Campbell, John

Campbell, John (1708-1775), Scottish author, was born at Edinburgh on the 8th of March 1708. Being designed for the legal profession, he was sent to Windsor, and apprenticed to an attorney; but his tastes soon led him to abandon the study of law and to devote himself entirely to literature. In 1736 he published the Military History of Prince Eugene and the Duke of Marlborough, and soon after contributed several important articles to the Ancient Universal History. In 1742 and 1744 appeared the Lives of the British Admirals, in 4 vols., a popular work which has been continued by other authors. Besides contributing to the Biographia Britannica and Dodsley’s Preceptor, he published a work on The Present State of Europe, onsisting of a series of papers which had appeared in the Museum. He also wrote the histories of the Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish, French, Swedish, Danish and Ostend settlements in the East Indies, and the histories of Spain, Portugal, Algarve, Navarre and France, from the time of Clovis till 1656, for the Modern Universal History. At the request of Lord Bute, he published a vindication of the peace of Paris concluded in 1763, embodying in it a descriptive and historical account of the New Sugar Islands in the West Indies. By the king he was appointed agent for the provinces of Georgia in 1755. His last and most elaborate work, Political Survey of Britain, 2 vols. 4to, was published in 1744, and greatly increased the author’s reputation. Campbell died on the 28th of December 1775. He received the honorary degree of LL.D. from the university of Glasgow in 1745.