| Administrative History | Robert Arbuthnot [1728-1803] was a member of a distinguished Jacobite/ Episcopalian family. He was brought up and later owned Haddo-Rattray House, north of Peterhead. He was a merchant and then a banker in the firm of Arbuthnot and Guthrie, which failed in 1772. He then moved to Edinburgh where he bacame secretary of the Board for the Encouragement of Manufacturies and Fisheries in Scotland. He befriended Beattie after Beattie moved to Aberdeen in 1758, and became for some years his principal poetic adviser and promoter. He negotiated on Beattie's behalf and often in conjuction with Sir William Forbes, with the booksellers over several of the publications |
| Description | He has just returned home from Edinburgh. He proposes journey to Peterhead when weather better. Reference to Mercers. Nephew David Valentine, Lieutenant of Sea Gull, is in Leith roads, and will call on Arbuthnot . Superior officers praised him high, but misfortune has kept him back. When Arbuthnot has heard his story, he may think of some plan to encourage and promote him. He went to sea at ten as apprentice to his father in the Montrose trade. He has often been in command as acting lieutenant, but never as a lieutenant till Sir Charles Middleton procured this for him last summer. |