Selected Political Works
Richard Price
Introduction
D.O. Thomas
Richard Price was born at Tyn-ton in the parish of Llangeinor near Bridgend in the county of Glamorgan on 23 February 1723. His father, Rice Price, was a Dissenting minister who had been an assistant to Samuel Jones, founder of the Academy at Brynllywarch. By all the accounts that have survived, Rice Price was a strict Calvinist who maintained an austere discipline in the home. Richard, however, rebelled against his father's theology at an early age, and though he upheld the puritan values inculcated by his parents, his religious beliefs became much more liberal and much more rationalist.
Price's father died on 28 June 1739 and his mother, Catherine, scarcely a year later. Richard then went up to London, where his uncle, Samuel Price, was an assistant minister to the famous hymn-writer Isaac Watts, at St Mary Axe in Bury Street. Once established in London, Price was entered at Coward's Academy in Tenter Alley, Moorfields, where he came under the instruction and the influence of John Eames, who had been a friend and a disciple of Isaac Newton. It was at this Academy that he was prepared for the ministry, which was to remain his vocation and his first concern throughout an extremely active career. It was at this Academy too that he received the training in mathematics that enabled him to make important contributions to the theory of probability, to actuarial science and to the growth and development of insurance. When he left the Academy (probably in 1744), he became a family chaplain to George Streatfield, a wealthy businessman living in Stoke Newington. Very little is known about his life during these years, except that for a period he was an assistant to Samuel Chandler at the Meeting Place at Old Jewry, but it would seem that he had ample leisure to devote himself to intellectual pursuits. Those bore fruit in 1758 in the form of a work now regarded as a classic of eighteenth-century moral philosophy, A Review of the Principal Questions and Difficulties in Morals. The main aim of this work was to defend the objectivity of moral judgement against the kinds of subjectivism and voluntarism that were fashionable in his day. Price believed that he could demonstrate this by showing that moral judgement is an exercise of reason. If moral judgement is rational, its objectivity is secured, for reason apprehends necessary truths. It is on these grounds that Price is classified as a rationalist among moral philosophers.
It is, however, important to bear in mind that there is another element in Price's account of moral judgement that cannot be easily reconciled with the view that moral principles are instances of necessary truth. On the latter view we should expect to find that Price held that moral principles are indefeasible: necessary truths do not admit of exceptions. But when Price dealt with the problems occasioned by the conflict of duties, he conceded that an obligation to perform an action indicated by a moral principle may be overridden or outweighed by an obligation indicated by a principle of greater weight. On this latter view at least some moral principles are defeasible. One very important implication of the latter view which has important consequences for Price's political philosophy is that his moral philosophy was not so completely dominated by abstract principles as it has often been supposed to be. His teaching as to how conflicts of duty are to be resolved implies that we cannot determine what action we ought to take in any situation in an 'a priori' way: we have to examine the context in which action is to be taken to ensure that we do justice to all the obligations that may be said to arise in it, and only when we have done so can we determine what we ought to do. For this reason Price's moral philosophy is much more pragmatic and much more heavily influenced by empirical considerations than it has often been thought to be.
In the Review Price also attacked utilitarianism in the name of an intuitionist account of moral principles, and he defended a libertarian account of free-will. The relevance of this work to his political philosophy must engage our attention later on; what I first wish to emphasize is the relevance of Price's vocation as a minister of the Gospel to an understanding of his thought. It is not just that Price held that his duties as a minister had the first call upon his time and energy, but also that the world in which he lived was orientated towards and dominated by the worship and service of God. When towards the end of his life he expressed in his shorthand journal the hope that his life had been useful, he was revealing an abiding fear that he had failed to discharge the duties he owed to God. In one who accomplished so much the remark is a striking testimony to his humility of mind.
Throughout his career Richard Price's thought on moral and political matters was heavily influenced by the problems faced by the Dissenters in the eighteenth century. As is well known, at that time in England and Wales the Dissenters were struggling to obtain fuller legal recognition of the right to worship God in the way they thought fit. They strove to remove the legal disabilities from which they suffered. Those who rejected orthodox Trinitarianism did not fall within the protection of the Toleration Act of 1689, and, as the law then stood, they were liable to suffer severe penalties. Those who did not take the sacrament according to the rites of the Anglican Church were debarred from holding office under the Crown or under municipal corporations. They suffered other severe disabilities: they could not, for example, matriculate at Oxford, and though they could study at Cambridge, they could not take a degree there.
The leaders of the Dissenters were anxious to remove these disabilities. They sought to establish that everyone has a right not to toleration — for that would imply a condescension in those in authority — but to worship God according to the dictates of conscience. They wanted to establish not simply that everyone should not be hindered in worshipping according to conscience, but also that no one should suffer handicaps or disabilities in doing so. To establish this position the Dissenters were anxious to deny that the State has any responsibility for man's spiritual welfare; the only responsibility the magistrate has in religious matters is to guarantee to each individual the enjoyment of freedom of worship by inhibiting those who would attempt to invade it and by removing privileges or special protection to any particular sect or denomination. The defence of religious liberty dominated Price's thinking from the first of his pamphlets, Britain's Happiness (1759), to the last, the celebrated A Discourse on the Love of our Country (1789).
