Acknowledgments
I would like to thank John O’Brien, curator of Post‑1858 India Office Records at the British Library, for his assistance with the consultation of the Macpherson papers. I am also particularly indebted to Dr Sheila Kidd and Dr Peadar Ó Muircheartaigh for providing me with numerous insights and revising previous translations of the Gaelic material. The research for this article would not have been possible without the financial support of the Centre for Scottish and Celtic Studies (CSCS) from the University of Glasgow. Many thanks to the two anonymous peer reviewers for their suggestions and insights.
1In October 1783, the English Governor-General of Bengal, Warren Hastings, expressed his consternation to his aide‑de-camp and representative in London, Major John Scott-Waring, over the criticism he was facing in Britain regarding the conduct of expensive military operations in India. Partly motivated by the entry of France into the war between Britain and the American colonies in February 1778, Hastings’s decision to launch an attack on the Rohillas and the Marathas, as well as his intrusion into the politics of the kingdom of Awadh in Northern India, aimed at preventing an alliance between Indian states and the French. His authority, nevertheless, was disputed in Britain, where his policies were denounced as despotic, violent, and financially disastrous. Feeling abandoned by his own administration in Bengal, Hastings was disappointed because he heard that the Scotsman John Macpherson (c. 1744–1821), a senior member of the Supreme Council of the East India Company (EIC), had undermined his credibility in letters sent to London, in which he “discredit[ed] every information so insidiously offered, whether to the public, to the Company, or to higher powers” (Gleig, 1841, pp. 122–123). Macpherson’s intentions were clear: knowing that Hastings faced severe accusations of corruption, which would later lead to an impeachment attempt by the House of Commons, Macpherson wanted to appear as a strong candidate to be his successor. In 1784, Hastings discovered Macpherson’s double language when hearing about the existence of a secret correspondence written in English as well as Scottish Gaelic, a minority language spoken in the bilingual area of the Gàidhealtachd situated in the north and western parts of Scotland (MacCoinnich, 2002, pp. 133–161; Withers, 1984, pp. 6–7). These letters, written in a language unknown to most of Macpherson’s colleagues, criticised Hastings in vitriolic terms and contained confidential information on Hastings’s EIC politics and diplomacy which could easily be instrumentalised by his rivals. “A ray of inspiration […] flitted across [his] imagination more than once”, Hastings reported in January 1784, “and showed me the naked character of Macpherson, with his borrowed robes lying by him” (Gleig, 1841, p. 130; Dodwell, 1929, pp. 192–193).
- 1 Approximately £43,523 in today’s money.
2Sir John Macpherson remains a neglected figure of 18th century British colonial politics. His professional trajectory from Skye to London, Edinburgh and India illustrates the great degree to which Scots, and Highlanders in particular, were involved in colonial development in America and India (Mackillop, 2021a; Dziennik, 2015; McGilvary, 2011). Alongside his friend James Macpherson, well-known for his Ossianic “translations”, John Macpherson was involved in the activities of the EIC, a powerful and ruthless trading company incorporated by royal charter in 1600 and operating in eastern and southern Asia (McElroy, 1987). After embarking on the ship commanded by his maternal uncle in March 1767, Alexander Macleod of Bernera, John Macpherson landed in Madras in September. His social ascent was particularly impressive. Carrying a letter of recommendation from the 1st Earl of Warwick, he met Josias Du Pré, Governor of Madras, who took the young man under his protection. After he was elected a member of the Supreme Council of the EIC in 1781, Macpherson succeeded Hastings as Governor-General in 1785. At the same time, Macpherson established his profile as a successful and ambitious intermediary between the Company and Muhammad Ali Khan, the ruler of the independent Arcot state, a kingdom situated on the Coast of Coromandel and near the British presidency of Madras in southern India. Now a successful nabob, i.e., an EIC servant who rejoined metropolitan society after having secured his fortune in India, Macpherson continued his pro‑Arcot lobbying and came back to Britain with a personal wealth amounting to £567.1 But his pro‑Arcot lobbying led to his dismissal from the Company’s service twice, in 1777 and 1786. At his death in 1821, Macpherson left bonds worth £2,500 in the Carnatic stock derived from his activities for the EIC and the Nawab (DeGategno, 2008).
3Born on the Isle of Skye to a family of established Presbyterian ministers, John Macpherson was brought up in a Gaelic-speaking environment and acquired Gaelic literacy from Ewan Macpherson, a local scholar (Stafford, 1992, pp. 120–121). John’s father, the minister Dr John Macpherson, was a remarkable scholar whose Critical Dissertations on the Origin, Antiquities, Language, Government, Manners and Religion of the Ancient Caledonians were published posthumously in 1768. His erudition had favourably impressed his contemporaries, including Samuel Johnson and James Boswell, who met his son Martin, John’s brother, during their Highland tour of 1773 (TTH, pp. 280–281). Arranged in haste by Sir John after the premature death of his father and prior to his departure for Madras, the Critical Dissertations are the only published testimony of Dr Macpherson’s vast erudition (Macpherson, 1768). Macpherson’s background, combining Enlightenment thinking, Presbyterianism and Gaelic scholarship, would have a decisive influence on his correspondence network across India, Scotland and London later.
4Now part of the substantial collection kept at the British Library (Mss Eur F291), Macpherson’s bilingual correspondence has failed to attract sufficient attention. Prior to the agreement of a permanent loan, the letters were kept privately by C. H. Philipps, Director of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Only a few studies have engaged with the letters, among them James Noel Maclean’s doctoral dissertation (1967). After a career in the British army and as a London-based journalist, Maclean published widely on Scottish and Highland matters, including the history of the clan Maclean in Northern Europe, America, and Asia. Maclean’s dissertation, which focused on the involvement of James and John Macpherson in Indian affairs, provides the reader with translations of Gaelic passages from the correspondence, to which the present article is largely indebted. But despite its qualities, Maclean’s use of the Gaelic correspondence remains problematic. Although he scrupulously transcribed the original spelling and punctuation, he admitted taking liberties to clarify the meaning of cryptic passages (1967, pp. xxxiiii–xxxiv). To do so, he relied on two Gaelic scholars well acquainted with the Skye dialect: Donald Cameron, Presbyterian minister in Blair Atholl and Struan, and Neil Morrison from the Minginish peninsula. Maclean’s exclusive focus on the 1770s and early 1780s, when John Macpherson was preparing to succeed Hastings, led him to isolate Gaelic passages to demonstrate Macpherson’s political manoeuvring at the expense of the Governor-General. This short-sighted view of the correspondence thus de‑contextualises the Gaelic element and ignores the language alternation which made the correspondence unique. Another exploration of the Gaelic content was undertaken by Dr Alan G. Macpherson from Memorial University, Newfoundland, who accessed the letters through their owner, W. Dugald Macpherson. His notes can now be found in the Highland Archive Centre in Inverness (D/1304).
