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In this article, Maryland's non-legal-tender paper money emissions between 1765 and 1775 are reconstructed to determine quantities outstanding and redemption dates, providing a substantial correction to the literature. Over 80 per cent of this paper money's current market value was expected real asset present value and under 20 per cent was liquidity premium. It was primarily a real barter asset and not a fiat currency. The liquidity premium was positively related to the amount of paper money per capita in circulation. This paper money traded below face value due to time-discounting, rather than depreciation. Past scholars have simply confused depreciation with time-discounting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article's point of entry is Plate 3 of William Hogarth's print sequence The Harlot's Progress (1732), specifically Hogarth's deliberate, hostile choice of an unframed, titled, small portrait engraving of the Reverend Dr Henry Sacheverell as a 'pin-up' within the harlot's bedroom furniture. The article reappraises and recontextualises Hogarth's choice of Sacheverell, which makes sense in the context of Hogarth's life and work, but which, with Hogarthian irony, is further informed by the subsequent discovery (1747) of Sacheverell's internment alongside a notorious prostitute, given the association of Sacheverell's celebrity and notoriety with his alleged support from London's 'kind shees' and streetwalkers at the time of his trial. This, together with a strong, nascent material consumerist culture, sees Sacheverell anticipating the 'politics out of doors' associated with John Wilkes by 50 years and is a specifically gendered version that has gone largely unexplored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces several aspects of eighteenth-century discussions of slavery that may be unfamiliar or surprising to present-day readers. First, even eighteenth-century philosophers who were opponents of slavery often exhibited marked racism and helped develop racial concepts that would later serve pro-slavery theorists. Such thinkers include Hume, Voltaire, and Kant. Second, we must see slavery debates in the context of larger scientific and political debates, including those about climate and character, just political systems, the superiority or inferiority of the moderns to the ancients, and the status of women. This section of the paper discusses the views of Montesquieu, Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Sarah Chapone, and Mary Astell. Finally, many anti-slavery arguments of the time may seem too 'soft' to contemporary readers, as they appeal to negative effects or aspects of slavery rather than arguing for its absolute injustice. The last section of the paper compares Rousseau's arguments against slavery in The Social Contract with such arguments and concludes with a discussion of how Hume's understanding of humanity as a virtue may serve as a bridge between the two. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores same-sex love and religion in the early eighteenth-century army, drawing on the autobiographical writings of two common soldiers. My main source is the story of early Methodist preacher Sampson Staniforth, who served as a common soldier in the 1740s. I discuss the British army’s attitude to same-sex love, the various contemporary meanings of Staniforth’s phrase ‘the unpardonable sin’, the impact of Methodism on his life, Methodist attitudes to sodomy and how Methodist historians treated Staniforth’s story. Very little work has been done on gender and religion in the early eighteenth-century army and the paper largely relies on a single ambiguous primary source so I offer questions for further research rather than conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The correspondence exchanged between Captain John Blake, John Bradby Blake, and their associates offers a valuable insight into the sociable world of Enlightenment botany. By considering these sources alongside the records of other contemporary scholars of botany, this paper examines the composition of the community of plant collectors and botanical scholars with whom father and son were interacting in the 1760s and 1770s. The documents also reveal the ways in which botanical knowledge circulated among the members of these communities. Amateur botany, it turns out, was deeply linked to gardening and to the emerging trade in horticultural plants, yet the contributions made by gardeners and nurserymen have been largely overlooked. In sum, the Blake collection at Oak Spring helps to answer larger questions about the nature of Enlightenment sociability, about diversity within botanical networks, and about the ways in which that social diversity affected botanical collecting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much has been written about George Washington as a presidential leader, but little attention has been given to one important aspect of the first president's administration: his role in funding and constructing the nation's new capital city in the District of Columbia. This article highlights Washington's involvement in the creation of the Federal City by focusing on the choices he faced and decisions he made regarding Washington, DC during the last six months he was in office and showing that in terms of this facet of his presidency, he was truly a hands-on leader. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a critique and partial reconfiguration of the Foucauldian genealogy of sovereignty. Sovereignty is largely conceptualized as the antithesis of governmentality and disciplinary power in the modern age; presented as a negative case as a juridical and centralized power of interdiction and containment in the classical age. I argue that we can genealogically examine how sovereignty in the modern age underwent transformation and dispersion. My empirical focus is on how master and servant law in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, along with the development and transformations of local courts, led to the increasingly dispersal of sovereign power as it as practiced in specific industrial sites and regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the role of Enlightenment women through an analysis of their social behaviour. The semi-public and semi-private features of an epistolary corpus reveal the boundaries marking the accepted pattern for women's intervention in the cultural field at that time, and behaviours that transgress these boundaries. This research focuses on eighteenth-century Portugal in the context of other cultural spaces, in order to establish parameters useful for the study of the role of women's in eighteenth-century cultural fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of 'description' has increasingly come under scrutiny in the history of science. This paper explores eighteenth-century debates over description through the case study of a scientific family in Gdańsk (the former Danzig). There, on the shores of the Baltic, physician Johann Philipp Breyne took Latin notes on naturalia, while several of his daughters drew and painted vivid representations of them 'from life' and one daughter wrote 'poetical descriptions' of them. In the Breyne family's work, different forms of description of the natural world were juxtaposed to reveal what might be termed a gendered politics of description. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The discovery in the manuscript papers of Charles, Lord Bruce, of three lists enumerating the voters in important divisions in the house of lords in the early 18th century - on the ' Church in Danger' (1705), the Septennial Bill and the Bill to Resume the Forfeited Estates of ' Traitors' after the Jacobite Rebellion (1716) - help to illuminate the state of party allegiances and affiliations in these periods, for which no other division lists are extant. This note provides the voting results from these division lists in tabular form, accompanied by indications of the current state of our knowledge of party affiliations for each of the individuals listed. However, the origin and accuracy of each of these lists are not clear-cut and this note also details the discrepancies and anomalies in each list. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The French historian Michel Rey explored patterns and changes in the sodomitical subculture of eighteenth century Paris in a series of articles published in the 1980s and 1990s and based largely on one series of police records from the period 1715–50. Other sources, some known and others unknown to Rey, have been analysed or located since the 1990s, so it is time to review and revise his conclusions. These sources require us to revisit his questions about demographics and mentalities, identity and community, surveillance and repression, and consider other questions about same-sex relations in the context of the Ancien Régime. This article outlines an agenda for the next round of research in the Archives of the Bastille in the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal and several series of police and ministry records in the Archives Nationales, which will take more than a few years to complete. It discusses the variety of documents to be digested, presents some sample sources and early findings, and suggests avenues for further inquiry, with the objective of pursuing, expanding and refining the work of the pioneering historian of this subject and connecting the history of same-sex relations with other issues (hierarchy, migration, friendship, popular attitudes, categories of difference and more) in French history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents letters to and from Stephen Fuller, a lobbyist for British settlers in Jamaica, regarding the campaign to abolish the slave trade and Fuller's efforts to lobby against the abolition movement, as well as background information on the letters and their authors.

The article presents letters to and from Stephen Fuller, a lobbyist for British settlers in Jamaica, regarding the campaign to abolish the slave trade and Fuller's efforts to lobby against the abolition movement, as well as background information on the letters and their authors.

The article considers the uses made of print by the Irish Parliament between 1660 and 1782. Proceedings were made more widely available, initially with printed Votes and then with fuller Journals. Just how widely is considered. The record of the house of commons and the house of lords is compared. Also the authorised publication of statutes is traced. Sizes of format and editions and costs are considered, concluding that these seriously limited access to the publications. In contrast, varieties of unofficial print, generated either by individual members and candidates or by partisans, are discussed. The effect of these productions was to increase awareness of politics and, arguably, to generate more intense controversies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the authors discuss topics within the issue, including the cultural production of natural knowledge, the relationship between art in science during the 18th century, and history of botany and horticulture in 18th century France.

