THE SCOTTISH LITERATI AND THE PROBLEM OF SCOTTISH NATIONAL IDENTITY

DanieI I. Wells Depanment of History

Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of

Masters of Arts

Faculty of Graduate Studies The University of Western Ontario

London, Ontario September, 1997

@ Daniel Wells 1997

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ASSTRACT

The Scottish literati's intellectual maturity coincided with the increasing importance of

questions conceming Scotland's role and identity within the newly defined British

arrangement. David Hume, William Robertson, Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson and James

Macpherson -- the writers and theorists with which this thesis is concerned -- atternpted to

salvage a workable national identity in a variety of ways. Their approach to the question

of Scottish national identity generally looked to the institutional format which was at the

centre of their understanding of society. Since it was institutions which shaped the

customs and manners of a people, it was to Scottish institutions that the literati tumed in

order to ensure the preservation of a distinct Scottish identity within the incorporating

Union. .

This thesis intends to prove that the Scottish literati, contrary to the beliefs of their

cntics, were patriotic supporters of what they considered to be the new "improved"

Scotland. Their agitations for a national militia, their support of the Scottish church, and

their attempt to create a tmly national literature of the first rank, it will be argued, must be

understood within the context of the difficulties facing Scottish national self-conceptions

in the years following the Union of the Parliamenu. Ambiguities surrounding the

conception of 'Britishness,' as well as their own North Britishness,' had to be baianced

against their sense of themselves as Scots.

This thesis will show that the Scottish literati used history to preserve and refonn a

national identity based on traditional institutions and values. Providing the most popular

iii

vehicle and scientific foundation for their thought, the literati turned to history to deal

with questions of Scotiand's role and identity within Britain. Their support of the Kirk,

agitations for a national militia. and attempt to develop a national Iiterature must be

uderstood as an attempt to preserve social and cultural diversity in the face of political

unity.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page . * CERTIRCATE OF EXAMINATION ......................................................................... 11

... ABSTRACT ...........................................................................................................III

........................................................... TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................ .. v

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE --THE RATIONAL COVENANT: THE ROLE OF THE CMURCH IN 'ENLIGHTENED SCOTLAND' .......... ,,... ...... 16

CHAPTER W O --TE SCOTTISH MILITIA: HARNESSING THE ....................................................................... MARTIAL PAST 45

CHAPTER THREE --THE 'IMAGINED COMMUNITY': MACPHERSON AND A NATIONAL LITERATURE .................................... .7 8

CONCLUS ION ..................................................................................................... 1 0 6

INTRODUCTION

The Scottish literati are very infrequen tly portrzyed as individuals imbued wi th

anything resembling an exclusivist national sentiment. Like many of their other

enlightened brethren, dispassionate and rationally cosmopolitan, they are genetally

understood as having eschewed the narrow byways of a merely national patnotism in

favour of the wider avenues belonging to the 'community of man.' The fact that David

Hume, Adam Ferguson, James Macpherson. Adam Smith, and William Robertson -- the

'North British' theorists and writers with which this snidy is principally concerned -- were

Scottish has not until relatively recently been viewed as essential to understanding their

philosophical and political programmes. Indeed, the ambiguity surrounding the

conception of 'Britishness' and their 'Nonh Britishness' has made it particularly easy to

overlook the specifically Scottish elements of their thought.

The view of the eighteenth-century Scottish literati as detached observers of some

generic and nationally undefinable human condition was perhaps most clearly stated by

the nineteenth-century historian Thomas Carlyle. "Never, perhaps," he wrote, "was there

a class of wnters so clear and well ordered, yet so totally destitute, to dl appearance. of

any patriotic affection, nay, of any human affection whatever."' In Carlyle's hands, these

Scots become clever aberrations as opposed to reai men. Possessing that "natural

'Thomas Carlyle, Citical and Miscellaneous Essavs: in Five Volumes, v. 1, (AMS Press, New York, I969), 289.

2

impetuosity of intellect" common to Scots, Carlyle believed that they nevertheless lacked

the hem and vibrancy necessary for "true genius."' Carlyle concluded that their lives and

thought "show neither briers nor roses; but only a flat, continuous thrashing floor for

Logic, whereon al1 questions, from the 'Doctrine of Rent' to the 'Natural History of

Religion,' are thrashed and sifted with the same mechanical impartiality."' Carlyle was

not the only Romantic critic of enlightened thought. The Romantic reaction to the

Enlightenment had a formative influence upon the historiographical approach to the

period, an impact which was not noticeably shaken until the twentieth century. One of

the purposes of this thesis will be to further point out the weaknesses of such an

interpretation, and to argue thai the Scottish literati were individuals imbued with a large

dose of patriotic national sentiment. This can be seen in some of their most notable

concerns, including their agitations for a national militia, their support of the church, and

their attempt to reconstruct a new literary heritage out of the ashes of an older one.

Carlyle's accusation of a lack of patriotic feeling is pertiaps even ironie. After dl , it is

apparent that the Scottish literati were the proponents of what they believed to be the

'Carlyle, Essarss. 288. Cariyle believed that Rousseau, Burns and Johnson were the closest that the eighteenth-century came to genius.

'Carlyle, Essays, 289.

3

new, improved ~cotland? The preface to the first issue of The Edinburgh Review (1 755)'

provides a clear statement of their ideas and feelings regarding their native country.

Providing a short overview of the progress of Scottish leaming and development from the

Renaissance to the Union of 1707, the authors of this preface -- most likely Adam Smith

and Hugh BlaiP -- argued that post-Union Scotland had not been swallowed up and

forgotten by its larger southem neighbour. Rather, it had been placed in its natural and

deserved position as a nation respected for its learning and civility.' Passing through the

period of civil wars and religious enthusiasm which followed upon the Union of the

Crowns in 1603, Scotland had finally, through the triumphs of 1688 and 1707, regained

the path it had trod upon under humanists such as George Buchanan (1506-82), sharing

once again in that undaunted spirit of liberty that had animated their ancestors.

There was, however, a catch. Scotland might remain Scotland, but it would

henceforth have to do so as North Britain. "The lands of Bull-hall and Thistledown," as

Adam Ferguson called England and Scotland respectively, "were never intended for two

'Nicholas Phillipson argues that the Sconish literati were arnong the first to offer a patnotic telling of Scotland's rke into prominence. See Nicholas Phillipson, "Politics, Politeness and the Anglicisation of Earl y Eighteenth-Century Scottish Culture," in Roger A. Mason, ed., Scotland and Enpland 1286-1815, (John Donald Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh, 1987), 226.

5Edinburgh Review. no. I,26/8/ 175% (m.film). Adam Smith, Hugh Blair, Alexander Wedderburn, Lord Chair, William Robertson and John Jardine al1 contributed extensively to the first issues of the Edinbureh Review. Hume, Home and Ferguson may have conu-ibuted as weil.

6Review, iv. A handwritten note at the end of the introduction to the first number of the Review cites Blair and Smith as likely authors.

'~eview, ii.

4

farmsH8; their political, geographical and economic situations supported their closer

union. "What the Revolution had begun," the authors of the preface to The Edinbureh

Review argued, "the Union rendered more compleat. The memory of Our ancient state is

not so much obliterated, but that, by compm9ng the p u t with the present, we may clearly

see the superior advantages we now enjoy, and readily discem from what source they

f l ~ w . " ~ These they listed: the development of communications, trade and industry, the

improvement of Iaws with their conesponding effect upon manners, and the end of the

pany factions, which in the previous century had coniinually disturbed the nation's social,

economic and inteilectual progress -- al1 these had "encouraged a disposition CO every

species of improvement in the minds of a people naturally active and inteIligent."l0 "If

countries," the authors triumphantly concluded, "have their ages with respect to

improvement, North Brirain may be considered as in a state of early youth, guided and

8 ~ d a m Ferguson, Sister Pep: a pamphlet hitherto unknown bv David Hume. ed. David Raynor, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1982), 50. The subtitle of this edition of Sister Peg refers to the editor's assertion that David Hume - and not, as has been commonly supposed, Adam Ferguson - penned this rnilitia pamphlet. There remains, however, more reason to believe that Ferguson was mly the author. Alexander Carlyle, Ferguson's close friend, credited Ferguson with authorship of the anonymous pamphlet, while suficiently dealing with Hume's daim, made in the attempt to smell out the red author, of responsibility. Alexander Carlyle, Autobioma~hv of the Rev. Dr. Alexander Carlyle, Minister of Inveresk: Containine: Mernorials of the Men and Events of his Time, (William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh, 1860), 407-8. For a further discussion disproving Raynor's claims, see Roger Emerson, "Sister Pez A Parnohlet Hitherto Unknown bv David Hume. David Raynor (ed.)," Hume Studies, (vol. ix, no. 1, 1983), 1 15-20.

Qeview, ii.

'Qeview, ii.

supported by the more mature strength of her kindred country."" Their Scottish

patnotism was clearly evident; though often acknowledged to be British, it nevertheless

remained un-English.

The literati's concem regarding the progress and development of Scotland must be

understood as a concrete example of their patiotic attachment to their nation. Their

interest in the progress of society generally seems to have sprung from a pnor interest in

the rapid progress and development of ~cotland." The Scottish literati were not utopian

theorists, dreaming up abstract constructions and heavenly cities; rather, they were

realists, concerning themselves with pnctical considerations such as agricultural

developments and institutional and legal refoms. They were concemed with the rise and

progress of their own real community, not with creating some shimmering City of God on

earth. Augustine and Calvin had taught thern that there could be none. Scotland, unlike

France, produced no utopias. The Scottish literati had too much historical sense to search

the clouds and ignore what was at their feet.

The Ziterati were d l improvers. Al1 but James Macpherson belonged to the Select and

Edinburgh societies, while Macpherson, in the last years of his life, earned a reputation as

an improving farrner. The Select and Edinburgh societies were created in part to promote

improvements in commerce, trade, manufactures, industry and language.13 Those who

ii.

12~ohn Robertson, The Scottish Enlightenment and the Militia Issue, (John Donaid Publishers ltd., Edinburgh, 1985), 1.

13The Hottourable the Improvers in the Knowledge of Agriculture in Scotiand ( 1 72346), Philosophical Society of Edinburgh ( 1737-83), Select Society ( 1 754-63),

6

took part in these 'improving' clubs were, for the most part, professional men: clerics,

Iawyers, customs officiais, judges. military officers and professors, they did not suffer the

alienation which characterized some of their French and German contemporaries.

Members of the establishment, they felt little need for radical overhauls, unlike Rousseau

and ~orelly.'" They focused their energies on improving their estates and positions,

which they hoped would contribute persona1 and national benefits. The building of better

roads would lead to persona1 and national wealth; likewise, the discovery of more

efficient forms of manufacture would contribute to individual and national growth.

Motivated by a conservative, but no less practical self-interest, they nevertheless were

quite aware of the national benefits which improvement entailed.

The literati came to maturity during a period in which questions conceming Scotland's

role and identity within the newly defined British arrangement were foremost on the

intellectual agenda. Hume, Robertson and the rest of the literati were writing during a

period of great change in the history of the Scottish nation. The clashes of culture and

politics which occurred throughout the last decades of the seventeenth and first half of the

eighteenth centuries, between Highlander and Lowlander, Englishman and Scot, provided

Edinburgh Sociew ( 1755-a), Poker Club (1762-84), Tabernacle Club (1770-88), Aesculapian Sociep (1773- ), and Pantheon Society (1773-1 800) were the principal clubs in Edinburgh during the literari's active public careers. AH, in some manner or another, can be considered clubs with an "improving" bent. See Roger Emerson, "The Scottish Enlightenment and the End of the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh," BJHS, (2 1, 1988), 65. See also Roger Emerson, "The Social composition of enlightened Scotland: the select society of Edinburgh, 17541764," Studies on Voltaire and the Eiehteenth Centurv, ed. Theodore Besterman, vol. cxiv, (The Voltaire Foundation, Oxfordshire, 1973), 323-29.

"Emerson, "select society," Voltaire, 322.

7

abundant incentive to embark on a programme of improvement and national redefinition.

So too did their sense of past greatness and present poverty. Though the Act of Union

seemed to attempt a balance between Scottish independence and incorporation into

England -- primanly through the preservation of the Scottish legal and religious

institutions -- it became almost immediateiy apparent that even these spheres were not

free from external interference. Scotland, a nation with a long history of independence,

seemed to be relegated, not by war but by words, to a position of political inferiority, if

not provinciality, within the British context. Scots in the years following the Union -- and

particularly after 1750, when more of the economic benefits promised had begun to take

place -- found themselves in the position of having to strike a balance between the

competing, or as David Daiches has labelled them, concentric loyalties to both Scotland

and Britain." Salvaging or creating a recognizable and workable national identity would

prove to be a difficult task, resulting, in sorne cases, in what Daiches and others have

considered a schizophrenic reaction.16 It was a task, however, to which the Scottish

fiterati, to varying degrees, devoted themselves.

The Scottish iiterati defined thernselves as both Scottish and North British. Neither

identity was in any way exclusive. In fact, they were, in the years following the 1707

Union, complementary, necessary for an accurate description of the Scottish situation.

"David Daiches, The Paradox of Scottish Culture: The Eighteenth Century Experience, (Oxford University Press, London, 1964), 17.

16Daiches, Paradox, 16. See also Michael Kugler, "Provincial Intellectuais: Identity, Patriotism, and Enlightened Periphenes," The Eiehteenth Centurv, (vol. 37, no. 3, 1996), 169.

The Union created a society in which national and supra-national elements were

combined.17 The literati were North British because they belonged to a united Britain.

Represented by a single parliament, ruled by the same rnonarch, and sharing the

commercial advantages and expenses associated with empire, North and South Britain

referred to two parts of a British state. The literati were Scottish because their past,

customs, and self-awareness defined them as such. Scotland had not ceased to exist in

1707. It had merely lost its position as a state. Scotland still refened in the post-Union

years to a distinct nation defined by cenain geographic, cultural and social characteristics.

It would continue to exist until these charactenstics, as well as the memory of them, were

erased.

The ambiguity surrounding the conception of Britishness' - which, in modem.

uneducated parlance, if not on other occasions, is considered synonymous with

'Englishness' - has made the distinction which exists between Scotland and North Britain

much more confusing than is necessary. This confusion is arnplified when it is realized

that 'Britishness' has meant different things at different times and to different national

groups.18 The Scottish literati, however, discussions of cultural schizophrenia aside, did

not share in this confusion. They were clearly aware that Britain was not England. Scots

17Harvie uses the term 'universal.' See Chnstopher Harvie, Scotland and Nationalism: Scottish Society and Politics 1707- l994,2nd ed., (Routeledge, London, 1994), 37.

"Derek Hirst has argued, for exarnple, that the English have, at different times, understood 'Britishness' to be sponymous to both 'English-ness' and 'other-ness.' See Derek Hirst, ''The English Republic and the Meaning of Britain," in Brendan Bradshaw and John Morrill, eds., The British Problem. c. 15344707: State Formation in the Atlantic Archipelaeo, (Macmillan Press Ltd, London. 1996), 207.

were not, could not, be English. Hume made this clear to his friend Gilbert Elliott of

Minto. "Can you seriously talk," Hume wrote, "of my continuing an Englishman? Am 1,

or are you, an Englishman? Will they allow us to be so? Do they not treat with Derision

our Pretensions to that Name, and with Hatred out just Pretentions to surpass and to

govem them?"'9 Clearly Hume was aware that Scots were not English. The rest of the

Scottish literati, it will becorne apparent, were equally aware.

The liternti's approach to the question of Scottish national identity generally Iooked to

the institutional format which was at the centre of their understanding of society. Since it

was institutions which shaped the customs and manners of a people, it was to Scottish

institutions that Hume, Smith, Robertson and their contemporaries tumed in order to

ensure the preservation of a distinct Scottish identity within the incorporating Union.

Through the preservation and reconfiguraiion of institutions, the literati attempted to

marshall the forces which had defined Scottish identity in the past in a manner which

would ensure its survival, as well as its usefulness and productivity, in the nation's post-

Union existence. The institutions which the literati considered central to Scottish identity

- and the institutions with which this thesis will be principally concemed - were the

church and the militia.

Protestant belief had been perhaps the defining feature of the Scottish community

since the Reformation. Though Scotland and England both shared a deep aversion to

Catholicism, the distinctly Calvinist nature of Scottish doctrine nevertheless separated

''~avid Hume, The Letters of David Hume, ed. J. Y. T. Greig, vol. i, (Clarendon Press, Oxford. 1 %2), 470.

10

Scots from their southem neighbours. The Scottish literati -- composed mostly of people

closely affiliated with the Kirk, either as ministers or mling elders -- desired to rnake the

church the centre of the new Scottish community. The Kirk was to be a beacon of

leadership, enlightened thought and morality. In doing so, however, they had to discover

ways in which they could incorporate the Calvinism of their forefathers in a manner

which would not senously undermine the established Kirk. Threats presented by the

engulfing Union to patronage and church jurisdictions as well as those caused by

secessionists within the church itself made the task of preserving a distinct and unified

Scottish Kirk difficult.

The struggle for a Scottish militia - most notably during the Seven Year's War and

again in the 1770's and 1780's during the American colonies' fight for independence --

presented more than a struggle for the right to self-defense. ïndeed, some commentators,

such as John Robertson, have suggested that the actual establishment of a militia was not

a primary c0ncern.2~ The militia as an institution represented a connection with the

martial heritage in which Scottish national identity, formed in the Wars of Independence

fought during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, was forged. The creation of a

Scottish militia provided the Ziterati with the opportunity to harness this militaristic

aspect of the Scottish past - an aspect that had corne under severe scrutiny during the

eighteenth cenNry and was held up as evidence of the uncivilized nature of Scottish

society - and to reforge it into a useful and honourable tool to ensure the maintenance of

Scottish unity and identity.

%obertson, Mili tia Issue, 240- 1.

11

Scottish law -- preserved alongside Presbytenanisrn by the 1707 Union treaty -- played

a fundamental role in defining who an eighteenth-century Scot was, or, indeed, what he

was to become. Scottish law remained after the Union -- and still does - more closely

allied to continental Iaw than with that of England. in this sense, it provided another

important distinction. The law was not, however. essential to the enlightened Scottish

identity which the literccti were attempting to construct. Hume and Robertson in

particular dismissed the Scottish legal framework in favour of the more regulated and

regular English system, arguing that the former was incapable of providing the necessary

securities for sustained progress. Lord Kames believed that the Scottish and English legal

systems would converge as both nations became more advanced. The benefits associated

with convergence with the English system seemed to outweigh in the minds of the literati

any national considerations.

Commercialization and urbanization, as important as they may have been, contributed

little in defining a Scot as a Scot. Rather, both processes were British, if not entirely

cosmopolitan in scope. Their impersonality acted to thwart the very existence of

distinctions of any sort, national or otherwise. In fact, the agitations for a Scottish militia

and support of the national church were undentood to provide a means to counter the

nuliifying effects of commercial development.

The development of a national literature, though not in a strict sense institutional, was

also recognized as necessary to the preservation, and, in some cases. creation, of a distinct

Scottish identity. The stress placed upon the centrality of a tmly native literanire to

national self-conceptions by Adam Ferguson was seconded, in various degrees and ways,

12

by the rest of the Scottish literati, as well as suspiciously provided by James Macpherson.

Macpherson's Ossianic poetry, dong with John Home's patriotic dramas, romanticized

and civilized the martial aspects of the Scottish past, while at the same time sounding a

lament for a period that had at least recently p s t by. The impact was influential and

immediate: the introduction of the sublime and sentimental into eighteenth century poetry

and aesthetics reshaped how many Scots, as well as other nations, looked upon their

distant past. No longer was the past necessarily a penod of darkness and barbarism;

instead, it became, like the tone of Ossian's poetry, a subject of nostnlgic yeaming, a Iost

age of virtue and community that needed to be revived or recaptured.

For the literati, the importance of the militia, the church, and the establishment of a

national literature lay in the fact that they provided the best vehicles for the maintenance

of cultural and communal difference in the face of political unity. Unlike the

commercialization of society, so often the focus of modem critics, their unique national

institutions were in a very important sense limited. The Kirk was valuable not only

because of its religious significance, but also because it was not English. The

establishment of a Scottish militia was valuable because it allowed for the continuance of

an institution seen by many as essential to free and valorous peoples. A revived national

literature would again allow Scots to be proud as leamed men and polite and creative

artists.

