James Stuart (1775–1849)

James Stuart (1775 – 3 November 1849) was a Scottish politician. He was the target of several personal attacks by opponents and participated in a duel that fatally wounded Sir Alexander Boswell.

Stuart, of Dunearn, was born in 1775. He was a writer to the signet, was the eldest son of Charles Stuart of Dunearn in Fifeshire for some years minister of the parish of Cramond in Linlithgowshire, and afterwards (1795–1828) physician in Edinburgh. He attended, it is believed, the high school of Edinburgh from 1785 to 1789. Having studied at the university of Edinburgh and served an apprenticeship to Mr. Hugh Robertson, W.S., he was admitted a member of the Society of Writers to the Signet on 17 August 1798. He held the office of collector of the widows' fund of the society from 1818 to 1828, but "was more attached to agricultural pursuits than to those of his profession". As a deputy-lieutenant and justice of the peace he took an active part in county business, but his whig enthusiasm offended the authorities. In December 1815, when a new commission of the peace was issued for Fifeshire, the Earl of Morton, then lord lieutenant, omitted Stuart. On 4 January 1816, however, a meeting of the gentlemen of the western district of the county resolved "to take steps for securing the continuance of Mr. Stuart's most important and unremitting services to this district," and he was reappointed. Some years later he had another difficulty with Lord Morton, who censured him for having, contrary to a regimental order, assembled for drill a troop of the Fifeshire yeomanry, in which he was an officer. Stuart, who maintained that he had never seen the order, resigned his commission on 7 January 1821.

Stuart was a keen politician on the whig side. On 28 July 1821 the Beacon, an Edinburgh tory paper, the first number of which had appeared on 6 January 1821, contained a personal attack on him. He demanded an apology from the printer, Duncan Stevenson. This was refused, and on 15 August Stuart, meeting Stevenson in the Parliament Close, assaulted him. Lord Cockburn simply says ‘he caned the printer in the street,’ but Stevenson and his friends said there was a fight, and that Stuart behaved like a coward. The personal attacks were continued in the Beacon, and Stuart entered on a long correspondence with Sir William Rae, then lord-advocate of Scotland, who in the end expressed his disapproval of the Beacon's system of personal attacks, and allowed Stuart to publish the correspondence. Soon after this the Beacon ceased to appear.

...
Wikipedia