Andrew Fletcher, of Saltoun, was educated by Bishop Burnet, then minister of Saltoun. He first appears as Commissioner for East Lothian in the Scotch Parliament; but his opposition to the court occasioned his outlawry and the confiscation of his estates. In 1685 he engaged in Monmouth’s rebellion, but quarrelled with a fellow-officer named Dare, and shot him. Monmouth was obliged to dismiss Fletcher, who withdrew to the Continent, and entered the Austrian service against the Turks. In 1688 he joined William of Orange at the Hague, and after the Revolution his estates were restored to him. He soon joined the “Club,” a body of politicians who were dissatisfied with the Revolution Settlement in Scotland. Proud of his good family and theoretical Liberalism, Fletcher hated monarchy and democracy: and desired to make Scotland an oligarchical republic, of the Venetian or Bernese type. At this time he published two “Discourses” concerning the affairs of Scotland, in one of which he recommended predial slavery as a remedy for pauperism. He formed a friendship with Paterson, the originator of the Bank of England, and supported his Darien scheme. In Anne’s reign he led the “Patriots” in their opposition to the Union. In 1703 he introduced his “Limitations” for Queen Anne’s successor, some of which strangely anticipate modern Liberalism, and was a prime mover of the “Bill of Security,” which passed in 1704, while the “Limitations” were accepted in 1705. But, finding he could not withstand the Union, he exerted his influence more practically to secure freedom of trade. This attitude, rather than any real connection with the Jacobite conspiracies, led to his arrest in 1708.
Personal
Here is one Fletcher, Laird of Saltoun, lately come from Scotland. He is an ingenious but a violent fanatic, and doubtless hath some commission, for I hear he is very busy and very virulent.
A Scotch gentleman of great parts, and many virtues, but a most violent republican, and extravagantly passionate.
One of the brightest of our gentry, remarkable for his fine taste in all manner of polite learning, his curious library, his indefatigable diligence in every thing he thought might benefit and improve his country.
A low, thin man, brown complexion, full of fire, with a stern, sour look.
A most arrogant, conceited pedant in politics; cannot endure the least contradiction in any of his visions or paradoxes.
A man distinguished by learning and eloquence, distinguished also by courage, disinterestedness, and public spirit, but of an irritable and impracticable temper. Like many of his most illustrious contemporaries, Milton for example, Harrington, Marvel, and Sidney, Fletcher had, from the misgovernment of several successive princes, conceived a strong aversion to hereditary monarchy. Yet he was no democrat. He was the head of an ancient Norman house, and was proud of his descent. He was a fine speaker and a fine writer, and was proud of his intellectual superiority. Both in his character of gentleman, and in his character of scholar, he looked down with disdain on the common people, and was so little disposed to entrust them with political power that he thought them unfit even to enjoy personal freedom. It is a curious circumstance that this man, the most honest, fearless, and uncompromising republican of his time, should have been the author of a plan for reducing a large part of the working classes of Scotland to slavery. He bore, in truth, a lively resemblance to those Roman Senators who, while they hated the name of King, guarded the privileges of their order with inflexible pride against the encroachments of the multitude, and governed their bondmen and bondwomen by means of the stocks and the scourge.
There are books, like “Robert Elsmere,” written to illustrate passing interest, or to picture transitory events. They are received with much enthusiasm, provoke much discussion, and monopolise public attention for a time, and then are forgotten as others serving the same purpose in constantly changing conditions take their place. And there are men like these books—Sordellos who are born in times when activity must be spent on interests and events soon to be forgotten, who adopt attitudes which do not make history, and who, though they play a large part in them own day, have little influence on, because they have little sympathy with, the future. Their ability cannot save them; the storms and passions they raise or quell cannot make them live; their proportions in their own time are not their proportions in history. Contemporaries who were weak in comparison with them often become of great magnitude and live, whilst they pass away and are hidden amongst the majority of men. One of these, to whom posterity has done but scant justice, is Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun. On the one hand, as a parliamentary representative, he supported a party which was routed and which has left no trace in history; on the other, as a political philosopher, he was at once before and behind his time. Yet of no man could it be more truly said that he erred on the side of uprightness, that he ordered his life too much in accordance with principle, that his honesty deprived his country of the brilliance of his talents. As a politician, he stood head and shoulders over his contemporaries; he played a leading part in every revolutionary project of his troubled times; as a writer and man of letters he was one of the most cultured and erudite of his day; and as a patriot he rose supreme in a crisis when patriotism was never so strong, and when no greater temptations were ever held out to public men to abandon it.
Whose personality is embalmed by his saying or quotation about the ballads of a nation; and by his not quite senseless crotchet about enslaving beggars.
General
His countryman, Andrew Fletcher, is a better master of English style: he writes with purity, clearness, and spirit; but the substance is so much before his eyes, that he is little solicitous about language.
As an accurate descriptive writer of the manners of his time he ranks high. His pictures are generally sad, though his hopes were ever bright. They are full of gloom, with the shades dull and dark and full of awe; but, vivid with picturesque terseness, they lift his writings above the fleeting reputation of an essayist into the position of valuable historical materials. Sir Walter Scott was among the first to recognize this value of his being a limner of national life; and in the novelist’s pages we come across quotations from Fletcher, which give us glimpses into the cavalier-like manners of the time and the deplorable state of the country. His accuracy is undoubted, and a page of his description is like a table of statistics clothed in realization.
As a writer he is superior to any Scotchman of his age, and his oratory, nervous and incisive, is made eloquent by his sincerity and earnestness.
Fletcher wrote as he must have spoken, clearly and simply. Always full of his subjects, he strung his arguments in a plain sequence, using little or no rhetoric, and seeking no illustration except in history, from which he had extracted a marvellously sound philosophy. Comparison with his pedantic Scottish contemporaries lifts him high above them all in style, his distinguishing qualities being a just choice of words, neatness of construction, and a certain elegance, which is in itself evidence of the breadth of his culture. He has recourse to no passion as an aid to persuasion, except that of patriotism, and though he continually works upon the self-interest of his audience, the largeness and dignity of that interest at once save his theme from debasement and elevate the tone of his eloquence. He may be classed as a strenuous debater, rather than as an orator.
In point of style Fletcher is unique. He had no models. If he had written ten or fifteen years later, it might have been supposed that he had imitated Addison; for, especially in the “Account of a Conversation,” the style of Fletcher resembles the style of Addison. But he had ceased to write long before the “Spectator” appeared. To Burnet he doubtless owed a sound classical education, and a knowledge of political history. The clearness and elegance of his style, however, were certainly not learned from Burnet, but were evidently the result of studying, very closely, the literature of Greece and Rome, from which he loves to draw illustrations for the purpose of enforcing his own theories of government, and his peculiar political schemes.