The media in which the Scottish literati chose to discuss questions relating to the

preservation of national identity were varied. Essays, treatises and histones provided the

most common foms for its discussion. In the age immediately preceding the rise to

13

popularity of the novel as a form of polite artistic expression, history provided the most

popular vehicle for the transmission of their thought. "1 believe," Hume intoned to his

publisher William Strahan in A u ~ u s ~ , 1770, "this is the historical Age and this is the

historical ~ation."" And, indeed, from 1746 onwards, there occurred an unparalleled

expansion in Scottish historical writing." Hume, Robertson and Ferguson were known

dunng their lifetimes pnrnarily as historians, while Smith made continua1 use of historical

examples in his own works and wrote at les t two important conjectural histories?

Macpherson and Home both authored histones, though they were respectively known as a

poet and dramatist. Even these works, however, found their settings in historical

situations. Their manipulation of historical facts and myths in the weaving of their tales

also showed their keen interest in both conjectural and conventional history.

The purpose of the eighteenth-century historian, involved "nothing less" than the

construction of an enlightened identity? The purpose of the Scottish historians wi th

whom this study will be concemed fits this description nicely: their collective goal did

involve the creation of an enlightened identity. They realized, however, that such an

" ~ a v i d Hume, The Letters of David Hume, vol. 2, ed. J.Y.T. Greig, (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1932), 230.

"~av id Allan, Virtue. Leamin! and the Scottish Enlightenment: Ideas of Scholarshio in Earlv Modem Historv, (Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1993), 148.

" ~ e e Adam Smith, "The History of Astronomy," in Essays on Philosophical Su-ects, ed. LS. Ross, (Liberty Classics, Indianapolis, 1982) and Adam Smith, "A Dissertation on the Origin of Languages," in The Theorv of Moral Sentiments, (Arlington House, New York, 1969).

'%llan, Virtue, 148.

identity would, by sheer necessity, need to be moulded out of national clay. The Scottish

literati had far too much historical sense to attempt the construction of an enlightened

identity with little or no regard for the national materials at hand. Their awareness of the

importance of custom, habit and tradition in the development and Iife of the community

set the boundaries within which they knew they needed to work.

Furthemore, history provided what the literati considered to be the necessary

foundation for a tmly scientific study of society. It was the data base from which the

social ssientist gleaned the facts necessary for his theories. "Mankind are so much the

same," Hume argued in An Enauin, Concerning Human Understandine;,

in al1 tirnes and places, that history inforrns us of nothing new or strange in this particular. Its chief use is only to discover the constant and universal principles of human nature, by showing men in al1 varieties of circumstances and situations, and fumishing us with materiais from which we may form our observations and become acquainted with the regular springs of human action and behaviour. These records or (sic) wars, intrigues, factions, and revolutions, are so many collections of experiments, by which the politician or moral philosopher fixes the principles of his science, in the sarne manner as the physician or natural philosopher becomes acquainted with the nature of plants, minerals, and other extemai objects, by the experiments which he forms conceming (hem?

History's primary function was in unlocking the door to the spnngs and pnnciples of

human nature and societai development. It allowed the eighteenthtentury literati to

arrive at what they considered to be the true or probable and to discover the social laws

akin to those already discovered in the natural world. But the existence of these universal

laws did not mean that societies could not be unique. Al1 cultures rnight have religion but

f5David Hume, Enquiries Concernine the Human Understandinn and Conceminq the Princi~ies of Morals, 2nd, ed., ed. L. A. Seiby-Bigge, M. A., (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1966), 83.

15

not al1 religions are the same; al1 societies have status systems but these too Vary. These

universal laws, in other words, were played out in a variety of different ways. "Are the

manners of men different in different ages and countries?" Hume asks. "We learn thence

the great force of custom and education. which mould the human mind from its infancy

and fom it into a fixed and established ~haracter."'~ Uniformity still allowed for a

"diversity of characters, prejudices and opinion^."'^ Scotland's uniqueness was a product

of her distinct geography, history and institutions.

This thesis will show that the Scottish litetati used history to preserve and reform a

national identity based on traditional institutions and values. History provided the most

popular vehicle for the transmission of their thought and the sole foundation on which

they could rest their daim to a scientific understanding of human nature and society. The

theorists with whom this study is principally concerned tumed to history to deal with

questions relating to the role and identity of Scotland within the framework of British

culture and polity. Their agitations for a Scottish militia, their support of the established

national church, and their atternpts to develop a truiy national literature must also be

understood as an attempt to preserve social and cultural diversity in the face of political

unity.

26Hume, Enquiries, 85-6.

"Hume, Enouiries, 85.

CHAPTER ONE

THE RATIONAL COVENANT: THE ROLE OF THE CHURCH IN 'ENLIGHTENED SCOTLAND'

"The reformation," William Robertson explained in his History of Scotland, "is one of

the greatest events in the history of mankind, and, in whatever point of light we view it, it

is instructive and interesting."" Robertson believed it to be a "most happy" revolution

guided from the beginning by "Divine Providence", a revolution which resulted both in

freedom from the "papal yoke" and the broadening of human ~entiment.'~ It was, in other

words, the beginning of the revival of letten, arts and sciences, the moment when

mankind began to ascend from the shadows of the middle ages. For Robertson and others

this process was still ongoing. It was also the penod in which humanity came more hilly

under the light of history: the penod immediately preceding the Reformation belonged

more to the realm of superstition and fable than it did to established fact. Robertson, like

28Wi11iam Robertson, The Historv of Scotland Dunng the Reims of Oueen Marv and of King James VI till his Accession to the Crown of England. Eith a Review of the Scottish Historv Previous to that Penod: And an Amendix. Containine: OrieinaI Letten, (Harper &Brothers, Publishers, New York, 1 Us), 6 1 +

'william Robertson, The History of the Reim of the Emwror Charles V. with a View of the Promess of Society in Europe. from the Subversion of the Roman Em~ire, to the Beginnine of the Sixteenth Century, (J. & I. Harper, New York, 1829), 124-5.

17

many of his contemporaries, entertained a distaste for what he considered "the dark ages";

Robertson contemptuously wrote them off as undeserving of remembrance, a period

suited only to the narrowness of antiq~aries.~' His own historical focus aimed at the

further illumination of the Reformation: both his Historv of Scotland and The Histow of

the Reign of the Emoeror Charles V focused primarily upon the sixteenth century,

reconstructing, at l es t in part, the conversion of nations from the superstitious barbarism

of Catholicism to the 'light' of the Protestant faith?

Scottish identity since the Reformation had been intimately bound up with

Protestantisrn, particularly in its Calvinist and Presbyterian form. Calvin's protege John

Knox portrayed Scotland as one of the select nations favoured by God in the struggle

between good and evil; the history of the Scottish Kirk mirrored the struggle between

Christ and anti-Christ." Other Scottish Presbyterian historians also emphasized the

purity and prosperity of early Christianity before the mival of Rome and recorded the

retum to purity of which the Reformation marked the beginning? Later Calvinists had

an equally important impact upon how Scot's interpreted and understood their nation's

ps t , present and future. Through the Reformation, Civil Wars, and Restoration,

Scotland's purity and the Kirk's definition helped to define the nation's central goals.

3%obertson, Scotland, 7.

3'~obertson's The Historv of the Discoverv and Setttement of America aiso focused upon the sixteenth century. It did not, however, focus on Reformation.

"John Knox; History of the Refomation of Reliaon in Scotland (W. G. Blackie & Co., Glasgow, 1844), 5. See also Ailan, Vimie, 45.

Indeed, Colin Kidd has reminded us that Scottish religious organization provided one

of the fundamental and necessary themes in the debates preceding the 1707 Union. "in

tems of contemporary political thought," Kidd explains, "this incorporating union of civil

governrnents unaccornpanied by a union of religious establishments was a solecism.""

This was, in pan. due to the fact that there did not exist at the dawn of the eighteenth-

century unified states with a plurality of religious establishments. This led Scots to the

fear that their Kirk would eventually be absorbed, despite promises conceming its

supposed autonomy, within a larger British religious framework. Since national identity

in the pre-modern world was "inextricably linked to confessional identity," the threat

presented to the Scottish church by political union with England proved to be an

extremely sensitive issue with much more than religious implications?

The Presbyterian organization of the Scottish church, fought for throughout the

seventeenth-century, was secured in 1707 by the Act of UnionM. This fact ensured the

church a position of leadership in Scottish society and enhanced the importance of its

likely leaders -- clerics, university professors and articulate laymen. It was a position

which the iiterati, with a couple of possible exceptions, were determined to maintain

because it served their ends. Many of the Scottish iiterati were intimately connected with

%Colin Kidd, "Religious realignment between the Restoration and Union," in John Robertson (ed.), Union for Em~ire: Politicai Thoueht and the British Union of 1707, (Cambridge University Press. Cambridge, 1993, 145.

"Kidd, "Religious Realignment," 145-6.

'%eorge S. Pryde, ed., The Treaty of Union of Scotland and Endand 1707, (Thomas Nelson and Sons LTD, London, 1950), 103-107.

.19

the church. William Robertson, Hugh Blair, Adam Ferguson, Alexander Carlyle and

John Home were all, at one time or another, ministers. Laymen like Lords Karnes and

Hailes, and Alexander Wedderbum were ruling elders. Along with other individuals,

they formed the backbone of the Moderate Pany, a group which controlled church affairs

in Scotland alrnost continuously during the Iast half of the eighteenth century." Religion

as taught by the church, as far as many of the literati were concemed, remained the true

source of morality and vinue. The Kirk, along with the university, remained the

institutional centre of the Enlightenment in Scotland. Only David Hume -- and, perhaps,

James Macpherson3' -- among the more prominent of the Scottish literari were generally

and deeply critical of the role of the church in eighteenth-century Scottish society. But,

their close friendship with the rest of their enlightened Scottish brethren suggests that

even they were not enemies of the church in its Moderate guise.

The stmggle for the leadership of post-Union Scotland was one in which the literati

played a principal part. Histoncally, such leadership had devolved upon the nobility. The

feudal and military obligations owed by tenants to their landlords, along with other, more

voluntary associations between the principal nobility and their followers, ensured the

medieval nobility's position of prominence. The church, though certainly responsible for

"Richard B. Sher, Church and Universitv in the Scottish Enlightenment: The Moderate Literati of Edinburgh, (Princeton University Press, New Jersey, 1985), 14.

''The absence of religion in Macpherson's Ossianic poetry has led to certain speculations conceming Macpherson's religious views. Hugh Blair saw it as poems' greaiest flaw. See Hugh Blair, "A Critical Dissertation on the Poems of Ossian, the Son of Fingal," in James Macpherson, The Poems of Ossian and Related Works, ed. Howard Gaskill, (Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1996), 390.

20

the moral and spiritual leadership of the nation -- and, therefore, in such superstitious

tirnes, a contender for a certain share of the temporal leadership as well - placed a distant

second. The Reformation altered this historie balance. The revival or change in religious

sentiment and dedication, ignited by the millenarian zeal of the first refomers, gained for

the church leaders much more national influence. And. though William Robertson and

his band of Moderate literati may have dispmged some of the excesses into which the

first reformers were led. they had no intention of casting off the mantle of leadership that

had been passed down to them.

Robertson, more than any other rnember of the literati, made the question of the Kirks

leadership of Scottish society central to his intellectual and political agenda. The secunty

of the Kirk's prominence was being seriously challenged by the middle of the eighteenth-

century. Uncertainty about the role of the church in a rapidly changing society threatened

fragmentation into disparate religious faction^.'^ The modemization of Scottish society,

highlighted by the graduai shift from an agrarian to a commercial economy, raised new

questions about the nature of church leadership which the leaders themselves seemed

either unwilling or unable to answer. Should the Kirk resist or support the social and

economic changes wrought by Union? Was toleration of difference or enforced

conformity the best way to ensure virtue? How could the Kirk be best protected against

govemment interference? One faction of the church leadership, led by more traditional

ministers like Robert Wodrow, did not make ailowances for compromise with the "new

world order" of which Scotland was quickiy becoming a part. Strictly old-schooi, this

3gSher, Church, 45.

faction desired to organize and run the Kirk without political interference, as they

imagined their fathers had done before thern?' The other principal strain of opinion

conceming the church's role in society, which would eventually become closely affiliated

with the Moderate party of which Robertson was the head. argued that it was necessary

for the Kirk to adapt to the changing nature of Scottish society. This would be achieved

through the acceptance and promotion of vanous species of improvement, as well as

stressing the importance of education and enlightened virtue alongside piety. The

Moderate churchmen replaced the earlier Kirk's ~ ~ O ~ O U S dogmatism with the Glorious

Revolution's promise of religious, intellectual and political liberty? The struggle for the

leadership of the Kirk that occurred in the 1750's and 1760's was, in a certain sense,

between a static and dynamic view of the church's role and position within society.

Robertson and the Moderates, whose view it was to adapt the institution to the conditions

within which it found itself, so as to enable it to maintain its position of importance,

eventually gained a majority within the Kirk.

With the questions conceming the leadership of the church more-or-less settled by

1760, Robertson's next concem was ensuring that the church maintained its prominence

within Scottish society. Despite important social changes and developments during the

first half of the eighteenth-century, Scottish society remained in many other ways closely

Church,

"This connection between the Moderate platforni and ideal of liberty secured by the Glorious Revolution is perhaps best illustrated in Robertson's sermon celebrating the centenary of the Revolution's success. This sermon is attatched as an appendix to an article by Richard B. Sher. See Richard B. Sher, " 1688 and 1788: William Robertson on Revolution in Britain and France," (unpublished paper), (July, 1985), 25-28.

22

allied to its past feudal self. The power of the principal nobilityJ2 remained notable.

Their rapacious management of Scotland since the departure of James VI to England in

1603 could not be cornpletely corrected by treaty alone. In fact, the nobility proved quite

capable of maintaining their position as the nation's managers well after the signing of the

Act of Union. It is for reasons such as these that eighteenth-century Scotland has quite

correctly been labelled a society of patronage. Much of the nation remained in the hands

of a few principal noble families, whose support was usually necessary for advancernent

in any official post, however small or inconsequential?Patronage remained central to

the literizti's own persona1 progress and influence in Scottish society. Hume's lack of

success, for example, in his attempts to secure a university post, as well as his successful

application to become the Librarian of the Advocates Library, al1 questions of religious

unorthodoxy aside, were principally due to his principal patrons? The nobles and gentry

(like the Crown) maintained much con trol over church appointments themselves,

remaining the Kirk's principal rival for national influence.

42The nobility that are being discussed are, of course, the peers and lairds who held the primary positions of power among the nobility. Other, lesser rnembers of that order, possessing a title but little actual power, were only a threat to the position of the Kirk insofar as they completely supported the lords of manors and clan chiefs with real political clout.

"~osalind Mitchison. Lordship to Patrona~e: Scotland 1603- 1745, (Edward Arnold, London, 1983), particularly chapters 7 and 8.

"Roger Emerson, "The "affair" at Edinburgh and the "project" at Glasgow: the politics of Hume's attempts to become a professor," in M. A. Stewart and John P. Wright (eds.), Hume and Hume's Connexions, (The Pennsylvania State University Press, Pennsylvania, 1995), 1,5, 16; See also Roger Emerson, Professors. patronage and politics: The Aberdeen universities in the eighteenth century, (Aberdeen, 1992), 4.

23

Robertson's histories may be read, at least in part, as the author's attempt to corne to

ternis with the question of the leadership of contemporary Scotland. History, in this

sense, becomes a political tool, a propagandist's weapon in the stmggle for moral and

political authority. And, it was against the nobles that Robertson unleshed his corrosive

reconstruction of Scottish history. They are presented as compt, rapacious, factious and

disruptive, undermining the progress and development of Scottish society in their pursuit

of personal advantage.

This is not to say, of course, that Robertson intentionally sacrificed historical

objectivity for political gain. There seems to be no reason to question Robertson's daims

of veracity and integrity? Robertson, insofar as he understood the term, made every

attempt to be histoncally objective. If what were considered to be the 'facts' reinforced

the argument in favour of the church's leadership of Scottish society, then so much the

better. The Scottish literati, if not the rnajority of their eighteenth-century brethren, had

little understanding and even less use for the modem ideal of the absolutely impartial,

non-judgemental pursuit of truth for truth's sake alone. Historical inquiry was imbued

with a moral, politicai and social purpose above and beyond the search for truth. It was

understood to be a practical tool in the transformation of socieây.

Robertson's criticism of the nobility presents one of the more prominent unifying

themes in his History of Scotland. From the opening pages Robertson portrayed the

nobility as "turbulent and formidable," disrupting the social balance and seriously

-

"~obertson, Scotland, iv-v.

24

undermining the authonty of the Scottish monarch? "If the authority of the barons,"

Robertson claimed, "far exceeded its proper bounds in the other nations of Europe, we

may affirm that the balance which ought to be preserved between a king and his nobles

was alrnost entirely lost in ~cotiand.'"~ Both accidental and constitutional considerations

contributed to the nobility's aggrandizement. The mountainous nature of much of the

country served to protect the recalcitrant from the feeble a m of the law, while the

division of Scotland into clans -- "blood," Robertson explained, is "thicker than other ties,

even if connections of blood are mostly imaginary"" -- as well as the frequent wars

between Scotland and England contributed further to the power of the n~bi l i ty .~~

Robertson believed that the most important factor which had contributed to the loss of

balance were the frequent calarnities which befell the monarchy itself. Long and frequent

minorities, imprisonments and unnatural deaths considerably weakened the influence of

the prince, placing him in a position of impotence at a time when other European

monarchs were taking advantage of numerous oppominities?* By the end of the fifteenth

cenniry, when most oiher princes were in a position to scaie back the feudal arrangements

which provided the nobility with much of their power, the Kings of Scotland proved

unable to limit the power of their nobles. As a result, feudalism had a much longer life

46Robertson, Scotland, 15.

47Robertson, Scotland, 16.

'8Robertson, Scotland, 17.

4%obertson, Scotland, 18.

'Qobertson, Scotland, 2 1.

25

in Scotland than it did e~sewhere.~' Robertson concluded that the relation between the

kings of Scotland with their nobility proves "the impotence of Iaws when opposed to

power.""

Robertson presented the Scottish nobility as a selfish, though select group of families

more interested in ensuring their own grandeur and maintaining their petty rival ries than

contributing towards the political, social and economic progress of the nation. The

conception of civic vinue which Robertson and many of the other literati held as

important to the health of a community had little value for such nobles. Irnmersed in their

own particular concerns, they cared little for those of the Scottish people or state, except

insofar as they interfered with their own.

Robertson was not alone in questioning the nobility's ability to lead contemporary

Scotland fonvard. By the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the nobility's position

as the natural leaders of Scottish society, first outlined by George Buchanan and Hector

Boece (1465-1536) two centuries earlier, was coming under harsh scrutiny. The Jacobite

historian Patrick Abercromby, in his Martial Atchievements of the Scots Nation (1706)

put forward the thesis that the nobility were too self-interested to lead Scottish society, a

"Robertson, Scotland, 2 1.28.

52Robertson, Scotland, 38. Robertson's argument conceming the necessity of breaking the power of the nobility in order to ensure the continuing progress of society is not, of course. limited alone to his Historv of Scotland. Both his The Promess of Society in Euro~e and The Historv of the Reign of the Em~eror Charles V also stress the barrier which the nobility have presented to development. See, in particular, With a View to the P ropss of Societv in Euro~e from the Subversion of the Roman Empire to the Beenning of the Sixteenth Centuxy, in Robertson, Charles V, 77-80.

