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Harley, Defoe, Trapp and the Faults on Both Sides Controversy*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2017
Extract
British historians have long recognized the activities of Robert Harley in the field of political propaganda. J.M. Price, for example, writes that, “as lord treasurer and as a politician /Harley was/ not unmindful of the power of the press.” P. M. Handover concurs: “The minister who most skillfully exploited printed propaganda was Robert Harley.” J.O. Richards adds that “no politician had a larger coterie of writers than Harley.” W.T. Morgan and Laurence Hanson are still more emphatic: the former suggests that Harley had a “clearer conception than any other statesman of the period of the important part of the press might be made to play in politics;” the latter, that Harley “was one of the first politicians to realize how vital was a good press to the prestige of government.” Yet, despite this general agreement, there remains a dearth of concrete facts about Harley's use of political propaganda.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1979
Footnotes
*
I am indebted to Martin J. Havran and Irvin Ehrenpreis for their advice and criticism on this material. I would also like to thank David Underdown who made a number of helpful suggestions.
References
1 Price, J.M., “A Note on the Circulation of the London Press, 1704-1714,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 31 (1958): 216 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Handover, P.M., A History of the London Gazette 1665-1965 (London, 1965), pp. 33–34 Google Scholar; Richards, James O., Party Propaganda Under Queen Anne: The General Elections of 1702-1713 (Athens, Georgia, 1972), p. 107 Google Scholar; Morgan, W. T., English Political Parties and Leaders in the Reign of Queen Anne, 1702-1710 (New Haven, 1920), p. 259 Google Scholar; Hanson, Laurence, Government and the Press 1695-1763 (London, 1936), p. 88.Google Scholar
2 For example, little is known of Harley's specific role in the Sacheverell propaganda campaign> the extent of his supervision over The Conduct of the Allies or the Examiner, the degree of his participation in the harrassment of opposition journalists or the adoption of the Stamp Tax, etc. Indeed, while Harley's relationship with Swift and Defoe and several other propagandists has been well documented, scholars have almost universally overlooked his relationship with such propagandists as John Trenchard, William Paterson, Charles Davenant, John PhiliPSl William Wagstaffe, Abel Boyer, John Tutchin, and Joseph Trapp.
3 [Robert Harley and Simon Clement], Faults on Both Sides; or an Essay upon the original Cause, Progress, and Mischievous Consequences of the Factions in this Nation…. By Way of Answer to the Thoughts of an Honest Tory, in [Somers Tracts] A Collection of Scarce and Valuable Tracts … Selected from [those of] the Late Lord Somers, ed. Sir Walter Scott, 13 vols., (London, 1809-15), 12: 678. Jane Kennedy, W.A. Smith and A.F. Johnson, Dictionary of Anonymous and Pseudonymous English Literature (London, 1934), 6: 181, follow Scott in ascribing the pamphlet to Richard Harley.
4 Oldmixon, John, The Life and Posthumous Works of Arthur Maynwaring (London, 1715), p. 171.Google Scholar
5 See Laprade, W.T., Public Opinion and Politics in Eighteenth Century England to the Fall of Walpole (New York, 1936), p. 78.Google Scholar Neither Moore, John Robert, A Checklist of the Writings of Daniel Defoe (Bloomington, 1960)Google Scholar, nor Lee, William, Daniel Defoe: His Life and Recently Discovered Writings (London, 1869)Google Scholar, list the pamphlet among the works of Defoe.
6 Kennedy, Smith and Johnson, Anonymous… Literature, 6:181.
7 McInnes, Angus, “The Political Ideas of Robert Harley,” History, 1 (1965): 315 Google Scholar, m. 31, and Biddle, Sheila, Bolingbroke and Harley (New York, 1974), pp. 108 and 297Google Scholar. Neither McInnes nor Biddle attempt to minimize Harley's role in the composition and publication of the pamphlet. The former describes Clement as a “Harleyite pamphleteer,” while the latter suggests that Faults on Both Sides was “a pamphlet written on his [Harley's] instruction … .” This view endorses that of Abel Boyer who maintained that it was “written by Mr. Clements,” although “said to be countenanced by some great men.” The political State of Great Britain (London, 1718), 1:44. Oldmixon later wrote that “Faults on Both Sides [was] written by one Clements, who had been a sort of Merchant or Broker, and was for that performance of his prefered to be secretary to the Earl of Peterborough … . ” Maynwaring, p. 171.
