FROMREQUÊTETO PETITION: PETITIONING THE MONARCH BETWEEN EMPIRES

Abstract

This article uncovers a transimperial culture of petitioning that eased the transition for subjects who moved between the French and British empires. Although the petition was hailed as the birthright of Britons, and has consistently drawn attention from historians of Britain and its empire, this did not mean that petitioning was unknown elsewhere. Indeed, Quebec, which was transferred from France to Britain at the close of the Seven Years’ War (1756–63) and experienced lengthy periods of both French and British rule, provides an ideal site through which to document written traditions of expressing grievance. This article reveals not only that French subjects were familiar with addressing the monarch well before the British conquest, but also suggests an important continuity of form that transcended differences of language, shifting regimes, and imperial rivalries. The analysis of petitions from Quebec both before and after 1759 testifies to an identifiable commensurability in the lived experiences of inhabitants across the French and British empires, just as it underscores the petition's similar function in the overseas colonies more broadly. The petition's value to both subjects and sovereigns – its role in mediating relations between them across the globe – helps to explain its continued relevance in these two monarchical empires.

Early modern political petitioning and public engagement in Scotland, Britain and Scandinavia, c. 1550–1795

“…6 The shared culture of petitioning indicated by this research can be seen operating in the later eighteenth century in the complementary petitioning traditions of colonial Britain and France. 7 Research in the Netherlands has highlighted the role of political petitioning in periods of serious political change, as in the Dutch revolt and at critical points in the Dutch Republic, especially in 1672 and again from the 1780s. 8 David Zaret and other historians have highlighted an extraordinary explosion in organized collective petitioning during the English civil wars, and more generally have indicated the significance of petitions in early modern English parliamentary culture.…”

L’éruption patriote: The Revolt against Dalhousie and the Petitioning Explosion in Nineteenth-Century French Canada

“…To accumulate names on paper, the organizers held large assemblies in county seat by county seat, parish by parish, attended by hundreds and occasionally more than a thousand souls. The mass petitions were circulated, explained and signed in French, and their organizers were as likely to call them a requête, a plainte, and an Appel as a pétition (Muller 2017).…”