Scotland

Cromarty, George Mackenzie, Earl of. A Vindication of Robert III. King of Scotland, from the imputations of Bastardy... Printed in the year 1701 [apparently a reprint of Wing C7027, not found in ESTC]--Stair, James Dalrymple, Viscount of. An apology for Sir James Dalrymple of Stair, President of the Session, by himself. [Edinburgh: 1690] [Wing S5174, NO COPY RECORDED IN THE BRITISH LIBRARY]--A Collection of Papers relating to the Calling and Holding the Convention of Estates of England...and the meeting of Estates of Scotland at Edinburgh... Edinburgh, 1689 [Wing C5169]--[Kirkwood, James.] An Overture for Founding & Maintaining of Bibliothecks in every Paroch throughout this Kingdom... [Edinburgh:] Printed in the Year 1699 [Wing K648, ONLY FOUR COPIES RECORDED IN THE BRITISH ISLES AND AMERICA]-- A Letter, giving a description of the Isthmus of Darian: (where the Scot's Colonie is settled...Edinburgh: for John Mackie and James Wardlaw, 1699 [Wing L1549, ONLY TRHEE COPIES RECORDED IN BRITAIN], WITH FOLDING ENGRAVED MAP OF THE ISTHMUS OF DARIAN IN AMERICA AND BAY OF PANAMA--[Fletcher, Andrew.] A Short and Impartial View of the Manner and Occasion of the Scots Colony's coming away from Darien... [Edinburgh:] 1699--B[lackwell], I[saac]. A Description of the Province and Bay of Darian...being vastly rich with gold and silver... Edinburgh: 1699 [Wing B3091]--[?Defoe (Daniel)] The Advantages of Scotland by an Incorporate Union with England... [?Edinburgh:], 1706 [Moore 134, Goldsmiths 4274; Kress 2500], some leaves scorched--[Ridpath, George.] The reducing of Scotland by arms. And annexing it to England, as a province, considered. With an historical account of the grievances the Scots complain they have suffer’d in their Religion, Liberty, and Trade, since the union of the Crowns. London: [?1705], [Kress 2474; Hanson, 471]--Atwood, William. The scotch patriot unmask’d, in animadversions upon a seditious pamphlet, intituled, The reducing Scotland by arms, and annexing it to England as a province, considered. J. Nutt, 17050--The Articles of the Union as they pass'd with amendments in the Parliament of Scotland...at Edinburgh, January 16. 1707. For Andrew Bell, 1707--[Defoe, Daniel.] The Scot’s narrative examin’d... London, 1709, [Moore 160], cropped;  and 17 others, including several more relating to the Union and other Scottish political, religious and trade affairs (chiefly with Edinburgh imprints); chiefly 4to; some early manuscript notes, early eighteenth-century quarter calf (spine numbered 31), some pamphlets slightly cropped, soiled or stained, binding slightly bumped and rubbed

The Forbes Baronetcy was created in 1626 for Sir William Forbes (d. circa 1650) by James VI in the Barontage of Nova Scotia. The majority of the works offered here were acquired by the sixth Baronet, also William (1739-1806), who added Pitsligo to his title in 1781. He was an eminent Scottish banker and benefactor, good friend of James Boswell and Samuel Johnson (see lots 45-46), and finally succeeded in recovering the Pitsligo estates forfeited after the Jacobite rebellion of 1745. His son William, the seventh baronet, beat Sir Walter Scott to the hand of the renowned beauty Williamina Belsches Stuart (1776-1810), and it was with their marriage that the family moved to her family seat, Fettercairn House in Kincardineshire, Aberdeenshire.

One of the sixth baronet’s acquisitions for his library at Pitsligo were numerous highly important miscellanies and tract volumes, many of which were purchased as a set from Edinburgh bookseller Elphinstone Balfour in October 1786. These were subsequently supplemented by further contemporary tracts and other works from the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century. Most of these miscellanies bear a nineteenth century Forbes family bookplate.

The Darien Scheme was an unsuccessful attempt by Scotland, in the decade before the Act of Union, to become a world trading nation by establishing a colony called "Caledonia" on the Isthmus of Panama on the Gulf of Darien. William Paterson sailed out to the colony with five ships and 1300 settlers in 1698, but within two years, beset by hostile Spanish colonies, the challenges of the climate and insect-borne diseases, the enterprise failed on a catastrophic scale. The death rate for the settlers was above 70% and thousands of Scottish investors were ruined. A legacy of the scheme was its role in promoting the Union between Scotland and England in 1707.