The controversy was not allowed to remain a mere matter
of words. Both sides set themselves to organize machinery for the dissemination of their opinions. The Radicals used the Society for Constitutional Information. The extremists established the Corresponding Society, whose branches, composed chiefly of the middle and working classes, corresponded with similar societies in France, held meetings and published their resolutions in the newspapers, and industriously circulated copies of the Rights of Man. So vigorous were their operations that a Royal Proclamation was issued in May, 1792, denouncing these "wicked and seditious writings" and correspondence with "persons in foreign parts," and exhorting all subjects of the Crown to discourage them.[[135]] In November the Tories formed an Association for Preserving Liberty and Property against Republicans and Levellers, which declared that "It appears from history and observation, that the inequality of rank and fortune in this happy country is more the result of every man's own exertions than of any controlling institution of the State. Men become great who have greatly distinguished themselves by the application of talents natural or acquired; and men become rich who have persevered with industry in the application to trade and commerce, to manufactures, and other useful employments."[[136]] Such language was hardy enough in a society where public dignities were monopolized by a few families, whose inherited wealth was augmented as often by jobbery as by industry. The Association seems to have acted as a private detective agency and sent reports and secret information to the Government. But the honours of agitation rested, as usual, with the reforming party. If their success was small, it was due less to the private efforts of their opponents than to the superior resources of the Government itself.
It is difficult to discover how widely the new ideas had spread by the end of the century. The war with France, which lasted almost continuously from 1793 to 1815, probably drew off much of the national enthusiasm. A foreign war is always favourable to the enemies of domestic liberty, and however much their distresses may drive common men to hate their governors, they generally hate them less than the national enemy. Industrious as they were, the agitators were too closely identified with France to be popular, and it was not till the end of the war that the middle and working classes as a whole began to lend them a favourable ear. In the meantime, they were regarded by the Government as infinitely more powerful than they really were, and for thirty years they worked in constant danger of imprisonment or transportation. They had been depressed, in common with Whigs like Fox and Grey, by the ferocity of the French mobs. But the invasion of France by the Duke of Brunswick and the complete victory of the new national Government, restored their confidence at the same time as it reawakened the terrors of the Tories. The most trifling expressions of sympathy with the French people or their principles exposed them to spies and informers and zealous loyalists.[[137]] On the 8th May James Ridgway and H. D. Symonds were sentenced to four years' imprisonment for publishing Paine's works. On the 27th, for saying in a coffee-house, "I am for equality; I see no reason why one man should be greater than another; I would have no king, and the constitution of this country is a bad one," Mr. Frost was struck oft the roll of attorneys and sentenced to an hour in the pillory and six months in Newgate. On the 1st October Mr. Pigott and Dr. Hudson were tried for drinking "The French Republic" in a coffee-house. At Leicester a man called Vaughan distributed a handbill criticizing the war because it inflicted hardship on the poor. He was sent to prison for three months. Benjamin
Bull distributed the Rights of Man at Bath, and was imprisoned for a year.[[138]] Paine himself was tried for seditious libel in 1792, and in his absence was outlawed. But the most ferocious punishments were inflicted in Scotland. In England, short of high treason, there was no legal offence possible except sedition or seditious libel, for which the punishment was a term of imprisonment. In Scotland the offenders might be transported. In September, 1793, the Rev. Thomas Fysche Palmer, Unitarian minister at Dundee, for publishing an address couched in very temperate language, from which it was proved that he had struck out some more extravagant expressions, was sentenced to seven years' transportation. The Whigs in Parliament protested against this monstrous sentence. But the House, by a large majority, refused even to compel the Home Secretary to detain the convict ship pending its revision.[[139]] In the same year Thomas Muir, a gentleman of acknowledged respectability, was sentenced to fourteen years' transportation for an offence of as trivial a kind as that of Mr. Palmer.[[140]] Other Reformers, chiefly members of Corresponding Societies, met at Edinburgh in December, 1792, in what they rashly called a "National Convention." This consisted of delegates from Societies all over the kingdom. It passed resolutions, appointed committees, and acted as a permanent body of political delegates is accustomed to act, in order to further the cause of Parliamentary Reform. There was nothing violent in the objects, the proceedings, or the language of the Convention, which passed a resolution in favour of government by King, Lords, and Commons without a single dissentient voice.[[141]] But the French Revolution had begun by the meeting of a "Convention," and the delegates, in addition to selecting that unfortunate title, presented an address to the French National Convention, and habitually addressed each other, in imitation of the French, as "citizens." This was
enough for the Government. A representative body, with a French title, in communication with the French Government, and using French forms of speech, must meditate that sort of revolution which had been contrived by the French people. It fell upon the delegates with all the ferocity of despotism in a panic. William Skirving, Maurice Margarot, and Joseph Gerald were transported for fourteen years, and Alexander Callender was outlawed. English juries were less frantic than Scottish. The members of the London Corresponding Society had done similar acts in England. But in 1794, when several of them, including Horne Tooke, were tried for high treason, all were acquitted.