In addition to defending the right to freedom of worship, Price also emphasized the importance of establishing and safeguarding the right of inquiry. Although the fundamentals of the faith are accessible to all persons of sound understanding, there is much in the field of religion that is obscure. In addition to emphasizing the duty and the right to act in accordance with conscience, he also stressed the duty to inform conscience. Although we are blameless if we do what we sincerely believe to be our duty, that consolation is only available if we have made every effort to find out what our duties really are. We have obligations of candour in both the speculative and the practical realms. We have a duty to seek the truth and a duty to act upon what we find. Price believed that the pursuit of knowledge would eventually lead us to realise in our lives and in our institutions the truths of the Gospels. The practical implications of this belief can be seen in his discussion of the role of education. Students should not be told what to believe, but rather how to discover the truth for themselves. His optimism was such that he believed passionately that opening society to rational inquiry would inevitably lead to the establishment of a purified form of the Christian religion, to economic progress, and to social harmony. The role of the State in promoting progress is, however, strictly limited. The experience of the Dissenters had led them to mistrust State intervention, especially in religious matters. But minimizing the role of government was not based solely on the fear that power would be abused: it was also based on the conviction that there are many things that are better done if done by the individual or if done by people acting together in small associations. Price believed very firmly in the virtues of self-dependence.
The basic principles of Price's theological position can be stated quite simply: that there is an omnipotent, omniscient and benevolent God, that there is a Providence that adjusts the course of events to secure the realization of His ultimate purpose, that this life is a period of probation after which the virtuous will receive the reward of eternal life and the vicious will be annihilated (although there is some evidence that in his later years he was beginning to incline to the view that ultimately all men will be restored to communion with God). Our overriding interest is to secure eternal life, the pearl for which all else must be sacrificed, and to this end what is essential is that we seek to do our duty. What is crucially important morally and politically, therefore, is that everyone is, as far as is possible, guaranteed the freedom to act conscientiously. Since, however, we are all fallible and weak creatures, no one's virtue of itself will merit the reward of eternal life. At this point Price stressed the indispensability of Christ's saving Grace. He was thus an Arian, holding what may be termed a midway position between the Calvinist view that redemption is secured wholly and entirely by Divine Grace and the Socinian view that Christ's redeeming role is confined to His teaching and His example.
The tendency towards the secularization of politics in Price's thought, which I shall discuss below, should not blind us to the fact that political activity is placed by Price within a context in which God is relied upon to redress the apparent injustices of life on earth. It needs to be recognized, however, that Price allotted two contrasting roles to Providence, both of which play a part in his thinking throughout his career, but each receiving greater emphasis at some times than at others. In periods of depression and gloom when all his projects seem to be frustrated, as in 1781, when there seemed to be no prospect of a favourable end to the War of American Independence, Price stressed the part played by God's Providence in securing justice for the virtuous in another life; it was in this mood that he composed his Fast Sermon of 1781. In more hopeful times, for example, after the Americans had won their independence, Price saw the hand of Providence working in human history. The success of the Americans and the prospect of reform at home revived millennial expectations: these are clearly in evidence in Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution (1784), and in The Evidence for a Future Period of Improvement in the State of Mankind (1787). They are also manifest in A Discourse on the Love of our Country (1789), particularly in the way in which he welcomed the opening events of the French Revolution and the prospect of harmony between England and France.
Scholars of the millennium distinguish millenarian views from millennialist ones; the former find in the Book of Revelation the prophecy that Christ will come again to inaugurate a period in which He and His saints will rule for a thousand years before the Day of Judgement, when all men will each receive their just deserts; the millennialists hold that the millennium will precede Christ's coming, and will, if it has not indeed already begun, be a time when the condition of man on earth will improve gradually so as to be fit for the rule of Christ and His saints. Price belonged to the latter group, and in his mind the millennialist doctrine meshed in with the more secular doctrine of progress held by thinkers such as Turgot and Condorcet. Particular emphasis was placed on the contribution to enlightenment and progress made possible by religious freedom and the freedom of inquiry. It is in the light of these expectations that we must understand the enthusiasm of his reflections on the achievements of the American Revolution and the ardour with which he greeted the French Revolution.
Against this background it may seem strange to argue that there are marked tendencies in his thought towards the secularization of politics, so the claim needs careful explanation. Following in a tradition which owed much to John Locke, Price believed in the separation of the spiritual from the secular, and in confining government as far as possible to the defence of life, liberty and property. The State has no responsibility for man's spiritual welfare, except, as I noted earlier, for its duty to guarantee to every one the enjoyment of the right to religious liberty. The great achievement of this tradition, which Price played an important part in developing, was to establish the separation of the secular from the spiritual so strongly in conceptual terms that the separation seemed to many to be the keystone in the arch of liberal ideology.
Price's patron, George Streatfield, died in 1757, and in the following year Price became minister to the Presbyterian chapel at Newington Green where he remained until 1783. It was at this chapel on 29 November 1759 — a day appointed for a General Thanksgiving — that he preached the sermon later published under the title Britain's Happiness, and the Proper Improvement of it. In it Price expressed many of the beliefs that dominated his thinking on religious and political topics throughout his career: the conviction that there is an omnipotent and benevolent God, that there is a Providence that adjusts the course of events so as to secure the ultimate realization of the Divine purpose, that there is general amendment in human affairs which justifies millennial expectations; that men have a duty to worship God, and to cultivate the virtues, that everyone has a right to worship God in the way he thinks most fitting, and to act in accordance with his conscience, that the people of Britain are especially fortunate in enjoying a large measure of religious liberty, and that the Glorious Revolution had established a form of constitutional government that, although imperfect, was able to secure the protection of everyone's life, liberty and property.
To those more familiar with Price's writings during the War of American Independence and at the outbreak of the French Revolution, it may come as a surprise to find him exulting in the nation's prowess in arms and talking of the good fortune that the British enjoyed under George II with an almost undiluted praise. It is equally surprising to find one who attacked imperialism and the 'spirit of domination' with such passion claiming that the extension of military and commercial power was a sign of Providence's intention to use the British people as an instrument in the amelioration of the state of mankind. But Price was not completely uncritical: he did not altogether disguise his belief that much remained to be done to make Britain the seat of liberty that he wished it to become, pre-eminently by extending the benefits of freedom of worship to all sects and by reclaiming those who had fallen from Grace to the paths of virtue.