As one of the most memorable campaigners for the New Interest whigs in the Oxfordshire election of 1754, Lady Susan Keck inevitably became the subject of press ridicule and criticism. Undaunted and irrepressible, she not only continued to campaign, but also turned the criticism back on the Old Interest, effectively neutralising it. This detailed examination of Lady Susan's electioneering illustrates the possibilities for electoral involvement at mid-century that were available to a woman of rank and spirit who was determined to make a difference. Propelled into action by sheer frustration with the poor planning and lacklustre campaigning that had marked the New Interest campaign in the 1751 election, Lady Susan put her, not inconsiderable, energy into securing a victory for the New Interest. Driven by ideology rather than by family interests, she used her age, rank, sex and connections, to political advantage. Confident and characterful, she was ideally suited to the rumbustious, personal politics of the age. Most importantly, her canvassing achieved results and the eventual New Interest victory owed, at least in part, to her efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The British surrender at Yorktown proved one of the most decisive engagements in the history of the Atlantic world. While the American conduct of the campaign has been endlessly studied, the British side has been studiously neglected. This article seeks to show how the British army came to be stationed at Yorktown and why its occupation ended in disaster. Many accusations were made at the time as to who was responsible for the debacle. However, the most public recriminations were those exchanged by the two leading generals, Sir Henry Clinton and Earl Cornwallis. Clinton charged Cornwallis with responsibility for Yorktown on three counts. Firstly, he had entered Virginia without authorization, thereby dangerously extending Britain's military commitments. Secondly, it was Cornwallis who had chosen Yorktown as the site for an operational base in Virginia. Finally Cornwallis had failed to exercise proper judgement when faced by imminent danger of entrapment. However, analysis of the evidence reveals that Yorktown was a disaster principally of Clinton's making. It was Clinton who did most to extend the British effort in Virginia, and Clinton who changed the nature of the war there by insisting on the establishment of an enlarged naval facility. Finally it was Clinton who failed to see the impending danger or the need for revised orders to Cornwallis once that danger was clear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews the literature on the Sacheverell affair as it stood when it was delivered as a paper to the symposium held in March 2010 to commemorate the 300th anniversary of his impeachment. The basic narrative and prevalent interpretation of its significance were established by the late Geoffrey Holmes in his monograph The Trial of Doctor Sacheverell published in 1973. Holmes placed it in the context of a crisis in Church and state brought about by the Glorious Revolution and its aftermath. This led to the formation of the party conflict between high church tories and low church whigs. When the whigs, led by the junto, came to power between 1708 and 1710, their ascendancy provoked a reaction from tories claiming that the established Church was in danger. It was in this context that Sacheverell preached his provocative sermon on 5 November 1709, which brought on his impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanours. Holmes's detailed account of the trial, together with his separate analysis of the 'Sacheverell riots', have been generally accepted as definitive. Consequently, scholarly attention has tended to shift to the cultural aspects of the affair such as poems on affairs of state and political prints. These investigations have led, in turn, to attempts to establish an appropriate methodology for analysing their significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the history of the power of public opinion in Great Britain. Account of the dismissal of Lord Palmerston from the government in December 1851; Emphasis on the contemporary constitutional theory; Impact of public opinion and demonstrations of popular support on mid-Victorian politics.

Analyzes the validity of evidence on the predominance of jacobites in the Tory party in Great Britain up to 1745. Involvement in attempts to restore the Stuarts to the monarchy; Plunging of the Tory party into a state of crippling demoralization due to the Atterbury plot; Problems on characterizing jacobite allegiance.

