NEW LIGHT ON RICHARD STEELE

J. D. ALSOP

R I C H A R D STEELE (1672-1729) (fig. i) has been studied so extensively that new factualinformation on the essayist and playwright is generally a consequence of accidentaldiscovery. The following evidence was unearthed in the course of unrelated researchamongst the archival records of Augustan and Georgian Britain.

JOHN STEELE

In 1714 John Lacy, a pseudonymous critic of Steele, produced an account of hisparentage and his early life. The Ecclesiastical and Political History of Whigland of LateYears, used both to slight Steele's lineage and to attack his alleged indifference to hismother's later poverty. This reads in part:

[Richard Steele, senior, was] an Honest Farmer, a man of Honour and Integrity... The worthygood Man lived rich in poverty, and respected by all his superior Neighbours, till his Body wasgathered 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, thatwas perfer'd to the place of Waiting-Woman to an honourable Lady ... She every now and thensupply'd the Widow, and the Children she took intirely into her Possession, sent her twoNephews 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, whodelved deepest into Steele's biography, said of this publication merely, ' It will be seenthat Steele is credited with a brother, of whom we hear nothing elsewhere'.'^ All thecontextual evidence provided by Lacy here rings true. The aunt was clearly KatherineMildmay, married to Henry Gascoigne and employed as a gentlewoman in the householdof the Countess of Arran, wife to the subsequent second Duke of Ormonde.^ There isno credible reason for the critic to have invented a fictitious sibling. Could Richard Steelehave had a hitherto undetected brother.^

The English Army register of letters of attorney and administrations for deceasedofficers, 1702-13, includes the following entry:

Letters of Administration after the Death of John Steel late Ensigne in the Earle of Aruns Troopgranted to Richard Steele Esquire 8th September 1704.

Letters of administration for a person who died intestate were normally awarded to thenext of kin and, although this junior officer is mentioned nowhere in any modern study

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of Steele, the reference to the Earl of Arran would appear to be conclusive evidence ofa firm connection. Charles Butler, Earl of Arran (1671-1758), was the grandson of JamesButler, 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 extensivelyfrom Butler patronage. Steele himself entered the army, in 1692, in the Duke ofOrmonde's Second Troop of the Life Guards.^ However, appearances are in thisinstance 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 Steeletook out the letters of administration, a routine feature of other entries. The second isJohn Steele's connection to the 'Earle of Aruns Troop'. Brigadier-General Charles, Earlof Arran, was Colonel of the Sixth Horse from 1697 to 1702 and subsequently Colonelof the Third Troop of the Horse Guards, 1703-15.^ As horse regiments, neither of thesecommands included the rank of ensign, and Steele's name does not appear in the(fragmentary) regimental lists. One John Steele, however, did enter Brigadier-GeneralThomas Earle's Regiment of Foot on i September 1694 as ensign to Captain CharlesWills. Nothing is known of his army career, apart from the renewal of his commissionupon 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 thehandwriting is clear and unequivocal. The letters of administration might have beentaken out in any one of numerous probate courts, but the death of an officer intestateduring wartime suggests the likelihood of overseas service, and the most commonprobate jurisdiction for testators and intestates deceased abroad was the PrerogativeCourt of Canterbury. Under the date of 8 September 1704 the register of the PrerogativeCourt records the grant of administration to Richard Steele, esquire, for the estate ofJohn Steele, 'nuper vexillareii in Legione honorabilij Thomiae Earle Armiger'.^Obviously, the apparently straightforward entry in the army register had become badlycorrupted, whereby an abbreviation of 'Thomiae' become rendered as ' the ' and theabbreviation 'Arm' became 'Arun'. The date of death remains unestabhshed. ThomasEarle's regiment was dispatched to the West Indies in 1702. After a lengthy, dilapidatingstay at Barbados, the regiment took part in the disappointing engagement at Guadaloupein 1703. Mortality was high, and Richard Steele's earlier associate. Governor ChristopherCodrington, 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 thedeceased John Steele. Was this THE Richard Steele, esquire, the man who in September1704 was a captain at Landguard Fort and a newly-successful playwright? This questioncannot 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

