John Scott-Waring

John Scott-Waring (at first John Scott) (1747–1819) was an English political agent of Warren Hastings, publicist and Member of Parliament.

Born at Shrewsbury, his father was Jonathan Scott of Shrewsbury (died August 1778), who married Mary, second daughter of Humphrey Sandford of the Isle of Rossall, Shropshire. The second son, Richard, rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and served under Sir Eyre Coote against Hyder Ali Khan. The third son was Jonathan Scott the orientalist. The fourth son, Henry, became commissioner of police at Bombay.

John, the eldest son, entered the service of the East India Company about 1766, and became a major in the Bengal division of its forces.

Scott had been in India for twelve years before he knew Warren Hastings more than casually. They became close, and he was one of the intermediaries who, in November 1779, patched up a temporary reconciliation between Hastings and Philip Francis. In May 1780 he was appointed to command a battalion of sepoys.

Scott was sent by Hastings to England as his political agent, and he arrived in London on 17 December 1781. Scott was profuse in his expenditure for his patron.

From 1784 to 1790 Scott sat in parliament as member for West Looe, and in 1790 he was returned for in Hampshire. A petition was presented against him, and in February 1793 a prosecution for bribery seemed imminent, but the matter fell through.

The charges against Warren Hastings might have been allowed to drop, but Scott reminded Edmund Burke on the first day of the session of 1786 of the notice which he had given before the preceding recess of bringing them before parliament. Scott asked Burke to name the first day that was practicable; Burke opened the subject on 17 February. Fanny Burney (Diary, ed. 1842, iv. 74–5) commented on Scott "skipping backwards and forwards like a grasshopper".

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