Frith as “Madman” and “unfortunate stone-thrower”

Although John Frith expressed his grievance against the British government using the language of rights and social contracts, his cause was personal, not political.

That didn’t stop his case from being mixed into the factional politics of 1790, however.

Ten days after Frith threw a stone at King George III’s gilded carriage, the caricaturist Isaac Cruikshank issued the print shown above, titled “Frith the Madman Hurling Treason at the King,” shown courtesy of the Yale Centre for British Art.

King George is at the right, riding by obliviously. A small fiddle-playing demon rides on his carriage and mounted guards follow.

In the middle of the picture, two men are seizing a third who holds a hatful of rocks. That central figure doesn’t look like Firth, however. Instead, it’s a caricature of the elderly Edmund Burke, bald, bespectacled, and ragged from being out of power. One of the men stopping him is dressed as a Bow Street Runner. The other looks like George, the Prince of Wales, as the British Museum expounds.

At the left are figures of a sailor and a woman carrying a basket, dismayed at the arrest. The woman’s five-o’clock shadow reveals her to be a lampoon of Charles James Fox, another opposition leader. The sailor looks like Fox’s ally Richard Brinsley Sheridan.

The message of this image is therefore that the opposition Whigs in Parliament metaphorically throwing rocks at the king.

Another, cruder image came from William Dent, shown here through the British Museum. It contrasted Frith “the unfortunate stone-thrower,” making “a follish throw for full pay” as an army officer, with the impeached India administrator Warren Hastings. As a “fortunate stone thrower,” Hastings is tossing diamonds as bribes “for a full P-rd-n.”

In this print Frith labeled is “Gulliver the little in Brob-dignag,” confronting the giants of the king and his bodyguards. In contrast, Hastings is “Gulliver the great in Lilliput,” lording over the grasping king and queen and Baron Thurlow, the former attorney general and lord high chancellor. George III and Thurlow were supporting Hastings in his ongoing impeachment trial.

The Member of Parliament who led the case against Hastings was Edmund Burke—the same man Cruikshank depicted as Frith in his print. Thus, artists on opposite sides of the political debate used Frith’s attack on the king’s carriage to convey contradictory messages.

“I believe absolutely that he is totally deranged”

One goal of the attorneys defending John Frith against the charge of treason, as yesterday’s recap showed, was to let him express his own delusional ideas in the courtroom. To give him enough rope to not hang himself, as it were.

The other was to expose members of the jury to respectable people saying they believed Frith was insane. To that end they called:

• Rev. John Villette, ordinary of Newgate Prison: “The first time I saw him I really thought from the appearance he had, that he was deranged in his mind.”
• Sheriff William Newman: “I believe absolutely that he is totally deranged, and not in the use of his senses for ten minutes together; every day I saw him he was so, and of that there is not a doubt.”
• Mr. Fuller, who spent Christmas Eve two years before listening to Frith: “I thought that the speech of a madman.”

The defense counsel also asked Frith about his thoughts on the auctioneer David Burnsall, apparently a family friend who had helped the defendant obtain his army commissions. Frith replied:

he took an extraordinary liberty in putting into the Public Advertiser, the third of February, a letter, dated the first, declaring me insane, a most extraordinary liberty; I thought it prudent to keep a copy: I have made memorandums, but they have been taken from me by Colonel [Jeffery] Amherst, the same as Mr. [John] Wilkes’s papers were seized, a kind of alteration of the laws of the land, a kind of scheme to make a man appear insane, to totally disguise, to undo the liberty of the British subject; in fact it is such a concealed evil that I do not know where it will end.

[Counsel:] Had Mr. Burnsell any ill will to you?

None at all; he was only employed to hide the mutiny that those applauses of the clergymen had occasioned; he went to a person that lives with Mrs. Dowdswell, in Upper Brook-street; he had a letter, and was perhaps see’d; the clergyman declared me as a God, the body of the people as a man insane; myself applying to the King merely to get my birth [berth] again; when I went to my friend Mr. Burnsell, I spoke of no powers of God or Christ.

That exchange had the effect of putting Burnsall’s opinion on the record along with those of the witnesses in court.

With all that evidence, the jury’s decision is no surprise, though Frith continued to try to waylay the process:

Court. Gentlemen of the Jury,…the question the Court proposes to you now, is, Whether he is at this time in a sane or an insane state of mind?

Prisoner. Permit me to speak, the physician is the most principal person, who has visited me as a friend, he can tell more than from any other private person’s declarations what ever; I appeal as a British subject.

Jury. My Lord, we are all of opinion that the prisoner is quite insane.

Court. He must be remanded for the present.

Prisoner. Then I must call on that physician, who said, on the 19th, I was perfectly in my senses.

The prisoner was then removed from the bar.

John Frith’s trial at Newgate had involved Britain’s lord chief justice, two other judges, the attorney general, the solicitor general, and half a dozen more London lawyers. In contrast, after Rebecca O’Hara and Margaret Nicholson lunged at King George III in 1778 and 1786, respectively, the authorities quickly deemed them insane without trials and clapped them inside Bethlem Hospital (shown above).

I think the major difference is that John Frith, for all of his obviously delusional talk, was a gentleman—raised in wealth, well connected, a former army officer. O’Hara and Nicholson were not only women but working-class. The legal system put a lot of resources into respecting Frith’s rights as an Englishman.

According to Joanne Major and Sarah Murden’s All Things Georgian, Frith continued to benefit from his genteel status. The judges sent him from Newgate to Bethlem, but on 17 December “he was released to his friends and disappeared from view except for his inclusion in the army lists as a half-pay officer up and including the 1806 list after which, presumably, his death occurred.”

COMING UP: The political side.

“A most extraordinary sermon upon me, as if I was a God”

As I described yesterday, John Frith refused to let his lawyers delay his trial for treason in April 1790, so the judges decided to start by making the session a trial of Frith’s sanity.

Even before the jury was sworn in, Frith started talking about how various authorities had met him: “the king’s physician,” “Lord Camden” of the privy council, an “apothecary,” and “my own physician, Dr. [William] Heberden.” Those men said he was “fit to meet my trial.” He’d made memorandums of all those visits.

Justice John Heath replied simply, “The jury will take notice of that.” Whether he meant the reported opinions of those experts or Frith’s behavior in the courtroom is not clear.

Frith’s attorneys Samuel Shepherd and William Garrow then asked him some questions and let him express himself at more length. For instance:

Mr. Garrow. Will you have the goodness, Mr. Frith, to state to the jury the circumstance that took place on your arrival at Liverpool, about the clergyman.

Prisoner. When I first arrived at Liverpool I perceived I had some powers like those which St. Paul had; and the sun that St. Paul gives a description of in the Testament; an extraordinary power that came down upon me, the power of Christ; in consequence of my persecution and being ill used, the public wanted to receive me as a must extraordinary kind of a man; they would have received me in any manner that I pleased; when I went to St. Thomas’s church I was there surprised to hear the clergyman preach a most extraordinary sermon upon me, as if I was a God: I found my friends wanted me to support that kind of fanaticism in this country; this sermon was printed afterwards by [William] Eyre, the printer at Warrington; when I came to London to the king concerning some military business, I told him nothing about any supernatural abilities, or the power of God; when I went to the Infirmary over Westminster-bridge, to the Asylum, I was surprised to hear General [George] Washington’s late Chaplain, Mr. [Jacob] Duche, he said, I remember the words he said, “see him clothed in grace,” pointing to me; there were some supernatural appearances at that time, therefore I could wish the privy council, when I came to England, or the Parliament, might be witnesses that I did not want to set up any kind of powers to the public; but there are such extraordinary appearances that attend me at this moment, that it is singular; and all I do daily is to make memorandums, daily to prove myself in my senses: some friends in Cheshire wanted me to set up some kind of fanaticism, some new branch of religion.

The Rev. Jacob Duché (shown here) preached to the First Continental Congress, which included Washington. In July 1776, the Second Continental Congress elected him its chaplain. However, when Gen. William Howe seized Philadelphia, Duché switched allegiances and wrote to Washington at Valley Forge, urging him to surrender. The minister soon moved to Britain and stayed there until 1792. Though he had never been Washington’s personal or military chaplain, Duché was evidently known in Britain for that link. 

Frith’s counsel was particularly eager to have him speak about a pain in his ear:

Mr. Garrow. Would you be so good, Mr. Frith, to inform the Court, as you have an opportunity now, of the complaint you made to me of the effect your confinement has upon you, and the pain in your ear?

Prisoner. In respect to the body of people, St. Paul when he was at Jerusalem, the same kind of power then came down on the public; there is both a kind of good and evil power which we are all liable to in this world; in consequence of that I feel myself in a particularly disagreeable situation in confinement; I am under a state of suffocation almost, the divine ordinances weighing so very low down that I am entirely reduced to a shadow almost, that is all to me as if it was a death seemingly, I am so in a state of confinement.

Garrow asked twice more about the ear pain before Frith finally explained:

I supposed it merely as a triffling thing, but that complaint arises from a power of witchcraft, which existed about a hundred years ago, in this country; there is a power which women are now afflicted with; there is a power that rules now, that women can torment men, if they are in a room; over your head, they may annoy you by speaking in your ear; I have had a noise in my ear like speech; it is in the power of women, to annoy men publickly, even throughout the whole continent.

Mr. Garrow. Could you satisfy one of the Jury, that such a noise exists in your ear at this time?

Prisoner. That there is a noise in my ear at this time?

Mr. Garrow. Yes.

Prisoner. No, I am free from it now.

Mr. Garrow. Oh! you are free from it now?

Prisoner. Yes, but it is the power and effects, of what they call witchcraft, or some kind of communication between women and men; but I have remained such a chaste man for these four years, that it has fallen upon me particularly…

The defense attorneys thus established what modern psychiatrists would call multiple delusions.

TOMORROW: Hearing from other witnesses.

“Justice could not be attained without reasonable delay”

Last month I left John Frith in Newgate prison, about to be put on trial for treason after people had seen him throw a rock at King George III’s coach on 21 Jan 1790.

As you recall, Frith had been a lieutenant in the royal army during the American War and after, but was cashiered after he had a divine revelation that Jamaica wasn’t real. Or, if we adopt his commanders’ narrow perspective, after he went mad.

Frith’s trial began on 17 April. Three judges presided: Baron Kenyon, the Lord Chief Justice of England (shown here); John Heath, known for handling criminal trials; and Sir Beaumont Hotham, who was a baron of the exchequer but would eventually become a baron in the House of Lords, just to confuse matters.

The defense attorneys were Samuel Shepherd and William Garrow. They both turned thirty that month, but they were well regarded; each would eventually serve as attorney general of the U.K. They started by asking for a postponement, saying, “we think there is some very important evidence which might be procured before the next sessions.”

However, when the lawyers broached that idea with Frith himself, he responded, “I object to it, on account of my health, being in a bad state through long confinement. I should rather meet it now: it is depriving a subject of his liberty, and endangering his health.”

The attorney general, Sir Archibald McDonald, said he was fine with a postponement: “I shall have no objection to give the gentlemen such time as will enable them to collect such evidence as they may chuse.” He was being assisted by the solicitor general, Sir John Scott; the appropriately named attorney Edward Law; and John Silvester, soon to be made a judge in London. Both Scott and Law eventually became Britain’s lord chief justice.

Frith still insisted on going through with the trial. He added, “whoever dares to oppose me in that respect, I will represent him to the legislature, or some member of parliament; either to General North, or some gentleman whom I have the honour of knowing.” (I can’t identify “General North.”)

The judges themselves then stepped in and ruled, “because justice could not be attained without reasonable delay interposing, therefore it must stand over till next sessions.”

And Frith declared:

I do not admit of it. And I shall make an application to parliament, that I have been here three months in disagreeable confinement; and the king has broke the mutual obligation between him and the subject: and the assault is of such a simple kind of manner; and what I have met with is of such a nature, that I desire to speak by way of extenuation, and to plead guilty or not guilty to the facts. I then shall make an application as being illegally detained in prison, that you will not admit a British subject to plead to the indictment: I therefore shall make an application to the legislature, that you are violating the laws of this kingdom. I will not put it in the power of the gentlemen that are employed for me to put it off.

