We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 January 2017
How did the character John Bull come to be so widely recognized as a stand-in for the British government or people? John Arbuthnot created the character in 1712 in a series of five pamphlets criticizing the British role in the War of the Spanish Succession, and for fifty years the character was mentioned only in references to Arbuthnot. In the late eighteenth century, John Bull began to appear in newspaper articles relating to other political contexts, eventually appearing in satires on all manner of British policies and characteristics, from taxes and the economy to xenophobia and imperialism. This essay argues that the American colonists adapted the character to their own purposes. This analysis contributes to the understanding of the content, political engagement, and spread of the press in eighteenth-century Britain and America. It also reveals one way that writers about British national identity and its symbolism accounted for an increasingly diverse global empire that could not be represented adequately by a single figurehead.
1 Hunt, Tamara L., Defining John Bull: Political Caricature and National Identity in Late Georgian England (Burlington, 2003), 12 Google Scholar.
2 Taylor, Miles, “John Bull and the Iconography of Public Opinion in England, c. 1712–1929,” Past and Present 134, no. 1 (February 1992): 93–128, at 104CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 This is the focus of Hunt, Defining John Bull and is also covered at length in Taylor, “John Bull and the Iconography of Public Opinion in England, c. 1712–1929,” as well as Franklin, Alexandra, “John Bull in a Dream: Fear and Fantasy in the Visual Satires of 1803,” in Resisting Napoleon: The British Response to the Threat of Invasion, 1797–1815, ed. Philp, Mark (Aldershot, 2006), 125–40Google Scholar. On the visual Bull in the 1760s, see Morgan, Winifred, An American Icon: Brother Jonathan and American Identity (Newark, DE, 1988), 68 Google Scholar; Carretta, Vincent, George III and the Satirists from Hogarth to Byron (Athens, GA, 1990), 301–7Google Scholar.
4 Pasley, Jeffrey L., The Tyranny of Printers: Newspaper Politics in the Early American Republic (Charlottesville, 2001), 33–40 Google Scholar; Warner, William B., “Communicating Liberty: The Newspapers of the British Empire as a Matrix for the American Revolution,” ELH 72, no. 2 (Summer 2005): 339–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the growth of papers and their partisanship in the early republic, see Daniel, Marcus, Scandal and Civility: Journalism and the Birth of American Democracy (Oxford, 2009), esp. 9–13 Google Scholar.
5 See Rogers, Nicholas, “From Vernon to Wolfe: Empire and Identity in the British Atlantic World of the Mid-Eighteenth Century,” in The Culture of the Seven Years’ War: Empire, Identity, and the Arts in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World, ed. Bruyn, Frans de and Regan, Shaun (Toronto, 2014), 25–52, at 27–29Google Scholar.
6 Brown, Richard D., Knowledge is Power: The Diffusion of Information in Early America, 1700–1865 (Oxford, 1989), 115 and 127–28Google Scholar.
7 All five pamphlets were originally printed in London, 1712.
8 For example, see The History Of Prince Mirabel's Infancy, Rise and Disgrace (London, 1712)Google Scholar; The History Of The Proceedings Of The Mandarins and Proatins Of The Britomartian Empire, 2nd ed. (London, 1713)Google Scholar; A New Voyage To The Island of Fools, Representing the Policy, Government, And Present State Of The Stultitians (London, 1713)Google Scholar; The Impartial Secret History of Arlus, Fortunatus, and Odolphus, Ministers of State To The Empress of Grand-Insula (London, 1710)Google Scholar; The Testimonies Of several Citizens of Fickleborough, In the Kingdom of Fairy-Land (London, 1713)Google Scholar; and The Present State Of Fairy-Land (London, 1713)Google Scholar.
9 Although originally published anonymously, they were attributed to Arbuthnot in his lifetime by both Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope in personal correspondence. See Arbuthnot, John, The History of John Bull, ed. Bower, Alan W. and Erickson, Robert A. (Oxford, 1976), xxii–xxiii CrossRefGoogle Scholar. All citations to the Arbuthnot pamphlets come from this edition.
