Adam Ferguson, Sir John Macpherson and the French Revolution: New Evidence and Perspectives.

This article examines thirty-six new letters and one essay on the French Revolution written by Adam Ferguson, and uses them to reconstruct a discussion carried on among Ferguson, Hugh Blair and Sir John Macpherson during the revolutionary 1790s. The new evidence from Ferguson casts doubt on his identification as a 'civic humanist', and shows that he never welcomed the French Revolution, even in its early stages. Remarkably, Ferguson also briefly supported a European union based on arms and commerce. The examination of John Macpherson—a little known but interesting figure—shows that he had a sophisticated view of commercial society and a unique theory about the dangers of systemic financial risk. Finally, the conversation contained here primarily pertains to commercial society, public credit and perpetual peace, and adds a new Scottish angle to our understanding of these major idioms in eighteenth-century political thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]