John was born, probably in 1630, at Ashford in Kent, England, and, according to the most probable story, brought to America as a boy by Emmanuel Downing, the father of Sir George Downing, and bound out to Lawrence Southwick of Massachusetts Bay, the husband of Cassandra Southwick, the Quakeress.
John Scott went to Long Island, made himself obnoxious to the Dutch, and was imprisoned by them in 1654. On his release he returned to Southampton on Long Island as a blacksmith, "keeping cowes" and trading with the Indians in land, became a freeman, was tax commissioner, and visited Narragansett Bay, Boston, and, possibly, Newfoundland.
In 1660 he went to England, gained the notice of Thomas Chiffinch, brother of William Chiffinch, and came to the attention of Joseph Williamson, afterward secretary to Sir Henry Bennet who was later Earl of Arlington. He became associated with a group of claimants to the Narragansett lands between Rhode Island and Connecticut known as the Atherton Company, made the acquaintance of one Daniel Gotherson and his wife Dorothea, Quakers, and, through his fancied resemblance to the portraits of her family, the Scotts of Scots Hall in Kent, he gained their confidence. They intrusted to him to invest for them in Long Island land.
He failed to obtain the grant to large tracts in Long Island which he sought, and the claims of the Atherton Company were thrown out by the Privy Council; but it seems he helped to suggest the seizure of New Amsterdam, and when he returned to Long Island he posed as a representative of the government, on the strength of a document purporting to be a royal grant, though it bore no signature.
Connecticut made him a magistrate but presently arrested him, put him in prison in Hartford, annulled his title, fined him, and put him under bond. Thence he escaped to take some small part in the surrender of New Amsterdam to the English expedition under Richard Nicolls, whence he returned to his old mode of life at Southampton.
Accused of dishonest land transactions, of theft, fomenting sedition, and using the pretended royal patent to defraud, he escaped arrest by flight to the West Indies, where he obtained a commission under Lord Willoughby in Sir Tobias Bridge's regiment and saw some service against the French at St. Kitt's in 1665-66.
Court-martialed and dismissed for cowardice, he went to England in 1667, renewed his connection with Williamson and Arlington, and, he was made royal geographer. That post he lost, with the favor of Arlington and Williamson, upon Nicoll's return with his story of Scott's behavior and a petition of Mrs. Gotherson to the King. He fled to Holland, where he seems to have had a commission in the Dutch service, and, dismissed for dishonesty, went to Bruges, whence he was driven out for sketching the fortification. Thence he seems to have taken service under the Prince de Conde, going later to Paris, where he set up as a map-maker and geographer.
About 1677 he seems to have come into touch with the Duke of Buckingham and presently appeared as a witness in the Popish Plot and against Samuel Pepys, whom he accused of being a Roman Catholic and selling naval secrets to the French.
With the Revolution of 1688 Scott returned to England, was pardoned, and died.
John Scott was appointed one of three commissioners to negotiate with the Dutch, became "president" of the English settlements on Long Island, declared their independence of Connecticut, and led a futile expedition against Breuckelen. He was throughout, apparently, a spy in the service of various governments. Two hundred years later, his "Description of Guiana" and his "Relation" brought his name into some prominence. It seems probable that he did not write the important parts of these documents but obtained them from their real authors and passed them off as his own, and that conclusion is borne out by examination of the manuscripts.
Scott married Deborah Rayner.
