all that as it may, the volunteering episode at Carrickfergus was to have its later far-reaching repercussions.
When their father moved from Belfast, Henry and Robert were twenty-five and twenty-three respectively. Henry took over the notary’s office, and both brothers were responsible for editing and printing the News-Letter. The following years were predominantly a time of happy family life. Of Henry’s wife, Barbara Dunbar, we know little, while the following note from Robert to his fiancée – and second cousin – Grizell Rainey of Magherafelt, suggests that he had had to be a patient and considerate wooer:
My dear Miss Grizzey,
Mr. Rankin has consented to oblige me, provided it be done with secrecy.
And by this time I hope there remains nothing to protract any longer the happy crisis – But that you may not be in any degree disconcerted, I shall not set out till Thursday; when I hope to see you: and shall order it so as our Boy and horse will be with us the next day at Noon – Meantime (as we’ll depend on the Portmantua from Antrim) his carriage may be ready
I am, my Dearest
Yrs. most affectionately
Robert Joy.5
Belfast
Nov. 24. 1751.
The Rev. John Rankin was the recently ordained minister of the new Presbyterian congregation in Antrim. His insistence on secrecy is an interesting reminder that at that date, and until 1847, marriages solemnized by Presbyterian clergymen were illegal. “Miss Grizzey” was greatly admired and loved by all her friends, she and Robert were to be very happy and in the eleven years of their short married life they had six children, but only two of them reached maturity.
Meanwhile the firm of Henry & Robert Joy extended its connections. A considerable amount of printing and publishing other than the News-Letter was undertaken, and it is still possible to pick up books with its imprint. In 1767 the site at Cromac, then outside the confines of Belfast, was acquired on which the Joy paper mill was to be built.
The News-Letters of the period form a fascinating commentary on the growing Belfast. As well as carefully written editorials and occasionally an article in lighter vein, the paper carried detailed reports of proceedings in the Dublin and London Parliaments, news from Europe, Asia and the New World, descriptions of social functions at the Court of George III, and a little legitimate gossip about London society in general. Shipping intelligence was of the greatest importance, and the arrival of vessels in the port of Belfast, and the cargoes they carried were carefully reported: sugar, rice, mahogany and molasses from the West Indies; brandies, wines, fruits and spices from France, Spain and Portugal; timber from Memel and other Baltic ports; as well as the more general trade with London, Liverpool and Scotland. All these imports came in exchange for the salted meat and fish, hides, butter, tallow and linen, produced throughout the province, truly the beginning of Belfast’s seaborne trade. Merchants and shopkeepers in their turn used the paper to advertise their wares – whalebone for stays, hams and cheeses in great variety, velvets and velveteens, serges and sateens, silks and satins – and we read names so soon to become notable in the history of the town: Mr. Getty and his timber, teas and wines; Mr. Neilson and his drapery; Mr. Cunningham displaying all the riches of the West Indies; Mr. Emerson his tobacco and snuff, and so on. There were announcements, too, of local social events, – the coteries in Belfast, the coteries in Ballymena, Dromore and elsewhere, not to speak of cock fights and travelling menageries with their attendant shows. Mr. McGrath the dancing master from Dublin notified the public of his return to town for some weeks, as did the dentist who, also for a few weeks, would be found – strangely enough – at the timber merchant’s at Hanover Key; the peruke maker and the ladies hairdresser were also there, and there is a familiar ring about the constant advertisements for domestic servants, who need not apply unless they can furnish reliable “characters”.
This, and much more, went to make up the bi-weekly issues of the News-Letter and through it all ran the serious purpose of Francis Joy and his sons – the provision of reliable information and the dissemination of the new and liberal ideas in political thought. So, when in 1775 the American colonies embarked on what was to be their momentous struggle for freedom, the proprietors were ready to advocate their cause “with the most undaunted zeal”6 to the great annoyance of their contemporary the Dublin Mercury which burst into the following scurrilous verse:
On the accounts published in the Belfast Journal, relative to the present state of America.
The puritan-Journal, Impress’d at Belfast,
Exhibits the printer’s complexion and cast:
Whose partial accounts of each public transaction Proclaim him the infamous tool of a faction.
From worthy old Faulkner [Faulkner’s Journal, Dublin], to give him his due,
Nought issues, but what is authentic and true;
Each foreign report and domestic relation
Approv’d and admitted on good information.
But … [Joy] the low scribe of a party quite frantic
With zeal for their brethern across the Atlantic
Discreetly and piously chuses to tell
No tidings, but such as come posting from hell.
Thence furnished with news, it is easy to guess,
Why nothing but falsehoods proceed from his press;
Of which he is sure to have constant supplies,
Who still corresponds with the father of lies.7
That the News-Letter was voicing the growing opinion in the town is evident from the report of a meeting held on Nov. 1775,
when a motion was made and seconded (and passed unanimously) that an humble address be presented to His Majesty from the merchants, traders, and other principal inhabitants of the town of Belfast, stating their grievances and apprehension resulting from the present unnatural state of things: their concern, as members of the British empire, for its present disturbed and endangered state: their feelings, as men, for the horrors of civil war now in America: their hopes in the royal mercy for a speedy termination of these: and their prayers for a restoration of the old constitutional system [a reference to the Massachusetts Government Act].8
Henry Joy was one of the 240 signatories to this address.
There were many in Belfast who appreciated the deep issues involved, and as the American struggle continued and political independence was finally achieved, the effect on the minds of the rising mercantile class was very great.
Ulster sympathy in the American struggle was aroused, in part by commercial interests. Her people had already suffered from the self-centred policies that Britain was now inflicting on the colony, and, furthermore, the extensive linen business that Ulster had developed with the eastern seaboard of America was now threatened with dislocation and possible ruin.
But alongside of these commercial ties the people of the North of Ireland had a strong human connection with N. America. Throughout the 18th century as England, in her own interests, successively destroyed the Irish woollen, silk and glass industries, which, in point of fact, were almost exclusively in the hands of English and Scottish settlers, emigration had been continuous and thousands of workers from Ireland were forced to find new homes in America.
Moreover,
