Thomas Muir: First President of the Scottish Republic

Part 2

The year 1789 saw the outbreak of the French Revolution, and Thomas Muir like so many Britons of a liberal persuasion had great hopes that in time all of Europe's monarchies would follow the course first established in America and become popular democracies. Clubs and societies were born across the country to promote the cause of political reform, and a broad-based movement was established. In Scotland, Thomas Muir helped to draw up a framework for an umbrella organisation to bring these groups together, and in July 1792 the Scottish Association of the Friends of the People was born. On the 21st November, Muir, having been elected Vice-President of the movement at the Edinburgh monthly meeting, called for a General Convention of the corresponding societies of England and Ireland to be held there in December. This development troubled the British government deeply; the Edinburgh General Convention was seen as a direct threat to the established order in Britain. Government spies were directed to penetrate the proceedings, and only days after the Convention closed Thomas Muir among others was arrested on a charge of sedition.

Muir refused to answer the officiating magistrate's questions and was bailed, and then journeyed to London to report on the plight of the Scottish radicals to their colleagues there. It was at this point that word arrived of the planned execution of Louis XVI, and Muir agreed to journey to Paris as part of a delegation aimed at dissuading the French revolutionaries from their course. Arriving too late to prevent the king's death, Thomas Muir was nevertheless welcomed and toasted by the leading members of the Convention. Word of his whereabouts had obviously reached the Scottish Lord Advocate, Robert Dundas, for Dundas now forwarded the date for Muir's trial by two months, making a timely appearance impossible for him. On his return to Scotland he was arrested at once, and became the principal victim of a series of show trials in Edinburgh that became notorious examples of the political abuse of the judicial process.

Before the Scottish version of Judge Jeffries, the cynical Lord Braxfield, and a carefully chosen jury of fervid anti-reformers (their selection was possible under Scots law), the outcome of the trials were never in doubt. Muir's crime was that he had dared to suggest that there might be ways to improve the British system of government, namely by widening the franchise to include men of less privileged classes than Braxfield's own. Muir's eloquent and thoroughly convincing defence was dismissed, and he was sentenced, with others, to fourteen years deportation to New Holland, virtually a death sentence at that time.

To be continued.

Thomas Muir, First President of the Scottish Republic

The title of this article is mischievous, as of course Scotland did not become a republic. Yet the story of the man whom many Scots hoped would become their first president is one worth telling in reasonable depth. This blog will feature a series of articles on this over successive days.

Thomas Muir was born in Glasgow in 1765, the only son of a successful merchant. He was afforded the best education that was available, and after matriculating at Glasgow University at the age of twelve he took up a study of Divinity. He graduated M.A. in 1782 aged seventeen, and subsequently came under the influence of John Millar of Millheugh, Professor of Civil Law. The next year, abandoning Divinity, he was accepted as a student in Millar's classes on Law and Government.

John Millar deserves far wider fame today than he enjoys. A pupil of Adam Smith, David Hume and Lord Kames, he was regarded in his day as Scotland's supreme public lecturer, and this in an age where Scotland did not lack men of genius. In politics Millar was a Republican Whig and one of the most scathing critics of the so-called ‘benevolent despotism’ of Henry Dundas. His profound influence on the young Thomas Muir is quite evident.

The young Muir's fiery democratic leanings first came to notice in 1784, when Muir excluded himself from the University on principle, over the mistreatment of an esteemed member of staff.

At the beginning of the new academic year, Muir with the assistance of Professor Millar, obtained a place at Edinburgh University under the Whig Professor of Law, John Wylde. Here he completed his studies and having passed his Bar examinations was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in 1787 at the age of 22.

After championing his local congregation in Cadder, who resented the efforts of the local landowner to install his own choice of minister, Muir acquired a reputation as a 'man of the people' a man of principle who would willing adopt the cause of the underdog against the powerful elites in Scotland, especially those within government.

To be continued.