Abstract: Using a substantial set of vagrancy removal records for Middlesex (1777–86) giving details of the place of origin of some 11,500 individuals, and analysing these records using a five‐variable gravity model of migration, this article addresses a simple question: from which parts of England did London draw its lower‐class migrants in the late eighteenth century? It concludes, first, that industrializing areas of the north emerged as a competitor for potential migrants—contributing relatively fewer migrants than predicted by the model. Rising wage rates in these areas appear to explain this phenomenon. Second, it argues that migration from urban centres in the west midlands and parts of the West Country, including Bristol, Birmingham, and Worcester, was substantially higher than predicted, and that this is largely explained by falling wage rates and the evolution of an increasingly efficient travel network. Third, for the counties within about 130 kilometres of the capital, this article suggests that migration followed the pattern described in the current literature, with London drawing large numbers of local women in particular. It also argues that these short‐distance migrants came from a uniquely wide number of parishes, suggesting a direct rural‐to‐urban path. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This article contributes to the re‐evaluation of the Grand Tour by considering ‘alternative’ educational journeys. Two travellers are discussed: a mother accompanying her son on his Grand Tour, and a dwarf who toured Western Europe as a curiosity in royal courts. Although these were atypical Grand Tours, both resulted in increased cultural hegemony, thus having similarities to more typical Grand Tour voyages. By collecting material objects and acquiring new talents abroad, both travellers extended their education and reinforced their positions in society. Moreover, this article attempts to bring greater recognition to Polish Grand Tours as examples of Eastern European cosmopolitanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The camellia first reached the West as trade with Japan and China gained momentum in the 17th and 18th centuries, quickly attracting the attention of botanists and horticulturists. Early representations of the camellia in the West were mostly illustrations in specialised publications with brief, written descriptions focused mainly on classification and identification, occasionally with the addition of some horticultural advice. In China, on the other hand, where camellias had been cultivated since at least the 5th century CE, artists and illustrators always showed camellias (and other plants) together with descriptive text, literary references, medicinal information and more. The camellia was embedded in a rich cultural context in China, in contrast to the West where it was an object of study or an ornamental specimen valued for its appearance rather than for meaningful associations with times, people or places familiar to the reader or viewer of the image. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The unique illustrated and annotated ‘Chinese‐English Vocabulary’ (hereafter ‘Vocabulary’) in the John Bradby Blake collection in the library of the Oak Spring Garden Foundation is described, along with the composition of individual entries and their arrangement. Analysis of the contents suggests that the Vocabulary was composed in a multi‐layered process beginning with the illustration and main Chinese characters, which were then annotated by two other individuals, most likely John Bradby Blake himself and perhaps Whang at Tong. The layers of the Vocabulary document an attempt at cross‐cultural exchange, with equivalences being proposed, explanations offered, and meanings contested. Situating the Vocabulary in the history of Chinese language learning and the more general history of bilingual wordlists reveals various types of precedents and related material, but it is unique in the history of Chinese‐English lexicography and what it has to teach us about the worldview of its authors and mid‐Qing intellectual knowledge exchange between British and Southern Chinese. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last quarter of the 18th century, Joseph Banks came into possession of a set of botanically accurate, western‐influenced, drawings of Chinese plants, executed in Canton by a Chinese artist and supervised by John Bradby Blake, an East India Company supercargo. Banks realized that these drawings, now in the Natural History Museum, London, would help his collectors in Canton accurately identify the Chinese species he sought as living plants for the Royal Gardens at Kew. Banks commissioned a collector's manual whose illustrations were based on the Blake drawings. In the early 19th century, William Kerr used this manual (now unfortunately lost) to continue the Blake practice – these drawings are at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. John Reeves, many of whose drawings are at the Royal Horticultural Society, used Kerr's commissions to produce the next generation of botanical art in Canton. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

