Transoceanic Radical: The Many Identities of William Duane

Transcription

1 Transoceanic Radical: The Many Identities of William Duane Nigel Little

2 Transoceanic Radical: The Many Identities of William Duane Nigel Ken Little, B.A. (Hons) This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of Murdoch University 2003

3 I declare that this thesis is my own account of my research and contains as its main content work which has not previously been submitted for a degree at any tertiary institution...

4 Table of Contents Page Acknowledgements...ii Abstract...iii Abbreviations...v Introduction Identities Origins The Great Gulf Of All Undone Beings The Bengal Journal An Indian World Tribe of Editors London Interlude Mythical Homeland Made Jeffersonian Victory Towards The Later Years: Conclusion Bibliography i

5 Acknowledgments Tracing Duane s career over one continent, one sub-continent, and three islands has been an enjoyable but arduous task. I have a number of people to thank for helping me get to the Ph.D. First I would like to thank Mum and Dad, Ken and Judy Little, who gave me those books on ancient history all those years ago and who passed on the history page of the daily newspaper. I d like to thank Gary Littlefair and (Mayor) Wayne Richards, both of whom kindled a love of history and literature. At university I was taught by a group of eighteenth-century enthusiasts who gave interesting and inspiring teaching. They were Gillian Russell, Jon Mee and Ian Higgins. They continued to help when I began my Ph.D, particularly Gillian. Bruce Kent and John Tillotson were two other undergraduate teachers who I thank for their teaching. Overseas, Peter Robb of SOAS passed on useful references for Duane s Indian career and also was a friendly face encouraging displaced Ph.D students at the British Library. Michael Durey has been a firm but fair supervisor and a warm and open hearted friend. He has known when to encourage and when to spur me on with well-placed criticism. He is someone I continue to learn from. I thank him deeply for his support, guidance, and help with the Ph.D. I would also like to thank the members of the History Programme at Murdoch University who have been welcoming and encouraging to a transcontinental interloper such as myself. Also, Ian Chambers help with the computing side has been much appreciated. I d like to thank my other historian friends as well, David Onnekink, Suchetana Chattopadhyay, Kevin Jones, Atilla Brilhante, Gijs Rommelse, and Tim Kundu who made my year in London both fruitful and intellectually enjoyable. Also, to Graeme Miles, Alicia Marchant, Danny Cussack, Martin Drum and Jane Grimes in Perth, thanks for your encouragement and help. Last, but first, with love I thank my wife Mary Besemeres and child Elizabeth, and my old and new family Ken and Judy, John and Anna, Naomi and Daniel, and Clare, for their unstinting encouragement and warm family life. Thanks all and especially Masha and Lizzy. ii

6 Abstract The thesis examines the American career of William Duane ( ) in the light of his earlier, and much less studied period in Ireland, England and India. It is the study of the development of one of America s pre-eminent newspaper editors. Although Duane is not a first-tier figure of the Early Republican period such as John Adams, Thomas Jefferson or Alexander Hamilton, he certainly fits comfortably within the second-tier with men such as James Thomson Callender, Tench Coxe, John Binns and William Cobbett. He is an important figure within the historiography on the Early Republican period which has come out in recent years. He has an important role in three recent and seminal works on the period by Durey, Wilson and Pasley: Transatlantic Radicals, United Irishmen, United States and The Tyranny of Printers. This is a study of the identity of Duane measured against his political change and shifting sense of self. It seeks to answer the question: Who was William Duane? The thesis probes the question in depth by looking at Duane s origins and then tracing his life in 1790s Philadelphia. The portrayal of Duane found in the recent historiography and in the first academic biography of Duane, Kim T. Phillips William Duane: A Radical Journalist in the Age of Jefferson, lets Duane s version of self rest too easily, without interrogating how he constructed his identity within an American political context for an American reading audience. For example, although Duane constructed himself as a citizen of the United States by birth, the thesis maintains that he was not an U.S. citizen at all but was born in Newfoundland and was by eighteenth-century definitions a British subject. The thesis offers a great deal more detailed archival research within the above framework. First, it develops Duane s familial relationships in his early life in much more detail than before. I have uncovered more details on his life from numerous sources, particularly letters, and a careful, textual search for any information on Duane s earlier career in Ireland and England in the 1780s which has been overlooked by previous researchers. The thesis then places this material in the context of the newspaper trade in 1780s Clonmel and London while building a narrative analysis of this period before moving on to India. Second, this thesis demonstrates Duane s links to the East India Company army. The importance of Duane s Indian career also lies in his being part of a wider chronology of deported editors and government suppression of the press within the period from 1780 to The place of Duane within an ignored history of radical migrations to India is also dealt with as is his emergence as a pro-revolutionary editor in Calcutta after the declaration of war in Third, the thesis uncovers a great deal more archival information on the period of Duane s membership of the London Corresponding Society and his editorship of the Telegraph a strongly pro-french newspaper in wartime London. This period was a short but crucial one for Duane as he witnessed first-hand the last real throes of a British revolutionary movement and the enactment of two important bills which sought to smother the L.C.S. and the other plebeian radical groups. Fourth, the thesis examines Duane s role in what has been perceived as a crucial turning point in American history the election of Thomas Jefferson to the presidency in The thesis seeks to understand what Duane s impact on American politics was and how his earlier career shaped his political outlook and his actions in America. It seeks to denativise the Early Republican Period by pointing out outside currents that Duane used in defining what Americanness was as opposed to his conceptualisation of Federalism and Britain. iii

7 Finally, the thesis argues that the story of William Duane is one of an eighteenthcentury editor s transoceanic search for a home. iv

8 Abbreviations BL BL Add. IOR PRO EIC LCS APS HSP British Library British Library Additional Manuscript India Office Records Public Record Office, London East India Company London Corresponding Society American Philosophical Society Historical Society of Pennsylvania v