John Macky (died 1726) was a Scottish spy. He was the first person to inform the British authorities of
James II's
intended invasion of England in 1692 after the former king had fled from France to England. In October 1693 he was made inspector of the coast from Harwich to Dover, tasked with intercepting hostile intelligence.
Macky published an attack on James II's exiled court in ''A View of the Court of St Germains from the Year 1690 to 1695'' in 1696. His network of spies was crucial to the discovery in February and March 1708 of the Jacobite plans to invade Scotland. He later came under the suspicion of the authorities and was imprisoned, but was released in 1714 following the accession of
George I George I or 1 may refer to:
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.
Macky married Sarah Spring, the only daughter of
Sir William Spring, 2nd Baronet
Sir William Spring, 2nd Baronet (1642–1684) was an English politician, member of the Spring family and MP for Suffolk in 1679–1684.
Spring was educated at King Edward VI School and Christ's College, Cambridge. He inherited the Baronetcy of ...
, and used her dowry to fund the construction of five
packet boat
Packet boats were medium-sized boats designed for domestic mail, passenger, and freight transportation in European countries and in North American rivers and canals, some of them steam driven. They were used extensively during the 18th and 19th ...
s in Dover, where he served as Director of the Packet Boats. In 1733 their son, Spring Macky, published ''Memoirs of the Secret Services of John Macky''.
[J. D. Alsop, â]
Macky, John (d. 1726)
€™, ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Jan 2008, accessed 10 Nov 2009.
Notes
Publications
* ''A Journey through Scotland (1723)'' Reprinted, with annotations and an Introduction by Anne M. McKim, by The Grimsay Press (2014)
*
Memoirs of the secret services of John Macky' (1733)
1726 deaths
Scottish spies
Year of birth unknown
17th-century spies
18th-century spies
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