thumb|Thomas Muir of Hunters Hill by [[David Martin (artist)|David Martin, 1790, chalk drawing from life, National Portrait Gallery of Scotland]]
Thomas Muir (24 August 1765 – 25 January 1799), also known as Thomas Muir the Younger of Huntershill, was a Scottish political reformer and lawyer. Muir graduated from Edinburgh University and was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in 1787, aged 22. Muir was a leader of the Society of the Friends of the People.
He is included in the Political Martyrs' Monument in Edinburgh.
In 1793 Muir was sentenced to transportation to Botany Bay Australia for sedition. Two years later in 1796, Muir escaped from Botany Bay on the American ship Otter. The Otter reached Nootka Sound, Vancouver Island in June 1796. From there Muir travelled to Mexico City, where he asked to be allowed to travel to California. On April 1797 Muir was imprisoned in Havana, Cuba and taken by Spanish ship Ninfa to Spain. On arrival at Cádiz, the Spanish ship became engaged in a battle with two Royal Navy warships that were blockading the harbour. Muir received a glancing blow to his face from shrapnel which smashed his left cheek and injured his eyes. The Spanish captain insisted that Muir was among the dead: and he was so badly disfigured that his would-be captors failed to identify him and he was sent ashore with the wounded. Now began a long and painful recovery, while the French and Spanish authorities, indulged in a bitter diplomatic wrangle over Muir's release. In September 1797, the Spanish Government released Muir an he made his way to France.
In November 1797, he arrived in Bordeaux, where he was hailed as a 'Hero of the French Republic.' Muir then traveled to Paris. Muir's confidant in 1798 was Dr Robert Watson and Muir learned of the United Scotsmen, which replaced the Friends of the People. In November 1798, Muir moved to the Île-de-France village of Chantilly. He died there on 25 January 1799. Shortly before his death, he said, "we have achieved a great duty in these critical times. After the destruction of so many years, we have been the first to revive the spirit of our country and give it a National Existence."
Early years
Thomas Muir was born above his father's grocers shop on the High Street of Glasgow. His father, James Muir, was the son of the 'bonnet laird' of Birdston in Milton of Campsie, he married Margaret Smith and they had two children Thomas and Janet. As a younger son James Muir had little prospect of inheriting his father's property. His family, however, had in Maidstone, Kent, relations who were prosperous hop-growers and it was towards this branch of trade that young James was persuaded to direct his energies. In this business venture he achieved considerable success and by the time of his marriage in 1764 he was firmly established as a hop-merchant in the High Street of Glasgow. Here, in the heart of the town's ancient University quarter, he settled with his wife, living in a little flat above his shop.
By all accounts Muir senior was a man of some education, whose interest in commerce extended far beyond that of his fellow businessmen, for he has been credited with the authorship of a pamphlet on 'England's Foreign Trade'. In the 1780s he purchased the property of Huntershill House, together with adjoining lands. Of Muir's mother, Margaret Smith, nothing of a biographical nature has been recorded. However, it is known that both Muir's parents were orthodox Presbyterians, consequently young Thomas's early upbringing was very much within the confines of the rigid moral and social ethic of ‘Auld Licht’ Calvinism. Early accounts described him as 'a pious child of modest, reserved nature'.
The Edinburgh Convention and the United Irish address
Muir returned to Scotland on 23 August 1792. On 21 November, Muir, having been elected vice-president of the movement at the Edinburgh monthly meeting, called for a General Convention of the popular reform societies in Great Britain to be held there in December.
On 8 December, as the first of the delegates were arriving in the capital, an Address of Fraternity from the United Irishmen arrived at Muir's lodgings in Carrubers Close. Drawn up by William Drennan, its appeal to the republican and independent spirit of the Scottish people were entirely to Muir's satisfaction. However, he appears to have unwisely circulated a copy of it among the delegates prior to the first sitting of the convention. Although "there was much in the address that was attractive to the delegates, many objected to the 'intemperate and dangerous nationalistic language".
As Muir rose in the first session Muir to present the Address he was vigorously opposed by a powerful unionist section among the delegates led by Col. William Dalrymple, Lord Daer and Richard Fowler. The Address contained "Treason or Misprison of Treason against the Union with England". Although the Address 'in its original form' was ultimately rejected, Muir was able to read it out and to declare: "We do not, we cannot, consider ourselves as mowed and melted down into another country. Have we not distinct Courts, Judges, Juries, Laws, etc.?".
Charged, convicted and transported for sedition
Muir spent the days following the Convention preparing a defence brief for James Tytler, arrested on a charge of sedition the previous month. Robert Dundas the Lord Advocate initiated an investigation of Muir's movements during the previous three months. Muir, on his way to Edinburgh on the morning of 2 January 1793 to attend Tytler's trial, was himself arrested on a charge of sedition and brought under guard to Edinburgh. After interrogation before the Sheriff and refusing to answer any questions, Muir was released on bail.
On 8 January Muir set out for London, to tell the Reformers there of the plight of the Scottish Association. The trial of the French King had changed attitudes. Both Charles Gray and Lord Lauderdale were now considering giving up the campaign for Parliamentary reform. Muir went to France, hoping vainly to persuade the French leaders to spare the life of the King. He met personalities of the National Convention including Condorcet, Brissot, Mirabeau and Madame Roland. While in Paris he also met Thomas Paine and Dr William Maxwell of Kirkconnel, the future doctor and associate of Robert Burns.
