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Between Heroism and Acquittal: Henry Redhead Yorke and the Inherent Instability of Political Trials in Britain during the 1790s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2012

Amnon Yuval
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Journal of British Studies , Volume 50 , Issue 3 , July 2011 , pp. 612 - 638
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Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 2011

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References

1 Bourdieu, Pierre, Language and Symbolic Power, trans. Raymond, Gino and Adamson, Matthew (Oxford, 1991), 107–16Google Scholar; Epstein, James, Radical Expression: Political Language, Ritual, and Symbol in England, 1790–1850 (New York and Oxford, 1994)Google Scholar, quote on vii; Epstein, James, “‘Equality and No King’: Sociability and Sedition: The Case of John Frost,” in Romantic Sociability, ed. Russell, Gillian and Tuite, Clara (Cambridge, 2002), 51Google Scholar; Epstein, James, In Practice: Studies in the Language and Culture of Popular Politics in Modern Britain (Stanford, CA, 2003), 111Google Scholar; Davis, Michael, “Prosecution and Radical Discourse during the 1790s: The Case of the Scottish Sedition Trials,” International Journal of the Sociology of Law 33, no. 3 (September 2005): 155–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In this context see also Mona Ozouf's critique of the historiographical analysis of Louis XVI's trial, “King's Trial,” in A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution, ed. Furet, François and Ozouf, Mona (Cambridge, MA, 1989), 95Google Scholar.

2 This ambivalence is clearly demonstrated in Clive Emsley’s analysis of the 1790s sedition trials in England, in which he argues that the prosecuted English Jacobins were “underdogs,” on the one hand, but enjoyed the defense guaranteed by the traditional “rule of law,” on the other hand. See Emsley, Clive, “An Aspect of Pitt’s ‘Terror’: Prosecutions for Sedition during the 1790s,” Social History 6, no. 2 (May 1981): esp. 174–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Epstein, Radical Expression, 31; Thompson, Edward P., Whigs and Hunters (New York, 1975), 258–69Google Scholar; Addington quoted in Emsley, “Pitt’s ‘Terror,’” 175. (For the original source, see Henry Addington to Hiley Addington, 8 November 1795, Sidmouth MSS 1794/OZ 43, Devon Record Office.)

4 Emsley, Clive, “Repression, ‘Terror’ and the Rule of Law in England during the Decade of the French Revolution,” English Historical Review 100, no. 397 (October 1985): 823–24.Google Scholar

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6 Bourdieu, Language, 163–70, quote on 277, n. 8; emphasis in original. See also Epstein, Radical Expression, 35.

7 “Tout l’attrait d’un roman d’aventures.” See de Wyzewa, Teodor, “Préface,” in Yorke, Henry Redhead, Paris et la France sous le Consulat (Paris, 1921), v.Google Scholar

8 See the descriptions of Yorke by the “Anti-Jacobin” (attacking the younger Yorke as a radical) and by journalist Lewis Goldsmith (attacking the older Yorke as a loyalist): “OLAUDAH EQUIANO, the African, and HENRY YORKE, the Mulatto, insisted upon being heard” (capital letters in original), Canning, George, Selections from the Anti-Jacobin (London, 1904), 13Google Scholar; “Mr. Henry Redhead Yorke, a Mulatto, by birth, and equally tropical, and verging to extremes, in disposition” (italicized in original), Lewis Goldsmith’s article in Argus or London Review’d in Paris 9 (15 November 1802): 35. We have only scattered and extremely partial information on Yorke’s childhood, some of which appears exclusively in Yorke’s own writings. The credibility of this information is often unclear. See Dutton, Thomas, The Literary Census: A Satirical Poem (London, 1798), 15Google Scholar; Seaton, Josephine, William Winston Seaton of the “National Intelligencer”: A Biographical Sketch (Boston, 1871), 53Google Scholar; Yorke, Henry Redhead, “Thoughts on Civil Government: Addressed to the Disfranchised Citizens of Sheffield” (1794), in Political Writings of the 1790s: French Revolution Debate in Britain, ed. Claeys, Gregory, 8 vols. (London, 1995), 4:255Google Scholar; Yorke, Henry, “Introduction,” in The Trial of Henry Yorke for a Conspiracy, &c. before the Hon. Mr. Justice Rooke, at the Assizes, held for the County of York, on Saturday, July 10, 1795 (York and Sheffield, 1795), xivGoogle Scholar; Blethen, H. Tyler, “Yorke, Henry Redhead (1772–1813),” in Biographical Dictionary of Modern British Radicals, ed. Baylen, Joseph O. and Gossman, Norbert J. (Sussex, 1979), 561.Google Scholar

