For King, Constitution, and Country

The English Loyalists and the French Revolution

Robert Dozier

• Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780813186047
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

England trembled in 1792. In May, George III issued a proclamation warning his subjects of "diverse wicked and seditious writings" then being circulated which might "excite tumult and disorder." The response to this proclamation—an unprecedented expression of loyalty to crown and constitution—marked the beginnings of a movement that was to influence British political life well into the nineteenth century. For King, Constitution, and Country is the first full-scale exploration of the nature and origins of this loyalist movement.

The British government had genuine cause for concern. While France was convulsed by revolution across the Channel, the writings of Tom Paine and the actions of organized English radicals seemed designed to import that revolution to England. The formation of loyal associations throughout the country indicated that the overwhelming majority of Englishmen opposed such aims, and their public declarations of loyalty strengthened the hand of government in suppressing dissent, real or imagined. When war with France was declared in 1793, the loyalists, already organized, continued to provide social stability, as well as money and men—the volunteer corps—to defend their country.

Until now historians have concentrated on the radical side of this struggle. Robert R. Dozier's detailed study—based on sources as diverse as the private papers of government officials, provincial newspapers, and the declarations of radical and loyal societies throughout England—now makes possible a balanced view of this chaotic period. Mr. Dozier shows that the English loyalists rejected the French Revolution on social as well as political grounds, and argues persuasively that their words and actions enabled England to escape the legacy of revolution that was to plague the Continent throughout the following century.

This important book reveals much about the character of the English people, the structure of English political society, the nature of England's unwritten constitution, and the breadth of English liberties.

CHAPTER I

THE AWAKENING OF THE LOYALISTS

On May 21, 1792, George III signed a proclamation warning his subjects that “divers wicked and seditious writings” had been circulated throughout the kingdom which might excite tumult and disorder.” He urged his subjects “to avoid and discourage all proceedings, tending to produce riots and tumults.” Included in this proclamation was an injunction to all magistrates to do their duty by forwarding all information about seditious activities to the central government. The public response to the proclamation was overwhelmingly favorable. By September, 386 loyal addresses from cities, towns, and counties were presented to the king. To be sure, 10 counties and 80 cities and towns did not respond,¹ but on the whole this was a gratifying answer to the hidden question in the proclamation. Four out of every five Englishmen in the political community agreed with the ministry that the inflammatory literature in circulation, chiefly Tom Paine’s Rights of Man, posed a danger to the body politic, and they were quite willing to support the government should any ill effects ensue.

The significance of these events was that they revealed a frame of mind in a portion of the English public that would later serve as an identifying mark for group actions. Superficially this large response was rather surprising. The proclamation merely warned Englishmen that certain types of literature were in circulation and asked them not to lose their heads about it. Moreover, the use of addresses to the king or Parliament was an old device, normally utilized by politicians to illustrate the support they held out of doors for measures they wished to defend or oppose in the legislative houses.² In the days before public opinion polls, addresses were cumbersome devices to poll the sense of the nation. In this instance, however, the politicians had tapped a new emotional source of support in sections of the body politic that would sustain a movement lasting four years, disappearing only after diffusing its primary impetus into the public generally. The May Proclamation and the subsequent loyal address movement revealed for the first time the emergence of English loyalists, men and women who would in various ways support and sustain the constitution against all proceedings tending to undermine, discredit, or in any way weaken its effectiveness. Because these loyalists were not created overnight, a brief examination of the political and ideological situation in England during their gestation period is warranted.

Although Edmund Burke is often credited as the originator of the “conservative” response in England to the French Revolution, he can be viewed as the first outspoken English loyalist. His Reflections on the Revolution in France, published in 1790, was and is an excellent defense of English political and social activities and organizations in the eighteenth century. Burke examined and defended a view of the proper relationships between men in society and between governors and the governed under the English constitution. This evaluation, couched in the form of an examination of the probable effects of French revolutionary reforms, was written in response to the possible approval, and perhaps adoption, of French methods of change in England by some sections of English society. In his work, the English system was held to be the norm and the degrees of absurdity or wrong-headedness of French activities and theories were determined by their departures from the English model. To be sure, Burke did more than that. Viewing Englishmen and Frenchmen, he posed possibilities of human political and social behavior which could be applied to mankind. Yet the basis of his argument was a comparison of the French system and the English, his loyalty to the English pushing him to defend all aspects of it. Ironically the publication of his pamphlet precipitated an intellectual controversy that produced clearer views of the French system, which in turn intensified the very conflict Burke had attempted to quell.

Of the hundred-odd pamphlets published in this controversy,³ Paine’s Rights of Man, Part I, stated most simply and clearly the French case, and later became the chief argument of a new class of reformers who wished to modify Burke’s constitution more extremely than any had proposed previously. This ironic development can be emphasized too strongly, however. Neither Burke nor Paine wrote about the revolution which stimulated the loyal response. Indeed, events transpired with such rapidity across the Channel that they resembled a process more than events. The revolution Paine defended was not the revolution Burke attacked. Too many changes had occurred in the interval between the publications of their works.

