Published: Paris, Rue S. Jacques, no. 195, prea St. Severin, no date but about 1800.
Description: engraved portrait, 21 x 13 cm (plate).
Condition: a good example, old manuscript note in faded brown ink “† 1799”.

The Last portrait of a Scottish Martyr, after his escape to Paris

A very moving portrait of Thomas Muir (1765-1799), the Edinburgh lawyer who was swept up in the reform movement in Scotland in the wake of the French Revolution, was transported to New South Wales on the Surprise, only to escape and make his way through North America, Mexico, Cuba and Spain, before finally reaching Paris. The poem on the portrait discusses how Muir was punished for his writings against tyranny and condemned to exile.

In December 1792, at “a general convention of the Scottish Societies of the Friends of the People was held in Edinburgh at which Muir read an inflammatory address from the United Irishmen of Dublin. This action, together with evidence that he had distributed an allegedly seditious pamphlet by Thomas Paine resulted in his arrest in January 1793” (ADB). At an infamously prejudiced trial Muir was sentenced to 14 years transportation, arriving in Sydney on the Surprize in October 1794.

Muir was not only one of the most important of the earliest political exiles to Australia, but orchestrated an incredible escape, managing to convince the skipper of an American vessel – the Otter – then in Port Jackson to spirit him away in February 1796. He rendezvoused with the ship off the coast, crossed to Nootka Sound on the coast of Vancouver Island in Canada, transferred to a Spanish gunship which took him to Monterey, before crossing overland to Mexico City, Vera Cruz, and then Havana. His wild circumnavigation was not yet over, because en route for Spain the ship he was on was intercepted by a British Squadron under Sir John Jervis, and in the fire-fight Muir lost his eye. Although captured, he was apparently not recognized, and put ashore at Cadiz with other Spanish prisoners. Talleyrand himself petitioned for Muir to be brought to Paris, where the escapee published a small and very rare memoir on his life and British tyranny in 1799. However, Muir, debilitated by his hard treatment, died in poverty in Paris the same year.

His story saw him briefly adopted as a sort of hero of the Revolution, which is why this portrait was engraved, published as part of Quenard’s Portraits des personnages celebres de la revolution. Quenard’s book was published between 1796 and 1802, and this portrait would date from about 1800 (given that Muir died as the caption notes in “l’An 6”, the sixth year of the new Revolutionary Calendar, 1799).

A copy of the portrait was collected by Rex Nan Kivell for the National Library, but it does seem to be very rare (Trove only lists that Nan Kivell copy and another one in the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney).

References: ADB; Trove.