9 “Ultraloyalist” is the expression employed by S. Semmel in order to describe older Yorke. See Semmel, Stuart, Napoleon and the British (New Haven, CT, 2004), 10, 32Google Scholar. On the crusaders, see Macleod, Emma Vincent, A War of Ideas: British Attitudes to the War against Revolutionary France, 1792–1802 (Brookefield, 1998), 65–89Google Scholar; Dickinson, Harry T., “Britain and the Ideological Crusade against the French Revolution,” in Après 89. La Révolution—modèle ou repoussoir, ed. Domergue, L. and Lamoine, G. (Toulouse, 1991), 171–74.Google Scholar

10 Thompson, E. P., The Making of the English Working Class (New York, 1966), 131Google Scholar; Sack, James J., From Jacobite to Conservative: Reaction and Orthodoxy in Britain, c. 1760–1832 (Cambridge, 1993), 18, 67Google Scholar. See also Sack, James J., “The Memory of Burke and the Memory of Pitt: English Conservatism Confronts its Past, 1806–1829,” The Historical Journal 30, no. 3 (September 1987): 629–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a review of the scholarly literature on Yorke, see Yuval, Amnon, “Une politique de l’émotion: Henry Redhead Yorke et le désenchantement de la Révolution française en Grande-Bretagne, 1789–1827” (PhD diss., Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales, 2008), 37–48Google Scholar. In addition to this recent work, Yorke has been the main subject of only two other studies: Fearn, Edward, “Henry Redhead Yorke—Radical Traitor,” Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 42 (1968): 187–92Google Scholar; Lasky, Melvin J., “The Recantation of Henry Redhead Yorke: A Forgotten English Ideologist,” Encounter 41, no. 4 (October 1973): 67–85Google Scholar. Lasky’s, article also appears in his Utopia and Revolution (Chicago and London, 1976): 549–65.Google Scholar

11 Ibid., 556, 565, quote on 565.

12 Philp, Mark, “The Fragmented Ideology of Reform,” in The French Revolution and British Popular Politics, ed. Philp, Mark (Cambridge, 1991), 53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Philp, Mark, “Disconcerting Ideas: Explaining Popular Radicalism and Popular Loyalism in the 1790s,” in English Radicalism, 1550–1850, ed. Burgess, Glenn and Festenstein, Matthew (Cambridge, 2005), 161Google Scholar. See also Claeys, Gregory, The French Revolution Debate in Britain: The Origins of Modern Politics (New York, 2007), 3CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Claeys, Gregory, “Introduction,” in Political Writings of the 1790s, 1:xix.Google Scholar

14 Yorke, Henry, “Reason Urged against Precedent, in a Letter to the People of Derby” (1793), in Claeys, , Political Writings, 67–84, quote on 73Google Scholar. Note that Yorke’s first essay actually supported the continuation of slavery, although he very quickly reversed his position. See Yorke, Henry Redhead, A Letter to Bache Heathcote, Esq. on the Fatal Consequences of Abolishing the Slave Trade, both to England, and her American Colonies (London, 1792)Google Scholar. On the central importance of the issue of parliamentary reform among the reformers of the 1790s, see Dickinson, Harry T., British Radicalism and the French Revolution (Oxford, 1985), 4, 16–17.Google Scholar

15 Yorke, Henry, These Are the Times that Try Men’s Souls! A Letter Addressed to John Frost, a Prisoner in Newgate (London, 1793), 6, 41–44Google Scholar. On Frost and his trial, see Epstein, “Equality”; Barrell, John and Mee, Jon, “Introduction,” in Trials for Treason and Sedition, 1792–1794, ed. Barrell, John and Mee, Jon, 8 vols. (Cambridge, 2006), 1:xviii–xx.Google Scholar

16 The paradigmatic example of this phenomenon is the caricature entitled “The Contrast,” which was drawn by Thomas Rowlandson in 1793.

