The transoceanic operations of Scottish and Ulster Scottish commercial networks in the eighteenth century can be viewed as enlightened as well as exploitive entrepreneurship. At the same time, the participation of Scots in Empire has become a distinctive intellectual inquiry that has been rooted in demographic studies, but has also scrutinized the movement of goods and ideas as well as people. However, major questions remain about the extent and impact of Scots engaging with Empire after the Treaty of Union in 1707. Much can be made of Scottish achievements as tobacco lords in the American South, as sugar barons in the Caribbean, as African slavers, as Indian nabobs or as military and naval officers. Yet elite Scots also bought into Empire indirectly through the acquisition of stocks and shares in companies venturing to the East Indies, West Africa and the South Seas; they likewise acquired government bonds and even lottery tickets. Global adventuring was not always lucrative, however, and was attended with high personal and financial risks.

The capacity of Scots to grasp opportunities opened up after 1707 in Asia, Africa and the Americas built upon the global aspirations of Scottish entrepreneurs before Union; aspirations that were sustained despite discriminatory trading measures promulgated by the English Parliament and despite the failure of the Scots to develop Darien on the Panama Isthmus as a transoceanic entrepôt in the 1690s.