I watched the western TV program Riverboat.
The guys on the riverboat fire a cannon at Indians attacking a fort.
Grapeshot knocks over a tree and one Indian off his horse.
The Captain says to a Scotsman. “Good aim!”
The Scotsman replies, “That’s one thing the British are good at, teaching a man to aim a cannon. They’re not good for anything else.”
The Act of Union was 1707, so the Scotsman is British in 1846, is he not? He would have said, “the English are good at”, would he not?
yeah he would of said English … it wasn’t until almost the 1900s that Scotland felt it shared an identity with the rest of the uk
Nitpick; the Scots were British even before 1707. It’s just that Britain, although a geographic and cultural entity before 1707, wasn’t a single political entity.
But, yeah. It’s unlikely that a Scotsman would make a derogatory remark about “the British”, or make this distinction between the man who fired the cannon (himself) and “the British” who taught him to fire it.
An Irishman, however, would readily make this distinction, even during the period of the union between Great Britain and Ireland (1801-1922). And I could well believe that the American writes of Riverboat in the 1950s were a bit hazy on the different characteristics of Scottish and Irish national identity.
True; and the ( massive ) increase in the standard of living in previously direly poor Scotland reconciled most Scots to the Union, since it kinda made sense, and also as is usual with such nations their own aristocrats were harder oppressors than any overweening annexers ( as it was with other big bullies such as Russia, France and Austria controlling tiny nations ) — I was just reading of how at that very period some such aristos pushed their tenants off the land not only to abroad, but to the coast to start a band of hardy permanent peasant workers in the new fishery and kelp industries ‘either low-paid or free labour’.
[ The seaweed industries collapsed and the lairds again started emigration up again. ]
Later the Scottish financial/insurance sector increased the national wealth, and like the famous English investors in the Old West and places like Argentina from the 1860s on, the richer Scottish firms also invested in the same places.
However, the heart loves the national stuff and some vaguely hankered after separate status and vaguely damned the old foe in their cups; but like the Irish Daniel O’Connell they started to adore Queen Victoria even when he was most hot for breaking up the Irish Union ( and substituting an arrangement like the later Austro-Hungarian, two parliaments: same allegiance ).
Plus the Scots ran the British Empire, whilst over half of the British army was Irish ( still under Scots control of the staff. So while there was an empire, they enjoyed it. On the other hand Scots expatriates could dislike the British as much as could the Irish expatriates.
Finally a famous Scot such as Carlyle over the nineteenth century — A Loony For All Seasons — was not only utterly Scottish, and thought of himself as a Briton, and simultaneously considered himself English, and equal heir to any other. As a devout Cromwellian, he would have sooner been in the old thug’s English ( anti-royal ) army fighting the opposing Scottish Presbyterian ( anti-royal ) army of Leslie and Leven.
I think in this case British is correct. One of the reasons for Britain’s mastery of the seas was that Royal Navy officers drilled their gun crews to a much higher level than the French, Spanish, and Dutch so they performed better in combat. Many Royal Navy officers of the 18th and 19th centuries were Scottish. For instance, there were five (out of 27) Scottish captains under Nelson at Trafalgar. Nelson’s doctor was Scottish too…
Admiral Lord Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald.
No, google Highland Clearances. Starting in the late 1700’s into the late 1800’s, Scottish highland lords discovered that sheep were cheaper to manage, more profitable and less hassle than actual people of their clan. With the emerging industrial revolution, centered on cloth, plus newer hardier breeds of sheep, it was a perfect fit. Through a quirk of feudal law, most highlanders were sharecropper tenants and their lord actually owned the land - so he could give them the boot at a moment’s notice. They basically depopulated much of the highlands. People were pushed out to the coast, where the only food source was fishing; being non-sailors, a lot died trying to master this. More went to the cities and became millworkers. Many went to English countries overseas, and MacSomethingorothers are a staple constituent of North America and Australia. Like so many other highland placenames, there are Glengarry this-and-that’s, streets, neighbourhoods, parks etc. in almost every city in North America, but Glen Garry is pretty much uninhabited today. (Those picturesque rolling green grassy hills of the highlands are a side effect of generations of sheep chewing down any shrub or sapling that had the temerity to take root.)
Also, Scottish resentment toward the English stems from the Bonnie Prince Charlie era - the rightful King of Britain and his descendants were disinherited by mainly the London mafia when he had the temerity to be Catholic and have a son. In 1715 and 1745 successive Charlies tried to rally the more loyal highlanders to help restore them to the throne and replace those obnoxious German usurpers, but failed. The English oppression that resulted from a coup attempt was, oddly enough, resented for generations.
“The Sun never sets on the British Empire…because God doesn’t trust the English in the dark.”
I heard it as, “God doesn’t trust the English alone in the dark.” 
Don’t buy too much into the mythology. BPC was in part defeated by Scots: four Government regiments were Scottish.
And the Stuarts were rejected less because they were Catholic and more because they were seen as French puppets.
Safety tip: Never call someone a ‘Brit’ in a Glasgow bar on Friday night … even if you’re an American …
It’s worth noting that it was a Scottish King, James VI, who also became King of England in 1603, a century before the Act of Union. The the two states remained separate while sharing a Scottish monarch. This is known as Union of the Crowns.
James wanted to unite the two into one country. He is said to have remarked that a king with two countries is like a man with two wives. But at that time it was the English who were highly unwilling to form a union.
The two countries were still very closely aligned from that time. The border was open between them, and people and goods moved freely across it for a century before Union.
Agreed. The great majority of Scots were fundamentalist Protestants who didn’t want a Catholic king. Bonnie Prince Charlie recruited more men for his army in Manchester than in Edinburgh (but pitifully low numbers in both cases - 300 and 200). Charles himself said that he experienced more open hostility in Glasgow than anywhere in England.
Even among the Highland clans, some fought on the Government side - Campbell, McLeod, Mackay, and Macdonald of Sleat. Lowland clans like Sutherland, Munro, Grant, Ross also fought on the Government side, and Mackintosh and Mackenzie had clansmen fighting on both sides.
Yes. Here’s a quick explanation of the England/Britain/UK terminology, for those that are curious.
England, Scotland, Wales, and a bunch of neighboring small islands constitute Great Britain (sometimes called the British Isles)
Britain, northern Ireland, and the remaining handful of overseas territories comprise the UK.
Note, this is the SDMB, and I’m not from that area (and haven’t studied it), so expect a buttload of quibbles and corrections to follow.
Scotland is also part of the UK.
That’s the Union bit. The Principality of Wales was already co-joined to England, sharing the same Common Law.
Getting back to the OP, I don’t find the use of “British” in the example odd.
Note that the OP refers to the British Empire. Not the English Empire.
While there is a good argument that the UK was essentially “Greater England”, the terminology of the “British Empire”, the “British Army” and the “British Navy” was well-established in the 19th century, particularly in light of the Highland regiments in the Army, who likely wouldn’t have taken well to being told they were English.
So in the context of military training, I think referring to the “British” in that context does fit.
tbf, we don’t know he was taught gunnery by an Englishman.
The Scotsman could have been taught gunnery by someone from almost half the world.
England, Scotland and Wales (and nothing else) constitute Great Britain. Great Britain is not coterminous with the British Isles, which is a geographical designation including Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.
Britain, Northern Ireland (and nothing else) comprise the UK. The overseas territories are not part of the UK.
Happy to oblige.
“England expects…”