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and that it is a hope not ill founded in a country whose love of Liberty is its characteristic; and where every thing generous and in favour of that Liberty is congenial with the warmest feelings of the People."

A society for such an object could not but excite the suspicion and hatred of the profligate administration of that time, nor could any of its more active members hope to escape ministerial persecution. Mr. Joyce was singled out as a victim by Mr. Pitt, who probably took a vindictive pleasure in mortifying, if not criminating, Lord Stanhope, to whom he was related, but whom he regarded and treated as an enemy on account of family quar. rels. Accordingly, on Wednesday the 14th of May, two days after the apprehension of Mr. Thomas Hardy,* he was arrested while he was conversing with Lord Mahon and his two brothers, at Chevening, on the charge His of "Treasonable Practices." pockets, desk and drawers were searched for papers; and the same day he was examined before the Privy Council. The Council was very fully attended; among many others, there were the Lord Chancellor, the Duke of Montrose, Lord Hawkesbury, the Earl of Chatham, Lord Aukland, the Marquis of Stafford, Mr. Pitt, Mr. Dundas, and the Attorney and Solicitor-general. The examination lasted about three quarters of an hour; the following is the account of it, as published by Mr. Joyce himself: †

"Examination of Jeremiah Joyce, be fore his Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council.

May 14, 1794,

"Mr. Fawkener, (Clerk of the Council). What is your name, Sir? A. Jeremiah Joyce.

Q. Where do you live?
A. At Lord Stanhope's.
Q. What is your profession?

*This intrepid man was Secretary to the Corresponding Society. He was the first whose life was sought on pretence of high treason by Mr. Pitt. An honest jury delivered him from the faugs of his persecutors; and he is still living an example of enlightened patriotism, unimpeachable virtue, and the unostentatious profession of religion.

+ Appendix to Sermon, &c. pp. 4-7.

A. I have the care of Lord Stanhope's two elder sous.

Q. Are you a member of the Society for Constitutional Information?"

A. Before I answer any other questions, I beg leave to inquire of your Lordships, whether I may be allowed the assistance of counsel?

Mr Dundas. Certainly not.

Mr. Joyee. I must, then, beg leave to decline answering any other questions. And I assure your Lordships that I do this out of no contempt for your Lordships' authority; but standing here an accused person, the laws of the country do not, I apprehend, require me to answer any interrogatories. Mr. Dundas. YOU ARE NOT AC

CUSED.

Mr. Joyce. I have seen a warrant which does accuse me.

Lord Loughborough. Mr. Fawkener, put the questions, and let Mr. Joyce refuse those he objects to.

Mr. Joyce. My Lord, I wish to decline answering all questions what. ever, as by answering questions, in my situation, I conceive that I am injuring the constitution of my country.

Mr. Dundas. You had better leave the constitution to take care of itself, and consider whether it will not be wise in you to answer the questions which are put to you.

Mr. Pitt. Mr. Joyce must know that every good subject will object to no question, which does not tend to criminate himself.

Mr. Joyce. I hope and believe, Sir, that I have acted ever as a good subject.

I imagine, my Lords, the reason for which I have been brought here, is, that your Lordships have found my name in those books, (pointing to the books belonging to the Society for Constitutional Information) as having been nominated Secretary to a Committee of Correspondence. In order, therefore, to save your Lordships' time, I beg leave to say, that I have never acted as Secretary, either directly or indirectly.

Q. Did you accept the appointment as Secretary?

A. I decline answering that question.

Q. How was the appointment notified to you?

A. By conversation. I do not re

collect by whom. It was not in writing.

Q. How long is it since you were appointed?

A. I do not know; perhaps three weeks, or a month; I should think not longer.

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Q. You have not said whether you are a member of the Society for Constitutional Information?'

A. I must decline answering that question.

Lord Aukland. Does Mr. Joyce imagine that question will involve him in any guilt?

A. I am certain, my Lord, that no question can involve me in guilt. It can be no crime to be a Member of the Society to which the DUKE of RICHMOND formerly belonged.

Q. Were you in the chair at the Society for Constitutional Information,' on the 11th of April; and did you at the same time make the following report from the chair? (See Appen. C. Reports of the Secret Committee, April 11th, 1794.)

