Late eighteenth-century London was a center of political debate, expressed variously in countless pamphlets, in coffee house discussions, and in extra-parliamentary political organizations. Intellectuals and political activists who argued about the problems of ministerial corruption and relations with the colonies had great faith in the power of reasoned discourse and the development of knowledge to improve the human condition. Most of them were interested in science and religion as well as politics. They were part of that broad intellectual ferment that we call the Enlightenment; yet for all the originality of some of their ideas and the radicalism of their political thinking, they owed a great deal to longstanding English political and religious traditions. They were rationalists who believed in God, and radicals who believed in history.

Catharine Macaulay was one of these intellectuals; she was surely not a particularly original thinker, but was unique in using history as her primary medium of political debate, and in being a woman tolerated in male intellectual circles. Macaulay and her associates owed a great intellectual debt to earlier radical thinkers, the “commonwealthmen” of the seventeenth century.¹ What is perhaps less well understood is the extent to which their ideas were informed by religious beliefs as well as political ideology. Beliefs in both the ancient rights of Englishmen and in millennial perfectionism provided the basis for the particular brand of political radicalism espoused by Macaulay and her associates. History was an important part of their political thinking, both because the rights of Englishmen were rooted in historical experience and because the process of history was part of the ultimate achievement of perfection. History, in other words, told the story of the loss of the rights of man and also the progress toward realizing them again in a more perfect state.

Catharine Sawbridge Macaulay, born in 1731, moved to London in 1760, shortly after her marriage to George Macaulay, a Scottish physician. She was no stranger to London society, however, as her mother had been the heiress of a wealthy London banker and her brother, John Sawbridge, was active in London politics. He served as Member of Parliament for London almost continuously from 1768 to 1790, and as Lord Mayor in the mid-1770s.² She began work on her eight-volume History of England almost immediately after moving to London, publishing the first volume in 1763; the final volume appeared in 1783. She published her last work, a pamphlet responding to Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, in 1790, only a few months before her death in 1791.

Macaulay was involved in political agitation which had its roots in the seventeenth century and had received fresh inspiration from the Wilkes affair in 1769-70. A group of Wilkes's supporters, including John Sawbridge, founded the Society for the Supporters of the Bill of Rights, which provided the model for the later Society for Constitutional Information, founded in 1780. The SCI, the most radical of several later eighteenth-century extra-parliamentary organizations, concerned itself largely with spreading political information by sponsoring the publication and distribution of radical books; its members also attempted to pledge candidates for the House of Commons to a specific program of reform.³ Macaulay also belonged to another, less formal group known as the “Honest Whigs.” Most of the members of this group, which met regularly at a London coffee house, were Dissenting ministers. All held radical political views; several engaged in scientific experimentation and became members of the Royal Society. They were not particularly interested in practical political reforms, in contrast to the members of the SCI, but concerned themselves primarily with developing theories about government. Their writings provided much of the intellectual support for groups like the SCI.⁴

The Honest Whigs included Richard Price (1723-91), Joseph Priestley (1733-1804), James Burgh (1714-75), Theophilus Lindsay (1723-1808), Andrew Kippis (1725-95), and John Jebb (1736-86). At least two Americans, Benjamin Franklin and Josiah Quincy Jr., joined the group during their visits to London. Price, Priestley, Lindsay, Kippis, and Jebb were all Unitarian ministers; Jebb and Lindsay, both educated at Cambridge, began their careers as Anglican ministers but later gave up their positions because of their Unitarian beliefs. The other three men were educated in Dissenting academies. Priestley, Price, and Kippis all belonged to the Royal Society (as did Franklin). All these men had close personal connections. Price was instrumental in getting Priestley a job as librarian and tutor in the Earl of Shelburne's household. Priestley and Price helped Lindsay to obtain a position as minister to a Dissenting congregation in London when he left the Church of England; Lindsay then urged Jebb to become his colleague in this congregation, although Jebb declined. Price and Kippis were both tutors at Hackney College, a dissenting academy. Burgh was a schoolmaster in Price's parish, and a member of his congregation.⁵ Macaulay was not a Unitarian, as she clearly believed in the importance of Christ as a savior; but she was generally in agreement with other Nonconformist ideas. There is no evidence, however, that she ever left the Church of England (perhaps because, as a layman, she never actually had to confront the issue of preaching Nonconformist ideas).⁶

The SCI and the Honest Whigs differed in many ways, including organization and membership, but Catharine Macaulay was connected with both groups. It is within this general context of Nonconformist, radical political thinking, rooted in the commonwealth tradition, that her ideas should be viewed. She shared a view of human nature and morality which was a basic part of the thought of all these eighteenth-century radicals. Like them, she felt the tension between faith in the power of reason to improve man's condition and the fear that man was far more prone to corruption than to improvement. But ultimately the dominant theme which emerges from all her ideas about human nature, reason, and religion, was the possibility of perfection, both in individual understanding and morality, and in society as a whole. This belief in perfection blended both the sacred and secular elements in the thinking of Macaulay and some of her contemporaries. Man was not simply a pawn in God's hands, she argued, nor was he the sole governor of his actions. He should be governed by reason, but reason alone could not make sense of his surroundings without the support of an unshakeable faith that the world operated according to God's plan and that it would ultimately make sense, no matter how discouraging the present picture might be. Religion was never incompatible with reason: “the Scripture teaches us to respect ourselves; and although the maxims of the sacred writings are exploded by all politicians as incompatible with their views, yet certainly the excellency of their precepts consists in their being exactly fitted to a temporal as well as to a spiritual happiness.”⁷ Or, as Richard Price put it, “Religion is the perfection of Reason.”⁸ It was neither mysterious nor superstitious, but a phenomenon which man must try to understand through his reason. This belief in human dignity, in the powers of reason, and in the possibility of perfection on earth, provided the intellectual foundation for a theory of politics that was based on abstract natural rights, but also placed great emphasis on history.

