The central conflict in Elginshire in the mid 1780s was between the sitting Member James Duff, 2nd Earl Fife, and the Moray Association of resident freeholders, led by Alexander Penrose Cumming Gordon of Altyre and Fife’s brother-in-law James Brodie of Brodie, who sought to eradicate the nominal votes on which Fife’s interest was based.
The matchless decorum of Midlothian elections was maintained as long as the ‘natural interest’ of the Dundases of Arniston, in alliance with the Duke of Buccleuch and reinforced by ‘ministerial influence’, was exerted.Stair mss, Corresp. of 8th Earl, no. 7, Stair to Sir J. H. Dalrymple, 2 Nov. 1812. Henry Dundas, who in 1790 transferred from the county to the city seat, had been unchallenged since his signal victory in 1774 and he now presided over the unanimous election of his nephew Robert of Arniston.
The two leading interests in the county in 1788 were those of Lord Elphinstone, whose brother was the sitting Member, and the Duke of Montrose, managed by his son the Marquess of Graham. It had been settled in 1784 that Elphinstone’s brother, a Foxite, should sit for that Parliament, while Montrose, a supporter of Pitt, should name the Member for the ensuing one.
The Duke of Queensberry had the ‘commanding interest’ in Dumfriesshire and his defection from government during the Regency crisis did not damage it, as he gave his heir the Duke of Buccleuch, who also had a considerable interest in the county, the management of it. The latter, at Henry Dundas’s instigation, supported the sitting Member Sir Robert Laurie, who ceased to act with the opposition. Laurie had not been opposed since 1774, when the Johnstone of Westerhall interest put up Alexander Fergusson of Craigdarroch against him.
The compiler of the Whig electoral survey of 1788 considered the leading interests in Cromarty to be those of Robert Bruce Aeneas Macleod of Cadboll; John Mackenzie (‘Lord Macleod’), a kinsman and friend of Henry Dundas, who had recovered the forfeited earldom of Cromarty estates in 1784; and Alexander Gray Ross of Over Skibo, an army agent, who in 1786 had inherited the property of George Ross of Cromarty, Member for the county in the 1780 Parliament.
The Abercrombies of Tullibody monopolized the county representation, Sir Ralph, his brother Sir Robert and sons George, John and Alexander occupying the seat in turn. What opposition there was came from the Erskines of Alloa and Mar, defeated in their bid for a seat in 1774, who endeavoured to enlist the support of Sir Thomas Dundas.
Sir John Sinclair of Ulbster, who had established the dominant single interest in Caithness with his unopposed return in 1780, concluded from the canvass which he undertook in 1787 when he was sitting for Lostwithiel that he was certain of ‘an unanimous election whenever that event takes place’. Of the 23 voters on the roll at Michaelmas 1788 he was calculated by Lawrence Hill to command about 15; and he himself later observed:
Although there was no serious challenge in this period to the control exercised by John, 4th Earl of Bute (created Marquess in 1796), there is evidence that neglect temporarily made his command over the county less absolute than appears on paper. On 14 Apr. 1795, before taking up his embassy to Spain, Bute asked George Rose for a written promise of a pension for the wife of Professor James Young of Glasgow University, which ‘would in all probability command the next return’.
The contention between the Earls of Marchmont and Home for the county representation, which had given Berwickshire elections their bite for more than a generation, ended ostensibly in 1784. Thereafter, with Marchmont disdaining to take an interest and Home a minor, only echoes of it remained. Patrick Home of Wedderburn, the sitting Member returned by Henry Dundas who, with the Duke of Buccleuch, assumed the management of Lord Home’s interest, was warned in January 1788 that ‘the independent friends ... mean to try Sir Alexander Don against you’. His informant added:
Banffshire was dominated in the mid 1780s by James Duff, 2nd Earl Fife, whose family had enjoyed supremacy for some 60 years. Fife himself had won the Elginshire seat in 1784, turning over Banffshire to his illegitimate son Sir James Duff of Kinstair; as his influence extended also to Aberdeenshire and Elgin Burghs he was a major electoral force in north-east Scotland, where his chief rival was the 4th Duke of Gordon.
