The Protester (periodical)

The Protester was a short-lived British political weekly published in London from 2 June to 10 November 1753. Printed for J. Bouquet in Paternoster Row and associated with the Bedford Whigs, it was edited and largely written by James Ralph under the pseudonym “Issachar Barebone, one of the People,” and carried the subtitle “On Behalf of the People.” The paper took a critical stance toward the Pelham ministry.

The periodical set out an explicit theory of parliamentary opposition, arguing that popular interposition should be exercised periodically to preserve constitutional rights. It treated liberty of the press (and the allied liberty of the stage) as fundamental, urged vigilance by “every Lover of Truth and Liberty,” and opposed a peacetime standing army in favour of a militia. The opening number posed a Hobbesian question drawn from the frontispiece to Leviathan, and the second issue diagnosed “the great disorder of the nation” as a decay of public morality. Within Bedford-Whig politics the paper also campaigned against the Jewish Naturalization Act.

Ralph sought legal assurances before publication, having seen his earlier periodical The Remembrancer silenced in 1749 after its printer was arrested. During the run Henry Pelham wrote that Ralph’s attacks “gave [him] not the least concern,” yet by early November terms were set for a Treasury pension on condition that Ralph withdraw from political writing. The final number of 10 November announced closure (“blowing on a Dead Coal … lay down the Bellows”), and thereafter payments were made at Michaelmas and Lady Day.

The title is sometimes misspelled “The Protestor” in later secondary literature; contemporary issues consistently use “The Protester”.