74 MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 



in with Thomas Spence.* He was one of the 

 warmest philanthropists in the world. The 

 happiness of mankind seemed with him to absorb 

 every other consideration. He was of a cheerful 

 disposition, warm in his attachment to his friends, 

 and in his patriotism to his country; but he was 

 violent against people whom he considered of an. 

 opposite character. With such he kept no bounds. 

 For the purpose chiefly of making converts to his 

 opinion " that property in land is everyone's 

 right," he got a number of young men gathered 

 together, and formed into a debating society, 

 which was held in the evenings in his first school- 

 room, in the Broad Garth, Newcastle. One night 

 when his favourite question was to be debated, he 

 reckoned upon me as one of his "backers." In 

 this, however, he was mistaken ; for, notwithstand- 

 ing my tacitly assenting in a certain degree to his 

 plan, viz., as to the probability of its succeeding 

 in some uninhabited country or island, I could 



* Afterwards famous in London as at the head of the " Spenceans." 

 He was sent to Dorchester gaol for (I believe) some of his publica- 

 tions, promulgating his doctrines. He taught a school at the Broad 

 Garth, Newcastle; afterwards writing and arithmetic in the great 

 school at Haydon Bridge; and, lastly, he was master of St. Ann's 

 public school, Sandgate, Newcastle. At this time his wife kept a 

 shop at the Black Gate, and by her mismanagement, Spence, who 

 was a careful sober man, failed, and was led into great difficulties, 

 on which account he gave up St. Ann's school, and went to London. 

 Some time before this he was a member of a most respectable 

 Literary and Philosophical Society in Newcastle, one of the rules of 

 which required that each member should read in turn a written 

 lecture on any subject he pleased. Spence's was, of course, on that 

 of " Property in land," &c. These lectures were, by the rules of 

 the society, prohibited from publication ; but Spence broke the 

 rule and was expelled in consequence. [A copy of Spence's pam- 

 phlet, "price one penny," and headed "Property in Land Every 

 one's Right, Proved in a Lecture read at the Philosophical Society 

 in Newcastle, on the 8th of Nov. 1775," is included among*the 

 Bewick MSS.] 