26

thesis which Robertson later adopted as his own." During the Union debates the position

of the nobility was further weakened when some writers, including some Whigs, drew

attention to the negaiive impact which feudalism had had upon commerce and agriculture

in Scotland. Heritable jurisdictions, the arrangement whereby Scottish nobles maintained

legal and political control over their territories came under severe criticism.'" By the

early eighteenth-century, with the vogue for economic irnprovement sweeping Scotland,

the nobility had corne to be seen by many as a hindrance to economic and social

development, and "were blamed for not Filling in the gap in civic leadership left by the

absentee monarch in l603."~~

Many of the other Scottish literati joined Robertson in his critique of the nobiiity's

leadership of Scotland. Hume made repeated claims conceming the negative impact

which a territorial nobi1itq6 such as that in Scotland had had upon the liberty and

53Patri~k Abercromby, The Martial Atchievements of the Scots Nation: Beine an Account of the Lives. Characters and mernorable Actions. of Such Scotsmen as have Simaliz'd themselves bv the Sword at Home and Abroad. And a Survev of the Militarv Transactions wherein Scotland or Scotsmen have been remarkablv concern'd frorn the first Establishment of the Scots Monarchv to this Present Time, Mr. Robert Freebairn, 17 1 1. Abercromby's history, despite the title's allusion to heroic deeds, focuses at least as much on the disruptive nature of the principal nobility.

j5Kdd, Subverting, 173.

''In Hume's remarks concerning the hamiful effects that a territorial nobility has upon society, he used the exarnple of the Polish aristocracy. His intended target, however, would have been clear. As Colin Kidd has pointed out, the similarities between the feudal constitutions of Poland and pre-Union Scotland were well known in the eighteenthtentury; Hume could have been relatively certain that al1 but his least perceptive readers would make the transition between Poland and Scotland. See Kidd, Subverting, 178.

development of society. In particular, in his essays "Of the Refinement in the Arts" and

"That Politics may be reduced to a Science" Hume argued that the peace and security that

is necessary for the progress of civil society is constantly disrupted when the noble, "by

rneans of his fiefs, has a distinct hereditary authonty over his vassals, and the whole body

has no authority but what i t receives from the concurrence of its parts."57 What this

means is that a temtorial nobility becomes a faction of local despots whose collective

self-interest places them in opposition to the interest of the rest of the cornmunity. S ince

a temtorial nobility can only maintain its power by "the concurrence of its pans," the

majority will always follow the dictates of self-interest, even when, as it often is, it is

opposed to the interests of the larger community.

Ferguson too was severely critical of the nobility, attacking them for being "district

tyrants," manipulating the crown and people alike to suit their own interests? He,

further, attacked what he considered their tendency towards "effeminancy" and

decadence. Ferguson believed that the nobility -- and primarily those belonging to the

modem commercial society - had exchanged the liberality and "supposed elevation of

mind" that defined their ancestors to become mere "consumers," pursuing "equipage" and

"dec~ration."~ Ferguson concluded that modem aristocrats

have neither the elevation of nobles, nor the fidelity of subjects; they have changed

" ~ a v i d Hume, Political Essavs, ed. Knud Haakonssen, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994,) 6.

''~darn Ferguson, An Essav on the Historv of Civil Soc ie t~ ed. Fania Oz- Salzberger, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995), 236.

'?erguson, Civil Societv, 238-9.

into effeminate vanity, that sense of honour which gave rules to the personal courage; and into a servile baseness, that loyalty. which bound each in his place, to his immediate superior, and the whole to the throne?

The nobility, in other words, had abandoned their position of leadership for the excesses

of the times, and, as a consequence, undermined the hierarchicai social fabric which

Ferguson considered essential to virtuous relations.

Ferguson believed that the nobility could regain their position among society's natural

leaders only if they eschewed the trappings of wealth and resumed what he considered to

be their more traditional and natural roles. Ferguson's irritation was not with the

establishment of distinctions or the development of customs and "marks of status" by

which different ranks could be known. Ferguson's cnticism concemed the pursuit of

wealth for the sake of wealth alone as well as the pursuit of private advantage at the cost

of h m to the community to which one belonged.6'

"In deconstructing vulgar Buchananite whiggery," Colin Kidd concludes in Subvertinq

Scotland's Past, "Robertson and the sociological Whigs had discovered very little political

virtue under the nobility's classical ~ e n e e r . " ~ ~ In contrat to Buchanan's usual portrayal of

the nobility as the defenders of the rights and liberties of the nation, Robertson, Ferguson

and their friends offered a picture of the nobility as selfish and manipulative, of men

-

60Ferguson, Civil Society, 238.

''Ferguson, Civil Society, 23 1-47.

'%idd, Subverting, 184.

29

disrupting the progress of Scottish s0ciety.6~ Having forfeited their right to lead Scottish

society through their pursuit of private over public goals, a new group of leaders was

needed to step into the political vacuum. For Robertson and many of the other literati,

the church seerned to be the most natural candidate for leadership.

Robertson, however, had a particular form of it in mind. Presbyterian in organization,

i t w u nevertheless rejuvenated and noticeabl y modem. Robertson's Presbyterianism was

to be a major bulwark of the social order and not the debilitating and revolutionary force

it had been in much of the seventeenth-century. It would participate in the process of

modernization and improvement rather than vainly attempt to resist it. By the middle of

the eiphteenth century -- the period in which the Moderate Party within the Kirk was

coming into prominenence - Presbyterianisrn's position within Scottish society was

coming increasingly under attack. The sanctioning of theatre, the toleration of infidels

and the mixing of ministers in polite secular society becarne issues which threatened the

unity of the church? On top of this, the organization of the Krk weakened its ability to

63~ t is worth mentioning within the context of the Scottish literati's portraya1 of the nobility that James Macpherson. at least in his 'translation' of the poems ofOssian, left the nobility completely out of the poetry. This could be due to the fact of the poems, whether actual or anificial, antiquity; Hugh Blair, in his Dissertation, claims that the absence of any recognition of the importance of the clan leaders is evidence of the Ossianic poetry's authenticity. It is also plausible that Macpherson, either from personai motivations or otherwise, consciously excluded the nobility. The absense of any sense of religion, whether pagan or Christian, in the Ossianic corpus, may be interpreted, on the other hand, as evidence that Macpherson did not support the church either. See Hugh Blair, "A Critical Dissertation on the Poems of Ossian," in James Macpherson, "The Poerns of Ossian and Related Works, ed. Howard Gaskill, (Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1996), 3556.

?3her, Church and University, 45-6.

30

remain unified.6' Robertson, affected by the problems facing the Kirk, did his best dunng

his long career as Moderator and manager of the Assembly and President of the

University of Edinburgh to answer the churchts critics, transforming Presbyterianism into

what one modem commentator has refemd to as a "civil religion."66

The manner in which Robertson intended to transform Presbyterianism took the form

of what has become known as the Moderate Revolution. Moderatism, according to 1. D.

Clark, was a practical, hands-on religious approach that attempted to deal with man not as

an abstraction patched together for the sake of theoretical analysis but as sentient, social

being? It was not, Clark stresses, the Erastian movement that many of its critics

claimed. Neither was it so completely allied to the civil authority that it became merely

an extension of the civil ami. Moderates argued that true social progress depended upon

the cooperation of the spiritual and civil authorities.6' Robertson and the Moderates

believed that past Scottish progress had been stifled by the existence of too much

65~her, Church and University, 46. Sher lists the "absence of episcopacy," the role of lay elders, the "'republican' organization of ecclesiastical authority," and the rotation of assembly seats, though contributing to the "democratic" nature of the kirk, as being responsible for the threat to church unity and autonomy. "For if the ultimate authority in the church," Sher asks, " was an annual assembly of several hundred parish ministers and lay elders from al1 parts of Scotland, most of whom had not attended the previous assembly and would not attend the next one, how could ecclesiasticai authority and continuity be maintained?'

"Kidd, S ubvertinq, 188.

an D. L. Clark, "From Protest to Reaction: The Moderate Regime in the Church of Scotland, 1725- 1805," in Scotland in the Aee of Im~rovement: Essavs in Scottish History in the Eighteenth Centurv, eds. N. T. Phillipson and Rosalind Mitchison, (University Press, Edinburgh, 1 WO), 207.

68~Iark, "Moderate Regime," Scotland, 207.

3 1

unproductive opposition between various elements of society. Rather than working

towards a common goal, these elernents struggled for sole control, placing their own

desires and considerations ahead of those of the rest of society. Only by working

together, the Moderates reasoned, could Scotland hope to continue its progress out of the

barbarism of the past and into the light of the eighteenth-century.

Moderatism also aimed, quite importantly, at modemity, which, in the eighteenth-

century context, involved civility and moderation. It was in a very real sense "the

enlightenment of religion," involving "the substitution of the 'religion of vinue' for low,

illiberal fanati~isrn."~~ Robertson and the rest of the literati detested the enthusiasm

which had plagued much of the Scottish Presbyterian past. In this sense, therefore,

Moderatism can be understood as signifying at least a partial break with previous

Presbyterian positions. The covenanting tendencies of the previous century, a source of

pride to the more plebian and "high-flying" elements of the church, were an

embarrassrnent to the more educated Moderates. Robertson often seemed in his History

of Scotland to be apologizing for the enthusiastic excesses of his religious forefathers."

in his sermon The Situation of the World at the time of Christ's Ap~earance. and its

connection with the Success of his Religion considered, Robertson argued that genuine

Christianity is not prone to the excesses of superstition and enthusiasm which

'Mary Feamley-Sander, "Philosophical History and the Scottish Reformation: William Robertson and the Knoxian Tradition," The Historical Journal, (33, no.2, 1990), 332.

"Kidd, Subvertine;, 199.

accompanied the histories of both the Roman Catholics and early ~rotestants.~' It is

instead "distinguished above al1 other religions by the mildness of its spirit : The enemy

of every practice which hardens the heart : The encourager of every virtue which renders

the character humane."" It is, in other words, a religion of moderation. While approving

the final result of the more enthusiastic stages of the Scottish Reformation -- the eventual

establishment of both a Presbyterian community and a more liberai political framework --

Robertson, like many of his educated contemporaries, disliked the rnethod of its

attainmen t.

Moderatism was not, however, completely discontinuous. It did maintain important

connections with the more enthusiastic stances of previous centuries. The prirnacy

accorded to the Presbyterian form of organizaiion was clearly the rnost important. The

attempt on the part of the Moderates to ntionalize and incorporate as much of the

church's enthusiastic past as was possible must also be recognized as evidence of their

desire to maintain as much of the Kirk's earliest foundations as was possible. History

becornes for this purpose a valuable tool, allowing for the reconstruction of the past in a

manner which would make even the most fanatical excesses of the church explicable

when interpreted according to the dictates of "Divine Providence".

" ~ h i s is not to say, of course, that Roman Catholicism and early Protestantism were not Christian religions. Robertson recognized that there existed a diversity of foms of Christian expression. The reference to "genuine Christianity" referred, rather, to the lifestyles which accompanied the assertion of a belief in Christ. The excesses of beiief, behaviour and worship that accompanies both superstition and enthusiasm - the lack, in other words, of moderation - were the object of Robertson's censure.

Zdinburrrh Review, 42.

33

Robertson's Historv of Scotland provided much of the foundation upon which a

Modente interpretation of the Scottish past would rest. In it, he examined both the

Protestant roots of the eighteenth-century Scottish Kirk and, at the srme time, the

consolidating of Scottish and English interests around the question of religion.

Protestantism provides one of the strongest supports upon which the Union itself could

rest. It is not merely accidental that Robertson ends his Histow of Scotland with James'

triumphant entrance into England; though it would be slightly over a century before the

two nations would finally be united under a single government, the difficulties which

ensued during the intervening period -- dealt with bMIy in the closing pages of the

Histoq -- merely served to reinforce Robertson's argument conceming the necessity of

uni0n.7~

Robertson's portrayal of the first decades of Protestantism in Scotland is a complex

one, much at odds with other interpretations, including that of his friend and

contemporary David Hume. An awkward mixture of apology and explanation, it provides

evidence conceming the difficulties Robertson faced in incorporating the Scottish

religious past within a Moderate framework. His acceptance, in the end, of various

incongruent aspects of the Scottish past rests upon the inter-related poles of "Providence"

and unintended consequences. Both play a large role in the frarning of his historical

interpretation, as they do, to varying degrees, in the historicd works of many of the

Scottish [iterati They provide him with the means of sidestepping the more troubling

aspects of his reconstruction, the most notable being the incorporation of the entbusiastic

- -

*Robertson, Scotland, 322.

34

excesses of the church's past within a Moderate framework.

Robertson's account of the roots of Scottish Presbyterianisrn did not involve the tinges

of radical enthusiasm with which Hume, in his History of Et~gland'~, coloured them.

Robertson argued that the earliest Protestants were pacific and patient, as well as willing

to work within the confines of the civil constitution, much iike the eighteenth-century

Moderates themseives." Though he claimed to find the moderation of the early Scottish

Protestants surprising, especially considering the warlike nature of the Scottish nation, he

attributed it to the pacific nature of the first Scottish reformer^.^^ Robertson argued that

the violence and enthusiasm that Hume, to take the most prominent example, associated

with the Scottish Reformation, came much later, with the retum of the most radical

reformers from abroad following "Bloody" Mary's death in 1558." Robertson argued that

as late as the reign of James VI, Presbyterianisrn stood, when compared to the other

forces at work in Scottish society, for the defence of order, a fact which reconciled the

king to its position of prominence?'

This argument provides, perhaps, one of the rnost important keys to unlocking

"David Hume, The Histocy of Eneland from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to The Revolution in 1688, v. iv, (Liberty Classics, Indianapolis, 1 %3), 19-39.

75Robertson, Scotland, 57-8.

"~obertson, Scotland, 7 1.

'?Robertson, Scotland, 74.

78Robertson, Scotland, 283. King James' equation of "No Bishop, No King!" seems to contradict Robertson's daims regarding that monarch's favour. It is obvious that for most of his life James' believed Presbyterianism and disorder were closely allied.

35

Robertson's interpretation of the Scottish Refomation. By stressing the pacific origins

and character of the earliest phase of the Scottish Refomation, Robertson could more

reasonably argue that the ensuing fanaticism was an aberration. More than this, it

allowed him to suggest that it was an aberration introduced from abroad, by the reformers

retuming from Geneva and the other continental centres of the ~efomiation." The

extrernism which the Scottish variant of the Reformation eventually exhibited was

therefore not 'home-grown'. The logical, if unstated conclusion of this hypothesis was

that the Scottish Reformation might have remained more-or-less pacific had not John

Knox and others returned to Scotland from the continental hotbeds of extremism. This

interpretation allowed Robertson to stress the purity and reasonableness of the earliest

form of Scottish Protestantism without invoking the myths and dubious history of the

primitive church in Scotland as those stones had been told by Buchanan, the Catholic

historian Thomas innes ( 1663- l744), and others.

Knox and his brethren becorne scapegoats for the Reformation's tum towards violence.

Enteting Scotland during a period of political and psychological anxiety, Knox "inflamed

the multitude with the utmost rage" against the idolatry which he perceived about hirn.s0

Robertson pointed to Knox's famous harangue at Perth as the beginning of the second,

more violent phase of the Reformation. This new radicalism was further inflamed by the

repression with which the authorities responded.'' One way or another, after Perth the

- - -

'Qobertson, Scotland, 75-6.

'ORobertson, Scotland, 75.

''Robertson, Scotland, 58.

36

Scottish Refonnation would not be the same, and Robertson condemned it.

Despite the distaste exhibited by Robertson for the second. more violent phase of the

Scottish Refonation, he nevertheless attempted to provide an apology and

rationalization for it. It is at this stage of Robertson's historical analysis that the hand of

"Providencet' begins to play an important role. Knox, distasteful though his character was

to educated eighteenth-century palates, played a vital role in reviving the spirits of the

Protestant pany in Scotland at a crucial time, when the influence of the French at the

Scottish court threatened it with extinction. His presence proved a catalyst to the

unification of a large segment of Scottish society, at least momentarily, in the defence of

their religious conscience^?^ Furthemore, Robertson argued it was the very harshness

and uncompromising nature of Knox's character which enabled him. in the end, to have

such a positive effect upon the formation and defence of a seriousiy committed Scottish

Protestant community. It was for reasons such as these that God must have chose Knox to

be the tool of religious and societal transformation?' The very impoliteness and ngour of

the Scottish people required an equally uncultivated and rigorous leader. Though one

might deplore the harshness of Knox's character and the sanguinary nature of his words

and actions, as the refined sensibilities of the Moderates often led thern to do, one was

forced to recognize that they were particularly suited to sixteenth-century Scottish

82Robertson, Scotland, 90.

S3~obertson, Scotland, 22 1. "Those very qualities which now render his character less amiable, fitted him to be the instrument of Providence for advancing the refomation among a fierce people, and enabling him to face dangers, and to surmount opposition, frorn which a person of a more gentle spint would have been apt to shrink back."

circumstances. A son of moral relativism, when authenticated by the hand of the Divine,

allowed Robertson in his Historv of Scotland, to excuse the excesses of the church fathers

that would have been immediately condemned in the more polite and enlightened

eighteenth-century.

Robertson's attempt to incorporate the earliest phases of the Scottis h church's

development into a Moderate framework should be understood as a patriotic endeavour,

one which made the Kirk not oniy reasonable and good but worthy of preservation. By

preserving some sense of continuity between the earliest and Moderate phases of the

church, Robertson secured it against accusations of innovation and Anninianism. By

suggesting that the true Scottish Reformation was pacific, enlightened and unenthusiastic

-- or, in a word, moderate -- Robertson was able to hint that Moderatism represented a

return to the true Scottish church. This is important, as has already been seen, since

confessional and national identity are so closely connected. His assertion of the early 8

moderation of the Scottish Protestants also undercut the generally accepted view

regarding their lack of cultivation. If, Robertson's argument seems to suggest, the more

barbarous phases of the church's development were the product of importation, then other

aspects of Scots' supposed barbarism might bey on closer inspection, discovered to be

introduced from abroad. The introduction of "Providence" into his narrative similarily

served to soften the more violent aspects of the later, post-ffioxian phases of the

Providence plays another important role in Robertson's political and social

prognmme, providing what may be considered an irrefutable justification for the Kirk's

leadership of Scottish society. The Reformation, in the eyes of Robertson and many of

the other eighteenth-century literati, was much more than a merely religious renaissance.

It had a tremendous impact on the social, cultural, intellectual and political realms as

well. Mary Feamley-Sander, among others, correctly stresses the almost secular tincture

of Robertson's treatment of the Scottish Reformation. She focuses upon the purely

political elements of his analysis, however, not recognizing its much larger importance."

It involved the reforging of the Scottish national community, recûsting that struck during

the medieval Wars of Independence with England along much more spiritual lines. It is

in this recasting that another of the keys to Robertson's understanding of the significance

of the Reformation emerges. The Scottish Reformation was also, in part, a rejection of

the militaristic feudaiism of the middie ages. With it, the nobility's role as the undisputed

natunl leaders of Scottish society ended.

This did not mean, of course, that with the coming of the Reformation Scotland

immediately put away the arms that had formed such a large part of her national heritage.

Nor did it mean that there was no longer a place for the martial arts in the more refined

eighteenth-century. Robertson remained, much like most of the other Scottish literati, a

believer in the importance of maintaining a connection to the nation's martial heritage.

He participated in the Poker Club -- begun by Adam Ferguson and Alexander Carlyle in

1763 to "stir up" support for a Scottish militiasS - and he referred in his historical

"Sander, "Philosophical History," 324-28.

85AIexander Carlyle, Autobiommhy of the Rev. Dr. Alexander Carlvle. Minister of Inveresk: Containg the Mernorials of the Men and Events of his Time, (William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh, 1860,) 419-21. See also Robertson, Militia Issue, 18 1,

writings to the role of a martial consciousness in maintaining liberty and virtue.

Robertson's recognition of the importance of a martial spirit was common among his

friends, many of whom had at one time or another a connection w ith the rni~itnry.*~ This

rejection involved, by a logical extension, a denial of the nobility's position atop the

social, political and cultural hierarchy. Meanwhile, the church, the institution which most

ernbodied the connection between mankind and God, was intended to replace the nobility

as the tnie, God appointed leaders of Scottish society.

It is because of this gradua1 transference of power from the temporal lords to the

ministers that Robertson's Historv of Scotland reads so much like a tale conceming the

struggle of opposing factions. That is panly why, by the closing pages the conflict seems

no closer to being resolved than it had at the beginning. By 1603, the year with which

Robertson ends his history, the nobility were seemingly triumphant. Their actions

throughout the sixteenth-century contributed to the religious, political and economic

instability in which the Scottish church found itseiF, while the promotion of James to the

crown of England left Scotland without political balance. It remained a victim of the

npacity of the nobility, according to Robertson, until the passing of the Act of Union,

which cleared the way for Scotland to once again regain the path of national progress

S 6 ~ d a m Ferguson had a chaplaincy, while two of his sons became professionai soldiers, John Home was a lieutenant, Hugh Blair and William Robertson were chaplains, and David Hume was an accountant to an expedition and a secretary to General James St. Clair.

