William Pitt and the Great War

by J. Holland Rose

The republican and levelling doctrines frankly advocated in Paine's second pamphlet made a greater sensation than the first part had done; and Fox, who approved the former production, sternly reprobated the latter. It is possible that Government sought to stop its publication; for Chapman, the publisher, to whom Paine first applied, offered him £1,000 for the manuscript, and yet very soon afterwards declared it to be too dangerous for him to print.[36] Certainly the work soon quickened the tone of political thought. Already the London Society for promoting Constitutional Information, which had died of inanition in 1784, had come to life again before the close of the year 1791. And at the end of that year a determined man, Thomas Hardy, a poor shoemaker of Westminster, set to work to interest his comrades in politics. He assembled four men at an ale-house, and they agreed to take action. At their second meeting, on 25th January 1792, they mustered eight strong, and resolved to start "The London Corresponding Society for the Reform of Parliamentary Representation." Its finances were scarcely on a par with its title: they consisted of eightpence, the first weekly subscription. But the idea proved infectious; and amidst the heat engendered by Paine's second pamphlet, the number of members rose to forty-one.[37] The first manifesto of the Society, dated 2nd April, claimed political liberty as the birthright of man, declared the British nation to be misrepresented by its Parliament, and, while repudiating all disorderly methods, demanded a thorough reform of that body.

So far as I have been able to discover, this was the first political club started by English working-men at that time. But now the men of Sheffield also organized themselves. Their "Association" began in an assembly of five or six mechanics, who discussed "the enormous high price of provisions" and "the waste and lavish [sic] of the public property by placemen, pensioners, luxury and debauchery,—sources of the grievous burthens under which the nation groans." The practical character of their lamentations attracted many working men, with the result that they resolved to reprint and circulate 1,600 copies of Paine's "Rights of Man" (Part I), at sixpence a copy. On 15th January 1792 they wrote up to the "London Society for Constitutional Information" to plan co-operation with them.

At first the ideas of the Sheffield Association were somewhat parochial. But the need of common action all over the Kingdom was taking shape in several minds, and when Scotland awoke to political activity (as will appear in [Chapter VII]) the idea of a General Convention took firm root and led to remarkable developments. For the present, the chief work of these clubs was the circulation of Paine's volumes (even in Welsh, Gaelic, and Erse) at the price of sixpence or even less. They also distributed "The Catechism of the French Constitution" (of 1791), drawn up by Christie, a Scot domiciled at Paris, which set forth the beauties of that child of many hopes. Less objectionable was a pamphlet—"The Rights of Men and the Duties of Men." For the most part, however, their literature was acridly republican in tone and of a levelling tendency. Thus, for the first time since the brief attempt of the Cromwellian Levellers, the rich and the poor began to group themselves in hostile camps, at the strident tones of Paine's cry for a graduated Income Tax. Is it surprising that the sight of the free institutions of France and of the forced economy of the Court of the Tuileries should lead our workers to question the utility of the State-paid debaucheries of Carlton House, and of the whole system of patronage and pensions? Burke and Pitt had pruned away a few of the worst excrescences; but now they saw with dismay the whole of the body politic subjected to remorseless criticism by those whose duty was to toil and not to think or question.

This was a new departure in eighteenth-century England. Hitherto working men had taken only a fleeting and fitful interest in politics. How should they do so in days when newspapers were very dear, and their contents had only the remotest bearing on the life of the masses? The London mob had bawled and rioted for "Wilkes and Liberty," but mainly from personal motives and love of horse-play. Now, however, all was changed; and artisans were willing to sacrifice their time and their pence to learn and teach a political catechism, and spread the writings of Paine. Consequently the new Radical Clubs differed widely from the short-lived County Associations of 1780 which charged a substantial fee for membership. Moreover, these Associations expired in the years 1783–4, owing to the disgust at Fox's Coalition with Lord North. We are therefore justified in declaring that English democracy entered on a new lease of life, and did not, as has been asserted,[38] merely continue the movement of 1780. The earlier efforts had been wholly insular in character; they aimed at staying the tide of corruption; their methods were in the main academic, and certainly never affected the great mass of the people. Now reformers were moved by a wider enthusiasm for the rights of humanity, and sought not merely to abolish pocket boroughs and sinecures, but to level up the poor and level down the wealthy. It was this aspect of Paine's teaching that excited men to a frenzy of reprobation or of hope.

