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DEMPSTER, GEORGE, of
Dunnichen, (an estate near Dundee, which his grandfather, a merchant in
that town, had acquired in trade), was born about the year 1735. He was
educated at the grammar school of Dundee, and the university of St
Andrews; after which he repaired to Edinburgh, where in 1755 he became a
member of the faculty of advocates. Possessed of an ample fortune, and
being of a social disposition, Mr Dempster entered eagerly into all the
gayeties of the metropolis; and at the same time he cultivated the
friendship of a group of young men conspicuous for their talents, and some
of whom afterwards attained to eminence. In the number were William
Robertson and David Hume, the future historians. Mr Dempster became a
member of the "Poker Club" instituted by the celebrated
Dr Adam Ferguson, which met in a house near the Nether-bow, and had for
its object harmless conviviality: but a society which included David Hume,
William Robertson, John Home (the author of ‘Douglas’), Alexander
Carlyle, and George Dempster, must necessarily have conduced to the
intellectual improvement of its members. It was succeeded, in the year
1756, by the "Select Society," a much more extensive
association, consisting of most of the men of talent, rank, and learning
in Scotland. The object of this society was the advancement of literature
and the promotion of the study and speaking of the English language in
Scotland, and Dempster was one of the ordinary directors. A list of the
members of this society will be found in the appendix to professor Dugald
Stewart’s life of Dr Robertson.
After travelling some time
on the continent, Mr Dempster returned to Scotland, and practised for a
short while at the bar. But, abandoning that profession early in life, he
turned his attention to politics, and stood candidate for the Fife and
Forfar district of burghs. His contest was a very arduous one, and cost
him upwards of £10,000; but it was successful, for he was returned member
to the twelfth parliament of Great Britain, which met on the 25th
November, 1762. He entered the house of commons as an independent member
unshackled by party. In the year 1765, he obtained the patent office of
secretary to the Scottish order of the Thistle, an office more honourable
than lucrative; and it was the only reward which he either sought or
procured for twenty-eight years of faithful service in parliament. Mr
Dempster was decidedly opposed to the contest with the American colonies,
which ended in their independence; and concurred with Mr Pitt and Mr Fox,
in maintaining, that taxes could not be constitutionally imposed without
representation. He did not, however, enter into any factious opposition to
the ministry during the continuance of the first American war; but on its
conclusion he was strenuous in his endeavours to obtain an immediate
reduction of the military establishment, and the abolition of sinecure
places and pensions. He joined Mr Pitt, when that great statesman came
into power, and supported him in his financial plans, particularly in the
establishment of the sinking fund. Mr Dempster had directed much of his
attention to the improvement of our national commerce and manufactures,
which he desired to see freed from all restraint. But the object to which
at this time and for many years afterwards he seems to have directed his
chief attention, was the encouragement of the Scottish fisheries. This had
been a favourite project with the people of Scotland, ever since the time
when the duke of York, afterwards James II. patronized and became a
subscriber to a company formed expressly for the purpose. At length Mr
Dempster succeeded in rousing the British parliament to a due appreciation
of the national benefits to be derived from the encouragement of the
fisheries on the northern shores, and was allowed to nominate the
committee for reporting to the house the best means of carrying his plans
into execution.
About this period, Mr
Dempster was elected one of the East India Company’s directors. It is
believed that his election took place in opposition to the prevailing
interest in the directory; and certainly his mistaken notions on the
subject of oriental politics must have rendered him an inefficient member
of that court. Misled by the commercial origin of the corporation, he
would have had the company, after it had arrived at great political
influence, and had acquired extensive territorial possessions in India, to
resign its sovereign power and to confine itself to its mercantile
speculations. The policy of relinquishing territorial dominion in India,
has long been a cry got up for party purposes; but it seems very
extraordinary that Dempster, controlled by no such influence, should have
so violently opposed himself to the true interest of the country. The
error into which he fell is now obvious; he wished to maintain an
individual monopoly, when the great wealth of the country rendered it no
longer necessary, while he proposed to destroy our sway over India, when
it might be made the means of defending and extending our commerce.