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Aitken unearthed only one other Richard Steele of the period who held the status ofesquire, and this individual did not have a brother John.^^ It appears that Richard Steelemay well have had a previously unidentified brother. Very little family correspondencesurvives for the early portion of Steele's life, and contemporaries noted Steele's reticenceand ambiguity on his family and Irish background.^^ Children who died without heirsof their body were not always included in family pedigrees, but, in any case, ourknowledge of the children of Richard Steele, senior, and Elinor Symes - Richard andKatherine - comes not from a pedigree but instead from the parish registers for theparish of residence during the marriage, St Bride's, Dublin.^^ Katherine, born in March1671, ten months after the marriage licence was issued, was clearly the eldest, andRichard came second, being baptized on 12 March 1672. However, the marriagecontinued until 1676 or early 1677, nothing more is known concerning the couple'sfertility, and biographers suggest that the family spent at least some time after 1672 inCounty Tipperary, where Richard, senior, was subsheriff.^* Any child born in this periodwould 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 fromher previous marriage, a child who died within months of his birth in 1664. ^ Althoughcircumstantial, the evidence clearly supports the statement made in 1714 that RichardSteele was one of two brothers, both of whom, we can now determine, began their careersin military service. Finally, although it was perhaps only a coincidence that John Steele'sservice, and possible death, in Barbados would soon be followed, in 1705, by RichardSteele's own marriage into one of that colony's families, in our present state of knowledgefor 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 eversince George Aitken first identified the 'Mr. Tryon' of Steele's correspondence.^^Tryon, a London merchant and agent for Barbados merchants, apparently enteredSteele's life early in 1708, shortly before he was formally appointed principal trustee forthe sale of Steele's Barbados estate. In this capacity, Tryon acted primarily on behalf ofthe tenant and purchaser, George Walker.^^ Joseph Addison's Chancery suit of October1708 against Steele, Walker, and the trustees singled out Tryon as the leading obstacleto the repayment of the £1,000 lent to Steele on the security of the estate. ^ Tryon'scontentious response of 7 December 1708 may have produced so many difficulties forAddison that eventually he abandoned the suit.^^ Steele's biographers had alreadyformed 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 1714that Tryon was incorrectly withholding funds due from the sale of the property. **Following the discovery, Tryon became depicted as 'a shrewd and rather shadyagent'.^^ Nonetheless, both Rowland Tryon and his brother William were associatedwith Steele in the testimonial of January 1709 on behalf of Alexander Skene, the

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Secretary of Barbados dismissed on charges of extortion and bribery, and in the sameyear they were on the same side as Steele in the controversies over the governorships ofMilford Crow at Barbados and Daniel Parke at the Leeward Islands.^^ Moreover,Rowland Tryon subsequently was a subscriber to the first edition of the Tatler. Perhapsthere is more to the relationship than Steele's self-interested statements in hiscorrespondence suggest.

Some additional evidence for Tryon is provided by his last will and testament. Writtenon 30 May 1720 and probated in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury on 8 Julyfollowing, this brief document decreed that Rowland Tryon of Kent, esquire, bequeathedall property and personal estate to his brother William Tryon, of London, merchant, asexecutor and residual beneficiary.^^ William Longueville, Robert Weston, John Smithand Robert Dickinson witnessed the will. The first named was likely the Mr Longuevillehitherto unidentified in Steele's correspondence as a party engaged in Steele's businesswith Tryon in January 1709. ^ Further enquiry will be needed to determine whether thiswas also the William Longueville (i 639-1721) of Covent Garden, the literate and wittyfriend 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. Theorigins of this gratuity are unknown, and the absence of a written authorization isobvious from the repetitive statements in the Receiver-General's financial statement thatthe gazetteer's 'usual New-years Gift' was provided 'as formally allowed '. ^ The rewardof ten guineas (£10.15.0) was not substantial, but Steele's constant money problemsmade any addition welcome, and the gift may account for at least one comment in hiscorrespondence.^' The unique increase in the amount of the gift to £16.2.6 for the fiscalyear 25 March 1710 to 24 March 1711 may well have resulted from Steele's effort toextract 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 theexpansion of foreign news within the newspaper. In particular, he sought regular, speedynews coverage from British diplomatic representatives abroad.^^ Steele's proposals likelywere presented to Secretary of State Charles Spencer, Earl of Sunderland, during thefirst half of 1709, when the Gazette inaugurated thrice-weekly publication on the postdays and some attempts were made to increase overseas news.^^ We can now determinethat 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 eachProvince [the Northern and Southern divisions of Europe] to send a circular Letter eachPost of what passes in their respective stations[,] directed to the Gazetteer'.^^ In theevent, he had to settle for less: no such instruction is in evidence in Secretary of State

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Sunderland's copybook, and the correspondence of diplomatic representatives revealsthat they responded to direct appeals from Steele for publishable information byincluding this news within their customary communications with the Under Secretariesof State.'"'

