John Burk, John Daly Burk, 1794
John Burk was placed in Dublin University at a young age by an uncle, though this bare statement tells us little. He was tried for heresy at Dublin University in 1794 aged 22 or 23 (his birth date is not certain).
The only account of Burk’s trial I have found is his self-published defence: The Trial of John Burk, Late of Trinity College, for heresy and Blasphemy, Before the Board of Senior Fellows. 1794 Page numbers relate to this text. (Reproduction, Making of Modern Law print edn, BiblioLife)
Perhaps a fuller account (and from another perspective) survives somewhere in the archives of the University. I believe the first public accusation was made in the Belfast Journal or the Dublin Evening Post of 1794.
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Trial
On April 15 1794, a Saturday, one Dr Hall formally interrogated three undergraduates of the University. He wanted to know what Burk had told them of his views and the arguments he had made.
Burk was consequently summoned and sent a response in rhyming verse. There are, I believe, a number of aspects of this case which are unique, of which this poetic response was the first. Sadly it was neither sublime nor substantive:
“And Superstition passing on to Hell
With kindred fiery shapes for ever dwells
Thee Liberty, sweet nymph of patriot mold,
With more than common emphasis I greet,
For without thee e’en Genius wears the garb
Of Adulation. …”
Trial
Burk was heard by a panel of seven Doctors of the University. The charge against him was
“... that you have uttered disrespectful expressions on Religion in general, and the Christian Religion in particular.”
He denied the both aspects of the charge, while admitting that “my doubts on some speculative points produced that /p12 argument which has incurred your resentment. I however declare to this Board, that however I might doubt in some speculative points, I have the highest respect for the life and doctrines of Christ.”
Cross-examination of witnesses
A fellow-student and witness, Mr Eagan, said “he [Burk] seemed not to consider Christ to be God.” but a “moral, social man, whom God had sent on earth … to soften the asperity of the old law.” However, he added, Burk seemed to say this for the sake of debate. This was not what Eagan had said when he had been questioned previously.
/p13 Mr Walsh, the second witness, declared that “Burk seemed to consider a miracle a breach of the laws of nature, and to disbelieve the divinity of Christ.” He agreed Burk had not spoken disrespectfully of the life or teachings of Christ but added that he “... seemed an Unitarian rather than a Trinitarian.”
/p14 A third witness, Mr Reily, told the panel that “Burk said he did not believe in a miracle - that he considered Christ as a moral personage - that the mode of creation seemed to him not reasonable.” But he also seemed uncomfortable in the role of witness saying that he didn’t want to harm Burk and “from the general tenor of his character and conduct, I expected [he] would soon exchange any error in his opinions for truth.”
The fourth, Mr Donoghue, “... heard him say he did not believe in the authenticity of the Old Testament.” /15 which Burk clarified as “... I did not believe that it was written by the Holy Spirit, but that like all other writings it was the work of men.”
Judgment
“You see, Burk,” said Dr. Fitzgerald, one of the judges, “all the witnesses agree that you have spoken disrespectfully of the Christian religion.” Burk saw nothing of the kind.
And here the brevity of the printed account - in which all the witnesses expressed themselves in a few very sparse sentences - makes it impossible now to evaluate the weight of their evidence. Perhaps the University archives still hold a full account.
Burk asserted that he had simply spoken for information’s sake, following the Socratic method of enquiry. This was not convincing. In any case, and however he had framed his defence, it would probably not have made any difference to the outcome. The purpose of the trial was not to determine the truth or falsity of the accusations but to rid the university of a radical.
Conviction
The judges conferred in private “and” says Burk “in less than five minutes the Bell was rung for my - EXPULSION!” (p.16, italics in original)
Defence
A document called ‘Defence’ appears to have been written soon after the judgment. It defends nothing but contains an intemperate attack on his judges.
In his Defence Burk first disdains atheism and describes the charge of blasphemy as “vague and desultory” (p.17). He argues for a right of enquiry as “serviceable to the Christian religion” even “in times of tumult and disorder.” And he contrasts his accusers with Jesus:
“Look back, you proud ones, to that Divine Personage whose doctrines you pretend to avenge, and shew me one action of his to which you will dare assimilate your own. Such similitude as you will discover as exists between the tyger and the lamb.”