5The approach in this article will be different. As a non‑Gaelic speaker, my aim is not to engage with the complex linguistic and lexical characteristics of Macpherson’s Gaelic, a task which would require a more ambitious and transdisciplinary team project. Gaelic scholars, such as Sheila Kidd, have recently started to reevaluate Macpherson’s Gaelic proficiency. On the contrary, this article adopts a historical, rather than linguistic approach, to Macpherson’s Gaelic letter-writing in a colonial context. It endeavours to focus on Gaelic as a linguistic frontier and metaphorical territory of Scotland’s Empire in the second half of the 18th century. To do so, it charts Macpherson’s correspondence network and studies the role played by Gaelic in maintaining bonds of friendship and mutual assistance across Scotland, India, and London. In a system of patronage which relied heavily on interpersonal connections and local networks, Gaelic served as a cultural and geographical marker. Contrary to Maclean’s anglocentric view of Empire formation in India, this article envisages Macpherson’s Gaelic in relation to his involvement in the EIC and the local politics of eighteenth-century India. It explores the different functions of Gaelic writing, from confidentiality to patronage and identity-making in a colonial setting. Overall, the correspondence invites us to consider how Gaelic, previously associated with geographical and political isolation, became synonymous with a restored sense of confidence and global opportunities in a colonial setting. Macpherson’s versatile use of Gaelic successfully repositioned his native area, formerly described as peripheral, on the “global” map of Britain’s Empire.
6Surviving examples of Gaelic letter writing from the 18th century are rare: English was the default choice of epistolary practice, even for competent Gaelic speakers (Ó Muircheartaigh, 2023). This makes Macpherson’s choice of Gaelic even more significant: it was motivated less by existing practices than by a deliberate expression of personal, linguistic, and geographical identity. At first sight, Gaelic culture seemed at odds with Scotland’s participation in the Empire, in which Scots adopted the values of Britishness entirely (Colley, 1992, pp. 130–132). In reality, Scotland’s engagement with the global Empire was inseparable from the regional level of the colonial “familial proto-state” (Finn, 2011; Mackillop, 2021b). In other words, Macpherson’s Gaelic letter writing offers a compelling illustration of how imperial globalisation did not eradicate, but reinforced processes of regionalisation (Ballantyne, 2002, pp. 130–131).
7The case of Macpherson was not unique, though. Gaelic writing among military officers from the Gàidhealtachd has remained largely unexplored until very recently. Recent studies have suggested that some Highlanders used Gaelic as a medium of expression in a colonial context, including James McLagan, who served as an army chaplain for the Black Watch regiment in America in the 1770s. McLagan, like Macpherson, used the variation of registers and language alternation to protect his reputation when expressing political opinions (Ó Muicheartaigh, 2023; Parsons, 2025). Gaelic-speaking ministers played a key role in military recruitment in this period, as shown by the example of Robert Macpherson of Benchar, a kinsman of James Macpherson and chaplain in Fraser’s 78th regiment of Highlanders in Quebec (Chapman, 2013; Dziennik, 2015, pp. 207–208). Despite John Macpherson’s limited experience of the military, the involvement of his kin–based network in Highland regiments coloured his own perception and practice of Gaelic. As we will see below, the triviality in Macpherson’s Gaelic letters was not entirely new. The use of crude and offensive terms to talk about his superiors, including Hastings and London ministers, mirrored the language adopted by Gaelic-speaking military officers who used Gaelic songwriting to express their frustration and anger at the conduct of their superiors (MacIver, 2015).
- 2 When being hosted by John Macpherson’s brother in Golspie in 1773, Samuel Johnson had access to a “(...)
8While Macpherson’s Gaelic correspondence is particularly unique in a South Asian context, more examples have survived in the Atlantic world. The Jamaican plantation worker Alexander MacLachlan corresponded in Gaelic with his brother Ewen, a Gaelic scholar who was involved in the activities of the Highland Society of London and published a Gaelic dictionary. Like Macpherson, MacLachlan used Gaelic to convey confidential information (UAL, MS 3274). Dugald MacNicol and Charles Campbell, both involved in the exploitation of enslaved people, were conscious of the importance of language for maintaining a bond with their native country. Although Campbell did not write in Gaelic, his autobiographical narrative expressed a distinctive Gaelic identity within Britain’s Empire (Leask & Ó Muicheartaigh, 2024). The earlier example of the Kirk minister James Fraser of Kirkhill, who travelled in Europe and recorded details of European languages and regional dialects, shows that far from a marker of isolation, the Gàidhealtachd demonstrated cultural diversity. Fraser’s correspondence, written during and after his European travels, shows his effortless ability to navigate between languages, a product of his origin, education, and travels (Worthington, 2023). Similarly, Macpherson’s cosmopolitanism did not entirely originate in India but was facilitated by his upbringing in a bilingual environment.2
9Despite these similarities, the Macpherson letters are unusual in extent and content. They constitute, by far, the largest surviving collection of Gaelic correspondence for the period. Compared to the limited use of Gaelic in James McLagan’s letters, Macpherson’s Gaelic correspondence comprises 218 letters, amounting to a total of around 5,600 lines in Gaelic. Two points bear emphasis here. The Macpherson letters were not entirely written in Gaelic; the amount of which can vary immensely in the same letter, from one word to 135 lines of Gaelic. As Sheila Kidd has noted, their use of Gaelic is particularly versatile, from one word to several pages, and the correspondence constantly switched between languages (Kidd, 2011, pp. 2–3). Secondly, the characterisation of John Macpherson’s Gaelic has long been debated. For Maclean, Macpherson wrote letters in a “crude” Gaelic which deteriorated over time. He coined the derogatory term “Putney Heath Gaelic” after James Macpherson’s elegant London villa (Maclean, 1967, p. xxxiv). In fact, the concern with linguistic ‘purity’ fails to address the reasons why John Macpherson and his correspondents decided to opt for Gaelic. John Macpherson was able to use a high register of Gaelic when needed and even cite and adapt passages from the Scriptures to comment on political news in London or Calcutta (Kidd, 2011, p. 4; Macpherson, 1781, BL, Mss Eur F291/206) while the use of both grave and acute accents suggests an acquaintance with Gaelic psalmody (Black, 2017, p. 66). Originating from different parts of the Gàidhealtachd, John Macpherson and his correspondents had to find a linguistic modus vivendi.
