Triumph Op Reform

TRIUMPH OP REFORM (1793-1837) In appearance the great Whig landowners gave their support to Pitt, and in 1794 some of their leaders, the duke of Portland, Lord Fitz william, and Windham, entered the cabinet I%Z*rm. lo xrve under him. In reality it was Pitt who had mtmtmut surrendered. The ministry and the party by which <*•"•»• it was supported might call themselves Tory still; but the great reforming policy of 1784 was at an end, and the government, unconscious of its own strength, conceived its main function to be at all costs to preserve the constitution, which it believed to be in danger of being overwhelmed by the rising tide of revolutionary feeling. That this belief was idle it is now easy enough to see; at the time this was not so obvious. Thomas Paine 's Rigkli of Man, published in 1791, a brilliant and bitter attack on the British constitution from the Jacobin point of view, sold by tens of thousands. Revolutionary societies with high-sounding names were established, of which the most conspicuous were the Revolution Society, the Society for Constitutional Information, the London Corresponding Society, and the Friends of the People. Of these, indeed, only the two last were directly due to the example of France.

The Revolution Society, founded to commemorate the revolution of 1688, had long carried on a respectable existence under the patronage of cabinet ministers; the Society for Constitutional Information, of which Pitt himself had been a member, was founded in 1780 to advocate parliamentary reform; both had, however, developed under the influence of the events in France in a revolutionary direction. The London Corresponding Society, composed mainly of working-men, was the direct outcome of the excitement caused by the developments of the French Revolution. Its leaders were obscure and usually illiterate men, who delighted to propound their theories for the universal reformation of society and the state in rhetoric of which the characteristic phrases were borrowed from the tribune of the Jacobin Club.

Later generations have learned by repeated experience that the eloquence of Hyde Park orators is not the voice of England; there were some even then — among those not immediately responsible for keeping order — who urged the government " to trust the people ";' but with the object-lesson of France before them it is not altogether surprising that ministers refused to believe in the harmlessness of societies, which not only kept up a fraternal correspondence with the National Convention and the Jacobin Club, but, by attempting to establish throughout the country a network of affiliated clubs, were apparently aiming at setting up in Great Britain the Jacobin idea of popular control. The danger, of course, was absurdly exaggerated; as indeed was proved by the very popularity of the repressive measures to which the government thought it necessary to resort, and which gave to the vnpourings of a few knots of agitators the dignity of a widespread conspiracy for the overthrow of the constitution.

On the ist of December 1792 a proclamation was issued calling out the militia on the ground that a dangerous spirit of tumult and disorder had been excited by evil-disposed persons, acting in concert with persons in foreign parts, and this statement was repeated in the king's speech at the opening of parliament on the I3th. In spite of the protests of Sheridan and other members of the opposition, a campaign of press and other prosecutions now began which threatened to extinguish the most cherished right of Englishmen — liberty of speech. The country was flooded with government spies and informers, whose efforts were seconded by such voluntary societies as the Association for preserving Liberty and Property against Republicans and Levellers, founded by John Reeves, the historian of English law. No one was safe from these zealous and too often credulous defenders of the established order; and a few indiscreet words spoken in a coffee house were enough to bring imprisonment and ruin, as in the case of John Frost, a respectable attorney, condemned for sedition in March 1793. In Scotland the panic, and the consequent cruelty, were worse than in England.

The meeting at Edinburgh of a "convention of delegates of the associated friends of the people," at which some foolish and exaggerated language was used, was followed by the trial of Thomas Muir, a talented young advocate whose brilliant defence did not save him from a sentence of fourteen years' transportation (August 30, 1793), while seven years' transportation was the punishment of the Rev. T. Fyshe Palmer for circulating an address from " a society of the friends of liberty to their fellow-citizens " in favour of a reform of the House of Commons. These sentences and the proceedings which led up to them, though attacked with bitter eloquence by Sheridan and Fox, were confirmed by a large majority in parliament. It was not, however, till late in the session of 1794 that ministers laid before parliament any evidence of seditious practices.

In May certain leaders of democratic societies were arrested and their papers seized, and on the 131 h a king's message directed the books of certain corresponding societies to be laid before both Houses. • The committee of the House of Commons at once reported that there was evidence of a conspiracy 1 The position of the Corresponding Society was greatly strengthened by the establishment of the Friends of the People by Erskine and Grey.