17 Yorke, “Thoughts on Civil Government,” 231, 239, 244–48, 254, 257, quote on 239.

18 On Eaton and his trials, see Davis, Michael, “‘I Can Bear Punishment’: Daniel Isaac Eaton, Radical Culture and the Rule of Law, 1793–1812,” Criminal Justice History 18 (2003), 89–106Google Scholar; Barrell and Mee, “Introduction,” xxi–xxii; Wharam, Alan, The Treason Trials, 1794 (London, 1992), 71–72.Google Scholar

19 On Sheffield and its constitutional society during the 1790s, see Stevenson, John, Artisans and Democrats: Sheffield and the French Revolution, 1789–1797 (Sheffield, 1989)Google Scholar; Stevenson, John, “Sheffield and the French Revolution,” in 1789: The Long and the Short of It, ed. Williams, David (Sheffield, 1991), 159–86, quote on 163Google Scholar; Seaman, A. W. L., “Reform Politics in Sheffield, 1791–1797,” Transactions of the Hunter Archaeological Society 7 (1957): 215–28Google Scholar; Jones, G. P., “The Political Reform Movement in Sheffield,” Transactions of the Hunter Archaeological Society 4 (1937): 57–68Google Scholar; Thompson, Making, 150–51; Fearn, “Henry Redhead Yorke,” 188; Graham, Jenny, The Nation, the Law and the King: Reform Politics in England, 1789–1799 (Lanham, MD, 2000), 270, 557, 969–70Google Scholar. On the Sheffield Register, see Armytage, W. H. G., “The Editorial Experience of Joseph Gales, 1786–1794,” North Carolina Historical Review 27 (1951): 334–61.Google Scholar

20 Barrell, Imagining, 190; Lobban, Michael, “Treason, Sedition and the Radical Movement in the Age of the French Revolution,” Liverpool Law Review 22, no. 2–3 (May 2000): 213CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stevenson, “Sheffield,” 174.

21 Parssinen, T. M., “Association, Convention and Anti-Parliamentary in British Radical Politics, 1771–1848,” English Historical Review 88, no. 348 (1973): 514 n. 7Google Scholar; Wharam, Treason Trials, 230; Lobban, “Treason,” 220–21.

22 Proceedings of the Public Meeting, Held at Sheffield, in the Open Air, on the 7th of April, 1794, and Also an Address to the British Nation Being an Exposition of the Motives Which Have Determined the People of Sheffield to Petition the House of Commons No More on the Subject of Parliamentary Reform (Sheffield, 1794). On the number of people who attended the rally, see ibid., 3; Howell, Thomas Bayly and Howell, Thomas Jones, ed., A Complete Collection of State Trials and Proceedings for High Treason and other Crimes and Misdemeanors, 34 vols. (London, 1816–28), 24:606, 611, 667Google Scholar. On the five radicals and their trials in Edinburgh, see Barrell, Imagining, 142–69; Barrell and Mee, “Introduction,” xxiv–xxv; Wharam, Treason Trials, 59–67.

23 Public Meeting at Sheffield, 26; Resolutions of Sheffield Society for Constitutional Information in Defence of the Meeting of April 7, and of Henry Yorke, 30 April 1794 (Sheffield, 1794); Stevenson, “Sheffield,” 174.

24 Quoted in Graham, Nation, 595.

25 On Yorke’s time in hiding, see Yorke, “Introduction” (1795), xxii; Fearn, “Henry Redhead Yorke,” 189. On the search for Yorke, see Lobban, “Treason,” 220. On Yorke’s capture, see Seaton, William Winston Seaton, 55. For testimonies to Yorke’s success with women, see Howell, State Trials, 25:1053; 24:665; Wharam, Treason Trials, 76.

