The historiographies of both eighteenth-century America and Ireland have increasingly, if unequally, been moving towards a more Atlantic and neo-imperial approach. Yet, save for studies focused on Scots-Irish migration such as that of the reviewed author, little work has been done to interpret the connections, similarities, and differences between Ireland and America. Patrick Griffin’s The Townshend moment is a welcome addition that corrects this confusing historiographic blind spot. Through his dual-biography of the brothers George and Charles Townshend, lord lieutenant of Ireland and chancellor of the exchequer respectively, Griffin impressively recreates the world that British metropolitan elites were shaped by and also the worlds they tried to shape themselves. Though Griffin does at times stray from his fascinating narrative or linger too long on insignificant biographical details, The Townshend moment is a compelling and important read for an array of historians, such as those focused on the Atlantic world, British Empire, colonial America, and eighteenth-century Ireland.
Griffin’s biographical use of the brothers is both enjoyable and insightful. As Griffin explained, ‘The brothers were not exceptional at all,’ but, simply, ‘fate had given them … the ability to act.’ Much like most of their peers, they were aristocrats, well educated, capable, believed they were in a critical ‘moment,’ and were sure of their own ability to affect history (p. 7). Yet, by fate, skill, or luck, they were the ones to attempt to impose their vision of imperium on the peripheries of the empire. Their belief in themselves and their fateful rise to power had real consequences: ‘that they came to power when they did, how they did, and with the ideas they did mattered to empire. … They tried to reform an ancien régime; instead, they accelerated its demise’ (p. 7). That is, in essence, Griffin’s argument. It is a more intimate, if not new, interpretation of the American Revolution and the patriot movement in Ireland.
Griffin’s drama proceeds in five acts. Act 1 is the exposition, contextualising both the familial history and lives of the brothers, as well as that of the world in which the brothers lived. Act 2 might be understood in this drama as the ‘complication’. This complication was the imperial crisis engendered by the debt accrued after the Seven Years War; in this complication British elites begin to try to reform the empire but so too do provincials begin to resist. Acts 3 and 4 then focus on the respective administrative experiences of Charles and George in America and Ireland as they tried to impose their imperial visions: a system of parliamentary sovereignty, reform in Ireland, and American acquiescence. Act 5 culminates, much like a Greek drama, in the revelation that the conceit of man’s power over destiny, his hubris, is folly. Instead of seizing the moment and imposing their vision of empire on the many subjects of the British Empire, the brothers’ policies instead met indignant provincials and even resistance from those marginalizsed by British provincials – most notably slaves in America and Irish Catholics. Provincials and marginalised groups also sensed the importance of a moment and they too acted. In short, the world the brothers matured in, one defined by the post-Seven Years War crisis, catalysed aspiring elites, like the Townshends, to implement reform. Those they tried to impose their reform upon, however, interpreted such reform quite differently. In reform they saw nefarious precedent, a tyrannical parliament, and the abridgement of their perceived constitutional rights: thus revolution and resistance.
Though the interpretation may not be wholly ground-breaking, Griffin’s study does provide compelling insights. The author is not interested in the structural problems of the empire but in how individuals understood their world, their moment, and thus how they acted in disparate ways. Some Britons saw the need for imperial reform, others for revolutionary independence. In this endeavour, Griffin successfully injects a much needed sense of contingency in to this turbulent era, the sense of a moment. From the brothers’ perspective, the British Empire, the American Revolutionary era, and the Irish patriot movement suddenly feel exciting, scary, and undetermined.
The work is, of course, not without flaws. At times, especially in the first act, Griffin strays from his compelling narrative to focus on less significant biographical and psychological details of the two brothers. He flirts, in other words, with focusing on the Townshend brothers rather than the more interesting Townshend moment. Still, Griffin does succeed in subtly bringing a myriad of historiographical trends into his study. He skilfully utilises the history of print culture, politeness, and the book, as well as intellectual history, to explain how the brothers made sense of their world. Thus, the Scottish Enlightenment, classical literature, the English Whig tradition, artistic caricature, pamphlets, and friendships with intellectuals all take on both a personal and historical importance. Significantly, both the brothers and the provincials whom they attempted to reform, such as the American John Dickinson and the Irishman Henry Flood, use the same methods, believe in the same moment, and draw from the same intellectual heritage.
Griffin’s broader imperial lens also poses a challenge to teleological tendencies. The stamp act crisis, the spread of the patriot movement, and the eventual crisis of empire all look much different from a perspective that connects Dublin, Boston, and London as opposed to one focused on a single place. For example, Griffin denies that the stamp act crisis was a point of no return. He compares it, instead, to the many and commonplace disorders in Ireland, Scotland, and England. In so doing, as he does with the early stirrings of the Irish patriot movement, he sheds interesting light on provincials who either did not care about or in fact supported imperial reforms. This is a strength. A weakness of the same approach is that such a broad imperial focus perhaps limits a greater investigation of what did make the stamp act crisis so significant, at least in the eyes of most historians of the American Revolution.
Ultimately, Griffin’s work is an exciting pivot towards new avenues of research integrating Irish and American imperial connections. Curiously, his focus on the how, especially in his final act, somewhat obscures some of the more interesting facets of his research: the final act describes how the crisis caused by the Townshends’ desire for a system engendered provincial and, more radically, those excluded from provincial society, to challenge the ‘ruling assumptions’ of their societies and assert themselves into history as the Townshends themselves tried (p. 228). This final analysis has much to say about contingency, history, agency, hubris, humans, and revolution. Yet, the structural links and similarities, as well as the webs of connection between the American colonies and Ireland seems itself perhaps more historically significant and interesting. For example, he might have focused more on the marginalised actors who appear supreme but receive comparatively little attention, the Atlantic economy, the ideological links uniting and disrupting the empire, or analysing why and how America left the ‘first’ British Empire while Ireland remained attached. Nonetheless, that Griffin’s work highlighted so many strands and interesting avenues for research is ultimately a testament to his creative idea, wide-ranging research, and compelling writing. Ideally, this work should inspire more research: the defining hallmark of good history.
