Peter Rushton

Gwenda Morgan

This book places banishment in the early Atlantic world in its legal, political and social context.

Convicts, Rebels and Slaves

Banishment in the Early Atlantic World

This book examines internal political conflicts in the British Empire within the legal framework of treason and sedition. The threat of treason and rebellion pervaded the British Atlantic in the 17th and 18th centuries; Britain's control of its territories was continually threatened by rebellion and war, both at home and in North America. Even after American independence, Britain and its former colony continued to be fearful that opposition and revolution might follow the French example, and both took legal measures to control both speech and political action. This study places these conflicts within a political and legal framework of the laws of treason and sedition as they developed in the British Atlantic. The treason laws originated in the reign of Edward III, and were adapted and modified in the 16th and 17th centuries. They were exported to the colonies, where they underwent both adaptation and elaboration in application in the slave societies as well as those dominated by free settlers. Relationships with natives and European rivals in the Americas affected the definitions of treason in practice, and the divided loyalties of the American revolutionary war added further problems of defining loyalty and treachery. Treason and Rebellion in the British Atlantic, 1685-1800 offers a new study of treason and sedition in the period by placing them in a truly transatlantic perspective, making it a valuable study for those interested in the legal and political of Britain's empire and 18th-century revolutions.

Legal Responses to Threatening the State

Treason and Rebellion in the British Atlantic, 1685-1800

Rogues, Thieves and the Rule of Law" is a large-scale study of crime, disorder and law enforcement in northern England in the early modern period. London was not the only city where female criminals were common and gangs were feared, nor was it the sole centre of industrial and political agitation. The north was an area of national significance which supplied the capital with its fuel and whose tendency to industrial insurgence commanded the attention of every 18th-century administration.; Arguing that much of the recent work on early modern crime has focused on London and its surrounding counties, which have wrongly been interpreted as typical of the whole country, this study, in contrast, seeks to place the metropolitan image within the wider context of regional realities. As such, it offers a significant antidote to the picture of excessive brutality associated with London and Tyburn, breaking new ground by encompassing crime in an entire region and at all levels of the judicial system. It uniquely reflects upon gender and crime, the development of transportation, the rise of imprisonment and the convergence of military and civil power, in an attempt to contain an assertive and riotous population in a region remote from central authority.; The north-east had a distinctively violent history before 1700 and retained some of its traditionally wild character in the 18th century. The growing contrasts between urban and rural districts provide a revealing backdrop to the different patterns of crime and official responses. In terms of punishments, the region swiftly followed national trends in transportation, but was pioneering in its early use of imprisonment. This study seeks to change the way we think about crime in early modern England.

The Problem Of Law Enforcement In North-East England, 1718-1820

Rogues, Thieves And the Rule of Law

The Debate on the American Revolution is the first in-depth study of the way in which historians dealt with the coming of the American Revolution and the formation of the U.S. Constitution. The approach is thematic, examining how historians in different periods interpreted these events, their causes, and their meaning. Making accessible the work of often-neglected by early historians, this book examines how the emergence of history as a professional discipline led to new and competing versions of the Revolution. It spans from the first generation of writers--whose ideas about history were shaped by the Enlightenment--to those of the 21st century--who drew on the rich legacy provided by black studies, gender and women's studies, cultural studies, and ethno-history.

Gwenda Morgan

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