Page:Englishmen in the French Revolution.djvu/83

 IV.

ENTHUSIASTS.

Stone—Helen Williams—Mary Wollstonecraft—Oswald—Christie.

motto from Carlyle aptly describes one, and that the most to be respected, class of the motley flock of foreigners attracted to Paris by the great upheaval. Among them was John Hurford Stone, whom a family tradition represents as assisting at the capture of the Bastille, but who cannot be positively traced in Paris till three years later. He was born at Tiverton in 1763, lost his father in childhood, and was sent up to London with his brother William to assist in the business of their uncle, William Hurford, the son of a Tiverton serge-maker, who had become a coal merchant. Stone, according to information furnished me by a kinsman, was very clever and cultured, and had advanced far beyond the Unitarian doctrines of his family. He was one of Dr. Price's congregation in London. He induced his uncle to embark in speculations which ultimately proved ruinous. In October 1790 he presided at a dinner given by