diff options
Diffstat (limited to '2173.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 2173.txt | 4658 |
1 files changed, 4658 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/2173.txt b/2173.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..68c47f7 --- /dev/null +++ b/2173.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4658 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Thoughts on the Present Discontents, by +Edmund Burke, Edited by Henry Morley + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Thoughts on the Present Discontents + and Speeches + + +Author: Edmund Burke + +Editor: Henry Morley + +Release Date: May 7, 2007 [eBook #2173] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT +DISCONTENTS*** + + + + +Transcribed from the 1886 Cassell & Company edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org and proofing by David, Terry L. Jeffress, Edgar A. +Howard. + + + + + +THOUGHTS +ON THE +PRESENT DISCONTENTS, +AND +SPEECHES + + +BY +EDMUND BURKE. + +CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED: +_LONDON_, _PARIS_, _NEW YORK & MELBOURNE_. +1886. + +Contents + +Introduction +Thoughts on the Present Discontents +Speech on the Middlesex Election. +Speech on the Powers of Juries in Prosecutions for Libels. +Speech on a Bill for Shortening the Duration of Parliaments +Speech on Reform of Representation in the House of Commons + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +Edmund Burke was born at Dublin on the first of January, 1730. His +father was an attorney, who had fifteen children, of whom all but four +died in their youth. Edmund, the second son, being of delicate health in +his childhood, was taught at home and at his grandfather's house in the +country before he was sent with his two brothers Garrett and Richard to a +school at Ballitore, under Abraham Shackleton, a member of the Society of +Friends. For nearly forty years afterwards Burke paid an annual visit to +Ballitore. + +In 1744, after leaving school, Burke entered Trinity College, Dublin. He +graduated B.A. in 1748; M.A., 1751. In 1750 he came to London, to the +Middle Temple. In 1756 Burke became known as a writer, by two pieces. +One was a pamphlet called "A Vindication of Natural Society." This was +an ironical piece, reducing to absurdity those theories of the excellence +of uncivilised humanity which were gathering strength in France, and had +been favoured in the philosophical works of Bolingbroke, then lately +published. Burke's other work published in 1756, was his "Essay on the +Sublime and Beautiful." + +At this time Burke's health broke down. He was cared for in the house of +a kindly physician, Dr. Nugent, and the result was that in the spring of +1757 he married Dr. Nugent's daughter. In the following year Burke made +Samuel Johnson's acquaintance, and acquaintance ripened fast into close +friendship. In 1758, also, a son was born; and, as a way of adding to +his income, Burke suggested the plan of "The Annual Register." + +In 1761 Burke became private secretary to William Gerard Hamilton, who +was then appointed Chief Secretary to Ireland. In April, 1763, Burke's +services were recognised by a pension of 300 pounds a year; but he threw +this up in April, 1765, when he found that his services were considered +to have been not only recognised, but also bought. On the 10th of July +in that year (1765) Lord Rockingham became Premier, and a week later +Burke, through the good offices of an admiring friend who had come to +know him in the newly-founded Turk's Head Club, became Rockingham's +private secretary. He was now the mainstay, if not the inspirer, of +Rockingham's policy of pacific compromise in the vexed questions between +England and the American colonies. Burke's elder brother, who had lately +succeeded to his father's property, died also in 1765, and Burke sold the +estate in Cork for 4,000 pounds. + +Having become private secretary to Lord Rockingham, Burke entered +Parliament as member for Wendover, and promptly took his place among the +leading speakers in the House. + +On the 30th of July, 1766, the Rockingham Ministry went out, and Burke +wrote a defence of its policy in "A Short Account of a late Short +Administration." In 1768 Burke bought for 23,000 pounds an estate called +Gregories or Butler's Court, about a mile from Beaconsfield. He called +it by the more territorial name of Beaconsfield, and made it his home. +Burke's endeavours to stay the policy that was driving the American +colonies to revolution, caused the State of New York, in 1771, to +nominate him as its agent. About May, 1769, Edmund Burke began the +pamphlet here given, _Thoughts on the Present Discontents_. It was +published in 1770, and four editions of it were issued before the end of +the year. It was directed chiefly against Court influence, that had +first been used successfully against the Rockingham Ministry. Allegiance +to Rockingham caused Burke to write the pamphlet, but he based his +argument upon essentials of his own faith as a statesman. It was the +beginning of the larger utterance of his political mind. + +Court influence was strengthened in those days by the large number of +newly-rich men, who bought their way into the House of Commons for +personal reasons and could easily be attached to the King's party. In a +population of 8,000,000 there were then but 160,000 electors, mostly +nominal. The great land-owners generally held the counties. When two +great houses disputed the county of York, the election lasted fourteen +days, and the costs, chiefly in bribery, were said to have reached three +hundred thousand pounds. Many seats in Parliament were regarded as +hereditary possessions, which could be let at rental, or to which the +nominations could be sold. Town corporations often let, to the highest +bidders, seats in Parliament, for the benefit of the town funds. The +election of John Wilkes for Middlesex, in 1768, was taken as a triumph of +the people. The King and his ministers then brought the House of Commons +into conflict with the freeholders of Westminster. Discontent became +active and general. "Junius" began, in his letters, to attack boldly the +King's friends, and into the midst of the discontent was thrown a message +from the Crown asking for half a million, to make good a shortcoming in +the Civil List. Men asked in vain what had been done with the lost +money. Confusion at home was increased by the great conflict with the +American colonies; discontents, ever present, were colonial as well as +home. In such a time Burke endeavoured to show by what pilotage he would +have men weather the storm. + +H. M. + + + + +THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS + + +It is an undertaking of some degree of delicacy to examine into the cause +of public disorders. If a man happens not to succeed in such an inquiry, +he will be thought weak and visionary; if he touches the true grievance, +there is a danger that he may come near to persons of weight and +consequence, who will rather be exasperated at the discovery of their +errors than thankful for the occasion of correcting them. If he should +be obliged to blame the favourites of the people, he will be considered +as the tool of power; if he censures those in power, he will be looked on +as an instrument of faction. But in all exertions of duty something is +to be hazarded. In cases of tumult and disorder, our law has invested +every man, in some sort, with the authority of a magistrate. When the +affairs of the nation are distracted, private people are, by the spirit +of that law, justified in stepping a little out of their ordinary sphere. +They enjoy a privilege of somewhat more dignity and effect than that of +idle lamentation over the calamities of their country. They may look +into them narrowly; they may reason upon them liberally; and if they +should be so fortunate as to discover the true source of the mischief, +and to suggest any probable method of removing it, though they may +displease the rulers for the day, they are certainly of service to the +cause of Government. Government is deeply interested in everything +which, even through the medium of some temporary uneasiness, may tend +finally to compose the minds of the subjects, and to conciliate their +affections. I have nothing to do here with the abstract value of the +voice of the people. But as long as reputation, the most precious +possession of every individual, and as long as opinion, the great support +of the State, depend entirely upon that voice, it can never be considered +as a thing of little consequence either to individuals or to Government. +Nations are not primarily ruled by laws; less by violence. Whatever +original energy may be supposed either in force or regulation, the +operation of both is, in truth, merely instrumental. Nations are +governed by the same methods, and on the same principles, by which an +individual without authority is often able to govern those who are his +equals or his superiors, by a knowledge of their temper, and by a +judicious management of it; I mean, when public affairs are steadily and +quietly conducted: not when Government is nothing but a continued scuffle +between the magistrate and the multitude, in which sometimes the one and +sometimes the other is uppermost--in which they alternately yield and +prevail, in a series of contemptible victories and scandalous +submissions. The temper of the people amongst whom he presides ought +therefore to be the first study of a statesman. And the knowledge of +this temper it is by no means impossible for him to attain, if he has not +an interest in being ignorant of what it is his duty to learn. + +To complain of the age we live in, to murmur at the present possessors of +power, to lament the past, to conceive extravagant hopes of the future, +are the common dispositions of the greater part of mankind--indeed, the +necessary effects of the ignorance and levity of the vulgar. Such +complaints and humours have existed in all times; yet as all times have +_not_ been alike, true political sagacity manifests itself, in +distinguishing that complaint which only characterises the general +infirmity of human nature from those which are symptoms of the particular +distemperature of our own air and season. + +* * * * * + +Nobody, I believe, will consider it merely as the language of spleen or +disappointment, if I say that there is something particularly alarming in +the present conjuncture. There is hardly a man, in or out of power, who +holds any other language. That Government is at once dreaded and +contemned; that the laws are despoiled of all their respected and +salutary terrors; that their inaction is a subject of ridicule, and their +exertion of abhorrence; that rank, and office, and title, and all the +solemn plausibilities of the world, have lost their reverence and effect; +that our foreign politics are as much deranged as our domestic economy; +that our dependencies are slackened in their affection, and loosened from +their obedience; that we know neither how to yield nor how to enforce; +that hardly anything above or below, abroad or at home, is sound and +entire; but that disconnection and confusion, in offices, in parties, in +families, in Parliament, in the nation, prevail beyond the disorders of +any former time: these are facts universally admitted and lamented. + +This state of things is the more extraordinary, because the great parties +which formerly divided and agitated the kingdom are known to be in a +manner entirely dissolved. No great external calamity has visited the +nation; no pestilence or famine. We do not labour at present under any +scheme of taxation new or oppressive in the quantity or in the mode. Nor +are we engaged in unsuccessful war, in which our misfortunes might easily +pervert our judgment, and our minds, sore from the loss of national +glory, might feel every blow of fortune as a crime in Government. + +* * * * * + +It is impossible that the cause of this strange distemper should not +sometimes become a subject of discourse. It is a compliment due, and +which I willingly pay, to those who administer our affairs, to take +notice in the first place of their speculation. Our Ministers are of +opinion that the increase of our trade and manufactures, that our growth +by colonisation and by conquest, have concurred to accumulate immense +wealth in the hands of some individuals; and this again being dispersed +amongst the people, has rendered them universally proud, ferocious, and +ungovernable; that the insolence of some from their enormous wealth, and +the boldness of others from a guilty poverty, have rendered them capable +of the most atrocious attempts; so that they have trampled upon all +subordination, and violently borne down the unarmed laws of a free +Government--barriers too feeble against the fury of a populace so fierce +and licentious as ours. They contend that no adequate provocation has +been given for so spreading a discontent, our affairs having been +conducted throughout with remarkable temper and consummate wisdom. The +wicked industry of some libellers, joined to the intrigues of a few +disappointed politicians, have, in their opinion, been able to produce +this unnatural ferment in the nation. + +Nothing indeed can be more unnatural than the present convulsions of this +country, if the above account be a true one. I confess I shall assent to +it with great reluctance, and only on the compulsion of the clearest and +firmest proofs; because their account resolves itself into this short but +discouraging proposition, "That we have a very good Ministry, but that we +are a very bad people;" that we set ourselves to bite the hand that feeds +us; that with a malignant insanity we oppose the measures, and +ungratefully vilify the persons, of those whose sole object is our own +peace and prosperity. If a few puny libellers, acting under a knot of +factious politicians, without virtue, parts, or character (such they are +constantly represented by these gentlemen), are sufficient to excite this +disturbance, very perverse must be the disposition of that people amongst +whom such a disturbance can be excited by such means. It is besides no +small aggravation of the public misfortune that the disease, on this +hypothesis, appears to be without remedy. If the wealth of the nation be +the cause of its turbulence, I imagine it is not proposed to introduce +poverty as a constable to keep the peace. If our dominions abroad are +the roots which feed all this rank luxuriance of sedition, it is not +intended to cut them off in order to famish the fruit. If our liberty +has enfeebled the executive power, there is no design, I hope, to call in +the aid of despotism to fill up the deficiencies of law. Whatever may be +intended, these things are not yet professed. We seem therefore to be +driven to absolute despair, for we have no other materials to work upon +but those out of which God has been pleased to form the inhabitants of +this island. If these be radically and essentially vicious, all that can +be said is that those men are very unhappy to whose fortune or duty it +falls to administer the affairs of this untoward people. I hear it +indeed sometimes asserted that a steady perseverance in the present +measures, and a rigorous punishment of those who oppose them, will in +course of time infallibly put an end to these disorders. But this, in my +opinion, is said without much observation of our present disposition, and +without any knowledge at all of the general nature of mankind. If the +matter of which this nation is composed be so very fermentable as these +gentlemen describe it, leaven never will be wanting to work it up, as +long as discontent, revenge, and ambition have existence in the world. +Particular punishments are the cure for accidental distempers in the +State; they inflame rather than allay those heats which arise from the +settled mismanagement of the Government, or from a natural ill +disposition in the people. It is of the utmost moment not to make +mistakes in the use of strong measures, and firmness is then only a +virtue when it accompanies the most perfect wisdom. In truth, +inconstancy is a sort of natural corrective of folly and ignorance. + +I am not one of those who think that the people are never in the wrong. +They have been so, frequently and outrageously, both in other countries +and in this. But I do say that in all disputes between them and their +rulers the presumption is at least upon a par in favour of the people. +Experience may perhaps justify me in going further. When popular +discontents have been very prevalent, it may well be affirmed and +supported that there has been generally something found amiss in the +constitution or in the conduct of Government. The people have no +interest in disorder. When they do wrong, it is their error, and not +their crime. But with the governing part of the State it is far +otherwise. They certainly may act ill by design, as well as by mistake. +"Les revolutions qui arrivent dans les grands etats ne sont point un +effect du hasard, ni du caprice des peuples. Rien ne revolte les grands +d'un royaume comme un Gouvernoment foible et derange. Pour la populace, +ce n'est jamais par envie d'attaquer qu'elle se souleve, mais par +impatience de souffrir." These are the words of a great man, of a +Minister of State, and a zealous assertor of Monarchy. They are applied +to the system of favouritism which was adopted by Henry the Third of +France, and to the dreadful consequences it produced. What he says of +revolutions is equally true of all great disturbances. If this +presumption in favour of the subjects against the trustees of power be +not the more probable, I am sure it is the more comfortable speculation, +because it is more easy to change an Administration than to reform a +people. + +* * * * * + +Upon a supposition, therefore, that, in the opening of the cause, the +presumptions stand equally balanced between the parties, there seems +sufficient ground to entitle any person to a fair hearing who attempts +some other scheme besides that easy one which is fashionable in some +fashionable companies, to account for the present discontents. It is not +to be argued that we endure no grievance, because our grievances are not +of the same sort with those under which we laboured formerly--not +precisely those which we bore from the Tudors, or vindicated on the +Stuarts. A great change has taken place in the affairs of this country. +For in the silent lapse of events as material alterations have been +insensibly brought about in the policy and character of governments and +nations as those which have been marked by the tumult of public +revolutions. + +It is very rare indeed for men to be wrong in their feelings concerning +public misconduct; as rare to be right in their speculation upon the +cause of it. I have constantly observed that the generality of people +are fifty years, at least, behindhand in their politics. There are but +very few who are capable of comparing and digesting what passes before +their eyes at different times and occasions, so as to form the whole into +a distinct system. But in books everything is settled for them, without +the exertion of any considerable diligence or sagacity. For which reason +men are wise with but little reflection, and good with little +self-denial, in the business of all times except their own. We are very +uncorrupt and tolerably enlightened judges of the transactions of past +ages; where no passions deceive, and where the whole train of +circumstances, from the trifling cause to the tragical event, is set in +an orderly series before us. Few are the partisans of departed tyranny; +and to be a Whig on the business of a hundred years ago is very +consistent with every advantage of present servility. This retrospective +wisdom and historical patriotism are things of wonderful convenience, and +serve admirably to reconcile the old quarrel between speculation and +practice. Many a stern republican, after gorging himself with a full +feast of admiration of the Grecian commonwealths and of our true Saxon +constitution, and discharging all the splendid bile of his virtuous +indignation on King John and King James, sits down perfectly satisfied to +the coarsest work and homeliest job of the day he lives in. I believe +there was no professed admirer of Henry the Eighth among the instruments +of the last King James; nor in the court of Henry the Eighth was there, I +dare say, to be found a single advocate for the favourites of Richard the +Second. + +No complaisance to our Court, or to our age, can make me believe nature +to be so changed but that public liberty will be among us, as among our +ancestors, obnoxious to some person or other, and that opportunities will +be furnished for attempting, at least, some alteration to the prejudice +of our constitution. These attempts will naturally vary in their mode, +according to times and circumstances. For ambition, though it has ever +the same general views, has not at all times the same means, nor the same +particular objects. A great deal of the furniture of ancient tyranny is +worn to rags; the rest is entirely out of fashion. Besides, there are +few statesmen so very clumsy and awkward in their business as to fall +into the identical snare which has proved fatal to their predecessors. +When an arbitrary imposition is attempted upon the subject, undoubtedly +it will not bear on its forehead the name of _Ship-money_. There is no +danger that an extension of the _Forest laws_ should be the chosen mode +of oppression in this age. And when we hear any instance of ministerial +rapacity to the prejudice of the rights of private life, it will +certainly not be the exaction of two hundred pullets, from a woman of +fashion, for leave to lie with her own husband. + +Every age has its own manners, and its politics dependent upon them; and +the same attempts will not be made against a constitution fully formed +and matured, that were used to destroy it in the cradle, or to resist its +growth during its infancy. + +Against the being of Parliament, I am satisfied, no designs have ever +been entertained since the Revolution. Every one must perceive that it +is strongly the interest of the Court to have some second cause +interposed between the Ministers and the people. The gentlemen of the +House of Commons have an interest equally strong in sustaining the part +of that intermediate cause. However they may hire out the _usufruct_ of +their voices, they never will part with the _fee and inheritance_. +Accordingly those who have been of the most known devotion to the will +and pleasure of a Court, have at the same time been most forward in +asserting a high authority in the House of Commons. When they knew who +were to use that authority, and how it was to be employed, they thought +it never could be carried too far. It must be always the wish of an +unconstitutional statesman, that a House of Commons who are entirely +dependent upon him, should have every right of the people entirely +dependent upon their pleasure. It was soon discovered that the forms of +a free, and the ends of an arbitrary Government, were things not +altogether incompatible. + +The power of the Crown, almost dead and rotten as Prerogative, has grown +up anew, with much more strength, and far less odium, under the name of +Influence. An influence which operated without noise and without +violence; an influence which converted the very antagonist into the +instrument of power; which contained in itself a perpetual principle of +growth and renovation; and which the distresses and the prosperity of the +country equally tended to augment, was an admirable substitute for a +prerogative that, being only the offspring of antiquated prejudices, had +moulded in its original stamina irresistible principles of decay and +dissolution. The ignorance of the people is a bottom but for a temporary +system; the interest of active men in the State is a foundation perpetual +and infallible. However, some circumstances, arising, it must be +confessed, in a great degree from accident, prevented the effects of this +influence for a long time from breaking out in a manner capable of +exciting any serious apprehensions. Although Government was strong and +flourished exceedingly, the _Court_ had drawn far less advantage than one +would imagine from this great source of power. + +* * * * * + +At the Revolution, the Crown, deprived, for the ends of the Revolution +itself, of many prerogatives, was found too weak to struggle against all +the difficulties which pressed so new and unsettled a Government. The +Court was obliged therefore to delegate a part of its powers to men of +such interest as could support, and of such fidelity as would adhere to, +its establishment. Such men were able to draw in a greater number to a +concurrence in the common defence. This connection, necessary at first, +continued long after convenient; and properly conducted might indeed, in +all situations, be a useful instrument of Government. At the same time, +through the intervention of men of popular weight and character, the +people possessed a security for their just proportion of importance in +the State. But as the title to the Crown grew stronger by long +possession, and by the constant increase of its influence, these helps +have of late seemed to certain persons no better than incumbrances. The +powerful managers for Government were not sufficiently submissive to the +pleasure of the possessors of immediate and personal favour, sometimes +from a confidence in their own strength, natural and acquired; sometimes +from a fear of offending their friends, and weakening that lead in the +country, which gave them a consideration independent of the Court. Men +acted as if the Court could receive, as well as confer, an obligation. +The influence of Government, thus divided in appearance between the Court +and the leaders of parties, became in many cases an accession rather to +the popular than to the royal scale; and some part of that influence, +which would otherwise have been possessed as in a sort of mortmain and +unalienable domain, returned again to the great ocean from whence it +arose, and circulated among the people. This method therefore of +governing by men of great natural interest or great acquired +consideration, was viewed in a very invidious light by the true lovers of +absolute monarchy. It is the nature of despotism to abhor power held by +any means but its own momentary pleasure; and to annihilate all +intermediate situations between boundless strength on its own part, and +total debility on the part of the people. + +To get rid of all this intermediate and independent importance, and _to +secure to the Court the unlimited and uncontrolled use of its own vast +influence_, _under the sole direction of its own private favour_, has for +some years past been the great object of policy. If this were compassed, +the influence of the Crown must of course produce all the effects which +the most sanguine partisans of the Court could possibly desire. +Government might then be carried on without any concurrence on the part +of the people; without any attention to the dignity of the greater, or to +the affections of the lower sorts. A new project was therefore devised +by a certain set of intriguing men, totally different from the system of +Administration which had prevailed since the accession of the House of +Brunswick. This project, I have heard, was first conceived by some +persons in the Court of Frederick, Prince of Wales. + +The earliest attempt in the execution of this design was to set up for +Minister a person, in rank indeed respectable, and very ample in fortune; +but who, to the moment of this vast and sudden elevation, was little +known or considered in the kingdom. To him the whole nation was to yield +an immediate and implicit submission. But whether it was from want of +firmness to bear up against the first opposition, or that things were not +yet fully ripened, or that this method was not found the most eligible, +that idea was soon abandoned. The instrumental part of the project was a +little altered, to accommodate it to the time, and to bring things more +gradually and more surely to the one great end proposed. + +The first part of the reformed plan was to draw _a line which should +separate the Court from the Ministry_. Hitherto these names had been +looked upon as synonymous; but, for the future, Court and Administration +were to be considered as things totally distinct. By this operation, two +systems of Administration were to be formed: one which should be in the +real secret and confidence; the other merely ostensible, to perform the +official and executory duties of Government. The latter were alone to be +responsible; whilst the real advisers, who enjoyed all the power, were +effectually removed from all the danger. + +Secondly, _a party under these leaders was to be formed in favour of the +Court against the Ministry_: this party was to have a large share in the +emoluments of Government, and to hold it totally separate from, and +independent of, ostensible Administration. + +The third point, and that on which the success of the whole scheme +ultimately depended, was _to bring Parliament to an acquiescence in this +project_. Parliament was therefore to be taught by degrees a total +indifference to the persons, rank, influence, abilities, connections, and +character of the Ministers of the Crown. By means of a discipline, on +which I shall say more hereafter, that body was to be habituated to the +most opposite interests, and the most discordant politics. All +connections and dependencies among subjects were to be entirely +dissolved. As hitherto business had gone through the hands of leaders of +Whigs or Tories, men of talents to conciliate the people, and to engage +their confidence, now the method was to be altered; and the lead was to +be given to men of no sort of consideration or credit in the country. +This want of natural importance was to be their very title to delegated +power. Members of parliament were to be hardened into an insensibility +to pride as well as to duty. Those high and haughty sentiments, which +are the great support of independence, were to be let down gradually. +Point of honour and precedence were no more to be regarded in +Parliamentary decorum than in a Turkish army. It was to be avowed, as a +constitutional maxim, that the King might appoint one of his footmen, or +one of your footmen, for Minister; and that he ought to be, and that he +would be, as well followed as the first name for rank or wisdom in the +nation. Thus Parliament was to look on, as if perfectly unconcerned +while a cabal of the closet and back-stairs was substituted in the place +of a national Administration. + +With such a degree of acquiescence, any measure of any Court might well +be deemed thoroughly secure. The capital objects, and by much the most +flattering characteristics of arbitrary power, would be obtained. +Everything would be drawn from its holdings in the country to the +personal favour and inclination of the Prince. This favour would be the +sole introduction to power, and the only tenure by which it was to be +held: so that no person looking towards another, and all looking towards +the Court, it was impossible but that the motive which solely influenced +every man's hopes must come in time to govern every man's conduct; till +at last the servility became universal, in spite of the dead letter of +any laws or institutions whatsoever. + +How it should happen that any man could be tempted to venture upon such a +project of Government, may at first view appear surprising. But the fact +is that opportunities very inviting to such an attempt have offered; and +the scheme itself was not destitute of some arguments, not wholly +unplausible, to recommend it. These opportunities and these arguments, +the use that has been made of both, the plan for carrying this new scheme +of government into execution, and the effects which it has produced, are +in my opinion worthy of our serious consideration. + +His Majesty came to the throne of these kingdoms with more advantages +than any of his predecessors since the Revolution. Fourth in descent, +and third in succession of his Royal family, even the zealots of +hereditary right, in him, saw something to flatter their favourite +prejudices; and to justify a transfer of their attachments, without a +change in their principles. The person and cause of the Pretender were +become contemptible; his title disowned throughout Europe, his party +disbanded in England. His Majesty came indeed to the inheritance of a +mighty war; but, victorious in every part of the globe, peace was always +in his power, not to negotiate, but to dictate. No foreign habitudes or +attachments withdrew him from the cultivation of his power at home. His +revenue for the Civil establishment, fixed (as it was then thought) at a +large, but definite sum, was ample, without being invidious; his +influence, by additions from conquest, by an augmentation of debt, by an +increase of military and naval establishment, much strengthened and +extended. And coming to the throne in the prime and full vigour of +youth, as from affection there was a strong dislike, so from dread there +seemed to be a general averseness from giving anything like offence to a +monarch against whose resentment opposition could not look for a refuge +in any sort of reversionary hope. + +These singular advantages inspired his Majesty only with a more ardent +desire to preserve unimpaired the spirit of that national freedom to +which he owed a situation so full of glory. But to others it suggested +sentiments of a very different nature. They thought they now beheld an +opportunity (by a certain sort of statesman never long undiscovered or +unemployed) of drawing to themselves, by the aggrandisement of a Court +faction, a degree of power which they could never hope to derive from +natural influence or from honourable service; and which it was impossible +they could hold with the least security, whilst the system of +Administration rested upon its former bottom. In order to facilitate the +execution of their design, it was necessary to make many alterations in +political arrangement, and a signal change in the opinions, habits, and +connections of the greater part of those who at that time acted in +public. + +In the first place, they proceeded gradually, but not slowly, to destroy +everything of strength which did not derive its principal nourishment +from the immediate pleasure of the Court. The greatest weight of popular +opinion and party connection were then with the Duke of Newcastle and Mr. +Pitt. Neither of these held his importance by the _new tenure_ of the +Court; they were not, therefore, thought to be so proper as others for +the services which were required by that tenure. It happened very +favourably for the new system, that under a forced coalition there +rankled an incurable alienation and disgust between the parties which +composed the Administration. Mr. Pitt was first attacked. Not satisfied +with removing him from power, they endeavoured by various artifices to +ruin his character. The other party seemed rather pleased to get rid of +so oppressive a support; not perceiving that their own fall was prepared +by his, and involved in it. Many other reasons prevented them from +daring to look their true situation in the face. To the great Whig +families it was extremely disagreeable, and seemed almost unnatural, to +oppose the Administration of a Prince of the House of Brunswick. Day +after day they hesitated, and doubted, and lingered, expecting that other +counsels would take place; and were slow to be persuaded that all which +had been done by the Cabal was the effect, not of humour, but of system. +It was more strongly and evidently the interest of the new Court faction +to get rid of the great Whig connections than to destroy Mr. Pitt. The +power of that gentleman was vast indeed, and merited; but it was in a +great degree personal, and therefore transient. Theirs was rooted in the +country. For, with a good deal less of popularity, they possessed a far +more natural and fixed influence. Long possession of Government; vast +property; obligations of favours given and received; connection of +office; ties of blood, of alliance, of friendship (things at that time +supposed of some force); the name of Whig, dear to the majority of the +people; the zeal early begun and steadily continued to the Royal Family; +all these together formed a body of power in the nation, which was +criminal and devoted. The great ruling principle of the Cabal, and that +which animated and harmonised all their proceedings, how various soever +they may have been, was to signify to the world that the Court would +proceed upon its own proper forces only; and that the pretence of +bringing any other into its service was an affront to it, and not a +support. Therefore when the chiefs were removed, in order to go to the +root, the whole party was put under a proscription, so general and severe +as to take their hard-earned bread from the lowest officers, in a manner +which had never been known before, even in general revolutions. But it +was thought necessary effectually to destroy all dependencies but one, +and to show an example of the firmness and rigour with which the new +system was to be supported. + +Thus for the time were pulled down, in the persons of the Whig leaders +and of Mr. Pitt (in spite of the services of the one at the accession of +the Royal Family, and the recent services of the other in the war), the +_two only securities for the importance of the people_: _power arising +from popularity_, _and power arising from connection_. Here and there +indeed a few individuals were left standing, who gave security for their +total estrangement from the odious principles of party connection and +personal attachment; and it must be confessed that most of them have +religiously kept their faith. Such a change could not, however, be made +without a mighty shock to Government. + +To reconcile the minds of the people to all these movements, principles +correspondent to them had been preached up with great zeal. Every one +must remember that the Cabal set out with the most astonishing prudery, +both moral and political. Those who in a few months after soused over +head and ears into the deepest and dirtiest pits of corruption, cried out +violently against the indirect practices in the electing and managing of +Parliaments, which had formerly prevailed. This marvellous abhorrence +which the Court had suddenly taken to all influence, was not only +circulated in conversation through the kingdom, but pompously announced +to the public, with many other extraordinary things, in a pamphlet which +had all the appearance of a manifesto preparatory to some considerable +enterprise. Throughout, it was a satire, though in terms managed and +decent enough, on the politics of the former reign. It was indeed +written with no small art and address. + +In this piece appeared the first dawning of the new system; there first +appeared the idea (then only in speculation) of _separating the Court +from the Administration_; of carrying everything from national connection +to personal regards; and of forming a regular party for that purpose, +under the name of _King's men_. + +To recommend this system to the people, a perspective view of the Court, +gorgeously painted, and finely illuminated from within, was exhibited to +the gaping multitude. Party was to be totally done away, with all its +evil works. Corruption was to be cast down from Court, as _Ate_ was from +heaven. Power was thenceforward to be the chosen residence of public +spirit; and no one was to be supposed under any sinister influence, +except those who had the misfortune to be in disgrace at Court, which was +to stand in lieu of all vices and all corruptions. A scheme of +perfection to be realised in a Monarchy, far beyond the visionary +Republic of Plato. The whole scenery was exactly disposed to captivate +those good souls, whose credulous morality is so invaluable a treasure to +crafty politicians. Indeed, there was wherewithal to charm everybody, +except those few who are not much pleased with professions of +supernatural virtue, who know of what stuff such professions are made, +for what purposes they are designed, and in what they are sure constantly +to end. Many innocent gentlemen, who had been talking prose all their +lives without knowing anything of the matter, began at last to open their +eyes upon their own merits, and to attribute their not having been Lords +of the Treasury and Lords of Trade many years before merely to the +prevalence of party, and to the Ministerial power, which had frustrated +the good intentions of the Court in favour of their abilities. Now was +the time to unlock the sealed fountain of Royal bounty, which had been +infamously monopolised and huckstered, and to let it flow at large upon +the whole people. The time was come to restore Royalty to its original +splendour. _Mettre le Roy hors de page_, became a sort of watchword. And +it was constantly in the mouths of all the runners of the Court, that +nothing could preserve the balance of the constitution from being +overturned by the rabble, or by a faction of the nobility, but to free +the Sovereign effectually from that Ministerial tyranny under which the +Royal dignity had been oppressed in the person of his Majesty's +grandfather. + +These were some of the many artifices used to reconcile the people to the +great change which was made in the persons who composed the Ministry, and +the still greater which was made and avowed in its constitution. As to +individuals, other methods were employed with them, in order so +thoroughly to disunite every party, and even every family, that _no +concert_, _order_, _or effect_, _might appear in any future opposition_. +And in this manner an Administration without connection with the people, +or with one another, was first put in possession of Government. What +good consequences followed from it, we have all seen; whether with regard +to virtue, public or private; to the ease and happiness of the Sovereign; +or to the real strength of Government. But as so much stress was then +laid on the necessity of this new project, it will not be amiss to take a +view of the effects of this Royal servitude and vile durance, which was +so deplored in the reign of the late Monarch, and was so carefully to be +avoided in the reign of his successor. The effects were these. + +In times full of doubt and danger to his person and family, George the +Second maintained the dignity of his Crown connected with the liberty of +his people, not only unimpaired, but improved, for the space of thirty- +three years. He overcame a dangerous rebellion, abetted by foreign +force, and raging in the heart of his kingdoms; and thereby destroyed the +seeds of all future rebellion that could arise upon the same principle. +He carried the glory, the power, the commerce of England, to a height +unknown even to this renowned nation in the times of its greatest +prosperity: and he left his succession resting on the true and only true +foundation of all national and all regal greatness; affection at home, +reputation abroad, trust in allies, terror in rival nations. The most +ardent lover of his country cannot wish for Great Britain a happier fate +than to continue as she was then left. A people emulous as we are in +affection to our present Sovereign, know not how to form a prayer to +Heaven for a greater blessing upon his virtues, or a higher state of +felicity and glory, than that he should live, and should reign, and, when +Providence ordains it, should die, exactly like his illustrious +predecessor. + +A great Prince may be obliged (though such a thing cannot happen very +often) to sacrifice his private inclination to his public interest. A +wise Prince will not think that such a restraint implies a condition of +servility; and truly, if such was the condition of the last reign, and +the effects were also such as we have described, we ought, no less for +the sake of the Sovereign whom we love, than for our own, to hear +arguments convincing indeed, before we depart from the maxims of that +reign, or fly in the face of this great body of strong and recent +experience. + +One of the principal topics which was then, and has been since, much +employed by that political school, is an effectual terror of the growth +of an aristocratic power, prejudicial to the rights of the Crown, and the +balance of the constitution. Any new powers exercised in the House of +Lords, or in the House of Commons, or by the Crown, ought certainly to +excite the vigilant and anxious jealousy of a free people. Even a new +and unprecedented course of action in the whole Legislature, without +great and evident reason, may be a subject of just uneasiness. I will +not affirm, that there may not have lately appeared in the House of Lords +a disposition to some attempts derogatory to the legal rights of the +subject. If any such have really appeared, they have arisen, not from a +power properly aristocratic, but from the same influence which is charged +with having excited attempts of a similar nature in the House of Commons; +which House, if it should have been betrayed into an unfortunate quarrel +with its constituents, and involved in a charge of the very same nature, +could have neither power nor inclination to repel such attempts in +others. Those attempts in the House of Lords can no more be called +aristocratic proceedings, than the proceedings with regard to the county +of Middlesex in the House of Commons can with any sense be called +democratical. + +It is true, that the Peers have a great influence in the kingdom, and in +every part of the public concerns. While they are men of property, it is +impossible to prevent it, except by such means as must prevent all +property from its natural operation: an event not easily to be compassed, +while property is power; nor by any means to be wished, while the least +notion exists of the method by which the spirit of liberty acts, and of +the means by which it is preserved. If any particular Peers, by their +uniform, upright, constitutional conduct, by their public and their +private virtues, have acquired an influence in the country; the people on +whose favour that influence depends, and from whom it arose, will never +be duped into an opinion, that such greatness in a Peer is the despotism +of an aristocracy, when they know and feel it to be the effect and pledge +of their own importance. + +I am no friend to aristocracy, in the sense at least in which that word +is usually understood. If it were not a bad habit to moot cases on the +supposed ruin of the constitution, I should be free to declare, that if +it must perish, I would rather by far see it resolved into any other +form, than lost in that austere and insolent domination. But, whatever +my dislikes may be, my fears are not upon that quarter. The question, on +the influence of a Court, and of a Peerage, is not, which of the two +dangers is the most eligible, but which is the most imminent. He is but +a poor observer, who has not seen, that the generality of Peers, far from +supporting themselves in a state of independent greatness, are but too +apt to fall into an oblivion of their proper dignity, and to run headlong +into an abject servitude. Would to God it were true, that the fault of +our Peers were too much spirit! It is worthy of some observation, that +these gentlemen, so jealous of aristocracy, make no complaints of the +power of those peers (neither few nor inconsiderable) who are always in +the train of a Court, and whose whole weight must be considered as a +portion of the settled influence of the Crown. This is all safe and +right; but if some Peers (I am very sorry they are not as many as they +ought to be) set themselves, in the great concern of Peers and Commons, +against a back-stairs influence and clandestine government, then the +alarm begins; then the constitution is in danger of being forced into an +aristocracy. + +I rest a little the longer on this Court topic, because it was much +insisted upon at the time of the great change, and has been since +frequently revived by many of the agents of that party: for, whilst they +are terrifying the great and opulent with the horrors of mob-government, +they are by other managers attempting (though hitherto with little +success) to alarm the people with a phantom of tyranny in the Nobles. All +this is done upon their favourite principle of disunion, of sowing +jealousies amongst the different orders of the State, and of disjointing +the natural strength of the kingdom; that it may be rendered incapable of +resisting the sinister designs of wicked men, who have engrossed the +Royal power. + +* * * * * + +Thus much of the topics chosen by the courtiers to recommend their +system; it will be necessary to open a little more at large the nature of +that party which was formed for its support. Without this, the whole +would have been no better than a visionary amusement, like the scheme of +Harrington's political club, and not a business in which the nation had a +real concern. As a powerful party, and a party constructed on a new +principle, it is a very inviting object of curiosity. + +It must be remembered, that since the Revolution, until the period we are +speaking of, the influence of the Crown had been always employed in +supporting the Ministers of State, and in carrying on the public business +according to their opinions. But the party now in question is formed +upon a very different idea. It is to intercept the favour, protection, +and confidence of the Crown in the passage to its Ministers; it is to +come between them and their importance in Parliament; it is to separate +them from all their natural and acquired dependencies; it is intended as +the control, not the support, of Administration. The machinery of this +system is perplexed in its movements, and false in its principle. It is +formed on a supposition that the King is something external to his +government; and that he may be honoured and aggrandised, even by its +debility and disgrace. The plan proceeds expressly on the idea of +enfeebling the regular executory power. It proceeds on the idea of +weakening the State in order to strengthen the Court. The scheme +depending entirely on distrust, on disconnection, on mutability by +principle, on systematic weakness in every particular member; it is +impossible that the total result should be substantial strength of any +kind. + +As a foundation of their scheme, the Cabal have established a sort of +_Rota_ in the Court. All sorts of parties, by this means, have been +brought into Administration, from whence few have had the good fortune to +escape without disgrace; none at all without considerable losses. In the +beginning of each arrangement no professions of confidence and support +are wanting, to induce the leading men to engage. But while the +Ministers of the day appear in all the pomp and pride of power, while +they have all their canvas spread out to the wind, and every sail filled +with the fair and prosperous gale of Royal favour, in a short time they +find, they know not how, a current, which sets directly against them; +which prevents all progress, and even drives them backwards. They grow +ashamed and mortified in a situation, which, by its vicinity to power, +only serves to remind them the more strongly of their insignificance. +They are obliged either to execute the orders of their inferiors, or to +see themselves opposed by the natural instruments of their office. With +the loss of their dignity, they lose their temper. In their turn they +grow troublesome to that Cabal, which, whether it supports or opposes, +equally disgraces and equally betrays them. It is soon found necessary +to get rid of the heads of Administration; but it is of the heads only. +As there always are many rotten members belonging to the best +connections, it is not hard to persuade several to continue in office +without their leaders. By this means the party goes out much thinner +than it came in; and is only reduced in strength by its temporary +possession of power. Besides, if by accident, or in course of changes, +that power should be recovered, the Junto have thrown up a retrenchment +of these carcases, which may serve to cover themselves in a day of +danger. They conclude, not unwisely, that such rotten members will +become the first objects of disgust and resentment to their ancient +connections. + +They contrive to form in the outward Administration two parties at the +least; which, whilst they are tearing one another to pieces, are both +competitors for the favour and protection of the Cabal; and, by their +emulation, contribute to throw everything more and more into the hands of +the interior managers. + +A Minister of State will sometimes keep himself totally estranged from +all his colleagues; will differ from them in their counsels, will +privately traverse, and publicly oppose, their measures. He will, +however, continue in his employment. Instead of suffering any mark of +displeasure, he will be distinguished by an unbounded profusion of Court +rewards and caresses; because he does what is expected, and all that is +expected, from men in office. He helps to keep some form of +Administration in being, and keeps it at the same time as weak and +divided as possible. + +However, we must take care not to be mistaken, or to imagine that such +persons have any weight in their opposition. When, by them, +Administration is convinced of its insignificancy, they are soon to be +convinced of their own. They never are suffered to succeed in their +opposition. They and the world are to be satisfied, that neither office, +nor authority, nor property, nor ability, eloquence, counsel, skill, or +union, are of the least importance; but that the mere influence of the +Court, naked of all support, and destitute of all management, is +abundantly sufficient for all its own purposes. + +When any adverse connection is to be destroyed, the Cabal seldom appear +in the work themselves. They find out some person of whom the party +entertains a high opinion. Such a person they endeavour to delude with +various pretences. They teach him first to distrust, and then to quarrel +with his friends; among whom, by the same arts, they excite a similar +diffidence of him; so that in this mutual fear and distrust, he may +suffer himself to be employed as the instrument in the change which is +brought about. Afterwards they are sure to destroy him in his turn; by +setting up in his place some person in whom he had himself reposed the +greatest confidence, and who serves to carry on a considerable part of +his adherents. + +When such a person has broke in this manner with his connections, he is +soon compelled to commit some flagrant act of iniquitous personal +hostility against some of them (such as an attempt to strip a particular +friend of his family estate), by which the Cabal hope to render the +parties utterly irreconcilable. In truth, they have so contrived +matters, that people have a greater hatred to the subordinate instruments +than to the principal movers. + +As in destroying their enemies they make use of instruments not +immediately belonging to their corps, so in advancing their own friends +they pursue exactly the same method. To promote any of them to +considerable rank or emolument, they commonly take care that the +recommendation shall pass through the hands of the ostensible Ministry: +such a recommendation might, however, appear to the world as some proof +of the credit of Ministers, and some means of increasing their strength. +To prevent this, the persons so advanced are directed in all companies, +industriously to declare, that they are under no obligations whatsoever +to Administration; that they have received their office from another +quarter; that they are totally free and independent. + +When the Faction has any job of lucre to obtain, or of vengeance to +perpetrate, their way is, to select, for the execution, those very +persons to whose habits, friendships, principles, and declarations, such +proceedings are publicly known to be the most adverse; at once to render +the instruments the more odious, and therefore the more dependent, and to +prevent the people from ever reposing a confidence in any appearance of +private friendship, or public principle. + +If the Administration seem now and then, from remissness, or from fear of +making themselves disagreeable, to suffer any popular excesses to go +unpunished, the Cabal immediately sets up some creature of theirs to +raise a clamour against the Ministers, as having shamefully betrayed the +dignity of Government. Then they compel the Ministry to become active in +conferring rewards and honours on the persons who have been the +instruments of their disgrace; and, after having first vilified them with +the higher orders for suffering the laws to sleep over the licentiousness +of the populace, they drive them (in order to make amends for their +former inactivity) to some act of atrocious violence, which renders them +completely abhorred by the people. They who remember the riots which +attended the Middlesex Election; the opening of the present Parliament; +and the transactions relative to Saint George's Fields, will not be at a +loss for an application of these remarks. + +That this body may be enabled to compass all the ends of its institution, +its members are scarcely ever to aim at the high and responsible offices +of the State. They are distributed with art and judgment through all the +secondary, but efficient, departments of office, and through the +households of all the branches of the Royal Family: so as on one hand to +occupy all the avenues to the Throne; and on the other to forward or +frustrate the execution of any measure, according to their own interests. +For with the credit and support which they are known to have, though for +the greater part in places which are only a genteel excuse for salary, +they possess all the influence of the highest posts; and they dictate +publicly in almost everything, even with a parade of superiority. +Whenever they dissent (as it often happens) from their nominal leaders, +the trained part of the Senate, instinctively in the secret, is sure to +follow them; provided the leaders, sensible of their situation, do not of +themselves recede in time from their most declared opinions. This latter +is generally the case. It will not be conceivable to any one who has not +seen it, what pleasure is taken by the Cabal in rendering these heads of +office thoroughly contemptible and ridiculous. And when they are become +so, they have then the best chance, for being well supported. + +The members of the Court faction are fully indemnified for not holding +places on the slippery heights of the kingdom, not only by the lead in +all affairs, but also by the perfect security in which they enjoy less +conspicuous, but very advantageous, situations. Their places are, in +express legal tenure, or in effect, all of them for life. Whilst the +first and most respectable persons in the kingdom are tossed about like +tennis balls, the sport of a blind and insolent caprice, no Minister +dares even to cast an oblique glance at the lowest of their body. If an +attempt be made upon one of this corps, immediately he flies to +sanctuary, and pretends to the most inviolable of all promises. No +conveniency of public arrangement is available to remove any one of them +from the specific situation he holds; and the slightest attempt upon one +of them, by the most powerful Minister, is a certain preliminary to his +own destruction. + +Conscious of their independence, they bear themselves with a lofty air to +the exterior Ministers. Like Janissaries, they derive a kind of freedom +from the very condition of their servitude. They may act just as they +please; provided they are true to the great ruling principle of their +institution. It is, therefore, not at all wonderful, that people should +be so desirous of adding themselves to that body, in which they may +possess and reconcile satisfactions the most alluring, and seemingly the +most contradictory; enjoying at once all the spirited pleasure of +independence, and all the gross lucre and fat emoluments of servitude. + +Here is a sketch, though a slight one, of the constitution, laws, and +policy, of this new Court corporation. The name by which they choose to +distinguish themselves, is that of _King's men_, or the _King's friends_, +by an invidious exclusion of the rest of his Majesty's most loyal and +affectionate subjects. The whole system, comprehending the exterior and +interior Administrations, is commonly called, in the technical language +of the Court, _Double Cabinet_; in French or English, as you choose to +pronounce it. + +Whether all this be a vision of a distracted brain, or the invention of a +malicious heart, or a real faction in the country, must be judged by the +appearances which things have worn for eight years past. Thus far I am +certain, that there is not a single public man, in or out of office, who +has not, at some time or other, borne testimony to the truth of what I +have now related. In particular, no persons have been more strong in +their assertions, and louder and more indecent in their complaints, than +those who compose all the exterior part of the present Administration; in +whose time that faction has arrived at such a height of power, and of +boldness in the use of it, as may, in the end, perhaps bring about its +total destruction. + +It is true, that about four years ago, during the administration of the +Marquis of Rockingham, an attempt was made to carry on Government without +their concurrence. However, this was only a transient cloud; they were +hid but for a moment; and their constellation blazed out with greater +brightness, and a far more vigorous influence, some time after it was +blown over. An attempt was at that time made (but without any idea of +proscription) to break their corps, to discountenance their doctrines, to +revive connections of a different kind, to restore the principles and +policy of the Whigs, to reanimate the cause of Liberty by Ministerial +countenance; and then for the first time were men seen attached in office +to every principle they had maintained in opposition. No one will doubt, +that such men were abhorred and violently opposed by the Court faction, +and that such a system could have but a short duration. + +It may appear somewhat affected, that in so much discourse upon this +extraordinary party, I should say so little of the Earl of Bute, who is +the supposed head of it. But this was neither owing to affectation nor +inadvertence. I have carefully avoided the introduction of personal +reflections of any kind. Much the greater part of the topics which have +been used to blacken this nobleman are either unjust or frivolous. At +best, they have a tendency to give the resentment of this bitter calamity +a wrong direction, and to turn a public grievance into a mean personal, +or a dangerous national, quarrel. Where there is a regular scheme of +operations carried on, it is the system, and not any individual person +who acts in it, that is truly dangerous. This system has not risen +solely from the ambition of Lord Bute, but from the circumstances which +favoured it, and from an indifference to the constitution which had been +for some time growing among our gentry. We should have been tried with +it, if the Earl of Bute had never existed; and it will want neither a +contriving head nor active members, when the Earl of Bute exists no +longer. It is not, therefore, to rail at Lord Bute, but firmly to embody +against this Court party and its practices, which can afford us any +prospect of relief in our present condition. + +Another motive induces me to put the personal consideration of Lord Bute +wholly out of the question. He communicates very little in a direct +manner with the greater part of our men of business. This has never been +his custom. It is enough for him that he surrounds them with his +creatures. Several imagine, therefore, that they have a very good excuse +for doing all the work of this faction, when they have no personal +connection with Lord Bute. But whoever becomes a party to an +Administration, composed of insulated individuals, without faith +plighted, tie, or common principle; an Administration constitutionally +impotent, because supported by no party in the nation; he who contributes +to destroy the connections of men and their trust in one another, or in +any sort to throw the dependence of public counsels upon private will and +favour, possibly may have nothing to do with the Earl of Bute. It +matters little whether he be the friend or the enemy of that particular +person. But let him be who or what he will, he abets a faction that is +driving hard to the ruin of his country. He is sapping the foundation of +its liberty, disturbing the sources of its domestic tranquillity, +weakening its government over its dependencies, degrading it from all its +importance in the system of Europe. + +It is this unnatural infusion of a _system of Favouritism_ into a +Government which in a great part of its constitution is popular, that has +raised the present ferment in the nation. The people, without entering +deeply into its principles, could plainly perceive its effects, in much +violence, in a great spirit of innovation, and a general disorder in all +the functions of Government. I keep my eye solely on this system; if I +speak of those measures which have arisen from it, it will be so far only +as they illustrate the general scheme. This is the fountain of all those +bitter waters of which, through a hundred different conducts, we have +drunk until we are ready to burst. The discretionary power of the Crown +in the formation of Ministry, abused by bad or weak men, has given rise +to a system, which, without directly violating the letter of any law, +operates against the spirit of the whole constitution. + +A plan of Favouritism for our executory Government is essentially at +variance with the plan of our Legislature. One great end undoubtedly of +a mixed Government like ours, composed of Monarchy, and of controls, on +the part of the higher people and the lower, is that the Prince shall not +be able to violate the laws. This is useful indeed and fundamental. But +this, even at first view, is no more than a negative advantage; an armour +merely defensive. It is therefore next in order, and equal in +importance, _that the discretionary powers which are necessarily vested +in the Monarch_, _whether for the execution of the laws_, _or for the +nomination to magistracy and office_, _or for conducting the affairs of +peace and war_, _or for ordering the revenue_, _should all be exercised +upon public principles and national grounds_, _and not on the likings or +prejudices_, _the intrigues or policies of a Court_. This, I said, is +equal in importance to the securing a Government according to law. The +laws reach but a very little way. Constitute Government how you please, +infinitely the greater part of it must depend upon the exercise of the +powers which are left at large to the prudence and uprightness of +Ministers of State. Even all the use and potency of the laws depends +upon them. Without them, your Commonwealth is no better than a scheme +upon paper; and not a living, active, effective constitution. It is +possible, that through negligence, or ignorance, or design artfully +conducted, Ministers may suffer one part of Government to languish, +another to be perverted from its purposes: and every valuable interest of +the country to fall into ruin and decay, without possibility of fixing +any single act on which a criminal prosecution can be justly grounded. +The due arrangement of men in the active part of the state, far from +being foreign to the purposes of a wise Government, ought to be among its +very first and dearest objects. When, therefore, the abettors of new +system tell us, that between them and their opposers there is nothing but +a struggle for power, and that therefore we are no-ways concerned in it; +we must tell those who have the impudence to insult us in this manner, +that, of all things, we ought to be the most concerned, who and what sort +of men they are, that hold the trust of everything that is dear to us. +Nothing can render this a point of indifference to the nation, but what +must either render us totally desperate, or soothe us into the