with spirit, but at an adjourned meeting on 8 Jan. 1830 he was not only deposed, but expelled from the society.
Not daunted by this rebuff, Frost sought success in new fields. He obtained about this time, according to an engraved card of his own, the appointment of surgeon to the Duke of Cumberland. He resigned the secretaryship of the Humane Society only to have his appointment as surgeon to the duke cancelled. Frost sought to regain his secretaryship to the Humane Society, but failed. Yet he succeeded in 1831 in establishing St. John's Hospital, Clerkenwell, and also did much to promote the Royal Sailing Society. In 1832 he obtained a grant from the admiralty of H.M.S. Chanticleer for a hospital ship off Millbank, for watermen above London Bridge, and enlisted a large body of distinguished patrons. Having, however, made himself responsible for a considerable sum of money on account of this scheme, and being disappointed of the pecuniary support on which he had relied, he fled to Paris to avoid the importunities of creditors, and lived there for some time under an assumed name. He finally settled in Berlin as a physician, taking the title of Sir John Frost, and is said to have gained considerable practice. He died after a long and painful illness on 17 March 1840. He married Harriet, only daughter of Mrs. Yosy, author of a work on Switzerland, but had no children. Frost showed little scientific talent. His one object was self-aggrandisement. He wrote, besides his ‘Orations,’ nothing of note. A preface to Bingley's ‘Introduction to Botany,’ identical with an introductory lecture of his at the Royal Institution; a translation of the statutes of the Hanoverian Guelphic order, 1831; a paper ‘On the Mustard Tree mentioned in the New Testament,’ 1827; and some small papers on the oil of Croton Tiglium, published in pamphlet form in 1827, complete the list.
[Gent. Mag. new ser. 1840, xiv. 664–6; J. F. Clarke's Autobiographical Recollections of the Medical Profession, 1874, pp. 240–1, 267–72; Barham's Life (1 vol. ed. 1880), pp. 119–21.]
FROST, JOHN (1750–1842), secretary of the Corresponding Society, born in October 1750, was educated at Winchester School, and brought up as an attorney. He early devoted himself to the study of politics. In 1782 he was a prominent member of a society which met at the Thatched House tavern for the purpose of advocating constitutional reforms, and among his associates were William Pitt, the Duke of Richmond, Lord Surrey, Lord Mahon, Major Cartwright, Horne Tooke, and John Wilkes. Pitt engaged in correspondence with Frost, and assured him that he regarded a thorough reform of the representation as ‘essentially necessary to the independence of parliament and the liberty of the people.’ At the breaking out of the French revolution Frost was one of the most enthusiastic of those who adopted republican principles. In 1792 Frost secretly sheltered in his house a number of political prisoners. The same year he took a leading part in founding the Corresponding Society, for which body he also acted as secretary. The society began an active propaganda for a reform of the parliamentary representation, and one of its manifestoes prepared by Frost and Hardy showed that 257 representatives of the people, making a majority of the existing House of Commons, were returned by a number of voters not exceeding the thousandth part of the nation.
Contemporaneously with the foundation of this society was formed the Society for Constitutional Information. Branches of both societies rapidly sprang up in the provinces. The Constitutional Society elected Frost a deputy to the convention of France in 1793, his colleague being Joel Barlow, whose expenses he paid. In this character he was present at the trial of the French king (1792–3), and he was denounced in one of Burke's speeches as the ambassador to the murderers.
On the information of the attorney-general Frost was arrested in February 1793 on a charge of sedition. He was brought to trial in the following May, the indictment describing him as ‘late of Westminster, in the county of Middlesex, gentleman, a person of a depraved, impious, and disquiet mind, and of a seditious disposition.’ The specific charge against the prisoner was that he had uttered these words in Percy's coffee-house, Marylebone: ‘I am for equality; I see no reason why any man should not be upon a footing with another; it is every man's birthright;’ that on being asked what he meant by equality, he replied, ‘Why, no kings;’ and being further asked whether he meant no king in England, rejoined: ‘Yes, no king; the constitution of this country is a bad one.’ Frost was defended by Erskine, but in spite of his advocate's eloquence he was found guilty. He was sentenced to six calendar months' imprisonment in Newgate, to stand once during that time in the pillory at Charing Cross for the space of one hour, between twelve and two o'clock; to find sureties for his good behaviour for the space of five years, himself in 500l. and two others in 100l. each; to be