The defects were, however, only lightly sketched in, and it is not until his later pamphlets that we find the sweeping denunciations of the administration of the day. In 1759, even if he had wanted to indulge in heavier criticism of British institutions, he might have felt that it would not have been appropriate in a thanksgiving sermon, and especially not in a year when the French had been so decisively defeated by Wolfe at (Quebec and by Hawke at Quiberon Bay.
In addition to his duties as a minister Price had many intellectual pursuits — he edited an essay by Thomas Bayes on the theory of probability, in recognition of which he became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1765; and in the mid sixties he was invited to advise the newly founded Society for Equitable Assurances on demographic and actuarial problems and entered upon a period of intense study which culminated in the publication of his Observations on Reversionary Payments in 1771. During this period his interest in the problems of government finance was awakened, and he devoted a chapter in the first edition of Observations on Reversionary Payments to a discussion of the problem of the National Debt. This essay he extended to a pamphlet that was published separately in 1772 under the tide An Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt. After the Glorious Revolution and the introduction into this country of what Disraeli was later to term 'Dutch finances' the Government fell into the habit of financing much of its activity by borrowing and funding debt. The interest required to service the debt became an annual charge on the nation's revenue. As the debt grew, and it grew rapidly in wartime, the burden of the annual charge upon the nation's income became proportionately heavier. Price was alarmed that it might grow to such an extent that it would threaten national bankruptcy. Earlier in the century a sinking fund had been established with the ultimate aim of wiping it out. The scheme was a simple one. By taxation the government was to create a surplus of income over current expenditure and place it in a fund that would be used to buy back debt. Instead of cancelling the debt as it was bought up, interest should be paid on it and used to buy up further debt. The fund would then grow at compound interest until a sum large enough to liquidate the whole debt would be created. Price was scandalized by the failure of successive ministries to maintain this scheme. Ministers had found it difficult to impose the level of taxation necessary to supply it, and in times of financial stringency, so far from supplying the fund, they had found it all too tempting to raid it.
There were further reasons for reforming government finance. The fears of early redemption of stocks had led the market to prefer to take up stocks bearing low rates of interest at a high discount rather than high interest stocks at par: for example, a nominal £100 stock bearing 3 per cent interest issued at £60 was more attractive than a £100 stock bearing 5 per cent issued at par. The rate of return was the same on both issues, but the stock issued at a discount was more attractive because if the government wanted to redeem the stock it would have to pay £100 for every £60 it had received. Price complained that the government was irresponsibly extravagant in creating a large capital debt in return for much smaller sums raised.
Lord North's defence of this policy rested on the assumption that the burden to the nation's resources lay only in the annual charge that the debt created, and that since this was so, the government should always accept the lowest rates of borrowing it could find. This was tantamount to declaring that the National Debt was a permanent charge upon the nation since there was no intention that the debt should ever be repaid. This contention proved completely unacceptable to Price: he retained the notion many still retain today that a debt, whether public or private, is something that ought to be repaid. His abhorrence of the thought that the government should ease its own burden by creating a permanent charge on the nation's income was reinforced by his extreme distaste for contracting debt. Morality required that one should repay one's debts; prudence required that one should, wherever possible, avoid contracting them. The need to redeem debt became almost an obsession with Price: he spent a great deal of time and energy inveighing against the ways in which the Government raised money and in advocating the re-establishment of sinking fund procedures for redeeming debt. When he came to advise the Americans on the construction of a new State in Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution, Price was particularly concerned to warn them of the evils of public indebtedness. There were other reasons for reducing debt: the existence of the debt itself led to the maintenance of a class that lived off the funds, it led to the unwholesome stockjobbing practices of the Alley, and since a large portion of the fund was held by Dutch financial houses, it led to an annual export of specie that the nation could ill afford.
There were further reasons for reforming the ways in which the government raised money. There are many affinities between Price's political thought and what Hans Baron has identified as the tradition of 'civic humanism': among them the fear that power may be used corruptly and the consequent need to prevent the accumulation of power beyond what is strictly necessary to discharge the duties of government. Price suspected that the ways in which government loans were raised — by private allocations on very favourable terms — opened the way to corruption: it was only too easy for those in government to gain support for their policies in Parliament by allowing loans to be taken up at rates substantially below their market value. Subscribers could then make a quick profit by selling stock shortly after they received it. Price's allegations were difficult to prove because there were ways in which unsavoury operations could be concealed, but there were good reasons to suspect that his charges were well founded in the fact that the prices of stocks rose substantially after they were issued, thus presenting an easy profit to those who had been allowed to subscribe.
Up to the outbreak of the War of American Independence Price was known primarily to the relatively small circle of those who read his writings on moral philosophy, theology, probability theory, assurance and the nation's finances. It was his defence of the American rebels that brought him to the attention of a much wider public. In February 1776 he published his Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, of which, according to his nephew, William Morgan, 60,000 copies were sold. It was followed a year later by Additional Observations, in which he clarified some of the positions he had adopted in the earlier pamphlet and published more accurate accounts of the nation's finances. According to Horace Walpole, one of the reasons why the first pamphlet had caused such a stir was that it laid bare the financial ruin threatened by the prosecution of the war. In 1778 the two pamphlets were republished in one volume under the title Two Tracts.