security +of idiots. We must soften into a credulity below the milkiness of +infancy, to think all men virtuous. We must be tainted with a malignity +truly diabolical, to believe all the world to be equally wicked and +corrupt. Men are in public life as in private--some good, some evil. The +elevation of the one, and the depression of the other, are the first +objects of all true policy. But that form of Government, which, neither +in its direct institutions, nor in their immediate tendency, has +contrived to throw its affairs into the most trustworthy hands, but has +left its whole executory system to be disposed of agreeably to the +uncontrolled pleasure of any one man, however excellent or virtuous, is a +plan of polity defective not only in that member, but consequentially +erroneous in every part of it. + +In arbitrary Governments, the constitution of the Ministry follows the +constitution of the Legislature. Both the Law and the Magistrate are the +creatures of Will. It must be so. Nothing, indeed, will appear more +certain, on any tolerable consideration of this matter, than that _every +sort of Government ought to have its Administration correspondent to its +Legislature_. If it should be otherwise, things must fall into a hideous +disorder. The people of a free Commonwealth, who have taken such care +that their laws should be the result of general consent, cannot be so +senseless as to suffer their executory system to be composed of persons +on whom they have no dependence, and whom no proofs of the public love +and confidence have recommended to those powers, upon the use of which +the very being of the State depends. + +The popular election of magistrates, and popular disposition of rewards +and honours, is one of the first advantages of a free State. Without it, +or something equivalent to it, perhaps the people cannot long enjoy the +substance of freedom; certainly none of the vivifying energy of good +Government. The frame of our Commonwealth did not admit of such an +actual election: but it provided as well, and (while the spirit of the +constitution is preserved) better, for all the effects of it, than by the +method of suffrage in any democratic State whatsoever. It had always, +until of late, been held the first duty of Parliament _to refuse to +support Government_, _until power was in the hands of persons who were +acceptable to the people_, _or while factions predominated in the Court +in which the nation had no confidence_. Thus all the good effects of +popular election were supposed to be secured to us, without the mischiefs +attending on perpetual intrigue, and a distinct canvass for every +particular office throughout the body of the people. This was the most +noble and refined part of our constitution. The people, by their +representatives and grandees, were intrusted with a deliberative power in +making laws; the King with the control of his negative. The King was +intrusted with the deliberative choice and the election to office; the +people had the negative in a Parliamentary refusal to support. Formerly +this power of control was what kept Ministers in awe of Parliaments, and +Parliaments in reverence with the people. If the use of this power of +control on the system and persons of Administration is gone, everything +is lost, Parliament and all. We may assure ourselves, that if Parliament +will tamely see evil men take possession of all the strongholds of their +country, and allow them time and means to fortify themselves, under a +pretence of giving them a fair trial, and upon a hope of discovering, +whether they will not be reformed by power, and whether their measures +will not be better than their morals; such a Parliament will give +countenance to their measures also, whatever that Parliament may pretend, +and whatever those measures may be. + +Every good political institution must have a preventive operation as well +as a remedial. It ought to have a natural tendency to exclude bad men +from Government, and not to trust for the safety of the State to +subsequent punishment alone--punishment which has ever been tardy and +uncertain, and which, when power is suffered in bad hands, may chance to +fall rather on the injured than the criminal. + +Before men are put forward into the great trusts of the State, they ought +by their conduct to have obtained such a degree of estimation in their +country as may be some sort of pledge and security to the public that +they will not abuse those trusts. It is no mean security for a proper +use of power, that a man has shown by the general tenor of his actions, +that the affection, the good opinion, the confidence of his +fellow-citizens have been among the principal objects of his life, and +that he has owed none of the gradations of his power or fortune to a +settled contempt or occasional forfeiture of their esteem. + +That man who, before he comes into power, has no friends, or who, coming +into power, is obliged to desert his friends, or who, losing it, has no +friends to sympathise with him, he who has no sway among any part of the +landed or commercial interest, but whose whole importance has begun with +his office, and is sure to end with it, is a person who ought never to be +suffered by a controlling Parliament, to continue in any of those +situations which confer the lead and direction of all our public affairs; +because such a man _has no connection with the sentiments and opinions of +the people_. + +Those knots or cabals of men who have got together, avowedly without any +public principle, in order to sell their conjunct iniquity at the higher +rate, and are therefore universally odious, ought never to be suffered to +domineer in the State; because they have _no connection with the +sentiments and opinions of the people_. + +These are considerations which, in my opinion, enforce the necessity of +having some better reason, in a free country and a free Parliament, for +supporting the Ministers of the Crown, than that short one, _That the +King has thought proper to appoint them_. There is something very +courtly in this. But it is a principle pregnant with all sorts of +mischief, in a constitution like ours, to turn the views of active men +from the country to the Court. Whatever be the road to power, that is +the road which will be trod. If the opinion of the country be of no use +as a means of power or consideration, the qualities which usually procure +that opinion will be no longer cultivated. And whether it will be right, +in a State so popular in its constitution as ours, to leave ambition +without popular motives, and to trust all to the operation of pure virtue +in the minds of Kings and Ministers, and public men, must be submitted to +the judgment and good sense of the people of England. + +* * * * * + +Cunning men are here apt to break in, and, without directly controverting +the principle, to raise objections from the difficulty under which the +Sovereign labours to distinguish the genuine voice and sentiments of his +people from the clamour of a faction, by which it is so easily +counterfeited. The nation, they say, is generally divided into parties, +with views and passions utterly irreconcilable. If the King should put +his affairs into the hands of any one of them, he is sure to disgust the +rest; if he select particular men from among them all, it is a hazard +that he disgusts them all. Those who are left out, however divided +before, will soon run into a body of opposition, which, being a +collection of many discontents into one focus, will without doubt be hot +and violent enough. Faction will make its cries resound through the +nation, as if the whole were in an uproar, when by far the majority, and +much the better part, will seem for awhile, as it were, annihilated by +the quiet in which their virtue and moderation incline them to enjoy the +blessings of Government. Besides that, the opinion of the mere vulgar is +a miserable rule even with regard to themselves, on account of their +violence and instability. So that if you were to gratify them in their +humour to-day, that very gratification would be a ground of their +dissatisfaction on the next. Now as all these rules of public opinion +are to be collected with great difficulty, and to be applied with equal +uncertainty as to the effect, what better can a King of England do than +to employ such men as he finds to have views and inclinations most +conformable to his own, who are least infected with pride and self-will, +and who are least moved by such popular humours as are perpetually +traversing his designs, and disturbing his service; trusting that when he +means no ill to his people he will be supported in his appointments, +whether he chooses to keep or to change, as his private judgment or his +pleasure leads him? He will find a sure resource in the real weight and +influence of the Crown, when it is not suffered to become an instrument +in the hands of a faction. + +I will not pretend to say that there is nothing at all in this mode of +reasoning, because I will not assert that there is no difficulty in the +art of government. Undoubtedly the very best Administration must +encounter a great deal of opposition, and the very worst will find more +support than it deserves. Sufficient appearances will never be wanting +to those who have a mind to deceive themselves. It is a fallacy in +constant use with those who would level all things, and confound right +with wrong, to insist upon the inconveniences which are attached to every +choice, without taking into consideration the different weight and +consequence of those inconveniences. The question is not concerning +absolute discontent or perfect satisfaction in Government, neither of +which can be pure and unmixed at any time or upon any system. The +controversy is about that degree of good-humour in the people, which may +possibly be attained, and ought certainly to be looked for. While some +politicians may be waiting to know whether the sense of every individual +be against them, accurately distinguishing the vulgar from the better +sort, drawing lines between the enterprises of a faction and the efforts +of a people, they may chance to see the Government, which they are so +nicely weighing, and dividing, and distinguishing, tumble to the ground +in the midst of their wise deliberation. Prudent men, when so great an +object as the security of Government, or even its peace, is at stake, +will not run the risk of a decision which may be fatal to it. They who +can read the political sky will seen a hurricane in a cloud no bigger +than a hand at the very edge of the horizon, and will run into the first +harbour. No lines can be laid down for civil or political wisdom. They +are a matter incapable of exact definition. But, though no man can draw +a stroke between the confines of day and night, yet light and darkness +are upon the whole tolerably distinguishable. Nor will it be impossible +for a Prince to find out such a mode of government, and such persons to +administer it, as will give a great degree of content to his people, +without any curious and anxious research for that abstract, universal, +perfect harmony, which, while he is seeking, he abandons those means of +ordinary tranquillity which are in his power without any research at all. + +It is not more the duty than it is the interest of a Prince to aim at +giving tranquillity to his Government. If those who advise him may have +an interest in disorder and confusion. If the opinion of the people is +against them, they will naturally wish that it should have no prevalence. +Here it is that the people must on their part show themselves sensible of +their own value. Their whole importance, in the first instance, and +afterwards their whole freedom, is at stake. Their freedom cannot long +survive their importance. Here it is that the natural strength of the +kingdom, the great peers, the leading landed gentlemen, the opulent +merchants and manufacturers, the substantial yeomanry, must interpose, to +rescue their Prince, themselves, and their posterity. + +We are at present at issue upon this point. We are in the great crisis +of this contention, and the part which men take, one way or other, will +serve to discriminate their characters and their principles. Until the +matter is decided, the country will remain in its present confusion. For +while a system of Administration is attempted, entirely repugnant to the +genius of the people, and not conformable to the plan of their +Government, everything must necessarily be disordered for a time, until +this system destroys the constitution, or the constitution gets the +better of this system. + +There is, in my opinion, a peculiar venom and malignity in this political +distemper beyond any that I have heard or read of. In former lines the +projectors of arbitrary Government attacked only the liberties of their +country, a design surely mischievous enough to have satisfied a mind of +the most unruly ambition. But a system unfavourable to freedom may be so +formed as considerably to exalt the grandeur of the State, and men may +find in the pride and splendour of that prosperity some sort of +consolation for the loss of their solid privileges. Indeed, the increase +of the power of the State has often been urged by artful men, as a +pretext for some abridgment of the public liberty. But the scheme of the +junto under consideration not only strikes a palsy into every nerve of +our free constitution, but in the same degree benumbs and stupefies the +whole executive power, rendering Government in all its grand operations +languid, uncertain, ineffective, making Ministers fearful of attempting, +and incapable of executing, any useful plan of domestic arrangement, or +of foreign politics. It tends to produce neither the security of a free +Government, nor the energy of a Monarchy that is absolute. Accordingly, +the Crown has dwindled away in proportion to the unnatural and turgid +growth of this excrescence on the Court. + +The interior Ministry are sensible that war is a situation which sets in +its full light the value of the hearts of a people, and they well know +that the beginning of the importance of the people must be the end of +theirs. For this reason they discover upon all occasions the utmost fear +of everything which by possibility may lead to such an event. I do not +mean that they manifest any of that pious fear which is backward to +commit the safety of the country to the dubious experiment of war. Such +a fear, being the tender sensation of virtue, excited, as it is +regulated, by reason, frequently shows itself in a seasonable boldness, +which keeps danger at a distance, by seeming to despise it. Their fear +betrays to the first glance of the eye its true cause and its real +object. Foreign powers, confident in the knowledge of their character, +have not scrupled to violate the most solemn treaties; and, in defiance +of them, to make conquests in the midst of a general peace, and in the +heart of Europe. Such was the conquest of Corsica, by the professed +enemies of the freedom of mankind, in defiance of those who were formerly +its professed defenders. We have had just claims upon the same +powers--rights which ought to have been sacred to them as well as to us, +as they had their origin in our lenity and generosity towards France and +Spain in the day of their great humiliation. Such I call the ransom of +Manilla, and the demand on France for the East India prisoners. But +these powers put a just confidence in their resource of the double +Cabinet. These demands (one of them, at least) are hastening fast +towards an acquittal by prescription. Oblivion begins to spread her +cobwebs over all our spirited remonstrances. Some of the most valuable +branches of our trade are also on the point of perishing from the same +cause. I do not mean those branches which bear without the hand of the +vine-dresser; I mean those which the policy of treaties had formerly +secured to us; I mean to mark and distinguish the trade of Portugal, the +loss of which, and the power of the Cabal, have one and the same era. + +If, by any chance, the Ministers who stand before the curtain possess or +affect any spirit, it makes little or no impression. Foreign Courts and +Ministers, who were among the first to discover and to profit by this +invention of the _double Cabinet_, attended very little to their +remonstrances. They know that those shadows of Ministers have nothing to +do in the ultimate disposal of things. Jealousies and animosities are +sedulously nourished in the outward Administration, and have been even +considered as a _causa sine qua non_ in its constitution: thence foreign +Courts have a certainty, that nothing can be done by common counsel in +this nation. If one of those Ministers officially takes up a business +with spirit, it serves only the better to signalise the meanness of the +rest, and the discord of them all. His colleagues in office are in haste +to shake him off, and to disclaim the whole of his proceedings. Of this +nature was that astonishing transaction, in which Lord Rochford, our +Ambassador at Paris, remonstrated against the attempt upon Corsica, in +consequence of a direct authority from Lord Shelburne. This remonstrance +the French Minister treated with the contempt that was natural; as he was +assured, from the Ambassador of his Court to ours, that these orders of +Lord Shelburne were not supported by the rest of the (I had like to have +said British) Administration. Lord Rochford, a man of spirit, could not +endure this situation. The consequences were, however, curious. He +returns from Paris, and comes home full of anger. Lord Shelburne, who +gave the orders, is obliged to give up the seals. Lord Rochford, who +obeyed these orders, receives them. He goes, however, into another +department of the same office, that he might not be obliged officially to +acquiesce in one situation, under what he had officially remonstrated +against in another. At Paris, the Duke of Choiseul considered this +office arrangement as a compliment to him: here it was spoke of as an +attention to the delicacy of Lord Rochford. But whether the compliment +was to one or both, to this nation it was the same. By this transaction +the condition of our Court lay exposed in all its nakedness. Our office +correspondence has lost all pretence to authenticity; British policy is +brought into derision in those nations, that a while ago trembled at the +power of our arms, whilst they looked up with confidence to the equity, +firmness, and candour, which shone in all our negotiations. I represent +this matter exactly in the light in which it has been universally +received. + +* * * * * + +Such has been the aspect of our foreign politics under the influence of a +_double Cabinet_. With such an arrangement at Court, it is impossible it +should have been otherwise. Nor is it possible that this scheme should +have a better effect upon the government of our dependencies, the first, +the dearest, and most delicate objects of the interior policy of this +empire. The Colonies know that Administration is separated from the +Court, divided within itself, and detested by the nation. The double +Cabinet has, in both the parts of it, shown the most malignant +dispositions towards them, without being able to do them the smallest +mischief. + +They are convinced, by sufficient experience, that no plan, either of +lenity or rigour, can be pursued with uniformity and perseverance. +Therefore they turn their eyes entirely from Great Britain, where they +have neither dependence on friendship nor apprehension from enmity. They +look to themselves, and their own arrangements. They grow every day into +alienation from this country; and whilst they are becoming disconnected +with our Government, we have not the consolation to find that they are +even friendly in their new independence. Nothing can equal the futility, +the weakness, the rashness, the timidity, the perpetual contradiction, in +the management of our affairs in that part of the world. A volume might +be written on this melancholy subject; but it were better to leave it +entirely to the reflections of the reader himself, than not to treat it +in the extent it deserves. + +In what manner our domestic economy is affected by this system, it is +needless to explain. It is the perpetual subject of their own +complaints. + +The Court party resolve the whole into faction. Having said something +before upon this subject, I shall only observe here, that, when they give +this account of the prevalence of faction, they present no very +favourable aspect of the confidence of the people in their own +Government. They may be assured, that however they amuse themselves with +a variety of projects for substituting something else in the place of +that great and only foundation of Government, the confidence of the +people, every attempt will but make their condition worse. When men +imagine that their food is only a cover for poison, and when they neither +love nor trust the hand that serves it, it is not the name of the roast +beef of Old England that will persuade them to sit down to the table that +is spread for them. When the people conceive that laws, and tribunals, +and even popular assemblies, are perverted from the ends of their +institution, they find in those names of degenerated establishments only +new motives to discontent. Those bodies, which, when full of life and +beauty, lay in their arms and were their joy and comfort; when dead and +putrid, become but the more loathsome from remembrance of former +endearments. A sullen gloom, and furious disorder, prevail by fits: the +nation loses its relish for peace and prosperity, as it did in that +season of fulness which opened our troubles in the time of Charles the +First. A species of men to whom a state of order would become a sentence +of obscurity, are nourished into a dangerous magnitude by the heat of +intestine disturbances; and it is no wonder that, by a sort of sinister +piety, they cherish, in their turn, the disorders which are the parents +of all their consequence. Superficial observers consider such persons as +the cause of the public uneasiness, when, in truth, they are nothing more +than the effect of it. Good men look upon this distracted scene with +sorrow and indignation. Their hands are tied behind them. They are +despoiled of all the power which might enable them to reconcile the +strength of Government with the rights of the people. They stand in a +most distressing alternative. But in the election among evils they hope +better things from temporary confusion, than from established servitude. +In the mean time, the voice of law is not to be heard. Fierce +licentiousness begets violent restraints. The military arm is the sole +reliance; and then, call your constitution what you please, it is the +sword that governs. The civil power, like every other that calls in the +aid of an ally stronger than itself, perishes by the assistance it +receives. But the contrivers of this scheme of Government will not trust +solely to the military power, because they are cunning men. Their +restless and crooked spirit drives them to rake in the dirt of every kind +of expedient. Unable to rule the multitude, they endeavour to raise +divisions amongst them. One mob is hired to destroy another; a procedure +which at once encourages the boldness of the populace, and justly +increases their discontent. Men become pensioners of state on account of +their abilities in the array of riot, and the discipline of confusion. +Government is put under the disgraceful necessity of protecting from the +severity of the laws that very licentiousness, which the laws had been +before violated to repress. Everything partakes of the original +disorder. Anarchy predominates without freedom, and servitude without +submission or subordination. These are the consequences inevitable to +our public peace, from the scheme of rendering the executory Government +at once odious and feeble; of freeing Administration from the +constitutional and salutary control of Parliament, and inventing for it a +new control, unknown to the constitution, an _interior_ Cabinet; which +brings the whole body of Government into confusion and contempt. + +* * * * * + +After having stated, as shortly as I am able, the effects of this system +on our foreign affairs, on the policy of our Government with regard to +our dependencies, and on the interior economy of the Commonwealth; there +remains only, in this part of my design, to say something of the grand +principle which first recommended this system at Court. The pretence was +to prevent the King from being enslaved by a faction, and made a prisoner +in his closet. This scheme might have been expected to answer at least +its own end, and to indemnify the King, in his personal capacity, for all +the confusion into which it has thrown his Government. But has it in +reality answered this purpose? I am sure, if it had, every affectionate +subject would have one motive for enduring with patience all the evils +which attend it. + +In order to come at the truth in this matter, it may not be amiss to +consider it somewhat in detail. I speak here of the King, and not of the +Crown; the interests of which we have already touched. Independent of +that greatness which a King possesses merely by being a representative of +the national dignity, the things in which he may have an individual +interest seem to be these: wealth accumulated; wealth spent in +magnificence, pleasure, or beneficence; personal respect and attention; +and above all, private ease and repose of mind. These compose the +inventory of prosperous circumstances, whether they regard a Prince or a +subject; their enjoyments differing only in the scale upon which they are +formed. + +Suppose then we were to ask, whether the King has been richer than his +predecessors in accumulated wealth, since the establishment of the plan +of Favouritism? I believe it will be found that the picture of royal +indigence which our Court has presented until this year, has been truly +humiliating. Nor has it been relieved from this unseemly distress, but +by means which have hazarded the affection of the people, and shaken +their confidence in Parliament. If the public treasures had been +exhausted in magnificence and splendour, this distress would have been +accounted for, and in some measure justified. Nothing would be more +unworthy of this nation, than with a mean and mechanical rule, to mete +out the splendour of the Crown. Indeed, I have found very few persons +disposed to so ungenerous a procedure. But the generality of people, it +must be confessed, do feel a good deal mortified, when they compare the +wants of the Court with its expenses. They do not behold the cause of +this distress in any part of the apparatus of Royal magnificence. In all +this, they see nothing but the operations of parsimony, attended with all +the consequences of profusion. Nothing expended, nothing saved. Their +wonder is increased by their knowledge, that besides the revenue settled +on his Majesty's Civil List to the amount of 800,000 pounds a year, he +has a farther aid, from a large pension list, near 90,000 pounds a year, +in Ireland; from the produce of the Duchy of Lancaster (which we are told +has been greatly improved); from the revenue of the Duchy of Cornwall; +from the American quit-rents; from the four and a half per cent. duty in +the Leeward Islands; this last worth to be sure considerably more than +40,000 pounds a year. The whole is certainly not much short of a million +annually. + +These are revenues within the knowledge and cognizance of our national +Councils. We have no direct right to examine into the receipts from his +Majesty's German Dominions, and the Bishopric of Osnaburg. This is +unquestionably true. But that which is not within the province of +Parliament, is yet within the sphere of every man's own reflection. If a +foreign Prince resided amongst us, the state of his revenues could not +fail of becoming the subject of our speculation. Filled with an anxious +concern for whatever regards the welfare of our Sovereign, it is +impossible, in considering the miserable circumstances into which he has +been brought, that this obvious topic should be entirely passed over. +There is an opinion universal, that these revenues produce something not +inconsiderable, clear of all charges and establishments. This produce +the people do not believe to be hoarded, nor perceive to be spent. It is +accounted for in the only manner it can, by supposing that it is drawn +away, for the support of that Court faction, which, whilst it distresses +the nation, impoverishes the Prince in every one of his resources. I +once more caution the reader, that I do not urge this consideration +concerning the foreign revenue, as if I supposed we had a direct right to +examine into the expenditure of any part of it; but solely for the +purpose of showing how little this system of Favouritism has been +advantageous to the Monarch himself; which, without magnificence, has +sunk him into a state of unnatural poverty; at the same time that he +possessed every means of affluence, from ample revenues, both in this +country and in other parts of his dominions. + +Has this system provided better for the treatment becoming his high and +sacred character, and secured the King from those disgusts attached to +the necessity of employing men who are not personally agreeable? This is +a topic upon which for many reasons I could wish to be silent; but the +pretence of securing against such causes of uneasiness, is the corner- +stone of the Court party. It has however so happened, that if I were to +fix upon any one point, in which this system has been more particularly +and shamefully blameable, the effects which it has produced would justify +me in choosing for that point its tendency to degrade the personal +dignity of the Sovereign, and to expose him to a thousand contradictions +and mortifications. It is but too evident in what manner these +projectors of Royal greatness have fulfilled all their magnificent +promises. Without recapitulating all the circumstances of the reign, +every one of which is more or less a melancholy proof of the truth of +what I have advanced, let us consider the language of the Court but a few +years ago, concerning most of the persons now in the external +Administration: let me ask, whether any enemy to the personal feelings of +the Sovereign, could possibly contrive a keener instrument of +mortification, and degradation of all dignity, than almost every part and +member of the present arrangement? Nor, in the whole course of our +history, has any compliance with the will of the people ever been known +to extort from any Prince a greater contradiction to all his own declared +affections and dislikes, than that which is now adopted, in direct +opposition to every thing the people approve and desire. + +An opinion prevails, that greatness has been more than once advised to +submit to certain condescensions towards individuals, which have been +denied to the entreaties of a nation. For the meanest and most dependent +instrument of this system knows, that there are hours when its existence +may depend upon his adherence to it; and he takes his advantage +accordingly. Indeed it is a law of nature, that whoever is necessary to +what we have made our object, is sure, in some way, or in some time or +other, to become our master. All this however is submitted to, in order +to avoid that monstrous evil of governing in concurrence with the opinion +of the people. For it seems to be laid down as a maxim, that a King has +some sort of interest in giving uneasiness to his subjects: that all who +are pleasing to them, are to be of course disagreeable to him: that as +soon as the persons who are odious at Court are known to be odious to the +people, it is snatched at as a lucky occasion of showering down upon them +all kinds of emoluments and honours. None are considered as well-wishers +to the Crown, but those who advised to some unpopular course of action; +none capable of serving it, but those who are obliged to call at every +instant upon all its power for the safety of their lives. None are +supposed to be fit priests in the temple of Government, but the persons +who are compelled to fly into it for sanctuary. Such is the effect of +this refined project; such is ever the result of all the contrivances +which are used to free men from the servitude of their reason, and from +the necessity of ordering their affairs according to their evident +interests. These contrivances oblige them to run into a real and ruinous +servitude, in order to avoid a supposed restraint that might be attended +with advantage. + +If therefore this system has so ill answered its own grand pretence of +saving the King from the necessity of employing persons disagreeable to +him, has it given more peace and tranquillity to his Majesty's private +hours? No, most certainly. The father of his people cannot possibly +enjoy repose, while his family is in such a state of distraction. Then +what has the Crown or the King profited by all this fine-wrought scheme? +Is he more rich, or more splendid, or more powerful, or more at his ease, +by so many labours and contrivances? Have they not beggared his +Exchequer, tarnished the splendour of his Court, sunk his dignity, galled +his feelings, discomposed the whole order and happiness of his private +life? + +It will be very hard, I believe, to state in what respect the King has +profited by that faction which presumptuously choose to call themselves +_his friends_. + +If particular men had grown into an attachment, by the distinguished +honour of the society of their Sovereign, and, by being the partakers of +his amusements, came sometimes to prefer the gratification of his +personal inclinations to the support of his high character, the thing +would be very natural, and it would be excusable enough. But the +pleasant part of the story is, that these _King's friends_ have no more +ground for usurping such a title, than a resident freeholder in +Cumberland or in Cornwall. They are only known to their Sovereign by +kissing his hand, for the offices, pensions, and grants into which they +have deceived his benignity. May no storm ever come, which will put the +firmness of their attachment to the