10In reconstructing Macpherson’s correspondence network, this article responds to a recent call for analysing Gaelic networks globally (Stiùbhart, 2019). It is not an easy task, given Macpherson’s code-switching and the complexities of his personal geography. The Western Isles feature prominently in a network defined not only by kinship but also by political interests and geographical proximity. Macpherson’s correspondents belonged to the Gaelic Enlightenment milieu, and their linguistic and literary deftness facilitated their integration in the Empire.
11Throughout his long career in India, John Macpherson corresponded with the poet, historian, and politician James Macpherson (1736–1796). Born near Ruthven in the historic region of Badenoch, James Macpherson is remembered today for the purported translations of Gaelic poems attributed to the ancient bard Ossian, which caused a stir in the literary and intellectual world but also attracted suspicions of forgery (Stafford, 1988; Gaskill, 2004). Supported by several figures of the Edinburgh Enlightenment, Macpherson was also a historian who wrote polemical and well-informed books on Jacobitism, the Restoration period and the EIC (Macpherson & Macpherson, 2023). Simultaneously, James Macpherson played an active role in the development of Britain’s Empire. After serving as Secretary to the Governor of West Florida from 1763, Macpherson worked as a pro‑EIC lobbyist and governmental writer until his death in 1796. Although he never set foot in India, James seconded his friend John Macpherson in his private agency for the Nawab of Arcot at a time of increasing pressure for bureaucratic control and centralisation from Calcutta (Marshall, 2005, pp. 139–146). Being involved in military recruitment, parliamentary politics and Anglo-Indian diplomacy, James Macpherson navigated between the Edinburgh literati, EIC networks and governmental circles.
12James and John Macpherson shared a close acquaintance with Gaelic, although their experience and practice of the language differed. As noted earlier, John Macpherson inherited his father’s scholarly knowledge and maintained a deep emotional and intellectual connection to Gaelic, whether spoken, written, or sung. Contemporaries commented on his informal singing performances in Gaelic, Spanish and Hindi (Maclean, 1967, p. 415). His repertoire included some Ossianic ballads similar to those James Macpherson collected during his Highland tour and later popularised in his epic poem Fingal (1762). It was during his visit to the Sleat peninsula that James Macpherson met his future friend and correspondent, John Macpherson, then a seventeen‑year-old. They would later become friends in Edinburgh when the latter became tutor to the sons of the 1st Earl of Warwick prior to his departure for Bengal (Maclean, 1967, p. 102). James Macpherson occasionally performed these Ossianic ballads in public: an air, “taken from Mr. Mc Pherson’s singing” in London in 1763, was later published in James Oswald’s The Caledonian Pocket Companion (Woodfield, 2021, pp. 20–22). But despite such evidence of public visibility, Gaelic remained for them a language associated with personal geographies and kin‑based networking. Having refused to show the originals of Ossian to the public, James Macpherson kept Gaelic writing and reading a private practice. The degree to which Gaelic was used by the Macphersons in everyday life remains unknown. After John Macpherson’s departure from Madras, and except for his brief time in London between 1778 and 1781, their interactions in Gaelic occurred within the mental space of long-distance communication. However, the large number of Gaels serving in the EIC and military regiments in India suggests that John Macpherson had numerous occasions to speak Gaelic in a colonial context.
- 3 Having met Kenneth Macaulay in 1773, Samuel Johnson expressed serious doubt over its authorship and (...)
13After James Macpherson, it was Alexander Macaulay who was the most active of John Macpherson’s Gaelic-speaking correspondents. Like Macpherson, Macaulay was a perfect example of the “travelling Gaels” who operated at the intersection of Gaelic scholarship, Company politics, and European networks. Macaulay’s brother, John, was a minister and Gaelic scholar in charge of the parishes of Lismore, Inveraray and Cardross, while his brother Kenneth, also a minister, was the author of the History of St Kilda (1764). Published by Becket and De Hondt, who also published James Macpherson’s Fingal, the History was indebted to the impressive scholarship of Dr John Macpherson, a friend of the family.3 The correspondence between Rev. Macpherson and the Macaulays contains erudite reflections on literary, archaeological and religious matters (NLS, MS 2958). The Macaulays had numerous ties to the Empire, both in America and India. Alexander’s nephew Zachary was a leading figure in the abolitionist movement who was provided with a position in Jamaica by his uncle Alexander (Macaulay, 1789, EUL, MS 2264; Alston, 2021, p. 52). Zachary’s name appears on a petition submitted to the Directors of the EIC supporting John Macpherson’s claims for financial compensation following his forced resignation as Governor of the EIC in 1786 (BL, Mss Eur F291/64). His brother Colin fought with the EIC army in Mysore, while Zachary’s son, the historian Thomas Babbington Macaulay, became a staunch advocate of the anglicisation of the Indian population. Colin Macaulay’s Mughal collections, later donated to Cambridge University Library, demonstrate the role of the Scottish and Gaelic Enlightenment in the development of the Company’s politics of knowledge in India (Ansorge, 2021; Ehrlich, 2023). Based in Edinburgh in the 1760s, Alexander Macaulay established himself as a Gaelic scholar of international fame. Labelling himself a polyglotte (in French), he was associated with the Royal Scientific Society of Göttingen and transmitted information on Gaelic spelling and grammar (Macaulay, 1763, NLS, Adv. MS. 73.1.8). After establishing himself as a relatively modest Gaelic scholar in the 1760s, Macaulay opted for a colonial career. He is very likely the Alexander Macaulay mentioned by Hugh Blair as Gaelic chaplain for the 88th Regiment of Foot serving in continental Europe in the 1760s (Blair, 1765, p. 124). For Macaulay and the Macphersons, Gaelic scholarship served as a gateway to the Empire, both in America and India.