John Bradby Blake (1745–1773) first visited Canton as a supercargo for the British East India Company in 1767/68. He returned as a resident supercargo in July 1769. Between then and his untimely death in 1773, in collaboration with one or more Chinese artists, he produced over 150 paintings of Chinese plants, many of which are illustrated in exquisite botanical detail. These paintings and the associated archives in the Oak Spring Garden Library at the Oak Spring Garden Foundation (OSGF) provide a detailed glimpse into an interesting life and a previously little known dimension of the social and scientific interactions between the British and Chinese in the late 18th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces the evolution of the address in reply to the speech from the throne, from its origins in the early 18th century, showing how it developed from a device for bringing about a community of interest between government and parliament while at the same time providing a focal point for rallying the opposition. It describes how the address became an echo of the speech, often drafted at the same time as the speech itself. Its management involved a good deal of organisation. The terms of the address had to be drafted, the movers and seconders selected and the terms communicated to government supporters. The meetings arranged for this purpose gradually became less exclusive to the point where they were superseded by dinners given by the leaders of the two Houses. In the course of time they were mirrored by dinners given by the leaders of the opposition who eventually managed to secure copies of the speech, thus assisting them to formulate amendments to the address. In the 19th century the procedure for considering the address was reformed with a view to curtailing debate but without success. While the address may have lost something of its symbolic significance, the debates to which it gives rise remain significant features in the timetables of both Houses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of charity as a provider of relief was notably little discussed in the comprehensive English Poor Law Report of 1834. By contrast, however, the debate at the time in Ireland over whether any kind of Poor Law at all was desirable ranged much more broadly, with the respective roles of statutory and voluntary provision hotly contested. In fact, beyond the confines of the English Report itself, the topic of the place of charity in relief was exercising plenty of minds on both shores of the Irish Sea. This article examines aspects of the intellectual importance accorded to the role of individual charity and wider voluntary action in welfare provision across the British Isles by some of the central figures in the English and Irish Poor Law debates in the 1830s. It is a study of how justifications were forged to underpin charitable activity and specific policy proposals as advanced by the main proponents of Christian political economy from the late 18th to the early 19th centuries, including William Paley, Thomas Robert Malthus, John Bird Sumner, Edward Copleston, James Ebenezer Bicheno, Thomas Chalmers and Richard Whately. The discussions of Irish circumstances and problems furnish new insights into the substance and reach of a 'philosophy of charity' which was firmly in place by the 1830s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article interrogates the court's reputation as 'the residence of dullness' to reveal a multivalent emotional space with a practised grammar of emotional concealment and display. The performance of emotions by the royal family and courtiers in the State Apartments acted as a powerful draw to court events, as the display of joy or cheer acquired national significance. Under such scrutiny the king and his courtiers routinely limited displays of grief or pain to more restricted spaces such as the closet. The article analyses the court as a unique micro-community in order to recreate the emotional character of London's palaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

No other institution illustrates the tensions between competing normative ideals and discursive behaviours more than the army. At the turn of the eighteenth century the British military had a reputation for being particularly untrustworthy, licentious, immoral and drunk. Using autobiographical sources and focusing on subjective experience in relation to normative expectations, this article questions such stereotypes by looking at four men in the middle ranks of the army officer corps. The attempt of these four officers to understand, perform and negotiate competing norms illustrates the tension that often existed between the expectations of a variety of masculine discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article takes a case study approach to the question of how entrepreneurs developed and used networks to support trade during the American Revolutionary War (American War of Independence). Using the business letter books of Daniel Eccleston of Lancaster, covering January 1780 to December 1781, the article shows how he used trust-building activities and developed open networks in Britain and the West Indies in order to build, sustain, maintain, and diversify his commercial activities to reduce risk and develop new opportunities. Eccleston's letters illustrate a competitive market in which entrepreneurs helped drive the industrial revolution through stimulating demand and encouraging trade. They show that mutual trust was the foundation of strong networks, and that networks were significant in underpinning entrepreneurial success through allowing the mitigation of business risk and offering the opportunity for diversification supported by the network. The article makes use of the work of Casson, Pearson and Richardson, and Wilson and Pop. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

