Thomas Paine’s reputation reached a pinnacle during the 1790s. His ideas divided public opinion and very few knew nothing of his writings. One was either a radical or a conservative – a supporter or a detractor of Paine. David Rivers was perhaps one exception. He sat uneasily on the fence between a friend of Paine the author and a foe of Paine the political philosopher. As a dissenting minister of a congregation at Highgate, Rivers perhaps found hostility to Paine after the publication of The Age of Reason, but he was prepared at least in part to concede that Paine was an eminent writer. 

Rivers himself had issued several anonymous pamphlets, including a sermon on ‘The Gospel a Perfect Law of Liberty’ and a sermon against Popery. He was a frequent contributor to the World newspaper and the Sunday Recorder To this day, other details of his life remain an unsolved mystery. 

In 1798, Rivers published his “Literary Memoirs of Living Authors of Great Britain”. (A copy of Rivers’, Literary Memoirs of Living Authors of Great Britain. 2 vols. (1798), has been reproduced by Garland Publishing, New York, in 1970, from a copy of the original held in Yale University Library.) In it he found room to devote one of the largest entries to Thomas Paine. It provides an ideologically biased account of Paine’s life to 1798, but its value lies not in the biographical details it recalls. In the very least, this memoir can be used to gauge contemporary opinions and is indicative of the great – and to some, fearful – importance of Thomas Paine. 

Literary Memoirs is not highly consistent in its split between radical and conservative. John Bowles and Hannah More receive favourable entries, whilst the prophet-visionary, Edward Brothers, is dismissed as a “mad enthusiast” (p.71). Surprisingly, one of Paine’s most ardent supporters, Thomas Clio Rickman, receives a brief memoir that records nothing of his radical zeal. Rivers memoir of Paine shows to some extent this same inconsistency. As the following excerpt illustrates, Rivers acknowledged Paine’s status as an author, but strongly denounced the ideology of his writings: 

‘We come now to the period of Paine’s History, when his speculations were to shake the fabric of the public mind to its very foundation, and his writings to infuse a poison among a deluded commonality, the effects of which, to a philosopher in the shade, would have been scarcely credible… The abuse which has been so liberally bestowed upon Paine, as a writer, has, perhaps, for the most part, been the result of a zeal whose tendency is to weaken, more than support, its cause. Let us rather allow him, the unqualified credit of an animated, energetic writer, who displays considerable acuteness but whose manner of thinking is rude, wicked and daring, and whose language is vulgar though impressive. Let us rather rejoice, that Englishmen, with their just veneration for civil liberty and the rights of the people, were found so wise and stedfast (sic) in an hour of danger, as to despise those sorry calculators, that would perstr, ie a country, whose constitution has raised her to be the envy of all the civilised world, to hazard that constitution upon the grossest, clumsiest, and stalest theories. Let us be thankful that the arch-theorist of the Rights of man, of those rights which transfer the reins from his passion to his reason, of those rights which dissolve ties, which confound distinctions, which destroy security, could play upon us with his new lights upon human governments, without dazzling our reason, or impairing our eye-sight Finally let us rejoice, that when this when this wily and audacious Anarch dared, at last, to attack the sacred volume of our religion, there was found, on our Bench of Bishops a learned and philosophical Prelate, condescending enough and active enough to oppose them nobly and completely, by his erudition, his clearness, and his strength of argument (pp.99-104)’. (Presumably this refers to Bishop Richard Watson’s, Apology for the Bible, published in 1796. – Ed.)

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In compiling a bibliography of writings on Thomas Paine, one is confronted with the problem of not where to begin, but where to stop. The words of John Adams certainly remain true to this day: “I know not whether any Man in the World has more influence on its inhabitants or affairs…than Tom Paine.” He is undoubtedly one of the greatest and most influential political philosophers and humanitarians of history. His enigmatic character, his pervasive and persuasive writings and his lifelong struggle in the battle for universal liberty and equality make him one of the most accessible, interesting and popular subjects for scholars, both past and present. 