In these political pamphlets Price's main aim was to establish that in their quarrel with the British administration right was on the side of the American rebels. He used several different kinds of argument to establish this. The British administration were in the wrong in seeking to impose their will on the colonies and doubly wrong in seeking to do so by military force. In opening hostilities the British government were entering upon a war they could not win; they were embarking on a course that would be heavily expensive in men and resources, one so expensive that it carried with it the threat of national bankruptcy and ruin. The main argument, however, was that the British administration were in the wrong because they had violated a basic principle. Political authority, Price argued, originates with the people: the forms of government are just the ways in which they choose to govern themselves. Following Locke and Hoadly he repudiated the theory of Divine Right, claiming instead that the authority of the ruler derives from the social compact whereby the people agree among themselves to accept the constraints of law and choose the forms under which they will be governed. If authority derives from the people, it follows, Price claimed, that every community has a right to govern itself.
No community can have a right to make other communities subject to it. There are no grounds for justifying imperialism, conquest or dominion. Applying this principle to the claims of the colonists, Price held that if they so chose, the Americans had the right to rid themselves of rule from London and become independent. He did not want to see the break-up of the British Empire; he would rather have seen it become a confederation of political societies, each participating on an equal basis and submitting to a Federal authority for the regulation of those matters that were of common concern. This was the ideal, but if the Americans did not wish to participate in this way, they should be left free to go their own way.
Price showed considerable polemical skill in identifying what he wanted to justify, namely national self-government, with what is universally conceived to be a high value, namely liberty or freedom, and by stressing the analogies between national autonomy and other forms of self-government that are highly prized. The aim was to persuade the reader to attach to his political goal — autonomy for the American colonies — the values associated with other forms of liberty. This procedure produced a bewilderingly complex treatment of liberty, and whatever the gains polemically — and they were considerable — they were bought at a heavy cost in conceptual confusion and lack of clarity. In classifying the differing kinds of liberty Price distinguished physical, moral, religious and civil liberty. Physical liberty he characterized as the capacity of the agent to make decisions without being subject to external determining forces: I enjoy physical liberty if and only if I can truly be said to be the author of my actions. Moral liberty Price characterized as the capacity to follow one's own conscience and not be prevented from doing so by the passions. It is important to note that Price holds that every individual really wants to act conscientiously. It is this assumption that enables him to say that when I do what I believe to be my duty I am governing myself, and that when I follow my desires against the call of duty, I have fallen a slave to the passions. This conflation of two different notions — that I am free when I do what I want to do and that I am free when I do what I believe to be my duty — has, I believe, unfortunate consequences. It leads Price to imply that I am only morally free when I act in accordance with conscience or in doing God's will; it also leads him to imply that when I follow my desires against the call of duty, I have been overpowered by desire.
Religious liberty is another form of self-government. I enjoy it when I am free to worship God according to my own conception of what God requires of me. Here again Price conflates two different notions that are better kept apart: the idea that I am free only when I am under the direction of my own will and the idea that I am free only when I do what I think God requires of me.
Civil liberty, conceived as a form of self-government, applies both to individuals and to communities. A community is free when it governs itself, and is not subject to the alien will of another community. An individual enjoys civil liberty (a) when he is a member of a community that governs itself, and (b) when he participates in some form in the government of his own society. In the course of publishing his pamphlets on the American problem Price changed his definition of civil liberty to accommodate the latter point. In the early editions of Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty he defined civil liberty as 'the power of a Civil Society or State to govern itself by its own discretion; or by laws of its own choosing, without being subject to any foreign discretion, or to the impositions of any extraneous will or power'. In the seventh edition, for the phrase 'any extraneous will or power' he substituted the following: 'any power, in appointing and directing which the collective body of the people have no concern, and over which they have no controul'. In Additional Observations Price expanded this definition. He distinguished the liberty of the citizen, the liberty of the government, and the liberty of the community. 'A citizen is free when the power of commanding his own conduct and the quiet possession of his life, person, property and good name are secured to him by being his own legislator ... a government is free when constituted in such a manner as to give this security. And the freedom of a community, or nation is the same among nations, that the freedom of a citizen is among his fellow citizens.'
It is instructive to compare Price's treatment of civil and political liberty with that given by Joseph Priestley, his friend and fellow Dissenter. In An Essay on the First Principles of Government, the first edition of which appeared in 1768, Priestley made a clear distinction between civil liberty and political liberty: the former he defined as 'that power over their own actions, which the members of the state reserve to themselves, and which their officers must not infringe', and the latter he defined as 'the power, which the members of the state reserve to themselves, of arriving at the public offices, or, at least, of having votes in the nomination of those who fill them'. Although he believed that the possession of political liberty is needed to secure civil liberties, Priestley preferred for reasons of clarity to make a firm distinction between them. Price, on the other hand, thought the possession of political liberty so essential to the security of civil liberty that he chose to make it part of the definition of civil liberty.
Ideally, following Rousseau, Price believed that civil liberty required that all members of the community should participate in the legislative process; but he realized that this would be impracticable in large communities, so he, unlike Rousseau, was prepared to sanction representation. In his practical recommendations Price was not prepared to advocate universal suffrage. From his definitions of freedom (and slavery) one would expect him to give unqualified support to the implementation of democratic institutions, but this is not what we find. In discussing his moral philosophy I pointed out how he conceded that where there are conflicts of principle a principle of lesser weight could be outweighed by one of greater weight. Similar considerations apply to his treatment of political principles. There is need to balance the claims of liberty with those of prudence. Price thought that it would not be safe to entrust the vote to those who were likely to sell it: consequently he would restrict the franchise to those capable of independent judgement. This qualification indicates that Price's main aim in securing parliamentary reform was in line with the Real Whig tradition, namely that of preventing the abuse of power. Those reforms should be introduced which would make the Commons less subservient to the Executive and more responsive to the weight of public opinion: it was for these reasons that Price gave priority to producing 'a fair and equal representation', the abolition of rotten boroughs, the enfranchisement of new towns, the removal of places and pensions and the introduction of annual Parliaments. These elements in Price's political philosophy need to be borne in mind when estimating the validity of Edmund Burke's criticism of him as one who dealt entirely in abstract speculations, and inalienable natural rights to the disregard of the claims of prudence.
In the preface to the fifth edition of Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, which he wrote in defence of the American rebels in their contest with the British administration, Price claimed that he followed in the footsteps of his mentor John Locke. Undoubtedly he owed a great deal to him. He accepted his rebuttal of the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings. He follows him in maintaining that political authority is a creation of the people, that the forms of government are ways in which they choose to order their affairs, that civil society is instituted by the people coming together and agreeing among themselves to be bound by rules, and that government is a trust vested in those who have authority by the people. Price followed Locke too in holding that that political authority is limited, that its limits are determined by natural rights and by consideration of the common good, that political power should not be concentrated in one pair of hands but distributed over different estates, and that the functions of 'powers' of government should be distributed to different agencies of the State. Furthermore, Price followed Locke in holding that as far as possible the State should be restricted to dealing with civil interests — the maintenance of law and order, the defence of natural rights and the protection of property — and that it should not concern itself with spiritual matters other than preserving religious liberty by inhibiting infringements of it.
But whether he was aware of it or not, Price's thought on political matters can be seen to involve a more radical interpretation of the doctrine of the social contract than Locke would have canvassed. Locke supposed that when the people come together to form a political society, they agree among themselves to entrust the responsibilities and the powers of government to those whom they choose to govern them, undertaking to obey their rulers as long as their rulers rule in accordance with the articles of the trust by which their authority was created. For as long as their rulers honour the trust placed in them, the powers they have delegated to them are not revocable. Although Price uses the concept of a trust of government, he introduces a new idea: government is conceived to be an agency for executing the will of the people. The forms of government are just the ways in which the people choose to regulate their affairs. Governors in all they do are the servants of the people. Whereas Locke had held that the right in the people to dismiss the government only arose when the government had betrayed its trust, Price held that the people had the right to change when they saw fit, and that, if it was their pleasure, they had the right to reconstitute the forms of government. There is therefore a tension in Price's thought between the notion that the people have a right to resist government when power is abused and a more radical thesis that the people have a right to refashion government as they please. There is also a tension between the view that government is an instrument in the hands of the people, who are sovereign, and the defence of the balanced constitution. It is difficult to see how the notion that omnipotence lies with the people or their chosen representatives can be reconciled with the view that the exercise of power should be dispersed, except on the supposition that the people will always be sufficiently wise to demand that there always are constitutional checks to the exercise of power.
Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution is in part an essay in congratulation, in part a tendering of advice. Price was unbounded in his enthusiasm for the creation of a new kind of society in America: a society without kings, without nobles, without bishops; a society which dispensed with the need for a religious establishment; a society which secured religious liberty equally to all sects and denominations. Price thought that after the foundation of Christianity the American Revolution was the most important event in the history of mankind. The advice he gave to the new society illustrates his ideals, and evinces a strong strain of pragmatism in his thinking. The new society should defend religious liberty and the freedom of inquiry. It should not be tempted to pursue material wealth at all costs: it should remain sensitive to the dangers inherent in an extensive foreign trade, in the pursuit of luxury, in the growth of public indebtedness, in standing armies and in the emergence of inequalities. It should not deny freedom to the Negro. Price saw the dangers of an exaggerated emphasis on the autonomy of the various states that comprised the Union and counselled that the Federal Government should be given adequate powers to maintain law and order and to conduct the kind of foreign policy that would make the united states (notice how Price uses the lower case in this instance) respected in the world.
In A Discourse on the Love of our Country, although in a brief compass, Price eloquently expressed the ideals that had inspired him throughout a long career. He hoped that the spirit of reform kindled in America and productive of significant changes in France would inspire radicals at home. He defended the notion of natural, inalienable rights, the right to religious liberty, the right of inquiry, the right to participate in the process of government: he believed that reform to secure the universal enjoyment of these rights would lead to the betterment of the human condition and provide a basis for creating peace and harmony between nations. He saw in these reforms the workings of a Providence that was bringing about new and better forms of society. Above all, the Discourse was a celebration of a patriotism that is consistent with the Christian ethic of universal benevolence. Gone is the belief that we can glory in the spirit of conquest and domination: to be acceptable our love of our own must not infringe the equal rights of others and must be consistent with the prosperity of all. The unqualified optimism of the Discourse made Price an easy target for the denunciation of Edmund Burke, but it should be noted that his sermon did not do justice to Price's thought in its most mature form. In a sermon there was not enough time to make all the qualifications and all the reservations that the larger scope of a book or an extended pamphlet would have allowed. There was not enough space for Price to express the caution that he had shown in earlier pamphlets when discussing the dangers and the difficulties of putting 'a priori' principles into practice. The pragmatic element, the need to consider circumstance which Edmund Burke was to elaborate at great length in Reflections on the Revolution in France, and which had characterized Price's earlier work, was missing. Because of Burke's attack some commentators have fallen into the habit of referring to Price as 'the unfortunate Dr Price'. It may well be asked whether that epithet is deserved; his defence of religious liberty, of the freedom of inquiry, of the right to participate in the process of government, of national autonomy, of the equal partnership of different communities in one federation, above all, his concept of patriotism, deserve to be celebrated as an enduring contribution to the thought that has shaped our political traditions.
Chronology
1723 25 February: Born at Tyn-ton, Llangeinor, Glamorgan.
c. 1731 Attends Joseph Simmons's school at Neath.
c. 1735 Attends Samuel Jones's Academy at Pen-twyn, Llanon, Carmarthenshire.
c. 1739 Attends Vavasour Griffiths's Academy at Talgarth.
c. 1740 Attends Moorfields Academy, London.
1744 Becomes family chaplain to George Streatfield at Stoke Newington.
1757 George Streatfield dies.
16 June: Marries Sarah Blundell.
1758 Appointed morning and afternoon preacher at the Meeting House, Newington Green. A review of the Principal Questions and Difficulties in Morals.
1759 Britain's Happiness, and the Proper Improvement of it.
1765 FRS.
1767 Four Dissertations.
1769 Doctor of Divinity, Marischal College, Aberdeen.
1770 Morning preacher at Gravel Pit, Hackney (but continuing as afternoon preacher at Newington Green).
1771 Observations on Reversionary Payments.
1772 An Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt.
1775 23 August: George III declares the colonies to be in a state of rebellion.
1776 February: Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty. March: Freedom of the City of London. 4 July: Declaration of American Independence.
1777 Additional Observations.
1778 Two Tracts.
October: Invited by American Congress to become a citizen of the United States.
1781 A Fast Sermon.
1781 24 April: LL.D. at Yale.
1782 30 January: Elected to a Fellowship of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences at Boston.
1782 July: Shelburne becomes First Lord of the Treasury and William Pitt becomes Chancellor of the Exchequer.
1783 Relinquishes afternoon service at Newington Green.
20 January: Preliminary Articles of Peace signed at Versailles.
February: Shelburne resigns.
December: William Pitt becomes First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer.
1784 Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution.
1785 Elected a member of the American Philosophical Society at Philadelphia.
1786 27 September: Sarah Price dies.
29 March: Pitt's Sinking Fund Bill introduced in the House of Commons.
Foundation of New College, Hackney.
1787 Price moves to St Thomas's Square, Hackney.
The Evidence for a Future Period of Improvement in the State of Mankind.
1789 14 July: Fall of the Bastille.
4 November: Meeting of the Revolution Society at the Old Jewry.
A Discourse on the Love of our Country.
1791 Retires from his ministry at Gravel Pit, Hackney.
19 April: dies.
Bibliographical note
Price's first biographer was his nephew, William Morgan, who published Memoirs of the Life of The Rev. Richard Price, D.D.F.R.S. in London in 1815. This is still an important, if occasionally unreliable, source. Additional material is to be found in Caroline Williams, A Welsh Family, 2nd edn (London, 1893). The first modem biography, a pioneering achievement, was Roland Thomas, Richard Price: Philosopher and Apostle of Liberty (Oxford, 1924), followed by Carl B. Cone, Torchbearer of Freedom: the Influence of Richard Price on Eighteenth Century Thought (Lexington, 1952): an impressive work, drawing on American sources not available to Roland Thomas.
There is no collected edition of Price's works, although the British Library has a bound collection of various editions of his publications. A facsimile reprint of Two Tracts was published in New York in 1972. A scholarly edition with extensive annotation of Two Tracts, the 1779 Fast Sermon and Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution, together with extracts from contemporary criticism of Price, extracts from his correspondence and a critical introduction was published by Bernard Peach under the title Richard Price and the Ethical Foundations of the American Revolution at Durham, N.C., in 1979. A bilingual (in English and Welsh) version of A Discourse on the Lave of our Country, edited and translated by P. A. L. Jones, was published under the ride Cariad at ein gwlad at Aberystwyth in 1989. Price's main contribution to philosophy, indispensable for an understanding of his political philosophy, A review of the Principal Questions and Difficulties in Morals, was published in 1758: it was republished with a critical introduction by D. D. Raphael at Oxford in 1948 (revised impression, 1974). A facsimile edition of Four Dissertations, first published in 1767, with an introduction by John Stephens, appeared in Bristol in 1990. Price's correspondence is in the process of being published; the first volume, The Correspondence of Richard Price, edited by D. O. Thomas and Bernard Peach, was published at Durham, N.C., and Cardiff in 1983. Price's shorthand journal, deciphered by Beryl Thomas and edited by D. O. Thomas, was published in The National Library of Wales Journal, vol. 21, no. 4 (1980). A comprehensive bibliography of Price's works edited by D. O. Thomas, John Stephens and P. A. L. Jones is shortly to appear in the St Paul's bibliographies.
In 1970 Henri Laboucheix published Richard Price: théoricien de la Revolution Américaine, le philosophe et le sociologue, le pamphlétaire et I'orateur, a comprehensive study of the origins of Price's thought. An English translation of this work by Sylvia and David Raphael was published under the ride Richard Price as Moral Philosopher and Political Theorist at Oxford in 1982. The Honest Mind: the Thought and Work of Richard Price by D. O. Thomas was published at Oxford in 1977. Other relevant works by the same author are Richard Price and America (Aberystwyth, 1975), Richard Price (Cardiff, 1976), and Ymateb i chwyldro: Response to Revolution (Cardiff, 1989). Important contributions to the study of Price's moral philosophy are to be found in W. D. Hudson, Reason and Right (London, 1970) and D. D. Raphael, The Moral Sense (Oxford, 1947). The millennialist elements in Price's thought are fully investigated in Jack Fruchtman, Jr, 'The Apocalyptic Politics of Richard Price and Joseph Priestley', Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 73, part 4 (1983).
Articles devoted to Price's wide-ranging intellectual concerns are to be found in The Price-Priestley Newsletter (1977-80) and its successor, Enlightenment and Dissent (1982- ), edited by Martin Fitzpatrick and D. O. Thomas.
