Profile Major Works Resources

Sir John Dalrymple, 1726-1810.

Scottish lawyer, judge and historian. 

Sir John Dalrymple, baronet, was a member of a prominent family of Scottish lawyers and jurists.  John Dalrymple was educated at Edinburgh and Cambridge.   He joined the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh in 1748, and would later ascend to become a Baron of the Scottish Exchequer in 1776.

Dalrymple came into the orbit of Henry Home Lord Kames (a close friend of the Dalrymple family) and became a member of the Scottish Enlightenment's "Select Society".  Dalrymple's 1757 Essay was arguably the first publication to explicitly delineate the "four stages" theory of civilizational history originally articulated by Lord Kames.

 

  


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Major Works of Sir John Dalrymple

  • Considerations on the Polity of Entails in a Nation, 1765 [1765 2nd ed]
  • An Essay towards a General History of Feudal Property in Great Britain, 1757 [bk] [1758 2nd ed, 1758 3rd ed; 1759 4th ed] [hth], [McM]
  • Examination of some of the Arguments for the High Antiquity of Regiam Majestatem, and an inquiry into the origin of the Leges Malcolm, 1768
  • Catalogue of the Lords of Session, 1770
  • Case of the Countess of Sutherland, 1770
  • Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland from the dissolution of the last parliament of Charles II until the sea battle of La Hogue, 1771 [bk], [1771 2nd ed],  v.2, [1773 Dublin 4th ed, v.1, v.2, v.3] [1790 new ed extended to "till the capture of the French and Spanish Fleets at Vigo", v.1 ,v.2, v.3]
  • [Anon] The Address of the People of Great Britain to the Inhabitants of America, 1775 [bk]
  • [Anon] Reflections upon the Military Preparations which are Making at Present in Scotland, 1778 [bk]
  • Three Letters from Sir John Dalrymple, Bart., to the Right Honourable Lord Viscount Barrington, late Secretary at War, on his Lordship's official conduct, 1778 [bk]
  • The Question Considered, Whether Wool should be allowed to be Exported, when the price is low at home, on paying a duty to the public?, 1783 [bk]
  • A Proposal for an application to Parliament, to Take Off the Duties on Cinders carried Coastways, 1786 
  • Queries concerning the Conduct which England should follow in Foreign Politics, in the present state of Europe, written in October 1788, 1788 [bk]
  • Plan of Internal Defence, 1794
  • The Question considered: Whether Parliament ought to rescind the Scotch Entails or, whether Parliament ought rather to introduce the use of entails into England, without injuring those of Scotland, 1805 [reprint of 1765] [bk]
  • Three Addresses to the Seamen, Soldiers, and Great Mass of the People of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 1808 [bk]

 


HET

 

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Resources on  John Dalrymple

  • "Darlymple's History of Feudal Property", 1757, Scots Magazine (Sep), p.453
  • A Discourse on the Bookland and Folkland of the Saxons: wherein the nature of those kinds of estates is explained; and the notion of them advanced by sir John Dalrymple in his Essay on feudal property, examined and confuted by Anon [R. Heckford], 1775 [bk]
  • The State of the National Debt, the National Income, and the National Expenditure, with some short inferences and reflections applicable to the present dangerous crisis, by John Dalrymple, Earl of Stair, 1776 [bk] (Dalrymple's relative)
  • John Dalrymple page at McMaster [McM]
  • Wiki

 

 
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