This bibliography covers the years 1975 to 1993, thereby encompassing those works inspired by the bicentenary of American Independence and the French Revolution, as well as providing access and a checklist to the most recent writings on Paine. Several other bibliographies have covered earlier periods, including one which appeared in the Bulletin of the Thomas Paine Society in 1976.* In order to contain the length of this bibliography, however, it has been necessary to exclude certain works, including compilations and reprints of Paine’s writings, even though many contain substantial introductions discussing Paine’s life and ideology with one exception, The Thomas Paine Reader. Furthermore, Paine becomes inextricably entwined in publications dealing with subjects like American and British radicalism, political theory, popular culture and biographies of Paine’s contemporaries, especially Edmund Burke. It has been necessary to exclude those works that do not deal exclusively with the subject of Paine or his writings. Hence, even though Paineite ideology forms the backdrop for works like Iain McCalman’s, Radical Underworld, David Worrall’s, Radical Culture and Jon Mee’s discussion of William Blake and the 1790s in his, Dangerous Enthusiasm, it has been necessary to omit such publications.

NOTES

A.O. Alridge, “Thomas Paine: A Survey of Research and Criticism Since 1945” TPS, 5(3), 1976: 5-19 (also in, British Studies Monitor, 5, 1974: 3-29; Richard Gimbel, Thomas Paine. A Bibliographical Checklist of `Common Sense. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1956); Jerome Wilson, “Thomas Paine in the Twentieth Century: His Reputation in America, 1900-1976, and an Annotated Bibliography, 1900-1970” Ph.D. Auburn University, 1972, and Jerome Wilson, “Thomas Paine in America: An Annotated Bibliography 1900-1973.” Bulletin of Bibliography, 31, 1974: 133-51, 180. 

Individual articles in compilation volumes on Paine are not listed separately. Abbreviations used: B.S.S.L.H. – Bulletin of the Society for the Study of Labour History, P.M.H.B. – Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, T.P.S. – Bulletin by the Thomas Paine Society. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

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• “Paine and Dickinson.” Early American Literature, 11, 1976: 125-38.
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• Thomas Paine’s American Ideology. Cranbury: University of Delaware Press, 1984.
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• Conner, Jett Burnett. “Thomas Paine and the First Principles of Democratic Republics.” Ph.D., University of Colorado, 1980.
• Cronin, Sean. “Thomas Paine and the United Irishmen.” TPS, 6, 1980: 93-96.
• Davidson, E.H. and Schweick, W.J. “Authority in Paine’s Common Sense and Crisis Papers.” Studies in the Humanities, 18, 1991: 124-34.
• Dickinson, H.T. “The Rights of Man from John Locke to Tom Paine” in O.D.Edwards and G.A.Shcpperson (eds.), Scotland, Europe and the American Revolution. Edinburgh: EUSP, 1976: 3848.
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• Dippel, Horst. “Amerikanische und Europaische Revolutions-deale Bei Thomas Paine.” Amerhastudien, 21, 1976: 203-15.
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• Doyle, William. “Thomas Paine and the Girondins.” TPS, 2. 2. 1993: 3-12.
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• Dyke, Ian (ed.). “Citizen of the World: Thomas Paine”. Bromley: Croom Helm, 1987.
• “Local Attachments, National Identities and World Citizenship in the Thought of Thomas Paine.” History Workshop: A Journal of Socialist and Feminist Historians, 35, 1993: 117-35.
• Ellis, Richard E. “What is the Significance of Tom Paine for the American Revolution?” Reviews in American History, 6, 1978: 190-95.
• Essick, R.N. “William Blake, Thomas Paine and the Biblical Revolution.” Studies in Romanticism, 30, 1991: 189-212.
• Fast, Howard. “Citizen Tom Paine” New York: Grove Press, 1987.
• Findlay, Arthur. “Thomas Paine 1736-1809, The Most Valuable Englishman Ever”. Bristol: Michael Roll, 1993.
• Foner, Eric. “Tom Paine and Revolutionary America”. Oxford: OUP, 1976.
• “Tom Paine’s Republic: Radical Ideology and Social Change” in, Alfred F. Young (ed.), The American Revolution: Explorations in the History of American Radicalism. Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1976: 187-232. 
• “Thomas Paine and the American Radical Tradition.” TRS; 7, 1981: 5-11.
• Foot, Michael. and Kramnick, Isaac. “Thomas Paine Reader”. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1987.
• Fruchtman, J. “The Revolutionary Millennialism of Thomas Paine.” Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, 13. 1984: 65-77.
• “Nature and Revolution in Paine’s Common-sense.” History of Political Thought, 10, 1989: 421-38.
• “Thomas Paine and the Religion of Nature” Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.
• Fuchs, Michel. “Philosophic Politique et Droits de Phomme chez Burke et Paine.” Bulletin de la Société d’Etudes Anglo-Americaines des XVII et XVIII Siecles, 27, 1988: 49-63.
• Fulcher, J.R. “Common Sense vs Plain Truth: Political Propaganda and Civil Society.” Southern Quarterly, 15, 1976: 57-74.
• Furniss, Tom. “Rhetoric in Revolution: The Role of Language in Paine’s Critique of Burke” in, Keith Hanley and Raman Selden (eds.), Revolution and English Romanticism: Politics and Rhetoric. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990: 23-48. 
• Gadberry, G.W. “Dramatic Contraries: The Paine Histories of Hanns Johst and Howard Fast” in, K.Hartigar (ed.), Text and Presentation. Maryland, University Press of America, 1989: 61-72.
• Galliani, R. “Le Duc de la Rochefoucauld et Thomas Paine.” Annales History de la Révolution Française 52, 1980: 425-36.
• Gobetti, Daniela. ‘Una Generosa Costituzione’: Societa & Politica Negli Scritti di Thomas Paine.” Pensiero Politics (Italy), 16, 1983: 83-103.
• Godwin, Chad. “Thomas Paine, 1737-1809”. Norwich: Norfolk Museums Service, 1986. Greene, J.P. “Paine, America and the ‘Modernization’ of Political Consciousness.” Political Science Quarterly, 93, 1978: 73-92.
• Gregg, Ken. “Thomas Paine and the Rise of Atheism.” The American Rationalist, 5, 1987: 68-72.
• Harrison, J.L. “Thomas Paine: Eighteenth-Century Feminist.” Social Studies, 69, 1978: 103-7.
• Harrison, J.F.C. “Thomas Paine and Millenarian Radicalism.” Paper at History Workshop, Religion and Science Conference, 7-9 July, 1983.
• Hawke, David F. “Paine” New York: Norton, 1992.
• Herrick, Jim. “Thomas Paine’s 250th Anniversary.” New Humanist, 102, 1987: 12-13.
• Hindmarsh, G. “Thomas Paine and the Methodist Influence.” TPS, 6, 1979: 59-78. 
• “Thomas Paine and the Myth of Magna Carta.” TPS, 7, 1982: 29-52.
• Hopkins, J.G.E. “Thomas Paine: A Brief Biography.” In Thomas Paine: The 250th Anniversary of His Birth, January 29, 1737 January 29, 1987. New Rochelle: The Thomas Paine National Historical Association, 1987.
• Horst, I. “Thomas Paine and Sein Einfluss auf die Revolutionäre Bewegung.” Zeitschrift fur Geschichtswissenschaft (Germany), 29, 1981: 144-48.
• “Die Idee der Welt Revolution bei Thomas Paine.” Wis.sissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin Gesellschaftswissen- schalliche Reihe (Germany), 33, 1984: 267-71. 
• “Thomas Paine and his Influence on the Democratic Tradition” in, T.Frank (ed.), The Origins and Originality of American Culture. Budapest: Akademiai Kiado, 1984: 487-95.
• Jarrell, Willoughby. “Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and the English Tradition of Radical Dissent: The Cato Letters.” Journal of Radical History, 1. 1983: 3-13.
• Jones, Stanley. “Three Notes on Howe’s Edition of Hazlitt, Paine, Pearson and Campbell.” Notes and Queries, June 1983: 230-32.
• Kalloudis, Ann. “Some of the Letters Paine Wrote to Jefferson during 1788-89 Concerning the Iron Bridge.” TPS, 1, 1990: 13-16.
• Kashatus, W.C. “Thomas Paine: A Quaker Revolutionary.” Quaker History, 73, 1984: 38-61.
• Kates, Gary. “Tom Paine’s Rights of Man: A Work at War with Itself.” Consortium on Revolutionary Europe 1750-1850: 
• Proceedings 1987: 227-32. “From Liberalism to Radicalism: Tom Paine’s Rights of Man.” Journal of the History of Ideas, 50, 1989: 569-87.
• Kenyon, Cecelia M. “The Revolutionary Paine.” Virginia Quarterly Review, 51, 1975: 13544.
• Kiley, Michael M. “The Republic of Reason: The Political Ideas of Thomas Paine.” Ph.D., University of California (Santa Barbara), 1979. 
• “Thomas Paine: American Founder and Political Scientist.” Biography, 8, 1985: 51-67.
• Kirk, Linda. “Thomas Paine: A Child of the Enlightenment.” B.S.S.L.H., 52, 1987: 3-13.
• Kramnick, Isaac. “Tommy Paine and the Idea of America” in, Paul J. Korshin (ed.), The American Revolution and Eighteenth-Century Culture. New York: AMS Press, 1986: 75-91.
• Leiman, Mel. “Tom Paine: Citizen of the World.” The Dolphin Publications of the Department of English, University of Aarhus, 19, 1990: 24-32.
• Libiszowska, Zofia. “Radykalizacja Pogladow Tomasza Paine.” Acta Universitatis Lodziensis, 1, 1978: 89-110. 
• “Thomas Paine et la Gironde.” Acta Universitatis Lodziensis, 1, 1980: 87-105.
• Miller, S.T. “The Second Iron Bridge.” `IPS, 5, 1975: 5-11.
• Moriakov, V.I. “Prosvetiteli I Revoliutsii XVIII V. (Pein, Reinal Radishchev).” Vestnik Moskovskago Universite-ta Seriia 8: Istoriia (Russia), 5, 1984: 63-76.
• Morrell, R.W. “The Bicentenary of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense.” Quarterly Bulletin of the Marx Memorial Library, 78, 1976: ‘7-9. 
• “The Political and Philosophical Ideas of Thomas Paine”. 6pp. Thomas Paine Society, 1977. 
• “Thomas Paine: An Illustrious Ex-Exciseman.” Customs and Excise Journal 2: 1987: 25-26.
• “Thomas Paine” in, Gordon Stein (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Unbelief, Vol.2. Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1985: 499-502. 
• “Science and Thomas Paine.” Journal of Radical History, 2, 1986: 37-45. 
• “The First Canadian Edition of The Age of Reason?” Lifethought History, 4, 1992: Unpaginated. Reprinted with revisions in TPS. 2. 2. 1993: 18-20.
• Mortlock, D.P. “The Thomas Paine Collection at Thetford: An Analytical Catalogue”. Norwich: Norfolk County Council, 1979.
• Newman, Stephen. “A Note on Common Sense and Christian Eschatology.” Political Theory, 6, 1978: 101-08.
• Norman, C.J. “The American Crisis by Thomas Paine: A Rhetorical Analysis.” Ph.D., Lehigh University, 1988.
• Patan, Federico. “El Paine Revolucionario (1776) de Howard Fast.” Annuario I-hsloria (Mexico), 9, 1977: 81-88.
• Pendleton, Gayle Trusdel. “Towards a Bibliography of the Reflections and Rights of Man Controversy.” Bulletin of Research in the Humanities, 85, 1982: 65-103.
• Philp, Mark. “Paine”. Oxford: OUP, 1989.
• Popkin, Richard. “The Age of Reason Versus The Age of Revelation: Two Critics of Tom Paine: David Levi and Elias Boudinot” in, J.A.Lemay (ed.), Deism, Masonry and the Enlightenment. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1987: 158-70.
• Powell, David. “Tom Paine. The Greatest Exile”. London: Croom Helm, 1985.
• Putz, Manfred. “A Concordance to Thomas Paine’s ‘Common Sense’ and ‘The American Crisis'”. London: Garland, 1989.
• Riggs, David E. “Thomas Paine’s Crisis and Trying Times in the Trenton Campaign.” By Valor and Arms, 2, 1976: 3-12.
• Robbins, Caroline. “Citizen Tom Paine.” Reviews in American History, 3, 1975 65-70. 
• “The Lifelong Education of Thomas Paine (1737-1809).” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 127, 1983: 135-42.
• Rosenburg, Alan. “Thomas Paine: A Playwright’s Enigma.” Ethical Record, 4, 1990: 9-16.
• Royle, Edward (ed.). “The Infidel Tradition from Paine to Bradlaugh”. London: Macmillan, 1976. 
• “The Reception of Paine.” B.S.S.L.H., 52, 1988: 14-20.
• Rukshina, KS. “Tomas Pein.” Voprosy Istorii (Russia), 7, 1988: 79-89.
• Samuels, Shirley. “Infidelity and Contagion: The Rhetoric of Revolution.” Early American Literature, 22, 1987: 183-91.
• Sandler, Florence. “‘Defending the Bible’: Blake, Paine, and Bishop on Atonement” in, David V. Erdman (ed.), Blake and His Bibles. West. Cornwall, CT: Locust Hill Press, 1990.
• Shapiro, Carl, et.al. (eds.). “Thomas Paine Portfolio”. New Jersey: Independent Publications, 1976.
• Smith, Martin J. “Thomas Paine and the Argus, 1791-2.” TPS, 6, 1979: 83-85.
• Spater, George. “The Author of ‘A Forester’ Article.” TPS, 7, 1982. 53-56.
• Stein, Gordon. “Thomas Paine and the Age of Reason.” The American Rationalist, 1. 1980: 4-8. Reprinted in: TPS, 7, 1981: 13-17.
• Stevenson, James A. “Reflections on William Blake and Thomas Paine.” San Jose Studies, 15, 1989: 62-70.
• Stevenson, John. “`Paineites to a Man’: The English Popular Radical Societies in the 1790s.” B.S.S.L.H., 54, 1989: 14-25.
• Thomas, Gordon K. “And When America Was Free’: Thomas Paine and the English Romantics.” Charles Lamb Bulletin, 69, 1990: 164-77. 
• “Glorious Revolution’: Wordsworth, Terror and Paine.” Wordsworth Circle, 21, 1990: 3-9.
• Vail, John. “Thomas Paine”. New York: Chelsea House, 1990.
• Vincent, Bernard. “Thomas Paine, Freemasonry and the American Revolution.” TPS, 1. 1988: 3-18. 
• “Cinq inedits de Thomas Paine.” Revue Francaise d’etudes Americaines, 40, 1989: 213-235.
• Voss, Frederick. “Honoring a Scorned Hero: America’s Monument to Thomas Paine.” New York History, 68, 1987: 132-50.
• Wesley, B. “Tom Paine and Mark Twain: ‘Common Sense’ as a Source for ‘The War Prayer’.” Conference of College Teachers of Studies, 54, 1989: 13-19.
• Williams, Michael J. “The 1790s: Paine and the Age of Reason.” TPS, 5, 1975: 13-27. 
• “The 1790s: The Impact of Infidelity.” TPS, 6, 1976: 21-30.
• Williamson, Audrey. “Thomas Paine and The Age of Reason.” The American Rationalist, 1, 1976: Unpaginated (2pp). 
• “Thomas Paine and His Radical Contemporar- ies.” Journal of Radical History, 1, 1983: 15-18.
• Wilson, David A. “Paine and Cobbett: The Transatlantic Connection”. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1988.
• Wilson, Jerome D. & Ricketson, William F. “Thomas Paine”. Boston: Twayne, 1978.
• Young, Claribel. “A Re-Examination of William Cobbett’s Opinions of Thomas Paine.” Journal of the Rutgers University Library, 39, 1977: 19-21.

