A Political Dictionary from 1795

Charles Pigott (died 1794) was an English radical, admirer of the French Revolution, opponent of Pitt's government, and author of political pamphlets. In 1793 he was arrested on a charge of sedition, because government informers overheard him criticizing the king in a coffee house. A grand jury refused to indict him, however, so he published his planned defense as pamphlet. Pigott is best known today for his Political Dictionary, which was published in 1795. Many of the definitions refer to secondary and now forgotten characters of the time, or to obscure events and causes. But it expresses very well the general tone of British radicalism at the time and is sometimes quite amusing. These British radicals had many admirers in America, and their political outlook had much in common with that of the American revolutionaries. You will notice the paranoid element to this thinking, which has always run strong in the US, and the deep dislike for hierarchies of both state and church.

POLITICAL DICTIONARY

Alarm,—the tocsin of delusion; plunging England into all the calamities of war, under the falsest pretence of their liberties and properties being endangered, to cover the real designs of hatred, jealousy, despotism, and revenge. A pretext for prosecutions, unconstitutional augmentation of the army, the introduction of foreign troops, barracks, etc.

Alderman,—stupidity, gluttony, servility, avarice, turtle feasting, etc.

Ambassador,—a privileged spy; a genuine Representative of Royalty.

Argument,—proclamation, manifestos, Newgate, fine, pillory, Botany Bay.

Attornies,—a set of miscreants (for the most part) in rapacity and cruelty inferior to none, but those who exercise a jurisdiction over them.

Burden,—a civil list, a standing army.

Church,—a patent for hypocrisy; the refuge of sloth, ignorance and superstition, the corner-stone of tyranny.

Client,—an unfortunate victim to ill-placed confidence, fallen among the rapacity and plunder of lawyers.

Crown,—a jewel that dazzles the eye of the vul­gar by its extrinsic splendor; the gewgaw and pageantry which it displays, reconciles the nation to a bauble which costs a million annually to support, drained from the virtue of industry, and the sweat of labour. Partial splendour, public calamity.

Delusion,—the ruling principle and last surviving hope of the British Cabinet.

Fast (by proclamation),—a farce. The people called on to go to church and neglect their business, while ministers are celebrating their carousals, and getting drunk at each others’ houses. An impious mummery, or rather blasphemy. We are told of our national sins, and, in expiation of them, are instructed to beseech the God of Peace to bless our exterminating principles of war; to set ourselves up as a people distinct, on whom, exclusively, he ought to shower his benign protection, and to crown our efforts, in destroying countless millions of his creatures. A court juggle; a flimsy, jesuitical contrivance to inflame the public mind, and to give the clergy an opportunity of promulgating their slavish maxims, their political heresies from the pulpit.

To Give,—bribery and corruption. In its original sense, quite out of use.

Hell,—a place of torment; where their is neither liberty of speech, nor liberty of thought, nor liberty of action; where men can be imprisoned at the will of a minister, without ever being brought to trial; where the rich exult and riot at the expence of the poor; where vice triumphs, profligacy prevails, and war, taxes, and desolation are the consolations of the people.

Heraldry,—a substitute for virtue, honor, and integrity.

Immediately,—in ministerial language, signifies some years hence, or perhaps never.

Justice,—obsolete.

Malefactors,—either in Parliament, or on the highway. The former are supposed to belong to a more dignified class than the latter. The difference in their fortunes is very great; the one class is elevated to places at court, and rewarded with pensions; the other is elevated to the gibbet, and rewarded with a rope.

Mangy,—applied to dogs infected with the mange, and metaphorically to the House of Commons.

Murder,—see War

Rara-avis,—a thing next to impossible to exist; as a pious priest, a good king, a wise lord, or a virtuous Parliament man.

Representative,—one who neither cares for your interests nor your welfare, provided he can get a share of the general plunder.

Royalty,—the curse of God Almighty in his wrath to man. Where this office exists, the whole country is pale, sickly, and unfruitful. The poor luckless inhabitants miserable, melancholy, and almost mad with despair. Emaciated through hunger, spiritless through subjection, and depraved to the utmost possible, by mimicking the abandoned profligacy of the court.—See England.

Scoundrels,—a class of men exceedingly useful in polished societies, and happily they are very numerous. There are many things which could not be done without scoundrels; there would be neither spies nor informers, nor ministers; in short, without them the reformers of government would be destroyed, and the social system totally over-thrown.