James Mackintosh - Lawyer

Lawyer

As a lawyer his greatest public efforts were his lectures (1799) at Lincoln's Inn on the law of nature and nations, of which the introductory discourse was published and ran to several editions; the resulting fame helped open doors for him later in life. Mackintosh was also famed for his speech in 1803 defending Jean Gabriel Peltier, a French refugee, against a libel suit instigated by Napoleon - then First Consul (military dictator) of France. Peltier had argued that Napoleon should be killed at a time when Britain and France were at peace. The speech was widely published in English and also across Europe in a French translation by Madame de Staël, who became a friend of Mackintosh's. In 1803 he was knighted.