Lambert, David. Mastering the Niger: James MacQueen’s African geography and the struggle over Atlantic slavery. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013.

I have very much been enjoying David Lambert‘s new monograph, Mastering the Niger, which was published late last year by the University of Chicago Press. David’s book concerns a number of themes, including the production of geographical knowledge, the role of observation and testimony in the making of geographical fact, and the production and evaluation of credibility. His biographical focus is on the Scots Caribbean planter turned Glasgow merchant and businessman, James MacQueen (1778–1870).

Although Macintosh was born a generation earlier than MacQueen, there are a number of interesting parallels between their lives. Both were part of the wave of Scots who took the opportunities afforded by the Act of Union in 1707 to forge their careers in the British Empire; both were planters in Grenada; both had important dealings with Sir William Pulteney (1729–1805); both were skilled and enthusiastic proponents of double-entry bookkeeping. In Macintosh’s case, he had had, from the age of 18, “the highest charge of money, papers, & books of accounts”.

In Mastering the Niger, David offers a fascinating discussion about the parallels between double-entry bookkeeping and processes of geographical inscription and abstraction (see Chapter 3) and between the notion of “balance” and MacQueen’s own ideas about the nature and direction of the British imperial project. The analogy is an exciting and interesting one, not least because it so well captures William Macintosh’s own practices and perspectives in relation to these matters.

As I have mentioned previously, Macintosh was a thorough and committed record keeper (particularly so in relation to financial matters). This concern was not limited to his personal finances, but to those of Grenada, India, and the British Empire more widely. The day-to-day practices of taking account were so significant to Macintosh that he prescribed them in a letter to his son, in which he laid out what he considered the indispensable skills for his son’s life: “I would wish you to know…[a]ll the common rules of arithmetic. Book-keeping as practiced by merchants, with double entry. The principles of mathematics. Geography. A just idea of astronomy. The principles of laws. And ancient and modern histories. Indeed, a man of business, cannot be competent without them”.

Macintosh’s commitment to accounting means that we have a reasonably good insight into his own financial standing at various points in his life. For instance, in 1775 he applied to the Dutch bank Hope and Company (founded by Scots) for a loan of £20,000, and, in so doing, set out his financial position at that point. His collateral, detailed below, was calculated at more than £45,500, comprising plantations (or shares of them), various mortgages and bonds, a number of slaves, his house, and his annual salary of £300 for his role as Comptroller of His Majesty’s Customs for the Port of Grenville in Grenada.

Statement of Macintosh’s collateral in 1775. Archives départementales de Vaucluse, 2 E Titres de famille 84, “Charles Wilson / et autres de Grenade / 1767–1776”. Macintosh to Hope and Co. 15 December 1775.

My fellow HGRG committee member Natalie Cox is currently undertaking a research fellowship at the Huntington Library in California. Natalie was kind enough to call up the Huntington’s copies of Travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa to check for indicators of provenance. Both copies of the book contain what appear to be contemporary bookplates, although I will need to dig a little deeper to attribute them properly.

Unidentified Ex Libris. The Huntington Library, call number 355653.

The bookplate in call number 355653 is listed in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s John Starr Stewart Ex Libris Collection, but does not contain an attribution.

John Coore’s Ex Libris. The Huntington Library, call number 357106.

Although the bookplate pasted into call number 357106 makes quite clear that the book belonged to one John Coore, it is not immediately apparent which John Coore this is. One possibility (assuming he was a contemporary owner of the book) is that he is the John Coore who built Ivy House in Golders Hill, where Anna Pavlova (the famous ballerina) later lived. Clearly more digging will have to be done to separate conjecture from likelihood.

Deirdre Grieve at Glasgow Cathedral.

I was fortunate today to meet up in Glasgow with the great, great, great, great grandniece of William Macintosh, Deirdre Grieve, and her son Dorian. Deirdre has for some time been interested in William Macintosh, from whose sister she is descended, and has done some fantastic genealogical research. Deirdre, Dorian, and I were able to share some snippets and stories before visiting the grave of William’s brother, George, and George’s son Charles (the eponymous inventor of the Macintosh waterproofing process), in the grounds of Glasgow Cathedral.