26 For Yorke’s ideological variety in his early years, see his “Reason Urged,” These Are the Times, “Thoughts on Civil Government,” and “Introduction,” in The Spirit of John Locke on Civil Government, Revived by the Constitutional Society of Sheffield, ed. Yorke, Henry Redhead (Sheffield, 1794)Google Scholar. For a discussion of “Young Yorke’s” eclecticism, see Yuval, “Une politique de l’émotion,” chap. 3.

27 For discussions of the discursive eclecticism and opportunism of British radicals during the 1790s (and later), see McCalman, Iain, Radical Underworld: Prophets, Revolutionaries and Pornogrphers in London, 1795–1840 (Cambridge, 1988)Google Scholar; Mee, Jon, Dangerous Enthusiasm: William Blake and the Culture of Radicalism in the 1790s (Oxford, 1992), esp. the introductionGoogle Scholar; Iain Hampsher-Monk, “On Not Inventing the English Revolution: The Radical Failure of the 1790s as Linguistic Non-Performance,” in Burgess and Festenstein, English Radicalism, 138; Epstein, James, “‘Our Real Constitution’: Trial Defence and Radical Memory in the Age of Revolution,” in Re-reading the Constitution, ed. Vernon, James (Cambridge, 1996), 50Google Scholar; Epstein, Radical Expression, 6. These studies tend to disprove earlier arguments advanced by historians Isaac Kramnick and John Pocock. See Kramnick, Isaac, “Republican Revisionism Revisited,” American Historical Review 87, no. 3 (June 1982): 629–64Google Scholar; Pocock, Virtue, Commerce and History, 274–94.

28 Grendi, Edoardo, “Micro-analisi e storia sociale,” Quaderni Storici 35 (August 1977): 506–20Google Scholar; Geertz, Clifford, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York, 1973), 43.Google Scholar

29 On this subject, see Revel, Jacques, “Micro-analyse et construction du social,” in Jeux d’échelles, ed. Revel, Jacques (Paris, 1996), 15–36Google Scholar; Levi, Giovanni, “On Microhistory,” in New Perspectives on Historical Writing, ed. Burke, Peter (Cambridge, 1991), 93–113.Google Scholar

30 For a detailed description and analysis of this development, see the second part of Yuval, “Une politique de l’émotion.”

31 Yorke, “Introduction,” xxiii–xxiv; emphasis in original.

32 Yorke, Henry Redhead, On the Means of Saving Our Country (Dorchester, 1797).Google Scholar

33 Yorke, Henry Redhead, A Letter to the Reformers (Dorchester, 1798).Google Scholar

34 Of the many studies on the strength of loyalism in Britain at the turn of the eighteenth century, the following two are regarded as classics: Dozier, Robert R., For King, Constitution and Country: The English Loyalists and the French Revolution (Lexington, KY, 1983)Google Scholar; Thompson, E. P., “Hunting the Jacobin Fox,” Past and Present 142, no. 1 (February 1994), 94–140CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On Yorke as an ultraloyalist, see Yuval, “Une politique de l’émotion,” chap. 5. On cases of political conversions in Britain during this period, see, among others, Yuval, “Une politique de l’émotion,” 129–56; Thompson, E. P., “Disenchantment or Default? A Lay Sermon,” in The Romantics: England in a Revolutionary Age (New York, 1997), 33–74Google Scholar; Craig, David M., Robert Southey and Romantic Apostasy: Political Argument in Britain, 1780–1840 (Wiltshire, 2007)Google Scholar; Fulton, Henry L., “Disillusionment with the French Revolution. The Case of the Scottish Physician John Moore,” Studies in Scottish Literature 23 (1988): 46–63.Google Scholar

35 Yorke, “Introduction,” xix–xx, xxiii–xxiv; Yorke, On the Means, 4, 10, 88, 116n., 138, 163, 164; Yorke, A Letter to the Reformers, 24. On the connection between Yorke’s incarceration and his political change of heart, see Yuval, “Une politique de l’émotion,” 247–51.