'?~obertson, Scotland, 344,258.

dong ways which preserved older identities.

Providence provided an irrefutable fondation upon which Robertson could lay his

claim conceming the Kirk's leadership of Scottish society. It did so by making religion,

not the already existing feudal institutions, the key to Scotland's moral, social,

intellectual, economic and political development. The Refomation marked a pivotal

change in the direction of Scottish relations, both intemally and externally.

Diplomatically, Scotland's ties shifted from Catholic countries such as France, to

Protestant nations like England and Holland. Trade with Holland increased while it

declined with France, while prospective Scots lawyers and doctors found their way to

Dutch universities for their education. On top of this, it provided a change in the primary

vehicle of Scottish development. No longer did Scotland's development depend pnmady

upon the martial character of its people, which had been responsible for the winning of

her independence in the thirteenth and fourteenth-centuries. It now depended upon the

increasing convergence and unification of British interests that had first occurred in the

defence of the Protestant religion. Without this shared defence of Protestantism which

the Reformation fostered in England and Scotland alike, the eventual union, first through

monarchy, followed more than a cenniry later by the incorporation of the two

govemments, would not have occurred.

Living in a Europe in which Catholic power was resurgent after 1563, both nations

required the aid of the other in the defence of their religion and politicai independence.

The threats presented by Catholicism served to bind the Scottish and English more

41

closely together in the defence of their mutual interests, creating, over time, what

Robertson considered a more-or-less cohesive religious cornm~nity.'~ Other modes of

connection -- including political, social and economic ties -- developed, and eroded the

mutual animosities which had animated Englishman and Scot alike. The more complete

political union which occurred in 1707, dictated as it was by the hand of "Providence,"

was a mere extension of the cooperation which had started between the two countries

over the question of religion.89

The 1707 Union marked, for the Iiterati, a positive stage in Scottish development.

The church, as the overseer of the fini, and arguably most important, religious phase of

its development, had earned a right to iay daim to at least a prominent role in the

leadership of the nation. The church's interests, unlike those of the nobility, had been in

accord with those of the rest of Scotland. The protection of Scottish religious freedom

had coincided with, and contributed to, the improvement of their civil liberties, and these

promoted economic and political development. Mary Fearnley-Sander's recognition of

the political tone of Robertson's historical writings ignores the fact that the political,

asRobertson, Scotland,

8%tobenson's belief that the Glorious Revolution was guided by the invisible hand of "providence" is perhaps most clearly articulated in a sermon delivered on the centenary of that event. After outlining the benefits of religious, political and intellectual freedom which the Revolution's success had guaranteed, Robertson credits the Revolution's success to God. "To what," he asked in the concluding paragnph of his sermon. "then is our country indebted for this high preeminence? Why is Great Britain chosen as the only mansion of liberty in any extensive community? ... Let us join wise and good men of every age in considenng this as the work of God and not of man. It is his doing, and in Our eyes it is marvellous." See the appendix to Richard B. Sher, " 1688 and 1788," (unpub., 1985)

42

social, legal and economic spheres were in a peculiar sense religious as weU. The fact that

theù development depended, in the end, upon the guidance of "Providence," that invisible

hand wbich makes its way into so much of the thought of the Scottish literati, serves to

emphasize this point.

Robertson believed that the Refomation was intimately connecteci with the leaming

necessary to tnie and progressive development in al1 of its forms." By releasing Scotland

from the yoke of papal superstition and the ignorance it had engendered, Protestantism

had provided, in a very important sense, the key to Scottish - and, indeed, British -- improvement. Likewise, it provided the vehicle for union which was so central to the

continuing prosperity ofboth England and Scotland. At a period in which many other

forces, such as the nobiiity, worked, intentionaily or unwittingly, to undexmine real

progress, the Scottish church had found its own fate inextricably linked to that of the

national cornrnunity. The Kirk was truly a national institution. The clergy, as the

caretakers of that institution, were by a logical extension placed in the position of being

caretakers to a nation.

Robertson considered the church to be absolutely integral to Scottish national self-

conceptions for several reasons. The inseparable comection between confessional and

national identity to the eighteenth-centuxy rnind provided only the most obvious.

Becoming Anglican would sever this connection. More than this, Anglicanism, for al1 of

the Moderates' toleration, was not considered to be the equal of Presbyterianism. The

%obertson, Charles Vy 143.

43

Moderate Kirk, with its emphasis upon toleration, moderation and cooperation with the

civil authorify, after dl, marked a return to what Robertson had argued in his Historv of

Scotland to be the true Scottish church. To abandon it in favour of what was considered

by most Scots to be a less perfect mode1 would not have made any sense. One cannot

imagine Robertson supporting the introduction of bishops into the Kirk! The egalitarian

nature of the Scottish church marked them as different, and, in the minds of the literati,

better than their Anglican cousins. Presbyterians were, after all, the true catholic church

which ail shouid accept.

The Krk also provided a sense of continuity and connection to earlier phases of

Scottish identity without sacrificing the ability to grow and adapt to changing

circumstances. Habit and tradition plays a large role in confessional and national

identities. Presbyterian religious practice and belief had helped to define a Scottish

culture since the sixteenth century, and would continue to do so within the new Bt-itish

context. Considered to be the natural offspnng of the Scottish situation, a transplanted

English religion could not hope to replace it.

Robertson's belief that there existed close ties between Protestantism and

Enlightenment resulted in his requiring that the Scottish clergy assume the duties of

educators and moralists. This connection, of course, existed for al1 of the nations which

bad shed Catholicism for the Protestant faith. The manner in which it had happened in

Scotland, however, was different than that of England, Germany or Switzerland. The

universai nature of the Reformation still allowed for a variety of particular expressions

44

and developments, each precisely suited for the nation or community being considered.

These particular forms needed to be respected. The moderate Kirk, under Robertson's

careful guidance, would therefore be able to represent, in a way that a 'hybrid' British

church could not, al1 things 'enlightened' and 'civilized' to the eighteenth-century mind:

education, virtue, piety, toleration and moderation. Having "sown his wild oats," the Kirk

had become as "orderly" and "conversible" a "fellow as you would desire to ~ e e , " ~ '

reflecting Scotland's growth out of barbarism and into civility.

- - --

"Ferguson, Sister Peg, 77.

CHAPTER TWO

THE SCOTTISH MILITIA: HARNESSING THE MARTIAL PAST

The belief in the importance of an active martial spirit to the formation of a united

citizenry or community has had a long history in Western political thought. J.G.A.

Pocock and others have noted that war and dissension create bonds which unite otherwise

disparate elements of a community. Wars externaiize conflict and hamess disruptive

forces for the benefit and protection of the community. These theories are perhaps most

closely associated with the wntings of Machiavelli and Montesquieu, but also other

writea who belonged to the civic and humanist traditions." The rnilitia, within this

tradition, stands for many things. It is the institution most responsible for the defence of

the community; second. it is a school of virtue, in which the individual agent is taught to

submerge his individual identity and goals in favour of those belonging to the community

to which he belongs; and, third, it provides a framework within which every citizen finds

an active place within the politicai ~rocess." Opposed to the standing army -- a rnilitary

%J. G. A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the At1 antic Reaublican Tradition, (Princeton University Press, New Jersey, 1979,366, 369.

93Robertson, Militia Issue, 10.

46

institution associated, within the civic tradition, with monarchy and tyranny - the militia

represented the ideals of active virtue and liberty, a forum within which the citizenry,

whatever their material and social differences, enjoyed a mesure of enforced equality.

The importance of the militia to the eighteenthtentury Scottish iiterati went further.

Though the miiitia's association with liberty and active vime remained an important

element in the firerati's thought, its at least symbolic connection to the martial heritage

that had played a formative role in the shaping of the medieval Scottish identity made it

even more valuable as an institution.

The importance of this martial heritage to the formation of Scottish self-conceptions

has been among the more popular subjects of recent scholarship. One of the most notable

of these works, John Robertson's The Scottish Enliahtenment and the Militia Issue has

presented a case for the significance of the militia within the eighteenth-century Scottish

context. Clearly plotting both the issue's political and social achievements, he also stated

its intellecnial consequences. With Scottish national consciousness being forged in the

Wars of Independence fought against the English in the thirteenth and fourteenth

centuries. military attitudes and forms of organization played a large role in defining

relations, both amongst Scots and between them and other nations? The feudal forms

of military obligation - customary throughout Europe well into the fifteenth and

sixteenth centuries - were supplemenied in Scotland by additional forms of military

relations, most notably arnong these the bands (or bonds) of "manrent", which "confirmed

- - ..

"Robertson, Militia Issue, 1 1.

47

and reinforced the continuing primacy of armed lordship in Scottish ~ociety."~~ The lack

of solid, central political leadership and institutions - both a product and cause of the

reliance upon bonds of kinship and manrent throughout Scotland -- further contributed to

the importance of martial identity in medieval Scotland. The inability of the central

govemment to protect the iives and property of its citizenry consolidated the reliance

upon the voluntary bands of assistance which existed between lords and their tenants and

followers. The fact that feudalism lasted longer in Scotland than elsewhere contributed to

the importance of Scotland's martial identity.

The Reformation introduced the Protestant elernent to Scottish national consciousness,

but it did so without replacing the martial component already in existence." Indeed, it

could be argued that the Reformation. with its introduction of political and religious

heterodoxy, contributed to the further hardening of martial attitudes. The necessity of

active resistance against a royal family who did not share, and intended to subven, the

Scot's new and intimate connection with the Divine was stressed by generations of

Protestant scholars, politicai theorists and religious leaders, most notably by George

Buchanan and John Knox. The former, in his Histow of Scotland, justified the legaiity

and moral righteousness of arrned resistance by pointing out a long list of occasions on

- - - - --

9sRobertson, Militia Issue, 1 1.

%Robertson, Militia Issue, 3.

which the Scottish people had resisted with force the usurpations of their leaders."

Buchanan, in effect, reworked Scotland's martial heritage to include not only the legacy of

Scottish defence against English and European encroachments, but also against the

tyranny of Scottish king^?^ Buchanan's history became the standard account upon which

Scots based their beliefs about the Scottish past well into the eighteenth century. The

Jacobite historian Thomas Innes managed to undermine, but did not completely

deconstnicr, the traditional civic-humanist interpretation of the Scottish past of which

Buchanan's history presented the rnost notable e~arnple.9~ Indeed, this was not to be

replaced until the work of Innes, Hume, Robertson, Hailes and others allowed for the fint

synthetic historical works resting on good critical research -- the works of Philip Tytler

and S. HI Burton.

The martial character of Scottish society becomes even further evident when one

considers Scottish participation in the wars of the seventeenth century. Scots were

notable fighters in Europe and at home. As John Robertson suggests, the National

Covenenant of 1638, with al1 its religious significance, rernains very much Buchanan's

'community in arms,' a fact which, perhaps above dl othen, shows the compatibility of

"~eorge Buchanan, The Histow of Scotland. From the Earliest ~eriod to the Present Time, (Blackie & Son, Glasgow, 1852), 295,305.

9 8 ~ l a n , Virtue, 38.

Thomas Innes, A Critical es sa^ on the Ancient Inhabitants of the Nonhem Parts of Bntain or Scotland: Containing - an Account of the Romans, Of the Bntains Betwixt the WalIs, of the Caledonians or Picts, and Particularly of the Scots, William Patterson, Edinburgh, 1885, esp. 176-223.

49

Protestant radicalism and civic-humanism in maintaining the martial character of Scottish

society. lm

By the last decades of the seventeenth century, and most certainly by the introduction

of the Union in- 1707, the martial character of Scottish society was both changing and

under attack. The hold of martial values and relationships in the Lowlands were by this

tirne considerably weakened. Increasing intercourse with the English meant that Scots

often served in English amies, while the slow shift from agriculture to commerce made

the pursuit of military careers less attractive to the nobility than those of law, medicine

and trade. The Highlands, owing to the slower pace of change and the tighter bonds of

kinship and their relative isolation, maintained their martial vigour to a much greater

extent than did their Lowland cousins. Moreover, during the debates conceming the

Union, the martial character of Scottish society was seen as evidence of Scottish barbarity

and backwardness. The martial achievements of the past, the mythology of armed

resistance and regicide promulgated by Buchanan and other Scots historians was no

longer understood as sornething to be proud of.

The Scottish Zirerari seemed to be, with very few exceptions, in agreement with such

critics. Hume and Robertson, among others, viewed much of Scotland's past with evident

distaste, and were severely criticai and embarrassed by what they took to be Scottish

backwardness and barbarity. Robertson, in his Historv of Scotland, considered many of

the earliest aspects of Scottish history to be "dark and fabulous," and therefore

'qobertson, Militia Issue, 5.

50

undeserving of rernernbran~e.'~' Hume remained only slightly less critical. "The Scottish

nation," he explained in his History of Eneland, "though they had never been subject to

the arbitrary power of their prince, had but very imperfect notions of law and liberty; and

scarcely in any age had they ever enjoyed an administration, which had confined itself

within the proper boundaries."lo2 Hume believed that Scotland, right up to the eighteenth-

century, had proved almost entirely unable to organize her own affairs. It was by

Scotland's "final union alone with England, their once hated adversary," that Scots had

finally "attained the experience of a govemment perfectly regular, and exempt from al1

violence and injustice."lo3 The writers of the preface to the fint issue of the Edinbureh

Review, concurred, although they were much more subtle in making their point.

Scotland, though once blessed with the possibility of eminence among nations, had

dunng the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries lost its way, and had only managed to

regain the proper track with the seasoned support of its southern neighbour.lW This

verdict was clearly voiced by almost every member of the Scottish literuti. Scottish

barbarity and backwardness had interfered with the nation's progress; its future economic

and social development remained contingent upon the maintenance of intimate ties with

10IRobectson, Scotland

laHume, Endand. vol.

'03Hume, Eneland. vol. v, 223.

lm~dinburgh Review, i-ii.

The Scottish literati defined themselves - perhaps not first and foremost, but none-

the-less quite importantly -- as Scots. Indeed, there was an awareness on the part of

Hume, Ferguson and the rest of the literati that it would be impossible not to do so. The

literati's criticism of Scotland's barbarous martial past did not preclude a reappraisal of

the Scottish institutions and practices which had formed so much of the foundation of

past Scottish community. Despite the sense of Scottish dependence which is exhibited in

the writings of Robertson, Hume and the rest of the principal lirernti, it is equally

apparent that they did not intend to forsake their Scottish identity to become Englishmen.

[n his essay "Of National Characten," Hume made clear that he recognized that each

nation has "a peculiar set of manners" and qualities which distinguishes them from other

nations, and argued that the modification of such manners and customs, though possible,

must necessarily take a long pet-iod of tirne.'''

The awareness of the nation as a comrnunity distinct from, and in some cases defined

in opposition to, other communities permeates the wcrk of Adam Ferguson. Nor is there

an indication that he would have it any other way. In his political pamphlet Sister Pee;,

Ferguson took umbrage at the suggestion that the Union of 1707 invoived the mere

incorporation of Scotland, with the Ioss of al1 independence and politicai involvement.

Rather, the Union was more about the more efficient management of two distinct

'osDavid Hume, Essavs Moral. Political and L i t e r q ed. Eugene Miller, (Liberty Classics, Indianapolis, 1984), 197,205.

societies and nations.'06 For Ferguson, the Union was also necessary for reasons

conceming the balance of power. "When the kingdoms of Spain were united," he

explained, "when the great fiefs in France were annexed to the crown, it was no longer

expedient for the nations of Great Britain to continue di~joined."'~~ in the era of the large

nation-state, a smaller nation, no matter how vigorous, was vulnerable, since it lacked the

resources necessary for proper defence or development. The "disproportion of force,"

Ferguson argued, "frustrates, in a great measure, the advantage of separation."'" To

ensure, in other words, that Britain did not faIl behind Spain and France, political

reorganization became a necessi ty.

Such reorganization did not, however, involve the eradication of al1 distinctions. Man,

as Ferguson repeatedly stressed, is fond of such divisions; their deletion wris not

beneficial to society.Im Public felicity, Ferguson argued, is contingent upon the

ernulation which exists between different societies, an argument he borrowed from David

106Ferguson, Sister Peg, 50

im~erguson, Essa5 6 1.

'"Ferguson, es sa^, 62. (emphasis added) Ferguson's language in this passage is worth remarking on. In wnting about the advantage of separation, Ferguson makes direct reference to something he hints at elsewhere: that separation into divisions and groups is generaily beneficial to the progress of human society. Indeed, the theme of territorial expansion and incorporation nins throughout much of Ferguson's work, with the verdict generally being less than favourable. Rome's wealth, prestige and power may have been derived, in large measure, from the incorporation of various provinces; but so too was her eventual decline and collapse. Adam Ferguson, The Historv of the Promess and Termination of the Roman Repubiic, vol. i. (T. & J. Allman, Edinburgh, 1828),

'qerguson, Essav, 26.

53

Hume. The eradication of the distinctions which separate one community from another,

therefore, also threatens the spirit or vigour which Ferguson held to be integral to

development.

Perhaps only Robertson failed to share the rest of the literati's awareness of the

importance - if not the inevitabiiity -- of distinct national characters. Remarks dispersed

throughout his History of Scotland indicate a presumption that -- the question of religion

aside -- the only differences in national character between Scotland and England were due

to the latter's more rapid rise from barbarity during the seventeenth-century, a period in

which Robertson believed England had become by far the more enlightened of the two

nations.'1° Indeed, Robertson went so far as to argue in the closing paragraph of his

Historv of Scotland that the Union, by bringing Scotland on par with her southern

neighbour, had erased the only cause of difference between the two nations. "At length,"

he concluded,

the union having incorporated the two nations, and rendered them one people, the distinctions which had subsisted for many ages graduaily Wear away; peculiarities disappear; the sarne rnannen prevail in both parts of the island; . . . and the same standard of taste and of purity in langage is established.""'

There is reason, however, to regard such grand statements as the product of the

eighteenth-century literary temptation to paini the best-of-dl-possible-worlds rather than

an attempt to portray actual fact. We cannot imagine Robertson thinking it good for the

"('Robertson, Scotland, 32 1-22.

"'Robertson, Scotiand, 322.

Scots to become ~nglicans ! "' Al1 of the above discussions came together with war and threats to the Lowlanders in

1 740- 1 749, 1 745-6, 1 755-63, 1774-83, and 1790- 1 8 1 5. Fear of coas ta1 attack, if not

actual invasion, as weil as the threat to shipping, when coupled with the legal and

praciical bamers to Scotland's self-defence, created a sense of vulnerability that

motivated many public figures. including the principal literati, to demand the

establishment of a Scottish militia. Hume, Ferguson and the Reverend Mr. Alexander

Carlyle, Minister of Inveresk and member of the inner circle of Moderate churchmen,

created in 1763 the Poker Club, whose purpose had been the "stimng up" of support for a

national militia. Ferguson remained throughout his long life the most active proponent of

a Scottish militia among the literati. He penned at least two pamphlets in favour of its

e~tablishment."~ Even the dedication to the King of England in The History of the

"2~obertson does seern, however, to make some allowances for distinct national characters in An Historical Dissuisition Concernin~ Ancient India, Robertson considered bdia "a country where the manners, the customs, and even the dress of the people, are aimost as permanent and invariable as the face of nature itself." see William Robertson, An Historical Disciuisition Concernin~: Ancient India: and the Promess of Trade with that Countrv. Pnor to the Discoverv of the Passage to it bv the Caw of Good How, (Harper & Brothers, Publishers, New York. 1855), 12. In the Appendix to the Historical Dis~uisition Robertson comments once again on the "permanence" of India's "institutions, and the immutability in the mannes of its inhabitants. What now is in India," he concludes, "always was there, and is likely still to continue." see Robertson, Histoncal Dis~uisition, 76-7. This acknowledgement of the permanency of the Indian national character, however, does little to undermine the fact that Robertson seems to give it little weight in his discussion of other nations.

