CHALMERS, George, an historical, antiquarian, and political writer of considerable eminence, was descended from the family of Chalmers of Pittensar, in the county of Moray, and was born at Fochabers in the end of the year 1742. After completing his academical course at King's College Aberdeen, he removed to Edinburgh, where he studied law for several years. In 1763, he went to America to assist in recovering a considerable tract of land in Maryland. His prospects in America induced him to settle as a lawyer at Baltimore in Maryland, where he continued to practise successfully till the outbreak of the disputes between the two countries, which ended in the establishment of American independence. He espoused and advocated the cause of the Royalist party against the ablest of their opponents; but public opinion was so decidedly engaged on the opposite side, that he soon found it expedient to abandon all his professional prospects, and seek refuge in his native country. For the losses he had sustained as a colonist he received no compensation, and several years elapsed before he obtained an appointment which placed him in a state of comfort and independence.
In the mean time Mr Chalmers applied himself with great diligence and assiduity to the investigation of the history and establishment of the English colonies in North America; and enjoying free access to the state-papers, and other documents preserved among the plantation records, he obtained much original and important information. His work entitled "Political Annals of the present United Colonies, from their Settlement to the Peace of 1763, &c.," 4to, London, 1780, was intended to have formed two volumes; but the second, which should have contained the period between the British revolution of 1688 and the peace of 1763, never appeared. The first volume, however, is complete in itself, and traces the original settlement of the different colonies, and the progressive changes in their constitutions and forms of government, as affected by
the state of public affairs in the parent kingdom. Independently of its value as being compiled from original documents, it bears evidence of great diligence and research, and it has been of essential benefit to later writers.
In August 1786 Mr Chalmers was appointed chief clerk to the committee of privy-council, on matters relating to trade and foreign plantations, and continued to discharge its duties for nearly forty years. During this period he wrote most of those numerous pieces of which a list will be found at the close of this article, and devoted himself to the illustration of the antiquities and topography of Scotland.
Most of his minor pieces it is not necessary to mention particularly. His life of Ruddiman throws considerable light on the state of literature in Scotland during the earlier part of the last century; but is too stately and inflated in style. His volumes on the Shakespeare controversy are full of curious matter, but on the whole display a great waste of erudition in the attempt to show that papers which had been proved forgeries might nevertheless have been genuine. Neither was he more fortunate in fixing the authorship of Junius's Letters on Hugh Boyd. His editions of Sir David Lyndsay and Churchyard are valuable and curious. His Life of Queen Mary is founded on a MS. left by the Rev. John Whitaker, the historian of Manchester; but he informs us that he found it necessary to "rewrite the whole." The history of that ill-fated queen occupied much of Mr Chalmers's attention. One of the latest acts of his life was to expose an attempt to resuscitate some fictitious love-letters said to have passed between Mary and Bothwell, and which had fallen into deserved oblivion.
But Chalmers's greatest work is his "Caledonia." It is divided into four books, treating successively of the Roman, the Pietish, the Scottish, and the Scoto-Saxon periods from A.D. 80 to 1306. In these books there is presented, in a condensed form, an account of the people, the language, the history civil and ecclesiastical, and the agricultural and commercial state of Scotland, during the first thirteen centuries of our era. Between the publication of the 2d and 3d vols. an interval of fourteen years elapsed, and in the preface to the latter volume the author announced his expectation that the work would be completed in two years. This expectation, however, was not destined to be realized.
Besides the "Caledonia," Mr Chalmers had for many years been engaged in collecting materials for other works of not less important and laborious a nature. One of these works was a History of Scottish Poetry; another a History of Printing in Scotland. Each of them he thought likely to extend to two large quarto volumes, and on both he expended an unusual amount of enthusiasm and energy. He had also prepared for the press an elaborate history of the Life and Reign of David I., who died in 1153. In his later researches he was ably assisted by his nephew Mr James Chalmers.
Mr George Chalmers died at his house, James Street, Buckingham Gate, London, May 31, 1825, after a few days illness, in the eighty-third year of his age. He was a member of the Royal and Antiquarian Societies of London, an honorary member of the Antiquarian Society of Scotland, and of other learned societies. In private life he was undoubtedly an amiable man, although his writings are disfigured by a dogmatic and presumptuous tone which procured him many opponents. He is besides chargeable with a want of taste, and inaccurate scholarship, which appears too prominently in his keen attempts to silence, at all hazards, those whom he considered the detractors of Mary. Among his avowed antagonists in literary warfare the most distinguished were Malone and Steevens, the Shakespeare editors; Mr Mathias, the author of the Pursuits of Literature; Dr Jamieson, the Scottish lexicographer; Mr Pinkerton, the historian; Dr Irving, the biographer of the Scottish poets; and Dr Currie of Liverpool. But with all his failings in judgment and in matters of taste, Mr Chalmers was a valuable writer. He
Chalmers, uniformly had recourse to original sources of information; and his patriotic endeavours to illustrate the history, literature, and antiquities of his native country, attended as they were by very great pecuniary sacrifices, deserve our gratitude and esteem.
The following is a list of his works:—1. Life of Daniel De Foe, prefixed to an addition of his History of the Union, Lond. 1786; and of Robinson Crusoe, 1790, 8vo. 2. Life of Sir John Davies, prefixed to his Historical Tracts regarding Ireland. Lond. 1786, 8vo. 3. Collection of Treatises between Great Britain and other Powers. Lond. 1790, 2 vols. 8vo. 4. Life of Thomas Paine, the author of Rights of Man. (Tenth edition), Lond. 1793, 8vo, published under the assumed name of "Francis Oldys, A.M. of the university of Pennsylvania." 5. Life of Thomas Ruddiman, A.M.; to which are subjoined New Anecdotes of Buchanan. Lond. 1794, 8vo. 6. Prefatory Introduction to Dr Johnson's Debates in Parliament. Lond. 1794, 8vo. 7. Vindication of the Privilege of the People in respect to the constitutional right of Free Discussion, &c. Lond. 1796, 8vo. (Anonymous.) 8. An Apology for the Believers in the Shakspeare Papers, which were exhibited in Norfolk Street. Lond. 1797, 8vo. 9. A Supplemental Apology for the Believers in the Shakspeare Papers, &c. Lond. 1799, 8vo. 10. Appendix to the Supplemental Apology. 1800, 8vo. 11. Life of Allan Ramsay, prefixed to an edition of his Poems. Lond. 1800, 2 vols. 8vo. The Remarks on Ramsay's Poetry, prefixed to this edition, were from the pen of the late Lord Woodhouselee. 12. Life of Gregory King, prefixed to his Observations on the State of England in 1698. Lond. 1804, 8vo. 13. The Poetical Works of Sir David Lindsay of the Mouset, with a Life of the Author, Prefatory Dissertations, &c. Lond. 1806, 3 vols. 8vo. 14. Caledonia, or an Account, Historical and Topographic, of North Britain, &c. 2 vols. Lond. 1807-1810, 4to. 15. A Chronological Account of Commerce and Coinage in Great Britain, from the Restoration till 1810. Lond. 1810, 8vo. 16. Considerations on Commerce, Bullion, and Coin, Circulation and Exchanges, &c. 1811, 8vo. 17. An Historical View of the Domestic Economy of Great Britain and Ireland, from the earliest to the present times, &c. (being a new edition of the Comparative Estimate). Edinb. 1812, 8vo. 18. Opinions of eminent Lawyers on various points of English Jurisprudence, chiefly concerning the Colonies, Fisheries, and Commerce of Great Britain. Lond. 1814, 2 vols. 8vo. 19. A Tract (privately printed) in answer to Malone's Account of Shakespeare's "Tempest." Lond. 1816, 8vo. 20. Comparative Views of the State of Great Britain and Ireland before and since the War. Lond. 1817, 8vo. 21. The Author of Junius ascertained, from a concatenation of circumstances, amounting to moral demonstration. Lond. 1817, 8vo. 22. Churchyard's Chrysos concerning Scotland; being a Collection of his Pieces relative to that Country, with Notes and a Life of the Author. Lond. 1817, 8vo. 23. Life of Mary Queen of Scots, drawn from the State Papers, with its Subsidiary Memoirs. Lond. 1818, 2 vols. 4to, and reprinted in 3 vols. 8vo. 24. The Poetical Remains of some of the Scottish Kings, now first collected. Lond. 1824, 8vo. 25. Robens and Makyne, and the Testament of Cressid, by Robert Henryson, edited and presented by Mr Chalmers as a contribution to the Bannatyne Club. Edin. 1824, 4to. 26. Caledonia, vol. iii. 1824, 4to. 27. A Detection of the Love-Letters lately attributed in Hugh Campbell's work to Mary Queen of Scots. Lond. 1825, 8vo.