It is not intended that this chapter should discuss British radical responses to the policy of the British government in its American colonies, nor to the War of Independence fought by those colonies (1775–83). These important subjects have been well examined by the fine scholarship of historians such as Colin Bonwick, James Bradley and others. Rather, this chapter moves on to examine British reformers' early hopes and desires for the political characteristics of an independent America, as they expressed these during the years immediately after the Declaration of Independence, on the basis that they thought that the colonists' resistance to Britain was justified. What did they think the American republic would look like? What assets and disadvantages did they think the citizens of America began with in building their republic? What particular principles and mechanisms did they wish to see enshrined in the new constitution – and which did they hope would be avoided? How did they envisage the place of independent America in the world? The Revolution in America was instrumental in the development of the radical movement and its political ideology in Britain. Carla Hay, however, has rightly noted that historians are often so impressed by the influence of the American model on the thinking of British radicals that we pay too little attention to the advice offered by the British reformers to the Americans.

The reforming politicians whose views are considered in this chapter did not hold identical positions on the American crisis. The radical political reform movement in Britain was at an early stage during these years, and individual members of it arrived at their libertarian ideas by different routes and at different times. There was no uniform philosophy on British politics among them, far less a uniform platform on American affairs. The principal anomaly here is the inclusion of Thomas Paine (1737–1809). He did not write about the American Revolution as an Englishman, but as an American, and so his writing is intrinsically different to that of other British sympathizers with the colonists. The identification of him with the reform movement in Britain is also complicated.