ABSTRACT
The upheavals which constituted the opening stages of the French Revolution coincided with centenary celebrations in Britain for the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Price stressed that the Revolution of 1688 had been based on three principles: liberty of conscience; the right to resist power when abused; and the right to choose and reject rulers. Political societies were partnerships between the dead, the living, and the as yet unborn, and the best arrangements were conventions sanctified by custom and tradition. The argument was conducted at its primary level in pamphlet literature, but the ideas spread to a much wider audience through a variety of forms of media. Newspapers themselves took sides in the arguments about reform and the events in France, and the audience of eighteenth-century newspapers went far beyond the individual purchasers of single copies.
