‘While the governments of most countries in Europe are perfectly despotic, and while those which are not actually such, appear to be verging fast towards it, the government of America is making rapid strides towards perfection …’ So wrote William Winterbotham (1763–1829), the Plymouth Baptist preacher, from Newgate prison where he had been jailed for four years (1793–7) and fined £200 for allegedly seditious content in two sermons he preached in November 1792. The government of America, he continued, perhaps with some feeling, ‘being contrary to all the old governments, in the hands of the people, they have exploded those principles by the operation of which civil and religious disqualifications and oppressions have been inflicted on mankind …’ While Winterbotham was confined, and in order to help meet some of the expenses of his conviction, he entered into various publishing ventures with his fellow political prisoners, the publishers James Ridgway, Daniel Holt and Henry D. Symonds. His most ambitious work was An Historical, Geographical, Commercial, and Philosophical View of the American United States, which was published in four volumes in 1795, and from which the opening quotation is taken – no small achievement for a journeyman silversmith, the son of a fuller, who had had little formal education.

It is not surprising that British radicals – about whose thinking and activities Harry Dickinson has written so perceptively and so humanely – continued to admire and be fascinated by the American political example after American independence, especially during the oppressive 1790s. They had sympathised with the colonial case against British government policy in the decade before the war and they had applied these arguments to the British situation, making the case for reform at home as well as independence for America. They had opposed the British war against the revolutionary Americans and they now found in the new United States of America a totem, an inspiration and, in some cases, an asylum from the increasingly politically repressive Britain of the 1790s.

After the death of Major John Cartwright in 1824, his niece wrote:

The interest of British radicals in the development of the United States of America did not diminish in the decades following the ratification of the state and federal constitutions. This chapter examines the views of British radicals on the new United States of America from 1792 until 1820, and compares them with the expectations of the new republic that British radicals had expressed before 1792, as discussed in chapter 1.

The role of America in providing a successful, worked example, not only of revolution but of implementing a constitution built around representative government, was of the first importance to British radicals: as Paine put it, ‘The independence of America, considered merely as a separation from England, would have been a matter but of little importance, had it not been accompanied by a revolution in the principles and practice of governments’. Whether or not the new republic lived up to British radical expectations was crucial not only to their hopes and dreams, their desire to find in the United States a totem and an inspiration during the repressive 1790s in Britain, but also to the credibility of their arguments in favour of reform and representative government. Once more, the aim is to compare British expectations, not with the reality of the American polity, but rather with their perceptions of that reality, which were not always the same thing. After discussing the general place of America in British radicalism in the 1790s, this chapter will examine radical discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the United States of America, c. 1792–1820.

If the radicals in Britain were slow to accept the need for American independence, those ‘Friends of America’ who opposed the policies of the British government in the American colonies between 1765 and 1782, but who did not proceed from this stance to a radical political critique of British politics, took even longer to recognize and support the case for the secession of the colonies from the British Empire. These political thinkers, whose views on America may be described as ‘liberal’, had to come to terms with separation from the American colonies rather than achieve their preferred solution of reform of British governance in America and reconciliation with the colonists inside the British Empire. Their attitudes were therefore characterized by sympathy for the colonists and, later, acceptance of the necessity of American independence, rather than the enthusiasm for and envy of American republicanism displayed by British radical thinkers. Their support for the colonists, however, distinguishes their stance as ‘liberal’, as opposed to the stance of those to be discussed in chapter 3, whose views on America are described as ‘conservative’ because they rejected the colonists’ case for independence and found it almost impossible in this period to accept that a successful republic could or would emerge in America.

This chapter focuses on the views on America expressed by Edmund Burke, the Earl of Chatham, the Duke of Richmond, Charles James Fox and David Hartley, all leading liberal commentators on the American crisis, who argued for conciliating the colonists. They were no more uniform in outlook, however, than the radicals discussed in chapter 1. All but Chatham were members of the parliamentary group associated with the Marquis of Rockingham. They can all loosely be described as holding such moderate Whig views as a commitment to the principles associated with the Glorious Revolution of 1689 – a constitutionally limited monarchy, whose power was checked and balanced by the weight of aristocracy and property, represented in Parliament, and religious toleration. Most parliamentarians of the later eighteenth century, including those described here as ‘conservatives’, also held such views, particularly on the balance of the constitution.