proof; and which, in the midst of +confusions and terrors, and sufferings, may demonstrate the eternal +difference between a true and severe friend to the Monarchy, and a +slippery sycophant of the Court; _Quantum infido scurrae distabit +amicus_! + +* * * * * + +So far I have considered the effect of the Court system, chiefly as it +operates upon the executive Government, on the temper of the people and +on the happiness of the Sovereign. It remains that we should consider, +with a little attention, its operation upon Parliament. + +Parliament was indeed the great object of all these politics, the end at +which they aimed, as well as the instrument by which they were to +operate. But, before Parliament could be made subservient to a system, +by which it was to be degraded from the dignity of a national council, +into a mere member of the Court, it must be greatly changed from its +original character. + +In speaking of this body, I have my eye chiefly on the House of Commons. +I hope I shall be indulged in a few observations on the nature and +character of that assembly; not with regard to its _legal form and +power_, but to its _spirit_, and to the purposes it is meant to answer in +the constitution. + +The House of Commons was supposed originally to be _no part of the +standing Government of this country_. It was considered as a control, +issuing immediately from the people, and speedily to be resolved into the +mass from whence it arose. In this respect it was in the higher part of +Government what juries are in the lower. The capacity of a magistrate +being transitory, and that of a citizen permanent, the latter capacity it +was hoped would of course preponderate in all discussions, not only +between the people and the standing authority of the Crown, but between +the people and the fleeting authority of the House of Commons itself. It +was hoped that, being of a middle nature between subject and Government, +they would feel with a more tender and a nearer interest everything that +concerned the people, than the other remoter and more permanent parts of +Legislature. + +Whatever alterations time and the necessary accommodation of business may +have introduced, this character can never be sustained, unless the House +of Commons shall be made to bear some stamp of the actual disposition of +the people at large. It would (among public misfortunes) be an evil more +natural and tolerable, that the House of Commons should be infected with +every epidemical frenzy of the people, as this would indicate some +consanguinity, some sympathy of nature with their constituents, than that +they should in all cases be wholly untouched by the opinions and feelings +of the people out of doors. By this want of sympathy they would cease to +be a House of Commons. For it is not the derivation of the power of that +House from the people, which makes it in a distinct sense their +representative. The King is the representative of the people; so are the +Lords; so are the Judges. They all are trustees for the people, as well +as the Commons; because no power is given for the sole sake of the +holder; and although Government certainly is an institution of Divine +authority, yet its forms, and the persons who administer it, all +originate from the people. + +A popular origin cannot therefore be the characteristical distinction of +a popular representative. This belongs equally to all parts of +Government, and in all forms. The virtue, spirit, and essence of a House +of Commons consists in its being the express image of the feelings of the +nation. It was not instituted to be a control upon the people, as of +late it has been taught, by a doctrine of the most pernicious tendency. +It was designed as a control _for_ the people. Other institutions have +been formed for the purpose of checking popular excesses; and they are, I +apprehend, fully adequate to their object. If not, they ought to be made +so. The House of Commons, as it was never intended for the support of +peace and subordination, is miserably appointed for that service; having +no stronger weapon than its Mace, and no better officer than its Serjeant- +at-Arms, which it can command of its own proper authority. A vigilant +and jealous eye over executory and judicial magistracy; an anxious care +of public money, an openness, approaching towards facility, to public +complaint; these seem to be the true characteristics of a House of +Commons. But an addressing House of Commons, and a petitioning nation; a +House of Commons full of confidence, when the nation is plunged in +despair; in the utmost harmony with Ministers, whom the people regard +with the utmost abhorrence; who vote thanks, when the public opinion +calls upon them for impeachments; who are eager to grant, when the +general voice demands account; who, in all disputes between the people +and Administration, presume against the people; who punish their +disorder, but refuse even to inquire into the provocations to them; this +is an unnatural, a monstrous state of things in this constitution. Such +an Assembly may be a great, wise, awful senate; but it is not, to any +popular purpose, a House of Commons. This change from an immediate state +of procuration and delegation to a course of acting as from original +power, is the way in which all the popular magistracies in the world have +been perverted from their purposes. It is indeed their greatest and +sometimes their incurable corruption. For there is a material +distinction between that corruption by which particular points are +carried against reason (this is a thing which cannot be prevented by +human wisdom, and is of less consequence), and the corruption of the +principle itself. For then the evil is not accidental, but settled. The +distemper becomes the natural habit. + +For my part, I shall be compelled to conclude the principle of Parliament +to be totally corrupted, and therefore its ends entirely defeated, when I +see two symptoms: first, a rule of indiscriminate support to all +Ministers; because this destroys the very end of Parliament as a control, +and is a general previous sanction to misgovernment; and secondly, the +setting up any claims adverse to the right of free election; for this +tends to subvert the legal authority by which the House of Commons sits. + +I know that, since the Revolution, along with many dangerous, many useful +powers of Government have been weakened. It is absolutely necessary to +have frequent recourse to the Legislature. Parliaments must therefore +sit every year, and for great part of the year. The dreadful disorders +of frequent elections have also necessitated a septennial instead of a +triennial duration. These circumstances, I mean the constant habit of +authority, and the infrequency of elections, have tended very much to +draw the House of Commons towards the character of a standing Senate. It +is a disorder which has arisen from the cure of greater disorders; it has +arisen from the extreme difficulty of reconciling liberty under a +monarchical Government, with external strength and with internal +tranquillity. + +It is very clear that we cannot free ourselves entirely from this great +inconvenience; but I would not increase an evil, because I was not able +to remove it; and because it was not in my power to keep the House of +Commons religiously true to its first principles, I would not argue for +carrying it to a total oblivion of them. This has been the great scheme +of power in our time. They who will not conform their conduct to the +public good, and cannot support it by the prerogative of the Crown, have +adopted a new plan. They have totally abandoned the shattered and old- +fashioned fortress of prerogative, and made a lodgment in the stronghold +of Parliament itself. If they have any evil design to which there is no +ordinary legal power commensurate, they bring it into Parliament. In +Parliament the whole is executed from the beginning to the end. In +Parliament the power of obtaining their object is absolute, and the +safety in the proceeding perfect: no rules to confine, no after +reckonings to terrify. Parliament cannot with any great propriety punish +others for things in which they themselves have been accomplices. Thus +the control of Parliament upon the executory power is lost; because +Parliament is made to partake in every considerable act of Government. +_Impeachment_, _that great guardian of the purity of the Constitution_, +_is in danger of being lost_, _even to the idea of it_. + +By this plan several important ends are answered to the Cabal. If the +authority of Parliament supports itself, the credit of every act of +Government, which they contrive, is saved; but if the act be so very +odious that the whole strength of Parliament is insufficient to recommend +it, then Parliament is itself discredited; and this discredit increases +more and more that indifference to the constitution, which it is the +constant aim of its enemies, by their abuse of Parliamentary powers, to +render general among the people. Whenever Parliament is persuaded to +assume the offices of executive Government, it will lose all the +confidence, love, and veneration which it has ever enjoyed, whilst it was +supposed the _corrective_ and _control_ of the acting powers of the +State. This would be the event, though its conduct in such a perversion +of its functions should be tolerably just and moderate; but if it should +be iniquitous, violent, full of passion, and full of faction, it would be +considered as the most intolerable of all the modes of tyranny. + +For a considerable time this separation of the representatives from their +constituents went on with a silent progress; and had those, who conducted +the plan for their total separation, been persons of temper and abilities +any way equal to the magnitude of their design, the success would have +been infallible; but by their precipitancy they have laid it open in all +its nakedness; the nation is alarmed at it; and the event may not be +pleasant to the contrivers of the scheme. In the last session, the corps +called the _King's friends_ made a hardy attempt all at once, _to alter +the right of election itself_; to put it into the power of the House of +Commons to disable any person disagreeable to them from sitting in +Parliament, without any other rule than their own pleasure; to make +incapacities, either general for descriptions of men, or particular for +individuals; and to take into their body, persons who avowedly had never +been chosen by the majority of legal electors, nor agreeably to any known +rule of law. + +The arguments upon which this claim was founded and combated, are not my +business here. Never has a subject been more amply and more learnedly +handled, nor upon one side, in my opinion, more satisfactorily; they who +are not convinced by what is already written would not receive conviction +_though one arose from the dead_. + +I too have thought on this subject; but my purpose here, is only to +consider it as a part of the favourite project of Government; to observe +on the motives which led to it; and to trace its political consequences. + +A violent rage for the punishment of Mr. Wilkes was the pretence of the +whole. This gentleman, by setting himself strongly in opposition to the +Court Cabal, had become at once an object of their persecution, and of +the popular favour. The hatred of the Court party pursuing, and the +countenance of the people protecting him, it very soon became not at all +a question on the man, but a trial of strength between the two parties. +The advantage of the victory in this particular contest was the present, +but not the only, nor by any means, the principal, object. Its operation +upon the character of the House of Commons was the great point in view. +The point to be gained by the Cabal was this: that a precedent should be +established, tending to show, _That the favour of the people was not so +sure a road as the favour of the Court even to popular honours and +popular trusts_. A strenuous resistance to every appearance of lawless +power; a spirit of independence carried to some degree of enthusiasm; an +inquisitive character to discover, and a bold one to display, every +corruption and every error of Government; these are the qualities which +recommend a man to a seat in the House of Commons, in open and merely +popular elections. An indolent and submissive disposition; a disposition +to think charitably of all the actions of men in power, and to live in a +mutual intercourse of favours with them; an inclination rather to +countenance a strong use of authority, than to bear any sort of +licentiousness on the part of the people; these are unfavourable +qualities in an open election for Members of Parliament. + +The instinct which carries the people towards the choice of the former, +is justified by reason; because a man of such a character, even in its +exorbitancies, does not directly contradict the purposes of a trust, the +end of which is a control on power. The latter character, even when it +is not in its extreme, will execute this trust but very imperfectly; and, +if deviating to the least excess, will certainly frustrate instead of +forwarding the purposes of a control on Government. But when the House +of Commons was to be new modelled, this principle was not only to be +changed, but reversed. Whist any errors committed in support of power +were left to the law, with every advantage of favourable construction, of +mitigation, and finally of pardon; all excesses on the side of liberty, +or in pursuit of popular favour, or in defence of popular rights and +privileges, were not only to be punished by the rigour of the known law, +but by a _discretionary_ proceeding, which brought on _the loss of the +popular object itself_. Popularity was to be rendered, if not directly +penal, at least highly dangerous. The favour of the people might lead +even to a disqualification of representing them. Their odium might +become, strained through the medium of two or three constructions, the +means of sitting as the trustee of all that was dear to them. This is +punishing the offence in the offending part. Until this time, the +opinion of the people, through the power of an Assembly, still in some +sort popular, led to the greatest honours and emoluments in the gift of +the Crown. Now the principle is reversed; and the favour of the Court is +the only sure way of obtaining and holding those honours which ought to +be in the disposal of the people. + +It signifies very little how this matter may be quibbled away. Example, +the only argument of effect in civil life, demonstrates the truth of my +proposition. Nothing can alter my opinion concerning the pernicious +tendency of this example, until I see some man for his indiscretion in +the support of power, for his violent and intemperate servility, rendered +incapable of sitting in parliament. For as it now stands, the fault of +overstraining popular qualities, and, irregularly if you please, +asserting popular privileges, has led to disqualification; the opposite +fault never has produced the slightest punishment. Resistance to power +has shut the door of the House of Commons to one man; obsequiousness and +servility, to none. + +Not that I would encourage popular disorder, or any disorder. But I +would leave such offences to the law, to be punished in measure and +proportion. The laws of this country are for the most part constituted, +and wisely so, for the general ends of Government, rather than for the +preservation of our particular liberties. Whatever therefore is done in +support of liberty, by persons not in public trust, or not acting merely +in that trust, is liable to be more or less out of the ordinary course of +the law; and the law itself is sufficient to animadvert upon it with +great severity. Nothing indeed can hinder that severe letter from +crushing us, except the temperaments it may receive from a trial by jury. +But if the habit prevails of _going beyond the law_, and superseding this +judicature, of carrying offences, real or supposed, into the legislative +bodies, who shall establish themselves into _courts of criminal equity_, +(so _the Star Chamber_ has been called by Lord Bacon,) all the evils of +the _Star_ Chamber are revived. A large and liberal construction in +ascertaining offences, and a discretionary power in punishing them, is +the idea of criminal equity; which is in truth a monster in +Jurisprudence. It signifies nothing whether a court for this purpose be +a Committee of Council, or a House of Commons, or a House of Lords; the +liberty of the subject will be equally subverted by it. The true end and +purpose of that House of Parliament which entertains such a jurisdiction +will be destroyed by it. + +I will not believe, what no other man living believes, that Mr. Wilkes +was punished for the indecency of his publications, or the impiety of his +ransacked closet. If he had fallen in a common slaughter of libellers +and blasphemers, I could well believe that nothing more was meant than +was pretended. But when I see, that, for years together, full as +impious, and perhaps more dangerous writings to religion, and virtue, and +order, have not been punished, nor their authors discountenanced; that +the most audacious libels on Royal Majesty have passed without notice; +that the most treasonable invectives against the laws, liberties, and +constitution of the country, have not met with the slightest +animadversion; I must consider this as a shocking and shameless pretence. +Never did an envenomed scurrility against everything sacred and civil, +public and private, rage through the kingdom with such a furious and +unbridled licence. All this while the peace of the nation must be +shaken, to ruin one libeller, and to tear from the populace a single +favourite. + +Nor is it that vice merely skulks in an obscure and contemptible +impunity. Does not the public behold with indignation, persons not only +generally scandalous in their lives, but the identical persons who, by +their society, their instruction, their example, their encouragement, +have drawn this man into the very faults which have furnished the Cabal +with a pretence for his persecution, loaded with every kind of favour, +honour, and distinction, which a Court can bestow? Add but the crime of +servility (the _foedum crimem servitutis_) to every other crime, and the +whole mass is immediately transmuted into virtue, and becomes the just +subject of reward and honour. When therefore I reflect upon this method +pursued by the Cabal in distributing rewards and punishments, I must +conclude that Mr. Wilkes is the object of persecution, not on account of +what he has done in common with others who are the objects of reward, but +for that in which he differs from many of them: that he is pursued for +the spirited dispositions which are blended with his vices; for his +unconquerable firmness, for his resolute, indefatigable, strenuous +resistance against oppression. + +In this case, therefore, it was not the man that was to be punished, nor +his faults that were to be discountenanced. Opposition to acts of power +was to be marked by a kind of civil proscription. The popularity which +should arise from such an opposition was to be shown unable to protect +it. The qualities by which court is made to the people, were to render +every fault inexpiable, and every error irretrievable. The qualities by +which court is made to power, were to cover and to sanctify everything. +He that will have a sure and honourable seat, in the House of Commons, +must take care how he adventures to cultivate popular qualities; +otherwise he may, remember the old maxim, _Breves et infaustos populi +Romani amores_. If, therefore, a pursuit of popularity expose a man to +greater dangers than a disposition to servility, the principle which is +the life and soul of popular elections will perish out of the +Constitution. + +It behoves the people of England to consider how the House of Commons +under the operation of these examples must of necessity be constituted. +On the side of the Court will be, all honours, offices, emoluments; every +sort of personal gratification to avarice or vanity; and, what is of more +moment to most gentlemen, the means of growing, by innumerable petty +services to individuals, into a spreading interest in their country. On +the other hand, let us suppose a person unconnected with the Court, and +in opposition to its system. For his own person, no office, or +emolument, or title; no promotion ecclesiastical, or civil, or military, +or naval, for children, or brothers, or kindred. In vain an expiring +interest in a borough calls for offices, or small livings, for the +children of mayors, and aldermen, and capital burgesses. His court rival +has them all. He can do an infinite number of acts of generosity and +kindness, and even of public spirit. He can procure indemnity from +quarters. He can procure advantages in trade. He can get pardons for +offences. He can obtain a thousand favours, and avert a thousand evils. +He may, while he betrays every valuable interest of the kingdom, be a +benefactor, a patron, a father, a guardian angel, to his borough. The +unfortunate independent member has nothing to offer, but harsh refusal, +or pitiful excuse, or despondent representation of a hopeless interest. +Except from his private fortune, in which he may be equalled, perhaps +exceeded, by his Court competitor, he has no way of showing any one good +quality, or of making a single friend. In the House, he votes for ever +in a dispirited minority. If he speaks, the doors are locked. A body of +loquacious placemen go out to tell the world, that all he aims at, is to +get into office. If he has not the talent of elocution, which is the +case of many as wise and knowing men as any in the House, he is liable to +all these inconveniences, without the eclat which attends upon any +tolerably successful exertion of eloquence. Can we conceive a more +discouraging post of duty than this? Strip it of the poor reward of +popularity; suffer even the excesses committed in defence of the popular +interest to become a ground for the majority of that House to form a +disqualification out of the line of the law, and at their pleasure, +attended not only with the loss of the franchise, but with every kind of +personal disgrace; if this shall happen, the people of this kingdom may +be assured that they cannot be firmly or faithfully served by any man. It +is out of the nature of men and things that they should; and their +presumption will be equal to their folly, if they expect it. The power +of the people, within the laws, must show itself sufficient to protect +every representative in the animated performance of his duty, or that +duty cannot be performed. The House of Commons can never be a control on +other parts of Government, unless they are controlled themselves by their +constituents; and unless these constituents possess some right in the +choice of that House, which it is not in the power of that House to take +away. If they suffer this power of arbitrary incapacitation to stand, +they have utterly perverted every other power of the House of Commons. +The late proceeding, I will not say, _is_ contrary to law; it _must_ be +so; for the power which is claimed cannot, by any possibility, be a legal +power in any limited member of Government. + +The power which they claim, of declaring incapacities, would not be above +the just claims of a final judicature, if they had not laid it down as a +leading principle, that they had no rule in the exercise of this claim +but their own _discretion_. Not one of their abettors has ever +undertaken to assign the principle of unfitness, the species or degree of +delinquency, on which the House of Commons will expel, nor the mode of +proceeding upon it, nor the evidence upon which it is established. The +direct consequence of which is, that the first franchise of an +Englishman, and that on which all the rest vitally depend, is to be +forfeited for some offence which no man knows, and which is to be proved +by no known rule whatsoever of legal evidence. This is so anomalous to +our whole constitution, that I will venture to say, the most trivial +right, which the subject claims, never was, nor can be, forfeited in such +a manner. + +The whole of their usurpation is established upon this method of arguing. +We do not make laws. No; we do not contend for this power. We only +declare law; and, as we are a tribunal both competent and supreme, what +we declare to be law becomes law, although it should not have been so +before. Thus the circumstance of having no appeal from their +jurisdiction is made to imply that they have no rule in the exercise of +it: the judgment does not derive its validity from its conformity to the +law; but preposterously the law is made to attend on the judgment; and +the rule of the judgment is no other than the _occasional will of the +House_. An arbitrary discretion leads, legality follows; which is just +the very nature and description of a legislative act. + +This claim in their hands was no barren theory. It was pursued into its +utmost consequences; and a dangerous principle has begot a correspondent +practice. A systematic spirit has been shown upon both sides. The +electors of Middlesex chose a person whom the House of Commons had voted +incapable; and the House of Commons has taken in a member whom the +electors of Middlesex had not chosen. By a construction on that +legislative power which had been assumed, they declared that the true +legal sense of the country was contained in the minority, on that +occasion; and might, on a resistance to a vote of incapacity, be +contained in any minority. + +When any construction of law goes against the spirit of the privilege it +was meant to support, it is a vicious construction. It is material to us +to be represented really and bona fide, and not in forms, in types, and +shadows, and fictions of law. The right of election was not established +merely as a _matter of form_, to satisfy some method and rule of +technical reasoning; it was not a principle which might substitute a +_Titius_ or a _Maevius_, a _John Doe_ or _Richard Roe_, in the place of a +man specially chosen; not a principle which was just as well satisfied +with one man as with another. It is a right, the effect of which is to +give to the people that man, and that man only, whom by their voices, +actually, not constructively given, they declare that they know, esteem, +love, and trust. This right is a matter within their own power of +judging and feeling; not an _ens rationis_ and creature of law: nor can +those devices, by which anything else is substituted in the place of such +an actual choice, answer in the least degree the end of representation. + +I know that the courts of law have made as strained constructions in +other cases. Such is the construction in common recoveries. The method +of construction which in that case gives to the persons in remainder, for +their security and representative, the door-keeper, crier, or sweeper of +the Court, or some other shadowy being without substance or effect, is a +fiction of a very coarse texture. This was however suffered, by the +acquiescence of the whole kingdom, for ages; because the evasion of the +old Statute of Westminster, which authorised perpetuities, had more sense +and utility than the law which was evaded. But an attempt to turn the +right of election into such a farce and mockery as a fictitious fine and +recovery, will, I hope, have another fate; because the laws which give it +are infinitely dear to us, and the evasion is infinitely contemptible. + +The people indeed have been told, that this power of discretionary +disqualification is vested in hands that they may trust, and who will be +sure not to abuse it to their prejudice. Until I find something in this +argument differing from that on which every mode of despotism has been +defended, I shall not be inclined to pay it any great compliment. The +people are satisfied to trust themselves with the exercise of their own +privileges, and do not desire this kind intervention of the House of +Commons to free them from the burthen. They are certainly in the right. +They ought not to trust the House of Commons with a power over their +franchises; because the constitution, which placed two other co-ordinate +powers to control it, reposed no such confidence in that body. It were a +folly well deserving servitude for its punishment, to be full of +confidence where the laws are full of distrust; and to give to an House +of Commons, arrogating to its sole resolution the most harsh and odious +part of legislative authority, that degree of submission which is due +only to the Legislature itself. + +When the House of Commons, in an endeavour to obtain new advantages at +the expense of the other orders of the State, for the benefits of the +_Commons at large_, have pursued strong measures; if it were not just, it +was at least natural, that the constituents should connive at all their +proceedings; because we were ourselves ultimately to profit. But when +this submission is urged to us, in a contest between the representatives +and ourselves, and where nothing can be put into their scale which is not +taken from ours, they fancy us to be children when they tell us they are +our representatives, our own flesh and blood, and that all the stripes +they give us are for our good. The very desire of that body to have such +a trust contrary to law reposed in them, shows that they are not worthy +of it. They certainly will abuse it; because all men possessed of an +uncontrolled discretionary power leading to the aggrandisement and profit +of their own body have always abused it: and I see no particular sanctity +in our times, that is at all likely, by a miraculous operation, to +overrule the course of nature. + +But we must purposely shut our eyes, if we consider this matter merely as +a contest between the House of Commons and the Electors. The true +contest is between the Electors of the Kingdom and the Crown; the Crown +acting by an instrumental House of Commons. It is precisely the same, +whether the Ministers of the Crown can disqualify by a dependent House of +Commons, or by a dependent court of _Star Chamber_, or by a dependent +court of King's Bench. If once Members of Parliament can be practically +convinced that they do not depend on the affection or opinion of the +people for their political being, they will give themselves over, without +even an appearance of reserve, to the influence of the Court. + +Indeed, a Parliament unconnected with the people, is essential to a +Ministry unconnected with the people; and therefore those who saw through +what mighty difficulties the interior Ministry waded, and the exterior +were dragged, in this business, will conceive of what prodigious +importance, the new corps of _King's men_ held this principle of +occasional and personal incapacitation, to the whole body of their +design. + +When the House of Commons was thus made to consider itself as the master +of its constituents, there wanted but one thing to secure that House +against all possible future deviation towards popularity; an unlimited +fund of money to be laid out according to the pleasure of the Court. + +* * * * * + +To complete the scheme of bringing our Court to a resemblance to the +neighbouring Monarchies, it was necessary, in effect, to destroy those +appropriations of revenue, which seem to limit the property, as the other +laws had done the powers, of the Crown. An opportunity for this purpose +was taken, upon an application to Parliament for payment of the debts of +the Civil List; which in 1769 had amounted to 513,000 pounds. Such +application had been made upon former occasions; but to do it in the +former manner would by no means answer the present purpose. + +Whenever the Crown had come to the Commons to desire a supply for the +discharging of debts due on the Civil List, it was always asked and +granted with one of the three following qualifications; sometimes with +all of them. Either it was stated that the revenue had been diverted +from its purposes by Parliament; or that those duties had fallen short of +the sum for which they were given by Parliament, and that the intention +of the Legislature had not been fulfilled; or that the money required to +discharge the Civil List debt was to be raised chargeable on the Civil +List duties. In the reign of Queen Anne, the Crown was found in debt. +The lessening and granting away some part of her revenue by Parliament +was alleged as the cause of that debt, and pleaded as an equitable ground +(such it certainly was), for discharging it. It does not appear that the +duties which wore then applied to the ordinary Government produced clear +above 580,000 pounds a year; because, when they were afterwards granted +to George the First, 120,000 pounds was added, to complete the whole to +700,000 pounds a year. Indeed it was then asserted, and, I have no +doubt, truly, that for many years the nett produce did not amount to +above 550,000 pounds. The Queen's extraordinary charges were besides +very considerable; equal, at least, to any we have known in our time. The +application to Parliament was not for an absolute grant of money, but to +empower the Queen to raise it by borrowing upon the Civil List funds. + +The Civil List debt was twice paid in the reign of George the First. The +money was granted upon the same plan which had been followed in the reign +of Queen Anne. The Civil List revenues were then mortgaged for the sum +to be raised, and stood charged with the ransom of their own deliverance. + +George the Second received an addition to his Civil List. Duties were +granted for the purpose of raising 800,000 pounds a year. It was not +until he had reigned nineteen years, and after the last rebellion, that +he called upon Parliament for a discharge of the Civil List debt. The +extraordinary charges brought on by the rebellion, account fully for the +necessities of the Crown. However, the extraordinary charges of +Government were not thought a ground fit to be relied on. A deficiency +of the Civil List duties for several years before was stated as the +principal, if not the sole, ground on which an application to Parliament +could be justified. About this time the produce of these