International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest

Extract

The United Scotsmen was an underground revolutionary society that sought radical political reform in Scotland through a campaign of physical force activism and conspiratorial politics in association with the United Englishmen, United Irish , and French. Although the United Scotsmen was not directly descendant from the earlier Glasgow Society of United Scotsmen founded in 1793, it did share in common an emphasis on universal suffrage and parliamentary reform and probably some overlap of membership. However, a more direct influence on the origins and agenda of the United Scotsmen was the reinvigoration of the United Irishmen in 1795. The passing of the repressive Two Acts in that year made a clandestine existence an increasingly important and unavoidable feature of the United Irishmen, and it was United Irish deputies and Irish refugees who exported ideas of revolution to Scotland in the latter part of the 1790s. In July 1796, the first recorded contact between United Irish missionaries and Scottish radicals took place when two delegates from the Belfast United Irishmen were sent to Scotland. Armed with a copy of the constitution of the United Irishmen, the missionaries found the Scottish to be generally enthusiastic about forming a sister organization based on the Irish model. Within six months of this contact between Irish and Scottish democrats, the United Scotsmen society was ... log in or subscribe to read full text