10 Part three refers to English-Scottish relations more generally in the first decade of the eighteenth century. See Alker, Sharon, “John Arbuthnot's Family Ties: Anglo-Scottish Relations in the John Bull Pamphlets,” Scottish Studies Review 9, no. 2 (Autumn 2008): 1–20 Google Scholar.
11 Bower and Erikson, introduction to The History of John Bull, lxix.
12 On the psychology of national character, see Smith, Robert J., “In Defense of National Character,” Theory and Psychology 18, no. 4 (August 2008): 465–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Farber, Maurice L., “English and Americans: A Study in National Character,” Journal of Psychology 32, no. 2 (July 1951): 241–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
13 Mandler, Peter, The English National Character: The History of an Idea from Edmund Burke to Tony Blair (New Haven, 2006), 138 Google Scholar.
14 Arbuthnot, The History of John Bull, 9.
15 Ibid., 57.
16 For classic takes, see Aitken, George Atherton, The Life and Works of John Arbuthnot, M. D. (Oxford, 1892), 45 Google Scholar; Dobrée, Bonamy, English Literature in the Early Eighteenth Century, 1700–1740 (Oxford, 1959), 97 Google Scholar.
17 For arguments of complexity, see Köster, P. J., “Arbuthnot's Use of Quotation and Parody in His Account of the Sacheverell Affair,” Philological Quarterly 48, no. 2 (April 1969): 201–11, at 211Google Scholar, and Angus Ross, s.v., “Arbuthnot, John (bap. 1667, d. 1735),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004), http://www.oxforddnb.com/index/101000610/John-Arbuthnot, accessed July 2016. For a reading of its simplicity, see Knight, Charles A., The Literature of Satire (Cambridge, 2004), 62–63 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
18 Arbuthnot does not appear in Sitter, John, Arguments of Augustan Wit (Cambridge, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bogel, Fredric V., The Difference Satire Makes: Rhetoric and Reading from Jonson to Byron (Ithaca, 2001)Google Scholar; or Rabb, Melinda Alliker, Satire and Secrecy in English Literature from 1650 to 1750 (New York, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and he is mentioned only in footnotes and a single quotation in the text of Rawson, Claude, Satire and Sentiment, 1660–1830 (Cambridge, 1994)Google Scholar.
19 John Bull's Last Will and Testament, As it was Drawn by a Welch Attorney (London, 1713), 16 Google Scholar. A later example of a spurious addition is The History of John Bull, Part III (London, 1744)Google Scholar, which carries the satire forward to comment on events in the period 1714–27.
20 Swift, Jonathan and Pope, Alexander, Miscellanies in Prose and Verse, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (Dublin, 1728)Google Scholar; Miscellanies, Containing The History of John Bull (Dublin, 1746)Google Scholar; and The History of John Bull and Poems on several Occasions (London, [c. 1750]).
21 The History Of The Jacobite Clubs (London, 1712), 12 Google Scholar. For other examples of similar references, see Britons strike home. The Absolute Necessity Of Impeaching Somebody (London, 1715), 5 Google Scholar, and The Windsor Medley (London, 1731), 36 Google Scholar.
22 The Humourist: Being Essays Upon Several Subjects, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (London, 1735), 2:99Google Scholar. For other examples of similar references to John Bull as an “allegory” or “invective,” see Observations On The Report Of The Committee of Secrecy (London, 1715), 14 Google Scholar; A Key To The Lock (London, 1715), 7 Google Scholar; A Compleat Collection Of all the Verses, Essays, Letters and Advertisements, Which Have been occasioned by the Publication of Three Volumes of Miscellanies, by Pope and Company (London, 1728), 4 Google Scholar; and An Essay On Ridicule (London, 1753), 35 Google Scholar.
23 To arrive at this conclusion, I performed key-word searches of Eighteenth Century Collections Online, the Burney Papers from the British Library, the Evans Early American Imprints Series 1, and the Early American Newspapers databases, then examined each instance of “John Bull.” Most examples prior to 1760 are actually real people who happen to have that name.