duties had +fallen pretty low; and even upon an average of the whole reign they never +produced 800,000 pounds a year clear to the Treasury. + +That Prince reigned fourteen years afterwards: not only no new demands +were made, but with so much good order were his revenues and expenses +regulated, that, although many parts of the establishment of the Court +were upon a larger and more liberal scale than they have been since, +there was a considerable sum in hand, on his decease, amounting to about +170,000 pounds, applicable to the service of the Civil List of his +present Majesty. So that, if this reign commenced with a greater charge +than usual, there was enough, and more than enough, abundantly to supply +all the extraordinary expense. That the Civil List should have been +exceeded in the two former reigns, especially in the reign of George the +First, was not at all surprising. His revenue was but 700,000 pounds +annually; if it ever produced so much clear. The prodigious and +dangerous disaffection to the very being of the establishment, and the +cause of a Pretender then powerfully abetted from abroad, produced many +demands of an extraordinary nature both abroad and at home. Much +management and great expenses were necessary. But the throne of no +Prince has stood upon more unshaken foundations than that of his present +Majesty. + +To have exceeded the sum given for the Civil List, and to have incurred a +debt without special authority of Parliament, was, _prima facie_, a +criminal act: as such Ministers ought naturally rather to have withdrawn +it from the inspection, than to have exposed it to the scrutiny, of +Parliament. Certainly they ought, of themselves, officially to have come +armed with every sort of argument, which, by explaining, could excuse a +matter in itself of presumptive guilt. But the terrors of the House of +Commons are no longer for Ministers. + +On the other hand, the peculiar character of the House of Commons, as +trustee of the public purse, would have led them to call with a +punctilious solicitude for every public account, and to have examined +into them with the most rigorous accuracy. + +The capital use of an account is, that the reality of the charge, the +reason of incurring it, and the justice and necessity of discharging it, +should all appear antecedent to the payment. No man ever pays first, and +calls for his account afterwards; because he would thereby let out of his +hands the principal, and indeed only effectual, means of compelling a +full and fair one. But, in national business, there is an additional +reason for a previous production of every account. It is a cheek, +perhaps the only one, upon a corrupt and prodigal use of public money. An +account after payment is to no rational purpose an account. However, the +House of Commons thought all these to be antiquated principles; they were +of opinion that the most Parliamentary way of proceeding was, to pay +first what the Court thought proper to demand, and to take its chance for +an examination into accounts at some time of greater leisure. + +The nation had settled 800,000 pounds a year on the Crown, as sufficient +for the purpose of its dignity, upon the estimate of its own Ministers. +When Ministers came to Parliament, and said that this allowance had not +been sufficient for the purpose, and that they had incurred a debt of +500,000 pounds, would it not have been natural for Parliament first to +have asked, how, and by what means, their appropriated allowance came to +be insufficient? Would it not have savoured of some attention to +justice, to have seen in what periods of Administration this debt had +been originally incurred; that they might discover, and if need were, +animadvert on the persons who were found the most culpable? To put their +hands upon such articles of expenditure as they thought improper or +excessive, and to secure, in future, against such misapplication or +exceeding? Accounts for any other purposes are but a matter of +curiosity, and no genuine Parliamentary object. All the accounts which +could answer any Parliamentary end were refused, or postponed by previous +questions. Every idea of prevention was rejected, as conveying an +improper suspicion of the Ministers of the Crown. + +When every leading account had been refused, many others were granted +with sufficient facility. + +But with great candour also, the House was informed, that hardly any of +them could be ready until the next session; some of them perhaps not so +soon. But, in order firmly to establish the precedent of _payment +previous to account_, and to form it into a settled rule of the House, +the god in the machine was brought down, nothing less than the wonder- +working _Law of Parliament_. It was alleged, that it is the law of +Parliament, when any demand comes from the Crown, that the House must go +immediately into the Committee of Supply; in which Committee it was +allowed, that the production and examination of accounts would be quite +proper and regular. It was therefore carried that they should go into +the Committee without delay, and without accounts, in order to examine +with great order and regularity things that could not possibly come +before them. After this stroke of orderly and Parliamentary wit and +humour, they went into the Committee, and very generously voted the +payment. + +There was a circumstance in that debate too remarkable to be overlooked. +This debt of the Civil List was all along argued upon the same footing as +a debt of the State, contracted upon national authority. Its payment was +urged as equally pressing upon the public faith and honour; and when the +whole year's account was stated, in what is called _The Budget_, the +Ministry valued themselves on the payment of so much public debt, just as +if they had discharged 500,000 pounds of navy or exchequer bills. Though, +in truth, their payment, from the Sinking Fund, of debt which was never +contracted by Parliamentary authority, was, to all intents and purposes, +so much debt incurred. But such is the present notion of public credit +and payment of debt. No wonder that it produces such effects. + +Nor was the House at all more attentive to a provident security against +future, than it had been to a vindictive retrospect to past, +mismanagements. I should have thought indeed that a Ministerial promise, +during their own continuance in office, might have been given, though +this would have been but a poor security for the public. Mr. Pelham gave +such an assurance, and he kept his word. But nothing was capable of +extorting from our Ministers anything which had the least resemblance to +a promise of confining the expenses of the Civil List within the limits +which had been settled by Parliament. This reserve of theirs I look upon +to be equivalent to the clearest declaration that they were resolved upon +a contrary course. + +However, to put the matter beyond all doubt, in the Speech from the +Throne, after thanking Parliament for the relief so liberally granted, +the Ministers inform the two Houses that they will _endeavour_ to confine +the expenses of the Civil Government--within what limits, think you? +those which the law had prescribed? Not in the least--"such limits as +the _honour of the Crown_ can possibly admit." + +Thus they established an arbitrary standard for that dignity which +Parliament had defined and limited to a legal standard. They gave +themselves, under the lax and indeterminate idea of the _honour of the +Crown_, a full loose for all manner of dissipation, and all manner of +corruption. This arbitrary standard they were not afraid to hold out to +both Houses; while an idle and inoperative Act of Parliament, estimating +the dignity of the Crown at 800,000 pounds, and confining it to that sum, +adds to the number of obsolete statutes which load the shelves of +libraries without any sort of advantage to the people. + +After this proceeding, I suppose that no man can be so weak as to think +that the Crown is limited to any settled allowance whatsoever. For if +the Ministry has 800,000 pounds a year by the law of the land, and if by +the law of Parliament all the debts which exceed it are to be paid +previous to the production of any account, I presume that this is +equivalent to an income with no other limits than the abilities of the +subject and the moderation of the Court--that is to say, it is such in +income as is possessed by every absolute Monarch in Europe. It amounts, +as a person of great ability said in the debate, to an unlimited power of +drawing upon the Sinking Fund. Its effect on the public credit of this +kingdom must be obvious; for in vain is the Sinking Fund the great +buttress of all the rest, if it be in the power of the Ministry to resort +to it for the payment of any debts which they may choose to incur, under +the name of the Civil List, and through the medium of a committee, which +thinks itself obliged by law to vote supplies without any other account +than that of the more existence of the debt. + +Five hundred thousand pounds is a serious sum. But it is nothing to the +prolific principle upon which the sum was voted--a principle that may be +well called, _the fruitful mother of a hundred more_. Neither is the +damage to public credit of very great consequence when compared with that +which results to public morals and to the safety of the Constitution, +from the exhaustless mine of corruption opened by the precedent, and to +be wrought by the principle of the late payment of the debts of the Civil +List. The power of discretionary disqualification by one law of +Parliament, and the necessity of paying every debt of the Civil List by +another law of Parliament, if suffered to pass unnoticed, must establish +such a fund of rewards and terrors as will make Parliament the best +appendage and support of arbitrary power that ever was invented by the +wit of man. This is felt. The quarrel is begun between the +Representatives and the People. The Court Faction have at length +committed them. + +In such a strait the wisest may well be perplexed, and the boldest +staggered. The circumstances are in a great measure new. We have hardly +any landmarks from the wisdom of our ancestors to guide us. At best we +can only follow the spirit of their proceeding in other cases. I know +the diligence with which my observations on our public disorders have +been made. I am very sure of the integrity of the motives on which they +are published: I cannot be equally confident in any plan for the absolute +cure of those disorders, or for their certain future prevention. My aim +is to bring this matter into more public discussion. Let the sagacity of +others work upon it. It is not uncommon for medical writers to describe +histories of diseases, very accurately, on whose cure they can say but +very little. + +The first ideas which generally suggest themselves for the cure of +Parliamentary disorders are, to shorten the duration of Parliaments, and +to disqualify all, or a great number of placemen, from a seat in the +House of Commons. Whatever efficacy there may be in those remedies, I am +sure in the present state of things it is impossible to apply them. A +restoration of the right of free election is a preliminary indispensable +to every other reformation. What alterations ought afterwards to be made +in the constitution is a matter of deep and difficult research. + +If I wrote merely to please the popular palate, it would indeed be as +little troublesome to me as to another to extol these remedies, so famous +in speculation, but to which their greatest admirers have never attempted +seriously to resort in practice. I confess them, that I have no sort of +reliance upon either a Triennial Parliament or a Place-bill. With regard +to the former, perhaps, it might rather serve to counteract than to +promote the ends that are proposed by it. To say nothing of the horrible +disorders among the people attending frequent elections, I should be +fearful of committing, every three years, the independent gentlemen of +the country into a contest with the Treasury. It is easy to see which of +the contending parties would be ruined first. Whoever has taken a +careful view of public proceedings, so as to endeavour to ground his +speculations on his experience, must have observed how prodigiously +greater the power of Ministry is in the first and last session of a +Parliament, than it is in the intermediate periods, when Members sit a +little on their seats. The persons of the greatest Parliamentary +experience, with whom I have conversed, did constantly, in canvassing the +fate of questions, allow something to the Court side, upon account of the +elections depending or imminent. The evil complained of, if it exists in +the present state of things, would hardly be removed by a triennial +Parliament: for, unless the influence of Government in elections can be +entirely taken away, the more frequently they return, the more they will +harass private independence; the more generally men will be compelled to +fly to the settled systematic interest of Government, and to the +resources of a boundless Civil List. Certainly something may be done, +and ought to be done, towards lessening that influence in elections; and +this will be necessary upon a plan either of longer or shorter duration +of Parliament. But nothing can so perfectly remove the evil, as not to +render such contentions, foot frequently repeated, utterly ruinous, first +to independence of fortune, and then to independence of spirit. As I am +only giving an opinion on this point, and not at all debating it in an +adverse line, I hope I may be excused in another observation. With great +truth I may aver that I never remember to have talked on this subject +with any man much conversant with public business who considered short +Parliaments as a real improvement of the Constitution. Gentlemen, warm +in a popular cause, are ready enough to attribute all the declarations of +such persons to corrupt motives. But the habit of affairs, if, on one +hand, it tends to corrupt the mind, furnishes it, on the other, with the, +means of better information. The authority of such persons will always +have some weight. It may stand upon a par with the speculations of those +who are less practised in business; and who, with perhaps purer +intentions, have not so effectual means of judging. It is besides an +effect of vulgar and puerile malignity to imagine that every Statesman is +of course corrupt: and that his opinion, upon every constitutional point, +is solely formed upon some sinister interest. + +The next favourite remedy is a Place-bill. The same principle guides in +both: I mean the opinion which is entertained by many of the +infallibility of laws and regulations, in the cure of public distempers. +Without being as unreasonably doubtful as many are unwisely confident, I +will only say, that this also is a matter very well worthy of serious and +mature reflection. It is not easy to foresee what the effect would be of +disconnecting with Parliament, the greatest part of those who hold civil +employments, and of such mighty and important bodies as the military and +naval establishments. It were better, perhaps, that they should have a +corrupt interest in the forms of the constitution, than they should have +none at all. This is a question altogether different from the +disqualification of a particular description of Revenue Officers from +seats in Parliament; or, perhaps, of all the lower sorts of them from +votes in elections. In the former case, only the few are affected; in +the latter, only the inconsiderable. But a great official, a great +professional, a great military and naval interest, all necessarily +comprehending many people of the first weight, ability, wealth, and +spirit, has been gradually formed in the kingdom. These new interests +must be let into a share of representation, else possibly they may be +inclined to destroy those institutions of which they are not permitted to +partake. This is not a thing to be trifled with: nor is it every well- +meaning man that is fit to put his hands to it. Many other serious +considerations occur. I do not open them here, because they are not +directly to my purpose; proposing only to give the reader some taste of +the difficulties that attend all capital changes in the Constitution; +just to hint the uncertainty, to say no worse, of being able to prevent +the Court, as long as it has the means of influence abundantly in its +power, from applying that influence to Parliament; and perhaps, if the +public method were precluded, of doing it in some worse and more +dangerous method. Underhand and oblique ways would be studied. The +science of evasion, already tolerably understood, would then be brought +to the greatest perfection. It is no inconsiderable part of wisdom, to +know how much of an evil ought to be tolerated; lest, by attempting a +degree of purity impracticable in degenerate times and manners, instead +of cutting off the subsisting ill practices, new corruptions might be +produced for the concealment and security of the old. It were better, +undoubtedly, that no influence at all could affect the mind of a Member +of Parliament. But of all modes of influence, in my opinion, a place +under the Government is the least disgraceful to the man who holds it, +and by far the most safe to the country. I would not shut out that sort +of influence which is open and visible, which is connected with the +dignity and the service of the State, when it is not in my power to +prevent the influence of contracts, of subscriptions, of direct bribery, +and those innumerable methods of clandestine corruption, which are +abundantly in the hands of the Court, and which will be applied as long +as these means of corruption, and the disposition to be corrupted, have +existence amongst us. Our Constitution stands on a nice equipoise, with +steep precipices and deep waters upon all sides of it. In removing it +from a dangerous leaning towards one side, there may be a risk of +oversetting it on the other. Every project of a material change in a +Government so complicated as ours, combined at the same time with +external circumstances still more complicated, is a matter full of +difficulties; in which a considerate man will not be too ready to decide; +a prudent man too ready to undertake; or an honest man too ready to +promise. They do not respect the public nor themselves, who engage for +more than they are sure that they ought to attempt, or that they are able +to perform. These are my sentiments, weak perhaps, but honest and +unbiassed; and submitted entirely to the opinion of grave men, well +affected to the constitution of their country, and of experience in what +may best promote or hurt it. + +Indeed, in the situation in which we stand, with an immense revenue, an +enormous debt, mighty establishments, Government itself a great banker +and a great merchant, I see no other way for the preservation of a decent +attention to public interest in the Representatives, but _the +interposition of the body of the people itself_, whenever it shall +appear, by some flagrant and notorious act, by some capital innovation, +that these Representatives are going to over-leap the fences of the law, +and to introduce an arbitrary power. This interposition is a most +unpleasant remedy. But, if it be a legal remedy, it is intended on some +occasion to be used; to be used then only, when it is evident that +nothing else can hold the Constitution to its true principles. + +* * * * * + +The distempers of Monarchy were the great subjects of apprehension and +redress, in the last century; in this, the distempers of Parliament. It +is not in Parliament alone that the remedy for Parliamentary disorders +can be completed; hardly, indeed, can it begin there. Until a confidence +in Government is re-established, the people ought to be excited to a more +strict and detailed attention to the conduct of their Representatives. +Standards, for judging more systematically upon their conduct, ought to +be settled in the meetings of counties and corporations. Frequent and +correct lists of the voters in all important questions ought to be +procured. + +By such means something may be done. By such means it may appear who +those are, that, by an indiscriminate support of all Administrations, +have totally banished all integrity and confidence out of public +proceedings; have confounded the best men with the worst; and weakened +and dissolved, instead of strengthening and compacting, the general frame +of Government. If any person is more concerned for government and order +than for the liberties of his country, even he is equally concerned to +put an end to this course of indiscriminate support. It is this blind +and undistinguishing support that feeds the spring of those very +disorders, by which he is frighted into the arms of the faction which +contains in itself the source of all disorders, by enfeebling all the +visible and regular authority of the State. The distemper is increased +by his injudicious and preposterous endeavours, or pretences, for the +cure of it. + +An exterior Administration, chosen for its impotency, or after it is +chosen purposely rendered impotent, in order to be rendered subservient, +will not be obeyed. The laws themselves will not be respected, when +those who execute them are despised: and they will be despised, when +their power is not immediate from the Crown, or natural in the kingdom. +Never were Ministers better supported in Parliament. Parliamentary +support comes and goes with office, totally regardless of the man, or the +merit. Is Government strengthened? It grows weaker and weaker. The +popular torrent gains upon it every hour. Let us learn from our +experience. It is not support that is wanting to Government, but +reformation. When Ministry rests upon public opinion, it is not indeed +built upon a rock of adamant; it has, however, some stability. But when +it stands upon private humour, its structure is of stubble, and its +foundation is on quicksand. I repeat it again--He that supports every +Administration, subverts all Government. The reason is this. The whole +business in which a Court usually takes an interest goes on at present +equally well, in whatever hands, whether high or low, wise or foolish, +scandalous or reputable; there is nothing, therefore, to hold it firm to +any one body of men, or to any one consistent scheme of politics. Nothing +interposes to prevent the full operation of all the caprices and all the +passions of a Court upon the servants of the public. The system of +Administration is open to continual shocks and changes, upon the +principles of the meanest cabal, and the most contemptible intrigue. +Nothing can be solid and permanent. All good men at length fly with +horror from such a service. Men of rank and ability, with the spirit +which ought to animate such men in a free state, while they decline the +jurisdiction of dark cabal on their actions and their fortunes, will, for +both, cheerfully put themselves upon their country. They will trust an +inquisitive and distinguishing Parliament; because it does inquire, and +does distinguish. If they act well, they know that, in such a +Parliament, they will be supported against any intrigue; if they act ill, +they know that no intrigue can protect them. This situation, however +awful, is honourable. But in one hour, and in the self-same Assembly, +without any assigned or assignable cause, to be precipitated from the +highest authority to the most marked neglect, possibly into the greatest +peril of life and reputation, is a situation full of danger, and +destitute of honour. It will be shunned equally by every man of +prudence, and every man of spirit. + +Such are the consequences of the division of Court from the +Administration; and of the division of public men among themselves. By +the former of these, lawful Government is undone; by the latter, all +opposition to lawless power is rendered impotent. Government may in a +great measure be restored, if any considerable bodies of men have honesty +and resolution enough never to accept Administration, unless this +garrison of _King's_ meat, which is stationed, as in a citadel, to +control and enslave it, be entirely broken and disbanded, and every work +they have thrown up be levelled with the ground. The disposition of +public men to keep this corps together, and to act under it, or to co- +operate with it, is a touchstone by which every Administration ought in +future to be tried. There has not been one which has not sufficiently +experienced the utter incompatibility of that faction with the public +peace, and with all the ends of good Government; since, if they opposed +it, they soon lost every power of serving the Crown; if they submitted to +it they lost all the esteem of their country. Until Ministers give to +the public a full proof of their entire alienation from that system, +however plausible their pretences, we may be sure they are more intent on +the emoluments than the duties of office. If they refuse to give this +proof, we know of what stuff they are made. In this particular, it ought +to be the electors' business to look to their Representatives. The +electors ought to esteem it no less culpable in their Member to give a +single vote in Parliament to such an Administration, than to take an +office under it; to endure it, than to act in it. The notorious +infidelity and versatility of Members of Parliament, in their opinions of +men and things, ought in a particular manner to be considered by the +electors in the inquiry which is recommended to them. This is one of the +principal holdings of that destructive system which has endeavoured to +unhinge all the virtuous, honourable, and useful connections in the +kingdom. + +This cabal has, with great success, propagated a doctrine which serves +for a colour to those acts of treachery; and whilst it receives any +degree of countenance, it will be utterly senseless to look for a +vigorous opposition to the Court Party. The doctrine is this: That all +political connections are in their nature factious, and as such ought to +be dissipated and destroyed; and that the rule for forming +Administrations is mere personal ability, rated by the judgment of this +cabal upon it, and taken by drafts from every division and denomination +of public men. This decree was solemnly promulgated by the head of the +Court corps, the Earl of Bute himself, in a speech which he made, in the +year 1766, against the then Administration, the only Administration +which, he has ever been known directly and publicly to oppose. + +It is indeed in no way wonderful, that such persons should make such +declarations. That connection and faction are equivalent terms, is an +opinion which has been carefully inculcated at all times by +unconstitutional Statesmen. The reason is evident. Whilst men are +linked together, they easily and speedily communicate the alarm of an +evil design. They are enabled to fathom it with common counsel, and to +oppose it with united strength. Whereas, when they lie dispersed, +without concert, order, or discipline, communication is uncertain, +counsel difficult, and resistance impracticable. Where men are not +acquainted with each other's principles, nor experienced in each other's +talents, nor at all practised in their mutual habitudes and dispositions +by joint efforts in business; no personal confidence, no friendship, no +common interest, subsisting among them; it is evidently impossible that +they can act a public part with uniformity, perseverance, or efficacy. In +a connection, the most inconsiderable man, by adding to the weight of the +whole, has his value, and his use; out of it, the greatest talents are +wholly unserviceable to the public. No man, who is not inflamed by +vainglory into enthusiasm, can flatter himself that his single, +unsupported, desultory, unsystematic endeavours, are of power to defeat, +the subtle designs and united cabals of ambitious citizens. When bad men +combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an +unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle. + +It is not enough in a situation of trust in the commonwealth, that a man +means well to his country; it is not enough that in his single person he +never did an evil act, but always voted according to his conscience, and +even harangued against every design which he apprehended to be +prejudicial to the interests of his country. This innoxious and +ineffectual character, that seems formed upon a plan of apology and +disculpation, falls miserably short of the mark of public duty. That +duty demands and requires, that what is right should not only be made +known, but made prevalent; that what is evil should not only be detected, +but defeated. When the public man omits to put himself in a situation of +doing his duty with effect, it is an omission that frustrates the +purposes of his trust almost as much as if he had formally betrayed it. +It is surely no very rational account of a man's life that he has always +acted right; but has taken special care to act in such a manner that his +endeavours could not possibly be productive of any consequence. + +I do not wonder that the behaviour of many parties should have made +persons of tender and scrupulous virtue somewhat out of humour with all +sorts of connection in politics. I admit that people frequently acquire +in such confederacies a narrow, bigoted, and proscriptive spirit; that +they are apt to sink the idea of the general good in this circumscribed +and partial interest. But, where duty renders a critical situation a +necessary one, it is our business to keep free from the evils attendant +upon it, and not to fly from the situation itself. If a fortress is +seated in an unwholesome air, an officer of the garrison is obliged to be +attentive to his health, but he must not desert his station. Every +profession, not excepting the glorious one of a soldier, or the sacred +one of a priest, is liable to its own particular vices; which, however, +form no argument against those ways of life; nor are the vices themselves +inevitable to every individual in those professions. Of such a nature +are connections in politics; essentially necessary for the full +performance of our public duty, accidentally liable to degenerate into +faction. Commonwealths are made of families, free Commonwealths of +parties also; and we may as well affirm, that our natural regards and +ties of blood tend inevitably to make men bad citizens, as that the bonds +of our party weaken those by which we are held to our country. + +Some legislators went so far as to make neutrality in party a crime +against the State. I do not know whether this might not have been rather +to overstrain the principle. Certain it is, the best patriots in the +greatest commonwealths have always commanded and promoted such +connections. _Idem sentire de republica_, was with them a principal +ground of friendship and attachment; nor do I know any other capable of +forming firmer, dearer, more pleasing, more honourable, and more virtuous +habitudes. The Romans carried this principle a great way. Even the +holding of offices together, the disposition of which arose from chance, +not selection, gave rise to a relation which continued for life. It was +called _necessitudo sortis_; and it was looked upon with a sacred +reverence. Breaches of any of these kinds of civil relation were +considered as acts of the most distinguished turpitude. The whole people +was distributed into political societies, in which they acted in support +of such interests in the State as they severally affected. For it was +then thought no crime, to endeavour by every honest means to advance to +superiority and power those of your own sentiments and opinions. This +wise people was far from imagining that those connections had no tie, and +obliged to no duty; but that men might quit them without shame, upon +every call of interest. They believed private honour to be the great +foundation of public trust; that friendship was no mean step towards +patriotism; that he who, in the common intercourse of life, showed he +regarded somebody besides himself, when he came to act in a public +situation, might probably consult some other interest than his own. Never +may we become _plus sages que les sages_, as the French comedian has +happily expressed it--wiser than all the wise and good men who have lived +before us. It was their wish, to see public and private virtues, not +dissonant and jarring, and mutually destructive, but harmoniously +combined, growing out of one another in a noble and orderly gradation, +reciprocally supporting and supported. In one of the most fortunate +periods of our history this country was governed by a connection; I mean +the great connection of Whigs in the reign of Queen Anne. They were +complimented upon the principle of this connection by a poet who was in +high esteem with them. Addison, who knew their sentiments, could not +praise them for what they considered as no proper subject of +commendation. As a poet who knew his business, he could not applaud them +for a thing which in general estimation was not highly reputable. +Addressing himself to Britain, + + "Thy favourites grow not up by fortune's sport, + Or from the crimes or follies of a Court; + On the firm basis of desert they rise, + From long-tried faith, and friendship's holy ties." + +The Whigs of those days believed that the only proper method of rising +into power was through bard essays of practised friendship and +experimented fidelity. At that time it was not imagined that patriotism +was a bloody idol, which required the sacrifice of children and parents, +or dearest connections in private life, and of all the virtues that rise +from those relations. They were not of that ingenious paradoxical +morality to imagine that a spirit of moderation was properly shown in +patiently bearing the sufferings of your friends, or that +disinterestedness was clearly manifested at the expense of other people's +fortune. They believed that no men could act with effect who did not act +in concert; that no men could act in concert who did not act with +confidence; that no men could act with confidence who were not bound +together by common opinions, common affections, and common interests. + +These wise