we follow the power of resonance of the word 'liberty' through the eighteenth century from the staging of Joseph Addicon's CATO, A TRAGEDY to the epoch of revolutionary change.

1. A SHORT HISTORY OF LIBERTY’S PROGRESS THOUGH THE EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY
The American revolutionaries derived inspiration from a play that was put on the
stage back in 1713, half a century before the Declaration of Independence, Joseph
Addison’s Cato. A Tragedy This was based on the story of the last days of Marcus
Porcius Cato before he committed suicide to forestall his capture by Julius Caesar
in 46 BC. He heroically upheld the ethos of the Roman republic before the
extinction of republicanism by the new imperial order. ‘Liberty’ emerges the key
word in the play and was not forgotten by the American patriots at the outbreak of
the American war of independence when Patrick Henry declared his famous
ultimatum: "Give me liberty or give me death!" General George
Washington organized a performance of Cato for the Continental Army during the
winter of 1777–78 at Valley Forge. Indeed, it is arguable that Cato was the most
potent literary impulse to affect the American revolution. How strange in view of
the fact that Addison, a moderate, pro-Hanovarian Whig never had the thought of
revolution in mind. In 1713 both Whigs and Tories cheered heartily on hearing the
word ‘Liberty’ during its opening performance on stage. In 1734 . The Augustan
poet James Thomson published a lengthy poetic monologue devoted to the
goddess of Liberty and followed her departure from Athens to Rome and finally
from Rome to the shores of Britain where she took up permanent residence
following the Glorious Revolution of 1689.
A radical change in the appeal of ‘liberty’ occurred at the end of the Seven Years
War in 1763. John Wilkes, a wily populist and radical agitator who briefly held a
seat in the House of Commons, inveighed against the recently appointed prime
minister Lord Bute in whom Wilkes saw a compliant servant of King George and an
agent of ‘Scottish’ influence. His anti-monarchal stance and his bitterly satirical
contributions to The North Briton, his own periodical broadsheet led to his
expulsion from the Common in 1763. The content of The North Briton. No 45 was
the last straw. Wilkes faced a charge of seditious libel and fled to the Continent.
However, Wilkes already enjoyed great popularity among the common people of
London and particularly among the citizenry of Brentford in Middlesex , the town
he represented in Parliament i. He was noteworthy for promoting as his campaign
slogan the words ‘For ‘Wilkes and Liberty.’ William Hogarth depicted Wilkes in a
pictorial parody as one lazily reposed on a chair with a pole slanting over his
shoulder at the top of which a round hood was perched bearing the word ‘Liberty.’

2. His head is topped by a wig on which two undulations evoke the appearance of
the Devil’s horns, perhaps a hint that Wilkes was a notable member of the
scandalous ‘Hellfire Club.’ On his return from exile 1n 1768 Wilkes was elected to
represent Brentford in Parliament several times but was denied the right to enter
Westminster. His persistence was eventually rewarded when he became the major
of London in which capacity the former firebrand quelled the Gordon riots of 1780.
Almost immediately after Wilke’s stand for liberty in 1763, the word ‘liberty’
gained currency as a rallying call the American colonies where in 1765 the Stamp
Act met with massive protests and gave rise to the formation of resistance groups
that went by the name of ‘Sons of Liberty.’ In due course liberty and Liberté
An analogous inversion of the associations of liberty can be traced in the history
of the Liberty Bell. The story begins in 1701. With the authority vested in him by
Charles II and his brother James, the Duke of York and later James II, and with the
consent of William III, William Penn granted the Charter of Privileges to the
population of the Province of Pennsylvania, thus ensuring them the enjoyment of
basic liberties or rights such as one’s freedom of conscience regarding one’s choice
of religious denomination. It must be counted among the remarkable quirks of
history that the amical rapport between King Charles Ii, an Anglican monarch, his
Roman Catholic brother James Duke of York, later James II and the member of an
radical Protestant sect joined in allowing Penn a free hand to shape the
development of Pennsylvania as he saw fit, at least until Penn himself agreed to
share power with an elected assembly. In as far as it was Penn’s express purpose
to balance the liberty of the individual with the restraint of the law when
required, he was far ahead of his times as a philosopher or political thinker and yet
we note that even he ‘granted’ liberties to the people of Pennsylvania, his warrant
to do so having been accorded by the grace of royal authority. As yet there was no
mention of inalienable human rights.
Around fifty years after the granting of the Charter of Privileges the city of
Philadelphia commissioned the forging of a bell as a way to commemorate and
honour the charter. A text from the Book of Leviticus added a note of sanctity to
the occasion for this read ‘Proclaim Liberty’ throughout all the land and to all the
inhabitants thereof.’( Leviticus 25:10) In biblical times the day of Jubilee recurred
ever fifty years and with its arrival leases on land and property expired, the
released property was given back to the original owners and unpaid debts were
annulled. Underlying these stipulations lay the premise that ultimately God was
the sole owner of the land and all it held and therefore all its assets were on loan.

3. In 1751 the word ‘liberty’ had as yet no association with any demand for national
independence. All that changed in 1776, whether or not one believes the bell’s
new symbolic value signaled the outworking of Providence or that it was the result
of a coincidence. Also in the Romantic era a charter was no long seen as the
gracious gift of a king or lord but, in the poet William Blake’s eyes at least, as an
instrument of repression, as the words ‘charter’d Thames’ in ‘London’ imply. In
this connection we might also consider lines in William Cowper’s Book V in The
Task: Whose freedom is by suff'rance, and at will / Of a superior, he is
never free.