The French Revolution was more than an event or a series of events. It was a complicated process of interrelated phenomena forever changing emphases and directions, in which the actions of its supporters occurred in a medium of values applicable only to themselves. Outside observers might grasp temporary insights and believe they understood developments; could take stands approving or disapproving the actions of the chief actors; but the Revolution continued at varying speeds, so that their conclusions when reached were out of date when published. Burke and Paine disagreed in interpreting some aspects of the process and its origins. By the time their views were published, the French Revolution bore little resemblance to the interpretations of either. Englishmen, however, committed their views to print; therefore notice should be taken of the general tenor of this response.

There can be no doubt that the English intellectual response to the initial efforts of the French was overwhelmingly favorable. With the exception of Burke, practically every English writer of note was stimulated into paeans of praise to the modernity and rationality of French attempts to reform the basic structure of their constitution. In these early years, if there were Englishmen other than Burke who thought differently, their thoughts did not gain notoriety.⁴

The reasons for this overwhelmingly favorable interpretation are fairly obvious. The principles revealed by French actions were part of the English tradition. The Real Whigs could easily appreciate the goals of the French and were to some extent encouraged to push for the realization of similar goals in England.⁵ The devolution of power in the French state from the monarch to representative assemblies was similar enough to that of the English historical experience to lead to several congratulatory speeches in the House of Commons. Even Horace Walpole could celebrate the fall of the Bastille as an event agreeable to the best interests of mankind. France seemed to be following the path blazed by the English. Patriotic Englishmen could not help but feel flattered, reformers encouraged, and romantics thrilled by the event.

The greatest pragmatic inducement to the English to felicitate the revolutionaries arose from the implications that the upheaval had upon the prospects for peace in Europe. William Grenville, later foreign secretary, wrote as early as September 14, 1789, that “the main point appears quite secure, that they [the French] will not for many years be in a situation to molest the invaluable peace which we now enjoy.” Charles James Fox, leader of the opposition in the House of Commons, when pressing for a reduction in armaments the following year, agreed.⁶ The French Assembly’s renunciation of the rights of conquest on May 22, 1790, bore out the predictions of these politicians. Whether or not one agreed with the justifications used by the French in remodeling their constitution, the important consequence was that they would not be an international bother until their domestic situation was settled.

These combined views of the activities of the French in the early years partially explain why most Englishmen took little alarm over the activities of those at home favoring the Revolution. To be sure, the sermon preached by Dr. Richard Price at a meeting of the Society to Commemorate the Revolution of 1688 stimulated Burke to write his Reflections, but Burke’s attack on the good doctor was censured by those who answered him. Throughout most of the eighteenth century the Real Whigs, or Commonwealthsmen, had put forth the same or more extreme views without arousing alarm. The “Church and King” riots at Birmingham in 1791, directed at Dissenters and others favoring the French Revolution, had been deplored by those concerned with stability and order.⁷ In these early years, views of the Revolution were not the politically divisive factors they were to become later.

There was another reason for this disinterested tolerance toward clubs or societies which celebrated French activities. These groups—constitution societies, Friends of Liberty, and so forth—were composed of members of the middle and upper classes. The Revolution Society in London, with Dr. Price and Lord Stanhope as members, was a typical club of this caliber. William Pitt had worked in concert with similar organizations earlier during the County Association Movement.⁸ These associations, composed of members of the political community exercising their right to organize to gain political or social ends, were a familiar feature of the political system.

One last point should illustrate the dominance of the favorable pragmatic view of the Revolution. Paine published Part I of his Rights of Man in 1791, when Englishmen still viewed the Revolution disinterestedly. Lord Mornington’s letter, gently chiding Foreign Secretary Grenville, points out the aloof yet generally concerned attitude held by those in the governing classes that similar behavior was being urged on Englishmen. “I wonder that you did not hang the scoundrel Paine for his blackguard libel on King, Lords and commons. I suppose the extreme scurrility of the pamphlet, or the villany of those who wish to disperse it among the common people, has carried it through so many editions. For it appears to me to have no merit whatever; but it may do mischief in ale-houses in England. . . . I think it by far the most treasonable book that ever went unpunished within my knowledge; so, pray, hang the fellow, if you catch him.”⁹ While the Home Office kept Paine under observation, it made no move to prosecute him, for until revolutionary circumstances in France changed, Paine was merely a disgruntled individual whose pamphlet would only be magnified in importance by official action. The ideas he expressed were not new, although his ability to express them simply and understandably pointed to a wider dispersal of them than ever before. Government thought the wise course of action was to allow the pamphlet to die by neglect.¹⁰

National and international circumstances changed drastically by 1792. In the early part of the year, tradesmen, shopkeepers, mechanics, and other members of the skilled laboring class formed a society in London and another in Sheffield. Six months later the two societies claimed over 2,000 members. Similar societies appeared in other cities. Their members were reformers, individuals whose stated goals were universal suffrage, annual Parliaments, and the other long-sought ambitions of the Commonwealthsmen through much of the eighteenth century. Although individuals of their social background had participated in debating societies after the American War, their numbers and energetic activities now quickly caught the attention of members of the political community. Their spiritual and ideological backgrounds, traced sensitively and approvingly by E.P. Thompson, leave no doubt that theirs was an English origin, firmly rooted in the English past.¹¹