men, for such I must call Lord Sunderland, Lord Godolphin, +Lord Somers, and Lord Marlborough, were too well principled in these +maxims, upon which the whole fabric of public strength is built, to be +blown off their ground by the breath of every childish talker. They were +not afraid that they should be called an ambitious Junto, or that their +resolution to stand or fall together should, by placemen, be interpreted +into a scuffle for places. + +Party is a body of men united for promoting by their joint endeavours the +national interest, upon some particular principle in which they are all +agreed. For my part, I find it impossible to conceive that any one +believes in his own politics, or thinks them to be of any weight, who +refuses to adopt the means of having them reduced into practice. It is +the business of the speculative philosopher to mark the proper ends of +Government. It is the business of the politician, who is the philosopher +in action, to find out proper means towards those ends, and to employ +them with effect. Therefore, every honourable connection will avow it as +their first purpose to pursue every just method to put the men who hold +their opinions into such a condition as may enable them to carry their +common plans into execution, with all the power and authority of the +State. As this power is attached to certain situations, it is their duty +to contend for these situations. Without a proscription of others, they +are bound to give to their own party the preference in all things, and by +no means, for private considerations, to accept any offers of power in +which the whole body is not included, nor to suffer themselves to be led, +or to be controlled, or to be over-balanced, in office or in council, by +those who contradict, the very fundamental principles on which their +party is formed, and even those upon which every fair connection must +stand. Such a generous contention for power, on such manly and +honourable maxims, will easily be distinguished from the mean and +interested struggle for place and emolument. The very style of such +persons will serve to discriminate them from those numberless impostors +who have deluded the ignorant with professions incompatible with human +practice, and have afterwards incensed them by practices below the level +of vulgar rectitude. + +It is an advantage to all narrow wisdom and narrow morals that their +maxims have a plausible air, and, on a cursory view, appear equal to +first principles. They are light and portable. They are as current as +copper coin, and about as valuable. They serve equally the first +capacities and the lowest, and they are, at least, as useful to the worst +men as the best. Of this stamp is the cant of _Not men_, _but measures_; +a sort of charm, by which many people got loose from every honourable +engagement. When I see a man acting this desultory and disconnected +part, with as much detriment to his own fortune as prejudice to the cause +of any party, I am not persuaded that he is right, but I am ready to +believe he is in earnest. I respect virtue in all its situations, even +when it is found in the unsuitable company of weakness. I lament to see +qualities, rare and valuable, squandered away without any public utility. +But when a gentleman with great visible emoluments abandons the party in +which he has long acted, and tells you it is because he proceeds upon his +own judgment that he acts on the merits of the several measures as they +arise, and that he is obliged to follow his own conscience, and not that +of others, he gives reasons which it is impossible to controvert, and +discovers a character which it is impossible to mistake. What shall we +think of him who never differed from a certain set of men until the +moment they lost their power, and who never agreed with them in a single +instance afterwards? Would not such a coincidence of interest and +opinion be rather fortunate? Would it not be an extraordinary cast upon +the dice that a man's connections should degenerate into faction, +precisely at the critical moment when they lose their power or he accepts +a place? When people desert their connections, the desertion is a +manifest fact, upon which a direct simple issue lies, triable by plain +men. Whether a _measure_ of Government be right or wrong is _no matter +of fact_, but a mere affair of opinion, on which men may, as they do, +dispute and wrangle without end. But whether the individual thinks the +measure right or wrong is a point at still a greater distance from the +reach of all human decision. It is therefore very convenient to +politicians not to put the judgment of their conduct on overt acts, +cognisable in any ordinary court, but upon such a matter as can be +triable only in that secret tribunal, where they are sure of being heard +with favour, or where at worst the sentence will be only private +whipping. + +I believe the reader would wish to find no substance in a doctrine which +has a tendency to destroy all test of character as deduced from conduct. +He will therefore excuse my adding something more towards the further +clearing up a point which the great convenience of obscurity to +dishonesty has been able to cover with some degree of darkness and doubt. + +In order to throw an odium on political connection, these politicians +suppose it a necessary incident to it that you are blindly to follow the +opinions of your party when in direct opposition to your own clear ideas, +a degree of servitude that no worthy man could bear the thought of +submitting to, and such as, I believe, no connections (except some Court +factions) ever could be so senselessly tyrannical as to impose. Men +thinking freely will, in particular instances, think differently. But +still, as the greater Part of the measures which arise in the course of +public business are related to, or dependent on, some great leading +general principles in Government, a man must be peculiarly unfortunate in +the choice of his political company if he does not agree with them at +least nine times in ten. If he does not concur in these general +principles upon which the party is founded, and which necessarily draw on +a concurrence in their application, he ought from the beginning to have +chosen some other, more conformable to his opinions. When the question +is in its nature doubtful, or not very material, the modesty which +becomes an individual, and (in spite of our Court moralists) that +partiality which becomes a well-chosen friendship, will frequently bring +on an acquiescence in the general sentiment. Thus the disagreement will +naturally be rare; it will be only enough to indulge freedom, without +violating concord or disturbing arrangement. And this is all that ever +was required for a character of the greatest uniformity and steadiness in +connection. How men can proceed without any connection at all is to me +utterly incomprehensible. Of what sort of materials must that man be +made, how must he be tempered and put together, who can sit whole years +in Parliament, with five hundred and fifty of his fellow-citizens, amidst +the storm of such tempestuous passions, in the sharp conflict of so many +wits, and tempers, and characters, in the agitation of such mighty +questions, in the discussion of such vast and ponderous interests, +without seeing any one sort of men, whose character, conduct, or +disposition would lead him to associate himself with them, to aid and be +aided, in any one system of public utility? + +I remember an old scholastic aphorism, which says that "the man who lives +wholly detached from others must be either an angel or a devil." When I +see in any of these detached gentlemen of our times the angelic purity, +power, and beneficence, I shall admit them to be angels. In the +meantime, we are born only to be men. We shall do enough if we form +ourselves to be good ones. It is therefore our business carefully to +cultivate in our minds, to rear to the most perfect vigour and maturity, +every sort of generous and honest feeling that belongs to our nature. To +bring the, dispositions that are lovely in private life into the service +and conduct of the commonwealth; so to be patriots, as not to forget we +are gentlemen. To cultivate friendships, and to incur enmities. To have +both strong, but both selected: in the one, to be placable; in the other, +immovable. To model our principles to our duties and our situation. To +be fully persuaded that all virtue which is impracticable is spurious, +and rather to run the risk of falling into faults in a course which leads +us to act with effect and energy than to loiter out our days without +blame and without use. Public life is a situation of power and energy; +he trespasses against his duty who sleeps upon his watch, as well as he +that goes over to the enemy. + +There is, however, a time for all things. It is not every conjuncture +which calls with equal force upon the activity of honest men; but +critical exigences now and then arise, and I am mistaken if this be not +one of them. Men will see the necessity of honest combination, but they +may see it when it is too late. They may embody when it will be ruinous +to themselves, and of no advantage to the country; when, for want of such +a timely union as may enable them to oppose in favour of the laws, with +the laws on their side, they may at length find themselves under the +necessity of conspiring, instead of consulting. The law, for which they +stand, may become a weapon in the hands of its bitterest enemies; and +they will be cast, at length, into that miserable alternative, between +slavery and civil confusion, which no good man can look upon without +horror, an alternative in which it is impossible he should take either +part with a conscience perfectly at repose. To keep that situation of +guilt and remorse at the utmost distance is, therefore, our first +obligation. Early activity may prevent late and fruitless violence. As +yet we work in the light. The scheme of the enemies of public +tranquillity has disarranged, it has not destroyed us. + +If the reader believes that there really exists such a Faction as I have +described, a Faction ruling by the private inclinations of a Court, +against the general sense of the people; and that this Faction, whilst it +pursues a scheme for undermining all the foundations of our freedom, +weakens (for the present at least) all the powers of executory +Government, rendering us abroad contemptible, and at home distracted; he +will believe, also, that nothing but a firm combination of public men +against this body, and that, too, supported by the hearty concurrence of +the people at large, can possibly get the better of it. The people will +see the necessity of restoring public men to an attention to the public +opinion, and of restoring the Constitution to its original principles. +Above all, they will endeavour to keep the House of Commons from assuming +a character which does not belong to it. They will endeavour to keep +that House, for its existence for its powers, and its privileges, as +independent of every other, and as dependent upon themselves, as +possible. This servitude is to a House of Commons (like obedience to the +Divine law), "perfect freedom." For if they once quit this natural, +rational, and liberal obedience, having deserted the only proper +foundation of their power, they must seek a support in an abject and +unnatural dependence somewhere else. When, through the medium of this +just connection with their constituents, the genuine dignity of the House +of Commons is restored, it will begin to think of casting from it, with +scorn, as badges of servility, all the false ornaments of illegal power, +with which it has been, for some time, disgraced. It will begin to think +of its old office of CONTROL. It will not suffer that last of evils to +predominate in the country; men without popular confidence, public +opinion, natural connection, or natural trust, invested with all the +powers of Government. + +When they have learned this lesson themselves, they will be willing and +able to teach the Court, that it is the true interest of the Prince to +have but one Administration; and that one composed of those who recommend +themselves to their Sovereign through the opinion of their country, and +not by their obsequiousness to a favourite. Such men will serve their +Sovereign with affection and fidelity; because his choice of them, upon +such principles, is a compliment to their virtue. They will be able to +serve him effectually; because they will add the weight of the country to +the force of the executory power. They will be able to serve their King +with dignity; because they will never abuse his name to the gratification +of their private spleen or avarice. This, with allowances for human +frailty, may probably be the general character of a Ministry, which +thinks itself accountable to the House of Commons, when the House of +Commons thinks itself accountable to its constituents. If other ideas +should prevail, things must remain in their present confusion, until they +are hurried into all the rage of civil violence; or until they sink into +the dead repose of despotism. + + + + +SPEECH ON THE MIDDLESEX ELECTION +FEBRUARY, 1771 + + +Mr. Speaker,--In every complicated Constitution (and every free +Constitution is complicated) cases will arise, when the several orders of +the State will clash with one another, and disputes will arise about the +limits of their several rights and privileges. It may be almost +impossible to reconcile them. + +Carry the principle on by which you expelled Mr. Wilkes, there is not a +man in the House, hardly a man in the nation, who may not be +disqualified. That this House should have no power of expulsion is a +hard saying. That this House should have a general discretionary power +of disqualification is a dangerous saying. That the people should not +choose their own representative, is a saying that shakes the +Constitution. That this House should name the representative, is a +saying which, followed by practice, subverts the constitution. They have +the right of electing, you have a right of expelling; they of choosing, +you of judging, and only of judging, of the choice. What bounds shall be +set to the freedom of that choice? Their right is prior to ours, we all +originate there. They are the mortal enemies of the House of Commons, +who would persuade them to think or to act as if they were a +self-originated magistracy, independent of the people and unconnected +with their opinions and feelings. Under a pretence of exalting the +dignity, they undermine the very foundations of this House. When the +question is asked here, what disturbs the people, whence all this +clamour, we apply to the treasury-bench, and they tell us it is from the +efforts of libellers and the wickedness of the people, a worn-out +ministerial pretence. If abroad the people are deceived by popular, +within we are deluded by ministerial, cant. The question amounts to +this, whether you mean to be a legal tribunal, or an arbitrary and +despotic assembly. I see and I feel the delicacy and difficulty of the +ground upon which we stand in this question. I could wish, indeed, that +they who advised the Crown had not left Parliament in this very +ungraceful distress, in which they can neither retract with dignity nor +persist with justice. Another parliament might have satisfied the people +without lowering themselves. But our situation is not in our own choice: +our conduct in that situation is all that is in our own option. The +substance of the question is, to put bounds to your own power by the +rules and principles of law. This is, I am sensible, a difficult thing +to the corrupt, grasping, and ambitious part of human nature. But the +very difficulty argues and enforces the necessity of it. First, because +the greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse. Since the +Revolution, at least, the power of the nation has all flowed with a full +tide into the House of Commons. Secondly, because the House of Commons, +as it is the most powerful, is the most corruptible part of the whole +Constitution. Our public wounds cannot be concealed; to be cured, they +must be laid open. The public does think we are a corrupt body. In our +legislative capacity we are, in most instances, esteemed a very wise +body. In our judicial, we have no credit, no character at, all. Our +judgments stink in the nostrils of the people. They think us to be not +only without virtue, but without shame. Therefore, the greatness of our +power, and the great and just opinion of our corruptibility and our +corruption, render it necessary to fix some bound, to plant some +landmark, which we are never to exceed. That is what the bill proposes. +First, on this head, I lay it down as a fundamental rule in the law and +constitution of this country, that this House has not by itself alone a +legislative authority in any case whatsoever. I know that the contrary +was the doctrine of the usurping House of Commons which threw down the +fences and bulwarks of law, which annihilated first the lords, then the +Crown, then its constituents. But the first thing that was done on the +restoration of the Constitution was to settle this point. Secondly, I +lay it down as a rule, that the power of occasional incapacitation, on +discretionary grounds, is a legislative power. In order to establish +this principle, if it should not be sufficiently proved by being stated, +tell me what are the criteria, the characteristics, by which you +distinguish between a legislative and a juridical act. It will be +necessary to state, shortly, the difference between a legislative and a +juridical act. A legislative act has no reference to any rule but these +two: original justice, and discretionary application. Therefore, it can +give rights; rights where no rights existed before; and it can take away +rights where they were before established. For the law, which binds all +others, does not and cannot bind the law-maker; he, and he alone, is +above the law. But a judge, a person exercising a judicial capacity, is +neither to apply to original justice, nor to a discretionary application +of it. He goes to justice and discretion only at second hand, and +through the medium of some superiors. He is to work neither upon his +opinion of the one nor of the other; but upon a fixed rule, of which he +has not the making, but singly and solely the application to the case. + +The power assumed by the House neither is, nor can be, judicial power +exercised according to known law. The properties of law are, first, that +it should be known; secondly, that it should be fixed and not occasional. +First, this power cannot be according to the first property of law; +because no man does or can know it, nor do you yourselves know upon what +grounds you will vote the incapacity of any man. No man in Westminster +Hall, or in any court upon earth, will say that is law, upon which, if a +man going to his counsel should say to him, "What is my tenure in law of +this estate?" he would answer, "Truly, sir, I know not; the court has no +rule but its own discretion: they will determine." It is not a, fixed +law, because you profess you vary it according to the occasion, exercise +it according to your discretion; no man can call for it as a right. It +is argued that the incapacity is not originally voted, but a consequence +of a power of expulsion: but if you expel, not upon legal, but upon +arbitrary, that is, upon discretionary grounds, and the incapacity is _ex +vi termini_ and inclusively comprehended in the expulsion, is not the +incapacity voted in the expulsion? Are they not convertible terms? and, +if incapacity is voted to be inherent in expulsion, if expulsion be +arbitrary, incapacity is arbitrary also. I have, therefore, shown that +the power of incapacitation is a legislative power; I have shown that +legislative power does not belong to the House of Commons; and, +therefore, it follows that the House of Commons has not a power of +incapacitation. + +I know not the origin of the House of Commons, but am very sure that it +did not create itself; the electors wore prior to the elected; whose +rights originated either from the people at large, or from some other +form of legislature, which never could intend for the chosen a power of +superseding the choosers. + +If you have not a power of declaring an incapacity simply by the mere act +of declaring it, it is evident to the most ordinary reason you cannot +have a right of expulsion, inferring, or rather, including, an +incapacity, For as the law, when it gives any direct right, gives also as +necessary incidents all the means of acquiring the possession of that +right, so where it does not give a right directly, it refuses all the +means by which such a right may by any mediums be exercised, or in effect +be indirectly acquired. Else it is very obvious that the intention of +the law in refusing that right might be entirely frustrated, and the +whole power of the legislature baffled. If there be no certain +invariable rule of eligibility, it were better to get simplicity, if +certainty is not to be had; and to resolve all the franchises of the +subject into this one short proposition--the will and pleasure of the +House of Commons. + +The argument, drawn from the courts of law, applying the principles of +law to new cases as they emerge, is altogether frivolous, inapplicable, +and arises from a total ignorance of the bounds between civil and +criminal jurisdiction, and of the separate maxims that govern these two +provinces of law, that are eternally separate. Undoubtedly the courts of +law, where a new case comes before them, as they do every hour, then, +that there may be no defect in justice, call in similar principles, and +the example of the nearest determination, and do everything to draw the +law to as near a conformity to general equity and right reason as they +can bring it with its being a fixed principle. _Boni judicis est +ampliare justitiam_--that is, to make open and liberal justice. But in +criminal matters this parity of reason, and these analogies, ever have +been, and ever ought to be, shunned. + +Whatever is incident to a court of judicature, is necessary to the House +of Commons, as judging in elections. But a power of making incapacities +is not necessary to a court of judicature; therefore a power of making +incapacities is not necessary to the House of Commons. + +Incapacity, declared by whatever authority, stands upon two principles: +first, an incapacity arising from the supposed incongruity of two duties +in the commonwealth; secondly, an incapacity arising from unfitness by +infirmity of nature, or the criminality of conduct. As to the first +class of incapacities, they have no hardship annexed to them. The +persons so incapacitated are paid by one dignity for what they abandon in +another, and, for the most part, the situation arises from their own +choice. But as to the second, arising from an unfitness not fixed by +nature, but superinduced by some positive acts, or arising from +honourable motives, such as an occasional personal disability, of all +things it ought to be defined by the fixed rule of law--what Lord Coke +calls the Golden Metwand of the Law, and not by the crooked cord of +discretion. Whatever is general is better born. We take our common lot +with men of the same description. But to be selected and marked out by a +particular brand of unworthiness among our fellow-citizens, is a lot of +all others the hardest to be borne: and consequently is of all others +that act which ought only to be trusted to the legislature, as not only +legislative in its nature, but of all parts of legislature the most +odious. The question is over, if this is shown not to be a legislative +act. But what is very usual and natural, is to corrupt judicature into +legislature. On this point it is proper to inquire whether a court of +judicature, which decides without appeal, has it as a necessary incident +of such judicature, that whatever it decides _de jure_ is law. Nobody +will, I hope, assert this, because the direct consequence would be the +entire extinction of the difference between true and false judgments. +For, if the judgment makes the law, and not the law directs the judgment, +it is impossible there could be such a thing as an illegal judgment +given. + +But, instead of standing upon this ground, they introduce another +question, wholly foreign to it, whether it ought not to be submitted to +as if it were law. And then the question is, By the Constitution of this +country, what degree of submission is due to the authoritative acts of a +limited power? This question of submission, determine it how you please, +has nothing to do in this discussion and in this House. Here it is not +how long the people are bound to tolerate the illegality of our +judgments, but whether we have a right to substitute our occasional +opinion in the place of law, so as to deprive the citizen of his +franchise. + + + + +SPEECH ON THE POWERS OF JURIES IN PROSECUTIONS FOR LIBELS +MARCH, 1771 + + +I have always understood that a superintendence over the doctrines, as +well as the proceedings, of the courts of justice, was a principal object +of the constitution of this House; that you were to watch at once over +the lawyer and the law; that there should he an orthodox faith as well as +proper works: and I have always looked with a degree of reverence and +admiration on this mode of superintendence. For being totally disengaged +from the detail of juridical practice, we come to something, perhaps, the +better qualified, and certainly much the better disposed to assert the +genuine principle of the laws; in which we can, as a body, have no other +than an enlarged and a public interest. We have no common cause of a +professional attachment, or professional emulations, to bias our minds; +we have no foregone opinions, which, from obstinacy and false point of +honour, we think ourselves at all events obliged to support. So that +with our own minds perfectly disengaged from the exercise, we may +superintend the execution of the national justice; which from this +circumstance is better secured to the people than in any other country +under heaven it can be. As our situation puts us in a proper condition, +our power enables us to execute this trust. We may, when we see cause of +complaint, administer a remedy; it is in our choice by an address to +remove an improper judge, by impeachment before the peers to pursue to +destruction a corrupt judge, or by bill to assert, to explain, to +enforce, or to reform the law, just as the occasion and necessity of the +case shall guide us. We stand in a situation very honourable to +ourselves, and very useful to our country, if we do not abuse or abandon +the trust that is placed in us. + +The question now before you is upon the power of juries in prosecuting +for libels. There are four opinions. 1. That the doctrine as held by +the courts is proper and constitutional, and therefore should not be +altered. 2. That it is neither proper nor constitutional, but that it +will be rendered worse by your interference. 3. That it is wrong, but +that the only remedy is a bill of retrospect. 4. The opinion of those +who bring in the bill; that the thing is wrong, but that it is enough to +direct the judgment of the court in future. + +The bill brought in is for the purpose of asserting and securing a great +object in the juridical constitution of this kingdom; which, from a long +series of practices and opinions in our judges, has, in one point, and in +one very essential point, deviated from the true principle. + +It is the very ancient privilege of the people of England that they shall +be tried, except in the known exceptions, not by judges appointed by the +Crown, but by their own fellow-subjects, the peers of that county court +at which they owe their suit and service; out of this principle trial by +juries has grown. This principle has not, that I can find, been +contested in any case, by any authority whatsoever; but there is one +case, in which, without directly contesting the principle, the whole +substance, energy, acid virtue of the privilege, is taken out of it; that +is, in the case of a trial by indictment or information for libel. The +doctrine in that case laid down by several judges amounts to this, that +the jury have no competence where a libel is alleged, except to find the +gross corporeal facts of the writing and the publication, together with +the identity of the things and persons to which it refers; but that the +intent and the tendency of the work, in which intent and tendency the +whole criminality consists, is the sole and exclusive province of the +judge. Thus having reduced the jury to the cognisance of facts, not in +themselves presumptively criminal, but actions neutral and indifferent +the whole matter, in which the subject has any concern or interest, is +taken out of the hands of the jury: and if the jury take more upon +themselves, what they so take is contrary to their duty; it is no moral, +but a merely natural power; the same, by which they may do any other +improper act, the same, by which they may even prejudice themselves with +regard to any other part of the issue before them. Such is the matter as +it now stands, in possession of your highest criminal courts, handed down +to them from very respectable legal ancestors. If this can once be +established in this case, the application in principle to other cases +will be easy; and the practice will run upon a descent, until the +progress of an encroaching jurisdiction (for it is in its nature to +encroach, when once it has passed its limits) coming to confine the +juries, case after case, to the corporeal fact, and to that alone, and +excluding the intention of mind, the only source of merit and demerit, of +reward or punishment, juries become a dead letter in the constitution. + +For which reason it is high time to take this matter into the +consideration of Parliament, and for that purpose it will be necessary to +examine, first, whether there is anything in the peculiar nature of this +crime that makes it necessary to exclude the jury from considering the +intention in it, more than in others. So far from it, that I take it to +be much less so from the analogy of other criminal cases, where no such +restraint is ordinarily put upon them. The act of homicide is _prima +facie_ criminal. The intention is afterwards to appear, for the jury to +acquit or condemn. In burglary do they insist that the jury have nothing +to do but to find the taking of goods, and that, if they do, they must +necessarily find the party guilty, and leave the rest to the judge; and +that they have nothing to do with the word _felonice_ in the indictment? + +The next point is to consider it as a question of constitutional policy, +that is, whether the decision of the question of libel ought to be left +to the judges as a presumption of law, rather than to the jury as matter +of popular judgment, as the malice in the case of murder, the felony in +the case of stealing. If the intent and tendency are not matters within +the province of popular judgment, but legal and technical conclusions, +formed upon general principles of law, let us see what they are. +Certainly they are most unfavourable, indeed, totally adverse, to the +Constitution of this country. + +Here we must have recourse to analogies, for we cannot argue on ruled +cases one way or the other. See the history. The old books, deficient +in general in Crown cases furnish us with little on this head. As to the +crime, in the very early Saxon Law, I see an offence of this species, +called Folk-leasing, made a capital offence, but no very precise +definition of the crime, and no trial at all: see the statute of 3rd +Edward I. cap. 34. The law of libels could not have arrived at a very +early period in this country. It is no wonder that we find no vestige of +any constitution from authority, or of any deductions from legal science +in our old books and records upon that subject. The statute of +_scandalum magnatum_ is the oldest that I know, and this goes but a +little way in this sort of learning. Libelling is not the crime of an +illiterate people. When they were thought no mean clerks who could read +and write, when he who could read and write was presumptively a person in +holy orders, libels could not be general or dangerous; and scandals +merely oral could spread little, and must perish soon. It is writing, it +is printing more emphatically, that imps calumny with those eagle wings, +on which, as the poet says, "immortal slanders fly." By the press they +spread, they last, they leave the sting in the wound. Printing was not +known in England much earlier than the reign of Henry VII., and in the +third year of that reign the Court of Star Chamber was established. The +press and its enemy are nearly coeval. As no positive law against libels +existed, they fell under the indefinite class of misdemeanours. For the +trial of misdemeanours that court was instituted, their tendency to +produce riots and disorders was a main part of the charge, and was laid, +in order to give the court jurisdiction chiefly against libels. The +offence was new. Learning of their own upon the subject they had none, +and they were obliged to resort to the only emporium where it was to be +had, the Roman Law. After the Star Chamber was abolished in the 10th of +Charles I. its authority indeed ceased, but its maxims subsisted and +survived it. The spirit of the Star Chamber has transmigrated and lived +again, and Westminster Hall was obliged to borrow from the Star Chamber, +for the same reasons as the Star Chamber had borrowed from the Roman +Forum, because they had no law, statute, or tradition of their own. Thus +the Roman Law took possession of our courts, I mean its doctrine, not its +sanctions; the severity of capital punishment was omitted, all the rest +remained. The grounds of these laws are just and equitable. Undoubtedly +the good fame of every man ought to be under the protection of the laws +as well as his life, and liberty, and property. Good fame is an outwork, +that defends them all, and renders them all valuable. The law forbids +you to revenge; when it ties up the hands of some, it ought to restrain +the tongues of others. The good fame of government is the same, it ought +not to be traduced. This is necessary in all government, and if opinion +be support, what takes away this destroys that support; but the liberty +of the press is necessary to this government. + +The wisdom, however, of government is of more importance than the laws. I +should study the temper of the people before I ventured on actions of +this kind. I would consider the whole of the prosecution of a libel of +such importance as Junius, as one piece, as one consistent plan of +operations; and I would contrive it so that, if I were defeated, I should +not be disgraced; that even my victory should not be more ignominious +than my defeat; I would so manage, that the lowest in the predicament of +guilt should not be the only one in punishment. I would not inform +against the mere vender of a collection of pamphlets. I would not put +him to trial first, if I could possibly avoid it. I would rather stand +the consequences of my first error, than carry it to a judgment that must +disgrace my prosecution, or the court. We ought to examine these things +in a manner which becomes ourselves, and becomes the object of the +inquiry; not to examine into the most important consideration which can +come before us, with minds heated with prejudice and filled with +passions, with vain popular opinions and humours, and when we propose to +examine into the justice of others, to be unjust ourselves. + +An inquiry is wished, as the most effectual way of putting an end to the +clamours and libels, which are the disorder and disgrace of the times. +For people remain quiet, they sleep secure, when they imagine that the +vigilant eye of a censorial magistrate watches over all the proceedings +of judicature, and that the sacred fire of an eternal constitutional +jealousy, which is the guardian of liberty, law, and justice, is alive +night and day, and burning in this house. But when the magistrate gives +up his office and his duty, the people assume it, and they inquire too +much, and too irreverently, because they think their representatives do +not inquire at all. + +We have in a libel, 1st. The writing. 