8 Feiling, Keith, A History of the Tory Party 1640-1714 (Oxford, 1924), p. 419 Google Scholar; Ransome, Mary, “The Press in the General Election of 1710,” Cambridge Historical Journal, 6 (1939): 214 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
9 Holmes, G.S. and Speck, W.A., “The Fall of Harley in 1708 Reconsidered,” English Historical Review. 80 (1965): 677 Google Scholar, n. 3, and Holmes, G.S., British Politics in the Age of Anne (New York, 1967), p. 513 Google Scholar, n. 39.
10 Hamilton, Elizabeth, The Backstairs Dragon: A Life of Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford (London, 1969), p. 284 Google Scholar; Richards, , Party Propaganda, p. 163 Google Scholar. Roberts, Clayton, The Growth of Responsible Government in Stuart England (Cambridge, 1966)Google Scholar. Roberts' attribution of the authorship of the pamphlet to Harley is based on one of Speaker Onslow's notes in Burnet: “There was at this time a famous pamphlet, called “Faults on Both Sides,” written by one Clements, under the direction of Mr. Harley … .” Gilbert Burnet, Bishop Burnet's History of His Own Time … . 6 vols. (Oxford, 1823), 6: 11-12, n.
11 The Observator, IX, No. 78 (11-14 October 1710).
12 [Arthur Maynwaring and John Oldmixon], The Medley for the Year 1711. In which are prefixed the Five Whig-Examiners (London, 1712), No. 4 (16-23 October 1710). Three weeks earlier, the Medley, No. 1 (5 October), had described the “author of the Essay [on Credit]” as “by far a greater man than the writer [St. John] of the Letter [to the Examiner] , and rather the deeper statesman of the two.”
13 6 Medley, No. 5 (23-30 October 1710).
14 For an excellent summary and assessment of Harley's character and personality, see Biddle, Bolingbroke and Harley, pp. 14-53.
15 [Daniel Defoe], A Supplement to the Faults on Both Sides: Containing the Complete History of the Proceedings of a Party ever since the Revolution: In a Familiar Dialogue between Steddy and Turnover, two displaced officers of State … (London, 1710), p. 69.
16 There is a manuscript in the British Library in Harley's hand, entitled “Plaine English to all who are honest, or would be so if they knew how,” which contains arguments similar to those put forward in Faults on Both Sides. The chronological format also foreshadows that of Faults on Both Sides. Harley apparently never published “Plaine English,” but conceivably it served as a very rough outline for the later work. See B. L., Loan 29/10/1, 24 August 1709. Based on the best available contemporary documents, the consensus of opinion among modern historians, and the similarity between Harley's known views (see McInnes, History, PP. 309-322), and those expressed in the pamphlet, for the purposes of this paper, I am assuming Harley's authorship of Faults on Both Sides.
17 B.L., Loan 29/160/9, Wilkison to Harley, 23 October 1710.
18 Faults on Both Sides, pp. 706, 696.
19 Ibid., p. 676.
20 Ibid., p. 682.
21 Ibid., p. 701.
22 Ibid., p. 701.
23 Ibid., pp. 682-94.
24 Ibid., p. 703.
25 Ibid., pp. 704-05.
26 Ibid., p. 683.
27 Ibid., p. 705.
28 Ibid., pp. 683, 700.
29 Ibid., p. 686.
30 Ibid., p. 688.
31 Ibid., p. 683. On 30 December 1707, William Greg, an employee in Harley's office, was arrested for conducting treasonable correspondence with the French. Although Greg repeatedly affirmed the innocence of his supervisor, the Junto had three of its number— Wharton.Somers, and Halifax—elected to a select committee of the Lords in the hopes of discrediting Harley. See Feiling, Tory Party, pp. 399, 402, and Trevelyan, G.M., England Under Queen Anne: Ramillies and the Union with Scotland (London, 1932), pp. 331–333 Google Scholar.
32 Faults on Both Sides, p. 688.
33 Ibid., pp. 688, 701.
34 Ibid., p. 694.
35 Medley, Nos. 4 (16-23 October 1710) and (23-30 October 1710). The two numbers dealing with Sir Thomas Double are Nos. 2 (11 October 1710), and 3 (16 October 1710).
