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diff --git a/5132-h/5132-h.htm b/5132-h/5132-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5b7e8fb --- /dev/null +++ b/5132-h/5132-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5012 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope, by Lord Bolingbroke</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope, +by Lord Bolingbroke, 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: Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope + + +Author: Lord Bolingbroke + +Editor: Henry Morley + +Release Date: August 10, 2014 [eBook #5132] +[This file was first posted on May 7, 2002] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTERS TO SIR WILLIAM WINDHAM AND +MR. POPE*** +</pre> +<p>This eBook was produced by Les Bowler.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span +class="GutSmall">CASSELL’S NATIONAL LIBRARY</span></p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<h1><span class="smcap">Letters</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">TO</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">Sir William Windham</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">AND</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">Mr. Pope</span></h1> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">BY</span><br +/> +LORD BOLINGBROKE</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/tpb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Decorative graphic" +title= +"Decorative graphic" +src="images/tps.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p style="text-align: center">CASSELL <span +class="GutSmall">AND</span> COMPANY, <span +class="smcap">Limited</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall"><i>LONDON</i></span><span +class="GutSmall">, </span><span class="GutSmall"><i>PARIS & +MELBOURNE</i></span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">1894</span></p> +<h2>INTRODUCTION.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Henry St. John</span>, who became Viscount +Bolingbroke in 1712, was born on the 1st of October, 1678, at the +family manor of Battersea, then a country village. His +grandfather, Sir Walter St. John, lived there with his wife +Johanna,—daughter to Cromwell’s Chief Justice, Oliver +St. John,—in one home with the child’s father, Henry +St. John, who was married to the second daughter of Robert Rich, +Earl of Warwick. The child’s grandfather, a man of +high character, lived to the age of eighty-seven; and his father, +more a man of what is miscalled pleasure, to the age of +ninety. It was chiefly by his grandfather and grandmother +that the education of young Henry St. John was cared for. +Simon Patrick, afterwards Bishop of Ely, was for some years a +chaplain in their home. By his grandfather and grandmother +the child’s religious education may have been too formally +cared for. A passage in Bolingbroke’s letter to Pope +shows that he was required as a child to read works of a divine +who “made a hundred and nineteen sermons on the hundred and +nineteenth Psalm.”</p> +<p>After education at Eton and Christchurch, Henry St. John +travelled abroad, and in the year 1700 he married, at the age of +twenty-two, Frances, daughter and co-heiress of Sir Henry +Winchescomb, a Berkshire baronet. She had much property, +and more in prospect.</p> +<p>In the year 1701, Henry St. John entered Parliament as member +for Wotton Bassett, the family borough. He acted with the +Tories, and became intimate with their leader, Robert +Harley. He soon became distinguished as the ablest and most +vigorous of the young supporters of the Tory party. He was +a handsome man and a brilliant speaker, delighted in by +politicians who, according to his own image in the Letter to +Windham, “grow, like hounds, fond of the man who shows them +game.” He was active in the impeachment of Somers, +Montague, the Duke of Portland, and the Earl of Oxford for their +negotiation of the Partition Treaties. In later years he +said he had acted here in ignorance, and justified those +treaties.</p> +<p>James II. died at St. Germains, a pensioner of France, aged +sixty-eight, on the 6th of September, 1701.</p> +<p>His pretensions to the English throne passed to the son, who +had been born on the 10th of June, 1688, and whose birth had +hastened on the Revolution. That son, James Francis Edward +Stuart, who was only thirteen years old at his father’s +death, is known sometimes in history as the Old Pretender; the +Young Pretender being his son Charles Edward, whose defeat at +Culloden in 1746 destroyed the last faint hope of a restoration +of the Stuarts. It is with the young heir to the +pretensions of James II. that the story of the life of +Bolingbroke becomes concerned.</p> +<p>King William III. died on the 8th of March, 1702, and was +succeeded by James II.’s daughter Anne, who was then +thirty-eight years old, and had been married when in her +nineteenth year to Prince George of Denmark. She was a good +wife and a good, simple-minded woman; a much-troubled mother, who +had lost five children in their infancy, besides one who survived +to be a boy of eleven and had died in the year 1700. As his +death left the succession to the Crown unsettled, an Act of +Settlement, passed on the 12th of June, 1701, had provided that, +in case of failure of direct heirs to the throne, the Crown +should pass to the next Protestant in succession, who was Sophia, +wife of the Elector of Hanover. The Electress Sophia was +daughter of the Princess Elizabeth who had married the Elector +Palatine in 1613, granddaughter, therefore, of James I. She +was more than seventy years old when Queen Anne began her +reign. For ardent young Tories, who had no great interest +in the limitation of authority or enthusiasm for a Protestant +succession, it was no treason to think, though it would be +treason to say, that the old Electress and her more than +forty-year-old German son George, gross-minded and clumsy, did +not altogether shut out hope for the succession of a more direct +heir to the Crown.</p> +<p>In 1704 St. John was Secretary at War when Harley was +Secretary of State, and he remained in office till 1708, when the +Whigs came in under Marlborough and Godolphin, and St. +John’s successor was his rival Robert Walpole. St. +John retired then for two year from public life to his country +seat at Bucklersbury in Berkshire, which had come to him, through +his wife, by the death of his wife’s father the year +before. He was thirty years old, the most brilliant of the +rising statesmen; impatient of Harley as a leader and of Walpole +as his younger rival from the other side, both of them men who, +in his eyes, were dull and slow. St. John’s quick +intellect, though eager and impatient of successful rivalry, had +its philosophic turn. During these two years of retirement +he indulged the calmer love of study and thought, whose genius he +said once, in a letter to Lord Bathurst “On the True use of +Retirement and Study,” “unlike the dream of Socrates, +whispered so softly, that very often I heard him not, in the +hurry of those passions by which I was transported. Some +calmer hours there were; in them I hearkened to him. +Reflection had often its turn, and the love of study and the +desire of knowledge have never quite abandoned me.”</p> +<p>In 1710 the Whigs were out and Harley in again, with St. John +in his ministry as Secretary of State. “I am +thinking,” wrote Swift to Stella, “what a veneration +we used to have for Sir William Temple because he might have been +Secretary of State at fifty; and here is a young fellow hardly +thirty in that employment.”</p> +<p>It was the policy of the Tories to put an end to the war with +France, that was against all their political interests. The +Whigs wished to maintain it as a safeguard against reaction in +favour of the Pretender. In the peace negotiations nobody +was so active as Secretary St. John. On one occasion, +without consulting his colleagues, he wrote to the Duke of +Ormond, who commanded the English army in the Netherlands: +“Her Majesty, my lord, has reason to believe that we shall +come to an agreement on the great article of the union of the two +monarchies as soon as a courier sent from Versailles to Madrid +can return; it is, therefore, the Queen’s positive command +to your grace, that you avoid engaging in any siege or hazarding +a battle till you have further orders from her Majesty. I +am at the same time directed to let your grace know that the +Queen would have you disguise the receipt of this order; and that +her Majesty thinks you cannot want pretences for conducting +yourself so as to answer her ends without owning that which might +at present have an ill effect if publicly known.” He +added as a postscript: “I had almost forgot to tell your +grace that communication is given of this order to the Court of +France.” The peace was right, but the way of making +it was mean in more ways than one, and the friction between +Harley and St. John steadily increased. St. John used his +majority in the House for the expulsion of his rival Walpole and +Walpole’s imprisonment in the Tower upon charges of +corruption. In 1712, when Harley had obtained for himself +the Earldom of Oxford, St. John wanted an earldom too; and the +Earldom of Bolingbroke, in the elder branch of his family, had +lately become extinct. His ill-will to Harley was +embittered by the fact that only the lower rank of Viscount was +conceded to him, and he was sent from the House of Commons, where +his influence was great, at the age of thirty-four, as Viscount +Bolingbroke and Baron St. John. His father’s +congratulation on the peerage glanced at the perils of +Jacobitism: “Well, Harry, I said you would be hanged, but +now I see you’ll be beheaded.”</p> +<p>The Treaty of Utrecht, that closed the War of the Spanish +Succession, was signed on the 11th of April (new style), +1713. Queen Anne died on the 1st of August, 1714, when time +was not ripe for the reaction that Bolingbroke had hoped to +see. His Letter to Windham frankly leaves us to understand +that in Queen Anne’s reign the possible succession of James +II.’s son, the Chevalier de St. George, had never been out +of his mind.</p> +<p>The death of the Electress Sophia brought her son George to +the throne. The Whigs triumphed, and Lord Bolingbroke was +politically ruined. He was dismissed from office before the +end of the month. On the 26th of March, 1715, he escaped to +France, in disguise of a valet to the French messenger La +Vigne. A Secret Committee of the House of Commons was, a +few days afterwards, appointed to examine papers, and the result +was Walpole’s impeachment of Bolingbroke. He was, in +September, 1715, in default of surrender, attainted of high +treason, and his name was erased from the roll of peers. +His own account of his policy will be found in this letter to his +friend Sir William Windham, in which the only weak feature is the +bitterness of Bolingbroke’s resentment against Harley.</p> +<p>When he went in exile to France, Bolingbroke remained only a +few days in Paris before retiring to St. Clair, near Vienne, in +Dauphiny. His Letter to Windham tells how he became +Secretary of State to the Pretender, and how little influence he +could obtain over the Jacobite counsels. The hopeless +Rebellion of 1715, in Scotland, Bolingbroke laboured in vain to +delay until there might be some chance of success. The +death of Louis XIV., on the 1st of September in that year, had +removed the last prop of a falling cause.</p> +<p>Some part of Bolingbroke’s forfeited property was +returned to his wife, who pleaded in vain for the reversal of his +attainder. Bolingbroke was ill-used by the Pretender and +abused by the Jacobites. He had been writing philosophical +“Reflections upon Exile,” but when he found himself +thus attacked on both sides Bolingbroke resolved to cast +Jacobitism to the winds, speak out like a man, and vindicate +himself in a way that might possibly restore him to the service +of his country. So in April, 1717, at the age of +thirty-nine, he began work upon what is justly considered the +best of his writings, his Letter to Sir William Windham.</p> +<p>Windham was a young Tory politician of good family and great +wealth, who had married a daughter of the Duke of Somerset, and +had been accepted by the Tories in the House of Commons as a +leader, after Henry St. John had been sent to the House of +Lords. Windham was “Dear Willie” to +Bolingbroke, a constant friend, and in 1715 he was sent to the +Tower as a Jacobite. But he had powerful connections, was +kindly and not dangerous, and was soon back in his place in the +House fighting the Whigs. The Letter to Windham was +finished in the summer of 1717. Its frankness was only +suited to the prospect of a pardon. It was found that there +was no such prospect, and the Letter was not published until +1753, a year or two after its writer’s death.</p> +<p>Bolingbroke’s first wife died in November, 1718. +He married in 1720 a Marquise de Villette, with whom he lived on +an estate called La Source, near Orleans, at the source of the +small river Loiret. There he talked and wrote +philosophy. His pardon was obtained in May, 1723. In +1725 he was allowed by Act of Parliament the possession of his +family inheritance; but as the attainder was not reversed he +could never again sit in Parliament. So he came home in +1725, and bought an estate at Dawley, near Uxbridge. There +he philosophised in his own way and played at farming, discoursed +with Pope and plied his pen against the Whigs. In his +letter to Pope, Bolingbroke writes of ministers of religion as if +they had no other function than to maintain theological dogmas, +and draws a false conclusion from false premisses. He died +on the 12th of December, 1751.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">H.M.</p> +<h2>A LETTER<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">TO</span><br /> +SIR WILLIAM WINDHAM.</h2> +<p>I <span class="smcap">was</span> well enough acquainted with +the general character of mankind, and in particular with that of +my own countrymen, to expect to be as much out of the minds of +the Tories during my exile as if we had never lived and acted +together. I depended on being forgot by them, and was far +from imagining it possible that I should be remembered only to be +condemned loudly by one half of them, and to be tacitly censured +by the greatest part of the other half. As soon as I was +separated from the Pretender and his interest, I declared myself +to be so; and I gave directions for writing into England what I +judged sufficient to put my friends on their guard against any +surprise concerning an event which it was their interest, as well +as mine, that they should be very rightly informed about.</p> +<p>As soon as the Pretender’s adherents began to clamour +against me in this country, and to disperse their scandal by +circular letters everywhere else, I gave directions for writing +into England again. Their groundless articles of accusation +were refuted, and enough was said to give my friends a general +idea of what had happened to me, and at least to make them +suspend the fixing any opinion till such time as I should be able +to write more fully and plainly to them myself. To condemn +no person unheard is a rule of natural equity, which we see +rarely violated in Turkey, or in the country where I am writing: +that it would not be so with me in Great Britain, I confess that +I flattered myself. I dwelt securely in this confidence, +and gave very little attention to any of those scurrilous methods +which were taken about this time to blast my reputation. +The event of things has shown that I trusted too much to my own +innocence, and to the justice of my old friends.</p> +<p>It was obvious that the Chevalier and the Earl of Mar hoped to +load me with the imputation of treachery, incapacity, or neglect: +it was indifferent to them of which. If they could ascribe +to one of those their not being supported from France, they +imagined that they should justify their precipitate flight from +Scotland, which many of their fastest friends exclaimed against; +and that they should varnish over that original capital fault, +the drawing the Highlanders together in arms at the time and in +the manner in which it was done.</p> +<p>The Scotch, who fell at once from all the sanguine +expectations with which they had been soothed, and who found +themselves reduced to despair, were easy to be incensed; they had +received no support whatever, and it was natural for them rather +to believe that they failed of this support by my fault, than to +imagine their general had prevailed on them to rise in the very +point of time when it was impossible that they should be +supported from France, or from any other part of the world. +The Duke of Ormond, who had been the bubble of his own +popularity, was enough out of humour with the general turn of +affairs to be easily set against any particular man. The +emissaries of this Court, whose commission was to amuse, had +imposed upon him all along; and there were other busy people who +thought to find their account in having him to themselves. +I had never been in his secret whilst we were in England +together: and from his first coming into France he was either +prevailed upon by others, or, which I rather believe, he +concurred with others, to keep me out of it. The perfect +indifference I showed whether I was in it or no, might carry him +from acting separately, to act against me.</p> +<p>The whole tribe of Irish and other papists were ready to seize +the first opportunity of venting their spleen against a man, who +had constantly avoided all intimacy with them; who acted in the +same cause, but on a different principle, and who meant no one +thing in the world less than raising them to the advantages which +they expected.</p> +<p>That these several persons, for the reasons I have mentioned, +should join in a cry against me, is not very marvellous; the +contrary would be so to a man who knows them as well as I +do. But that the English Tories should serve as echoes to +them—nay more, that my character should continue doubtful +at best amongst you, when those who first propagated the slander +are become ashamed of railing without proof, and have dropped the +clamour,—this I own that I never expected; and I may be +allowed to say, that as it is an extreme surprise, so it shall be +a lesson to me.</p> +<p>The Whigs impeached and attainted me. They went +farther—at least, in my way of thinking, that step was more +cruel than all the others—by a partial representation of +facts, and pieces of facts, put together as it best suited their +purpose, and published to the whole world, they did all that in +them lay to expose me for a fool, and to brand me for a +knave. But then I had deserved this abundantly at their +hands, according to the notions of party-justice. The +Tories have not indeed impeached nor attainted me; but they have +done, and are still doing something very like to that which I +took worse of the Whigs than the impeachment and attainder: and +this, after I have shown an inviolable attachment to the service, +and almost an implicit obedience to the will of the party; when I +am actually an outlaw, deprived of my honours, stripped of my +fortune, and cut off from my family and my country, for their +sakes.</p> +<p>Some of the persons who have seen me here, and with whom I +have had the pleasure to talk of you, may, perhaps, have told you +that, far from being oppressed by that storm of misfortunes in +which I have been tossed of late, I bear up against it with +firmness enough, and even with alacrity. It is true, I do +so; but it is true likewise that the last burst of the cloud has +gone near to overwhelm me. From our enemies we expect evil +treatment of every sort, we are prepared for it, we are animated +by it, and we sometimes triumph in it; but when our friends +abandon us, when they wound us, and when they take, to do this, +an occasion where we stand the most in need of their support, and +have the best title to it, the firmest mind finds it hard to +resist.</p> +<p>Nothing kept up my spirits when I was first reduced to the +very circumstances I now describe so much as the consideration of +the delusions under which I knew that the Tories lay, and the +hopes I entertained of being able soon to open their eyes, and to +justify my conduct. I expected that friendship, or, if that +principle failed, curiosity at least, would move the party to +send over some person from whose report they might have both +sides of the question laid before them. Though this +expectation be founded in reason, and you want to be informed at +least as much as I do to be justified, yet I have hitherto +flattered myself with it in vain. To repair this +misfortune, therefore, as far as lies in my power, I resolve to +put into writing the sum of what I should have said in that +case. These papers shall lie by me till time and accidents +produce some occasion of communicating them to you. The +true occasion of doing it with advantage to the party will +probably be lost; but they will remain a monument of my +justification to posterity. At worst, if even this fails +me, I am sure of one satisfaction in writing them: the +satisfaction of unburdening my mind to a friend, and of stating +before an equitable judge the account, as I apprehend it to +stand, between the Tories and myself—“Quantum humano +consilio efficere potui, circumspectis rebus meis omnibus, +rationibusque subductis, summam feci cogitationum mearum omnium, +quam tibi, si potero, breviter exponam.”</p> +<p>It is necessary to my design that I call to your mind the +state of affairs in Britain from the latter part of the year 1710 +to the beginning of the year 1715, about which time we +parted. I go no farther back because the part which I acted +before that time, in the first essays I made in public affairs, +was the part of a Tory, and so far of a piece with that which I +acted afterwards. Besides, the things which preceded this +space of time had no immediate influence on those which happened +since that time, whereas the strange events which we have seen +fall out in the king’s reign were owing in a great measure +to what was done, or neglected to be done, in the last four years +of the queen’s. The memory of these events being +fresh, I shall dwell as little as possible upon them; it will be +sufficient that I make a rough sketch of the face of the Court, +and of the conduct of the several parties during that time. +Your memory will soon furnish the colours which I shall omit to +lay, and finish up the picture.</p> +<p>From the time at which I left Britain I had not the advantage +of acting under the eyes of the party which I served, nor of +being able from time to time to appeal to their judgment. +The gross of what happened has appeared; but the particular steps +which led to those events have been either concealed or +misrepresented—concealed from the nature of them or +misrepresented by those with whom I never agreed perfectly except +in thinking that they and I were extremely unfit to continue +embarked in the same bottom together. It will, therefore, +be proper to descend under this head to a more particular +relation.</p> +<p>In the summer of the year 1710 the Queen was prevailed upon to +change her Parliament and her Ministry. The intrigue of the +Earl of Oxford might facilitate the means, the violent +prosecution of Sacheverel, and other unpopular measures, might +create the occasion and encourage her in the resolution; but the +true original cause was the personal ill-usage which she received +in her private life and in some trifling instances of the +exercise of her power, for indulgence in which she would +certainly have left the reins of government in those hands which +had held them ever since her accession to the throne.</p> +<p>I am afraid that we came to Court in the same dispositions as +all parties have done; that the principal spring of our actions +was to have the government of the state in our hands; that our +principal views were the conservation of this power, great +employments to ourselves, and great opportunities of rewarding +those who had helped to raise us, and of hurting those who stood +in opposition to us. It is, however, true that with these +considerations of private and party interest there were others +intermingled which had for their object the public good of the +nation—at least what we took to be such.</p> +<p>We looked on the political principles which had generally +prevailed in our government from the Revolution in 1688 to be +destructive of our true interest, to have mingled us too much in +the affairs of the Continent, to tend to the impoverishing our +people, and to the loosening the bands of our constitution in +Church and State. We supposed the Tory party to be the bulk +of the landed interest, and to have no contrary influence blended +into its composition. We supposed the Whigs to be the +remains of a party formed against the ill designs of the Court +under King Charles II., nursed up into strength and applied to +contrary uses by King William III., and yet still so weak as to +lean for support on the Presbyterians and the other sectaries, on +the Bank and the other corporations, on the Dutch and the other +Allies. From hence we judged it to follow that they had +been forced, and must continue so, to render the national +interest subservient to the interest of those who lent them an +additional strength, without which they could never be the +prevalent party. The view, therefore, of those amongst us +who thought in this manner was to improve the Queen’s +favour, to break the body of the Whigs, to render their supports +useless to them, and to fill the employments of the kingdom, down +to the meanest, with Tories. We imagined that such +measures, joined to the advantages of our numbers and our +property, would secure us against all attempts during her reign, +and that we should soon become too considerable not to make our +terms in all events which might happen afterwards: concerning +which, to speak truly, I believe few or none of us had any very +settled resolution.</p> +<p>In order to bring these purposes about, I verily think that +the persecution of Dissenters entered into no man’s +head. By the Bills for preventing Occasional Conformity and +the growth of schism, it was hoped that their sting would be +taken away. These Bills were thought necessary for our +party interest, and, besides, were deemed neither unreasonable +nor unjust. The good of society may require that no person +should be deprived of the protection of the Government on account +of his opinions in religious matters; but it does not follow from +hence that men ought to be trusted in any degree with the +preservation of the Establishment, who must, to be consistent +with their principles, endeavour the subversion of what is +established. An indulgence to consciences, which the +prejudice of education and long habits have rendered scrupulous, +may be agreeable to the rules of good policy and of humanity, yet +will it hardly follow from hence that a government is under any +obligation to indulge a tenderness of conscience to come, or to +connive at the propagating of these prejudices and at the forming +of these habits. The evil effect is without remedy, and +may, therefore, deserve indulgence; but the evil cause is to be +prevented, and can, therefore, be entitled to none. Besides +this, the Bills I am speaking of, rather than to enact anything +new, seemed only to enforce the observation of ancient laws which +had been judged necessary for the security of the Church and +State at a time when the memory of the ruin of both, and of the +hands by which that ruin had been wrought, was fresh in the minds +of men.</p> +<p>The Bank, the East India Company, and in general the moneyed +interest, had certainly nothing to apprehend like what they +feared, or affected to fear, from the Tories—an entire +subversion of their property. Multitudes of our own party +would have been wounded by such a blow. The intention of +those who were the warmest seemed to me to go no farther than +restraining their influence on the Legislature, and on matters of +State; and finding at a proper season means to make them +contribute to the support and ease of a government under which +they enjoyed advantages so much greater than the rest of their +fellow-subjects. The mischievous consequence which had been +foreseen and foretold too, at the establishment of those +corporations, appeared visibly. The country gentlemen were +vexed, put to great expenses and even baffled by them in their +elections; and among the members of every parliament numbers were +immediately or indirectly under their influence. The Bank +had been extravagant enough to pull off the mask; and, when the +Queen seemed to intend a change in her ministry, they had deputed +some of their members to represent against it. But that +which touched sensibly even those who were but little affected by +other considerations, was the prodigious inequality between the +condition of the moneyed men and of the rest of the nation. +The proprietor of the land, and the merchant who brought riches +home by the returns of foreign trade, had during two wars borne +the whole immense load of the national expenses; whilst the +lender of money, who added nothing to the common stock, throve by +the public calamity, and contributed not a mite to the public +charge.</p> +<p>As to the Allies, I saw no difference of opinion among all +those who came to the head of affairs at this time. Such of +the Tories as were in the system above mentioned, such of them as +deserted soon after from us, and such of the Whigs as had upon +this occasion deserted to us, seemed equally convinced of the +unreasonableness, and even of the impossibility, of continuing +the war on the same disproportionate footing. Their +universal sense was, that we had taken, except the part of the +States General, the whole burden of the war upon us, and even a +proportion of this; while the entire advantage was to accrue to +others: that this had appeared very grossly in 1709, and 1710, +when preliminaries were insisted upon, which contained all that +the Allies, giving the greatest loose to their wishes, could +desire, and little or nothing on the behalf of Great Britain: +that the war, which had been begun for the security of the +Allies, was continued for their grandeur: that the ends proposed, +when we engaged in it, might have been answered long before, and +therefore that the first favourable occasion ought to be seized +of making peace; which we thought to be the interest of our +country, and which appeared to all mankind, as well as to us, to +be that of our party.</p> +<p>These were in general the views of the Tories: and for the +part I acted in the prosecution of them, as well as of all the +measures accessory to them, I may appeal to mankind. To +those who had the opportunity of looking behind the curtain I may +likewise appeal, for the difficulties which lay in my way, and +for the particular discouragements which I met with. A +principal load of parliamentary and foreign affairs in their +ordinary course lay upon me: the whole negotiation of the peace, +and of the troublesome invidious steps preliminary to it, as far +as they could be transacted at home, were thrown upon me. I +continued in the House of Commons during that important session +which preceded the peace; and which, by the spirit shown through +the whole course of it, and by the resolutions taken in it, +rendered the conclusion of the treaties practicable. After +this I was dragged into the House of Lords in such a manner as to +make my promotion a punishment, not a reward; and was there left +to defend the treaties almost alone.