Henry Dundas — The Fun Uncle. An insider’s view of what it was like…
By: Hd Historic Scotland Committee
Tags: Abolition, Impeachment, Family, Henry Dundas, Personality

An insider’s view of what it was like to be part of the extended family of Henry Dundas, the First Viscount Melville

Henry Dundas as Lord Advocae

Henry Dundas was often portrayed as a kindly but serious looking fellow:

Some of the cartoons of the late 1700's, however, hint at a fun-loving and even licentious side of his personality, although not always in the most flattering way. Most of the these cartoons were connected to his famous carousing with his closest friend and frequent companion, Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger.

A more intimate account of what Henry Dundas was like was provided by his nephew, Lord Henry Cockburn (1779–1854), the Attorney-General for Scotland and later a judge. Cockburn had a passion for writing, and contributed regularly to the Edinburgh Review. He was just reaching adolescence at the time that the abolition debate began to grip the nation, and had a front row seat at Dundas family gatherings.

Cockburn’s published stories and letters included accounts of high-spirited family gatherings, where Henry Dundas presided as chief joke-teller.

Cockburn recalled, for example, being invited to join the Dundas family and friends for “a day of freedom and jollity” at an alehouse in Heriot, a small village in the Moorfoot Hills southeast of Edinburgh:

We found them, roaring and singing and laughing, in a low-roofed room scarcely large enough to hold them, with wooden chairs and a sanded floor. … We were called in, and made to partake, and were very kindly used, particularly by my uncle Harry Dundas. How they did joke and laugh! with songs, and toasts, and disputation, and no want of practical fun. I don’t remember any thing they said, and probably did not understand it. But the noise, and the heat, and the uproarious mirth I think I hear and feel them yet.

Interior of an Inn, Leonard Defrance (1735–1805)

Lord Cockburn described the fun that was made out of making one of Henry’s nephews take his father’s chair when he left the room:

My father was in the chair; and he having gone out for a little, one of us boys was voted into his place, and the boy’s health was drank, with all the honors, as “the young convener. Hurra! hurra! may he be a better man than his father! hurra! hurra!” I need not mention that they were all in a state of elevation; though there was nothing like absolute intoxication, so far as I could judge. I have ever loved the Gala.

Cockburn also recalled the strong presence of Dundas’s mother at these events:

And there is Lady Arniston, the mother of Henry Dundas, the first Lord Melville, so kind to us mischievous boys on the Saturdays. She was generally to be found in the same chair, on the same spot; her thick black hair combed all tightly up into a cone on the top of her head; the remains of considerable beauty in her countenance; great and just pride in her son; a good representative, in her general air and bearing, of what the noble English ladies must have been in their youth, who were queens in their family castles, and stood sieges in defence of them.

Cockburn described a mother whose inner strength and character helped to shape her son’s ambition to serve his country. When Dundas pursued legislation to enfranchise Catholic Scots, the local populace engaged in weeks of rioting that literally went right to his front door.

She was in her son’s house in George Square, when it was attacked by the mob in 1793 or 1794; and, though no windows could be smashed at that time by the populace without the inmates thinking of the bloody streets of Paris, she was perfectly firm, most contemptuous of the assailants, and with a heroic confidence in hers son’s doing his duty.

An even more sobering period of Henry Dundas’s life occurred during and after impeachment proceedings were taken against him in 1805. Cockburn was also present for those events. Dundas’s bitterest enemies had free reign to attack him and smear his reputation. Cockburn recorded the devastating personal effect. Even though Dundas survived, it was a political bloodbath that took its toll on the man and on Scotland:

When he was not only deprived of power, but subjected to trial, people could scarcely believe their senses. The triumphant anticipations of his enemies, many of whom exulted with premature and disgusting joy over the ruin of the man, were as absurd as the rage of his friends who railed, with vain malignity, at his accusers and the Constitution. Between the two, the progress of independence was materially advanced. A blow had been struck which, notwithstanding his acquittal, relaxed our local fetters.

The Manager in Distress

Henry Dundas survived the impeachment and was acquitted of all charges. His first letter describing the result was to his eldest daughter, and was filled only with relief. He expressed no bitterness.

Dundas was invited to re-join the Privy Council, and became a peer in the House of Lords. He later was offered, but declined, an earldom.

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Source material: Cockburn, Henry, Memorials of his Time, New York, D. Appleton & company, Edinburgh, 1856 and personal letters in possession of the Dundas family.

Cockburn, Henry Cockburn, Lord, 1779–1854.

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=moa&cc=moa&sid=95e3f6e828e116b80d4cccd93c806bc1&view=text&rgn=main&idno=ABA0859.0001.001