St John Sinclair's Vision for the Statistical Accounts of Scotland

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Sir John Sinclair's vision for The Statistical Accounts Of Scotland

The first Statistical Account was the personal initiative of Sir John Sinclair of Ulbster, a Scottish Baronet and Member of the Union Parliament at Westminster. He used Westminster money to carry out a survey of 166 questions put to ministers of the Kirk in each of the 938 parishes of Scotland. His vision was to cover the whole of Scotland with an overall, consistent, description to meliorate the condition of the people:

Many inquires, it is certain, have, at various periods, been made into the political circumstances of nations: Unfortunately, however, they have uniformly been instituted, with a view of ascertaining the state of the country, for the purposes of taxation and of war, and not of national improvement. Their object has been, not to meliorate the condition of the people, but to fill the exchequer, or the armies of the state; and the utmost that could be expected from them was to render taxation, and other public burdens, less unequal. But, in modern times, more extensive and more important objects of invigilation have been pointed out. Real statesmen, and true patriots, no longer satisfied with partial and defective views of the situation of a country, are now anxious to ascertain the real state of its agriculture, its manufactures, and its commerce, - the means of improvement, of which they are respectively capable - the amount of the population of a state, and the causes of its increase or decrease - the manner in which the territory of a country is possessed and cultivated - the nature and amount of the various productions of the soil - the value of the personal wealth or stock of the inhabitants, and how it can be augmented - the diseases to which people are subject, their causes and their cure - the occupations of the people - where they are entitled to encouragement, and where they ought to be suppressed - the condition of the poor, the best mode of maintaining them, and of giving them employment - the state of schools, and other institutions, formed for purposes of public utility - the state of the villages and towns, and the regulations best calculated for their police and good government - the state of the manners, the morals, and the religious principles of the people, and the means by which their temporal and eternal interests can best be promoted.