ABSTRACT
The key to this poem is buried in its penultimate footnote, in an aside about ‘those who admire the French Revolution up to a certain point’. Horne Tooke famously said that if he was in a coach with committed revolutionaries like Tom Paine, he would get out at Hounslow, leaving them to go on to Windsor. The anti-jacobins aimed to win back moderates: those who believed in parliamentary reform, approved of many of the ideals behind the revolution, but disliked extremism. To this end, the anti-jacobins depict Tooke’s coach as a juggernaut. Once on board, there is no stopping short of republicanism, regicide, and Terror. In Issue no. XVII, they said as much directly:
Those gentle Citizens . . . who please themselves with the idea of acquiring popularity by accompanying Mr. Tooke “no farther than Hounslow,” on the road to a thorough Reform, may be assured that they will be compelled to run before his chariot-wheels as far as Windsor; or, if they presume to stop, will be crushed to death beneath them! 1
