with regards to the political upheaval of the time and the french revolution she later wrote that her father was a tory and that the "unjust and exaggerated abuse of the liberal party made me a liberal. from my earliest years my mind revolved against oppression and tyranny, and i resented the injustice of the world in denying all those privileges of education to my sex which were so lavishly bestowed on men." mary and her oldest brother sam would refuse to take sugar in their tea, in protest against the institution of slavery. somerville asserted that her liberal religious and political opinions remained unchanged throughout her life, but that she was never a republican.