Thomas Muir: Radicalism, Loyalism and Internationalism in the 1790s

Abstract

This essay considers the 'political martyr' Thomas Muir as a representation of increased internationalism throughout late eighteenth century Scotland, when a veritable 'patriotic public sphere' developed in Britain. The relation of contemporary radical and loyalist political expressions to Muir's controversial trial for sedition has dominated the few examinations of him available, such as the biographies by Christina Bewley and Hector Macmillan. The unpublished work by George Pratt Insh, however, looked beyond this 'martyrdom' for a more nuanced approach that remains an invaluable source of international archive material. Muir's sentence of fourteen years transportation arose from a discursive realm that negotiated constitutional meanings, contested ideological borders and expressed both authoritarian and popular principles. Muir's conduct justified radical and loyalist rhetoric but also demonstrated his personal transformation from a distinct arena of 'Scottishness' to a more universal approach to politics. As Muir's life and the eighteenth century drew to a close, this transition provided an allegory for Scotland's role on the international stage as the modernisation process continued.