</p> +<p>It would not have been hard to have forced the Earl of Oxford +to use me better. His good intentions began to be very much +doubted of; the truth is, no opinion of his sincerity had ever +taken root in the party, and, which was worse perhaps for a man +in his station, the opinion of his capacity began to fall +apace. He was so hard pushed in the House of Lords in the +beginning of 1712 that he had been forced, in the middle of the +session, to persuade the Queen to make a promotion of twelve +peers at once, which was an unprecedented and invidious measure, +to be excused by nothing but the necessity, and hardly by +that. In the House of Commons his credit was low and my +reputation very high. You know the nature of that assembly; +they grow, like hounds, fond of the man who shows them game, and +by whose halloo they are used to be encouraged. The thread +of the negotiations, which could not stand still a moment without +going back, was in my hands, and before another man could have +made himself master of the business much time would have been +lost, and great inconveniences would have followed. Some, +who opposed the Court soon after, began to waver then, and if I +had not wanted the inclination I should have wanted no help to do +mischief. I knew the way of quitting my employments and of +retiring from Court when the service of my party required it; but +I could not bring myself up to that resolution, when the +consequence of it must have been the breaking my party and the +distress of the public affairs. I thought my mistress +treated me ill, but the sense of that duty which I owed her came +in aid of other considerations, and prevailed over my +resentment. These sentiments, indeed, are so much out of +fashion that a man who avows them is in danger of passing for a +bubble in the world; yet they were, in the conjuncture I speak +of, the true motives of my conduct, and you saw me go on as +cheerfully in the troublesome and dangerous work assigned me as +if I had been under the utmost satisfaction. I began, +indeed, in my heart to renounce the friendship which till that +time I had preserved inviolable for Oxford. I was not aware +of all his treachery, nor of the base and little means which he +employed then, and continued to employ afterwards, to ruin me in +the opinion of the Queen and everywhere else. I saw, +however, that he had no friendship for anybody, and that with +respect to me, instead of having the ability to render that +merit, which I endeavoured to acquire, an addition of strength to +himself, it became the object of his jealousy and a reason for +undermining me. In this temper of mind I went on till the +great work of the peace was consummated and the treaty signed at +Utrecht; after which a new and more melancholy scene for the +party, as well as for me, opened itself.</p> +<p>I am far from thinking the treaties, or the negotiations which +led to them, exempt from faults. Many were made no doubt in +both by those who were concerned in them; by myself in the first +place, and many were owing purely to the opposition they met with +in every step of their progress. I never look back on this +great event, passed as it is, without a secret emotion of mind; +when I compare the vastness of the undertaking and the importance +of its success, with the means employed to bring it about, and +with those which were employed to traverse it. To adjust +the pretensions and to settle the interests of so many princes +and states as were engaged in the late war would appear, when +considered simply and without any adventitious difficulty, a work +of prodigious extent. But this was not all. Each of +our Allies thought himself entitled to raise his demands to the +most extravagant height. They had been encouraged to this, +first, by the engagements which we had entered into with several +of them, with some to draw them into the war, with others to +prevail on them to continue it; and, secondly, by the manner in +which we had treated with France in 1709 and 1710. Those +who intended to tie the knot of the war as hard, and to render +the coming at a peace as impracticable as they could, had found +no method so effectual as that of leaving everyone at liberty to +insist on all he could think of, and leaving themselves at +liberty, even if these concessions should be made, to break the +treaty by ulterior demands. That this was the secret I can +make no doubt after the confession of one of the +plenipotentiaries who transacted these matters, and who +communicated to me and to two others of the Queen’s +Ministers an instance of the Duke of Marlborough’s +management at a critical moment, when the French Ministers at +Gertrudenberg seemed inclinable to come into an expedient for +explaining the thirty-seventh article of the preliminaries, which +could not have been refused. Certain it is that the King of +France was at that time in earnest to execute the article of +Philip’s abdication, and therefore the expedients for +adjusting what related to this article would easily enough have +been found, if on our part there had been a real intention of +concluding. But there was no such intention, and the plan +of those who meant to prolong the war was established among the +Allies as the plan which ought to be followed whenever a peace +came to be treated. The Allies imagined that they had a +right to obtain at least everything which had been demanded for +them respectively, and it was visible that nothing less would +content them. These considerations set the vastness of the +undertaking in a sufficient light.</p> +<p>The importance of succeeding in the work of the peace was +equally great to Europe, to our country, to our party, to our +persons, to the present age, and to future generations. But +I need not take pains to prove what no man will deny. The +means employed to bring it about were in no degree +proportionable. A few men, some of whom had never been +concerned in business of this kind before, and most of whom put +their hands for a long time to it faintly and timorously, were +the instruments of it. The Minister who was at their head +showed himself every day incapable of that attention, that +method, that comprehension of different matters, which the first +post in such a Government as ours requires in quiet times. +He was the first spring of all our motion by his credit with the +Queen, and his concurrence was necessary to everything we did by +his rank in the State, and yet this man seemed to be sometimes +asleep and sometimes at play. He neglected the thread of +business, which was carried on for this reason with less dispatch +and less advantage in the proper channels, and he kept none in +his own hands. He negotiated, indeed, by fits and starts, +by little tools and indirect ways, and thus his activity became +as hurtful as his indolence, of which I could produce some +remarkable instances. No good effect could flow from such a +conduct. In a word, when this great affair was once +engaged, the zeal of particular men in their several provinces +drove it forward, though they were not backed by the concurrent +force of the whole Administration, nor had the common helps of +advice till it was too late, till the very end of the +negotiations; even in matters, such as that of commerce, which +they could not be supposed to understand. That this is a +true account of the means used to arrive at the peace, and a true +character of that Administration in general, I believe the whole +Cabinet Council of that time will bear me witness. Sure I +am that most of them have joined with me in lamenting this state +of things whilst it subsisted, and all those who were employed as +Ministers in the several parts of the treaty felt sufficiently +the difficulties which this strange management often reduced them +to. I am confident they have not forgotten them.</p> +<p>If the means employed to bring the peace about were feeble, +and in one respect contemptible, those employed to break the +negotiation were strong and formidable. As soon as the +first suspicion of a treaty’s being on foot crept abroad in +the world the whole alliance united with a powerful party in the +nation to obstruct it. From that hour to the moment the +Congress of Utrecht finished, no one measure possible to be taken +was omitted to traverse every advance that was made in this work, +to intimidate, to allure, to embarrass every person concerned in +it. This was done without any regard either to decency or +good policy, and from hence it soon followed that passion and +humour mingled themselves on each side. A great part of +what we did for the peace, and of what others did against it, can +be accounted for on no other principle. The Allies were +broken among themselves before they began to treat with the +common enemy. The matter did not mend in the course of the +treaty, and France and Spain, but especially the former, profited +of this disunion.</p> +<p>Whoever makes the comparison, which I have touched upon, will +see the true reasons which rendered the peace less answerable to +the success of the war than it might and than it ought to have +been. Judgment has been passed in this case as the +different passions or interests of men have inspired them. +But the real cause lay in the constitution of our Ministry, and +much more in the obstinate opposition which we met with from the +Whigs and from the Allies. However, sure it is that the +defects of the peace did not occasion the desertions from the +Tory party which happened about this time, nor those disorders in +the Court which immediately followed.</p> +<p>Long before the purport of the treaties could be known, those +Whigs who had set out with us in 1710 began to relapse back to +their party. They had among us shared the harvest of a new +Ministry, and, like prudent persons, they took measures in time +to have their share in that of a new Government.</p> +<p>The whimsical or the Hanover Tories continued zealous in +appearance with us till the peace was signed. I saw no +people so eager for the conclusion of it. Some of them were +in such haste that they thought any peace preferable to the least +delay, and omitted no instances to quicken their friends who were +actors in it. As soon as the treaties were perfected and +laid before the Parliament, the scheme of these gentlemen began +to disclose itself entirely. Their love of the peace, like +other passions, cooled by enjoyment. They grew nice about +the construction of the articles, could come up to no direct +approbation, and, being let into the secret of what was to +happen, would not preclude themselves from the glorious advantage +of rising on the ruins of their friends and of their party.</p> +<p>The danger of the succession and the badness of the peace were +the two principles on which we were attacked. On the first +the whimsical Tories joined the Whigs, and declared directly +against their party. Although nothing is more certain than +this truth: that there was at that time no formed design in the +party, whatever views some particular men might have, against his +Majesty’s accession to the throne. On the latter, and +most other points, they affected a most glorious neutrality.</p> +<p>Instead of gathering strength, either as a Ministry or as a +party, we grew weaker every day. The peace had been judged, +with reason, to be the only solid foundation whereupon we could +erect a Tory system; and yet when it was made we found ourselves +at a full stand. Nay, the very work which ought to have +been the basis of our strength was in part demolished before our +eyes, and we were stoned with the ruins of it. Whilst this +was doing, Oxford looked on as if he had not been a party to all +which had passed; broke now and then a jest, which savoured of +the Inns of Court and the bad company in which he had been +bred. And on those occasions where his station obliged him +to speak of business, was absolutely unintelligible.</p> +<p>Whether this man ever had any determined view besides that of +raising his family is, I believe, a problematical question in the +world. My opinion is that he never had any other. The +conduct of a Minister who proposes to himself a great and noble +object, and who pursues it steadily, may seem for a while a +riddle to the world; especially in a Government like ours, where +numbers of men, different in their characters and different in +their interests, are at all times to be managed; where public +affairs are exposed to more accidents and greater hazards than in +other countries; and where, by consequence, he who is at the head +of business will find himself often distracted by measures which +have no relation to his purpose, and obliged to bend himself to +things which are in some degree contrary to his main +design. The ocean which environs us is an emblem of our +government, and the pilot and the Minister are in similar +circumstances. It seldom happens that either of them can +steer a direct course, and they both arrive at their port by +means which frequently seem to carry them from it. But as +the work advances the conduct of him who leads it on with real +abilities clears up, the appearing inconsistencies are +reconciled, and when it is once consummated the whole shows +itself so uniform, so plain, and so natural, that every dabbler +in politics will be apt to think he could have done the +same. But, on the other hand, a man who proposes no such +object, who substitutes artifice in the place of ability, who, +instead of leading parties and governing accidents, is eternally +agitated backwards and forwards by both, who begins every day +something new, and carries nothing on to perfection, may impose +awhile on the world; but a little sooner or a little later the +mystery will be revealed, and nothing will be found to be couched +under it but a thread of pitiful expedients, the ultimate end of +which never extended farther than living from day to day. +Which of these pictures resembles Oxford most you will +determine. I am sorry to be obliged to name him so often, +but how is it possible to do otherwise while I am speaking of +times wherein the whole turn of affairs depended on his motions +and character?</p> +<p>I have heard, and I believe truly, that when he returned to +Windsor in the autumn of 1713, after the marriage of his son, he +pressed extremely to have him created Duke of Newcastle or Earl +of Clare, and the Queen presuming to hesitate on so extraordinary +a proposal, he resented this hesitation in a manner which little +became a man who had been so lately raised by the profusion of +her favours upon him. Certain it is, that he began then to +show a still greater remissness in all parts of his Ministry, and +to affect to say that from such a time, the very time I am +speaking of, he took no share in the direction of affairs, or +words to that effect.</p> +<p>He pretended to have discovered intrigues which were set on +foot against him, and particularly he complained of the advantage +which was taken of his absence during the journey he made at his +son’s marriage to undermine him with the Queen. He is +naturally inclined to believe the worst, which I take to be a +certain mark of a mean spirit and a wicked soul. At least, +I am sure that the contrary quality, when it is not due to +weakness of understanding, is the fruit of a generous temper and +an honest heart. Prone to judge ill of all mankind, he will +rarely be seduced by his credulity, but I never knew a man so +capable of being the bubble of his distrust and jealousy. +He was so in this case, although the Queen, who could not be +ignorant of the truth, said enough to undeceive him. But to +be undeceived, and to own himself so, was not his play. He +hoped by cunning to varnish over his want of faith and of +ability. He was desirous to make the world impute the +extraordinary part, or, to speak more properly, the no part, +which he acted with the staff of Treasurer in his hand, to the +Queen’s withdrawing her favour from him and to his friends +abandoning him—pretences utterly groundless when he first +made them, and which he brought to be real at last. Even +the winter before the Queen’s death, when his credit began +to wane apace, he might have regained it; he might have +reconciled himself perfectly with all his ancient friends, and +have acquired the confidence of the whole party. I say he +might have done all this, because I am persuaded that none of +those I have named were so convinced of his perfidy, so jaded +with his yoke, or so much piqued personally against him as I was; +and yet if he would have exerted himself in concert with us to +improve the few advantages which were left us and to ward off the +visible danger which threatened our persons and our party, I +would have stifled my private animosity and would have acted +under him with as much zeal as ever. But he was incapable +of taking such a turn. The sum of all his policy had been +to amuse the Whigs, the Tories, and the Jacobites as long as he +could, and to keep his power as long as he amused them. +When it became impossible to amuse mankind any longer, he +appeared plainly at the end of his line.</p> +<p>By a secret correspondence with the late Earl of Halifax, and +by the intrigues of his brother and other fanatical relations, he +had endeavoured to keep some hold on the Whigs.</p> +<p>The Tories were attached to him at first by the heat of a +revolution in the Ministry, by their hatred of the people who +were discarded, and by the fond hopes which it is easy to give at +the setting out of a new administration. Afterwards he held +out the peace in prospect to them and to the Jacobites +separately, as an event which must be brought about before he +could effectually serve either. You cannot have forgot how +things which we pressed were put off upon every occasion till the +peace; the peace was to be the date of a new administration, and +the period at which the millenary year of Toryism should +begin. Thus were the Tories at that time amused; and since +my exile I have had the opportunity of knowing certainly and +circumstantially that the Jacobites were treated in the same +manner, and that the Pretender was made, through the French +Minister, to expect that measures should be taken for his +restoration as soon as the peace had rendered them +practicable. He was to attempt nothing, his partisans were +to lie still, Oxford undertook for all.</p> +<p>After many delays, fatal to the general interest of Europe, +this peace was signed: and the only considerable thing which he +brought about afterwards was the marriage I have mentioned above; +and by it an accession of riches and honour to a family whose +estate was very mean, and whose illustration before this time I +never met with anywhere, but in the vain discourses which he used +to hold over claret. If he kept his word with any of the +parties above-mentioned, it must be supposed that he did so with +the Whigs; for as to us, we saw nothing after the peace but +increase of mortification and nearer approaches to ruin. +Not a step was made towards completing the settlement of Europe, +which the treaties of Utrecht and Radstadt left imperfect; +towards fortifying and establishing the Tory party; towards +securing those who had been the principal actors in this +administration against future events. We had proceeded in a +confidence that these things should immediately follow the +conclusion of the peace: he had never, I dare swear, entertained +a thought concerning them. As soon as the last hand was +given to the fortune of his family, he abandoned his mistress, +his friends, and his party, who had borne him so many years on +their shoulders: and I was present when this want of faith was +reproached him in the plainest and strongest terms by one of the +honestest men in Britain, and before some of the most +considerable Tories. Even his impudence failed him on this +occasion: he did not so much as attempt an excuse.</p> +<p>He could not keep his word which he had given the Pretender +and his adherents, because he had formed no party to support him +in such a design. He was sure of having the Whigs against +him if he made the attempt, and he was not sure of having the +Tories for him.</p> +<p>In this state of confusion and distress, to which he had +reduced himself and us, you remember the part he acted. He +was the spy of the Whigs, and voted with us in the morning +against those very questions which he had penned the night before +with Walpole and others. He kept his post on terms which no +man but he would have held it on, neither submitting to the +Queen, nor complying with his friends. He would not, or he +could not, act with us; and he resolved that we should not act +without him as long as he could hinder it. The +Queen’s health was very precarious, and at her death he +hoped by these means to deliver us up, bound as it were hand and +foot, to our adversaries. On the foundation of this merit +he flattered himself that he had gained some of the Whigs, and +softened at least the rest of the party to him. By his +secret negotiations at Hanover, he took it for granted that he +was not only reconciled to that Court, but that he should, under +his present Majesty’s reign, have as much credit as he had +enjoyed under that of the Queen. He was weak enough to +boast of this, and to promise his good offices voluntarily to +several: for no man was weak enough to think them worth being +solicited. In a word, you must have heard that he answered +to Lord Dartmouth and to Mr. Bromley, that one should keep the +Privy Seal, and the other the seals of Secretary; and that Lord +Cowper makes no scruple of telling how he came to offer him the +seals of Chancellor. When the King arrived, he went to +Greenwich with an affectation of pomp and of favour. +Against his suspicious character, he was once in his life the +bubble of his credulity; and this delusion betrayed him into a +punishment more severe in my sense than all which has happened to +him since, or than perpetual exile; he was affronted in the +manner in which he was presented to the King. The meanest +subject would have been received with goodness, the most +obnoxious with an air of indifference; but he was received with +the most distinguishing contempt. This treatment he had in +the face of the nation. The King began his reign, in this +instance, with punishing the ingratitude, the perfidy, the +insolence, which had been shown to his predecessor. Oxford +fled from Court covered with shame, the object of the derision of +the Whigs and of the indignation of the Tories.</p> +<p>The Queen might, if she had pleased, have saved herself from +all those mortifications she met with during the last months of +her reign, and her servants and the Tory party from those +misfortunes which they endured during the same time; perhaps from +those which they have fallen into since her death. When she +found that the peace, from the conclusion of which she expected +ease and quiet, brought still greater trouble upon her; when she +saw the weakness of her Government, and the confusion of her +affairs increase every day; when she saw her First Minister +bewildered and unable to extricate himself or her; in fine, when +the negligence of his public conduct, and the sauciness of his +private behaviour had rendered him insupportable to her, and she +took the resolution of laying him aside, there was a strength +still remaining sufficient to have supported her Government, to +have fulfilled in great part the expectations of the Tories, and +to have constituted both them and the Ministers in such a +situation as would have left them little to apprehend. Some +designs were, indeed, on foot which might have produced very +great disorders: Oxford’s conduct had given much occasion +to them, and with the terror of them he endeavoured to intimidate +the Queen. But expedients were not hard to be found by +which those designs might have been nipped in the bud, or else by +which the persons who promoted them might have been induced to +lay them aside. But that fatal irresolution inherent to the +Stuart race hung upon her. She felt too much inward +resentment to be able to conceal his disgrace from him; yet, +after he had made this discovery, she continued to trust all her +power in his hands.</p> +<p>No people ever were in such a condition as ours continued to +be from the autumn of 1713 to the summer following. The +Queen’s health sank every day. The attack which she +had in the winter at Windsor served as a warning both to those +who wished, and to those who feared her death, to expect +it. The party which opposed the court had been continually +gaining strength by the weakness of our administration: and at +this time their numbers were vastly increased, and their spirit +was raised by the near prospect of the succession taking +place. We were not at liberty to exert the strength we +had. We saw our danger, and many of us saw the true means +of avoiding it; but whilst the magic wand was in the same hands, +this knowledge served only to increase our uneasiness; and, +whether we would or no, we were forced with our eyes open to walk +on towards the precipice. Every moment we became less able, +if the Queen lived, to support her Government; if she died, to +secure ourselves. One side was united in a common view, and +acted upon a uniform plan: the other had really none at +all. We knew that we were out of favour at the Court of +Hanover, that we were represented there as Jacobites, and that +the Elector, his present Majesty, had been rendered publicly a +party to that opposition, in spite of which we made the peace: +and yet we neither had taken, nor could take in our present +circumstances, any measures to be better or worse there. +Thus we languished till the 27th of July, 1714, when the Queen +dismissed the Treasurer. On the Friday following, she fell +into an apoplexy, and died on Sunday the 1st of August.</p> +<p>You do me, I daresay, the justice to believe that whilst this +state of things lasted I saw very well, how little mention soever +I might make of it at the time, that no man in the Ministry, or +in the party, was so much exposed as myself. I could expect +no quarter from the Whigs, for I had deserved none. There +were persons amongst them for whom I had great esteem and +friendship; yet neither with these, nor with any others, had I +preserved a secret correspondence, which might be of use to me in +the day of distress: and besides the general character of my +party, I knew that particular prejudices were entertained against +me at Hanover. The Whigs wanted nothing but an opportunity +of attacking the peace, and it could hardly be imagined that they +would stop there. In which case I knew that they could have +hold on no man so much as myself: the instructions, the orders, +the memorials had been drawn by me; the correspondence relating +to it in France, and everywhere else, had been carried on by me; +in a word, my hand appeared to almost every paper which had been +writ in the whole course of the negotiation. To all these +considerations I added that of the weight of personal resentment, +which I had created against myself at home and abroad: in part +unavoidably, by the share I was obliged to take in these affairs; +and in part, if you will, unnecessarily, by the warmth of my +temper, and by some unguarded expressions, for which I have no +excuse to make but that which Tacitus makes for his +father-in-law, Julius Agricola: “honestius putabam +offendere, quam odisse.”</p> +<p>Having this prospect of being distinguished from the rest of +my party, in the common calamity, by severer treatment, I might +have justified myself, by reason and by great authorities too, if +I had made early provision, at least to be safe when I should be +no longer useful. How I could have secured this point I do +not think fit to explain: but certain it is that I made no one +step towards it. I resolved not to abandon my party by +turning Whig, or, which is worse a great deal, whimsical; nor to +treat separately from it. I resolved to keep myself at +liberty to act on a Tory bottom. If the Queen disgraced +Oxford and continued to live afterwards, I knew we should have +time and means to provide for our future safety: if the Queen +died, and left us in the same unfortunate circumstances, I +expected to suffer for and with the Tories; and I was prepared +for it.</p> +<p>The thunder had long grumbled in the air; and yet when the +bolt fell, most of our party appeared as much surprised as if +they had had no reason to expect it. There was a perfect +calm and universal submission through the whole kingdom. +The Chevalier, indeed, set out as if his design had been to gain +the coast and to embark for Great Britain; and the Court of +France made a merit to themselves of stopping him and obliging +him to return. But this, to my certain knowledge, was a +farce acted by concert, to keep up an opinion of his character, +when all opinion of his cause seemed to be at an end. He +owned this concert to me at Bar, on the occasion of my telling +him that he would have found no party ready to receive him, and +that the enterprise would have been to the last degree +extravagant. He was at this time far from having any +encouragement: no party numerous enough to make the least +disturbance was formed in his favour. On the King’s +arrival the storm arose. The menaces of the Whigs, backed +by some very rash declarations, by little circumstances of humour +which frequently offend more than real injuries, and by the +entire change of all the persons in employment, blew up the +coals.</p> +<p>At first many of the Tories had been made to entertain some +faint hopes that they would be permitted to live in quiet. +I have been assured that the King left Hanover in that +resolution. Happy had it been for him and for us if he had +continued in it; if the moderation of his temper had not been +overborne by the violence of party, and his and the national +interest sacrificed to the passions of a few. Others there +were among the Tories who had flattered themselves with much +greater expectations than these, and who had depended, not on +such imaginary favour and dangerous advancement as was offered +them afterwards, but on real credit and substantial power under +the new government. Such impressions on the minds of men +had rendered the two Houses of Parliament, which were then +sitting, as good courtiers to King George as ever they had been +to Queen Anne. But all these hopes being at once and with +violence extinguished, despair succeeded in their room.</p> +<p>Our party began soon to act like men delivered over to their +passions, and unguided by any other principle; not like men fired +by a just resentment and a reasonable ambition to a bold +undertaking. They treated the Government like men who were +resolved not to live under it: and yet they took no one measure +to support themselves against it. They expressed, without +reserve or circumspection, an eagerness to join in any attempt +against the Establishment which they had received and confirmed, +and which many of them had courted but a few weeks before; and +yet in the midst of all this bravery, when the election of the +new Parliament came on, some of these very men acted with the +coolness of those who are much better disposed to compound than +to take arms.</p> +<p>The body of the Tories being in this temper, it is not to be +wondered at if they heated one another, and began apace to turn +their eyes towards the Pretender; and if those few who had +already engaged with him, applied themselves to improve the +conjuncture, and endeavoured to list a party for him.