John, a voluminous writer, was born in Edinburgh in 1758, and was educated at the grammar school of Lanark. A self-willed devotion to literature began to characterize him at an early period. Before entering into business, he occupied his time with dipping at random into French classics and mathematics. While serving his apprenticeship with an Edinburgh writer to the signet he persisted in writing and publishing insipid rhymes. On his abandonment of the legal profession, and his removal to London in 1780, this perverse literary ardour took a new direction. His mind now wandered with all its usual laborious eccentricity into the field of antiquarian research. Sometimes he pored over the ancient literature of his native country, forming collections of ballads, and adding imitations by himself. At other times he made historical compilations, boldly distorting every fact that did not accord with his own prejudices, and fiercely denouncing every one who might dare to dissent from his own conclusions. A long series of curious and whimsical publications was the result. There were Select Scottish Ballads, in 2 vols., 1783; Ancient Scottish Poems, in 2 vols. Svo, 1786; Dissertation on the Origin and Progress of the Scythians and Goths, 8vo, 1787; An Enquiry into the History of Scotland preceding the Reign of Malcolm III., in 2 vols. Svo, 1789; and The History of Scotland during the Reign of the Stuarts, in 2 vols. 4to, 1797.

His Geography, published in 1802, in 2 vols. 4to, is considered valuable. In spite of these and many other works, the author had great difficulty in securing a maintenance, and died in indigence at Paris in 1826. Pinkerton was intimate with Gibbon and Horace Walpole.

PINION, in Mechanics, an arbor or spindle, having in the body of it several notches, which catch the teeth of a wheel that serves to turn it round; or it is a lesser wheel that plays in the teeth of a larger.