Editing London Corresponding Society (section)

===Turn against United conspiracy, and final suppression===
On 30 January 1798, the LCS had issued an Address to the United Irishmen, declaring that "If to Unite in the Cause of Reform upon the Broadest Basis be Treason .... We, with you, are Traitors".<ref name="Hansard">{{cite book |last1=Hansard |first1=T.C. |title=The Parliamentary History of England. Vol. XXXI |date=1818 |publisher=Longmans |location=London |pages=642–645}}</ref> Yet the disillusionment with France was widespread and by the time of Coigly's arrest the majority view was that the entire business of coordinating with the Directory and the United Irish was a destructive diversion. The Central Committee of Delegates suspected that the government exaggerated the threat of a French invasion, but agreed that in the event members would join their local, government-approved, militias.<ref name="Vandehey">{{cite book |last1=Vandehey |first1=Reed Joseph |title=Parliament and the London Corresponding Society |date=1975 |publisher=Portland State University, Dissertations and Theses. Paper 2542 |location=Portland OR |pages=100–101 |url=https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/37774413.pdf |access-date=27 February 2021}}</ref>

On 19 April 1798, just as this was being resolved in a pub in [[Drury Lane]], the committee was raided by the police. Together with parallel raids on corresponding societies in Birmingham and Manchester, a total of 28 persons were arrested, among them [[Thomas Evans (conspirator)|Thomas Evans]], Edward Despard, John Bone, Benjamin Binns, Paul Le Maitre, Richard Hodgson and Alexander Galloway. The next day, Pitt renewed the suspension of habeas corpus absolving the government of the need to present evidence of complicity in Coigly's mission. The prisoners were held without charge until hostilities with France were (temporarily) halted with the [[Treaty of Amiens]] in 1801.

According to [[Francis Place]] (who, for the good name of the LCS and the reform movement as a whole, had threatened to inform on United conspirators)<ref>{{Cite book|last=Wallas|first=Graham|title=The Life of Francis Place|publisher=Allen and Unwin|year=1918|location=London|pages=27}}</ref> this stroke extinguished the society. Members made no attempt to meet again, not even in any division and abandoned their delegates.<ref name=":3" /> A final act of Parliament, the [[Unlawful Societies Act 1799]] ([[39 Geo. 3]]. c. 79), "for the more effectual suppression of societies established for seditious and treasonable Purposes; and for better preventing treasonable and seditious practices", referenced and banned the LCS by name, along with the United Englishmen, the United Scotsmen, the United Britons, and the United Irishmen.<ref>{{Cite book|title = An act for the more effectual suppression of societies established for seditious and treasonable purposes, and for better preventing treasonable and seditious practices: 12th July 1799|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=YQo1ywAACAAJ|publisher = G.E. Eyre and W. Spottiswoode|date = 1847}}</ref>

Despard, who had protested a betrayal of the United Britons as "dishonourable",<ref name="Jay">{{cite book|last1=Jay|first1=Mike|title=The Unfortunate Colonel Despard|date=2004|publisher=Bantam Press|isbn=0593051955|location=London|pages=152–153}}</ref> was executed for treasonable association with their remnants—the so-called [[Despard Plot]]—in 1803.