Dictionaries of the Scots Language
Dictionars o the Scots Leid

Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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First published 1976 (SND Vol. X).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

EQUIVALENT, n. Sc. Hist. usage: a sum of money calculated on the relative amounts of the customs and excise duties in Scotland and England and fixed at almost £400,000 which the English government guaranteed by the fifteenth article of the Treaty of Union to pay to Scotland as compensation for Scotland's prospective share in the public debt of England as part of the new United Kingdom (see quots.).Sc. 1706 Hist. MSS. Comm. Report (Mar and Kellie MSS.) 296:
He thought that company should not be dissolved at the passing of the Act in the Parliament of England for the mony of the equivalent as is agreed in the Treaty. Sc. 1714 G. Lockhart Memoirs 212:
The Equivalent was the mighty Bate; here was the Sum of 398085 Pound Sterling to be remitted in Cash to Scotland (tho' the Scots were to pay it and much more back again in a few Years, by engaging to bear a Share of the Burdens imposed on England, and appropriated for Payment of England's Debts). Sc. 1859 J. Taylor Hist. Scot. II. 822:
The “Equivalent” for that portion of the customs and excise of Scotland which would applicable to the liquidation of the English debt. Sc. 1905 W. L. Mathieson Scot. and Union 115:
The total “Equivalent”, direct and indirect, was to be spent in paying off the public debt, in refunding to the African and Indian Company, which was to be dissolved, its capital and interest, in making good to individuals whatever loss they might incur through the reduction of the coin to the English standard, and in encouraging fisheries and manufactures. Sc. 1935 W. C. Mackenzie Andrew Fletcher 355:
Lockhart declares that Queensberry's allowance as High Commissioner was settled in full, after the Union, out of the “Equivalent.”