CHAPTER VI.

NEWSPAPERS AND JOURNALISTS FROM 1788 TO 1800.

"The liberties of the press and the liberties of the people must stand or fall together."-HUME.

The Press in the Reign of George the Third.-Numerous Laws and Prosecutions. Statute on Libel.-Trial of Paine, and Speech of Erskine. Sheridan.-Burke.-Crabbe.-Summary of Acts of Parliament. Attempts to gag the Newspapers.

THE reign of

HE reign of George the Third was an eventful one for the press. In the days of no previous monarch had so many laws been passed having reference to the publication of News, nor had public writers ever before taken up so bold a position as the one they assumed during the life of the king who lost America and added several hundred millions to the national debt. When the revolutionary spirit roused America to a rebellion that eventuated in independence, the press was called upon to play an important part, and in spite of repressive enactments, public prosecutions, and heavy sentences when convictions were obtained, the doctrines of progressive reform and social amelioration found expression in type, to the advancement of political knowledge amongst the people, and the improvement of our political institutions. The spread

of republican doctrines through the neighbouring country when its first revolutionary struggle began, gave a great impetus to political inquiry in England, nor was there any lack of pens ready to advocate doctrines very obnoxious to the existing authorities. A ready sale being found for such publications, their authors had a renewed stimulus for production, and when the law was called upon to punish the verbal rebellion, the honours of martyrdom were awarded to those who had already gained the profits of sedition. One hundred and fifty thousand copies of Paine's Rights of Man are said to have been sold in a marvellously short time, whilst upwards of thirty thousand impressions of Burke's reply found purchasers. This amount of attention given to two political combatants shows in itself the great interest taken by the public in the questions debated. Besides these two well-known partizans, a host of other writers came into the arena to claim the attention of the people, and to give discomfort to the government, and amongst them were Mackintosh and Cobbett. Although each fresh law added to the bonds of the press, and crippled its operations by increasing the tax upon Newspapers, such publications continued to grow in numbers, size, and importance. A glance at the stated circulation of Papers during forty years of the eighteenth century will exhibit their rate of increase. The numbers in 1753 were 7,411,757; in 1760, 9,484,791; in 1790, 14,035,739; in 1791, 14,794,153; whilst in 1792 the number rose to 15,005,760.

Many prosecutions took place during the last quarter of the eighteenth century, and amongst those

who figured conspicuously as a defendant was Mr. Woodfall of the Public Advertiser. In 1776, that spirited journalist was sued for libel by Lord Chatham, but escaped conviction through a flaw in the proceedings. In 1779, Woodfall was less fortunate. He ventured to print an expression of joy that Admiral Keppel, the companion of Anson, had triumphed over his enemies by securing an acquittal by court-martial, and for this Woodfall was tried, convicted, fined, and sentenced to twelve months imprisonment in Newgate. He also bore the brunt of actions by Edmund Burke and by Lord Loughborough. The former had the modesty to lay his damages for a libel in the Public Advertiser at £5000; the jury gave £100. A similar case of difference of opinion arose in 1786, when Almon was proceeded against by Pitt for a libel in the General Advertiser. The minister estimated the damage done to his character at £10,000, a sum which was reduced in the verdict to £150. In the same year that Lord Chatham proceeded against Woodfall, the Newspapers in which notices of the Constitutional Society appeared felt the displeasure of the Government. On the 17th of December, 1776, J. Baldwin, J. Miller, J. Wilkie, and H. Randall, four Newspaper printers, were found guilty of publishing a letter from the Constitutional Society respecting the payment of £100 to Franklinthree of them were fined £100 each. All the printers who inserted an advertisement from the Constitutional Society, signed by Horne (Tooke), were served with writs; but Horne being convicted and fined, the affair dropped as regards the Newspapers.

Whilst the case of Warren Hastings was before

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Parliament, the Newspapers came in for a share of the attention and the anger of the House of Commons. Mr. Markham, a member of that body, called attention to a paragraph in a public journal, in which it was said, "that the trial of Mr. Hastings was to be put off for another sessions unless the House of Lords had spirit enough to put an end to so shameful a business." After some remarks," says the Annual Register,* "upon the scandalous licentiousness of the press, a motion was made and carried unanimously, for prosecuting the printer of the Paper. In the course of the conversation which this motion gave rise to, Mr. Burke read from one of the public Prints a curious paper, purporting to be a bill of charges made by the editor upon Major Scott, for sundry articles inserted in the Paper on his account. They chiefly consisted of speeches, letters, paragraphs composed by him, and amongst the rest was this item, For attacking the veracity of Mr. Burke, 3s. 6d.'"

When the Chancellor of the Exchequer, brought forward his financial statement in June, 1789, Mr. Pitt proposed to raise an additional hundred thousand a year by new taxes. He fixed on the stamp duties as most convenient for his purpose, and proposed to augment certain of them to secure the sum he wanted. First on his list came Newspapers, which he suggested should pay an additional halfpenny each, and from this source he anticipated an annual return of £28,000. His second tax was an additional sixpence upon each advertisement, and the gain from this he estimated at £9,000. Probates, legacies,

* Annual Register, Vol. XXXI., p. 164,

carriages, and horses, also came in for a share of the money-wanting minister's regard, and much opposition was expressed to the demand. Sheridan was amongst those who demanded inquiry into the real state of the national finances. After six years of peace, it was declared to be unreasonable and impolitic to ask for additional taxes. The wit, dramatist, and politician launched one of his brilliant speeches against the Government, and exhibited in very startling light the mismanagement and unsound state of the national system of finance. Grenville followed Sheridan, to repair, by his advocacy of the Government scheme, the injury which the opposition speech had done it, but the upshot of the debate was the old story of a strong majority, and the new taxes on Newspapers were voted by the House.

Sampson Perry, printer of The Argus, was found guilty, December 10, 1792, in the Court of Queen's Bench, of publishing a libel on the House of Commons, in stating, "the House of Commons were not the real representatives of the people." A reward of £100 was offered for Perry's apprehension. The title of Argus had more than once borne ill-repute. Shortly before this period, one Lewis Goldsmith, an English Jew and notary, had attracted persecution by a publication called Crimes of Cabinets. To escape the consequences of a sentence for libel and sedition, he fled to France, and there edited a Paper called The Argus, with funds supplied by the French Minister of Foreign Affairs. In this he fiercely attacked everything English. Getting information of a police plot for delivering him up to the British authorities, he contrived, it is