14A close friend of both John and James, with whom he occasionally lived in London, Macaulay used Gaelic as a marker of their shared social, geographical, and intellectual identity. Writing to Hastings in the 1770s, James Macpherson praised the courage of a man travelling to India at a later age than most of his colleagues (Maclean, 1967, p. 206). Although his exact affiliation with the EIC remains to be established, Macaulay was active in Bengal: his handwriting can be detected in letters signed by John, suggesting that he acted as the Governor-General’s secretary. To John Macpherson, James wrote fondly of the “old, bigoted, positive, good-natured, little fellow”: “The Leach beg goes on wonderful […]. He possesses the highest respect and regard for you” (Macpherson, 1771, BL, Mss Eur F291/122). As the expression Leach beg (the little doctor) tends to suggest, Alexander was probably much younger than his siblings and might have studied with Macpherson at King’s College, Aberdeen, a crucial place for the reconfiguration of Highland student networks (Macpherson, 1762, NLS, MS 2958). Gaelic writing became a distinctive feature of Macaulay’s correspondence with John, through which they channelled positions and recommendations in America and India (Macaulay, 1789, EUL, MS 2264). Being involved in the opium trade on the margins of EIC activity, Hastings and Macpherson occasionally used Macaulay as an intermediary with free merchants from Canton in the 1780s (Allan Macpherson, 1786, NRAS 2614/758).
15Besides Alexander Macaulay, John Macpherson’s Gaelic correspondents extended to the central Highlands and north-east Scotland. This geographical diversity suggests that Gaelic letter-writing repurposed ancestral ideas of clan solidarity and kinship (Macinnes, 1996, p. 10) for imperial networking. This was the case with Lieutenant-General John Macintyre, a native of Ruthven in Badenoch and nephew of James Macpherson, who arrived in India at the age of 21. Another correspondent was Macintyre’s father‑in-law, the EIC translator Allan Macpherson, who re‑established himself in Perthshire after his military service in Bengal. John Macintyre also used Gaelic in letters sent to Allan Macpherson and his wife, Eliza (GD80/917). While enabling members of the same clan interest to keep in contact over time and space, Gaelic also provided them with a platform for professional advancement and Highland solidarity. By expressing bonds of friendship or family ties in Gaelic, rather than English, Highlanders in the EIC service were consciously maintaining networks of solidarity across different geographies in a medium ideally suited for the display of a distinctive Highland identity. The north-east is also well represented in the correspondence, mostly through academic circles. Dr Hugh Macpherson and Roderick Macleod, Professor of Greek and Hebrew and Sub‑Principal of King’s College, Aberdeen, respectively, used Gaelic in their correspondence with Macpherson. Macleod, who was connected to John’s maternal side, recommended students to the EIC and military service, while letters to Hugh Macpherson, John’s cousin, had a more scholarly bent (BL, Mss Eur F291/209). Their engagement with Gaelic was, nevertheless, more limited when compared with James Macpherson and Alexander Macaulay. The same can be said of surviving letters from Alexander Morison, originally from Ostaig, whose family settled in Port Glasgow and Paisley. Morison sent Gaelic poems to Macpherson in the 1780s and capitalised on their common geography (Morison, 1783, HAC, D 1304/2/12/3). Morison’s identity remains unknown. He might be Captain Alexander Morison of Sgianaidean (1759–1801), a native of Skye who served in America in the 1770s before moving to Greenock in 1786. A competent Gaelic writer and poet, he met James Macpherson in 1761 and shared with him original fragments of Gaelic poems. John Macpherson patronised his sons in the EIC service (Maclean, 1967, p. 155; MacInnes, 1899, pp. 164–165).
16For Macpherson’s colleagues in India, Gaelic was a largely impenetrable language, which allowed him to convey confidential information at a time when long ship journeys made interception possible. Asking an individual making the journey, preferably a Gael from their close kin network, to act as a bearer of news also offered the chance for recommendation. “To prepare against accidents”, John wrote to James Macpherson, “I have sent this inclosed under a joint cover to Col. A. Macpherson and J. Macintyre. The trick of intercept[ing] by letters has been, lately, not a little fashionable” (Macpherson, 1784, BL, Mss Eur F291/123). Gaelic offered an additional level of confidentiality, although precarious: “Cha bu chor uitse ni air bi a scriba, ach nib u chomma leat co chi è” (You should not write anything except that which you don’t mind who sees it) (Macpherson, 1775, BL, Mss Eur F291/122).
17In his correspondence, John Macpherson used language alternation and code-names. He usually played with words and sounds: his mentor Hastings is often called fer no Caffaig (“the man of Haste”), while the First Lord of the Treasury Lord North is simply transposed as Tua (“north”). While North’s name does not convey a particular meaning, the irony is palpable regarding Hastings, whose position as governor was never more insecure than in the 1770s and 1780s. As early as 1775, Hastings had been the target of opposition in the parliament and government. The reasons are summarised in a letter from James Macpherson to John, reporting a private conversation with Tua in October 1783:
Sho a thubhairt ’n Tuach riomse: ’Cha neil spies agumse, ’a thubahairt è, ’di dh’fer na Caffaig. Ha è na dhuine mâth agus olc ân n’ioma nï! Chrôch e Nuncomar air son feirg; agus roin ê cogga air na Rohillich. […] Bah è huillie ’s arg ri Cheit Sing, agus ta e na dhuine marchuisich; agus gun chairdis.
