anglican and immensely proud of its status as England’s ﬁrst North American colony. Colonial reaction against the Scots tends to be associated with the 1760s and 1770s and the halcyon days of Glasgow’s prominence in the tobacco trade. However, as early as 1727, prominent Virginian elites like the Byrd family hoped that the death of George I and a new ministry in London would ensure that ‘even Scotchmen [are] conﬁned to their own country’.30 Satirical verse claimed that Dinwiddie’s loyalty to Anglicanism’s established position in the colony was mere show, and that in his heart he held to the principles of the Presbyterian Kirk. Yet however easily Scotland’s established religion could be used to undermine his position as governor, it clearly had little or no bearing on Dinwiddie’s actions. His marriage tied him to a clerical family with impeccable Anglican credentials, and it has been suggested he may well have converted to Anglicanism.31 Indeed, his Presbyterian background manifested itself most obviously in his determination to ensure it gave no cause for weakening his political authority. He seems, therefore, to have gone out of his way at the start of his administration to consciously demonstrate his support for Anglicanism. He denied the Presbyterian minister, Reverend Samuel Davis, who was well acquainted with Dinwiddie’s sister in Cambuslang, the right

29

Alden, Robert Dinwiddie, 64, 69. M. Tinling, ed., The Correspondence of the Three William Byrds of Westover, Virginia, 1684 –1776 (Charlottesville: 1977), 365. 31 Alden, Robert Dinwiddie, 8, suggests he married a daughter of the Reverend Andrew Auchinleck, who may possibly have been an Episcopal minister deposed from his Scottish parish after the revolution in 1689. See H. Scott, ed., Fasti Ecclesiæ Scoticanæ: the succession of ministers in the parish churches of Scotland from the Reformation, ad. 1560, to the present time: vol. I (Edinburgh: 1866), 296. 30

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to extend the number of prayer-meeting houses he could preach. While doubtless shaped by his own Glasgow upbringing, he also made noticeably anti-Catholic remarks with regard to Maryland. This would have played well with Anglican- minded Virginians. Such actions suggest that Dinwiddie was aware his Scottishness needed to be shown as irrelevant, and not as a factor which would meaningfully inﬂuence his decisions. He certainly did not automatically favour or align himself with Scots. He disagreed fundamentally with governor James Glen of South Carolina over the issue of frontier defence.32 Similarly, he all but accused another Scot, Colonel Thomas Dunbar, of cowardice after he ordered the headlong retreat of British regulars to winter quarters in Philadelphia in the aftermath of Braddock’s defeat.33 This raises the question of whether Dinwiddie’s Scottishness is actually relevant to a study of his governorship, or whether it should be considered as an element inﬂuencing the nature or style of his administration? After all, issues of imperial authority, international conﬂict and Atlantic commerce vexed all British oﬃcials and, in turn, tended to produce generally similar ideas for their solution. Moreover, years of employment in the customs would have ensured Dinwiddie developed a sense of professional outlook and regard for authority that was truly British in character.34 However, it remains the case that opposition to Dinwiddie often expressed itself through the motif of explicit Scotophobia. Contemporary satire picked up on two distinct themes in this respect: ﬁrstly, his favouritism towards fellow countrymen. It was noted that when it came to appointing oﬃcers to the Virginia militia regiment: Then if of Scots, or Irish race, or English never mind; For courage to no certain place, can ever be conﬁned.35

The evidence gives some nominal, though hardly convincing, support to this particular accusation. In May 1754 Dinwiddie appointed

32

W.L. Saunders, ed., The Colonial Records of North Carolina, 5 (New York: 1968), 412. Alden, Robert Dinwiddie, 59, 62. See also Chapter 7. 34 Brewer, The Sinews of Power, 84. 35 R.B. Davis, ed., ‘The Colonial Virginia Satirist: mid-eighteenth-century commentaries on politics, religion, and society’, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series, 57.1 (1967), 19. 33

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his friend, James Innes, colonel of the regiment. Innes later resigned in 1755 after failing to acquire a regular commission. Virginian opposition factions played upon the idea that should his replacement, George Washington, resign, it was sure to be another Scot who would receive the vacant post.36 Pressure was certainly exerted upon Dinwiddie by Scots who pushed him to place their relations. His continuing involvement in the Glasgow mercantile scene through his brother Lawrence, for instance, helped determine some of his associates once he moved to London. This in turn often determined the background of individuals he would later assist in the colonies. Scottish acquaintances like Richard Oswald, who had overlapping Glasgow and London connections, were given letters of introduction and recommendation to Virginian merchants and planters. The prominent trader, Sir Alexander Grant of Dalvey, who became acquainted with Dinwiddie in London, asked the governor to assist his son William in Virginia.37 Yet beyond giving social respectability and useful economic contacts to his Glasgow and London-Scots associates, there was little Dinwiddie had to oﬀer. This was largely because the patronage open to him was not particularly impressive. Oﬃces like the county sheriﬀs, which were in the governor’s gift, lost their use as easily disposable patronage because of the assembly’s insistence that candidates have three years experience as resident Justices of the Peace.38 The institution of the Virginia militia regiment represented one of the few sources of oﬃces Dinwiddie had within his gift. Not surprisingly, therefore, this was an area of Virginia’s governmental establishment he took a particularly interest in and was keen to develop. His right to nominate oﬃcers had not been undermined to any real degree by the assembly and the war made any expansion relatively easy to justify. In all, he appointed or promoted 15 oﬃcers in 1754. His reform of the regiment’s recruitment entailed dividing the colony into four districts, each with set manpower targets. The appointment of adjutants for these districts represented a blatant increase in the pool of employment at Dinwiddie’s disposal. This, it was hoped or feared, depending on perspective, would enhance the governor’s

36

Dickerson, American Colonial Government, 47, 93 and 103. D. Hancock, Citizens of the World: London Merchants and the Integration of the British Atlantic Community, 1735–1785 (Cambridge: 1995), 53, 139. 38 W.L. Morton, ‘The Local Executive in the British Empire, 1763–1828’, English Historical Review, 78 (1963), 438–39; Greene, The Provincial Governor, 115. 37

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political interest in the colony. This explains why the accusation, ‘Now needless oﬃces each day to crush us are contriving’ was levelled against him. Such negative perceptions were doubtless compounded by his appointment of a Scot, Colin Campbell, to one of the four new positions.39 This attempt to build up a political interest that was not dependent on the assembly also explains in part Dinwiddie’s zeal for British regulars. While dictated primarily by concern for the colony’s defence, his attitude may well have been inﬂuenced by the tendency to see military oﬃces as a natural buttress to his authority. This hope was heightened in the autumn of 1755 when it appeared that William Home, 8th Earl of Home, was to raise a regiment of 1,000 men in Dinwiddie’s own home town of Glasgow. The regiment was then to be sent to form the mainstay of the colony’s regular garrison.40 Although the regiment never actually materialised, it appeared for a short time that a number of prominent Glasgow elites might well appear in Virginia as King’s oﬃcers. This prospect could only have gladdened Dinwiddie. Such individuals could be trusted through the inﬂuence of mutual overlapping networks in Scotland. Likewise, their social status and political authority as metropolitan oﬃcials would have augmented the governor’s prestige within Virginia itself. The second theme within contemporary satire related to how his Scottishness was interpreted within the colony. His supposed reliance on Scots was believed to form a dimension or mechanism of his administration. The same satirist who criticised his refusal to use local Virginians as militia oﬃcers noted of his supposed reliance on ‘Saunders’, namely Colin Campbell: Saunders, I’ve muckle cause to greet Your absence lang frae Palace St [governor’s residence] What Mon! ye never now come near me Wanting ye, I’ve nane to steer me.41

As with the alleged inﬂuence of Presbyterianism, this accusation rested more on a climate of opposition to the executive, and a willingness to use pre-existing and readily comprehensible prejudices to articu-

39 Davis, ‘The Colonial Virginia Satirist’, 24–25, fn. 25, 36, fn. 35; Saunders, The Colonial Records of North Carolina, 125. 40 BL, Newcastle Mss, Add Ms 32996, f. 218. 41 Davies, ‘The Colonial Virginia Satirist’, 22, fn. 3, 36.

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late this opposition.42 Such rhetoric and imagery did not mean that Scottish inﬂuence was particularly pervasive. In turn, however, the clearly political and opportunistic nature of such criticism should not disguise the fact that Dinwiddie did rely on his Scottish connections in certain crucial respects. This reliance was centred on LondonScots, however, and not within Virginia itself. It was certainly the case that Dinwiddie used John Blair, the Scots born son of Commissary James Blair, both on his council and to negotiate with the assembly. However, while Virginia and New York had attracted a relatively large proportion of Scottish emigrants by the 1750s, the former was still overwhelmingly Anglican and Scots-Irish in its demographic makeup.43 This meant that Dinwiddie could not expect to ﬁnd even a small minority of Scottish burgesses that might be mobilised as a voting bloc in the lower house.44 This colonial context explains why the governor relied instead on his pre-existing London-Scots network to ensure the implementation of his policies. Not least amongst those who acted for him was James Abercrombie from Clackmannanshire, his agent in London. James was a prominent colonial oﬃcial who, like Dinwiddie, was at the forefront of discussion on reform of the Atlantic empire’s commercial and administrative basis.45 Abercrombie represented Dinwiddie at the Board of Trade against the House of Burgesses during the fees controversy. Likewise, the governor’s legal and constitutional case was presented by another Scot, William Murray, later 1st Lord Mansﬁeld. Mansﬁeld agreed absolutely with the need for greater ﬁnancial independence for the executive and concurred with the governor’s belief that a determined military stance should be taken against the French.46 Such contacts reveal just how well connected Dinwiddie was at the centre of power. Indeed, part of the problem underpinning Dinwiddie’s relationship with the Virginia Assembly probably sprang from this metropolitan connection. Because he could revert so quickly to it, and trusted its

42 W.M. Billings, J.E. Selby and T.W. Tate, Colonial Virginia: A History (White Plains, New York: 1986), 256–7. 43 G. Donaldson, The Scots Overseas (London: 1966), 43–44. 44 For the lack of any Scottish burgesses with a background or commercial/political connections that would have overlapped with Dinwiddie’s see L. Griﬃth, The Virginia House of Burgesses (Montevallo, Alabama: 1968), 66–127. 45 L. Namier and J. Brooke, eds., The History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 1754 –1790, 2 (London: 1964), 2–3. 46 O.A. Sherrard, Lord Chatham: Pitt and the Seven Years War (Bodley Head: 1958), 50.

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eﬀectiveness completely, he put rather less eﬀort into winning over local interests than was advisable. The known details of the life of Robert Dinwiddie leave no doubt that he was a ﬁgure of more than passing consequence to the development and consolidation of the British Empire. Much about his career, however, remains tantalisingly elusive. For example, the process by which he established himself in the world—from comparatively modest beginnings to substantial merchant and high oﬃcial in Bermuda and beyond—has never been fully elucidated. On the one hand the leverage he acquired with ﬁgures like Halifax reveal that few if any barriers prevented a disciplined, assiduous imperial oﬃcial from being fully accepted into metropolitan governing circles, regardless of his particular British background. On the other, his reliance on Scottish ties continued. They evolved, in eﬀect, as a web of London contacts that would ensure this hard won recognition was not forgotten by his metropolitan masters. And the most intriguing question of all in any consideration of governor Dinwiddie and the Virginia frontier: in what way did his decisions in the earliest days of imperial conﬂict in the Ohio country relate to his interest in the Ohio Company of Virginia? These and other questions await a biographical treatment worthy of the man.

CHAPTER NINE

ROBERT MELVILLE AND THE FRONTIERS OF EMPIRE IN THE BRITISH WEST INDIES, 1763–17711 Douglas Hamilton

In 1763, after the end of the Seven Years War, Britain acquired new territory in the West Indies. The Caribbean islands of Dominica, Grenada, St. Vincent and Tobago, occupied by British forces during the war, were formally transferred to the British Empire after their capture from French control. Overall military and civilian command of these Ceded Islands was handed to General Robert Melville, a post he retained, including a long furlough in London, until 1771.2 The appointment of a Scot to such an important colonial position was far from rare in this period. The three other new governorships established in the British Atlantic world in 1763—in East Florida, West Florida and Quebec—were all ﬁlled by Scots. As these appointments were made in London, it is evident that Scots had succeeded, at the very least, in becoming well connected in the metropolitan elite. In recent years, there has been a profusion of scholarship that, to a greater or lesser extent, has highlighted the importance of ‘concentric identities’ in the emergence of eighteenth century British consciousness.3 There was no inherent contradiction between being aware 1 I am grateful to the editors and to Dr. Robert Blyth of the National Maritime Museum, London and Kariann Yokota of Yale University for their comments on a draft of this chapter. 2 The islands of Dominica, Grenada, St. Vincent and Tobago form part of the Windward archipelago in the Caribbean. During Melville’s term as Governor, they were variously known as the Neutral Islands, the Southern Charibee Islands and the Ceded Islands. Here, for the sake of simplicity, they are referred to as the Ceded Islands. 3 See, for example, C.A. Bayly, Imperial Meridian: The British Empire and the World, 1780 –1830 (London and New York: 1989), 15; L. Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837 (London: 1992); C. Kidd, ‘North Britishness and the Nature of EighteenthCentury British Patriotisms’, Historical Journal, 39 (1996), 361–382; S.J. Connolly, ‘Varieties of Britishness: Ireland, Scotland and Wales in the Hanoverian State’ and P.J. Marshall, ‘A Nation Deﬁned by Empire, 1755–1776’, in A. Grant & K.J. Stringer,

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at once of having kin-based, Scottish, British and Greater British layers of identity. Many Scots evinced a great ability to shift between layers as required. As we shall see, Melville’s evident ﬂexibility in identifying with Scottish, metropolitan and colonial interests not only enhanced his access to the elite but also marked him as a genuinely British governor and inﬂuenced the way he managed complex interactions in the Ceded Islands. In seeking to understand the actions of this colonial governor and the contexts in which he operated, this essay will use the concept of the ‘frontier’ as a lens through which to view imperial governance. The ‘frontier’ in this sense diﬀers from a ‘border’. Whereas ‘border’ suggests a physical line between territories, for the purposes of this discussion, the ‘frontier’ may be deﬁned as a zone of contact between peoples and ideas, both within and without a speciﬁc territorial space, where issues are mediated and conventions adapted. These discourses may be either confrontational or conciliatory. The interfaces shift as pressure is applied from one side or the other.4 For the purposes of this essay, ‘frontiers’ are also diﬀerentiated from ‘borders’ by their variety of guises; they are not conﬁned to a geographical context. Beginning with the territorial frontier, this chapter will examine in turn some of these ﬂexible frontiers as they were deﬁned in the Ceded Islands. In doing so, it will portray imperial governance as a process of accommodation, demonstrating the extent to which governors were able to press their personal agendas within their own governments, as well as having them amended by local pressures or the constraints of oﬃce. Robert Melville was born at Strathkiness in Fife in October 1723, the son of a Presbyterian minister [See Map 1]. He was educated at the grammar school at Leven and at the universities of Glasgow and then Edinburgh, where he began to study for a degree in medicine. Instead of completing his studies, he entered the British army as an ensign in 1744, seeing service in Flanders in the King’s Own

eds., Uniting the Kingdom? The Making of British History (London: 1995), 193–207, 208–222. 4 For a recent discussion of the issue of ‘frontiers’ and ‘borderlands’ in colonial North America see J. Adelman and S. Aron, ‘From Borderlands to Borders: Empires, Nation States, and the Peoples in Between in North American History’, American Historical Review, 104, 3 (1999), 814–841. See also the critiques of Adelman & Aron’s article by E. Haeﬂi, C. Ebert Schmidt-Nowara, J.R. Wunder and P. Hamalainen, and their responses, American Historical Review, 104, 4 (1999), 1221–1239.

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Scottish Borderers until 1748. During the Austrian War of Succession his regiment returned to Scotland, to garrison Blair Castle during the ’45 Jacobite Rebellion. He was then posted to Ireland, where he served until 1755. In 1756 he was promoted to Major and despatched to the West Indies, where he was to make his name. He served, with some distinction, throughout the Seven Years War. By 1759, he had been promoted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, commanding the 38th Regiment, and was also acting as lieutenant governor in Grenada. He was promoted once more in 1760, this time to the command of the captured French island of Guadeloupe.5 His success as a soldier made him a likely candidate for promotion to governor. As a senior soldier, he was likely to embody the virtues of discipline, leadership and loyalty to the Crown, in addition to his practical understanding of the military requirements of defence. These particular qualities were much sought after by the British government as it sought to secure its imperial domains. James Grant in East Florida, George Johnstone in West Florida and James Murray in Quebec were all serving soldiers when they were appointed in 1763. As Mackillop points out in his chapter, Archibald Campbell of Inverneil was similarly qualiﬁed when he was made ﬁrstly governor of Jamaica and then of Madras from 1785. Although Melville came from a rural part of Scotland, his university education and army service provided him with a very much more cosmopolitan perspective. Indeed, his career trajectory, from a childhood in a Presbyterian manse in eastern Scotland to the civilian command over a major new colonial government, is in itself an important indicator of the social and national mobility facilitated within the British realms by imperial engagement. Melville also displayed a particular interest in matters pertaining to the environment and science, and pursued these interests through fellowships of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, both the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Arts in London, and the British Board of Agriculture.6

5 Aspects of Meville’s life may be found in: V.L. Oliver, ed., Caribbeana, Being Miscellaneous Papers relating to the History, Genealogy, Topography, and Antiquities of the British West Indies (6 vols., London: 1909–1919), 3, supplement, 33; R.H. Grove, Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens and the Origins of Environmentalism 1600–1800 (Cambridge: 1995), 268–269; NAS, Balfour-Melville Papers, GD 126/30 Handwritten Biography of Robert Melville, n.d. 6 NAS, Balfour-Melville Papers, GD 126/30, Biography of Melville, 94–95; Grove, Green Imperialism, 268–269.

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These scientiﬁc concerns were to play a key role in his governance of the Ceded Islands. Melville’s membership of the organisations, especially those based in London, suggest a strong metropolitan inﬂuence in his attitudes, beyond those required and fostered by government service. The later part of the eighteenth century witnessed a proliferation of clubs throughout the British Atlantic world, and Melville was a willing member of several of the more obscure. He was a senior member of the Most Antient and Most Puissant Order of the Beggar’s Bennison and Merryland. This little known Order was organised in the style of a Masonic lodge and specialised in a remarkable range of salacious activities. A member of the London Chapter, Melville was appointed Grand Master of the Tropical Chapter of the Beggar’s Bennison and Merryland between the Tropics in 1764, and granted the power to elect whichever ‘Knights’ he desired. Importantly, his jurisdiction did not apply to Jamaica, implying, perhaps, the existence of a chapter there. Shortly after his arrival in Grenada, he was appointed Provincial Grand Master of the Freemasons, and also granted leave to form a Grenadian Lodge of the Hob or Nob Society, or School of Temperance in 1764, a group he had joined in London in 1761.7 This latter membership must have sat very uneasily next to his association with the Beggar’s Bennison, but suggests the importance for Melville of having personal access to ‘useful’ members of society in Britain and the colonies. The Hanoverian political machine was lubricated by patronage and clearly he regarded these organisations as fora in which he could establish eﬀective links with important individuals in the islands. These memberships also involved a blurring of his roles of public servant and private citizen; an overlap that recurred in a number of diﬀerent situations. As the governor, Melville had myriad responsibilities and considerable inﬂuence. Indeed, in the 1790s, the planter-historian Bryan

7 NAS, Balfour-Melville Papers, GD 126/28/2/4, Certiﬁcate conferring status of Provincial Grand Master, 26 March 1764; GD 126/29, Certiﬁcate in Favour of Sir Robert Melville, as Knight Companion of the Beggar’s Bennison, 24 May 1759; Appointment to Grand Master of the . . . Beggar’s Bennison 1764; GD 129/30, Commission to Robert Melville to be a Patron of all the Hob or Nob Societies in the Government of Grenada. For more on this organisation, and their bawdy entertainments, see A.G. Cross, ‘The Order of the Beggar’s Benison in Russia: An Unknown Episode in Scoto-Russian Relations in the Eighteenth Century’, Scottish Slavonic Review, 3 (1984), 45–63. The ‘Sir’ appellation refers to his knighthood in the Order, and was not conferred by the monarch.

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Edwards averred that the power of the governor in the colony exceeded those ‘which the laws of England allow to the sovereign himself ’.8 The governor appointed the islands’ councillors, judges and justices of the peace. He presided over the Court of Chancery and the Court of Error. He also had the right to call and dissolve the Assembly, and to veto legislation passed by it. In addition, as captaingeneral, he had command over the land forces stationed in the colonies.9 For all this power, however, Melville still faced some daunting challenges in establishing the new territories as viable British colonies.

Physical frontiers Although the colonies under Melville’s government were all islands and had no exterior territorial borders as such, they faced both external and internal threats to their integrity. The islands, seized in war, were all situated close to French and Spanish colonies. Dominica, lying between Guadeloupe and Martinique, and St. Vincent to the south of St. Lucia, were in particularly sensitive strategic positions vis-à-vis the French [See Map 5]. This was especially the case because the islands continued to support large French populations: in Grenada the 3,500 French settlers outnumbered the British community in the mid-1760s. In St. Vincent, where the land had been divided under French rule between European and Black Carib zones, the Black Caribs contested the new borders imposed on them by their new neighbours and sought, throughout this period, to thwart, often forcibly, the ambitions of the settlers.10 In this sense the ‘frontier’ was centred largely on perceptions of a physical boundary. Conﬂict between Carib and Briton emerged when the latter sought to redraw the line separating the two communities. Meanwhile, British fears of French military action ensured that the former never regarded their possessions as entirely secure.

8 B. Edwards, The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies (5 vols., 5th edition: 1819) 2, 391. 9 Edwards, The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies, 2, 386–390; see also I.K. Steele, ‘The Anointed, the Appointed and the Elected: Governance of the British Empire, 1689–1784’, in P.J. Marshall, ed., The Oxford History of the British Empire, vol. II: The Eighteenth Century (Oxford: 1998), 110–111. 10 The Black Caribs of St. Vincent were so-called as a result of miscegenation between the few remaining native Carib-Indians and runaway slaves.

