London in the 1790s

Abstract

Caleb Williams, fleeing from Fernando Falkland and his creature, his all-seeing spy Gines, repeatedly determines to conceal himself in London. Throughout the eighteenth century, London had become an increasingly divided city, as those who could afford to do so moved into the squares and wide streets of the West End. By the end of 1792, France, newly declared a republic, was at war with Austria and Prussia, and the movement for parliamentary reform had revived in Britain. Thus for most of the 1790s London was a city divided politically, but the division was as unequal as were the economic, cultural and geographic divisions. In the highest levels of the political world, the breakdown of cordiality between the supporters of Pitt's government and the Foxite Whigs was confirmed in the clubs of St James's Street. The government joined with loyalist opinion in blaming the LCS also for the outrages of 29 October 1795.