'THE SCOT IN AMERICA'

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1313, 16 December 1911, Page 12

'THE SCOT IN AMERICA'

Ed- LECTURE BY THE AMERICAN •!» AMBASSADOR. 11lKill w" MAKERS OF A NATION. tly t is ind His Excellency the Hon. Whilelaw Kcid, the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom, opened tho session ion of tho Edinburgh Philosophical Instituof Hon recently with an address on "The Scot and the Ulster Scot in America." to The proceedings took pint in the Synod mo Kail, which was crowded to its utmost ay- capacity. J»1 Lord Kosebery occupied tho chair, and >at ) 10 was supporter! by a largo and repre- ■ sentativo company. >ur Mr. Whiteinw kcid, who was warmly J , D f welcomed, said he thought their interest might be best enlisted in eomo account ISS of what had been dono by pioneers of in" f hßir own Scottish blood, when given the he '°, r P r opportunity of the new world, ost immigration began in the second half of tho seventeenth century, en ® rs ) : » otal)le Scottish arrivals were gp those shipped on tho boat John and Sara I in 1G52. They wero prisoners of war, ] 18 captured by Cromwell alter the Battlo of Dunbar, and sentenced to bo transported to tho American plantations and ist so '.d ,n '° service. Siniilar shipments of on Prisoners of war and then cargoes of conl-). victcd criminals followed. And yet so (m rapidly did eager followers tread the steps \ c of tho involuntary immigianls that only tn> a third of a cenlury after tho first shipload of Scottish prisoners to 1 w sold inlo servico was landed at Boston, a Scottish missionary, tho Kev. James Blair, of Kdinburgii, was founding one of tho oldest of American colleges—"William and Marv," in Virginia. Many inhabitants of North-western Scotland, especially the od clans of Jlncdonnld and Maclcod, were in!CS duced to emigrate, and their reports drew nt after them whole neighbourhoods from B the isles of llaasny and Skve. In 1738 an id, emigrant company of Highlanders started ■re New Inverness in Daricu, Georgia. Ju 'x- 173S an Argyllshire man, Captain Lauglind liu Campbell, took eighty-three families nt from his own neighhottrhood to be eslab*ir lished in a grant of 17,1100 acres' which ed ho had obtained 011 the borders of Lako lir George, New York. Scottish Presbyleried ans were largely settlers in Putnam, ho County ami Duchess .County, New York, od Members of disbanded 'Highland rogi"t meats got grants of land in tho Caroliuas :ts and Virginia. no Kobert Livingstone, a Scot from An<l - crum, became the founder of an important I!evolutionary family, some of tho members of which attained to high office. Another portentous Scot, born in Kirkno cudbright in 17-17, and who went to Virus ginia when thirteen years old, was l'aul a Jones, who held (ho first Captain's Comro mission of tho American Navy, and bejjj came Admiral. There would bo no dif--3(1 ferenco of opinion as to (ho services of ; d another great Scotsman, born at Tester, it Kast Lothian, viz., John Withcrspoon, !g who became President of Princeton Uniiw versify and brought it to a placo among m the foremost educational institutions of e . tho land. A son of Knlph. ICrskine, (he Id Presbyterian scceder, became chief _ of , 0 engineers on tho staff of George Washingo- ton. , . a [ When the States gained their mdc|o pendenee, and it came to the framing of rc ' a Constitution for (ho new nation, out of H . iifty-four. members of tho Convention jo .tTj'clvc' wpro*'of''Scottish descent. _ Of tho • jt' college-bred men in (ho Conreution, onest half were of Scottish One of 5;. thorn stood easily at Hit hind, and for puro intellectual oniineneo and tho genius i. of statesmanship'outranked, then and (ill his immature death, any other living ■f American. This was that marvellous J.. West Indian boy, half Scottish, half Huifl giienot French, Alexander Hamilton—(ap,r plawse)—'whose brilliant career (he Amf bassador went on to sketch. Janms Wilfion, a Scotsman born at St. Andrews, also ' 0 deserved to l>e remembered in conncction e with (ho framing of the Constitution. Washington's first Cabinet contained : s four members. Two of them were Scots and a third was an Ulster Scot. Among tho first Governors for tho new State GovI erniui'uts set up by the colonies, tiino y (two-thirds) ' were of either Scottish or 1 lister Scottish origin. Tho snmo tendency was marked throughout the list of men who had filled the grrat office of President of the United States. Eleven out of tho whole twenty-five, nearly ones half, were of Scottish or Ulster Scottish '■ origin. James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, s James K, Polk, James Buchanan, Andrew ' Johnson, U. S. Grant, li. B. Hurtles, Chester; A. Arthur, Grover Cleveland, : 1 Benjamin Harrison, William MacKinley, , 1' anil Theodoro lloosevelt, who, thou;;h . s Dutch on his father's side, was on his : 0 mother's a descendant of Alexander But- . s loch, tho first Scottish Governor- of s Georgia. (Applause.) In all the historic ! , achievements of Scotland, was then) any 1 more remarkable than this conquest of J leadership in a new land by men half a ' century behind other and strong races in , - entering upon the sceuo: 1 (Applause.) j ' If they thought ill of this work and t of the record of tho Kopublic, then he . had at least dealt faithfully with them - alter tho manner of their pulpit, and ' your transgressions in order before t you." (Laughter and applause.) If, on > tho other hand, as he ventured to liojie, ; | they thought well of their work, then ho : : was there to acknowledge with gratitude ; their largo indebtedness to tho Scottish 1 [ raco ami blood for its inspiration and it? : ; success. They had not forgotten their < '• origin or their obVations. In nil parts ( of the continental Republic hearts still . turned fondly to the old land, thrilling : : with prido in their past and hopo for j , their future, and joining with them, as , they had good reason to join, in tho old . cry, "Scotland for ever:" (Loud and pro- : longed applause.) :