Historian Jennifer Mori has argued that Pitt and his government actually strove to balance liberty against order so as not to overreact. Some of the most draconian proposals were scrapped, and at any rate, the independence of local magistrates and juries ensured that there were counterweights to Pitt’s crackdown.102 But even if Pitt’s Reign of Terror was nothing like the Terror unleashed in France, and permitted more dissent than in Russia and Prussia, it still amounted to an orchestrated and systematic campaign against political opposition.