So the Anti-Jacobin Review summed up the problem that the American republic continued to constitute for conservative observers in Britain in the early decades of its existence. In this particular instance, months before the outbreak of the Anglo-American War of 1812, the writer was both confounded and outraged that ‘a nation, insignificant in the scale of power, in the infancy almost of civilization, and with a circumscribed revenue, arising from sources over which she had not absolute controul’ should be ‘publicly discussing, in her legislative bodies, not only the propriety and necessity of war with a friendly state, but the means of carrying it on, and the objects to which it should be directed!’ How to square the circle of presumed American incompetence with a rising anxiety regarding its potential was an unspoken (and perhaps unrecognized) dilemma for British conservative commentators during these decades.

Conservative writers articulated a largely hostile attitude towards the United States of America between 1792 and 1820. They admitted that there were some reasons to admire the achievements of the new republic; apprehension, which was also expressed, implies some form of respect. It proved to be much too soon yet, however, for writers at this end of the British political spectrum to admit the reality of the establishment of a successful federal republic in place of their thirteen colonies, to ‘embrace closure’, and to accept that they had departed from the British Empire without disintegrating into inter-state conflict, political collapse, economic ruin and loss of all international stature. They had been convinced that an American republic was not viable, and they had fully expected the attempt to result in disaster. Their response to its realization and flourishing was a mixture of resentment, contempt and fear.

Liberal British commentators on America between 1792 and 1820 rejected the brew of resentment, contempt and fear that constituted the conservative British attitude towards the new United States of America. Instead, they applauded the new republic for successfully limiting the power of the executive in government and for demonstrating that such a state could flourish politically and prosper economically, and they suggested that it had a vital role to play internationally. They were more critical of American society and intellectual achievements, though, and, unlike radical writers, they were unwilling to be persuaded by the American example that popular sovereignty was a phenomenon to be emulated in Britain or elsewhere in the world. They needed the American example to sustain their own particular political mythology, and they believed that America's role in the world was to take up the British mantle of spreading liberty throughout the globe, but they did not wish to see Britain follow the American model of widely representative government, which was a totem to liberty rather than a pattern to be followed.

The opposition Whigs, as chapter 2 showed, had taken some time to recognize and support the case for American independence, as opposed to their preferred option of reform of British governance in America and reconciliation with the colonists within the British Empire. Their attitudes had been characterized by sympathy for the colonists and, later, a pragmatic acceptance of American independence, since reform was not forthcoming, rather than the enthusiasm for and envy of American republicanism displayed by British radical thinkers.

William Cobbett (1763–1835), journalist, farmer and resident in North America for three substantial periods, exemplifies the point par excellence that individuals in this era did not fit neatly into rigid political categories that may be imposed by modern readers. Not only did his broader political allegiances change more than once, but, unlike Coleridge, so too did his attitudes to the United States of America. He also typified the pattern that British commentators' opinions on America reflected their views on British politics and, indeed, that the subject of America was often simply a forum for arguing about domestic affairs. Perhaps in his case more than most, however, he was often really discussing not only British politics but himself and his own experiences, under the guise of writing about America. Cobbett had a troubled and rocky relationship with the politics of his own country. He idealized the British constitution and his conception of how it had worked in practice in the recent past, and he was usually anxious to proclaim a profound English patriotism, but he was frequently disillusioned by his present observation and experience of the government of Britain. The United States acted for him as a foil for the England which at times he adored and by which at other times he was deeply disappointed; indeed, twice, America provided an asylum for him when he fled from political persecution at home after voicing his criticisms too strongly. As his contentment with British politics and society rose and fell, he frequently appeared to change his mind in inverse proportion regarding the merits and flaws of American politics and society. It has been suggested that Cobbett was not very interested in international politics – that he was a ‘Little Englander’, who said of himself that he was not, unlike Paine, ‘a citizen of the world’, but instead he was preoccupied with the interests of ‘England, Scotland and Ireland’.