2nd. The communication, called +by the lawyers the publication. 3rd. The application to persons and +facts. 4th. The intent and tendency. 5th. The matter--diminution of +fame. The law presumptions on all these are in the communication. No +intent can, make a defamatory publication good, nothing can make it have +a good tendency; truth is not pleadable. Taken juridically, the +foundation of these law presumptions is not unjust; taken +constitutionally, they are ruinous, and tend to the total suppression of +all publication. If juries are confined to the fact, no writing which +censures, however justly, or however temperately, the conduct of +administration, can be unpunished. Therefore, if the intent and tendency +be left to the judge, as legal conclusions growing from the fact, you may +depend upon it you can have no public discussion of a public measure, +which is a point which even those who are most offended with the +licentiousness of the press (and it is very exorbitant, very provoking) +will hardly contend for. + +So far as to the first opinion, that the doctrine is right and needs no +alteration. 2nd. The next is, that it is wrong, but that we are not in a +condition to help it. I admit, it is true, that there are cases of a +nature so delicate and complicated, that an Act of Parliament on the +subject may become a matter of great difficulty. It sometimes cannot +define with exactness, because the subject-matter will not bear an exact +definition. It may seem to take away everything which it does not +positively establish, and this might be inconvenient; or it may seem +_vice versa_ to establish everything which it does not expressly take +away. It may be more advisable to leave such matters to the enlightened +discretion of a judge, awed by a censorial House of Commons. But then it +rests upon those who object to a legislative interposition to prove these +inconveniences in the particular case before them. For it would be a +most dangerous, as it is a most idle and most groundless, conceit to +assume as a general principle, that the rights and liberties of the +subject are impaired by the care and attention of the legislature to +secure them. If so, very ill would the purchase of Magna Charta have +merited the deluge of blood, which was shed in order to have the body of +English privileges defined by a positive written law. This charter, the +inestimable monument of English freedom, so long the boast and glory of +this nation, would have been at once an instrument of our servitude, and +a monument of our folly, if this principle were true. The thirty four +confirmations would have been only so many repetitions of their +absurdity, so many new links in the chain, and so many invalidations of +their right. + +You cannot open your statute book without seeing positive provisions +relative to every right of the subject. This business of juries is the +subject of not fewer than a dozen. To suppose that juries are something +innate in the Constitution of Great Britain, that they have jumped, like +Minerva, out of the head of Jove in complete armour, is a weak fancy, +supported neither by precedent nor by reason. Whatever is most ancient +and venerable in our Constitution, royal prerogative, privileges of +parliament, rights of elections, authority of courts, juries, must have +been modelled according to the occasion. I spare your patience, and I +pay a compliment to your understanding, in not attempting to prove that +anything so elaborate and artificial as a jury was not the work of +chance, but a matter of institution, brought to its present state by the +joint efforts of legislative authority and juridical prudence. It need +not be ashamed of being (what in many parts of it at least it is) the +offspring of an Act of Parliament, unless it is a shame for our laws to +be the results of our legislature. Juries, which sensitively shrank from +the rude touch of parliamentary remedy, have been the subject of not +fewer than, I think, forty-three Acts of Parliament, in which they have +been changed with all the authority of a creator over its creature, from +Magna Charta to the great alterations which were made in the 29th of +George II. + +To talk of this matter in any other way is to turn a rational principle +into an idle and vulgar superstition, like the antiquary, Dr. Woodward, +who trembled to have his shield scoured, for fear it should be discovered +to be no better than an old pot-lid. This species of tenderness to a +jury puts me in mind of a gentleman of good condition, who had been +reduced to great poverty and distress; application was made to some rich +fellows in his neighbourhood to give him some assistance; but they begged +to be excused for fear of affronting a person of his high birth; and so +the poor gentleman was left to starve out of pure respect to the +antiquity of his family. From this principle has risen an opinion that I +find current amongst gentlemen, that this distemper ought to be left to +cure itself; that the judges having been well exposed, and something +terrified on account of these clamours, will entirely change, if not very +much relax from their rigour; if the present race should not change, that +the chances of succession may put other more constitutional judges in +their place; lastly, if neither should happen, yet that the spirit of an +English jury will always be sufficient for the vindication of its own +rights, and will not suffer itself to be overborne by the bench. I +confess that I totally dissent from all these opinions. These +suppositions become the strongest reasons with me to evince the necessity +of some clear and positive settlement of this question of contested +jurisdiction. If judges are so full of levity, so full of timidity, if +they are influenced by such mean and unworthy passions, that a popular +clamour is sufficient to shake the resolution they build upon the solid +basis of a legal principle, I would endeavour to fix that mercury by a +positive law. If to please an administration the judges can go one way +to-day, and to please the crowd they can go another to-morrow; if they +will oscillate backward and forward between power and popularity, it is +high time to fix the law in such a manner as to resemble, as it ought, +the great Author of all law, in "whom there is no variableness nor shadow +of turning." + +As to their succession, I have just the same opinion. I would not leave +it to the chances of promotion, or to the characters of lawyers, what the +law of the land, what the rights of juries, or what the liberty of the +press should be. My law should not depend upon the fluctuation of the +closet, or the complexion of men. Whether a black-haired man or a fair- +haired man presided in the Court of King's Bench, I would have the law +the same: the same whether he was born in _domo regnatrice_, and sucked +from his infancy the milk of courts, or was nurtured in the rugged +discipline of a popular opposition. This law of court cabal and of +party, this _mens quaedam nullo perturbata affectu_, this law of +complexion, ought not to be endured for a moment in a country whose being +depends upon the certainty, clearness, and stability of institutions. + +Now I come to the last substitute for the proposed bill, the spirit of +juries operating their own jurisdiction. This, I confess, I think the +worst of all, for the same reasons on which I objected to the others, and +for other weighty reasons besides which are separate and distinct. First, +because juries, being taken at random out of a mass of men infinitely +large, must be of characters as various as the body they arise from is +large in its extent. If the judges differ in their complexions, much +more will a jury. A timid jury will give way to an awful judge +delivering oracularly the law, and charging them on their oaths, and +putting it home to their consciences, to beware of judging where the law +had given them no competence. We know that they will do so, they have +done so in a hundred instances; a respectable member of your own house, +no vulgar man, tells you that on the authority of a judge he found a man +guilty, in whom, at the same time, he could find no guilt. But supposing +them full of knowledge and full of manly confidence in themselves, how +will their knowledge, or their confidence, inform or inspirit others? +They give no reason for their verdict, they can but condemn or acquit; +and no man can tell the motives on which they have acquitted or +condemned. So that this hope of the power of juries to assert their own +jurisdiction must be a principle blind, as being without reason, and as +changeable as the complexion of men and the temper of the times. + +But, after all, is it fit that this dishonourable contention between the +court and juries should subsist any longer? On what principle is it that +a jury refuses to be directed by the court as to his competence? Whether +a libel or no libel be a question of law or of fact may be doubted, but a +question of jurisdiction and competence is certainly a question of law; +on this the court ought undoubtedly to judge, and to judge solely and +exclusively. If they judge wrong from excusable error, you ought to +correct it, as to-day it is proposed, by an explanatory bill; or if by +corruption, by bill of penalties declaratory, and by punishment. What +does a juror say to a judge when he refuses his opinion upon a question +of judicature? You are so corrupt, that I should consider myself a +partaker of your crime, were I to be guided by your opinion; or you are +so grossly ignorant, that I, fresh from my bounds, from my plough, my +counter, or my loom, am fit to direct you in your profession. This is an +unfitting, it is a dangerous, state of things. The spirit of any sort of +men is not a fit rule for deciding on the bounds of their jurisdiction. +First, because it is different in different men, and even different in +the same at different times; and can never become the proper directing +line of law; next, because it is not reason, but feeling; and when once +it is irritated, it is not apt to confine itself within its proper +limits. If it becomes, not difference in opinion upon law, but a trial +of spirit between parties, our courts of law are no longer the temple of +justice, but the amphitheatre for gladiators. No--God forbid! Juries +ought to take their law from the bench only; but it is our business that +they should hear nothing from the bench but what is agreeable to the +principles of the Constitution. The jury are to hear the judge, the +judge is to hear the law where it speaks plain; where it does not, he is +to hear the legislature. As I do not think these opinions of the judges +to be agreeable to those principles, I wish to take the only method in +which they can or ought to be corrected, by bill. + +Next, my opinion is, that it ought to be rather by a bill for removing +controversies than by a bill in the state of manifest and express +declaration, and in words _de praeterito_. I do this upon reasons of +equity and constitutional policy. I do not want to censure the present +judges. I think them to be excused for their error. Ignorance is no +excuse for a judge: it is changing the nature of his crime--it is not +absolving. It must be such error as a wise and conscientious judge may +possibly fall into, and must arise from one or both these causes: first, +a plausible principle of law; secondly, the precedents of respectable +authorities, and in good times. In the first, the principle of law, that +the judge is to decide on law, the jury to decide on fact, is an ancient +and venerable principle and maxim of the law, and if supported in this +application by precedents of good times and of good men, the judge, if +wrong, ought to be corrected; he ought not to be reproved, or to be +disgraced, or the authority or respect to your tribunals to be impaired. +In cases in which declaratory bills have been made, where by violence and +corruption some fundamental part of the Constitution has been struck at; +where they would damn the principle, censure the persons, and annul the +acts; but where the law having been, by the accident of human frailty, +depraved, or in a particular instance misunderstood, where you neither +mean to rescind the acts, nor to censure the persons, in such cases you +have taken the explanatory mode, and, without condemning what is done, +you direct the future judgment of the court. + +All bills for the reformation of the law must be according to the subject- +matter, the circumstances, and the occasion, and are of four kinds:--1. +Either the law is totally wanting, and then a new enacting statute must +be made to supply that want; or, 2. It is defective, then a new law must +be made to enforce it. 3. Or it is opposed by power or fraud, and then +an act must be made to declare it. 4 Or it is rendered doubtful and +controverted, and then a law must be made to explain it. These must be +applied according to the exigence of the case; one is just as good as +another of them. Miserable, indeed, would be the resources, poor and +unfurnished the stores and magazines of legislation, if we were bound up +to a little narrow form, and not able to frame our acts of parliament +according to every disposition of our own minds, and to every possible +emergency of the commonwealth; to make them declaratory, enforcing, +explanatory, repealing, just in what mode, or in what degree we please. + +Those who think that the judges, living and dead, are to be condemned, +that your tribunals of justice are to be dishonoured, that their acts and +judgments on this business are to be rescinded, they will undoubtedly +vote against this bill, and for another sort. + +I am not of the opinion of those gentlemen who are against disturbing the +public repose; I like a clamour whenever there is an abuse. The fire- +bell at midnight disturbs your sleep, but it keeps you from being burned +in your bed. The hue and cry alarms the county, but it preserves all the +property of the province. All these clamours aim at redress. But a +clamour made merely for the purpose of rendering the people discontented +with their situation, without an endeavour to give them a practical +remedy, is indeed one of the worst acts of sedition. + +I have read and heard much upon the conduct of our courts in the business +of libels. I was extremely willing to enter into, and very free to act +as facts should turn out on that inquiry, aiming constantly at remedy as +the end of all clamour, all debate, all writing, and all inquiry; for +which reason I did embrace, and do now with joy, this method of giving +quiet to the courts, jurisdiction to juries, liberty to the press, and +satisfaction to the people. I thank my friends for what they have done; +I hope the public will one day reap the benefit of their pious and +judicious endeavours. They have now sown the seed; I hope they will live +to see the flourishing harvest. Their bill is sown in weakness; it will, +I trust, be reaped in power; and then, however, we shall have reason to +apply to them what my Lord Coke says was an aphorism continually in the +mouth of a great sage of the law, "Blessed be not the complaining tongue, +but blessed be the amending hand." + + + + +SPEECH ON A BILL FOR SHORTENING THE DURATION OF PARLIAMENTS + + +It is always to be lamented when men are driven to search into the +foundations of the commonwealth. It is certainly necessary to resort to +the theory of your government whenever you propose any alteration in the +frame of it, whether that alteration means the revival of some former +antiquated and forsaken constitution of state, or the introduction of +some new improvement in the commonwealth. The object of our deliberation +is, to promote the good purposes for which elections have been +instituted, and to prevent their inconveniences. If we thought frequent +elections attended with no inconvenience, or with but a trifling +inconvenience, the strong overruling principle of the Constitution would +sweep us like a torrent towards them. But your remedy is to be suited to +your disease--your present disease, and to your whole disease. That man +thinks much too highly, and therefore he thinks weakly and delusively, of +any contrivance of human wisdom, who believes that it can make any sort +of approach to perfection. There is not, there never was, a principle of +government under heaven, that does not, in the very pursuit of the good +it proposes, naturally and inevitably lead into some inconvenience, which +makes it absolutely necessary to counterwork and weaken the application +of that first principle itself; and to abandon something of the extent of +the advantage you proposed by it, in order to prevent also the +inconveniences which have arisen from the instrument of all the good you +had in view. + +To govern according to the sense and agreeably to the interests of the +people is a great and glorious object of government. This object cannot +be obtained but through the medium of popular election, and popular +election is a mighty evil. It is such, and so great an evil, that though +there are few nations whose monarchs were not originally elective, very +few are now elected. They are the distempers of elections, that have +destroyed all free states. To cure these distempers is difficult, if not +impossible; the only thing therefore left to save the commonwealth is to +prevent their return too frequently. The objects in view are, to have +parliaments as frequent as they can be without distracting them in the +prosecution of public business; on one hand, to secure their dependence +upon the people, on the other to give them that quiet in their minds, and +that ease in their fortunes, as to enable them to perform the most +arduous and most painful duty in the world with spirit, with efficiency, +with independency, and with experience, as real public counsellors, not +as the canvassers at a perpetual election. It is wise to compass as many +good ends as possibly you can, and seeing there are inconveniences on +both sides, with benefits on both, to give up a part of the benefit to +soften the inconvenience. The perfect cure is impracticable, because the +disorder is dear to those from whom alone the cure can possibly be +derived. The utmost to be done is to palliate, to mitigate, to respite, +to put off the evil day of the Constitution to its latest possible hour, +and may it be a very late one! + +This bill, I fear, would precipitate one of two consequences, I know not +which most likely, or which most dangerous: either that the Crown by its +constant stated power, influence, and revenue, would wear out all +opposition in elections, or that a violent and furious popular spirit +would arise. I must see, to satisfy me, the remedies; I must see, from +their operation in the cure of the old evil, and in the cure of those new +evils, which are inseparable from all remedies, how they balance each +other, and what is the total result. The excellence of mathematics and +metaphysics is to have but one thing before you, but he forms the best +judgment in all moral disquisitions, who has the greatest number and +variety of considerations, in one view before him, and can take them in +with the best possible consideration of the middle results of all. + +We of the opposition, who are not friends to the bill, give this pledge +at least of our integrity and sincerity to the people, that in our +situation of systematic opposition to the present ministers, in which all +our hope of rendering it effectual depends upon popular interest and +favour, we will not flatter them by a surrender of our uninfluenced +judgment and opinion; we give a security, that if ever we should be in +another situation, no flattery to any other sort of power and influence +would induce us to act against the true interests of the people. + +All are agreed that parliaments should not be perpetual; the only +question is, what is the most convenient time for their duration? On +which there are three opinions. We are agreed, too, that the term ought +not to be chosen most likely in its operation to spread corruption, and +to augment the already overgrown influence of the crown. On these +principles I mean to debate the question. It is easy to pretend a zeal +for liberty. Those who think themselves not likely to be encumbered with +the performance of their promises, either from their known inability, or +total indifference about the performance, never fail to entertain the +most lofty ideas. They are certainly the most specious, and they cost +them neither reflection to frame, nor pains to modify, nor management to +support. The task is of another nature to those who mean to promise +nothing that it is not in their intentions, or may possibly be in their +power to perform; to those who are bound and principled no more to delude +the understandings than to violate the liberty of their fellow-subjects. +Faithful watchmen we ought to be over the rights and privileges of the +people. But our duty, if we are qualified for it as we ought, is to give +them information, and not to receive it from them; we are not to go to +school to them to learn the principles of law and government. In doing +so we should not dutifully serve, but we should basely and scandalously +betray, the people, who are not capable of this service by nature, nor in +any instance called to it by the Constitution. I reverentially look up +to the opinion of the people, and with an awe that is almost +superstitious. I should be ashamed to show my face before them, if I +changed my ground, as they cried up or cried down men, or things, or +opinions; if I wavered and shifted about with every change, and joined in +it, or opposed, as best answered any low interest or passion; if I held +them up hopes, which I knew I never intended, or promised what I well +knew I could not perform. Of all these things they are perfect sovereign +judges without appeal; but as to the detail of particular measures, or to +any general schemes of policy, they have neither enough of speculation in +the closet, nor of experience in business, to decide upon it. They can +well see whether we are tools of a court, or their honest servants. Of +that they can well judge; and I wish that they always exercised their +judgment; but of the particular merits of a measure I have other +standards. That the frequency of elections proposed by this bill has a +tendency to increase the power and consideration of the electors, not +lessen corruptibility, I do most readily allow; so far as it is +desirable, this is what it has; I will tell you now what it has not: 1st. +It has no sort of tendency to increase their integrity and public spirit, +unless an increase of power has an operation upon voters in elections, +that it has in no other situation in the world, and upon no other part of +mankind. 2nd. This bill has no tendency to limit the quantity of +influence in the Crown, to render its operation more difficult, or to +counteract that operation, which it cannot prevent, in any way +whatsoever. It has its full weight, its full range, and its uncontrolled +operation on the electors exactly as it had before. 3rd. Nor, thirdly, +does it abate the interest or inclination of Ministers to apply that +influence to the electors: on the contrary, it renders it much more +necessary to them, if they seek to have a majority in parliament, to +increase the means of that influence, and redouble their diligence, and +to sharpen dexterity in the application. The whole effect of the bill is +therefore the removing the application of some part of the influence from +the elected to the electors, and further to strengthen and extend a court +interest already great and powerful in boroughs; here to fix their +magazines and places of arms, and thus to make them the principal, not +the secondary, theatre of their manoeuvres for securing a determined +majority in parliament. + +I believe nobody will deny that the electors are corruptible. They are +men; it is saying nothing worse of them; many of them are but +ill-informed in their minds, many feeble in their circumstances, easily +over-reached, easily seduced. If they are many, the wages of corruption +are the lower; and would to God it were not rather a contemptible and +hypocritical adulation than a charitable sentiment, to say that there is +already no debauchery, no corruption, no bribery, no perjury, no blind +fury, and interested faction among the electors in many parts of this +kingdom: nor is it surprising, or at all blamable, in that class of +private men, when they see their neighbours aggrandised, and themselves +poor and virtuous, without that _eclat_ or dignity which attends men in +higher stations. + +But admit it were true that the great mass of the electors were too vast +an object for court influence to grasp, or extend to, and that in despair +they must abandon it; he must be very ignorant of the state of every +popular interest, who does not know that in all the corporations, all the +open boroughs--indeed, in every district of the kingdom--there is some +leading man, some agitator, some wealthy merchant, or considerable +manufacturer, some active attorney, some popular preacher, some money- +lender, &c., &c., who is followed by the whole flock. This is the style +of all free countries. + + --Multum in Fabia valet hic, valet ille Velina; + Cuilibet hic fasces dabit eripietque curule. + +These spirits, each of which informs and governs his own little orb, are +neither so many, nor so little powerful, nor so incorruptible, but that a +Minister may, as he does frequently, find means of gaining them, and +through them all their followers. To establish, therefore, a very +general influence among electors will no more be found an impracticable +project, than to gain an undue influence over members of parliament. +Therefore I am apprehensive that this bill, though it shifts the place of +the disorder, does by no means relieve the Constitution. I went through +almost every contested election in the beginning of this parliament, and +acted as a manager in very many of them: by which, though at a school of +pretty severe and ragged discipline, I came to have some degree of +instruction concerning the means by which parliamentary interests are in +general procured and supported. + +Theory, I know, would suppose, that every general election is to the +representative a day of judgment, in which he appears before his +constituents to account for the use of the talent with which they +entrusted him, and of the improvement he had made of it for the public +advantage. It would be so, if every corruptible representative were to +find an enlightened and incorruptible constituent. But the practice and +knowledge of the world will not suffer us to be ignorant, that the +Constitution on paper is one thing, and in fact and experience is +another. We must know that the candidate, instead of trusting at his +election to the testimony of his behaviour in parliament, must bring the +testimony of a large sum of money, the capacity of liberal expense in +entertainments, the power of serving and obliging the rulers of +corporations, of winning over the popular leaders of political clubs, +associations, and neighbourhoods. It is ten thousand times more +necessary to show himself a man of power, than a man of integrity, in +almost all the elections with which I have been acquainted. Elections, +therefore, become a matter of heavy expense; and if contests are +frequent, to many they will become a matter of an expense totally +ruinous, which no fortunes can bear; but least of all the landed +fortunes, encumbered as they often, indeed as they mostly are, with +debts, with portions, with jointures; and tied up in the hands of the +possessor by the limitations of settlement. It is a material, it is in +my opinion a lasting, consideration, in all the questions concerning +election. Let no one think the charges of election a trivial matter. + +The charge, therefore, of elections ought never to be lost sight of, in a +question concerning their frequency, because the grand object you seek is +independence. Independence of mind will ever be more or less influenced +by independence of fortune; and if, every three years, the exhausting +sluices of entertainments, drinkings, open houses, to say nothing of +bribery, are to be periodically drawn up and renewed--if government +favours, for which now, in some shape or other, the whole race of men are +candidates, are to be called for upon every occasion, I see that private +fortunes will be washed away, and every, even to the least, trace of +independence, borne down by the torrent. I do not seriously think this +Constitution, even to the wrecks of it, could survive five triennial +elections. If you are to fight the battle, you must put on the armour of +the Ministry; you must call in the public, to the aid of private, money. +The expense of the last election has been computed (and I am persuaded +that it has not been overrated) at 1,500,000 pounds; three shillings in +the pound more on the Land Tax. About the close of the last Parliament, +and the beginning of this, several agents for boroughs went about, and I +remember well that it was in every one of their mouths--"Sir, your +election will cost you three thousand pounds, if you are independent; but +if the Ministry supports you, it may be done for two, and perhaps for +less;" and, indeed, the thing spoke itself. Where a living was to be got +for one, a commission in the army for another, a post in the navy for a +third, and Custom-house offices scattered about without measure or +number, who doubts but money may be saved? The Treasury may even add +money; but, indeed, it is superfluous. A gentleman of two thousand a +year, who meets another of the same fortune, fights with equal arms; but +if to one of the candidates you add a thousand a year in places for +himself, and a power of giving away as much among others, one must, or +there is no truth in arithmetical demonstration, ruin his adversary, if +he is to meet him and to fight with him every third year. It will be +said, I do not allow for the operation of character; but I do; and I know +it will have its weight in most elections; perhaps it may be decisive in +some. But there are few in which it will prevent great expenses. + +The destruction of independent fortunes will be the consequence on the +part of the candidate. What will be the consequence of triennial +corruption, triennial drunkenness, triennial idleness, triennial +law-suits, litigations, prosecutions, triennial frenzy; of society +dissolved, industry interrupted, ruined; of those personal hatreds that +will never be suffered to soften; those animosities and feuds, which will +be rendered immortal; those quarrels, which are never to be appeased; +morals vitiated and gangrened to the vitals? I think no stable and +useful advantages were ever made by the money got at elections by the +voter, but all he gets is doubly lost to the public; it is money given to +diminish the general stock of the community, which is the industry of the +subject. I am sure that it is a good while before he or his family +settle again to their business. Their heads will never cool; the +temptations of elections will be for ever glittering before their eyes. +They will all grow politicians; every one, quitting his business, will +choose to enrich himself by his vote. They will take the gauging-rod; +new places will be made for them; they will run to the Custom-house quay, +their looms and ploughs will be deserted. + +So was Rome destroyed by the disorders of continual elections, though +those of Rome were sober disorders. They had nothing but faction, +bribery, bread, and stage plays to debauch them. We have the +inflammation of liquor superadded, a fury hotter than any of them. There +the contest was only between citizen and citizen; here you have the +contests of ambitious citizens on one side, supported by the Crown, to +oppose to the efforts (let it be so) of private and unsupported ambition +on the other. Yet Rome was destroyed by the frequency and charge of +elections, and the monstrous expense of an unremitted courtship to the +people. I think, therefore, the independent candidate