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Of immediate concern was the requirement to build up the white British population with a stake in the islands. This, it was envisaged, would have a two-fold eﬀect. In the ﬁrst place, it would foster the economic development of the islands. But if anything, the second, strategic imperative was even stronger than the commercial one. A large body of British planters who had invested in the islands could man the militias in defence of their property should the French seek to regain their lost territories, the Black Caribs become militant, or the slaves revolt. To a large extent, this need to secure contested territory explains why so many military men became civilian colonial governors. In March 1764, a land commission, chaired by a Scot, William Young, was established to oversee and regulate the sales of Crown land in the Ceded Islands.11 Its rationale was explicitly that of curtailing damaging land speculation and ensuring that purchasers settled on their new estates quickly. Estate purchases could be made with 20% of the value deposited, and the remainder paid oﬀ within ﬁve years. The purchaser was responsible for clearing for cultivation at least ﬁve per cent of this land per annum under an annual penalty of ﬁve pounds per uncleared acre. Moreover, the leases also stipulated that for every 100 acres, the owner must introduce one white man or two white women, under penalty of £40 per man and £20 per woman.12 Melville himself sought actively to promote settlement in the islands, as the Scots Magazine reported in April 1765: They write from Granada [sic], the Gov. Melville, with a disinterestedness that cannot be suﬃciently applauded, has already given up as much of his own legal perquisites as amounts to some hundred pounds sterling, in order to ease the expence of settling the new-comers. He has also established a printing oﬃce at his own expence, which greatly accelerates trade.13

11 D.H. Murdoch, ‘Land Policy in the Eighteenth-Century British Empire: The Sale of Crown Land in the Ceded Islands, 1763–1783’, Historical Journal, 27, 3 (1984), 549–574. William Young was born in Antigua in 1725, the son of a Scottish doctor in the island. He had been a member of the Antigua Council in 1761, before becoming Chairman of the Land Commission. He went on to become Governor of Dominica. His colleague on the Antigua Council, James Brebner (later James Gordon) became Chief Justice of the Ceded Islands. Later, in 1783, Young and Melville went on a mission to Paris to safeguard the rights of British settlers in Tobago, which was ceded in France after the American War of Independence. 12 The proclamation issued by John Greg on behalf of the Land Commission on 19 January 1765 was published in full in Scots Magazine, 27 ( June 1765), 291–294. 13 Scots Magazine, 27 (April 1765), 216.

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The governor also embarked on private ventures to purchase land in three of the four islands in his government. Using a series of intermediaries, he secured more than 1,000 acres in Dominica and several hundred between Grenada and Tobago, despite the restrictions on sales. Indeed, while Melville may not have broken the letter of any guidelines, it is clear that his purchasing strategy saw him at least stretch the spirit of the law on land acquisition. According to an anonymous, handwritten biography of Melville, which might in fact be his own memoir, these purchases were not driven by selﬁsh desires. They were instead designed to act as spur to other colonists; Melville, the piece claims, led by example.14 This altruism on Melville’s part was complemented by the attitude of the British periodical press that often ran stories commenting on the ‘healthfulness’ and fertility of the islands. Dominica and St. Vincent both had champions in the Scottish press. A report in the Scots Magazine noted, in addition to the ‘extremely rich’ soils in Tobago, the island promised the opportunity for many people to ‘raise genteel fortunes’.15 That said, however, it was recognised that starting out in the colonies was an expensive undertaking, and that the Ceded Islands were having problems attracting newcomers. As a result, certain plots of land were reserved for ‘poor settlers’ and, in Grenada, legislation was introduced by a Scotsman, Torquil MacVicar, with the intention of ‘subsisting them [white people] for a certain time & providing them with land that they may become settlers’.16 Ironically, though, the more successful were these measures to increase the white population, the greater was the likelihood that they would antagonise the Black Carib population. Land hungry Europeans turned their attention to territories reserved for Caribs. Again, though, the Scottish press as far as possible imparted a positive spin on the situation. In 1766, the Scots Magazine reported that, in Dominica, ‘[t]he Native Indians are said to be courteous and aﬀable.’17 In St. Vincent, however, the conﬂict between the native and immigrant population was harder to disguise.

14 15

NAS, Balfour-Melville Papers, GD 126/30, Biography of Melville, 43. Scots Magazine, 26 (May 1764), 283; 27 (April 1765), 216; 28 (August 1766),

443. 16 PRO, CO 104/3(77–78) Grenada Sessional Papers: Minutes of the Assembly of Grenada and the Grenadines, 30 September 1769. 17 Scots Magazine, 28 ( January 1766), 69.

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The physical deﬁnition of boundaries between tracts of Crown land in the island was the responsibility of the surveying team. Their function, so essential for the colony in demarcating new lands for plantations and roads to facilitate communication, brought the local colonial authorities into conﬂict with the Black Carib population. Under French rule before 1763, the island had been split in two, with the Black Caribs occupying the more fertile half. Local attempts to redraw these boundaries, and the tendency to regard Black Carib land as virgin land, was viewed with much less enthusiasm by the Caribs. The Land Commission established in 1764 recommended that the Caribs be moved to the small neighbouring island of Bequia. The plan was rejected by the government in London because Bequia was considered to be incapable of supporting them. This conﬂict needs, therefore, to be seen as a three-way struggle between the Black Caribs, the British government in London, and the planter groups in the islands. Melville, as Governor, represented the Crown and the London government. As a private citizen he was also a planter. He thus found himself standing between competing metropolitan and colonial interests. Once again, the interplay between public duty and private interest in Melville’s life is apparent. Although the imperial government had recognised the potential for conﬂict, and instructed that no Carib land even be surveyed without Carib permission, 4,000 acres were seized and sold to British planters. This locally-determined decision caused surveyors to meet with forcible resistance from the Black Caribs. In 1768, Black Caribs disrupted attempts by colonial authorities to survey their lands, and forced the 32nd Infantry Regiment, which was providing protection for the survey teams, to retreat to the capital, Kingstown. Carib resistance to the expansionist endeavours of the British continued to present a considerable obstacle to the settlement of the island. In 1769, the President of the St. Vincent Council declared that as honourable as the King had been to respect the rights of the Caribs on their own lands, he wished ‘to represent to His Majesty how much his lenity to so worthless a Set of Savages will hurt his Faithful, Loyal and Obedient Subjects.’18 This became a signiﬁcant trope in the colonists’ political discourse in this period as they stressed the

18 PRO, CO 263/1 nf St. Vincent Sessional Papers: Speech by the President of the Council, 10 May 1769.

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need for action to be taken to eject the Caribs from the island. From the perspective of the whites, the boundary, if it could not be safely maintained on their terms, had to be eliminated entirely, and the Carib population along with it. There was thus little sense of a negotiated ‘frontier’ between the immigrant and indigenous communities in St. Vincent. Unlike parts of North America, where contact between European and Indian peoples resulted in economic and cultural interaction, in St. Vincent there was no subtle ‘middle ground’ softening the boundary between the European and native populations.19 As well as trying to encourage white settlement to provide a bulwark against French depredations and Black Carib recalcitrance, Melville could call upon three army regiments to defend the physical frontiers. The 32nd, the 62nd and the 70th Regiments were stationed throughout the islands. During Melville’s period in oﬃce, the defences of the Ceded Islands were improved. In part this was a strategic necessity, but it also reﬂected Melville’s own interest in military defences. In 1759, while a serving oﬃcer, he had designed a new cannon which, in a slightly revised form, was manufactured from 1779 as a ‘carronade’. A Grand Jury decision limiting the distribution of weapons to Watches on the estates in Grenada to times when whites were present was introduced, in a clear recognition of an internal threat. In particular it is indicative of the fear of weapons falling into the hands of unsupervised slaves, who might then be encouraged to revolt.20 The surveying of lands for roads, and their construction, had the eﬀect of improving communications in the islands, allowing warnings of hostile ship sightings or of rebellious slaves or Caribs to be relayed around the islands. Furthermore fortiﬁcations were strengthened during this period, with Melville receiving much of the credit for the improvements.21

19 The idea of a ‘place in between’ diﬀerent groups in which accommodations were reached and ‘new systems of meanings and exchange’ created, has been advanced by Richard White in his important study of European-Indian interactions in the Great Lakes region of North America: The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650–1815 (New York and Cambridge: 1991). 20 PRO, CO 104/3(73) Grenada Sessional Papers: Minutes of the Assembly of Grenada and the Grenadines, 18 July 1769. 21 NAS, Balfour-Melville Papers, GD 126/28/2/3, Address of the House of Assembly of Dominica to Melville, 18 July 1770. The Address explicitly thanked Melville for his eﬀorts regarding the surveying and fortifying of the island.

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Probably the greatest threat to the army came not from armed attacks but assaults from disease.22 Indeed, Melville regarded disease as an ‘evil much to be dreaded’, and believed it to be a profound check on the creation of colonies in the Caribbean.23 Of particular concern to him was the Regiment of Artillery, which was then garrisoned at St. Vincent. With only three regiments to defend four islands, the regiment tended not to be held in one place, but instead moved between the islands. He ordered, therefore, that all His Majesty’s Surgeons in the islands, and the hospitals ‘give proper attention’ to them, in order that they survive to defend the islands.24 In a very important sense, then, Melville’s gubernatorial duties required him not only to defend the physical frontiers of his government, but also to protect those very forces guarding the islands’ integrity. The conﬂict with the Black Caribs in St. Vincent aside (it was not ﬁnally resolved until they were evicted from the island in the 1790s) the Ceded Islands were generally peaceable during Melville’s tenure of oﬃce. To a large extent, this may be attributed to the fact that the islands had only just been acquired; later governors would have to deal with renewed challenges of French attacks. Another major cause of conﬂict in the islands—slave revolt—while a concern, was not a particular threat during the 1760s. This may be because the islands were really only developing in that decade, and certainly by the 1770s, the slave populations had reached a suﬃcient critical mass to menace Tobago whites with almost annual rebellions. Nonetheless, Melville’s period in oﬃce saw the strengthening of the islands’ defences, and an expansion in the white population. Disputes within the white community, however, were less easily managed.

Frontiers of power As the size of the settler communities in the islands grew, and the colonies became established with legislative and judicial oﬃces, there 22 For an example of the horrendous losses suﬀered by the army in the tropics see, D. Geggus, ‘Yellow Fever in the 1790s: The British Army in occupied Saint Domingue’, Medical History, 23, 1 (1979), 38–58. 23 Melville, cited in Grove, Green Imperialism, 269. 24 NAS, GD 126/28/2/2 Balfour-Melville Papers, Copies of General Orders from Governor Melville, 16 August 1765.

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was an intensiﬁcation of colonial demands for stricter limitations to be imposed on Melville’s overall command. Additionally, a number of other individuals developed ambitions to advance their own positions in the Ceded Islands. In these ways Governor Melville found the frontiers of his own power and authority contested. Dominica, where Melville owned a considerable tract of land, despite his being resident in Grenada, posed the governor particular diﬃculties. Unlike the other Ceded Islands, Scots were better represented in the appointed Council than the elected Assembly in Dominica.25 Indeed, Melville’s governorship had elevated a cadre of Scots into positions of power in the island. Colonial governors had control over a variety of oﬃces within their governments. As a result, the distribution of patronage was an integral part of the political process. In the case of the Ceded Islands, where authority had to be exercised over distances, patronage took on an additional importance. Melville was resident in Grenada and was thus separated from Dominica by about 250 miles and two French colonies [See Map 5]. In these circumstances, for him to retain eﬀective control over a major part of his government (in which he also had a considerable personal stake) he employed senior Scottish ﬁgures to do his bidding. Thus the president of the Council, nominated by the governor, was Walter Pringle, the deputy provost marshall was John Weir. Both were appointed councillors, as were a number of other Scots in this period. Pringle and Weir were certainly aligned with Melville, though the allegiance of other Scottish councillors is less clear. The fact that Dominica’s lieutenant governor, who may be regarded as a rival of Melville, was the Scot, William Young, probably means that a number were associated with him. This complexity notwithstanding, it is apparent that Melville’s men acted at his behest. It also indicates that groups of Scots should not necessarily be regarded as stable political blocs: they were as likely to argue as to agree with one another. Nevertheless, the perception on the part of non-Scots of the Council’s Scottishness tended to play into the customary battle between appointed and elected politicians in the islands. In 1768, irregularities surrounding the election of two Scots to the Assembly caused that institution to nullify the election and to

25 D.J. Hamilton, ‘Patronage and Proﬁt: Scottish Networks and the British West Indies, c. 1763–1807’, unpublished Ph.D., (Aberdeen: 1999), 168, Table 5.1.

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summon the two returning oﬃcers, who were both councillors, and who refused to attend. Two new English assemblymen were elected but the Council refused to swear them in. Meanwhile, the Assembly steadfastly refused to admit the original victors. The dispute rumbled on until the Assembly was forced to acquiesce in the face of its prorogation by Melville. The question of the respective powers of the branches of government was a matter for great contention, and this dispute in Dominica was just one part of the process by which relationships between the elected and the appointed were worked out in colonies throughout the Atlantic World in this period. Assemblies tended to resent the power of the governors and their councils. Across the Caribbean and into North America, assemblies strove to consolidate and expand their range of privileges, demanding them as their right as free-born Britons. In making their case, assemblies continually stressed the danger of erosion of their rights of liberty by creeping arbitrary rule.26 In Dominica, the deﬁnition of the frontier of power was complicated by the unique composition of its legislative branches. While this was not an explicitly ethnic contest between Scots and English, Melville’s use of patronage connections, and his rivalry with Young, led to the perception of a Scottish president of the Scottish-dominated, appointed Council turning to the appointed Scottish governor to curtail the privileges of the recalcitrant, but elected and largely English Assembly. Spurred by Scotophobic satire rare in the Caribbean, the constitutional struggle was exacerbated by this ethnic dimension. By 1767, moves had been made in Dominica towards the separation of the island from the government of the Ceded Islands, despite the small size of the white population. Melville’s initial reaction, when approached by Lord Shelburne, was cool. He signalled his willingness (in principle) in January 1767 to the move to establish a separate council and assembly for Dominica, but noted that as the ‘residing Purchasers of lands’ numbered only 17 or 18, the move was impracticable. In July, 159 people, including Dominica residents and merchants from London and Liverpool, petitioned the government in

26

For a Jamaican example of this process see J.P. Greene, ‘The Jamaica Privilege Controversy, 1764–66: An Episode in the Process of Constitutional Deﬁnition in the Early Modern British Empire’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 22, 1 (1994), 16–53.

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London for the establishment of an independent Dominica government. Strikingly, but unsurprisingly, Melville’s closest allies in the island, John Weir and Thomas and Walter Pringle, were not among the signatories.27 While a number of the signatories to this petition were not Dominica residents, it is apparent that Melville’s objection to the separation of Dominica on the grounds of absenteeism was almost certainly a cover for his wholesale hostility to any diminution of his power in the Ceded Islands. By 1768, his opposition had become more explicit. After he had made his views known to Lord Hillsborough at the Board of Trade, Hillsborough spluttered Does Governor Melville really think that if it should happen upon this subject, His Majesty’s Board of Trade and His Privy Council should diﬀer from him in regard to this Establishment that it would be an aﬀront to him or of a Consequence an Injury to the Colony, and that such a diﬀerence of opinion would evince His Majesty’s Administration is neither just nor enlightened?28

Melville, indeed, found himself out on a limb after the Dominica Council concurred with the Assembly and popular opinion in the island, and voted unanimously in favour of separation. Melville thus witnessed a shrinking of his empire in the Caribbean, with William Young, chairman of the Land Commission, taking over as lieutenant governor. To make matters worse, Young’s position was strengthened further in 1770 when he was granted a full governorship. No matter that the people of Dominica wanted separation, or that the imperial government regarded the separation as being in ‘the Interest of the Proprietors of Land there’, Melville became increasingly belligerent, despite the weight of opinion stacked against him. In 1771, very shortly before his retirement, he picked a ﬁght with the Land Commission over their failure to transmit to him the results of land sales in Dominica.29 Previously they had been sent to him

27 PRO, CO 101/2(27) Grenada Original Correspondence: Letter from Governor Melville to Lord Shelburne, 15 January 1767; CO 101/2(36) Grenada Original Correspondence: Board of Trade: Letter from Lord Shelburne to the Lords of Trade, 15 July 1767. For a complete list of the signatories see CO 101/2(41–43). 28 PRO, CO 102/15(14) Grenada Entry Books: Letter from Lord Hillsborough to?, 12 February 1768. 29 The correspondence relating to this dispute can be found in PRO, CO 106/12 Grenada Miscellanea: Papers relating to the Sale of Lands in the Ceded Islands.

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as the governor in Grenada, along with those from St. Vincent and Tobago, in accordance with the Instructions from London. The ﬁnal transfer of authority from St. George’s to Roseau in 1770 clearly changed the situation and the commissioners determined that Melville’s commission with regard to Dominica had been revoked. Despite this, Melville was noticeably displeased when the Dominica reports were sent to Sir William Young. Melville’s pique was compounded by the news that sales were being granted under the Great Seal of Dominica, rather than that of Grenada and the Neutral Islands. Technically, as the commissioners had received no explicit instruction to exclude the authorities in Grenada, Melville was quite justiﬁed in his actions. On the other hand his truculence in attempting to claim control over a separate government indicates a clear desire on his part to retain power. Throughout his period as governor, Melville faced challenges to the limits of his power. The frontier between appointed and elected authority was hotly contested in the Ceded Islands, as it was elsewhere in the Atlantic. In Dominica, his desire to ensure control over the island, and, perhaps, to check the advance of political rivals like Young, led him to appoint Scots who further intensiﬁed the conﬂict. Indeed, Melville’s metropolitan perspective, as well as personal role as plantation owner, probably meant he had no greater faith in arbitrary rule and its implications than any assemblyman. He was rather dragged in to arbitrate in the electoral dispute by his ally Pringle. What Melville was unable to countenance was a challenge from a rival. He was unwilling to relinquish any ground and remained utterly resistant to measures to diminish his position.

Frontiers of Religion Although Melville was not always entirely popular in Dominica, his handling of a further crisis, this time in Grenada, won him many admirers among the islanders, though not necessarily in the corridors of power in London. As British islands subject to British rule, the established religion in the British West Indies was that of the Church of England. The Church of Scotland, also an established British church, evinced no interest in the Caribbean until the beginning of the nineteenth century, despite the presence of large num-

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bers of Scots throughout the eighteenth century.30 To a great extent, religious practice was simply not an issue for the vast majority of the white Protestant population: plantation management and social excess took up far too much time. Nevertheless, the presence of small groups of Jews, and, in particular, thousands of French Catholics, ensured the potential for disharmony. The Protestant islanders’ religiosity, normally dormant, became aroused, even strident, when groups of people whose religions clashed with their own appeared to be gaining concessions. When Grenada was ceded to the British Empire, it came with a large French Catholic population of around 3,500. As freeholders whose lands were secured by the Treaty of Paris, they would also oﬀer a political challenge if their exclusion on religious grounds could be ended. The government in London, in an attempt to shore up the loyalty of the King’s ‘New Subjects’, and to establish the legitimacy of its rule in their eyes, sought to reduce the limitations on the role of Catholics in the colonial legislature and judiciary. This particular problem was not conﬁned to Grenada: in newly-acquired Quebec, where the situation was even more diﬃcult, the government was forced to reach accommodations with the French community to facilitate the governance of the colony in the absence of a suﬃcient number of Protestants. This lack of Protestants, and their uncomfortable relationship with the governor, James Murray, limited the scale of opposition in Quebec. The same could not be said of Grenada. There, a substantial and obstreperous British population colluded with a supportive governor to mount an obstructive campaign of civil disobedience to foil any attempts by the government to accommodate Catholics in the political and judicial processes. During the course of this dispute, the prominent role of Scots, and of the governor himself, is apparent. The beginnings of what became an increasingly heated and occasionally violent dispute came in late 1767. Walter Robertson, returning 30

For the scale and range of Scottish activities in the eighteenth-century Leeward Islands see R.B. Sheridan, ‘The Role of Scots in the Economy and Society of the West Indies’, in V. Rubin and T. Tuden, eds., Comparative Perspecives on Slavery in New World Plantations (New York: 1977), 94–106. For their place in Jamaica see A.L. Karras, Sojourners in the Sun: Scottish Migrants in Jamaica and the Chesapeake, 1740 –1800 (Ithaca: 1992); and for the Windwards see, Hamilton, ‘Patronage and Proﬁt’ chapters 3–7.

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oﬃcer for the electoral district of St. George’s, refused to accept the candidacy of a French resident in an election to the island assembly. A committee, formed at the request of the island council, upheld Roberston’s decision and reported that the French Catholics’ ‘late attempt . . . to intrude themselves into the Legislature is a Manifest Violation of the Laws of Great Britain, & of the Constitution and Laws of this Country’.31 The Catholic population were thus eﬀectively barred by their religion from active participation in the running of the colony in which they owned land. The government in London decided to limit the restrictions on Catholic participation by removing the requirements for them to comply with the Test Act and to make a declaration against transubstantiation. Lord Hillsborough in London sent instructions to Grenada stipulating that Catholics could sit in the Council, the Assembly, or act as a judge or commissioner of the peace. To do so, they were ‘required to take no other oaths than those of Allegiance and Supremacy’.32 Signiﬁcantly, these instructions were transmitted, not to Melville, who had returned to London, but to his temporary replacement, Ulysses Fitzmaurice, the lieutenant governor of St. Vincent. Equally signiﬁcantly, these new instructions applied only to the French Catholics, or ‘His Majesty’s New Subjects’, and not to British Catholics already resident in the island. Against them, oﬃcially sanctioned discrimination was maintained. The introduction of the French Catholics to the island’s legislature and judiciary provoked outrage among the Protestant population. Councillors refused to serve with them, and were summarily dismissed. The Grenada Grand Jury appealed to George III to revoke the instruction which ‘hath drawn after it a train of evils’ and argued that the new subjects, so recently their sworn enemies, were now passing laws in a language they did not understand, and passing judgement on Britons on the basis of statutes they could not read.33 During Fitzmaurice’s temporary stewardship of Grenada, Robert Melville was in London. He was not, however, isolated from the crisis raging in Grenada, nor was he insensible of the demands of the Protestant sector of the Grenadian population. Indeed, he played an

31

PRO, CO 104/1(64–65) Grenada Sessional Papers: Report of a Committee of the Council, 15 January 1768. 32 PRO, CO 101/3(3) Grenada Original Correspondence: Board of Trade Minutes, 7 September 1768. 33 PRO, CO 101/4(56–57) Grenada Original Correspondence: Petition of the Grand Jury of Grenada, 10 September 1770.

