George Chalmers may have been the most competent and the most distinguished American historian of the eighteenth century. His varied public career--as lawyer, civil servant, and colonial agent--left him sufficient leisure for a literary output whose volume would put many a professional writer to shame. The subjects which occupied his attention give some idea of the breadth of his learning: the antiquities of Scotland, the texts of Shakespeare, free trade, domestic economy, and the history of colonial America. First and last a pedant, he had the genuine pedant's love of learning for its own sake.

Chalmers was born in 1742 in the Scottish village of Fochabers, Morayshire. He was the second son of the local postmaster, James Chalmers, and his wife Isabella. The child's baptism is recorded for 26 December 1742. After attending the parish school, he is said to have attended King's College, Aberdeen. According to the obituaries of Chalmers...