That time David Hume tried to attack Quebec but invaded France instead.

January 17, 2024 1:30 PM

"Sail with the first fair wind, approach the unknown coast, march through the unknown country, and attack the unknown cities of the most potent nation of the universe”. You may remember David Hume from your Philosophy 101 class, (or perhaps Bruce's Philosopher Song) but did you know about his military career?

In 1746, Hume was between jobs and about to return to Scotland when he got a sudden offer from Lieut.-General James St Clair (a distant relation) to be the aide-de-camp (and later, Judge Advocate) for a hastily planned invasion of Quebec. (Britain and France were on opposite sides of the War of Austrian Succession; King George's War was the North American theater.) But somehow, they ended up invading Brittany instead:

The plan for the expedition was to approach Quebec by way of the St. Lawrence River in August. Hume set his affairs in order and reported for duty. But what followed was not the exciting onset of an adventure at sea, sails rippling in the wind, but three months of fits and starts. When the wind was not favorable, they were stuck in one harbor or another; when the wind was favorable, the orders from the Navy changed and kept them from going anywhere.

By the end of August, the orders changed dramatically. Forget Canada; the new plan was to invade the French coast and cause a distraction from the campaign taking place then around Flanders. But winds were unfavorable once again, giving St Clair the opportunity to remind the Navy that for this new assignment he had no maps, no military intelligence, no horses, and no money.

The Navy sent along a major and some ship pilots to help plan for an invasion – though, as it turned out, none of them could provide any helpful information. Thus, as Hume put it, the company “lay under positive orders to sail with the first fair wind, to approach the unknown coast, march through the unknown country, and attack the unknown cities of the most potent nation of the universe”.

From 3 Quarks Daily, which has the rest of the story.

The campaign set off for Lorient (base of operations for the French East-India Company) with 50 ships and a map of France bought at a shop in Plymouth. Not surprisingly, things did not go well.

CW: War, Suicide

Note: I'm not an historian, but I had a political science professor who liked to tell stories about the lives of philosophers, and this one stuck with me. For more, you can read chapter 15 of Mossner's Life of David Hume which can be checked out at archive.org.

posted by Ishbadiddle (19 comments total)

but did you know about his military career?

No I didn't, what a comedy of errors. Someone committing suicide over it magnifies the absurdity.
posted by airing nerdy laundry at 1:56 PM on January 17 [1 favorite]

In the version I saw/heard/memorized, David Hume could out consume Schopenhauer and Hegel...who knows, after all these disasters maybe he cut back a bit.
This was a fun post, thanks!
posted by winesong at 2:09 PM on January 17 [2 favorites]

Well, at least it kept him from writing.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 2:31 PM on January 17 [5 favorites]

So much absurdity! The French, who vastly outnumbered the English, tried to surrender, only to find the English had up and left. I didn’t even mention the fight Hume had with Voltaire afterwards about it.

Also from what I read, it was during his time in the army that Hume gained a lot of weight. The General and his staff ate well. Probably better eating than when Hume tutored the mad Marquess. But that’s another story.
posted by Ishbadiddle at 3:14 PM on January 17 [3 favorites]

But did you know he could out-consume Shcopenhauer AND Hegel?
posted by Chuffy at 4:00 PM on January 17 [1 favorite]

If you asked me to pick a philosopher with military experience, it would not have been Hume.

The French, who vastly outnumbered the English, tried to surrender, only to find the English had up and left.

Not to be a fun-ruiner, but this particular point has the feel of a fake anecdote to entertaining to check when you're writing your Hume biography. What's the original source for this? I mean, from the outside this would look like a successful defense, the British apparently weren't there to witness it, so why would the local French officers go around after the fact announcing they'd tried to surrender and probably deserved court martial?
posted by mark k at 6:36 PM on January 17 [1 favorite]

It does sound too outlandish to be real, doesn't it? Mossner's Life of Hume tells the story (see page 197) but I'm not sure where in his bibliography he sourced it from. Wikipedia cites Le Cam, Louis (1931). Le siège de Lorient par les anglais en 1746 for this particular part of the story.

With more detail, it makes a bit more sense. This from the Wikipedia article:

On the evening of 7 October, a British shot fell near the French command centre, leading to a council of war. De Volvire and de L'Hôpital backed surrender, thinking that the British were about to reinforce their firepower. The town's commander did not believe that his troops could win, thinking weaker than the British troops, but his officers and the town's inhabitants opposed surrender, stating they were ready to defend the town to the last bullet. It was thus decided to surrender, and on 7 October at 7pm De L'Hôpital left the town carrying its surrender proposal. He was unable to find the enemy force and had to return to Lorient around 10pm. He suspected a British ruse and ordered the town's defences reinforced.