36 Oldmixon, Maynwaring, p. 171.
37 B.L. Loan 29/160/9, Wilkinson to Harley, 23 October 1710.
38 Ransome, “The Press in the General Election of 1710,” pp. 214-15; Richards, Party Propaganda, p. 108, n. 10.
39 Supplement, pp. 4, 7-8. Ransome, p. 215, mentions the Supplement in a footnote (No. 36), but gives no indication of its contents. Roberts, Responsible Government, p. 355, implies that the Supplement was a Whig inspired publication, and thus intended as an attack on Faults on Both Sides.
40 Supplement, pp. 12-14.
41 Ibid., p. 52.
42 Ibid., p. 65.
43 While the purpose of this paper is not to describe the relationship between Harley and his journalists—a task I undertook in my dissertation—some documentation is perhaps in order. Defoe's connection with Harley is reviewed in all the modern biographies of Defoe, but see especially those by James Sutherland and J. R. Moore. Trapp lacks even an adequate biographical sketch, but see W.P. Courteney, “Joseph Trapp,” D.N.B. Feiling, Tory Party, p. 410, places Trapp in the High Tory camp, presumably on the basis of Trapp's friendship with Sacheverell, and the rhetoric in his pamphlets— The True Genuine Tory-Address (1710), and A Letter Out of the Country (1710)—in support of Sacheverell's cause. By the early summer of 1710, however, Trapp had begun to moderate his tone, as can be seen in his Ordinary Journey No Progress (1710). Thomas Hearne, a High Tory, bitterly resented Trapp's “reflecting upon the Non-Jurors,” and subsequently changed his description of Trapp from “a most ingenious, honest gentleman,” to “a most silly, empty, rash, hot-headed fellow ….” Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne, ed. C.E. Doble et al., 11 vols. (Oxford, 1885-1921) 2:120; 3:56. By the fall, Trapp's ultra-Toryism had become so modified that, according to Courteney, “Joseph Trapp,” and Ransome, p. 209, he Possibly became one of the editors of the Examiner. For his journalistic efforts in 1710 the included “verses on Garth's Verses to Godolphin,” and, of course, Most Faults—the ministry rewarded Trapp with the chaplaincy to the Lord Chancellor of Ireland (which provoked Swift to write: “Trapp … a second-rate pamphleteer for the cause, whom they pay by sending him to Ireland”), and eventually to Bolingbroke himself. See Swift, Jonathan, The Journal to Stella, ed. Williams, Harold, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1948), I (7 January 1710/11): 158; and 2 (17 July 1712): 550Google Scholar.
44 See for example Swift to Archbishop King, 10 October 1710: “The new ministry are afraid of too great a majority of their own side in the H[ouse] of C[ommons] … .” Jonathan Swift, The Correspondence of Jonathan Swift, ed. Harold Williams, 5 vols. (Oxford, 1963), 1:185. Of course, these fears were soon realized. See Speck's, W.A. concluding chapter in Tory and Whig: The Struggle in the Constituencies, 1701-1715 (New York, 1970)Google Scholar, wherein it is asserted that the Tories achieved a majority of 151 votes in 1710.
45 Medley, No. 18 (22-29 January 1711). A “small jobber of New England,” presumably refers to Simon Clement.
46 [Joseph Trapp], Most Faults on One Side: or, the Shallow Politics, Foolish Arguing, and Villanous Designs of the Author of a late Pamphlet, entitled Faults on Both Sides, Considered and Exposed. In answer to that Pamphlet: Showing, that the many Truths in Modern history related by the Author of it, do not make amends for his many Falsehoods in Fact, °ndFallacies in Reasoning (London, 1719), pp. 3-5.
47 Ibid., p. 14.
48 Ibid., p. 53.
49 Ibid., p. 16.
50 David H. Stevens, Party Politics and English Journalism, 1702-1742 (Chicago, 1916). pp. 67-68, for example, writes of Trapp's “Tory zeal,” and describes him as “patently Tory in sympathy.” Both Ransome, p. 215, and Roberts, Responsible Government, pp. 254-255, cite arguments from Most Faults, and indicate that it was a “Tory reply” to Faults on Both Sides. But neither indicates any connection between Harley and Trapp. Both imply that Most Faults was an attack on Faults on Both Sides.
51 Most Faults, p. 27.
52 Ibid.
53 Ibid., p. 47. This, it might be observed, is quite an admission from a High Church clergyman, and one who had only recently participated in the defense of one, Sacheverell, guilty of both offenses. See above, n. 40.
54 Most Faults, pp. 4, 43, 10.
55 Ibid., pp. 21, 54.
56 Ibid., p. 15.
57 Ibid., p. 18.
58 Ibid., p. 24.