The importance of attitudes during the early-Hanoverian period towards the Anglo-Hanoverian union and its consequences for Britain – suspected as well as real – has long been recognised by historians. Nevertheless, our knowledge of these remains uneven, with some episodes and periods having been much more closely studied than others. Little work exists on public and press responses to war and British diplomacy in the Baltic between 1716–20, which raised very directly the threat of Hanoverian subversion of British interests and policy. Similarly, press coverage of foreign policy and related issues in the early 1720s, later 1730s and early 1750s has received only cursory attention. It is notable that Gibbs's discussion of attitudes to Hanover in the early Hanoverian period concentrates very heavily on the 1740s. Yet the prominence of Hanover as a topic of public and political debates in this decade was unusual, reflecting a unique combination of circumstances: a series of issues and events which brought into unusually sharp focus Hanoverian influence on British interests; an absence of other issues competing for political attention (there is a strong contrast here with the later 1710s); a ruthless parliamentary opposition willing to stir up public opinion on the issue (again in contrast at least to some elements of opposition in 1717–18); and a large cross section of public opinion alienated, indignant and angry about the lack of substantive political change which followed Walpole's fall from power.