It is virtually a commonplace to observe that the confrontation between Edmund Burke and Mary Wollstonecraft over the morality of the French Revolution concerns manners as much as politics or morals. Neither Burke nor Wollstonecraft believes that manners can be considered in isolation, and for both writers, the term “manners” works as shorthand for a larger system of power. In the end, manners reflect moral objectives: just as the construct of female modesty is designed to secure female virtue, so manners more generally secure moral or political ideals. Responding to the revolutionary call for complete sincerity and openness, Burke and other conservative British writers deliberately reclaim certain kinds of insincerity, re-establishing the merits of terms that had come under suspicion in the preceding decades, including modesty, chivalry and politeness. Yet even as the ideal of sincerity falls into disrepute with conservative writers because of its revolutionary associations, some radical writers on manners hold on to and further strengthen the evangelical call for sincerity that can be heard throughout the criticism of Chesterfield's letters. The contours of this debate form the main subject of this chapter, which will compare and contrast arguments about manners and insincerity made by Burke, Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, considering the consequences of each position for subsequent arguments about virtue and politeness, particularly as they affect women.