There is an old Scots saying:
"Facts are chiels that winna ding" ("facts cannot lie"). Rev Dr John Cameron writes that "we are much less a dependency today than in 1707 when the Darien scheme left us flat on our backs and our currency wrecked and in need of English refinancing" (Enlightened Scots are facing facts, Letters, July 13).
Scotland was not a dependency in 1707; the currency was not "wrecked"; the failure of the Darien scheme did not leave us "flat on our backs" despite being deliberately sabotaged.
As to English refinancing, the Treaty of Union was not a magnanimous act of altruism in which England rescued an impoverished Scotland.
Certainly, the Scottish balance of trade appeared far from healthy, with imports exceeding exports. Scottish government was also hard-pressed financially. But the impoverishment of government doesn't necessarily mean the impoverishment of the country. The adverse balance was calculated on taxed trade, not on trade conducted. The balance took no account of imported goods re-exported or reprocessed by manufacturers for domestic consumption.
The financial capacity of Scottish commercial networks was powerfully demonstrated in the first four months of 1707, before the Union became operative on May 1.
Michael Follon
Glenrothes
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