The repression of the 1790s had been endorsed not only by the landowners and many employers, but by enough public opinion in both the middle and working classes, to silence the Jacobins. The repression of 1817 provoked, on the contrary, an accession of strength to the radical reformers, while a large section of middle-class opinion held aloof from the Government. In 1795 Pitt could present himself as defending the Constitution against French innovation. In 1819 Liverpool, Sidmouth, Eldon and Castlereagh were seen as men intent upon displacing constitutional rights by despotic “continental”
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