''The Watchman'' was a short-lived

periodical A periodical literature (also called a periodical publication or simply a periodical) is a published work that appears in a new edition on a regular schedule. The most familiar example is a newspaper, but a magazine or a journal are also examples ...

established and edited by

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge (; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poe ...

in 1796. The first number was promised for 5 February 1796 but actually appeared on 1 March. Published by Coleridge himself, it was printed at

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

by Nathaniel Biggs, and appeared every eight days to avoid tax. Publication ceased with the tenth number (published 13 May 1796). The publication contained essays, poems, news stories, reports on Parliamentary debates, and book reviews. The volumes all contain explicitly political material such as the ‘Introductory Essay’, (a history of ‘the diffusion of truth’); the ‘Essay on Fasts’, (attacking the alliance of church and state power); two anti- Godwinian items, ‘Modern Patriotism’ and ‘To

Gaius Gracchus Gaius Sempronius Gracchus ( – 121 BC) was a reformist Roman politician in the 2nd century BC. He is most famous for his tribunate for the years 123 and 122 BC, in which he proposed a wide set of laws, including laws to establish ...

’; ‘To the Editor of the Watchman’ (reporting the trials of friends of freedom John Gale Jones and John Binns); and an extract from Coleridge’s lecture ‘On the Slave Trade’.

References

Further reading