'"Ferguson was the author of two militia pamphlets: Refiections Previous to the Establishment of a Militia (London, 1756) and the Historv of the Proceedines in the case of Mar~aret. commonlv called Pee. onlv lawful sister to John Bull. Esq. (London, 1761).

Promess and Temination of the Roman Re~ubiic stresses the relation which exists

between the martial and political expenence of a people.""

The defensive reasons for the militia agitations, if among the first and most obvious,

quickly came to be accompanied -- if oot completely overtaken -- by other considerations.

The British parliament's refusal to gant Scots the right to constitute a militia in a similar

fashion as that maintained in England, first in April of 1760. and then once again during

the winter of 1783, contributed additional political and psychological reasons for such

agitation^."^ Also, the fear of effeminacy and a Iack of national spirit, topics rnuch

discussed in Britain, greatly troubled literati such as Carlyle and Ferguson. They were

led to support the establishment of a Scottish militia on the grounds that it would provide

a tool to create the necessary sense of national community and ensure that a sense of civic

participation continued in post-Union Scotland.

The refusa1 by the British parliament to allow for the establishment of a militia in

Scotland had the immediate effect of increasing the desire for such an institution.

Understood as a mark of disrespect and iiiequaiity which the "natural impetuosity" of the

Sconish character could not bear, the parliament's refusal made an issue out of a cause

A third, entitled Remarks on a Pam~hlet latelv ~ublished bv Dr. Pnce. entitled, Observations on the Nature of Civil Libertv, the Princivles of Government. and the Justice and PoIicv of the War with America and CO., in a letter h m a Gentleman in the country to a member of Parliament (London. 1776), presented a case against the justice of American rebellion, emphaisizng the conservative and loyal nature of Ferguson's thought.

"'Ferguson, Roman Republic, vol. i, iii.

"SRobertson, Militia Issue, 1 12.

56

which had needed artificial support from the start. Ferguson, in his 176 1 pamphlet Sister

&, noted with surprise the lack of the "spleen" and "acrimony" which Scots usually

displayed at the slightest intimation of a slight, let alone such an obvious negation of their

rights as equal ~itizens."~ The Union's clairns regarding the equality of the member

nations were evidently undemined by the existence of a double standard with regard to

the issue of military organization and national defence. a fact which Ferguson, arnong the

other iiterati, stressed at every opponunity. The English propensity to make the loyalty of

the Highlanders grounds for the rejection of a Scottish militia only served to camouflage

the real issue. Such "banditti from the mountains" -- as Ferguson referred to his fellow

Highlanders -- were only dangerous if the rest of the population were not well trained or

anned. A militia would only serve to render the tmstworthy more warlike and the

untrustworthy less dangerous.[" He concluded that when "the lovers of Freedom and

their Country have an equal Use of Amis, the Cause of a Pretender to the Dominion and

Property of this Island, is from that Moment de~parate,""~ as was not the case in '45.

For these reasons, the militia agitations of the second-half of the eighteenth-century

had very little to do with questions of nationd defence. The fight for the establishment of

a Scottish militia was, in a very important respect, a part of the struggle to ensure the

L16Ferguson, Sister Peg, 72.

"'~darn Ferguson, Reflections Previous to the Establishment of a Militia, (London, 1756, m.film), 22,24.

L18Ferguson, Reflections 25.

promise of the Union. The denial to one section of the British population of the

bear arms involved, in the minds of the literuti. the denial of British citizenship.

57

right to

Robbing

the Scottish people of their rights to participate fully in the development of the Bntish

community and of their ability to defend their own rights and possessions against

encroachment was wrong and violnted the spirit of the Act of Union. The rights and

securities preserved by the Union, Ferguson argued, could never be irnplemented "whilst

some were treated like step-children or bastards, and others like gentlemen and heirs to

the paterna1 estate."' l 9

The achievement of a Scottish militia, whether the literafi liked it or not, depended in

large measure upon the opinions and influence of the more prominent English politicians.

The literati, in order to reach their goal. had to present a view of a more polished

Scotland than that entertained by the Englishmen who tended to liken the Scots to the

"half-clothed" barbarians who had invaded England under the Catholic pretender only a

few years before. Ferguson emphasized that the actual success of the Union up to 1745

was evidence enough of Scottish 10yalty.l~~ John Home, and, as we shall shortly see,

James Macpherson, portrayed in their poetry and drama a much more noble and virtuous

nation than the English were accustomed to admit. The literads very quickness to

condemn the barbarity and backwardness of certain aspects of the Scottish pst must be

'""The truth is, that if Peg had not been firm to the contract, John would ofien have been sore beset." Ferguson, Sister Peg, 49.

58

understood to be, at ieast in part, an aspect of their attempt to reassure their English critics

that Nonhern Britain had become much more civilized. Their best advertisement,

however, conceming the changed nature of contemporary Scotland turned out to be

themselves. Literate, polished, civil, and for the rnost pan moderate both in religion and

poli tics, the literati proved to be their nation's best expon. Hume's over-enthusiasm

regarding Scotland's position in the world of letters aside"', Scotland's rising reputation

throughout Europe as a centre of leaming and civility could not help but to force, over

time, some form of grudging acknowledgement from the English that Scotland did have

something to contribute to the success of the Union.

The political ramifications of the militia issue were not. however, the only other

considerations. They may not even have been the most important. The social,

psychological and economic aspects of the militia issue played, particularly insofar as

Adam Ferguson was concemed, an equally important role in the rationalization of a

Scottish militia.

Ferguson, as I. G. A. Pocock suggested in The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine

Political Thoueht and the Atlantic Re~ublican Tradition (1975). was perhaps the most

"Machiavellian" of the Scots, focusing upon ensuring the survival of some sense of civic

virtue within the modem commercial society. lu While Hume and Smith, with only slight

1 2 t ~ u m e , Letten, vol. 1,255. In a letter to Gilbert Elliot of Minto Hume claimed that Scots were "the People most distinguish'd for Literature in Europe."

'2?~ocock, Machiavellian Moment, 499. Others had aiready made this assertion. See David Kettler, "The Political Vision of Adam Ferguson," Studies in Burke, (vol. ix,

nods to the difficulties which might accompany it, trumpeted the triumphal process of

rnodemization, Ferguson sounded the aiarm. Modem society, he argued, for al1 of its

particular benefits, contained its own peculiar dangers as weli. The two that Ferguson

remained most vigilant about, and which he believed the establishment of a militia could

help to contain, were what he believed to be effeminacy and dislocation or alienation.

Ferguson believed that humans were, above al1 else. naturally social creatures.

"Mankind," he claimed in An Essav on the Historvof Civil Society, "are to be taken in

groupes (sic), as they have always subsisted.""-' The stress upon the importance of

community pervades the body of Ferguson's thought. Human beings are nearly

irrevocably defined by the comrnunity to which they belong, and had to accept, in al1 but

the most extreme circumstances, the customs and modes of relation established by that

~ornrnunity.'~~ In this respect, Ferguson is extremely conservative. It is, however, a

no. 1, 1967), 775.

'=Ferguson, Essav, 10. Compare wi th Adam Ferguson, Institutes of Moral Philosoohv: For the Use of Students in the Colleee of Edinbureh, 2nd ed. (A. Kincaid & W. Creech, Edinburgh, 1773), 22. "Man, though an animal of prey, and from necessity or spon addicted to hunting or war, is nevertheless, in the highest degree, associating and political."

1Z4Ferguson, Essav, 9 1. What exactly constituted an "extreme circumstance," was not clear. Ferguson was intentionaily ambiguous when it came to this point, arguing only that it would be apparent. The American fight for independence did not, as shown by Ferguson's reply to Richard Price, constitute such an occasion. The situation in revolutionary France, however, obviously was. See Adam Ferguson's Remarks on Dr. pricets Observations on the Nature of Civil Libertv, & c, (G. Kearnsley, London, 1776) for Ferguson's view of the war with the Arnencan colonies. Ferguson's ideas conceming the French Revolution can be seen in his unpublished essays and ietters. See Adam Ferguson, Edinburgh University Letters, nos. 51 (dated September 26, 1797), and 56

conservatism with a difference. It is based upon the recognition that virtue is not the

offspnng of one political and social arrangement but potentially belongs -- more-or-less

equally - to all. There is a certain relativism in Ferguson's thought which is not

commonly appreciated. Whether he is discussing the different stages of a given society,

or the different mannes in which a society can develop, he, like Herder, recognized thern

as complete in thernselves. Each stage and system has their own advantages and

drawbacks which must be weighed according to the particular circurnstances of the

community being discussed.

Modem commercial society presents a problem because it undermines the sense of

community which Ferguson considered absolutely necessary to the health of civil society.

Trade and industry erode the traditional roles and modes of relation which play a large

role in defining an individual or a collective. The modem commercial society threatens

the erosion of the social and psychological bonds which provide the arteries of a

community, creating a situation in which the various ranks become isolated or alienatedtZ

from one another.

(dated December 2 1, 17%). (mfilm); see also Adam Ferguson, Unoublished Essavs, "Of the French Revolution, with its actual and still impending Consequence in Europe," (m.film), 1-8, 12, 15.

'"Though Ferguson does not use this term, many cornmentators have noted the role which dienation plays in his thought. See, for example, Duncan Forbes, "Introduction," in Adam Ferguson, An Essav on the Historv of Civil Socieor: 1767, ed. Duncan Forbes, (University Press, Edinburgh, 1966), xxxi; Malcolm Jack, Cornotion and Promess: The Eiehteenth-Century Debate, (A M S Press, New York, 1989), 148; and John D. Brewer, "Adam Ferguson and the theme of exploitation," The British Journal of Sociolow, (vol. xxxvii, no. 4, Dec. 1986), 46 1.

The problem as Ferguson understands it is not the discovery of the source of

alienation, followed by its careful eradication. His critique of the difficulties facing a

modem commercial society such as Scotland had only recently become is much more

cornplex. Ferguson held that it is the modem commercial society's material progress

which is responsible for its problems. The division of labour -- or, as Ferguson often

refers to it, "the separation of arts and professions" -- that touchstone of social progress

heralded by Hume and Smith, was also, as far as Ferguson was concerned, the main cause

of the isolation and alienation facing modem commercial society. Both in its processes

and profits, the division of labour had a negative impact that had to be addressed if

modem society were tmly to constitute an advance over previous ones.

Ferguson, of course, did not deny that the division of labour had brought the benefits

of development and convenience. He recognized it as necessary to sustainable progress.

"The artist finds," Ferguson explained in An Essav on the Historv of Civil Societv, "that

the more he can confine his attention to a panicular part of any work, his productions are

the more perfect, and grow under his hands in greater q~antities."'~~ Nor would Ferguson.

however much he was wary of the negative impact of the process, have desired to revert

to a simpler time. What was required instead was a restless vigilance, and the creation of

an institution to act at least partially as a counter-balance against the more harmhil

aspects of the process itself.

The division of labour was responsible for the problems facing the modem

commercial society because it created a situation which required few, if any, special

talents or abilities. The workers involved in such labour are required, in a very real sense,

to become independent, but interconnected, cogs in a son of machine. The process

alienated humanity from what should have been their social natures. What is required for

the division of labour to achieve its complete potential is the suppression of the sociable

and intellectual aspects of human nature. "Ignorance," Ferguson informed his readers, "is

the mother of industry as well as s~perstition.""~ "Reflection and fancy," he argued,

are subject to err; but a habit of moving the hand, or the foot, is independent of either. Manufactures, accordingly, prosper most, where the mind is least consulted, and where the workshop may, without any great effort of imagination, be considered as an engine, the parts of which are men?

As Richard B. Sher has pointed out, Ferguson believed that the division of labour led to

the dismemberment of the human chan~ter .~ '~ This process, therefore, alienated mankind

from their social natures through a process similar to that of atomization. Though the

workers remained connected to one another insofar as they continued to work on the same

project, they nevertheless were relegated to the position of independent cogs within the

overall frarnework, the bonds of connection which animated earlier and simpler societies

are noticeably absent.

Ferguson also considered the profits which accrued from the division of labour to be

''Wchard Sher, "Adam Ferguson, Adam Smith, and the Problem of National Defence," Journal of Modern Historv, (6 1, June 1989), 244.

dangerous to the health of society. As the possibilities for wealth increiised, so too did

the possibilities of iis abuse. Ferguson, like many of the thinkers found within the civic

tradition, feared that the immoderate growth of wealth threatened the moral and social

fabnc of civil society, as people abandoned their proper functions and responsibilities in

pursuit of riches. Much of Ferguson's philosophical and historical writing was directed

towards detecting the signs of such corruption. An es sa^ on the Historv of Civil Society

and The Historv of the Proeress and Termination of the Roman Republic in particular,

sound out the dangers associated with social development. As the title of the latter work

indicates, progress may not always be a good thing. It often leads to the destruction of

those whom it was originaily to benefit.

Ferguson's portrayal of the corruption of Carthage in the first book of the Roman

Reoublic, and, later, the similar and more spectacular downfall of Rome itself, was a

reflection upon the dangers facing prosperous communities. The Carthaginians, having

amassed large fortunes, became victirns to the folly of estimating their rank and value by

their weaith. "Ambition itself, therefore, became a principal of avarice; and every

Canhaginian, in order to be great, was intent to be n ~ h . " ' ~ This resulted in the corruption

of the politicai process, in which any form of advancement was due not to the proven

talents and abilities of the cornpetitors, but to who was capable of bidding the highest."'

Carthage, a nation which was, according to Ferguson, superior to Rome in every resource

- -

lqerguson, Roman Republic, vol. 1,83.

'31Ferguson, Roman Re~ublic, vol. 1,83-4.

64

"besides that which is derived from the natural characier, and which is the consequence of

public virtue," fell to its less developed adversary due to the corruption caused by the

immoderate pursuit of wea~th.'~' "Men so intent upon lucrative pursuits were indifferent

to national ~bjects.""~ The message for Bntons was clear: Carthage, master of the seas

and the commercial leader of the ancient world fell victirn to a more vigilant nation,

sirnply because she had allowed her private vices to interfere and compt her public

virtue.

This was the end that Ferguson most feared. The private and the public, in Ferguson's

moral outlook, were not distinct and insulated fields of action. The corruption of private

virtue would inevitably result in the decay of public virtue as well. The strength of Rome,

Ferguson argued in his was primarily due to the connection maintained between

"the dignities of citizen, and the honours of the State, with private as well as public

virtue."'" The decay of such connections would result in the decline of the state or

community, as was the case with both Carthage and Rome.

The most dangerous threat to public vimie occurred when the principle of the division

of labour was applied to the political realm itself. Ferguson believed that the division of

the civil and martial offices of state inevitably led to political and social decline. The

dedication which prefaces his Histon, stresses the importance of maintaining connections

'32Ferguson, Roman Republic, vol. 1,82.

133Ferguson, Roman Re~ublic, vol. L, 154.

lUFerguson, Roman Re~ublic, vol. 1,43.

between the civil and martial aspects of the state, as, indeed, does much of the history

itsel f. 13' The civil and rnilitary orders, Ferguson repeatedl y explained through out the

course of The Histow of the Progress and Termination of the Roman Re~ublic, were

never 'disjoined.' Al1 statesmen were trained in both the necessary civil and military

functions, and were taught to consider both aspects of their duties, at al1 times, to be of

equal Indeed, Ferguson was hesitant to define the Roman establishment

during this penod as either 'civil or military,' so well were both aspects of govemment

blended together. "But to this very circurnstance," he concluded, "probably among others,

we may safely ascribe, in this distinguished republic, the great ability of her councils, and

the irresistible force with which they were exec~ted." '~~

Ferguson believed that the establishment of a militia would counterbalance the

negative effects of the division of labour while at the sarne time reinforcing the necessity

of maintaining a close relationship between the political and martial aspects of public

office. "Self-Defence," he claimed, "is the business of all."13' His plan for a national

militia involved a rotation of mernbenhip, whereby every male would be trained to bear

arms. Al1 male Scots would participate in the militia at one time or another, sharing in

'"Ferguson, Roman Re~ublic, vol. 1, iii.

"fiFerguson, Roman Republic, vol. 1,7 1. Many also held religious offices as well.

'37Ferguson, Roman Republic, vol. 1,7 1.

13aFerguson, Refiections, 12.

66

the benefits and tighter sense of community which such participation would b r i t~g . '~~ Not

only would the establishment of a militia ensure that North Britain could resist becoming

a nation of weak shopkeepers, "void of Sentiment and Manners"; it would also ensure that

the "Courage, the libenl spirit, the Generosity, and Self-Denial" of the military profession

would become pan of the national ~haracter. '~~ Moreover. it would ensure the survival of

a 'nobility of merit' alongside that which received its title from wealth.'" Lastly, it would

allow for the protection of national wealth."" A nation's best defence against invasion is

not only ski11 in ams; it includes, just as importantly, the reputation which accompanies

such martial vigour. Ferguson argued in his Histoq that Rome's best defence against

Hannibal and his 'professional army' was exactly such a reputation."' Whether

considering a threat from abroad, such as in 17 15, 1745, or the l76Ots, or the

encroachments of one part of the island over the other, the infusion of the necessary

martial spirit into the national character presented the best defence.

Al1 this was directed at Britain, but Adam Ferguson also had a Scottish and patriotic

side to his thought. Ferguson was a supporter of the Union, and in no way desired to see

it fail. but it remained a union of two distinct nations and peoples. He did not desire it to

- - -

"Terguson, Reflections 3 1-2.

'verguson, Reflections, 12,35.

14'Ferguson, Reflections, 40.

1J2Ferguson, Reflections, 12.

'"Ferguson, Roman Re~ublic, vol. 1, 135.

become so complete as to eradicate al1 national distinctions. The importance of

difference, as well as the opposition and rivalry that generally accompanies it, provides

one of the central themes of Ferguson's political and moral philosophy. He considered

such opposition - or, as he often referred to it, "dissension" -- necessary to the health and

progress of a community. When it was not present, the threat of effeminacy and decline

loomed large. Mankind were much more than social animals; they were also competitive

ones, who, like the bu11 and the lamb have "a disposition to strike with the forehead, and

anticipate, in play, the conflicts they are doomed to ~ u s t a i n . " ~ ~ Struggle involved, as far

as Ferguson was concemed, that exercise of faculties and talents in which both the

healthy individual and nation defined themselves. The militia, as an institution intimately

connected with both war and dissension, provided a means by which Scotland could

achieve a sense of self-definition within the Union, as a nation politically unlted, but

nevertheless distinct, from its southem neighbour. Unit would compete with unit,

Highlanders with Lowlanders, and Scots with the English.

The establishment of a Scottish militia, distinct from that maintained by the English,

would, from the very national nature of its organization, strengthen the bonds of affection

between participating Scots. Scotland's martial heritage would help to ensure the

'"Ferguson, Essay, 25,28. Compare with Adam Ferguson, Pnnciples of Moral and Political Science; Being Chieflv a Retros~ect of Lectures delived in the College of Edinburnh, vol. Z., (A. Strahan. London, 1792), 508. "If we have not mistaken the interests of human nature, they consist more in the exercises of freedom, and in the pursuits, of a liberal and beneficient sou& than in the possession of mere tranquility, or what is termed exemption from trouble."

68

continuing growth of such national sentiment. Emulation of their Scottish forebeas, as

remembered in a national literature"', as well as of their fellow men-in-ams competing

for the honours bestowed on martial prowess would strengthen the sense of community

which existed. Rivalry with the English would also ensure that Scottish national ardour

would not be cooled for any length of time. The cornpetition between the two nations --

which after the Union could exist in a more amiable, but no less serious fashion -- woutd

engender their collective progress and make men virtuous.

The establishment of a Scottish militia was also necessary to ensure that the emulation

between North and South Britain, the key to the Union's success, continued. "The

continuance of emulation among states," Ferguson argued in his Essay, "must depend on

the degree of equaiity by which their forces are balan~ed." '~~ In order to ensure that the

productive rivalry which existed between the two nations continued, in other words,

Scotland had to receive, as its southern neighbour had before it, the right to f o m a

Scottish national miiitia. Failure to do so would threaten the grounds for the emulation

which was central to national felicity. whether English, Scottish, or British.

