By Michael T. Davis, The University of Queensland  

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.