It is not intended that this chapter should discuss British radical responses to the policy of the British government in its American colonies, nor to the War of Independence fought by those colonies (1775–83). These important subjects have been well examined by the fine scholarship of historians such as Colin Bonwick, James Bradley and others. Rather, this chapter moves on to examine British reformers' early hopes and desires for the political characteristics of an independent America, as they expressed these during the years immediately after the Declaration of Independence, on the basis that they thought that the colonists' resistance to Britain was justified. What did they think the American republic would look like? What assets and disadvantages did they think the citizens of America began with in building their republic? What particular principles and mechanisms did they wish to see enshrined in the new constitution – and which did they hope would be avoided? How did they envisage the place of independent America in the world? The Revolution in America was instrumental in the development of the radical movement and its political ideology in Britain. Carla Hay, however, has rightly noted that historians are often so impressed by the influence of the American model on the thinking of British radicals that we pay too little attention to the advice offered by the British reformers to the Americans.

The reforming politicians whose views are considered in this chapter did not hold identical positions on the American crisis. The radical political reform movement in Britain was at an early stage during these years, and individual members of it arrived at their libertarian ideas by different routes and at different times. There was no uniform philosophy on British politics among them, far less a uniform platform on American affairs. The principal anomaly here is the inclusion of Thomas Paine (1737–1809). He did not write about the American Revolution as an Englishman, but as an American, and so his writing is intrinsically different to that of other British sympathizers with the colonists. The identification of him with the reform movement in Britain is also complicated.

The riddle of the British liberal attitude towards America in the years following 1775 is its unwillingness to come to terms with independence, but this is a conundrum for historians to unravel, not one which liberal thinkers at the time recognized, far less tried to explain. The key puzzle of American independence for conservative thinkers and writers in Britain was one which they themselves were perfectly ready to acknowledge: they simply failed to understand why on earth the colonists in America might have wanted to sever their connection with the mother country. It was ‘madness’, ‘an instance of infatuation unparalleled in the history of mankind’. While radical writers admired and envied American revolutionaries, and liberal thinkers sympathized with and defended the colonists' position, conservative politicians and polemicists between 1774 and 1791 refuted the arguments of the Americans and the ‘Friends of America’ in Britain, and they explained why they did not believe that the American republican experiment would work. Their certainty regarding the impracticality of an independent republican America, and their opposition to it, allowed them to discuss their expectations of it at far greater length than the liberals did.

Once again it will be seen that the writers examined here did not offer uniform views on the American question. While Peter Stanlis is accurate in stating that there was ‘no monolithic conviction’ regarding the American crisis among any British political group between 1766 and 1783, however, Paul Langford is also correct to maintain that ‘only very occasionally were there serious differences in the anti-American camp’ in Britain. The major variance was less one of political principle than one of practical policy. Josiah Tucker (1713–99), Dean of Gloucester Cathedral and a prolific pamphleteer on the subject of the American crisis, has sometimes been counted a ‘friend of America’ because he argued for acquiescing with rather than resisting the colonists' demand for independence. Yet his political principles were conservative, and his attitudes towards the Americans were far closer to those of conservatives who supported resisting American independence by force than they were to those of liberals who defended the colonists' right to secede.

Public interest is, if anything, more preoccupied than ever with the current state of the Anglo-American association. This has been a critical relationship in the twentieth century and the early years of the twenty-first, with an enormous breadth of influence worldwide. It was undoubtedly a vitally important relationship in the nineteenth century, not least in terms of trading, family and religious connections. The political understanding shared by the two nations has been profound; and yet political assumptions have also been distinctly different on many different levels, and the United States continues to be perceived as a rival by the United Kingdom despite the enormous disparity in their sizes. As a result, if one listens to many current British discussions about the United States of America – for instance in the British coverage of the presidential election of 2012 – sooner or later one hears a cocktail of widely varying views, ranging from curiosity and mystification, admiration and adulation, through envy and resentment, to contempt and fear. These mixed and contradictory reactions are partly the products of recent events, but they are also rooted in the separation between Britain and America in 1776, and the creation of the new American republic in the decades which followed. This book examines the formation of British attitudes to America in the crucible of the early relationship between the two independent states, from the declaration of the War of Independence in 1775 until the years after the War of 1812–15 and the end of Britain's conflict against Revolutionary and Napoleonic France. Many British visions and projections of America originated in the colonial period, but those which endured into the early years of the republic and circulated in British public opinion at the start of the relationship between the two independent nations may help to explain why the United States is regarded as it is in twenty-first century Britain. This study does not attempt to unpick modern British attitudes towards America, but simply to trace British perceptions of it in the early decades of its independent statehood.