Spiritual and ideological backgrounds, however, do not explain entirely the novel features of such societies, nor the change they worked in the political circumstances of the day, for the class composition of these new clubs was mostly that of skilled artisans, individuals accustomed to making decisions which affected their livelihood. Their economic success or failure depended to a large degree on the wise use of their talents. It is not surprising that the spectacle of a revolution in France abolishing all restrictions on men of talent inspired them to join together to seek political equality at this time. Moreover, as representatives of their class in old England, they may have been naggingly aware that their status was being challenged by the factory wage-earners of the new England, an awareness which would lend some urgency to their cause. They adopted Paine’s Rights of Man as their chief article of propaganda, and when Part II was published in February 1792, it was added to the bible of their faith. Why they chose Paine’s works rather than others equally available and supporting their cause more exactly deserves some attention.

Paine published the Rights of Man, Part I, in February 1791 in the pamphlet controversy generated by Burke’s Reflections. Scholars have had no difficulty tracing the origins of his ideas, in spite of his claims to originality. What made his works so attractive to the artisans was that he spoke to an element of human nature that had had little encouragement before. The Rights of Man, both parts, is pure impudence. Paine treated all deferential aspects of English society sarcastically and impiously, laughing at the seriousness with which those in authority viewed themselves. The Crown, for instance, was a “metaphor,” titles of nobility were “nick-names,” and all pretensions were ridiculed in a like manner. Nor did Paine hide his goals. “There was a time when the lowest class of what we call nobility, was more thought of than the highest is now, and when a man in armour riding through Christendom in search of adventure was more stared at than a modern duke. The world has seen this folly fall, and it has fallen by being laughed at, and the farce of titles will follow its fate.”¹² Paine grasped the essential art of the propagandist—that the feelings of the reader, more than his considered judgment, had to be changed before any action was possible. Paine realized that an institution’s viability depended upon the respect paid it by men in society. To make change possible, institutions supporting stability had to be held up to ridicule, which, if successful, would diminish the respect supporting them, thus paving the way for social and political modifications.

This was the type of propaganda needed by the artisans. They were undoubtedly aware that their greatest enemy was inertia and ingrained respect among members of the lower classes. What they needed was works which were easily understood, to be sure, but works which attacked the deference of the governed to those in society who ruled. Paine spoke a language they could understand. In their respective fields the artisans were as competent as others in any section of society. Their exclusion from political rights was a result of tradition and custom, based upon nothing more than unspoken agreements which could be viewed as unjust and unfair. Paine provided the mental attitude necessary to take steps to right the political order. By adopting his works as propaganda to rouse others to action, however, the artisans, if they really only desired reform, changed and confused the goals of their movement. For Paine did more than import the cockiness of Yankee Doodle. After rousing his readers, he pointed to the way they should act. “When we survey the wretched conditions of man under the monarchical and hereditary systems of government, dragged from his home by one power, or driven by another; and impoverished by taxes more than by enemies, it becomes evident that these systems are bad, and that a general revolution in the principle and construction of government is necessary.” The system demanded to be changed, not only in construction, or structure, but in principle, deviating from custom and tradition and refounded upon the rights of man. Piously, Paine hoped that this general revolution might be produced by “reason and accommodation,” but, because this was the “age of revolution,” everything was in the reach of those who acted.¹³ Paine’s works were indeed masterpieces of propaganda, but they were also blatant calls for revolution.

It is highly probable that the artisans’ clubs, notwithstanding these calls to revolution in their propaganda, might have been absorbed into the flexible English political system had the timing of their appearance not coincided with two major developments in the revolutionary process in France. The pathetic attempt of Louis XVI to escape his position as constitutional monarch of the new France belied the reform-orientation of the Revolution and placed the moderate French politicians in an intolerable position. A new party, led by a faction from the Gironde, openly advocated warfare as a means of protecting the Revolution. In less than a year, and coincident with the founding of the new clubs in England, two of the practical reasons for the English approval of the Revolution had vanished. It was obviously no reform; Louis XVI now appeared more as a captive symbol than as the representative of the hereditary aspect of the government. And with war fever rising, the pacifism of the Revolution, so much a factor in the earlier evaluations by the English, was now reversed. Should the French go to war, they could not help but threaten the English. These events in France provided the context in which domestic English activities were viewed. From the latter part of 1791 until the end of the revolutionary process in France, Englishmen in the governing classes would almost automatically assume that English democratic agitation was either a reflection of or a part of French plans. As such, the artisans’ clubs were seen as posing a danger to domestic peace.

This danger lay in the possibility of discontented Englishmen imitating French methods of reform. Indeed, from the perspective of the twentieth century, it would appear that the French were captured by th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Dedication
• 1. The Awakening of the Loyalists
• 2. The Crisis of 1792
• 3. The Loyal Association Movement
• 4. The Loyalists and the Cold War
• 5. The Year of Indecision
• 6. The Loyal Volunteers
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliographic Note
• Index