Welsh Journals

Goddess of Reason or in Robespierre's Supreme Being, were seeking a new religion the Govern- ment, in pursuance of its policy of destroying the power which Catholicism still exercised over the people, gave the new cult every encouragement, even subsidising it, though from a strange source-the police funds. The Directory was overthrown in 1799 by Napoleon; in 1801 he suppressed Theophilanthropy, as part of his policy of reconciliation to the Papacy; moreover, he hated all ideologues. So much for David Williams as a religious innovator. Financial difficulties put an end to his London essay in Theophilanthropy in 1780. He spent the next decade lecturing and writing on education and politics; criticising the English Constitu- tion, and suggesting reforms. In 1782, in his Letters on Political Liberty," he ridiculed the then fashionable practice of petitioning Parlia- ment to reform itself, pointing out the absurdity of expecting vested interests to abandon their privileges voluntarily, and advocated the forma- tion of National Conventions to curb both Parlia- ment and the Government. At least three editions were called for in England. The Letters were also translated into French by M. la Fite their contents proved so obnoxious to the autho- rities that the translator was immured in the Bastille, and all copies which could be seized were burnt by the public executioner. Williams afterwards claimed that the institution of Pro- vincial Assemblies in France by Necker was the outcome of the Letters later events seem to justify this assumption. They further brought him to the notice of two Frenchmen then resident in London who were afterwards to figure as leaders of the Girondists, Brissot and Roland. No one rejoiced more than he when the French destroyed despotism and feudalism in 1789, his only fear being that France might outstrip his own country on the high road of Progress. This danger, he argued, could only be avoided by drastic reform of Parliament, and by abolishing the disabilities under which Dissenters and Catholics laboured in those days. No one was more eloquent than he in defence of the Revolu- tion against the attacks of Edmund Burke and others. In August, 1792, Roland, on becoming Minis- ter of the Interior, invited the author of the Letters on Political Liberty over to Paris to advise the Girondist Ministry on a new Consti- tution which it projected. He went immediately, to find on his arrival that the National Con- vention had made him a French citizen, in com- pany with other foreign philosophers who have with courage upheld the cause of Liberty, and have deserved well of Humanity"; among whom were Dr. Priestley, Paine, Bentham, Wilber- force, Clarkson, General Washington, and Schiller. During his six months' stay in the centre of the Revolutionary maelstrom, Williams won the esteem of Madame Roland, the real leader of the Girondists, who described him as a profound thinker and a real friend of mankind, as a man who bore himself with true dignity in all circles. He lost no time in setting to work on the new Constitution, and submitted his suggestions as "Observations on the Last French Constitution, with Suggestions for the Formation of the New Constitution," a French version of which was published in Paris in 1793. According to the French historian Aulard, the greatest authority on the Revolution, the Committee of Constitution appointed to draw up the new Constitution accepted the principles enunciated by Williams in their entirety. As it happened, the Constitution of 1793 was still-born, being rejected by the Convention owing to the hostility of the Jacobins, whose feud with the Girondists was daily growing more bitter. Its outstanding characteristic was the importance it attached to Education, which it declared to be the need of all, and which society owed equally to all its members. fThis the Jaqjobins acknowledged when they came into power, for even when the Reign of Terror was at its worst a Committee of Public Instruction worked without interruption to evolve a system of national education for France. Williams found little cause for satisfaction in the course of events in Paris. He thought the Convention far too much given to rhetorical dis- plays, too much under the influence of the public galleries: he hated demagogues. As a Republi- can, he must have approved of Louis XVI's suspension in August, 1792; but he condemned his execution as a blunder and a crime. He had also disapproved of the aggressive foreign policy advocated by a section of the Girondist party, which thought to make Frenchmen forget their differences in common action against the for- eigner above everything, he advised the culti- vation of friendship with England. He thought he had succeeded in convincing his Girondist friends of the wisdom of this, for they actually asked him to undertake a diplomatic mission to England, a request which he declined because acceptance might place him in a false position as a British subject. The French declaration of war on Britain and Holland in February, 1793, took him completely by surprise. He decided to return home immediately. Before his departure, Le Brun, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, again invited him to approach his own government in an attempt at a twelfth hour settlement; he consented to the extent of bearing a letter to Lord Grenville, the English Foreign Secretary, declaring French readiness to discuss differences, and to send over a fullv accredited representative should His Majesty's Government be agreeable. On reaching London, Williams sought an inter- view with Grenville, but could only see the Under Secretary, to whom he handed the letter. He heard nothing further about the matter.