Valuable criticisms of Price's thought and/or expositions of the cultural and political background are to be found in: Max Beloff (ed.), The Debate on the American Revolution, 1761-1783 (2nd edn, London, 1960); Colin Bonwick, English Radicals and the American Revolution (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1979); Peter Brown, The Chathamites (London, 1967); Alfred Cobban (ed.), The Debate on the French Revolution, 1789-1800 (London, 1950); Albert Goodwin, The Friends of Liberty: the English Democratic Movement in the age of the French Revolution (London, 1979); J. A. W. Gunn, Beyond Liberty and Property (Kingston and Montreal, 1983); Ursula Henriques, Religious Toleration in England, 1787-1833; Robert Hole, Pulpits, Politics, and Public Order in England, 1760-1832 (Cambridge, 1989); Anthony Lincoln, Some Political and Social Ideas of English Dissent, 1763—1800 (Cambridge, 1938; reprinted New York, 1971); Caroline Robbins, The Eighteenth-Century Commonwealthman (Cambridge, Mass., 1959); Thomas Schlereth, The Cosmopolitan Ideal in Enlightenment Thought (Notre Dame and London, 1977); Leslie Stephen, History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, 3rd edn (2 vols., London, 1902); M. R. Watts, The Dissenters: from the Reformation to the French Revolution (Oxford, 1978).
Biographical notes
ADAMS, John (1735-1826), President of the United States of America (1796-1801). Author of A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, against the Attack of M. Turgot in his Letter to Doctor Price dated the twenty second of March 1778 (3 vols., London, 1787-8). During his stay in London as Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of St James, Adams and his wife Abigail were frequent attenders at Gravel Pit Meeting Place, Hackney, where Price was a minister.
BURGH, James (1714-75), schoolmaster and author. In 1747 he opened a school in Stoke Newington and later became a close friend of Price; he and his pupils attended Price's Meeting House at Newington Green. He wrote several influential works, among them Political Disquisitions (3 vols., London, 1774-5), which proved to be a mine of information heavily exploited by writers sympathetic to radical causes. He defended the American rebels and was a strong advocate of parliamentary reform.
BURKE, Edmund (1729-97), one of the most influential of all British Conservative political thinkers. He enters the biography of Price as a critic of what he conceived to be Price's abstract speculations, in A letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol (1777), but his best-known denunciation of Price's natural rights philosophy occurs in Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), a critique provoked by A Discourse on the Love of our Country. Burke's animosity towards Price was heightened by his hatred of Price's patron, the Earl of Shelburne.
BUTLER, Joseph (1692-1752), Bishop of Bristol (1738-50), Bishop of Durham (1750-2). Author of The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature (London, 1736).
CARTWRIGHT, Major John (1740-1824), entered the navy at the age of eighteen and saw active service under Lord Howe. In 1770 medical problems forced him to return home. In 1775 he became a major in the Nottinghamshire militia, but his military career was cut short by his refusal, on account of his sympathies with the American rebels, to join Lord Howe's command. His career as a political reformer began in 1775, and in 1776 he published Take your Choice, in which he advocated annual Parliaments, universal suffrage and a secret ballot. He deserves wider recognition than he has received for the part he played in promoting radicalism and democratic politics.
CHATHAM, William Pitt the Elder, first Earl of (1708-78), statesman and orator. He was much revered by Price, partly because with Shelburne he headed the political groups whose aims Price accepted, and partly because of the support he gave to the Dissenters in their struggle to be relieved of subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles.
CLARKE, Samuel (1675-1729), Rector of St James's, Piccadilly. Author of A Discourse concerning the Being and Attributes of God, the Obligations of Natural Religion, and the Truth and Certainty of the Christian Revelation (London, 1705-6). In A Review of the Principal Questions in Morals Price refers to Clarke (along with Newton and Butler) as one of the three greatest names the world has ever known (ed. Raphael, p. 291).
FERGUSON, Adam (1723-1816), became Professor of Natural Philosophy at Edinburgh in 1759 and Professor of Moral Philosophy, also at Edinburgh, in 1764. Author of An Essay on the History of Civil Society (Edinburgh, 1767). In 1778 he was appointed secretary to the Carlisle Commission sent to America to negotiate a settlement.
FILMER, Sir Robert (c. 1588-1653), author of Patriarcha, or the Natural Power of Kings (London, 1680), which was published posthumously in an attempt to bolster the authority of the Stuarts. It embodied the theory of the Divine Right of Kings, a theory which was comprehensively attacked by John Locke in his First Treatise on Civil Government (London, 1690).
FRANKLIN, Benjamin (1706-90), first met Price during his visit to England in the period July 1757 to August 1762, and they remained firm friends and frequent correspondents until Franklin's death in 1790. They were both Fellows of the Royal Society and members of the Club of Honest Whigs, a group that had considerable influence on the development of the political thought of those groups hostile to the policy of the administration, and, under Franklin's guidance, in support of the American colonists.
HOADLY, Benjamin (1676-1761), successively Bishop of Bangor, Hereford, Salisbury and Winchester. One of Price's heroes. Price particularly admired his attack on the theory of Divine Right set out in The Measures of Submission to the Civil Magistrate, Consider'd (London, 1706), and his support of the Dissenters in their struggle to secure the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts.
HUME, David (1711-76), philosopher and historian. Although Price was vehemently opposed to Hume's scepticism and to his subjectivism in ethics, their personal relationships seem to have been very amicable and they were both in agreement on many political issues, as, for example, the dangers of ever-increasing public indebtedness.
KIPPIS, Andrew (1725-95), DD, FRS, a leading Dissenting minister. From June 1753 until 1786 pastor of Princes Street Chapel, Westminster. Became tutor in classics and philology at Hoxton Academy in 1763 and Professor of Belles-Lettres at New College, Hackney in 1786. Edited Biographia Britannica. He delivered the address celebrating the foundation of New College, Hackney in 1786, and on 4 November 1788 addressed the Revolution Society, a year before Price delivered to them his Discourse on the Lave of our Country.
LOCKE, John (1632-1704), the philosopher whose work in a wide range of subjects was for long considered to be, not without reason, the most formative influence on the development of eighteenth-century thought in Britain. Author of Two Treatises on Government (1689/90) and An Essay concerning Human Understanding (1690). In the preface to the fifth edition of Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty Price claimed that his principles on political matters 'are the same as those taught by Mr. Locke'.
MARKHAM, William (1719-1807), Bishop of Chester (1771-6), Archbishop of York (1776-1807). He was highly critical of Price's defence of the American colonists, and appeared to threaten the Dissenters with penal sanctions.
MIRABEAU, Comte Honoré Riquetti de (1749-91), politician, orator. He translated, or arranged for the translation, into French of Price's Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution. He also included an abstract of Price's pamphlet in his own publication, Considerations sur I'ordre de Cincinnatus (1785).
MONTESQUIEU, Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et (1689-1755), author of De I'esprit des lois, a highly influential work in the development of political thought in the eighteenth century, especially in defence of the theory of the balanced constitution.
NECKER, Jacques (1732-1804), held the post of Director-General of Finance in France from 1777 to 1781, and from 1788 to December 1790, except for a brief period in 1789. Author of Traité de l'administration des finances de France (1784).
PRIESTLEY, Joseph (1733-1804), DD, FRS, Dissenting minister, celebrated chemist and polymath. He first met Price in January 1766 when he was on a visit to London from Warrington, where he was a tutor at the Academy, and was taken by Price as a guest to a meeting of the Royal Society. Thereafter they remained firm friends even though they disagreed on many theological and philosophical topics. Whereas Price was an Arian, Priestley became a Socinian; whereas Price was an intuitionist, Priestley was a utilitarian; whereas Price was a dualist and a libertarian, Priestley was a determinist and a materialist. In 1778 they together published A Free Discussion of the Doctrines of Materialism and Philosophical Necessity, in which they debated their disagreements vigorously but amicably. Priestley was Shelburne's librarian from 1774 to 1780, when he moved to Birmingham to become minister at the New Meeting House. His home, library and laboratory were destroyed in the riots of 1791, after which he moved to London to become a minister at Gravel Pit Meeting Place at Hackney. In 1794 he emigrated to America and did not return to this country.
SHELBURNE, Sir William Petty (1737-1805), second Earl of, became First Lord of Trade in Grenville's administration in 1763 and from 1766 to 1768 was Secretary of State for the Southern Department. Thereafter he remained in Opposition to the government until in 1782 he became Home Secretary in Rockingham's administration. He was Prime Minister from July 1782 until February 1783. Created Marquis of Lansdowne in 1784. Price first met Shelburne in 1771 and thereafter became a frequent visitor at Bowood and at Shelburne House, advising Shelburne on matters of government finance. Price dedicated the third edition of Observations on Reversionary Payments to him.
TUCKER, Josiah (1712-99), Dean of Gloucester. Prominent as an advocate of the view that the colonies were more of a burden than a benefit to Britain.
TURGOT, Anne Robert Jacques (1727-81), economist, Minister of Finance in France (1774-6). It was Turgot's celebrated letter to Price of 22 March 1778, published in Price's Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution, that provoked John Adams to write his three-volume A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America. Like Price and Priestley, celebrated by Condorcet as a defender of the notion of the 'infinite perfectibility of man'.
WILKES, John (1727-97), politician, Lord Mayor of London, exile and MP. He was at the centre of the controversies regarding the publication of an obscene libel, the issue of general warrants, and the Middlesex election. In the House of Commons on 10 December 1777, Wilkes moved the repeal of the Declaratory Act. Although Price was scandalized by his private life, he supported Wilkes's various stands on constitutional issues. For his part Wilkes had a warm regard for Price's advocacy of parliamentary reform and defence of the colonists.
A note on the texts
This sermon is reproduced from the pamphlet published in 1759 by A. Millar and R. Griffiths in the Strand.
The first tract, Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, the Principles of Government, and the Justice and Policy of the War with America, was published in February 1776; the second tract, Additional Observations on the Nature and Value of Civil Liberty, and the War with America, appeared a year later. In 1778 Price decided to republish both with a new 'General Introduction'. Because of his habit of adding supplements and appendices (some of which were also published separately) and because these different elements or combinations of them were bound up in different ways, this is one of the most bibliographically complex productions of the eighteenth century. The text of the selections printed here is based on the first edition, published by Thomas Cadell in 1778 and reprinted in the Da Capo Press Reprint Series in New York in 1972, except for the passages from the 'General Introduction' which are taken from the version in Bernard Peach, Richard Price and the Ethical Foundations of the American Revolution (Durham, N.C., 1979). The selection includes passages from the 'General Introduction', the whole of Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty as it appeared in Two Tracts (that is, excluding the section on the nation's finances that had appeared in the 1776 editions), and the first section of Additional Observations.
This sermon is reproduced from the pamphlet published by Thomas Cadell in that year, omitting Price's postscript and advertisement.
This pamphlet is reproduced from the 1785 edition published by Thomas Cadell, omitting Turgot's letter to Price dated 22 March 1778, and the appendix.
This address is reproduced from the pamphlet published by Thomas Cadell and J. Johnson in 1787.
The text of this address is taken from the sixth edition (1790) published by Thomas Cadell, omitting Price's appendices.
Price added many notes to his texts before publication and in successive editions. These have been scaled down. He composed in a way that as a preacher he would have found convenient, with a liberal use of capitals, with a lavish use of underlining and dashes and with heavy punctuation. In these respects his text has been modernized, although his spelling remains virtually unchanged. The notes preceded by a number are Price's; those preceded by a letter of the alphabet are mine. I wish to thank Mr P. A. L. Jones, my wife Beryl and my daughter Janet for their kindness in helping me to prepare the text. I also wish to thank Ms Pauline Marsh and Ms Jayne Matthews for the skill they have shown and the great care they have taken in preparing the text for publication and supervising the production process.
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