With the outbreak of war with France the anti-reform party in Scotland became increasingly militant, and Dundas advanced the date of Muir's trial from April to 11 February. Learning this, Muir drafted an open letter stating his intention to return as soon as passport difficulties would admit. Dundas set in motion legal steps to ensure Muir's outlawry for non-appearance on 25 February 1793, when Lord Braxfield pronounced him a fugitive from justice.
On 6 March 1793, Henry Erskine convened a meeting of the Faculty of Advocates at which Muir, with no one to speak in his defence, was unanimously expelled and his name struck from the register. At the end of June Muir obtained a passage from Havre de Grace in an American ship, The Hope of Boston.
Disembarking at Belfast, he made his way south to Dublin where he was feted by William Drennan and other leading United Irishmen, and taking Drennan's membership test was inducted into their society. Urged on by the secretary of the society, Archibald Hamilton Rowan, Muir decided to ignore his father's advice to remain in exile, and to return to Scotland to face down his accusers. He travelled back via Belfast where he was hosted by the publisher of the United Irish paper, the Northern Star, Samuel Neilson.
Muir was sentenced to 14 years transportation. The reform movement then stiffened their resistance to Government coercion. Muir was removed to an armed cutter, the Royal George, at Leith Roads. There he was soon joined by Thomas Fyshe Palmer, who had received a sentence of 7 years transportation in similar circumstances at Perth. Skirving resolved to convene a new Convention, better organised and more representative than its predecessors. Dundas reacted by ordering the immediate removal of Muir and Palmer to the Hulks at Woolwich, ahead of their departure for Botany Bay.
The third Convention
The third Convention of the Friends of the People and its successor the 'British Convention' were, like their predecessors, largely dominated by the delegates of the Edinburgh Societies. Moreover, by means of arrests and desertions, the Scottish movement had been deprived of most of its articulate leadership. Into this vacuum stepped three English delegates: Maurice Margarot, a merchant with a university education, Joseph Gerrald, friend and correspondent of William Godwin and an orator of flawless eloquence, and Matthew Campbell Browne, an actor turned reformer. After the early departure of Lord Daer, who was already suffering from the tuberculosis which led to his death the following year, these three men came to dominate the convention and its proceedings.
Only they and Muir realised the true nature of the extraordinary organisational differences existing between the reform movements in England and Scotland. Where the English societies remained psychologically and geographically divided, the Scots had an unprecedented degree of national unity backed by the general sympathy of the common people. Finding themselves almost by accident at the head of such an organisation, they threw all discretion to the winds. Urged on by Campbell Browne's wild histrionics, the movement's covert aims now became an open secret. Aping the Convention at Paris, the terms Citizen President, Secretary General, etc. were now introduced into its published reports, while the convention was rechristened the 'British Convention'.
What Muir thought of this reckless exposure to destruction of the organisation which he and William Skirving had so carefully nurtured is revealed by his description of it in 1797 as 'a miserable plaything of the English Government'. Ultimately it was a motion of Charles Sinclair, delegate from the Society for Constitutional Information (London), which gave Dundas his much sought-for excuse to disperse the convention.
Commenting upon the Convention Bill recently passed in Ireland as a means of suppressing public assemblies, Sinclair moved that a secret committee of four, together with the Secretary, be invested with the power to fix the meeting of a Convention of Emergency. This convention would, if necessary, declare itself permanent and resist attempts to disperse it. When the diligent spy, 'J.B.', duly delivered his report of this discussion, the authorities moved swiftly. Early on the morning of 5 December arrest warrants were issued and served by armed bailiffs upon Skirving, Margarot, Gerrald, Sinclair and Matthew Campbell Browne. In the trials which followed, Skirving, Margarot and Gerrald were each respectively given sentences of 14 years transportation. While these events were occurring, Muir and Palmer were being held in the prison hulks by night and being forced to labour in a chain gang on the banks of the Thames by day. An attempt to ship them out to Botany Bay in the convict transport Ye Canada had failed, when in true 'coffin-ship' tradition, her timbers were found to be rotten. After spending some time in Newgate Jail where they were joined by the newly convicted associates, Palmer, Skirving and Margarot, they were removed by coach to Portsmouth and placed aboard a new transport Surprize. In spite of belated and somewhat reluctant attempts on behalf of the Whigs in Parliament and the Lords to obtain a pardon for the radicals, they were abruptly shipped out for Botany Bay on the morning of 24 May.
Journey and arrival in Australia
On the first of May 1794, the Surprise, convict transport, sailed from Spithead (St. Helen's) for Sydney with Muir, Palmer, Skirving, and Margarot on board. The French Admiralty, by order of the Comite du Salut Public, sent out frigates to attempt their rescue; but the Surprise sailed with a strong convoy of East Indiamen and some of His Majesty's ships, and it does not appear they ever sighted the French frigates. The Surprise reached Sydney on 25 October 1794.
During the long voyage out to Australia an attempt was made (with or without official connivance) to discredit Muir, Skirving and Palmer by implicating them in an alleged mutiny led by the first mate. This affair, however, was so badly bungled that, in spite of having to endure much harsh and brutal treatment at the hands of the captain, the reformers had little difficulty in refuting the evidence against them upon arrival at Port Jackson.
Confinement at Sydney Cove
Muir's term of confinement at the penal colony appears to have been fairly uneventful. As political prisoners, and men of talent and education, Muir and his associates were accorded far greater freedom of movement than ordinary convicts. Prior to their departure from Portsmouth, each had received a considerable sum of money raised as a subscription on their behalf among the wealthy London Whigs. By this means they were able to sustain themselves without recourse to the official colonial stores, and thereby keep free of the compulsory manual labour normally demanded from all dependents.
In November, Judge Advocate Collins records that: