26 June 1794: The editor of the Sheffield Register fires off a final broadside against Georgian despotism, and flees to the continent and thence to the United States
Willis G. Briggs. 1907. Joseph Gales, Editor of Raleigh’s First Newspaper. The North Carolina Booklet, Vol. 7. Raleigh, North Carolina: North Carolina Daughters of the American Revolution. Get it:
.Unedited excerpt
The excerpt in the book is shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.
In 1787 Gales began the publication of The Sheffield Register, a weekly newspaper, and ardently championed reform. He warmly welcomed the French revolution. The English ministry, under leadership of Pitt, soon resorted to severe measures to repress the liberal wave, fearing that it would bring calamity to the monarchy.
[…]
A study of the file of The Sheffield Register of 1794 reveals no policy which the enlightened twentieth century would not applaud. Joseph Gales’ clear convictions gleam in his brief editorials. His sympathy was openly expressed for the two hundred wretched debtors confined in Lancaster Castle, with accommodation for only eighty persons, two sleeping in a bed. When a fifteen-year-old girl was hung for the murder of her grandfather the editor grieved because the child had been given no chance and was so ignorant and wretched as not to know right from wrong. Again he remonstrates on the severity of the law when a farmer in March, 1794, was sentenced to die for shooting a neighbor’s foal. The Sheffield editor applauded “the glorious example” of the jury, which refused five times to obey the mandates of the court and persisted in a verdict of “not guilty” in the case of Robert Erpe, charged with speaking libel in that he criticised the Pitt ministry. “Twelve gold medals” ought to be presented to those jurors, declared Gales.
[…]
Monday, April 7, 1794, was a field day for the “friends of justice, of liberty and of humanity” in Shefiield. Henry Redhead Yorke, a young man of great promise, a graduate of Cambridge, a protege of Edmund Burke, had announced his allegiance to the Liberal cause after a visit to Paris, where he met leaders of the Jacobin clubs. He was hailed as an invaluable ally, and the Constitutional Society and the Society of the Friends of the People at Shefiield endorsed the young man for parliament. Twelve thousand reformers on this April day assembled on Castle Hill, listened to a stirring speech by Yorke and adopted an address. This address, briefly stated, asserted: (1) The people were the true source of government; (2) freedom of speech is a right which cannot be denied; (3) condemnation without trials is incompatible with free government; (4) where the people have no share in the government taxation is tyrrany; (5) a government is free in proportion as the people are equally represented. The address “demanded as a right,” and no longer asked as a favor, “universal representation.” It concluded with a lengthy petiton not only for “abolition of the slave trade” but for “emancipation of negro slaves” in the British West Indies. The mechanics of Sheffield were wrought to a pitch of highest enthusiasm. Horses were unhitched and the carriage, containing Yorke, the candidate, and Joseph Gales, secretary of the meeting and probably author of the address adopted, was drawn in triumph through the town by the multitude.
[…]
The Committee of Secrecy, appointed by parliament to investigate rumored conspiracies, made a report May 23, 1794, of such a character that the Pitt ministry immediately suspended the habeas corpus act, a course almost without precedent in time of peace. The committee found that there existed “The Society for Constitutional Information” and “The London Corresponding Society” and that these societies had by resolution “applauded the publication of a cheap edition of ‘The Rights of Man,'” and voted addresses to the Jacobins at Paris and to the National Convention of France.
Continuing, the report said “The circumstance which first came under the observation of your committee containing a distinct trace of measures of this description, was a letter from a person at Sheffield, by profession a printer (who has since absconded), which was thus addressed ‘Citizen Hardy, Secretary of the London Corresponding Society’, which was found in the possession of Hardy on the twelfth of May, last, when he was taken into custody.” The letter was dated from Sheffield April 20, 1794, on paper from “Gales’ printing office” and the objectionable portion of the communication was as follows: “Fellow Citizens: The barefaced aristocracy of the present administration has made it necessary that we must be prepared to act on the defensive against any attack they may command their newly armed minions to make upon us. A plan has been hit upon, and, if encouraged sufficiently, will, no doubt, have the effect of furnishing a quantity of pikes to the Patriots, great enough to make them formidable.” This was the only reference to resistance or force in the letter. With Hardy’s paper was also found an account of a meeting at Sheffield where a full chorus sang a hymn written by James Montgomery.
When the news that the right of habeas corpus had been suspended reached Sheffield Gales exclaimed in his paper “every wretch who has either through malice or envy a dislike to his neighbor will have now an opportunity of gratifying his malicious intentions.” Warrants were issued for Yorke, Gales and others, charged with treasonable and seditious practices, and the Sheffield editor knew that the time had come when he must either seek safety elsewhere or be delivered to his enemies.