36 Howell, , State Trials, 24:646–47.Google Scholar

37 Ibid., 25:589–668 and 25:231–43.

38 On the treason trials in London, see Barrell, Imagining, 318–401; Wharam, Treason Trials, 143–229.

39 On the flight of Gales and Davison and the general phenomenon of emigration to the United States as a result of Pitt’s repressive policies, see Graham, Nation, 612, 636. The date on which Yorke’s charges were reduced and the fact that he was not released on bail are consistent with Yorke’s introduction to the protocol of his trial. In contrast, Michael Lobban argues (it is not specified on what basis) that the charges were reduced in March and that Yorke was released on bail in May. From his part, David Cressy shows that it was in March that the council in London advised that charges be reduced. See Yorke, “Introduction,” ix, xvii; Lobban, “Treason,” 224; Cressy, David, Dangerous Talk: Scandalous, Seditious and Treasonable Speech in Pre-modern England (Oxford, 2010), 249.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

40 Howell, State Trials, 25:1014.

41 This was part of a general policy enforced by the law officers in the 1790s to prosecute only in “watertight case[s],” in the words of Clive Emsley, in order to minimize the possibility of acquittal. See Emsley, “Pitt’s ‘Terror,’” 162, 166.

42 Ibid., 159, 182.

43 Howell, State Trials, 23:1055–1166. For an enlightening analysis of this trial, see Barrell, Imagining, 170–81.

44 Public Meeting at Sheffield, 9, 14–15, 18; emphasis in original.

45 Ibid., 5–26.

46 On Yorke’s lengthy incarceration, see the words of the prosecutor in his trial: Howell, State Trials, 25:114. See also Wharam, Treason Trials, 230; Taylor, J., “The Sheffield Constitutional Society (1791–1795),” Transactions of the Hunter Archaeological Society 5 (1943): 140Google Scholar. On lengthy incarcerations as standard practice in England in the 1790s, see Emsley, “Repression,” 824; Emsley, “Pitt’s ‘Terror,’” 168. William Stone, for example, who was arrested approximately one month prior to Yorke and was tried and acquitted, was released only in January 1796. See Graham, Nation, 611 n. 26.

47 For example, John Binns read volume after volume of state trials in 1798, as he waited to be tried for high treason. See Epstein, Radical Expression, 179 n. 23.

48 Epstein, “Constitution,” 33.

49 See the opinion of John Quincy Adams, who was in England at the time, on this subject, as quoted in Graham, Nation, 634.

50 Epstein, “Constitution,” 33, 37, Radical Expression, 32, and “Equality,” 52; Davis, “Prosecution,” 154.

51 On Scottish law in the eighteenth century, see Walker, David M., A Legal History of Scotland, vol. 5, The Eighteenth Century (Edinburgh, 1998)Google Scholar. On the bias of the Scottish judges see M. Davis, “Prosecution,” 151. For the protocol of Paine’s trial, see Howell, , State Trials, 22:357–472.Google Scholar For a useful summary of the trial, see Barrell and Mee, “Introduction,” xviii–xix. On Erskine, see Hostettler, John, Thomas Erskine and Trial by Jury (Chichester, 1996). On other trials in which Erskine lost, see Barrell and Mee, “Introduction,” xix–xx; Graham, Nation, 504.Google Scholar

52 The trial most likely took place on 23 July, despite the fact that the protocol of the trial published by Yorke dates it at July 10. See Howell, , State Trials, 25:1003–4Google Scholar; The Annual Register, or General Repository of History, Politics and Literature, for the Year 1795 (London, 1796), 50Google Scholar; Yorke, Trial of Henry Yorke, book cover.

53 Langbein, John H., “Criminal Trial before the Lawyers,” University of Chicago Law Review 45, no. 2 (Winter 1978), 284–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Green, Thomas Andrew, Verdict according to Conscience: Perspectives on the English Criminal Trial Jury, 1200–1800 (Chicago and London, 1985), 271, 278–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar. However, it should be noted that the bias of Judge Rooke was less pronounced than that of other British judges, the best known of which was Judge Braxfield, who presided over the Edinburgh trials of 1793–94. On Rooke, see Lemmings, David, “Rooke, Sir Giles (1743–1808),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004)Google Scholar, http://www.oxforddnb.com.rproxy.tau.ac.il/view/article/24060.