Finding himself unable to alter our Indian policy, he withdrew from the
directory and became a violent parliamentary opponent of the company. He
supported Mr Fox’s India bill, a measure designed chiefly for the
purpose of consolidating a whig administration; and on one occasion he
declared, that "all chartered rights should be held inviolable,—those
derived from one charter only excepted. That is the sole and single
charter which ought in my mind to be destroyed, for the sake of the
country, for the sake of India, and for the sake of humanity."—"I
for my part lament, that the navigation to India had ever been discovered,
and I now conjure ministers to abandon all ideas of sovereignty in that
quarter of the world: for it would be wiser to make some one of the native
princes king of the country, and leave India to itself."
In 1785, Mr Dempster gave
his support to the Grenville act, by which provision was made
for the decision of contested elections by committees chosen by ballot. On
the regency question of 1788-9, he was opposed to ministry; declaring that
an executive so constituted would "resemble nothing that ever was
conceived before; an un-whig, un-tory, odd, awkward, anomalous
monster."
In the year 1790, Mr
Dempster retired from parliamentary duties. Whether this was owing to his
own inclination, or forced upon him by the superior influence of the
Athole family, a branch of which succeeded him in the representation of
his district of burghs, seems doubtful. He now devoted his undivided
attention to the advancement of the interests of his native country. It
was chiefly through his means that an act of Parliament had been obtained,
affording protection and giving bounties to the fisheries in Scotland; and
that a joint stock company had been formed for their prosecution. In the
year 1788, he had been elected one of the directors of this association,
and on that occasion he delivered a powerful speech to the members, in
which he gave historical account of the proceedings for extending the
fisheries on the coasts of Great Britain. He then showed them that the
encouragement of the fisheries was intimately connected with the
improvement of the Highlands; and in this manner, by his zeal and activity
in the cause, Mr Dempster succeeded in engaging the people of Scotland to
the enthusiastic prosecution of this undertaking. The stock raised, or
expected to be raised, by voluntary contribution, was estimated at
£150,000. Even from India considerable aid was supplied by the Scotsmen
resident in that country. The company purchased large tracts of land at
Tobermory in Mull, on Loch-Broom in Ross-shire, and on Loch-Bay and Loch-Folliart
in the isle of Sky; at all of these stations they built harbours or quays
and erected storehouses. Every thing bore a promising aspect, when the war
of 1793 with France broke out, and involved the project in ruin. The price
of their stock fell rapidly, and many became severe sufferers by the
depreciation. Still, however, although the undertaking proved disastrous
to the shareholders, yet the country at large is deeply indebted to Mr
Dempster for the great national benefit which has since accrued from the
parliamentary encouragement given to our fisheries.
In farther prosecution of
his patriotic designs, Mr Dempster attempted to establish a manufacturing
village at Skibo, on the coast of Caithness; but the local disadvantages,
in spite of the cheapness of labour and provisions, were insuperable
obstacles to its prosperity; and the consequence was, that he not only
involved himself, but his brother also, in heavy pecuniary loss, without
conferring any lasting benefit on the district.