24 Hill, Aaron, The Works Of The Late Aaron Hill, Esq., 4 vols. (London, 1753), 2:338Google Scholar. The letter is dated 28 July 1748.
25 An Address of Thanks To The Broad-Bottoms, For The Good Things they have done, And The Evil Things they have not done, Since their Elevation (London, 1745), 12 Google Scholar.
26 On the broad-bottom ministry, see Langford, Paul, A Polite and Commercial People: England 1727–1783 (Oxford, 1989), 194–97Google Scholar.
27 The History of the Proceedings in the Case Of Margaret, Commonly called Peg, only Lawful Sister to John Bull (London, 1761)Google Scholar. Although generally ascribed to Adam Ferguson, Raynor, David R. argues convincingly for David Hume's authorship. Sister Peg: A Pamphlet Hitherto Unknown by David Hume, ed. Raynor, David (Cambridge, 1982), 3–10 Google Scholar.
28 History of the Proceedings in the Case Of Margaret, 5.
29 Taylor, “John Bull and the Iconography of Public Opinion in England,” 102. For a detailed account, see Anderson, Fred, Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754–1766 (New York, 2000), 400–502 Google Scholar.
30 See Butler, Jon, Becoming America: The Revolution before 1776 (Cambridge, MA, 2000), 234–35Google Scholar, and Anderson, Crucible of War, 664–87. For standard accounts of the Stamp Act's influence, see Morgan, Edmund S. and Morgan, Helen M., The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution (Chapel Hill, 1953)Google Scholar; Gipson, Lawrence Henry, The Coming of the Revolution, 1763–1775 (New York, 1954)Google Scholar.
31 The stamp tax in effect in Britain, 30 George II, c. 19, charged three halfpence for a newspaper of one sheet (4 pages), while the tax presented to the colonists charged just one penny for a newspaper. See Smith, Jeffery A., Printers and Press Freedom: The Ideology of Early American Journalism (Oxford, 1988), 136–38Google Scholar and Siebert, Fredrick Seaton, Freedom of the Press in England, 1476–1776: The Rise and Decline of Government Controls (Urbana, 1952), 320–21Google Scholar.
32 6 George III, c. 12. Subtitled “An Act for the better securing the dependency of his Majesty's dominions in America upon the crown and parliament of Great Britain.”
33 Butler, Becoming America, 1–7 and 230–35.
34 The first newspaper was Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick. On the earliest American newspapers and the British papers that they imitated, see Clark, Charles E., The Public Prints: The Newspaper in Anglo-American Culture, 1665–1740 (New York, 1994)Google Scholar. See also Mott, Frank Luther, American Journalism, A History: 1690–1960, 3rd ed. (New York, 1962)Google Scholar.
35 Tanselle, G. Thomas, “Some Statistics on American Printing, 1764–1783,” in The Press and the American Revolution, ed. by Bailyn, Bernard and Hench, John B. (Boston, 1981), 315–63, at 332 and 337Google Scholar.
36 Pasley, Tyranny of Printers, 33. See also Schlesinger, Arthur M., Prelude to Independence: The Newspaper War on Britain, 1764–1776 (New York, 1958), esp. chapters 4 and 5Google Scholar.
37 Mott, American Journalism, 74; Morgan and Morgan, The Stamp Act Crisis, 188.
38 See Copeland, David A., Colonial American Newspapers: Character and Content (Newark, DE, 1997)Google Scholar.
39 Newport Mercury, 29 July 1765, 3.
40 Pennsylvania Journal, 12 September 1765, 1.
41 “Dr. Franklin’s Pieces in Behalf of North-America,” Pennsylvania Chronicle, 23–26 March 1767, 33. Also in The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 13 (New Haven, 1954–present), online ed., 44.
42 On British papers printing news about America, see Barker, Hannah, Newspapers, Politics and English Society, 1695–1855 (Harlow, 2000), 156–60Google Scholar; Hinkhouse, Fred Junkin, The Preliminaries of the American Revolution as Seen in the English Press 1763–1775 (New York, 1926), esp. chap. 3Google Scholar.