54 On Ramsay, see Davis, “Prosecution,” 154–55.

55 Mendle, Michael, “The ‘Prints’ of the Trials: The Nexus of News, Politics, Law and Information in the World of Roger Morrice,” in Fear, Exclusion and Revolution: Roger Morrice and his Worlds, 1675–1700, ed. McElligott, Jason (Aldershot, 2006), 123–37, quote on 131.Google Scholar

56 Annual Register for 1795, 50.

57 Howell, State Trials, 25:1065–66, 1068–69, 1074, quote on 1065, 1066.

58 Christopher Hill seems to uncritically adopt Yorke’s own arguments from his trial and uses his defense statement as evidence of his being a “moderate radical” and a reformist who opposed Paine’s revolutionary approach. See Hill, Christopher, Puritanism and Revolution: Studies in Interpretation of the English Revolution of the Seventeenth-Century (London, 1962), 103–4.Google Scholar

59 Yorke, These Are the Times. For the sentence in question, see Paine, Thomas, “The American Crisis,” in The Thomas Paine Reader, ed. Foot, Michael and Kramnick, Isaac (London, 1987), 116.Google Scholar

60 The claim that British radicals made sure to use “accepted constitutional language” appears in Gunther Lottes, “Radicalism, Revolution and Political Culture: An Anglo-French Comparison,” in Philp, The French Revolution, 83–84. In a slightly different manner, James Epstein notes the radicals’ ongoing ambivalence between Paine’s language of natural rights and reliance on the ancient and “pure” constitution of Britain. See Epstein, “Constitution,” 22–51, esp. 31–32. See the more detailed discussion on this point later in the article.

61 Barrell and Mee, “Introduction,” xviii–xxi; Claeys, “Introduction,” xxxiii–xxxvi; Wharam, Treason Trials, 26, 35; Barrell, Imagining, 195–98. See also the clearly negative reference to Paine during a witness investigation in Yorke’s trial: Howell, State Trials, 25:1121.

62 Ibid., 1083.

63 Ibid., 1067–68, quote on 1068.

64 Ibid., 1087.

65 Ibid., 1086, 1088–89.

66 Kant, Immanuel, “What Is Enlightenment?” in The Enlightenment: A Sourcebook and Reader, ed. Hyland, Paul (New York, 2003), 53–58, quote on 55Google Scholar. On Kant’s complex image and influence in England during those years, see Micheli, Giuseppe, “The Early Reception of Kant’s Thought in England, 1785–1805,” in Kant and His Influence, ed. Ross, George Macdonald and McWalter, Tony (London and New York, 2005), 202–314Google Scholar. One year earlier in England, Whig scholar Samuel Parr wrote in a letter to Hardy as follows: “I wish to see the people enlightened, but not inflamed.” See Paul, Charles Kegan, William Godwin: His Friends and Contemporaries (1876; London, 2005), 1:137.Google Scholar

67 Howell, State Trials, 25:1090–91.

68 Israel, Hedva Ben, English Historians on the French Revolution (Cambridge, 1968), 17–18Google Scholar; Baczko, Bronislaw, “‘Monstres sanguinaires’ et ‘circonstances fatales’: Les discours thermidoriens sur la Terreur,” in The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture, vol. 3, The Transformation of Political Culture, 1789–1848, ed. Furet, François and Ozouf, Mona (Oxford, 1989), 131–57.Google Scholar

