ALMON, John, a political pamphleteer and publisher of considerable note, was born at Liverpool about 1738. In early life he was apprentice to a printer in his native town, and he subsequently spent two years at sea. He came to London in 1758, and at once commenced a career which, if not important in itself, had a very important influence on the political history of the country. The opposition, hampered and harassed by the government to an extent that threatened the total suppression of independent opinion, were in great need of a channel of communication with the public, and they found what they wanted in Almon. He had become personally known to the leaders through various publications of his own which had a great though transient popularity; the more important of these being The Conduct of a late Noble Commander [Lord George Sackville] Examined (1759); a Review of the Reign of George II., published on the death of that monarch; a Review of Mr Pitt’s Administration (1761); and a collection of letters on political subjects. The review of Pitt’s administration passed through four editions, and secured for its author the friendship of Lord Temple, to whom it was dedicated. Being thus in the counsels of the party, he was persuaded in 1763 to open a bookseller’s shop in Piccadilly, chiefly for the publication and sale of political pamphlets. As he generally received with every pamphlet a sum sufficient to secure him against all contingencies, it cannot be said that he acted entirely from disinterested or patriotic motives. At the same time, he deserves the credit of intrepidity; and it cannot be denied that, whether he knew the full value of the principle for which he was contending or not, he did very much to secure the freedom of the press. The government of course ...were not unobservant of Almon’s proceedings, and, as has often been the case, strengthened his influence by the very measures they took to repress it. In 1765 the Attorney-General moved to have him tried for the publication of the pamphlet entitled Juries and Libels, but the prosecution failed; and in 1770, for merely selling a copy of the London Museum containing Junius’s celebrated “Letter to the King,” he was sentenced by Lord Mansfield to pay a fine of ten marks, and give security for his good behaviour. It was this trial that called forth the letter to Lord Mansfield, one of the most bitter of the Junius series. Almon himself published an account of the trial, and of course did not let slip the opportunity of reprinting the matter that had been the ground of indictment, but no further proceedings were taken against him. In 1774 Almon commenced the publication of his Parliamentary Register, and he also issued an abstract of the debates from 1742, when Chandler’s Reports ceased, to 1774. About the same time, having earned a competency, he retired to Boxmoor in Hertfordshire, though he still continued to write on political subjects. He afterwards became proprietor of the General Advertiser, in the management of which ho lost his fortune, and was declared insolvent. To these calamities was added an imprisonment for libel and a sentence of outlawry. Being enabled at last to return to Boxmoor, he continued for some years a career of undiminished literary activity. His last work, a Life of Wilkes, in five volumes (1805), was perhaps his worst, being entirely wanting in proportion and arrangement. He died on the 12th December 1805. A complete list of Almon’s works, most of which appeared anonymously, is given in Watt’s Bibliotheca Britannica. Though their literary merit is not great, they are of very considerable value to the student of the political history of the period.
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