On the close of his
parliamentary career, Mr Dempster had discontinued his practice of passing
the winter in London, and spent his time partly at his seat of Dunnichen,
and partly in St Andrews. In that ancient city he enjoyed the society of
his old friend Dr Adam Ferguson, and of the learned professors of the
university; and we have a pleasing picture of the happy serenity in which
this excellent and truly patriotic statesman passed the evening of his
life, in the fact that he was in use to send round a vehicle, which he
facetiously denominated ""the route coach," in order
to convey some old ladies to his house, who, like himself, excelled in the
game of whist, an amusement in which he took singular pleasure. His time
while at Dunnichen was more usefully employed. When Mr Dempster first
directed his attention to the improvement of his estate, the tenantry in
the north of Scotland were still subject to many of the worst evils of the
feudal system. "I found," he says (speaking of the condition of
his own farmers), "my few tenants without leases, subject to the
blacksmith of the barony; thirled to its mills; wedded to the wretched
system of out-field and in; bound to pay kain and to perform personal
services; clothed in hodden, and lodged in hovels." The
Highland proprietors, instead of attempting to improve the condition of
their farmers and peasantry, were driving them into exile, converting the
cultivated lands on their estates into pasturage, and supplying the place
of their tenantry with black cattle. Mr Dempster, in order to find
employment for the population thus cruelly driven from their native
country, became more strenuous in his endeavours for the encouragement of
our fisheries; while, in the course he pursued on his own estate, he held
out a praise-worthy example to the neighbouring proprietors, of the mode
which they ought to pursue in the improvement of their estates. He granted
long leases to his tenants, and freed them from all personal services or
unnecessary restrictions in the cultivation of their grounds; he inclosed
and drained his lands; he built the neat village of Letham; he drained and
improved the loch or moss of Dunnichen, and the peat bog of Restennet, by
which he added greatly to the extent and value of his property, and
rendered the air more salubrious. And having ascertained by experiments
that his land abounded in marl, he immediately rendered the discovery
available; in so much, it is estimated, that he acquired a quantity of
that valuable manure of the value of 14,000 pounds. But nothing can prove
more encouraging to the patriotic endeavours of proprietors for the
promotion of agriculture and the improvement of their estates, than the
following letter, addressed by Mr Dempster to the editor of the Farmer’s
Magazine—a work which had been dedicated to himself:
"Sir,—How much
depends upon mankind thinking soundly and wisely on agricultural topics,
which, in point of extent, surpass all others, and which may be said to
embrace the whole surface of the globe we inhabit! I would still be more
lavish in my commendation of your design, were it not that I should
thereby indirectly make a panegyric on myself. For these last forty years
of my life, I have acted in the management of my little rural concerns on
the principles you so strenuously inculcate. I found my few tenants
without leases, subject to the blacksmith of the barony; thirled to its
mills; wedded to the wretched system of out-field and in: bound to pay
kain, and to perform personal services; clothed in hodden, and lodged in
hovels. You have enriched the magazine with the result of your farming
excursions. Pray, direct one of them to the county I write from; peep in
upon Dunnichen, and if you find one of the evils I have enumerated
existing; if you can trace a question, at my instance, in a court of law,
with any tenant as to how he labours his farm; or find one of them not
secured by a lease of nineteen years at least, and his life,— the barony
shall be yours You will find me engaged in a controversy of the most
amiable kind with lord Carrington, defending the freedom of the English
tenants from the foolish restrictions with which their industry is
shackled; prohibitions to break up meadow land, to sow flax, to plant
tobacco, &c., all imposed by foolish fears, or by ignorance; and
confirmed by the selfish views of land stewards, who naturally wish the
dependence of farmers on their will and pleasure. God knows, Scotland is
physically barren enough, situated in a high latitude, composed of ridges
of high mountains; yet, in my opinion, moral causes contribute still more
to its sterility.
"I urge the zealous
prosecution of your labours, as a general change of system and sentiment
is only to be effected slowly; your maxims are destined, first, to revolt
mankind, and, long after, to reform them. There never was a less
successful apostle than I have been. In a mission of forty years, I cannot
boast of one convert. I still find the tenants of my nearest neighbours
and best friends, cutting down the laird’s corn, while their own crops
are imperiously calling for their sickles. I am much pleased with the
rotations you suggest; and as those topics are very favourite ones with
me, they occupy no small portion of my leisure moments.
"The Highland Society’s
being silent on the subject of the emigration of the Highlanders, who are
gone, going, and preparing to go in whole clans, can only be accounted for
by those who are more intimately acquainted with the state of the
Highlands than I pretend to be. One would think the society were disciples
of Pinkerton, who says, the best thing we could do, would be to get rid
entirely of the Celtic tribe, and people their country with inhabitants
from the low country. How little does he know the valour, the frugality,
the industry of those inestimable people, or their attachment to their
friends and country! I would not give a little Highland child for ten of
the highest Highland mountains in all Lochaber. With proper encouragement
to its present inhabitants, the next century might see the highlands of
Scotland cultivated to its summits, like Wales or Switzerland; its valleys
teeming with soldiers for our army, its bays, lakes, and friths with
seamen for our navy.
