Enlightenment age

Introduction

The Enlightenment age in Scotland is mostly associated with such promising opportunities as

developments in the literature, economic thought, and philosophy fields, as well as

improvements in agriculture, and the emergence of industrial revolution. However, the

Enlightenment faced some resistance from the traditional local groups and communities, which

lagged while others underwent improvement, resulting into confrontation and conflict following

the 1707 Union Act. There was conflict that emerged during the Scottish Enlightenment Age

between those who promoted improvement to adapt the economy to increased competition

through trade expansion and traditional local groups and communities who sought different

methods to adapt to this change. This paper aims to critically assess the Scots’ commitment idea

of improvement by looking into the Pundlar Process.

Pundular Process Background

Research indicates that there was an issue in the early British history, which concerned the

divisions between a history that was primarily constitutional and political, and social and

economic history that was more local and regional (Lauchlin 2008). The social and economic

history was characterized by local identities and communities, which could not be effectively

integrated into the organization of administrative units established by military power application

(Harris and McKean 2014). In 18th century Britain (Britain being a concept established by the

Union of Scotland and England in 1707), locality and region concepts were being redefined. The

number of people cognizant of the two differing ‘spaces’ of locality and nation was growing and

they were a dynamic force working in Britain after the union (Berry 2013b; Lee 2005).

Such revolutions in early economic history as the transportation revolution, industrial revolution,

agriculture occurred in alongside political revolutions. Those in support of economic and social
revolution tabled their reforms as improvements whereas developing a British empire grounded

on a financial system that exploited the monarchy, landed gentry, and aristocracy (Harris and

McKean 2014). Scotland’s economic and social transformation benefited a few providing

immense wealth while to some level improved basic standards of living of many (Lee 2005). On

the other hand, there were those who gained little to nothing and lost benefits such as ownership

rights, property rights, their self-sufficiency and way of survival in this economic and social

transformation (Lauchlin 2008). The elite called them the reactionary because they were resistant

to the introduced improvements. The reactionary strived to defend their way of life, traditions,

and customs amidst rapid economic and social changes in order to preserve community

members’ independence and self-sufficiency in the old cultivation and tenurial systems. Groups,

for example, Highland tacksmen, who were tenants in the old system of landholding, found

themselves with no place in the novel and different regime of agriculture, which sought

improvement (Berry 2013b).

The effect of failing to adapt to the novel agrarian regime saw some peasants become employees

(agricultural workers) who labored in working-hours than their needs demanded on top of facing

risk of unemployment because of restructuring and cost cutting that was unheard of in the old

system of agrarian (Craig 2009; Lee 2005). Workers in the manufacturing and commercial

sectors worked for longer workers because machines could not be constantly used because they

were expensive (Berry 2013a). The workers were also affected the intensified traded cycles

caused by the expansion of the market economy. Lastly, workers in the 18th century worked

under rigorous supervisions and strict discipline due to the need for efficient management and

increased productivity unlike before (Berry 2013b).

A major resistance of the unwelcome commercialization in 18th century Scotland brought by the

establishment of the New Britain state was called the “Levellers.” They were radical egalitarians

who were small peasants and tenants in Galloway and Dumfriesshire who pursued the

preservation of the old, self-sustaining, local economy (Lauchlin 2008). The Levellers protested

in 1724 against the large-scale cattle fields established by landowners within their areas whose

aim was to increase produce to meet the English demands for livestock while at the same earn

large amounts of wealth. Sporadic resistance to the novel regime of landholding was witnessed

in the Highlands, particularly during the second half of 18th century as pace of ‘improvement’

augmented (Berry 2013b; Lee 2005).

Easter Ross is another example that saw resistance due to the social and economic changes.

Landowners in Easter Ross introduced economic and social transformations not primarily to

generate money, but to emulate the novel British elite of 18th century (Craig 2009). They acted

neither alongside their peasants and tenants nor against them, but autonomously of them

(Lauchlin 2008). Easter Ross landowners wanted higher living standards for themselves by

increasing the competitive edge of the local economy through exacting significant economic

changes whose propriety and efficiency was known (Cathcart 2009).

