A first book naturally relies heavily on the help of others and I take great pleasure in recording that now publicly. This work originates in my doctoral dissertation, approved by the university of Cambridge in February 2003. Over the course of researching and writing this book, I have incurred a number of intellectual debts. Yet thanks to a number of equally generous organisations, my bank balance has remained relatively healthy. The bulk of the research was funded by a postgraduate studentship from the Arts and Humanities Research Board. My research trips to Germany were funded by a short-term research scholarship from the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service). There I was a visiting scholar at the now sadly defunct British Centre for Historical Research in Germany, based at the Max-Planck-Institut für Geschichte in Göttingen. I had learnt of the Centre's existence at a conference sponsored by the Centre, and funded by the Volkswagen Stiftung, Hanover, for graduate students from Germany, France and the UK in September 1999. I am grateful to Joe Canning and Tony Claydon for their help on that occasion, and to the other participants at the conference for their comments on how I might go about this project. Jürgen Schlumbohm chaired the session at which I spoke and offered advice subsequently. Hartmut Lehmann was helpful on that occasion and was a gracious host when I returned to spend a longer period in Göttingen. My research in Germany was greatly helped by the good advice of Hermann Wellenreuther and he also kindly introduced me to Thomas Müller-Bahlke, whose help in the wonderful archives in Halle was invaluable. The staff of the Hauptstaatsarchiv, Hanover fulfilled my frequent requests for large stacks of dusty files with characteristic good humour.

My other major trip abroad was to the delightful Lewis Walpole Library in Farmington, CT. There I was fortunate enough to benefit from being elected to the George B. Cooper fellowship. Maggie Powell and her staff make this library an ideal location for the scholar of eighteenth-century Britain to work. September 2001 was not the best of months to spend in the USA but Holger Hoock, Arnold Hunt, David Lemmings, Chad Luddington and Alison Shell, my ‘fellow fellows’, ensured that I remembered the trip for good reasons, as well as terrorist outrages.