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important part in the out-pouring of popular opposition to events in the island, both as a focus for the dissent, and as an active contributor to it. In many ways this is unsurprising. Melville had been a member of Edinburgh’s deeply anti-Catholic Old Revolution Club since 1751.34 Melville actively pressed Lord Hillsborough to withdraw the instruction to Fitzmaurice. In 1770 he published, anonymously, a pamphlet entitled ‘Letters to the Earl of Hillsborough . . . On the late Subversion of the Political System, of the Glorious Revolution . . . in . . . Grenada’.35 This pamphlet formed a part of the opposition that denounced the actions of the imperial government and their ‘tools’ in the island as being in ﬂagrant contravention of British constitutional principles.36 By the time Melville returned to his government in 1770, conditions in the island had deteriorated. In November, a group of Scottish proprietors refused to pay their contributions for the maintenance of Grenville Harbour. This harbour had been constructed only after a period of lobbying by these proprietors in 1767, and was situated close to their estates. The fact that the tax was now being imposed by a government that included Catholics provided them with the pretext for non-payment. Demonstrations broke out in the streets of the main town, St. George’s, and in July 1771, Melville, with a reported ‘truly laudable concern for the liberties of the people’, dissolved the Assembly.37 By 1772, Melville had departed, but the dispute raged on. James Baillie, a prominent Scottish planter and merchant in the island, noted in 1772 that many Grenadians were using the crisis as an excuse for non-payment of debts. Increasingly exasperated he declared, ‘Politics I have given up, and may they go to the D-l their own way, which they are fast doing’.38 34 NAS, Balfour-Melville Papers, GD 126/29, Diploma in favour of Capt Robert Melvill, 4 November 1751. 35 I am indebted to Andrew O’Shaughnessy for this reference. See A.J. O’Shaughnessy, ‘Winning the Initiative: The Assemblies of the British Caribbean before 1776’, International Seminar on the History of the Atlantic World, Harvard University, 1997, Working Paper, 97–28. 36 ‘Letter to the Earl of H-B-H, his M-’s S-y of S-te for the C-l-s, on the present situation of aﬀairs in the island of Gr-n-da’, Scots Magazine, 31 (December 1769), 638–650; ‘Grenada and London Patriotism compared’, Scots Magazine, 33 (December 1771), 641–642; ‘The Humble Petition of the Freeholders, Merchants, and other Inhabitants of the island of Grenada to General Robert Melville’, Scots Magazine, 33 (December 1771), 642–644. 37 Scots Magazine, 33 (December 1771), 642. 38 NLS, Liston Papers, Ms 5514 (113), Letter from James Baillie to Mrs. Ramage, 14 June 1772.

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The terms in which Melville and the Grenada Protestants responded to moves to introduce French Catholics to the island legislature and judiciary echoed the clarion calls for the defence of ‘Britishness’ that resounded throughout the British Atlantic world in the second half of the eighteenth century. In particular, references to the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688 recalled tropes employed in a number of colonial disputes including the Stamp Act crisis, the Jamaican privilege controversy of the 1760s, and the celebrated Grenadian case of Campbell versus Hall in 1774.39 In these years, the question of the place of Catholics in government was contested throughout the British Atlantic World, courting controversy over the Quebec Act of 1774 and the Catholic relief bills in Britain at the end of the decade. As for Grenada, the initial concessions were revoked, and the original position strictly adhered to. In 1792, Henry Dundas, the Home Secretary with responsibility for the colonies, reminded the new Scottish lieutenant governor of Grenada, Ninian Home, of the ‘necessary qualiﬁcation to sit in the Assembly, Vizt. the making and subscribing the Declaration against Transubstantiation &c.’40 The redrawing by the London government of the frontier between the Protestant and Roman Catholic religions in Grenada in the late 1760s thus proved to be only temporary. The scale of opposition in the island to the introduction of Catholics into the Grenadian government, allied to the ability of the Protestants to champion their cause throughout Great Britain, forced the original boundary to be reinstated. Melville’s role was profoundly important. His Presbyterian inﬂuences caused him to be profoundly anti-Catholic. It is unsurprising that a man raised in a manse, besieged by Jacobites in 1745, and a member of the Old Revolution Club should have reacted unenthusiastically to the extension of rights to Catholics. Like many eighteenth century Britons, as far as Melville was concerned 1688 had marked ‘the Deliverance of these Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland from Popery and Slavery by King William and Queen

39 A.J. O’Shaughnessy, ‘The Stamp Act Crisis in the British Caribbean’, William & Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., 51, 2 (1994), 203–226; Greene, ‘The Jamaica Privilege Controversy, 1764–66’, 16–53; Hamilton, ‘Patronage and Proﬁt’, 180–181. 40 PRO, CO 101/32 nf Grenada Original Correspondence: Letter from Henry Dundas to Ninian Home, 5 October 1792. Home, an inveterate francophobe, probably needed no reminding.

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Mary of Immortal Memory . . .’.41 Melville’s Scottish inﬂuences thus fed into his sense of himself as a metropolitan Briton defending the integrity of his country in the colonies. So acute was this sense of Britishness that his private misgivings were translated into opposition of the very government he was supposed to be serving. This interplay between public and private emerged, though in a far more benign fashion, in one further context.

Frontiers of knowledge Just as Melville’s actions helped to deﬁne the physical, political and religious frontiers of life in the Ceded Islands, so too did they signiﬁcantly re-align those of science and knowledge. The redrawing of these boundaries had important ramiﬁcations beyond the Caribbean. Governor Melville’s activities in this sphere can be divided into two categories: the ﬁrst relating to his actions as a private citizen rapidly developing his plantations throughout the islands; the other to the institutional structures established in the islands at his behest. Shortly after its acquisition of the Ceded Islands, the British government took steps to ensure the orderly sale of land in the new colonies.42 Despite a 300-acre limit on individual land grants, by 1769, Melville had acquired over 1,000 acres in Dominica. The Melvill Hall Estate was worked by 128 slaves and was valued at £33,190 currency.43 He also owned the plantations of Carnbee in Tobago and Mount Melvill in Grenada. Although Melville lived in his townhouse in St. George’s in Grenada, rather than on his estates, he nevertheless took a keen interest in their upkeep. His Memorandum Book from the late 1760s highlights the extent to which his instructions to his managers in Grenada related to the cultivation and exchange of plants. In July 1768, for example, he wrote, ‘The star

41 NAS, Balfour-Melville Papers, GD 126/29, Diploma in favour of Capt Robert Melvill, 4 November 1751. 42 For a discussion of land sales in the islands see Murdoch, ‘The Sale of Crown Land in the Ceded Islands, 1763–1783’, passim. 43 NAS, Balfour-Melville Papers, GD 126/3/1, An Appraisement of the Melvill-Hall Estate in Dominica, 22 May 1769. Assuming a rate of exchange of £165 currency to £100 sterling, the estate was worth £20,115 sterling. On the rate of exchange see J.J. McCusker, Money and Exchange in Europe and America, 1660–1775 (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: 1978), 272–273.

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Apple seeds of Jamaica[,] Orange & Shaddock seeds lately planted to be well tended—Some of the plants intended for Dr. Young & my places at Dominica & Tobago’. He also sent instructions relating to the tending of fruit trees and the requirement to kill ants.44 By 1769 experiments with the cultivation of European crops were being carried out on his estates. In particular, vegetables with a local utility as foodstuﬀs for the expanding slave population were introduced to the Caribbean setting. Seeds for the cultivation of onions, parsley, lettuce, cauliﬂower, four varieties of cabbage, ﬁve kinds of turnip, radish, spinach, beats, pease, marrows and several varieties of beans were ordered from Britain.45 This kind of innovation was not conﬁned to Grenada: in Jamaica, Thomas Thistlewood began a similar process, at around the same time, and used much the same type of plants at Breadnut Pen in Westmoreland parish.46 In addition, Melville sought to introduce pasture seeds, including buckwheat and cowgrass. These could be used to support a large livestock herd which, on his Dominican estate, experienced a seven-fold increase between 1769 and 1815.47 Yet this diversiﬁcation of estate activity did not occur at the expense of planting. Melvill Hall had expanded its production of cotton for export by the nineteenth century, utilising the labour of a slave gang that grew from 30 in 1765 to 128 in 1769 to 170 in 1815. At Mount Melvill in Grenada, the slave gang also grew between 1766 and 1768 as the estate developed.48 In this context, the development of the cattle pen at Melvill Hall appears, not as a primary activity designed to limit the use of slave labour, but as a complement to cotton production. The expansion of the livestock herd allowed for more extensive manuring of the ﬁelds, enabled the estate to move towards greater self-suﬃciency in 44 NAS, Balfour-Melville Papers, GD 126/28/2/1(2): Memorandum Book, 1768–1770, 4. Dr. Young was the curator of the botanic garden at St. Vincent. 45 NAS, Balfour-Melville Papers, GD 126/3/Bundle 1: Account of Robert Melville Esqr for his Estate Mount Melvill with John Knight. 46 D. Hall, ‘Botanical and Horticultural Enterprise in Eighteenth-Century Jamaica’, in R.A. McDonald, ed., West Indies Accounts: Essays on the History of the British Caribbean and the Atlantic Economy in Honour of Richard B. Sheridan (Barbados: 1996), 101–125. 47 In 1769 the livestock herd amounted to 15 beasts and was valued at £230 5s currency. By 1815, there were 106 animals valued at £2,400 currency: NAS, GD 126/3/1 Appraisements of the Melvill-Hall Estate 1769 and 1815. 48 NAS, Balfour-Melville Papers, GD 126/3/1: List of General Melvill’s Negroes at his Melvill Hall, 10 August 1765; Appraisements of the Melvill-Hall Estate, 1769 and 1815. List of Genl Melvill’s Slaves, 25 October 1766 and List of the Slaves on Genl Melvill’s Plantation Mount Melvill, 23 February 1768.

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foodstuﬀs, and also probably allowed it to play a role in the local economy as a supplier of meat. Melville’s interest in agricultural and botanical ‘improvement’ was not conﬁned to his own property however. In 1765 he founded a botanical garden in St. Vincent. His decision to perform this undertaking, it has been argued, was heavily inﬂuenced by his membership of the Society of Arts in London, again suggesting powerful metropolitan inﬂuences in his outlook. In 1760, the Society, in an eﬀort to promote the transfer of ‘useful’ plants around the Empire and to encourage their introduction to the West Indies, oﬀered inducements to colonial governments establishing gardens.49 Indeed, the garden provided a focus for the kind of exchange of information that Melville sought to continue privately between his own estates. The St. Vincent garden was the ﬁrst of its kind in the West Indies, and it served as an example to other, more established islands. In 1774 the Jamaican planter-historian Edward Long wrote, I cannot but consider it a reproach to the gentlemen of Jamaica, that they should have suﬀered the little colony of St. Vincent to get a start of them, in the execution of so truly laudable and useful a plan.50

Among the earliest plants imported to the garden at Souﬀrière in St. Vincent was the Tahitian breadfruit, introduced by Captain Bligh. Intended as a food staple for the slaves, the breadfruit continued to be grown in the garden, but never gained wide favour among the planters. Indeed, by the 1790s, only the Scottish curator of the garden, Alexander Anderson, was known to use it as a regular foodstuﬀ.51 Despite the failure of the breadfruit, the St. Vincent garden, and those that followed it, played key roles as repositories of natural historical information and in fostering an understanding of the utility of tropical plants, both in the colonies and in the metropole. Within a decade of the founding of the St. Vincent garden, Edward Long listed what he considered to be the plants most required in a Jamaican garden. In selecting, among other things, opium from

49

Grove, Green Imperialism, 268–269. E. Long, The History of Jamaica, or General State of the Antient and Modern State of that Island 3 vols. (London: 1774) 3, 913. 51 ‘Lady Liston’s Journal, December 1800 to April 1801’, in C. Taylor, ed., Journeys Through the Caribbean (Transcript in the Institute of Historical Research, London), 36. The original can be found in the National Library of Scotland in Ms 5704. 50

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Turkey, camphor from Sumatra, Jesuit’s Bark from Peru, jalap from Mexico, cardamoms and turmeric from the East Indies and gum ammoniac from Africa, he demonstrated the extent to which botanical knowledge had utterly transcended territorial frontiers.52 Long was far from being the only observer to comment favourably on the garden at St. Vincent. John Campbell in his Political Survey of Britain in 1774 commented on ‘the many good consequences’ arising from the garden. Later in 1791, Sir William Young, son of Melville’s rival, the former governor of Dominica, remarked, ‘The variety, beauty, growth and health of the plants, from all parts of the globe, is most striking.’53 Furthermore, the curators at Souﬀrière, and other botanical gardens in the Caribbean, continued to publish and promote ﬁndings about the plants and their environments which informed those people involved in the increasingly important British dominions in the Tropics. The exchange also tied in networks based around universities at home. George Young in St. Vincent corresponded frequently with John Hope, Professor of Botany and Materia Medica at Edinburgh University, and was one part of Hope’s extensive global information exchange network stretching from Philadelphia to India.54 And while Melville as governor was not directly responsible for these later developments, his action, in founding the ﬁrst Caribbean botanical garden, was of profound signiﬁcance. In particular it represented the start of the process by which colonies began to supply not just empirical data for European analysis, but also the analysis itself. Thus, the frontier marking Europe as the source of knowledge production was broken down by these colonial innovations.55

52

Long, History of Jamaica, 3, 903. J. Campbell, A Political Survey of Britain, Being a Series of Reﬂections on the Situation, Lands, Inhabitants, Revenues, Colonies and Commerce of this Island 2 vols. (1774), 2, 693; ‘A Tour through the Several Islands of Barbados, St. Vincent, Antigua, Tobago and Grenada, in the Years 1791 and 1792: by Sir William Young, Bart’, in B. Edwards, History, Civil and Commercial, of the British West Indies (3 vols., 3rd edition, London: 1801) 3, 262. 54 A.G. Morton, John Hope, 1725–1786: Scottish Botanist (Edinburgh: 1986), 13–15. 55 For a fuller discussion of the place of botanical gardens in the Caribbean see Grove, Green Imperialism, especially chapter 6; and Hamilton, ‘Patronage and Proﬁt’, 152–158. 53

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Conclusion In 1771, General Robert Melville left the Ceded Islands for the last time. As a private citizen, he maintained his estates in the islands. Proﬁts tended to ﬂuctuate, but Melvill Hall in Dominica continued to turn a healthy proﬁt into the nineteenth century, providing Melville with an income until his death in 1809.56 As a group, the islands were transformed from conquered territories into viable tropical colonies. The inﬂux of settlers, many of whom were Scots, and the importation of slaves at a rate unprecedented even in the Caribbean, rapidly developed the islands. Grenada quickly emerged as perhaps the second most important British sugar island behind Jamaica. Cotton grown in Tobago and Dominica soon found its way to Britain, providing raw material for the fastest growing industry in Scotland by the end of the century. The islands continued, throughout this period, to experience problems similar to those confronted by Melville in the 1760s. Won by conquest by 1763, the colonies twice found themselves at the epicentre of major global conﬂicts in the remaining years of the eighteenth century. The external threats increasingly allied themselves with the internal ones to provide massive headaches for later governors seeking to secure the islands’ frontiers. Political inﬁghting between the governors, the branches of the legislatures, the government of London continued to disrupt the legislative process in the islands. The uneasy truce between French and British populations in the islands continued to break down, particularly in wartime, while the government in London abandoned attempts to assimilate Catholics into the political and judicial structures in the area. Perhaps the only frontier to be eﬀectively and consistently redeﬁned was that of knowledge, as scientiﬁc discovery and the dissemination of information advanced throughout the decades. Melville’s career in the Caribbean also highlights other broad themes. Like all governors operating at a distance from London, Melville had, in practice, a certain freedom of action. The three month delay (at least) between the despatch of a letter and the receipt of a reply placed great emphasis on the decisions taken by the

56 NAS, Balfour-Melville Papers GD 126/9/2: Memoranda relating to income from the Dominica estate, 1802–1808.

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governor. As a result, personal beliefs came to impinge on policy decisions. It is clear that, in many cases, Melville found himself shifting between his roles as governor, with responsibility for the islands and the peoples within them, and his personal position as an important, and anti-Catholic, landowner in Dominica, Grenada and Tobago. Clearly, apart from his botanical innovations, Melville provided few long-term solutions to the islands’ problems. His habit of promoting Scotsmen, his belligerence in the face of opponents, and his intransigently Presbyterian attitude to ‘popery’ probably served to exacerbate tensions. Yet Melville was far from being the most unpopular governor in the Caribbean. Indeed, his very intransigence won him many friends and admirers, particularly in a period when issues of British ‘liberty’ and Protestantism were staples of the British political diet. Even as a Scottish governor in oﬃce at the height of Scotophobic assaults in Britain, Melville never had to pretend to be a ‘true-born Briton’. He represents that group of Scots in the Empire who displayed both Scottish and metropolitan inﬂuences, and moved comfortably between them. Melville was someone who believed in the notion of British ‘liberty’, in Presbyterianism, in botanical and agricultural innovation, in the Crown, and in promoting other Scots. In many ways, the problems he confronted could not have been solved by him alone. In seeking to forge the Ceded Islands as viable British colonies, Melville was the ﬁrst British governor to confront them. As such, where new frontiers were contested and adapted in the islands, it was Melville, and his approach, with its mix of Presbyterian upbringing, enlightened education, military service and metropolitan inﬂuence, that played a key role in deﬁning the parameters within which they could shift.

CHAPTER TEN

FASHIONING A ‘BRITISH’ EMPIRE: SIR ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL OF INVERNEIL & MADRAS, 1785–91 Andrew Mackillop

Any attempt to comprehend the role of Scots, in this case a colonial governor, within the eighteenth century East India Company beneﬁts substantially from recent developments in the study of British imperialism. One such useful perspective is the rubric of ‘provincialism’.2 Of course provinciality is usually deployed when explaining the secessionist impulses that led to the independence of most of the North American colonies by 1783. However, provincialism has never been associated exclusively with this particular sector of the Empire. Clearly, Scotland and Ireland lacked the fundamental geographic, environmental, political, economic and social diﬀerences that distinguished the likes of Barbados and Virginia as colonies. However, their distinctive civic societies, their particular social structures, economic trajectories and political arrangements with Westminster have led to the notion of Britain’s own ‘metropolitan provinces’.3 Moreover, although it constituted the metropole in broad political, legal and economic terms, this idea of British provinciality has been

1

I am grateful to Dr Douglas Hamilton at York for his comments and to Mr Brendan Carnduﬀ, King’s College London for his helpful advice, particularly with regard to Inverneil and Dundas’s relationship in formulating oﬃcial policy. 2 B. Bailyn and P.D. Morgan, eds., Strangers within the Realm: Cultural Margins of the First British Empire (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: 1991), 4–10; N.C. Landsman, ‘The Provinces and the Empire: Scotland, the American colonies and the development of British provincial identity’, in L. Stone, ed., An Imperial State at War: Britain from 1689 to 1815 (London: 1994), 260–5; N.C. Landsman, ‘The Legacy of the British Union for the North American Colonies: Provincial Elites and the Problem of Imperial Union’, in J. Robertson, ed., A Union for Empire: Political Thought and the British Union of 1707 (Cambridge: 1995), 299–317. 3 J.H. Elliot, ‘Introduction: Colonial Identity in the Atlantic World’, in N. Canny and A. Pagden, eds., Colonial Identity in the Atlantic World, 1500 –1800 (Princeton: 1987), 6–12; J. Clive and B. Bailyn, ‘England’s cultural provinces: Scotland and America’, William & Mary Quarterly, 9 (1954), 203–8; H.V. Bowen, Elites, Enterprise and the making of the British Overseas Empire, 1688–1775 (London: 1996), 154–155.

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extended beyond Ireland and Scotland to include areas of England. On issues like imperial authority, regulation of trade, and patterns of commodity consumption, towns like Newcastle, Bristol and Norwich have been viewed as provinces of London. The study of English provincialism has revealed important common features with Scotland and Ireland—a strongly similar emphasis on national regeneration and improvement, for example. Another overlap was the development of urban centres specialising in one or two colonial trades that in turn shaped the regional economies of their hinterlands.4 More strikingly, perhaps, with the clear exception of Ireland, where provincialism exerted noticeable secessionist pressure, its English and Scottish variants were overwhelmingly British and integrationist. This highlights the need for caution when considering whether Scotland’s metropolitan provincialism diﬀered from its English counterpart, or if any link between it and the regimes of Scottish governors can be discerned. Nevertheless, while the need to avoid overly compartmentalising Scotland is obvious, the country’s inﬂuence within British imperialism has been increasingly accepted. Contrary to earlier Anglocentric histories which viewed the Empire as a homogenous reproduction of England, Britain’s own domestic peripheries are now accepted as having diluted the English character of the Empire, making it in eﬀect truly British.5 This particular change has been emphasised recently as a constituent strand within pre-existing debates on the supposed emergence of the ‘Second Empire’.6 Yet clear limits have been set on the inﬂuence of provincialism, limits that have a direct bearing on the possible role of Scottish gov-

4 K. Wilson, The Sense of the People: Politics, Culture and Imperialism in England, 1715–1785 (Cambridge: 1998), 5–12, 239, 315–16, 376–8; A. Murdoch, British History, 1660–1832: National Identity and Local Culture (London: 1998), 76–7, 87. 5 P.J. Marshall, ‘A Nation deﬁned by Empire, 1755–1776’, in A. Grant & K.J. Stringer, eds., Uniting the Kingdom? The making of British History (London: 1995), 221; D. Armitage, ‘Making the Empire British: Scotland in the Atlantic World, 1542–1717’, Past & Present, 155 (1997), 49–50. 6 V.T. Harlow, The Founding of the Second British Empire, 1763–1793, vol. I: Discovery, Revolution (London: 1964), 1–8. Historians no longer emphasise the notion of a discernible, violent break in the empire’s evolution, preferring, instead, to stress continuities while accepting the value of a ‘ﬁrst’ and ‘second’ empire if used cautiously as a short hand term for subtle, drawn-out changes. See P.J. Marshall, ‘The First & Second British Empires: A Question of Demarcation’, History, 49 (1964), 13, 19–22; C.A. Bayly, Imperial Meridian: The British Empire and the World, 1780–1830 (London: 1989), 5–11.