</p> +<p>I went, about a month after the Queen’s death, as soon +as the Seals were taken from me, into the country; and whilst I +continued there, I felt the general disposition to Jacobitism +increase daily among people of all ranks; amongst several who had +been constantly distinguished by their aversion to that +cause. But at my return to London in the month of February +or March, 1715, a few weeks before I left England, I began for +the first time in my whole life to perceive these general +dispositions ripen into resolutions, and to observe some regular +workings among many of our principal friends, which denoted a +scheme of this kind. These workings, indeed, were very +faint; for the persons concerned in carrying them on did not +think it safe to speak too plainly to men who were, in truth, ill +disposed to the Government because they neither found their +account at present under it nor had been managed with art enough +to leave them hopes of finding it hereafter, but who at the same +time had not the least affection for the Pretender’s +person, nor any principle favourable to his interest.</p> +<p>This was the state of things when the new Parliament which his +Majesty had called assembled. A great majority of the +elections had gone in favour of the Whigs; to which the want of +concert among the Tories had contributed as much as the vigour of +that party and the influence of the new Government. The +Whigs came to the opening of this Parliament full of as much +violence as could possess men who expected to make their court, +to confirm themselves in power, and to gratify their resentments +by the same measures. I have heard that it was a dispute +among the Ministers how far this spirit should be indulged; and +that the King was determined, or confirmed in a determination, to +consent to the prosecutions, and to give the reins to the party, +by the representations that were made to him that great +difficulties would arise in the conduct of the Session if the +Court should appear inclined to check this spirit, and by Mr. +W—’s undertaking to carry all the business +successfully through the House of Commons if they were at +liberty. Such has often been the unhappy fate of our +Princes: a real necessity sometimes, and sometimes a seeming one, +has forced them to compound with a part of the nation at the +expense of the whole; and the success of their business for one +year has been purchased at the price of public disorder for +many.</p> +<p>The conjuncture I am speaking of affords a memorable instance +of this truth. If milder measures had been pursued, certain +it is that the Tories had never universally embraced +Jacobitism. The violence of the Whigs forced them into the +arms of the Pretender. The Court and the party seemed to +vie with one another which should go the greatest lengths in +severity: and the Ministers, whose true interest it must at all +times be to calm the minds of men, and who ought never to set the +examples of extraordinary inquiries or extraordinary accusations, +were upon this occasion the tribunes of the people.</p> +<p>The Council of Regency which began to sit as soon as the Queen +died, acted like a council of the Holy Office. Whoever +looked on the face of the nation saw everything quiet; not one of +those symptoms appearing which must have shown themselves more or +less at that moment if in reality there had been any measures +taken during the former reign to defeat the Protestant +succession. His Majesty ascended the throne with as little +contradiction and as little trouble as ever a son succeeded a +father in the possession of a private patrimony. But he who +had the opportunity, which I had till my dismission, of seeing a +great part of what passed in that Council, would have thought +that there had been an opposition actually formed, that the new +Establishment was attacked openly from without and betrayed from +within.</p> +<p>The same disposition continued after the King’s +arrival. This political Inquisition went on with all the +eagerness imaginable in seizing of papers, in ransacking the +Queen’s closet, and examining even her private +letters. The Whigs had clamoured loudly, and affirmed in +the face of the world that the nation had been sold to France, to +Spain, to the Pretender; and whilst they endeavoured in vain, by +very singular methods, to find some colour to justify what they +had advanced without proof, they put themselves under an absolute +necessity of grounding the most solemn prosecution on things +whereof they might indeed have proof, but which would never pass +for crimes before any judges but such as were parties at the same +time.</p> +<p>In the King’s first Speech from the Throne all the +inflaming hints were given, and all the methods of violence were +chalked out to the two Houses. The first steps in both were +perfectly answerable; and, to the shame of the peerage be it +spoken, I saw at that time several lords concur to condemn in one +general vote all that they had approved of in a former Parliament +by many particular resolutions. Among several bloody +resolutions proposed and agitated at this time, the resolution of +impeaching me of high treason was taken; and I took that of +leaving England, not in a panic terror improved by the artifices +of the Duke of Marlborough (whom I knew even at that time too +well to act by his advice or information in any case), but on +such grounds as the proceedings which soon followed sufficiently +justified, and as I have never repented building upon. +Those who blamed it in the first heat were soon after obliged to +change their language; for what other resolution could I +take? The method of prosecution designed against me would +have put me immediately out of condition to act for myself, or to +serve those who were less exposed than me, but who were, however, +in danger. On the other hand, how few were there on whose +assistance I could depend, or to whom I would, even in those +circumstances, be obliged? The ferment in the nation was +wrought up to a considerable height; but there was at that time +no reason to expect that it could influence the proceedings in +Parliament in favour of those who should be accused. Left +to its own movement, it was much more proper to quicken than +slacken the prosecutions; and who was there to guide its +motions? The Tories who had been true to one another to the +last were a handful, and no great vigour could be expected from +them. The Whimsicals, disappointed of the figure which they +hoped to make, began, indeed, to join their old friends. +One of the principal amongst them was so very good as to confess +to me that if the Court had called the servants of the late Queen +to account, and had stopped there, he must have considered +himself as a judge, and have acted according to his conscience on +what should have appeared to him; but that war had been declared +to the whole Tory party, and that now the state of things was +altered. This discourse needed no commentary, and proved to +me that I had never erred in the judgment I made of this set of +men. Could I then resolve to be obliged to them, or to +suffer with Oxford? As much as I still was heated by the +disputes in which I had been all my life engaged against the +Whigs, I would sooner have chose to owe my security to their +indulgence than to the assistance of the Whimsicals; but I +thought banishment, with all her train of evils, preferable to +either. I abhorred Oxford to that degree that I could not +bear to be joined with him in any case. Nothing, perhaps, +contributed so much to determine me as this sentiment. A +sense of honour would not have permitted me to distinguish +between his case and mine own; and it was worse than death to lie +under the necessity of making them the same, and of taking +measures in concert with him.</p> +<p>I am now come to the time at which I left England, and have +finished the first part of that deduction of facts which I +proposed to lay before you. I am hopeful that you will not +think it altogether tedious or unnecessary; for although very +little of what I have said can be new to you, yet this summary +account will enable you with greater ease to recall to your +memory the passages of those four years wherewith all that I am +going to relate to you has an immediate and necessary +connection.</p> +<p>In what has been said I am far from making my own +panegyric. I had not in those days so much merit as was +ascribed to me, nor since that time have I had so little as the +same persons allowed me. I committed, without dispute, many +faults, and a greater man than I can pretend to be, constituted +in the same circumstances, would not have kept clear of all; but +with respect to the Tories I committed none. I carried the +point of party honour to the height, and specified everything to +my attachment to them during this period of time. Let us +now examine whether I have done so during the rest.</p> +<p>When I arrived in France, about the end of March, 1715, the +affairs of England were represented to me in another light than I +had seen them in when I looked upon them with my own eyes very +few weeks before. I found the persons who were detached to +speak with me prepared to think that I came over to negotiate for +the Pretender; and when they perceived that I was more ignorant +than they imagined, I was assured by them that there would be +suddenly a universal rising in England and Scotland. The +leaders were named to me, their engagements specified, and many +gentlemen, yourself among others, were reckoned upon for +particular services, though I was certain you had never been +treated with; from whence I concluded, and the event has +justified my opinion, that these assurances had been given on the +general characters of men by such of our friends as had embarked +sooner and gone farther than the rest.</p> +<p>This management surprised me extremely. In the answers I +made I endeavoured to set the mistake right, to show that things +were far from the point of maturity imagined, that the Chevalier +had yet no party for him, and that nothing could form one but the +extreme violence which the Whigs threatened to exercise. +Great endeavours were used to engage me in this affair, and to +prevail on me to answer the letter of invitation sent me from +Bar. I alleged, as it was true, that I had no commission +from any person in England, and that the friends I left behind me +were the only persons who could determine me, if any could, to +take such a step. As to the last proposition, I absolutely +refused it.</p> +<p>In the uncertainty of what would happen—whether the +prosecutions would be pushed, which was most probable, in the +manner intended against me, and against others, for all of whom, +except the Earl of Oxford, I had as much concern as for myself; +or whether the Whigs would relent, drop some, and soften the fate +of others—I resolved to conduct myself so as to create no +appearance which might be strained into a pretence for hard +usage, and which might be retorted on my friends when they +debated for me, or when they defended themselves. I saw the +Earl of Stair; I promised him that I would enter into no Jacobite +engagements, and I kept my word with him. I wrote a letter +to Mr. Secretary Stanhope which might take off any imputation of +neglect of the Government, and I retired into Dauphine to remove +the objection of residence near the Court of France.</p> +<p>This retreat from Paris was censured in England, and styled a +desertion of my friends and of their cause, with what foundation +let any reasonable man determine. Had I engaged with the +Pretender before the party acted for him, or required of me that +I should do so, I had taken the air of being his man; whereas I +looked on myself as theirs. I had gone about to bring them +into his measures; whereas I never intended, even since that +time, to do anything more than to make him as far as possible act +conformably to their views.</p> +<p>During the short time I continued on the banks of the Rhone +the prosecutions were carried on at Westminster with the utmost +violence, and the ferment among the people was risen to such a +degree that it could end in nothing better—it might have +ended in something worse—than it did. The measures +which I observed at Paris had turned to no account; on the +contrary, the letter which I wrote to Mr. Secretary Stanhope was +quoted as a base and fawning submission, and what I intended as a +mark of respect to the Government and a service to my friends was +perverted to ruin me in the opinion of the latter. The Act +of Attainder, in consequence of my impeachment, had passed +against me for crimes of the blackest dye; and among other +inducements to pass it, my having been engaged in the +Pretender’s interest was one. How well founded this +Article was has already appeared; I was just as guilty of the +rest. The correspondence with me was, you know, neither +frequent nor safe. I heard seldom and darkly from you, and +though I saw well enough which way the current ran, yet I was +entirely ignorant of the measures you took, and of the use you +intended to make of me. I contented myself, therefore, with +letting you all know that you had but to command me, and that I +was ready to venture in your service the little which remained, +as frankly as I had exposed all which was gone. At last +your commands came, and I shall show you in what manner I +executed them.</p> +<p>The person who was sent to me arrived in the beginning of +July, 1715, at the place where I was. He spoke in the name +of all the friends whose authority could influence me, and he +brought me word that Scotland was not only ready to take arms, +but under some sort of dissatisfaction to be withheld from +beginning; that in England the people were exasperated against +the Government to such a degree that, far from wanting to be +encouraged, they could not be restrained from insulting it on +every occasion; that the whole Tory party was become avowedly +Jacobite; that many officers of the army and the majority of the +soldiers were very well affected to the cause; that the City of +London was ready to rise; and that the enterprises for seizing of +several places were ripe for execution: in a word, that most of +the principal Tories were in a concert with the Duke of Ormond, +for I had pressed particularly to be informed whether his Grace +acted alone, or, if not, who were his council; and that the +others were so disposed that there remained no doubt of their +joining as soon as the first blow should be struck. He +added that my friends were a little surprised to observe that I +lay neuter in such a conjuncture. He represented to me the +danger I ran of being prevented by people of all sides from +having the merit of engaging early in this enterprise, and how +unaccountable it would be for a man impeached and attainted under +the present Government to take no share in bringing about a +revolution so near at hand and so certain. He entreated +that I would defer no longer to join the Chevalier, to advise and +assist in carrying on his affairs, and to solicit and negotiate +at the Court of France, where my friends imagined that I should +not fail to meet with a favourable reception, and from whence +they made no doubt of receiving assistance in a situation of +affairs so critical, so unexpected, and so promising. He +concluded by giving me a letter from the Pretender, whom he had +seen in his way to me, in which I was pressed to repair without +loss of time to Commercy; and this instance was grounded on the +message which the bearer of the letter had brought me from my +friends in England. Since he was sent to me, it had been +more proper to have come directly where I was; but he was in +haste to make his own court, and to deliver the assurances which +were entrusted to him. Perhaps, too, he imagined that he +should tie the knot faster on me by acquainting me that my +friends had actually engaged for themselves and me, than by +barely telling me that they desired I would engage for myself and +them.</p> +<p>In the progress of the conversation he related a multitude of +facts which satisfied me as to the general disposition of the +people; but he gave me little satisfaction as to the measures +taken for improving this disposition, for driving the business on +with vigour if it tended to a revolution, or for supporting it +with advantage if it spun into a war. When I questioned him +concerning several persons whose disinclination to the Government +admitted of no doubt, and whose names, quality, and experience +were very essential to the success of the undertaking, he owned +to me that they kept a great reserve, and did, at most, but +encourage others to act by general and dark expressions.</p> +<p>I received this account and this summons ill in my bed; yet, +important as the matter was, a few minutes served to determine +me. The circumstances wanting to form a reasonable +inducement to engage did not escape me. But the smart of a +Bill of Attainder tingled in every vein; and I looked on my party +to be under oppression and to call for my assistance. +Besides which I considered, first, that I should certainly be +informed, when I conferred with the Chevalier, of many +particulars unknown to this gentleman; for I did not imagine that +you could be so near to take arms, as he represented you to be, +on no other foundation than that which he exposed. And, +secondly, that I was obliged in honour to declare, without +waiting for a more particular information of what might be +expected from England, since my friends had taken their +resolution to declare, without any previous assurance of what +might be expected from France. This second motive weighed +extremely with me at that time; there is, however, more sound +than sense in it, and it contains the original error to which all +your subsequent errors, and the thread of misfortunes which +followed, are to be ascribed.</p> +<p>My resolution thus taken, I lost no time in repairing to +Commercy. The very first conversations with the Chevalier +answered in no degree my expectations; and I assure you, with +great truth, that I began even then, if not to repent of my own +rashness, yet to be fully convinced both of yours and mine.</p> +<p>He talked to me like a man who expected every moment to set +out for England or Scotland, but who did not very well know for +which. And when he entered into the particulars of his +affairs I found that concerning the former he had nothing more +circumstantial nor positive to go upon than what I had already +heard. The advices which were sent from thence contained +such assurances of success as it was hard to think that men who +did not go upon the surest grounds would presume to give. +But then these assurances were general, and the authority seldom +satisfactory. Those which came from the best hands were +verbal, and often conveyed by very doubtful messengers; others +came from men whose fortunes were as desperate as their counsels; +and others came from persons whose situation in the world gave +little reason to attend to their judgment in matters of this +kind.</p> +<p>The Duke of Ormond had been for some time, I cannot say how +long, engaged with the Chevalier. He had taken the +direction of this whole affair, as far as it related to England, +upon himself, and had received a commission for this purpose, +which contained the most ample powers that could be given. +After this, one would be apt to imagine that the principles on +which the Pretender should proceed, and the Tories engage, in +this service had been laid down; that a regular and certain +method of correspondence had been established; that the necessary +assistances had been specified; and that positive assurances had +been given of them. Nothing less. In a matter as +serious as this, all was loose and abandoned to the disposition +of fortune. The first point had never been touched upon; by +what I have said above you see how little care was taken of the +second; and as to the third, the Duke had asked a small body of +regular forces, a sum of money, and a quantity of arms and +ammunition. He had been told in answer by the Court of +France that he must absolutely despair of any number of troops +whatever, but he had been made in general to hope for some money, +some arms, and some ammunition; a little sum had, I think, been +advanced to him. In a case so plain as this it is hard to +conceive how any man could err. The assistances demanded +from France at this time, and even greater than these, will +appear, in the sequel of this relation, by the sense of the whole +party, to have been deemed essentially necessary to +success. In such an uncertainty, therefore, whether even +these could be obtained, or rather with so much reason to +apprehend that they could not, it was evident that the Tories +ought to have lain still. They might have helped the +ferment against the Government, but should have avoided with the +utmost care the giving any alarm or even suspicion of their true +design, and have resumed or not resumed it as the Chevalier was +able or not able to provide the troops, the arms, the money, +etc. Instead of which those who were at the head of the +undertaking, and therefore answerable for the measures which were +pursued, suffered the business to jog merrily on. They knew +in general how little dependence was to be placed on foreign +succour, but acted as if they had been sure of it; while the +party were rendered sanguine by their passions, and made no doubt +of subverting a Government they were angry with, both one and the +other made as much bustle and gave as great alarm as would have +been imprudent even at the eve of a general insurrection. +This appeared to me to be the state of things with respect to +England when I arrived at Commercy.</p> +<p>The Scots had long pressed the Chevalier to come amongst them, +and had of late sent frequent messages to quicken his departure, +some of which were delivered in terms much more zealous than +respectful. The truth is, they seemed in as much haste to +begin as if they had thought themselves able to do the work +alone; as if they had been apprehensive of no danger but that of +seeing it taken out of their hands and of having the honour of it +shared by others. However, that which was wanting on the +part of England was not wanting in Scotland; the Scots talked +aloud, but they were in a condition to rise. They took +little care to keep their intentions secret, but they were +disposed to put those intentions into immediate execution, and +thereby to render the secret no longer necessary. They knew +upon whom to depend for every part of the work, and they had +concerted with the Chevalier even to the place of his +landing.</p> +<p>There was need of no great sagacity to perceive how unequal +such foundations were to the weight of the building designed to +be raised on them. The Scots, with all their zeal and all +their valour, could bring no revolution about unless in +concurrence with the English; and among the latter nothing was +ripe for such an undertaking but the temper of the people, if +that was so. I thought, therefore, that the +Pretender’s friends in the North should be kept from rising +till those in the South had put themselves in a condition to act; +and that in the meanwhile the utmost endeavours ought to be used +with the King of France to espouse the cause; and that a plan of +the design, with a more particular specification of the succours +desired, as well as of the time when and the place to which they +should be conveyed, ought to be written for;—all which I +was told by the Marshal of Berwick, who had the principal +direction at that time of these affairs in France, and I daresay +very truly, had been often asked, but never sent. I looked +on this enterprise to be of the nature of those which can hardly +be undertaken more than once, and I judged that the success of it +would depend on timing as near as possible together the +insurrection in both parts of the island and the succours from +hence. The Pretender approved this opinion of mine. +He instructed me accordingly, and I left Lorraine after having +accepted the Seals much against my inclination. I made one +condition with him; it was this—that I should be at liberty +to quit a station which my humour and many other considerations +made me think myself very unfit for, whenever the occasion upon +which I engaged was over, one way or other; and I desire you to +remember that I did so.</p> +<p>I arrived at Paris towards the end of July, 1715. You +will observe that all I was charged with, and all by consequence +that I am answerable for, was to solicit this Court and to +dispose them to grant us the succours necessary to make the +attempt as soon as we should know certainly from England in what +it was desired that these succours should consist and whither +they should be sent. Here I found a multitude of people at +work, and every one doing what seemed good in his own eyes; no +subordination, no order, no concert. Persons concerned in +the management of these affairs upon former occasions have +assured me this is always the case. It might be so to some +degree, but I believe never so much as now. The Jacobites +had wrought one another up to look on the success of the present +designs as infallible. Every meeting-house which the +populace demolished, every little drunken riot which happened, +served to confirm them in these sanguine expectations; and there +was hardly one amongst them who would lose the air of +contributing by his intrigues to the Restoration, which, he took +it for granted, would be brought about, without him, in a very +few weeks.</p> +<p>Care and hope sat on every busy Irish face. Those who +could write and read had letters to show; and those who had not +arrived to this pitch of erudition had their secrets to +whisper. No sex was excluded from this Ministry. +Fanny Oglethorpe, whom you must have seen in England, kept her +corner in it, and Olive Trant was the great wheel of our +machine.</p> +<p>I imagine that this picture, the lines of which are not in the +least too strong, would serve to represent what passed on your +side of the water at the same time. The letters which came +from thence seemed to me to contain rather such things as the +writers wished might be true, than such as they knew to be so: +and the accounts which were sent from hence were of the same +kind. The vanity of some and the credulity of others +supported this ridiculous correspondence; and I question not but +very many persons, some such I have known, did the same thing +from a principle which they took to be a very wise one: they +imagined that they helped by these means to maintain and to +increase the spirit of the party in England and France. +They acted like Thoas, that turbulent Ætolian, who brought +Antiochus into Greece: “quibus mendaciis de rege, +multiplicando verbis copias ejus, erexerat multorum in +Græcia animos; iisdem et regis spem inflabat, omnium votis +eum arcessi.” Thus were numbers of people employed +under a notion of advancing the business, or from an affectation +of importance, in amusing and flattering one another and in +sounding the alarm in the ears of an enemy whom it was their +interest to surprise. The Government of England was put on +its guard: and the necessity of acting, or of laying aside with +some disadvantage all thoughts of acting for the present, was +precipitated before any measures necessary to enable you to act +had been prepared, or almost thought of.</p> +<p>If his Majesty did not, till some short time after this, +declare the intended invasion to Parliament it was not for want +of information. Before I came to Paris, what was doing had +been discovered. The little armament made at the Havre, +which furnished the only means the Chevalier then had for his +transportation into Britain, which had exhausted the treasury of +St. Germains, and which contained all the arms and ammunition +that could be depended upon for the whole undertaking, though +they were hardly sufficient to begin the work even in Scotland, +was talked of publicly. A Minister less alert and less +capable than the Earl of Stair would easily have been at the +bottom of the secret, for so it was called, when the particulars +of messages received and sent, the names of the persons from whom +they came, and by whom they were carried, were whispered about at +tea-tables and in coffee-houses.</p> +<p>In short, what by the indiscretion of people here, what by the +rebound which came often back from London, what by the private +interests and ambitious views of persons in the French Court, and +what by other causes unnecessary to be examined now, the most +private transactions came to light: and they who imagined that +they trusted their heads to the keeping of one or two friends, +were in reality at the mercy of numbers. Into such company +was I fallen for my sins; and it is upon the credit of such a mob +Ministry that the Tories have judged me capable of betraying a +trust, or incapable of discharging it.</p> +<p>I had made very little progress in the business which brought +me to Paris, when the paper so long expected was sent, in +pursuance of former instances, from England. The unanimous +sense of the principal persons engaged was contained in it. +The whole had been dictated word for word to the gentleman who +brought it over, by the Earl of Mar, and it had been delivered to +him by the Duke of Ormond. I was driving in the wide ocean +without a compass when this dropped unexpectedly into my +hands. I received it joyfully, and I steered my course +exactly by it. Whether the persons from whom it came +pursued the principles and observed the rules which they laid +down as the measures of their own conduct and of ours, will +appear by the sequel of this relation.</p> +<p>This memorial asserted that there were no hopes of succeeding +in a present undertaking, for many reasons deduced in it, without +an immediate and universal rising of the people in all parts of +England upon the Chevalier’s arrival; and that this +insurrection was in no degree probable unless he brought a body +of regular troops along with him: that if this attempt +miscarried, his cause and his friends, the English liberty and +Government, would be utterly ruined: but if by coming without +troops he resolved to risk these and everything else, he must set +out so as not to arrive before the end of September, to justify +which opinion many arguments were urged. In this case +twenty thousand arms, a train of artillery, five hundred officers +with their servants, and a considerable sum of money were +demanded: and as soon as they should be informed that the +Chevalier was in condition to make this provision, it was said +that notice should be given him of the places to which he might +send, and of the persons who were to be trusted. I do not +mention some inconveniences which they touched upon arising from +a delay; because their opinion was clearly for this delay, and +because that they could not suppose that the Chevalier would act, +or that those about him would advise him to act, contrary to the +sense of all his friends in England. No time was lost in +making the proper use of this paper. As much of it as was +fit to be shown to this Court was translated into French, and +laid before the King of France. I was now able to speak +with greater assurance, and in some sort to undertake +conditionally for the event of things.</p> +<p>The proposal of violating treaties so lately and so solemnly +concluded, was a very bold one to be made to people, whatever +their inclinations might be, whom the war had reduced to the +lowest ebb of riches and power. They would not hear of a +direct and open engagement, such as the sending a body of troops +would have been; neither would they grant the whole of what was +asked in the second plan. But it was impossible for them, +or any one else, to foresee how far those steps which they were +willing to take, well improved, might have encouraged or forced +them to go. They granted us some succours, and the very +ship in which the Pretender was to transport himself was fitted +out by Depine d’Anicant at the King of France’s +expense. They would have concealed these appearances as +much as they could; but the heat of the Whigs and the resentment +of the Court of England might have drawn them in. We should +have been glad indirectly to concur in fixing these things upon +them: and, in a word, if the late King had lived six months +longer, I verily believe there had been war again between England +and France. This was the only point of time when these +affairs had, to my apprehension, the least reasonable appearance +even of possibility: all that preceded was wild and uncertain: +all that followed was mad and desperate. But this +favourable aspect had an extreme short duration. Two events +soon happened, one of which cast a damp on all we were doing, and +the other rendered vain and fruitless all we had done. The +first was the arrival of the Duke of Ormond in France, the other +was the death of the King.</p> +<p>We had sounded the duke’s name high. His +reputation and the opinion of his power were great. The +French began to believe that he was able to form and to head a +party; that the troops would join him; that the nation would +follow the signal whenever he drew his sword; and the voice of +the people, the echo of which was continually in their ears, +confirmed them in this belief. But when, in the midst of +all these bright ideas, they saw him arrive, almost literally +alone, when, to excuse his coming, I was obliged to tell them +that he could not stay, they sank at once from their hopes, and +that which generally happens happened in this case: because they +had had too good an opinion of the cause, they began to form too +bad a one. Before this time, if they had no friendship for +the Tories, they had at least some consideration and +esteem. After this, I saw nothing but compassion in the +best of them, and contempt in the others.</p> +<p>When I arrived at Paris, the King was already gone to Marly, +where the indisposition which he had begun to feel at Versailles +increased upon him. He was the best friend the Chevalier +had: and when I engaged in this business, my principal dependence +was on his personal character. This failed me to a great +degree; he was not in a condition to exert the same vigour as +formerly. The Ministers who saw so great an event as his +death to be probably at hand, a certain minority, an uncertain +regency, perhaps confusion, at best a new face of Government and +a new system of affairs, would not, for their own sakes, as well +as for the sake of the public, venture to engage far in any new +measures. All I had to negotiate by myself first, and in +conjunction with the Duke of Ormond soon afterwards, languished +with the King. My hopes sank as he declined, and died when +he expired. The event of things has sufficiently shown that +all those which were entertained by the duke and the Jacobite +party under the Regency, were founded on the grossest delusions +imaginable. Thus was the project become impracticable +before the time arrived which was fixed by those who directed +things in England for putting it in execution.</p> +<p>The new Government of France appeared to me like a strange +country. I was little acquainted with the roads. Most +of the faces I met with were unknown to me, and I hardly +understood the language of the people. Of the men who had +been in power under the late reign, many were discarded, and most +of the others were too much taken up with the thoughts of +securing themselves under this, to receive applications in favour +of the Pretender. The two men who had the greatest +appearance of favour and power were D’Aguesseau and +Noailles. One was made Chancellor, on the death of Voisin, +from Attorney-General; and the other was placed at the head of +the Treasury. The first passes for a man of parts, but he +never acted out of the sphere of the law: I had no acquaintance +with him before this time; and when you consider his +circumstances and mine, you will not think it could be very easy +for me to get access to him now. The latter I had known +extremely well whilst the late King lived: and from the same +Court principle, as he was glad to be well with me then, he would +hardly know me now. The Minister who had the principal +direction of foreign affairs I lived in friendship with, and I +must own, to his honour, that he never encouraged a design which +he knew that his Court had no intention of supporting.</p> +<p>There were other persons, not to tire you with farther +particulars upon this head, of credit and influence with whom I +found indirect and private ways of conversing; but it was in vain +to expect any more than civil language from them in a case which +they found no disposition in their Master to countenance, and in +favour of which they had no prejudices of their own. The +private engagements into which the Duke of Orleans had entered +with his Majesty during the life of the late King will abate of +their force as the Regent grows into strength, and would soon +have had no force at all if the Pretender had met with success: +but in these beginnings they operated very strongly. The +air of this Court was to take the counterpart of all which had +been thought right under Louis XIV. “Cela resemble +trop à l’ancien système” was an answer +so often given that it became a jest and almost a proverb. +But to finish this account with a fact which is incredible, but +strictly true; the very peace which had saved France from ruin, +and the makers of it, were become as unpopular at this Court as +at the Court of Vienna.</p> +<p>The Duke of Ormond flattered himself, in this state of things, +that he had opened a private and sure channel of arriving at the +Regent, and of bending him to his purposes. His Grace and I +lived together at this time in an house which one of my friends +had lent me. I observed that he was frequently lost, and +that he made continual excursions out of town, with all the +mysterious precaution imaginable. I doubted at first +whether those intrigues related to business or pleasure. I +soon discovered with whom they were carried on, and had reason to +believe that both were mingled in them. It is necessary +that I explain this secret to you.</p> +<p>Mrs. Trant, whom I have named above, had been preparing +herself for the retired abstemious life of a Carmelite by taking +a surfeit of the pleasures of Paris, when, a little before the +death of the Queen, or about that time, she went into +England. What she was entrusted either by the Chevalier, or +any other person, to negotiate there, I am ignorant of; and it +imports not much to know. In that journey she made or +renewed an acquaintance with the Duke of Ormond. The +scandalous chronicle affirms that she brought with her, when she +returned into France, a woman of whom I have not the least +knowledge, but who was probably handsome, since without beauty +such a merchandise would not have been saleable, nor have +answered the design of the importer; and that she made this way +her court to the Regent. Whatever her merit was, she kept a +correspondence with him, and put herself upon that foot of +familiarity which he permits all those who contribute to his +pleasures to assume. She was placed by him, as she told me +herself, where I found her some time after that which I am +speaking of, in the house of an ancient gentlewoman who had +formerly been Maid of Honour to Madame, and who had contracted at +Court a spirit of intrigue which accompanied her in her +retreat.</p> +<p>These two had associated to them the Abbé de Tesieu in +all the political parts of their business; for I will not suppose +that so reverend an ecclesiastic entered into any other +secret. This Abbé is the Regent’s secretary; +and it was chiefly through him that the private treaty had been +carried on between his master and the Earl of Stair in the +King’s reign. Whether the priest had stooped at the +lure of a cardinal’s hat, or whether he acted the second +part by the same orders that he acted the first, I know +not. This is sure, and the British Minister was not the +bubble of it—that whilst he concerted measures on one hand +to traverse the Pretender’s designs, he testified on the +other all the inclination possible to his service. A mad +fellow who had been an intendant in Normandy, and several other +politicians of the lowest form, were at different times taken +into this famous Junto.</p> +<p>With these worthy people his Grace of Ormond negotiated; and +no care was omitted on his part to keep me out of the +secret. The reason of which, as far as I am able to guess +at, shall be explained to you by-and-by. I might very +justly have taken this proceeding ill, and the duke will not be +able to find in my whole conduct towards him anything like it; I +protest to you very sincerely I was not in the least moved at +it.</p> +<p>He advanced not a step in his business with these sham +Ministers, and yet imagined that he got daily ground. I +made no progress with the true ones, but I saw it. These, +however, were not our only difficulties. We lay under +another, which came from your side, and which embarrassed us +more. The first hindered us from working forward to our +point of view, but the second took all point of view from us.</p> +<p>A paper was sent into England just before the death of the +King of France, which had been drawn by me at Chaville in concert +with the Dukes of Ormond and Berwick, and with Monsieur de +Torcy. This paper was an answer to the memorial received +from thence. The state of this country was truly +represented in it: the difference was fixed between what had been +asked, and what might be expected from France; and upon the whole +it was demanded what our friends would do, and what they would +have us to do. The reply to this came through the French +Secretary of State to our hands. They declared themselves +unable to say anything till they should see what turn affairs +would take on so great an event as the death of the King, the +report of which had reached them.</p> +<p>Such a declaration shut our mouths and tied our hands. I +confess I knew neither how to solicit, nor what to solicit; this +last message suspending the project on which we had acted before, +and which I kept as an instruction constantly before my +eyes. It seemed to me uncertain whether you intended to go +on, or whether your design was to stifle, as much as possible, +all past transactions; to lie perfectly still; to throw upon the +Court the odium of having given a false alarm; and to wait till +new accidents at home, and a more favourable conjuncture abroad, +might tempt you to resume the enterprise. Perhaps this +would have been the wisest game you could have played: but then +you should have concerted it with us who acted for you +here. You intended no such thing, as appeared afterwards: +and therefore those who acted for the party at London, whoever +they were, must be deemed inexcusable for leaving things on the +foot of this message, and giving us no advice fit to be depended +upon for many weeks. Whilst preparations were to be made, +and the work was to be set a-going by assistance from hence, you +might reasonably expect to hear from us, and to be determined by +us: but when all hopes of this kind seemed to be gone, it was +your part to determine us; and we could take no resolution here +but that of conforming ourselves to whatever should come +prescribed from England.</p> +<p>Whilst we were in this condition, the most desperate that can +be imagined, we began to receive verbal messages from you that no +more time was to be lost, and that the Chevalier should come +away. No man was, I believe, ever so embarrassed as I found +myself at that time. I could not imagine that you would +content yourselves by loose verbal messages, after all that had +happened, to call us over; and I knew by experience how little +such messages are to be depended on. For soon after I +engaged in these affairs, a monk arrived at Bar, despatched, as +he affirmed, by the Duke of Ormond, in whose name he insisted +that the Chevalier should hasten into Britain, and that nothing +but his presence was wanting to place the crown on his +head. The fellow delivered his errand so positively, and so +circumstantially, that the resolution was taken at Bar to set +out, and my rendezvous to join the Chevalier was appointed +me. This method to fetch a King, with as little ceremony as +one would invite a friend to supper, appeared somewhat odd to me, +who was then very new in these affairs. But when I came to +talk with the man, for by good luck he had been sent for from Bar +to Paris, I easily discerned that he had no such commission as he +pretended to, and that he acted of his own head. I presumed +to oppose the taking any resolution upon his word, though he was +a monk: and soon after we knew from the Duke of Ormond himself +that he had never sent him.</p> +<p>This example made me cautious; but that which determined my +opinion was, that I could never imagine, without supposing you +all run mad, that the same men who judged this attempt unripe for +execution, unless supported by regular troops from France, or at +least by all the other assistances which are enumerated above, +while the design was much more secret than at present; when the +King had no fleet at sea, nor more than eight thousand men +dispersed over the whole island; when we had the good wishes of +the French Court on our side, and were sure of some particular +assistances, and of a general connivance; that the same men, I +say, should press for making it now without any other +preparation, when we had neither money, arms, ammunition, nor a +single company of foot; when the Government of England was on its +guard, national troops were raised, foreign forces sent for, and +France, like all the rest of the Continent, against us. I +could not conceive such a strange combination of accidents as +should make the necessity of acting increase gradually upon us as +the means of doing so were taken from us.</p> +<p>Upon the whole matter, my opinion was, and I did not observe +the Duke of Ormond to differ from me, that we should wait till we +heard from you in such a manner as might assure us of what you +intended to do yourselves, and of what you expected from us; and +that in the meanwhile we should go as far as the little money +which we had, and the little favour which was shown us would +allow, in getting some embarkations ready on the coast.</p> +<p>Sir George Byng had come into the road of Havre, and had +demanded by name several ships which belonged to us to be given +up to him. The Regent did not think fit to let him have the +ships; but he ordered them to be unloaded, and their cargoes were +put into the King’s magazines. We were in no +condition to repair the loss; and therefore when I mention +embarkations, you will please to understand nothing more than +vessels to transport the Pretender’s person and the persons +of those who should go over with him. This was all we could +do, and this was not neglected.</p> +<p>We were thus employed when a gentleman arrived from Scotland +to represent the state of that country, and to require a +definitive answer from the Chevalier whether he would have the +insurrection to be made immediately, which they apprehended they +might not be able to make at all if they were obliged to defer it +much longer. This gentleman was sent instantly back again, +and was directed to let the persons he came from know that the +Chevalier was desirous to have the rising of his friends in +England and Scotland so adjusted that they might mutually assist +each other and distract the enemy; that he had not received a +final answer from his friends in England, but that he was in +daily expectation of it; that it was very much to be wished that +all attempts in Scotland could be suspended till such time as the +English were ready; but that if the Scots were so pressed that +they must either submit or rise immediately, he was of opinion +they should rise, and he would make the best of his way to +them.</p> +<p>What this forwardness in the Scots and this uncertainty and +backwardness in the English must produce, it was not hard to +foresee; and, therefore, that I might neglect nothing in my power +to prevent any false measures—as I was conscious to myself +that I had neglected nothing to promote true ones—I +despatched a gentleman to London, where I supposed the Earl of +Mar to be, some days before the message I have just spoken of was +sent to Scotland. I desired him to make my compliments to +Lord Mar, and to tell him from me that I understood it to be his +sense, as well as the sense of all our friends, that Scotland +could do nothing effectually without the concurrence of England, +and that England would not stir without assistance from abroad; +that he might assure himself no such assistance could be depended +upon; and that I begged of him to make the inference from these +propositions. The gentleman went; but upon his arrival at +London he found that the Earl of Mar was already set out to draw +the Highlanders into arms. He communicated his message to a +person of confidence, who undertook to send it after his +lordship; and this was the utmost which either he or I could do +in such a conjuncture.</p> +<p>You were now visibly departed from the very scheme which you +had sent us over, and from all the principles which had been ever +laid down. I did what I could to keep up my own spirit, as +well as the spirits of the Chevalier, and of all those with whom +I was in correspondence: I endeavoured even to deceive +myself. I could not remedy the mischief, and I was resolved +to see the conclusion of the perilous adventure; but I own to you +that I thought then, and that I have not changed my opinion +since, that such measures as these would not be pursued by any +reasonable man in the most common affairs of life. It was +with the utmost astonishment that I saw them pursued in the +conduct of an enterprise which had for its object nothing less +than the disposition of crowns, and for the means of bringing it +about nothing less than a civil war.</p> +<p>Impatient that we heard nothing from England, when we expected +every moment to hear that the war was begun in Scotland, the Duke +of Ormond and I resolved to send a person of confidence to +London. We instructed him to repeat to you the former +accounts which we had sent over, to let you know how destitute +the Chevalier was either of actual support or even of reasonable +hopes, and to desire that you would determine whether he should +go to Scotland or throw himself on some part of the English +coast. This person was further instructed to tell you that, +the Chevalier being ready to take any resolution at a +moment’s warning, you might depend on his setting out the +instant he received your answer; and, therefore, that to save +time, if your intention was to rise, you would do well to act +immediately, on the assurance that the plan you prescribed, be it +what it would, should be exactly complied with. We took +this resolution the rather because one of the packets, which had +been prepared in cypher to give you an account of things, which +had been put above three weeks before into Monsieur de +Torcy’s hands, and which by consequence we thought to be in +yours, was by this time sent back to me by this Minister (I +think, open), with an excuse that he durst not take upon him to +forward it.</p> +<p>The person despatched to London returned very soon to us, and +the answer he brought was, that since affairs grew daily worse, +and could not mend by delay, our friends in England had resolved +to declare immediately, and that they would be ready to join the +Chevalier on his landing; that his person would be as safe there +as in Scotland, and that in every other respect it was better +that he should land in England; that they had used their utmost +endeavours, and that they hoped the western counties were in a +good posture to receive him. To this was added a general +indication of the place he should come to, as near to Plymouth as +possible.</p> +<p>You must agree that this was not the answer of men who knew +what they were about. A little more precision was necessary +in dictating a message which was to have such consequences, and +especially since the gentleman could not fail to acquaint the +persons he spoke with that the Chevalier was not able to carry +men enough to secure him from being taken up even by the first +constable. Notwithstanding this, the Duke of Ormond set out +from Paris and the Chevalier from Bar. Some persons were +sent to the North of England and others to London to give notice +that they were both on their way. Their routes were so +ordered that the Duke of Ormond was to sail from the coast of +Normandy some days before the Chevalier arrived at St. Malo, to +which place the duke was to send immediate notice of his landing; +and two gentlemen acquainted with the country, and perfectly well +known to all our friends in those parts, were despatched before, +that the people of Devonshire and Somersetshire, who were, we +concluded, in arms, might be apprised of the signals which were +to be made from the ships, and might be ready to receive the +duke.</p> +<p>On the coast of France, and before his embarkation, the duke +heard that several of our principal friends had been seized +immediately after the person who came last from them had left +London, that the others were all dispersed, and that the +consternation was universal. He embarked, notwithstanding +this melancholy news, and, supported by nothing but the firmness +of his temper, he went over to the place appointed; he did more +than his part, and he found that our friends had done less than +theirs. One of the gentlemen who had passed over before +him, and had traversed part of the country, joined him on the +coast, and assured him that there was not the least room to +expect a rising; in a word, he was refused a night’s +lodging in a country which we had been told was in a good posture +to receive the Chevalier, and where the duke expected that +multitudes would repair to him.</p> +<p>He returned to the coast of Brittany after this uncomfortable +expedition, where the Chevalier arrived about the same time from +Lorraine. What his Grace proposed by the second attempt, +which he made as soon as the vessel could be refitted, to land in +the same part of the island, I profess myself to be +ignorant. I wrote him my opinion at the time, and I have +always thought that the storm in which he had like to have been +cast away, and which forced him back to the French coast, saved +him from a much greater peril—that of perishing in an +attempt as full of extravagant rashness, and as void of all +reasonable meaning, as any of those adventures which have +rendered the hero of La Mancha immortal.</p> +<p>The Chevalier had now but one of these two things left him to +do: one was to return to Bar; the other was to go to Scotland, +where there were people in arms for him. He took this last +resolution. He left Brittany, where he had as many +Ministers as there were people about him, and where he was +eternally teased with noisy disputes about what was to be done in +circumstances in which no reasonable thing could be done. +He sent to have a vessel got ready for him at Dunkirk, and he +crossed the country as privately as he could.</p> +<p>Whilst all these things passed I remained at Paris to try if +by any means some assistance might be at last procured, without +which it was evident, even to those who flattered themselves the +most, that the game was up.</p> +<p>No sooner was the Duke of Ormond gone from Paris on the design +which I have mentioned, and Mrs. Trant, who had accompanied him +part of the way, returned, but I was sent for to a little house +at Madrid, in the Bois de Boulogne, where she lived with +Mademoiselle de Chaussery, the ancient gentlewoman with whom the +Duke of Orleans had placed her. These two persons opened to +me what had passed whilst the Duke of Ormond was here, and the +hopes they had of drawing the Regent into all the measures +necessary to support the attempts which were making in favour of +the Chevalier.</p> +<p>By what they told me at first I saw that they had been +trusted, and by what passed in the course of my treating with +them it appeared that they had the access which they pretended +to. All which I had been able to do by proper persons and +in proper methods, since the King of France’s death, +amounting to little or nothing, I resolved, at last, to try what +was to be done by this indirect way. I put myself under the +conduct of these female managers, and without having the same +dependence on them as his Grace of Ormond had, I pushed their +credit and their power as far as they reached during the time I +continued to see them. I met with smoother language and +greater hopes than had been given me hitherto. A note +signed by the Regent, supposed to be written to a woman, but +which was to be explained to be intended for the Earl of Mar, was +put into my hands to be sent to Scotland. I took a copy of +it, which you may see at the end of these papers. When Sir +John Areskine came to press for succour, the Regent was prevailed +upon by these women to see him; but he carried nothing real back +with him except a quantity of gold, part of the money which we +had drawn from Spain, and which was lost, with the vessel, in a +very odd manner, on the Scotch coast. The Duke of Ormond +had been promised seven or eight thousand arms, which were drawn +out of the magazines, and said to be lodged, I think, at +Compiègne. I used my utmost efforts that these arms +might be carried forward to the coast, and I undertook for their +transportation, but all was in vain, so that the likelihood of +bringing anything to effect in time appeared to me no greater +than I had found it before I entered into this intrigue.</p> +<p>I soon grew tired of a commerce which nothing but success +could render tolerable, and resolved to be no longer amused by +the pretences which were daily repeated to me, that the Regent +had entertained personal prejudices against me, and that he was +insensibly and by degrees to be dipped in our measures; that both +these things required time, but that they would certainly be +brought about, and that we should then be able to answer all the +expectations of the English and the Scotch. The first of +these pretences contained a fact which I could hardly persuade +myself to be true, because I knew very certainly that I had never +given His Royal Highness the least occasion for such prejudices; +the second was a work which might spin out into a great and +uncertain length. I took my resolution to drive what +related to myself to an immediate explanation, and what related +to others to an immediate decision; not to suffer any excuse for +doing nothing to be founded on my conduct, nor the salvation, if +I could hinder it, of so many gallant men as were in arms in +Scotland, to rest on the success of such womanish projects. +I shall tell you what I did on the first head now, and what I did +on the second, hereafter, in its proper place.</p> +<p>The fact which it was said the Regent laid to my charge was a +correspondence with Lord Stair, and having been one night at his +house from whence I did not retire till three in the +morning. As soon as I got hold of this I desired the +Marshal of Berwick to go to him. The Marshal told him, from +me, that I had been extremely concerned to hear in general that I +lay under his displeasure; that a story, which it was said he +believed, had been related to me; that I expected the justice, +which he could deny to no man, of having the accusation proved, +in which case I was contented to pass for the last of humankind, +or of being justified if it could not be proved. He +answered that such a story had been related to him by such +persons as he thought would not have deceived him; that he had +been since convinced that it was false, and that I should be +satisfied of his regard for me; but that he must own he was very +uneasy to find that I, who could apply to him through the Marshal +d’Huxelles, could choose to treat with Mrs. Trant and the +rest; for he named all the cabal, except his secretary, whom I +had never met at Mademoiselle Chaussery’s. He added +that these people teased him, at my instigation, to death, and +that they were not fit to be trusted with any business. He +applied to some of them the severest epithets. The Marshal +of Berwick replied that he was sure I should receive the whole of +what he had been pleased to say with the greatest satisfaction; +that I had treated with those persons much against my will; and, +finally, that if his Royal Highness would not employ them he was +sure I would never apply to them. In a conversation which I +had not long after with him he spoke to me in much the same terms +as he had done to the Marshal. I went from him very ill +edified as to his intentions of doing anything in favour of the +Chevalier; but I carried away with me this satisfaction, that he +had assigned me, from his own mouth, the person through whom I +should make my applications to him, and through whom I should +depend on receiving his answers; that he had disavowed all the +little politic clubs, and had commanded me to have no more to do +with them.