ABSTRACT
For the last two decades of the eighteenth century almost every officially compiled account of the trade of Great Britain and its empire bore the signature of Thomas Irving. A careful, astute, efficient administrator, he was one of many Scots employed in the British civil service. He played an important if hitherto unappreciated role in the pre-Revolutionary crisis in the Thirteen Continental Colonies. The Commissioners of Customs in London had sought to instruct him in his duties before he went out and even prepared samples of the required forms for his education. His activity at Boston fitted a lifelong pattern of innovative assembly and analysis of financial and commercial information. When the decision was made to reinstate the government in South Carolina after the capture of Charleston by Henry Clinton, Irving was ordered to return. Irving’s experience and his command of information equipped him to express knowledgeable opinions on many policy matters.