George Macintosh (1739–1807). Glasgow Museums.

George Macintosh was a successful industrialist who owned a large cudbear dying works in Glasgow, which operated for more than three quarters of a century from the 1770s. George and his wife, Mary (née Moore), are commemorated on their son’s gravestone. The inscription reads

Here is interred,
Charles Macintosh.
Of
Campsie, and Dunchattan.
And Fellow of the
Royal Society of London.
Son of George Macintosh,
and Mary Moore,
both also here interred,
and the great grandson
of the last Provost
John Anderson of Douhill.
Born 1766. Died, 1843.

Deirdre’s neighbour, who joined us later to chat about William Macintosh, is Nigel Leask, Regius Chair of English Language and Literature at the University of Glasgow.

Georges Cuvier (1769–1832).

For historians of science, the French naturalist George Cuvier has an almost totemic significance: straddling the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries like a scientific Colossus of Rhodes. It was particularly interesting, therefore, to discover on Monday that Cuvier owned a copy of Macintosh’s Travels (in its second Paris edition, 1788). It seems rather unlikely that Cuvier purchased his copy at the time of its publication—he was then nineteen, and working as a private tutor in Normandy. A more intriguing possibility is that he acquired the book at some point after his arrival in Paris in 1796, a circumstance which would indicate that Macintosh’s book retained value and currency more than a decade after its initial French publication. All of this will remain speculation, of course, until I can examine Cuvier’s copy of Travels which is housed at the Bibliothèque Centrale du Muséum nation d’Histoire in Paris.

I spent part of yesterday morning in the Dr Seng T Lee Centre for Manuscript and Book Studies at Senate House, consulting the useful collection of sale catalogue facsimiles in the multi-volume Sale catalogues of libraries of eminent persons (1973). In order to understand the circulation and likely influence of Macintosh’s book, it is necessary to reconstruct (as far as is possible) the book’s ownership and readership. 19th-century sales catalogues are a useful first step in determining who owned a copy of Travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa (although not, necessarily, who read it). Such catalogues are one means by which to select those individuals who warrant further attention.

Edmund Burke (1729–1797), the enthusiastic antagonist of Warren Hastings. National Portrait Gallery, 655.

A far from systematic trawl of some of these catalogues indicates that owners of Travels included Edmund Burke, the principal antagonist of Warren Hastings (see page 21 of the Catalogue of the library of of the late Right Hon. Edmund Burke (1833)). Burke’s copy of Travels was purchased for 9 s. by one “Mr Bohn”—most likely one of the bookseller brothers Henry Bohn (1796–1884) and James Bohn (1803–1880).

George Hibbert (1757–1837).

The book collector, merchant, and slave owner George Hibbert (1757–1837) was another eminent figure who owned Macintosh’s book (see page 442 of A catalogue of the library of George Hibbert, Esq. of Portland Place (1829)). At the time of the publication of Travels, Hibbert had recently begun work in London at the Jamaica trading house of Hibbert, Purrier and Horton (a firm which he later headed). Hibbert subsequently assumed a central role in the pro-slavery Society of West India Planters and Merchants, and it is probable that his interest in Macintosh’s book related to that author’s experience as a Caribbean planter and merchant. Thus the list of potential readers grows longer.

Jean-Frédéric Perregaux (1744–1808), Macintosh’s “old friend”, trustee, and attorney

In November 1791, The Gentleman’s Magazine recorded the recent marriage at Ostend of William Macintosh’s daughter, Maria (or Mary), to Alexander Augustus, “the Chevalier le Sieur de Colleville, son to the present Marchioness de Colleville, of Normandy, a French officer in the infantry”. Maria, who had been born in Grenada in 1770, was then aged 21. The marriage was a fruitful (and, initially, happy) one. The couple had four children.

In his 1807 will, Macintosh appointed Alexander trustee and attorney together with the Swiss banker, and “old friend”, Jean-Frédéric Perregaux (1744–1808). The trust Macintosh placed in his son in law was, however, misplaced. In 1810 (or possibly 1816) Macintosh was forced to supply a codicil to his will, “revoking and annulling” Alexander’s claim and role. Alexander, it seems, had “abandoned his wife and family and Country in a manner highly disreputable and offensive without having had the least provocation”. With four children to raise alone, Macintosh appointed his daughter “sole heiress of all and whatsoever I may die possessed of in the first place for her own subsistence and the maintenance and education of her four Children”. Macintosh’s will and codicil were proved at London on 13 April 1816. Maria died in 1853.