A. I decline answering that question also.

Q. Were you a steward to the Anniversary Dinner of the Society upon the 2nd of May?

A. I decline answering this question. . Mr. Pitt. Can that question tend to criminate you?

A. I imagine no guilt can attach to a person for being a steward to a public dinner.

Attorney General. Certainly not. Mr. Pitt. Why then does Mr. Joyce refuse answering the question?

A. As far as I am individually concerned, I could not have the smallest objection to avow it; but the next question might be, Who were the other stewards? to which, in honour, I could not reply.

Mr. Pitt. By this mode of conduct Mr. Joyce acts in a manner very dif ferent from any other person standing in his situation.

Mr. Joyce. I am sorry for it; but I do not think it right to set a precedent of an accused man answering any questions. This is my only reason. Mr. Pitt. Do you know this letter?*

The following is, I think, an accurate copy of the letter alluded to:

DEAR CITIZEN,

A. I decline answering that question.

Lord Loughborough. Let Mr. Joyce read it himself (the letter given to him). Q. Do you know that letter, Sir? A. 1 must decline giving any auswer to that question.

Lord Loughborough. Does Mr. Joyce know what the latter part of that letter may mean?

A. The meaning may be perfectly simple, and perfectly innocent.

Mr. Dundas. He ought to be told the consequences.

Lord Loughborough. Mr. Joyce ought to know that he stands upon the brink of — and therefore, in justice to himself, he will answer whether this letter is his, or not?

A. I must decline auswering this and all other questions, for the reason already stated.

Mr. Pitt. It is not our business to advise Mr. Joyce; but he should well consider, whether, for his own sake, he should not answer this question.

A. I much doubt, whether, at this time, it be prudent in any man to acknowledge his own hand-writing, as some things have lately been punished which, ten or twelve years back, would have been esteemed highly meritori

ous.

Mr. Dundas. And what at that time might be meritorious, may now deserve punishment.

A. It may be so; but I do not understand it.

Lord Loughborough. If Mr. Joyce will not answer the questions which are put to him he must withdraw."+

Hardy was arrested by an order from the Secretary of State. They took every thing they could lay their bands on.-Query, Is it possible to be ready by Thursday next? J. H. Tooke, Esq. Yours, J. JOYCE. Wimbleton.

• This answer was a direct allusion to

the case of Mr. Holt, who, for reprinting an Address originally published by the As sociations, of which Mr. Pitt and the Duke to two years' imprisonment in Newgate, and of Richmond were members, was sentenced a heavy fine.

See a very spirited pamphlet, entitled, "A Vindication of the Principles, &c. of the Printer of the Newark Herald, by Daniel Holt."

"A close imprisonment of six months has not induced me to regret my conduct This morning, at six o'clock, Citizen before the Privy Council. To submit to a

The letter, at which the ministry affected so much alarm, referred only to a list of sinecures which Mr. Tooke was to select from the Court Calendar, and to prepare for publication: such a list might however be more formidable to them than the plot of an insurrection.

Mr. Joyce's conduct before the Privy Council was truly admirable; the same unpretending firmness would have characterized him on the scaffold, had Mr. Pitt succeeded in the scheme for his destruction.

From the Privy Council he was carried to the Tower, where he was held in close confinement, as a state prisoner, twenty-three weeks. At the end of that period he was removed to Newgate for trial; but the successive acquittals of Hardy, Tooke and Thelwall forced the ministers to abandon their prey, and Mr. Joyce, with others, was set free, without an opportunity of vindicating his innocence or the power of obtaining indemnity for his wrongs. He was supported, however, by the consciousness of honest patriotism and the sympathy of friends, worthy of the name. On his liberation, he addressed the public in an appendix to an excellent sermon which he had preached before his acquittal, and his account of his prosecution cannot be read, at this distance of time, without strong indignation at the "treasonable practices" of his persecutors, and high admiration of his fortitude and spirit. He vindicated and gloried in the part which he had acted, and challenged his adversaries, with all the aid of warrants for ransacking desks and of spies without number, to specify one act of his political life which was inconsistent with his professions or disallowed by the constitution of his country.

On his acquittal, Lord Stanhope gave a splendid entertainment at Chevening House to celebrate the event.

