The ardour for liberty
'How much the greatest event that has happened in the history of the world, and how much the best' - Charles James Fox, Opposition Whig leader 1789
News of the opening events of the French Revolution was greeted with widespread enthusiasm by British observers, although some, patronisingly, saw it as evidence that France was abandoning absolutism for a liberal constitution based on the British model. Enthusiasm was most potent among those championing domestic political reform - Dissenters excluded from political office by the Test and Corporation and Subscription Acts, members of the middling orders denied the vote by antiquated constituency boundaries and a restricted suffrage, and Parliamentary Whigs whose ambitions for office were blocked by Pitt's firm hold on power. For these groups and their associated literary, scientific and political circles, events in France signified a much deeper change in government.
'I see the ardour for liberty catching and spreading...'
Following hard on the American Revolution (1776-83), the sweeping aside of the French feudal order demonstrated the irresistible rise of freedom and enlightenment. In November 1789, Richard Price's sermon commemorating the Glorious Revolution of 1688 concluded by hailing events in France as the dawn of a new era. 'Behold all ye friends of freedom... behold the light you have struck out, after setting America free, reflected to France and there kindled into a blaze that lays despotism in ashes and warms and illuminates Europe. I see the ardour for liberty catching and spreading; ...the dominion of kings changed for the dominion of laws, and the dominion of priests giving way to the dominion of reason and conscience.'
Published: 2002-07-04
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