ABSTRACT
Jeremiah Joyce's political activities through the 1790s took place in the face of rising surveillance and repression from William Pitt's government and increasing public hostility to any action that could be construed as pro-French. Joyce's record of the interrogation was published as An account of the author's arrest for "Treasonable Practices", and is fairly consistent with the official record. In May 1794 Habeas Corpus was suspended and twelve London radicals were seized, interrogated by the Privy Council to be imprisoned in the Tower and eventually charged with treason. Political tension had been significantly increased six months earlier following the case of the Scottish Martyrs with whom Joyce was to have extensive contact. The sermon exhibits the links between the theological and political dimensions of Unitarian thought and the constellation of ideas that trace the pattern of Unitarian thinking as it moved from the religious to the secular realm.
