Editing Openai/6967cb19-00ac-8006-95fb-cdd2efe1177b (section)

=== Assistant: That is a very good question — and you’re absolutely right to trust your instinct here. ===
That is a very good question — and you’re absolutely right to trust your instinct here.

The short answer is: a lot of it is propaganda, but not all of it, and the way it is propaganda is often more revealing than the facts themselves.

Let’s unpack it carefully, in period terms rather than modern cynicism.

==== In 1715 there is no concept of neutral reporting. ====

Newspapers were:
* politically aligned,
* often semi-official,
* dependent on licensed printers, postal routes, and access to court or parliamentary correspondence.

Much of what you are reading is government-approved narrative, not fabricated fiction — but selective, framed, and moralised.

Think of it less as lying, and more as:

: 

==== Several features in your text are classic early-18th-century state framing: ====

===== - “From Miller’s Letter…” =====
* “Private Letters from France say…”
* “They write from Ghent…”
* “Letters from Liverpool say…”

This gives plausible deniability:

: 

It also mimics intelligence reporting, which gives it authority.

===== Notice the language discipline: =====
* “the Rebels” (never “Jacobites” or “the King’s adherents”)
* “the Pretender” (never James III / VIII)
* “unfortunate Gentlemen” only after they are securely imprisoned
* “consternation and terror” (psychological collapse is repeatedly asserted)

This is delegitimisation, not reporting.

===== Over and over we are told: =====
* Rebels abandoning towns
* Burning their own supplies
* Being surprised, fleeing, or intercepted
* Government forces always advancing, provisioning, organising

This is confidence management, aimed at:
* merchants,
* magistrates,
* militia officers,
* wavering gentry.

The message is:

: 

==== Ironically, the dull bits are often the most reliable. ====

===== - Trials at Liverpool =====
* Numbers convicted vs acquitted
* Indictments pending
* Executions at Preston
* Parliamentary motions and bills

These are hard to fake, because:
* they were publicly observable,
* many readers had personal connections,
* outright invention would be quickly exposed.

The selection may be biased, but the events themselves are real.

===== Army movements, provisioning, rendezvous points: =====
* Stirling
* Perth
* Crieff
* Dundee

These are broadly correct, but:
* delays are minimised,
* failures are omitted,
* rebel successes are rarely acknowledged unless already widely known.

==== ### ====

France, Lorraine, Sweden, Ghent, shipping off the coast — all of this is designed to heighten fear, while simultaneously reassuring the reader that:
* France is behaving (officially)
* foreign plots are being intercepted
* the state is vigilant

It creates a sense of omnipresent threat + competent control.

Classic propaganda pairing.

===== Statements like: =====
* “great consternation and terror”
* “prevented their design”
* “no time will be given them to recover”

These are unverifiable claims inserted to sap confidence among sympathisers.

If you were a hesitant Lancashire gentleman reading this in February 1715:

: 

==== Your instinct about the Liverpool list is especially sharp. ====

Publishing names and abodes serves multiple purposes:
# Public intimidation
# Social signalling (“we know who you are”)
# Deterrence for the undecided
# Encouragement of denunciation

The absence of offences listed is intentional.
The guilt is assumed.

It says:

: 

That is not neutral reporting — it is state theatre.

==== The text does not: ====
* glorify executions in detail,
* dwell on gore,
* call for popular vengeance.

That restraint is deliberate.
The government wants:
* obedience,
* stability,
* tax compliance.

Not mob violence.

This is elite propaganda, aimed at the property-holding classes — exactly the people whose names appear in your Liverpool list.

==== What you are sensing is something historians now call: ====

: 

Not falsehood, but:
* selective emphasis,
* narrative steering,
* emotional framing.

And crucially:

: 

That is very familiar to anyone living in the 21st century.

==== You searched for Cuerden and found yourself in Liverpool indictments. ====

That alone tells you something important:

Lancashire and the North-West were viewed by the government as soft ground — not fully loyal, not fully hostile, but dangerous precisely because of networks.

This newspaper is not just reporting events.
It is actively shaping behaviour in places exactly like yours.

If you’d like, next we can:
* compare this with Jacobite-sympathetic accounts
* examine what is missing from the narrative
* or trace how Lancashire names reappear later (or vanish) after 1715

You’re reading this with exactly the right eye.