Biography

John Horne Tooke was born John Horne on June 25, 1736. He later added the name Tooke in honor of his friend and benefactor William Tooke. Professionally a vicar, Horne Tooke worked with radical John Wilkes in 1769 to set up the Society for the Supporters of the Bill of Rights and on his own in 1771 created his own constitutional society. In 1777 he was tried and convicted of sedition and libel, largely for his outspoken radical politics, and went to jail for a year. Later, in 1786, he wrote his most famous work, Eritra Impbrevra, or The Diversions of Purley, which was published by halves in 1786 and 1805. In May of 1794, after William Pitt and the English government had suspended the Habeas Corpus act, Horne Tooke was arrested for treason. He was acquitted in November of all charges. In 1801, he returned to parliament for a short time before permanent retirement. He died on March 18, 1812.

Role in the Conversation

John Horne Tooke was instrumental in the development of the 1790s' disproportionately large influence of radical thinkers. In addition to working closely with John Wilkes in earlier years, he was active in the Society for Constitutional Information and had many contacts with the London Corresponding Society. Though he was in the same social and intellectual circle as the other important radicals of his day, he is less historically prominent, probably due to the much smaller amount of work that he produced during his lifetime. Horne Tooke was also somewhat more moderate than many of his radical peers, never, for example, believing in the complete overthrow of the monarchy.

Summary of Thomas Erskine's Speech at His Trial

Erskine's defense of John Horne Tooke rests mainly on the irrelevance of the charge against him. Horne Tooke is charged with treason, or conspiring to kill the king. Obviously, argues Erskine, this was not Horne Tooke's intention in consorting with radicals and sharing their ideas. Since Horne Tooke is not guilty of treason, the principle of freedom of speech gives him the right to speak his mind on political issues. What's more, it does not dictate that the people of England must agree with him or follow him. In the words of Erskine: "I WILL assert the freedom of an Englishman; I WILL maintain the dignity of man; I WILL vindicate and glory in the principles which raised this country to her pre-eminence among the nations of the earth; and as she shone the bright star of the morning, to shed the light of liberty upon nations which now enjoy it, so may she continue in her radiant sphere, to revive the ancient privileges of the world, which have been lost, and still to bring them forward to tongues and people who have never yet known them in the mysterious progression of things!" (123).

Summary of his Prison Journal

Horne Tooke's Prison Diary is more of a catalogue of daily facts and figures of prison life than an ideological tract. In his six-month diary (from his May 1794 arrest to his November 1794 acquittal), he comments on the daily life of a prisoner, commenting on the salaries of the guards, his own visitors, and the small liberties he is allowed. Though he comments very little on his accusation and the events which brought him to prison, his opinions on the evils of his charge are nonetheless clear: "I thought it not my duty to submit to a proceeding that was (at that time) illegal" (45).