London Debating Societies in the 1790s

Of the popular societies that government repressed in the 1790s, the public debating societies in London are probably the least known although some of them had been meeting without interruption for over fifty years. Since these societies admitted all who paid the weekly entrance fee and allowed anyone to stand up and speak, they were quite different from the private, limited debating clubs where new members had to be approved and where the speeches were often prepared orations. Because of their size, the public debating societies attracted men who wanted to practise speaking before a large audience. Burke is said to have gained his first experience in public speaking at one of these debating societies. Pitt not only spoke at them; he helped found one. Boswell and Goldsmith attended them. Most of the speakers and auditors, however, were men of a lower class; and in the 1790s in reaction to the French Revolution, these societies were repressed. Although they constitute a significant social phenomenon, their history has not been traced, as has that of the London Corresponding Society (LCS) or the United Irishmen (UI). In a sense the debating societies form an adjunct to, and complement the history of the declared reform societies of the 1790s: Members of the Corresponding Society might go from their meeting to a debating society in order to hear an LCS member speak. The few known managers of debating societies were also prominent members of the LCS or the UI or both, and when a political topic was debated, most of the speakers would take a reformist position.

London Debating Societies in the 1790s

Mary Thale (1989).

The Historical Journal, Volume 32,

Issue 01, March 1989 pp 57-86

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?aid=3336060

Pitt's repressive legislation, 1793-1800

Pitt's government introduced several Acts of Parliament in this period which show how seriously matters of national security had become, and also how real the threat of insurrection was.

The 1793 Aliens Act required foreigners entering Britain to register with customs officials. It also stopped the exchange of visitors and speakers. However, it did allow émigrés to travel freely. This Act was the first to introduce a suspension of Habeus Corpus, albeit only with application to 'foreign persons'.

In 1794 the suspension of Habeus Corpus allowed the arrest and imprisonment of persons 'on suspicion' without requiring charges or a trial. Local JPs were ordered to investigate leaders of the Corresponding Societies, and if there was evidence against them, to prosecute. JPs were very active because they represented the landed interest, and feared for their lives and property in the event of a revolution. There were many trials and imprisonments. This extreme legislation was unprecedented in British history.

The 1795 Treasonable Practices Act appeared to be a vicious attack on personal liberties. It extended the definition of 'treason' to include speaking and writing, even if no action followed. It attacked public meetings, clubs, and the publication of pamphlets, for example. Tom Paine had been outlawed; his writings were deemed to be treasonable and were blacked. Paine was in France at this time. It became treasonable to bring the king or his government into contempt.

The 1795 Seditious Meetings Act said that any public meeting of more than 50 persons had to be authorised by a magistrate. JPs had the discretionary power to disperse any public meeting.

In 1797 taxes on printed matter were vastly increased, to price cheap periodicals off the market. This legislation merely created an 'underground' press.

In 1799 and 1800 the Combination Acts were passed. These laws forbade societies or amalgamations of persons for the purpose of political reform. Interference with commerce and trade became illegal. The penalty for breaking these laws was 3 months in gaol. Pitt passed the Combination Acts because trade clubs and societies had effectively demanded wage rises to keep pace with inflation. The government saw wage claims as a clear sign of disaffection. The Combination Acts introduced no new principle into law because unlawful combinations were already unlawful. These Combination Acts offered faster application of the law. They provided for summary trial before a JP instead of awaiting the Assize. The new laws were not widely used because existing, older laws were much more severe, providing a sentence of 7 years transportation.

The Nor' Loch

Immediately to the north of Edinburgh Castle today is a shallow depression filled with park space known as Princes Street Gardens. Today it is a popular tourist venue, and on sunny days local shop and office workers will join them to enjoy ice cream or latte coffees whilst admiring the lofty Castle above. If you do this however, be prepared for a loud bang at 1pm! To the east of the Gardens is Waverley Station, Edinburgh's main railway station, named after Sir Walter Scott's novels of that name. Indeed, a huge gothic memorial to that writer in the same area is one of the city's best-known landmarks.

