Vindiciae Gallicae and Other Writings on the French Revolution - (Natural Law and Enlightenment Classics) by James Mackintosh (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Vindiciae Gallicae was James Mackintosh's first major publication, a contribution to the debate begun by Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France. The success of Mackintosh's defense of the French Revolution propelled him into the heart of London Whig circles. Following the September 1792 massacres Mackintosh, along with other moderate Whigs, revised his opinions and moved closer to Burke's position. The Liberty Fund edition also includes Mackintosh's Discourse on the Law of Nature and Nations, Letter to William Pitt, and On the State of France in 1815.

James Mackintosh (1765-1832) was a prominent Scottish Whig.

Donald Winch is Research Professor in the School of Humanities at the University of Sussex and a Fellow of the British Academy.

Review Quotes

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This book is richly endowed with useful critical apparatus: in addition to an introduction, brief but accurate and well written, the reader can make use of a chronology of principal events of the Revolution and of their repercussions in Britain, as well as a list of dramatis personae of more than 200 names, not to mention a meticulously detailed index. This work is recommended for all those who wish to understand or who wish to help others understand that the English debate on the French Revolution cannot be reduced merely to the confrontation of Burke and of Paine.

Etudes Anglaises - 63-1 (2010)


In one convenient volume, Winch has brought together a selection of Mackintosh's writing from the onset of the Revolution to his reflections on the state of France in 1815, allowing the reader to trace the development of Mackintosh's political views. VindiciaeGallicae was the response of a philosophic Whig on the development of the French Revolution up to the spring of 1791. Inspired by the debate over Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, Mackintosh supported the Revolution and contested Burke's diagnosis both of events in France and of the nature of the English constitution. He defended English admirers of the Revolution and even justified the popular excesses that followed. His Letter to William Pitt is a vilification of Pitt's desertion from the cause of reform, which he had supported in the 1780s. It accused Pitt of having used reform merely as a tool for acquiring political power and castigated him for his opposition to it in 1792. Mackintosh reaffirmed his support for the Revolution but disclaimed any notion that parliamentary reform in England was allied to the Revolutionary principles of France. Revolutionary excess later compelled him to agree with Burke, and in A Discourse on the Law of Nature and Nations, written in 1799, Mackintosh recanted his support for Revolutionary France. In On the State of France in 1815, he reflected on French society after the years of war and revolution. Winch introduces each of Mackintosh's essays, provides chronologies of Mackintosh's life and of significant events between 1787 and 1815 relating to the French Revolution and parliamentary reform in Britain, and adds a Dramatis Personae of the period. In addition to the original footnotes, informative editorial notes identify sources and provide translations, and the original pagination has been included in the text.

Eighteenth-Century Scotland
Spring 2007


Vindiciae Gallicae and Other Writings on the French Revolution is the first modern and fully annotated version of the work of British Parliament member, lawyer, moral philosopher, and historian Sir James Mackintosh (1765-1832): Vindiciae Gallicae, a defense of the French Revolution, and an additional voice to the debate stirred by his famous contemporary Sir Edmund Burke's treatise "Reflections on the Revolution in France". Mackintosh's other presented writings include "A Letter to the Right Honourable William Pitt on His Apostacy from the Cause of Parliamentary Reform", "A Discourse on the Law of Nature and nations", and "On the State of France in 1815". Select chronologies, a Dramatis Personae, and an index round out this excellent edition of historical and political writings, highly recommended for college library shelves.

Midwest Book Review
May 2006