Essay: An Address to the Public

Overview
William Edward Hickson’s 1836 “An Address to the Public” is a programmatic essay announcing a periodical enterprise devoted to reform, public instruction, and independent criticism. Framed as both a declaration of principles and a solicitation of support, it sets out how a journal should serve the commonweal: by examining institutions through reason and experience, by resisting party control, and by making knowledge accessible to a broad reading public. Hickson positions the publication as a conscientious instrument for national improvement at a moment when the Reform Act had widened expectations but left many questions unsettled.

Purpose and Method
Hickson argues that the press must function as a tribunal of inquiry rather than an echo chamber of factions. The tests to be applied to laws, usages, and projects are utility, truthfulness, and capacity to advance human well-being. He insists on sober investigation over declamation, and on publishing evidence, reasons, and consequences plainly so that conclusions are intelligible beyond the narrow circles of office and party. The essay commits to following facts wherever they lead, even when they correct prior opinion or disappoint a favored cause.

Independence from Party
A central theme is independence. Hickson repudiates mere party watchwords and seeks to avoid becoming the organ of any clique, however reformist its pretensions. He maintains that honest agreement can exist without servility, and honest dissent without rancor. This independence, he contends, is the condition of real usefulness: only a journal free from patronage and place can speak plainly to power and fairly to the public. To sustain that freedom, he asks for support not in indulgence but in readership and frank criticism.

Scope of Reform
The address outlines an expansive, practical reform agenda. Political institutions are to be judged by how well they secure good government: accountable administration, economical management of public resources, and representation that reflects the nation’s interests rather than those of a privileged few. In social policy, he emphasizes education as the linchpin of progress, urging national provision that is accessible, unfettered by sectarian exclusiveness, and directed to cultivating both understanding and character. Economic questions are to be treated with the same spirit: the removal of artificial restraints, encouragement of industry, and the fair adjustment of burdens. Religious liberty, freedom of inquiry, and an end to coercive monopolies of conscience or trade are presented as complementary aspects of a single commitment to public freedom.

Tone and Audience
Hickson promises a style that is candid, temperate, and humane. He rejects the allure of invective and the laziness of slogans, preferring carefully reasoned exposition. While mindful of expert scholarship, he is equally intent on intelligibility, holding that public questions must be discussed in a language the public can grasp. The address thus welcomes contributions from those with knowledge and experience, and it invites readers not as passive spectators but as partners in a continuous civic conversation.

Public Responsibility
Underlying the whole is a moral claim: publicity is a duty in a free country, and the printed page is one of the chief instruments by which errors are exposed, abuses corrected, and improvements diffused. Hickson affirms that progress is neither the work of sudden shocks nor of flattering illusions, but of patient, open examination, the steady comparison of proposals with their effects, and the courage to revise judgments. The essay closes by binding the promised independence of the journal to the public’s vigilant support, making reform a shared, rational enterprise rather than a partisan crusade.