Thomas Mante: Writer, Soldier, Adventurer

Thomas Mante (1733-c. 1802) wrote the influential History of the Late War in North-America (1772), which with its three companion volumes represents an epic-like portrayal of men at war. The themes and style of this tetralogy are continued in Mante’s three novels, his treatise in French on agriculture, and his monumental Naval and Military History of the Wars of England in eight volumes. Mante’s writings and his military service in Britain and America, his career in France as vivil servant, estate manager, and spy for both Britain and France make him a mirror of tensions between Britain and France in the eighteenth century.