A significant portion of the kingdom’s top legal minds were in that courtroom agreeing that the trial should be delayed for the defendant’s sake, and Frith absolutely refused. So the judges took another approach. Lord Chief Justice Kenyon stated:

I think there ought now to be an enquiry made, touching the sanity of this man at this time; whether he is in a situation of mind to say what his grounds of defence here are. I know it is untrodden ground, though it is constitutional: then get a jury together to enquire into the present state of his mind: the twelve men that are there, will do.

The criminal trial thus turned into an inquiry on whether Frith was sane.

TOMORROW: Testimony.

(Incidentally, Wikipedia tells us that Sir Archibald Macdonald was the first baronet of his line, as well as the son of a seventh baronet and brother of an eighth. How was that possible? Because Macdonald’s brother, father, and ancestors were baronets of Nova Scotia, but for his services Sir Archibald was given the same title within the English peerage.)

“A man of genteel but frantic appearance”

John Frith, formerly a lieutenant in the 37th and then the 10th Regiment of Foot, returned to Britain in the late 1780s, convinced he had been unfairly pushed out of the army.

And all because he, while serving in the West Indies, had a divine vision that convinced him Jamaica wasn’t real, and the British government was covering that up. 

In December 1787, according to Steve Poole in The Politics of Regicide in England, 1760–1850, Frith petitioned the House of Commons to “desire His Majesty to enforce his executive power of martial prerogative” and put him back on the rolls.

Frith then appears to have traveled around. I see references to him arriving in Liverpool and visiting Holland, and he commissioned a memorial at his mother’s burying-place in Hempstead.

At the end of December 1789, Frith was back in London promulgating a “manifesto” and a Protest Against the Democracy of the People of the Kingdom of Great Britain. He pinned the latter paper “on the whalebone in the courtyard of St. James’s” and at the Royal Exchange, press reports said. What’s more:

he publicly read it, and, in the most wild and extravagant manner, exhorted the persons who heard him, to espouse his cause, and not to see the constitution of their country subverted.

In Frith’s mind, his dismissal from the army had become a constitutional offense because the king, privy council, and Parliament were shirking their duty to address his petition. He warned:

After waiting upwards of four months and no attention paid, I don’t hesitate to pronounce our Ancient Constitution has given a mortal blow to her libertys and we have only the outward form of government.

Frith compared the situation to “Sweden in 1772,” when King Gustaf III led a coup to introduce absolute monarchy. No matter that Frith was asking the king to act absolutely on his behalf.

On 21 Jan 1790, Frith visited the Treasury Solicitors’ Office for help, only to be turned away. In St. James’s Park he saw George III ride by in his gilded carriage to open a session of Parliament. Frith waved a roll of paper at the king, who by tradition accepted petitions from his subjects. But then the former officer shouted, “You tyrant! You villain! You are going to be hanged like a rogue, as you are guarded by a parcel of rogues of constables!”

The newspapers reported, “a person of genteel appearance threw a large stone with great violence at the carriage, but fortunately missed the royal person.” People immediately seized “a man of genteel but frantic appearance” with “a bunch of orange-coloured ribband” sewn in the middle of his cockade. The press reported on one eyewitness:

Samuel Spurway…saw the prisoner, when his majesty’s carriage was passing him, throw a stone with all his force against it, the stone hit the coach about two inches below the glass, but his majesty was so engaged in conversation as not to observe it. The stone, Mr. Spurway picked up, and found it large and heavy.

On questioning the prisoner as to his motives for so horrid an attempt, he replied, ‘He was very sorry the stone had not hit the king!’ Mr. Spurway ordered Jordan, a constable, to seize him, who also saw him throw the stone.

That prisoner was, of course, John Frith. On searching him, the constables found twopence and a bag containing a copy of his manifesto. Frith identified himself as a former army officer and said he was seeking “a public examination” to restore his good name.

