Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 35.djvu/270

Macpherson letter that he would repel violence, and not desist from detecting what he thought a cheat, from any fear of the menaces of a ruffian (copy of the letter sold in 1875 for 50l.) Macpherson made no reply, but he is said to have afterwards assisted Donald McNicol [q. v.] in his ‘Remarks on Dr. Johnson's Tour’ (1779); McNicol affirmed that the scurrilities in the book were inserted without his knowledge after it was sent to London for publication. Walpole wrote in March 1775 that Macpherson had been as much a bully as Johnson a brute (Journal, i. 472). In 1781 William Shaw, a Scottish minister, and author of a Gaelic dictionary, published in London an ‘Inquiry into the Authenticity of Ossian,’ supporting Johnson's view. Shaw was answered in an abusive style by one Clerk of Edinburgh, and Johnson then took Shaw under his protection, and helped him to reply.

Meanwhile, early in 1764 Macpherson was, through Bute's influence, appointed secretary to Governor Johnstone at Pensacola, West Florida, which had been ceded to England by Spain on 10 Feb. 1763. According to another account, he was surveyor-general and president of the council there. He soon, however, quarrelled with Johnstone, and, after visiting certain provinces of North America and some of the West India islands, returned to England in 1766, with permission to retain his salary for life. He settled in London, and seems to have been at once employed by the government as a political writer. In this capacity he attempted to combat the letters of Junius, under the signatures of ‘Musæus,’ ‘Scævola,’ &c. He also took up historical literature. His ‘Introduction to the History of Great Britain and Ireland’ (1771) was, he says in the preface, composed merely for his private amusement. It was bitterly attacked, especially by Pinkerton, mainly for its extreme Celtic spirit (, Hume, ii. 462); while its statements were traversed in the next year by John Whitaker in his ‘Genuine History of the Britons asserted’ (, Lit. Anecd. iii. 102). This was followed in 1775 by ‘A History of Great Britain, from the Restoration to the Accession of the House of Hannover,’ written from the Jacobite point of view. For it he received 3,000l. (for a hostile account of his historical writings, see, Journal, i. 472). In the same year appeared the most valuable of his publications, viz. ‘Original Papers, containing the Secret History of Great Britain’ for the same period, with memoirs of James II. Macpherson is said to have obtained these papers from the Scots College at Paris (see, Hist. of England, 1875, vi. 35, 44); but he also had access to ten quarto volumes of the Brunswick papers collected by Thomas Carte [q. v.], and then belonging to Matthew Duane [q. v.]

In 1773 Macpherson published a translation of the ‘Iliad,’ which was printed in Scotland; but, in spite of the efforts of friends, particularly of Sir John Eliot, the physician, who carried portions of it round to his patients, it was generally ridiculed in London.

In and after 1776 Macpherson was specially employed by Lord North's ministry to defend their American policy, and in that year published a pamphlet, which ran through many editions, in reply to the Declaration of the General Congress. He also supervised the ministerial newspapers, at a salary which in February 1776 was 600l. and by December 1781 800l. a year (, Lit. Anecd. ii. 17, 483). Walpole had a very low opinion of Macpherson's conduct of this office, stating that he wrote ‘a daily column of lies,’ of which posterity will not be able to discern the thousandth part (Letters, viii. 115, 139, 186). In 1779 Macpherson issued an anonymous pamphlet, describing the conduct of the opposition during the previous session; it was, at the time, ascribed to Gibbon.

On the resignation of his kinsman, Sir John Macpherson [q. v.], in 1781, according to Wraxall (Memoirs, iv. 83), or more probably earlier, Macpherson was appointed agent or minister in London to Mohammed Ali, nabob of Arcot, and in that capacity defended the nabob against the East India Company, and transmitted his letters to the court of directors (for some of these letters see, Speech on the Nabob of Arcot's Debts, App. x.) He was also employed to publish the nabob's letters in England, and to explain his rights, and is credited with a history of the East India Company from its commencement in 1600. In 1783 he held his office of agent jointly with Wraxall. His post gave him unusual opportunities of making money, and he grew rich. It was desirable that as agent of the nabob he should enter parliament, and accordingly in 1780 he became member for Camelford, Cornwall, and although he never addressed the house, he held the seat for the rest of his life, being re-elected in 1784 and 1790. The government offered him the lands of his relative, Macpherson of Cluny, confiscated in the Jacobite rising; but he refused them in favour of the rightful heir.

During his residence in London, Macpherson lived for some years in Manchester Buildings; afterwards in Norfolk Street, Strand (Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 27780, fol. 53; 29168, fol. 461), and finally in Fludyer Street, Westminster (will in Somerset House). He