Macaulay's religious faith taught her that the primary motivating cause for man's gradual improvement was God's grand scheme for the world. “The events of human life,” she wrote, “when properly considered, are but a series of benevolent providences;” and man, for all his powers of reason, was merely the instrument in God's hands, to be used in the process of creating an ultimately perfect world.⁹ The process of individual and institutional improvement was part of a divine plan. This idea was not peculiar to Macaulay; both Priestley and Price expressed similar ideas. Priestley explained that God could have created the world perfect from the beginning but instead chose to lead the world to perfection by a gradual process of improvement, punctuated by periods of degeneration. It was part of this plan that men should actively participate in the process of improvement by increasing their own knowledge and experience. And Price argued that, although immoral doctrines existed which could lead human beings astray, God had implanted in the human mind principles which would help them make the right choices.¹⁰

The doctrine of post-millennialism was central to Macaulay's religious beliefs.¹¹ She believed that gradual improvement in human nature and society would lead to a period of perfection on earth, prior to the second coming of Christ. She was quite specific about the nature of the millennium:

… some passages in the Revelations point out a period of time when the iron sceptre of arbitrary sway shall be broken; when righteousness shall prevail over the whole earth, and a correct system of equity take place in the conduct of man … what ideas do more naturally associate in the human mind, than those of the first appearance of the infant Jesus, and his future universal reign in the hearts of his people?¹²

This belief gave her ideas about the increasing perfection of mankind the force of inevitability; those years of absolute perfection were the ultimate aim of God's plan for the world. The relationship between millennialism and Enlightenment philosophy has been discussed indirectly, chiefly by Carl Becker, but the emphasis has been on the secularization of this kind of thinking—its transformation into a doctrine of progress. The eighteenth-century philosophers believed in a “religion of humanity,” Becker argued, with the judgment of posterity as their God. This was undoubtedly true of many Enlightenment figures, particularly the French, but it underestimates the extent to which Enlightenment thinking in England blended with older religious ideas.¹³

Macaulay and her friends' strong faith in God would not allow them to sit back and await the outcome of God's plan, however, for theirs was an active faith; within the overall divine scheme, man had the power to affect the course of history. He was obligated not only to improve his own understanding, but also to use that understanding to benefit society. In Price's words,

I am waiting for the GREAT TEACHER, convinced that the order of nature is perfect; that infinite wisdom and goodness govern all things; and that Christianity comes from God; But at the same time puzzled by many difficulties, anxious for more light, and resting with full and constant assurance only on this ONE truth—that the practice of virtue is the duty and dignity of man; and, in all events, his wisest and safest course.¹⁴

Macaulay used this idea of God as the ultimate governor of the world's progress to explain some historical events and figures. William III and Robert Walpole are good examples. She viewed both men as villains, because of their apparent devotion to politics for personal gain rather than for the advancement of liberty. She believed that all of William's parliaments were seeking their own advantage, rather than the general good of the nation, but could not deny that they resisted William's efforts to increase his prerogative. To explain how good ends might result from evil motives, she wrote: “the omnipotent Disposer and Director of all human actions and events produces good out of evil, and often renders the prejudices and vicious affections of his creatures instrumental to public and private happiness.” But, on the other hand, God would not always allow wicked men to be the instruments of great achievements; Walpole's fall from power, coming at a time when changes in favor of greater liberty were taking place, was an indication that God was unwilling to have such a “defective character” share in “so glorious a work.”¹⁵ The American Revolution was one of the most important examples of God's direct intervention leading to world improvement (as was the French Revolution later); America, she argued, would set an example of liberty for the rest of the world. Price agreed with this belief, even to the point of arguing that the colonies would inevitably defeat the British because God favored their cause.¹⁶

But how was perfection of the world to be realized? These intellectuals' ideas, and their penchant for political activity, would not permit passivity. In their minds, human activity had a definite role in God's plan for the world. It was because of this belief that they could make the connection between religion and reason. Just as religion could be understood through the process of reason, so too human beings, through the use of reason, could help push the world toward perfection. Like other intellectuals influenced by Enlightenment philosophy, they believed that education, the development of better institutions, and, most important, the improvement of government were the chief instruments by which perfection could be accomplished.

Education was the single most important means of enabling reason to overcome the dominance of passion. Macaulay, like most of her friends, derived her views on education from Locke. Applied to politics, such views suggested that well-educated individuals would scorn tyranny and espouse the cause of free government. No set form of education could be devised which would inculcate all the proper principles of free government, but rather, if individuals were allowed complete freedom of intellectual inquiry, they would come to understand those abstract principles of truth which would lead them to form the best possible governments. Macaulay believed in the existence of an absolute truth which, if followed, would increase man's happiness and perfection in a basically ignorant world.¹⁷ Her belief in the importance of education in shaping the character of individuals was apparent throughout her history. Her most common explanation for corrupt behavior was lack of the proper type of education; never did she accuse anyone of being inherently evil.¹⁸

For Macaulay the relationship between reason, education, and institutions (specifically governmental institutions) was not a simple one. Reason, supported by education, would help improve institutions. But the structure of institutions themselves could affect the improvement of man's reason. A government based on power would not provide the right conditions for the dispassionate discussion necessary for the improvement of reason. Her writings indicate a preference for a republican form of government. She strongly favored the brief attempt at establishing a republic during the Interregnum, was sympathetic to the Levellers, and supported republican efforts in America, Corsica, and France. However, she was not opposed to monarchy per se as long as royal power was checked by a popular assembly, and the sovereign could be removed by popular will.¹⁹ The republic vs. monarchy issue was not so important to her as insuring the existence of democracy, whatever the form of government.²⁰ Macaulay argued that societies based on the rule of privilege, rather than on equality, would not allow the development of those methods of education needed for the increase of reason. “Under governments of this kind,” she wrote, “the common herd of men are incapable of judging of argument, and must be led to action by their passions, not by their understandings.”²¹ She did not deny that individual vice was the cause of crime and corruption, but believed that imperfect institutions created the setting for vice. If institutions were perfect, that perfection would diffuse itself among individuals in society and prevent any opportunity for the working of evil. Whenever moral truth became generally known, she claimed, it would be universally respected; therefore, once monarchy was exposed as an evil it would be deplored by all and the wisdom of governments based on equal distribution of power would become apparent. Presumably the powers of education would be sufficient eventually to effect this general recognition of the wisdom of equality and liberty. She saw her own history as a contribution to this educational process; her belief that political structure affected the general well-being of society was one of her avowed purposes for writing history. By setting down the facts of England's history (ostensibly in a purely objective fashion), she believed that she was contributing to the spread of the principles of truth.²²

If, as Macaulay contended, government could be an instrument with which to improve man's reason, then reason and public institutions together could be the instrument of achieving perfection. But individuals of greater reason and virtue were needed to reform government. Macaulay and others who shared her views were caught in a dilemma here: better institutions were needed to mold better individuals, but virtuous and reasonable individuals were the reformers of institutions. They tried to solve this dilemma through their faith in education: as the general educational level of the population increased, a more enlightened public opinion would help to purge corrupt institutions. Yet education is in itself an institution, shaped by the political structure of which it is a part, and so these would-be reformers were forced to fall back on the virtue and intelligence of a few enlightened individuals who somehow managed to escape the stultifying effects of the educational and political system in which they lived. Macaulay and her friends, of course, saw themselves as the enlightened vanguard leading the rest of England along the path of virtue and reason.

There was constant tension between their belief that the vast majority of the people must be led by the intelligent, enlightened few, and the idea that only by vesting power in the people at large could liberty be protected from the encroachments of men in positions of authority. For these radicals saw a threat to the beneficent effects of man's reason in the form of man's passions, and the strongest of the passions was the desire for power. Thus anyone placed in a position of authority over his fellow human beings, whether that authority was legitimate or not, would by his very nature try to gain more and more power over them. Institutional checks on power would help prevent those in authority from overstepping the limits of their power, and much of the radical reformers' energy was directed toward establishing such checks. But ultimately the only real protection against the illegal extension of power was the vigilance of an enlightened population.²³

The radical intellectuals of this period felt a strong sense of personal obligation to achieve perfection in government and, ultimately, in society as a whole. For Macaulay, the writing of history was an important contribution to this end. Her theory of natural rights was rooted in the past, in the golden age of England's ancient constitution. History for her was the story of the struggle to recapture those rights, which would eventually be developed in a more perfect form.

Macaulay's interest in history was widely shared by eighteenth-century intellectuals, both in France, where Voltaire turned to writing history as a means of developing Enlightenment ideas, and in England, where Hume and Gibbon made the principal contributions to Enlightenment historiography. The moral and philosophical values of history were of particular concern to Enlightenment figures, and they consequently developed new ways of approaching the writing of history.²⁴ Macaulay was clearly influenced by some of the same ideas that lay behind Enlightenment historical writing, but at the same time her closest intellectual ties were with the English traditions of political radicalism and nonconformity, rather than with the essentially secular philosophy of the Enlightenment. She shared the Enlightenment belief in moral and political education as the basic purpose of history. And, like them, she thought that history should be objective—a recounting of facts—rather than a tale told from a specific political point of view.²⁵ An impartial rendering of facts would, in the long run, have greater educational and political impact, she thought. Her major criticism of all history written in the past was its partisan bias. She accused both Hume and Clarendon, the two historians whom she most frequently mentioned, of writing from the point of view of a particular party or faction, in contrast to her own supposed impartiality. What escaped Macaulay was the fact that she fell victim to bias in another form, by judging historical characters and events in the light of their contribution to the advancement of reason and liberty.

In addition to these basic ideas about how history should be written, most eighteenth-century historians shared a fundamental approach to the past. They saw history as a constant struggle between the forces of good and evil; for writers like Voltaire and Gibbon this was a battle between reason and superstition. Gibbon in particular equated Christianity with superstition. Macaulay, who never wavered in her Christian faith, could not accept this point of view; this is the one point where she diverged most sharply from more secular-minded Enlightenment historians. For Macaulay, the great struggle was one between liberty and tyranny. But whatever the antagonists, these historians saw the past as great cycles of progress and regression. The Golden Age of Greece and Rome was replaced by the superstitious Dark Ages; the freedom of the Saxons gave way to William the Conqueror. The one ray of hope for these writers was their sense that the ages of progress were gradually gaining over the periods of superstition and tyranny.²⁶

Despite some similarities in approach to history, however, Macaulay differed considerably from historians like Hume and Gibbon. She made her differences with Hume explicit; although both professed to believe in an objective approach to history, their definitions of objectivity differed considerably. Hume's assumptions that human nature was essentially similar in all times and places and that environment or particular circumstances of time must be used to explain historical causation ran contrary to Macaulay's most cherished beliefs.²⁷ For her, objectivity was not a philosophical issue at all; it simply meant setting down facts without overt reference to a particular political position. The notion that historical causation involved something more than the motives of specific individuals was completely foreign to her; on the contrary, she frequently invoked individual character as the most important force behind historical events. Of course, the idea that choice of “facts” in a historical narrative might in itself undermine objectivity was a thought that neither Hume nor Macaulay entertained.

Macaulay also differed in her historical interests. Many of her contemporaries believed in a golden age in ancient times; but Enlightenment historians looked to Greece and Rome, while Macaulay concerned herself with ancient England. This difference was partly the result of these historians' different philosophical concerns. Men of the Enlightenment were primarily concerned with the rule of reason, as exemplified in ancient times; Macaulay sought the triumph of liberty and constitutionalism, as symbolized by the “ancient constitution.” But these philosophical differences indicated political differences as well. Macaulay's political views were much more explicit than those of Enlightenment historians. Glorification of the ancient constitution was for her a way of emphasizing the political corruption, and what she perceived as the demise of “liberty,” in her own time. Her use of the “ancient constitution” in this way is a reminder of the fact that political persuasion was the major purpose of her writing, despite her claims to objectivity.

The most fundamental difference between Macaulay and Enlightenment historians was her Christianity. Ancient Greece and Rome held no particular attraction for Macaulay for exactly the same reason that the age appealed so strongly to Enlightenment historians: its secularism.²⁸ Although she was a Nonconformist in spirit, and some of her friends devoted considerable effort to “rationalizing” religion, she never allowed her concern with reason to supersede her religious faith. She also occasionally resorted to explaining historical events in terms of Providence, a device which would have been anathema to her more secular contemporaries.

The broad theme of Macaulay's history was the development and preservation of “liberty” in England; she was unaware of the extent to which her definition of “liberty” itself constituted the political bias. Despite her professions of objectivity, she made every effort to persuade her readers, as was apparent in her most complete statement of purpose:

Animated with the love of liberty, and an enthusiastic regard to English patriotism, I ventured to take the pen in hand, with the intention of vindicating the insulted memories of our illustrious ancestors, and of exposing to the public the evils which this country has suffered from the intrigues of faction and rage of party; and I vainly hoped that the conviction of uncontrovertible argument, founded on fact, would, in a series of time, extinguish the baneful influence of party spirit; … This, without any unconstitutional design, or any wild enthusiastic hope of being able to influence the minds of a nation in favour of a democratic form of government, who from the beginning of time have been under the rule of regal sway, and whose laws, manners, customs, and prejudices are ill adapted to a republic, is the grand aim of my writings …²⁹

There are many examples of Macaulay's outward attempt at impartiality. In discussing several controversies, she was careful to note that she presented arguments on both sides of the questions. In her description of the rebellion in Ireland during the reign of Charles I, for example, she included long footnotes presenting both favorable and unfavorable arguments about Charles's role in the uprising, quoting long passages from Hume's history with her refutation.³⁰ She praised Sir Edward Coke's career but found it necessary, in the interests of fairness, to point out that his career was not uniformly glorious, particularly because of his role in condemning the Earl of Essex and Sir Walter Raleigh.³¹ In another case, describing Laud's persecution of Puritan ministers, she singled out one of these ministers for more detailed discussion on the grounds that most historians have treated these incidents too casually. Although she did not approve of the conduct of this Puritan, whom she labeled an “enthusiast,” she felt compelled to take his side because his punishment was out of proportion to his offense and because he was condemned by an unconstitutional court (the High Commission).³² She tried to be “impartial” even when discussing the fate of Laud himself. He did not really try to re-introduce Roman Catholicism into England, as those who opposed him argued; all his actions were in accordance with royal authority (i.e., the fault in this situation lay with the crown, not with Laud). Furthermore, he died with “exemplary piety and courage.”³³ The trial and condemnation of Sir Walter Raleigh, the ship money trials, the Popish Plot, and the character of Charles I were other cases where Macaulay consciously tried to play the role of the impartial historian.

It is significant that most of those instances in which she felt compelled to weigh both sides of a question involved the evaluation of an individual's character. In discussing Charles I, she wrote: “History is called upon to scrutinize with exactness his principles, conduct and character,” a statement which applied to her assessment of individual character in all other cases as well. For her, history was shaped by the morality of its actors, and individuals in positions of power played the crucial roles. Thus it was in the assessment of individual character that she broke away from her general narrative to pursue a more intensive analysis. She was careful to develop her arguments logically and support them with evidence in elaborate footnotes (using the works of earlier historians, seventeenth-century pamphlets, and occasionally manuscript material from the British Museum). She also constructed her arguments in such a way as to convince her readers of the superiority of her side of the argument. Presenting the opposing point of view was simply a device to emphasize what she believed to be the truth of the argument.³⁴

This emphasis on individual morality lay at the heart of Macalay's method of writing history, and helps to explain what appears at times to be an artificial, almost ahistorical, quality in her writing. She saw historical development as the growth of enlightened reason (and of virtue, which was closely tied to reason). She did not describe a unilinear scheme of evolution. Better times had existed in the past; her account of seventeenth-century England was one of great strides forward followed by long periods of back-sliding. Progress came through increases in collective morality. As men became better educated and more knowledgeable about the proper forms of government, they somehow took action to put that knowledge into effect. Although it was the growth of this collective knowledge and morality in which Macaulay was most interested, she saw key individuals playing an important role at turning points in the long process of historical development. The moral character of such leaders as Charles I, Cromwell, and William III was more important than any other considerations in determining the course England took at crucial points in her history.

In the first volumes of her History, Macaulay recognized the variety of causes which led up to England's situation at the beginning of Stuart rule. She discussed the scars left by the Wars of the Roses and the importance of establishing strong, stable central government in the early Tudor period. She reviewed the nature of religious dissension during the sixteenth century, and the extent to which fear of Catholicism after Mary's reign allowed Elizabeth a strong hand in controlling the English Church. She also discussed the development of parliament and the beginning of its struggle for greater control over the monarchy at the end of Elizabeth's reign. Elizabeth, she pointed out, was a strong enough monarch to keep parliament in check; but James, trying to govern England as if it were Scotland, was unable to maintain a good working relationship with parliament. But Macaulay could not talk about this development of parliamentary power in terms of impersonal economic, social, or political forces. She concluded her discussion of conditions at the accession of James I by saying: “noble principles had taken deep root in the minds of the English people … the progress of more enlightened reason would bring these to perfection, and the harvest of fresh fruit must infallibly produce an important change in the manner and constitution of the government.”³⁵

The growth of reason was responsible, Macaulay thought, for changes in English politics in the era before 1603, and further progress was inevitable; only the actions of evil individuals could retard it. Thus her initial comments on the state of England in 1603 set the stage for her explanation of the political crisis of the 1630s and 1640s in terms of individual actors influencing the progress of enlightened reason. The more intense the conflict, or the more difficult the problem of explaining a particular historical development, the more likely she was to discuss it entirely in terms of individual morality and character. Macaulay's emphasis on individual and collective morality as the primary means of explaining historical events prevented her from considering the possibility that individuals are to a certain extent at the mercy of impersonal forces, and that institutions develop and change over time. Because she believed in universal laws of nature which govern man's actions at all times, she used the same means of explaining events for all periods in history. She believed in the possibility of change and development over time, but that development, she argued, took place only in the minds of individuals who then in turn acted upon institutions. History for her was a means of elaborating and illustrating her fundamental views on human nature and politics.

Macaulay also saw her history partly as an antidote to previous historical writing, particularly that of Clarendon and Hume. She dismissed Clarendon as obviously biassed by his political position. Hume posed a more serious problem. Even she had to admit that Hume had great intellectual abilities. The real reason for her antipathy to Hume lay in her view of individual morality as a primary force in shaping history. Hume, she maintained, did not follow a recognizable political viewpoint, but took an essentially amoral stance—a position which Macaulay could not condone or even comprehend. For example, Hume, like Macaulay, tried to look at Cromwell dispassionately. But Hume reached a very different conclusion. He argued that Cromwell's rise to power was only partly the result of his personal ambition and maneuvering. His success resulted also from the historical circumstances of the time; England was in crisis and needed strong government.³⁶ And Charles I, Hume thought, was a man living at the wrong time—a time when traditional royal prerogatives were questioned but new limits on that power had not been clearly established.³⁷ This kind of argument—that men must be judged in part by the circumstances in which they lived—was completely antithetical to Macaulay's moralistic point of view. It was also at odds with her fundamental optimism; Hume was really saying that men do not always have complete control over their own actions, that reason and virtue would not always win out in the end.

Macaulay, of course, used history not only as an illustration of man's moral character, but also, and more importantly, as a means of supporting her political views. Her whole scheme of history was a justification of republicanism and liberty, a scheme which had obvious strong moral overtones. Republicanism equaled strength and monarchy equaled weakness, from her point of view; hence England during the brief Commonwealth period seemed very strong in the eyes of foreign nations which were quick to send ambassadors to England and try to make alliances with her. This strength continued even in the early days of the Protectorate, she argued, using an analogy to the human body: “In the body politic, as in the body natural, the first decline of a robust constitution is not attended with any great degree of visible weakness or imbecility. … England, though declining in its power from the first period of the usurpation, was more than a match for nations enervated by the effects of long-established tyrannies.”³⁸ This kind of reasoning borders on pure fantasy, as does her elaboration on this theme in her discussion of Cromwell's rise to power and the restoration of the Stuarts. The overall framework within which she placed historical events and which governed her explanation of those events was determined by her fundamental moral position. Preconceived moral conclusions explained events; events were not allowed to point to a conclusion of their own.

Writing history was Macaulay's way of elaborating her political views in ways beyond the scope of pamphlets. Not surprisingly, she devoted the major part of her attention to the turbulent years from 1642 to 1689. She viewed the Civil War as England's finest hour. The chief question raised by the Civil War, was of course, the right of resistance to a constituted government and, more specifically, the right to depose and punish a sovereign. Macaulay's constitutional theory became more clear in her justification of the execution of Charles. It was false to try to defend the verdict against the king on constitutional grounds alone, she argued, because Charles, by going beyond the limits of his power, made himself an enemy of the country. He therefore forfeited his right to govern, and the people's duty of allegiance to him ended. In such a situation, the constitution was suspended and the people were justified in using every possible means to restore liberty. Although there was nothing in the English constitution which specifically gave members of parliament the right to resist the king, that right was implied by the “nature of their office.” In fact, she argued, parliament had a moral duty to resist the king's tyranny. Charles's crime was treason, because he had deliberately tried to create a tyrannical government completely contrary to the trust placed in him by his subjects.³⁹

Given her point of view on the Civil War, Macaulay's description of Charles's character was remarkably judicious. She discussed the conflicting judgments which history had made on Charles and agreed that he showed genuine dignity and courage in the face of his condemnation. She was inclined to admire him for these reasons, and criticized those “partizans of liberty” who showed no sympathy for him at all; “compassion is the constant attendant of liberal minds,” she wrote. But on the other hand, men should not be blinded by Charles's brave end to the point of forgetting his actions which led to that fate, because “History is called upon to scrutinize with exactness his principles, conduct and character.” And, not surprisingly, on balance she found Charles's “passion for power” to be his worst vice, and concurred completely in the verdict against him.⁴⁰

The unfortunate result of the Civil War was parliament's attempt to re-impose tyranny on England; it was in this light that she saw the conflict between the Presbyterians and Independents. She opposed the Presbyterians' attempt to create a new church establishment and impose their religious views on the nation. The Presbyterians fought the Civil War, she believed, “to possess the spoils of an enemy, to seat themselves on the throne of tyranny, without any desire to reform the oppressive principles of the constitution.”⁴¹ The radical element in the Army and the Levellers, on the other hand, fought for the true principles of liberty against insuperable odds. Their principles seemed to triumph for a time, during the Commonwealth period, but with Cromwell's rise to power the lofty aims of the Civil War went down to defeat.⁴²

Her discussion of the Interregnum and Restoration is even more indicative of her political opinions. She viewed the years between the execution of Charles I and the Protectorate as the most glorious period in English history. Public virtue was at its highest point, and England was respected to a greater degree than ever before by other nations.⁴³ Her problem was, therefore, to explain how and why this state of liberty was allowed to slip away. Again, she resorted to individual character as the primary explanation of England's return to “tyranny”: Cromwell seized power, aided by some of his friends, and later a small group of individuals led by Monk helped Charles II come to power. But according to her belief in the progress of reason and virtue, an enlightened nation should have resisted such tyranny. So she had to explain the lapse of reason among the English people which made them receptive to Cromwell and later to the restoration of the Stuarts. She began by calling the general acquiescence in Cromwell's “usurpation” an “indelible stain on the character of the English.” The people at this time were still too accustomed to the role of individuals to be able to maintain a republican government; their “natures were too ignoble to endure an empire of equal laws.” The small number of dedicated republicans could not withstand the popular pressure against republican government. But, on the other hand, Cromwell prevented opposition to his rise to power by appealing to the people's fears and prejudices.⁴⁴ Here again is evidence of her ambivalence on the question of “the people”; she blamed the character of the people for England's retreat from republicanism, and yet this would not have happened if Cromwell had not appealed to the worst rather than the best qualities in the people.

Cromwell's actions had more far-reaching effects than simply placing himself in power. Because of his tyranny England began to decline from the position of strength and respect which she had enjoyed during the Commonwealth period, although that decline was not immediately apparent. He was responsible for weakening that group which favored a republican form of government:

The Republicans, by their wisdom, valor, and inflexible resolution, having acquired possession of the reins of government, though inconsiderable in their numbers, would have maintained their post against all domestic and foreign opposition, had not the mischievous ambition of Cromwell introduced division in their party, debauched the morals of their army, and interrupted that career of glory and prosperity which attended their councils.⁴⁵

And ultimately Cromwell's rule undermined the principles of freedom to such an extent that the restoration of the Stuarts, with some limitations on their power, seemed to be a lesser evil.⁴⁶ A contest for power then developed between the factions supporting Cromwell and the factions supporting the Stuarts. Cromwell had to resort to a considerable degree of oppression to maintain his power, which in turn made the former rule of the Stuarts seem mild by comparison, thus taking England a step closer to the Restoration.

Macaulay's treatment of the Glorious Revolution is perhaps most revealing of her political ideology, and the ways in which it differed from the conventional Whiggish outlook of her time. Most eighteenth-century Englishmen were slightly ashamed of the Civil War, but thought that the true principles of English liberty were reaffirmed in the best possible fashion in the Revolution of 1688. Even most radicals shared in this conversion of 1688 into a symbol of all that was good in English history. But Macaulay disagreed; she looked behind that dramatic act of summoning William to the throne of England to assess the motives of both William and the Whig politicians who supported him, and found in the events of 1688 the source of much of the political corruption of her own time.

In discussing the events which led up to the Glorious Revolution, she raised the constitutional issue again with respect to the Exclusion Crisis. As one who opposed hereditary monarchy, she took the side of the Exclusionists. More important to her constitutional theory, however, was her argument that there must be in the constitution the means to remedy the “evils which it may engender.” According to the constitution, in the normal course of events James II would have succeeded to the throne. Given the hostility to James and his religion, however, it was apparent that his succession would produce chaos. Therefore, the constitution also permitted parliament to change the succession in order to avoid a crisis. Without this kind of “safety valve” in the constitution, redress of grievances could come only through an appeal to the law of nature, which would almost inevitably mean violence. This outcome was to be avoided under any circumstances—but was exactly what did happen in 1688. Thus, instead of barring James II from the throne by legislation, parliament avoided the issue and was finally forced into the unusual and altogether unconstitutional situation of bargaining with a foreign sovereign.⁴⁷ She thought that James's last parliament, called when he realized that his reign was endangered, could have passed the necessary measures to settle the crisis in a constitutional fashion without deposing him. She did not object to deposing kings, as was apparent from her discussion of Charles I, but believed that William was a worse alternative than James. She discounted the fear that James would have re-established Catholicism, and argued instead that general opposition to James's religion would have united the various factions in the country. In any case, she believed that a weak king like James would have been far less dangerous to English liberty than a strong, ambitious king like William—especially because of his interests on the continent. In such a situation, those opponents of James who encouraged his flight to France were guilty of abdicating their responsibility to work out a settlement which would have maintained and perhaps increased liberty.⁴⁸

Macaulay also discounted the significance of the Bill of Rights, arguing that it added nothing new to English liberties and allowed many abuses to remain. The Whigs, in offering William the throne of England, did not take advantage of this opportunity to place strict limits on monarchical power. Instead, the Whigs, motivated by desire for the power which would be theirs if William came to the throne in their debt, gave him the crown “without adding any new trophies to the altar of liberty, or even of renovating those sound principles in the constitution, which in the length of time, had fallen a sacrifice to the lusts and the opportunities of power.⁴⁹ Ultimately, William's power became even greater than that of his predecessors because he introduced the practice of public borrowing, which placed an almost unlimited revenue at his disposal. As a man whose “ruling passion was military heroism,” William involved England in a series of foreign wars (which he was able to do because of the revenue obtained from large scale borrowing) and increased the size of the standing army. He was able to justify his military measures as necessary to protect his reign against possible Jacobite uprisings—a possibility which was blown out of proportion in order to justify the extension of royal power.⁵⁰

The real tragedy of William's accession to the throne, in her eyes, was the stimulus it gave to the politics of faction. The Whigs tried to increase their power by making William dependent on them, but the powers which they allowed him actually made him independent of their favor, and he soon turned to the Tories for further support. The kind of political bargaining, bribery, and selling of places in parliament which she saw as the chief characteristic of eighteenth-century government developed out of that bargaining with William.⁵¹ This line of thinking helps to explain her opposition to Burke's Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents. She believed that Burke was trying to justify factionalism in government, and that he thought the people's grievances extended no further than their objections to the particular faction in power. She regarded him as nothing more than the mouth-piece of his own faction, the Rockingham Whigs. Thus, although Burke also opposed the ministry in power, she thought that his opposition was motivated by the wrong reasons.⁵²

Macaulay's belief in the pervasive myth of the ancient constitution informed all of her historical writing. For her the myth pointed to a radical rather than a conservative interpretation of politics. The ancient constitution embodied the natural rights of man. However, those rights were universal; they were not linked merely to the ancient constitution. Those rights should govern the political systems of her own time just as surely as they had governed the Saxons. Her theory about the constitution was not altogether static. She saw it as constantly developing, with the possibility of reaching an even more perfect form of natural rights than that which had existed under the Saxon constitution. Much of her criticism of the Revolution of 1688 grew out of her belief that the men responsible for it did not use their power to restore the ancient constitution in a form which would take advantage of the increase in knowledge since ancient times.⁵³ Although ancient rights would not change in substance, modern knowledge might make improvements in the institutional expression of those rights. History was, in effect, the story of the gradual recovery and improvement of ancient rights; at some point in the future, that goal would be attained and an ideal society would be the result. Macaulay's history combined her belief in the ancient constitution with the theory of natural rights. The natural rights espoused by so many eighteenth-century writers were legitimized because it could be shown that they existed in the past and were not, therefore, merely the creatures of modern men's minds.⁵⁴

Macaulay's use of the ancient constitution was sharply opposed to that of Burke, one of her chief political antagonists. Burke argued that the ancient constitution was both immemorial and customary; it formed the basis of the tradition from which all of English political practice was derived. Because the English constitution was built from centuries of custom, embodied in the common law, its principles could not be reduced to some conception of abstract natural rights.⁵⁵ Macaulay, in her reply to Burke's Reflections, countered his theory of the immemorial ancient constitution by arguing that the Norman Conquest completely destroyed that constitution, making Magna Carta and the Petition of Right merely concessions from kings which could easily be taken away at the whim of a later king. For Burke, however, justification of political change based on this theory was just as false as the argument for reform based on natural rights. The constitution had no original, or ancient principles, he argued, because it was based on centuries of experience.⁵⁶ But for Macaulay, the theory of the ancient constitution supported, rather than undermined, belief in natural rights of man. The ancient constitution served, in effect, as a blueprint of the rights of man, justifying those rights by the wisdom of antiquity.⁵⁷

With the coming of the American and French Revolutions, Macaulay and her friends thought they saw the possibility of finally realizing the liberties of the ancient constitution again. Both Revolutions served to vindicate her political views, by showing that her proposed reforms could be put into practice. They also formed the final unwritten chapters of her history, because history for her was not really an ongoing, never-ending process of development, but a story that could be ended at some time in the future. This view of history as a process which would come to some conclusion in the future was a reflection of her belief in post-millennialism; the conclusion of history would come when the world arrived at a state of perfection, which would then continue for a thousand years. The American and French Revolutions made the millennium appear to be close at hand.⁵⁸

This blending of an essentially secular political philosophy of natural rights with a strong religious faith was the central point in the thinking of Macaulay and her friends and was to a great extent both the strength and weakness of their thought. Their religious faith, their belief that ultimately the world must achieve perfection, gave their political thought coherence and purpose; all their political reforms were directed to a single, all-important end. Moreover, they were convinced of the truth of their beliefs and persisted in their reforming activities despite the many setbacks suffered by radicals in the late eighteenth century. But there was a limit to the number of disappointments that even the most dedicated radical could endure. The limits of a perfectionist philosophy are obvious: how long can one wait for the millennium before becoming totally disillusioned? The problem was particularly acute for the late eighteenth-century radicals because of the promise held out by the two Revolutions.

The weakness of perfectionist thinking was most apparent in Macaulay's writing when she resorted to a religious explanation of some historical event which she thought could not be explained in any other way. For example, she argued that men who opposed King Charles II finally gave up all hope of a constitutional redress of their grievances and “prepared to seek relief by that solemn appeal to heaven, which is the constant resource of the brave, when the voice of freedom is put to silence by the power of oppression.”⁵⁹ She wrote often of England's dreadful state of corruption, implying that the state of perfection lay far in the future. As long as that state of perfection lay so far in the future that it was really little more than an imaginary ideal, a perfectionist philosophy could maintain its validity. But when the possibility of final realization of all the radical goals seemed to lie so close at hand, as it did in 1789-90, the philosophy might easily break under the weight of inevitable disappointment.

This weakness of perfectionism certainly did not negate the real contributions of the eighteenth-century radicals; they were among the most important influences on the development of American political ideas, and most of their proposed reforms were eventually realized in England as well, although not until much later in the nineteenth century.⁶⁰ But piecemeal reforms and continuous changes in political institutions were a tacit admission that the “right” political system at a given point in time might no longer be right fifty years later, and—by implication—that the perfect world would never be achieved. For Priestly, who lived long enough to see some of the effects of the American and French Revolutions, even America proved to be a disappointment.⁶¹ But it is one of the subtle ironies of history that most of this generation of radicals did not live long enough to be totally disillusioned; Macaulay, like her friend Price, died in 1791, when it was still possible to believe that the fall of the Bastille was the beginning of the millennium on earth.

Notes

1. Caroline Robbins, The Eighteenth-Century Commonwealthman (Cambridge, Mass., 1959).

2. Lucy Martin Donnelly, “The Celebrated Mrs. Macaulay,” William and Mary Quarterly, VI (1949), 173-207.

3. Carl B. Cone, The English Jacobins: Reformers in Late Eighteenth Century England (New York, 1968), pp. 44-46, 60-61; Eugene C. Black, The Association: British Extraparliamentary Political Organization, 1769-1793 (Cambridge, Mass., 1963), pp. 174-75, 192-94; Robbins, Commonwealthman, Ch. 9.

4. Cone, English Jacobins, pp. 48-49; Anthony Lincoln, Some Political and Social Ideas of English Dissent, 1763-1800 (Cambridge, 1938), pp. 54-59; F. W. Gibbs, Joseph Priestley (London, 1965), p. 26; Carl B. Cone, Torchbearer of Freedom: The Influence of Richard Price on Eighteenth Century Thought (Lexington, Ky., 1952), pp. 53-54.

5. Cone, The English Jacobins, p. 48; Torchbearer of Freedom. pp. 19, 63-64, 154-55; Gibbs, Joseph Priestley, pp. 84-88.

6. Donnelly, “The Celebrated Mrs. Macaulay,” p. 185; Cone, The English Jacobins, p. 49; Torchbearer of Freedom, p. 190.

7. Catharine Macaulay, Observations on the Reflections of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke, on the Revolution in France, in a Letter for the Right Hon. The Earl of Stanhope (London, 1790), pp. 55-56. (Hereafter cited as Observations on Burke's Reflections.)

8. Additional Observation on the Nature and Value of Civil Liberty, and the War with America (London, 1777), p. 32.

9. Observations on Burke's Reflections, p. 20.

10. Joseph Priestley, An Essay on the First Principles of Government, and on the Nature of Political, Civil, and Religious Liberty, (2nd ed.; London, 1771), pp. 260-63; Richard Price, Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution, and the Means of Making It a Benefit to the World (Dublin, 1785), p. 31.

11. Price was also a post-millennialist; Priestley's views on this subject are less clear.

12. Observations on Burke's Reflections, p. 21. See also Richard Price, A Discourse Addressed to a Congregation at Hackney, On February 21, 1781, Being the Day appointed for a Public Fast (London, 1781), passim.

13. See Becker's The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth Century Philosophers (New Haven, 1932), Ch. 4.

14. Importance of the American Revolution, p. 63.

15. The History of England from the Accession of James I to the Elevation of the House of Hanover, 8 vols. (London, 1763-83), II, 55; 422-23.

16. Importance of the American Revolution, pp. 3-7; Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, The Principles of Government, and The Justice and Policy of the War with America, (6th ed.; London, 1776, pp. 36-37.

17. Observations on Burke's Reflections, pp. 16-17.

18. See, for example, History, V, 50-51; VII, 279; The History of England from the Revolution to the Present Time, in a Series of Letters to the Reverend Dr. Wilson (Bath, 1778), pp. 270-71. (Hereafter cited as History II.)

19. Macaulay's views on monarchy are clearest in her discussion of the Civil War and the Glorious Revolution. She had no qualms about the deposing and executing of Charles I, because he had clearly overstepped the limits of his power. The brief republican period, between Charles's execution and the establishment of Cromwell's Protectorate, was the most glorious period in English history, she thought. Similarly, she felt that deposing James II was legitimate for the same reasons; furthermore, she argued, the people had the right to choose their kings—if they were to have kings at all. The notion of hereditary kingship was not part of the English constitution, but merely a custom that had developed in British society. History, I, 82; IV, 350-57, 428-35; V, 19, 249; VI, 72; History II, 4. See also Observations on Burke's Reflections, pp. 9-10, 14-15, 76-77, 81-82; Loose Remarks on Certain Positions to be Found in Mr. Hobbes' Philosophical Rudiments of Government and Society. With a Short Sketch of a Democratical Form of Government, in a Letter to Signior Paoli (London, 1767), pp. 29-30.

20. This point is especially apparent in her pamphlet on Hobbes, addressed to the Corsican Paoli, in which she argued that any “absolute” form of government—monarchy or aristocracy—is evil, and stressed the importance of democracy in a republican form of government. Remarks on … Mr. Hobbes, pp. 12-16, 29-30.

21. History, III, 160.

22. Price went beyond linking good institutions to the improvement of reason to give this argument a moral dimension. A government that promoted freedom and equality was necessary not only because it would help increase understanding, but even more because it would be the only form of government under which the true nature of man could be realized. Men who were secure in their liberty and conscious of their power to rule themselves possessed a dignity of character and a desire to improve their minds. As proof of this assertion, he argued that intellectual achievements had been greatest in countries enjoying a high degree of liberty. Conversely, extreme servility to men in power debased man's character. Obedience to lawful rulers was necessary, but when carried to the extreme of submission to power for its own sake, both ruler and ruled were corrupted. He further argued that unnecessary subjection to rulers was a “blasphemy” against God, who created man free and capable of making his own moral judgments. Nature of Civil Liberty, pp. 8-9; Additional Observations on the Nature and Value of Civil Liberty, and the War with America (London, 1777), p. 11; A Discourse on the Love of Our Country … Delivered … to the Society for Commemorating the Revolution in Great Britain (Boston, 1790; originally published London, 1790), pp. 21-22, 31.

