ABSTRACT
If the memoirs of Thomas Hardy (1817: 111-16) and Francis Place (1972: 196-7) are to be taken at face value, Pitt imposed an English 'reign of terror' upon the British public during the 1790s. Not content with creating a climate of intense hostility to the popular radicalism, Pitt's Home Office embarked in 1792 upon a policy of active persecution in parliament and the law courts. The radicals, hounded through the courts on sedition, libel and treason charges, faced continual harassment and, from 1795 onwards, prohibitions on their freedom of public assembly, right to petition parliament and ability to criticise the government in writing or speech. Having been made outlaws by the Corresponding Societies Act of 1799, radicals retired to their workshops to dream of reform, having been denied all routes of 'legitimate' access to the political realm.
