James Mackintosh
Contributions
- The Morning Chronicle journalist
- The Morning Post journalist
- Vindiciae Gallicae: Defence of the French Revolution and its English admirers, against the accusations of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke, including some strictures on the late production of Mons. de Calonne has translation author
Knows
- Edmund Burke freemason philosopher politician writer
- Thomas Christie entrepreneur physician translator writer
- Benjamin Constant politician translator writer
- Thomas Addis Emmet jurist physician writer
- William Godwin journalist novelist philosopher writer
- Thomas Holcroft journalist novelist playwright poet translator
- John Horne Tooke cleric journalist linguist politician writer
- James Losh entrepreneur jurist translator
- John Oswald military poet revolutionary translator writer
- Thomas Paine journalist philosopher revolutionary writer
- James Perry actor civil servant entrepreneur journalist pamphleteer
- Samuel Romilly abolitionist jurist politician translator writer
- James Scarlett jurist politician translator
- Anne-Louise-Germaine de Staël-Holstein philosopher salonnière traveller writer
- John Hurford Stone entrepreneur publisher writer
- William Taylor abolitionist journalist linguist poet translator writer
- David Williams cleric philosopher translator writer
Member of
- British Parliament political institution
- De Condorcet, Sophie de Grouchy Salon salon
- Holland House set political organisation social organization
- Royal Society academic institution
- Society for Constitutional Information political organisation
- Society of the Friends of the People political organisation
Notes
As a journalist, Mackintosh wrote for the Gazetteer, the Oracle (as foreign editor), the Morning Chronicle, of which he became joint owner and editor, and later, the Monthly Review and Morning Post. He often sent letter under the pseudonym of 'The Ghost of Vandeput'.
He supported John Horne Tooke in his a parliamentary campaign of June 1790.
Government opposition to reform prompted Mackintosh, a member of the Whig pressure group, the Society of the Friends of the People, to attack the prime minister in 1792 in his 'Letter to the Right Hon William Pitt', signed "An Honest Man". His letter drew attention to a recurring theme of his political philosophy, that only through significant concessions would violent revolution be avoided.
In autumn 1792, Mackintosh accepted a certificate of honorary citizenship from new French Republics' minister on his return to London from a fact-finding journalistic mission in France. In 1803, Addington's (Tory) administration gave Mackintosh a knighthood and post as judge in Bombay. In 1813, Mackintosh was elected (Whig) MP for Nairn and began writing for the Edinburgh Review. He also established many friendships with writers, politicians and poets through the Whig circle centred around Holland House. Towards the end of his life he joined the body that later became the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (R.S.P.C.A.)
Mackintosh's renowned learning and eloquence led to frequent comparisons with Cicero, a writer whose work he quoted frequently.
See P. O'Leary, 'Sir James Mackintosh: the whig Cicero' (1989) and Christopher Finlay's entry on Mackintosh for the ONDB.