ABSTRACT
Anti-radical and anti-French opinions, already coagulating in many localities, were ripe for fuller organization. How much so is demonstrated by the astonishing speed with which scattered, spontaneous loyalist and anti-reform sentiments in the country were gathered together in the last weeks of 1792 and the early part of 1793 into a great force, negative in its repressive instincts, positive in its assertions of loyalty to King, Church and constitution. The precarious status of speech and press was illustrated by other trials held during the early part of 1793. It probably made little difference that the Friends of the Liberty of the Press declined, for the members had other means of expressing themselves. When Parliament met on December 13, the speech from the throne called attention to the renewal of "seditious practices" designed to subvert the constitution, and emphasized the concert between the radicals and "persons in foreign countries."
