(1712 - 80), political economist, of Coltness, Edinburgh, o. s. of Sir James Steuart; Edinburgh U. 1724; suc. fa. 1727 as 2nd Bt. of Goodtrees and 7th Bt. of Coltness; m. 1743 Ldy. Frances Wemyss (d. 1789), dau. of 5th E. of Wemyss [S]; exiled after Jacobite rebellion 1745; returned to Edinburgh 1763, pardoned 1771; published Enquiry into the Principles of Political Economy [1767]; suc. to estates at Westshield 1773, taking name of Denham.
- 1739 Rome (by Jan. - Oct. 1739), Venice (Oct.) [Lyons, Jun. 1740]
1758 - Venice (by May - by 10 Aug. 1758)
After being admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh in 1735 Steuart travelled to Leiden, Avignon and eventually Rome where, having met the Stuart Princes, he became converted to the Stuart cause.1 In January 1739 Samuel Crisp described him as 'the prettiest most agreeable little cur that ever liv'd, if he was not such a Jacobite', and again mentioned him in Rome in April.2 Sir James acquired five Jacobite portraits painted by Dupra in Rome in 1739 (James Carnegie, Dr James Irwin, Lord John Drummond [later 4th titular Duke of Perth], Captain William Hay and Bellingham Boyle), each sitter described as belonging to the 'Society of Young Gentlemen Travellers at Rome in the year 1739'; Carnegie was said to have travelled for many years in Italy with Steuart.3 Steuart himself sat for his portrait (variously attributed to Dupra or David; priv. coll.). In October 1739 Stosch reported that Steuart 'and his companions' had left Rome for Venice,4 and he was back in Scotland in July 1740.
With the other 'Young Gentlemen Travellers' Steuart was an active supporter of the 1745 rebellion and was subsequently in exile for eighteen years, until 1763. He and his wife (the sister of Lord Elcho) were in Paris until 1754, Brussels in 1755, and then in Germany. In 1758 they left Tubingen, where they had settled, crossed the Tyrol and came to Venice in May. They met Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (then seventy years old) who quickly became a close friend; she found Sir James a man 'of uncommon Sense and Learning' and his wife 'a Lady that without Beauty is more Aimable than the fairest of her Sex'.5 The Steuarts were in Padua later in May, Lady Mary then describing them as 'a Distress'd Lady and Gentleman'.6 On 10 August 1758 the Steuarts had left Venice; 'I feel greatly the loss', wrote Lady Mary; 'there are not many such Couples'.7 They returned to Tubingen and did not return to Edinburgh until 1763, after the Seven Years War was over.8
1. See Tayler 1941, 259 - 65. 2. Macnaghten, 3. 3. B. Skinner, Scottish Art Review, 6iv[1958]:25 - 6. 4. SP 98/41, f.349 (Walton, 4 Oct. 1739). 5. Montagu Letters, 3:145 (13 May 1758). 6. Ibid., 150. 7. Ibid., 164. 8. Ibid., 169, 234, 281, 286. Dennistoun, 1:204.