ABSTRACT
The speediness of the publication is evident: as its title suggests, it is in many places more a compilation than an original composition. But the same speediness, in conjunction with Vedder’s lack of any significant personal ties with Scott, frees it from the weight of expectation and responsibility which can be felt in some other memoirs. David Vedder was the son of a landholder in the parish of Deerness, near Kirkwall, Orkney, and beyond the standard educational provision of the parish school was largely self taught. Orphaned at the age of twelve, he had a varied career, being captain of a Greenland whaler for several years, returning to land to become a tide-surveyor in 1820, and retiring from this post on a government pension in 1852. The extract from Vedder reproduced here begins with public events, namely Scott’s ennoblement by George IV and his management of the King’s visit to Edinburgh in 1822.