69 Howell, State Trials, 25:1087, 1108, quote on 1108.

70 On the meaning of the terms “patriot” and “patriotism” in Britain during the eighteenth century, see Canningham, Hugh, “The Language of Patriotism, 1750–1914,” History Workshop Journal 12, no. 1 (1981): 8–33Google Scholar; Colley, Linda, “Radical Patriotism in Eighteenth-Century England,” in Patriotism: The Making and Unmaking of British National Identity, ed. Samuel, Raphael, 3 vols. (London and New York, 1989), 1:169–87Google Scholar; Jarrett, Derek, The Begetters of Revolution: England’s Involvement with France, 1759–1789 (London, 1973), esp. 78–79, 111–12, 115–16Google Scholar; Dann, Otto, “Introduction,” in Nationalism in the Age of the French Revolution, ed. Dann, Otto and Dinwiddy, John (London, 1988), 3, 7–11Google Scholar; John Dinwiddy, “England,” ibid., 55–57.

71 Howell, State Trials, 25:1106–7, 1111. During his trial the previous year, Danton, too, made a point to not request the mercy of the jury. See Bluche, Frédéric, Danton (Paris, 1984), 472.Google Scholar

72 Kuljic, Todor, “On the Conversion and Self-Consciousness of the Yugoslav Social Science Intelligentsia,” in R/Evolution and Order: Serbia after October 2000, ed. Spasic, Ivana and Subotic, Milan (Belgrade, 2001), 373–75.Google Scholar

73 Howell, State Trials, 25:1112–13. Ironically, the jurors were forewarned of Yorke’s tendency to portray himself as a martyr at the outset of the trial, when state’s witness William George Frith claimed that in his speech at Castle Hill, Yorke had said that it would be an honor to sit in prison for the cause of liberty and that he was even willing to be executed “as a martyr of liberty.” See ibid., 1046.

74 Wood, Marcus, Radical Satire and Print Culture, 1790–1832 (Oxford, 1994), 121–54, quote on 130Google Scholar. On Palmer’s martyrology, see the conclusion of his defense statement, in Howell, State Trials, 25:376. On earlier uses of “martyrdom” in politico-religious contexts, see Sharpe, James, “Last Dying Speeches: Religion, Ideology and Public Execution in Seventeenth-Century England,” Past and Present 107, no. 1 (May 1985): 144–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nicholls, David, “The Theatre of Martyrdom in the French Reformation,” Past and Present 121, no. 1 (November 1988): 49–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

75 These terms are used by Wood to describe William Hone’s persona during his trials in 1817. Wood, Radical Satire, 141–42.

76 Howell, State Trials, 25:1108. On the “self-dramatization” and the “dramatized martyrdom” of the English radicals, see also Thompson, Making, 123, 157; Emsley, “Pitt’s ‘Terror,’” 173–74.

77 Epstein, “Equality,” 55.

78 Howell, State Trials, 25:1102–3, quote on 1103.

79 This tactic was particularly noticeable in Tooke’s trial, in which the defense called both Pitt and Richmond to the witness stand. See Howell, State Trials, 25:375–86.

80 Burke, Edmund, Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (London, 1770).Google Scholar

81 Howell, State Trials, 25:1101.

82 Ibid., 1099–1100.

83 Epstein, Radical Expression, vii, 26–27; Hill, Puritanism and Revolution, 78, 115–16.

84 Pocock, J. G. A., Virtue, Commerce and History (Cambridge, 1985), 226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

85 Iain Hampsher-Monk argues that the British Radicals were inclined to stay within the limits of the traditional constitutional language, and that this “linguistic nonperformance” contributed significantly to their failure to create a revolution in Britain. See Hampsher-Monk, “On Not Inventing.”

86 Howell, State Trials, 25:1102.

87 Paine, Thomas, “Rights of Man” (1791–92), in Foot, and Cramnick, , Paine Reader, 201–364.Google Scholar

88 Howell, State Trials, 25:1103.

89 Quotations at ibid., 1108, 1102, 1103, respectively.

90 Prochaska, F. K., “English State Trials in the 1790s: A Case Study,” Journal of British Studies 13, no. 1 (November 1973), esp. 67CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Emsley, “Pitt’s ‘Terror,’” 171–72.

91 For an analysis of Gerrald’s trial, see Barrell, Imagining, 157–69. A brilliant analysis of Gerrald’s defense statement and its ideological context appears in Epstein, “Constitution,” 36–51.