This is what North said to me: “I have no respect”, said he, “for the man of Haste.” He is a good and bad man in many things! He hanged Nanda Kumar for wrath, and he waged war with the Rohillas. He was unduly harsh to Chait Singh, and he is an arrogant man; and without friendship. (Macpherson, 1783, BL, Mss F291/125).
18Confidentiality was motivated by the serious accusations of corruption and nepotism levelled at Hastings. A Diwan (finance minister) of the Nawab of Bengal, Nanda Kumar, had been found guilty of transmitting information to the French while being employed by the EIC (Dalrymple, 2019, p. 312; Ray, 1988, pp. 520–521). In fact, Nanda Kumar documented the brutality of the Governor-General towards independent states. He was in contact with Sir Philip Francis, Hastings’ and Macpherson’s rival at the EIC Supreme Council (BL, Mss Eur F291/50). Nanda Kumar’s trial and brutal execution were later discussed by the Irish writer and politician Edmund Burke during the impeachment process (Bourke, 2015, p. 582). Similarly, Macpherson referred to Hastings’s decision to remove the ruler of the independent state of Benares, Chait Singh. Seeing that Chait Singh was reluctant to pay the fixed tribute imposed on him by the EIC after the latter took control of Benares in 1775, Hastings launched an attack on the territory and deposed its ruler by force. The violence against Chait Singh was significantly downplayed by EIC servants and Hastings himself. But as James Macpherson pointed out, Hastings’s decision was illegal and would undermine the credibility of the EIC at home.
19John Macpherson’s use of Gaelic also denotes a process of political association among people who did not originate from the Gàidhealtachd. In the letters, the EIC military officer William Kirkpatrick, a non‑Gael, became Eaglas Phadric (literally, Church Patrick). The Gaelicisation of his name suggests a performative and political use of Gaelic at a time when John Macpherson was manoeuvring for succeeding Hastings (Macpherson, 1772, BL, Mss Eur F291/122). Code-names were also used for high-profile politicians for confidential reasons. William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne, was known as Shilbirnach (a phonetic transposition of his title) and John Stables, member of the Supreme Council and Macpherson’s colleague, as Tigh na n’ Each (literally, “House of the Horses”) (Kidd, 2011, p. 5). Other phonetic transpositions include Cricklaid for Cricklade, John Macpherson’s parliamentary constituency in England (Macpherson, 1782, BL, Mss Eur F291/206). John Macpherson self-consciously re‑enacted perceptions common in the Gàidhealtachd, according to which the “frontier” between England and Scotland was a linguistic rather than a purely geographical one. This is visible in the use of the word “Gall” (stranger) rather than “Sasannach” to refer to English people (Newton, 2019, p. 51).
20The use of Gaelic in Macpherson’s correspondence was justified by the need for confidentiality in times of political crisis and upheaval in India. But contrary to what Maclean suggested, this did not always happen at the expense of their superior, Hastings. Language alternation was used to make sure that the information collected by John Macpherson and James Macpherson found its way to Hastings directly. The following example shows how the Gaelic reinforced their position as global intermediaries of the Empire. In the late 1770s, debates concerning the introduction of more parliamentary control over the Company culminated in the passing of the East India Bill in Parliament in 1783. For John Macpherson, it was the future of the EIC which was put into question, and especially the “Company-state” paradigm, based on an ambivalence between semi-private management and commercial monopoly (Stern, 2011). Having secured a seat in Parliament, James Macpherson acted as Hastings’ go‑between in London, insisting on the importance of cultivating excellent relations with Tua/Lord North and MPs. In December 1781, shortly after John Macpherson’s return to the Supreme Council, James Macpherson suggested some strategic alliances with the opposition. Interestingly, rather than writing a letter to Hastings directly, as he did before, he asked John to translate the content: “I have enclosed this letter to the Governor-General, who will find, in you, a translator, in what is worth his notice, in the Celtic” (Macpherson, 1781, BL, Mss Eur F291/206). Used as the preferred medium of information, Gaelic is employed here to exert influence on a superior who did not speak the language and would, therefore, rely heavily on the bilingualism of one of his collaborators. By bringing Gaelic into the colonial sphere, John Macpherson reinforced his position as mediator but also confined his native tongue to the private realm.
21Gaelic was used as camouflage in public as well as private spheres. Contrasting with their letters written entirely in English, language alternation offers insights into the Macphersons’ private lives and sexual intimacy. For men educated in grammar schools, like John Macpherson, the use of Gaelic, like Latin, acted as a “tacitly neutralised code” simultaneously subduing and challenging national, social, political, and sexual preferences (Waquet, 1998, pp. 229–256). Occasional switching to another language enabled young men involved in the transatlantic slave trade to record acts of sexual or physical violence with a mixture of shame and excitement (Hartman, 2008, p. 1; Hall, 1998, pp. 31–32). James Macpherson was no stranger to the self-celebration of masculine power and personal celebrity. “I hate John Bull, but I love his daughters”, James told James Boswell in 1763 (Stafford, 1988, p. 183). In his letters, James Macpherson signed Mac Vurich nan Stripichin, literally “Macpherson of the Prostitutes” (BL, Mss Eur F291/129). Macpherson alternated between English, Latin, and Gaelic to confidentially boast about his own and others’ public and private exploits:
I have a small house in Manchester Buildings, where I contraire once a week to give a saddle of mutton and a bottle of Claret to half a dozen friends. I, sometimes, breathe the air on Putney Commons. In short, I live now “mar dhuine uasal, ach ’smôr mo choslas. Heggu gum tig la as fër na sho!” [like a nobleman, with great appearance. May a better day come than this!] I shall continue to write; and therefore, finish this letter with this page. Sint tibi semper amici, Plutus et Priapus. Det primus divitias, ultimus erectum Penem. Vale. J. M.” [They are still your friends, Plutus and Priapus. The former to give riches, the latter to hold the pen. Goodbye!] (Macpherson, 1776, BL, MS Eur F291/122)
22James refers to the Roman divinities of Wealth (Plutus) and Lust (Priapus) to legitimate their common ambitions and obsessions: money and sex. The double-entendre on “penem” (pen/penis) connects their prolific political writing to their libido, viewing both as emblems of their success. James Macpherson’s wealth, derived from his pro‑Arcot lobbying and the publication of Ossian, resulted in land purchases in London and Badenoch. His use of Gaelic is particularly interesting. By concealing it on paper to external eyes, Macpherson re‑indigenised external capital and justified social domination in the Highlands (Mackinnon and Mackillop, 2020).
