Beedell, A.V. "John Reeves’s Prosecution for a Seditious Libel, 1795-6: A Study in Political Cynicism." The Historical Journal 36.4 (1993), 799-824.

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John Reeves is best known as the founder, almost certainly with government support, of the Crown and Anchor Association movement of 1792-3; however, a few years later, Parliament found it politically expedient to prosecute him for seditious libel against the Constitution for his ultra-tory stance projecting the king as the sole embodiment of British government. After a short biography and overview of Reeves’s connections to the government and his basic controversial tenets, Beedell’s discussion focuses largely, play by play, on how Parliament decided to prosecute him, rather than on his actual trial, at which he was predictably acquitted.

According to Beedell, the subject of Reeves’s objectionable Thoughts on the English government is brought before Parliament by the opposition in order to delay and undermine the justification for the Two Acts, directed largely towards controlling the words and meetings of reformers and radicals. Beedell also points to evidence indicating the differences between Pitt and Reeves even while they collaborated. Reeves’s prosecution, writes Beedell, marks the end of viable arguments concerning the natural right of kings and situates Pitt’s government, despite their conservatism, philosophically aligned with radicals and Foxites in its acceptance of enlightenment principles which Reeves sought to reject. Reeves’s prosecution also illustrates government paranoia over mass politics, a force which Beedell lambasts “revisionist historians” for ignoring. This position places Beedell, like Prochaska (link) and unlike Emsley(link), firmly in the camp of historians who consider the radical and reform movements of the 1790s more important than more conservative groups.

Entered by Sara on 04 August 2004 at 11:23 AM.