Originally this area was marshland, part of the natural defences of the Castle from time immemorial. During the reign of James III the king ordered the area to be flooded in order to strengthen the defences. The resulting loch was in existence up until the mid 18th century, when it was drained, at first partially and then in the 1780s completely, as part of the scheme to expand the town northward of its natural limitations.

The loch could never have been very deep and must have suffered from the close proximity of the Old Town above, which lacked any sanitation worth mentioning; the effluvia that must have run down into the Nor' Loch from that densely populated area over the centuries can well be imagined. This did not prevent local taverns from proudly advertising the availability of Nor' Loch eels and "troots"!

For many years after being drained, the Nor' Loch showed distinct signs of wishing to return. After heavy rainfall the area was liable to become very marshy, and at first sheep and cattle were grazed here, probably as a prelude to slaughter in the adjacent Fleshmarket. With the coming of the railways, the area was more thoroughly engineered to allow the line to Glasgow direct access into the city.

The First Modern Terrorist

Most people with even a passing interest in 18th century history will be aware that it was a time of tremendous social and economic change. You may even remember some of the unutterably dull lessons on the Industrial Revolution you endured at school, telling the story of how Britain began its move from a rural/agricultural economy towards an urban/industrial base.

However, if Britain was taking the world lead in economic reform, the same could not be said of its political sphere. Indeed the political wonder of the 18th century, the United States of America, came about directly because of Britain's inability to reform itself in line with current political thinking and the expectations of an increasingly literate population at home and abroad. The writings of the French philosophes, whose egalitarian notions of basic human rights inspired American aspirations in the 1770s, found a very mixed reception in Britain. Yet the American Revolutionary War did have its supporters there, and among them was one Scotsman who became notorious for his solo sabotage attacks upon the Royal Navy.

For a full account of this individual's one man war upon England's dockyards, you should read Jessica Warner's book John the Painter : the first modern terrorist. In brief, John Aitken was an Edinburgh-born painter who used his knowledge of the chemicals available to him to create incendiary devices with which to attack the naval dockyards. John struggled to prosper in early life and took to crime and an unsettled life, moving from Scotland to London before eventually travelling to Virginia as an indentured servant. John ran from his employer there and made his way back to Britain, but again felt obliged to live by his wits and his light fingers. His scheme to attack the naval dockyards seems to have been born out of an overheard conversation in a tavern, to the effect that the dockyards were essential to the Royal Navy and therefore to the war against the colonies. It seems however that John was no political idealist; his motives seemed to be more personal. He resented the way he had been persistently rejected and mistreated by his own country, and he desired revenge of a most public nature. He dreamed of "accomplishing some great achievement" to make his mark upon a society that considered him of no account.

In how many more recent cases of terrorism are the motives similar? That would make a most interesting study. Yet without going very deeply into the matter, a number of 'social misfit' assassins come to mind, and it is perhaps a mistake to invariably credit those people we identify as terrorists as political extremists; it may be that in some cases other factors are the true motivators.

John Aitken began his campaign of arson at Portsmouth and Bristol, and he found security at the dockyards very lax. He started a major fire at the Portsmouth rope-walk and within a short space of time had the authorities desperately hunting for a gang of saboteurs. Yet John's striking success as an arsonist was short-lived. The King offered a reward of £1,000 for the arrest of the persons responsible, and John could not resist bragging about his activities. He was soon arrested and on 10th March 1777 he was hung on a 60ft scaffold, a ship's mizzenmast, at Portsmouth in front of 20,000 people. His body was gibbeted in an iron cage and remained swinging there for many years as a warning to all who contemplated such crimes.

I recommend Jessica Warner's book very highly. Not only are the events of the story described and analysed in detail, but the author's insights into the social and political life of the period are most acute.