23James’s reference to the impotent God Priapus experiencing a constant state of erection had a more secret meaning: John Macpherson’s homosexuality. The articulation of queer masculinity and Gaelic is particularly obvious in a letter sent by John Macpherson to James Macpherson in September 1774:
Is feidir ghò oni Cordis insi ghut gi veil mi faicin fuack more aunsi da Littir fo gheri is scriave u ga muisi. In reson, ha mi barrail, is fe sho. Ha beck agud gi beil cairdis cho more agumsi er son Duini elli, is i hagum orst fein. Na cruid shin brach. Cha no nin shorsi chardis i ha agum er son nan Duini shin—si ha agun orstse. Ha fios ma agum nach heil Duini bo gha beil barack Chairdis agud fein—sna ha agud ormsi.
I must, in friendship, tell you that I perceive a great coldness in the last two Letters you wrote to me. The reason, I think, is this. You imagine that I have as great a love for another man as I have for you. Do not ever believe that. It is not the same kind of love that I have for that man as I have for you. I know well that there is not a man alive who has more love for me than you have. (Macpherson, 1774, cited in Maclean, 1967, p. 166)
24The object of Macpherson’s affection was Charles Francis Greville (1749–1809), for whom he served as tutor before his departure from Madras in 1769. A well-connected man, Greville was the son of the 1st Earl of Warwick and the nephew of the British diplomat and antiquarian Sir William Hamilton. The bisexuality of Charles Greville was a source of worry for John Macpherson, who regularly expressed his jealousy in his correspondence. To Greville, who was not a Gael, John Macpherson expressed his love and friendship in clan terms: “You are in many respects a Scotchman; the blood of Hamilton and almost Chief of the Clan of Macpherson” (Macpherson, 1774, BL, MS 42071). This combination of queer masculinity and Highland/Gaelic identity was not unique and can be found in the context of Scottish military service abroad (Carr, 2008). Macpherson had affairs with other men in India, such as John Sullivan, the son of a Cork-based merchant and kinsman of the EIC chairman Lawrence Sullivan (McElroy, 1987, p. 363; Maclean, 1957, p. 58). That Macpherson used the sentimental language of clanship to express his homoerotic feelings towards Greville is striking, especially since Greville was not a Gael. In a post-Culloden era, clanship had become for Macpherson a rather elusive and ubiquitous term: it applied to his closest friends and supporters, even though they did not share the same geography.
- 4 Thanks to Jocelyn Zimmerman for drawing my attention to McCurdy’s book.
25Like most of his contemporaries who grew up in all‑male religious and educational institutions, John Macpherson’s experience of the colonial world, and India in particular, was primarily masculine and homosocial. But Macpherson, unlike other colonial officers who were open about their sexuality, did not want to reveal his sexual orientation. The example of Robert Newburgh, an Irish chaplain serving with the 18th Royal Irish Regiment in North America, shows the degree to which homosexuality was part of the colonial discourse in the age of Revolutions (McCurdy, 2024). But contrary to Newburgh, Macpherson’s sexual orientation never became a public matter.4 It is easy to understand that as an EIC servant seeking advancement in India, Macpherson did not want to disclose too much about his private life. If carefully controlled and regulated, “special friendships” were tolerated; however, it was interracial sex, rather than the “imperial homoerotic”, that represented the greatest threat to the Company’s colonial power (Ghosh, 2006, pp. 3–4). In fact, the reasons for Macpherson’s privacy might originate in the political climate at home and the hostility towards the EIC. In Edmund Burke’s opening speech at the trial of Warren Hastings in February 1788, the EIC officials who committed acts of torture and other degrading treatment on Indian women were described as “Hastings’s minions”. This shows how homoeroticism was associated with colonial violence and moral decay in anti-Hastings and anti-EIC discourse (Suleri, 1992, pp. 60–61; Ghosh, 2006, p. 79). A close associate of Warren Hastings, whose intrusion in the politics of independent states of India was put under scrutiny in Britain, John Macpherson felt the need to protect his own reputation.
26Gaelic was not only used to obscure the message from prying eyes but to convey a performative rhetoric of friendship and kinship. It shows how various types of networks defined by kinship, friendship and political ideology operated in the highly competitive world of imperial politics. In her study of correspondence in colonial America, Sarah Pearsall has shown how letter-writing “[made] the circle of familiarity narrow and manageable, but also, crucially mobile” (Pearsall, 2008, p. 57). This is true of John Macpherson’s correspondence in India, in which Gaelic helped to forge connections among individuals who were separated by geography but united by political and personal connections. For Macpherson’s correspondents, the language of friendship was fundamentally performative and covered relations from kinship to ties of affection and political affiliation. With the exception of Mackillop (2021b) and Rothschild (2011), the question of how friendship functioned in a Scottish context has not attracted much attention. John Macpherson’s letters are pervaded with expressions such as charaid and chiardin, which, according to MacAlpine’s dictionary, mean a friend, a cousin or a next of kin (MacAlpine, 1833, s.v. “CARAID”, p. 65). As was the case in English or French, friendship was an elusive term in the early modern period. Rather than a direct family relation, it also denotes a form of allegiance, personal bond and patronage (Kettering, 1992; Perkin, 2003, pp. 46–137). The ambiguity of the term was particularly useful for employees of the EIC, an ancien regime institution in which employment was dependent on inter-personal relations and kinship ties. Through active lobbying of the House of Commons, James and John Macpherson were political friends (charaid) in the sense that they shared the same commitment to the defence of the Company system and that political and personal bonds between them would be protected (Macpherson, 1783, BL, Mss Eur F291/125). Such rhetoric mirrors the elusive process of Empire-making, which needed to be strengthened through the performative language of law (Travers, 2023).