</p> +<p>Before I resume the thread of my narration give me leave to +make some reflection upon what I have been last saying to +you. When I met with the Duke of Ormond at his return from +the coast, he thought himself obliged to say something to excuse +his keeping me out of a secret which during his absence I had +been let into. His excuse was that the Regent had exacted +from him that I should know nothing of the matter. You will +observe that the account which I have given you seems to +contradict this assertion of his Grace, since it is hard to +suppose that if the Regent had exacted that I should be kept out +of the secret, these women would have dared to have let me into +it, and since it is still harder to suppose that the Regent would +make this express condition with the Duke of Ormond, and the +moment the duke’s back was turned would suffer these women +to tease him from me and to bring me answers from him. I +am, however, far from taxing the duke with affirming an +untruth. I believe the Regent did make such a condition +with him; and I will tell you how I understand all this little +management, which will explain a great deal to you. This +Prince, with wit and valour, has joined all the irresolution of +temper possible, and is, perhaps, the man in the world the least +capable of saying “no” to your face. From hence +it happened that these women, like multitudes of other people, +forced him to say and do enough to give them the air of having +credit with him and of being trusted by him. This drew in +the Duke of Ormond, who is not, I daresay, as yet +undeceived. The Regent never intended from the first to do +anything, even indirectly, in favour of the Jacobite cause. +His interest was plainly on the other side, and he saw it. +But then the same weakness in his character carried him, as it +would have done his great-uncle Gaston in the same case, to keep +measures with the Chevalier. His double-trimming character +prevailed on him to talk with the Duke of Ormond, but it carried +him no farther. I question not but he did, on this +occasion, what you must have observed many men to do: we not only +endeavour to impose on the world, but even on ourselves; we +disguise our weakness, and work up in our minds an opinion that +the measure which we fall into by the natural or habitual +imperfection of our character is the effect of a principle of +prudence or of some other virtue. Thus the Regent, who saw +the Duke of Ormond because he could not resist the importunity of +Olive Trant, and who gave hopes to the duke because he can refuse +nobody, made himself believe that it was a great strain of policy +to blow up the fire and to keep Britain embroiled. I am +persuaded that I do not err in judging that he thought in this +manner, and here I fix the reason of his excluding me out of the +commerce which he had with the Duke of Ormond, of his affecting a +personal dislike of me, and of his avoiding any correspondence +with me upon these matters, till I forced myself in a manner upon +him, and he could not keep me any longer at a distance without +departing from his first principle—that of keeping measures +with everybody. He then threw me, or let me slide if you +will, into the hands of these women; and when he found that I +pressed him hard that way, too, he took me out of their hands and +put me back again into the proper channel of business, where I +had not been long, as you will see by-and-by, before the scene of +amusement was finished.</p> +<p>Sir John Areskine told me when he came from the first audience +that he had of his Royal Highness, that he put him in mind of the +encouragement which he had given the Earl of Mar to take +arms. I never heard anything of this kind but what Sir John +let drop to me. If the fact be true, you see that the +Scotch general had been amused by him with a witness. The +English general was so in his turn; and while this was doing, the +Regent might think it best to have him to himself. Four +eyes comprehend more objects than two, and I was a little better +acquainted with the characters of people, and the mass of the +country, than the duke, though this Court had been at first a +strange country to me in comparison of the former.</p> +<p>An infinity of little circumstances concurred to make me form +this opinion, some of which are better felt than explained, and +many of which are not present to my memory. That which had +the greatest weight with me, and which is, I think, decisive, I +will mention. At the very time when it is pretended that +the Regent treated with the Duke of Ormond on the express +condition that I should know nothing of the matter, two persons +of the first rank and greatest credit in this Court, when I made +the most pressing instances to them in favour of the Chevalier, +threw out in conversation to me that I should attach myself to +the Duke of Orleans, that in my circumstances I might want him, +and that he might have occasion for me. Something was +intimated of pensions and establishment, and of making my peace +at home. I would not understand this language, because I +would not break with the people who held it: and when they saw +that I would not take the hints, they ceased to give them.</p> +<p>I fancy that you see by this time the motives of the +Regent’s conduct. I am not, I confess, able to +explain to you those of the Duke of Ormond’s; I cannot so +much as guess at them. When he came into France, I was +careful to show him all the friendship and all the respect +possible. My friends were his, my purse was his, and even +my bed was his. I went further; I did all those things +which touch most sensibly people who have been used to +pomp. I made my court to him, and haunted his levee with +assiduity. In return to this behaviour—which was the +pure effect of my goodwill, and which no duty that I owed his +Grace, no obligation that I had to him, imposed upon me—I +have great reason to suspect that he went at least half way in +all which was said or done against me. He threw himself +blindly into the snare which was laid for him; and instead of +hindering, as he and I in concert might have done, those affairs +from languishing in the manner they did several months, he +furnished this Court with an excuse for not treating with me, +till it was too late to play even a saving game; and he neither +drove the Regent to assist the Chevalier, nor to declare that he +would not assist him; though it was fatal to the cause in +general, and to the Scotch in particular, not to bring one of the +two about.</p> +<p>It was Christmas 1715 before the Chevalier sailed for +Scotland. The battle of Dunblain had been fought, the +business of Preston was over: there remained not the least room +to expect any commotion in his favour among the English; and many +of the Scotch who had declared for him began to grow cool in the +cause. No prospect of success could engage him in this +expedition: but it was become necessary for his reputation. +The Scotch on one side spared not to reproach him, I think +unjustly, for his delay; and the French on the other were +extremely eager to have him gone. Some of those who knew +little of British affairs imagined that his presence would +produce miraculous effects. You must not be surprised at +this. As near neighbours as we are, ninety-nine in an +hundred among the French are as little acquainted with the inside +of our island as with that of Japan. Others of them were +uneasy to see him skulking about in France, and to be told of it +every hour by the Earl of Stair. Others, again, imagined +that he might do their business by going into Scotland, though he +should not do his own: this is, they flattered themselves that he +might keep a war for some time alive, which would employ the +whole attention of our Government; and for the event of which +they had very little concern. Unable from their natural +temper, as well as their habits, to be true to any principle, +they thought and acted in this manner, whilst they affected the +greatest friendship to the King, and whilst they really did +desire to enter into new and more intimate engagements with +him. Whilst the Pretender continued in France they could +neither avow him, nor favour his cause: if he once set his foot +on Scotch ground, they gave hopes of indirect assistance; and if +he could maintain himself in any corner of the island, they could +look upon him, it was said, as a king. This was their +language to us. To the British Minister they denied, they +forswore, they renounced; and yet the man of the best head in all +their councils, being asked by Lord Stair what they intended to +do, answered, before he was aware, that they pretended to be +neuters. I leave you to judge how this slip was taken +up.</p> +<p>As soon as I received advice that the Chevalier was sailed +from Dunkirk, I renewed, I redoubled all my applications. I +neglected no means, I forgot no argument which my understanding +could suggest to me. What the Duke of Ormond rested upon, +you have seen already. And I doubt very much whether Lord +Mar, if he had been here in my place, would have been able to +employ measures more effectual than those which I made use +of. I may, without any imputation of arrogance, compare +myself on this occasion with his lordship, since there was +nothing in the management of this affair above my degree of +capacity; nothing equal, either in extent or difficulty, to the +business which he was a spectator of, and which I carried on when +we were Secretaries of State together under the late Queen.</p> +<p>The King of France, who was not able to furnish the Pretender +with money himself, had written some time before his death to his +grandson, and had obtained a promise of four hundred thousand +crowns from the King of Spain. A small part of this sum had +been received by the Queen’s Treasurer at St. Germains, and +had been either sent to Scotland or employed to defray the +expenses which were daily making on the coast. I pressed +the Spanish Ambassador at Paris; I solicited, by Lawless, +Alberoni at Madrid, and I found another more private and more +promising way of applying to him. I took care to have a +number of officers picked out of the Irish troops which serve in +that country; their routes were given them, and I sent a ship to +receive and transport them. The money came in so slowly and +in such trifling sums that it turned to little account, and the +officers were on their way when the Chevalier returned from +Scotland.</p> +<p>In the summer endeavours had been used to prevail on the King +of Sweden to transport from Gottenburg the troops he had in that +neighbourhood into Scotland or into the North of England. +He had excused himself, not because he disliked the proposition, +which, on the contrary, he thought agreeable to his interest, but +for reasons of another kind. First, because the troops at +hand for this service consisted in horse, not in foot, which had +been asked, and which were alone proper for such an +expedition. Secondly, because a declaration of this sort +might turn the Protestant princes of the Empire, from whose +offices he had still some prospect of assistance, against +him. And thirdly, because although he knew that the King of +Great Britain was his enemy, yet they were not in war together, +nor had the latter acted yet awhile openly enough against him to +justify such a rupture. At the time I am speaking of, these +reasons were removed by the King of Sweden’s being beat out +of the Empire by the little consequence which his management of +the Protestant princes was to him, and by the declaration of war +which the King, as Elector of Hanover, made. I took up this +negotiation therefore again. The Regent appeared to come +into it. He spoke fair to the Baron de Spar, who pressed +him on his side as I pressed him on mine, and promised, besides +the arrears of the subsidy due to the Swedes, an immediate +advance of fifty thousand crowns for the enterprise on +Britain. He kept the officer who was to be despatched I +know not how long booted; sometimes on pretence that in the low +state of his credit he could not find bills of exchange for the +sum, and sometimes on other pretences, and by these delays he +evaded his promise. The French were very frank in declaring +that they could give us no money, and that they would give us no +troops. Arms, ammunition, and connivance they made us hope +for. The latter, in some degree, we might have had perhaps; +but to what purpose was it to connive, when by a multitude of +little tricks they avoided furnishing us with arms and +ammunition, and when they knew that we were utterly unable to +furnish ourselves with them? I had formed the design of +engaging French privateers in the Pretender’s +service. They were to have carried whatever we should have +had to send to any part of Britain in their first voyage, and +after that to have cruised under his commission. I had +actually agreed for some, and it was in my power to have made the +same bargains with others. Sweden on one side and Scotland +on the other would have afforded them retreats. And if the +war had been kept up in any part of the mountains, I conceive the +execution of this design would have been of the greatest +advantage to the Pretender. It failed because no other part +of the work went on. He was not above six weeks in his +Scotch expedition, and these were the things I endeavoured to +bring to bear in his absence. I had no great opinion of my +success before he went; but when he had made the last step which +it was in his power to make, I resolved to suffer neither him nor +the Scotch to be any longer bubbles of their own credulity and of +the scandalous artifice of this Court. It would be tedious +to enter into a longer narrative of all the useless pains I +took. To conclude, therefore; in a conversation which I had +with the M. d’Huxelles, I took occasion to declare that I +would not be the instrument of amusing the Scotch, and that, +since I was able to do them no other service, I would at least +inform them that they must flatter themselves no longer with +hopes of succour from France. I added that I would send +them vessels which, with those already on the coast of Scotland, +might serve to bring off the Pretender, the Earl of Mar, and as +many others as possible. The Marshal approved my +resolution, and advised me to execute it as the only thing which +was left to do. On this occasion he showed no reserve, he +was very explicit; and yet in this very point of time the promise +of an order was obtained, or pretended to be obtained, from the +Regent for delivering those stores of arms and ammunition which +belonged to the Chevalier, and which had been put into the French +magazines when Sir George Byng came to Havre. Castel Blanco +is a Spaniard who married a daughter of Lord Melford, and who +under that title set up for a meddler in English business. +I cannot justly tell whether the honour of obtaining this promise +was ascribed to him, to the Junto in the Bois de Boulogne, or to +any one else. I suppose they all assumed a share of the +merit. The project was that these stores should be +delivered to Castel Blanco; that he should enter into a +recognisance to carry them to Spain, and from thence to the West +Indies; that I should provide a vessel for this purpose, which he +should appear to hire or buy; and that when she was at sea she +should sail directly for Scotland. You cannot believe that +I reckoned much on the effect of this order, but accustomed to +concur in measures the inutility of which I saw evidently enough, +I concurred in this likewise. The necessary care was taken, +and in a fortnight’s time the ship was ready to sail, and +no suspicion of her belonging to the Chevalier or of her +destination was gone abroad.</p> +<p>As this event made no alteration in my opinion, it made none +in the despatches which I prepared and sent to Scotland. In +them I gave an account of what was in negotiation. I +explained to him what might be hoped for in time if he was able +to maintain himself in the mountains without the succours he +demanded from France. But from France I told him plainly +that it was in vain to expect the least part of them. In +short, I concealed nothing from him. This was all I could +do to put the Chevalier and his council in a condition to judge +what measures to take; but these despatches never came to his +hands. He was sailed from Scotland just before the +gentleman whom I sent arrived on the coast. He landed at +Graveline about the 22nd of February, and the first orders he +gave were to stop all the vessels which were going on his account +to the country from whence he came.</p> +<p>I saw him the morning after his arrival at St. Germains, and +he received me with open arms. I had been, as soon as we +heard of his return, to acquaint the French Court with it. +They were not a little uneasy; and the first thing which the M. +d’Huxelles said to me upon it was that the Chevalier ought +to proceed to Bar with all the diligence possible, and to take +possession of his former asylum before the Duke of Lorraine had +time to desire him to look out for a residence somewhere +else. Nothing more was meant by this proposal than to get +him out of the dominions of France immediately. I was not +in my mind averse to it for other reasons. Nothing could be +more disadvantageous to him than to be obliged to pass the Alps, +or to reside in the Papal territory on this side of them. +Avignon was already named for his retreat in common conversation, +and I know not whether from the time he left Scotland he ever +thought of any other. I imagined that by surprising the +Duke of Lorraine we should furnish that Prince with an excuse to +the King and to the Emperor; that we might draw the matter into +length, and gain time to negotiate some other retreat than that +of Avignon for the Chevalier. The duke’s goodwill +there was no room to doubt of, and by what the Prince of +Vaudemont told me at Paris some time afterwards I am apt to think +we should have succeeded. In all events, it could not be +wrong to try every measure, and the Pretender would have gone to +Avignon with much better grace when he had done, in the sight of +the world, all he could to avoid it.</p> +<p>I found him in no disposition to make such haste; he had a +mind, on the contrary, to stay some time at St. Germains, and in +the neighbourhood of Paris, and to have a private meeting with +the Regent. He sent me back to Paris to solicit this +meeting. I wrote, I spoke, to the Marshal d’Huxelles; +I did my best to serve him in his own way. The Marshal +answered me by word of mouth and by letter; he refused me by +both. I remember he added this circumstance: that he found +the Regent in bed, and acquainted him with what the Chevalier +desired; that the Regent rose up in a passion, said that the +things which were asked were puerilities, and swore that he would +not see him. I returned without having been able to succeed +in my commission; and I confess I thought the want of success on +this occasion no great misfortune.</p> +<p>It was two or three o’clock on the Sunday or Monday +morning when I parted from the Pretender. He acquiesced in +the determination of the Regent, and declared that he would +instantly set out for Lorraine; his trunks were packed, his +chaise was ordered to be at the door at five, and I sent to Paris +to acquaint the Minister that he was gone. He asked me how +soon I should be able to follow him, gave me commissions for some +things which he desired I should bring after him, and, in a word, +no Italian ever embraced the man he was going to stab with +greater show of affection and confidence.</p> +<p>Instead of taking post for Lorraine he went to the little +house in the Bois de Boulogne where his female Ministers resided; +and there he continued lurking for several days, and pleasing +himself with the air of mystery and business, whilst the only +real business which he should have had at that time lay +neglected. He saw the Spanish and Swedish Ministers in this +place. I cannot tell, for I never thought it worth asking, +whether he saw the Duke of Orleans; possibly he might. To +have been teased into such a step, which signified nothing, and +which gave the cabal an air of credit and importance, is +agreeable enough to the levity of his Royal Highness’s +character.</p> +<p>The Thursday following, the Duke of Ormond came to see me, and +after the compliment of telling me that he believed I should be +surprised at the message he brought, he put into my hands a note +to himself and a little scrip of paper directed to me, and drawn +in the style of a justice of peace’s warrant. They +were both in the Chevalier’s handwriting, and they were +dated on the Tuesday, in order to make me believe that they had +been written on the road and sent back to the duke; his Grace +dropped in our conversation with great dexterity all the +insinuations proper to confirm me in this opinion. I knew +at this time his master was not gone, so that he gave me two very +risible scenes, which are frequently to be met with when some +people meddle in business; I mean that of seeing a man labour +with a great deal of awkward artifice to make a secret of a +nothing, and that of seeing yourself taken for a bubble when you +know as much of the matter as he who thinks that he imposes on +you.</p> +<p>I cannot recollect precisely the terms of the two +papers. I remember that the kingly laconic style of one of +them, and the expression of having no further occasion for my +service, made me smile. The other was an order to give up +the papers in my office, all which might have been contained in a +letter-case of a moderate size. I gave the duke the Seals +and some papers which I could readily come at. Some +others—and, indeed, all such as I had not destroyed—I +sent afterwards to the Chevalier; and I took care to convey to +him by a safe hand several of his letters which it would have +been very improper the duke should have seen. I am +surprised that he did not reflect on the consequence of my +obeying his order literally. It depended on me to have +shown his general what an opinion the Chevalier had of his +capacity. I scorned the trick, and would not appear piqued +when I was far from being angry. As I gave up without +scruple all the papers which remained in my hands, because I was +determined never to make use of them, so I confess to you that I +took a sort of pride in never asking for those of mine which were +in the Pretender’s hands; I contented myself with making +the duke understand how little need there was to get rid of a man +in this manner who had made the bargain which I had done at my +engagement, and with taking this first opportunity to declare +that I would never more have to do with the Pretender or his +cause.</p> +<p>That I might avoid being questioned and quoted in the most +curious and the most babbling town in the world, I related what +had passed to three or four of my friends, and hardly stirred +abroad during a fortnight out of a little lodging which very few +people knew of. At the end of this term the Marshal of +Berwick came to see me, and asked me what I meant to confine +myself to my chamber when my name was trumpeted about in all the +companies of Paris, and the most infamous stories were spread +concerning me. This was the first notice I had, and it was +soon followed by others. I appeared immediately in the +world, and found there was hardly a scurrilous tongue which had +not been let loose on my subject; and that those persons whom the +Duke of Ormond and Earl of Mar must influence, or might silence, +were the loudest in defaming me.</p> +<p>Particular instances wherein I had failed were cited; and as +it was the fashion for every Jacobite to affect being in the +secret, you might have found a multitude of vouchers to facts +which, if they had been true, could in the nature of them be +known to very few persons.</p> +<p>This method of beating down the reputation of a man by noise +and impudence imposed on the world at first, convinced people who +were not acquainted with me, and staggered even my friends. +But it ceased in a few days to have any effect against me. +The malice was too gross to pass upon reflection. These +stories died away almost as fast as they were published, for this +very reason, because they were particular.</p> +<p>They gave out, for instance, that I had taken to my own use a +very great sum of the Chevalier’s money, when it was +notorious that I had spent a great sum of my own in his service, +and never would be obliged to him for a farthing, in which case, +I believe, I was single. Upon this head it was easy to +appeal to a very honest gentleman, the Queen’s Treasurer at +St. Germains, through whose hands, and not through mine, went the +very little money which the Chevalier had.</p> +<p>They gave out that whilst he was in Scotland he never heard +from me, though it was notorious that I sent him no less than +five expresses during the six weeks which he consumed in this +expedition. It was easy, on this head, to appeal to the +persons to whom my despatches had been committed.</p> +<p>These lies, and many others of the same sort, which were +founded on particular facts, were disproved by particular facts, +and had not time—at least at Paris—to make any +impression. But the principal crime with which they charged +me then, and the only one which since that time they have +insisted upon, is of another nature. This part of their +accusation is general, and it cannot be refuted without doing +what I have done above, deducing several facts, comparing these +facts together, and reasoning upon them; nay, that which is worse +is, that it cannot be fully refuted without the mention of some +facts which, in my present circumstances, it would not be very +prudent, though I should think it very lawful, for me to +divulge. You see that I mean the starving the war in +Scotland, which it is pretended might have been supported, and +might have succeeded, too, if I had procured the succours which +were asked—nay, if I had sent a little powder. This +the Jacobites who affect moderation and candour shrug their +shoulders at: they are sorry for it, but Lord Bolingbroke can +never wash himself clean of this guilt; for these succours might +have been obtained, and a proof that they might is that they were +so by others. These people leave the cause of this +mismanagement doubtful between my treachery and my want of +capacity. The Pretender, with all the false charity and +real malice of one who sets up for devotion, attributes all his +misfortunes to my negligence.</p> +<p>The letters which were written by my secretary, above a year +ago, into England; the marginal notes which have been made since +to the letter from Avignon; and what is said above, have set this +affair in so clear a light, that whoever examines, with a fair +intention, must feel the truth, and be convinced by it. I +cannot, however, forbear to make some observations on the same +subject here. It is even necessary that I should do so, in +the design of making this discourse the foundation of my +justification to the Tories at present, and to the whole world in +time.</p> +<p>There is nothing which my enemies apprehend so much as my +justification: and they have reason. But they may comfort +themselves with this reflection—that it will be a +misfortune which will accompany me to my grave, that I suffered a +chain of accidents to draw me into such measures and such +company; that I have been obliged to defend myself against such +accusations and such accusers; that by associating with so much +folly and so much knavery I am become the victim of both; that I +was distressed by the former, when the latter would have been +less grievous to me, since it is much better in business to be +yoked to knaves than fools; and that I put into their hands the +means of loading me, like the scape-goat, with all the evil +consequences of their folly.</p> +<p>In the first letters which I received from the Earl of Mar he +wrote for arms, for ammunition, for money, for officers, and all +things frankly, as if these things had been ready, and I had +engaged to supply him with them, before he set up the standard at +the Brae of Mar; whereas our condition could not be unknown to +his lordship; and you have seen that I did all I could to prevent +his reckoning on any assistance from hence. As our hopes at +this Court decreased, his lordship rose in his demands; and at +the time when it was visible that the Regent intended nothing +less than even privately and indirectly to support the Scotch, +the Pretender and the Earl of Mar wrote for regular forces and a +train of artillery, which was in effect to insist that France +should enter into a war for them. I might, in answer to the +first instances, have asked Lord Mar what he did in Scotland, and +what he meant by drawing his countrymen into a war at this time, +or at least upon this foot? He who had dictated not long +before a memorial wherein it was asserted that to have a prospect +of succeeding in this enterprise there must be a universal +insurrection, and that such an insurrection was in no sort +probable, unless a body of troops was brought to support +it? He who thought that the consequence of failing, when +the attempt was once made, must be the utter ruin of the cause +and the loss of the British liberty? He who concurred in +demanding as a <i>pis-aller</i>, and the least which could be +insisted on, arms, ammunition, artillery, money, and +officers? I say, I might have asked what he meant to begin +the dance when he had not the least assurance of any succour, +but, on the contrary, the greatest reason imaginable to believe +this affair was become as desperate abroad by the death of the +most Christian King as it was at home by the discovery of the +design and by the measures taken to defeat it?</p> +<p>Instead of acting this part, which would have been wise, I +took that which was plausible. I resolved to contribute all +I could to support the business, since it was begun. I +encouraged his lordship as long as I had the least ground for +doing so, and I confirmed the Pretender in his resolution of +going to Scotland when he had nothing better left him to +do. If I have anything to reproach myself with in the whole +progress of the war in Scotland, it is having encouraged Lord Mar +too long. But, on the other hand, if I had given up the +cause, and had written despondingly to him before this Court had +explained itself as fully as the Marshal d’Huxelles did in +the conversation which is mentioned above, it is easy to see what +turn would have been given to such a conduct.</p> +<p>The true cause of all the misfortunes which happened to the +Scotch and to those who took arms in the North of England lies +here—that they rose without any previous certainty of +foreign help, in direct contradiction to the scheme which their +leaders themselves had formed. The excuse which I have +heard made for this is that the Act of Parliament for curbing the +Highlanders was near to be put in execution; that they would have +been disarmed, and entirely disabled from rising at any other +time, if they had not rose at this. You can judge better +than I of the validity of this excuse. It seems to me that +by management they might have gained time, and that even when +they had been reduced to the dilemma supposed, they ought to have +got together under pretence of resisting the infractions of the +Union without any mention of the Pretender, and have treated with +the Government on this foot. By these means they might +probably have preserved themselves in a condition of avowing +their design when they should be sure of being backed from +abroad. At the worst, they might have declared for the +Chevalier when all other expedients failed them. In a word, +I take this excuse not to be very good, and the true reason of +this conduct to have been the rashness of the people and the +inconsistent measures of their head.</p> +<p>But admitting the excuse to be valid, it remains still an +undeniable truth that this is the original fountain from whence +all those waters of bitterness flowed which so many unhappy +people have drunk of. I have said already that the +necessity of acting was precipitated before any measures to act +with success had been taken, and that the necessity of doing so +seemed to increase as the means of doing so were taken +away. To whom is this to be ascribed? Is it to be +ascribed to me, who had no share in these affairs till a few +weeks before the Duke of Ormond was forced to abandon England, +and the discovery of the intended invasion was published to +Parliament and to the world? or is it to be ascribed to those who +had from the first been at the head of this undertaking?