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ernors in the east.7 While now acknowledged as broadening the commercial basis of British imperialism, it is still generally agreed that the provincial impact was negligible within the Empire’s formal governmental and political structure.8 Aside from this, because provincialism has been primarily an analytic tool of the Atlantic world, both its inﬂuence and that of Scots in the east is far less clearly understood.9 The career of Sir Archibald Campbell of Inverneil provides a particularly useful context for examining these questions of imperial evolution and the possible contribution, if any, of Scots in India. Appointed governor of the Madras Presidency in February 1785, Inverneil took up his post in April 1786 and resigned in February 1789.10 His governorship, its short duration notwithstanding, coincided with a crucial period of transition for the East India Company. Madras’ frontier constituted an imperial theatre where all Britons encountered a dearth of established or successful colonial government. They were thus immersed in a context where administrative culture was ﬂuid and negotiable. As such, Scots could more

7 J.M. Mackenzie, ‘Empire and National Identities: The Case of Scotland’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th series, 8 (Cambridge: 1998), 219; D. Hancock, Citizens of the World: London Merchants and the integration of the British Atlantic community, 1735–1785 (Cambridge: 1995), 14–6; 62–3, 217, 385–6; J. Horn, ‘British Diaspora: Emigration from Britain, 1680–1815’, in P.J. Marshall, ed., The Oxford History of the British Empire, vol. II: The Eighteenth Century (Oxford: 1998), 30–1; A.L. Karras, Sojourners in the Sun: Scottish Migrants in Jamaica and the Chesapeake, 1740–1800 (Ithaca: 1992), 11. 8 Armitage, ‘Making the Empire British’, 35 and 62; Bowen, Elites, Enterprise, 149; J.M. Mackenzie, Empires of Nature and the Nature of Empires: Imperialism, Scotland and the Environment (East Linton: 1997), 65; M.C. Noonkester, ‘The Third British Empire: Transplanting the English Shire to Wales, Scotland, Ireland and America’, Journal of British Studies, 36 (1997), 252–55; I.K. Steele, ‘The Anointed, the Appointed, and the Elected: Governance of the British Empire, 1689–1784’, in Marshall, The Oxford History, 112–3. 9 For a forceful highlighting of this point see Bowen, Elites, Enterprise, 6–9. For an Atlantic focus see E. Richards, ‘Scotland and the Uses of the Atlantic Empire’, in Bailyn and Morgan, Strangers within the realm, 219. The tendency for the 13 colonies to dominate perceptions of the eighteenth century empire is now widely accepted, see P.J. Marshall, ‘Britain and the World in the Eighteenth Century: I, Reshaping the Empire’, in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th series, 8 (Cambridge: 1998), 4. 10 For appointment, see EUL, Correspondence relating to Sir Archibald Campbell of Inverneil, Dk. 7. 53/32, 37; C.H. Phillips, The East India Company, 1784–1834 (Manchester: 1940), 42; For resignation, see IOR, Madras Consultations, P/240/62, 328–9; H.D. Love, ed., Vestiges of Old Madras, 1640–1800 traced from the East India Company’s Records, vol. III (London: 1913), 320–1.

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fully inform the governmental developments that were part of a general shift towards a comprehensively ‘British’ Empire.

The Madras frontier and the failure of Company government in the Carnatic, 1767–85 There can be little doubt that Madras’ frontier put it at the sharp end of imperial evolution. Yet what, precisely, a ‘frontier’ constitutes, and how it inﬂuences the polities and peoples associated with it has aroused considerable historical debate for some time now. To some extent a cautious consensus has emerged that a frontier represents a zone of territory where two previously unconnected societies interact, usually unequally, and where issues of political-economic dominion and cultural hegemony are unsettled, even contested.11 A further development in this respect is the concept of ‘borderlands’. This is taken to be quite distinct from a frontier in that borderlands constitute an area of contested imperial boundaries which, once a particular colonial power defeats its opponents or opponent, develops into a frontier context with subsequent interaction between the indigenous society and the victorious external power. Critics of this idea have questioned some of the demarcations behind it, arguing that frontier conditions co-existed simultaneously along side imperial rivalry, one inﬂuencing the other, rather than forming a separate and distinct stage. It has been suggested that frontier interaction, operating alongside a borderland framework, provides as useful a model for understanding an emerging territorial British presence in India as it does in illuminating conditions in eighteenth-century North America.12 During the period of Inverneil’s governorship this particular deﬁnition of frontier very much applied to Madras. The company’s southernmost Presidency was exposed to intermittent military and naval pressure from the French from the 1740s until the 1780s. Moreover, the 11 L. Thompson and H. Lamar, ‘Comparative Frontier History’, in idem, eds., The Frontier in History (New Haven: 1981), 7–13. 12 J. Adelman and S. Aron, ‘From Borderlands to Borders: Empires, NationStates, and the peoples in between in North American History’, American Historical Review, 104, 3 (1999), 816–822; E. Haefeli, ‘A Note on the use of North American Borderlands’, American Historical Review, 104, 4 (1999), 1223–4. For discussion of frontier conditions in India see R.G. Fox, ‘Introduction’, in idem, ed., Realm and Region in Traditional India (New Delhi: 1977), x–xiv.

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earlier disintegration of Mughal power had seen the emergence of a series of indigenous ‘successor states’, the Marathas, Hyderabad, Mysore, and regional kingdoms like that of the Nawab of the Carnatic (Arcot) and the Raja of Tanjore [See Map 6].13 The East India Company’s territorial growth was shaped by this context as both it and its rivals took to establishing devolved frontiers which allowed their inﬂuence to be exerted through indigenous allied states. By the early 1760s the East India Company’s preferred candidate for the territories of the Carnatic, which formed Madras’ immediate hinterland, Muhammad Ali Khan Wallajah, had emerged as the undisputed Nawab.14 This outcome constituted an attempt to stabilise the borderland element of the frontier and was anchored by the subsidiary alliance system. This was an agreement by which Madras, although the dominant power, eﬀectively devolved upon the Nawab particular functions required on the frontier. Not least amongst these was the provision of cultural continuity and legitimacy to facilitate the company’s heavy ﬁscal-military extractions: in return, Arcot received the protection of Madras’ troops.15 Ironically, it was neither the obvious external threat of the French navy or Mysorean armies that proved the most problematic issue. Rather, it was more subtle processes of interaction associated with Madras’ devolved frontier that constituted the gravest diﬃculty facing Inverneil and his predecessors. Most destabilising was the Presidency’s relationship with its dependent allies, the Nawab and his nominal vassal, the Raja of Tanjore. Problems arose because the dynamics produced by the subsidiary alliance, in particular, operated in more than one direction. The alliance extended British inﬂuence into the Carnatic and Tanjore, certainly, but also brought about subtle adjustment within the company’s own operations at Madras. The culture of politics was aﬀected in that such aﬀairs were no longer dealt with solely through the consultative forum of the governor and his council. Instead, company 13

J.F. Richards, The Mughal Empire (Cambridge: 1993), 279–81; Bayly, Imperial Meridian, 47; A.T. Embree, Frontiers into Boundaries: From the Traditional to the Modern State’, in Fox, Realm and Region, 262–68. 14 P. Lawson, The East India Company: A History (London: 1993), 82–3, 111; P.J. Marshall, ‘The British in Asia: Trade to Dominion, 1700–1765’, in idem, The Oxford History, 492 and 501. 15 GCA, Campbell of Succoth Papers, TD 219/5/31; NLS, Stuart Stevenson Papers, Ms 8254, ﬀ. 103, 139; Ms 8330, ﬀ. 27–33; V.T. Harlow, The Founding of the Second British Empire, 1763–1793, vol. II: New Continents and Changing Values (London: 1964), 48; Love, Vestiges of Old Madras, 207, 240–44.

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servants and their associates found themselves involved in ‘Durbar’ politics, the informal, levee-based arrangements at the Nawab’s court at Arcot.16 This was typiﬁed by the emergence of the Arcot creditors. Burdened with repayments of over £1,000,000 for the company’s military protection, the Nawab desperately required credit by the mid-1760s. He borrowed from company servants, private traders and oﬃcers at rates of interest that varied from 12–30%; or, alternatively, he started employing associates of such creditors at his court or in his substantial, if ineﬀective army.17 Thus, as Madras’ devolved frontier was consolidated, it generated an indigenous reaction of ‘Durbar’ patronage and borrowing that ﬂowed back into British territory. These extremely complex, informal webs of credit and patronage generated a form of ‘sub-imperialism’ that sucked the presidency into the territorial aﬀairs of its hinterland.18 The most obvious manifestation of this was when creditors of the Nawab sitting on the Madras Council sanctioned military support for Arcot’s invasion of Tanjore in 1773. This was in order to bolster the Nawab’s taxation resources and thus his ability to repay his British lenders.19 Yet this expansionism quickly placed severe strain on the company’s government at Madras, which was still based upon the established English constitutional model of governor and council.20 When ordered by the directors in London to return Tanjore to its Raja, Governor Lord George Pigot found his councillors simply would not support him and indeed deﬁed him openly.21 Such was the opposition to Pigot’s policy that, on 24 August 16 R.E. Frykenberg, ‘Company Circari in the Carnatic, c. 1799–1859’: the inner logic of political systems in India’, in Fox, Realm and Region, 117–118. 17 NLS, Mackenzie of Delvine Papers, Ms 1337, f. 60; J. Phillips. ‘A Successor to the Moguls: The Nawab of the Carnatic & the East India Company, 1763–1785’, in P. Tuck, ed., The East India Company: 1600–1858, volume IV: Trade, ﬁnance and power (London: 1998), 168–82; J.D. Gurney, ‘The Debts of the Nawab of Arcot, 1763–1776’ unpublished D. Phil, (Oxford: 1968), 325–8; NAS, Fraser-Macintosh Collection, GD 128/1/3/5: Madras, 11 January 1776, Major William Baillie of Dunain-Lieutenant Godsman; NLS, Melville Papers, Ms 3839, f. 144; NAS, Melville Castle Papers, GD 51GD 51/4/1. A similar, though less extensive credit network also built up around the Raja of Tanjore. 18 For the impact of sub-imperialism, see P.J. Marshall, ‘British Expansion in India in the Eighteenth Century: A Historical Revision’, History, 60 (1975), 30, 37–41. 19 P.J. Marshall, ed., The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke: Volume V, India: Madras and Bengal, 1774–1785 (Oxford: 1981), 5–18. 20 NLS, Minto Papers, Ms 11041, ﬀ. 159–60. 21 NLS, Stuart Stevenson Papers, Ms 8326, f. 3.

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1776, a majority of the Council had him forcibly imprisoned. He later died on 11 May 1777 still under house arrest. The ‘revolution’ that overthrew Pigot demonstrates how a reactive frontier of borrowing and patronage emanating from the Carnatic subverted the company’s government, rendering it ineﬀective at best and highly inappropriate at worst.22 More fundamentally, such events reveal how the very nature of the company’s presence was being contested by the British themselves. The company’s established trading ethos had stressed the supremacy of the civil over the military and that, consequently, governors should control their commanders-in-chief.23 But many now felt this balance had shifted in favour of the army. Those in Madras who believed that the company’s traditional commercial, non-territorial ethos should be maintained, clashed bitterly with those who wished the presidency to promote its territorial inﬂuence and an administrative and military machine that could then expand British trade. Civil servants and merchants, for instance, believed that military personnel had sought unnecessary and commercially damaging conﬂicts in order to win lucrative army contracts and batta [ﬁeld allowances]. The seven lakhs of pagodas [£280,000] due to company oﬃcers and men as a reward for the disruptive Tanjore War was taken as a typical case in point.24 Military oﬃcers, meanwhile, deeply resented their subordination to the commercial authorities. More practically, they believed that company regulations favoured civil servants and writers and precluded them from the ﬁnancial beneﬁts of an empire they had helped create and defend.25 These tensions were a signiﬁcant contributory factor in the periodic collapse in relations between the Presidency’s governor and military 22 For both a detailed description of events and use of ‘Revolution’ to describe Pigot’s deposition, see Love, Vestiges of Old Madras, 84–102. 23 HL, Pocock Collection, PO 1032. 24 HCA, Dunain Mss, D456/7, Nawab of Arcot-General Smith, 9 December 1773. 25 G.J. Bryant, ‘Oﬃcers of the East India Company’s Army in the Days of Clive and Hastings’, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 6 (1978), 204–5. For this attitude of military entrepreneurialism re Tanjore, see NLS, Stuart Stevenson Papers, Ms 8252, ﬀ. 1–4; GCA, Campbell of Succoth Papers, TD 219/10/37 & 127; NAS, Fraser-Macintosh Collection, GD 128/1/3/5: Madras, 1 July 1775, Major William Baillie to Lieutenant Godsman; DCA, Wedderburn of Pearsie, GD 131/25, Ensign Alexander Read to Lieutenant Charles Wedderburn. For hostile military attitudes towards Company regulation of their commercial opportunities, see IOR, Home Miscellaneous, H/84, 611–13, ‘To the Proprietors at Large of the East India Company and to their Military Servants in Particular’.

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commander during in the 1770s and early 1780s. Just one day before his own arrest Pigot had removed the army’s commander, Sir Robert Fletcher, for insubordination. In turn, the new commander Sir James Stuart of Torrance, in collusion with Fort St. George’s garrison major, emerged as the key player in the governor’s apprehension.26 Matters scarcely improved with the appointment of the Irishman, Lord George Macartney, whose governorship from 1781 until 1785 witnessed the deportation of Major-General Sir James Stuart for failure to obey orders.27 These diﬀering emphases on the nature of Britain’s presence in India were far from resolved by the time Inverneil arrived in Madras. This ensured that his governorship would inevitably shape the ongoing evolution of the company’s empire. In a broader sense these particular incidents of civil-military dispute were but eastern manifestations of similar tensions elsewhere within the Empire.28 Whether English ideals regarding the threat of standing armies and the subordination of military commanders to civilian governors ever really characterised North American colonial government is perhaps debatable.29 Nonetheless, a deﬁnite feature of the new forms of administration favoured in the Atlantic empire after 1763 was the heightened role of standing peacetime forces and a tendency in newly acquired territories for the clear division between civil governor and military commander to be eroded. This new administrative ethos sparked a series of bitter disputes between governors and commanders that not only mirrored events in southern India but which also compounded growing colonial distrust of British rule.30 Arguably, then, events at Madras exempliﬁed the birth pains of an evolving ‘Second Empire’, and the more speciﬁc problem of managing porous and interactive frontiers where orthodox English

26

NAS, Fraser-Macintosh Collection, GD 128/1/3/5: Madras 22 January 1777, Major William Baillie to Lieutenant Godsman. 27 GCA, Campbell of Succoth Papers, TD 219/10/86; NLS, George Johnstone Letters, Ms 9246, ﬀ. 8–17; NLS, Stuart Stevenson Papers, Ms 8456, ﬀ. 39–55; NLS, Melville Papers, Ms 1061, ﬀ. 15–16. 28 Marshall, ‘Britain and the World in the Eighteenth Century: I, Reshaping the Empire’, 5. 29 S.S. Webb, The Governors-General: The English Army and the Deﬁnition of the Empire, 1569 –1681 (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: 1979), xvi–vii, 465. 30 PRO, CO 42/24, ﬀ. 107–111; NLS, Minto Papers, Ms 11017, ﬀ. 26–27; J. Shy, Towards Lexington: The Role of the British Army in the Coming of the American Revolution (Princeton: 1965), 149–63; P.D. Nelson, General James Grant: Scottish Soldier and Royal Governor of East Florida (Gainsville, Florida: 1993), 45–52.

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conciliar government could and did quickly become obsolete. Such a context clearly has implications for the issue of how, if at all, Scots might contribute to the evolution of the Empire’s anglicised administration.

Centralism & Militarism: Inverneil and Madras, 1785–9 At the time of his appointment few doubted Sir Archibald Campbell’s credentials as governor even if, unsurprisingly, Madras was considered something of a poisoned chalice.31 A notable feature of Campbell’s career was that it was truly imperial and global in scope. He experienced both the eastern and Atlantic sectors of the Empire, their particular natures and distinctive problems. The second son of a prominent lawyer in Argyll [See Map 1], Inverneil was educated at Glasgow University and commissioned into an infantry regiment before joining the Royal Engineers and serving at Guadeloupe until 1762.32 This Atlantic period of his career contained signiﬁcant lessons for Inverneil, both as a Scot and for his later tenure as a British governor at Madras. Although he never served under him directly, Archibald would have been aware of the problems that beset the commander-in-chief of North America from 1756 until late 1757, John Campbell, 4th Earl of Loudoun.33 He would have learnt of the friction that emerged between Loudoun and various colonial civil governors and assemblies. These arose because the Scottish earl sought to reconﬁgure the pre-existing balance between local assembly and royal oﬃcial in favour of the centrally appointed military commander. This was a foretaste, in essence, of attitudes that were to become commonplace in the post-1763 Empire. However, if Campbell represented an early example of a provincial and military 31 NLS, George Johnstone Letters, Ms 9246, ﬀ. 51–55; E. Cotsford, Letters to the Honourable Court of Directors of the East India Company, on the appointment of a successor to Lord Macartney (np: 1784), 26. 32 L. Namier and J. Brooke, eds., The House of Commons, 1754 –1790, vol. II (London: 1964), 179–80; Love, Vestiges of Old Madras, 319–20. 33 Inverneil’s older brother, James, beneﬁted from Loudoun’s patronage in the 60th Royal American Regiment. NLS, Fletcher of Saltoun Papers, Ms 16518, ﬀ. 21 and 40; DH, Loudoun Papers, A/972, London, 5 April 1756, Sir Henry Munro-Loudoun; Namier and Brooke, The House of Commons, 186; W.M. MacBean, ed., Biographical Register of the St. Andrews Society of the State of New York (New York: 1922), 31–2.

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ethos informing the latest in metropolitan practice, William Pitt the Elder found his authoritarianism counterproductive and his military failures unacceptable, eventually recalling him in early 1758.34 Yet Loudoun was also a victim of the Scotophobia that was to impinge on the careers of most Scottish imperial governors in the later eighteenth century. In mid-February 1758 he informed Archibald Campbell, 3rd Duke of Argyll, that one of his senior oﬃcers had written to London complaining that ‘this was a Scotch expedition and no favour (indeed I have been informed he called it Justice) must be expected for English or Irishmen’.35 Such accusations were a factor, though by no means an exclusive one, behind the genuine zeal with which Scots insisted upon their Britishness.36 When assessing how Inverneil might have been inﬂuenced by his Scottish background, the type of accusation levelled at Loudoun should be borne in mind. The absence of any explicit acknowledgement of Scottish inﬂuence should not be mistaken for the evaporation of strong regional links, political networks and strategies of patronage that owed much to their Scottish context. The next phase of Campbell’s career was in the east. In 1768 he was appointed chief engineer of the Bengal Presidency.37 During the American Revolutionary War he returned to the Atlantic theatre. In 1778 he was placed in command of the 3,500 strong expedition that sought to re-establish British control in Georgia. Inverneil’s success there led to suggestions he would be appointed the colony’s new governor, an opportunity he considered seriously. However, fearful his army background would leave him open to accusations of military authoritarianism, Inverneil was advised to refuse the post.38 The debate over the Georgia commission was important because it drove home the problem of governorships that were divided between civil and military authority. As such, it provided a personal lesson that was to clearly shape Inverneil’s thinking over the Madras appointment. From 1781–4, as a result of his now acknowledged military 34

Marshall, ‘A Nation deﬁned by Empire, 1755–1776’, 211. PRO, Catham Papers, PRO 30/8/96, f. 30. 36 EUL, Campbell of Inverneil, Madras papers, Mic. M. 920, p. 44. 37 IOR, Home Miscellaneous, H/84, 17–19; NAS, Campbell of Inverneil Muniments, RH 4/121/6, 48–9; RH 4/121/7: Colonel Archibald Campbell’s Correspondence with the Board of Works, Bengal 1769–1775, Ft. William, 3 December 1772. 38 NAS, Campbell of Inverneil Muniments, RH 4/121/7, Letter Book 30 Aug 1777–April 1782: Letter, 9 February 1779. 35

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and administrative competence, Inverneil was made, ﬁrst, lieutenantgovernor then governor of Jamaica.39 Much like the series of Scots appointed after the Treaty of Paris in 1763; James Murray in Quebec, George Johnstone in West Florida, James Grant in East Florida and Robert Melville in the Ceded Islands, his conditioning British inﬂuence was his long military career. He thus brought to his governorship the ethos that hierarchy and automatic deference to clearly deﬁned authority was the surest way to eﬀect eﬃcient and stable government. More generally, by 1785, he had extensive experience of dealing with issues of disputed authority and of managing colonial societies along lines that addressed metropolitan security needs. Given this career it is unsurprising that, as he sought to establish the role of the new India Board of Control, Henry Dundas pushed the company directorate to accept Inverneil as governor of Madras. At a basic level, then, Inverneil had one of the primary assets required by a successful imperial oﬃcial; namely, strong support at the metropole. The Dundas connection also underlines the fact that although Inverneil’s tenure did not last a particularly long time, it came at a pivotal moment in the Crown’s own expanding frontier of authority over the company and its presidencies. Inverneil was very much the Crown’s man: he had no time for the directors who, he believed, were little more than gloriﬁed peddlers with no conception of ruling territory or of the processes underpinning military decisions. In August 1788, while defending his policies, he noted that at India House ‘the general topics of economy and reduction of expense and military extravagance never fail to make impressions’.40 Nothing better illustrates that lessons had been learnt from the Empire’s general crisis of 1754–84 than Inverneil’s belief that he needed to hold both the civil and military governorships—a point he made strongly to Dundas. He thus united separate commissions in a way that had become standard in newly acquired Atlantic territories by 1763, but which had remained separate in India and caused damaging tensions there in the 1770s. Dundas and Lord Charles Cornwallis, the new governor-general of India, were in agreement on this issue:

39 NAS, Campbell of Inverneil Muniments, RH 4/121/7, Letter Book 30 Aug 1777–April 1782: Letter 28 May 1780; GCA, Campbell of Succoth Papers, TD 219/47: Jamaica, 8 June 1781. 40 EUL, Campbell of Inverneil, Madras Papers, Mic. M. 920, 97; NLS, Melville Papers, Ms 3838, ﬀ. 178–181; NAS, Melville Castle Papers, GD 51/17/69, 5–6.

