SOURCE: Fulford, Tim. “Apocalyptic Economics and Prophetic Politics: Radical and Romantic Responses to Malthus and Burke.” Studies in Romanticism 40, no. 3 (fall 2001): 345-68.

In the following essay, Fulford explains the influence Malthus's writings exerted on the history of literature as well as on the history of politics and social science.

We will do some Michief if you don't lower the Brade for we cannot live. … We have give you a fair offer to do it before you don have your Town & Towns set on fire … we will begin on the One End and Continue to the other. Be all of one Mind we can do itt because we cannot But be killed then & we shall die as it is.¹

At the end of the eighteenth century, poor people were hungry all over England. Rising prices, falling wages and increasing population produced many desperate threats to set towns on fire...