and elector may +each be destroyed by it, the whole body of the community be an infinite +sufferer, and a vicious Ministry the only gainer. Gentlemen, I know, +feel the weight of this argument; they agree that this would be the +consequence of more frequent elections, if things were to continue as +they are. But they think the greatness and frequency of the evil would +itself be a remedy for it; that, sitting but for a short time, the member +would not find it worth while to make such vast expenses, while the fear +of their constituents will hold them the more effectually to their duty. + +To this I answer, that experience is full against them. This is no new +thing; we have had triennial parliaments; at no period of time were seats +more eagerly contested. The expenses of elections ran higher, taking the +state of all charges, than they do now. The expense of entertainments +was such, that an Act, equally severe and ineffectual, was made against +it; every monument of the time bears witness of the expense, and most of +the Acts against corruption in elections were then made; all the writers +talked of it and lamented it. Will any one think that a corporation will +be contented with a bowl of punch, or a piece of beef the less, because +elections are every three, instead of every seven years? Will they +change their wine for ale, because they are to get more ale three years +hence? Do not think it. Will they make fewer demands for the advantages +of patronage in favours and offices, because their member is brought more +under their power? We have not only our own historical experience in +England upon this subject, but we have the experience co-existing with us +in Ireland, where, since their Parliament has been shortened, the expense +of elections has been so far from being lowered that it has been very +near doubled. Formerly they sat for the king's life; the ordinary charge +of a seat in Parliament was then 1,500 pounds. They now sit eight years, +four sessions: it is now 2,500 pounds and upwards. The spirit of +emulation has also been extremely increased, and all who are acquainted +with the tone of that country have no doubt that the spirit is still +growing, that new candidates will take the field, that the contests will +be more violent, and the expenses of elections larger than ever. + +It never can be otherwise. A seat in this House, for good purposes, for +bad purposes, for no purpose at all (except the mere consideration +derived from being concerned in the public councils) will ever be a first- +rate object of ambition in England. Ambition is no exact calculator. +Avarice itself does not calculate strictly when it games. One thing is +certain, that in this political game the great lottery of power is that +into which men will purchase with millions of chances against them. In +Turkey, where the place, where the fortune, where the head itself, are so +insecure, that scarcely any have died in their beds for ages, so that the +bowstring is the natural death of Bashaws, yet in no country is power and +distinction (precarious enough, God knows, in all) sought for with such +boundless avidity, as if the value of place was enhanced by the danger +and insecurity of its tenure. Nothing will ever make a seat in this +House not an object of desire to numbers by any means or at any charge, +but the depriving it of all power and all dignity. This would do it. +This is the true and only nostrum for that purpose. But a House of +Commons without power and without dignity, either in itself or its +members, is no House of Commons for the purposes of this Constitution. + +But they will be afraid to act ill, if they know that the day of their +account is always near. I wish it were true, but it is not; here again +we have experience, and experience is against us. The distemper of this +age is a poverty of spirit and of genius; it is trifling, it is futile, +worse than ignorant, superficially taught, with the politics and morals +of girls at a boarding-school, rather than of men and statesmen; but it +is not yet desperately wicked, or so scandalously venal as in former +times. Did not a triennial parliament give up the national dignity, +approve the Peace of Utrecht, and almost give up everything else in +taking every step to defeat the Protestant succession? Was not the +Constitution saved by those who had no election at all to go to, the +Lords, because the Court applied to electors, and by various means +carried them from their true interests; so that the Tory Ministry had a +majority without an application to a single member? Now, as to the +conduct of the members, it was then far from pure and independent. +Bribery was infinitely more flagrant. A predecessor of yours, Mr. +Speaker, put the question of his own expulsion for bribery. Sir William +Musgrave was a wise man, a grave man, an independent man, a man of good +fortune and good family; however, he carried on while in opposition a +traffic, a shameful traffic with the Ministry. Bishop Burnet knew of +6,000 pounds which he had received at one payment. I believe the payment +of sums in hard money--plain, naked bribery--is rare amongst us. It was +then far from uncommon. + +A triennial was near ruining, a septennial parliament saved, your +Constitution; nor perhaps have you ever known a more flourishing period +for the union of national prosperity, dignity, and liberty, than the +sixty years you have passed under that Constitution of parliament. + +The shortness of time, in which they are to reap the profits of iniquity, +is far from checking the avidity of corrupt men; it renders them +infinitely more ravenous. They rush violently and precipitately on their +object, they lose all regard to decorum. The moments of profit are +precious; never are men so wicked as during a general mortality. It was +so in the great plague at Athens, every symptom of which (and this its +worst amongst the rest) is so finely related by a great historian of +antiquity. It was so in the plague of London in 1665. It appears in +soldiers, sailors, &c. Whoever would contrive to render the life of man +much shorter than it is, would, I am satisfied, find the surest recipe +for increasing the wickedness of our nature. + +Thus, in my opinion, the shortness of a triennial sitting would have the +following ill effects:--It would make the member more shamelessly and +shockingly corrupt, it would increase his dependence on those who could +best support him at his election, it would wrack and tear to pieces the +fortunes of those who stood upon their own fortunes and their private +interest, it would make the electors infinitely more venal, and it would +make the whole body of the people, who are, whether they have votes or +not, concerned in elections, more lawless, more idle, more debauched; it +would utterly destroy the sobriety, the industry, the integrity, the +simplicity of all the people, and undermine, I am much afraid, the +deepest and best laid foundations of the commonwealth. + +Those who have spoken and written upon this subject without doors, do not +so much deny the probable existence of these inconveniences in their +measure, as they trust for the prevention to remedies of various sorts, +which they propose. First, a place bill; but if this will not do, as +they fear it will not, then, they say, we will have a rotation, and a +certain number of you shall be rendered incapable of being elected for +ten years. Then, for the electors, they shall ballot; the members of +parliament also shall decide by ballot; and a fifth project is the change +of the present legal representation of the kingdom. On all this I shall +observe, that it will be very unsuitable to your wisdom to adopt the +project of a bill, to which there are objections insuperable by anything +in the bill itself, upon the hope that those objections may be removed by +subsequent projects; every one of which is full of difficulties of its +own, and which are all of them very essential alterations in the +Constitution. This seems very irregular and unusual. If anything should +make this a very doubtful measure, what can make it more so than that, in +the opinion of its advocates, it would aggravate all our old +inconveniences in such a manner as to require a total alteration in the +Constitution of the kingdom? If the remedies are proper in a triennial, +they will not be less so in septennial elections; let us try them first, +see how the House relishes them, see how they will operate in the nation; +and then, having felt your way, you will be prepared against these +inconveniences. + +The honourable gentleman sees that I respect the principle upon which he +goes, as well as his intentions and his abilities. He will believe that +I do not differ from him wantonly, and on trivial grounds. He is very +sure that it was not his embracing one way which determined me to take +the other. I have not, in newspapers, to derogate from his fair fame +with the nation, printed the first rude sketch of his bill with +ungenerous and invidious comments. I have not, in conversations +industriously circulated about the town, and talked on the benches of +this House, attributed his conduct to motives low and unworthy, and as +groundless as they are injurious. I do not affect to be frightened with +this proposition, as if some hideous spectre had started from hell, which +was to be sent back again by every form of exorcism, and every kind of +incantation. I invoke no Acheron to overwhelm him in the whirlpools of +his muddy gulf. I do not tell the respectable mover and seconder, by a +perversion of their sense and expressions, that their proposition halts +between the ridiculous and the dangerous. I am not one of those who +start up three at a time, and fall upon and strike at him with so much +eagerness, that our daggers hack one another in his sides. My honourable +friend has not brought down a spirited imp of chivalry, to win the first +achievement and blazon of arms on his milk-white shield in a field listed +against him, nor brought out the generous offspring of lions, and said to +them, "Not against that side of the forest, beware of that--here is the +prey where you are to fasten your paws;" and seasoning his unpractised +jaws with blood, tell him, "This is the milk for which you are to thirst +hereafter." We furnish at his expense no holiday, nor suspend hell that +a crafty Ixion may have rest from his wheel; nor give the common +adversary, if he be a common adversary, reason to say, "I would have put +in my word to oppose, but the eagerness of your allies in your social war +was such that I could not break in upon you." I hope he sees and feels, +and that every member sees and feels along with him, the difference +between amicable dissent and civil discord. + + + + +SPEECH ON REFORM OF REPRESENTATION IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS +JUNE, 1784 + + +Mr. Speaker,--We have now discovered, at the close of the eighteenth +century, that the Constitution of England, which for a series of ages had +been the proud distinction of this country, always the admiration, and +sometimes the envy, of the wise and learned in every other nation--we +have discovered that this boasted Constitution, in the most boasted part +of it, is a gross imposition upon the understanding of mankind, an insult +to their feelings, and acting by contrivances destructive to the best and +most valuable interests of the people. Our political architects have +taken a survey of the fabric of the British Constitution. It is singular +that they report nothing against the Crown, nothing against the Lords; +but in the House of Commons everything is unsound; it is ruinous in every +part. It is infested by the dry rot, and ready to tumble about our ears +without their immediate help. You know by the faults they find what are +their ideas of the alteration. As all government stands upon opinion, +they know that the way utterly to destroy it is to remove that opinion, +to take away all reverence, all confidence from it; and then, at the +first blast of public discontent and popular tumult, it tumbles to the +ground. + +In considering this question, they who oppose it, oppose it on different +grounds; one is in the nature of a previous question--that some +alterations may be expedient, but that this is not the time for making +them. The other is, that no essential alterations are at all wanting, +and that neither now, nor at any time, is it prudent or safe to be +meddling with the fundamental principles and ancient tried usages of our +Constitution--that our representation is as nearly perfect as the +necessary imperfection of human affairs and of human creatures will +suffer it to be; and that it is a subject of prudent and honest use and +thankful enjoyment, and not of captious criticism and rash experiment. + +On the other side, there are two parties, who proceed on two grounds--in +my opinion, as they state them, utterly irreconcilable. The one is +juridical, the other political. The one is in the nature of a claim of +right, on the supposed rights of man as man; this party desire the +decision of a suit. The other ground, as far as I can divine what it +directly means, is, that the representation is not so politically framed +as to answer the theory of its institution. As to the claim of right, +the meanest petitioner, the most gross and ignorant, is as good as the +best; in some respects his claim is more favourable on account of his +ignorance; his weakness, his poverty and distress only add to his titles; +he sues _in forma pauperis_: he ought to be a favourite of the Court. But +when the other ground is taken, when the question is political, when a +new Constitution is to be made on a sound theory of government, then the +presumptuous pride of didactic ignorance is to be excluded from the +council in this high and arduous matter, which often bids defiance to the +experience of the wisest. The first claims a personal representation; +the latter rejects it with scorn and fervour. The language of the first +party is plain and intelligible; they who plead an absolute right, cannot +be satisfied with anything short of personal representation, because all +natural rights must be the rights of individuals: as by nature there is +no such thing as politic or corporate personality; all these ideas are +mere fictions of law, they are creatures of voluntary institution; men as +men are individuals, and nothing else. They, therefore, who reject the +principle of natural and personal representation, are essentially and +eternally at variance with those who claim it. As to the first sort of +reformers, it is ridiculous to talk to them of the British Constitution +upon any or all of its bases; for they lay it down, that every man ought +to govern himself, and that where he cannot go himself he must send his +representative; that all other government is usurpation, and is so far +from having a claim to our obedience, that it is not only our right, but +our duty, to resist it. Nine-tenths of the reformers argue thus--that +is, on the natural right. It is impossible not to make some reflection +on the nature of this claim, or avoid a comparison between the extent of +the principle and the present object of the demand. If this claim be +founded, it is clear to what it goes. The House of Commons, in that +light, undoubtedly is no representative of the people as a collection of +individuals. Nobody pretends it, nobody can justify such an assertion. +When you come to examine into this claim of right, founded on the right +of self-government in each individual, you find the thing demanded +infinitely short of the principle of the demand. What! one-third only of +the legislature, of the government no share at all? What sort of treaty +of partition is this for those who have no inherent right to the whole? +Give them all they ask, and your grant is still a cheat; for how comes +only a third to be their younger children's fortune in this settlement? +How came they neither to have the choice of kings, or lords, or judges, +or generals, or admirals, or bishops, or priests, or ministers, or +justices of peace? Why, what have you to answer in favour of the prior +rights of the Crown and peerage but this--our Constitution is a +proscriptive Constitution; it is a Constitution whose sole authority is, +that it has existed time out of mind. It is settled in these two +portions against one, legislatively; and in the whole of the judicature, +the whole of the federal capacity, of the executive, the prudential and +the financial administration, in one alone. Nor were your House of Lords +and the prerogatives of the Crown settled on any adjudication in favour +of natural rights, for they could never be so portioned. Your king, your +lords, your judges, your juries, grand and little, all are prescriptive; +and what proves it is the disputes not yet concluded, and never near +becoming so, when any of them first originated. Prescription is the most +solid of all titles, not only to property, but, which is to secure that +property, to government. They harmonise with each other, and give mutual +aid to one another. It is accompanied with another ground of authority +in the constitution of the human mind--presumption. It is a presumption +in favour of any settled scheme of government against any untried +project, that a nation has long existed and flourished under it. It is a +better presumption even of the choice of a nation, far better than any +sudden and temporary arrangement by actual election. Because a nation is +not an idea only of local extent, and individual momentary aggregation, +but it is an idea of continuity, which extends in time as well as in +numbers and in space. And this is a choice not of one day, or one set of +people, not a tumultuary and giddy choice; it is a deliberate election of +ages and of generations; it is a Constitution made by what is ten +thousand times better than choice--it is made by the peculiar +circumstances, occasions, tempers, dispositions, and moral, civil, and +social habitudes of the people, which disclose themselves only in a long +space of time. It is a vestment, which accommodates itself to the body. +Nor is prescription of government formed upon blind, unmeaning +prejudices--for man is a most unwise, and a most wise being. The +individual is foolish. The multitude, for the moment, are foolish, when +they act without deliberation; but the species is wise, and when time is +given to it, as a species it almost always acts right. + +The reason for the Crown as it is, for the Lords as they are, is my +reason for the Commons as they are, the electors as they are. Now, if +the Crown and the Lords, and the judicatures, are all prescriptive, so is +the House of Commons of the very same origin, and of no other. We and +our electors have powers and privileges both made and circumscribed by +prescription, as much to the full as the other parts; and as such we have +always claimed them, and on no other title. The House of Commons is a +legislative body corporate by prescription, not made upon any given +theory, but existing prescriptively--just like the rest. This +prescription has made it essentially what it is--an aggregate collection +of three parts--knights, citizens, burgesses. The question is, whether +this has been always so, since the House of Commons has taken its present +shape and circumstances, and has been an essential operative part of the +Constitution; which, I take it, it has been for at least five hundred +years. + +This I resolve to myself in the affirmative: and then another question +arises; whether this House stands firm upon its ancient foundations, and +is not, by time and accidents, so declined from its perpendicular as to +want the hand of the wise and experienced architects of the day to set it +upright again, and to prop and buttress it up for duration;--whether it +continues true to the principles upon which it has hitherto +stood;--whether this be _de facto_ the Constitution of the House of +Commons as it has been since the time that the House of Commons has, +without dispute, become a necessary and an efficient part of the British +Constitution? To ask whether a thing, which has always been the same, +stands to its usual principle, seems to me to be perfectly absurd; for +how do you know the principles but from the construction? and if that +remains the same, the principles remain the same. It is true, that to +say your Constitution is what it has been, is no sufficient defence for +those who say it is a bad Constitution. It is an answer to those who say +that it is a degenerate Constitution. To those who say it is a bad one, +I answer, Look to its effects. In all moral machinery the moral results +are its test. + +On what grounds do we go to restore our Constitution to what it has been +at some given period, or to reform and reconstruct it upon principles +more conformable to a sound theory of government? A prescriptive +government, such as ours, never was the work of any legislator, never was +made upon any foregone theory. It seems to me a preposterous way of +reasoning, and a perfect confusion of ideas, to take the theories, which +learned and speculative men have made from that government, and then, +supposing it made on these theories, which were made from it, to accuse +the government as not corresponding with them. I do not vilify theory +and speculation--no, because that would be to vilify reason itself. +"_Neque decipitur ratio_, _neque decipit unquam_." No; whenever I speak +against theory, I mean always a weak, erroneous, fallacious, unfounded, +or imperfect theory; and one of the ways of discovering that it is a +false theory is by comparing it with practice. This is the true +touchstone of all theories which regard man and the affairs of men: Does +it suit his nature in general?--does it suit his nature as modified by +his habits? + +The more frequently this affair is discussed, the stronger the case +appears to the sense and the feelings of mankind. I have no more doubt +than I entertain of my existence, that this very thing, which is stated +as a horrible thing, is the means of the preservation of our Constitution +whilst it lasts: of curing it of many of the disorders which, attending +every species of institution, would attend the principle of an exact +local representation, or a representation on the principle of numbers. If +you reject personal representation, you are pushed upon expedience; and +then what they wish us to do is, to prefer their speculations on that +subject to the happy experience of this country of a growing liberty and +a growing prosperity for five hundred years. Whatever respect I have for +their talents, this, for one, I will not do. Then what is the standard +of expedience? Expedience is that which is good for the community, and +good for every individual in it. Now this expedience is the +_desideratum_ to be sought, either without the experience of means, or +with that experience. If without, as in the case of the fabrication of a +new commonwealth, I will hear the learned arguing what promises to be +expedient; but if we are to judge of a commonwealth actually existing, +the first thing I inquire is, What has been found expedient or +inexpedient? And I will not take their promise rather than the +performance of the Constitution. + +But no; this was not the cause of the discontents. I went through most +of the northern parts--the Yorkshire election was then raging; the year +before, through most of the western counties--Bath, Bristol, +Gloucester--not one word, either in the towns or country, on the subject +of representation; much on the receipt tax, something on Mr. Fox's +ambition; much greater apprehension of danger from thence than from want +of representation. One would think that the ballast of the ship was +shifted with us, and that our Constitution had the gunnel under water. +But can you fairly and distinctly point out what one evil or grievance +has happened, which you can refer to the representative not following the +opinion of his constituents? What one symptom do we find of this +inequality? But it is not an arithmetical inequality with which we ought +to trouble ourselves. If there be a moral, a political equality, this is +the _desideratum_ in our Constitution, and in every Constitution in the +world. Moral inequality is as between places and between classes. Now, +I ask, what advantage do you find, that the places which abound in +representation possess over others in which it is more scanty, in +security for freedom, in security for justice, or in any one of those +means of procuring temporal prosperity and eternal happiness, the ends +for which society was formed? Are the local interests of Cornwall and +Wiltshire, for instance--their roads, canals, their prisons, their +police--better than Yorkshire, Warwickshire, or Staffordshire? Warwick +has members; is Warwick or Stafford more opulent, happy, or free, than +Newcastle or than Birmingham? Is Wiltshire the pampered favourite, +whilst Yorkshire, like the child of the bondwoman, is turned out to the +desert? This is like the unhappy persons who live, if they can be said +to live, in the statical chair; who are ever feeling their pulse, and who +do not judge of health by the aptitude of the body to perform its +functions, but by their ideas of what ought to be the true balance +between the several secretions. Is a committee of Cornwall, &c., +thronged, and the others deserted? No. You have an equal +representation, because you have men equally interested in the prosperity +of the whole, who are involved in the general interest and the general +sympathy; and perhaps these places, furnishing a superfluity of public +agents and administrators (whether, in strictness, they are +representatives or not, I do not mean to inquire, but they are agents and +administrators), will stand clearer of local interests, passions, +prejudices, and cabals than the others, and therefore preserve the +balance of the parts, and with a more general view and a more steady hand +than the rest. + +In every political proposal we must not leave out of the question the +political views and object of the proposer; and these we discover, not by +what he says, but by the principles he lays down. "I mean," says he, "a +moderate and temperate reform;" that is, "I mean to do as little good as +possible. If the Constitution be what you represent it, and there be no +danger in the change, you do wrong not to make the reform commensurate to +the abuse." Fine reformer, indeed! generous donor! What is the cause of +this parsimony of the liberty which you dole out to the people? Why all +this limitation in giving blessings and benefits to mankind? You admit +that there is an extreme in liberty, which may be infinitely noxious to +those who are to receive it, and which in the end will leave them no +liberty at all. I think so too; they know it, and they feel it. The +question is, then, What is the standard of that extreme? What that +gentleman, and the associations, or some parts of their phalanxes, think +proper. Then our liberties are in their pleasure; it depends on their +arbitrary will how far I shall be free. I will have none of that +freedom. If, therefore, the standard of moderation be sought for, I will +seek for it. Where? Not in their fancies, nor in my own: I will seek +for it where I know it is to be found--in the Constitution I actually +enjoy. Here it says to an encroaching prerogative--"Your sceptre has its +length; you cannot add a hair to your head, or a gem to your crown, but +what an eternal law has given to it." Here it says to an overweening +peerage--"Your pride finds banks that it cannot overflow;" here to a +tumultuous and giddy people--"There is a bound to the raging of the sea." +Our Constitution is like our island, which uses and restrains its subject +sea; in vain the waves roar. In that Constitution I know, and exultingly +I feel, both that I am free and that I am not free dangerously to myself +or to others. I know that no power on earth, acting as I ought to do, +can touch my life, my liberty, or my property. I have that inward and +dignified consciousness of my own security and independence, which +constitutes, and is the only thing which does constitute, the proud and +comfortable sentiment of freedom in the human breast. I know, too, and I +bless God for my safe mediocrity; I know that if I possessed all the +talents of the gentlemen on the side of the House I sit, and on the +other, I cannot, by royal favour, or by popular delusion, or by +oligarchical cabal, elevate myself above a certain very limited point, so +as to endanger my own fall or the ruin of my country. I know there is an +order that keeps things fast in their place; it is made to us, and we are +made to it. Why not ask another wife, other children, another body, +another mind? + +The great object of most of these reformers is to prepare the destruction +of the Constitution, by disgracing and discrediting the House of Commons. +For they think--prudently, in my opinion--that if they can persuade the +nation that the House of Commons is so constituted as not to secure the +public liberty; not to have a proper connection with the public +interests; so constituted as not, either actually or virtually, to be the +representative of the people, it will be easy to prove that a government +composed of a monarchy, an oligarchy chosen by the Crown, and such a +House of Commons, whatever good can be in such a system, can by no means +be a system of free government. + +The Constitution of England is never to have a quietus; it is to be +continually vilified, attacked, reproached, resisted; instead of being +the hope and sure anchor in all storms, instead of being the means of +redress to all grievances, itself is the grand grievance of the nation, +our shame instead of our glory. If the only specific plan +proposed--individual, personal representation--is directly rejected by +the person who is looked on as the great support of this business, then +the only way of considering it is as a question of convenience. An +honourable gentleman prefers the individual to the present. He therefore +himself sees no middle term whatsoever, and therefore prefers of what he +sees the individual; this is the only thing distinct and sensible that +has been advocated. He has then a scheme, which is the individual +representation; he is not at a loss, not inconsistent--which scheme the +other right honourable gentleman reprobates. Now, what does this go to, +but to lead directly to anarchy? For to discredit the only government +which he either possesses or can project, what is this but to destroy all +government; and this is anarchy. My right honourable friend, in +supporting this motion, disgraces his friends and justifies his enemies, +in order to blacken the Constitution of his country, even of that House +of Commons which supported him. There is a difference between a moral or +political exposure of a public evil, relative to the administration of +government, whether in men or systems, and a declaration of defects, real +or supposed, in the fundamental Constitution of your country. The first +may be cured in the individual by the motives of religion, virtue, +honour, fear, shame, or interest. Men may be made to abandon, also, +false systems by exposing their absurdity or mischievous tendency to +their own better thoughts, or to the contempt or indignation of the +public; and after all, if they should exist, and exist uncorrected, they +only disgrace individuals as fugitive opinions. But it is quite +otherwise with the frame and Constitution of the State; if that is +disgraced, patriotism is destroyed in its very source. No man has ever +willingly obeyed, much less was desirous of defending with his blood, a +mischievous and absurd scheme of government. Our first, our dearest, +most comprehensive relation, our country, is gone. + +It suggests melancholy reflections, in consequence of the strange course +we have long held, that we are now no longer quarrelling about the +character, or about the conduct of men, or the tenor of measures; but we +are grown out of humour with the English Constitution itself; this is +become the object of the animosity of Englishmen. This Constitution in +former days used to be the admiration and the envy of the world; it was +the pattern for politicians; the theme of the eloquent; the meditation of +the philosopher in every part of the world. As to Englishmen, it was +their pride, their consolation. By it they lived, for it they were ready +to die. Its defects, if it had any, were partly covered by partiality, +and partly borne by prudence. Now all its excellencies are forgotten, +its faults are now forcibly dragged into day, exaggerated by every +artifice of representation. It is despised and rejected of men; and +every device and invention of ingenuity, or idleness, set up in +opposition or in preference to it. It is to this humour, and it is to +the measures growing out of it, that I set myself (I hope not alone) in +the most determined opposition. Never before did we at any time in this +country meet upon the theory of our frame of government, to sit in +judgment on the Constitution of our country, to call it as a delinquent +before us, and to accuse it of every defect and every vice; to see +whether it, an object of our veneration, even our adoration, did or did +not accord with a preconceived scheme in the minds of certain gentlemen. +Cast your eyes on the journals of Parliament. It is for fear of losing +the inestimable treasure we have, that I do not venture to game it out of +my hands for the vain hope of improving it. I look with filial reverence +on the Constitution of my country, and never will cut it in pieces, and +put it into the kettle of any magician, in order to boil it, with the +puddle of their compounds, into youth and vigour. On the contrary, I +will drive away such pretenders; I will nurse its venerable age, and with +lenient arts extend a parent's breath. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT +DISCONTENTS*** + + +******* This file should be named 2173.txt or 2173.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/1/7/2173 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://www.gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: +http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + |