As the events of the French Revolution reached their peak, David Williams (1738–1816), former dissenting minister-turned-deist, educator, and political reformer, published the pamphlet Lessons to a Young Prince in which he alerted the Prince of Wales to the benefits of political misanthropy. Although a transparent attack on party politicking, the work laid out an alternative constitutional vision for England, well received in reforming circles. Nonetheless, the advent of the Revolution changed the way Lessons were read by contemporaries and led to the addition of a substantial extra lesson which  esponded to Edmund Burke's rather lurid account of the excesses of the sans-culottes. However, unlike many of his other works and despite their wide readership, Lessons were never owned by Williams, appearing anonymously in their first edition, and subsequently in all other editions under the  seudonym 'Old Statesman'. This article seeks to explain Williams' decision to remain uncoupled from his work and argues that its rhetorical function far exceeded its use as a means to avoid censorship.