ABSTRACT
First published in The Examiner, III, 18 March 1810, pp. 161–3. This essay is continued in The Examiner, III, 25 March 1810, pp. 177–81, and 1 April 1810, pp. 193–5, where Hunt takes up the second and third points he lists below. The entire piece was reprinted, with a few minor changes, as The Reformist’s Answer to the Article entitled ‘State of Parties’ in the Last Edinburgh Review, By the Editor of The Examiner (London: John Hunt, 1810). Defending the position of the Radical Reformers against both Tory and Whig critics, this essay is one of Hunt’s most important contributions to the debate on Reform (see also the essay, ‘The Reformers; or, Wrongs of Intellect’, probably by Hunt, in The Reflector, I, pp. 17–28). As he seeks to define a position outside conventional party limits, Hunt repeatedly protests reductive political labels. While he most often objects to the attempts of the government and its supporters to lump all of its critics and all Reformers as ‘Jacobins’ (see headnote above, p. 90 and The Examiner, III, 11 November 1810, pp. 705–7), here he takes issue with the Edinburgh Review (which he praises as a review) when it seeks to divide the country between Pittites and radical democrats in order to argue that only the Foxite Whigs can heal the country. Hunt makes clear that his platform consists of an end to the influence of money in government, a demand for responsibility on the part of ministers for their actions and a reform of the method of representation to better reflect the will of the people. During the course of the year’s writing, he makes it equally clear that he does not favour Napoleon or an end of the monarchy or the establishment of a direct democracy (see, for example, The Examiner, III, 22 July 1810, pp. 449–51).
