Clergyman. Writer on ethics and political economy.

A friend of Joseph Priestley, he corresponded with Franklin concerning science, political philosophy, and the Anglo-American political scene.

Supported the American cause before and during the Revolutionary War, most famously in his political pamphlets including Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, the Principles of Government, and the Justice and Policy of the War with America (1776).

Born in Tynton, Scotland. Married in 1757 to Sarah Blundell.