Abstract
By the time the French Revolution broke out, there were,
it would seem,many men among the so- called 'lower orders' in
Westminster, politically alert, discontented with aristocratic government, suspicious of both Pittites and Foxites - but
so far without organisation or leadership to inspire them to
voice their feelings. in public, or to take political action
themselves.
The coalition of 1784, by dividing Reformers from the
Whigs had destroyed the first Westminster Committee. The
distrust of aristocratic parties it helped to inspire - a distrust encouraged when Pitt and his followers too, seemed to
have lost interest in 'the people',in the struggle to preserve their own power - was to lead to the emergence of another and
very different 'Westminster Committee', formed by men from
among the 'Lower Orders' of Westminster itself.