French mercantilism is generally associated with absolutist policy-making subject to capture by rent-seeking interests. This article investigates how the Bureau du Commerce, a small state agency in charge of commerce and the supply side, handed out rents and privileges to private entrepreneurs. We coded how the Bureau investigated and decided all 267 voluntary submissions received between 1724 and 1744. It is shown that the Bureau's formal, rule-based decision-making process could actually differentiate between alternate policy aims and target them consistently over time, with more or less powerful sets of rents. From this, a hierarchy of revealed policy preferences is derived. First comes technical innovation and diffusion, then local economic development; import substitution is only in the third position, followed by consumers' welfare. Lastly, and in contrast to a long line of authors, it is shown that the production of luxury goods was not a significant or valued objective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The eighteenth-century Grand Tour has typically been conceptualised as dominated by Classical aesthetics and Frenchified politeness. This article reconsiders the Grand Tour's status by examining how experiences of danger were constructed by aristocratic and gentry Grand Tourists and their families, friends and tutors. Based on their manuscript journals and letters and related publications, it identifies several narrative strategies, including the utilisation of servants and dogs as emotional others and extensions of the self, and argues that danger formed a crucial aspect of the Grand Tour, through which elite masculine virtues could be formed and adult masculine identities constructed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1723, following an opera production in Florence, two sets of medals were made there in honour of the singer Faustina Bordoni. Among the reactions to these medals in Bologna were satirical poetry and a set of ceramic chamber pots that carried depictions of the medals and a scathing Latin text. The article analyses these artefacts, the various descriptions and drawings of them and reports about them for what they can tell us about the intertwined issues of celebrity, the status of (female) singers, the circulation of information and the interaction between objects and words in early eighteenth-century Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the mid-1700s, an uneducated layman named George Weekes began preaching to Native Americans in the town of Harwich, Massachusetts. Weekes' missionary activity triggered a passionate response from Nathaniel Stone, the local minister, and inaugurated a debate regarding ministerial qualifications within the community. Scholars who study English missionary activity in colonial New England tend to focus upon the careers of trained clergy, such as John Eliot or Josiah Cotton. Other individuals, who possessed questionable moral character and little education, also preached to New England Indians, however. In this instance, the career of George Weekes, a rogue missionary, reveals that contact with Native Americans could shape ecclesiastical life in colonial Massachusetts. It also suggests that Native Americans encountered popular, as well as elite, English religious culture when they interacted with English missionaries in early New England. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1716 Edward Lord Harley took possession of one the country's most iconic studs when his wife, Henrietta, inherited Welbeck Abbey (Nottinghamshire) on the death of her mother. At the time, the stud, made famous by her great grandfather, William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle, was in temporary eclipse and run down. He resolved to restore its fortunes. However, beset by debts and with other expensive interests to distract him, including the purchase of books and manuscripts, he allowed the stud to decay, winding it up just over a decade later. With careful management and sound, timely investment, Harley could have restored its fortunes. However, he hoped to re-establish the stud 'on the cheap', utilizing the top class stallions and mares he had at his disposal to produce first-rate foals, from which he would select the best as replacements. Sadly, too few of the foals came up to expectations. In vain, his agent advised him to retire the ageing mares and invest in suitable replacements. His failure to do so soon impacted on the quality and the number of horses produced. Inevitably, he failed, providing contemporaries and historians alike with an object lesson on how not to run a 'top-end' stud. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on economic inequality in early modern Europe is complicated by the lack of appropriate data for reconstructing income or wealth distributions. This article presents a study of income inequality in mid-eighteenth-century Old Castile ( Spain) using the Ensenada Cadastre, a census conducted between 1749 and 1759. The article describes the information provided by this census and then discusses its advantages and disadvantages for reconstructing income profiles and calculating income inequality. This is followed by analysis of a dataset derived from the Cadastre that consists of more than 4,000 observations from Palencia (a province in northern Spain) and contains information on sources of household income, each household head's main occupation, residence location, and other household characteristics. Demographic data from this census is used to weight observations in the sample and thereby minimize selection bias. Findings show that inequality in eighteenth-century Spain was probably substantial despite its relative backwardness; that the relationship between inequality and per capita income was not clear-cut and was probably influenced by measurement of the higher incomes; and that although income inequality was largely driven by uneven land distribution, labour income also contributed to overall inequality-especially in urban centres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role played by the press in shaping emotions is a topic of increasing interest. Moral panics and sexual scandals have long been recognised as key discursive sites in the shaping of modern Britain. This article contributes to that debate with an exploration of how the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century press shaped an emotional public opinion through the reporting of breach of promise and seduction suits. It argues that the press directed men into roles as defenders of the nation through their protection of female virtue, using emotion to invest the British public in nation-building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contrasts two distinct sets of prisoners who were held by foreign governments: sailors from the United States held captive in Algiers in the late-eighteenth century and British citizens detained in Guantánamo Bay in the early-twenty-first century. The article uses social movement theory to examine and compare the campaigns orchestrated by these men and their supporters, and the role of those campaigns in securing their freedom. It demonstrates the utility of social movement theory in comparing cases of foreign detention that transcend centuries, regions and communication technologies. We find that successful campaigns on behalf of citizens held captive abroad, and the timeline of those successes, are contingent on the exploitation of domestic political opportunities and an external event to trigger government action on behalf of the captives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Money and financial intermediation are important elements in economic growth. Both depend heavily on trust for their efficient working. In the second half of the twentieth century, trust was eroded and even broke down. Regulation replaced it. The welfare costs grew, and economic growth was damaged. The opposite happened in the move from mercantilism in the eighteenth century to small government and sound money in the nineteenth century. Growth was improved. Perhaps trust can be restored again. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smallpox was probably the single most lethal disease in eighteenth-century Britain but was reduced to a minor cause of death by the mid-nineteenth century due to vaccination programmes post-1798. While the success of vaccination is unquestionable, it remains disputed to what extent the prophylactic precursor of vaccination, inoculation, reduced smallpox mortality in the eighteenth century. Smallpox was most lethal in urban populations, but most researchers have judged inoculation to have been unpopular in large towns. Recently, however, Razzell argued that inoculation significantly reduced smallpox mortality of adults and older children in London in the last third of the eighteenth century. This article uses demographic evidence from London and Manchester to confirm previous findings of a sudden fall in adult smallpox mortality and a rise in the importance of smallpox in early childhood c. 1770. The nature of these changes is consistent with an increase in smallpox transmission in London and Manchester after 1770 and indicates that smallpox inoculation was insufficient to reduce smallpox mortality in large towns. It remains unclear whether inoculation could have operated to enhance smallpox transmission or whether changes in the properties of the smallpox virus drove the intensification of smallpox mortality among young children post-1770. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws on quantitative and descriptive data from Robert Campbell's manual for prospective apprentices, The London tradesman (1747), to demonstrate the responsiveness of apprenticeship premiums in mid-eighteenth-century London to market forces of supply and demand. It first shows that Campbell's data on mid-eighteenth-century journeymen wages, apprenticeship premiums, and masters' set-up costs in London are consistent with other sources. It then applies instrumental variable regressions to estimate the elasticity of apprenticeship premiums with respect to journeymen wages and set-up costs, using Campbell's education and ability requirements by trade to instrument for wages. We find an elasticity of one with respect to wages, and of 0.25 with respect to set-up costs, both statistically significant at a p-value less than 0.1%. We interpret these findings as supporting the thesis that apprenticeship played an important role in adapting the English workforce to the skill requirements of the industrial revolution in its early stages, insofar as the institution of apprenticeship in London was representative of other parts of England. Furthermore, by demonstrating the internal and external consistency of Campbell's observations, our findings should encourage their use as an unparalleled source of detailed, trade-specific wage data from the early years of the industrial revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to investigate the role of married men and their work and assets in the economy of the households belonging to the middle and lower classes of eighteenth-century Turin. According to traditional representations, the husband/father was expected to be the pater familias, to act as the main provider and the economic leader of the family. In addition, in getting married he was expected to achieve economic independence. This research offers evidence that in Turin these tasks were part of an ideological and cultural construct, rather than the concrete experience of all adult men. Moreover, there were not necessary links between marriage, mastery and leadership. Male labour was irregular and piecemeal and husbands/fathers could not always ensure a regular economic contribution to their family. In several circumstances, they could not perform the role of economic leader of the household since marriage did not mark the possibility for a man to freely handle either his heritage and assets or the resources brought by his wife. Finally the article suggests that this model of masculinity was in competition with another coexisting ideology that allocated to both spouses the responsibility for the survival of the family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corruption by office holders in eighteenth-century British institutions, from state to local level, played an instrumental role in the emergence of modern bureaucracy, and the development of accountable, professionalized systems of administration. Due to the similarities between the institutional culture of eighteenth-century Britain and those within many contemporary developing societies, social scientists have also sought to draw lessons from Britain's historical experience of corruption. Yet little is known about the extent, impact, and causes of corruption by eighteenth-century office holders. This article presents the first detailed research into the topic. It utilises the rich administrative and financial records associated with the institution charged with funding and undertaking the maintenance of London Bridge-the Bridge House-to conduct a systematic qualitative and quantitative study of corruption by office holders. The article identifies an ingrained culture of corruption amongst Bridge House officers, and provides quantitative evidence of the substantial impact corruption had on the organization's finances. However, contrary to existing studies on corruption, this article concludes that, although extensive and significant, corruption did not perform a functional role in the context of this institution. The article also provides a methodology and comparator for future studies into this topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problems of arson, treason and national security became entangled in the politics of Britain and its Atlantic empire between 1770 and 1777. Fears of French military terrorism were compounded by the increasingly violent resistance of the American colonies. Two dockyard fires in Portsmouth, in 1770 and 1777, and the attack on, and burning of, the royal navy ship Gaspee off Rhode Island in 1772, provoked both legal and political difficulties for the British government. New laws on arson and treason were passed yet proved almost impossible to implement in full outside England. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The lapse of Andrew Millar's copyright for James Thomson's The Seasons in 1765 resulted in an increasing number of new editions of the poem being published in the late eighteenth century. This article compares the print-cultural make-ups of three editions of The Seasons that were issued in the 1790s. An examination of the print-cultural differences between these publishing ventures reveals distinct editorial practices and marketing strategies. In an attempt to increase the attractiveness of their editions with visual and textual paraphernalia, the producers developed their own 'versions' of The Seasons and, in the process, fashioned new interpretations of Thomson's poem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the effect of periodical formats on the reception history of eighteenth-century poetry by tracing the composition and coterie circulation of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's holograph manuscript '1736. Address'd To -', and its unauthorised publication in the June 1749 issue of The London Magazine under the revised title 'Verses on Self-Murder, address'd to - by A Lady'. The article argues that through misinterpretations of 'Address'd To -' as the product of disordered sensibility and as a result of editorial changes made by The London Magazine, Montagu's equivocal 'philosophical reflexion' on the Stoic afterlife is transformed into a sensationalised 'lady's' polemic defending suicide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The most perplexing character in the historical drama known as the ' Death of Captain Cook' is Lieutenant John Williamson. Reviled by contemporaries for failing to come to Cook's aid at Kealakekua Bay, he was inexplicably promoted and given command upon his return to Britain, a mystery that has led to scholarly accusations of a cover-up at both shipboard and Admiralty levels. In uncovering patterns of command and patronage that affected Williamson's later career, this article explores the workings of interest in the Royal Navy, expands Williamson's biography and offers new insights into his role in Cook's death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]