Chapter 3. Political Networks and the ‘Glasgow West India Interest’
With the significant wealth deriving from slave and plantation ownership, Glasgow’s elite merchants managed to establish for themselves a formidable and influential political presence within Scotland and the United Kingdom. Before the turn of the 18th century, Glasgow, unlike cities such as Liverpool and Leeds, had established a number of key institutions including the University of Glasgow, the Merchant House and the Trades House whilst later transforming other such as the Chamber of Commerce and its banking industry. Ultimately, this provided a strong platform for the prosperous merchant class to further its dominant commercial interests of what became a close-knit community. This chapter will look to address the political aspirations of Glaswegian merchants at both a local and national level, their participation in such institutions including societal clubs and associations and their efforts to enhance what was the prevailing West Indian interests of the slave owner.
Associations and Clubs of the Glasgow Merchants
Despite their being much discussion on the so-called ‘West India interest’, there has perhaps been less inquiry into the significant influence that individual merchants along with their respective social clubs had on the political affairs of the city of Glasgow towards the end of the 18th century. Nevertheless, we are able to address this historiographical shortcoming through a positional analysis of leading merchants which helps to identify who and when such individuals held essential roles within the political circles of the city, as well as underlining the strengths and characteristics that became synonymous with their responsibilities. Perhaps one of the most notoriously successful merchants at both a commercial and political level was that of James Ewing of Strathleven. Ewing’s alleged ‘distinguished aptitudes and capabilities in mercantile affairs’ granted him with a prosperous career in Glasgow with him being intimately connected with key institutions positions including that of the high office of Lord Dean of Guild from 1816-1817, a position that merchants held a monopoly over from the turn of the 19th century to 1834, and later as both Lord Provost in 1931 and as an elected MP for Glasgow following the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832. As the leading figure of the Merchant House, the role of the Dean of Guild subsequently came with exceptional immunities and powers connected to what were the city’s most important commercial interests at the time. Analysis of Memoir of James Ewing helps to depict what was the personal authority held by Ewing in this position as well as illustrating the further connections made between both commerce and politics, with testimony stating that:
We think we may truly state; and that, too, without the smallest flattery or detriment either to the living or the dead, that no Dean of Guild ever performed his duties to that House with more industry and fidelity than Mr. James Ewing.
It is apparent that James Ewing managed to conduct not only a formidable commercial relationship provided through the cultivation of sugar and the indentured work of slaves in the Caribbean, but also established an elusive political career back in Scotland.
James Ewing’s formidable involvement with the contemporary concerns of Glasgow was furthered through his involvement with the societal clubs of Glasgow, which ultimately looked to preserve the business networks established by the commercial elites in the New World. Joining John Gordon of Aikenhead as part of the city’s leading sugar aristocrats, Ewing’s strong politically conservative beliefs were perused at a local level through the so-called Pig Club, a recognized organization run between 1789 and 1807 and replaced by the renowned Glasgow West India Association. This illusive group emerged during a period of great social and economic improvement for the city that stemmed from the new and extremely profitable commodity of sugar that began to dominate Scotland commercial markets. As the contemporary social affair analyst J. Strang effectively describes as a ‘truly aristocratic fraternity’, the Pig Club helped characterize what was the elitist lifestyle of the Glasgow merchants, as depicted through the lavish dinners and balls, as well as their political inclinations in which they dealt with the leading issues of the time both regarding Glasgow itself and that of wider international affairs. As highlighted in Strang’s description of the club, it is apparent that members were very keen to discuss the most relevant issues that were of particular public interest both home and abroad; discussions were, for example, given on the battle of Trafalgar, the French Revolutionary Wars as well as the renewal of Tory rule in Britain. This political interest amongst leading mercantile circles within Glasgow was undoubtedly shared amongst the various and growing membership of the city’s societal clubs throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.
Similarly, the Gaelic Club, which first met on the 7th of March 1780, looked to encapsulate the interest of the strong highlander commercial interest that had formed and effectively challenged the lowland competitors and fortunes of Glasgow. The club, which epitomized the strong association between the Scottish Highlands and the Caribbean, met at the Black Bull at 640 Argyle Street to encourage the promotion of the Celtic culture, their Gaelic language and the heritage of it membership, which became initially determined on individual’s Highland connections. The terms of the club’s first gathering help to express the structure and terms of their society as it states that ‘the sentiment and intention of promoting nature comfily and whatever shall do honour to the name of the highlander in general on benefiting any individual Gael’. Despite this, like many of the clubs established in Glasgow around this time, it too became an aristocratic guild whereby the particular interests of wealthy often estate-owning merchants were prioritized and subsequently resulted in membership becoming based on individual status as opposed to that of Highland origin.
An analysis of the Gaelic Club’s meeting minutes help to provide an accurate account of which merchants participated and how these aristocrats socialized and dictated their political discourse. We can see from the minutes and a specific examination of meeting registration that there was a stern attendance from many of the city’s predominant and influential aristocratic members including that of the MP, Kirkman Finlay, who was considered to be one of the most outstanding individuals of mercantile Glasgow. Despite having no Celtic or Highland associations, his qualifications and prestige as a leading contemporary in western trade undeniably stresses both the importance of the club as an effective output for the political intentions of such merchants as well as magnifying the significance of high social status in providing the necessary political platform for these elites. Furthermore, we can make direct links between club membership and its prevailing Highland-Caribbean connection. The meeting minutes highlight that Thomas Cuming Esq. of Demerara, owner of the estate of Leuchars and Innes House in Elgin, was adulated as member of the Gaelic Club following recommendation, allowing him the opportunity to pursue the shared commercial business interests and prosperity of the Caribbean colonies. Notably, evidence has stressed that Cuming spent much of his commercial career operating transatlantically between Scotland and on the colony of Demerara where he owned several large plantations including that of over 300 slaves. Again, this undoubtedly demonstrates the clear and direct parallels that can be drawn between the strong political activity of the Glasgow clubs, and how such its capacity to do so largely derived from the fruits of transatlantic commerce and the subsequent labour of indentured slaves that made such successes possible.
