Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Throughout the crisis leading to the War of American Independence , successive British administrations secured comfortable majorities in parliament for their efforts to subordinate the American colonies to the sovereign authority of the Westminster parliament. There was always, however, some opposition in parliament to these policies and even greater opposition outside parliament. These critics were alarmed by the outbreak of war in 1775 and most urged reconciliation before it was too late. In parliament, William Pitt, the Earl of Chatham, and Edmund Burke were simply the most famous who aired this opinion. Their views were increasingly shared by such men as Charles James Fox and David Hartley. There were even more critics of the war outside parliament. Rational Dissenters and Real Whigs, such as James Burgh, John Cartwright, and Catharine Macaulay, and leading publishers and publicists, such as John Almon and Thomas Holcroft, were vociferous critics of the American war. Probably the most celebrated critic was Richard Price, who produced bestselling pamphlets, such as Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty in 1776 and Additional Observations on the Nature and Value of Civil Liberty, and the War with America in 1777, which attacked government policies, supported American claims, and condemned efforts to subordinate the American colonists to British authority by force ... log in or subscribe to read full text