Congratulations to The Scotsman at 200 on outgrowing its Whig beginnings
I congratulate The Scotsman on its bicentenary, but must make a comment on the article in your 12 October edition describing Wednesday’s celebration at the Scottish Parliament. You quote your Editor as citing the original Prospectus “in which the founders set out their vision of a politically impartial paper”. What he does not say, however, is that the Prospectus then goes on to support the ideas of the staunch Whig Edmund Burke and refers to “an unfortunate estrangement they [the editors] fear, has taken place between the people and those who hold office over them”. At its outset, then, The Scotsman, despite its vision of politically impartiality, was undoubtedly a Whig-oriented paper.
It was a period of intense political tension between the Tories and the Whigs which was fostered by the publications of the day. Walter Scott, an ardent Tory, wrote that “The Scotsman... professedly attached to the Whig, or Opposition interest, had for some time been established in this city, and the keenness with which it was sought for, and the extensive circulation it had consequently obtained, created so great an alarm in the minds of the leaders of the Tory or Ministerial party, that it was determined in order to avert the consequences dreaded from the uncontrolled circulation of the principles it disseminated, to commence a publication decidedly supporting the other side of the question.”
Scott and some influential Tory friends raised funds to start an opposing, Tory newspaper The Beacon, which lasted only a few months. A more influential Tory publication, Blackwood’s Magazine, was launched in the same year as The Scotsman. Adam Black, the publisher, wrote: “The year 1817 was memorable for Edinburgh as that which saw the birth of the two chief organs of public opinion it has produced after the Edinburgh Review, The Scotsman and Blackwood’s Magazine. Each was hailed by the party it represented as a refreshing novelty and a wholesome power, denounced by the opposite side as an engine of mischief and an offence to all the right minded. The struggle between the dominant but waning [Tories], and the young but growing powers [Whigs]; was gradually reaching a crisis and the passions of the combatants became more intense as it drew near.
“The bitterness of animosity displayed in those days is repulsive now to look back on and difficult to realise.”
Scott also recognised the tensions created by the opposing publications (in which he had been personally involved) and wrote “...there has existed of late a degree of violence which will be slaked, I fear, with nothing but blood. I suspect daily to hear that someone is killd.” His prediction was realised by the killing of Sir Alexander Boswell in a duel resulting from inflammatory newspaper articles. The Scotsman wrote: “We must rejoice at the consequence to which the Scottish political duel must lead, the washing out of the foulest stain that ever disgraced and degraded the periodical literature of a country.”
Mercifully, the newspapers of today adopt a much more moderate approach and The Scotsman is to be congratulated as the only survivor among the publications referred to above. Lang may its lum reek!
JOHN CHALMERS
Canaan Lane, Edinburgh