27The articulation of race, friendship and EIC politics is particularly visible in a letter written by John Macpherson to James Macpherson in September 1773. Trying to establish direct relations between the Nawab of Arcot and Augustus Henry FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton, and the Earl of Shelburne, then Prime Minister, Macpherson used coded names to report how he circumvented the mediation power of the Crown’s official “envoy” to Arcot, Admiral Sir Robert Harland. Macpherson’s mission consisted of convincing Shelburne to intervene in a long-running contention between the Company and the Nawab of Arcot regarding the lands of Tanjore, which had been restored to his rival, the Rajah Tulajaji Bhonsle:
Mo chara more did write me, and to mo chara du […]. The letter of Chara more to Chara du of which he enclosed me a Copy—was writ[te] in a very masterly manner. The original was enclosed to Shir Rebin Harl: a precaution of the guarded and reserved Mac Ri—Fitz, you understand the rest. (Macpherson, 1773, cited in Maclean, 1967, p. 293)
28The use of simple and unsophisticated expressions informs us about Macpherson’s understanding of Anglo-Mughal politics. Grafton is “mo chara more” (my great friend) without patronym or occupation, and then “Mac Righ” (son of the King), a transposition playing with the Norman etymology (Maclean, 1967, p. 298). This relates to the creation of a horizontal conception of imperial politics, challenging the rigidity of colonial hierarchy represented by Shir Rebin Harl (Sir Robert Harland). By indicating superiority and inferiority using adjectives such as “small” or “big” (duine mhor, great man or chardin beg, little friends), Macpherson created a neutral ground of Indian politics in which he could momentarily free himself from the vertical control of London authorities on his pro‑Arcot lobbying activities. Moreover, by calling Muhammed Ali Khan “mo chara du” (dubh, black) and Grafton “chara more”, Macpherson served the interests of the Nawab, who wanted to be considered not as a puppet of the British, but as an equal to European monarchs (Wibulsilp, 2019). Far from showing his limited command of Gaelic, this simple characterisation of protagonists also enabled Macpherson to make the complex politics of the EIC easier to understand and to navigate. In May 1783, John Macpherson informed James of the recent support of his second at the Supreme Council, John Stables: “Scrive I Stapilich Litrichin r uva I ghuisi ni Direckerin ma mog hain si. Chan arrin me essin agus fer no Caffaig I chummail eorst; chaneil auni fer no Caffeg ach Dunni beg more” (Stables wrote very good Letters to the Directors concerning me. I cannot keep him and the man of Haste on good terms; the man of Haste is but a little big man) (Macpherson, 1783, BL, Mss Eur F291/129). The permeability of the language enabled Macpherson to satirise the weaknesses of his superior, who has been “so long Governor General of India that [he] knows so little of Politicks at home” (Macpherson, 1782, BL, Add. MS 88906/3/16). Opposing the leadership of Hastings ‘fher na Caffaig’ ruling India like a pro‑consul independent from the metropolis, Macpherson fashioned himself as a competent mediator who maintained political ties with London through kin‑based literary lobbying.
29Another feature of Macpherson’s correspondence is the (re)creation of a binary world of EIC politics defined by a confrontation between friends and enemies. As the main force behind the impeachment of Hastings and a harsh critic of the Company’s semi-private arrangements with the Nawab of Arcot, it is hardly surprising to see the Irish politician and philosopher Edmund Burke vilified in the correspondence between James and John Macpherson. In his pro‑governmental pamphlet entitled The Rights of Great Britain asserted against the Claims of America (1775), James Macpherson had adopted an intransigent and reactionary attitude towards the American colonists, supported by Edmund Burke. Later, in 1779, James and John Macpherson co‑authored The Considerations on the Conquest of Tanjore and the Restoration of the Rajah, in which they defended the EIC’s alliance with the Nawab of Arcot. This position was denounced in the press by Burke:
The inclosed newspapers will convey to you what the newswriters think of the present State of Bengal and the East. […] They are, for the most part, favourable. — I should therefore, think they fall from the pen of Mac Albanich; na carrid do fhear na Caffaig. ’S dochagh leo ’n Dihabhul na ’n Erinach [Don’t be afraid of Hastings. They prefer the Devil to the Irish]. (Macpherson, 1785, BL, Mss Eur F291/123)
30The motivations for the rivalry between Burke and the Macphersons originated in the regional politics of southern India. While John and James Macpherson acted as the political agents of Muhammad Ali in Arcot, Philip Francis and Burke defended the interests of the latter’s rival, the Raja of Tanjore. Among Macpherson’s “Irish” enemies was Francis, who advocated a form of permanent settlement aimed at reducing the role of intermediaries in Mughal states and reinforcing centralisation from Calcutta and the Court of Directors in London. At a moment when Hastings’s position was insecure, Francis established himself as a serious competitor to Macpherson. His collaboration with Edmund Burke in the preparation of Hastings’s impeachment trial triggered both personal hostility and anti-Irish sentiments. For James, alias Mac Albanich, Francis was a source of disruption and division, which would force Mughal princes to turn their backs on the British and enter an alliance with the French. But he also knew that the centralising methods of the Dublin-born Francis, because he was too close to the Whigs and the French physiocratic model, were not favoured by British ministers (Travers, 2007, pp. 141–180). Macpherson’s hostility was reinforced by the fact that he competed with Irish people, such as Lauchlin Macleane, for access to the Durbar of the Nawab (Maclean, 1967, p. xxiv; Maclean, 1963). The Ossianic controversy, during which Burke, himself from an Irish Gaelic-speaking family, challenged the authenticity of James Macpherson’s translations, also loomed large behind the transposition of a literary controversy into the colonial sphere (Lock, 2008, vol. 1, pp. 176–177). Perceptions of Gaelic might also reflect the competitive environment between Scottish and Irish communities in the colonial metropolis of London and in Calcutta (Kane, 2023). The devil, an ancestral theme popular in eighteenth-century Scottish literature (Leask, 2010, pp. 19–201), makes an appearance in Macpherson’s Gaelic to vilify his opponents Philip Francis and Edmund Burke:
Ha eggil gin nari eg ni Duavilsin roimsi. Cha neil ni rian ad an so, nach fanni gho. Huirst ad, le in Beul, r imo chara dù, nach do rian mi feum gum bi gho. Ach gloir do Dia—ha missa fas ladir, agus mar i dian mi spain milli mil avirg.