What Ferguson was vigorously guarding against through his agitations was the erosion

of cornmunity in the face of the political union. The 1707 Union of the Parliaments did

not by any means necessitate the blending or amalgamation of the affected communities.

The typically nineteenth-century equation of state with nation does not make any

-

'"Ferguson, Essav. 165. See below, Chapter III, pp. 73-5.

146Ferguson, Essay, 202.

appearance in Ferguson's thought. Distinct communities could, as far as he was

concerned, be effectively managed by the same political apparatus. Indeed, when their

interests and situation corresponded as well as those of Scotland and England, union

becarne absolutely essential to efficient administration.'" Political unity would soften the

more hatmful aspects of contention between the two nations, without dulling the sense of

competition or emulation which were necessary to continued progress.

The maintenance of such emulation and competition becornes essential to the success

of any political union. It is, Ferguson thought, the brand by which national felicity and

vigour are kindled."' If the 1707 Union had involved the eradication of boundaries and

distinctions between Scotland and England, the sense of familiarity and affection that

unites smaller communities would have been severely damaged. It was when the

Romans, in the age of the Republic, abolished the distinction between the 'provinces and

the centre, between citizen and non-citizen, when the cornmunity, in effect, became too

large, that political and mord decay rapidly set in.'49 The necessary bonds of affection

becarne muddled and lost.

The eradication of distinctions snuffs out national vigour and thus progress. "The

society and concoune of other men," Ferguson explaîned in his Essav, "are not more

necessary to form the individuai, than the rivalship and competition of nations are to

- -

'"Ferguson, Sister Peg, 50.

'"Ferguson, Essav, 6 1, 1 17.

'4??erguson, Roman Re~ublic, vol. iii, 483.

70

invigorate the principles of political life in the state."''' It is in "their mutual jealousies,

and the establishments which they devise with a view to each other," he claimed, that

materials "for their greatest and most improving exertions" are furni~hed.'~' It is only

when the distinctions between communities are maintained, whether through natural

barrien or politically wise contrivances produced by national vigilance. that continued

progress and virtue can be assured. "Athens was necessary to Spana," be explained in his

Essay, " in the exercise of her virtue, as steel is to flint in the production of fire."15'

Without the cornpetition which had existed between these nations, neither would have

become what it did.

What this rneant in the context of eighteenth-century Britain was that Britain's newly

established political unity should be complemented by the continuance of national

diversity. Their employrnent of the same govemment or "lawyer," to use the language of

Sister Peg, should ensure that neither nation's economic development or political security

was threatened. At the same time, the emulation natural to rival nations would ensure

that Scotlûnd and England would compete for honour within the Union. Britain would

continue to progress in her economic, political and artistic endeavoua. Union and

opposition were two sides of the sarne coin as far as Ferguson's thought was concemed,

playing Large. rnutually supportive roles in the continuai development of both the English

-

15@Ferguson, Essay, 1 16;

'SIFerguson, Essav, 1 16.

15'Ferguson, Essav, 6 1.

and Scottish peoples within the British state.

Ferguson was not alone in recognizing what martial values and dissension bring to the

community. Hume and James Macpherson wrote about the value of opposition as a

source of communal definition. Hume spent much time deciphering the codes which

bound together different communities and factions, based on religious or political belief

or national customs and feelings. Many of his essays, as well as his History of England,

may be interpreted, in part, as an attempt to account for the genealogy and psychology

behind such groups.

Hume believed that parties formed from three motives: the recognition of shared

interests, such as in the case of the clergy or Iandowners; from principle, such as in the

case of political parties such as the Whigs; and from affection, such as occurs between

members of the sarne farnily or c~rnrnunity.~~~ Though Hume spent most of his energy

analysing the clergy or different political parties, his analysis also applies to national

communities. Indeed, Hume's discussion of "national character," both in his Treatise

(1740) and his Essavs (1 747), cesembles his analysis of smaller parties and factions in a

nurnber of ways. Sympathy, that propensity relied upon by Hume to explain "the great

unifonnityu that exists among certain groups of people, provides much of the foundation

upon which his analysis of both parties and nations rests.'" Any "similarity in our

In~urne, Essavs. "Of Parties in General," 59.

%avid Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge, (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1964), 3 16-7.

manners, or character, or country, or language," as far as Hume was concemed, breeds a

certain level of affection, since the imagination can make the proper transition between

the subject (myself) and the object much easier.15' "Where a number of men are united

into one political body," Hume explained elsewhere, "the occasions of their intercoune

must be so frequent, for defence, commerce, and govemment, that, together with the

same speech or language, they must acquire a resemblance in their manners, and have a

common national character, as well as a personal one."'56 Resemblance and contiguity,

two of the modes of relation by which the human mind organizes its information, thus

provide much of the foundation for the affection which exists between members of the

same nation.

Opposition, in Hume's view, provides merely another aspect of resernblan~e.'~~ Hume

pointed out in the second book of A Treatise of Human Nature, that "when Our own

nation is at war with any other, we detest them under the character of cruel, perfidous,

unjust and violent: But always esteem ourseIves and allies equitable, modente, and

rnercifu~."~~~ This manner of thinking, he argued, is not merely the product of the

extremities of conflict, but, rather, "runs thro' common life." lSg Opposition, in dl aspects

'''~urne Treatise, 3 1 8.

IS6Hume, "Of National Characters," Essa~s, 202.

lnHume Enauiries, 24.

L58~ume, Treatise, 348.

15%ume, Treatise, 348.

of everyday existence, begets alliances and antagonists, with the natural result being the

creation of bonds of affection between those who strive t~ge the r . ' ~~ This shared

animosity, in its tum, becomes another characteristic which cornes to define the

community, binding it more tightly together.

Hume devoted very little writing to the subject of the establishment of a Scottish

militia. Beyond a handful of remarks gleaned from his essays and History, as well as the

few comments in his existing personal correspondence, there is little for the historian to

chew upon. His membership in the Poker Club, though it does not confinn his support of

a national rnilitia, may provide some evidence that he did not vehemently oppose it.I6' He

also seemed to prefer - on an intellectual, if not on a practical level -- a militia over a

standing arrny. In his "Idea of a perfect cornmonwealth," Hume argued that "without a

mili tia, it is vain to think that any free govemment will ever have security or ~tability."'~~

A comment to his publisher William Strahan lends a little more support for placing Hume

'%urne, "Of Parties in General," Essavs, 58. "When men are once inlisted on opposite sides," Hume explained, "they contract an affection to the persons with whom they are united and an animosity against their antagonists."

16'Hume could have been a member, of course, merely for the meal, friends and claret.

l6'Hurne, "Idea of a perfect commonwealth," Political Essay, 230. Hume also briefiy descnbed the constitution of the militia of his 'ideal' cornmonwealth. "The militia," he explained, "is established in imitation of that of SWTSSERLAND, which being well known, we shail not insist upon it. It will only be proper to make this addition, that an army of 20,000 men be annually drawn out by rotation, paid and encamped dunng six weeks in summer; that the duty of a camp may not be aitogether unknown." Political Essa~s, 226. ln this way Hume attempted to lessen the gap between a 'militia' and 'standing army.'

74

in the camp of militia supporters. "Woud to God we had a Scotch Militia at present," he

wrote in 1769. "This Country is almost ~nanirnous."'~~ Though the fact that one would

not be forthcoming probably bothered Hume only slightly, his "instinctive patriotism"

probably allowed him to support his friends' agitations for the establishment of a national

militia.lU

To the extent that Hume did support a rnilitia, it would have represented a respectable

institutional connection to Scotland's martial heritage, and, therefore, a means to keep that

aspect of Scottish "national characier" from disintegrating. The Scottish reputation for

courage in battle was something that Hume was proud of. Though his portrayal of Scots

in his Historv of England was not always very positive, their tradition of heroism in battle

-- from William Wallace and Robert the Bruce dunng the medieval wars of independence

to the earl of Montrose in the civil wars of the seventeenth century -- was nevertheless

amply and passionately p~rtrayed. '~~ It was a traditional aspect of Scottish national

identity which Hume would have obviously desired to see continue.

The difficulty, however, was that it would not be easy to do so. "In general," Hume

explained, "we rnay observe, that courage, of al1 national qualities, is the most precarious;

l6)Hurne, Letters, vol. i, 212. There does not, however, seem to have been much in the way of militia agitations in 1769. See Robertson, Militia Issue, 237.

'@Robertson, Militia Issue, 238.

16'~urne Ensland, vol. ii, 126- 138, 150; vol. v, 46 1-87.

75

because it is exened only at intervals, and by a few in every nation."lM If courage is to be

preserved, he concluded, "it must be by discipline, example, and opinion."16' A militia,

an institution which would ensure such discipline, example, and, through instilling

confidence in the use of arms, the necessary sense of iheir own ability, would provide the

proper vehicle for the maintenance of that aspect of the Scots' 'national character.'

Even Adam Smith, though not a supporter of a Scotch rnilitia as an efficient military

force, believed a militia to have national value. Smith, unlike Ferguson, applied the

concept of the division of labour to the martial realm, and argued that a militia "must

always be much inferior to a well disciplined and well exercised standing army."'" This

was because those who constitute a standing-army are soldien before they are anything

else. in a militia, "the character of the labourer, artificer, or tradesman, predominates

over every other ~haracter."'~~ Though a militia could become the equivalent of a

standing anny through a series of consecutive ca~npaigns'~~, their value as a military

institution nevertheless remained below that of their more professional counterparts.

Insofar as civilized nations such as Britain were concemed, Smith believed they needed to

lMHume. "Of national characters," Essavs, 2 12.

lQ~urne, "Of national characters," Essavs, 2 12.

'"~darn Smith, An In~uiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, eds. R. H. Campbell, A. S. Skinner, W. B. Todd, vol. ii, (Liberty Fund, Indianapolis, 198 1), 700. See also Richard Sher, "National Defence," 245.

'"Srnith Wealth, vol. ii, 698.

''Osmith, Wealth, vol. ii, 7 10.

76

depend much more fully for defence upon a standing army.17'

Despite the supenority of the standing arrny, however, Smith shared the literati's belief

that a militia could serve a useful function in a modem community. A well-trained

militia would ensure the liberty of the community since a smaller standing-army would be

required and a greater number of citizens would be imbued with the necessary martial

spirit.'" This would make usurpation and despotism less likely. Secondly, a militia

would defend against the cowardice and "mental mutilation" ( Ferguson's 'effeminacy')

which were often the product of the division of labour and the increased comfons of the

modem commercial s~ciety."~ Though Smith made no panicular reference to the case of

Scotland, his rernarks find resonance within the context of the militia debates and in the

wider debates about wealth and virtue. Though it would cenainly be stretching the point

to argue that Smith's somewhat backhanded support for the establishment of a militia

should be considered as evidence of his own patriotic affection, it nevertheless shows that

he recognized the value of such an institution to a iapidly developing economic society

such as that which Scotiand had becorne.'''

% n i t h , Wealth, 705; See also Adam Smith, Lectures on Juris~rudence, eds., R. L. Meek, D. D. Raphael, and P. G. Stein, (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1978), 542-3.

lnsmith, Wealth, 787.

lnSmith, Wealth, 787.

was womed, however, that the 1760 publication of Hooke's Memoirs would "throw a damp upon Our rnilitia." See Adam Smith, The Coneswndence of Adam Smith, eds., E. C. Mossner and 1. S. Ross, (University Press, Oxford, 1977), 68.

77

For enlightened Scots like the Poker Club rnembers, the establishment of a militia

was considered important for a variety of reasons. It provided a direct connection to the

martial heritage which had, during the medieval wars of independence, as well as during

the wars of religion of the seventeenth-century, formed such a large part of Scottish self-

consciousness. Secondly, the establishment of a national militia would lead to closer

communal bonds. Third, it would provide a school of active vinue, which would impart

the values of honour, valour, self-respect and confidence which were necessary to the

moral and physical health of any community, ensuring, at the same time, that the martial

vigour of the nation would not decay. Founh, a militia would ensure that the Scots could

defend their liberties againsi various encroachments, foreign or othenvise. Fifth, it would

ensure Scots an equal position within the Union, something that had been denied to them

by the British parliament's failure to gant Scotland the right to constitute a militia. Lastly,

it would potentially operate as a purgative, clearing the community of the 'effeminacy' and

'mental mutilation' which threatened modem commercial societies dependent upon the

division of labour. Though not necessarily a panacea, the militia was believed by the

Scottish literati to provide one of the manners in which Scotland could remain moored to

its historical roots while ensuring that it remained an active and productive partner in

Union. The militia issue thus defines a kind of Sconish patriotism compatible with and

essential to the prosperity of Britain.

CHAPTER THREE

THE 'IMAGINED COMMUNITY': MACPHERSON AND A NATIONAL LITERATURE

The Scottish iiterati found the earliest histories of al1 nations mired in aImost

impenetrable darkness. Robertson abandoned these earlier tirnes to antiquaries, seeing

little value in the extensive study of them.''' Hume, in the introductory paragraph of his

Historv of Ennland and in his Natural History of Religion lamented the fact that the

earliest history of nations aiways involves obscunty, uncertainty and contradiction.

"Ingenious men," Hume explained, "are apt to push their researches beyond the period, in

which literary monuments are framed or preserved; without reflecting, that the adventures

of barbarous nations, even if they were recorded, could afford little or no entertainment to

L75Robertson, Scotland, 7. See also Robertson, America, 17; and Robertson, India, 5. In the latter work, Robertson argues that "Whoever attempts to trace the operations of men in remote times, and to mark the various steps of their progress in any Iine of exertion, will soon have the mortification to find that the penod of authentic history in extremely limited. ... If we push our inquiries conceming any period beyond the era when written history commences, we enter upon the region of conjecture, of fable, and of uncertainty. Upon ihat ground 1 will neither venture myself, nor endeavour to conduct my readers."

a more cultivated age."'76 Shonly thereafter, Hume was even more critical of early

historical investigations. "The dark industry of antiquaries." he contemptuously wrote,

"led by imaginary analogies of names or uncenain traditions, would in vain attempt to

pierce into that deep obscurity, which covers the remote history of' nations.'" Though

Hume did delve into the earliest eras of English history, his brevity supports the sincerity

of his contempt.

Ferguson shared his contemporaries' reserve conceming the fabulous tala of ancient

histories, but recognized a value in them that Hume, Smith and Robertson seemed to

miss. As factual reports, he agreed, such myths and legends had little value. Distorted by

every generation that tells thern, the information which they offer can only be indirect.

Whether conjecture or fiction, however, they still offer valuable information about the

spirit of a people.

"A mythology borrowed from abroad," Adam Ferguson explained in An Essav on

Civil Society, "a literature founded on references to a strange country, and fraught with

foreign allusions," is limited in its use. It speaks "to the learned alone"; it has a tendency

to "foster conceit" where it was meant to expand the hem and understanding; it reduces

what was supposed to invigorate to mere "pedantry and scholastic p ~ i d e . " ' ~ ~ Mythology,

'"Hume, England. vol. i, 3. See also David Hume, The Naturai History of Religion, ed. James Fieser, (Macmillian Publishing Company, New York, 1992), 3,4-5.

t78~erguson, Essay, 77.

80

to affect its intended purpose, must be national in origin. The goal towards which such a

national mythology strives, as far as Ferguson and the rest of the Scottish literati were

concemed, was the creation of a sense of national community. Through myth and

tradition the "passions of the poet" corne to pervade "the minds of the people, and the

conceptions of men of genius being communicated to the vulgar," becorne "the incentives

of a national spirit."179 Ferguson concluded, that "fiction may be admitted to vouch for

the genius of nations, while history has nothing to offer that is intitled to redit."''^

In order to justify his claim, Ferguson inquired into the mythology of the Greeks. It

was, he agreed, ridiculous to quote from the niad or the Odvsse~ "as authorities in matter

of fact."18' Even when there was some bais in truth for the tales told of Achilles and

Oedipus, or of the exploits of other heroes, it had become so distorted through time and

tellings as to be unrecognizable. Such fables could, however, be quite valuable as a

record of "the conceptions and sentiments of the age in which they were composed, or to

charactenze the genius of that people, with whose imaginations they were blended, and

by whom they were fondly rehearsed and admireci."'" Ferguson recognized that

eighteenth-century scholars knew the Greeks, a people they admired for their genius and

celebrated for their spirit, primarily through the fables which had been passed down to

'7?erguson, Essa\ 77.

"%erguson, Essav, 77.

" 'Ferguson, Essav. 76-7.

182~erguson, Essav. 77.

them.lE3

The acnial veracity of the fables was as unimportant to the Greeks as it is to the

scholar attempting to understand the Greeks through them. The importance of

mythology was not so much that it recorded events (which the seventeenth century made

it) but that it preserved the record of a people's ésprit, as something that could be believed

and Iived. Its intention, as far as Ferguson was concemed, was inflammatory. It filied the

imaginations of its listeners with celebrations of glorious heroes, sages and poets whom

the listeners would, in tum, emulate "in the pursuit of every national object."'" Though

Ferguson does not expressly state it, such a mythology serves both as an instructor in the

ways of virtue and as a glue or chord by which the cornmunity is bound together.

It was reasoning such as this which made Adam Ferguson and others advocates of the

developrnent of a national Iiterature. They made it apparent that they believed the

development of a national literature was necessary to the rejuvenation and survivai of a

Scotland within the British Union. With Hume this took the form of an enthusiastic,

patriotic support of Scots writen, as well as a serious devotion to clarity and style in his

own personal writings. Indeed, his sense of patriotic affection, as has been noted by

many, very often overcarne his sense of literary judgement and taste."' <s errant

18'~ossner, Ernest C. The life of David Hume. (University of Texas Press, Austin, 1954), 384.

82

enthusiasm for Wilkie's Epieoniad is only the most obvious of his mistakes.'" Hume's

genuine support and praise of his rivals, including William Robertson, was often

remarked on, and provides much of the explanation for the French's dubbing him Le Bon

David. In a 1757 letter to Gilbert Elliot of Minto, Hume was unable to contain his

excitement regarding the rise of Scottish letters, at the same time recognizing the paradox

accompanying the progress of the national literature. Commenting upon the number of

"Men of Genius" which Scotland had produced in recent years, Hume asked:

1s it not strange that, at a time when we have lost Our Princes, our Parliaments, our independent Govemment, even the Presence of Our chief Nobility, are unhappy, in our

Accent & Pronunciatim, speak a very compt Dialect of the Tongue which we make use of; is it not strange, 1 Say, that, in these Circumstances, we shou'd really be the People rnost distinguish'd for Literature in Europe?"'

It is, perhaps, noteworthy that Hume did not try to answer the question posed.

Hume's dedication to the clarity of his own prose was mirrored by a similar concem

for the nation's literature. His fear of Scotticisms -- that parochial form of English that

seemed to be the cause of rampant insecurities among the literati - is well known. His

persona1 correspondence is full of advice about how to avoid them.Is8 Monboddo's quip

lS6David Hume, New Letters of David Hume, eds. Raymond Klibansky, Emest C. Mossner, (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1954), 42,52,58. Hume wrote a letter in April 1759 to the Criticai Review in an attempt to prornote Wilkie's Eoigoniad.

'"~urne, Letters, vol. i, 255.

'88Hume, Letters, vol. i, 108, 182,205: Hume, New Letters, 27,3 1-2,45. For a further discussion of the problem of 'Scotticisms,' see James G. Basker, "Scotticisms and the Problem of Cultural Identity in Eighteenth-Century Britain," Eighteenth-Cennirv Life, (vol. 15, Feb. & May 1991), esp. 90-95.

83

that Hume confessed on his deathbed not his sins but his Scotticisms poked fun at le Bon

David's almost neurotic obsession with this aspect of his, as well as his nation's, literary

deve~o~ment.'" Incorrectly, if logically enough, some modem commentators see Hume's

concem regarding Scotticisms as evidence of a lack of any real sense of national

sentiment, interpreting his devotion to writing 'proper' English as proof of Anglicization.

They miss the obvious point that language did not hold a position of central importance to

mid-eighteenth century Scottish identity. English and Scots dialects were close enough

to make the issue of language as a key to Scottish national identity a non-starter.lW

Though what was interpreted as the provincial nature of Scottish speech most certainly

proved a source of some embarrassrnent to successful, as well as sensitive, Scots trying to

make a career south of the Tweed, its "correction" was in no way undentood by Hume,

Robertson and others as a denial of one of the things which made them Scottish. The

attempt to correct their English must be understood as one of the ways in which the

iiterati attempted to improve Scotland. To write, to wnte correctly and for a wider

audience was an aspect of their eighteenth-century patriotism.