"At the height of four
hundred feet above the level of the sea, and ten miles removed from it, I
dare not venture on spring wheat, but I have had one advantage from my
elevation; my autumn wheat has been covered with snow most of the winter,
through which its green shoots peep very prettily. I have sometimes
believed that this hardy grain is better calculated for our cold climate
than is generally thought, if sown on well cleaned and dunged land, very
early, perhaps by the end of September, so as to be in ear when we get our
short scorch of heat from 15th July to 15th August, and to profit by it.
"I was pleased with
your recommending married farm servants. I don’t value mine a rush till
they marry the lass they like. On my farm of 120 acres, I can show such a
crop of thriving human stock as delights me. From five to seven years of
age, they gather my potatoes at 1d, 2d, and 3d per day, and the sight of
such a joyous busy field of industrious happy creatures revives my old
age. Our dairy fattens them like pigs; our cupboard is their apothecary’s
shop; and the old casten clothes of the family, by the industry of their
mothers, look like birthday suits on them. Some of them attend the groom
to water his horses; some the carpenter’s shop, and all go to the parish
school in the winter time, whenever they can crawl the length."
There is something
extremely delightful in the complacency with which the good old man thus
views the improvements he had wrought on his estate, and the happiness he
had diffused among those around him.
After having enjoyed much
good health, and a cheerful old age, until his last illness, Mr Dempster
died on the 13th of February, 1818, in the 84th year of his age. We cannot
more appropriately finish our imperfect sketch of this good and able
patriot, than by subjoining an extract from one of his letters to his
friend Sir John Sinclair—"I was lately on my death-bed, and no
retrospect afforded me more satisfaction than that of having made some
scores—hundreds of poor Highlanders happy, and put them in the way of
being rich themselves, and of enriching the future lairds of Skibo and
Portrossie. —Dunnichen, 2nd Nov. 1807."
DEMPSTER, George (1732-1818), of Dunnichen,
Forfar.
Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1754-1790,
ed. L. Namier, J. Brooke., 1964. Available from Boydell and Brewer
Family and Education
b. 8 Dec. 1732, 1st of John Dempster of Dunnichen, Dundee merchant, by
his 1st w. Isobel Ogilvie. educ. Dundee g.s., Leuchars; St. Andrews
Univ.; Edinburgh Univ.; Academie Royale, Brussels; adv. 1755. m. 24
Sept. 1774, Rose, da. of Richard Heming of Jamaica, s.p. suc. fa. 3 Nov.
1754.
Offices Held
Sec. to the Order of the Thistle Aug. 1765- d.; director, E.I. Co. 1769,
1772-3.
Biography
Dempster inherited some 6,000 acres in Forfarshire (worth £769 p.a.) and
a considerable fortune, founded by his grandfather, a grain merchant. He
began the Grand Tour with his life-long friend Adam Fergusson but,
summoned home by family affairs, returned to Edinburgh to practise law.
An attractive, humorous young man, of vigorous mind, much influenced by
Hume, Rousseau and Montesquieu, Dempster was a member of the Select
Society, an independent Whig, rating ‘intrinsic merit’ high above rank
or wealth, a ‘true blue Scot’, dedicated to the encouragement of
agriculture, industry and the arts, and to the establishment of a
Scottish militia.
In 1761 Dempster stood for Perth Burghs, and, after a contest which
severely strained his finances, defeated Thomas Leslie, Newcastle’s
candidate. He at once made his mark in the House when on 13 Nov., in the
debate on the Address, he spoke ‘with an assurance that for its
unexampled novelty gave great entertainment ... pleaded the extension of
the militia to Scotland ... censured the German war ... and condemned
faction’. Lord George Sackville wrote:
A new Scotch Member, a Mr. Dempster, showed a strong desire of speaking
and seems to have abilities sufficient to make him an object. In short,
he promises well, and though he diverted the House by a becoming
ignorance of its forms, yet he proved that he neither wanted language,
manner, nor matter.
Dempster was now approached by Sir Harry Erskine, who wrote to Bute, 28
Nov. 1761:
After showing him the necessity of attaching himself to some person or
body of men, and entering on your Lordship’s character, I asked him if
he had made any connexion with any other person ... he declared he had
not. I advised him if he meant to attach himself to you to tell you so
... he said he chose to do it in writing ... as an evidence to produce
against him if he should act contrary to his professions.
