Thomas Gordon (writer)

From 1720 to 1723, Trenchard and Gordon wrote a series of 144 essays entitled Cato's Letters, condemning corruption and lack of morality within the British political system and warning against tyranny.

[2] Zuckert argues, "The writers who, more than any others, put together the new synthesis that is the new republicanism were John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, writing in the early eighteenth century as Cato.

[4] A tract called the Independent Whig, published at the time of the rejection of the Peerage Bill (December 1719), was followed by a second part in January 1720, on the peace with Spain and the value of Gibraltar to England, several editions of which were issued.

The book was mainly an attack on the High Church party, and on the title-page of later editions is called 'A Defence of Primitive Christianity ... against the exorbitant claims of fanatical and disaffected clergymen.'

John Nichols claimed that Gordon's commentaries on Tacitus were derivative from the work of Virgilio Malvezzi, Scipione Ammirato and Baltasar Alamos de Barrientos.

[6] Gordon, inspired by Bernard Mandeville, expressed strong disapproval with the mass killing of numerous animals for human consumption, stating, "it is very unreasonable that the whole Creation should be lavished away in this profuse Manner."

He also argued that meat wasn't inherently the natural food for humans, asserting that it was merely cultural practices that led people to overcome their aversion to it and to disregard the cruelty inflicted upon animals during the slaughter process.