ABSTRACT
The question of British public opinion during the American Revolution is a difficult, vexing and highly contested issue that has evoked a considerable body of literature. Edmund Burke understood the 'British public' to be that body of men who were sufficiendy aware of political issues to make an informed decision, and sufficiently interested to seek to influence public policy. Two complementary approaches seemed to hold significant promise for investigating public opinion at the grass roots: local history and quantitative studies. Political opinion has always arisen from a combination of ideas and interests that reflect, however indirectly, a person's social, religious and economic status. The evil of unanswered petitions became one of the colonists' major objections in their long litany of complaints against the British government. The coherence between religious Dissent and pro-American sentiment goes deeper than ideology and reaches into transatlantic connections and local, structural matters as well.