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indeed, the deportation of Major-General Stuart had made a military governor for Madras all but inevitable.41 Inverneil himself was certainly contemptuous of the preceding civilian administrators, arguing that they had overly favoured commercial interests while allowing the army’s pay to fall almost a year in arrears. He added: [my] successors ought to be military men. I say military men because I am persuaded that the safety of the Carnatic must rest chieﬂy in the qualiﬁcations of the governor. If this oﬃcer does not possess more military knowledge that your late governors Rumbold, Whittle and Macartney, I can foresee that the Carnatic will not be long in the hands of the British nation.42

The whole tone of his governorship was therefore profoundly militaristic. Along with Cornwallis he had, according to Dundas, ‘the task of redeeming a lost empire’ after its heavy defeat in North America and near total collapse in the Madras Presidency a few years previously.43 His actual objective was to put the army back on a ﬁrm footing and, above all, realign the formal border of political control with the less tangible but more dynamic frontier of ﬁnance and credit that overlapped it. To this end, in February 1787, he ﬁnalised a treaty increasing Arcot’s annual payments to the company from 16 to 21 lakhs of pagodas—a total of £840,000 per annum.44 However, while the 12 lakhs originally demarcated for the Nawab’s private creditors in the provisional treaty of 1785 remained static, Campbell revealed his immediate priorities by concentrating on subsidiary alliance contributions. These increased from four to nine lakhs per annum: similarly, he secured another £160,000 from Tanjore for the Madras army.45 He also believed that to leave such taxation districts under the control of indigenous princes was ‘an

41 NLS, Melville Papers, Ms 3385, 117–8; Ms 3387, 8, 13–19; NLS, Stuart Stevenson Papers, Ms 8456, ﬀ. 39–42; NAS, Melville Castle Papers, GD 51/3/305. 42 NLS, Melville Papers, Ms 3839, ﬀ. 93–4; Ms 3837, ﬀ. 6–7, 17–24. 43 NAS, Melville Castle Papers, GD 51/17/69, 7. See also NAS, Seaﬁeld Muniments, GD 248/60/3/11–12. 44 IOR, Madras Consultations, P/240/62, 416–22; NAS, Melville Castle Papers, GD 51/3/3/60; EUL, Campbell of Inverneil, Madras Papers, Mic. M. 920, ‘Abstract of Occurrences at Fort Saint George during the administration of Major-General Sir Archibald Campbell, 6 April 1786–7 February 1789’; NLS, Melville Papers, Ms 3839, ﬀ. 16–19. 45 EUL, Campbell of Inverneil, Madras Papers, Mic. M. 920, 32–35; NAS, Melville Castle Papers, GD 51/17/69, 14.

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incongruous political arrangement’, if not ‘pernicious’. While the metropole, at least in the form of the directors, stressed the undesirability of territorial expansion, Inverneil pushed for having these areas brought under direct company administration. He wished to replace, in eﬀect, the devolved frontier with the formal boundary.46 Similarly, and again despite Leadenhall’s aversion, he ﬁnalised the Presidency’s annexation of the Guntur Circars from Hyderabad. Although Cornwallis supported this action, he did not approve of Inverneil’s decision to centralise revenue collection under one individual who then reported directly to the governor and council.47 Where direct territorial control was not appropriate or possible, Inverneil reverted to extending Madras’ devolved frontier through the creation of additional subsidiary alliances. In August 1788 he completed such an arrangement with another regional power, the Raja of Travancore, for an annual payment of £24,000 to create two new battalions of sepoys [See Map 6]. This, however, represented a diplomatic commitment that later induced the third Mysore war in 1790.48 In all, his policies clearly undermined the directors’ hope for a peace dividend after the end of hostilities in early 1784. Indeed, while the court of directors ordered a reduction in the army from 41,378 to 32,202 in September 1785, Inverneil’s tenure witnessed it remain at nearly 37,000 men—a considerable enhancement of the Madras presidency’s peacetime military capacity.49 Unsurprisingly, some senior company servants on the Madras council, along with commercial interests in the wider community, felt that such spending was better invested in trading capital. They were highly critical of Inverneil’s ‘military system of extravagance, the universal profusion of staﬀ allowances daily enormously increasing, barrack masters formed upon the same system as American ones and making with rapidity ample fortunes’. Of Inverneil’s administration the same critic concluded:

NLS, Melville Papers, Ms 3838, ﬀ. 178–181, 199–200; Ms 3839, ﬀ. 3–9. W.J. Wilson, History of the Madras Army, 2 (Madras: 1882), 145–6; NLS, Melville Papers, Ms 3838, ﬀ. 15–17, 206 and 219. 48 IOR, Home Miscellaneous, H/85, 7. 49 For strength of Madras army see IOR, Home Miscellaneous, H/84, 203, 207 and 247–52; EUL, Campbell of Inverneil, Madras Papers, Mic. M. 920, ‘Abstract of Occurrences at Fort Saint George during the administration of Major-General Sir Archibald Campbell, 6 April 1786–7 February 1789’. 46 47

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  . . . are we not by a vain display of a military system in time of peace ruining the resources which we should require if we were so unfortunate as to be in a state of war, and possessing an empire for the sake of commerce whose commerce we do not enjoy? 50

Of course such analysis must be treated with caution in light of its highly political agenda. Inverneil did much to encourage but also to more formally regulate private country trade from Madras.51 Another charge laid against him was that he was authoritarian. Rather than focusing administration on the presidency council, he chose to run business through a series of new committees, or boards, made up from the presidency’s senior personnel. These were the Boards of Trade, Revenue, Hospital and Military. Beyond these core administrative fora Inverneil also actively developed a Committee of Police, the purpose of which was surveillance of the Eurasian Catholic community and the regulation of labour and prices. Precisely these types of concerns have been highlighted as indicative of Britain’s new imperial ethos, with its heightened awareness of race and economic regulation.52 The four central boards were undoubtedly an attempt by Inverneil to bypass hostile factions: indeed, he later noted that one of the principal charges against him was that ‘I make ciphers of my colleagues at Madras’.53 Campbell denied this, arguing that his measures were designed so ‘that a spirit of due obedience and subordination should be inculcated through all the branches of the service’.54

Tactics for frontier governorship: Imperialising Scottish political association & interest Beyond its general character, the high proﬁle of Scots within Campbell’s regime gives an indication of the tactics open to a governor attempting to cement his authority in a frontier context. After all, however

NLS, Melville Papers, Ms 3839, ﬀ. 3–9, 32–8; Love, Vestiges of Old Madras, 402. H. Furber, ‘Madras in 1787’, in Essays in Modern English History in honour of Wilbur Cortez Abbot (Port Washington, N.Y.: 1971), 275; NAS, Melville Castle Papers, GD 51/17/69, 1–3. 52 Love, Vestiges of Old Madras, 320–24; Bayly, Imperial Meridian, 131–2. 53 NLS, Melville Papers, Ms 3838, ﬀ. 50–55. 54 NLS, Melville Papers, Ms 3838 ﬀ. 81–90. See also NAS, Melville Castle Papers, GD 51/3/303/3. 50 51

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much Dundas and Cornwallis determined the overall aims of British government in India, they were not immediately on hand to construct the stable regime that would implement these objectives locally. Inverneil’s appointments are crucial in this last respect. They also reveal the extent to which Scots were prominent in activities like the armed forces and government contracting that were altering the nature of the company’s presence in south India. Arguably, then, part of the Scotophobia that marred Inverneil’s tenure did not spring from any real belief in a Scottish takeover. Instead, it was a symptom of the ongoing controversy over the more overtly militaristic and bureaucratic direction in which company government was moving. Although from 1750 to 1800 it was a fading attraction in commercial terms, Madras still contained a disproportionate number of Scots.55 Nowhere was this more apparent than on the council that had deposed Lord Pigot. Four out of its ten members were Scots; namely, Sir Robert Fletcher, the commander-in-chief, and George Mackay, who both opposed Pigot, while Claud Russell and Alexander Dalrymple both supported him.56 Such involvement stretched back to the metropole where, of the 17 MPs advancing the claims of the Arcot creditors, four were Scots.57 Yet it was also the case that Scots tended to be concentrated within certain, particular activities. Albeit Madras’ most prominent free merchant was Andrew Ross, and one of the three largest companies trading out of the port was co-owned by William Balfour, Scots had a somewhat low proﬁle numerically within the private commercial community. Although arguably underestimating the total number of Scottish personnel, a 1786 Madras list of 160 British individuals in unoﬃcial, non-company occupations contains only 28 Scots.58 While primarily underpinned by Inverneil’s professional preference for military men, another context to his poor

55 P.J. Marshall, ‘Private British Trade in the Indian Ocean Before 1800’, in A. Das Gupta and M.N. Pearson, eds., India and the Indian Ocean, 1500–1800 (Calcutta: 1987), 288. Disproportionate is taken to mean Scots ought to have made up 15% of Europeans—their percentage of Britain and Protestant Ireland’s total population. 56 For details on the nationality of council members, see IOR, J/1/1, 197–99, 341–44. 57 In his study of the Arcot interest C.H. Phillips lists 14 MPs. However, J. Phillips, in his later study, expands the number to 17. Phillips, The East India Company, 30; Phillips, ‘A Successor to the Moguls’, 194, n. 87; Namier and Brooke, The House of Commons, 2, 532, 579; 3, 96, 180–81. 58 IOR, O/5/31: European Inhabitants, Madras, 1786–1828, ﬀ. 1–4; H. Furber, ‘Madras in 1787’, 267.

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relationship with the company’s civil service was that Scots were particularly ill represented within this group. In 1787, for example, only 17 of Madras’ 181 civil servants were Scots.59 By contrast, it was in the army that Scots maintained a strong presence, albeit largely within the higher ranks.60 Embarkation lists of East India Company military personnel for 1753–63 reveal that Scots constituted only around one-in-ﬁfteen non-commissioned cadets. However, they made up 22% of all commissioned personnel during that particular decade— the single largest provincial presence within the cadre of promoted oﬃcers.61 This produced a disproportionate Scots proﬁle within the higher echelons of the Madras army by the 1780s. For example, of the 46 oﬃcers claiming prize money from the Tanjore expedition, 14—nearly one in three—were Scots. Such inﬂuence in high military places is typiﬁed by the council of Madras oﬃcers that monitored the Nawab’s payments to company regiments sent into Tanjore in 1773: six of its 17 individuals were Scots.62 This pattern of military service was reinforced by the fact that half of all royal regiments sent to India from the 1750s to 1780s were Scottish.63 Perhaps unsurprisingly, three of the ﬁve commanders-in-chief during the decade prior to 1786 were Scots. The two main military ﬁgures in the ‘revolution’ against Pigot were Sir Robert Fletcher from Fife and Major-General James Stuart of Torrance in Lanarkshire. The less than edifying role of Scottish commanders continued with Sir Hector Munro of Novar from Ross-shire who led the Madras army to serious defeat during the early years of the Mysore War of 1780–4.64 Yet, from the perspective of Inverneil as governor, this Scottish presence constituted a problem as much as an opportunity. Dundas explicitly warned him to avoid any suggestion of using his position

59

IOR, L/F/10/113, ‘Madras Civil Establishment List, 1787’. L.M. Cullen, ‘Scotland & Ireland, 1600–1800: Their Role in the Evolution of British Society’, in R.A. Houston and I.D. Whyte, eds., Scottish Society, 1500–1800 (Cambridge: 1989), 233–4; GCA, Campbell of Succoth Papers TD 219/10/27. 61 IOR, L/MIL/9/85, 1–255. 62 NLS, Melville Papers, Ms 49, 13–14; GCA, Campbell of Succoth Papers, TD 219/10/76; NAS, Fraser-Macintosh Collection, GD 128/1/1/6: Fort St. George 13 January 1774; HCA, Dunain Mss, D456/7, Ft. St. George, 16 January 1774, letter from oﬃcers’ committee to General Smith. 63 G.J. Bryant, ‘Scots in India in the Eighteenth Century’, Scottish Historical Review, 64 (1985), 23. 64 A. Mackenzie, History of the Munros of Fowlis (Inverness: 1908), 519–22. 60

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to overly favour or promote Scots.65 Indeed, Inverneil’s capacity to dispense patronage along lines of nationality should not be over emphasised. Certain posts could only be given to oﬃcial company servants, and only then in a pre-determined sequence of seniority. Similarly, the issue of whether King’s oﬃcers could hold any oﬃce beyond their own regimental commission was one that dogged Inverneil’s entire administration.66 The latter scenario, by limiting his preference for army personnel, saw Campbell argue that it was ‘bad policy permitting untoward distinctions to exist between the oﬃcers of the Honourable Company, and those of His Majesty’. Signiﬁcantly, he also added, ‘it would be unjust and unwise to lay it down as a rule that the bounty of the company should ﬂow through the partial channel of their covenanted servants’.67 He believed that, for the sake of eﬃciency, promotions should be ‘from gentlemen on the spot’.68 Not only did such a policy increase his discretionary patronage, it almost inevitably aroused considerable controversy, not least because signiﬁcant pressures induced Campbell to push at the constraints imposed by Dundas and the company’s pre-established promotion structure. Upon the announcement of his posting he received a rash of requests from Scots, both in India and Scotland, for employment. These included individuals such as Major Archibald Campbell of Askomel, who had fought with him in North America. Also, although not beholden to John Campbell, 5th Duke of Argyll, Inverneil did cater to Argyllshire’s infamously clannish Campbell network. The impecunious Neil Campbell of Duntroon noted that Inverneil’s governorship was an ‘event which may be of service to many of our country friends’, while Lieutenant-Colonel George Campbell, languishing on half-pay, followed the governor to Madras.69 Similarly, in 1788, Inverneil promoted Captain Alexander Campbell, son of Sir James Campbell of Ardkinglas, a client of Argyll. Kinsmen on his wife’s side, the Ramsays, formed another constituency seeking favour, as did the Duchess of Atholl who lobbied on behalf of her son, Lord William Murray. Lord Adam Gordon, MP for

65

NAS, Melville Castle Papers, GD 51/17/69, 4. NLS, Stuart Stevenson Papers, Ms 8251, f. 60. 67 NLS, Melville Papers, Ms 3838, ﬀ. 50–55, 61–4. 68 NLS, Melville Papers, Ms 3838, ﬀ. 69–79. 69 EUL, Dk. 7. 53/37, 40–1 and 44; NLS, Melville Papers, Ms 3837 f. 195; IOR, O/5/31: European Inhabitants, Madras, 1786–1828, ﬀ. 7–11. 66

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Kincardine, meanwhile, sought assistance on behalf of a nephew.70 The sense amongst many Scots that Inverneil’s appointment was a patronage bonanza is typiﬁed by James Campbell, who noted from Madras: ‘I hope that General Campbell’s appointment will better my prospects’.71 James was the son of Archibald Campbell of Succoth, a laird with an estate on the outskirts of north west Glasgow, but also with strong Argyll connections. Of more signiﬁcance, however, was the fact that James’ brother was Ilay Campbell, Scottish Lord Advocate, and a pivotal ﬁgure in Henry Dundas’ Scottish political network. As early as 1781 Inverneil had thanked Ilay for defending him in London over policy in Jamaica, and had promised ‘the most essential services in my power on behalf of any friend you may wish to forward in life’. When, in 1787, Inverneil obtained command of a Highland regiment destined for India it was Ilay who organised the Scottish side of commissioning.72 This association, and his own position as MP for the Stirlingshire burghs, underline the extent to which Inverneil was an integral part of Dundas’ interest.73 At an immediate level his personal electoral concerns explain why, in India, he sought to promote the client of a locally important ﬁgure like Adam Low, provost of Dunfermline.74 Yet through his involvement with Dundas, Campbell’s agenda was not just that of kin and constituency. His governorship would also entail lubricating a political interest that, while organised in London, was concerned with sustaining a Scottish wide network. When attempting to understand how such provinciality could interact with imperial governorship, it is worth stressing the number of individuals in Madras with political connections in Scotland. This meant that the country’s domestic management did not need to be addressed exclusively from Edinburgh or London but could, in a small way, be tackled at 70 NLS, Melville Papers, Ms 3838, ﬀ. 221–23; EUL, Campbell of Inverneil, Madras Papers, Mic. M. 920, 4, 8–9, 13 and 48; NLS, Raeburn Papers, Ms 2903, ﬀ. 23–9; HL, Sir George Yonge Papers, YO 119; GCA, Campbell of Succoth Papers, TD 219/47, ‘State of Remittances made to England by Major-General Sir Archibald Campbell’; AUSC, Gordon Military Papers, Ms 2284/3. 71 GCA, Campbell of Succoth Papers, TD 219/10/27 and 97. 72 NLS, Melville Papers, Ms 3387, 13–19; EUL, Campbell of Inverneil, Madras Papers, Mic. M. 920, 121; GCA, Campbell of Succoth Papers, TD 219/5/76 and 78; TD 219/47. 73 NAS, Campbell of Inverneil Muniments, RH 4/121/7, Letter Book, August 1777–April 1782: Letter 14 October 1780; NLS, Melville Papers, Ms 3837, ﬀ. 63–4. 74 EUL, Campbell of Inverneil, Madras Papers, Mic. M. 920, 111–12.

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Madras. As an electoral supporter of the ministry in Ayrshire, the company writer Benjamin Roebuck exempliﬁed this link. Several important examples, moreover, reveal its concrete expression and the way in which the governor constituted a crucial conduit that could service Scottish political networks on the frontier of the Empire. Although not connected by kin or regional links, Campbell nonetheless promoted the Scot, David Haliburton, onto the new Madras Board of Trade. This was because David’s father, John Haliburton of Muirhouselaw, a former company servant, was an Edinburgh ﬁgure whom Dundas strove to accommodate.75 For similar reasons Inverneil promoted Hugh Maxwell, brother of Lieutenant-Colonel William Maxwell, as a taxation supervisor. Employing George Webster, meanwhile, in the £1,000 per annum post of sepoy-master was about nurturing contact with Robert Preston and his brother Sir George Preston of Valleyﬁeld in Perthshire, the pro-Dundas MP for the Dysart burghs in Fife and an important ﬁgure in the East India Company shipping interest. Most striking, however, was John Balfour of Trenaby in Orkney, placed by Inverneil on the Board of Trade. Tellingly, Balfour represented a pro-Dundas family in that hotly disputed constituency and was, eventually, to become its ministerial MP in 1790.76 In all, these Madras contacts would have generated some sense of obligation to Dundas in six Scottish seats, over 13% of the country’s entire parliamentary representation. Clearly, warnings from Dundas in his capacity as a metropolitan ‘India’ oﬃcial were compromised and even contradicted by pressures to service his Scottish political concerns. Indeed, that Inverneil ignored his patron’s advice reveals how easily provincial networks could be projected into the imperial arena through the medium of a governor. Aiding this process was the fact that, while Dundas urged restraint, he still expected Inverneil’s position to work to his political advantage where possible, but in a way that did not attract attention. The Scottish manager’s expectations of his gubernatorial appointments were well summed up by his conﬁdant, David Scott, who noted of potential

75 C.E. Adam, ed., View of the political state of Scotland in the last Century (Edinburgh: 1887), 22; IOR, J/1/6, 41–44; J/1/7, 222–24. For connection with Dundas, see NLS, Melville Papers, Ms 1072, f. 108. 76 EUL, Campbell of Inverneil, Madras Papers, Mic. M. 920, 13, 38–9; Namier and Brooke, The House of Commons, 1, 490–1; 3, 125–6, 326; Adam, View of the political state of Scotland, 246.

