Henry Joy, Belfast, 1792 – "America did not acquire her love of liberty in the new world, but carried it out from the old" - linking 1688 with 1776, and 1789.

There was a time when Belfast's 'thought leaders' – as demonstrated in the recent posts here about the Northern Whig Club – understood that the American Revolution of 1776 (which was for them within living memory) had been inspired by the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

However, when I mention this today, the reaction is usually one of shock and incredulity, and that's from people right across our present day political spectrum. Trapped within the reinforced binary of nationality, many find the larger concept of liberty hard to comprehend. 

In a 1794 volume dedicated to 'Alexander Henry Haliday, a lover of liberty' (who has been mentioned in these recent posts) is the following quote, from the author and newspaper man Henry Joy (1754-1835). In an article that was first printed in the Belfast News-Letter on 6 December 1792, Joy expressly connected 1688 with 1776, and also with the French Revolution of 1789:

“At a period when republics are exhibited as models of perfection, I am persuaded it is consistent with the spirit of a free press, to recommend the principles of the British Constitution…

… America did not acquire her love of liberty in the new world, but carried it out from the old. In forming a Constitution for herself, she retained several of the finest branches of the British, lopping off with a careful hand what she deemed excressences that had formed round the parent stem …

It is the fashion of the hour, and as ridiculous as most fashions are, to depreciate the Revolution of 1688—and to despise the securities for our liberty, which that great transaction afforded. That Revolution expelled a Prince from the throne for attempting to govern without law. It preserved a spirit of freedom in these countries, which burst out again in America near ninety years afterwards; and travelling back, communicated its flame to Gallic slaves, converted in these latter days into free men, and become the hope of the world…”

• From Thoughts on the British Constitution, Henry Joy, dated 6 December 1792. Published in the 1794 compilation Belfast Politics, online here.

PS: 1792 was also the year that Henry Joy was one of the organisers of the Belfast Harp Festival, and 1794 was also the year that he visited Robert Burns in Dumfries.

PPS: Alexander Haliday's father, Rev Samuel Haliday, was a lifelong friend of Francis Hutcheson, the Saintfield-born 'Father of the Scottish Enlightenment'.

Even though these were 'New Light' Presbyterians, Patrick Griffin asserts that "New Lights did not seek to create an established Presbyterian church for Ulster. They contended that the very notion of an establishment, compelling individuals to act against dictates of conscience, contradicted the liberating rhetoric of the Glorious Revolution".