Monthly Archives: November 2021

November in review

The Public Advertiser, 21 June 1777.

For much of the past year, as I have been writing Macintosh’s life, I have been thinking about his family: Ann, his wife, who nearly died following a miscarriage in Antigua in 1762; Betsey, the apple of her father’s eye, who eventually became estranged from him; Polly, strong-willed and independent, who gave Macintosh granddaughters and ever-expanding lines of descent in nineteenth-century France; and William, the boy who may have been adopted, who could never settle at school, and who seems to vanish from history after 1782. Macintosh’s relationship with Ann, in particular, has fascinated me, partly because it is so difficult to follow in the sources that remain. In the last month, however, I have finally been able to trace its end. Macintosh and Ann, long separated by the Atlantic, met in London in the spring of 1777 to formally agree the end of their relationship. Divorce was not really an option for a couple of their socio-economic standing and their separation was unaccompanied by a profusion of legal documents; it is recorded only in fragments.

As Macintosh and Ann called time on their relationship, one of the mementoes of their failed marriage briefly entered the historical record. On 13 June 1777 a gold watch with a personalised dial, on which the numerals had been substituted with the twelve letters A-N-N-M-A-C-I-N-T-O-S-H, was stolen from the shop of the Fenchurch Street jeweller, Thomas Hunter, by “Two Women and a Labourer”. This was not the first such theft from Hunter’s shop, but it seems to have gone unsolved in this case. I have found myself thinking a great deal about that watch in recent days. Was it a gift from Ann to Macintosh, or the other way round? Was it in Hunter’s shop to be cleaned or had it been sold—a relic of a relationship whose time had passed?

In addition to musing about Macintosh’s family life, I have spent much of November attempting to understand the sequence of events that led him from Dominica in 1776 to his departure from France to India in 1778. This has turned out to be a much more complex and interesting period of transition than I had imagined and, as I have noted before, my digging has brought to the surface some unexpected correspondence concerning Macintosh’s supposed spying activities. Although it is difficult to be certain, it seems as though Macintosh’s own political curiosity/meddling was misconstrued as something altogether more covert and sinister, both by the British and by the Americans and French. It is certainly the case that Macintosh tried to position himself as a useful conduit of information, relaying political intelligence to the British government by way of the ambassador in Paris. Macintosh had a longstanding connection with one of Britain’s most prominent intelligence agents in Paris, Paul Wentworth, and was known to the spy handler William Eden. I have found no evidence, however, that Macintosh was ever paid for any of this activity. As ever, there is more digging to do!

As I look ahead to December, and the end of my research leave, I am beginning to think about how best to sustain my writing when I return to normal duties in the New Year. With a fair wind, I think—by the time I down tools for Christmas—I will be able to get the book to the point of Macintosh’s departure for India in 1778. My (hopelessly naïve) plan is then to try to keep one morning free each week to continue work on the book, with the aim of completing this chapter by the start of the Easter break. Doubtless this plan will be derailed by the first marking deadline, but for now I am choosing to feel optimistic that the future version of myself will somehow be more focused, productive, and disciplined than the 2021 equivalent has been.

A double agent or a case of mistaken identity?

On 17 September 1776, the British diplomat Sir Joseph Yorke wrote to Lord Suffolk to convey his suspicions about an individual who seemed to be collecting information in the Netherlands relevant to the rebellious Americans:

I have learnt that Macintosh is certainly in correspondence with America! His original business in Holland was to study the minute parts of the constitution of the Republic, and to transmit the model to the trans-Atlantic legislators. I make no doubt he has ingrafted other information upon that original commission, and does as much mischief as ever he can: still, however, Your Excellency may look upon Dumas, as, properly speaking, the Congress agent.

York to Lord Suffolk, 17/09/1776

A year later, on 31 December 1777, James Moylan—a pro-Revolution commercial agent in France—wrote from L’Orient to the diplomat Arthur Lee on the subject of a suspicious character:

Mackintosh has not been here Since my arrival, but I learn there were grounds for our Suspicions of him

Moylan to Lee, 31/12/1777

Could Macintosh and Mackintosh be the same individual? If so, could this be my Macintosh? Suspected by the British as a spy for the Americans, yet suspected by the Americans in turn? Right now, I have no idea; all I have is circumstantial evidence:

  1. Macintosh was often in the Hague and Amsterdam in 1776;
  2. Correspondence places him in L’Orient at the time Moylan was writing (indeed on the very same day);
  3. He took an active interest in the American Revolutionary War and advocated a compromise, but fundamentally sided with the British.

Did Macintosh’s irrepressible political curiosity lead both parties simply to mistake his intentions? Are there sufficient grounds here for speculation?