A certain continuity of tradition and method is observable in a club, called The Friends of the People, which was founded at Freemasons' Tavern in April 1792, with a subscription of five guineas a year. The members included Cartwright, Erskine, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Philip Francis, Charles Grey, Lambton, the Earl of Lauderdale, Mackintosh, Sheridan, Whitbread, and some sixty others; but Fox refused to join. Their profession of faith was more moderate than that of Hardy's Club; it emphasized the need of avoiding innovation and of restoring the constitution to its original purity.[39] This was in the spirit of the Associations of 1780; but the new club was far less characteristic of the times than the clubs of working men described above.

The appearance of Paine's "Rights of Man" (Part II), the founding of these societies, and the outbreak of war between France and Austria in April 1792 made a deep impression on Pitt. He opposed a notice of a motion of Reform for the following session, brought forward by Grey on 30th April. While affirming his continued interest in that subject, Pitt deprecated its introduction at that time as involving the risk of anarchy.

My object [he continued] always has been, and is now more particularly so, to give permanence to that which we actually enjoy rather than remove subsisting grievances.... I once thought, and still think, upon the point of the representation of the Commons, that, if some mode could be adopted by which the people could have any additional security for a continuance of the blessings which they now enjoy, it would be an improvement in the constitution of this country. That was the extent of my object. Further I never wished to go; and if this can be obtained without the risk of losing what we have, I should think it wise to make the experiment. When I say this, it is not because I believe there is any existing grievance in this country that is felt at this hour.

At the end of the American War (he continued) when bankruptcy seemed imminent, he believed Reform to be necessary in order to restore public confidence and remedy certain notorious grievances. Even then very many moderate men opposed his efforts as involving danger to the State. How much more would they deprecate sweeping proposals which rightly aroused general apprehension? He then censured the action of certain members of the House in joining an Association (the "Friends of the People") which was supported by those who aimed at the overthrowing of hereditary monarchy, titles of nobility, and all ideas of subordination. He would oppose all proposals for Reform rather than run the risk of changes so sweeping.—"All, all may be lost by an indiscreet attempt upon the subject." Clearly, Pitt was about to join the ranks of the alarmists. But members generally were of his opinion. In vain did Fox, Erskine, Grey, and Sheridan deprecate the attempt to confuse moderate Reform with reckless innovation. Burke illogically but effectively dragged in the French spectre, and Windham declared that the public mind here, as in other lands, was in such a state that the slightest scratch might produce a mortal wound.

The gulf between Pitt and the reformers now became impassable. His speech of 10th May against any relaxation of the penal laws against Unitarians is a curious blend of bigotry and panic. Eleven days later a stringent proclamation was issued against all who wrote, printed, and dispersed "divers wicked and seditious writings." It ordered all magistrates to search out the authors and abettors of them, and to take steps for preventing disorder. It also inculcated "a due submission to the laws, and a just confidence in the integrity and wisdom of Parliament." Anything less calculated to beget such a confidence than this proclamation, threatening alike to reformers and levellers, can scarcely be conceived. On 25th May Grey opposed it in an acrid speech; he inveighed against Pitt as an apostate, who never kept his word, and always intended to delude Parliament and people. The sting of the speech lay, not in these reckless charges, but in the citing of Pitt's opinions as expressed in a resolution passed at the Thatched House Tavern in May 1782, which declared that without Parliamentary Reform neither the liberty of the nation nor the permanence of a virtuous administration was secure. Pitt's reply, however, convinced all those whose minds were open to conviction. He proved to demonstration that he had never approved of universal suffrage; yet that was now the goal aimed at by Paine and the Societies founded on the basis of the Rights of Man. The speech of Dundas also showed that the writings of Paine, and the founding of clubs with those ends in view, had led to the present action of the Cabinet.

Undoubtedly those clubs had behaved in a provocative manner. Apart from their correspondence with the Jacobins Club (which will be described later), they advocated aims which then seemed utterly subversive of order. Thus, early in May 1792, the Sheffield Society declared their object to be "a radical Reform of the country, as soon as prudence and discretion would permit, and established on that system which is consistent with the Rights of Man." Further, the hope is expressed that not only the neighbouring towns and villages, most of which were forming similar societies, but also the whole country would be "united in the same cause, which cannot fail of being the case wherever the most excellent works of Thomas Paine find reception."[40]