Defoe spent sixteen months in Scotland on this occasion, rendering much modest good service to the country, and receiving for it little remuneration besides abuse. Amongst other fruits of his industry during the period is his laborious work, |1706.| The History of the Union of Great Britain. One could have wished a record tracing the daily life of this remarkable man in Scotland. “We only get an obscure idea of some of his public transactions. One of the few private particulars we have learned, is that he paid a visit to the Duke of Queensberry at Drumlanrig, and by his Grace’s desire, took a view of his estates, with a view to the suggestion of improvements.
Defoe revisited Scotland in the summer of 1708, on a mission the purpose of which has not been ascertained; and again in the summer of 1709. His stay on the last occasion extended to nearly two years, during part of which time, in addition to constant supplies of articles for his Review in London, he acted as editor of the Edinburgh Courant newspaper.[[382]] (See the next article).
1707. Mar. 6.
In a folio published this day by Captain James Donaldson, under the title of the Edinburgh Courant Reviewed, we learn that the Edinburgh Gazette, which, as we have seen, was commenced in 1699, had now succumbed to fate: damaged by the persevering policy of Adam Boig of the Courant, the Gazette ‘of late has been laid aside, as a thing that cannot be profitably carried on.’
Donaldson here reviews the charges made against his paper, as to partiality and staleness of news, defends it to some extent, but practically admits the latter fault, by stating that he was about to remedy it. He was going to recommence the Edinburgh Gazette in a new series, in which he would ‘take a little more liberty, and give stories as they come,’ without waiting, as before, for their authentication, though taking care where they were doubtful to intimate as much. The Gazette did, accordingly, resume its existence on the 25th of the same month, as a twice-a-week paper. The first number contains three advertisements, one of a sale of house-property, another of the wares of the Leith glass-work, and a third as follows: ‘There is a gentleman in town, who has an secret which was imparted to him by his father, an eminent physician in this kingdom, which by the blessing of God cures the Phrensie and Convulsion Fits. He takes no reward for his pains till the cure be perfyted. He will be found at the Caledonian Coffee-house.’
In a series of the Gazette extending from the commencement to the 140th number, published on the 2d September 1708, there is a remarkable sterility of home-news, and anything that is |1707.| told is told, in a dry and sententious way. The following alone seem worthy of transcription:
‘Leith, May 19 [1707].—Last Saturday, about 50 merchant-ships, bound for Holland, sailed from our Road, under convoy of two Dutch men-of-war.’
‘Edinburgh, August 5.—This day the Equivalent Money came in here from South Britain, in thirteen waggons drawn by six horses.’
Sep. 30.—‘Dyer’s Letter says: Daniel de Foe is believed by this time in the hands of justice at the complaint of the Swedish minister, and now a certain man of law may have an opportunity to reckon with him for a crime which made him trip to Scotland, and make him oblige the world with another Hymn to the Pillory.’
Strange to say, less than three years after this date, namely, in February 1710, the ‘unabashed Defoe’ was conducting the rival newspaper in Edinburgh—the Courant—succeeding in this office Adam Boig, who had died in the preceding month. The authority of Defoe for his editorship appears in the following decree of the Town Council: