New Light on Richard Steele

NEW LIGHT ON RICHARD STEELE

J. D. ALSOP

RICHARD STEELE (1672-1729) (fig. i) has been studied so extensively that new factual information on the essayist and playwright is generally a consequence of accidental discovery. The following evidence was unearthed in the course of unrelated research amongst the archival records of Augustan and Georgian Britain.

JOHN STEELE In 1714 John Lacy, a pseudonymous critic of Steele, produced an account of his parentage and his early life. The Ecclesiastical and Political History of Whigland of Late Years, used both to slight Steele's lineage and to attack his alleged indifference to his mother's later poverty. This reads in part: [Richard Steele, senior, was] an Honest Farmer, a man of Honour and Integrity... The worthy good Man lived rich in poverty, and respected by all his superior Neighbours, till his Body was gathered to the Grave... He left behind him his poor dear Wife, two Sons, and a Daughter... to weather it thro' the World as well as they were able. This worthy Farmer had a sister, that was perfer'd to the place of Waiting-Woman to an honourable Lady ... She every now and then supply'd the Widow, and the Children she took intirely into her Possession, sent her two Nephews to School, and saw her Niece well educated under her own Eye.^ Two sons; two nephews.' All modern accounts of Steele indicate that he was an only son, accompanied in his childhood simply by an elder sister Katherine. George Aitken, who delved deepest into Steele's biography, said of this publication merely, ' It will be seen that Steele is credited with a brother, of whom we hear nothing elsewhere'.'^ All the contextual evidence provided by Lacy here rings true. The aunt was clearly Katherine Mildmay, married to Henry Gascoigne and employed as a gentlewoman in the household of the Countess of Arran, wife to the subsequent second Duke of Ormonde.^ There is no credible reason for the critic to have invented a fictitious sibling. Could Richard Steele have had a hitherto undetected brother.^ The English Army register of letters of attorney and administrations for deceased officers, 1702-13, includes the following entry: Letters of Administration after the Death of John Steel late Ensigne in the Earle of Aruns Troop granted to Richard Steele Esquire 8th September 1704.^ Letters of administration for a person who died intestate were normally awarded to the next of kin and, although this junior officer is mentioned nowhere in any modern study

23 of Steele, the reference to the Earl of Arran would appear to be conclusive evidence of a firm connection. Charles Butler, Earl of Arran (1671-1758), was the grandson of James Butler, first Duke of Ormonde (1610-88), and brother and heir male to James Butler, second Duke of Ormonde (1665-1745). Richard Steele's foster father, Henry Gascoigne, had been private secretary to the first Duke, and the Steele family benefitted extensively from Butler patronage. Steele himself entered the army, in 1692, in the Duke of Ormonde's Second Troop of the Life Guards.^ However, appearances are in this instance deceptive. Two errors are associated with this entry in the register. The first, of omission, is the failure to identify the probate jurisdiction in which Richard Steele took out the letters of administration, a routine feature of other entries. The second is John Steele's connection to the 'Earle of Aruns Troop'. Brigadier-General Charles, Earl of Arran, was Colonel of the Sixth Horse from 1697 to 1702 and subsequently Colonel of the Third Troop of the Horse Guards, 1703-15.^ As horse regiments, neither of these commands included the rank of ensign, and Steele's name does not appear in the (fragmentary) regimental lists. ^ One John Steele, however, did enter Brigadier-General Thomas Earle's Regiment of Foot on i September 1694 as ensign to Captain Charles Wills. Nothing is known of his army career, apart from the renewal of his commission upon Queen Anne's accession; he was out of the Regiment by 1706, if not earlier.^ How to proceed to solve the puzzle? The army register was rechecked, but the handwriting is clear and unequivocal. The letters of administration might have been taken out in any one of numerous probate courts, but the death of an officer intestate during wartime suggests the likelihood of overseas service, and the most common probate jurisdiction for testators and intestates deceased abroad was the Prerogative Court of Canterbury. Under the date of 8 September 1704 the register of the Prerogative Court records the grant of administration to Richard Steele, esquire, for the estate of John Steele, 'nuper vexillareii in Legione honorabilij Thomiae Earle Armiger'.^ Obviously, the apparently straightforward entry in the army register had become badly corrupted, whereby an abbreviation of'Thomiae' become rendered as 'the' and the abbreviation 'Arm' became 'Arun'. The date of death remains unestabhshed. Thomas Earle's regiment was dispatched to the West Indies in 1702. After a lengthy, dilapidating stay at Barbados, the regiment took part in the disappointing engagement at Guadaloupe in 1703. Mortality was high, and Richard Steele's earlier associate. Governor Christopher Codrington, commented upon the heavy toll taken amongst the expedition troops by 'poxes, fluxes and feavers'.^** The Prerogative Court identified Richard as brother and closest relative of the deceased John Steele. Was this THE Richard Steele, esquire, the man who in September 1704 was a captain at Landguard Fort and a newly-successful playwright? This question cannot be answered conclusively. The exhaustive biographical researches of George

Fig. I. Sir Richard Steele, by Sir Godfrey Kneller, engraved by J. Houbraken; Thomas Birch, Heads of Illustrious Persons... (London, 1756), facing p. 205. C.6.e.8 25 Aitken unearthed only one other Richard Steele of the period who held the status of esquire, and this individual did not have a brother John.^^ It appears that Richard Steele may well have had a previously unidentified brother. Very little family correspondence survives for the early portion of Steele's life, and contemporaries noted Steele's reticence and ambiguity on his family and Irish background.^^ Children who died without heirs of their body were not always included in family pedigrees, but, in any case, our knowledge of the children of Richard Steele, senior, and Elinor Symes - Richard and Katherine - comes not from a pedigree but instead from the parish registers for the parish of residence during the marriage, St Bride's, Dublin.^^ Katherine, born in March 1671, ten months after the marriage licence was issued, was clearly the eldest, and Richard came second, being baptized on 12 March 1672. However, the marriage continued until 1676 or early 1677, nothing more is known concerning the couple's fertility, and biographers suggest that the family spent at least some time after 1672 in County Tipperary, where Richard, senior, was subsheriff.^* Any child born in this period would have been exactly the right age to have entered the army as an ensign in 1694. Moreover, the name John had been the one selected for Elinor Symes's first child from her previous marriage, a child who died within months of his birth in 1664.^^ Although circumstantial, the evidence clearly supports the statement made in 1714 that Richard Steele was one of two brothers, both of whom, we can now determine, began their careers in military service. Finally, although it was perhaps only a coincidence that John Steele's service, and possible death, in Barbados would soon be followed, in 1705, by Richard Steele's own marriage into one of that colony's families, in our present state of knowledge for Steele's early career no leads should be dismissed out of hand.

ROWLAND TRYON Rowland Tryon has remained an obscure figure for scholarship on Richard Steele ever since George Aitken first identified the 'Mr. Tryon' of Steele's correspondence.^^ Tryon, a London merchant and agent for Barbados merchants, apparently entered Steele's life early in 1708, shortly before he was formally appointed principal trustee for the sale of Steele's Barbados estate. In this capacity, Tryon acted primarily on behalf of the tenant and purchaser, George Walker.^^ Joseph Addison's Chancery suit of October 1708 against Steele, Walker, and the trustees singled out Tryon as the leading obstacle to the repayment of the £1,000 lent to Steele on the security of the estate. ^^ Tryon's contentious response of 7 December 1708 may have produced so many difficulties for Addison that eventually he abandoned the suit.^^ Steele's biographers had already formed a negative opinion of Tryon prior to the discovery of the 1708 Chancery case, derived from the frequent protestations in Steele's correspondence of 1708-9 and 1714 that Tryon was incorrectly withholding funds due from the sale of the property.^** Following the discovery, Tryon became depicted as 'a shrewd and rather shady agent'.^^ Nonetheless, both Rowland Tryon and his brother William were associated with Steele in the testimonial of January 1709 on behalf of Alexander Skene, the

26 Secretary of Barbados dismissed on charges of extortion and bribery, and in the same year they were on the same side as Steele in the controversies over the governorships of Milford Crow at Barbados and Daniel Parke at the Leeward Islands.^^ Moreover, Rowland Tryon subsequently was a subscriber to the first edition of the Tatler. Perhaps there is more to the relationship than Steele's self-interested statements in his correspondence suggest. Some additional evidence for Tryon is provided by his last will and testament. Written on 30 May 1720 and probated in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury on 8 July following, this brief document decreed that Rowland Tryon of Kent, esquire, bequeathed all property and personal estate to his brother William Tryon, of London, merchant, as executor and residual beneficiary.^^ William Longueville, Robert Weston, John Smith and Robert Dickinson witnessed the will. The first named was likely the Mr Longueville hitherto unidentified in Steele's correspondence as a party engaged in Steele's business with Tryon in January 1709.^^ Further enquiry will be needed to determine whether this was also the William Longueville (i 639-1721) of Covent Garden, the literate and witty friend of George Farquhar and Samuel Butler. ^^

THE GAZETTEER'S NEW YEAR'S GIFT Not hitherto mentioned in regard to Steele's oversight of the London Gazette, 1707-10, was the annual new year's gift provided to the gazetteer by the General Post Office. The origins of this gratuity are unknown, and the absence of a written authorization is obvious from the repetitive statements in the Receiver-General's financial statement that the gazetteer's 'usual New-years Gift' was provided 'as formally allowed '.^^ The reward of ten guineas (£10.15.0) was not substantial, but Steele's constant money problems made any addition welcome, and the gift may account for at least one comment in his correspondence.^' The unique increase in the amount of the gift to £16.2.6 for the fiscal year 25 March 1710 to 24 March 1711 may well have resulted from Steele's effort to extract a half-year's gratuity following his departure in October

FOREIGN NEWS IN THE GAZETTE AFTER STEELE Richard Steele's well-known effort to reform the London Gazette centred upon the expansion of foreign news within the newspaper. In particular, he sought regular, speedy news coverage from British diplomatic representatives abroad.^^ Steele's proposals likely were presented to Secretary of State Charles Spencer, Earl of Sunderland, during the first half of 1709, when the Gazette inaugurated thrice-weekly publication on the post days and some attempts were made to increase overseas news.^^ We can now determine that Steele's effort as gazetteer was only the first known of a series of similar initiatives. Steele had asked the Secretaries of State for 'an instruction to all the Ministers in each Province [the Northern and Southern divisions of Europe] to send a circular Letter each Post of what passes in their respective stations[,] directed to the Gazetteer'.^^ In the event, he had to settle for less: no such instruction is in evidence in Secretary of State

27 Sunderland's copybook, and the correspondence of diplomatic representatives reveals that they responded to direct appeals from Steele for publishable information by including this news within their customary communications with the Under Secretaries of State.'"' However, with each successive change of ministry attempts were made to initiate changes to the coverage of foreign news along lines not unlike those proposed by Steele. On 8 July 1712, at the time of the change of the gazetteership from William King to Charles Ford, Secretary of State Henry St John, Viscount Bolingbroke, addressed the following letter to John Laws, resident secretary at Brussels. The document is clearly a form letter dispatched to all relevant diplomatic staff abroad: [I] desire You will please to send constantly apart from Your Letters to me, either to [Under Secretaries] M' Tilson or to M"" Hare in my Office, as full & ample accounts as You can of all Occurrences proper for the Gazette. You will likewise please to add what printed Gazettes, or other publick news may serve for materials to that paper, it being her Maj^^'^ pleasure that greater care should be taken for the future in writing the Gazette, & that her Ministers abroad should furnish the best advices they can from the Places where they reside. M"" Tilson and M"" Hare have my Directions to communicate the News Papers to the Person appointed to compose the Gazette.^^

Another initiative took place immediately following the appointment of Charles, Viscount Townshend, as Secretary of State for the Northern Province and immediately prior to the formal appointment of a new gazetteer, the Whig Samuel Buckley, in September 1714. In a circular instruction of 24 September, similar to that of 1712, Townshend's two Under Secretaries, George Tilson and Horatio Walpole, conveyed the information to nine diplomatic representatives abroad that: His Lord^^ is desirous that the Gazette should be made as good a paper as possible, and that his Maj"^^ Ministers abroad should for that purpose furnish the best and amplest materials they can, wherefore we are in his L*^^**^ name to desire you to send to either of us constantly a news paper containing the fullest account of such occurrences in your parts as are proper to be inserted in the Gazette.^^ This produced the following reply from Simon Clement, secretary in charge of the British embassy at Vienna, on 20 October 1714, to George Tilson: I have rec"* y^ favour of y'"^ & M'' Walpole's joint letter of y^ 24th past & shall observe y*" directions you give me by my L'*^ orders & use my utmost endeavour to furnish you with every thing that shifts here, w^"^ I can think proper for a public news paper. For y^ present, having taken y^ occasion to answer his Lo^^s^^ letter I have inserted what occurs therein, & therefore may you be referred thereto, since I could but have copied y* to you, but for y^ future, I believe my correspond'^ will be mostly directed to you, for I believe I shall not find often occasions of matter to write to his This 1714 attempt is generally considered to have been unsuccessful,^® but in fact it had an immediate impact. The information provided to Townshend on 20 October, 28 and to Tilson in Clement's next communication of 24 October, was printed at length in the Gazette, with judicious cuts to remove information considered either too trivial or too sensitive for public dissemination.^' Moreover, the paper at this time was printing lengthy detailed reports from Turin, Ratisbon, and elsewhere likely to have been derived from official sources. Clearly, the initiative did produce results, albeit a more detailed investigation is required before, the extent, duration and significance of the change can be assessed. By 1718, as is well known, the office of the Secretaries of State embarked upon a fresh, more exacting, effort to increase the quantity and quality of foreign news coverage in the Gazette}^ It is not clear whether the impetus in each instance, as in 1709 under Steele, came from the gazetteer. This official had a vested interest in increased circulation and, moreover, both Steele and Buckley hoped to exploit their command of foreign news for the benefit of their other newspapers, the Tatler and the Daily Courant, respectively.^^ In each case the relationship between the Gazette and the Secretaries of State was used to influence the flow of news from the diplomatic representatives abroad. The general sense from a wide reading of the voluminous extant correspondence from these representatives, is that they already generally reported all information readily available at their respective posts, frequently complained of the dearth of newsworthy events to which they were privy, and routinely tried to increase the weightiness of their dispatches by drawing information extracted from letters or circulars available for neighbouring or more distant jurisdictions.*** In these circumstances, significant change was unlikely.

THE CRISIS AND STEELE'S EXPULSION The Papillon manuscripts contain information relevant to Steele's publication of the polemical pamphlet. The Crisis, and his subsequent expulsion from the House of Commons on 18 March 1714. Philip Papillon (1660-1736), of Fenchurch Street, London, and Acrise, Kent, was M.P. for Dover from 1701 until 1720.*^ On 20 March 1714 he included a brief eyewitness account of the expulsion in his letter sent from London to a long-time friend and business associate at Dover, Edward Wivell: I suppose you have seen by y^ Votes [of the House of Commons] that Cap' Steele is expell'd y^ House for his Crisis & y^ last Englishman, it [the debate] continued from one o'Clock to near 12 thursday night last [18 March] before y^ House was up which was y^ reason I did not then write to The reference to the 'last Englishman' was to number 57 of Steele's Englishman, published as a quarto pamphlet on 15 February 1714; it, number 46 of 19 January 1714, and The Crisis, released on the same day, formed the basis for the allegation of sedition against Steele and his expulsion for writing 'many expressions, highly reflecting upon her Majesty, and upon the nobility, gentry, clergy, and the universities'.*^ Wivell, a prominent Dover resident and former naval victualling agent, had helped Papillon campaign for Whig candidates in Kent during the 1713 election.^^ Their known correspondence, however, contained few references to national political events, and 29 Steele's expulsion stands out as a unique observation. Moreover, Papillon began at least one other letter of 20 March, in this instance to his cousin William Turner, with another comment upon the vote of 18 March: 'I suppose you have seen y^ Votes by which M' Steele is expell'd y^ House."" Was Papillon particularly concerned in the events of Steele's expulsion? The answer is affirmative. It is generally known that the exceptionally large sales of The Crisis were promoted by leading Whig politicians, especially by way of pre- publication subscription, although specific evidence is sketchy.*^ Papillon was one who supported this effort, bringing the London publication to the attention of prominent residents in the Dover area. In this instance, there is no evidence of solicitation for subscriptions; the tract was apparently provided after publication, gratis. Unfortunately, the surviving evidence for distribution of The Crisis itself is limited, but it is clear that Papillon's efforts here were part of a broader personal effort in late 1713 and early 1714 to promote the reading of publications in favour of the Protestant succession within his area of influence in south-east Kent. On ri February 1714 he addressed a letter to the cleric Thomas Rymer, Rector of Acrise, in response to a (missing) reply of 4 February to a (missing) previous communication: 'I Observe you have Rec*^ the Crisis which I sent to You by [way of Anthony] Gilpin, I have since sent you a Quantity of a hundred of Cathechises to Arme People against Popery, which I desire you'I Distribute where you think they'l doe most good which I Reccomend to You.'*' Papillon and Rymer (1679-1761) were long-standing friends and correspondents, and Papillon, at least, believed that they shared a common pessimistic view of British affairs under Robert Harley's ministry. On 12 February 1713 he had written:

As to Publick affairs, I know not what to say nor what to Write but agree Intirely with You, that We never stood more in need of the prayers of y^ Church, and Good people than We do at present. The Parliament is as I hear not likely to sit till some time in March if then, things not being yet I believe setled for a generall peace. The Lord look upon Us in Mercy for things at present look very Confused.^^

The reference to catechisms in the letter of 11 February 1714 may perhaps be to an untraced publication of this name, but it appears more likely to be a reference to A Protestant's Resolution, Shewing His Reasons Why He Will Not Be A Papist of 31 December 1713. Under the date of 28 January 1714 Papillon noted in his letter book beside the name of Mr William Devincke, 'Writ to him, and send him. One hundred books (Entitled the Protestant's Resolution, shewing his Reasons why he will not be a Papist) to Distribute to such persons as he shall think most proper, * and on the same day he noted in relation to his cousin Turner's wife, 'Wrott to her and sent her Fifty of the above said books and Desired her to Deliver to M'^ Rymer Twenty five more for him to dispose off [sic] as he thought most necessary."*® The comment, 'Twenty five more', indicates the existence of an earlier shipment, and Papillon did note in his letterbook a communication to Rymer on 21 January, contents unspecified.^'' If this shipment was the 'a hundred of Cathechises' referred to on 11 February as having been sent to Rymer

30 after The Crisis, then Papillon evidently was distributing Steele's tract immediately following its release on 19 January. We see, therefore, that Papillon distributed at least 250 copies of The Protestant's Resolution, a publication advertised twice in The Englishman, once on 31 December, the day of its release, and again on 12 January, then in its fourth edition.^^ The quantity implies a distribution directed at a wider band of society than the local elite. When on 10 June 1713 the Corporation of Dover sent to Queen Anne a loyal address on the occasion of peace, which included an affirmation of the signatories' commitment to a Protestant succession, Papillon went out of his way to record and to count the signatories, a total of 232.^'' Moreover, he elsewhere demonstrated his support for the public dissemination of controversial material: when he disparaged the terms of the treaty of commerce with France, this M.P. arranged for printed copies to be sent into Kent, including one to be left 'at the Coffee house [in Dover] on y^ Bench for publick benefit'.^^ How many copies of The Crisis did he distribute ? The letter to Rymer on 11 February is ambiguous; although Rymer may have been sent a single copy, Papillon's other efforts to publicize appropriately zealous texts does suggest that this was merely the tip of the iceberg. It will be recalled that in the letter of 11 February 1714 to Rymer, Papillon referred to Rymer's communication of 4 February, in which the latter acknowledged receipt of The Crisis from Anthony Gilpin, Papillon's land agent in Kent. Interestingly, on ri February Papillon also wrote to Gilpin, acknowledging receipt of a (missing) letter of 6 February, and expressing gratitude that 'you have delivered y^ books David gave you according as they were directed.'^* This David was presumably Papillon's eldest son (1691-1762), then of the Inner Temple and subsequently M.P. for New Romney and Dover. Is it not likely that the books mentioned by Gilpin on 6 February were Steele's The Crisis, in an unknown number of copies ? Papillon's motivation is readily explicable. The grandson of a Huguenot refugee, he was following in a tradition of concern for the reformed faith. His father, Thomas Papillon (1623-1702), merchant and M.P. for Dover and London, was a deacon of the French Church in Threadneedle Street, London, and a prominent supporter of the exclusion of James, Duke of York.^^ Philip Papillon maintained connections to Calvinist theologians on the continent, and not infrequently expressed his own committed Protestantism.^^ He demonstrated in 1714 concern over the false invasion alarms involving the Pretender." As a merchant engaged in overseas trade, he found the 1713 treaty of commerce to be disappointing and restrictive. Although he and Steele approached the crisis of 1714 from differing backgrounds, Papillon presumably found sufficient common ground in Steele's alarm over the succession to offer support and encouragement. Finally, although the Papillon evidence is clearly incomplete, we may observe the absence here of an orchestrated effort by the leaders of the Whigs to distribute propaganda, including Steele's The Crisis. Perhaps Papillon was acting in early 1714 at the behest of senior members of the Whig hierarchy, but more likely this M.P. was following his own course, perhaps paying for multiple copies of suitable polemical publications himself (The Crisis sold for one shilling). The emphasis within Steele

31 scholarship upon the orchestrated campaign by the Whig leadership to distribute The Crisis thus should be tempered by the recognition that many middle-level political figures shared the concerns expressed by Steele and presumably some were willing to invest their personal credit in the cause. The Papillon evidence provides an insightful illustration as to how works by pamphleteers were distributed to, and advanced within, the constituencies of the kingdom.

JOHN HENRY OTT John Henry Ott, son of Johann Baptist Ott, Professor of Hebrew at Zurich, and grandson of Johann Heinrich Ott, Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Zurich, kept a diary for his visit to London between August 1719 and March 1720. The diary entries consist of brief notations on people encountered, and books and periodicals read.^^ His reading indicates a concern to digest the best of current productions by the Whig literati, alongside the reading of several of the English classics. In December of 1719, for example, he read 'a good part of Shaxespear's works and Ben Johnson's', Paradise Lost, as well as volume one of The Tatler. He had already read The Freeholder, and in January and February of 1720 he moved on to volumes two and three of The Tatler, along with Sir Richard Steele's A Letter to the Earl ofO[xfor]d, Concerning the Bill of Peerage (1719).^® By far the longest entry in the diary is for a dinner he attended at the home of Dr John Woodward, the noted geologist, physician, and Professor of Physic at Gresham's College. The entry is undated, but appears on the reverse side of a folio containing notes dated 9 October 1719.^*' Those in attendance included Sir Richard Blackmore, the physician and author, and Sir Richard Steele, Woodward's patient and friend:

I was at D' Woodward's where I met S' Rich^ Steel, S' Rich** Blackmore & D"" [Shute?] & M"" Colins, there was a noble entertaining discours about poets & great Genius. The french as a light & airy people, that had no original and the Germans as dull & heavy was rejected, they did not spare the ancients, S'^ Rich*^ Blackmore said that he being over with the old Lord Hallifax [Charles Montague, 1661-1715] told him he had collected 500 passages out of Virgil, w'^'^ all in modern writers would be reconed great faults. My Lord who was a great admirer of Virgil desired him to let it alone by all means without telling any reason, perhaps he thought S^ Rich*^ could not do such a thing, or if he could, it would not be taken very well. Y^ [sic] would show that the old Saxon language was much finer & more expressive than the German, and would make it clear in a certain verse w^" I forgot but these words hard & harsh was amongst them whose original is very german hart et harsch ... Sir R. Steel mentioned some verses of [no?] beginning, from place to place, [afordes for will?]^^ D"" [Shute?] made a fine adlocution old tunes.^^

1 [John Lacey], The Ecclesiastical and Political 3 Calhoun Winton, Captain Steele: the Early History of Whigland of Late Years (London, Career of Richard Steele {Ba.\tmiore, 1^64), p. 1%. 1714), pp. 12-13; George A. Aitken, The Life of 4 London, Public Record Office, AO 15/90, p. 6. Richard Steele, 2 vols. (London, 1887), vol. i, p. 5 Winton, pp. 13-18, 20, 40. ly 6 G. E. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, 12 vols. 2 Aitken, vol. i, p. 18. (London, 1910-59), vols. i, pp. 226-7; x, p. 162. 32 7 Charles Dalton, English Army Lists and Com- 30 J. D. Alsop, 'Richard Steele and the Reform of mission Registers, 1661-1714, 6 vols. (London, the London Gazette \ Papers of the Bibliographical 1892-1904), vol. V, pp. 22, 232. Society of America, lxxx (1986), pp. 455^^1. 8 Ibid., vols. iv, p. 34; v, p. 280. 31 BL, Add. MSS. 34518, f 119; 61596, f. 108. 9 P.R.O., Prerogative Court of Canterbury, Prob. 32 BL, Add. MS. 61532, f. 115. In another instance, 6/80, f. 151. George Tilson dispatched to Robert Pringle a 10 Dalton, vol. v, p. 280; Calendar of State Papers, letter received from the Duke of Marlborough*s Colonial Series, America and West Indies, ed. secretary, with instructions for Pringle to extract Cecil Headlam (London, 1913-25), vol. xxii, pp. information for Sunderland and then 'I desire 32-3. For the careers of Thomas Earle and you wou'd hkewise let M"^ Steele not fail of Charles Wills, see Romney Sedgwick, The House having it for his Gazette': BL, Add. MS. 61569, of Commons, 1715-1754, 2 vols. (London, 1970), f 16. vol. ii, pp. 12-13, 547- 33 P.R.O., SP 104/12, f 90V. 11 Aitken, vols. i, p. 6; ii, pp. 350-3. 34 P.R.O., SP 44/147 (unfoliated). On the fol- 12 Ibid., vol. i, pp. 7-8, 12. lowing page is the undated announcement of 13 Ibid., vol. i, p. 12. Buckley's appointment. See also, Laurence 14 Winton, pp. 11-13. Hanson, Government and the Press, i6g5-i763 15 Aitken, vol. i, pp. io-ii. It remains unclear (Oxford, 1936), p. 91. whether Elinor Symes gave birth to a second son 35 BL, Sloane MS. 3811, f 91. in 1667, and, if so, whether he survived and what 36 P. M. Handover, A History of the London name was given to him. A half-brother could in Gazette, i665-ig65 (London, 1965), p. 49. this period also be termed 'brother': Steele used this term even in reference to his first wife's 37 London Gazette, nos. 5272 (26-30 Oct. 1714), sibling, a man he never met and who died before 5273 (30 Oct.-2 Nov. 1714). Clement's letter- their marriage (Aitken, vol. i, p. 84). book concludes with the communication of 24 October. 16 Aitken, vol. i, pp. 204—5. 17 Rae Blanchard (ed.), The Correspondence of 38 BL, Add. MSS. 15867, ff. 36-36V; 15877, ff. Richard Steele, 2nd edn. (Oxford, 1968), p. 217; 17V-18, printed in Ragnhild Hatton, 'The Arthur L. Cooke, 'Addison Vs. Steele, 1708', "London Gazette" in 1718; the Supply of News P.M.L.A., Ixviii (1953), pp. 313-15; Rae from Abroad', Bulletin of the Institute of Blanchard, 'Richard Steele's West Indian Plan- Historical Research, xviii (1940), pp. 108—10. tation', Modern Philology, xxxix (1942), pp. 39 Alsop, 'Steele and Reform', pp. 455-61; 281-5. Handover, p. 49; Michael Harris, London News- 18 Cooke, pp. 315-16. papers in the Age of Walpole (London, 1987), p. 19 Quoted in Cooke, pp. 316-17. 156. 20 Correspondence of Steele, pp. 234, 245-6, 257-9; 40 Hatton, pp. 109, HI; J. D. Alsop, British Willard Connely, Sir Richard Steele (New York, Espionage, Propaganda, and Political Intrigue 1934). PP- 134-5, 147- During the War of the Spanish Succession 21 Cooke, p. 317. (forthcoming), ch. 1. 22 Aitken, vol. i, p. 203; James D. Alsop, 'Richard 41 Sedgwick, vol. ii, p. 324. Steele and Barbados: Further Evidence', 42 Papillon Letterbook, 1713-14: Maidstone, Eighteenth Century Life, vi (1980), pp. 21-8. Centre for Kentish Studies, MS. U 1015/C45, 23 P.R.O., Prerogative Court of Canterbury, Prob. p. 219. II/S75, f I44V- 43 Winton, pp. 210-13; Rae Blanchard (ed.). The 24 Correspondence of Steele, p. 251. Englishman: A Political Journal By Richard 25 Dictionary of National Biography, sub William Steele (Oxford, 1955), pp. 183-8, 227-49, 437-8, Longueville. 445-7; Rae Blanchard (ed.). Tracts and Pam- 26 P.R.O., E 351/278(^3- phlets By Richard Steele (New York, 1967), pp. 27 Correspondence of Steele, p. 215. 125-212. 28 P.R.O., E 351/2783- 44 Papillon Letterbook, pp. 61-3. 29 British Library, Additional MSS. 34518, f. 119; 45 Ibid., p. 218. The Letterbook is evidendy not a 61596, f. 108; Correspondence of Steele, p. 23. complete record of Papillon's correspondence in 33 this period, and some of the entries included are 56 Papillon Letterbook, pp. 37, 45. themselves merely summaries. 57 Ibid., p. 277. 46 Winton, pp. 186, 196; The Englishman, p. 126; 58 BL, Add. MS. 27616, ff. 96-111. Correspondence of Steele, pp. 292-3. 59 Ibid., ff. 99-106. 47 Papillon Letterbook, p. 197. 60 Ibid., f. 98V. 48 Ibid., pp. 28-63. 61 Calhoun Winton, Sir Richard Steele, M.P. The 49 Ibid., p. 189. Later Career (Baltimore, 1970), pp. 165-6, takes 50 Ibid., p. 187. this to be a reference to Indiana's song 'From 51 The Englishman, p. 482. Place to Place, forlorn I go.' 52 Papillon Letterbook, pp. 82-3. 62 For the connections between Woodward, Steele, 53 Ibid., p. 87. and Blackmore, see Aitken, vol. i, pp. 60-2, 54 Ibid., p. 196. 200-3; John Loftis, Steele at Drury Lane 55 Basil D. Henning, The House of Commons, (Berkeley, 1952), pp. 4-5, 72; Joseph Levine, i66o-i6go, 3 vols. (London, 1983), vol. iii, pp. Dr. Woodward's Shield: History, Science, and 202-5; Dictionary of National Biography, sub Satire in Augustan England (Stanford, 1977), pp. Thomas Papillon. 301-2.