A Scottish Jacobin: John Oswald on Commerce and Citizenship

John Oswald was a Scottish journalist and pamphleteer who gained fame in the 1790s for his scandalous lifestyle and democratic political views. He was considered by his British contemporaries as the incarnation of the crimes of Jacobinism. This article seeks to reassess Oswald’s place in the history of political thought by placing him within the context of his own Scottish background. Oswald’s radical views were neither directly inspired by his French revolutionary friends, nor typical of the English and Scottish radical scenes. Rather, Oswald is better understood as a paradoxical heir to a mixed Scottish tradition of civic virtue and historical analysis of commercial society.