Isaac de Pinto (10 April 1717 – 13 August 1787) was a
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
merchant and banker of Portuguese
Sephardic Jewish origin who was one of the main
investors
An investor is a person who allocates financial capital with the expectation of a future return (profit) or to gain an advantage (interest). Through this allocated capital most of the time the investor purchases some species of property. Type ...
in the
Dutch East India Company
The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...
, as well as a
scholar
A scholar is a person who pursues academic and intellectual activities, particularly academics who apply their intellectualism into expertise in an area of study. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researc ...
and
philosophe
The ''philosophes'' () were the intellectuals of the 18th-century Enlightenment.Kishlansky, Mark, ''et al.'' ''A Brief History of Western Civilization: The Unfinished Legacy, volume II: Since 1555.'' (5th ed. 2007). Few were primarily philosophe ...
who concentrated on
Jewish emancipation
Jewish emancipation was the process in various nations in Europe of eliminating Jewish disabilities, e.g. Jewish quotas, to which European Jews were then subject, and the recognition of Jews as entitled to equality and citizenship rights. It in ...
and
national debt. Pinto published mainly in French and once in Portuguese. According to historian Richard Popkin, Pinto "was one of the very few Jews of the eighteenth century, before
Moses Mendelssohn
Moses Mendelssohn (6 September 1729 – 4 January 1786) was a German-Jewish philosopher and theologian. His writings and ideas on Jews and the Jewish religion and identity were a central element in the development of the ''Haskalah'', or ' ...
, able to operate and express himself in the mainstreams of European culture."
Life
Pinto had his
brit milah on 18 April 1717; this likely means he was born on 10 April and received his
Bar Mitzvah in 1730. On 29 December 1734, the 17-year-old Pinto was married to Rachel Nuñes Henriques; the couple never had any children. In 1748, Pinto helped
William IV of Orange
William IV (Willem Karel Hendrik Friso; 1 September 1711 – 22 October 1751) was Prince of Orange from birth and the first hereditary stadtholder of all the United Provinces of the Netherlands from 1747 until his death in 1751. During his whole l ...
, sending or lending him money to defeat the French at
Bergen op Zoom
Bergen op Zoom (; called ''Berrege'' in the local dialect) is a municipality and a city located in the south of the Netherlands.
Etymology
The city was built on a place where two types of soil meet: sandy soil and marine clay. The sandy soil ...
. In return he asked for the removal of measures against
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
merchants
A merchant is a person who trades in commodities produced by other people, especially one who trades with foreign countries. Historically, a merchant is anyone who is involved in business or trade. Merchants have operated for as long as industry ...
forbidding them to sell clothes,
gherkins
A pickled cucumber (commonly known as a pickle in the United States and Canada and a gherkin in Britain, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand) is a usually small or miniature cucumber that has been pickled in a brine, vinegar, or ...
or fish on the street. He proposed opening the
guilds to Jews, and sending the poorest to
Surinam. In 1750, he was appointed president of the
Dutch East India Company
The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...
by the
stadtholder. In 1755 he was visited by
Frederick the Great
Frederick II (german: Friedrich II.; 24 January 171217 August 1786) was King in Prussia from 1740 until 1772, and King of Prussia from 1772 until his death in 1786. His most significant accomplishments include his military successes in the S ...
, travelling incognito through the Netherlands; together they visited
Gerrit Braamcamp
Gerrit Braamcamp (18 November 1699, in Amsterdam – 17 June 1771, in Amsterdam) was a successful Roman Catholic distiller, timber merchant, and art collector from the Netherlands. One of the most important merchants in Amsterdam, he built a ti ...
.
Pinto was a man of broad learning, but he did not begin to write until nearly forty-five, when he acquired a reputation by defending his co-religionists against Voltaire. In 1762, he published his ''Essai sur le Luxe'' at Amsterdam. In the same year, Pinto published ''Apologie pour la Nation Juive, ou Réflexions Critiques'' and sent a manuscript copy of this work directly to
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his ''nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his criticism of Christianity—es ...
.
Antoine Guenée reproduced the ''Apologie'' at the head of his ''Lettres de Quelques Juifs Portugais, Allemands et Polonais, à M. de Voltaire''.
In 1761, Isaac and his brother Aron went
bankrupt
Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor ...
, potentially as a result of raising loans of around 6 million guilders for the British government in either 1759 or 1761; his brother sold his house on
Nieuwe Herengracht
The Nieuwe Herengracht () is a canal in Centrum district of Amsterdam.
The canal is an extension of the Herengracht that runs between the Amstel and the Scharrebiersluis (lock) leading to the Schippersgracht from the Entrepotdok.
It is in the ...
. Pinto moved to Paris, where he met with
James Cockburn,
Lord Hertford,
Mattheus Lestevenon
Mattheus Lestevenon, heer van Berckenrode (1715–1797, The Hague) was a city-secretary and schepen in Amsterdam, then Dutch ambassador to France. Lestevenon played an important role in the year 1748 and in the negotiations for the Treaty of Par ...
