In the early years of the 18th century, printing in Scotland was in a condition even more depressed and unsatisfactory than in England. Except in Glasgow and Edinburgh the art was almost wholly neglected; and in those two cities the disadvantages at which printers were placed, owing partly to restrictive patents and monopolies, partly to jealousies among themselves, but chiefly to the absence of any letter-foundry in their own country, were sufficient bar to all prosperity, either as an industry or an art.

A graphic sketch of this lamentable state of affairs is given in James Watson's History of Printing, published in Edinburgh in 1713, a work which, while professing to give a general history of the art, derives its chief interest from the brief account of printing in Scotland given in the preface. That the art was derived in that country from Holland the author entertains no doubt, and that it was indebted for its maintenance and any measure of excellence it might claim to the same foreign source, he boldly asserts. It was the intervention of Dutch workmen that mainly contributed to relieve the deadlock into which the monopolies and patents of the 17th century had brought the trade generally, and it was only by a continuous supply of Dutch workmen, Dutch presses, and Dutch type that printing in Scotland was to be raised from its present low condition.