92 Yorke, “Thoughts on Civil Government,” 263.

93 For Gerrald’s statement of defense, see Howell, State Trials, 23:947–97, quote on 974. The abovementioned duality is succinctly expressed ibid., 991.

94 For Gerrald’s statements regarding his fragile health, see ibid., 948, 991, 995–96. For his references to martyrs, including Jesus, see ibid., 23, 949, 993.

95 On this general tendency among radicals in the 1790s, see Epstein, Radical Expression, 63, and Barrell, Imagining, 428–29, as well as Horne Tooke’s words in his trial: Howell, State Trials, 25:23. For Yorke’s own opinion on the subject, see Yorke, These Are the Times, 10. On the general belief in the autonomy and integrity of the jury and its importance to legal justice and constitutional liberty in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England, see Wood, Radical Satire, 123; Green, Verdict, 310, 315–16, 332–34. One of the main reasons that the Sheffield Society published an inexpensive edition of the protocol of the dramatic trial of William Mead and William Penn (with the addition of a preface that appears to have been written by Yorke) in January 1794 was to remind the public of the traditional independence of jurors vis-à-vis the leanings of the judge. See The People’s Ancient and Just Liberties Asserted in the Trial of William Penn and William Mead (Sheffield, 1794)Google Scholar; Taylor, “Sheffield,” 143.

96 Together with a fine of £200 and the necessity to give sureties for his good behavior for seven years. See Howell, State Trials, 25:1154.

97 See sec. II above.

98 Graham, Nation, 630–31; The Times, 19 November 1795 and 30 November 1795.

99 Foss, Edward, The Judges of England with Sketches of Their Lives, 9 vols. (London, 1864), 8:365.Google Scholar

100 Annual Register for 1795, 50.

101 See Emsley, “Pitt’s ‘Terror,’” 181.

102 On Gerrald’s decision to appear for trial, see Wharam, Treason Trials, 62. On Gerrald’s belief that he would receive a heavy sentence, see Davis, “Prosecution,” 154–55.

103 The Budget of the People, Collected by Old Hubert, pt. 1 (London, 1793?), 5–6Google Scholar; Young, Arthur, “The Example of France a Warning to Britain,” in Claeys, , Political Writings, 159.Google Scholar

104 Joseph Gales quoted in Stevenson, Artisans, 25. On the baby named after Yorke, see Wharam, Treason Trials, 287 n. 11. On Yorke’s visitors while in jail, see Fearn, “Radical Traitor,” 190. On the financial assistance he received, see Thelwall, John, “Henry Yorke’s Subscription,” in The Tribune, a Periodical Publication, Consisting Chiefly of the Political Lectures of J. Thelwall, from the Commencment of the Second Course in February, 1795, to the Introduction of Mr. Pitt’s Convention Act (London, 1796), 126Google Scholar; Yuval, “Une politique de l’émotion,” 216.

105 Fearn, “Radical Traitor,” 191; Alger, John [revised by Peter Spence], “Yorke, Henry Redhead (1772–1813),” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004)Google Scholar, http://www.oxforddnb.com.rproxy.tau.ac.il/view/article/30241.

106 Yuval, “Une politique de l’émotion,” chaps. 5, 6. For his impressions from Paris, see Yorke, Henry Redhead, Letters from France, in 1802, 2 vols. (London, 1804)Google Scholar. For his journalistic writings, see Yorke, Henry Redhead, The Anti-Corsican; or, War of Liberty: A Series of Letters Addressed to the People of the United Empire, First Published in The Star, Under the Signature of Galgacus: Revised and Corrected by the Author (London, 1804)Google Scholar; Mr. Redhead Yorke’s Weekly Political Review (also published as Weekly Political Review of Henry Redhead Yorke). The journal appeared between December 1805 and December 1811.

107 Yuval, “Une politique de l’émotion,” 283–300.

108 The Edinburgh Annual Register, for 1813 (Edinburgh, 1815), pts. 1 and 2, ccclvii.Google Scholar