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appointees to the governorship of Bombay. ‘None of them have any to speak for them, of course if appointed they must know they have you solely to thank for it, and of course must be strongly attached to you’.77 This all suggests that beneath their formal administrative tasks Scottish proconsuls played a less obvious role. They constituted a vital link that represented and accommodated Scottish networks within the Empire’s formal administrative and employment framework. This meant that Scottish elite associations, which could be provincial within the United Kingdom itself, acquired metropolitan status within an imperial context. More speciﬁcally, governors acted as an overseas supplement to Scotland’s woefully low number of MPs, providing additional political and patronage leadership. In so doing, they lessened any domestic tensions brought on by inadequate parliamentary representation at Westminster. Yet a second, if related, factor also impinged upon the way Campbell distributed his patronage. Appointing Scots was not just about massaging conditions back in Scotland. As governor, he had clearly connected two seemingly disparate sectors of the Empire. The frontier presidency of Madras now played a small but nonetheless useful role within domestic Scottish politics. Crucially, however, Campbell also intended that such Scottish connections assist him in India. All governors had to think carefully about the client base from which they could build up, if only partially, support for their administration. Failure to do so resulted in unrest that often led to a hostile campaign at the metropole by alienated colonial interests or, alternatively, a collapse in eﬃcient local government. Both scenarios often ended in recall. Inverneil dealt with this problem in a tiered way. One particular method was to grant licenses to reside at Madras. These allowed individuals without an oﬃcial company post to set themselves up in commercial employment. A list of such personnel dated from 19 January 1789, near the end of his time in Madras, reveals Inverneil had granted this right to 15 people, ten of whom were Scots. This entrenched his position within the increasingly important country trading interest. He relied on Scottish free traders, such as William Balfour, whom he consulted over David Scott’s plans

77 NAS, Melville Castle Papers, GD 51/3/3/37, London, 15 November 1792, David Scott-Dundas.

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for Madras’ commerce. Andrew Ross, meanwhile, performed the important task of remitting home Inverneil’s Indian proﬁts and, crucially, those of his political clients.78 Despite the constraints already highlighted on any governor’s ability to overly promote any national group, it is telling that Madras’ oﬃcial administration still took on a wholly disproportionate Scottish ﬂavour. Of the seven members of the Military Board, three were Scots: namely, Inverneil as commander-in-chief, Colonel Patrick Ross as chief engineer, a close friend since Guadeloupe, and James Campbell of Succoth, promoted by Inverneil to quartermaster of the army. In addition, the adjutantgeneral, who also sat on the Military Board, was a Colonel Henry Malcolm, most likely a Scot. While his Scottish background cannot be proved conclusively, he was certainly connected to Inverneil by virtue of his marriage to Miss Charlotte Ramsay, a kinswomen of Campbell’s own wife, Lady Amelia Campbell [nee Ramsay].79 Most strikingly, Haliburton, William Hamilton from Edinburgh, Alexander Davidson from Ross-shire, and John Balfour formed exactly half the membership of the crucial boards of trade and revenue. Meanwhile, as physician-general, the Scot, Dr. James Anderson, headed the three man strong Hospital Board. Thus, of the presidency’s eighteen most important administrators, eight were Scots: indeed, if Malcolm is included exactly half of Madras’ government were either Scottish or married to a Scot.80 This disproportionate use of Scots is all the more obvious when it is recalled that they made up a small number—less than 10%—of the oﬃcial civil servant cadre.81 Lower oﬃces, such as clerk to the Military Board, and depute paymaster to the

IOR, O/5/31: European Inhabitants, Madras, 1786–1828, ﬀ. 7–11; NAS, Melville Castle Papers, GD 51/3/3/5; GCA, Campbell of Succoth Papers, TD 219/47/‘State of Remittances made to England by Major-General Sir Archibald Campbell’. 79 IOR, Madras Military Consultations, P/252/9, April 1786–3 July 1786, 688; IOR, L/MIL/11/2, ‘List of Oﬃcers on the Coast of Coromandel, 29 February 1788’; NLS, Raeburn Papers, Ms 2903, f. 6; H. Dodwell, ed., List of Marriages Registered in the Presidency of Ft. St. George, 1680–1800 (Madras: 1916), 42. 80 Love, Vestiges of Old Madras, 320–1, 332. Love notes the Hospital Board at four members. However, Madras Consultations reveal three actual members of the Board and a clerk, listed separately. See IOR, Madras Military Consultations, P/252/9, 689–90; GCA, Campbell of Succoth Papers, TD 219/10/99(1–2); IOR, J/1/3, 297–99; J/1/6, 99–104; NAS, Campbell of Inverneil Muniments, RH 4/121/1: Correspondence of Inverneil’s Attorneys, 1776–77, 1–2; NAS, Fea of Clestrain Flett Collection, GD 31/414. 81 IOR, L/F/10/113, Civil Establishment, Madras, 1787. 78

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King’s troops, also went to Scots like John Maclean and Robert Mitford.82 Of course this pattern had little or nothing to do with sentimental national aﬃnity. Inverneil hoped that the desire of Scots in India to retain Dundas’ goodwill would ensure the co-operation of what were, after all, important Presidency oﬃcials. As a bonus, Inverneil doubtless hoped that by accommodating these Scots he could produce a loyalty dividend for Dundas amongst their relatives back at home. Yet it was in the construction of the primary tier of his client base that Inverneil brought about the real disapproval of his superiors. Here, Scots dominated totally. The captain of his bodyguard was a Lieutenant Alexander Grant. Similarly, whilst kinship can be all too easily dismissed as an obsolete mechanism of political association, no longer relevant within an imperial context, Campbell’s inner circle was mostly relations and Argyll kinsmen. Mindful of the garrison major’s role in the deposition of Pigot, Inverneil appointed his nephew to the post, which he described as ‘the most conﬁdential oﬃcer near my person’.83 His aide-de-camp, meanwhile, was Alexander Campbell, the son of Ardkinglas. Duntroon was appointed as muster-master of all regular British army troops, typifying the political reliance Inverneil placed on the army. His secretary, whom he also made postmaster-general, was his cousin, Montgomery Campbell. Alongside another Scot, Buchanan, appointed to the Nawab’s court on an income of £2,100, Montgomery ﬁnalised the treaty negotiations at Arcot.84 Campbell’s intelligence network in the Circars, meanwhile, was run by another Scot, Alexander Read, an uncle of Amelia Ramsay.85 One particularly high-proﬁle promotion was that of Colonel Dugald Campbell to the £5,250 per annum post of cavalry commander.86 Such favouritism outraged company civil servants. In a letter deeply critical of Campbell it was noted that he chose those ‘who came out as adventurers or were not in the service’ and ‘that he has appointed one of his own family’. It concluded: ‘Could these practices of corruption be relaxed in his IOR, O/5/31: European Inhabitants, Madras, 1786–1828, ﬀ. 7–11. IOR, L/MIL/11/2, ‘List of Oﬃcers on the Coast of Coromandel, 29 February 1788’; EUL, Campbell of Inverneil, Madras Papers, Mic. M. 920, 82–4. 84 EUL, Campbell of Inverneil, Madras Papers, Mic. M. 920, 28–32; NLS, Melville Papers, Ms 3839, ﬀ. 32–38. 85 I am grateful to Mr Brendan Carnduﬀ at King’s College, London, for this particular point. 86 NLS, Melville Papers, Ms 3837, ﬀ. 27–8; Ms 1060, ﬀ. 166–67. 82 83

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intercourse in the West Indies and America: was there any system in the American war but profusion and extravagance?’87 As well as the quartermastership, Campbell of Succoth was awarded an extremely lucrative bullock contract, of which he noted, ‘a military man getting any share of the good things of the service is look’d upon by the gentlemen in the civil line to be an infringement of their rights’.88 Inverneil’s governorship witnessed, therefore, a noticeable intensiﬁcation in the pre-existing tensions between the commercial and more overtly ﬁscal-military, territorially aggressive views of empire in south India. Ultimately, the charges that Campbell had acted less than impartially were sustained on certain counts by the directors in London. Even Cornwallis, who had hoped Inverneil would succeed him as governor-general, accepted that ‘there were some weaknesses in the governor which I lamented’—a judgement Dundas was forced to concur with.89 The result was that his nominee for fort major, as well as Dugald Campbell and James Campbell of Succoth were dismissed or had their commissions curtailed. Inverneil was incensed, blaming a multitude of factors, including jealousy of the King’s oﬃcers, insubordination on the part of certain council members and, though he was not prepared to say so in public, hostility towards his promotion of near relations.90 Given the background of those whom he had favoured he had in fact very little to complain about. Nonetheless, there is little doubt that the hostile reaction to his nominations reinforced, albeit in a negative way, a sense of Scottishness that otherwise might have been more narrowly expressed. He thus thanked Dundas for news . . . respecting the reﬂections suggested by individuals on seeing so many Scotchmen employed in the management of Indian aﬀairs. So long as my actions are upright and honourable and my best exertions are directed in promoting the interests of the India Company and the

87 NLS, Melville Papers, Ms 3839, ﬀ. 22–7. For distrust amongst Company oﬃcials towards army oﬃcers like Inverneil and Cornwallis who had fought in North America see NLS, George Johnstone Letters, Ms 9246, f. 42. 88 GCA, Campbell of Succoth Papers, TD 219/10/108 (1–2), 127. 89 NLS, Melville Papers, Ms 3385, 7 and 437; Ms 3387, 20. 90 GCA, Campbell of Succoth Papers, TD 219/47, Inveraray, 18 July 1788, James Campbell-Ilay Campbell; EUL, Campbell of Inverneil, Madras Papers, Mic. M. 920, 76–9, 81, 99–101; N.L.S., Melville Papers, Ms 3838 ﬀ. 50–55; Ms 3839, ﬀ. 3–9.

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  nation; I, as one of these Scotchmen, persuade myself that I shall meet with an honest and manly support.91

Sir John Macpherson, sympathising with the brother of one of Inverneil’s clients, put it even more bluntly. ‘Had he been by name John Bull I think he must have succeed to the present oﬃce’.92 Ultimately, it was the directors’ hostile reaction to his Arcot treaty, which they considered ‘an infringement of the rights of the [Nawab’s] creditors’, that conﬁrmed Inverneil’s decision to resign in early 1789.93 However, the speciﬁc criticisms of his favouritism towards Scottish associates were undoubtedly an important contributory factor.

Conclusion It would be easy to dismiss Inverneil as a none-too-subtle Scot who was caught using imperial employment as a gravy train for his kinsmen and political associates. Yet his governorship undoubtedly raises new perspectives on how British rule evolved in India. For instance, while the inﬂuence of provincial societies upon the British Empire’s governing ethos remains a noticeably neglected area of study, recent arguments have begun to emerge over whether the Scottish Enlightenment formed the basis of ‘a Scottish school of imperial administrators’ in India by the 1820s.94 Inverneil’s tenure at Madras strongly suggests that, far from being promoters of enlightened notions of India’s potential as a civic society,95 Scots were as likely to be early exponents of the central role of the army in British India. Indeed, with his bypassing of traditional conciliarism and his promotion of the army interest, Inverneil represents an important precedent for the centralism and militarism more usually associated with those later provincial networkers, the Wellesleys.96 91

NLS, Melville Papers, Ms 3837, f. 195. GCA, Campbell of Succoth Papers, TD 219/10/117. 93 NAS, Melville Castle Papers, GD 51/3/3/60–1; GCA, Campbell of Succoth Papers, TD 219/47, Inveraray, 18 July 1788, James Campbell-Ilay Campbell. 94 D.M. Peers, ‘Soldiers, Scholars, and the Scottish Enlightenment: Militarism in Early Nineteenth Century India’, International History Review, 16 (1994), 441. 95 M. McLaren, ‘From Analysis to Prescription: Scottish Concepts of Asian Despotism in Early Nineteenth-Century India’, International History Review, 15 (1993). Also see J. Rendall, ‘Scottish Orientalism: from Robertson to James Mill’, Historical Journal, 25 (1982), 43–5. 96 C.A. Bayly, ‘The British Military-Fiscal State and Indigenous Resistance: India, 92

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Assessment of metropolitan provincials in the emergence of territorial dominance on the subcontinent must bear in mind the obvious failures in company government during the 1770s and 1780s. By the time Inverneil arrived in 1786, ‘British’ government in southern India could no longer be eﬀortlessly conjured up from a template of traditional English constitutionalism. Given this lack of settled Anglo-British government, Madras represented exactly the type of imperial frontier that forced elites stationed there to bring their own backgrounds to bear on the nature of administration. Of course Inverneil’s Scottish origins were never the paramount inﬂuence. Because of their propensity for serving in the British army—itself, however, a discernible Scottish response to empire—many of the assumptions and prejudices of Scots governors were shaped by decades of professional soldiering. Inverneil also had to respect the pre-existing supervisory rights of the directors at Leadenhall Street. Most importantly, he also formulated aspects of his regime in consultation with Dundas and, more locally, Cornwallis, who introduced similar changes in Bengal as part of a wider metropolitan restructuring of the Empire in India. In this sense his provincial background was but one ingredient amongst a greater ‘British’ amalgam of factors. Yet while his Scottish background may not have determined the oﬃcial framework and overall aims of his administration, it clearly inﬂuenced the speciﬁc tactics he used to achieve these wider objectives. His ongoing involvement in Scottish politics, for instance, would have reinforced the preference, arising from his military career, for non-representative, paternalistic institutions as ideal mechanisms for frontier government. It has been suggested with some justice that propagandist images of the authoritarian Scot were nothing but English caricature—often, indeed, linked to instances of Scots promoted into proconsular posts.97 However, it is important to underline the extent to which Scottish elites were indeed used to overwhelming domestic power. In terms of the political and socio-economic authority they wielded over their own communities, Scotland had the most powerful landed elite of any component part of the British Isles. This was clearly demonstrated by the Scottish landed class’ implementation of the most 1750–1800’, in L. Stone, ed., An Imperial State at War: Britain from 1689 –1815 (London: 1994), 341–2. 97 J.M. Mackenzie, ‘On Scotland and the Empire’, International History Review, 15 (1993), 718.

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revolutionary and rapid programme of agrarian improvement within either Britain or Ireland.98 More speciﬁcally, because the country had the most concentrated pattern of land ownership and restrictive voting qualiﬁcations, it also had the smallest and thus easiest managed electorate within Britain or Ireland. The Protestant Irish, for example, had a total electorate of around 60,000: Scotland, meanwhile, had approximately 4,200.99 Important facets of Scotland’s eighteenth century political culture also diﬀered from that of England. The traditions and rhetoric of the latter placed particular emphasis on the importance of representation in Parliament. In Scotland, however, obtaining reliable access to patronage lobbying and ﬁscal state employment, as opposed to parliamentary representation per se, was equally seen as the end product of politics.100 This remained the case throughout the eighteenth century even while Scottish elites adopted the conventions and discourses of English liberty as part of the anglicising North British civic patriotism.101 Nor did this mean elite Scots felt they were peculiarly under-represented. Electoral enfranchisement, while hardly an alien concept, did not necessarily rate highly above a client-patron relationship that might provide equally eﬀective representation, if in a rather diﬀerent manner. While diﬀering perhaps only in degree rather than absolutely from the English concept of representation by the vote, Scots placed a subtle but important emphasis on clientage. Patronage politics was thus easier to promote and sustain in Scotland, both for reasons of structure and customary inclination. Indeed, Inverneil’s own county, Argyll, was acknowledged as the most prominent example of this discernible culture of state-employment based political clientage.102 Given the Empire’s

98 T.M. Devine, The Transformation of Rural Scotland: Social Change and the Agrarian Economy, 1660–1815 (Edinburgh: 1994), 62–4. 99 F.G. James, Ireland in the Empire, 1660–1770 (Cambridge, Mass: 1973), 287–89; J.S. Stuart, The Political History of Eighteenth Century Scotland (London: 1999), 32. 100 For ﬁscal state colonisation, see J. Brewer, The Sinews of Power: War, Money and the English state, 1688–1783 (London: 1989), 73–4, 251; W. Ferguson, ‘Electoral Law & Procedure in 18th and early 19th Century Scotland unpublished Ph.D., (Glasgow: 1957), 31–33; D.J. Brown, ‘The Government of Scotland under Henry Dundas and William Pitt’, History, 83 (1998), 266. 101 C. Kidd, ‘North Britishness and the nature of eighteenth century British patriotisms’, Historical Journal, 39 (1996), 362–3. 102 For the centrality of state-military employment, see A. Mackillop, ‘More Fruitful than the Soil’: Army, Empire and the Scottish Highlands, 1715–1815 (East Linton: 2001), 139. For Argyll see Adam, View of the political state of Scotland, 43.

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development of an ever-increasing ethos of militarised administration, it is also signiﬁcant that Scotland’s electorate and political representatives contained the largest number of military men when compared with other areas of Britain.103 While executing broadly the same role as in England and Ireland, military patronage had been honed by the 3rd Duke of Argyll to facilitate the political management of Scotland’s elites and their clients. Moreover, because of the country’s reputation for military insurrection, this managerial ethos had been implemented in a self-consciousness way not apparent in England or, as yet, in Protestant Ireland. Indeed, by 1760 army patronage was a central agency ensuring domestic Scottish political stability, management and administration—much as its role was later to develop in the Empire.104 This ensured that there was considerably less concern or even awareness within Inverneil’s own domestic political culture about the need to safeguard the constitutional authority of civil over military. Such attitudes jarred, unintentionally no doubt, with the post-1688 discourse on liberty from military despotism that formed such a central theme within the Empire’s general crisis. Ultimately, many of the elements of political paternalism and unrepresentative hierarchy that developed throughout the post-1763 Empire actually found their most acute domestic United Kingdom expression within Scotland. Inverneil’s governorship, with its overreliance on ﬁscal-military patronage to ensure political stability, exempliﬁed the transfer of elements of Scottish provincial mentality and practice into the imperial project. This process was subtle, of course, and muddied by other inﬂuences such as professional background and previous colonial experience. Nonetheless it ensured that strands of Scottish political culture became an integral part of an evolving and ﬂuid metropolitan approach to imperial rule. The end result was that the Empire’s government became in a sense more truly British in character and ethos.

103 B.J. Broomﬁeld, ‘Some One Hundred Unreasonable Parliamentary Men—A study in Military Representation in the Eighteenth Century British Parliament’, Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, 39 (1969), 94–6; Mackillop, ‘More Fruitful than the Soil ’, 52. 104 R.M. Sunter, Patronage & Politics in Scotland, 1707–1832 (Edinburgh: 1986), 43–4; A. Murdoch, The People Above: Politics & Administration in Mid-Eighteenth Century Scotland (Edinburgh, 1980), 50.

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INDEX Compiled by Alison Duncan Abercrombie, James, Gabriel Johnston’s agent, 129, 130, 132 Robert Dinwiddie’s agent, 179 Abernethy, Thomas, 55, 56 ¿bo (Turku), 107, 108, 110, 116 Peace of (1743), 110 Adair, James, trader, 148, 149 Adolphus Frederick, King of Sweden, Duke of Holstein, 110 Akershus, fortress, 20 Akershus National Infantry, regiment, 19 Alabama, 147, 153 Albany federation plan, 174 Albemarle, 128, 138 Albemarle, 2nd Earl of (William Keppel), 165, 166, 168 Alden, John R., 162 ‘Robert Dinwiddie, Servant of the Crown,’ 162 Allegheny, mountains, 168, 172 river, 168 Alta, river, 42 Altmark (1629), Peace/Truce of, 58, 63 American Revolution, 121, 139, 227 amt/amtmand/amtmann, s. under len Anderson, Alexander, botanical curator, 201 Anderson, Dr. James, 225 Anglicanism, 137, 175, 179 Anna, Empress of Russia, 101, 105, 113 Anson, Lord, 119, 130 Antrim, 88 presbytery, 93 Appalachians, mountains, 152, 153 Archangel, 32 Arcot, s. Carnatic Arctic, the, 30, 31, 49 Argyll, 1st Marquess of (Archibald Campbell), 85, 86, 87, 88, 91, 94 2nd Duke of, 142 3rd Duke of (Archibald Campbell), 142, 151, 214, 231 5th Duke of ( John Campbell), 221 Argyll Colony, 133, 134, 135, 137 Astrakhan, 99 Atholl, Duchess of, 221 Lord William Murray, son of, 221

Atkin, Edmond, merchant, 144 Attacullaculla (‘The Little Carpenter’), 154, 155 Austria, 101 Austrian Succession, War of (‘King George’s War’), 169, 172, 183 Awazu, Order of, 104 Bahamas, islands, 164 Baillie, James, planter/merchant, 197 Baillie, Robert, 79, 90, 93 Bailyn, Bernard, 123 Balfour, John, of Trenaby, 223, 225 Balfour, William, merchant, 219, 224 Baltic, the, 5, 6, 32, 55, 63 ﬂeet, 5, 12 Barbados, 165, 205 Barrow, Colonel, 88, 89 Bath, Earl of (William Pultney), 119, 120 Bavaria, 60, 61, 65 Beaton, Paul, Lt.-Colonel, 71, 72, 73 Paul, son of, 71, 72 Bedford, Duke of, 130, 131 Beggar’s Bennison, society, 184 Belfrage, John, mayor of Vänersborg, 70, 73 Bengal, 214, 229 Bequia, island, 188 Berg, Peter von, s. Henderson, John, Colonel Bergen, 5, 37, 38, 39, 42, 46 castle, 21 Berlin, 100 Bermuda, 163, 164, 180 Bestoucheﬀ, Empress Elizabeth’s advisor, 113 Bishops’ Wars (1639–40), 80 Bjelke, Jens, 39 Black Caribs, the, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190 Bladen, Martin, 129 Bladen County, 139 Blair, James, Commissary, 179 John, son of, 179 Blair, Lawrence, Colonel, Bergenhus regiment, 21

234

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Blair Castle, 183 blank patents, 125 controversy, the, 127, 138 Bligh, Captain, 201 Blomstedt, Y., 109 Board of Agriculture (British), 183 Board of Trade, and the Ceded Islands, 193 and Madras, s. under Madras and North Carolina, 120, 124–32 passim, 136 and South Carolina, 144 and Virginia, 164, 165, 167, 170, 171, 172, 179 Bohemia, 105 Bombay, 224 Bonar, William, 70, 73 Bordon, John, Colonel, 61, 70 Bouquet, Henry, Colonel, 157 Boyle, Roger, s. Broghill, Lord Braddock, Edward, General, 155, 156, 173, 174, 176 Brandenburg, George William of, 59, 64 Breadalbane, 1st Earl of ( John Campbell), 152 Breitenburg, castle, 14, 27 Britain, 11, 103, 124, 131, 137, 142–8 passim, 156, 158, 166, 170, 172, 181, 184, 196, 198, 203, 204, 230, 231 British army, 182 British empire, 1, 122, 124, 137, 139, 149, 164, 180, 181, 195, 204–8 passim, 213, 223, 227–31 passim ‘Second Empire,’ 206, 212 British-Danish war (1665), 28 Brodie, Alexander, of Brodie, 79 Broghill, Lord (Roger Boyle), 79, 81, 89, 95, 96, 97 family background, 80, 87 policies, 82, 83, 84, 89, 94 on lordships, 85, 86, 87, 88 on religion, 90, 91, 92, 93 relationship with Monck, 82, 83, 85, 92 Brunswick, port, 133 Buchanan, Carnatic court appointee, 226 Buddenbrock, H.M. von, General, 107 Bull, William, colonist, 150 Burrington, George, 125, 126, 127 Burt, William, 57, 59 Byrd, family, 175 William, 156, 157

Calvinism, 80, 90, 92 Cameron, clan, 152 Camhus, Henry, 55, 57 Campbell, clan, 85 of Glenorchy, 86 Campbell, Archibald, of Askomel, Major, 221 Campbell, Sir Archibald, of Inverneil, 183, 207–9, 212, 216, 217, 228–31 early career, 213, 214, 215 Lady Amelia (nee Ramsay), wife of, 225 Montgomery, cousin of, 226 promotion of Scots, 218–27 Ramsay kin of, 221, 225, 226 Campbell, Colin, 178 Campbell, Dugald, Colonel, 226, 227 Campbell, George, Lt.-Colonel, 221 Campbell, Sir James, of Ardkinglas, 221, 226 Alexander, Captain, son of, 221, 226 Campbell, James, of Succoth, 222, 225, 227 Archibald, father of, 222 Ilay, brother of, Lord Advocate, 222 Campbell, John, 202 ‘Political Survey of Britain,’ 202 Campbell, Neil, of Duntroon, 221, 226 Campbell v. Hall case, s. under Grenada Campenhausen, Johan Balthasar von, 109 Cape Fear River Valley, 121, 122, 128, 133 Caribbean, the, 190, 192, 193, 194, 199–204 passim French colonists/policy in, 181, 185–90 passim, 195, 196, 203 Spanish colonists/policy in, 185 Carnatic (Arcot), 209, 210, 211, 216, 219, 226, 228 Nawab of (Muhammad Ali Khan Wallajah), 209, 216, 220, 226, 228 Catawba, tribe, 143, 145, 149, 150, 151, 152, 155 river, 143 Catholic Relief Bills, 198 Ceded Islands, 181–194 passim, 199, 203, 204, 215 Cederberg, A.R., 108, 109 Charles I, King of Great Britain, 13, 19, 20, 21, 24, 28, 80, 82, 88, 91 Charles II, King of Great Britain, 23, 24