Having affirmed his adherence Dempster, hostile to Pitt, on 11 Dec.
attacked Beckford’s motion for Spanish papers as ‘foolish and factious’.
When, through the illness of Gilbert Elliot, the promised motion for a
Scottish militia was delayed, Dempster was prepared to move for it
himself. ‘One ought to squeak when his toes are trod on’, he wrote to
Alexander Carlyle on 20 Jan. 1762. Exasperated when, on Bute’s advice,
the scheme was dropped, he intervened in the English militia debate of
18 Mar. to accuse defecting counties of cowardice. Dempster soon became
restive in the Government camp and at variance with most of his Scots
colleagues. His breach with Bute’s friends became complete when on 9 and
10 Dec. he spoke and voted against the peace.
He was not, however, engrossed in politics; he collaborated with Boswell
and Andrew Erskine in a critique of a play by Mallet; became active with
his friends the Johnstones in East India Company affairs; and in summer
1763 founded the first Dundee bank, ‘George Dempster Co.’ As a patriotic
Scot he resented Wilkes’s attacks in the North Briton, and voted 15 Nov.
1763 against him; but, opposed in principle to general warrants, in
February 1764 spoke and voted against Administration. Yet Dempster was
still essentially unconnected; in May Newcastle listed him and
‘doubtful’, in June Robert Nugent sought to secure him for Grenville. On
9 Jan. 1765 he attended the Cockpit meeting to hear the speech and
address, but on 6 Feb. spoke and voted against the Stamp Act. During the
Regency bill debates Dempster on 9 May eulogized the King, deferring to
his judgment in the selection of a Regent; but on 11 May he supported
Pryse Campbell’s motion against any female regent’s marrying a Catholic.
Under the Rockingham Administration Dempster accepted the office of
secretary to the Thistle, though he had ‘neither the head nor heart of a
truly ambitious man’. He spoke and voted for the repeal of the Stamp Act
and, according to Boswell, acquired ‘a real ministerial look’.
On Rockingham’s fall he expressed to Adam Fergusson his distrust of the
new Administration under Chatham, whose wartime extravagance he had
always deplored:
Pitt is now sovereign arbiter ... His object from the first moment of
his former resignation was to attain this perch of power ... I myself
believe he will not pay off our debts ... will not help the constitution
and ... will break his neck upon the backstairs.
When invited by Conway to attend the pre-Parliament meeting to hear the
King’s speech, Dempster sought direction from Rockingham:
It will give me pleasure to regulate my parliamentary conduct in
whatever shape is agreeable to you. Let me say even more pleasure now
than when your Lordship was at the head of the Treasury. While in that
situation the strongest declarations of attachment might admit of a
double construction; at present your Lordship will not think I flatter
when I express my very high esteem both of your public and private
conduct.
Dempster therefore followed the Rockinghams into opposition and voted
with them on the land tax, 27 Feb. 1767. Having opposed Beckford’s
motion in December 1766 for a parliamentary inquiry into East India
Company affairs, Dempster in the court of proprietors on 12 Mar. 1767
followed Laurence Sulivan in objecting to the terms negotiated by the
directors for the renewal of the charter: ‘a letting the Government into
a partnership with the Company would soon end in the absolute dependency
and ruin of the latter’. On 6 May he was a leader of the proprietors who
in defiance of both ministry and the direction increased the dividend to
12%.
Dempster’s alliance with Sulivan and the Johnstones in the East India
Company incurred the hostility of the Clive party, who now sent Robert
Mackintosh to oppose him in his burghs. During the campaign Dempster was
arrested for bribery, but on his plea of parliamentary privilege the
case was adjourned. He returned to Parliament, voted with Opposition on
nullum tempus, 17 Feb. 1768, but, with a criminal prosecution pending
against him, withdrew his candidature in favour of his friend William (Johnstone)
Pulteney, who was returned. Pulteney was also successful in Cromarty,
for which he elected to sit, and Dempster, when the case against him had
been dismissed, was returned again for his burghs. The campaign and
litigation had cost him over £10,000; he was obliged to sell all his
estates except Dunnichen and thereafter was justly reckoned poor. In
April 1769 the Sulivan party secured his election to the direction of
the East India Company.