The strong support and membership of Glasgow’s gentlemanly clubs during this period helps represent what Mullen describes as an intense ‘associational culture’ within the city and helped to enhance the strong civic identity of the leading merchant class. Perhaps without realizing it, the facilitation of the political concerns and the West Indian interest of the Scottish elites helped tightened the relationship between the merchants abroad and the politicians at home. The likes of James Ewing and his peers, despite their short political career, managed to develop immense political consensus and authority, which for the close inner circle of this elite class, as we will see, proved to be worth protecting.
Anti-abolitionism and The Glasgow West India Association
The effects of the Caribbean sugar trade, which largely defined Britain’s commercial interests during late 18th and early 19th centuries, along with the individuals involved who looked to preserve its significant value to the country, have collectively been referred to as the ‘West India Interest’. Protection of this specific merchant interest in the Caribbean became one of the most intense political forces in Britain as ‘colonial agents’ lobbied both within the respective colonies and at local and national legislatures at home. Importantly, it has been well documented by historians that outside London, Glasgow was regarded as the most forceful and effective West Indian network in Britain at the time, with the city directing its influence through the infamous Glasgow West India Association. Forming in 1807, the Association materialized during what was a period of powerful and intense deliberation amongst British society on the acceptability of slavery within the Empire. As done through the numerous societal clubs in Glasgow, an absentee commercial class who assumed the elite position within the city largely dominated the Association’s networks as they looked to avoid complete slave emancipation, which ultimately threatened the plantocracy class and their political and economic hegemony. Much emphasis by the Association was therefore placed on both the staunch campaign to protect plant owner’s rights to own human property or chattel slaves, rights that were protected through state law, as well as the direct and indirect reliance on the slave trade of the economy. These economic and legal justifications came to characterize much of the pro-slavery rhetoric during the period and were notably defended when the issue of slavery came under parliamentary scrutiny through the early 19th century. Further promotion of the Glasgow West Indian interest was achieved through commercial reports, parliamentary testimonies from key elite merchants and politicians as well as full engagement with local newspapers. T. Devine has hence stressed that the Glasgow Association were ‘one of the most vocal and powerful anti-abolition pressure groups in the United Kingdom; faired for its unyielding an unrelenting opposition to the liberation of the slaves in the Empire’.
The Ewing family undoubtedly epitomized the Associations devotion to the specific Glasgow West India interest as their stern anti-abolitionist ambitions effectively mirrored that of the wider British pro-slavery motivations shared by over 400 British MP’s. Representing the wider Scottish merchant plantocracy, James Ewing, as a leading member, emphasized the unquestionable paternalistic attitudes of slave owners in Scotland as they looked maximize their own potential profitability and value of their ‘property’ in the face of abolition. Analysis of the Association’s meeting minutes help to describe this considerable political activity connected to issues of trade and customs as well as stressing the common attitudes of the pro-slavery representation of Glasgow. Firstly, the minutes indicate the extensive efforts of the group’s leading members to conduct their work with evidence documenting the strong parliamentary involvement of both Colin McLachlin and James Ewing who ‘proceeded to London, for the purpose of coordinating with the West India body of that and other ports concerned in the colonial trade’. Such an act reiterates what was the sincere political commitment to the safeguarding of Glasgow’s mercantile slave-owner interests. Their later aim of attaining ‘just and ample compensation’ of ‘colonists who had right to property of slaves’ following complete emancipation of slaves in 1833 is also documented throughout the various petitions signed in the minutes, reiterated the vested interest of protecting the right to chattel property. It is clear to see that the Association proved to be at the forefront of the commitment to the reimbursement of British merchants following slave emancipation, perhaps unsurprising when evidence highlights the disproportionate role played by Scots in slave ownership.
The Glasgow West India Association drew on the close regional links it had established with the Tory party to help advance its political aims. With members of the Tory executive playing an important role within the management of the Association, it would be fair to suggest that both groups operated on a strong mutuality regarding the issue of slavery. The intrinsic relationship between the two institutions can be highlighted through the role played by John Gordon who was regarded as both a leading figure of the Association and later as ‘the central luminaries of the Tory party’ for the city of Glasgow. It is argued by Strang that the West India ‘interest’ ultimately decided whether candidates like Gordon would achieve MP status for Glasgow. His deep regard for the interests of the Scottish plantation owners in the Caribbean, as shown through discussion on the Pig Club, can also exemplified through the Association. The meeting minutes help to stress what was a strong apathy towards the slaves; a shared sentiment amongst members of both the Association and the Tory party. This attitude is apparent with evidence suggesting that its members looked to defend and justify the order of the estates across the Caribbean, the minutes underlining the merchants willingness to provide ‘valuable evidence if required’ on the ‘acceptable’ conditions of their plantations. The Glasgow West India Association ultimately provided these strong elitist perceptions of slavery with a strong and persuasive political foundation. The economic shift from tobacco to sugar as the dominant commercial commodity marked not only the shift in colonial hegemony from American to the Caribbean but also encouraged a new social order back in Scotland. The new sugar aristocracy developed the preexisting connections between the wealthy plantocracy and in doing so, gained significant political influence. Ultimately, this political power was used to preserve the West India interest and the significant profits that derived directly from the plantations. Done most notably through the Glasgow West India Association and its alliances with the Tory party, this elite established a powerful connection between their interests in the Caribbean and the policy makers in British Parliament.