394 Chapter XVI
took a great variety of attitudes to the Revolution. At the most radical moment, in
France in 1793 and 1794, business men in general came under suspicion, and those
of all countries disapproved of the Terror. Even in 1794, however, much depended
on political circumstance: of two Dutch financial men then in Paris, one, Kock,
became involved in French politics and was executed; the other Abbema, accepted
and worked for the Revolutionary government. He was questioned during the Ter-
ror, but was acquitted and came through unscathed.
On the whole, the European business class produced a large number of sympa-
thizers for the Revolution, though not for its most radical aspects. Even in England,
where the government had long favored commercial interests, many of the business
leaders viewed the French Revolution with tolerance and hoped for a Parliamentary
Reform in which commercial wealth would be represented, and Dissenters should
obtain fuller recognition. At Manchester, where the textile manufacture was being
industrialized, and the population had risen to 70,000, the chief “radical” was the
civic and business leader, Thomas Walker. The Manchester Herald excused the Sep-
tember Massacres in Paris, and denounced the rising cry for a war with France. Both
partners in the famous firm of Boulton and Watt, the makers of steam- engines, fa-
vored “democratic” ideas, though Watt sometimes thought his son in Paris went too
far. Men of this kind regarded the English aristocracy as idlers. They were shocked
and disgusted by the Birmingham riots, in which persons with new ideas had been
set upon by ignorant ruffians with the collusion of the justices of the peace and the
gentry. Watt wrote to the eminent chemist, Joseph Black, that Birmingham was di-
vided between “aristocrates” and “democrates” (since the words were new in English
he used the French spelling); the “aristocrates” relied on the mob, the “democrates”
really wanted orderly and reasonable government, and would not object to a real
aristocracy of which they might be members.^12
In Holland the regent families were largely business men themselves, and the
conflict at its upper levels was in part between politically privileged and unprivi-
leged commercial interests. The ties with England, and fear of competition from a
Belgium under French influence, deterred many from sympathy with change. Nev-
ertheless, important mercantile and banking houses supported the Dutch Revolu-
tion of 1795, and at the most radical moment of the Batavian Republic, the spring
of 1798, various millionaires were at the head of its affairs. In Belgium it was the
most forward- looking business interests that favored the opening of the Scheldt
river and annexation to France, in which they saw a widening of their markets and
operations. In northern Italy the business classes generally favored the Cisalpine
and Ligurian republics, and even showed an interest in a more comprehensive uni-
fication of Italy in which their trading area could be enlarged.
12 For the Watts and Boultons, fathers and sons, see Eric Robinson, “An English Jacobin: James
Watt, Jr.,” in Cambridge Historical Journal XI (1955), 349–55; for Manchester, Leon S. Marshall, De-
velopment of Public Opinion in Manchester, 1780–1820 (Syracuse, 1946); for continental business men,
J. Godechot, “The Business Classes and the Revolution outside France,” in American Historical Re-
view, LXIV (1958), 1–13. Much detail on financial men of various nationalities in Paris during the
Revolution, including those whose names occur in the present pages, such as Walckiers, Abbema,
Kock, and Clavière, can be found in J. Bouchary, Les manieurs d ’argent à Paris à la fin du dix- huitième
siècle, 3 vols. (Paris, 1939–1943).