,
David Hume
David Hume (; born David Home; 7 May 1711 NS (26 April 1711 OS) – 25 August 1776) Cranston, Maurice, and Thomas Edmund Jessop. 2020 999br>David Hume" ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 18 May 2020. was a Scottish Enlightenment phil ...
John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford
John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford, (30 September 17105 January 1771) was an 18th-century British statesman.G.E. Cokayne; with Vicary Gibbs, H.A. Doubleday, Geoffrey H. White, Duncan Warrand and Lord Howard de Walden, editors, The Complete Peer ...
and
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot (; ; 5 October 171331 July 1784) was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer, best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the '' Encyclopédie'' along with Jean le Rond d'Alembert. He was a promi ...
. Then he moved to The Hague and lived in a mansion at
Lange Voorhout
The Lange Voorhout () is a street in the old city centre of The Hague, Netherlands. It is L-shaped and runs from Kneuterdijk in the west to Toernooiveld in the east, reaching approximately in length.
History
In the Middle Ages, the Lange Voorh ...
; he and his family were invited to the palace when the young
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition r ...
and his sister
Nannerl
Maria Anna Walburga Ignatia Mozart (30 July 1751 – 29 October 1829), called "Marianne" and nicknamed Nannerl, was a musician, the older sister of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) and daughter of Leopold (1719–1787) and Anna Maria Moz ...
performed. In 1767, he went to London, meeting with
Lord Bute
John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, (; 25 May 1713 – 10 March 1792), styled Lord Mount Stuart between 1713 and 1723, was a British nobleman who served as the 7th Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1762 to 1763 under George III. He was arguabl ...
and receiving a pension for his advice on the
Treaty of Paris (1763)
The Treaty of Paris, also known as the Treaty of 1763, was signed on 10 February 1763 by the kingdoms of Great Britain, France and Spain, with Portugal in agreement, after Great Britain and Prussia's victory over France and Spain during the S ...
, as the British had gained influence over the French in India through his suggestion. In 1768, Pinto sent a letter to Diderot on ''Du Jeu de Cartes''. His ''Traité de la Circulation et du Crédit'', in which he convinced many people that England was not on the verge of bankruptcy, was published in Amsterdam in 1771.
Pinto opposed
Raynal after the publication of Raynal's book on global colonization ''L'Histoire philosophique et politique des établissements et du commerce des Européens dans les deux Indes'' (The Philosophical and Political History of the Two Indies). He disagreed with Hume, Vivant de Mezague and
Mirabeau
Mirabeau may refer to:
People and characters
* Mirabeau B. Lamar (1798–1859), second President of the Republic of Texas
French nobility
* Victor de Riqueti, marquis de Mirabeau (1715–1789), French physiocrat
* Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, com ...
. His treatise was twice reprinted, besides being translated into English by
Philip Francis (politician) and into German by
Carl August von Struensee, the Prussian minister of finance. His ''Précis des Arguments Contre les Matérialistes'' was published at The Hague in 1774. He seems also to have had
Jean-Paul Marat pushed from the stairs and ordered to leave his house.
[J.S. Wijler (1923) Isaac de Pinto, Sa vie et ses oeuvres, p. 20] In 1776, he wrote against the
American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...
; he did, however, approve of the
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was an American political and mercantile protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 16, 1773. The target was the Tea Act of May 10, 1773, which allowed the British East India Company to sell t ...
. Around 1780, he wrote against an alliance of the Dutch Republic with France, although this alliance was later realized in the
Treaty of Fontainebleau (1785)
The Treaty of Fontainebleau was signed on November 8, 1785 in Fontainebleau between Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, ruler of the Habsburg monarchy, and the States-General of the United Provinces. Based on the terms of the accord, the United Provi ...
.
Legacy
Various authors, both contemporary and later, commented on Pinto's writings. One of them,
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
, derisively referred to Pinto - whom he regarded as a major exponent of the free-market liberalism he criticized - as the "
Pindar
Pindar (; grc-gre, Πίνδαρος , ; la, Pindarus; ) was an Ancient Greek lyric poet from Thebes. Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian wrote, "Of the nine lyric poets, Pindar ...
of the Amsterdam stock exchange" for his glorification of the Dutch financial system.
References
Sources
*
* Didot, Nouvelle Biographie Générale, p. 282;
* Barbier, Dictionnaire des Anonymes;
* Dictionnaire d'Economie Politicale, ii.;
*
Quérard, La France Littéraire, in Allgemeine Litteraturzeitung, 1787, No. 273.
* Nijenhuis, I.J.A.(1992) Een joodse "philosophe". Isaac de Pinto (1717-1787) en de ontwikkeling van de politieke economie in de Europese Verlichting.
External links
Pinto manuscript held at the University of London
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pinto, Isaac
1717 births
1787 deaths
Dutch Sephardi Jews
18th-century Sephardi Jews
Jewish Dutch writers
Jewish merchants
Businesspeople from Amsterdam
Dutch East India Company people from Amsterdam
Dutch people of Portuguese descent