ABSTRACT
That Great Britain in the eighteenth century was a republic as well as a monarchy was a familiar notion in Scotland. David Hume deemed the government of modern Britain an amalgamation of republican and monarchical elements. Hopes for constructive republican possibilities in the modern world, Hume suggested, could be sustained even in the absence of civic virtue if self-interest were to be intelligently channeled. The republican side of Scottish thinking about the hybrid monarchical/republican regime of Britain must be examined, its depth and significance or lack thereof determined. The republican thesis went on to enjoy an enormous vogue after J. G. A. Pocock and Gordon Wood opened the floodgates, scholars calling anything and everything republican which did not smack of the liberalism against which they were rebelling. The polis might be absent from modern Scotland but there was no lack of coffee houses and taverns where persons could meet and discuss whatever they wished, including current events and political affairs.