Far from following Jesus as their example his judges acted in the spirit of the “Inquisition, with the cross in one hand and the dagger in the other …”
His hurt comes through and his ability to turn a phrase; but so too does a high, self-serving, possibly even self-deluding, estimation of his own importance, abilities and rectitude.
“By this time,” Burk says “I think, I have clearly developed [ie explained] the causes of my defeat, I think I have demonstrated that religion was but a feint to cover the real attack on politics, …” and so .... “Persecution had but one voice, one opinion - the expediency of instantly removing me from within your walls.”
His judges’ action was in fact, he said, “an attack on Liberty.” But, as this would be publicly unacceptable, it was disguised by the pretence that their motivation was religion (p25). Burk asserts, in increasingly venomous language, that if his interrogators follow this route “you will at length roast Presbyterians, Quakers, Anabaptists, Methodists, Arians, Socians, Deists, into this uniformity of opinion which you falsely deem to be the test of truth. Learned blockheads …” (p.27).
But this was a thin revenge. He was expelled from the University.
Subsequent adventures
Burk left Ireland and went to London. He joined the London Corresponding Society (wiki) which campaigned for universal suffrage (for men) and annual parliaments and which caused the government of William Pitt (the younger) some anxiety. Consequently the Society was first restricted and, in 1799, effectively outlawed.
Burk returned to Dublin, and was a member of The Defenders, an anti-british secret society (wiki). It seems likely that Burk was the instigator of an attempt, with some 29 colleagues, to rescue a comrade on his way to be executed. The attempt failed and troops guarding the prisoner chased down the would-be rescuers.
Burk took shelter in a booksellers, while his wolf-dog kept the police at bay. A Miss Daly who had lodgings above the shop (where she may also have worked) had been watching events. She let Burk hide in the shop and dressed him in her clothes, in which disguise he was able to escape and evade the police. In gratitude and in her honour he appropriated her name and became John Daly Burk.
(I am confident, in the absence of evidence, that Burk did not hide in this shop by chance. I am sure he knew all the bookshops of Dublin, and their assistants, and they him. And I find it hard to credit that soldiers could be held up by a barking dog, howsoever fearsome, longer than it takes to fire a musket.)
A new life in America
Having evaded those searching for him in Ireland John Daly Burk escaped to America where he reinvented himself as a newspaper man and a dramatist. (For Burk’s life in America I have used Some materials to serve for a brief memoir of John Daly Burk, author of a History of Virginia, Junia A. Burk, Burk’s granddaughter. text here)
He was, for a time, in New York where he co-edited (with Dr James Smith) a newspaper, The Time-Piece. He offended President Adams (Washington’s successor) (wiki) and became “among the first to be arrested upon the sedition act.” (p.15, fn.) At the time a British frigate was anchored off Boston, and Adams - who knew Burk’s history - determined to have him arrested and to hand him over to the British. It was confidently presumed that the British would have gladly hung him from the yard-arm.
So Burk fled to Virginia, beyond Adam’s reach. There he settled into a peaceful literary life where, amongst other things, he wrote the first three volumes of A History of Virginia.
In 1808, in a tavern and the worse for drink, he loudly denounced the French nation as “a pack of rascals.” A young French man, Felix Coquebert, a store clerk, was sat nearby and took exception to this. He
“inquired of Burk, whether he intended to apply his remarks, personally, to him(iio). Burk replied, “Who are you sir? you can interpret what I said as you like.” (p.47) …
“Burk and Coquebert fought, at sunrise, the next morning (Monday), with pistols, at the distance of ten paces, on Fleet’s hill, beyond Campbell’s bridge, in the county of Chesterfield, about half a mile from the town. Burk was shot through the heart at the second fire. He tore open his waistcoat, jumped up and expired. Coquebert and his second, mounting horses, escaped. Neither of them ever returned to Petersburg.” (p.48)
It was, I think, a death in character, entirely unnecessary and melodramatic. But Burk could just as easily have died in Dublin fourteen years earlier.
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