The country had for several years experienced the utmost prosperity and peace, when it was roused by a series of events which took place in France. The proceedings of the French nation for redressing the political grievances under which they had long labored, commenced in 1789, and were at first very generally applauded in Britain, as likely to raise that nation to a rational degree of freedom. Ere long, the violence shown at the destruction of the Bastile, the abolition of hereditary privileges, the open disrespect for religion, and other symptoms of an extravagant spirit, manifested by the French, produced a considerable change in the sentiments of the British people. The proceedings of the French were still justified by the principal leaders of Opposition in Parliament, and by a numerous class of the community; but they inspired the government, and the propertied and privileged classes generally, with great alarm and distrust. When at length the coalition of Austria and Prussia with the fugitive noblesse had excited the spirit of the French people to a species of frenzy, and led to the establishment of a Republic, and the death of the king, the British government and its supporters were effectually roused to a sense of the danger which hung over all ancient institutions, and a pretext was found (January 1793) for declaring war against France. A comparatively small body of the people were opposed to this step, which was also loudly deprecated in Parliament by Messrs. Fox and Sheridan; but all these remonstrances were drowned in the general voice of the nation. At such a crisis, to speak of political reforms in England seemed the height of imprudence, as tending to encourage the French. All, therefore, who continued to make open demonstrations for that cause, were now branded as enemies to religion and civil order. In Scotland, Mr. Thomas Muir, a barrister, and Mr. Palmer, a Unitarian clergyman, were tried for sedition, and sentenced to various terms of banishment. Citizens named Skirving, Gerald, and Margarot, were treated in like manner by the Scottish criminal judges, for offenses which could only be said to derive the character ascribed to them from the temporary and accidental circumstances of the nation. An attempt to inflict similar punishments upon the English reformers, was defeated by the acquittal of a shoemaker named Hardy; but the party was nevertheless subjected, with the apparent concurrence of a large and influential portion of the people, to many minor severities.