Travellers' Tales of Scotland

The following is from Travellers' Tales of Scotland by R. H. Coats:

VI - Daniel Defoe

(1706-1708)

IN the autumn of 1706, Daniel Defoe was received in audience by Queen Anne, and humbly kissed her hand on being commissioned for secret services in Scotland. He was generally known at the time as an audacious politician and pamphleteer, who had rendered some journalistic service to King William, roundly abused his country in a humorously satirical poem, The True-Born Englishman, and suffered three days' pillory at Cornhill, and a year's imprisonment in Newgate, for infuriating the High Church Tories of the day in a tract called The Shortest Way with Dissenters. But Defoe had safely emerged from all these adventures and escapades, and was now in high favour, not only with the Queen, but also with Harley and Godolphin, her Ministers of State, who desired his services in promoting the long-projected union of Scotland and England into one United Kingdom.

It was certain that the preliminary negotiations would be delicate in the extreme. The Scots were a sensitive and proud nation, mindful of Darien and the Massacre of Glencoe. The impression yet lingered in the north that the glory of Scotland had departed, and its wealth with it, when King James VI exchanged Holy rood for London; and it was shrewdly suspected that the aim of the predominant partner in this proposed new alliance was to impoverish the country still more. At any rate the people were doggedly resolved that, whatever settlement might be arrived at in the thorny questions of law, commerce, taxes, and Church establishment, Scotsmen should come out gainers and not losers by the bargain.

For the task of grappling successfully with the problems here involved, no one could have been better fitted than Defoe. He possessed charming manners and an engaging personality. He was blessed, too, with a sense of humour and could keep his temper. As a dissenter, he could enter sympathetically into the point of view of Scottish Presbyterianism. He had also an expert acquaintance with the most intricate questions of excise, business, and finance. Above all, he had a marvellous facility for producing weighty and brightly written pamphlets which completely disarmed the prejudices of the most stubborn gainsayer, and no fewer than six of these appeared in rapid succession after his arrival in Edinburgh. Defoe does not appear to have been one of the commissioners actually appointed to conduct the negotiations. His mission was to be constantly at hand with information and advice, and in every possible way to pour oil on the troubled waters. That the waters were troubled may be judged from the number of anti-union riots which broke out in Edinburgh and elsewhere during the crisis. Defoe himself was specially signalled out for attack in one of these encounters, and "his chamber window was insulted by the mob, and the window below him was broken by mistake." But, by the prudence of his friends, and also, Defoe does not hesitate to add, by the providence of God, he was enabled to escape.

With the instinct of a true tactitian, Defoe quickly discerned that it was not controversy that was required so much as a little judicious and not insincere flattery, if Scottish sentiment was to be conciliated, and a lasting settlement arrived at. .With this object in view, he published, before the close of the year, a small folio volume, entitled Caledonia: A Poem in Honour of Scotland and the Scots Nation. In Three Parts. It is not difficult to detect, in the somewhat turgid rhetoric of this production, a pamphlet in disguise. The avowed aim of the writer was, as the preface stated, "to rescue Scotland from slander in opinion and reproach in the mouths of the partial world, and clear the way to that general character in which Scotland shall in time come behind no nation in Europe, in which she differs only thus, That they obtain a glory they cannot merit, and Scotland merits a glory she has not obtained." The poem is a glowing panegyric on the climatic and other natural advantages of Scotland, with a reminder that these have never been adequately improved, and a hint that they will never be developed as they ought to be, until the Union with England has been accomplished. A few lines will serve to show the character of the poem:

"Britain's Left Hand, which when she shall unite,

As Nature dictates, and the Fates invite,

And joyn her younger Sister on the right

How shall they Mutual Wealth and Strength convey,

And with Contempt the weaker World survey!

TILL THAT BLEST HOUR, how does her Injured Name

Sleep in the Rubbish of her Ancient Fame?

Nature, that well foreknows a Nation's Fate,

Thus fitted Caledonia to be great.

Her various aspects the Design explain,

And circumstances shall resist in vain.

Subject no more to every cross Event,

She shall be Great and Rich, as Nature meant.

Wake, Scotland, from thy long Lethargick Dream;

Seem what thou art, and be what thou shalt seem;

To Land Improvement, and to Trade apply,

They'll plentifully pay thine Industry.