 Charles Edward Stuart, Prince, 104 Charleston, 142, 143, 144, 148, 153, 156, 158 Cherokee, tribe, 143, 147, 148, 152 anti-British, 146, 155, 156, 158 pro-British, 145, 153, 154, 157 Chickasaw, tribe, 143, 147, 148, 151 Choctaw, tribe, 143, 144, 147, 148, 149, 150 Christian IV, King of Denmark-Norway, 9, 10, 14, 16, 18 promotion of Scots, 3–6, 11, 12, 15, 17, 26, 29–50 passim relations with Charles I, 20, 21, 24, 28 declares war as Duke of Holstein, 13 Christian V, King of Denmark-Norway, 24, 25, 26, 28 Christianopel, fortress, 18, 20, 71, 74 Church of England, 123, 135, 136, 194 Church of Scotland (s. also Presbyterian church), 119, 123, 135, 137, 194 Circars, the, 217, 226 ‘Citizens of the World,’ by David Hancock, 123 Civil War, the in Britain, 66, 67 in Ireland, 67 in Scotland, 21 Clan Chattan, 152 Clanricarde, earldom of, 87 Clerck, Hans, Major, 70, 73 Hans Hansson, son of, 71, 72 Clotworthy, Sir John, 93 Lady Clotworthy, 93 Cobron, s. Cockburn Cochrane, John, Colonel, 23 Cockburn (‘Cobron’), Samuel, Colonel, 57, 58 Cobron, fortress, 57, 58, 71, 78 Colonial Oﬃce, the, 162 ‘Colonial Records of North Carolina,’ 161 Company of Scotland, the, 163 Darien scheme, 163 Compton, Spencer, s. Wilmington, Lord Confederates, s. under Ireland Connaught, province, 89 Cooper, Colonel, 89, 90 Copenhagen, 29, 32, 35, 39, 49, 50 Copenhagen (1660), Treaty of, 23

235

Corbin, Francis, Earl of Granville’s agent, 129, 131, 132 Cork, 1st Earl of, 80, 87, 92 2nd Earl, 80, 81, 97 Broghill, son of, s. Broghill, Lord Cornwallis, Charles, Lord, 215, 216, 217, 219, 227, 229 Cossacks, the, 106 Court of Chancery, 185 Court of Error, 185 Courts of Oyer and Terminers, 125 Covenanters, 21, 93 army of the Solemn League and Covenant, 66 ‘Craftsman,’ Tory paper, 120 Creek, tribe, 143, 147, 148, 151 Cromwell, Oliver, Lord Protector, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 94, 95, 96 Henry, son of, 81, 89, 90, 93, 94, 97 Cromwellian government, 22, 23, 91, 96, 97 English council, 82, 83, 87, 91, 92, 94, 95, 97 English government, 81, 87 Irish government, 94, 95, 96 Scottish council, 79, 83, 89, 94, 95, 96 Scottish government, 94, 95, 96 second protectorate parliament, 86, 95, 96 Cromwellian monarchy (s. also Humble Petition), proposals for, 95, 96, 97 Crown, the, 120, 124–34 passim, 144, 154, 161, 167, 169, 183, 188, 204, 215 Crown land, 186, 188 Culloden, battle of (s. also Jacobite risings), 131, 132, 156 Cumberland, Duke of, 132 Cunningham, Colonel, 57 Cunningham, John, of Gjerdrup (‘Hans Køning/Kønigh’), as admiral, 7, 33–35 as lensmand/lensmann of Finnmark, 12, 17, 18, 20, 26, 27, 29–33, 35–51 policy, 35–41 attitude to witchcraft, 41–9 Kirsten, daughter of, 37 reported landing in Canada, 6 Tamis, cousin of, 12, 18, 19, 20, 27, 37 alluded to, 4 Cunningham, Robert, Colonel, 61, 67

236



‘Daemonologie,’ by King James VI & I, 44 Dalrymple, Alexander, 219 Danbus, Mr., testimony of, 131 Danish Sound, 1, 3, 6, 23 Danish-Norwegian army, 23, 24, 25 Norwegian army, 26 Darien scheme, s. under Company of Scotland Davidson, Alexander, 225 Davis, Revd. Samuel, 175 Denmark, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 14–24 passim, 35, 36, 50, 62, 76 Chancellery, 10 Denmark-Norway, 1, 2, 9, 12, 13, 17, 22–31 passim, 41, 50, 51, 54, 55, 69, 74, 76 Anna of, Queen to James VI & I, 3, 44 conﬂict with Sweden, s. under Sweden Council of the Realm, 3 Desmond, Earl of, 87 earldom of, 87 Dillenburgh, Count, 67 Dinwiddie, Robert, 134, 155, 165, 166, 167, 169, 180 attitude to Scots colonists, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179 early career, 163, 164 Lawrence, brother of, 163, 168, 177 inks with the Ohio Company, 168, 170, 171, 172 Robert, father of, 163 role in the French/Indian war, 161, 162, 171, 172, 173, 174 Disbrowe, Samuel, 96 Dobbs, Arthur, 120, 131, 155 Dominica, 181, 185, 192, 202, 203, 204 assembly, 191, 192, 193 council, 191, 192, 193 Melville’s land on, 187, 191, 199, 200 separation of, 193, 194 Dominium Fluminis, 4 Dominium Maris Septentrionalis, 4 Don, river, 101 Douglas, Sir George, 60, 67 Douglas, Robert, General, 61, 68, 72, 75, 99 Gustaf, son of, 71, 72 Gustav Otto, grandson of, 99, 100, 115 Dow, Frances, 88, 92 Downing, George, 96 Drummond, David, Colonel, 60, 67, 68, 69

Drummond, James, Colonel, 61, 70 Drummond, William, 161 Dublin, 81, 96, 97 Trinity College, 80 ‘Duchess of Finland’ by Zacharias Topelius, 115 Dunamünde, fortress, s. under Kinnemond, Thomas Dunbar, James, Major, 14, 15, 17, 26 Dunbar, Patrick, Count of Spannerup, 4, 18, 20, 26 Dunbar, Thomas, Colonel, 176 Duncan, James, Knight of the Order of Dannebrog, 24, 25 Duncanskrig (1678–9) (s. also Scanian War, the), 25 Dundas, Henry, 198, 215–29 passim Dundee, 119 Dunn, Andrew, Major, 61, 70 Dunollie, castle, 85 Dunstaﬀnage, castle, 85 Durham, Alexander, of Højsgaard, Admiral, 4, 5, 10, 26, 27, 49 len property of, 7, 8, 9 Durie, John, Scots irenicist, 93 East India Company, 205, 207, 223, 224, 227, 229 military activities of, 210, 211, 219, 220, 221 political activities of, 209, 211 East Indies, 202 Eden, Charles, 120 Edenton, 125, 128 Edinburgh, 82, 83, 96, 197, 222, 223, 225 University, 119, 182, 202 Edwards, Bryan, planter/historian, 185 Elbe, river, 5, 6, 14 Elizabeth, Empress of Russia, 103, 112, 113 Elizabeth of Bohemia, Queen, 13, 76 embedsmænd (civil servants), 3 England, 2, 31, 80, 81, 94, 123, 164, 185, 206, 230, 231 English council, s. under Cromwellian government English government, s. under Cromwellian government English Parliament, 28 Erik XIV, King of Sweden, 54, 55 Estonia, 56, 57, 61, 71, 107 Evans, John, 152

 Faeroes, 6, 33 Fairfax, family, 169, 170 Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor, 12, 13, 16, 17, 62, 66 Fife, 182 Finland, 100, 107, 111, 112 Finnish wars (1788–90), 116 Western Finland, 99 under governor Douglas, 99 under governor Keith, 101, 108–10, 114, 115, 116 Finnmark (Vardøhus len), under lensmann/lensmand Cunningham, 17–20 passim, 29–51 social structure in, 36–41 Sami people in, 41–5 Scots settlers in, 35 witchcraft in, 41–9 alluded to, 11, 12 Fitzmaurice, Ulysses, Lt.-governor, 196, 197 ‘Five civilised tribes,’ 143 Fleetwood, Charles, Cromwell’s son-inlaw, 81, 89, 90 Fletcher, Sir Robert, 212, 219, 220 Florida, 143 East, 181, 183, 215 West, 181, 183, 215 fogd (bailiﬀ ), 3 underfogd (deputy), 35 Forbes, Arvid, 61, 69 Axel, 61, 69 Mattias, Colonel, 61, 65, 69 Forbes, Duncan, of Culloden, 141, 142, 152 Forbes, John, 156, 157 Fort Duquesne, 155, 156, 157 Fort Johnston, 133 Fort Loudon (‘Overhills fort’), 153, 155, 158 Fort Prince George, 153, 155 Fort St. George, 212 Fort William (Inverlochy), 153 Foscarini, Antonio, 11, 12 France (s. also North America and Caribbean, the), 101, 112, 133, 142, 148, 150, 156, 166, 172 French navy, 209 Fraser, Anders, Major, 71, 72 Fraser, Simon, Lord Lovat, 142 Frederick II of Prussia (‘the Great’), 101, 114 Frederik II, King of Denmark-Norway, 49

237

Frederik III, King of Denmark-Norway, 2, 6, 24, 26, 28 Fredrikshamn (Hamina), 110 Freemasonry, in the Caribbean, 184 in England, 103 in France, 112 in Prussia, 112 in Russia, 103, 104, 112 Masonic hymn, 103–4 St Petersburg Lodge, 113 in Scotland, 104, 111, 112 in Sweden, 112 alluded to, 114 French and Indian War (‘Seven Years War’) (s. also Dinwiddie, Robert), 161, 162, 171, 173, 181, 183 Friis, Jørgen, 48 Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft (elite German society), 75 Gaelic, 151, 159 Galland, Penelope, s. under Johnston, Gabriel Garden, Alexander, Major, 61, 67 General Assembly, s. under Presbyterian church Geneva, Calvinist academy of, 80 George I, King of Great Britain, 175 George II, King of Great Britain, 105, 154 George III, King of Great Britain, 153, 188, 195, 196 Georgia, 143, 144, 147, 214 Germany, 13, 17, 21, 45, 54, 62, 66, 67, 72 Giddens, Anthony, 30, 42 Gillespie Charter, the, 92 Gist, Christopher, trader, 152 Glasgow, 119, 163, 168, 175, 176, 177, 178, 222 University, 163, 182, 213 Glen, James, Lowland/Highland inﬂuences on, 141, 142, 144, 150, 151, 153, 154, 158, 159 relations with the Catawbas, 145, 149, 150, 152, 155 relations with the Cherokee, 145, 146, 152–55, 156, 157 relations with the Choctaws, 143, 144, 148, 149 relations with the Creeks, 147 alluded to, 176

238

- ()

Glencairn’s rebellion (1653–4), 84, 85 William Cunningham, 9th Earl of, 85, 88 ‘Glorious Revolution’ (1688), 197, 198 Godfrey, H., 106, 113 Gooch, Sir William, 165, 170, 171, 172 Gordon, Adam, Lord, M.P., 221 Gordon, Sir Thomas, Admiral, 104 Gothenburg, 20, 71, 72 Grant, Alexander, Lieutenant, 226 Grant, Sir Alexander, of Dalvey, 177 William, son of, 177 Grant, James, 106 Grant, James, of Ballindalloch, Lt.-Colonel, 158, 183, 215 Granville, 1st Earl of ( John Carteret), 129, 165, 174 Gray, Thomas, Lt.-Colonel, Bergenhus regiment, 21 Great Dismal Swamp, 161 Greenland, 6, 33, 35, 49, 50 Grenada, 181, 183, 184, 186, 187, 189, 191, 194, 199, 200, 203, 204 assembly, 185, 196, 197, 198 Campbell v. Hall case (1774), 198 Catholics (French & British) in, 195–98 council, 196 Grand Jury, 196 Jews in, 195 Protestants in, 195–98 Grenville Harbour, 197 Grey, Colonel, 57 Guadeloupe, 183, 185, 213, 225 Gunn, John, Colonel, 61, 67 Gustafsson, Harald, 50 Gustav II Adolf, King of Sweden, 13, 16, 53, 58, 59, 62, 64, 75 promotion of Scots by, 60, 63, 65, 69 Gyllenborg, Carl, Count, Swedish chancellor, 112 Habsburg empire, 17, 59 Haliburton, John, of Muirhouselaw, 223 David, son of, 223, 225 Haliburton, Thomas, Captain, 22 Halifax, 2nd Earl of (George Dunk), 165, 174, 180 Halmstad, 71, 74 Hamill, John, 111, 112 ‘The Jacobite Conspiracy,’ 111 Hamilton, Ezekiel, 104 Hamilton, Hugh, Colonel, 61, 67–8

Hamilton, Malcolm, 71, 74 Hamilton, Robert, Knight of the Elephant, 23, 24, 25, 27–8 Hamilton, William, 225 Hanau, 60, 61, 66, 67 Hancock, David, 123 Hat party, pro-Frederick faction in Sweden, 111 links with freemasonry, 112, 113 Hay, William, 104 Hayes Plantation, s. under Johnston, Gabriel Helmsley, Alexander, colonist, 130 Helsingfors (Helsinki), 107, 108 Henderson, John, Colonel, later Major-General, 21, 22, 23, 25, 27 alias Berg, Peter von, Cromwellian agent, 22–3 Henry Stuart, Prince, 104 Hepburn, John, Colonel, 60, 63, 64, 65 Herrschaft mit/über Bauern (government with/over the peasantry), 40–1, 42 Highlands, the, 85 Hillsborough, Earl of, 136, 158, 193, 196, 197 ‘Letters to the Earl of Hillsborough’ s. under Melville, Robert Hindsgavl, garrison, 22, 23, 25 Hob or Nob Society, 184 Holke, Colonel, 16, 17 Holstein, 14, 17 regiments, 14 Home, 8th Earl of (William Home), 178 Home, Ninian, Lt.-governor, 198 Hope, John, Edinburgh University professor, 202 Hope, John Bruce, 163, 164 House of Burgesses, in North Carolina, 125, 136 in Virginia, 179 hovedlen/hovedlensmand s. under len Howard, Charles, 97 Howard, Margaret, wife of Lord Broghill, 80 ‘Humble Petition and Advice’ (s. also Cromwellian monarchy), 95, 96 Hundermark, Ellen Clausdatter, wife of John Cunningham, 38 Huup (Hupenfelt), Jakob, Captain, 74 Hyde, Edward, 23 Hyderabad, 209, 217 Iceland, 6, 33, 34, 43 Imsen, Steinar, 47

- () Inchiquin, Lord, 80, 87 India, 208, 212, 215, 227, 229 Scots in, 207, 219, 220, 221, 222, 224, 226, 228 India Board of Control, 215 Indians (Native Americans) (s. also tribal names), 141–57 passim, 167–72 passim, 189 Innes, James, Colonel, 177 Inuit, the, 6, 35 Inveraray, 85 Inverneil, s. Campbell, Sir Archibald Inverness, 144, 153, 155 Ireland, Catholics in, 80, 90 Confederates, 81, 87, 89 Cromwellian invasion (1649), 80 defeat of Catholic forces (1652–3), 81 inﬂuence on Broghill, 83, 84, 87, 88, 89 Protestants in, 80, 81, 87, 92, 93, 94, 97, 230, 231 rebellion in (1641), 80, 87, 89 alluded to, 81, 90, 93, 123, 151, 183, 198, 205, 206, 230, 231 Irish government, s. under Cromwellian government Irish Sea, 88, 94 Iroquois, tribe, 149 Irvine, George, 55, 57 Irving, Alexander, Colonel, 61, 65, 70, 73 ‘Jacobite Conspiracy, The,’ by John Hamill, 111 Jacobite risings (s. also Culloden, battle of ), (1715), 101, 131 (1719), 101 (1745), 112, 113, 129, 131, 142, 157, 183, 198 Jamaica, 164, 183, 184, 200, 201, 203, 215, 222 privilege controversy in, 198 James VI & I, King of Scotland, England and Ireland, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 27, 28, 33, 34, 44, 82, 84, 88 ‘Daemonologie,’ 44 James Stuart, titular King of Great Britain, 101, 104 ‘Jewel, The,’ by Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty, 1, 26 Johan III, King of Sweden, 54, 55, 56, 57 Johnston, Gabriel, 120, 124, 161 attitude to politics, 125–30 education, 119

239

Frances, wife of, later wife of John Rutherford, 134 Hayes Plantation, brother’s property, 120 Isobel Hall, mother of, 119 Penelope Galland, wife of, 120 Revd. Samuel, father of, 119 Samuel, nephew of, 130 Scottish identity of, 130–9 Johnston of Annandale, 119 Johnstone, George, 183, 215 Justices of the Peace, 81–8 passim, 91, 123, 125, 177, 185 Kaas, Kirsten, s. under Sinclair, Andrew Kalmar, 11, 12, 26, 54, 55, 57, 61, 70, 71 Kalmar War (1611–13), 10, 11, 12, 18, 26, 34, 50 Kalmar Union, 55 Karelia, 116 Karl, Duke, later Karl IX of Sweden, 54, 56, 57 Karl XI, King of Sweden, 74 Keith, Andrew, ambassador, Swedish baron, 54, 55, 56, 77 Keith, James Francis Edward, Field-Marshal, 101, 102, 111, 113, 116, 117 as a freemason, 103, 104, 112, 114 as governor of Finland, 100, 107–10, 114, 115 as governor of the Ukraine, 100, 105–6, 114, 115 George, brother of, Earl Marischal of Scotland, 101, 103, 104, 113 John, cousin of, 102 John, cousin of, Earl of Kintore, 103, 105 Sir Robert, cousin of, 102 Kejserkrigen (1625–9), 12–17, 20, 24 Kildare, Earl of (1530s), 87 16th earl, 87 earldom of, 87 King, James, Colonel, 60, 61, 67, 75 King, Sir Robert, 93 King’s Own Scottish Borderers, regiment, 182–3 Kinnemond, John, Colonel, 57, 59, 69, Kinnemond, Thomas, Colonel, 60, 61, 65, 69, 70, 73 Kinnemünde (formerly Dunamünde), fortress, 61, 70, 73, 78 Kirk Sessions, s. under Presbyterian church Knærød, Peace Treaty of (1613), 34

240



Knutsen, Niels, bailiﬀ, 37 Kofoed, Hans Olufsen, 43 Kola, peninsula, 31, 33 Kongeloven (1665) (Act of Royalty), 2 Koontz, Louis Knott, 162 ‘Robert Dinwiddie: His Career. . . .,’ 162 Krigsråd (Swedish military council), 68, 108 Lacy, Peter de, General, 101, 107, 110 Lagergren, Alexander, s. Lowrie, Alexander Lambert, John, 95 Land Commission, 188, 193 Landsman, Ned, 139 Larner, Christina, 44 Lascelles, family, 165 Lee, family, 169, 170 Leiden, University of, 119 len, (mindre/stor) (small/large admin. district, later amt), 2–3, 7–11 passim, 19, 25, 26, 27 hovedlen (admin. region), 30 hovedlensmand (senior governor), 2 lensbrev (charter), 2 lensmand/lensmann (governor, later amtmand/amtmann), 2–3, 7–14 passim, 24, 26, 27, 29, 30, 51 lensregering (rights), 2 Leslie, Alexander, Colonel, later Earl of Leven, 16, 57, 59, 60, 62, 63, 64, 66, 68 Leslie, John, Major-General, 60, 64 Lewenhaupt, Charles Emil, General, 107 Lillburne, Robert, 79, 85 Lindsay, Alexander, Lord Spynie, 13, 15, 16, 17 Linlithgow, royal burgh, 141, 142, 153, 155, 158 Lismore, castle, 80 Livonia, 56–61 passim, 69, 70, 71, 107 Lockhart, Sir William, 86, 96 John, brother of, 86 London, Bishop of, 136 city, 82, 86, 94, 105, 119, 129, 130, 135, 158, 165, 173–84 passim, 192, 201, 206, 210, 227 government, 144, 163, 164, 169, 170, 172, 174, 188, 193–8 passim, 203, 214, 222 Long, Edward, planter/historian, 201, 202

Lorne, Lord, Marquess of Argyll’s son, 85, 88 Loudoun, 4th Earl of ( John Campbell), 157, 168, 174, 213, 214 Louisiana, 143 Low, Adam, provost of Dunfermline, 222 Lowrie (‘Lagergren’), Alexander, 71, 74 L“wendahl, Woldemar, General, 107 Lübeck, Treaty of, 16, 62 Lumsden, James, Colonel, 61, 65, 66 Lund (1676), battle of, 24 Lund (1679), Peace of, 25 Lutter-am-Bamberg (1626), battle of, 13 Lyall, Alexander, mayor of Elsinore, 2 McAlister, Colonel, 135 MacAlpine, Christian Maccabæus, Abbot of Ringsted, 4, 9 Macartney, George, Lord, 212, 216 McCulloh, Henry, merchant, 120, 129 MacDonald, clan, 152 of Islay, 85 of Kintyre, 85 MacDougal, James, Colonel, 60, 62, 64, 65, 72, 77, 78 Gustaf, son of, 71, 72 Jakob, son of, 71, 72 Tobias, brother of, 61, 69 MacGregor, clan, 152 MacGregor, William, 131 Mackay, Donald, Lord Reay, 13, 22 Mackay’s regiment, 14, 15, 16 Mackay, George, 219 Mackenzie, George ‘Jost,’ Colonel, 19 James, son of, 19 Mackillop, Andrew, 183 Maclean, John, 226 Maclean, John, Sir, Baronet of Gothenburg, 25 David, son of, 71, 72 Gustaf, son of, 25, 71, 72 Johan, son of, 71, 72 Maria Sophia, daughter of, wife of James Duncan, 25 Peter, son of, 25, 62, 71, 72 MacLean of Mull, clan, 85, 86 McNaire, Charles, trader, 148, 149 McNeal, Dugald, 135 Macpherson, Sir John, 228 MacVicar, Torquil, 187 Madras, 183, 211, 212, 229 army, 216, 220 Boards of Trade/Revenue/Hospital/