However, with each successive change of ministry attempts were made to initiatechanges 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 toCharles Ford, Secretary of State Henry St John, Viscount Bolingbroke, addressed thefollowing letter to John Laws, resident secretary at Brussels. The document is clearly aform letter dispatched to all relevant diplomatic staff abroad:

[I] desire You will please to send constantly apart from Your Letters to me, either to [UnderSecretaries] M' Tilson or to M"" Hare in my Office, as full & ample accounts as You can of allOccurrences proper for the Gazette. You will likewise please to add what printed Gazettes, orother publick news may serve for materials to that paper, it being her Maj ' pleasure that greatercare should be taken for the future in writing the Gazette, & that her Ministers abroad shouldfurnish the best advices they can from the Places where they reside. M"" Tilson and M"" Hare havemy Directions to communicate the News Papers to the Person appointed to compose theGazette.^^

Another initiative took place immediately following the appointment of Charles,Viscount Townshend, as Secretary of State for the Northern Province and immediatelyprior to the formal appointment of a new gazetteer, the Whig Samuel Buckley, inSeptember 1714. In a circular instruction of 24 September, similar to that of 1712,Townshend's two Under Secretaries, George Tilson and Horatio Walpole, conveyed theinformation to nine diplomatic representatives abroad that:

His Lord^^ is desirous that the Gazette should be made as good a paper as possible, and that hisMaj"^^ 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 papercontaining the fullest account of such occurrences in your parts as are proper to be inserted inthe Gazette.^^

This produced the following reply from Simon Clement, secretary in charge of theBritish 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*" directionsyou give me by my L'* orders & use my utmost endeavour to furnish you with every thing thatshifts here, w " I can think proper for a public news paper. For y present, having taken yoccasion to answer his Lo s ^ letter I have inserted what occurs therein, & therefore may you bereferred thereto, since I could but have copied y* to you, but for y future, I believe mycorrespond'^ will be mostly directed to you, for I believe I shall not find often occasions of matterto write to his

This 1714 attempt is generally considered to have been unsuccessful,^® but in fact ithad an immediate impact. The information provided to Townshend on 20 October,

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and to Tilson in Clement's next communication of 24 October, was printed at length inthe Gazette, with judicious cuts to remove information considered either too trivial or toosensitive for public dissemination.^' Moreover, the paper at this time was printinglengthy detailed reports from Turin, Ratisbon, and elsewhere likely to have been derivedfrom official sources. Clearly, the initiative did produce results, albeit a more detailedinvestigation is required before, the extent, duration and significance of the change canbe 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 theGazette}^ 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 forthe 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 usedto influence the flow of news from the diplomatic representatives abroad. The generalsense from a wide reading of the voluminous extant correspondence from theserepresentatives, is that they already generally reported all information readily availableat their respective posts, frequently complained of the dearth of newsworthy events towhich they were privy, and routinely tried to increase the weightiness of their dispatchesby drawing information extracted from letters or circulars available for neighbouring ormore distant jurisdictions.*** In these circumstances, significant change was unlikely.

THE CRISIS AND S T E E L E ' S EXPULSION

The Papillon manuscripts contain information relevant to Steele's publication of thepolemical pamphlet. The Crisis, and his subsequent expulsion from the House ofCommons 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 March1714 he included a brief eyewitness account of the expulsion in his letter sent fromLondon 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 yHouse for his Crisis & y last Englishman, it [the debate] continued from one o'Clock to near 12thursday night last [18 March] before y House was up which was y reason I did not then writeto

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 seditionagainst Steele and his expulsion for writing 'many expressions, highly reflecting uponher Majesty, and upon the nobility, gentry, clergy, and the universities'.*^ Wivell, aprominent Dover resident and former naval victualling agent, had helped Papilloncampaign for Whig candidates in Kent during the 1713 election.^^ Their knowncorrespondence, however, contained few references to national political events, and

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Steele's expulsion stands out as a unique observation. Moreover, Papillon began at leastone other letter of 20 March, in this instance to his cousin William Turner, with anothercomment 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 ofSteele's expulsion?