So, fog of war and all that.
posted by Ishbadiddle at 7:26 PM on January 17 [1 favorite]

The wikipedia page is lamentably brief for anyone who deserves the sobriquet "Mad Marquess."
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 7:31 PM on January 17 [2 favorites]

Ah, that's the 2nd Marquess of Annandale. No, you want his half-brother, George Vanden-Bempde, 3rd Marquess of Annandale, who merits an even shorter Wikipedia page. This is a whole story unto itself. Skimming the chapter in Mossner it seems the Marquess was depressed, bulimic, and had manic episodes. There's also a villain in the tale, a Captain Philip Vincent, who was managing the estate but was trying (it seemed to Hume) to take it over. Vincent and Hume fought a lot, with Hume seemingly the only one who cared about his pupil.

From my recollection of the story, Vincent actually hired Hume as a tutor thinking that Hume's philosophy would drive the Marquess further into mental illness. And there was something about Hume and Marquess leaping over chairs. I've not found any sources to support those recollections, but they would make great scenes in Hume: The Musical!
posted by Ishbadiddle at 8:05 PM on January 17 [4 favorites]

The de L'Hôpital mentioned may be a relative (grandson?) of Guillaume de l'Hôpital, who gave his name to the famous calculus theorem.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 8:12 PM on January 17 [1 favorite]

Hey I'm teaching L'Hôpital's rule in a couple of weeks! (Although it should really be Bernoulli's rule... but that's a whole other story...)
posted by Ishbadiddle at 10:17 PM on January 17

Didn’t Descartes join an army because that was the only way he could get to stay in bed all morning?
posted by Phanx at 1:08 AM on January 18 [1 favorite]

Hume’s own short account of his life is quite a nice read.
posted by Phanx at 1:16 AM on January 18 [4 favorites]

Immanuel Kant invented a special device to hold his stockings up.

... for fear of obstructing the circulation of the blood, he never would wear garters; yet, as he found it difficult to keep up his stockings without them, he had invented for himself a most elaborate substitute, which I shall describe. In a little pocket, somewhat smaller than a watch-pocket, but occupying pretty nearly the same situation as a watch-pocket on each thigh, there was placed a small box, something like a watch-case, but smaller; into this box was introduced a watch-spring in a wheel, round about which wheel was wound an elastic cord, for regulating the force of which there was a separate contrivance. To the two ends of this cord were attached hooks, which hooks were carried through a small aperture in the pockets, and so passing down the inner and the outer side of the thigh, caught hold of two loops which were fixed on the off side and the near side of each stocking.

posted by TheophileEscargot at 1:17 AM on January 18 [4 favorites]

F. Nietzsche had an interesting military career. At 23 he was an enthusiastic and promising cadet, but a horse riding injury invalided him out, and he returned to school. A few years later he left school to volunteer as a medical orderly for the Franco Prussian War. I'd heard an anecdote that he was once locked in a rail boxcar full of soldiers dying of dysentery. Which sounds kinda traumatic and the sort of thing that would contribute to PTSD later in life. Nietzsche's attitudes towards militarism are complex and mercurial, and he goes between being extremely pro-war and anti-war.
posted by ovvl at 4:40 AM on January 18 [3 favorites]

Oddly enough, Immanuel Kant’s Steampunk Garters is the name of my favorite ad hoc postdoc jam band.
posted by Ishbadiddle at 5:21 AM on January 18 [2 favorites]

I knew nothing about this; thank you for posting it!
posted by LobsterMitten at 8:35 AM on January 18 [1 favorite]

Amphibious invasions are very hard.

And what a war. You've got a hilarious alternative name for it, that battle where commanders offered their opponents the first shot, the last time a British monarch appeared on a battlefield, another bungled amphibious attack, the defeat of the Jacobites (and the last serious land battle in Britain), and more.
posted by doctornemo at 1:39 PM on January 18 [1 favorite]

But did you know he could out-consume Shcopenhauer AND Hegel?

David Hume could out-consume
Wilhelm Freidrich Hegel

/extremely pedantic Monty Python derail
posted by senor biggles at 10:33 PM on January 18 [2 favorites]