The Autobiography of William Jerdan
William Taylor to William Jerdan, 8 February 1817
“Sun Office, 112, Strand, Feb. 8th,
1817.
“Sir,—
“You might well apologise to Mrs.
Taylor for your brutal insolence to her husband, but she
despises you too much to care for your manners. She only wants you to do
justice to her husband. You complain of provocation!!! Is not your absolute
tyranny over my property a continued provocation to me? Is your conduct to be
reconciled to any principle of justice, or any feeling of shame? You know you
acquired your power by accident. You never paid a
farthing towards it, but have drained it of a large sum. You know it is justly
my own paper, yet will you permit me to have the least control over it? Do not
you monopolise power in all directions? Might not I, living in ![]()
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the house, if I had a fair and just authority, he of the
utmost service in forwarding the paper, when you, perhaps, are not out of your
bed. Might not Mr. Carstairs, if any
discretionary power were entrusted to him, prepare for publication early,
render important service to the paper, and in doubtful cases should not I be at
hand to assist him? People will not believe that any man could tyrannise over
another man’s property, as you do over mine? Have you not, in many
instances, brought discredit upon the paper? Must not everything that I write
be submitted to your inspection, and, in spite of all the animosities which the
practice has occasioned, to your additions or alterations? Sir, it is insolent to alter even the
position of a comma of my writing. Do you not garble the
productions of official correspondents, and set your narrow judgment and scanty
knowledge against those who have official information? If this be not the most
horrible provocation, what is? Yet you complain of provocation. You call me a
beggar. You are then a beggar’s dependent, and live upon the credit of a
beggar’s property. But beggar, as you call me, if I had not forborne to
take my salary for two years, and Mr.
Heriot for the same period, how would you have gained the 800l. which you took out of the concern, and which,
according to a statement, which has been made out, you owe to the property at
this moment, besides 131l. 5s.
for French papers which you never procured, and 116l.
for the law expenses occasioned by your breach of covenant in trespassing upon
my department, in hiring writers without my permission? Have you not brought a
man who received nothing but kindness from me, and from whom I have received
written acknowledgments to that purpose—have you not brought him to insult me
at the office? After coming shamefully late to the office, do you not make it
often as a coffee-room ![]()
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and a gossiping mart, to the delay
of publication, and to the injury, and nearly destruction, of the paper? Yet
you presume to tell Mrs. Taylor of provocation. I most
heartily pity your poor wife, for her afflictions must be heightened by the
consideration that you bring all that she suffers on yourself by your conduct towards me. While you were responsible to
others you seemed to have some plea, but you now are to be considered as
responsible to me only. Is not your conduct arrogant,
insolent, and oppressive to the highest degree? As you never could suppose that
the arbitrators would confirm your assumed power, it might have been expected
that you would have abated of your sovereignty by degrees. But have you relaxed
at all? Thank God, I could never commit such conduct, or I should be as callous
as you are to the opinions of mankind. If you had conducted yourself with any
regard to my just rights, and like a gentleman, matters might have been
harmoniously arranged between us. People who have known me all my life, know
that I am far from being of a quarrelsome or unkind disposition; but they know
that I am firm in the maintenance of my rights. I have a wife and son to
support, and you are ruining the property which I hoped to be able to bequeath
to them. Can you offer any one plea in favour of your
conduct, or rather in palliation or excuse for it? and living upon the credit
of my property as you do, and not permitting me to have any share in the
management of it, dare you talk of provocation! Sir, do not give me much more provocation, for if you do, I will make a
brief but emphatic statement to the world, and then I believe your right will
soon be at an end. Reflect upon this letter before it is too late, and reform, otherwise, the Lord have mercy upon you.
J. B. Carstairs (1817 fl.)
The publisher of
The Sun newspaper. An death notice for a J. B.
Carstairs appears in the
Gentleman's Magazine for November
1845.
John Heriot (1760-1833)
After education at Edinburgh University he served in the marines and pursued a
journalistic career in London writing for
The Times,
The Oracle, and
The World before becoming
editor of
The Sun (1792) and the
True Briton
(1793).
William Jerdan (1782-1869)
Scottish journalist who for decades edited the
Literary Gazette;
he was author of
Autobiography (1853) and
Men I
have Known (1866).
