ABSTRACT
Scarcely had the public finished celebrating M. Dorothy George III's recovery in 1789 when another constitutional debate arose as Protestant dissenters undertook a national petitioning campaign to convince Parliament to end the civil disabilities they had suffered since the Restoration. Intriguingly, even when Price and Priestley were later attacked in caricature for being dissenters, there was no effort to utilize historical imagery to convey the idea that they threatened the state, despite their radical political views. Dissenters were encouraged to vote only for those candidates who had supported religious toleration in the past or pledged to support it in the ensuing Parliamentary session. The dissenters and their allies were aware that such extra-Parliamentary organizing and the use of electoral pressure might be viewed in the darkest possible terms. Both men coupled English dissenters with French revolutionaries, a link that would have an impact on the way both groups were portrayed in graphic satire.