Additionally, the excise riot was another resistance towards the social and economic changes

introduced in Scotland. The riot involved attacks on customs warehouses and excisemen. It was

an active opposition to the market economy expansion. Scotland’s popular protests in 18th

century, for example, Edinburgh’s Porteous Riot in 1736, were sporadic and specific objectives

in each circumstance (Lauchlin 2008). However, these took place frequently all over the

Lowlands until the 1750s worrying the authorities. Even coastal smuggling, illicit distilling, as

well as extensive invasion of taxes could be interpreted as more forms of popular resistance to
novel tax and customs regime, which occurred after the Union as well as market principles

penetration (McInelly 2011). Thus, a situation through which augmented wealth broadens

disparities and some people are marred by the same factors, which increase incomes as well as

enhance the lives of many others, is characteristic of the 21st century globalized economy (Berry

2013b).

DISPUTE AROUND PUNDLAR PROCESS

Pundlar Process was a legal case (1733-1759) that was characterized by dispute. It is an excellent

example of conflict between those benefitted from the economic and social changes and those

they felt that they were left behind (Ewen 2005). It was a complex and protracted legal fight over

the standard weights for determining feu duties in Orkney Islands, which lasted for over two

decades (McInelly 2011). However, the law suit was a practical dispute and a reflection of

conflict of two spaces of locality and nation or rather a fight between the community and the

market economy during the Enlightenment age in Scotland (Lauchlin 2008).

The lawsuit involved local Orkney lairds and feudal superior, the 14th Earl of Morton. The root

of the problem was that the produce collected by the Earl as feu taxes was weighed as well as

estimated by the Earldom’s Pundlar (Ewen 2005). The local lairds were discounted with feudal

superiors born in mainland govern the Orkney Islands who were not part of the local community.

As a result, the local lairds defied the mainland-feudal superiors by withholding their taxes from

the 1735 forward. They challenged the Pundlar’s legality in a court by defending their rights as

local feudal superiors while discrediting the non-local feudal superiors. This resulted into the

longest as well as acrimonious legal battle ever to concern the Scottish courts (Harris and

McKean 2014).
The customs encompassing the produce weighing in Orkney were significant because they such

traditional measures of weighing as the Pundlar were unstandardized. Dishonest lairds and

merchants used these measures for buying and selling (Ewen 2005). The landowners had been

granted powers, which the 1707 Union had failed to curb, which contributed to the skirmish

between lairds and aristocrats in 18th century Scotland. Orkney’s mainland’s lairds sought to

improve their states through executing strong powers as the reigning feudal superiors. Birsay’s

lands in Earldom estate were restructured and every farmer’s pasture and rigs were consolidated

into planks that easier do farming (Lauchlin 2008; McInelly 2011).

Such a fierce legal battle as the Pundlar Process was a predictable outcome of the forms of

ancient structures, which had granted lairds and aristocrats a robust power over local community

affairs (Berry 2013a). Since most lairds believed that change would have a negative effective, the

reigning feudal superiors need to end the troubles surrounding measures and weights through

introducing unified standards suitable for the expanding economy of the market under Union

incited widespread resistance (Ewen 2005). As a result, many lairds supported those who were

fighting against the measures and weights in the Pundlar Process (Lauchlin 2008; Harris and

McKean 2014).

The Pundlar Process, therefore, was not only a legal battle against measures and weights, but

also a conflict of economic interest amid two parties: those who pursued the preservation of

traditional measures and weights, thus shielding their rights as traditional landowners, and the

Earl seeking to exact more superiority through initiating more standardized and just measures

and weights into the estates. Thus, those who strived to enhance their estates to adapt to novel

market economy and fierce competition in the state of Britain rivaled with those who strived to

preserve the independence of the traditional community for locality control (Cathcart 2009).
The Pundular Process was also influenced by political and religious interests. The Jacobite and

Episcopalian traditions were sympathetic to the faction that sought to preserve the independence

of the local communities. Virtually, all Orkney inhabitants were Jacobites and favored the Stuart

dynasty, which filed the legal dispute against the Earl. The Episcopal clergies supported the 1715

enterprise (Ewen 2005). However, when the revolt failed, they were dealt with and threatened

with incarceration or were forced to flee. Steuart, an Episcopal Church supporter was forced into

hiding for his involvement in the 1715 uprising. The Earl was a Presbyterian, a religious group

that the lairds would have regarded with hostility. By 1735, the church had been ruined and most

Orkney inhabitants identified themselves as Jacobites during the 1745 enterprise. As a result,

most of them suffered following its failure, particularly when the Parliament of Britain passed

more strict penal laws against them (Peden 2005). The legal battle continued slowly for a few

years and advocated for reduced rents and also be pardoned from paying land taxes. The Pundlar

Process ended in favor of the faction representing the Earl in 1759 (McInelly 2011; Slack 2014).