The answer is affirmative. It is generally known that the exceptionally large sales ofThe Crisis were promoted by leading Whig politicians, especially by way of pre-publication subscription, although specific evidence is sketchy.*^ Papillon was one whosupported this effort, bringing the London publication to the attention of prominentresidents in the Dover area. In this instance, there is no evidence of solicitation forsubscriptions; the tract was apparently provided after publication, gratis. Unfortunately,the surviving evidence for distribution of The Crisis itself is limited, but it is clear thatPapillon's efforts here were part of a broader personal effort in late 1713 and early 1714to promote the reading of publications in favour of the Protestant succession within hisarea of influence in south-east Kent. On ri February 1714 he addressed a letter to thecleric Thomas Rymer, Rector of Acrise, in response to a (missing) reply of 4 Februaryto a (missing) previous communication: ' I Observe you have Rec* the Crisis which Isent to You by [way of Anthony] Gilpin, I have since sent you a Quantity of a hundredof Cathechises to Arme People against Popery, which I desire you'I Distribute whereyou 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 RobertHarley'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, thatWe never stood more in need of the prayers of y Church, and Good people than We do atpresent. The Parliament is as I hear not likely to sit till some time in March if then, things notbeing yet I believe setled for a generall peace. The Lord look upon Us in Mercy for things atpresent look very Confused.^^

The reference to catechisms in the letter of 11 February 1714 may perhaps be to anuntraced publication of this name, but it appears more likely to be a reference to AProtestant's Resolution, Shewing His Reasons Why He Will Not Be A Papist of 31December 1713. Under the date of 28 January 1714 Papillon noted in his letter bookbeside the name of Mr William Devincke, 'Writ to him, and send him. One hundredbooks (Entitled the Protestant's Resolution, shewing his Reasons why he will not be aPapist) to Distribute to such persons as he shall think most proper, * and on the same dayhe noted in relation to his cousin Turner's wife, 'Wrott to her and sent her Fifty of theabove said books and Desired her to Deliver to M' Rymer Twenty five more for him todispose 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 acommunication 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

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after The Crisis, then Papillon evidently was distributing Steele's tract immediatelyfollowing its release on 19 January. We see, therefore, that Papillon distributed at least250 copies of The Protestant's Resolution, a publication advertised twice in TheEnglishman, once on 31 December, the day of its release, and again on 12 January, thenin its fourth edition.^^ The quantity implies a distribution directed at a wider band ofsociety than the local elite. When on 10 June 1713 the Corporation of Dover sent toQueen Anne a loyal address on the occasion of peace, which included an affirmation ofthe signatories' commitment to a Protestant succession, Papillon went out of his way torecord and to count the signatories, a total of 232.^'' Moreover, he elsewheredemonstrated his support for the public dissemination of controversial material: whenhe disparaged the terms of the treaty of commerce with France, this M.P. arranged forprinted copies to be sent into Kent, including one to be left 'at the Coffee house [inDover] on y Bench for publick benefit'.^^ How many copies of The Crisis did hedistribute ? The letter to Rymer on 11 February is ambiguous; although Rymer may havebeen sent a single copy, Papillon's other efforts to publicize appropriately zealous textsdoes suggest that this was merely the tip of the iceberg. It will be recalled that in theletter of 11 February 1714 to Rymer, Papillon referred to Rymer's communication of 4February, 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 toGilpin, acknowledging receipt of a (missing) letter of 6 February, and expressinggratitude that 'you have delivered y^ books David gave you according as they weredirected.'^* This David was presumably Papillon's eldest son (1691-1762), then of theInner Temple and subsequently M.P. for New Romney and Dover. Is it not likely thatthe books mentioned by Gilpin on 6 February were Steele's The Crisis, in an unknownnumber of copies ?

Papillon's motivation is readily explicable. The grandson of a Huguenot refugee, hewas following in a tradition of concern for the reformed faith. His father, ThomasPapillon (1623-1702), merchant and M.P. for Dover and London, was a deacon of theFrench Church in Threadneedle Street, London, and a prominent supporter of theexclusion of James, Duke of York.^^ Philip Papillon maintained connections to Calvinisttheologians on the continent, and not infrequently expressed his own committedProtestantism.^^ He demonstrated in 1714 concern over the false invasion alarmsinvolving the Pretender." As a merchant engaged in overseas trade, he found the 1713treaty of commerce to be disappointing and restrictive. Although he and Steeleapproached the crisis of 1714 from differing backgrounds, Papillon presumably foundsufficient common ground in Steele's alarm over the succession to offer support andencouragement. Finally, although the Papillon evidence is clearly incomplete, we mayobserve the absence here of an orchestrated effort by the leaders of the Whigs todistribute propaganda, including Steele's The Crisis. Perhaps Papillon was acting in early1714 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 polemicalpublications himself (The Crisis sold for one shilling). The emphasis within Steele