The lure of Macintosh’s archival trail is sometimes irresistible. Although my research energies have been focused largely on completing a co-authored monograph on the history of Macintosh’s publisher, John Murray, the urge to pick up Macintosh’s trail (if only briefly) is hard to ignore.

A translation of Macintosh’s book by Jacques Pierre Brissot was published in Paris in 1786 under the title Voyages en Europe, en Asie et en Afrique. Reconstructing the audience for Macintosh’s book in its French-language guise (heavily edited by Brissot and supplemented by two contemporary travel accounts) is among my aims. The Bibliothèque nationale de France’s digital library, Gallica, is helping in this respect, not least by pointing to the library catalogues of various French philosophers, travellers, and statesmen who possessed a copy of the text. Among their number are:

Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d’Holbach (1723–1789).

Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d’Holbach (1723–1789) who, it might be assumed, read Macintosh’s reflections on the government of British India in light of his views on ethics and the state: ethocracy.

Louis-Antoine, Comte de Bougainville (1729–1811)

Louis-Antoine, Comte de Bougainville (1729–1811), naval commander, circumnavigator, and veteran of the American War of Independence may well have seen parallels between his own travels—described in Voyage autour du monde (1771)—and those of Macintosh (although each dealt with the concept of the “noble savage” in different ways).

Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes (1721–1794)

Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes (1721–1794), statesman, botanist, and victim of the guillotine read Macintosh, we might suppose, for his reflections on judicial and governmental matters as much as for his relation of geographical curiosities.

Proving ownership of a text is not, of course, straightforwardly proof of its reading, not is it alone any indication of how the text was read. Such information, should it exist, is likely to be hidden from easy view among letters and diaries. At times like this, I wish my French were better than it is!

The drawing room at 50 Albemarle Street.

I was fortunate enough to be given a tour this week of 50 Albemarle Street—the home, from 1812, of the John Murray publishing firm. William Macintosh’s book was published by John Murray I when the firm was located further east in Fleet Street, but Murray II relocated the business to more fashionable premises in an effort to attract a more up-market clientèle and roster of authors. The drawing room soon became the venue of literary soirées, playing host to authors, politicians, and scientists. Lord Byron and Walter Scott were frequent visitors—the latter dubbing the group the “Four o’Clock Friends”. Although the move to Albemarle Street, and the firm’s ascendancy as Britain’s leading nineteenth-century publisher, postdated Macintosh’s death by several years, the lessons the firm had learned from the publication and reception of his book had an important influence on its future strategy, particularly when it came to texts of travel. Having spent the best part of the past five years researching the Murray firm for a forthcoming book (Travels into print) it was a wonderful privilege to wander the building and understand the spaces in which the firm, and the family, operated. I was shown around by Virginia Murray, the wife of John Murray VII, whose passion for the firm’s history is infectious.

Macintosh’s house book for 1782.

Macintosh was, it is fair to say, seriously committed to record keeping, particularly so in respect of financial transactions. In one letter he expounds at length to his then eleven-year-old son on the benefits of double-entry book keeping. Approximately half of the archival items I examined in Avignon last week related to Macintosh’s financial affairs—both commercial and domestic. These will take serious digestion at some point in the future, but one snippet gives an interesting indication of his (and his family’s) spending habits.