</p> +<p>Unable to defend this point, the next resort of the Jacobites +is to this impudent and absurd affirmation—that, +notwithstanding the disadvantages under which they took arms, +they should have succeeded if the indirect assistances which were +asked from France had been obtained. Nay, that they should +have been able to defend the Highlands if I had sent them a +little powder. Is it possible that a man should be wounded +with such blunt weapons? Much more than powder was asked +for from the first, and I have already said that when the +Chevalier came into Scotland, regular troops, artillery, etc., +were demanded. Both he and the Earl of Mar judged it +impossible to stand their ground without such assistance as +these. How scandalous, then, must it be deemed that they +suffer their dependents to spread in the world that for want of a +little powder I forced them to abandon Scotland! The Earl +of Mar knows that all the powder in France would not have enabled +him to stay at Perth as long as he did if he had not had another +security. And when that failed him, he must have quitted +the party, if the Regent had given us all that he made some of us +expect.</p> +<p>But to finish all that I intend to say on a subject which has +tired me, and perhaps you; the Jacobites affirm that the indirect +assistances which they desired, might have been obtained; and I +confess that I am inexcusable if this fact be true. To +prove it, they appeal to the little politicians of whom I have +spoken so often. I affirm, on the contrary, that nothing +could be obtained here to support the Scotch or to encourage the +English. To prove the assertion, I appeal to the Ministers +with whom I negotiated, and to the Regent himself, who, whatever +language he may hold in private with other people, cannot +controvert with me the truth of what I advance. He excluded +me formerly, that he might the more easily avoid doing anything; +and perhaps he has blamed me since, that he might excuse his +doing nothing. All this may be true, and yet it will remain +true that he would never have been prevailed upon to act directly +against his interest in the only point of view which he +has—I mean, the crown of France—and against the +unanimous sense of all his Ministers. Suppose that in the +time of the late Queen, when she had the peace in view, a party +in France had implored her assistance, and had applied to Margery +Fielding, to Israel, to my Lady Oglethorpe, to Dr. Battle, and +Lieutenant-General Stewart, what success do you imagine such +applications would have had? The Queen would have spoke +them fair—she would speak otherwise to nobody; but do you +imagine she would have made one step in their favour? Olive +Trant, Magny, Mademoiselle Chaussery, a dirty Abbé +Brigault, and Mr. Dillon, are characters very apposite to +these. And what I suppose to have passed in England is not +a whit more ridiculous than what really passed here.</p> +<p>I say nothing of the ships which the Jacobites pretend that +they sent into Scotland three weeks or a month after the +Pretender was returned. I believe they might have had my +Lord Stair’s connivance then, as well as the +Regent’s. I say nothing of the order which they +pretend to have obtained, and which I never saw, for the stores +that were seized at Havre to be delivered to Castel Blanco. +I have already said enough on this head, and you cannot have +failed to observe that this signal favour was never obtained by +these people till the Marshal d’Huxelles had owned to me +that nothing was to be expected from France, and that the only +thing which I could do was to endeavour to bring the Pretender, +the Earl of Mar, and the principal persons who were most exposed, +off, neither he nor I imagining that any such would be left +behind.</p> +<p>When I began to appear in the world, upon the advertisements +which my friends gave me of the clamour that was raised against +me, you will easily think I did not enter into so many +particulars as I have done with you. I said even less than +you have seen in those letters which Brinsden wrote into England +in March and April was twelvemonth, and yet the clamour sank +immediately. The people of consideration at this Court beat +it down, and the Court of St. Germains grew so ashamed of it that +the Queen thought fit to purge herself of having had any share in +encouraging the discourses which were held against me, or having +been so much as let into the secret of the measure which preceded +them. The provocation was great, but I resolved to act +without passion. I saw the advantage the Pretender and his +council, who disposed of things better for me than I should have +done for myself, had given me; but I saw likewise that I must +improve this advantage with the utmost caution.</p> +<p>As I never imagined that he would treat me in the manner he +did, nor that his Ministers could be weak enough to advise him to +it, I had resolved, on his return from Scotland, to follow him +till his residence should be fixed somewhere or other. +After which, having served the Tories in this which I looked upon +as their last struggle for power, and having continued to act in +the Pretender’s affairs till the end of the term for which +I embarked with him, I should have esteemed myself to be at +liberty, and should in the civillest manner I was able have taken +my leave of him. Had we parted thus, I should have remained +in a very strange situation during the rest of my life; but I had +examined myself thoroughly, I was determined, I was prepared.</p> +<p>On one side he would have thought that he had a sort of right +on any future occasion to call me out of my retreat; the Tories +would probably have thought the same thing: my resolution was +taken to refuse them both, and I foresaw that both would condemn +me. On the other side, the consideration of his keeping +measures with me, joined to that of having once openly declared +for him, would have created a point of honour by which I should +have been tied down, not only from ever engaging against him, but +also from making my peace at home. The Chevalier cut this +gordian knot asunder at one blow. He broke the links of +that chain which former engagements had fastened on me, and gave +me a right to esteem myself as free from all obligations of +keeping measures with him as I should have continued if I had +never engaged in his interest. I took therefore, from that +moment, the resolution of making my peace at home, and of +employing all the unfortunate experience I had acquired abroad to +undeceive my friends and to promote the union and the quiet of my +country.</p> +<p>The Earl of Stair had received a full power to treat with me +whilst I was engaged with the Pretender, as I have been since +informed. He had done me the justice to believe me +incapable to hearken, in such circumstances, to any proposals of +that kind; and as much friendship as he had for me, as much as I +had for him, we entertained not the least even indirect +correspondence together during that whole time. Soon +afterwards he employed a person to communicate to me the +disposition of his Majesty to grant me my pardon, and his own +desire to give me, on this occasion, all the proofs he could of +his inclination in my favour. I embraced the offer, as it +became me to do, with all possible sense of the King’s +goodness, and of his lordship’s friendship. We met, +we talked together, and he wrote to the Court on the +subject. The turn which the Ministers gave to this matter +was, to enter into a treaty to reverse my attainder, and to +stipulate the conditions on which this act of grace should be +granted me.</p> +<p>The notion of a treaty shocked me. I resolved never to +be restored rather than go that way to work; and I opened myself +without any reserve to Lord Stair. I told him that I looked +on myself to be obliged in honour and in conscience to undeceive +my friends in England, both as to the state of foreign affairs, +as to the management of the Jacobite interest abroad, and as to +the characters of persons—in every one of which points I +knew them to be most grossly and most dangerously deluded; that +the treatment I had received from the Pretender and his adherents +would justify me to the world in doing this; that if I remained +in exile all my life, he might be assured that I would never more +have to do with the Jacobite cause; and that if I was restored, I +should give it an effectual blow, in making that apology which +the Pretender has put me under a necessity of making: that in +doing this I flattered myself that I should contribute something +to the establishment of the King’s Government, and to the +union of his subjects; but that this was all the merit which I +could promise to have; that if the Court believed these +professions to be sincere, a treaty with me was unnecessary for +them; and that if they did not believe them so, a treaty with +them was dangerous for me; that I was determined in this whole +transaction to make no one step which I would not own in the face +of the world; that in other circumstances it might be sufficient +to act honestly, but that in a case as extraordinary as mine it +was necessary to act clearly, and to leave no room for the least +doubtful construction.</p> +<p>The Earl of Stair, as well as Mr. Craggs, who arrived soon +after in France, came into my sense. I have reason to +believe that the King has approved it likewise upon their +representations, since he has been pleased to give me the most +gracious assurances of his favour. What the effect of all +this may be in the next or in any other Session, I know not; but +this is the foot on which I have put myself, and on which I stand +at the moment I write to you. The Whigs may continue +inveterate, and by consequence frustrate his Majesty’s good +intentions towards me; the Tories may continue to rail at me, on +the credit of such enemies as I have described to you in the +course of this relation: neither the one nor the other shall make +me swerve out of the path which I have traced to myself.</p> +<p>I have now led you through the several stages which I proposed +at first; and I should do wrong to your good understanding, as +well as to our mutual friendship, if I suspected that you could +hold any other language to me than that which Dolabella uses to +Cicero: “Satisfactum est jam a te vel officio vel +familiaritati; satisfactum etiam partibus.” The King, +who pardons me, might complain of me; the Whigs might declaim +against me; my family might reproach me for the little regard +which I have shown to my own and to their interests; but where is +the crime I have been guilty of towards my party and towards my +friends? In what part of my conduct will the Tories find an +excuse for the treatment which they have given me? As +Tories such as they were when I left England, I defy them to find +any. But here lies the sore, and, tender as it is, I must +lay it open. Those amongst them who rail at me now are +changed from what they were, or from what they professed +themselves to be, when we lived and acted together. They +were Tories then; they are Jacobites now. Their objections +to the course of my conduct whilst I was in the Pretender’s +interest are the pretence; the true reason of their anger is, +that I renounce the Pretender for my life. When you were +first driven into this interest, I may appeal to you for the +notion which the party had. You thought of restoring him by +the strength of the Tories, and of opposing a Tory king to a Whig +king. You took him up as the instrument of your revenge and +of your ambition. You looked on him as your creature, and +never once doubted of making what terms you pleased with +him. This is so true that the same language is still held +to the catechumens in Jacobitism. Were the contrary to be +avowed even now, the party in England would soon diminish. +I engaged on this principle when your orders sent me to Commercy, +and I never acted on any other. This ought to have been +part of my merit towards the Tories; and it would have been so if +they had continued in the same dispositions. But they are +changed, and this very thing is become my crime. Instead of +making the Pretender their tool, they are his. Instead of +having in view to restore him on their own terms, they are +labouring to do it without any terms; that is, to speak properly, +they are ready to receive him on his. Be not deceived: +there is not a man on this side of the water who acts in any +other manner. The Church of England Jacobite and the Irish +Papist seem in every respect to have the same cause. Those +on your side of the water who correspond with these are to be +comprehended in the same class; and from hence it is that the +clamour raised against me has been kept up with so much industry, +and is redoubled on the least appearance of my return home, and +of my being in a situation to justify myself.</p> +<p>You have seen already what reasons the Pretender, and the +several sorts of people who compose his party here, had to get +rid of me, and to cover me to the utmost of their power with +infamy. Their views were as short in this case as they are +in all others. They did not see at first that this conduct +would not only give me a right, but put me under a necessity of +keeping no farther measures with them, and of laying the whole +mystery of their iniquity open. As soon as they discovered +this, they took the only course which was left them—that of +poisoning the minds of the Tories, and of creating such +prejudices against me whilst I remained in a condition of not +speaking for myself, as will they hope prevent the effect of +whatever I may say when I am in a condition of pleading my own +cause. The bare apprehension that I shall show the world +that I have been guilty of no crime renders me criminal among +these men; and they hold themselves ready, being unable to reply +either in point of fact or in point of reason, to drown my voice +in the confusion of their clamour.</p> +<p>The only crimes I am guilty of, I own. I own the crime +of having been for the Pretender in a very different manner from +those with whom I acted. I served him as faithfully, I +served him as well as they; but I served him on a different +principle. I own the crime of having renounced him, and of +being resolved never to have to do with him as long as I +live. I own the crime of being determined sooner or later, +as soon as I can, to clear myself of all the unjust aspersions +which have been cast upon me; to undeceive by my experience as +many as I can of those Tories who may have been drawn into error; +and to contribute, if ever I return home, as far as I am able, to +promote the national good of Britain without any other +regard. These crimes do not, I hope, by this time appear to +you to be of a very black dye. You may come, perhaps, to +think them virtues, when you have read and considered what +remains to be said; for before I conclude, it is necessary that I +open one matter to you which I could not weave in sooner without +breaking too much the thread of my narration. In this +place, unmingled with anything else, it will have, as it deserves +to have, your whole attention.</p> +<p>Whoever composed that curious piece of false fact, false +argument, false English, and false eloquence, the letter from +Avignon, says that I was not thought the most proper person to +speak about religion. I confess I should be of his mind, +and should include his patrons in my case, if the practice of it +was to be recommended; for surely it is unpardonable impudence to +impose by precept what we do not teach by example. I should +be of the same mind, if the nature of religion was to be +explained, if its mysteries were to be fathomed, and if this +great truth was to be established—that the Church of +England has the advantage over all other Churches in purity of +doctrine, and in wisdom of discipline. But nothing of this +kind was necessary. This would have been the task of +reverend and learned divines. We of the laity had nothing +more to do than to lay in our claim that we could never submit to +be governed by a Prince who was not of the religion of our +country. Such a declaration could hardly have failed of +some effect towards opening the eyes and disposing the mind even +of the Pretender. At least, in justice to ourselves, and in +justice to our party, we who were here ought to have made it; and +the influence of it on the Pretender ought to have become the +rule of our subsequent conduct.</p> +<p>In thinking in this manner I think no otherwise now than I +have always thought; and I cannot forget, nor you neither, what +passed when, a little before the death of the Queen, letters were +conveyed from the Chevalier to several persons—to myself +among others. In the letter to me the article of religion +was so awkwardly handled that he made the principal motive of the +confidence we ought to have in him to consist in his firm +resolution to adhere to Popery. The effect which this +epistle had on me was the same which it had on those Tories to +whom I communicated it at that time; it made us resolve to have +nothing to do with him.</p> +<p>Some time after this I was assured by several, and I make no +doubt but others have been so too, that the Chevalier at the +bottom was not a bigot; that whilst he remained abroad and could +expect no succour, either present or future, from any Princes but +those of the Roman Catholic Communion, it was prudent, whatever +he might think, to make no demonstration of a design to change; +but that his temper was such, and he was already so disposed, +that we might depend on his compliance with what should be +desired of him if ever he came amongst us, and was taken from +under the wing of the Queen his mother. To strengthen this +opinion of his character, it was said that he had sent for Mr. +Leslie over; that he allowed him to celebrate the Church of +England service in his family; and that he had promised to hear +what this divine should represent on the subject of religion to +him. When I came abroad, the same things, and much more, +were at first insinuated to me; and I began to let them make +impression upon me, notwithstanding what I had seen under his +hand. I would willingly flatter myself that this impression +disposed me to incline to Jacobitism rather than allow that the +inclination to Jacobitism disposed me easily to believe what, +upon that principle, I had so much reason to wish might be +true. Which was the cause, and which the effect, I cannot +well determine: perhaps they did mutually occasion each +other. Thus much is certain—that I was far from +weighing this matter as I ought to have done when the +solicitation of my friends and the persecution of my enemies +precipitated me into engagements with the Pretender.</p> +<p>I was willing to take it for granted that since you were as +ready to declare as I believed you at that time, you must have +had entire satisfaction on the article of religion. I was +soon undeceived; this string had never been touched. My own +observation, and the unanimous report of all those who from his +infancy have approached the Pretender’s person, soon taught +me how difficult it is to come to terms with him on this head, +and how unsafe to embark without them.</p> +<p>His religion is not founded on the love of virtue and the +detestation of vice; on a sense of that obedience which is due to +the will of the Supreme Being, and a sense of those obligations +which creatures formed to live in a mutual dependence on one +another lie under. The spring of his whole conduct is +fear. Fear of the horns of the devil and of the flames of +hell. He has been taught to believe that nothing but a +blind submission to the Church of Rome and a strict adherence to +all the terms of that communion can save him from these +dangers. He has all the superstition of a Capuchin, but I +found on him no tincture of the religion of a prince. Do +not imagine that I loose the reins to my imagination, or that I +write what my resentments dictate: I tell you simply my +opinion. I have heard the same description of his character +made by those who know him best, and I conversed with very few +among the Roman Catholics themselves who did not think him too +much a Papist.</p> +<p>Nothing gave me from the beginning so much uneasiness as the +consideration of this part of his character, and of the little +care which had been taken to correct it. A true turn had +not been given to the first steps which were made with him. +The Tories who engaged afterwards, threw themselves, as it were, +at his head. He had been suffered to think that the party +in England wanted him as much as he wanted them. There was +no room to hope for much compliance on the head of religion when +he was in these sentiments, and when he thought the Tories too +far advanced to have it in their power to retreat; and little +dependence was at any time to be placed on the promises of a man +capable of thinking his damnation attached to the observance, and +his salvation to the breach, of these very promises. +Something, however, was to be done, and I thought that the least +which could be done was to deal plainly with him, and to show him +the impossibility of governing our nation by any other expedient +than by complying with that which would be expected from him as +to his religion. This was thought too much by the Duke of +Ormond and Mr. Leslie; although the duke could be no more +ignorant than the minister how ill the latter had been used, how +far the Chevalier had been from keeping the word which he had +given, and on the faith of which Mr. Leslie had come over to +him. They both knew that he not only refused to hear +himself, but that he sheltered the ignorance of his priests, or +the badness of his cause, or both, behind his authority, and +absolutely forbade all discourse concerning religion. The +duke seemed convinced that it would be time enough to talk of +religion to him when he should be restored, or, at soonest, when +he should be landed in England; that the influence under which he +had lived being at a distance, the reasonableness of what we +might propose, joined to the apparent necessity which would then +stare him in the face, could not fail to produce all the effects +which we could desire.</p> +<p>To me this whole reasoning appeared fallacious. Our +business was not to make him change appearances on this side of +the water, but to prepare him to give those which would be +necessary on the other; and there was no room to hope that if we +could gain nothing on his prejudices here, we should be able to +overcome them in Britain. I would have argued just as the +Duke of Ormond and Leslie if I had been a Papist; and I saw well +enough that some people about him, for in a great dearth of +ability there was cunning to be met with, affected nothing more +than to keep off all discourse of religion. To my +apprehension it was exceeding plain that we should find, if we +were once in England, the necessity of going forward at any rate +with him much greater than he would find that of complying with +us. I thought it an unpardonable fault to have taken a +formal engagement with him, when no previous satisfaction had +been obtained on a point at least as essential to our civil as to +our religious rights; to the peace of the State as to the +prosperity of the Church; and I looked on this fault to be +aggravated by every day’s delay. Our silence was +unfair both to the Chevalier and to our friends in England. +He was induced by it to believe that they would exact far less +from him than we knew they expected, and they were confirmed in +an opinion of his docility, which we knew to be void of all +foundation. The pretence of removing that influence under +which he had lived was frivolous, and should never have been +urged to me, who saw plainly that, according to the measures +pursued by the very persons who urged it, he must be environed in +England by the same people that surrounded him here; and that the +Court of St. James’s would be constituted, if ever he was +restored, in the same manner as that of St. Germains was.</p> +<p>When the draft of a declaration and other papers which were to +be dispersed in Great Britain came to be settled, it appeared +that my apprehension and distrust were but too well +founded. The Pretender took exception against several +passages, and particularly against those wherein a direct promise +of securing the Churches of England and Ireland was made. +He was told, he said, that he could not in conscience make such a +promise, and, the debate being kept up a little while, he asked +me with some warmth why the Tories were so desirous to have him +if they expected those things from him which his religion did not +allow. I left these drafts, by his order, with him, that he +might consider and amend them. I cannot say that he sent +them to the Queen to be corrected by her confessor and the rest +of her council, but I firmly believe it. Sure I am that he +took time sufficient to do this before he sent them from Bar, +where he then was, to Paris, whither I was returned. When +they were digested in such a manner as satisfied his casuists he +made them be printed, and my name was put to the declaration, as +if the original had been signed by me. I had hitherto +submitted my opinion to the judgment of others, but on this +occasion I took advice from myself. I declared to him that +I would not suffer my name to be at the bottom of this +paper. All the copies which came to my hands I burnt, and +another was printed off without any countersigning.</p> +<p>The whole tenor of the amendments was one continued instance +of the grossest bigotry, and the most material passages were +turned with all the Jesuitical prevarication imaginable. As +much as it was his interest at that time to cultivate the respect +which many of the Tories really had for the memory of the late +Queen, and which many others affected as a farther mark of their +opposition to the Court and to the Whig party; as much as it was +his interest to weave the honour of her name into his cause, and +to render her, even after her death, a party to the dispute, he +could not be prevailed upon to give her that character which her +enemies allowed her, nor to make use of those expressions, in +speaking of her, which, by the general manner of their +application, are come to be little more than terms of respect and +words of form proper in the style of public acts. For +instance:—</p> +<p>She was called in the original draft “his sister of +glorious and blessed memory.” In that which he +published, the epithet of “blessed” was left +out. Her eminent justice and her exemplary piety were +occasionally mentioned; in lieu of which he substituted a flat, +and, in this case, an invidious expression, “her +inclinations to justice.”</p> +<p>Not content with declaring her neither just nor pious in this +world he did little less than declare her damned in the other, +according to the charitable principles of the Church of Rome.</p> +<p>“When it pleased Almighty God to take her to +Himself,” was the expression used in speaking of the death +of the Queen. This he erased, and instead thereof inserted +these words: “When it pleased Almighty God to put a period +to her life.”</p> +<p>He graciously allowed the Universities to be nurseries of +loyalty; but did not think that it became him to style them +“nurseries of religion.”</p> +<p>Since his father passes already for a saint, and since reports +are encouraged of miracles which they suppose to be wrought at +his tomb, he might have allowed his grandfather to pass for a +martyr; but he struck out of the draft these words, “that +blessed martyr who died for his people,” which were applied +to King Charles I., and would say nothing more of him than that +“he fell a sacrifice to rebellion.”</p> +<p>In the clause which related to the Churches of England and +Ireland there was a plain and direct promise inserted of +“effectual provision for their security, and for their +re-establishment in all those rights which belong to +them.” This clause was not suffered to stand, but +another was formed, wherein all mention of the Church of Ireland +was omitted, and nothing was promised to the Church of England +but the security, and “re-establishment of all those +rights, privileges, immunities, and possessions which belong to +her,” and wherein he had already promised by his +declaration of the 20th of July, to secure and “protect all +her members.”</p> +<p>I need make no comment on a proceeding so easy to be +understood. The drift of these evasions, and of this +affected obscurity, is obvious enough—at least, it will +appear so by the observations which remain to be made.</p> +<p>He was so afraid of admitting any words which might be +construed into a promise of his consenting to those things which +should be found necessary for the present or future security of +our constitution, that in a paragraph where he was made to say +that he thought himself obliged to be solicitous for the +prosperity of the Church of England, the word prosperity was +expunged, and we were left by this mental reservation to guess +what he was solicitous for. It could not be for her +prosperity: that he had expunged. It must therefore be for +her destruction, which in his language would have been styled her +conversion.</p> +<p>Another remarkable proof of the same kind is to be found +towards the conclusion of the declaration. After having +spoken of the peace and flourishing estate of the kingdom, he was +made to express his readiness to concert with the two Houses such +further measures as should be thought necessary for securing the +same to future generations. The design of this paragraph +you see. He and his council saw it too, and therefore the +word “securing” was laid aside, and the word +“leaving” was inserted in lieu of it.</p> +<p>One would imagine that a declaration corrected in this manner +might have been suffered to go abroad without any farther +precaution. But these papers had been penned by +Protestants; and who could answer that there might not be still +ground sufficient from the tenor of them to insist on everything +necessary for the security of that religion? The +declaration of the 20th of July had been penned by a priest of +the Scotch college, and the expressions had been measured so as +to suit perfectly with the conduct which the Chevalier intended +to hold; so as to leave room to distinguish him, upon future +occasions, with the help of a little pious sophistry, out of all +the engagements which he seemed to take in it. This +orthodox paper was therefore to accompany the heretical paper +into the world, and no promise of moment was to stand in the +latter, unless qualified by a reference to the former. Thus +the Church was to be secured in the rights, etc., which belong to +her. How? No otherwise than according to the +declaration of the month of July. And what does that +promise? Security and protection to the members of this +Church in the enjoyment of their property. I make no doubt +but Bellarmine, if he had been the Chevalier’s confessor, +would have passed this paragraph thus amended. No +engagement whatever taken in favour of the Church of Ireland, and +a happy distinction found between securing that of England, and +protecting her members. Many a useful project for the +destruction of heretics, and for accumulating power and riches to +the See of Rome, has been established on a more slender +foundation.</p> +<p>The same spirit reigns through the whole. Civil and +religious rights are no otherwise to be confirmed than in +conformity to the declaration of July; nay, the general pardon is +restrained and limited to the terms prescribed therein.