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scholarship upon the orchestrated campaign by the Whig leadership to distribute TheCrisis thus should be tempered by the recognition that many middle-level politicalfigures shared the concerns expressed by Steele and presumably some were willing toinvest their personal credit in the cause. The Papillon evidence provides an insightfulillustration 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 grandsonof Johann Heinrich Ott, Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Zurich, kept a diary for hisvisit to London between August 1719 and March 1720. The diary entries consist of briefnotations on people encountered, and books and periodicals read.^^ His reading indicatesa concern to digest the best of current productions by the Whig literati, alongside thereading of several of the English classics. In December of 1719, for example, he read 'agood part of Shaxespear's works and Ben Johnson's', Paradise Lost, as well as volumeone of The Tatler. He had already read The Freeholder, and in January and February of1720 he moved on to volumes two and three of The Tatler, along with Sir RichardSteele's A Letter to the Earl ofO[xfor]d, Concerning the Bill of Peerage (1719). ® By farthe longest entry in the diary is for a dinner he attended at the home of Dr JohnWoodward, the noted geologist, physician, and Professor of Physic at Gresham'sCollege. The entry is undated, but appears on the reverse side of a folio containing notesdated 9 October 1719.^*' Those in attendance included Sir Richard Blackmore, thephysician 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 notspare 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 inmodern writers would be reconed great faults. My Lord who was a great admirer of Virgil desiredhim to let it alone by all means without telling any reason, perhaps he thought S^ Rich* couldnot do such a thing, or if he could, it would not be taken very well. Y^ [sic] would show that theold Saxon language was much finer & more expressive than the German, and would make it clearin a certain verse w^" I forgot but these words hard & harsh was amongst them whose originalis very german hart et harsch ... Sir R. Steel mentioned some verses of [no?] beginning, from placeto 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 EarlyHistory 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.

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7 Charles Dalton, English Army Lists and Com-mission Registers, 1661-1714, 6 vols. (London,1892-1904), vol. V, pp. 22, 232.

8 Ibid., vols. iv, p. 34; v, p. 280.9 P.R.O., Prerogative Court of Canterbury, Prob.

6/80, f. 151.10 Dalton, vol. v, p. 280; Calendar of State Papers,

Colonial Series, America and West Indies, ed.Cecil Headlam (London, 1913-25), vol. xxii, pp.32-3. For the careers of Thomas Earle andCharles Wills, see Romney Sedgwick, The Houseof Commons, 1715-1754, 2 vols. (London, 1970),vol. ii, pp. 12-13, 547-

11 Aitken, vols. i, p. 6; ii, pp. 350-3.12 Ibid., vol. i, pp. 7-8, 12.13 Ibid., vol. i, p. 12.14 Winton, pp. 11-13.15 Aitken, vol. i, pp. i o - i i . It remains unclear

whether Elinor Symes gave birth to a second sonin 1667, and, if so, whether he survived and whatname was given to him. A half-brother could inthis period also be termed 'brother': Steele usedthis term even in reference to his first wife'ssibling, a man he never met and who died beforetheir marriage (Aitken, vol. i, p. 84).

16 Aitken, vol. i, pp. 204—5.17 Rae Blanchard (ed.), The Correspondence of

Richard Steele, 2nd edn. (Oxford, 1968), p. 217;Arthur L. Cooke, 'Addison Vs. Steele, 1708',P.M.L.A., Ixviii (1953), pp. 313-15; RaeBlanchard, 'Richard Steele's West Indian Plan-tation', Modern Philology, xxxix (1942), pp.281-5.

18 Cooke, pp. 315-16.19 Quoted in Cooke, pp. 316-17.20 Correspondence of Steele, pp. 234, 245-6, 257-9;

Willard Connely, Sir Richard Steele (New York,

1934). PP- 134-5, 147-21 Cooke, p. 317.22 Aitken, vol. i, p. 203; James D. Alsop, 'Richard

Steele and Barbados: Further Evidence',Eighteenth Century Life, vi (1980), pp. 21-8.