Faithful to the Rockinghams in opposition, he voted with them on the
Middlesex election, 8 May 1769, and in November, when Sulivan went over
to Administration, scotched rumours that he would follow suit. Burke
wrote to Rockingham, 9 Nov. 1769:
Dempster thought as I do about Sulivan’s coalition. He told me that it
should make no difference in his line in India House; that there he
would stand as firmly by him as he would continue to oppose his new
friends in Parliament. That his political connexion was with your
Lordship and would always be so; but that if Mr. Sulivan should find
that course of conduct prejudicial to his interests in Leadenhall
Street, that he would at an hour’s notice disqualify for the
directorship. This was what I expected from Dempster ... not to
sacrifice one duty to another; but to keep both if possible—if not, to
put it out of his power to violate the principal.
Under North’s Administration Dempster maintained his reputation for
candour in opposition; strongly protested on 7 Dec. 1770 against the
recruitment of German and Irish Catholic troops, advocating compulsory
service, if necessary, and the creation of a Scottish militia; he was
equally emphatic in the debates of 19 Feb. and 4 Mar. 1771 against the
plan to raise German and Irish regiments for the service of the East
India Company ‘as increasing the influence of the Crown and creating a
new standing army of foreigners’.
During the debates on the printers’ case in March 1771 he censured the
Commons’ ‘avidity for prosecution’ as below the dignity of Parliament:
‘I see a new scene opened that affects the liberty of the press ... I do
not like to see people so passionately fond of privilege’; and he
contended that the public had a right to printed reports of
parliamentary proceedings. In the heated debates over the conduct of
Alderman Oliver and Brass Crosby he urged moderation, and voted against
their commitment to the Tower.
In 1772 Dempster was elected a director of the East India Company, not
on the house list but as the popular choice of the proprietors. He was
closely concerned in the Company’s proposed reforms and in the selection
of supervisors to be sent out to India; when Parliament rejected the
plan Dempster, strongly objecting to Government intervention, early in
March ‘disqualified as a director ... that he might be more at liberty
in Parliament’; with the Duke of Richmond and the Johnstones he headed a
group of dissident proprietors and was a frequent Opposition speaker in
the debates of March-June 1773 on North’s Regulating Act. ‘I would
rather return the territory to the Mogul than suffer it to be taken by
the Crown.’ He opposed North’s American policy, and spoke against the
Boston port bill and the Quebec bill.
During the recess Dempster married, but got little money with his wife,
and after his unopposed return at the general election decided, mainly
for reasons of economy, not to attend the next parliamentary session. He
wrote to Sir Adam Fergusson, 26 Jan. 1775:
I have long thought ... that unless one preserves a little freedom and
independency in Parliament to act in every question and to vote
agreeably to ... one’s own mind, a seat in Parliament is a seat of
thorns and rusty nails. That this cannot be attained without some ease
in your affairs ... either you must be very rich or very frugal ... When
single I lived on my salary in London the year round—as a married man
this is impossible.
‘Having discharged his duty last year to America very conscientiously
and very fruitlessly’, he believed his attendance would not affect the
issue. He wrote to Fergusson:
The ministry are ... determined to adhere to their system, the Americans
to their natural rights ... I foretell it will begin with bloodshed in
America and end with a change of ministers and measures in England.
To his American friend Ralph Izard he wrote, 7 June 1775:
In Scotland, myself and a very few more excepted, the whole body of the
gentry and of the independent and enlightened class of people are to a
man on the side of Administration ... There is a principle against
America as well as for her, insomuch that it would not be easy for a
ministry more favourable to her to bring the bulk of the House over to
their opinion.
