The Champion; or, British Mercury was a London periodical published three times a week between 1739 and 1742. Printed for T. Cooper in Paternoster Row, it began on 15 November 1739; from April 1740 it appeared as Champion; or, Evening Advertiser; the series ended on 31 August 1742.
Conceived as a political and literary paper, it was initially written and fronted by Henry Fielding under the persona “Captain Hercules Vinegar”, with James Ralph contributing political columns and, from 1741, serving as editor. Both men had recently left the stage after the Licensing Act 1737 curtailed non-patent theatres. The paper took a Patriot or “country interest” line against Robert Walpole, with regular features such as the “Index to the Times” and “Journal of the War”.
Reporting on Parliament remained constrained, so the paper often used brief or oblique notices while developing broader political commentary. In late 1741 and early 1742 it pressed an isolationist case framed by Hanoverian neutrality and cited the Act of Settlement in arguing limits on British obligations; it also carried essays on imperial strategy, notably a series by George Burrington. After Walpole’s resignation in 1742, the paper coupled arguments for the liberty of the press with close attention to opposition organisation and the circulation of constituency “instructions”. Contemporary observers noted its reach, and later critics have highlighted both its literary criticism and Ralph’s political journalism; historians place the Champion among the successful opposition essay papers of the early 1740s.
Two similarly titled papers circulated independently in 1741 and 1743: British Champion; or, Admiral Vernon’s Weekly Journal and British Champion; or, The Impartial Advertiser.
Contents
Publication and format
The paper appeared in London three times a week. The first issue (Thursday, 15 November 1739) announced publication “every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday morning” and carried the imprint “Printed for T. Cooper, at the Globe in Pater-noster-Row; where advertisements and letters to the author are taken in.” In the days just before publication, the Daily Post and London Daily Post (12–13 November 1739) billed “the celebrated Capt. HERCULES VINEGAR, of Hockley in the Hole.” The debut issue was offered gratis, a common launch tactic for weeklies. The initial title was The Champion; or, British Mercury.
A consortium of about half a dozen booksellers launched the paper, and internal evidence suggests backing from George Bubb Dodington, John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll, Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, George Lyttelton, and John Carteret. As was typical for bookseller-owned papers, the printer managed news and advertisements while the principal author oversaw the essay section. The paper flagged money troubles in December 1739–January 1740 and again in June 1740.
Like other full-priced London titles of the 1740s, the Champion ran under an elaborate engraved headpiece on the first page, with other front-page ornament usually limited to the opening initial. On 10 April 1740 it announced a switch to evening publication and adopted the title Champion; or, Evening Advertiser. In the same issue it complained that the Craftsman had lifted its advertisement and ten news paragraphs verbatim, and it protested obstruction by bookseller-shareholders (a problem also faced by the Englishman's Evening Post). Distribution difficulties persisted: on 5 June 1740 the paper quipped that “Clerks of the Road” would not let the Champion travel by post “for fear, perhaps, it shall quarrel with the Gazetteer upon the Road,” and on 30 October 1740 it lamented that “scarce four Champions in Twelve” reached subscribers. Although the early months as an evening paper were hampered by circulation problems, adopting the evening-post format laid the ground for later commercial success.
Early runs were gathered in collected volumes as The Champion: containing a series of papers, humorous, moral, political and critical. The book-format title page does not reproduce the newspaper’s “or, British Mercury” or later “or, Evening Advertiser” clauses. The run ended on 31 August 1742. Two similarly titled papers circulated independently: British Champion; or, Admiral Vernon’s Weekly Journal (advertised 12 October 1741) and British Champion; or, The Impartial Advertiser (18 August–15 September 1743). Contemporary catalogues name no editor for the 1743 title; by early 1743 James Ralph had shifted to Old England; or, The Constitutional Journal. A 1743 printer’s petition also lists an unstamped sheet styled Champion or, London Evening Advertiser; surviving sources do not establish any link between that sheet and the series.
History
At launch, playwright Henry Fielding (as “Captain Hercules Vinegar”) served as principal editor, and his former theatrical collaborator and assistant James Ralph soon took charge of the news-opinion columns “Index to the Times” and “Journal of the War.” Both men had been forced out of the theatre by the Licensing Act 1737, which required pre-approval of plays and confined legitimate performance to the patent houses.
The Hercules Vinegar persona appeared at once: the first issue introduced a swaggering “Captain” who laid aside the sword for the pen; two days later he styled himself “of Hockley in the Hole.” The byname echoed an earlier prize-fighting persona associated with London’s bear-garden amphitheatres. Readers quickly heckled the imposture—letters from “A. Moore … near St. Paul’s” and “Paul Serious” (4 December 1739) mocked both title and pseudonym—prompting an editorial reply that dating from Hockley placated the “beautiful Goddess of Envy” and hinted at “deeper Reasons.” A week later the persona moved in print: a letter headed “From my Dining Room in Pall-Mall, Dec. 10th, being the first Night of my Arrival from Hockley in the Hole” signalled the shift, and the same day the paper offered an ironical defence of the Licensing Act 1737—the statute that had curtailed Fielding’s and Ralph’s stage careers—with barbs at Colley and Theophilus Cibber. On 13 December the “Captain” claimed the play-house as his province and lampooned a crude stage-makeup trick on a mimic “Caesar’s brow.”
January 1740 kept the thread alive with a few telling moments: an “odd slip” on 5 January, a note signed “Hercules Vinegar” but misaddressed to “Mr. Champion”; on 10 January, a letter that pretended to attack “Vinegar” but was really a hit at Walpole—flagged by a brief end-note signed “**,” which was Ralph’s mark for the political target; on 15 January, an essay noting that pieces “from Hockley in the Hole” were discounted until the move to a more “polite Part of the Town”; and, on 26 January, a letter jeering at “Capt. Vinegar” preaching virtue. After late January the fiction was only lightly sustained—apart from two spring flashes—“the Captain” receded and most papers ignored his individuality.
Spring 1740 revived the bear-garden theme: on 25 March the paper carried an invitation to the amphitheatres for a bout at broad-sword and quarter-staff, and on 1 April it printed a letter from “Vander Bruin” urging “gymnastic Encounters” and announcing two “Brother Bears” for baiting—a piece also read as political satire. On 3 April the paper ran “An Essay on Truth,” arguing against rhyme in serious poetry. Thereafter the dramatic thread thinned: Gray noted the “Captain” returned to the theatre only “once in a great while.”
Reception
Contemporaries noted both the paper’s reach and its knack for provocation. By late 1741 a ministerial daily reported it was “greatly in demand in the city”; earlier, an anti-corruption cartoon it printed was reprinted elsewhere, drawing further notice; and a pro-government paper dismissed the Champion (with the Englishman's Evening Post) as “mushroom writers.”
Later assessments have credited both its criticism and its political journalism. The literary historian Walter James Graham judged that the Champion “contained criticism of real value” and “added not unworthily to the beginnings of criticism,” while the historian Robert W. Kenny singled out James Ralph’s “crisp and provocative” handling of the “Index to the Times” and “Journal of the War.” The historian of eighteenth-century Britain Jeremy Black likewise groups the paper with the successful opposition essay journals of the early 1740s.