</p> +<p>This is the account which I judged too important to be +omitted, and which I chose to give you all together. I +shall surely be justified at present in concluding that the +Tories are grossly deluded in their opinion of this +Prince’s character, or else that they sacrifice all which +ought to be esteemed precious and sacred among men to their +passions. In both these cases I remain still a Tory, and am +true to the party. In the first, I endeavour to undeceive +you by an experience purchased at my expense and for your sakes: +in the second, I endeavour to prevail on you to revert to that +principle from which we have deviated. You never intended, +whilst I lived amongst you, the ruin of your country; and yet +every step which you now make towards the restoration you are so +fond of, is a step towards this ruin. No man of sense, well +informed, can ever go into measures for it, unless he thinks +himself and his country in such desperate circumstances that +nothing is left them but to choose of two ruins that which they +like best.</p> +<p>The exile of the royal family, under Cromwell’s +usurpation, was the principal cause of all those misfortunes in +which Britain has been involved, as well as of many of those +which have happened to the rest of Europe, during more than half +a century.</p> +<p>The two brothers, Charles and James, became then infected with +Popery to such degrees as their different characters admitted +of. Charles had parts, and his good understanding served as +an antidote to repel the poison. James, the simplest man of +his time, drank off the whole chalice. The poison met in +his composition with all the fear, all the credulity, and all the +obstinacy of temper proper to increase its virulence and to +strengthen its effect. The first had always a wrong bias +upon him; he connived at the establishment, and indirectly +contributed to the growth, of that power which afterwards +disturbed the peace and threatened the liberty of Europe so +often; but he went no further out of the way. The +opposition of his Parliaments and his own reflections stopped him +here. The Prince and the people were, indeed, mutually +jealous of one another, from whence much present disorder flowed, +and the foundation of future evils was laid; but his good and his +bad principles combating still together, he maintained, during a +reign of more than twenty years, in some tolerable degree, the +authority of the Crown and the flourishing estate of the +nation. The last, drunk with superstitious and even +enthusiastic zeal, ran headlong into his own ruin whilst he +endeavoured to precipitate ours. His Parliament and his +people did all they could to save themselves by winning +him. But all was vain; he had no principle on which they +could take hold. Even his good qualities worked against +them, and his love of his country went halves with his +bigotry. How he succeeded we have heard from our +fathers. The revolution of 1688 saved the nation and ruined +the King.</p> +<p>Now the Pretender’s education has rendered him +infinitely less fit than his uncle—and at least as unfit as +his father—to be King of Great Britain. Add to this +that there is no resource in his understanding. Men of the +best sense find it hard to overcome religious prejudices, which +are of all the strongest; but he is a slave to the weakest. +The rod hangs like the sword of Damocles over his head, and he +trembles before his mother and his priest. What, in the +name of God, can any member of the Church of England promise +himself from such a character? Are we by another revolution +to return into the same state from which we were delivered by the +first? Let us take example from the Roman Catholics, who +act very reasonably in refusing to submit to a Protestant +Prince. Henry IV. had at least as good a title to the crown +of France as the Pretender has to ours. His religion alone +stood in his way, and he had never been King if he had not +removed that obstacle. Shall we submit to a Popish Prince, +who will no more imitate Henry IV. in changing his religion than +he will imitate those shining qualities which rendered him the +honestest gentleman, the bravest captain, and the greatest prince +of his age? Allow me to give a loose to my pen for a moment +on this subject. General benevolence and universal charity +seem to be established in the Gospel as the distinguishing badges +of Christianity. How it happens I cannot tell; but so it +is, that in all ages of the Church the professors of Christianity +seem to have been animated by a quite contrary spirit. +Whilst they were thinly scattered over the world, tolerated in +some places, but established nowhere, their zeal often consumed +their charity. Paganism, at that time the religion by law +established, was insulted by many of them; the ceremonies were +disturbed, the altars thrown down. As soon as, by the +favour of Constantine, their numbers were increased, and the +reins of government were put into their hands, they began to +employ the secular arm, not only against different religions, but +against different sects which arose in their own religion. +A man may boldly affirm that more blood has been shed in the +disputes between Christian and Christian than has ever been drawn +from the whole body of them in the persecutions of the heathen +emperors and in the conquests of the Mahometan princes. +From these they have received quarter, but never from one +another. The Christian religion is actually tolerated among +the Mahometans, and the domes of churches and mosques arise in +the same city. But it will be hard to find an example where +one sect of Christians has tolerated another which it was in +their power to extirpate. They have gone farther in these +later ages; what was practised formerly has been taught +since. Persecution has been reduced into system, and the +disciples of the meek and humble Jesus have avowed a tyranny +which the most barbarous conquerors never claimed. The +wicked subtilty of casuists has established breach of faith with +those who differ from us as a duty in opposition to faith, and +murder itself has been made one of the means of salvation. +I know very well that the Reformed Churches have been far from +going those cruel lengths which are authorised by the doctrine as +well as example of that of Rome, though Calvin put a flaming +sword on the title of a French edition of his Institute, with +this motto, “Je ne suis point venu mettre la paix, mais +l’epée;” but I know likewise that the +difference lies in the means and not in the aim of their +policy. The Church of England, the most humane of all of +them, would root out every other religion if it was in her +power. She would not hang and burn; her measures would be +milder, and therefore, perhaps, more effectual.</p> +<p>Since, then, there is this inveterate rancour among +Christians, can anything be more absurd than for those of one +persuasion to trust the supreme power, or any part of it, to +those of another? Particularly must it not be reputed +madness in those of our religion to trust themselves in the hands +of Roman Catholics? Must it not be reputed impudence in a +Roman Catholic to expect that we should? he who looks upon us as +heretics, as men in rebellion against a lawful—nay, a +divine—authority, and whom it is, therefore, meritorious by +all sorts of ways to reduce to obedience? There are many, I +know, amongst them who think more generously, and whose morals +are not corrupted by that which is called religion; but this is +the spirit of the priesthood, in whose scale that scrap of a +parable, “Compel them to come in,” which they apply +as they please, outweighs the whole Decalogue. This will be +the spirit of every man who is bigot enough to be under their +direction; and so much is sufficient for my present purpose.</p> +<p>During your last Session of Parliament it was expected that +the Whigs would attempt to repeal the Occasional Bill. The +same jealousy continues; there is, perhaps, foundation for +it. Give me leave to ask you upon what principle we argued +for making this law, and upon what principle you must argue +against the repeal of it. I have mentioned the principle in +the beginning of this discourse. No man ought to be trusted +with any share of power under a Government who must, to act +consistently with himself, endeavour the destruction of that very +Government. Shall this proposition pass for true when it is +applied to keep a Presbyterian from being mayor of a corporation, +and shall it become false when it is applied to keep a Papist +from being king? The proposition is equally true in both +cases; but the argument drawn from it is just so much stronger in +the latter than in the former case, as the mischiefs which may +result from the power and influence of a king are greater than +those which can be wrought by a magistrate of the lowest +order. This seems to my apprehension to be <i>argumentum ad +hominem</i>, and I do not see by what happy distinction a +Jacobite Tory could elude the force of it.</p> +<p>It may be said, and it has been urged to me, that if the +Chevalier was restored, the knowledge of his character would be +our security; “habet fœnum in cornu;” there +would be no pretence for trusting him, and by consequence it +would be easy to put such restrictions on the exercise of the +regal power as might hinder him from invading or sapping our +religion and liberty. But this I utterly deny. +Experience has shown us how ready men are to court power and +profit, and who can determine how far either the Tories or the +Whigs would comply, in order to secure to themselves the +enjoyment of all the places in the kingdom? Suppose, +however, that a majority of true Israelites should be found, whom +no temptation could oblige to bow the knee to Baal; in order to +preserve the Government on one hand must they not destroy it on +the other? The necessary restrictions would in this case be +so many and so important as to leave hardly the shadow of a +monarchy if he submitted to them; and if he did not submit to +them, these patriots would have no resource left but in +rebellion. Thus, therefore, the affair would turn if the +Pretender was restored. We might, most probably, lose our +religion and liberty by the bigotry of the Prince and the +corruption of the people. We should have no chance of +preserving them but by an entire change of the whole frame of our +Government or by another revolution. What reasonable man +would voluntarily reduce himself to the necessity of making an +option among such melancholy alternatives?</p> +<p>The best which could be hoped for, were the Chevalier on the +throne, would be that a thread of favourable accidents, improved +by the wisdom and virtue of Parliament, might keep off the evil +day during his reign. But still the fatal cause would be +established; it would be entailed upon us, and every man would be +apprised that sooner or later the fatal effect must follow. +Consider a little what a condition we should be in, both with +respect to our foreign interest and our domestic quiet, whilst +the reprieve lasted, whilst the Chevalier or his successors made +no direct attack upon the constitution.</p> +<p>As to the first, it is true, indeed, that princes and States +are friends or foes to one another according as the motives of +ambition drive them. These are the first principles of +union and division amongst them. The Protestant Powers of +Europe have joined, in our days, to support and aggrandise the +House of Austria, as they did in the days of our forefathers to +defeat her designs and to reduce her power; and the most +Christian King of France has more than once joined his councils, +and his arms too, with the councils and arms of the most +Mahometan Emperor of Constantinople. But still there is, +and there must continue, as long as the influence of the Papal +authority subsists in Europe, another general, permanent, and +invariable division of interests. The powers of earth, like +those of heaven, have two distinct motions. Each of them +rolls in his own political orb, but each of them is hurried at +the same time round the great vortex of his religion. If +this general notion be just, apply it to the present case. +Whilst a Roman Catholic holds the rudder, how can we expect to be +steered in our proper course? His political interest will +certainly incline him to direct our first motion right, but his +mistaken religious interest will render him incapable of doing it +steadily.</p> +<p>As to the last, our domestic quiet; even whilst the Chevalier +and those of his race concealed their game, we should remain in +the most unhappy state which human nature is subject to, a state +of doubt and suspense. Our preservation would depend on +making him the object of our eternal jealousy, who, to render +himself and his people happy, ought to be that of our entire +confidence.</p> +<p>Whilst the Pretender and his successors forbore to attack the +religion and liberty of the nation, we should remain in the +condition of those people who labour under a broken constitution, +or who carry about them some chronical distemper. They feel +a little pain at every moment; or a certain uneasiness, which is +sometimes less tolerable than pain, hangs continually on them, +and they languish in the constant expectation of dying perhaps in +the severest torture.</p> +<p>But if the fear of hell should dissipate all other fears in +the Pretender’s mind, and carry him, which is frequently +the effect of that passion, to the most desperate undertakings; +if among his successors a man bold enough to make the attempt +should arise, the condition of the British nation would be still +more deplorable. The attempt succeeding, we should fall +into tyranny; for a change of religion could never be brought +about by consent; and the same force that would be sufficient to +enslave our consciences, would be sufficient for all the other +purposes of arbitrary power. The attempt failing, we should +fall into anarchy; for there is no medium when disputes between a +prince and his people are arrived at a certain point; he must +either be submitted to or deposed.</p> +<p>I have now laid before you even more than I intended to have +said when I took my pen, and I am persuaded that if these papers +ever come to your hands, they will enable you to cast up the +account between party and me. Till the time of the +Queen’s death it stands, I believe, even between us. +The Tories distinguished me by their approbation and by the +credit which I had amongst them, and I endeavoured to distinguish +myself in their service, under the immediate weight of great +discouragement and with the not very distant prospect of great +danger. Since that time the account is not so even, and I +dare appeal to any impartial person whether my side in it be that +of the debtor. As to the opinion of mankind in general, and +the judgment which posterity will pass on these matters, I am +under no great concern. “Suum cuique decus posteritas +rependit.”</p> +<h2>A LETTER TO ALEXANDER POPE.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,—Since you have +begun, at my request, the work which I have wished long that you +would undertake, it is but reasonable that I submit to the task +you impose upon me. The mere compliance with anything you +desire, is a pleasure to me. On the present occasion, +however, this compliance is a little interested; and that I may +not assume more merit with you than I really have, I will own +that in performing this act of friendship—for such you are +willing to esteem it—the purity of my motive is corrupted +by some regard to my private utility. In short, I suspect +you to be guilty of a very friendly fraud, and to mean my service +whilst you seem to mean your own.</p> +<p>In leading me to discourse, as you have done often, and in +pressing me to write, as you do now, on certain subjects, you may +propose to draw me back to those trains of thought which are, +above all others, worthy to employ the human mind: and I thank +you for it. They have been often interrupted by the +business and dissipations of the world, but they were never so +more grievously to me, nor less usefully to the public, than +since royal seduction prevailed on me to abandon the quiet and +leisure of the retreat I had chosen abroad, and to neglect the +example of Rutilius, for I might have imitated him in this at +least, who fled further from his country when he was invited +home.</p> +<p>You have begun your ethic epistles in a masterly manner. +You have copied no other writer, nor will you, I think, be copied +by any one. It is with genius as it is with beauty; there +are a thousand pretty things that charm alike; but superior +genius, like superior beauty, has always something particular, +something that belongs to itself alone. It is always +distinguishable, not only from those who have no claim to +excellence, but even from those who excel, when any such there +are.</p> +<p>I am pleased, you may be sure, to find your satire turn, in +the very beginning of these epistles, against the principal +cause—for such you know that I think it—of all the +errors, all the contradictions, and all the disputes which have +arisen among those who impose themselves on their +fellow-creatures for great masters, and almost sole proprietors +of a gift of God which is common to the whole species. This +gift is reason; a faculty, or rather an aggregate of faculties, +that is bestowed in different degrees; and not in the highest, +certainly, on those who make the highest pretensions to it. +Let your satire chastise, and, if it be possible, humble that +pride, which is the fruitful parent of their vain curiosity and +bold presumption; which renders them dogmatical in the midst of +ignorance, and often sceptical in the midst of knowledge. +The man who is puffed up with this philosophical pride, whether +divine or theist, or atheist, deserves no more to be respected +than one of those trifling creatures who are conscious of little +else than their animality, and who stop as far short of the +attainable perfections of their nature as the other attempts to +go beyond them. You will discover as many silly affections, +as much foppery and futility, as much inconsistency and low +artifice in one as in the other. I never met the mad woman +at Brentford decked out in old and new rags, and nice and +fantastical in the manner of wearing them, without reflecting on +many of the profound scholars and sublime philosophers of our own +and of former ages.</p> +<p>You may expect some contradiction and some obloquy on the part +of these men, though you will have less to apprehend from their +malice and resentment than a writer in prose on the same subjects +would have. You will be safer in the generalities of +poetry; and I know your precaution enough to know that you will +screen yourself in them against any direct charge of +heterodoxy. But the great clamour of all will be raised +when you descend lower, and let your Muse loose among the herd of +mankind. Then will those powers of dulness whom you have +ridiculed into immortality be called forth in one united phalanx +against you. But why do I talk of what may happen? +You have experienced lately something more than I +prognosticate. Fools and knaves should be modest at least; +they should ask quarter of men of sense and virtue: and so they +do till they grow up to a majority, till a similitude of +character assures them of the protection of the great. But +then vice and folly such as prevail in our country, corrupt our +manners, deform even social life, and contribute to make us +ridiculous as well as miserable, will claim respect for the sake +of the vicious and the foolish. It will be then no longer +sufficient to spare persons; for to draw even characters of +imagination must become criminal when the application of them to +those of highest rank and greatest power cannot fail to be +made. You began to laugh at the ridiculous taste or the no +taste in gardening and building of some men who are at great +expense in both. What a clamour was raised instantly! +The name of Timon was applied to a noble person with double +malice, to make him ridiculous, and you, who lived in friendship +with him, odious. By the authority that employed itself to +encourage this clamour, and by the industry used to spread and +support it, one would have thought that you had directed your +satire in that epistle to political subjects, and had inveighed +against those who impoverish, dishonour, and sell their country, +instead of making yourself inoffensively merry at the expense of +men who ruin none but themselves, and render none but themselves +ridiculous. What will the clamour be, and how will the same +authority foment it, when you proceed to lash, in other +instances, our want of elegance even in luxury, and our wild +profusion, the source of insatiable rapacity, and almost +universal venality? My mind forebodes that the time will +come—and who knows how near it may be?—when other +powers than those of Grub Street may be drawn forth against you, +and when vice and folly may be avowedly sheltered behind a power +instituted for better and contrary purposes—for the +punishment of one, and for the reformation of both.</p> +<p>But, however this may be, pursue your task undauntedly, and +whilst so many others convert the noblest employments of human +society into sordid trades, let the generous Muse resume her +ancient dignity, re-assert her ancient prerogative, and instruct +and reform, as well as amuse the world. Let her give a new +turn to the thoughts of men, raise new affections in their minds, +and determine in another and better manner the passions of their +hearts. Poets, they say, were the first philosophers and +divines in every country, and in ours, perhaps, the first +institutions of religion and civil policy were owing to our +bards. Their task might be hard, their merit was certainly +great. But if they were to rise now from the dead they +would find the second task, if I mistake not, much harder than +the first, and confess it more easy to deal with ignorance than +with error. When societies are once established and +Governments formed, men flatter themselves that they proceed in +cultivating the first rudiments of civility, policy, religion, +and learning. But they do not observe that the private +interests of many, the prejudices, affections, and passions of +all, have a large share in the work, and often the largest. +These put a sort of bias on the mind, which makes it decline from +the straight course; and the further these supposed improvements +are carried, the greater this declination grows, till men lose +sight of primitive and real nature, and have no other guide but +custom, a second and a false nature. The author of one is +divine wisdom; of the other, human imagination; and yet whenever +the second stands in opposition to the first, as it does most +frequently, the second prevails. From hence it happens that +the most civilised nations are often guilty of injustice and +cruelty which the least civilised would abhor, and that many of +the most absurd opinions and doctrines which have been imposed in +the Dark Ages of ignorance continue to be the opinions and +doctrines of ages enlightened by philosophy and learning. +“If I was a philosopher,” says Montaigne, “I +would naturalise art instead of artilising Nature.” +The expression is odd, but the sense is good, and what he +recommends would be done if the reasons that have been given did +not stand in the way; if the self-interest of some men, the +madness of others, and the universal pride of the human heart did +not determine them to prefer error to truth and authority to +reason.</p> +<p>Whilst your Muse is employed to lash the vicious into +repentance, or to laugh the fools of the age into shame, and +whilst she rises sometimes to the noblest subjects of +philosophical meditation, I shall throw upon paper, for your +satisfaction and for my own, some part at least of what I have +thought and said formerly on the last of these subjects, as well +as the reflections that they may suggest to me further in writing +on them. The strange situation I am in, and the melancholy +state of public affairs, take up much of my time; divide, or even +dissipate, my thoughts; and, which is worse, drag the mind down +by perpetual interruptions from a philosophical tone or temper to +the drudgery of private and public business. The last lies +nearest my heart; and since I am once more engaged in the service +of my country, disarmed, gagged, and almost bound as I am, I will +not abandon it as long as the integrity and perseverance of those +who are under none of these disadvantages, and with whom I now +co-operate, make it reasonable for me to act the same part. +Further than this no shadow of duty obliges me to go. Plato +ceased to act for the Commonwealth when he ceased to persuade, +and Solon laid down his arms before the public magazine when +Pisistratus grew too strong to be opposed any longer with hopes +of success.</p> +<p>Though my situation and my engagements are sufficiently known +to you, I choose to mention them on this occasion lest you should +expect from me anything more than I find myself able to perform +whilst I am in them. It has been said by many that they +wanted time to make their discourses shorter; and if this be a +good excuse, as I think it may be often, I lay in my claim to +it. You must neither expect in what I am about to write to +you that brevity which might be expected in letters or essays, +nor that exactness of method, nor that fulness of the several +parts which they affect to observe who presume to write +philosophical treatises. The merit of brevity is relative +to the manner and style in which any subject is treated, as well +as to the nature of it; for the same subject may be sometimes +treated very differently, and yet very properly, in both these +respects. Should the poet make syllogisms in verse, or +pursue a long process of reasoning in the didactic style, he +would be sure to tire his reader on the whole, like Lucretius, +though he reasoned better than the Roman, and put into some parts +of his work the same poetical fire. He may write, as you +have begun to do, on philosophical subjects, but he must write in +his own character. He must contract, he may shadow, he has +a right to omit whatever will not be cast in the poetic mould; +and when he cannot instruct, he may hope to please. But the +philosopher has no such privileges. He may contract +sometimes, he must never shadow. He must be limited by his +matter, lest he should grow whimsical, and by the parts of it +which he understands best, lest he should grow obscure. But +these parts he must develop fully, and he has no right to omit +anything that may serve the purpose of truth, whether it please +or not. As it would be disingenuous to sacrifice truth to +popularity, so it is trifling to appeal to the reason and +experience of mankind, as every philosophical writer does, or +must be understood to do, and then to talk, like Plato and his +ancient and modern disciples, to the imagination only. +There is no need, however, to banish eloquence out of philosophy, +and truth and reason are no enemies to the purity nor to the +ornaments of language. But as the want of an exact +determination of ideas and of an exact precision in the use of +words is inexcusable in a philosopher, he must preserve them, +even at the expense of style. In short, it seems to me that +the business of the philosopher is to dilate, if I may borrow +this word from Tully, to press, to prove, to convince; and that +of the poet to hint, to touch his subject with short and spirited +strokes, to warm the affections, and to speak to the heart.</p> +<p>Though I seem to prepare an apology for prolixity even in +writing essays, I will endeavour not to be tedious, and this +endeavour may succeed the better perhaps by declining any +over-strict observation of method. There are certain points +of that which I esteem the first philosophy whereof I shall never +lose sight, but this will be very consistent with a sort of +epistolary licence. To digress and to ramble are different +things, and he who knows the country through which he travels may +venture out of the highroad, because he is sure of finding his +way back to it again. Thus the several matters that may +arise even accidentally before me will have some share in guiding +my pen.</p> +<p>I dare not promise that the sections or members of these +essays will bear that nice proportion to one another and to the +whole which a severe critic would require. All I dare +promise you is that my thoughts, in what order soever they flow, +shall be communicated to you just as they pass through my mind, +just as they use to be when we converse together on these or any +other subjects when we saunter alone, or, as we have often done +with good Arbuthnot and the jocose Dean of St. Patrick’s, +among the multiplied scenes of your little garden. That +theatre is large enough for my ambition. I dare not pretend +to instruct mankind, and I am not humble enough to write to the +public for any other purpose. I mean by writing on such +subjects as I intend here, to make some trial of my progress in +search of the most important truths, and to make this trial +before a friend in whom I think I may confide. These +epistolary essays, therefore, will be written with as little +regard to form and with as little reserve as I used to show in +the conversations which have given occasion to them, when I +maintained the same opinions and insisted on the same reasons in +defence of them.</p> +<p>It might seem strange to a man not well acquainted with the +world, and in particular with the philosophical and theological +tribe, that so much precaution should be necessary in the +communication of our thoughts on any subject of the first +philosophy, which is of common concern to the whole race of +mankind, and wherein no one can have, according to nature and +truth, any separate interest. Yet so it is. The +separate interests we cannot have by God’s institutions, +are created by those of man; and there is no subject on which men +deal more unfairly with one another than this. There are +separate interests, to mention them in general only, of prejudice +and of profession. By the first, men set out in the search +of truth under the conduct of error, and work up their heated +imaginations often to such a delirium that the more genius, and +the more learning they have, the madder they grow. By the +second, they are sworn, as it were, to follow all their lives the +authority of some particular school, to which “tanquam +scopulo, adhærescunt;” for the condition of their +engagement is to defend certain doctrines, and even mere forms of +speech, without examination, or to examine only in order to +defend them. By both, they become philosophers as men +became Christians in the primitive Church, or as they determined +themselves about disputed doctrines; for says Hilarius, writing +to St. Austin, “Your holiness knows that the greatest part +of the faithful embrace, or refuse to embrace, a doctrine for no +reason but the impression which the name and authority of some +body or other makes on them.” What now can a man who +seeks truth for the sake of truth, and is indifferent where he +finds it, expect from any communication of his thoughts to such +men as these? He will be much deceived if he expects +anything better than imposition or altercation.</p> +<p>Few men have, I believe, consulted others, both the living and +the dead, with less presumption, and in a greater spirit of +docility, than I have done: and the more I have consulted, the +less have I found of that inward conviction on which a mind that +is not absolutely implicit can rest. I thought for a time +that this must be my fault. I distrusted myself, not my +teachers—men of the greatest name, ancient and +modern. But I found at last that it was safer to trust +myself than them, and to proceed by the light of my own +understanding than to wander after these <i>ignes fatui</i> of +philosophy. If I am able therefore to tell you easily, and +at the same time so clearly and distinctly as to be easily +understood, and so strongly as not to be easily refuted, how I +have thought for myself, I shall be persuaded that I have thought +enough on these subjects. If I am not able to do this, it +will be evident that I have not thought on them enough. I +must review my opinions, discover and correct my errors.