Parliament, Print Culture and Petitioning in Late Eighteenth-Century England James E. Bradley (bio) During the events surrounding John Wilkes and the Middlesex election affair and under the worsening conditions of the American crisis, popular forms of political expression became more and more common. Beginning with the Stamp Act agitation and extending through the association movement and beyond, petitioning as a form of popular political expression arguably acquired greater salience. These years also witnessed the opening of parliament's doors to newspaper reporting for the first time; in addition to the more or less objective reporting of parliamentary debates in the metropolitan press, we find increasingly radical whig expressions of disaffection with the government, and specifically with parliament. While political opinion in the London press has been carefully investigated, we know far less about the relation between popular petitions and attitudes toward parliament as revealed in print culture in the provinces. This paper seeks to explore two closely related questions: the extent of the political divisions in the provincial press over the American crisis, and how petitions were understood to bear upon parliament and issues of representation as illustrated in the local press. In the autumn of 1775 we will find, somewhat paradoxically, that when petitioning agitation shifted from parliament to the crown, it heightened the public's awareness of the issue of parliamentary supremacy and posed new doubts about parliament's viability as a representative institution. The questions to be addressed are the shifting perceptions of the political process during an upheaval like the American revolution and the light that petitioning, as understood in the press, might shed on contemporary perceptions of that process. Local understanding of the whig myth of the reign of George III and how this myth functioned with respect to parliamentary elections will also receive attention, with particular reference to Hampshire.1 Petitioning during the American Revolution In 1775 there were two flurries of petitioning activity, the first to parliament and the second to the crown. In January 1775 English merchants from 13 centres of [End Page 96] trade petitioned parliament in support of peaceful concessions to the colonists.2 Six boroughs had sent loyal addresses favouring coercion, indicating that merchants were already divided over the use of force, and parliament voted to disregard all such documents, a decision grounded in the majority's determination to narrow the conflict to the single question of colonial submission. On 7 February, parliament declared the colonists in a state of rebellion.3 This strategic decision to enforce the coercive legislation of the previous session signaled a shift in the people's approach to the government. From March 1775 forward, petitions from both the colonies and England were addressed to the crown, but in April the king decided to receive no more petitions while seated upon the throne, that is, publicly, in his royal capacity.4 News of the military skirmishes at Lexington and Concord reached England in late May, but it was not until 23 August 1775 that the king declared the colonists in a state of rebellion. The royal proclamation of colonial rebellion triggered dozens of addresses to the crown expressing support for the government and coercion, and these loyal addresses stimulated, in turn, an equally strong reaction in favour of peaceful concessions. Because the king damned 'aiding or abetting' the colonists in 'any manor or degree', some risk was involved in circulating and signing documents in favor of concessions, since in many people's eyes, such acts at home encouraged the rebellion abroad. In 1769, the Middlesex election affair had resulted in petitions from 18 counties and 20 boroughs, but only two of these counties and four of the boroughs had sent opposing petitions favouring the government.5 The American crisis, in contrast, prompted popular documents from 11 counties and 47 boroughs, and of these, five counties and 21 boroughs and unrepresented cities were so seriously divided that they sent signed, conflicting documents over whether coercive or conciliatory measures should be pursued.6 The number of addresses in favour of coercion outnumbered the petitions for peace, but the petitions actually collected more signatures, since many of the addresses came from corporate bodies and were unsigned.7...