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The Triumph Of A Radical Publisher

On 6 March, 1812, Daniel Isaac Eaton, the so-called “infidel  bookseller”, stood before the Court of King’s Bench charged with  publishing what was known as the third part of Thomas Paine’s, The Age of Reason – a work the Attorney-General saw as “a libel, so full of impiety and blasphemy…against the Christian religion”. It was the third  time that Eaton had been prosecuted for publishing a work by Paine  and the first indictment against him since his avowal in about 1805 “to  desist wholly from the Publication and Sale of Political and Unchristian  Pamphlets”. The trial represents his final cause celebre and Eaton was  again propelled to the forefront in the cause of liberty and the fight for  equality.  

Born into a wealthy and respectable family in 1753, young Eaton  followed in the line of many bourgeoisie, receiving a college education  in France at the Jesuit college of Stomer, becoming a freeman and  liveryman of the Stationers’ Company and acquiring real estate  interests in Surrey. Eaton’s early years were spent living a life of luxury,  far removed from any egalitarian thoughts he was later to embrace. Yet  with the turmoil of the early 1790s, Eaton moved to London to  establish a patriotic bookshop in Bishopsgate Street. This was the very  beginning of a radical career, which saw Eaton emerge as one of the most determined and courageous supporters of the democratic ideal. For more than twenty years during the French Revolutionary era, he stood in his beliefs, against a barrage of official repression, personal tragedy, imprisonment, bankruptcy, exile and economic losses. He prided himself as part of the ‘swinish multitude’ and once dubbed himself as “Printer to the Supreme Majesty of the People”.

By 1810, Eaton had acquired a new interest in radicalism, after suffering the effects of imprisonment and bankruptcy during the early years of the nineteenth century. He translated and published Claude Helvetius’, The True Sense and Meaning of the System qf Nature (1810) and reprinted Paine’s, The Decline and Fall of the English System of Finance (1810). He became associated with the leading Spenceans and his bookshop again functioned as a harbour for radical protagonists, leading the authorities to again wait for prosecution. Their wait was not prolonged. In 1811, Eaton’s interest in religious freedom and deism saw the publication of The Age of Reason, Part the Third: Being an Examination of the Passages in the New Testament, Quoted from the Old and Called Prophecies Concerning Jesus Christ. Brought to trial for publishing this work, Eaton pleaded his own defence before Lord Ellenborough, suffering the harrowing experience with a severe infliction of influenza and gall-stones. As he explained in the published account of his trial:

The whole of the Attorney General’s speech consists of sophistry and defamation only from which he draws false conclusions. You will also observe the interruptions almost from the very instant I began my defense by Lord Ellenborough – a most remarkable instance of his Lordship’s liberality and disinterestedness. Another call I beg leave to make upon your attention, which is that Mr. Attorney General moved his Lordship that I be taken that I might be taken into custody before the Jury had reached its verdict – which his Lordship accordingly did, and I have remained in prison on consequence two months previous to my sentence.

