730 Chapter XXX
ing class, in its war with France and with its own adversaries at home, accepted
its liability to taxation.^39
The conservative levée took the form mainly of counter- organization and
counter- propaganda. As early as 1791, in the Birmingham riots, a mob more or
less spontaneously formed had attacked the home of Joseph Priestley, popularly
disliked as a Unitarian and a reformer; his house and scientific equipment had
been destroyed; and the sequel had shown the solidarity that existed between the
local gentry, the Anglican clergy, and some of the less enlightened popular strata.
Priestley’s friends—Wilkinson, Watt, and Boulton—had been outraged, but were
made more cautious. Priestley himself continued to speak out, and was listened to
by the radical clubs that began to spring up, according to a letter written by Hora-
tio Nelson to the Duke of Clarence in December 1792. At this time, as the gov-
ernment called up the militia, and set guards at the Bank of England and the
Tower of London, more organized methods of checking “sedition” were adopted.
In November there met at the Crown and Anchor Tavern in London, as a group
of private citizens, but with encouragement from the government in the back-
ground, a gathering of gentlemen who organized themselves as the Association for
Preserving Liberty and Property against Republicans and Levellers. Its chairman
was John Reeves, a writer on English law, and on its executive committee was John
Bowles, a barrister, who was provided with secret service money and wrote a num-
ber of highly conservative pamphlets in the next few years. The new Association
printed thousands of copies of its Proceedings, which it sold for three shillings a
hundred, so that they could be given away for a halfpenny, or for nothing. Within
a few weeks hundreds of other such associations were formed throughout the
country, under the auspices of gentlemen and the clergy. Only in a few places, no-
tably Sheffield, was discontent so nearly universal as to deter their formation. The
associations called the attention of government to booksellers who kept radical
literature in their shops. They threatened innkeepers with suspension of licenses if
they allowed radical gatherings to meet on their premises. They got up petitions
for which signatures of the “lower orders” were solicited. Thomas Paine was burnt
in effigy in many places. A few of the associations took to secret methods, a bit like
the Eudamonists in Germany, putting spies into the democratic clubs, and spread-
ing defamatory rumors about persons of contrary opinions. Often they received
large contributions from wealthy donors, of which they spent the proceeds on cir-
culating books and pamphlets in praise of church, state, and constitution, and in
derogation of France.^40
39 The Speenhamland system, set forth in all the general histories, is noted as one of the means
used to “blanket discontent” by A. Mitchell, “The Association Movement of 1792–93,” in Historical
Journal, IV (1961), 77. French historians, such as Mathiez, who made so much of the Ventose laws of
1794 as Robespierrist projects to assist the poor, seem not to have known that the British upper class
did somewhat the same, more effectively. For the income tax see A. Farnsworth, Addington, Author of
the Modern Income Tax (London, 1951). Addington in 1803 maintained the yield on Pitt’s tax while
reducing the rate to 5%. The war- time rate on the old land tax had gone as high as 4s. in the pound of
income, i.e., nominally 20 percent.
40 Mitchell, “Association Movement”; Proceedings of the Association for Preserving Liberty and
Property against Republicans and Levellers (London, n.d.).