Book contents
4 - Ministry and History, 1750–1759
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 April 2017
Summary
In the 1750s, Robertson's attention moved from Gladsmuir to Edinburgh, a city about to undergo dramatic change, and Robertson was determined to contribute to that change. In 1752, Gilbert Elliot, who would be an important patron for Robertson, published Proposals for Carrying on Certain Public Works in the City of Edinburgh in which he captured the spirit of change at work in the city: he proposed constructing a merchant's exchange; administrative buildings for the town council, law courts, and an advocates’ library; and an extension of the city both to the north and south, giving birth to Edinburgh's New Town. These proposals, made in the spirit of patriotism and the public interest in the wake of the Jacobite Rebellion, sought to develop the strength and prosperity appropriate to Edinburgh's new role in the reaffirmed Union:
If the great objects of war and faction no longer present themselves, may they not find a more humane, and not less interesting exercise of their active powers, in promoting and cultivating the general arts of peace? In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, england was but a forming state, as scotland is now. It was then that the spirit of the english began to exert itself … In a lesser degree, the same disposition begins to discover itself in this country. Building bridges, repairing high-roads, establishing manufactures, forming commercial companies, and opening new veins of trade, are employments which have already thrown a lustre upon some of the first names of this country … [B]ut it is in prosecution of greater objects, that the leading men of a country ought to exert their power and influence. And what greater object can be presented to their view, than that of enlarging, beautifying, and improving the capital of their native country? What can redound more to their honour? What prove more beneficial to scotland, and by consequence to united britain?
To make this vision possible, the national culture had to be enlarged and beautified, and it is here that Robertson and his like-minded colleagues thought they had found their role. For them, the immediate issue was that church institutions had to be strengthened and practices regularized to make them effective parts of a well-ordered state.
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- The Life of William RobertsonMinister, Historian, and Principal, pp. 95 - 128Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2017