Dempster returned to London for the autumn session of 1775, urged
conciliation, opposed the prohibition of trade with America, and
supported Fox’s motion for an inquiry into the ill-success of British
arms. Believing that the American crisis might induce the Government to
concede a Scottish militia, he assisted in drafting Lord Mountstuart’s
bill and strongly supported it in the debates of March 1776. Dempster
also favoured the extension of the Scottish franchise ‘now engrossed by
the great lords, the drunken laird and the drunkener baillie’, and did
not approve Dundas’s abortive proposals for limiting the creation of
county votes. He wrote to Carlyle:
Instead of curtailing the right by cutting off superiors, let it be
extended to vassals and tenants ... but I am Whig enough to think that
the most beneficial law should not be crammed down the throats of any
people, but their minds gradually prepared for the alteration.
Throughout 1777 Dempster maintained his opposition; demanded an inquiry
into the civil list debts, 18 Apr.; criticized, 15 May, North’s
financial measures and the system of contracts; intervened in the East
India debate on 22 May to attack the intrigues of the Nabob of Arcot;
but affirmed his independent views on West India trade and the Scottish
militia.
Dempster’s finances had now been augmented by £1,000 p.a. bequeathed to
him under the will of Sir Robert Fletcher. In December 1777 he went to
France, and did not return to Parliament until spring 1779. Convinced
that ‘the influence of the Crown is the true cause of the origin and
absurd conduct of this American war’, Dempster supported Burke on
economical reform, 15 Dec. 1779, and was a prominent Opposition speaker
in the debates on pensions and the civil list establishment.
At the general election of 1780 Dempster, labelled by his opponents ‘a
traitor to Scotland’ for his vote on Dunning’s motion, was modestly
surprised by ‘the successful issue of his short campaign’. In the new
Parliament he took the lead in opposing concessions to Irish trade at
the expense of Scotland; was prominent in the East India debates in
support of the Company’s rights, and maintained to the end his
objections to the Bengal judicature bill. His ‘proverbial candour’
occasionally disconcerted his Opposition colleagues. When Fox on 21 June
1781 attacked George Johnstone for incompetence, suggesting that his
naval command was a reward for going over to Administration, Dempster,
who ‘never framed his friendship on such sandy ground as party
consideration,’ joined North in defending Johnstone’s ability and
integrity.
Dempster does not appear to have attended the winter session 1781-2; he
did not vote in any of the divisions leading to North’s fall. No speech
of his is recorded until 18 Apr. 1782, when he intervened in the Bengal
judicature debate in defence of his friend Sir Elijah Impey. Although in
general supporting the Rockingham Administration, Dempster maintained
his independence in Indian, West Indian and Scottish affairs, and
continued to press for a Scottish militia.
He voted for Shelburne’s peace preliminaries, 18 Feb. 1783, ‘as a thing
absolutely necessary for the country’. He supported the Coalition with
considerable reserve and remained uncompromisingly hostile to North.
Although in 1782 he had supported Pitt’s motion for an inquiry into
parliamentary representation and urged its extension to Scotland, he did
not approve his proposed reforms of 7 May 1783: ‘As the representative
of a borough he could not assent to give a vote that would lessen the
influence of his constituents.’
Seeking nothing for himself, he disliked soliciting for friends. He
wrote to Fergusson on 22 Sept. 1783:42
When you ask a minister to do a favour ... it founds an expectation that
you will in return confer a favour upon him ... But the true spirit of
our constitution ought to make it criminal in a Member of Parliament to
offer any constituent the smallest personal favour. We shall never sit
quite at our ease in Parliament till it may be said ... that we never
obtained the slightest favour at court either for ourselves or others.
Over East India affairs Dempster during the long controversies had
modified his views. He now wished to abandon all territorial claims and
confine the Company’s activities to commerce. On Fox’s East India bill
he expressed on 27 Nov. 1783 considerable misgivings:
All chartered rights should be held inviolable, one charter only
excepted ... The charter of the E.I. Co ... ought to be destroyed for
the sake of this country ... of India ... and of humanity. He ...
conjured ministers to abandon all idea of sovereignty in that quarter of
the globe. It would be much wiser ... to make some one of the native
princes King ... and to leave India to itself. [But] ... he saw which
way the House was inclined and therefore he should withdraw, as he would
not vote, against his principles, for the throne of Delhi.