The Barren Muirs shall weighty Sheaves bestow,

Th' Uncultivated Vales, rich Pastures show,

The Mountains Flocks and Herds, instead of snow."

Defoe remained in Scotland till his labours had been crowned with complete success, and he had written, in his History of the Union, an exhaustive and valuable account of the proceedings in which he had played so conspicuous a part. But by January, 1708, the political exigences of the hour and the claims of literary work, as well as, let it be added, the urgent clamour of his creditors, obliged him to hasten back to London. In 1727, he published a fuller account of Scotland in the third volume of his Tour through Great Britain, and returned con amore to his favourite theme of the advantages that would accrue to a too long impoverished country if it would follow the example of its wealthy neighbour, now an acknowledged partner, and busily engage in trade and commerce. It seemed incredible to Defoe that the natural advantages of Kirkcudbright, for example, should be so woefully neglected. "Here is a harbour without ships, a port without trade, a fishery without nets, a people without business; and that which is worse than all, they do not seem to desire business, much less do they understand it. I believe they are very good Christians at Kirkcudbright, for they are in the very letter of it, they obey the text and are contented with such things as they have. They have all the material for trade but no genius to it, all the opportunity for trade but no inclination to it. Though there is an extraordinary salmon fishing, the salmon come and offer themselves and go again, and cannot obtain the privilege of being made useful to mankind... A man might say they have the Indies at their door and will not dip into the wealth of them, a gold mine at their door and will not dig it."

It was no consolation to Defoe that the energies which might have been diverted to trade and commerce were devoted to religion, much though he admired the sobriety and church-going fervours of the nation. "The people in Scotland do not wander about on the Sabbath days as in England; and even those who may have no more religion than enough, yet custom has made it almost natural to them, they all go to church. They have also one very good custom as to their behaviour in church, which I wish were practised here, that after the sermon is over and the blessing given, they all look round upon their friends and especially to persons of distinction and make their civilities and bows as we do here, for, by the way, the Scots do not want manners. But if a person come in when the worship is begun he takes notice of nobody, nor anybody of him; whereas here we make our bows and our cringes in the middle of our very prayers... Conversation is generally sober and grave. I assure you, they have no assemblies here or balls, and, far from what it is in England, you hear no oaths or profane words in the streets."

While in the neighbourhood of Enterkin, Defoe had the good fortune to witness a Cameronian field-preaching. "Here one Mr. John Hepburn preached to an auditory of near 7000 people, all sitting in rows on the steep side of a green hill, and the preacher in a little pulpit made under a tent at the foot of the hill. He held his auditory, with not above an intermission of half an hour, almost seven hours, and many of the poor people had come fifteen or sixteen miles to hear him, and had all the way to go home again on foot. I shall say nothing to it, for my business is not to make remarks on such things. Only this I may add, that if there was an equal zeal to this in our part of the world, and for that worship which we acknowledge to be true and of a sacred institution, our churches would be more thronged and our ale houses and fields less thronged than they are now."

The solemnity of such a scene was much enhanced by the grandeur and weirdness of the setting in which it was placed. Defoe was greatly awed by the Southern Highlands. Even the approach to it was dreadful, and Drumlanrig was "like a fine picture in a dirty grotto, or like an equestrian statue set up in a barn. 'Tis environed with mountains, and that of the wildest and most hideous aspect in all the south of Scotland, as particularly that of Enterkin, the frightfullest pass and most dangerous that I met with." As the traveller crawled breathless along its shelving sides, he ventured to look warily down o'er the precipice beneath and beheld, to his horror, "no less than five horses in several places, lying at the bottom with their skins off, which had by the slipperiness of the snow lost their feet and fallen irrecoverably to the bottom, where the mountaineers who made light of the place had found means to come at them and get heir hides off."

