Hugh Boyd (writer)

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Hugh Boyd (1746–1794) was an Irish essayist and writer. He was born in Ballycastle, County Antrim, the second son of Alexander Macauley and a Miss Boyd. Showing early talent, he attended Dr Ball’s school in Dublin and entered Trinity College at fourteen, earning his M.A. in 1765. After his father’s sudden death left him in need, he chose a legal career and moved to London, where he met Goldsmith and Garrick. In 1767 he married Frances Morphy, and after his maternal grandfather’s death he began using the surname Boyd.

In London he wrote for the Public Advertiser and other journals, and mixed with prominent writers like Burke and Reynolds. He started to give more attention to the law around 1774, and he faithfully copied the debates in the House of Commons from memory. In 1775 he was admitted to St John’s College, Cambridge. He returned to Ireland in 1776 to support a local election candidate with letters signed “A Freeholder.”

Financial pressures eventually forced him into paid work. In 1781 he became secretary to Lord Macartney, who was appointed governor of Madras, and Boyd studied Indian affairs. While in India he carried a mission from the governor to the king of Kandy (in Ceylon) to seek help against the Dutch. On his return, his ship was captured by the French, and he was a prisoner on the island of Bourbon for several months. He later lived in Calcutta and was named master-attendant at Madras.

In 1792 Boyd started the Madras Courier, and in 1793 he planned the Indian Observer and began a weekly paper called Hircarrah to publish essays. In 1794 he hoped to publish an account of his embassy to Kandy, but died of fever on October 19, 1794.

Boyd was known for his high social and intellectual qualities. Some writers, notably John Almon and George Chalmers, credited him with authorship of the Letters of Junius, though this claim is not proven.

His writings were collected after his death as The Miscellaneous Works of Hugh Boyd, the author of the Letters of Junius, with a Life and Writings by Lawrence Dundas Campbell (London, 1800). The collection includes the Freeholder Letters; Democraticus (Public Advertiser, 1779); The Whig (London Courant, 1779–80); Abstracts of Two Speeches of the Earl of Chatham; Miscellaneous Poems; Journal of Embassy to the King of Candy; and the Indian Observer.