[23] Rutt, "Mems. of Priestly," ii, 25. As is well known, Burke's "Reflections on the Fr. Rev.," was in part an answer to Dr. Price's sermon of 4th November 1789 in the Old Jewry chapel, to the Society for celebrating the Revolution of 1688.
[24] It was more of a club than the branches of the "Society for Constitutional Information," which did good work in 1780-4, but expired in 1784 owing to the disgust of reformers at the Fox-North Coalition--so Place asserts (B.M. Add. MSS., 27808).
[28] M. D. Conway, "Life of T. Paine," i, 284.
[29] Burke's Works, iii, 76 (Bohn edit.).
[30] _Ibid._, iii, 12. So, too, on 30th August 1791 Priestley wrote that Pitt had shown himself unfavourable to their cause (Rutt, "Life of Priestley," ii, 145).
[31] Prior, "Life of Burke," 322, who states very incorrectly that not one of them has survived.
[33] _Ibid._ As late as 9th August a proclamation was posted about Birmingham: "The friends of the good cause are requested to meet us at Revolution Place to-morrow night at 11 o'clock in order to fix upon those persons who are to be the future objects of our malice." Of course this was but an incitation to plunder. See Massey, iii, 462-6, on the Birmingham riots.
[34] "Dropmore P.," ii, 133, 136; "Parl. Hist.," xxix, 1464.
[35] Burke "Reflections on the Fr. Rev.," 39 (Mr. Payne's edit.).
[36] Conway, _op. cit._, ii, 330. The printer and publisher were prosecuted later on, as well as Paine, who fled to France.
[37] "Mem. of T. Hardy," by himself (Lond., 1832).
[38] Leslie Stephen, "The Eng. Utilitarians," i, 121. I fully admit that the Chartist leaders in 1838 went back to the Westminster programme of 1780. See "The Life and Struggles of William Lovett"; but the spirit and methods of the new agitation were wholly different. On this topic I feel compelled to differ from Mr. J. L. le B. Hammond ("Fox," ch. v, _ad init._). Mr. C. B. R. Kent ("The English Radicals," 156) states the case correctly.
[40] "Application of Barruel's 'Memoirs of Jacobinism' to the Secret Societies of Ireland and Great Britain," 32-3.
[41] "Application of Barruel's 'Memoirs of Jacobinism' to the Secret Societies of Ireland and Great Britain," Introduction, p. x.
I find it to be a very general notion, at least in the Assembly, that if France can preserve a neutrality with England, she will be able to cope with all the rest of Europe united.--GOWER TO GRENVILLE, _22nd April 1792_.