ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the wartime conduct and opinions of those people in Britain who were not merely part of an acquiescent majority in the country, but who were 'energetic' in supporting Britain's war against revolutionary France. By January 1793, with the trial and execution of Louis XVI, loyalist attention was increasingly focused on France as well as Britain. Loyalist ideas were so often integral to the constitutions, propaganda and even names of Volunteer companies that it is difficult to remove loyalism from Volunteering in the 1790s. The ministry and the loyalists were more concerned about the outworking of the French Revolution than with principles in the abstract; that is, they were preoccupied with the impact of Revolutionary ideas on French foreign policy and on British radicalism. Crusaders were more prepared to differ from ministerial policy than were loyalists, because of their strong conviction that there was only one strategy capable of defeating revolutionary France.
