Now, I know scots and welsh will ask my head on a stake for saying so, but UK basically is England (most of manufacturies, most of wealth, most of people, expecially most of politically involved people), and England is mainly London.
Not for saying so: for being demonstratably ignorant.
Compared toa randomly chosen one-tenth of any country you like at any time you like, late 18th century Scotland was
very overrepresented in all arms of the state. It was sometimes even a subject of resentment from Englishmen, although this had mostly died down by this point.
The EIC was pretty much owned by Scots; a disproportionate number of officers in the American Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars were Scots (to say nothing of the Highland regiments, which were again vastly out of proportion to the population sizes, as was the Irish represnetation throughout the army); and the City, to give a specific riposte, was crawling with Scots.
As for the "politicaly involved people", what gives the idea that Scots are less politically involved? Where do you think Lord Bute came from? Campbell-Bannerman? Gordon Brown? Scots were considered a pillar of support for the regime at this time; on the other hand, radical celebrity Robert Burns was, you guessed it, Scots.
And what's this about manufacturies? The Central Belt was the second industrialised area
in the world, and remained an important industrial zone for as long as Britain
had important industrial zones. At one point, about one fifth of the hulls in the big blue wet thing had been laid down at the Clyde, IIRC. That's in the future: the Industrial Revolution has by this point only begun to stir, of course; but before the railway and the coal boom, Highland Scotland was actually a centre of British iron production (you've got plentiful hydraulic power, and limitless charcoal). Glasgow was already an important port in the Atlantic trade, and Scotland was no less industrialised than anywhere else.
There's a reason why people occasionally grumble about the "Scottish raj"; and there's a reason why a variety of flags proposed by radicals included Scottish representation. I have personally seen a Reform Society notice instructing the use of red, blue, and green for England, Scotland, and Ireland.
(London's size was also a lot less overwhelming at the time; and while all capitals concentrate artificial imporatnce in a city, Paris is particularly notable case. The Ancien Regime had concentarted power in Paris even moreso than in the person of the king and his ministers. Britain was less centralised, and Radical activity in the early 19th century touched all the big urban centres.)
In conclusion, don't assume that just because Scots are all provincial, chauvinist, and easily offended doesn't men we don't know vastly more about Scotland than you lot.