When Macintosh returned from India in the early 1780s, he spent approximately one year in London, working on his book and (presumably) pursing other business interests. His purchases during this time give an insight into his reading habits (or lack thereof); his health; and his domestic arrangement:

29 April 1782: “[Hannah] Glasse’s Cookery”; “[John] Entick’s Dict[ionar]y”, etc., etc. (£13 6s).
6 May 1782: “two weeks lodging” (3 Guineas).
June 1782: “A Second hand Forte Piano”; “A Packing Case for D[itt]o” (£9 17s 6d).
14 June 1782: “An universal sun Dial w[i]t[h] a compass enam[el]l[e]d & a mahogany case” (£10 10s 0d).
25 June 1782: “6 waistcoats on an India Camel hair” (£1 1s 0d).
10 July 1782: “two Glass Stopper Bottles”; “Compound Spirit of Lavender”; “Tartar Emetic & Phial”; “a Box of Aperient Stomach Pills” (£0 9s 8d).
14 September 1782: “a second hand phaeton [carriage] & one harness pole” (£30).
15 September 1782: “a Chestnut Gelding [horse] I warrant perfectly sound” (£16 6s 0d).
29 September 1782: “Mould” and “Candles”.
8 October 1782: “four weeks lodging” (6 Guineas).
21 December 1782: “repairing Cleaning and Polishing the outside of a travelling Box” (£9 6s 0d).

Macintosh’s detailed records (he kept all his receipts) are likely to be useful when it comes to reconstructing his movements, activities, and interests.

Archives départementales de Vaucluse, Palais des Papes, Avignon.

I am a little more than halfway through an exciting week of research at the Archives départementales de Vaucluse (housed in the splendid Papal Palace at the centre of Avignon’s old town). This is home to, as far as I can tell, the largest single collection of primary material relating to William Macintosh. For reasons that still remain mysterious, Macintosh spent most of the 1780s in Avignon, where he traded and ran a lodging house. Forced to leave the city during the Revolution, his papers were seized and deposited here. To my knowledge, they have never previously been referred to by any scholar working in English, so there is a distinct thrill in looking through what is, in effect, virgin material.

There is, it is fair to say, much more here than I was expecting. Spread across six large bundles are, I would estimate, nearly 3,000 individual items of correspondence, memoranda, invoices, and legal documents. They cover part of Macintosh’s time as a planter in Grenada, his journeys around India in the late 1770s, and his residence in Avignon in the 1780s. Rather disappointingly, I have seen no reference so far to the book he published in 1782 based upon his travels in India, although there are preliminary notes and memoranda that eventually found their form in the book.

One of the six bundles of Macintosh material.

Given that so little has previously been written about Macintosh, most of what I am encountering is coming as a surprise, particularly the extent and complexity of his business dealings in the West Indies. Rather than simply a plantation manager, Macintosh had a number of official positions and governmental roles in the colony, including being Comptroller of His Majesty’s Customs in Grenada. In addition to his own business dealings, Macintosh served as attorney for several friends, and executor for others, so seems continually to have been involved in the purchase or disposal of land and assets.

There is evidence to suggest that, at certain times, Macintosh and his family (wife, son, and daughter) were together in Grenada, but it is clear that for the most part they were separated. One long and rather touching letter sent from Macintosh to his son, then aged 11, shows that, for Macintosh, parenting was something done at a distance, and most often by the written word. Although correspondence exits between Macintosh and his son and daughter, there seems to be nothing to or from Mrs Macintosh (although invoices for her domestic purchases, as well as clothing and jewellery attest to her existence).

Macintosh's commonplace book for 1778.

Macintosh was an ideas man, and had strong opinions about (as well as proposed solutions to) the various political problems of the late eighteenth century. Many of these took first written form in Macintosh’s letters and his commonplace book. The one for 1778 outlines various schemes, including a “Plan for preserving the health & lives, & for the better regulation of British seamen; for defending and securing the British commerce, and for manning the Royal Navy” and one (which has a clear contemporary relevance) for “reducing the national debt, without increasing taxes, & without exposing Government to any fixed or temporary inconveniences”. I feel sure the latter was a pyramid scheme.

Given the unexpected size of the collection, my work this week is really only one of surveying and cataloguing, and the targeted transcription of key texts. There is much to be examined in detail at a later time. It seems clear, though, that Macintosh’s politics were shaped in the West Indies and particularly by what he saw as the corruption and mismanagement of British colonies there. Aside from the big questions of politics and economics, there are plenty of quotidian snippets in the archive too. One particular favourite is a long series of correspondence, culminating in legal proceedings, concerning a dispute between Macintosh and his French builder who, it seems, was a cowboy. Rogue traders were as much a feature of eighteenth-century life as they are today.