even before Paine had adopted so truculent a tone, his writings had served as a touchstone to distinguish different emphases among reformers

This has too much of hindsight about it: ‘cheap and simple government’ is a phrase from Place’s later Benthamite jargon, whereas the society in 1795 wanted an end to repression, and manhood suffrage, on grounds of liberty and equity. But Place is probably accurate in saying that, as early as 1795, he saw the rôle of the working-class reformers as accessories to middle-class or aristocratic reformers in Parliament. Working men could not hope to bring about reform by and for themselves, but should give support to others ‘most likely’ to win concessions. This was in one sense a far-seeing tactical compromise; but it entailed attending on a crisis – awaiting, perhaps, financial dislocation, food riots and tumults among the populace – rather than a policy of hastening the crisis by popular agitation. It is the policy of those self-respecting tradesmen or artisans who preferred to build bridges towards the middle class than to try and bridge the gulf between themselves and the tumultuous poor. As such, it represents a withdrawal from the agitation among ‘members unlimited’, while at the same time embodying the strengths of self-education and painstaking organization.

It is sometimes less an argument than an affirmation, an imprecation, a leap of feeling.