The aspect of the country became much pleasanter as Defoe drew nigh to Glasgow. Strange to say, the district between Paisley and that city seemed to him one of the most delectable in the whole of Scotland. "Take its situation, its fertility, its healthiness, the nearness of Glasgow, the neighbourhood of the sea, and altogether, at least I may say I saw none like it." The Clyde at Glasgow, it seems, could be forded in those days with the greatest ease. "Horses and carts passed it just above the bridge, but the children and boys playing about went everywhere, as if there was no river, only some little spreading brook or wash, like such as we have at Enfield Wash in Middlesex. And, as I told you, we crossed it dry foot, that is, the water was scarce above the horse's hoofs." Glasgow itself Defoe unfeignedly admired as the cleanest, most beautiful and best built city he had seen in Britain, next to London. The zeal of the inhabitants in accumulating wealth by trade may have had something to do with this enthusiasm, and Defoe did not fail to note that Glasgow was already beginning to outdistance its proud eastern rival in this respect. "The merchants of Edinburgh have attempted to trade with the plantations, but they lie so out of the way, and the voyage is not only so much the longer but so much more hazardous, that the Glasgow men are always sure to outdo them and must consequently carry away that part of the trade from them... so that even in the insuring there is one per cent. difference, which is a great article in the business of a merchant." Yet Edinburgh could hold its own in other ways. Its High Street was the "largest, longest and finest street, for buildings and number of inhabitants, not in Britain only but in the world," and although the extreme density of the population and the scarcity of water made the stench intolerable, there was nevertheless a solid and substantial character about the buildings which was wholly commendable. "No blowing of tiles about the streets, to knock people on the head as they pass; no stacks of chimneys and gable ends of houses falling in to bury the inhabitants in their ruins, as we often find it in London."

The Bass Rock in the Firth of Forth was naturally visited by Defoe, but he saw in it only the spot on which the Covenanters had been imprisoned and the last stand made by the supporters of King James, "neither of which articles recommends it to posterity." When he was informed that the solan geese of the island were considered a dainty by the people of the neighbourhood, Defoe only added the sour comment that so were onions and garlic considered delicacies in Egypt, and horses in Tartary. It interested him much more to be told that the district sent white fish by the boatload as far as Bilboa in Spain. Why was there not more of this profitable traffic? Why did not the people industriously develop the resources of their own country? Why did not the gentry show themselves true patriots and, pocketing their pride, apply themselves to merchandize and the exporting of fish, salt, wool to other lands? In the Pentland Firth the shoals of herring were so dense, he discovered, that the proportion was often one third water to two thirds fish. "As to the quantity, I make no scruple to say that if there had been ten thousand ships there to have loaded with them, they might all have been filled and none of them missed. Nor did the fish seem to stay, but passed on to the south that they might supply other parts, and make way also for those innumerable shoals which were to come after." It was represented to Defoe that one insurmountable difficulty lay in the fact that these northern seas were haunted by witches and evil spirits who sucked down mariners in whirlpools and drove their hapless vessels upon sunken rocks. But to all such stories the English visitor opposed a stubborn spirit of scepticism. "Such things I leave to the people who are of the opinion that the devil has such retreats for doing mischief. For my own part I believe him occupied in business of more moment."

Defoe is to be ranked high among Scotland's most ardent admirers and benefactors. By his political services he did much to bring about that Union which has been so prolific of blessings to both countries. He also laboured indefatigably to promote religious tolerance, to moderate the heat of controversy, and to establish settled industry and commercial prosperity throughout the land. And it was largely owing to the success of these endeavours that the Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745 proved so abortive. Defoe consistently maintained that the poverty of Scotland was traceable not to its climate but to its unfortunate history, and he claimed that, given favourable conditions of trade and commerce, its prosperity would advance by leaps and bounds. "They who fancy there is nothing to be had here but wild men and ragged mountains, storms, snows, poverty, and barrenness are quite mistaken, it being a noble country, of a fruitful and healthy air, well seated for trade, full of manufactures by land and a treasure great as the Indies at their door by sea. The poverty of Scotland and the fruitfulness of England, or rather the difference between them, is owing not to mere difference of climate or the nature of the soil, but to the errors of time and their different constitutions. The lands in the north of Scotland are in general better than the lands in Cornwall, which are near six hundred miles south of them. But liberty and trade have made the one rich, and tyranny has made the other poor." Defoe himself did much to remove this stigma. He set over a hundred families to work on the linen industry, and contracted with English merchants for the purchase of Scots salt to the value of 10,000 per annum. Truly could he say, "I have told them of improvements in trade, wealth, and shipping, and am like to be one of the first men that shall give them the pleasure of the experiment." Defoe rendered these services willingly and wholeheartedly because he believed they would be appreciated by a nation which he sincerely loved. "The shrewdness of the Scottish people," writes one of his biographers, "their piety and hospitality, their love of liberty and the purity of the Church, were all congenial to him, and it is not saying too much, that the Scots never had a more sincere friend among the English people."

VII - John Macky (1723)