ABSTRACT
Chapter 4 considers the case of the lawyer and leading SCI member John Frost as a means to think about spaces of sociability – particularly the coffeehouse, classic site of the “bourgeois” public sphere – and sedition. As Frost was leaving London’s Percy coffeehouse, his declaration in favor of “equality” and “no kings” formed the basis of the government’s prosecution for seditious words. But what did Frost mean in calling for “equality” and “no kings,” and how were the norms of coffeehouse culture to be distinguished from the seditious behavior of London’s low alehouses? Frost had recently traveled to France with Paine who was fleeing from arrest. Following his coffeehouse altercation, Frost returned to present the SCI’s congratulatory address to the National Convention. Declared an outlaw, he chose to return to stand trial. His activities in Paris lent an unmistakable revolutionary complexion to the words “equality” and “no kings.” Convicted for seditious speech, Frost was sentenced to a six-month term in Newgate prison. As for the culture of sociability and its links to reform, the coffeehouse’s decline paralleled the withdrawal of many middle-class reformers from radical politics.
