Philip Harling

The Duke of York affair (1809) and the complexities of wartime patriotism

The essay examines the forced resignation of the duke of York as commander-in-chief of the British army in 1809 as a case study in the complexities of patriotism during the Napoleonic war. The recent work of Linda Colley and others has emphasized the conservative use of wartime patriotism as a means of defending the established political order in general and royalty in particular. But the parliamentary and outdoor pressure that prompted the duke to step down in response to suspicions that he had permitted his mistress to trqffick in army commissions indicates that staunch supporters as well as critics of the status quo did not hesitate to invoke patriotism as a means of criticizing royalty when it was thought to have neglected its duty to set a good moral example to the nation. There is no question that a large majority of the dukes critics felt that royalty was integral to what they believed was Britains uniquely privileged position in the world. But the York affair suggests that a great many ‘patriotic’ Britons felt that the royal family had to be protected from its own occasional indiscretions as well as from the Napoleonic peril .

ASSISTED EMIGRATION AND THE MORAL DILEMMAS OF THE MID-VICTORIAN IMPERIAL STATE

This article examines three voyages of the late 1840s to advance the argument that emigration – often treated by its historians as ‘spontaneous’ – actually involved the laissez-faire mid-Victorian imperial state in significant projects of social engineering. The tale of the Virginius exemplifies that states commitment to taking advantage of the Famine to convert the Irish countryside into an export economy of large-scale graziers. The tale of the Earl Grey exemplifies its commitment to transforming New South Wales into a conspicuously moral colony of free settlers. The tale of the Arabian exemplifies its commitment to saving plantation society in the British Caribbean from the twin threats posed by slave emancipation and free trade in sugar. These voyages also show how the British imperial states involvement in immigration frequently immersed it in ethical controversy. Its strictly limited response to the Irish Famine contributed to mass death. Its modest effort to create better lives in Australia for a few thousand Irish orphans led to charges that it was dumping immoral paupers on its most promising colonies. Its eagerness to bolster sugar production in the West Indies put ‘liberated’ slaves in danger.

Equipoise Regained? Recent Trends in British Political History, 1790–1867*

* Recent books that have contributed to the making of this essay include K. T. Hoppen, The Mid-Victorian Generation, 1846–1886 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), pp. xviii 787,

From “Fiscal-Military” State to Laissez-faire State, 1760–1850

21.00; Jon Lawrence and Miles Taylor, eds., Party, State, and Society: Electoral Behaviour in Britain since 1820 (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1997), pp. xii 207,

The Waning of 'Old Corruption': The Politics of Economical Reform in Britain, 1779-1846.

89.95; Michael T. Davis, ed., Radicalism and Revolution in Britain, 1775–1848: Essays in Honour of Malcolm I. Thomis (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000), pp. xv 242,

The waning of "old corruption"

69.95; John Barrell, Imagining the King’s Death: Figurative Treason, Fantasies of Regicide, 1793–1796 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000), pp. xvii 737,

RETHINKING “OLD CORRUPTION”

125; Edward Royle, Revolutionary Britannia? Reflections on the Threat of Revolution in Britain, 1789–1848 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), pp. ix 214,

THE LAW OF LIBEL AND THE LIMITS OF REPRESSION, 1790–1832

74.95; J. C. D. Clark, English Society, 1660–1832, 2d ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. xii 580,

The Centrality of Locality: The Local State, Local Democracy, and Local Consciousness in Late-Victorian and Edwardian Britain

90.00; T. C. W. Blanning and Peter Wende, eds., Reform in Great Britain and Germany, 1750–1850 (London: British Academy, 1999), pp. viii 179,

The Power of Persuasion: Central Authority, Local Bureaucracy and the New Poor Law

45.00; Gregory Claeys, ed., The Chartist Movement, 6 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2001),