The Sheffield Register of June 26, 1794, contains the editor’s farewell. In this address he wrote: “The disagreeable predicament in which I stand, from the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, precludes me the Happiness of staying among you, My Friends, unless I would expose myself to the Malice, Enmity and Power of an unjust Aristocracy. It is in these persecuting days, a sufficient Crime to have printed a newspaper which has boldly dared to doubt the infallibility of ministers, and to investigate the justice and policy of their measures. Could my imprisonment, or even death, serve the cause which I have espoused — the cause of Peace, Liberty and Justice — it would be cowardice to fly from it; but, convinced that ruining my family and distressing my friends, by risking either, would only gratify the ignorant and the malignant, I shall seek that livelihood in another state which I can not peaceably attain in this.” He reviews his course : “I was a member of the Constitutional Society,” he admits, “and shall never, I am persuaded, whatever may be the final result, regret it, knowing that the real as well as ostensible object of this society, was a rational and peaceable reform in the representation of the people in parliament. The Secret Committee has imputed to the Society intentions of which they had no conceptions and crimes which they abhor. It has been insinuated, and, I believe, pretty generally believed, that I wrote the letter which is referred to by the Secret Committee, concerning the pikes. This charge, in the most unequivocal manner, I deny. I neither wrote, dictated or was privy to it. It will always be my pride, that I have printed an impartial and truly independent newspaper, and that I have done my endeavors to rescue my countrymen from the darkness of Ignorance and to awaken them to a just sense of their privileges as human beings, and, as such, of their importance in the grand scale of creation.”
Ten years later in America, when a rival accused Gales of having been indicted in England, he replied in his paper, “If it be deemed a crime to have opposed by means of a free press, governmental usurpation on the rights of the people, I plead guilty.”
Comment
Comment
Leader’s Sheffield reminiscences tell a similar tale (Leader 1876).
Something to say? Get in touch
Tags
Tags are assigned inclusively on the basis of an entry’s original text and any comment. You may find this confusing if you only read an entry excerpt.
- 1794 Treason Trials (2), anti-radical show trials mounted by Pitt the Younger, resulting in acquittals and public rejoicing W/G ·
- Abolitionism in the United Kingdom (7), movement in the late 18th and early 19th centuries to end slavery in the United Kingdom, the British Empire and elsewhere W/G ·
- Altona, Hamburg (1) W/G ·
- Atlantic slave trade (6) W/G ·
- Classical radicalism (9) W/G ·
- Freedom of the press (2) W/G ·
- French Revolution (7) W/G ·
- George III (1738-1820) (17), ruled 1760-1820 W/G ·
- Germany (25) W/G ·
- Habeas Corpus Act 1679 (1) W/G ·
- Habeas Corpus Suspension Act 1794 (2) W/G ·
- Hamburg (3) W/G ·
- Henry Redhead Yorke (1) W/G ·
- Horse (72) W/G ·
- Joseph Gales Sr. (1) W/G ·
- Montgomery, James (1771-1854) (3), Scottish-born hymnodist, poet and editor, eventually settled in Sheffield W/G ·
- Newspaper (28) W/G ·
- North Carolina (1) W/G ·
- Paine, Thomas (1737-1809) (5), English-born American political activist, philosopher, political theorist, and revolutionary W/G ·
- Rights of Man (2) W/G ·
- Robert Eadon Leader (1) W/G ·
- Sheffield Iris (3) W/G ·
- 📌Sheffield (80) W/G ·
- Society for Constitutional Information (1) W/G ·
- United States (20) W/G ·
- William Pitt the Younger (4) W/G ·
Comment
Comment
Leader’s Sheffield reminiscences tell a similar tale (Leader 1876).
Something to say? Get in touch
Similar
Comment
Comment
John Keane:
Whether the bridge was ever erected over the Don is unknown. During April 1789, Paine and Yates supervised the erection of a three-ton rib arch, which was framed with wood and, Paine later told John Hall, test-loaded for twelve months with six tons of scrap iron. He wrote long preliminary accounts, which have been newly discovered, of the erection and test and forwarded them on May 25, 1789, to Sir Joseph Banks for submission to the Royal Society and to Sir George Staunton for submission to the Society of Arts. In June, Banks informed him that his report had been read and accepted by the Royal Society, but for some reason Staunton, an Irish baronet with diplomatic experience in Indian and Chinese affairs, delayed sending his copy to the Society of Arts until April 1790. The completed section of the bridge remained on display at Masborough. The last recorded viewing of it was by John Byng, whose journal entry for June 11, 1789, reads simply, “In Mr. Walker’s work-yard we survey’d an arch of an iron bridge just cast.” (Keane 1995)
Paine’s contemporary, John Adolphus:
Paine now employed himself with great assiduity building his bridge. For this end, he made a journey to Rotherham in Yorkshire, in order to superintend the casting of the iron by Mr Walker. While thus occupied at Rotherham, his French familiarity is said not to have much pleased the English ladies, and their displeasure induced Mr Walker to turn Paine out of his house. The bridge, however, was at length erected in a close at [Lisson Green, London]; being an arch constructed of iron, one hundred and ten feet in the span, five feet from the spring, and twenty two feet in breadth. It was erected chiefly at the charge of Mr. Walker; but the project had cost the projector a large sum, which was mostly furnished by Mr Whiteside. The bridge was shown for some time at the Yorkshire Stingo [a London pub], for a shilling. As this was not the first iron bridge which was known to the English, it is not easy to discover why the projector, who had a model, should incur so great an expense, merely to make a show (Adolphus 1799).
