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Marc Macdonald on Jacobitism, Enlightenment And Douglas Hamilton, Allan I. Macinnes, eds. Jacobitism, Enlightenment and Empire, 1680-1820. Political and Popular Culture in the Early Modern Period Series. London: Pickering & Chatto Ltd, 2014. 304 pp. $150.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-84893-466-5. Reviewed by Marc MacDonald (University of Saskatchewan) Published on H-War (May, 2016) Commissioned by Margaret Sankey Jacobitism, Enlightenment and Empire, 1680-1820 is an or international context; five essays examine the roles of eclectic contribution to the extensive historical scholar- Scots in imperial settings in Africa, the Americas, and ship focused on Scotland. It is easy for the reader to for- Asia; and three essays look at the Enlightenment as well get that the contributors are even discussing Scottish his- as its outcomes on the Continent and British Empire. tory, as a majority of the chapters examine Scottish fig- However, the Enlightenment, outside of section 3 of the ures in an international context. The collection combines introduction, is only discussed in one chapter. solid scholarship, from emerging and established histori- The final two chapters focus on Scottish history in ans, and expands our understanding of Scotland’s place a global context, but do not concentrate on the Enlight- in the global history of the exceedingly long eighteenth century. enment. I am encouraged that this collection joins the chorus of scholarship which recognizes that the Enlight- The book is a result of a seminar series, “Identity and enment stretched into the nineteenth century and was a Mobility from Jacobitism to Empire, c. 1680-c. 1820,” or- global phenomenon. The Enlightenment did have, as the ganized through the University of Strathclyde, in asso- editors assert in the introduction, “contentious applica- ciation with the Arts and Humanities Research Council tion in continental as well as imperial settings” (p. 2). (AHRC) Centre for Irish and Scottish Studies at the Uni- However, it is not clear that these two chapters fit this versity of Aberdeen, in the winter and spring of 2009. category. In “The Visionary Voyages of Robert Burns,” This seminar series naturally had a significant influence Liam McIlvanney instead focuses on Robert Burns (1759- on the published collection. At least six of the papers 96) and the “global turn” of scholarship on this “Romantic have, in some form, been included as chapters in the col- era poet” (p. 173). This includes examining global dimen- lection. Moreover, the themes of identity, mobility, Jaco- sions of Burns’s poetry, the global and local influence of bitism, and empire remain central in the book. The edited Burns’s work on New Zealand poets, and the importance collection was also, however, part of the transnational of the engagement with Burns within the Scottish dias- project, “Enterprise, Enlightenment and Empire,” which pora. In “ ‘Defending the Colonies against Malicious At- was organized through the University of Strathclyde in tacks of Philanthropy’: Scottish Campaigns against the 2009. Abolitions of the Slave Trade and Slavery,” Douglas J. Hamilton is likewise little concerned with the Enlighten- The title gives the Enlightenment second billing, ment. There is a brief mention of Adam Smith (1723-90), which is an odd choice. A more representative for- who attacked slavery “as an archaic and inefficient eco- mat would have been “Jacobitism, Empire and Enlight- nomic system,” and the Scottish abolitionist movement enment,” given both the organization of the chapters and is also discussed (p. 193). However, this is not in terms the limited attention given to the Enlightenment. In the of their connections to the Enlightenment. It is instead introduction, the editors note that four essays focus di- to demonstrate that there was, beyond well-known ex- rectly on topics related to Jacobitism in either a British amples of antislavery sentiment, much support in Scot- 1 H-Net Reviews land for maintaining the barbaric institutions of slav- McInally charts the rise and fall of Scottish-Catholic mis- ery and the slave trade. This chapter does, nevertheless, sionary networks that linked Scotland and the Conti- have strong links to the book’s other two themes: Jaco- nent. The networks formed around Scottish Catholic col- bitism and empire. Hamilton reveals the ostensible “con- leges that were established in Europe in the late 1500s, as nections between Jacobites and slavery” that developed Protestantism ascended in Britain. Desires for a return during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries (p. of Catholic domination, and then simply toleration, led 207). Many Jacobites had attained economic and politi- these networks to remain loyal to the Stuart monarchs, cal success within the British Empire, particularly by re- with soldiers and support, past a point of prudency. Loy- locating to West Indies slave islands, and were not eager alty to Jacobitism led to the demise of these networks, to lose property, as Jacobites had in the 1740s, including and near extinction of Catholicism in Scotland, but new slaves. Hamilton’s