The precise details of all these proceedings, and the widespread suffering which they caused, are not important for this book. It is enough to state here that there was much expression of discontent, and that the Government dealt with it in the worst possible way. The wise course was to detach the respectable agitators from the agitators who were not respectable by substantial improvements in the franchise and the distribution of seats. But the Government were incapable of drawing distinctions, and, by confounding all sorts of discontent in their repression, alienated and embittered even those whom they had it in their power to conciliate. Evidence of any general conspiracy to alter the existing order by violent means there is none. Nothing was ever published on behalf of the Government itself which proved anything but constitutional and orderly expressions of dissatisfaction, with occasional outbreaks of reckless language and exceedingly rare instances of such acts as the purchase or manufacture of weapons.[[142]] There were no collections of arms, no riots, except such as were purely industrial, and no demonstrations of force. Not a single life was ever taken or attempted by the Reformers, and the only dangerous political disturbance of the
period was the outbreak of the Tory mob, who looted and burnt the houses of Dissenters and Radicals at Birmingham. But the governing class was afraid, and in its fear it struck out blindly at everything which it disliked.
The Habeas Corpus Act was suspended in 1791, and the executive received power to arrest and detain suspects without trial. At a later date, extraordinary powers were created. A meeting held near London in October, 1795, was followed by an attempt to assassinate the King. The meeting was orderly, and there was not a shadow of proof that there was any connection between the two events. But the Government took advantage of the prevailing indignation to create new crimes, and to increase the punishments for existing crimes. The Treason Act made it an offence, punishable on a second conviction with seven years' transportation, to "incite or stir up the people to hatred or dislike of His Majesty's person or the established Government and constitution of the realm," and extended the definition of high treason. The Sedition Act prohibited the holding of meetings without the presence of a magistrate, made it an offence punishable with death for twelve persons to remain together after a magistrate had called upon them to disperse, and declared that any house, where a substantial number of persons beyond that of the resident family assembled for a common purpose, should be treated as a disorderly house, unless specially licensed. In 1799, after the mutiny in the fleet at the Nore and the great Irish Rebellion, in both of which the Society of United Irishmen had been involved, new statutes made it a criminal offence, punishable by fine and imprisonment, to belong to the Corresponding Society, or the Societies of United Irishmen and United Englishmen, or to take oaths of secrecy. No printer was to be allowed to conduct his business without obtaining a certificate from a clerk of the peace. No attempt was made to discriminate between the Corresponding Societies, whose violence was confined to their language, and the other two societies, which had undoubtedly been concerned in the mutiny and the Rebellion. Individual atrocities were ascribed to French principles. The Reform Societies preached French principles.
Therefore they were as guilty as the criminals themselves. In effect, all organized political agitation was suppressed.