Editing Anna Laetitia Barbauld (section)

===Political essays and poems===
{{Main article|Eighteen Hundred and Eleven}}

According to 18th century studies scholar Harriet Guest, Barbauld's most significant political texts are: ''An Address to the Opposers of the Repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts'' (1790), ''Epistle to William Wilberforce on the Rejection of the Bill for Abolishing the Slave Trade'' (1791), ''Sins of Government, Sins of the Nation'' (1793), and ''[[Eighteen Hundred and Eleven]]'' (1812). As Harriet Guest explains, "The theme Barbauld's essays of the 1790s repeatedly return to is that of the constitution of the public as a religious, civic, and national body, and she is always concerned to emphasize the continuity between the rights of private individuals and those of the public defined in capaciously inclusive terms".<ref>Harriet Guest, ''Small Change: Women, Learning, Patriotism, 1750–1810''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (2000), p. 235.</ref>

For three years, from 1787 to 1790, [[English Dissenters|Dissenters]] had been attempting to convince [[House of Commons of the United Kingdom|Parliament]] to repeal the [[Test Acts|Test]] and [[Corporation Act 1661|Corporation Acts]], which limited the civil rights of Dissenters. After the repeal was voted down for the third time, Barbauld burst onto the public stage after "nine years of silence".<ref>McCarthy and Kraft, p. 261.</ref> Her highly charged pamphlet is written in a biting and sarcastic tone. It opens, "We thank you for the compliment paid the Dissenters, when you suppose that the moment they are eligible to places of power and profit, all such places will at once be filled with them".<ref>McCarthy and Kraft, p. 263.</ref> She argues that Dissenters deserve the same rights as any other men: "We claim it as men, we claim it as citizens, we claim it as good subjects".<ref>Barbauld, "An Appeal", p. 266.</ref> Moreover, she contends that it is precisely the isolation forced on Dissenters by others that marks them out, not anything inherent in their form of worship.<ref>Barbauld, "An Appeal", pp. 269–270.</ref> Finally, appealing to [[British nationalism]], she maintains that the French cannot be allowed to outstrip Britons in extending liberty.<ref>Barbauld, "An Appeal", pp. 278–79.</ref>

[[File:Blustockings2.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.2|Detail from ''[[:Image:Nine Muses.jpg|Nine Living Muses of Great Britain]]'' by [[Richard Samuel]] (1779); from left: [[Elizabeth Carter]], Barbauld gesturing, [[Angelica Kauffman]], [[Elizabeth Ann Linley|Elizabeth Linley]]|alt=Detail from a painting, showing four women dressed in classical-inspired costumes in front of a pillar]]

In the following year, after one of [[William Wilberforce]]'s many abolitionist legislation failed to pass in the [[Parliament of Great Britain|British Parliament]], Barbauld wrote the ''Epistle to William Wilberforce on the Rejection of the Bill for Abolishing the Slave Trade'' (1791). In the work, Barbauld lambasted Parliament for their rejection of abolitionist legislation, along with castigating the slave trade; the work focused on the supposed degeneracy of a [[West Indies|West Indian]] [[Planter class|planter]] and his wife which revealed the failings of the "colonial enterprise: [an] indolent, voluptuous, monstrous woman" and a "degenerate, enfeebled man".<ref>Suvir Kaul, ''Poems of Nation, Anthems of Empire: English Verse in the Long Eighteenth Century''. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press (2000), p. 262.</ref>

In 1793, when the British government called on the nation to fast in honour of the war, anti-war Dissenters such as Barbauld were left with a moral quandary: "Obey the order and violate their consciences by praying for success in a war they disapproved? observe the Fast, but preach against the war? defy the Proclamation and refuse to take any part in the Fast?".<ref>McCarthy and Kraft, p. 297.</ref> Barbauld took this opportunity to write a sermon, ''Sins of Government, Sins of the Nation'', on the moral responsibility of the individual. For her, each individual is responsible for the actions of the nation because he or she constitutes part of the nation. The essay attempts to determine what the proper role of the individual is in the state, and while she argues that "insubordination" can undermine a government, she admits there are lines of "conscience" that cannot be crossed in obeying a government.<ref>Barbauld, "Sins of Government, Sins of the Nation," pp. 316–17.</ref> 

In ''Eighteen Hundred and Eleven'' (1812), written after [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|Britain]] had been at war with France for a decade and was on the brink of losing the [[Napoleonic Wars]], Barbauld presented a shocking [[Juvenal]]ian [[satire]];<ref name="auto">McCarthy and Kraft, p. 160.</ref> she argued that the British Empire was waning and the American Empire waxing. It is to America that Britain's wealth and fame will now go, she contended, and Britain will become a mere empty ruin. She tied this decline directly to Britain's participation in the Napoleonic Wars:
{{quote|<poem>
And think'st thou, Britain, still to sit at ease,
An island Queen amidst thy subject seas,
While the vext billows, in their distant roar,
But soothe thy slumbers, and but kiss thy shore?
To sport in wars, while danger keeps aloof,
Thy grassy turf unbruised by hostile hoof?
So sing thy flatterers; but, Britain, know,
Thou who hast shared the guilt must share the woe.
Nor distant is the hour; low murmurs spread,
And whispered fears, creating what they dread;
Ruin, as with an earthquake shock, is here
</poem>|(lines 39–49)}}
<!--Please do not change to c-quotes – they are not required and look silly (Awadewit)-->
Not surprisingly, this pessimistic view of the future was poorly received: "Reviews, whether in liberal or conservative magazines, ranged from cautious to patronizingly negative to outrageously abusive".<ref name="auto"/> [[Emma J. Clery|E. J. Clery]] states that Barbauld deliberately invited controversy to stir up public debate over the "government war policy and ... specifically [over] the system of trade blockades".<ref>{{Cite book|last=Clery|first=E. J.|title=Eighteen Hundred and Eleven: Poetry, Protest and Economic Crisis|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2017|isbn=9781107189225|location=Cambridge|pages=228}}</ref> The blockade policy was indeed changed in 1812, with a resulting improvement in trade.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Clery|first=E. J.|title=Eighteen Hundred and Eleven: Poetry, Protest and Economic Crisis|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2017|isbn=9781107189225|location=Cambridge|pages=229}}</ref> Clery's 2017 study of ''Eighteen Hundred and Eleven'' recognizes Barbauld as contributing to this outcome and calls for replacing the image of her as a victim of reviewers with an image of her as an agent of change.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Clery|first=E. J.|title=Eighteen Hundred and Eleven: Poetry, Protest and Economic Crisis|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2017|isbn=9781107189225|location=Cambridge|pages=230}}</ref> But Barbauld was always mindful of the human cost of politics. Even when Britain was on the verge of winning the war, she wrote to a friend, "I do not know how to rejoice at this victory, splendid as it is, over Buonaparte, when I consider the horrible waste of life, the mass of misery, which such gigantic combats must occasion".<ref>Quoted in Le Breton, p. 132.</ref>