" Honest George
GEORGE DEMPSTER, the subject of this agreeable volume, was an interesting character, mixing in an interesting society and living an interesting life. Two years before his death in an excess of humility he destroyed' his private papers, in- cluding his correspondence with David Hume, Johnson and Boswell. Fortunately a great mass of his letters remained in the possession of the Fergusson family, for Sir Adam Fergusson was one of Dempster's closest friends, and Mr. James Fer- gusson has now published and edited this collection. The hook is admirably done, and Mr. Fergusson guides his readers modestly but surely through the events of the time. His book is thus a valuable and interesting account of an attractive and notable man and of his surroundings.
Dempster was born in 1732 and died in 1813. He entered Parliament in 1761 and spent 28 years in the House of Commons. Henry Dundas was born in 1742 and died in 1811. He entered Parliament in 1774 and was in politics for the rest of his life. One way of describing Dempster would be to say that he was about as different from Dundas as one Scotsman could be from another. He summed up Dundas, whom he called the most consistent politician he knew : " The Court has use for me and I for the Court." Dempster, on the other hand, was well described by a Whig (Dempster was a Whig, as he said, all the time he was in Parliament) who said of him : " We do not much like him here, because we are never sure what side he is to vote on."
The mere record of his opinions and votes shows what an independent course he took, and what independent opinions he held. Like Adam Smith, he supported Fox at the time of his coalition with North, when many people deserted him. He supported Fox's India Bill. On the other hand, he sup- ported Pitt's proposed commercial treaty with Ireland and his commercial Treaty with France. In the famous quarrel over the Regency he took a line of his own. Of the repeal of the Stamp Act he wrote to Fergusson : "It is a nice subject and one of the few in politics whereon I know the sentiments of good men are diametrically opposite. From the first pro- posing of the Stamp Act mine has been neat and decided. I spoke against it and divided with 39 members. I then thought what I now think—that were I King of Great Britain and all the Ministry, if the Americans would invite me to tax them I would reject the task and for their sakes and for my own leave it to themselves." On India he wrote to Warren Hastings : " I don't despair of making a convert of you to my decided and I think not hasty opinion of the East. There are but two uses to be made of it. Make it a separate empire and bestow it upon one of the King's sons and give it a free constitution. Or restore it to its native princes and leave it to be governed as 'it was before our conquest." He made his mark at once as a speaker in the House of Commons, and he lived at a time when most people who had any talents expected some reward for serving their country. He paid a heavy price for the honour of a seat, for the cost of his elections and subsequent litigation compelled him to sell half his property. "I wasted my fortune," he said in a memorandum found among his papers, "sold land, con- tracted debts, became what was justly reckoned poor." Yet he never got or sought anything more. out of politics than the minor and poorly paid office of Secretary to the Order of
the Thistle. His view of politics was well expressed in lmo sentences- he wrote to Fergusson : " It is almost impossible for a man to acquire consideration without embracing the popular side, or power without betraying it. . . ." "Unless one preserves a little freedom and independency in Parliament to act in every question and to vote agreeably to the sug- gestion of one's own mind, a seat in Parliament is a seat on thorns and rusty nails." Dempster was determined at all costs to avoid that seat on thorns. In a paper that he left for the guidance of his nephew he said that no man should enter Parliament without £6,000 a year and without a reso- lution to accept no lucrative office.
Such severe views and consistent independence some- times go with an unattractive temperament, but Dempster was evidently as delightful a man as he was a delightful letter- writer. He found politics bewildering . and confused, full of hard cases and difficult dilemmas for a man of principle and conscience ; but he found much to like in life and he was active and interested in public work, encouraging the de- velopment of Scotland, helping to found banks and make roads. When it was suggested that his biography should be written, he replied : " You joke about the life of an indi- vidual to whom nothing but oblivion belongs." Mr. Fer- gusson's readers will be grateful to him for rescuing from oblivion this victim of his own modesty for their delight and
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