Ferguson's approach to the subject of a national literature followed a slightly different

course than did that of his other enlightened brethren. Though he supported the nse of

letters in Scotland in which Hume showed such evident pride, he did not consider it. in a

Hume,

'%ere was as much a difference between a Comish and Newcastle dialect as between that of Middlesex and Buchan.

84

very important respect, national. A national literature, as far as Ferguson was concemed,

was a literature which originated within the nation considered. It was something which

belonged solely, or, at least, firstly, to the community which had developed it. The value

of Greek literature, Ferguson stressed in An Essav on the Historv of Civil Society, lay in

large measure in the fact that it was original to the Greeks, constituting or expressing their

traditions and self-awarene~s.'~' Eighteenth-century Scottish literature, on the other hand,

seemed to be almost solely the product of leaming. It was a patchwork sewn together

from the fabncs of different national spirits and time periods, and, as such couid not truly

represent Ferguson's own. Buchanan's History was a Renaissance history; Scottish

theology and law came from France and Holland. Such a literature relied upon other

nations and was not 'home-grown.' This ied to a sense of inferiority, and the belief that

their own genius was completely "inspired" and "directed" from abroad.Ig2 It is in such a

manner, Ferguson suggested, that a nation's "very learning" could depress its national

spirit. lg3

The excitement which for Adam Ferguson and others surrounded the arriva1 of James

Macpherson, with his supposed translation of the poems of Ossian tucked in the crook of

his arm, cm only be understood within the context just outlined. Macpherson provided,

or at least seemed to provide, what Ferguson had asked for and the rest of the Scottish

lg'Ferguson, Essav9 77.

lg2Ferguson, Essay, 78.

193Ferguson, Essay. 77.

literati wanted -- evidence of a national literature of the first rank, as well as a nationaI

poet who, it would be argued, was wonhy of the sarne adulation as Homer.'" More than

this, Macpherson's Ossian provided, as far as his supporters were concemed, a portrait of

some of the earliest inhabitants of the region which would become Scotland. These

inhabitants were not as most would have imagined them. They were not untamed brutes

incapable of the sense of vinue and honour exhibited by the more classical Greeks and

Romans, but were capable of the very same refined sentiments and honourable conduct.

The poetry of Ossian also performed the admirable function of reforming the

Englishman's conception of the Highlander, transforming him from the temfying or

foolish warrior of Prestonpans and Culloden into a noble and sentimental neighbour, a

necessary task if the men of the Poker were to have any success in stimng up support in

the British parliament for a Scottish militia. Ossian's tales presented an ancient and

indigenous mix of the proper proportions of honour, valour, and comrnunity. This

mixture, it was hoped, would be reproduced and emulated by present Scots in much the

same manner that the Greeks were inspired by the fables of their own national heroes.

The tone of the Ossianic poetry - characterized by the mehl lament of a blind man,

recording for posterity the exploits of a once great but now extinct society - sounded the

IgJHugh Blair, "Dissertation," Ossian, 357-368. "As Homer is of dl the great poets, the one whose manner, and whose times corne the nearest to Ossian's, we are naturdly led to run a parallel in some instances between the Greek and the Celtic bard, For though Homer lived more than a thousand years before Ossian, it is not from the age of the world, but from the state of society, that we are to judge of resembling times." Though Blair goes on to give the Greek bard "a manifest superiority," in some respects, he still daims Ossian to be, when al1 is said and done, of the same caiiber as Homer,

86

proper alam: if eighteenth-century Scots did not shake their complacency and retum to

the virtuous conduct of their ancestors, they as well would disappear, rendered extinct by

the modemking tendencies around them.

For di of the debate surrounding the authenticity of Macpherson's Ossianic poetry -- a

debate which has continued from its fbst publication more-or-Iess down to the present day

-- its true nature has never been settled. Macpherson, obviously, dong with Hugh Blair,

the author of the Dissertation conce- the Authenticity of the Poems of 0- which

prefaced most of the contemporary editions of the Ossianic corpus, maintained its

authenticity. Others, notably Samuel Johnson, and, slightly later and much less publicly,

David Hume, presented strong arguments in favour of its fdsity.lg5

Whatever the case, the question we are presently concemed with has little to do with

the question of the authenticity of the Ossianic poetry. Macpherson's "translation," --

lg5~urne had admitted to being at first "a iittle incredulous" about the authenticity of Macpherson's Ossian, but claimed that John Home later "removed my scruples, by informllig me of the manner in which he procued them h m Mr Macpherson, the translator." Hume, Letten, vol. i, 328. By September of 1763, however, his "scruples" seem to have retumed. Hume m, vol. i, 398. Hume eventuaily wrote "Of the Poems of Ossian" to refite Macpherson's claims of legitimacy, but, due to respect for his close Wend Hugh Blair, suppressed the essay. See Mossner, Hume, 4 19. Fiona J. Stafford, however, has presented a strong argument in favour of a much more sympathetic view of both the authenticity of the Ossiaaic poetry and the motivations of its supposed translator. Focusing her argument upon the problems of translation - in this case, not ody those between two entirely differently constituted laquages, English and Gaelic, but aiso between the oral mode of traditional Gaelic dehvery and the written form practised by its English interpreters - Stafford makes the clah that the Ossianic poetry is authentic, at Ieast insofar as, given the circumstances jua outiined, it could be. See Fiona J. Stafford,

e Savage. A Study of m e s w h e r s o n 0 (Edofburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1988), pp 8 1-87.

whether it be in whole or in part a forgery - could still be a national fable capable of

creating a more unified community. Its value existed, as Ferguson said regarding the

fables of the Greeks, not in its authority as a record of matten of fact, but in its ability to

capture the spirit of a people.'96 Poetry and its fictions could vouch for "the genius of

nations" in a rnanner in which actual history could not. It was also capable of creating or

irifonning such a national genius. The value of the Ossianic poetry as a stimulus to

national spirit existed, in other words, not in its truth and authenticiry but in the

believabili~ of its values. The question that must be considered is whether it was

intended to be a stimulus to national cohesion and spirit. In the end, whether

Macpherson's readers swallowed wholly the genealogies and critical commentaries

concerning the idiosyncrasies of Gaelic history and prose woven for them is sornewhat

incidental. The manner in which they believed or desired to believe some of it provides

the key to assessing the national value of the Ossianic poetry.

"Nationalism," Ernest Gellner has argued, does not involve "the awakening of nations

to self-consciousness; it invents nations where they do not exist."'" Benedict Anderson,

in his influentid Imarrined Communities: Refiections on the Origin and S~read of

Nationalism, has adopted this premise in the attempt to explain some of the paradoxes

surrounding the 'birth of nations' and nationalism. Anderson argued that the modem

'"Emest Gellner, as quoted in Benedict Anderson, Imaeined Communities: Reflections on the Oriein and k e a d of Nationaiism, (Verso, London, 199 l), 6.

88

nation -- which he believes was bom in the eighteenth-century -- is much more intirnately

connected to believable fictions than it is to historicd facts. The size of the modem

nation, which does not aUow a member of the national community to know the majority of

the other members, as well as the disparate historicai, cultural and social elements of

which the nation in fact consias, requires the creation of a series of boundaries and myths

which are intended, over time, to replace those which already e>adg8 The nation is, by

definition, a social construct. Its community and antiquity are not objectively verifiable

because the nation does not belong to the realm of the material, the tangible and the

objective. Nations are reai enough but their reality is a social one produced, as Hume

would have said, by custom, habit and imagination.

Scots, of course, had had a sense of thernselves as a nation long before the eighteenth-

century. By the 1750's this awareness was under severe attack. The Union, with its

ambiguous silence conceming Scottish religion and community, caused discodort to any

Scot who paused to consider the position of Scotland as a nation. This was not, however,

the oniy difnculty facing Scots in search of some form of definition in the post-Union

years. It was probably not even the most troubling one. English and international

attitudes towards post-Union Scotland were at least equdy important when considering

Scotland's position within the eighteenth-century European context. Beiiefs in Scottish

backwardness and barbarity pervaded much of eighteenth-century historîcai, social and

political discourse. It is as evident in the wntings of educated and perceptive Scots such

89

as Hume and Robertson as it is in those of other English critics.lg9 Craig Beveridge and

Ronald Turnbull, in their The Ecliose of Scottish Culture: Inferiorism and htellectuals,

though focusing primarily upon twentieth-century analysis of Scotland's histoncal p s t

and development, have traced what they consider to be undeniable evidence of centuries

of inferiorist discourse. This, they Say, has undermined Scottish confidence and

independence. Scotland, they argue, has been ponrayed negatively in opposition to

England through a system of oppositional adjectives used to illustrate English prowess

and Scottish dependency. Terms such as "dark," "backward," " fanatical," and " barbaric,"

among others, have been continuously used to describe the Scottish situation, while

"enlightened," "advanced," "ceasonable," and "civilised" are used to portray the

English." Adopting Frantz Fanon's concept of infenorization - the process which

Fanon describes by which developed nations attempt to gain extemal control in the Third

~ o r l d ~ ~ ' - Beveridge and Tumbull use it in an attempt to better understand what they

consider Scotland's "infenority cornplex." Fanon had argued that every "effort is made to

199~amuel Johnson's antipathy towards al1 things Scottish is, and was, well known. He was not alone, however, in his national animosity. John Wilkes and Horace Walpole present two other prominent examples of Englishmen with an unnaturai aversion to Scots; Wilkes' connection, both direct and unintentionai, to the "No-Scots!" riots in London during the 1760's is well known. See George Rude, Wilkes and Libertv: A Social S tudv of 1763 to 1774, (Clarendon Press, Oxford, l962), 14,2 1, 184.

'('%iig Beveridge, Ronald Turnbull, The Ecliose of Scottish Culture: Inferiorism and the Intellectuals, (Polygon determinations, Edinburgh, 1989), 7.

"'See Franz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, tram. Constance Farrington, (Grove Press, New York, 1963).

90

bring the colonized person to admit the inferiority of his culture" when compared to that

of the coloni~er.~" This is achieved through continual denigration of the lifestyles,

morality and manners of the colonized people. Scholarship of al1 sorts plays a large role

in forcing the admission of inferiority and dependancy through which the colonizing

power maintains contro~.~" "The strategy of inferiorization," Beveridge and Tumbull

conclude, "is fully successful when the native intemalizes the estimation of local culture

which is propagated by the colonizer, acknowledging the superiority of metropohtan

w a y ~ . " ~

Beveridge and Turnbull present a solid case for interpreting the Scottish situation in

the same manner in which Fanon dealt with Africa. Scots, according to their

interpretation, had been bombarded with negative views of their history, manners and

customs since before the Union, to the point that they began to believe them themselves.

Beveridge and Tumbull argue that the views of what they consider to be the

"assimilationist" Scottish intellectuals of the eighteenth-century - of which the principal

literati constitute the most notewonhy examples -- "bear similarities" to twentieth century

inferiorised attitudes.20s Hume's and Robertson's portrayal of pre-Union Scotland as

barbanc, backward and fanatical - tems singled out by Tumbull and Beveridge as

'02Fanon, Wretched, 190.

203Fanon, Wretched, 194.

'%everidge and Tumbull. Ecli~se, 6.

'osBeveridge and Turnbull. Ecli~se, 17.

91

constituting key concepts in the lexicon of inferiorization -- provides enough evidence to

place them within such a context. Though Beveridge and Tumbull do not believe that the

eighteenth-century Scottish literati "brought about a significant loss of confidence in

Scc'ttish society and culture,"206 their analysis proves useful in understanding the

problems facing the survival of a strong Scottish identity. It also helps to explain the

wildly enthusiastic acceptance of Macpherson's Ossian.

Beveridge and Tumbull's discussion of the inferiorization of Scotland is also

important because it provides a potential alternative to the debate concern ing the

'provinciality' of eighteenth-century Scotland. Clive's and Bailyn's thesis that the Scottish

"Renaissance" or Enlightenment occurred in an English cultural province has inspired

widespread debate about the supposed provincial nature of eighteenth-century Scotland.

Clive and Bailyn argue that Scots, as well as Americans, developed as they did because

they saw themselves as provincials on the periphery of the empire. Removed frorn the

cosmopolitan centre of London, they nevertheless were oriented and directed towards

k 2 0 7 The sense of inferiority which many commentators have noted with regard to

Scotland, they insist, is a product of their "discontinuous" provincial o u t l o ~ k ? ~ ~ David

206Beveridge and Tumbull, Eclime, 17.

'm~ohn Clive and Bernard Bailyn, "England's Cultural Provinces: Scotland and America," The William and Marv Ouarterlv, (3rs ser., no. 1 1, 1954), 206-8.

2 0 8 ~ ~ i v e and Bailyn, "England's Cultural Provinces," William and M m 212.

92

Daiches' conception of cultural schizophrenia is indebted to the Clive-Bailp thesiszm, as

is the work of much more recent scholars. Among these, Michael Kugler has argued that

the awareness of dependancy and difference on the part of the provincial provides the

grounds for explaining both how he views his comrnunity as well as how he conceives of

the project of en~ightenment."~ "As the provincial intellectual lived between the two

worlds of province and metropolis, both of which made serious demands upon his

loyalties," Kugler explains, "he joined the Enlightenment debate on civilization and

progress knowing full well that progress meant both liberty and 10~s."~" On the other

side of the coin, Roger Emerson has argued against the portrayai of Scotland as a cultural

province, pointing to Scotland's long national history as making it impossible for either

the English or the Scots themselves to view Scotland as just another English province.'"

Beveridge and Turnbull, however, by presenting Scotland not as an English province,

but as a stateless-nation undergoing a process of inferionzation, skirt around the debate

conceming Scottish provinciality while providing a much needed explanation for the

sense of infenority which is evident in the thought of many of the leading intellecnials of

the past three centuries of Scottish history. The continua1 barrage of negative descriptions

'%aiches, Paradox, 17.

''I(ugler, "Provincial Intellectuals," Eighteenth-Centurv, 58-9.

'"Kugler, "Provincial Intellectuals," Eiehteenth-Century, 167.

"?Roger Emerson, "Did the Scottish Enlightenment Emerge in an English Cultural Province?" in Paul Wood, ed., Lumen, (vol. 14, Acadernic Printing and Publishing, Edmonton, 1995),3-4.

93

and barbs inflicted upon Scots' sensibilities had the effect, over time, of dissipating their

sense of national spirit. Scots, in other words, had a difficult time feeling good about

t hemselves.

This is where Macpherson's value, as the translater of Ossian, cornes in. He provided

Scots, both Highlanders and Lowlanders, with an opponunity to feel good about

themselves. Macpherson romanticized what had up to that point been understood as

Scottish backwardness and barbarity. Or, more correctly, he recast such barbanty as

martial valour and backwardness as a form of virtuous Stoicism. As Hugh Blair

explained in his Dissertation Concemine the Antiouitv. &c. of the Poems of Ossian the

Son of Fingal, Ossian's heroes were both virtuous in peace and brave in war, noble in

action and generous in spirit, refiecting the spirit of the times in which they l i ~ e d ? ~

Objections conceming the supposed barbarity of these earliest inhabitants of North

Btitain Blair dismissed as the product of ignorance.214

Macpherson, in his own Dissertation -- which prefaced perhaps the most questionable

of his translations of Ossianic poetry, Temora -- went much funher in exclaiming against

the daims of barbarism levelled at the ancient Scots portrayed in the Ossianic poetry.

"Having early imbibed their idea of exalted manners from the Greek and Roman writers,"

Macpherson claimed, his cntics "scarcely ever afterwards have the fortinide to allow any

'"Hugh Blair, "A Dissertation Conceming the Antiquity, & c. of the Poems of Ossian the Son of Fingal," Ossian, 49.

"4Blair, "Dissertation," Ossian, 48.

dignity of character to any other ancient peop~e."~'' In this, however, they were greatl y

mistaken. Nobility and virtue were not, Macpherson argued, the sole possession of the

ancient Greeks and Romans. Such qualities belonged to many of the nations denoted as

barbarous. In a manner strongly reminiscent of Adam Ferguson, Macpherson argued that

the

nobler passions of the mind never shoot fonh more free and unrestrained than in these times we cal1 barbarous. That irregular manner of life, and those manly pursuits from which barbarity takes its name, are highly favourable to a strength of mind unknown in polished times?

Further, eighteenth-century conceptions conceming the progress of civil society bore out

Macpherson's daims. Of the three stages of societP7, the first, being the result of

kinship and family ties, would result in the disinterested and noble characteristics that are

evident in Ossian's heroes.'18 It is only the second, middle stage of social development --

located between the familial order of the first, and the more polished and civilized third --

which trdy "is the region of compleat barbarism and ignorance."21g

Suspicions concerning the authenticity of the Ossianic poetry Macpherson wrote off

21S~ames Macpherson, "A Dissertation," Ossian, 205.

'I6Macpherson, "Dissertation," Ossian, 206.

'"Ferguson claimed that there were three stages of society, while the rest of the literati posited four. The point, however, remains the same, since the fint stage of a society's development in both cases was defined by kinship and family ties.

218Macpherson, "Dissertation," 2 1 1.

" %lacpherson, "Dissertation," Ossian, 2 1 1.

as the product of ignorance or prej~dice."~ Since the Highland's rugged terrain

discouraged ail but the most determined travellers, very few people had any

understanding of the true nature of Highland culture, which Macpherson believed still

bore a close resemblance KI that described in the poetry of Ossian. Others, merely from

some unnatural distaste entertained about the inhabitants of the extreme north of Britain,

were determined to believe nothing but the worst."'

Macpherson's Ossianic poetry played an important role in the Scottish rnilitia

agitations. Indeed, Macpherson's timely arriva1 upon the literary scene has led some to

hint at the existence of a cabal. Richard B. Sher argues that

it is surely no accident that the same Edinburgh literati, who took the lead in the cause of Scottish literary nationalism, spearheaded the Scots militia carnpaign of 1759-60 and 1762, and established the closest relations with the Earl of Bute were the very men who encouraged - one might almost Say commissioned -- the Ossianic endeavours of James Macpherson?

Ossian served, according to Sher, the dual purpose of aiding the literati in establishing

both a Scottish rnilitia and a platform for the acceptance of Scottish Iiterature south of the

border. Finaal, Temora, and the Fragments carried weight as pro-militia statements while

providing a literary pedigree at which English cntics like Samuel Johnson could scoff but

22%4acpherson," Dissertation," Ossian, 2 17

"lMacpherson, "Dissertation," Ossian, 207.

"~ichard Sher, "Those Scotch Imposters and their Cabal:' Ossian and the Scottish Enlightenmenf" in Roger L. Emerson, Gilles Girard, and Roseanna Runte (eds.), Man and Nature: Proceedines of the Candian Societv for Eiehteenth-Centun, Studies, vol. 1, (University of Western Ontario, London, 1982), 57.

not discount, as they had the works of John Home and William Wilkie." Sher indicates

that Blair, Carlyle, and Ferguson were probably aware, as evidence from the Highland

Society testimony indicates, that Macpherson's poetry was not "authentic" in some senses

of the word."" His epics, Sher concludes somewhat wryly, were "too important for

nationalistic reasons to be discredited simply because they had never existed!"" Their

value, in other words, as tools in the Ziterati's attempt to refashion a positive Scottish

identity within the British context outweighed any concems regarding their authenticity.

Certainly the coincidence of the militia agitations with Macpherson's first publication

and, shonly thereafter, his "discovery" of a full-blown ancient Scottish epic provides

some grounds for Sher's speculations. Whether his poetry was authentic or not, the

"Sher, "Scotch Irnposters," Man and Nature, 58. Scoff, of course, they did. Samuel Johnson was among the fiat and most vehemous of Macpherson's critics; long after most of the furor surrounding the authenticity of his Ossianic poetry, Johnson and Macpherson continued their verbal spming, both in the public press and in private correspondence. Johnson looked at the Ossian controveny as evidence of a "Scotch conspiracy in national falsehood," and verbally sparred with Macpherson to the point of physical threat. After calling Macpherson, "a cheat" and "a ruffian," Johnson, in a 1775 letter to the Highland Bard, Johnson wrote, "1 thought your book an imposture from the beginning. 1 think it upon yet surer reasons an imposture still. ... Your rage 1 de@, your abilities since your Homer are not so formidable, and what 1 have heard of your mords disposes me to pay regard not to what you Say, but to what you can prove." Samuel Johnson, Rasseslas. Poems and Selected Prose, ed. Bertrand H. Bronson, (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Toronto, 1964), 20.

=?he Highland Society looked into the authenticity of the Ossianic poetry in the first years of the nineteenth century. Adam Ferguson, Hugh Blair and Alexander Carlyle, among others, gave testimony to the Commission set up by the Society. The Society concluded that the poetry was not completely 'authentic,' though they made no claim that it was a complete forgery.

"Sher, "Scotch Irnposters," Man and Nature, 60.

Scottish literati's immediate and influential support of the young and yet unproven

Macpherson sprung from something more than their natural goodwill. The usefulness of

Macpherson's -- or Ossian's - poetry would certainly not have escaped the literati Nor

would the perceptive young Highlander have failed to realize what was desired of hirn by

his illustrious benefactors.

Whatever the facts, the Ossianic poetry provided just the sense of virtue, history and

valour which the literati desired to see exemplified in Scottish literature. The ancient

Gaelic community portrayed by the young Highlander was one that revolved around the

two interconnected poles of martial valour and, through the high regard in which the

bards or poets were regarded, Iiterary excellence. The relations between vinue and valour

which were stressed by Ferguson and the literati were never more apparent than in

Ossian's poetry. Al1 of that bard's principal characters, both male and female, are imbued

with the sense of martial vigour and determination which the literati found lacking in

eighteenth-century Scotland. Though generally reluctant to fight, Ossian's heroes are

nevertheless both quick to defend their community and their rights as well as vigilant and

ruthless in the defence of their honour. "How can I relate the deaths when we closed in

the suife of our steel?" Ossian la ment^."^ He laments not only the deaths of his own

comrades but also those of his foes who, at other times, might have been the closest of

fnends, but also honoured hirn with their combats. The defence of the community and of

- -

"6Macpherson, Ossian, 87.

one's allies justifies war, even with farnily members as we see in ~ i n e a l . ' ~ ~

In a very real sense, the community portrayed by Macpherson's Ossian resembles

Buchanan's 'community-in-arms,' but in a more polite and civilized form. In both cases

the defence of the community justifies al1 acts necessary to its preservation: Buchanan's

regicides and Ossian's violent heroes share the same honourable intentions. The primary

difference exists in the more compassionate manner in which the tnnsgressors are

portrayed by Macpherson's bard. Swaran, Orla and the other principal chiefs of Lochlin

are recognized as heroes. Misguided though they might be, the necessity of their defeat.

which generally ends with their deaths, does not negate either their humanity or

worthiness. It was through such chivalric devices that Macpherson attempted to alter the

perceptions maintained by the English of their Scottish, and particularly Highland,

neighbours.

Macpherson's Gaels resemble Buchanan's 'community-in-arms' in another important

respect: they are defined in large measure by the virtuous martial spirit which binds them

together. There is no place in Ossian's community for cowardliness or effeminacy. "1

will not fly from Swaran," Cuchullin promised when foretold of his defeat.

I fear not death, but 1 fear to fly ... Thou dim phantom of the hill, ... corne on thy bearn of heaven, and shew me my death in thine hand; yet will 1 not fly, thou feeble son of

the wind. ... Let my heroes rise to the sound in the midst of the battles of Erin. Though Fingal delays his coming with the race of the stormy hills; we shall fight, O Colgafs son, and die in the battle of he r~es?~

"Macpherson, Ossian, 101. Swaran and Fingal were related by blood.

"8Macpherson, Ossian, 66.

Macpherson and Blair's commentary regarding the Gaelic community or "people"

necessarily involves some form of martial association. It is in their mutual defence of

their liberty and interests that they are most connected. The sense of valour and self-

sacrifice, the submersion of the individual desire in favour of the needs of the collective

are the vinues most admired by Ossian. Oscar's glorying in battle is not, as it might first

seem, merely the product of some fom of vain egotism. It is bom of the love of the

comradery that fighting engenders. Ossian's heroes fight as individuals and as a unit, side

by side, bound together by affection as much as the love of glory. Fingal rushes to the aid

of his friends in large measure because of the selfless affection he feels for the besieged.

He champions rnembers of his family, but aiso Cuchullin, the brave, though overwhelmed

protector of Cornac li, Lord of ~reland."'

The bonds of affection which unite Ossian's heroes are engendered by their martial

endeavours. Romantic love, for al1 Ossian's inherent Romanticism, is not predominant,

though it has some place in that bard's poetry. It is the affection and comradery which

exists between men, or, since there are examples of female heroism in the Ossianic

poetfl, between warrioa, which is vastly predominant. The relationship which existed

between Oscur, Ossian's favourîte son, and Dermid, serves to emphasize this point. Their

martial endeavours bred independence and dependence, selflessness and mutuai trust.

They hardened the affection that existed between them to a point which romantic love,

"g~acpherson, Ossian, 105-6.

"Macpherson, Ossian, 17,78.

except in the fleeting moments of the highest passion, could not equal. "Dermid and

Oscur," Ossian relates in Macpherson's Fragments of Ancient Poetry, "were one: They

reaped the battle together. Their ftiendship was as strong as their steel; and death wdked

between them to the f ie~d ."~ ' Their honour at stake over the possession of a beautiful

woman each desired, they rashly fought for her love and their self-respect. Dermid died;

and Oscur, overcome by grief and self-loathing, arranged his own death at the hands of

the woman for whom they had fought."' "Who," Ossian Iaments, "was a match for

Oscur, but Dermid? and who for Dermid but ~ s c u r ! " ~ ~

Among the themes which unify the body of the Ossianic poetry, the relationship which

exists between struggle and affection is cenainly one. It is in battle -- in the "clang of

arms" where "every blow falls like the hundred hammee of the fumace!"" -- that the

best of what is human rnakes its appearance. Honour, sympathy, bravery and self-

sacrifice are the products of "the death of thousands." Fingal's a m pauses amidst the

bloodlust of battle when he is struck by the heroism of a fallen foe? From the mutual

respect engendered by battle, even enemies become the dearest of friends, as did Swaran

"'~acpherson, Ossian, 16.

"~acpherson, Ossian, 17.

"3Macpherson, Ossian, 16.

'Y~acpherson, Ossian, 9 1.

z5Macpherson, Ossian, 96.

and Fingal at the end of Ossian's first e p i ~ . ' ~ ~ In these sentiments, Macpherson echoes the

only other Highlander arnong the literati, Adam Ferguson, leaving room enough to

speculate on the exact nature of their shared sense of ~ i r t u e . ~

Macpherson was doing more than asking his readers to live "vicariously through

identification with his Celts," as Kenneth Simpson has suggested in The Protean Scot:

The Crisis of Identitv in Eighteenth Centun, Scottish ~iterature."' Macpherson's poetry

was not descriptive; it did not, in other words, merely depict a sequence of characten and

events for the amusement or instruction of an audience. Rather, Ossian's tales were

concerned with both lamentation and emulation. Lamentation because Ossian, the last of

a mighty race of honourable warrion. is alone. Ossian wails at the end of one poetic

fragment, " O that I could forget my friends till my footsteps cease to be seen! till 1 corne

arnong them with joy! and lay my aged limbs in the nmow h o ~ s e . " ~ ~ Ernulation

because, as long as Ossian's Song is heard and the mighty heroes of his time are not

forgotten, there remains a chance that there will aise a new generation to take their place.

- -

U6~acpherson, Ossian, 10 1.

u7~iona J. Stafford has noted as well the sirnilarities which exist between Macpherson's and Ferguson's thought, and argues that the latter had a noticeable influence upon the young pe t . Stafford also suggests that Macpherson may have to some degree influenced the oider, Highland philosopher as well, with particular reference to Ferguson's attitude towards early man. See The Sublime Sava~e, 157-59.

ennet ne th Simpson, The Protean Scot: The Crisis of Identitv in Eiehteenth Century Scottish Literature, (Aberdeen University Press, Aberdeen, 1988), 46.

3-'gMacpherson, Ossian, 126.

102

Remembrance alone, without acting as a call to action, was not enough. Ossian cries,

"Light of the shadowy thoughts, that fly across my soul, ... wilt thou not hear the song!

We call back the years that have rolled a~ay."'~' "Dweller between the shields," he

pleads elsewhere, "thou that awakest the failing soul, descend from thy wall, harp of

Cona, with thy voices three! Corne with that which kindles the past; rear the foms of

old, on their own dark-brown year~!"'~'

What Macpherson, through his blind, tragic bard, was asking of his readers, therefore,

is to retum to the honourable paths of their ancestors, fictional or otherwise, before it was

too late. This would involve a rekindling of Scottish national spirit and ardour through

the two-fold process of virtuous martial exercise and iiterary achievement, as well as by

granting the educated and literate - whether affiliated with the church or othenvise -- a

principal position in leading Scotland. This would not be quickiy or easily accomplished.

Scotland, for al1 its varied improvements over the eighteenth-century, remained -- not

necessarily economicaliy or socially, but spiritually -- a backward, divided and troubled

nation. Ossian exclaims in what may very well be a statement about Macpherson's

Scotland, " There, silent, dwells a feeble race! They mark no years with their deeds, as

slow they pass Modem Scots. like their ancient counterparts, must from that

moment tailor their actions for remembrance.

'%lacpherson, Ossian, 323.

241Macpherson, Ossian, 3 19.

23'Macpherson, Ossian, 3 19.

103

Such a reforging of national spirit, within the Ossianic context, would not, however,

need to involve a dissolution of the Union. Though Macpherson's heroes are definetly

modelled upon the Highland Scots, the ancient context of the poetry, supposedly authored

well before the creation of any modem national boundaries, makes the issue of Scottish-

Engiish relations a moot point. In a very important sense -- which, nevertheless, fails to

undermine the importance of the poetry to Scottish national consciousness -- the Ossianic

poetry presented by Macpherson is inherently British. As Leith Davis argues, Ossian's

ambiguity was a tool to please everyone."" "The poems of Ossian," Davis explains,

"were forgeries in a different sense than commonly applied to them; they forged a

common identity for Highlanders, Lowlanders, and Englishmen alike."'* Partly because

it is a record of a period antecedent to the construction of even the earliest forrn of the

modem state, Ossian's heroes therefore escape the limitations of strict definition.

Capturing his reader's imaginations, and, with it, perhaps their desire to believe, they are

capable of becoming anceston to ail of the inhabitants of the British Isles, whether they

be English, Irish, Scottish or Welsh. Macpherson's poems and histories suggest "an

original homogeneity among the various constirutive races of Britain," and provide a

"founding myth for the British Empire which rooted it in native," as opposed to

243Leith Davis, "Ongins of the Specious: Macpherson and the Imagined Scottish Community," Eiahteenth-Century, (vol. 34, no. 2, 1993), 137.

'%avis, "Specious," Eighteenth-Centuw 138.

"continental s ~ i l . " * ~ ~

Macpherson's Ossianic poetry became, dong with Home's Douelas, one of the

standard-bearers" in the cause of Scottish cultural nati~nalism."'~~ It did so, however, in

more than one way. It provided an ancient pedigree that had been lacking in the Scottish

literary tradition, a pedigree which Ferguson, above the others, believed necessary for the

existence of a true national literature. With Ossian's 'belated' arriva1 in the middle of the

eighteenth-century, Scots could claim to have a national literature quite distinct from the

imported variety gleaned from Greek classics, which it resembled since it came from an

age not unlike Homer's. Secondly, Macpherson's poetry contributed to Scotland's

reputation as a first rate literary nation throughout Europe. By 1763, "the vogue for

Ossian spread across Europe and even to America, as the poems were published in

Swedish. German, French, Spanish, Danish, Russian, Dutch, Bohemian, Polish and

~ungarian."'" Scotland, after the international success of the Framents, Fingal and

Temora, became as much the subject of rornantic inspiration as it had before been the

object of cultural contempt. Herder and Goethe, among other continental readers, were

inspired by the ancient bard's poems, a fact which was not negated by rumours conceming

avis, "Specious," Ekhteenth-Centurv, 147.

'46Simpson makes this daim of Home's drama, pointing to the hror surrounding its rejection by Patrick Garrick; it fits, however, Macpherson's case as well. See Simpson, The Protean Scot, 103.

"~tafford, The Sublime Savaee, 163.

10s

their fal~ity.~~~ Moreover, Ossian's influence canied much fbrther than the actuai poetry

itseif. Macpherson's Ossianic verse, dong with much else, inspired and helped to shape

the European Romantic tradition which developed in reaction to the Enlightenment c.

1760-1 830. The emotion rather than reason and the inherent primitivisrn which motivates

much of the Ossianic poetry provided much of the framework within which Iater Romantic

authors would work. Finally, it provided a portrait of Scottish ancestry with which that

offered by the colourless discipline of antiquaries could not compare. It did so precisely

because it was not concerneci with the portrayal of actual fact. Rather, the poems of

Ossian - whether or not they were truly pemed by an ancient bard -- were works of

imagination that aimed at capturing the spirit of a people, thus providing a focus for

Scottish national identity.

24'~ania Oz-Salzberger, thediphtement: Sco~sh CMC Di scoura . . 'n E' i (CIarendon Press, Oxford, 1995), 72,73.

CONCLUSION

"Most Scots would," T. C. Smout has argued. "quite rightly, have Iaughed at the idea

that the Scottish nation came to an end in 1707 . . . it was the end of an auld song,

perhaps, but it was not yet the end of an auld pe~ple.""~ The introduction of the Union

may have dramatically altered the econornic and political framework of Scotland, but the

social and religious facets of the Scottish community, much more important to an

eighteenth-century mind accustomed to the irregularities of govemment caused by

dynastic and factional politics, remained very much the same. It was only over the course

of the eighteenth-century, when the pressures associated with anglicization and

inferiorization, as well as those attributable to rapid economic development, began to

become more apparent, that there developed any serious confusion about the exact nature

of Scottish identity within the Union. The Scottish literati, whose intellectual maturity

coincided with the increasing importance of questions concerning both Scottish identity

and role within the Union, inevitably found themselves drawn into the debate. The

politicai nature of their thought conuibuted to their involvement, expressing itself in their

''?K. Smout, "Union of the Parliarnents," in The Scottish Nation: a History of the Scots from Independence to Union, ed. G. Menzies (BBC, London, 1 W 2 ) , 158-9

1 O7

agitations for a Scottish militia, support of and contributions toward a national literature,

and in their leadership of both church and university.

For al1 of the benefits which the Union provided, it did not necessitate complete

assimilation. In a country intimately acquainted with the Bible, most Scots would have

understood the similarities between their own case and that of Naboth. And like Naboth,

they would have replied similarly to the King of Samaria when he offered to purchase his

vineyard: "The lord forbid it me that 1 should give the inheritance of my fathers unto

thee." Nor did Scots expect to be stoned for such a reply. Scotland could not become

merely another pan of England; its religion, its history, its geography, society and

psychology forbade it. The distinct nature of their national character was something that

had been stamped upon them over the passing of time, and could only be altered, if at aI1,

through the same slow process. For al1 the sirnilarities which existed between Scotland

and England, there nevenheless existed differences, both protected and unprotected by

the Act of Union.

History, religion, the martial tradition, virtue, and literature, as the literati thought

about them, defined a Scottish culture different from that of the English. English history

was less barbarous than that of Scotland. England had obtained much earlier the polish

provided by commerce, and was therefore, by the standards of the time, considered much

more advanced than its nonhem neighbour. As a direct result, England lacked the martial

heritage of the Scots. The English did not have to struggle as the Scots did to gain and

maintain their national independence. They did not find themselves serving abroad as

108

mercenanes in the same numbers. The martial heritage of 'North-Btitons' was part of the

culture and tradition which helped to define who exactly was a Scot. Hume, Robertson,

Ferguson and the rest of the literati's awareness of the importance of custom and habit in

shaping identity would have forced them to admit the dangers of turning their backs on

such a fundamental aspect of their national heritage. What was required was a

reformulation of that heritage in a fashion which would affirm the importance of

Scotland's martial history, while at the same time serving a useful and contemporary

function. A national militia, the literuti believed, would fulfill such requirements.

The Scottish Kirk, due to the connection maintained between confessional and

national identities, remained central to Scottish self-conceptions as well. Conversion to

Anglicanism, despite its Protestant nature, would sri11 result in the severing of this

connection. The maintenance of the established Kirk would also ensure a sense of

continuity with previous phases of Scottish development in a manner in which conversion

could not. The role of custom and habit in shaping identity, a fact recognized by al1 of the

principal literati, made the connections between confessional and national identities even

more important.

Anglicanism was also not the equal of the Scottish church, lacking the Krk's purity

and egalitarianism. The fact that Moderatism, that "enlightenment of religion," marked

the retum to what Robertson considered the original Scottish Protestant church made a

conversion to Anglicanism even less satisfactory. The relation which existed in the

minds of the literati between the Reformation and leaming provided another reason for

109

the church's role in the shaping of Scottish national identity. The fact that the interests of

the nation had consolidated around the question of religion only solidified the Kirk's

prominence.

The debate surrounding the problerns of "efferninacy" and "corruption" in eighteenth-

century Britain makes it clear that a reconciliation between vinue and commerce was

necessary in both England and Scotland. The problem was, however, much more urgent

in Scotland. The loss of their state, when coupled with npid commercialization and

urbanization, created a situation unlike that in England. The English did not share the

confusions of a stateless existence. The Union, as far as rnany were concemed, merely

involved the absorption of the nonhern temtoryZ0 The fact that the loss of the Scottish

state was at least partially caused by the Scots' desire for commercial development made

the issue of national virtue even more important. The agenda set for Scotland by Andrew

Fletcher of Saltoun only served to emphasize the urgency of the i s s ~ e . ~ '

Scotlands literary heritage had nearly vanished after 1603 and had to be remade.

Hume, Macpherson and the Moderate literati, through their own endeavours and the

support of others, did exactly that. Their achievements as men-of-letters raised Scotland's

reputation in the literary world to the point in which David Hume could patrioticaily, if

erroneously, claim the nation's superiority. Macpherson, whether as translater or author,

S%is was the prernise put forward by John Arbuthnot, which Ferguson denied in Sister Peg. See John Arbuthnot, The History of John Bull, eds. A. W. Bower and R. A. Erickson, (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1976), 55.

"'See Robertson, Militia Issue, particularly Ch. 2.

110

provided with his Ossianic poetry a literary pedigree which was thought, if only for a time,

to rival that of Greece and Rome. A national literature was an important aspect of the

literatrl's attempt to portray a much more polished, civilized Scotland.

Perhaps most importantly, Scots after the 1707 Union still bad a sense of themselves as

Scots. The attempt to divide the new Britain into North and South did not negate the

previous national identifications. Scotland remained Scotland. North Britain required

politicai allegiance, a bond created first by shared interest, and only later strengthened by

affection. It involved a recognition of statehood with al1 of the responsibilities and

pnvileges that this involved. Britain was not a nation, but a political construction lacking

the concreteness belonging to nationhood. Scotland, in the years after 1707 was a nation

if not a state; it did not lack this concreteness. Though there existed uncertainty about

Scotland's role and identity within the new British h e w o r k , no one doubted that it

existed. None of the literatz were fooiish enough to believe that a nation - with its varied

histories, cuaoms and traditions - could be erased by the legislative sweep of a pen.

Habit, they knew, had far too large a role to play in the shaping of identity. Human nature

does not correspond to the dictates of pen and paper.

The exiled Czech writer Milan Kundera has argued that "A name means cominuity

with the past and people without a past are people without a narne."" Eighteenth century

Scots maintained, as have their twentieth century counterparts, their name, and, with it,

%an Kundera, Book of -d Forptting, tram. Michael Henry Heim, (Faber and Faber, London, 1982), 144.

all of the usual historical and cultural baggage. The Scottish literati understood the

futility of attempting to escape such baggage. Their purpose, as the patriotic promoters of

a new 'improved' Scotland, was to make it easier to carry.

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