The Devils are shamelessly afraid of me. They have nothing here, but what I know. They have said, by word of Mouth, to my black Friend, that I did no good for him. But glory to God—I am growing powerful, and if I do make a spoon, I will spoil a horn. (Macpherson, 1773, cited in Maclean, 1967, p. 294)
31Maclean understood the last sentence as a proverb (“If I do not get my own way, I will ruin everything”), suggesting that Macpherson decided to ignore public concerns about his private lobbying for the Nawab. Indeed, James Macpherson later warned John that he might be excluded from the EIC service once again, a situation that led to his forced resignation in 1777. To attract the attention of his correspondent, James compared their enemies, Francis and Burke, to Dhiabuil “devils” harassing John tirelessly (Macpherson, 1783, BL, Mss Eur F291/125). In Irish Gaelic, proverbs such as Ní dual don diabhal bheith díomhaoin (It is not in the devil’s nature to be idle) also encapsulate the idea of uncontrollable demoniac nuisance. Francis is described as a Diabholl, showing the degree to which he tried to separate Hastings from Macpherson. In fact, Macpherson’s correspondents had no illusions about their own political manipulations: James Macpherson occasionally signed off his letters to John as Macvurich an Devil, “Macpherson the Devil” (Macpherson, 1774, BL, Mss Eur F291/122).
32John Macpherson’s coded exclusivity was a performative language which ensured confidentiality and cemented political friendships. It provided him with the opportunity to challenge English domination of colonial politics at home. In the 1780s, Charles James Fox’s proposition to replace the Directors of the Company with Commissioners appointed by the Crown (Travers, 2007, pp. 219–222) had turned him into a fierce enemy of Macpherson’s decentralised mode of governance. Fox’s ideas were widely perceived as detrimental to Hastings’s circle of Scottish EIC servants who, like Macpherson, were particularly successful in operating on the margins of EIC rule. Following the fall of Lord North’s government in March 1782 and the accession of the Earl of Rockingham to power, John Macpherson sought a pragmatic agreement with Fox against Burke:
’Ta ’n Sionach a tighin ma’n Cuairt, agus chuir è nam ioansigh, aigiarigh mo chaidacha ’n tigh a Pharliamaint. Cha n’ urrin shin ’m fer môr a chumail ’stigh an deoigh a Gheamraidh ata tighin, ’Ta mi smuinacha ’agu ’umbail ’on Sionach ro scîth do dh Enun o St Omer; agus ’sbarrail liom nach Fhaigh ’m Burkeach beg ait an sa Chouncil mhor.
The Fox is on his rounds and he sent to me, seeking my help in the House of Parliament. That will not suffice to keep the big man [Hastings] in office after next winter. I think the Fox is exceedingly tired of a man from St Omer and I am of the option that little Burke will not get a place in the big Council (Macpherson, 1783, BL, Eur F291 125/6)
33A kinsman of Edmund, William Burke served as MP twice between 1766 and 1774 but struggled to attach himself to a political faction which could secure a seat for him at Westminster. Here, Gaelic particularly reflects the London/Madras/Calcutta triangulation: James Macpherson used the word Chouncil mhor (big Council, i.e. Westminster) to differentiate it from the Supreme Council in Madras. The Gaelicisation of the Burkes is particularly striking: William becomes Burkeach and is accompanied by the adjective beg (“little”) as opposed to Burkeach mor (“Edmund”). In referring to St Omer, James Macpherson used a slander according to which Burke’s support of the Catholic Relief Act in 1778 originated in his secret conversion to Catholicism during his visit to France (Petinato, 2015). In using a derogatory phrase in Gaelic, James sought a form of retaliation in his own language, which temporarily brought the Burkes under his control in the normalised and neutral space of conversation.
34As the South Uist proverb says, “Cha do thuig neach riamh ground Sgiathanaich” (No one can understand the intention of a Skye man) (Meek, 1978, p. 49): to a large extent, the Gaelic correspondence of John Macpherson will keep some of its secrets intact. The richness of the material, to which this article has served as an introduction, requires further exploration from a linguistic and philological point of view. Nevertheless, this article has argued that the letters are less remarkable for the ‘corruption’ of the language than for the recreation of a distinctive component of Highland identity in a colonial context. An integral part of Macpherson’s career in India, Gaelic functioned as a cultural and geographical marker, maintaining bonds of friendship and solidarity. The striking contrast between the Gaelic and English letters reflects the performative nature of the Macphersons’ rhetoric, adapting itself to various political, social, and epistolary contexts. For Gaels facing anti-Scottish sentiment in London, Gaelic promoted a form of loose kin‑based solidarity in the Empire, concealing and revealing their identity at once while achieving a degree of retaliation.
35As we reach the end of this study, it is crucial to highlight a paradox. While globalising Gaelic by exporting it outside the Gàidhealtachd, John Macpherson simultaneously confined it to his intimate sphere of friends. This privatisation of the language was concomitant with an ambiguous process of land management and profit-making by an entrepreneurial class of Highland returnees. They used their bilingualism to reinforce their local authority on the tenantry and justify the intrusion of external capital, partly as a response to the use of Gaelic for resisting improvements (Hunter, 2015; Desportes, 2024). By privileging external factors, i.e. confidentiality and performative kinship, over societal and civic concerns, Macpherson and his correspondents deprived Gaelic of any form of collective identity and re‑appropriated the language for the benefit of the colonial gentry involved in India, Scotland and London. Consequently, Macpherson’s Gaelic letters can be envisaged as the ambivalent product of a Highland elite whose involvement in the EIC radically transformed their perceptions of their native geographies, language, and society.