The conflict underscored by the Pundlar Process could not have taken place outside the

perspective of increasing discrepancies between the old cultivation system and augmented

economic competition (Ewen 2005; Smout 2012). It was mainly a conflict between about the

justice system of measures and weights, which were easily prone to dishonesty; however, it

reflected the conflict of interests between traditional local landowners, who sought to preserve

traditions and customs under the old system of landholding and the modernizing mainland’s

aristocrats, who pursed the improvements in productivity and management in the novel agrarian

regime, which the Scottish Enlightenment’s ideas improvement had authorized. Such conflicts as

those that characterized the Pundular Process mirrored the intricacies characteristic of the

Scottish Enlightenment Age (Slack 2014).

Scottish Idea of Improvement

The type of economic analysis usually associated with the Enlightenment in Scotland can be

viewed as characteristic in the consistent endorsement of Scotland and England Union in 1707

(Craig 2009). It is also characteristic of the assessment of the consequent market growth as an

effective and power technique of increasing wealth as well as solving problems of poverty and

finance as such Scottish thinkers as Adam Smith and David Hume had envisioned it to be (Berry

2013a; Furuya 2011). The Scottish Enlightenment was grounded on approbation of the

prosperity and liberty as the resulting commercial polity (Cathcart 2009; Slack 2014).

The enlightenment in Scotland was a crusade to improve Scotland during Union age based on

the Augustan England model along with supporters most who comprised of elite wealthy middle-

class Scots who had deliberately isolated themselves from the local community (Furuya 2011).

These elite Scots believed that via the market economy expansion and free polity development,

the establishment of a novel Britain identity by the Union could solve many problems (Craig

2009; Slack 2014). For example, Adam Smith thought that commercial society characterized by

free trade was a major benefit brought by Union for Scotland (Lauchlin 2008). Free trade led to a

rise in cattle prices, increase in the value of states in Highlands, and improved Lowlands (Berry

2013a; Slack 2014). Smith termed former merchants and landowners as key actors in the

improvement by investing in their estates (Smout 2012). He believed these actors could not be

fooled by merchants and manufacturers out to exploit the public. Improvement of agriculture

practiced by retired merchants had the potential to generate wealth and improve virtue (Berry

2013a). The merchant-landowners had the ability to employ their skills and attention and

productive industry to create virtues needed for the improvement of agriculture (Cathcart 2009).
However, these improvements were not received well as seen from the widespread resistance

directed to changes that came with economic and social reforms introduced in Scotland. The

legal battle surrounding the Pundlar Process is an excellent example of conflict of interest

between those who were opposed to the new changes and those who supported the reforms

(Smout 2012). Those who opposed the changes felt that they had been left out in the

development and their customs threated while those in support saw a chance to improve their

living standards (Berry 2013a; Slack 2014). Obviously, there was nothing virtuous about the

claims presented by those who fought the changes generated by economic and social changes

because, for example, the older system of agrarian favored the noble. Additionally, the system of

weights and measures of the old regime was characterized by fraud. The new regime sought to

eradicate the unstandardized system in order to bring justice and equality (Cathcart 2009).
CONCLUSION

Conclusively, this paper has critically discussed the Scots’ idea of improvement using the

Pundlar process. Scotland’s idea of improvement focused on enhancing Scotland by eradicating

poverty and improving living standards of people. However, the introduction of social and

economic changes was not well welcomed in Scotland. It faced extensive protests throughout

Scotland as it saw people lose lands while other acquired large acres of land, which turned

tenants and peasants turn into agricultural workers who had to work for longer hours under strict

working conditions. Some of the protests included, illicit distilling, tax invasion, and coastal

smuggling. Conflict of interest that surrounded the Pundlar Process was that between those

landowners who supported the old agrarian system that was corrupt and those that supported the

improved system that used standardized weights and measures. One would think that since that

the Scotland’s idea of improvement encompassed enhancing people’s lives and embracing the

new way of doing and abandoning the old regimes, the widespread resistance seemed to

disregard this notion. Thus, the Scottish Enlightenment’s idea of improvement was characterized

by resistance from those who did not want to embrace the new regime of social and economic

changes as well as those who supported the novel changes brought by the market economy. The

widespread resistance to the economic and social changes aimed at improving people’s lives

marred the overall objective of the Scottish Enlightenment, which was to transform Scotland into

an improved state that did things in the new way of doing things. Those who opposed the new

order of things only served to show people are opposed to changes and the unknown.
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