On 21 May 1792 Home Secretary Henry Dundas (1742–1811) presented a proclamation signifying royal intention to ‘prosecute with severity all persons guilty of writing and publishing seditious pamphlets, tending to alienate the affections of his Majesty’s subjects, and, to disturb the peace, order, and tranquility of the State, as well as to prohibit illegal meetings’. This was in response to the publication of the second part of Paine’s Rights of Man in February.

See The Times, 22 May 1792.