‘The Temper of the People’

Abstract

This chapter provides a cultural context for the political debate in eighteenth-century British North America. It charts the emergence and describes the contours of a colonial public sphere, which paralleled similar transformations in European politics during the same period. It explores the media of colonial politics, from newspapers to public oratory, as well as the social settings in which news was spread and debated, from tavern halls to tea gardens, and the codes of conduct that accompanied them, from commerce to refinement. It shows how the colonial public sphere connected with a wider British and European republic of letters, from the circulation of news and opinion around the Atlantic world to the participation of colonists in the Grand Tour. And finally, it discusses the problems and methods of interpreting public utterances.