The authorities took Frith to the Whitehall office of the Duke of Leeds, secretary of state for foreign affairs. In crowded many more royal officials: “the lord president, lord privy seal, chancellor of the exchequer, duke of Richmond, two secretaries of state, earl of Chatham, lords Hawkesbury and Kenyon, master of the rolls, attorney and solicitor generals, and sir Sampson Wright,” chief magistrate at Bow Street.

The constables described seeing Frith throw the stone. An unidentified female relative “spoke strongly to the appearance of the prisoner’s derangement of mind, previous to his committing this rash act.” Other people who knew Frith also answered questions about him.

As for Frith himself, he was recorded as telling the magistrate:

Until His Majesty is better advised and gives a Martial Redress…the Liberty of the British Soldier and Subject are Infringed by Despotism which may end in Anarchy and Confusion. . . . our chartered rights in the Tower will Supply the Deficiency to Carry on the Law of the Land. Now the Compact is Disolved as in the case of James II, June 1688.

The august council decided to commit John Frith to Newgate Prison and put him on trial for treason.

COMING UP: Frith at the bar.

“He wished to reveal what the government wished to conceal”

John Frith was born in Westminster in 1752, according to Joanne Major and Sarah Murden’s All Things Georgian: Tales from the Long Eighteenth Century.

Frith was the younger son of a brandy merchant and veteran of the Life Guards, but by the end of 1771 his parents and older brother had died, so he inherited the family money.

Some reports say Frith dissipated that fortune, but he retained his genteel education and enough money that, with a push from Chelsea businessman David Burnsall, he bought the rank of ensign in the 37th Regiment of Foot in March 1774.

Frith was promoted to lieutenant the next year, and in 1776 the 37th was part of the Howe brothers’ invasion of New York. An item published in The British Mercury, or Annals of History in March 1790 stated:

The Major and Captain of this regiment, when in America, had, by retreating from the enemy, affixed some stains on their military character; and Mr. Frith, in a moment of irritation, or imprudence, was unguarded enough to reproach them for their dastardly behaviour. This gave rise to an implacable dislike, and brought on a series of ill treatment, which, as his feelings were exquisite, obliged him to quit the service on half-pay.

Lt. Frith retired from the army in March 1778, as noted in Gen. Sir William Howe’s orders. But four years later he rejoined as an officer of the 10th Regiment, which was posted to the West Indies. That stretch didn’t prove to be any more successful.

A man named Fuller later testified about hearing Frist complain about “his ill treatment by Major Amherst, and Ensign Steward, in the West Indies.” I believe these men appear in the 1791 Army List as Lt. Col. Jeffery Amherst (c. 1752–1815, illegitimate son of the field marshal who had led the British army at the end of the French and Indian War) and Lt. Thomas Stewart of the 10th.

As Fuller recalled:

[Frist] declared then the reason he was ill treated, was, that he wished to reveal what the government wished to conceal; for that he saw a cloud come down from Heaven, that it cemented into a rock, and out of that sprung a false island of Jamaica, and because he wished to reveal it, he had, he said, been confined one hundred and sixty-three days

According to Major and Murden, Frith’s commanders asked him to leave in 1786 because they thought he was going insane. He was officially listed on the half-pay roles as a lieutenant from the “1st Foot, 2d Bat.” among the “Additional Companies, reduced in 1783.”

In 1788 Frith went back to Hempstead, where his mother was buried. He commissioned a memorial for his family in that church, including his own name among them. Under the emblem of a sun in a double triangle beneath a rainbow were the words:

And there shall be a standard of Truth erected in the west, which shall overpower the enemy.—May 12, 1786, This glorious phaenomena in Sol of the Almighty came down for my protection in latitude 15, on the Bahama sandbanks, and where the spiritual cities of Sodom and Gomorrha came up in the West Indies. Vide Revelations.

Your dying embers shall again revive,
The phoenix souls of Friths are still alive.

One wonders what the stone carver and churchmen thought of those words, but Frith was paying the bill.

TOMORROW: Lt. Frith and the king.

(The photo above shows a recreated 37th Regiment active in the late twentieth century, courtesy of Flintlock and Tomahawk.)