23. The notion that “power corrupts” was a constantly recurring theme in Macaulay's writing, both as an explanation of the abuses of power by kings and ministers and also as an argument against all aristocratic privileges. See, for example, her comments on Strafford, Laud, Essex, and the two Charles: History, II, 481-84; IV, 148-52, 297-98; VIII, 64. See also Observations on Burke's Reflections, pp. 44-46; Remarks on Mr. Hobbes, p. 23; and Price, Nature of Civil Liberty, pp. 21-23; Additional Observations on Civil Liberty, pp. 15-16.

24. Peter Gay, The Enlightenment, an Interpretation: the Rise of Modern Paganism (New York, 1966), Vol. I, 32; J. B. Black, The Art of History: A Study of Four Great Historians of the Eighteenth Century (New York, 1926), p. 85; R. N. Stromberg, “History in the Eighteenth Century,” Journal of the History of Ideas, XII (1951), 302.

25. Black, Art of History, pp. 90-91.

26. Gay, The Enlightenment, I, 33-37, 58; Black, Art of History, p. 173.

27. Black, Art of History, pp. 86, 93-99; Stromberg, “History in the 18th Century,” 301.

28. Gay, The Enlightenment, I, 72; Black, Art of History, p. 170.

29. History, VI, vii. See also I, vii-xviii, and VIII, 38-39.

30. Ibid., III, 86-99.

31. Ibid., II, 202-05.

32. Ibid., II, 99-100.

33. Ibid., IV, 140-48.

34. Ibid., I, 122-37; II, 220-25; and Appendix; VII, 108-32, 145-46. Quote from IV, 418.

35. Ibid., I, 270-74; quote from 274. See also V, 380-83.

36. The History of Great Britain, VI (London, 1757), 70, 88-91.

37. Ibid., V (Edinburgh, 1754), 468-69; VI, 443-44.

38. Ibid., V, 385, 79. Quote from 163-64.

39. Ibid., IV, 425-35, 409-11.

40. Ibid., IV, 417-21.

41. Ibid., IV, 292-93. See also 267-70, 435-36.

42. Ibid., IV, 350-57.

43. Ibid., V, 385-86.

44. Ibid., V, 112.

45. Ibid., V, 249.

46. Ibid., V, 163, 249, 154-55.

47. Ibid., VII, 261-65.

48. Ibid., VIII, 250-54, 260-62, 272.

49. Ibid., VIII, 329-31; quote from 329; History II, 4, 72, 333.

50. History II, 6, 13, 72-73, 78-83; quote from 13.

51. Ibid., 53; Observations on a Pamphlet, Entitled, Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents, (4th ed.; London, 1770), pp. 17-19.

52. She differed in this respect from Price, who saw Burke as a friend because of his support for the American colonists. When Burke came out against the French Revolution, Price was mystified; he could not understand how one who had favored one revolution could oppose another. Cone, Torchbearer of Freedom, pp. 85-86.

53. Observations on Burke's Reflections, pp. 30-31; History, II, 1-2, 380-81; III, 44-45; History II, 5. Priestley was even more explicit on the necessity for continuing evolution in the constitution. See An Essay on the First Principles of Government, and on the Nature of Political, Civil, and Religious Liberty, (2nd ed.; London, 1771), p. 252.

54. Marie Peters and J. R. Pole argue that reference to the ancient constitution as the embodiment of English liberties (rather than dating the progress of liberty only from 1688) is an important distinction between radical and moderate reformers in the late eighteenth century. Peters especially stresses the merging of natural rights theory with the ancient constitution among the radicals of the 1760s and 1770s (the most important period in Macaulay's writing). Peters, “The ‘Monitor’ on the Constitution, 1755-1765: New Light on the Ideological Origins of English Radicalism,” English Historical Review, LXXXVI (1971), 707-10; Pole, Political Representation in England and the Origins of the American Republic (London, 1966), pp. 427-28. J.G.A. Pocock dates the use of the ancient constitution by radicals to the “neo-Harringtonians” of the late seventeenth century. “Machiavelli, Harrington, and English Political Ideologies in the Eighteenth Century,” William and Mary Quarterly, XXII (1965), 572-74. He discusses the connection between the ancient constitution and natural rights theory in the eighteenth century in The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law (New York, 1967; orig. pub. 1957), pp. 238-51. For a general discussion of the evolution of the various theories of the ancient constitution, see Christopher Hill, “The Norman Yoke,” in Puritanism and Revolution (New York, 1964), pp. 50-122.

55. For Burke's comments on the ancient constitution and natural rights, see Reflections on the Revolution in France, ed. Conor Cruise O'Brien (Baltimore, 1968), pp. 117-20, 150-53. J.G.A. Pocock discusses Burke's use of the ancient constitution, and finds his views on it similar to those widely held in the seventeenth century in “Burke and the Ancient Constitution: A Problem in the History of Ideas,” Historical Journal, III (1960), 128-31, 137-41.

56. Pocock, “Burke and the Ancient Constitution,” 141.

57. Observations on Burke's Reflections, pp. 30-31. It is worth noting here that Paine rejected the theory of the ancient constitution altogether. He took the step that Macaulay and her friends were unable to take, in arguing that England in fact had no constitution and that natural rights could be determined simply by abstract reasoning. See Rights of Man, ed. Henry Collins (Baltimore, 1969), pp. 93-95, 207-10, 124-27; Cone, English Jacobins, pp. 69, 100-07, 133-34, 212-13; Black, The Association, p. 208; Hill, “Norman Yoke,” pp. 99-104.

58. For Macaulay's comments on the American Revolution, see An Address to the People of England, Scotland and Ireland, on the Present Important Crisis of Affairs, in The Magazine of History, No. 114 (Tarrytown, N.Y., 1925), 79-90 (orig. pub. London, 1775), esp. 88-89. On the French Revolution, see Observations on Burke's Reflections, pp. 22-23, 86-89. Price and Priestley were more explicit in equating the Revolution with the millennium. See esp. Price, Importance of the American Revolution, pp. 1-7; Priestley, Letters to the Right Honourable Edmund Burke Occasioned by His Reflections on the Revolution in France, (3rd ed.; Birmingham, 1791), pp. 143-50.

59. History, VII, 417-18.

60. Robbins, Eighteenth-Century Commonwealthman, p. 386. On English radical influence in America, see Gordon Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787 (Chapel Hill, 1969), Ch. 1. Many of the pamphlets of Macaulay, Price, Priestley, Burgh, and other radicals were reprinted in America.

61. J. R. Pole, “Introduction” to Letters of Joseph Priestley to Theophilus Lindsay and Thomas Belsham (MSS on microfilm, University of California Library, Berkeley).