[Cartwright], a Letter to Edmund Burke, Esq

After a distinguished naval career from 1758 until invalided in 1769, John Cartwright, the ‘Father of Reform’, educated himself in politics and from 1774 published over eighty books and pamphlets as well as numerous letters to the press. John Cartwright avoided a personal attack, though he launched a major one on Samuel Johnson for Taxation No Tyranny, considering Edmund Burke ‘one of our great national “lights”’, but for that reason considered his pronouncements all the more dangerously misleading. Cartwright thus focuses in the first section of his tract on the 1766 Declaratory Act. American Independence saw Cartwright embark on a lifelong mission to reform Parliament, beginning with Take Your Choice! , his best-remembered work, advocating abolition of property qualifications for voters and MPs, payment of MPs to reduce corruption, annual elections, secret ballots and abolition of rotten boroughs.