chapter on “pro-slavery Scots” pro- networks rehabilitated the religion in the late eighteenth vides a much-needed discussion of the complicated re- century. The three other chapters focused on Jacobitism lationship between Scotland and slavery. The chapters each explore distinct aspects of this movement in Scot- in the collection’s section on empire appear more con- land. cerned with the plight of Jacobite planters than with the slaves they owned. The final two chapters, though they In “Jamie the Soldier and the Jacobite Military Threat, do not fall within the rubric of the Enlightenment, are im- 1706-27,” Daniel Szechi explores military history. This portant contributions to the collection. They also serve chapter provides the most humorous moment of the col- lection, as Szechi includes himself among the historians somewhat as concluding chapters, as there is no formal he chastises for having failed to question traditional crit- conclusion. icism of James VII and II’s military ability. Szechi per- The chapter undeniably focused on the Enlight- suasively argues that James was a talented military com- enment is Jean-François Dunyach’s “William Playfair mander with previous experience, having served with (1759-1823), Scottish Enlightenment from Below? ” This French forces (1708-11), countering assessments by him research is a unique contribution to this collection and to and other historians. This leads Szechi to call for are- scholarship on the Enlightenment. Playfair was a lesser- assessment of Jacobite military strength and raise hy- known figure of the Scottish Enlightenment. Historians pothetical questions about their fortunes, had James at- have typically focused on the Scottish literati, including tained more opportunities to command, but does not his older brother John Playfair (1748-1819). Yet William change the fact that he arrived in Scotland too late to Playfair was an intriguing and roguish figure, who I have attain victory for the Jacobites in 1715. A further chal- encountered in my own research. The Scottish engineer lenge for Szechi is a dearth of reliable sources, as Whigs and inventor James Watt (1736-1819) referred to Play- were biased against James and Jacobites were biased in fair as “specious cunning & false.”[1] Dunyach discusses his favor. Playfair’s contributions, including graphical inventions and scandals. Playfair’s passage through various incanta- Nicola Cowmeadow, in “Simply a Jacobite Hero- tions of the Enlightenment (Scottish, English, Industrial, ine? The Life Experience of Margaret, Lady Narine French, Radical) and reliance on diverse cultural and pa- (1673-1747),” details how women played a vital, but un- tronage networks indeed “makes a strong case for a more dervalued, role in the Jacobite movement. Evidence is also an issue in this chapter. Much space is devoted, in pragmatic history” of this period. Ultimately, I join with a short chapter, to discussing and describing the content Dunyach in the call for more scholarship on the “applied” or “Practical” Enlightenment “liberated from such cate- and style of Lady Narine’s letters. Yet it is in the sec- gories as ‘lower’ or ‘higher’ ” (pp. 160, 165, 172). tions that Cowmeadow pulls furthest away from the let- ters that she most clearly reveals how Narine’s activities The collection would have enjoyed a stronger exami- formed “a distinct female contribution to Jacobitism” (p. nation of the Enlightenment had Thomas McInally’s pa- 30). Lady Narine’s talents and responsibilities as a noble- per, “The Scottish Electric Contribution to the German woman allowed her to employ her epistolary network, Enlightenment,” been included. It was listed as the fi- and her influence, in support of Jacobitism over decades. nal presentation in the University of Strathclyde’s sem- inar series “Identity and Mobility.” Instead, McInally’s Jeffrey Stephen examines religious elements of Jaco- contribution, “Missionaries or Soldiers for the Jacobite bitism in “English Liturgy and Scottish Identity: The Case Cause? The Conflict of Loyalties for Scottish Catholic of James Greenshields.” Stephen uses the Greenshields Clergy,” falls within the section focused on Jacobitism. case (an Episcopalian curate charged with promoting the 2 H-Net Reviews English liturgy in Edinburgh) to show how religion was lowed the Dutch model, and expanded into Atlantic central to Jacobitism. Critics viewed such actions as part and Caribbean trade. Ultimately, Mijers concludes that of an Episcopalian plot, whose clergy was dominated by this “provided an experience of empire, namely of net- Jacobites, to incite Presbyterian antipathy to the 1707 works, without actual settlement or dominion” for Scot- union with England. Stephen, countering the traditional land, helping it to “become the imperial overnight suc- view, identifies the Presbyterian reaction as one based cess story of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries” (p. not on persecution but on a Scottish Reformed Presby- 95). Scotland’s imperial success was beholden to its place terian identity. He skillfully wades through the com- in the British Empire, one of several in this period.
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