There were many Whigs in the UK and France at the time, they weren't all on this side of the Atlantic ... Adam Smith published his Inquiry in 1776 ... people he knew well included Gibbon, Burke, Franklin, Rochefoucauld, Helvetius, Turgot, Hume, de Nemours, Pitt ... he met Voltaire at one point ... the activity in the thirteen colonies wasn't happening in a vacuum.
You know, of course, that 'Whig' was synonymous with 'liberal', and 'Tory' with 'conservative' ... funny how those labels have gotten switched around ... not that it matters much - i highly doubt that any of those people bought anybody else's political package all wrapped up ready for the ballot, they were thinkers.
I would have been a Whig, i think ... if i had been pure anglosaxon and in those colonies at the time, two humongous Ifs -g- ... not through a love of the violence of revolution, but of the ideas of the time ... hope i wouldn't have gotten involved in the excesses, as what is forced on others cannot be called Freedom. |