On addressing the jury on the day of judgement, Lord Ellenborough described the work as “a most blasphemous and impious libel”. The jury promptly returned a verdict of guilty and Eaton was sentenced on 15 May, 1812, to eighteen months imprisonment in Newgate and to stand in the pillory for two hours.

The book and the trial both stirred and divided public opinion. Joanna Southcott, the millenarian prophetess, in her Answer to Thomas Paine’s Third Part of the Age of Reason (1812), attempts to “point out his (Paine’s] folly, and the darkness of his understanding concerning the scriptures”. Others even doubted the work was by Paine. In the marginella of one copy of the pamphlet, an unidentified reader argues that the language of the text was “not so Elegant as T. Paine”. Yet Eaton’s trial brought attention to the book, with many for the first time reading the words of Paine. Like Joanna Southcott, William Cobbett claimed that he never read “the two former parts of Paine’s Age of Reason I never read a single page of either, till the period of Mr. Eaton’s prosecution. I have now read them all”. Cobbett’s own copy of The Age of Reason, Part the Third, now rests in the American Philosophical Society. 

Yet it is Eaton’s time in the pillory on 26 May, 1812, which represents for many historians the final triumph of this man – a final recognition for a man devoted to the cause of freedom. The shouts of “brave old Man!” and “cries of bravo bravo!” resounded from a crowd which has been estimated as many as twenty thousand people. Even Henry Crabb Robinson, in his “Reminiscences”, could not deny the popular support Eaton received in the pillory:

I witness a sight which would have been ridiculous if had not been disgusting. Daniel Issac Easton in the pillary… he was a vulgar Democrat of the least attractive appearance, but he was surrounded by a crowd of admirers. As his position changed and fresh partisans were blessed by the sight of his round grinning face there was a shout of bravos from a fresh corner of the assemblage. All the cries were in his favour… Cobbett’s Political Register records a similar scene: opinion upon his [Easton’s], conduct, which they did in most audible manner, The Pillory is erected upon a scaffold, and is constructed as to turn round and present the face of the person in different directions. Mr. Eaton frequently turned himself, and, at every turn, he received fresh applauses.

Some of the people wished to convey him refreshments… one person got to him with a pocket handkerchief, to wipe the sweat from his face… The punishment of the Pillory is intended to expose the party to scorn, the scoff, and the peltings of the people. But,  Mr. Eaton met with none of these. 

As an opportunist, Eaton used his time in the pillory to spread not only the pamphlet for which he was prosecuted, but also a handbill he had prepared in his own defence, with the words, “Behold the Man” in large, bold print. Through a masterful synthesis of propaganda and popular street literature, Eaton was able to turn prosecution into public recognition. 

In the months leading to and following his trial, Eaton had received stern support from his friends and radical colleagues. Joseph Webb, Charles Murphy and George Cannon, all well known Spencean character, filed affidavits upholding Eaton as the “Character of a Charitable, Honest, Faithful and Peaceable Man in his personal Deportment and Conversation”. William Godwin also came to Eaton’s side, apparently signing a circular in his support and arranging to meet at Charles Lambs’ house after his release from Ncwgatc. In July 1812, Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote A Letter to Lord Ellenborough (1812), justifying Eaton as “an innocent man” and condemning his prosecution for his beliefs. The veteran radical in his hours of need, was supported emotionally, morally and even financially, with the Spenceans, Thomas Evans and George Cullen, organizing a subscription to assist him in his most exhausting times. 

In the final instance, it may be said that the people had passed a favourable judgement on Eaton. Although the Establishment saw fit to prosecute this aged and ill man for his ideas and ideals, Eaton received mass popular support in 1812 as perhaps a tribute to his unselfish stand against encroachments on the freedom and liberty of the people. His efforts in supporting men like Paine during the dangerous years of the revolutionary era, bear testimony to his claim as a martyr of liberty and give him a place among the bravest and most determined of British reformers.

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