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Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
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References
page x note 1 W. Anderson, The Scottish Nation, iii. 411. David Scott was baptized on 27 February 1746 (Parochial Registers, Craig parish, Co. Forfar). See also Warden, A. J., Angus or Forfarshire, iii (1882), 152Google Scholar.
page xi note 1 Robert Scott (1705–80) inherited the parish from his father Patrick (d. 16 Feb. 1731), who bad purchased it about 1680 for £10,000. Robert enclosed the fields with stone walls and introduced a quicker rotation of crops. He was one of the first to use lime which was freely available as manure. He built roads and afforested the waste lands. See A Statistical Account of Scotland, 1792, ii. 497, and Roger, C., A View of Agriculture in the county of Angus (1794), p. 24Google Scholar.
page xi note 2 The name of the House was Scott, Tate and Adamson.
page xi note 3 Louisa Jervis (sister of Mrs., later Lady Elizabeth Sibbald) was the second daughter of William Delagard and widow of Benjamin Jervis. She died 23 March 1803 (Anderson, op. cit., iii. 411.)
page xi note 4 Furber, H., John Company at Work (1948), p. 221Google Scholar.
page xi note 5 See Home Misc. Series, India Office, vols. 614 and 728.
page xi note 6 Scott had very boldly tried in April 1788 to break through the directors' House List, ‘a thing never before achieved.’ He failed by only 70 votes, the narrowness of the margin illustrating his popularity with the Proprietors. London Chronicle, 10 April 1788.
Scott sat for the county throughout the Parliament of 1790–6. His agent at first was Sir David Carnegie. Sir David appears to have taken advantage of Scott and brought about his defeat in 1796, whereupon Scott, with Dundas's support, got himself returned for the Forfar burghs and continued to sit for them until his death in 1805. For details of Scott's interests in Forfarshire politics, see Home Misc. Series, India Office, vols. 728–731 ; also Laing MSS. and Misc. Letters and Documents 1600–1843, in the National Library of Scotland. These include letters from Dundas and Lord Douglas and Alexander Duncan to Scott. See also the pamphlets, A Narrative by D. Scott, and Illustration of the Narrative and Answer to the Narrative (1790), in the National Library of Scotland. Scott had failed to get himself elected at Downton in 1784.
page xii note 1 C. H. Philips, The East India Company, 1784–1834, pp. 76, 303. H. Furber, John Company at Work, chaps, vi–viii.
page xii note 2 Home Misc. Series, India Office, vol. 404: 3 April, 1787.
page xiii note 1 In the Home Public series of the National Archives of India at New Delhi there is recorded the proceedings of a committee set up in Bengal in 1787 to enquire into the causes of the scarcity of silver in Bengal. In addressing the Government the Company's servants on the committee quote The Wealth of Nations in support of their arguments. This document is referred to in Indian Historical Records Commission. A retrospect 1919–1948, p. 75.
page xiii note 2 Cf. Scott on the Company's salt monopoly (Letter 60). Scott built a saltworks at Dunninald to produce 3000 tons yearly in order to help break the salt monopoly in South Scotland. Warden, Angus or Forfarshire, iii. 161.
page xiii note 3 For a detailed analysis of the membership and interests of the Courts of Proprietors and Directors of this period, see Philips, op. cit., especially chaps, i and iv.
page xiii note 4 The period was increased in 1790 to six voyages. 6 John Cochrane's Memorandum on India Trade and Shipping in Home Misc. Series, India Office, vol. 406, fo. 49.
page xiv note 1 In 1795 the shipping directors were Joseph Cotton, William Elphinstone, Stephen Lushington, William Money and Stephen Williams. See C. H. and D. Philips, ‘Alphabetical List of Directors of the East India Company from 1758–1858 ’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, October 1941.
page xv note 1 For a full discussion of the Charter renewal see Philips, op. cit., pp. 72–9.
page xv note 2 For instance, the House of D. Scott & Co. had materially reduced the value of the private trade of the ships' captains by taking up 800 tons of the 3,000 allowed to private traders (Letter No. 26 : Scott to Fairlie, 30 March 1795).
page xv note 3 David Scott junior was born on 25 July 1782 and was only eleven at this time. James Sibbald had served in the company's Bombay service, and had also acted as an agent. He married Elizabeth, sister and co-heiress with Mrs. Scott. Sibbald was created a baronet of the United Kingdom and died issueless on 17 December 1819; the title then passed to David Scott (Junior). See Anderson, op. cit., iii. 411.
page xvi note 1 Payments to the ships' captains began in 1796 and ended in 1804, and in all £355,910 was paid. Select Committee Report IV (1812), p. 440.
page xvi note 2 By 1810, taking into account the 50 per cent rise in the costs of building ships, the Company was paying on the average £18 gs. 8d. a ton less for freight than in 1796 (ibid.).
page xvi note 3 Note, for example, Dundas's appeal for up-to-date information on the Danes in India in January 1801 and Scott's full and prompt reply (Letters 323–4.)
page xviii note 1 As his letters show, Scott looked well after the Forfar burghs and the county. He got repealed an act levying duties on coals carried coastwise which had been a heavy burden on the county folk, and he also financed the building of roads. Statistical Account of Scotland, 1792, ii. 504.
page xviii note 2 Two reports of a Select Committee of the Directors on Private Trade (Home Misc. Series, India Office, vol. 402). See also ‘Reports on India-built ships’, 1809' (India Office Library, Commonwealth Relations Office).
page xix note 1 Rumours had been circulated in 1797 that Scott owned ships concerned in the clandestine trade (Letter 114).
page xix note 2 For a full discussion of this incident see Philips, op. cit., pp. 97–100.
page xix note 3 It is certain that the House of David Scott Junior & Co. had dealings with foreign agency houses and was concerned with the illicit trade—as were all East India agency houses. Scott admitted to Dundas that the House had given Duntzfeld & Co. at Copenhagen more help than was prudent. (Letter 114). See pp. 203–4 and Letter 188.
page xx note 1 Philips, op. cit., pp. 102–4.
page xx note 2 Add. MSS. 37275, fo. 8 (25 January 1800).
page xxi note 1 Add. MSS. 37274, fo. 229 (23 July 1799).
page xxii note 1 Scott resigned the direction altogether in April 1802 (Add. MSS. 37278, fo. 89, 11 May 1802 : J. Bosanquet to Wellesley). See Letter 431.
page xxii note 2 For a detailed treatment of these events, see Philips, op. cit., chap. v.
page xxii note 3 “His remains were interred in the family vault in Mary-le-Bonne burying ground, attended by his relations and most intimate connections and friends ; and conducted with great solemnity, but in the plain, unostentatious manner so consistent with the uniform tenor of his life.” Gentleman's Magazine, lxxv (1805), 978Google Scholar. In his will Scott typically “directed that his body should be opened after death that the seat and cause of his complaint should be ascertained for the benefit of mankind ; which was accordingly done by a very eminent surgeon and anatomist, Mr. Frye of Gloucester, when his disease was found to have been a schirrus in the pylorus.” See also Rogers, C., Scottish Monuments and Tombstones (1872), ii. 208Google Scholar.