He himself has recorded his grati

series of interrogatories, where there is no specific charge, nor even accusation, is tamely to surrender a right, which no power can wrest from the meanest individual. Many illustrious characters have cheerfully suffered every oppression rather than be the means of introducing a system by which arbitrary governments are sustained."

tude" to the Rev. Thomas Belsham, of Hackney, and the Rev. George Lewis, afternoon preacher at Carter Lane, for the handsome and generous manner in which they brought him again before the public, by inviting him, immediately after his acquittal, to preach to their respective congregations. His sermon at the Gravel Pit, which was afterwards printed, was on the Christian miracles, and was thought, at the time, to exhibit some new views of divine miraculous agency. Having displayed in this discourse the advantages derived from a well-established Christian faith, particularly in the hope, so well calcu lated to support and elevate the mind, which it affords in times of calamity and persecution, he concluded in the following passage, appropriate to his own circumstances:

66

Surrounded," said he, "as we are, with all the advantages which flow from a well-grounded hope of immortality, we shall be highly to blame if we do not cultivate every opportunity in fortifying our minds with these principles, that if the hour of adversity should arrive, we may be prepared to meet it with firmness and dignity. If, as has sometimes happened, of which history informs ALL, a man be snatched suddenly from all the intercourse of social life; shut in the gloomy and grated cell; denied the access of every friend; no longer indulged with the music of those voices in which he had been accustomed to delight; ignorant of what charges may or can be exhibited against him, but at the same tine sufficiently aware that every moment is employed to his disadvantage; and employed too with all the energy, which wealth and power can exert: when week after week, and month after month, pass their revolving circles without af fording, as they move, any gleam of hope to the secluded prisoner: in such a situation a man may be happy in the consciousness of his own innocence; in the assurance that impartial investigation must convince his friends and the world that he has suffered without a cause: but the prospects which Christianity affords will be an additional means of his happiness in so gloomy a situation."

* Appendix to Sermon, p. 24.

After the State Trials and during the almost continual suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, all political associatious were broken up, and amongst others the Society for Constitutional Information, with the dissolution of which terminated Mr. Joyce's political character. His principles, however, were the same and he never concealed them; and he was always ready to extend the hand of kindness to such as were sufferers for their country's sake. This was indeed a very conspicuous trait in his character. His name occurs as a friend to Muir and Palmer in their letters printed in this volume: Mr. Rutt has recorded (p. 357) his generous efforts on behalf of Holt, the Newark printer, thrown into prison by Mr. Pitt, for republishing a declaration printed originally under the sanction of Mr. Pitt him self: the same respectable witness can attest another fact highly honourable to Mr. Joyce, namely, that though he zealously promoted the State Trials' subscription, he paid in full to the solicitor employed his own share of the expenses.

Many of the reformers with whom Mr. Joyce associated were avowed un. believers, but their society never shook his principles or induced him to conceal his Christian profession. The observer of his conduct and partner in his labours, just referred to, says, (ubi sup.) that he acquired the respect of such as were not personally religious, by his consistent Christian deportment.

A few years made a great alteration in the state of political parties, and in the year 1803, we find Mr. Joyce standing forward in a printed sermon, first preached at Essex-street, to recommend the volunteer system as the only barrier against the threatened in vasion of England by the French under the First Consul. In this, there was no dereliction of principle; and the alarm felt by Mr. Joyce, whether justified or not by the event, was shared by the majority of the people.

Mr. Joyce remained in the family of Earl Stanhope until the year 1800, when he removed into the immediate neighbourhood of London. He now devoted himself to literary occupations, in which he laboured with a severity of application that few men can bear. His engagements with the booksellers were very various and some

of them profitable. It will be seen by the list of his works at the end of the memoir, that some of the most popular of his productions were published under other names than his own: this was not his own wish, but on the con trary was felt by him as a great hardship: the booksellers adopted the fiction to conceal a name which had once been obnoxious to government. Latterly, however, when some of his books had established themselves in the public opinion, he prefixed his own name to his compilations; nor has it been found, we hope, that prejudice pursued him throughout the whole of life.

Although, as has been intimated, some of his religious friends welcomed bim after his acquittal, in the character, which above all others he prized, of a Dissenting minister, he did not experience that cordial reception in Unitarian congregations which he had anticipated and to which he was justly entitled. His habits as well as his inclination fitted him for a Nonconformist pastor, and yet he never received an invitation to settle in the ministry that was at all worthy of his acceptance. He was still ready to assist his brethren in the metropolis and the neighbourhood; and often appeared in the pulpit at Essex Chapel, where he was accustomed to worship. For some time before his death, he condescended to preach on the Sunday morning to a small society at Hamp stead.

