(c.1660 - 1740), Scottish merchant, s. of William Brown of London, and bro. of Sir Robert Brown; cons. Venice 1716 - 39.
c.1700 - 40 Venice
Neil Brown succeeded Hugh Broughton, who died in August 1716, as consul in Venice, a position he held for twenty-three years.1 Martin Folkes found him 'the most conversable man' and, after he had accompanied him to Padua, said that the consul 'has shown me uncommon civilitys and is one of the best sort of men in the world'.2 Lady Grisell Baillie, who had met Sir Robert Brown and his brother Neil in June 1733, advised her nephew in Venice in 1740: 'If Mr Consul Brown be alive who is a worthy honest Scots man send to him and he will do everything for you when he knows who you are.'3 Brown initially had an uneasy partnership with the British resident, Alexander Cunningham, but the situation was eased with the arrival of a new resident, Elizeus Burges, in 1719.
Burges died in November 1736 and Brown was alone for the visit of the Charles Stuart, the Young Pretender, in May 1737. The Venetians paid conspicuous court to him, but Brown requested that the Jacobite Prince should be expelled; a diplomatic crisis ensued in which the Venetian Ambassador in London was expelled.4 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu then said the consul was 'a fool and doted with age',5 yet she subsequently held him in some esteem. He was 'a good scholar' who had lent her his Horace; in October 1739 she described 'Our English Consul, who has resided, as he says, this 40 years, is as chearfull an old Man as ever I saw', and at his death in Venice in June 1740 she described him as 'much esteem'd'.6
1. His dip.corr. is SP 99/61 - 3. 2. Folkes jnl.MSS (18 Aug., 10 Oct. 1733). 3. Baillie, Household Bk., 346, 398. 4. F. McLynn, Charles Edward Stuart, 54 - 5. 5. Wal.Corr., 17:98. 6. Montagu Letters, 2:152, 163, 197.