Shortly afterwards he left for Scotland, was absent during the change of
Administration, and on his return in January 1784 was listed by Robinson
as an opponent of Pitt. On 23 Jan. he strongly protested against a
dissolution and welcomed Fox’s motion to reintroduce his bill. ‘He would
now be able to modify it in respect of patronage and ... make it
generally palatable.’ Dempster remained loyal to Fox, but as a member of
the St. Alban’s Tavern group favoured a union of parties and preached
moderation so that ‘something decisive’ might be done for India.
Returned unopposed at the general election, Dempster now became
increasingly ‘elevated above all party views’. He was conciliatory to
Pitt who, respecting his views on trade and finance, supported his
motion for a committee on fisheries, which now became Dempster’s major
interest. Over India he maintained his individual view that he would
rather see Indian affairs ‘egregiously mismanaged’ by the court of
directors than well managed by the Crown, and that it was impracticable
to govern India from England. In the debate of 16 July 1784 he proposed:
That his Majesty should be requested to send over one of his sons and
make him King of that country; we might then make an alliance or federal
union with him and then we could enjoy all the advantage that could be
derived from the possession of the East Indies by Europeans—the benefit
of commerce.
Dempster was critical of Opposition attacks on Warren Hastings ‘to whom
alone he imputed the salvation of India’.
In the new session he supported Pitt’s Irish propositions, although
uneasy about their effect on Scottish trade and industry, and voted for
them 13 May 1785; but in February 1786 he spoke and voted against
Richmond’s fortification plans as unnecessary and extravagant. During
the East India debates of 1786-7 Dempster remained a vehement defender
both of Warren Hastings and of Impey; rebutted all Opposition charges
against a governor general whom he eulogized for his integrity as
statesman, soldier and financier; and justified even his severities. But
he joined with Opposition leaders in pressing the complaints of the East
India Company servants in Bengal; on 19 Mar. he moved for the repeal of
the East India Acts of 1784-6 and proposed a new system of government
under a viceroy, council, and a representative assembly of resident
Europeans. Although frequently an advocate of free institutions and
better representation, especially in Scotland, Dempster now seems to
have limited his proposals to county representation, and on 28 May 1787
declined to support petitions for the reform of Scottish burghs.
In the House Dempster was respected as ‘one of the most conscientious
men who ever sat in Parliament’, particularly for his efforts to curb
taxation and reduce the national debt, and for his championship of the
distressed, whether famine-stricken Highlanders, poor hawkers, or
American loyalists. In Scotland he was honoured for his exertions both
in and out of Parliament to encourage Scottish trade, agriculture,
manufactures and fisheries. In furtherance of his schemes he purchased
in 1786 the estate of Skibo, and on his Angus estate embarked upon plans
for building the new village of Letham. During the summer of 1788 he
decided not to seek re-election, and in November informed his
constituents. He wrote, 10 July 1788, to Alexander Carlyle: ‘It is now
twenty years since I have found my opposition to any measure one of the
necessary accompaniments of its success’, and listed as examples the
American war and Hastings’s prosecution.
He returned to Parliament for the new session and was a leading
Opposition speaker in the Regency debates. On the King’s recovery he
resumed his customary strictures on Government expenditure, seconded the
motion for toleration for Scottish Episcopalians, but opposed the
abolition of the slave trade without full compensation to the planters
and traders affected. He made his last recorded speech on 22 July in
favour of supplying corn to revolutionary France.
For the rest of his life he devoted himself to the development of
Scottish fisheries, industries and communications, and the improvement
of his own estates. He wrote to Adam Fergusson, 2 Aug. 1793:50
I am full of occupation from morning till night ... Although I don’t get
into debt, I am pretty near as bare of money as I used to be ... I have
... the satisfaction of considering that I am done with Parliament after
a service of thirty years neither suited to my fortune nor genius, where
I never was metaphysician enough to settle to my own satisfaction the
bounds of the several duties a Member owes to his King, his country, to
purity or Puritanism rather, and to party, to myself and those who
depended upon my protection ... but went on floundering like a blind
horse in a deep road and a long journey.
He died 13 Feb. 1818.
Author: Edith Lady Haden-Guest |