The Walkers probably made more money working for Paine’s enemies:
The Walker companies made a variety of iron and steel products, including household items such as kettles, irons and fireplaces. They were particularly renowned for making cannon. They secured a contract from local landowner the Marquis of Rockingham [!!!!] who was Prime Minister (1765-1766 and 1782), to supply cannon to the British during the American Wars of Independence, and the wars against France. Between 1774 and 1815 they made 13,000 tons of cannon, including 80 of the 105 cannon on board HMS Victory, Nelson’s flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar.
The fuller version of Paine’s letter cited by Foner includes the following technical detail, which may be more interesting in some ways than my excerpt, and which I suspect is plagiarised from Billy Yates, just as some of Paine’s big bridge design concepts were plagiarised from the French (as was, it seems, part of The Rights of Man):
These circumstances determined me to begin an arch of 90 feet with an elevation of 5 feet. This extent I could manage within doors by working half the arch at a time. Having found a short wall suited to my purpose, I set off a center and five feet for the height of the arch, and forty five feet each way for the extent, then suspended a cord and left it to stretch itself for a day, then took off the ordinates at every foot (for one half the arch only). Having already calculated the ordinates of an arch of a circle of the same extent I compared them together and found scarcely any certain distinguishable difference, the reason of this is that however considerable the difference may be when the segment is a semi-circle that difference is contained between the 1st and 60th is 70 degrees reckoning from the bases of the arch, and above that the catenary appears to me to unite with the arch of the circle or exceedingly nearly thereto so that I conclude that the treatises on catenarian arches apply to the semi-circle or a very large portion of it. I annex a sketch to help out my meaning. [See diagram on p. 1039.]
Having taken my measurements I transferred them to the working floor. 1st I set off half the line divided into feet; 2d the ordinates upon it; 3rd drove nails at the extremity of every ordinate; 4th bent a bar of wood over them corresponding to the swinging cord on the wall, above this first bar, and at the distance the blocks would occupy, I set off all the other bars and struck the radii through the whole number; which marked the places where the holes were to be cut and consequently the wooden bars became patterns for the iron bars.
I had calculated on drilling the holes for which I had allowed 8 sterling each in my private estimation, but I found, when at the works, that I could punch a square, or oblong square hole for 1 or 1 4 each. This was gratifying to me, not only because it was under my estimation, but because it took away less of the bar in breadth than a round hole of the same capacity would do, and made the work in every respect stronger and firmer. I was very unwilling to cut the bar longitudinally, and for the same reasons you mention therefore did not do it, yet I was apprehensive of difficulty in getting the work together owing to diverging of the bolts, but this I think I have completely got over by putting the work together with wood bolts, and then driving them out with the iron ones.
Having made all my patterns of bars, and a pattern for my blocks, and chosen my iron 3 inches by ¾ we began punching the holes. To do this it is necessary the iron bar be treated hot. When this was mentioned to me I pondered a little on the effects of heat, and instead of marking the iron bar when cold from the wood pattern, I first treated it and then marked and punched it, and that only one hole at a time; by this method the changes of atmospherical heat and cold are prevented operating on the bars while they are under the operation, as it is always the same season to the bar whether the season of the year be summer or winter, and as the wood patterns is laid to the bar for every fresh hole, there can be no accumulation of error, if any, would happen, and the square hole I I can be corrected by a file whereas the round one could not.
A great part of our time, as you will naturally suppose was taken up in preparations, but after we began to work we went on rapidly, and that without any mistake, or anything to alter or amend. The foreman of the works is a relation to the proprietors, an excellent mechanic, and who fell into all my ideas with great ease and penetration. I stayed at the works till one half the rib, 45 feet, was completed and framed horizontally together, and came up to London at the meeting of Parliament on the 4th of December. The foreman, whom, as I told him, I should appoint “President of the Board of Works in my absence,” wrote me word that he has got the other half together with much less trouble than the first. He is now preparing for erecting, and I for returning.
(Paine 1945)
Something to say? Get in touch
Search
Subscribe/buy
Donate
Music & books
Place-People-Play: Childcare (and the Kazookestra) on the Headingley/Weetwood borders next to Meanwood Park.
Music from and about Yorkshire by Leeds's Singing Organ-Grinder.
RSS feed
Bluesky
Extwitter