43 London Chronicle or Universal Evening Post, 2–5 February 1765, 7.
44 Public Advertiser, 20 February 1767, 2. See also an article from 1769 on how “John Bull very naturally wished to give his countryman the lead” in an overseas commission, in the Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, 25 July 1769, 4.
45 General Evening Post, 22–24 January 1771, 4.
46 London Chronicle, 3–6 April 1766, 4. It purports to be just a “specimen,” but no longer work survives.
47 Fliegelman, Jay, Prodigals and Pilgrims: The American Revolution against Patriarchal Authority, 1750–1800 (Cambridge, 1982), 117 Google Scholar.
48 Thomas, Peter D. G., Tea Party to Independence: The Third Phase of the American Revolution, 1773–1776 (Oxford, 1991), esp. 26–61 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
49 Bickham, Troy, Making Headlines: The American Revolution as Seen through the British Press (DeKalb, 2009), 60 Google Scholar.
50 The letter is signed “Murray,” supposedly of the “Office of Imports and Exports in Boston.” New-York Journal, 21 July 1774, 3.
51 Royal American Gazette, 22 September 1778, 2.
52 Freeman's Journal: Or, The North-American Intelligencer, 19 December 1781, 4.
53 “John Moore, a Scotchman,” New-Jersey Gazette, 6 February 1782, 1.
54 Thomas's The Massachusetts Spy, Or, Worcester Gazette, 6 February 1783, 4.
55 Vermont Gazette, Or, Freemen's Depository, 28 August 1783, 3. Originally from the Gazette des Bijoux.
56 Reprinted in Dunlap's Pennsylvania Packet, 9 January 1775, 3. The source cited is the London Gazette.
57 Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, 21 February 1775, 4.
58 Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser, 2 August 1775, 4.
59 London Evening-Post, 6–8 January 1778, 4.
60 Reprinted in the radical Pennsylvania Journal, 16 August 1783, 2. The article is cited as “from London.”
61 Public Advertiser, 1 April 1773, 2; Craftsman, 7 May 1774, 1.
62 London Chronicle, 7–9 July 1774, 1; Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser, 9 November 1776, 3.
63 On Bull as an animal (an actual bull) in political cartoons, see Hunt, Defining John Bull, 144–49.
64 Belknap, Jeremy, The Foresters, An American Tale: Being A Sequel To The History Of John Bull the Clothier (Boston, 1792)Google Scholar. For an explanation of Belknap's allegory, see Hastings, George E., “John Bull and His American Descendants,” American Literature 1, no. 1 (March 1929): 40–68 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
65 Eitner, Walter H., “Jeremy Belknap's The Foresters: A Thrice-Told Tale,” Early American Literature 14, no. 2 (Fall 1979): 156–62, at 156Google Scholar; Kirsch, George B., “Jeremy Belknap: Man of Letters in the Young Republic,” New England Quarterly 54, no. 1 (March 1981): 33–53, at 49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
66 Belknap, The Foresters, 10–11.
67 Ibid., 110–11.
68 Ibid., 113.
69 Ibid., 201.
70 Ibid., 203–4.
71 Paulding, James Kirke, The Diverting History Of John Bull And Brother Jonathan (New York, 1812)Google Scholar.
72 Ibid., 3–4.
73 Ibid., 15.
74 Ibid., 99.
75 Irving, Washington, The Sketch Book Of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (New York, 1819), 248 Google Scholar.
76 Gartner, Dennis D., “The Influence of James Kirke Paulding's Diverting History on Washington Irving's Sketch ‘John Bull,’” Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 67 (1973): 310–14, at 314Google Scholar.
77 Irving, The Sketch Book, 249, 252, 255–56.
78 See, for example, the piece about “the knowing ones” who at election time will “ridicule the gullibility of John Bull.” Liverpool Mercury, 14 March 1820, 8.
79 Reprinted in Trewman's Exeter Flying Post or Plymouth and Cornish Advertiser, 3 August 1820, 2.