23 P.R.O., Prerogative Court of Canterbury, Prob.II/S75, f I44V-

24 Correspondence of Steele, p. 251.25 Dictionary of National Biography, sub William

Longueville.26 P.R.O., E 351/278(^3-27 Correspondence of Steele, p. 215.28 P.R.O., E 351/2783-29 British Library, Additional MSS. 34518, f. 119;

61596, f. 108; Correspondence of Steele, p. 23.

30 J. D. Alsop, 'Richard Steele and the Reform ofthe London Gazette \ Papers of the BibliographicalSociety of America, lxxx (1986), pp. 455^^1.

31 BL, Add. MSS. 34518, f 119; 61596, f. 108.32 BL, Add. MS. 61532, f. 115. In another instance,

George Tilson dispatched to Robert Pringle aletter received from the Duke of Marlborough*ssecretary, with instructions for Pringle to extractinformation for Sunderland and then ' I desireyou wou'd hkewise let M" Steele not fail ofhaving it for his Gazette': BL, Add. MS. 61569,f 16.

33 P.R.O., SP 104/12, f 90V.34 P.R.O., SP 44/147 (unfoliated). On the fol-

lowing page is the undated announcement ofBuckley's appointment. See also, LaurenceHanson, Government and the Press, i6g5-i763(Oxford, 1936), p. 91.

35 BL, Sloane MS. 3811, f 91.36 P. M. Handover, A History of the London

Gazette, i665-ig65 (London, 1965), p. 49.37 London Gazette, nos. 5272 (26-30 Oct. 1714),

5273 (30 Oct.-2 Nov. 1714). Clement's letter-book concludes with the communication of 24October.

38 BL, Add. MSS. 15867, ff. 36-36V; 15877, ff.17V-18, printed in Ragnhild Hatton, 'The"London Gazette" in 1718; the Supply of Newsfrom Abroad', Bulletin of the Institute ofHistorical Research, xviii (1940), pp. 108—10.

39 Alsop, 'Steele and Reform', pp. 455-61;Handover, p. 49; Michael Harris, London News-papers in the Age of Walpole (London, 1987), p.156.

40 Hatton, pp. 109, H I ; J. D . Alsop, BritishEspionage, Propaganda, and Political IntrigueDuring the War of the Spanish Succession(forthcoming), ch. 1.

41 Sedgwick, vol. ii, p. 324.42 Papillon Letterbook, 1713-14: Maidstone,

Centre for Kentish Studies, MS. U 1015/C45,p. 219.

43 Winton, pp. 210-13; Rae Blanchard (ed.). TheEnglishman: A Political Journal By RichardSteele (Oxford, 1955), pp. 183-8, 227-49, 437-8,445-7; Rae Blanchard (ed.). Tracts and Pam-phlets By Richard Steele (New York, 1967), pp.125-212.

44 Papillon Letterbook, pp. 61-3.45 Ibid., p. 218. The Letterbook is evidendy not a

complete record of Papillon's correspondence in

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this period, and some of the entries included arethemselves merely summaries.

46 Winton, pp. 186, 196; The Englishman, p. 126;Correspondence of Steele, pp. 292-3.

47 Papillon Letterbook, p. 197.48 Ibid., pp. 28-63.49 Ibid., p. 189.50 Ibid., p. 187.51 The Englishman, p. 482.52 Papillon Letterbook, pp. 82-3.53 Ibid., p. 87.54 Ibid., p. 196.55 Basil D. Henning, The House of Commons,

i66o-i6go, 3 vols. (London, 1983), vol. iii, pp.202-5; Dictionary of National Biography, subThomas Papillon.

56 Papillon Letterbook, pp. 37, 45.57 Ibid., p. 277.58 BL, Add. MS. 27616, ff. 96-111.59 Ibid., ff. 99-106.60 Ibid., f. 98V.61 Calhoun Winton, Sir Richard Steele, M.P. The

Later Career (Baltimore, 1970), pp. 165-6, takesthis to be a reference to Indiana's song 'FromPlace to Place, forlorn I go.'

62 For the connections between Woodward, Steele,and Blackmore, see Aitken, vol. i, pp. 60-2,200-3; John Loftis, Steele at Drury Lane(Berkeley, 1952), pp. 4-5, 72; Joseph Levine,Dr. Woodward's Shield: History, Science, andSatire in Augustan England (Stanford, 1977), pp.301-2.

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