The law of loyalism: The Campbell family, the court of session, and the price of loyalty in the revolutionary Atlantic world

Abstract

ABSTRACT This essay reconstructs the experiences of prominent Charleston merchant Colin Campbell, and his niece Louisa Campbell, to explore how Scots loyal to the Crown during the American Revolution later defended their interests in Scotland’s Court of Session. Using the case of Campbell and Ferrier v. Campbells (1796) as an organizing framework, it demonstrates how Scots litigated their suffering at the hands of American Patriots. It shows how lawsuits like it were embedded in a larger transatlantic legal ecosystem that shaped their outcome. The legal contest between Louisa Campbell and her cousins over Colin Campbell’s American property tied together legislatures and courts in South Carolina, Georgia, London, and Edinburgh. By doing so, they compelled the Lords of Session, the judges who sat on the bench of Scotland’s supreme civil court, to define American Independence.