Law officers edit

• Lord Advocate – Robert Dundas the younger
• Solicitor General for Scotland – Andrew Pringle of Alemore; then Thomas Miller of Glenlee

Judiciary edit

• Lord President of the Court of Session – Lord Glendoick
• Lord Justice General – Lord Ilay
• Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Tinwald

• 13 September – Battle of the Plains of Abraham (Seven Years' War): British forces, including the 78th Fraser Highlanders, defeat those of the French to take Quebec City.^[1]
• September–October – Benjamin Franklin visits Scotland.
• 87th Regiment of Foot (Keith's Highlanders) raised at Perth and sent to Germany.
• Dumfries House, designed by Robert Adam, completed.
• David Erskine establishes his own legal practice in Edinburgh, origins of the partnership Dundas & Wilson.
• The Carron Company establishes its ironworks at Falkirk.

• 25 January – Robert Burns, national poet of Scotland (died 1796)^[2]
• 5 March – John Jamieson, Secession minister and lexicographer (died 1838)
• 26 March – John Mayne, printer, journalist and poet (died 1836 in London)
• 29 March – Alexander Chalmers, biographer and editor (died 1834 in London)
• 4 May (baptism) – Isabella Kelly, novelist and poet (died 1857 in London)
• 7 May – John Beugo, engraver (died 1841)
• 22 June – John Gilchrist, Indologist and surgeon (died 1841 in Paris)
• 22 September – William Playfair, political economist (died 1823 in London)
• Aeneas Chisholm, Roman Catholic Vicar Apostolic of the Highland District (died 1818)
• Approximate date – Anne Rankine, innkeeper and possible muse of Robert Burns (died 1843)

• 20 January – James Fergusson, Lord Kilkerran, judge (born 1688)
• 11 March – John Forbes, British Army general (born 1707; died in Philadelphia)
• 7 August – John Kennedy, 8th Earl of Cassilis (born 1700)

• William Robertson – The History of Scotland During the Reigns of Queen Mary and of King James
• Adam Smith – The Theory of Moral Sentiments, embodying some of his Glasgow lectures

• Timeline of Scottish history