Mr. Joyce was an Unitarian in the strictest sense of that term, and was for fourteen years the Secretary to the Unitarian Society; in which capacity he displayed the greatest punctuality, activity and zeal. Every member of the society was under obligations to him for his ready attention to any application, suggestion or wish; and when he resigned the office, as if with a presentiment of his death, at the anniversary in 1816, the Society passed some Resolutions expressive of their warm gratitude and lasting respect. On that occasion, he preached the sermon to the society, under circumstances, as before intimated, which awakened the sympathy of the audience, who testified their feelings by an urgent request that he would

See Mon. Repos, XI. 246.

print the discourse, of which some hundreds of copies were engaged by individual subscription.

In the years 1814 and 1815, Mr. Joyce was mathematical tutor in the Unitarian Academy, and in this, as in every other office which he sustained, he insured the esteem and gratitude of all with whom he was connected. He relinquished the appointment only in consequence of his being engaged, in a manner the most flattering to him, to superintend the education of the younger branches of a noble family. A few other pupils were admitted into his house, and had his life been spared, he would probably have continued to conduct the education of youth on a plan and terms which would have been suitable to his talents and acquirements, and eminently serviceable to his family.

Mr. Joyce had long fulfilled one of the most important trusts amongst the Protestant Dissenters, that of Dr. Wil liams; and the surviving trustees all bear witness to his pre-eminent usefuluess in this capacity. His place was never vacant; at the appointed moment, he was at his post, and whatever business was confided to him was punctually and fully executed.

He had been an occasional contributor to this work from its commencement, and in 1815 he began a series of papers on Natural Theology, of which he lived to communicate only thirteen numbers, the last of which was inserted in the Repository for April, (XI. 201,) in the same volume which some pages onwards recorded his untimely decease.

He died suddenly and without pain," in the bosom of his family, at Highgate, June 21, 1816, aged 53, and was buried with his fathers in the church yard of Cheshunt, where a tombstone is erected to his memory, with the poetical inscription which has been inserted into this work (XI. 614), from the elegant pen of his friend, the Rev. William Shepherd, of Gateacre.

A wife and several children, in whom he was truly happy, survive to revere and perpetuate his memory.

For a more particular account of his death, see Mon. Repos. XI. 350, and especially 434, 435, where there is also a just and finished character of him by the Rev. Thomas Jervis, of Leeds.

His character may be summed up in a few words: probity, industry, sim-plicity, fortitude, benevolence, and rational piety.

A remarkable plainness of appearance and straightforwardness, and perhaps bluntness of manner, which characterized Mr. Joyce, sometimes led superficial and distant observers to form an erroneous notion of his temper. On a nearer acquaintance they discovered that, under a somewhat rough exterior, there lay all the amiable and virtuous dispositions which qualify a man for friendship and social and domestic happiness. In company Mr. Joyce was unobtrusive and even retiring; yet not so as to abstract himself from his companions, much less to appear to watch their discourse: his countenanceshewed that he took an interest in whatever was the subject of discourse, and he was not backward to take his share in conversation when he could communicate pertinent information, or bear testimony to what he considered to be truth.

The ordinary state of Mr. Joyce's mind was calm and equable; but he was sometimes excited to considerable warmth of feeling, and to a correspondent strength of expression. He displayed this earnestness chiefly when exposing the misrepresentations of sophists and the calumnies of bigots. He was tolerant and indulgent to all but baseness and hypocrisy.

Fortitude has just been ascribed to Mr. Joyce. In assigning this virtue to him, the writer is justified not only by his deportment in his political troubles, but also by his conduct in the equally trying scenes of private life. Some few years ago he was reduced to the necessity of undergoing a surgical operation, the event of which was doubtful; Sunday was fixed on by the surgeons for the operation; on the morning of that day he was seen with his usual countenance, sedate but cheerful, amongst his fellow-worshipers at Essex Street, and before and after his return to his own house at Highgate, he was employed with an unruffled mind in arranging his papers and leaving instructions, to meet a possible disastrous issue.

His acquaintances often wondered how Mr. Joyce contrived to accomplish so much business with so little

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