 Military, 218, 223, 225 Committee of Police, 218 council, 210, 217, 218, 220 frontier politics in, 207, 208, 209, 210, 216, 217 Inverneil’s policies in, 213–28 trade in, 218, 219 Major-Generals, the (military rule of ), 95, 97 Malatichi, Creek headman, 147 Malcolm, Henry, Colonel, 225 Marathas, 209 Mare Clausum, 5 Marshall, P.J., 123 Marstrand, 20, 70, 71, 74 Martinique, 185 Maryland, 164, 173, 176 Maxwell, Robert, Earl of Nithsdale, 13 Maxwell, William, Lt.-Colonel, 223 Hugh, brother of, 223 Mecklenburg County, 135 Meldrum, Thomas, later General, 24, 25, 26 Melville, Robert, 181, 185, 186, 203, 204, 215 early career, 182, 183 in Freemasons and other Orders, 184 interest in horticulture, 199, 200, 201, 202 ‘Letters to the Earl of Hillsborough,’ 197 Melvill Hall estate & Mount Melvill, 199, 200, 203 Memorandum Book of, 199 policy in Dominica, 187, 189, 191, 192, 193, 194 policy in Grenada, 189, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198 policy in St. Vincent, 187, 188, 189, 190 Merrell, James, 150, 151, 152 Merthen, Eva, James Keith’s lover, 115, 116 Karl, father of, Mayor of ¿ bo, 116 Mississippi, river, 143, 144, 146, 168, 169 Mitford, Robert, 226 Monck, George, 79, 89, 90, 91, 94 policies in Scotland, 84, 86, 88, 95 relationship with Broghill, 82, 83, 85, 92 Monongahela, river, 168 Monro, Captain, 15 Monro, Robert, Lt.-Colonel, 15, 63, 64

241

Montgomery, Archibald, Colonel, later 11th Earl of Eglintoun, 156, 158 77th Highlanders (‘Eglintoun’s’), 156, 157, 158 Montgomery, John, attorney general, 125 Montrosian expedition to Scotland (1649–50), 21, 23 Moore, Maurice, 127 Morgan, Philip D., 123 Morris, Corbyn, Duke of Newcastle’s agent, 129, 132 Mosely, Edward, 127 Mowatt, of Hoveland, Andrew, Admiral, 4, 5, 7, 26 Axel, Admiral, 4, 5, 7, 26 Christoﬀer, Vice-Admiral, 5 Mull of Kintyre, 88 Munich, 60, 65 Munk, Maren, wife of Patrick Dunbar, 18 Munro, Sir Hector, of Novar, 220 Munster, province, 80, 89 Murdoch, Steve, 62, 76 Murray, James, colonist, 133, 134 Murray, James, Colonel, 19, 20, 21, 27 Murray, James, 183, 195, 215 Murray, William, later 1st Lord Mansﬁeld, 179 Muskhogean, language, 143 Mysore, 209 Mysore war (1780–4), 220 third Mysore war (1790), 217 Nairn, John, 61, 75 Neave (‘Näf ’), James, 54, 55, 77 Netherlands, the, 31 Neutral Islands, 194 New Bern, 128 New Hanover, 133 New Jersey, 137 New York, 179 Newcastle, 1st Duke of (Thomas Pelham-Holles), 120, 129, 130, 144, 145, 148, 170 Nicholson, Francis, 152 Nicoll, John, 79 Nielsen, Søren, bailiﬀ, 37 Nördlingen (1634), defeat of, 67 North America, 121, 123, 141, 143, 144, 145, 148, 149, 156, 157, 165, 166, 168, 174, 189, 192, 208, 213, 216, 221, 227

242



French colonists/policy in, 142–57 passim, 164, 169–79 passim Spanish colonists/policy in, 142, 143 North Carolina, 119, 120, 122, 130, 143, 150, 155, 161, 164, 165, 173 assembly, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 132, 135, 136 executive council, 121, 124, 125, 133, 134, 137 society in, 121 politics in, 123, 125, 128, 129 Palatine colonists in, 132 Protestants in, 135, 136, 137 Scots colonists in, 133, 134, 135, 137, 138, 139 North Sea, the, 3, 5, 6, 11, 31, 70 ﬂeet, 5 Norway, 1, 2, 5–8 passim, 11, 18–21 passim, 25, 29, 32, 35, 37, 38, 47, 49, 50 Norwegian army, s. under Danish-Norwegian army Nyslott, 70, 107 ‘Oath of Abjuracon,’ 91 Ogilvie, Patrick, Colonel, 70, 73 Ohio, river, 168, 169, 171, 172, 173 Ohio River Valley, 155 Ohio Company of Virginia (Ohio Land Company), 155, 161, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 180 Ohio Country, 168, 180 Olafsson, Jon, seaman/soldier, 34, 43 Old Revolution Club, 197, 198 Oldenburg monarchy, 1, 3, 4, 5, 10, 19, 20–7 passim, 36, 43 Ørbech, Hans Jenssen, son-in-law of John Cunningham, 37 Knud, brother of, 37 Orkney, 1st Earl of (George Hamilton), 162 Ormond, Marquess of, 80, 87 earldom of, 87 Orning, Christoﬀer, 48 Oslo, 9, 44 Oswald, Richard, 177 Ottoman Turks, the, 101 Oxenstierna, Axel, Swedish Chancellor, 59, 63–4, 66, 69, 75 ‘pandours/pandowrs,’ Croatian troops, 156, 157 Paris, 105 Treaty of, 195, 215

Pelham, Henry, 165 government of, 173 Pelham-Holles, Thomas, s. Newcastle, Duke of Pennsylvania, 156, 164, 173, 174 Philadelphia, 158, 176, 202 Phillip Maurice, Prince, Count of Hanau, 66, 67 Pigot, George, Lord, 210, 211, 212, 219, 220, 226 Pillau, 57, 59, 69 Pitt, William (the Elder), 214 Pittsburgh, 169 Pohjolan-Pironen, H., 109 Poland, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 105 Poland-Lithuania, 54 Polish War of Succession (1733–5), 101 ‘Political Survey of Britain,’ by John Campbell, 202 Pollock, Thomas, Colonel, 132 Pollock, Thomas, 161 Popple, Alured, 164 Porsanger, fjord, 42 Prague (1635), Peace of, 67 Presbyterian church (s. also Church of Scotland), in Ireland, 93 in Scotland, 79, 87, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96 General Assembly, 90 Kirk Sessions, 90, 91 Protesters, 91, 92, 95 Resolutioners, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95 alluded to, 175, 178 Preston, Sir George, of Valleyﬁeld, 223 Robert, brother of, 223 Primrose, Henry, Major, 70, 74 Pringle, Thomas, and Walter (council president), 191, 193, 194 Privy Council, the, 125, 129, 136, 169, 193 Protestants, in Grenada, s. under Grenada in Ireland, s. under Ireland in N. Carolina, s. under North Carolina in Quebec, 195 in Virginia (German and Swiss), 170 Protesters, s. under Presbyterian church Prussia, 61, 63, 66, 114, 116 East, 57, 59 Pskov, 57, 58 Public Record Oﬃce, the, 162 customs records in, 162

 Quebec, 181, 183, 195, 215 Protestants in, 195 Quebec Act (1774), 198 Queen’s College (North Carolina), proposals for, 135, 136 quitrents (taxes), 120, 121, 126, 127, 129, 130, 135, 138 controversy, the, 125, 127 Ramsay, Anders Johan, 116 Carl August, son of, 116–7 Carl Henrik (20th C descendant), 117 Gustav Adolf, son of, 117 Ramsay, Sir James (‘the dark’), 60, 61, 66, 67, 78 Randolph, Edward, 164 Randolph, Peter, 165 Rantzau, Gert, Field-Marshal, 14 Raven of Toxaway, The, chief, 153, 154 ‘Red Shoes’ (Shulashummashtabe), war chief, 149 Regensburg, 61, 65 Regiment, of Artillery, 190 32nd Infantry, 188, 189 38th, 183 62nd, 189 70th, 189 Regulator crisis, 135 Resolutioners, s. under Presbyterian church Reynolds, Sir John, Cromwellian agent, 97 Rhine, river, 105 Rhodes, Sir Edward, 96 Riga, 57, 58, 60, 69, 73 Riksråd (Swedish state council), 68 Robertson, John, Captain, 12 Robertson, Walter, 195, 196 Robinson, Prof. W. Stitt, 141, 149, 153, 154, 155, 158 ‘The Southern Colonial Frontier 1607–1763,’ 141 Roebuck, Benjamin, writer, 223 Ross, Andrew, merchant, 219, 225 Ross, Patrick, Colonel, 225 Rosse, bishop of, 90 Royal Engineers, 213 Royal Society, the, 183 Royal Society of Arts, the, 183, 201 Royal Society of Edinburgh, the, 183 Rumbold, governor, 216 Rumiantsev, General, ambassador, 106

243

Russell, Claud, 219 Russia, 30, 31, 32, 33, 49, 54, 59, 69, 101, 104, 105, 111, 112, 114, 116 annexation of Finland, 100, 109 conﬂict with Sweden, 55–8 passim, 73, 106, 107, 110 foreigners in, 102, 103, 113 Russian army, 101, 102, 105, 106, 107, 114 Russian empire, 101, 110, 114 Rutherfurd, John, colonist, 133, 134 Frances, daughter of, 134 Frances Johnston, wife of, 134 John, son of, 134 William Gordon, son of, 134 Ruthven, Patrick, Colonel, Earl of Forth and Brentford, 23, 57, 58, 59, 60, 63, 64, 68 Francis, of Redcastle, nephew of, 60, 65 Saell, Niels Jensen, sorenskriver, 37 St. Andrews, University of, 119 St. George’s (Grenada), 194, 196, 197, 199 St. Kitts, 165 St. Lucia, 185 St. Petersburg, 100, 107, 115 St. Vincent, 181, 185, 187, 189, 190, 194, 196 botanical garden, 201, 202 Kingstown, capital, 188 Sami, the, 11, 31, 42, 44 religion/sorcery of, 35, 41, 43, 45, 47 Saumur, Calvinist academy of, 80 Saunders, Sir Thomas, 104 Scanian War, the, (1675–9), 23–6, 28, 74 Scheﬀer, Carl Frederik, Count, 112 Schuchard, Marsha Keith, 112 Schwabian Circle, the, 68 Scotland, Broghill’s policies in, 79, 82–96, 83, 84, 91, 94 Catholics in, 90, 91 Cromwellian invasion of (May 1650), 81, 85 source of military/colonial staﬀ, 7, 13, 16, 21, 49, 50, 75, 178, 183, 221 witch trials in, 44, 45 alluded to, 2, 6, 31, 76, 112, 119, 123, 134, 138, 142, 152, 154, 155, 175, 203, 205, 206, 222, 224, 229, 230, 231

244



Scots governors in Sweden (tables), (1574–1612), 54–5 (1613–29), 57 (1629–48), 60–1 (1649–1700), 70–1 ‘Scots Magazine,’ 186, 187 Scott, David, 223, 224 Scott, James, Colonel, 58, 60, 61, 69 Scott, Sir Robert, General of Artillery, 13 Scottish council, s. under Cromwellian government Scottish Enlightenment, 228 Scottish government, s. under Cromwellian government Seaforth, Earl of, 85 Seaton, Alexander, Colonel, 57 Seaton, Alexander, Colonel, 62 Seaton, Alexander, Lt.-Colonel, 16, 17, 20 second protectorate parliament, s. under Cromwellian government Sehested, Hannibal, Norwegian viceroy, 18, 20 Seminole, tribe, 143 Seven Years’ War (Nordic), 55 ‘Seven Years War’ s. French and Indian War; s. also Dinwiddie, Robert Sharpe, Joshua, solicitor, 129 Shelburne, Lord, 192 Shulashummashtabe (‘souber rouge/Red Shoes’), war chief, 149 Sigismund, King of Poland, 55, 56, 57, 58 Silesia, 60, 61, 65, 67 Sinclair, Andrew, Major, 70, 71, 74 Sinclair, Andrew, of Ravenscraig and Sincklarsholm, 4, 9, 10, 11, 12, 26, 27 Kaas, Kirsten, wife of, 9 James and Christian, sons of, 10 Sinclair, James, Baron Murckle, 13 Six Nations of Indians, 172 Skåne, 9, 10, 15, 16, 17, 24 Smaalenske National Infantry Regiment, s. Taylor, John, Colonel Smith, Jöns, 61, 69 Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge, 135 Sophia, Queen dowager of DenmarkNorway, 14, 15 sorenskriver (‘sworn writer’), 3, 37 South Carolina, 141, 143, 152, 156, 157, 158, 159, 164, 173, 176 assembly, 147, 150

Indian policies in, 142, 144, 146, 147, 149, 150, 151, 154, 155 ‘Southern Colonial Frontier 1607–1763, The’ by Prof. W.S. Robinson, 141 Spain (s. also North America and Caribbean, the), 133, 142 Spang, Andrew, Colonel, 19, 27 ‘Spang’s regiment,’ 19 Spens, James, Colonel, 57, 72 Spitzbergen, 6, 33 Spotswood, Alexander, 162 Stamp Act crisis, 198 statholder (Norwegian viceroy), 1 Stirling, Sir Henry, of Ardoch, 104 Stockholm, 54, 107–13 passim, 116 Stolbova (1617), Peace of, 69 Stralsund, 16, 17, 20, 60, 61, 62, 71 ‘Strangers in the Realm,’ by Bailyn and Morgan, 123 ‘strouds’ (cloth), 149, 153 Stuart, House of, 5, 10, 20, 23, 26, 28, 85, 90 Stuart, Andrew, 55, 56 Stuart, Sir James, of Torrance, Major-General, 212, 216, 220 Stuart, Johan Anders, Colonel, 61, 69 Stuart, John, Superintendent for Indian Aﬀairs, 144, 155, 158 Stuart-Oldenburg alliance (1589), 24, 26, 28 Sunter, Ronald, 138 Sweden, 17, 18, 20, 21, 23, 25, 30–4 passim, 54, 76, 78, 100, 101, 104, 111, 112 conﬂict with Denmark-Norway, (1658–60), 7, 22–3, 25 Scanian War (1675–9), 23–6, 28, 74 conﬂict with Poland, 57, 59, 68 conﬂict with Russia, 55–8 passim, 73, 106, 107, 110 in the Thirty Years War, 53, 61–70 passim Riksråd, the, 68 Scots immigration to, 72, 74, 75, 77 Sweden-Finland, 54, 56, 61, 70, 105, 107 Swedish army, 25, 53, 57, 58, 59, 64, 99, 107 Tanjore, 210, 211, 216, 220 Raja of, 209, 210 Taylor, John, Colonel, Smaalenske National Infantry Regiment, 20, 27

 Tessin, Gustav, Count, Swedish deputy chancellor, 112 Test Act, 196 Thirty Years’ War, 53, 54, 57, 60–71 passim, 75, 76, 77 Thistlewood, Thomas, 200 Thomond, earldom of, 87 Thott, Henrich, 21 Thurloe, Cromwellian Secretary, 86, 89, 90, 91 Tilly, Count of, 14, 15 Tobago, 181, 187, 190, 194, 199, 200, 203, 204 Toboso, Order del, Jacobite society, 111, 112 members of, 104 royal Stuart members, 104 Toole, Matthew, 152 Topelius, Zacharias, 115 Torstensson, Lennart, Swedish commander, 17 Torstensson war, the, 17–22 Travancore, Raja of, 217 Tryon, William, 135, 136 Tyrone, Earl of, 87 earldom of, 87 Ukraine, 100, 101, 114, 115 governor Keith in the, 105–6 Ulm, Council of, 68 Ulster, 85, 93 Scots in, 88, 89 underfogd, s. under fogd Union of Parliaments (1707), 162 Urquhart, Sir Thomas, of Cromarty, 1, 7, 26, 53 ‘The Jewel,’ 1, 26 Urne, Mette, wife of Alex. Durham, 8 Utrecht, Treaty of, 170 Vadstena, castle, 54, 55 Varanger, peninsula, 31 Vardø, 12, 31, 32, 37, 43–9 passim Vardøhus len, s. Finnmark Vasa, House of, 54, 55, 77 Vaxholm, fortress, 70, 71, 73 Viborg, 54, 55, 56 Villmanstrand, fortress, 107, 110, 116 Virginia, 126, 127, 151, 155, 161, 162, 163, 164, 169, 172, 180, 205 assembly, 166, 173, 177, 178, 179 council, 179

245

frontier, 166, 167, 168, 171 militia regiment, 173, 176, 177 society in, 165, 166, 170, 175, 179 Virginia Historical Society, 162 Virtanen, K., 109 Volga, river, 101 Wallace, William, 54, 56 Wallenstein, Imperial General, 77 Walpole, Horatio, 165 Washington, family, 169, 170 George, Lt.-Colonel, later President, 170, 171, 173, 177 Washington, Colonel, 156 Webster, George, sepoy-master, 223 Wegelius, Henrik, 109 Wellesley, family, 228 Weir, John, 191, 193 West Indies, 181, 183, 194, 201, 227 Western Isles, the, 85, 88 Westphalia, Peace/Treaty of, 61–2, 68 Whitehall, 82, 86, 90, 94, 95 Whittle, governor, 216 Wilmington (Newton), town, 128, 133 Wilmington, Lord (Spencer Compton), 119, 120, 129, 130, 138 Wilson, Major, 14, 15, 17 Wilson, James, Colonel, 19 James, Captain, son of, 19 Matthew, Ensign, kinsman of, 19 ‘Willson’s regiment,’ 19 witch hunts in Finnmark, 41–9 in Scotland, 44 witchcraft, accused of, Edisdatter, Ana, 46 Edisdatter, Karren, 45, 46 Jørgensdatter, Ingeborg, 46 Jørgensdatter, Mari, 46 Knudsdatter, Siri, 46 Lisbett, wife of Oluﬀ Nielsen, 47 Maren, wife of Jon Dass, 47 Sørensdatter, Kirsten, 46 Worcester, Bishop of, 119 Yamassee, tribe, 143 Young, Dr. George, 200, 202 Young, Sir William, 186, 191, 192, 193, 194 Sir William, son of, 202

HISTORY OF WARFARE History of Warfare presents the latest research on all aspects of military history. Publications in the series will examine technology, strategy, logistics, and economic and social developments related to warfare in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East from ancient times until the early nineteenth century. The series will accept monographs, collections of essays, conference proceedings, and translation of military texts.

1. HOEVEN, M. VAN DER (ed.). Exercise of Arms. Warfare in the Netherlands, 1568-1648. 1997. ISBN 90 04 10727 4 2. RAUDZENS, G. (ed.). Technology, Disease and Colonial Conquests, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries. Essays Reappraising the Guns and Germs Theories. 2001. ISBN 90 04 11745 8 3. LENIHAN P. (ed.). Conquest and Resistance. War in Seventeenth-Century Ireland. 2001. ISBN 90 04 11743 1 4. NICHOLSON, H. Love, War and the Grail. 2001. ISBN 90 04 12014 9 5. BIRKENMEIER, J.W. The Development of the Komnenian Army: 1081-1180. 2002. ISBN 90 04 11710 5 6. MURDOCH, S. (ed.). Scotland and the Thirty Years’ War, 1618-1648. 2001. ISBN 90 04 12086 6 7. TUYLL VAN SEROOSKERKEN, H.P. VAN. The Netherlands and World War I. Espionage, Diplomacy and Survival. 2001. ISBN 90 04 12243 5 8. DEVRIES, K. A Cumulative Bibliography of Medieval Military History and Technology. 2002. ISBN 90 04 12227 3 9. CUNEO, P. (ed.). Artful Armies, Beautiful Battles. Art and Warfare in Early Modern Europe. 2002. ISBN 90 04 11588 9 10. KUNZLE, D. From Criminal to Courtier. The Soldier in Netherlandish Art 15501672. 2002. ISBN 90 04 12369 5 11. TRIM, D.J.B. (ed.). The Chivalric Ethos and the Development of Military Professionalism. 2003. ISBN 90 04 12095 5 12. WILLIAMS, A. The Knight and the Blast Furnace. A History of the Metallurgy of Armour in the Middle Ages & the Early Modern Period. 2003. ISBN 90 04 12498 5 13. KAGAY, D.J., VILLALON, L.J.A. (eds.). Crusaders, Condottieri, and Cannon. Medieval Warfare in Societies Around the Mediterranean. 2002. ISBN 90 04 12553 1 14. LOHR, E., POE, M. (eds.). The Military and Society in Russia: 1450-1917. 2002. ISBN 90 04 12273 7 15. MURDOCH, S. & A. MACKILLOP (eds.). Fighting for Identity. Scottish Military Experience c. 1550-1900. 2002. ISBN 90 04 12823 9 16. HACKER, B.C. World Military History. Annotated Bibliography 1967-1997. 2003. ISBN 90 04 12997 9 17. MACKILLOP, A. & S. MURDOCH (eds.). Military Governors and Imperial Frontiers c. 1600-1800. A Study of Scotland and Empires. 2003. ISBN 90 04 12970 7 ISSN 1385–7827

18. SATTERFIELD, G. Princes, Posts and Partisans. The Army of Louis XVI and Partisan Warfare in the Netherlands (1673-1678). 2003. ISBN 90 04 13176 0

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Plate 1: Vardø Castle in Finmark, seat of Lensmann John Cunningham. This painting is by Hans Hansen Lilienskiold, Governor of Finnmark 1683-1701. (University Library of Tromsø, Norway)

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Plate 2: John Cunningham’s Government of Finnmark, 1619-1651 (University of Tromsø, Norway)

Plate 3: Field-Marshal James Keith: Jacobite Exile and Russian Imperial Official (Marischal College Museum, Aberdeen)

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Plate 4: Robert Dinwiddie: Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, 1751-1757 (By courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London)

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Plate 5: Sir Archibald Campbell of Inverneil: Governor of Madras, 1786-1789 (National Army Museum, London).

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Map 1: Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Scotland

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Map 2: Scottish Governors and Commandants in Scandinavia c.1580-1700 (S) = Sweden (D-N) = Denmark-Norway.

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Map 3: Scottish Governors in ‘Central Europe’ c.1600-1700

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Map 4: Britain’s North American Colonies in the Eighteenth Century

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Map 5: The Windward Archipelago and the Eighteenth-Century Caribbean

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Map 6: India in the 1780s

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