</p> +<p>I have said that the subjects I mean, and which will be the +principal objects of these essays, are those of the first +philosophy; and it is fit, therefore, that I should explain what +I understand by the first philosophy. Do not imagine that I +understand what has passed commonly under that +name—metaphysical pneumatics, for instance, or +ontology. The first are conversant about imaginary +substances, such as may and may not exist. That there is a +God we can demonstrate; and although we know nothing of His +manner of being, yet we acknowledge Him to be immaterial, because +a thousand absurdities, and such as imply the strongest +contradiction, result from the supposition that the Supreme Being +is a system of matter. But of any other spirits we neither +have nor can have any knowledge: and no man will be inquisitive +about spiritual physiognomy, nor go about to inquire, I believe, +at this time, as Evodius inquired of St. Austin, whether our +immaterial part, the soul, does not remain united, when it +forsakes this gross terrestrial body, to some ethereal body more +subtile and more fine; which was one of the Pythagorean and +Platonic whimsies: nor be under any concern to know, if this be +not the case of the dead, how souls can be distinguished after +their separation—that of Dives, for example, from that of +Lazarus. The second—that is, ontology—treats +most scientifically of being abstracted from all being (“de +ente quatenus ens”). It came in fashion whilst +Aristotle was in fashion, and has been spun into an immense web +out of scholastic brains. But it should be, and I think it +is already, left to the acute disciples of Leibnitz, who dug for +gold in the ordure of the schools, and to other German +wits. Let them darken by tedious definitions what is too +plain to need any; or let them employ their vocabulary of +barbarous terms to propagate an unintelligible jargon, which is +supposed to express such abstractions as they cannot make, and +according to which, however, they presume often to control the +particular and most evident truths of experimental +knowledge. Such reputed science deserves no rank in +philosophy, not the last, and much less the first.</p> +<p>I desire you not to imagine neither that I understand by the +first philosophy even such a science as my Lord Bacon +describes—a science of general observations and axioms, +such as do not belong properly to any particular part of science, +but are common to many, “and of an higher stage,” as +he expresses himself. He complains that philosophers have +not gone up to the “spring-head,” which would be of +“general and excellent use for the disclosing of Nature and +the abridgment of art,” though they “draw now and +then a bucket of water out of the well for some particular +use.” I respect—no man more—this great +authority; but I respect no authority enough to subscribe on the +faith of it, to that which appears to me fantastical, as if it +were real. Now this spring-head of science is purely +fantastical, and the figure conveys a false notion to the mind, +as figures employed licentiously are apt to do. The great +author himself calls these axioms, which are to constitute his +first philosophy, observations. Such they are properly; for +there are some uniform principles, or uniform impressions of the +same nature, to be observed in very different subjects, +“una eademque naturæ vestigia aut signacula diversis +materiis et subjectis impressa.” These observations, +therefore, when they are sufficiently verified and well +established, may be properly applied in discourse, or writing, +from one subject to another. But I apprehend that when they +are so applied, they serve rather to illustrate a proposition +than to disclose Nature, or to abridge art. They may have a +better foundation than similitudes and comparisons more loosely +and more superficially made. They may compare realities, +not appearances; things that Nature has made alike, not things +that seem only to have some relation of this kind in our +imaginations. But still they are comparisons of things +distinct and independent. They do not lead us to things, +but things that are lead us to make them. He who possesses +two sciences, and the same will be often true of arts, may find +in certain respects a similitude between them because he +possesses both. If he did not possess both, he would be led +by neither to the acquisition of the other. Such +observations are effects, not means of knowledge; and, therefore, +to suppose that any collection of them can constitute a science +of an “higher stage,” from whence we may reason +<i>à priori</i> down to particulars, is, I presume, to +suppose something very groundless, and very useless at best, to +the advancement of knowledge. A pretended science of this +kind must be barren of knowledge, and may be fruitful of error, +as the Persian magic was, if it proceeded on the faint analogy +that may be discovered between physics and politics, and deduced +the rules of civil government from what the professors of it +observed of the operations and works of Nature in the material +world. The very specimen of their magic which my Lord Bacon +has given would be sufficient to justify what is here objected to +his doctrine.</p> +<p>Let us conclude this head by mentioning two examples among +others which he brings to explain the better what he means by his +first philosophy. The first is this axiom, “If to +unequals you add equals, all will be unequal.” This, +he says, is an axiom of justice as well as of mathematics; and he +asks whether there is not a true coincidence between commutative +and distributive justice, and arithmetical and geometrical +proportion. But I would ask in my turn whether the +certainty that any arithmetician or geometrician has of the +arithmetical or geometrical truth will lead him to discover this +coincidence. I ask whether the most profound lawyer who +never heard perhaps this axiom would be led to it by his notions +of commutative and distributive justice. Certainly +not. He who is well skilled in arithmetic or geometry, and +in jurisprudence, may observe perhaps this uniformity of natural +principle or impression because he is so skilled, though, to say +the truth, it be not very obvious; but he will not have derived +his knowledge of it from any spring-head of a first philosophy, +from any science of an “higher stage” than +arithmetic, geometry, and jurisprudence.</p> +<p>The second example is this axiom, “That the destruction +of things is prevented by the reduction of them to their first +principles.” This rule is said to hold in religion, +in physics, and in politics; and Machiavel is quoted for having +established it in the last of these. Now though this axiom +be generally, it is not universally, true; and, to say nothing of +physics, it will not be hard to produce, in contradiction to it, +examples of religious and civil institutions that would have +perished if they had been kept strictly to their first +principles, and that have been supported by departing more or +less from them. It may seem justly matter of wonder that +the author of the “Advancement of Learning” should +espouse this maxim in religion and politics, as well as physics, +so absolutely, and that he should place it as an axiom of his +first philosophy relatively to the three, since he could not do +it without falling into the abuse he condemns so much in his +“Organum Novum”—the abuse philosophers are +guilty of when they suffer the mind to rise too fast, as it is +apt to do, from particulars to remote and general axioms. +That the author of the “Political Discourses” should +fall into this abuse is not at all strange. The same abuse +runs through all his writings, in which, among many wise and many +wicked reflections and precepts, he establishes frequently +general maxims or rules of conduct on a few particular examples, +and sometimes on a single example. Upon the whole matter, +one of these axioms communicates no knowledge but that which we +must have before we can know the axiom, and the other may betray +us into great error when we apply it to use and action. One +is unprofitable, the other dangerous; and the philosophy which +admits them as principles of general knowledge deserves ill to be +reputed philosophy. It would have been just as useful, and +much more safe, to admit into this receptacle of axioms those +self-evident and necessary truths alone of which we have an +immediate perception, since they are not confined to any special +parts of science, but are common to several, or to all. +Thus these profitable axioms, “What is, is,” +“The whole is bigger than a part,” and divers others, +might serve to enlarge the spring-head of a first philosophy, and +be of excellent use in arguing <i>ex prœcognitis et +prœconcessis</i>.</p> +<p>If you ask me now what I understand then by a first +philosophy, my answer will be such as I suppose you already +prepared to receive. I understand by a first philosophy, +that which deserves the first place on account of the dignity and +importance of its objects, natural theology or theism, and +natural religion or ethics. If we consider the order of the +sciences in their rise and progress, the first place belongs to +natural philosophy, the mother of them all, or the trunk, the +tree of knowledge, out of which, and in proportion to which, like +so many branches, they all grow. These branches spread +wide, and bear even fruits of different kinds. But the sap +that made them shoot, and makes them flourish, rises from the +root through the trunk, and their productions are varied +according to the variety of strainers through which it +flows. In plain terms, I speak not here of supernatural, or +revealed science; and therefore I say that all science, if it be +real, must rise from below, and from our own level. It +cannot descend from above, nor from superior systems of being and +knowledge. Truth of existence is truth of knowledge, and +therefore reason searches after them in one of these scenes, +where both are to be found together, and are within our reach; +whilst imagination hopes fondly to find them in another, where +both of them are to be found, but surely not by us. The +notices we receive from without concerning the beings that +surround us, and the inward consciousness we have of our own, are +the foundations, and the true criterions too, of all the +knowledge we acquire of body and of mind: and body and mind are +objects alike of natural philosophy. We assume commonly +that they are two distinct substances. Be it so. They +are still united, and blended, as it were, together, in one human +nature: and all natures, united or not, fall within the province +of natural philosophy. On the hypothesis indeed that body +and soul are two distinct substances, one of which subsists after +the dissolution of the other, certain men, who have taken the +whimsical title of metaphysicians, as if they had science beyond +the bounds of Nature, or of Nature discoverable by others, have +taken likewise to themselves the doctrine of mind; and have left +that of body, under the name of physics, to a supposed inferior +order of philosophers. But the right of these stands good; +for all the knowledge that can be acquired about mind, or the +unextended substance of the Cartesians, must be acquired, like +that about body, or the extended substance, within the bounds of +their province, and by the means they employ, particular +experiments and observations. Nothing can be true of mind, +any more than of body, that is repugnant to these; and an +intellectual hypothesis which is not supported by the +intellectual phenomena is at least as ridiculous as a corporeal +hypothesis which is not supported by the corporeal phenomena.</p> +<p>If I have said thus much in this place concerning natural +philosophy, it has not been without good reason. I consider +theology and ethics as the first of sciences in pre-eminence of +rank. But I consider the constant contemplation of +Nature—by which I mean the whole system of God’s +works as far as it lies open to us—as the common spring of +all sciences, and even of these. What has been said +agreeably to this notion seems to me evidently true; and yet +metaphysical divines and philosophers proceed in direct +contradiction to it, and have thereby, if I mistake not, +bewildered themselves, and a great part of mankind, in such +inextricable labyrinths of hypothetical reasoning, that few men +can find their way back, and none can find it forward into the +road of truth. To dwell long, and on some points always, in +particular knowledge, tires the patience of these impetuous +philosophers. They fly to generals. To consider +attentively even the minutest phenomena of body and mind +mortifies their pride. Rather than creep up slowly, +<i>à posteriori</i>, to a little general knowledge, they +soar at once as far and as high as imagination can carry +them. From thence they descend again, armed with systems +and arguments <i>à priori</i>; and, regardless how these +agree or clash with the phenomena of Nature, they impose them on +mankind.</p> +<p>It is this manner of philosophising, this preposterous method +of beginning our search after truth out of the bounds of human +knowledge, or of continuing it beyond them, that has corrupted +natural theology and natural religion in all ages. They +have been corrupted to such a degree that it is grown, and was so +long since, as necessary to plead the cause of God, if I may use +this expression after Seneca, against the divine as against the +atheist; to assert his existence against the latter, to defend +his attributes against the former, and to justify his providence +against both. To both a sincere and humble theist might say +very properly, “I make no difference between you on many +occasions, because it is indifferent whether you deny or defame +the Supreme Being.” Nay, Plutarch, though little +orthodox in theology, was not in the wrong perhaps when he +declared the last to be the worst.</p> +<p>In treating the subjects about which I shall write to you in +these letters or essays, it will be therefore necessary to +distinguish genuine and pure theism from the unnatural and +profane mixtures of human imagination—what we can know of +God from what we cannot know. This is the more necessary, +too, because, whilst true and false notions about God and +religion are blended together in our minds under one specious +name of science, the false are more likely to make men doubt of +the true, as it often happens, than to persuade men that they are +true themselves. Now, in order to this purpose, nothing can +be more effectual than to go to the root of error, of that +primitive error which encourages our curiosity, sustains our +pride, fortifies our prejudices, and gives pretence to +delusion. This primitive error consists in the high opinion +we are apt to entertain of the human mind, though it holds, in +truth, a very low rank in the intellectual system. To cure +this error we need only turn our eyes inward, and contemplate +impartially what passes there from the infancy to the maturity of +the mind. Thus it will not be difficult, and thus alone it +is possible, to discover the true nature of human +knowledge—how far it extends, how far it is real, and where +and how it begins to be fantastical.</p> +<p>Such an inquiry, if it cannot check the presumption nor humble +the pride of metaphysicians, may serve to undeceive others. +Locke pursued it; he grounded all he taught on the phenomena of +Nature; he appealed to the experience and conscious knowledge of +every one, and rendered all he advanced intelligible. +Leibnitz, one of the vainest and most chimerical men that ever +got a name in philosophy, and who is often so unintelligible that +no man ought to believe he understood himself, censured Locke as +a superficial philosopher. What has happened? The +philosophy of one has forced its way into general approbation, +that of the other has carried no conviction and scarce any +information to those who have misspent their time about it. +To speak the truth, though it may seem a paradox, our knowledge +on many subjects, and particularly on those which we intend here, +must be superficial to be real. This is the condition of +humanity. We are placed, as it were, in an intellectual +twilight, where we discover but few things clearly, and none +entirely, and yet see just enough to tempt us with the hope of +making better and more discoveries. Thus flattered, men +push their inquiries on, and may be properly enough compared to +Ixion, who “imagined he had Juno in his arms whilst he +embraced a cloud.”</p> +<p>To be contented to know things as God has made us capable of +knowing them is, then, a first principle necessary to secure us +from falling into error; and if there is any subject upon which +we should be most on our guard against error, it is surely that +which I have called here the first philosophy. God is hid +from us in the majesty of His nature, and the little we discover +of Him must be discovered by the light that is reflected from His +works. Out of this light, therefore, we should never go in +our inquiries and reasonings about His nature, His attributes, +and the order of His providence; and yet upon these subjects men +depart the furthest from it—nay, they who depart the +furthest are the best heard by the bulk of mankind. The +less men know, the more they believe that they know. Belief +passes in their minds for knowledge, and the very circumstances +which should beget doubt produce increase of faith. Every +glittering apparition that is pointed out to them in the vast +wild of imagination passes for a reality; and the more distant, +the more confused, the more incomprehensible it is, the more +sublime it is esteemed. He who should attempt to shift +these scenes of airy vision for those of real knowledge might +expect to be treated with scorn and anger by the whole +theological and metaphysical tribe, the masters and the scholars; +he would be despised as a plebeian philosopher, and railed at as +an infidel. It would be sounded high that he debased human +nature, which has a “cognation,” so the reverend and +learned Doctor Cudworth calls it, with the divine; that the soul +of man, immaterial and immortal by its nature, was made to +contemplate higher and nobler objects than this sensible world, +and even than itself, since it was made to contemplate God and to +be united to Him. In such clamour as this the voice of +truth and of reason would be drowned, and, with both of them on +his side, he who opposed it would make many enemies and few +converts—nay, I am apt to think that some of these, if he +made any, would say to him, as soon as the gaudy visions of error +were dispelled, and till they were accustomed to the simplicity +of truth, “Pol me occidistis.” Prudence forbids +me, therefore, to write as I think to the world, whilst +friendship forbids me to write otherwise to you. I have +been a martyr of faction in politics, and have no vocation to be +so in philosophy.</p> +<p>But there is another consideration which deserves more regard, +because it is of a public nature, and because the common +interests of society may be affected by it. Truth and +falsehood, knowledge and ignorance, revelations of the Creator, +inventions of the creature, dictates of reason, sallies of +enthusiasm, have been blended so long together in our systems of +theology that it may be thought dangerous to separate them, lest +by attacking some parts of these systems we should shake the +whole. It may be thought that error itself deserves to be +respected on this account, and that men who are deluded for their +good should be deluded on.</p> +<p>Some such reflections as these it is probable that Erasmus +made when he observed, in one of his letters to Melancthon, that +Plato, dreaming of a philosophical commonwealth, saw the +impossibility of governing the multitude without deceiving +them. “Let not Christians lie,” says this great +divine: “but let it not be thought neither that every truth +ought to be thrown out to the vulgar.” (“Non +expedit omnem veritatem prodere vulgo.”) +Scævola and Varro were more explicit than Erasmus, and more +reasonable than Plato. They held not only that many truths +were to be concealed from the vulgar, but that it was expedient +the vulgar should believe many things that were false. They +distinguished at the same time, very rightly, between the regard +due to religions already established, and the conduct to be held +in the establishment of them. The Greek assumed that men +could not be governed by truth, and erected on this principle a +fabulous theology. The Romans were not of the same +opinion. Varro declared expressly that if he had been to +frame a new institution, he would have framed it “ex +naturæ potius formula.” But they both thought +that things evidently false might deserve an outward respect when +they are interwoven into a system of government. This +outward respect every good citizen will show them in such a case, +and they can claim no more in any. He will not propagate +these errors, but he will be cautious how he propagates even +truth in opposition to them.</p> +<p>There has been much noise made about free-thinking; and men +have been animated in the contest by a spirit that becomes +neither the character of divines nor that of good citizens, by an +arbitrary tyrannical spirit under the mask of religious zeal, and +by a presumptuous factious spirit under that of liberty. If +the first could prevail, they would establish implicit belief and +blind obedience, and an Inquisition to maintain this abject +servitude. To assert antipodes might become once more as +heretical as Arianism or Pelagianism; and men might be dragged to +the jails of some Holy Office, like Galilei, for saying they had +seen what in fact they had seen, and what every one else that +pleased might see. If the second could prevail, they would +destroy at once the general influence of religion by shaking the +foundations of it which education had laid. These are wide +extremes. Is there no middle path in which a reasonable man +and a good citizen may direct his steps? I think there +is.</p> +<p>Every one has an undoubted right to think freely—nay, it +is the duty of every one to do so as far as he has the necessary +means and opportunities. This duty, too, is in no case so +incumbent on him as in those that regard what I call the first +philosophy. They who have neither means nor opportunities +of this sort must submit their opinions to authority; and to what +authority can they resign themselves so properly and so safely as +to that of the laws and constitution of their country? In +general, nothing can be more absurd than to take opinions of the +greatest moment, and such as concern us the most intimately, on +trust; but there is no help against it in many particular +cases. Things the most absurd in speculation become +necessary in practice. Such is the human constitution, and +reason excuses them on the account of this necessity. +Reason does even a little more, and it is all she can do. +She gives the best direction possible to the absurdity. +Thus she directs those who must believe because they cannot know, +to believe in the laws of their country, and conform their +opinions and practice to those of their ancestors, to those of +Coruncanius, of Scipio, of Scævola—not to those of +Zeno, of Cleanthes, of Chrysippus.</p> +<p>But now the same reason that gives this direction to such men +as these will give a very contrary direction to those who have +the means and opportunities the others want. Far from +advising them to submit to this mental bondage, she will advise +them to employ their whole industry to exert the utmost freedom +of thought, and to rest on no authority but hers—that is, +their own. She will speak to them in the language of the +Soufys, a sect of philosophers in Persia that travellers have +mentioned. “Doubt,” say these wise and honest +freethinkers, “is the key of knowledge. He who never +doubts, never examines. He who never examines, discovers +nothing. He who discovers nothing, is blind and will remain +so. If you find no reason to doubt concerning the opinions +of your fathers, keep to them; they will be sufficient for +you. If you find any reason to doubt concerning them, seek +the truth quietly, but take care not to disturb the minds of +other men.”</p> +<p>Let us proceed agreeably to these maxims. Let us seek +truth, but seek it quietly as well as freely. Let us not +imagine, like some who are called freethinkers, that every man, +who can think and judge for himself, as he has a right to do, has +therefore a right of speaking, any more than of acting, according +to the full freedom of his thoughts. The freedom belongs to +him as a rational creature; he lies under the restraint as a +member of society.</p> +<p>If the religion we profess contained nothing more than +articles of faith and points of doctrine clearly revealed to us +in the Gospel, we might be obliged to renounce our natural +freedom of thought in favour of this supernatural +authority. But since it is notorious that a certain order +of men, who call themselves the Church, have been employed to +make and propagate a theological system of their own, which they +call Christianity, from the days of the Apostles, and even from +these days inclusively, it is our duty to examine and analyse the +whole, that we may distinguish what is divine from what is human; +adhere to the first implicitly, and ascribe to the last no more +authority than the word of man deserves.</p> +<p>Such an examination is the more necessary to be undertaken by +every one who is concerned for the truth of his religion and for +the honour of Christianity, because the first preachers of it +were not, and they who preach it still are not, agreed about many +of the most important points of their system; because the +controversies raised by these men have banished union, peace, and +charity out of the Christian world; and because some parts of the +system savour so much of superstition and enthusiasm that all the +prejudices of education and the whole weight of civil and +ecclesiastical power can hardly keep them in credit. These +considerations deserve the more attention because nothing can be +more true than what Plutarch said of old, and my Lord Bacon has +said since: one, that superstition, and the other, that vain +controversies are principal causes of atheism.</p> +<p>I neither expect nor desire to see any public revision made of +the present system of Christianity. I should fear an +attempt to alter the established religion as much as they who +have the most bigot attachment to it, and for reasons as good as +theirs, though not entirely the same. I speak only of the +duty of every private man to examine for himself, which would +have an immediate good effect relatively to himself, and might +have in time a good effect relatively to the public, since it +would dispose the minds of men to a greater indifference about +theological disputes, which are the disgrace of Christianity and +have been the plagues of the world.</p> +<p>Will you tell me that private judgment must submit to the +established authority of Fathers and Councils? My answer +shall be that the Fathers, ancient and modern, in Councils and +out of them, have raised that immense system of artificial +theology by which genuine Christianity is perverted and in which +it is lost. These Fathers are fathers of the worst sort, +such as contrive to keep their children in a perpetual state of +infancy, that they may exercise perpetual and absolute dominion +over them. “Quo magis regnum in illos exerceant pro +sua libidine.” I call their theology artificial, +because it is in a multitude of instances conformable neither to +the religion of Nature nor to Gospel Christianity, but often +repugnant to both, though said to be founded on them. I +shall have occasion to mention several such instances in the +course of these little essays. Here I will only observe +that if it be hard to conceive how anything so absurd as the +pagan theology stands represented by the Fathers who wrote +against it, and as it really was, could ever gain credit among +rational creatures, it is full as hard to conceive how the +artificial theology we speak of could ever prevail, not only in +ages of ignorance, but in the most enlightened. There is a +letter of St. Austin wherein he says that he was ashamed of +himself when he refuted the opinions of the former, and that he +was ashamed of mankind when he considered that such absurdities +were received and defended. The reflections might be +retorted on the saint, since he broached and defended doctrines +as unworthy of the Supreme All-Perfect Being as those which the +heathens taught concerning their fictitious and inferior +gods. Is it necessary to quote any other than that by which +we are taught that God has created numbers of men for no purpose +but to damn them? “Quisquis prædestinationis +doctrinam invidia gravat,” says Calvin, “aperte +maledicit Deo.” Let us say, “Quisquis +prædestinationis doctrinam asserit, +blasphemat”. Let us not impute such cruel injustice +to the all-perfect Being. Let Austin and Calvin and all +those who teach it be answerable for it alone. You may +bring Fathers and Councils as evidences in the cause of +artificial theology, but reason must be the judge; and all I +contend for is, that she should be so in the breast of every +Christian that can appeal to her tribunal.</p> +<p>Will you tell me that even such a private examination of the +Christian system as I propose that every man who is able to make +it should make for himself, is unlawful; and that, if any doubts +arise in our minds concerning religion, we must have recourse for +the solution of them to some of that holy order which was +instituted, by God Himself, and which has been continued by the +imposition of hands in every Christian society, from the Apostles +down to the present clergy? My answer shall be shortly +this: it is repugnant to all the ideas of wisdom and goodness to +believe that the universal terms of salvation are knowable by the +means of one order of men alone, and that they continue to be so +even after they have been published to all nations. Some of +your directors will tell you that whilst Christ was on earth the +Apostles were the Church; that He was the Bishop of it; that +afterwards the admission of men into this order was approved, and +confirmed by visions and other divine manifestations; and that +these wonderful proofs of God’s interposition at the +ordinations and consecrations of presbyters and bishops lasted +even in the time of St. Cyprian—that is, in the middle of +the third century. It is pity that they lasted no longer, +for the honour of the Church, and for the conviction of those who +do not sufficiently reverence the religious society. It +were to be wished, perhaps, that some of the secrets of +electricity were improved enough to be piously and usefully +applied to this purpose. If we beheld a shekinah, or divine +presence, like the flame of a taper, on the heads of those who +receive the imposition of hands, we might believe that they +receive the Holy Ghost at the same time. But as we have no +reason to believe what superstitious, credulous, or lying men +(such as Cyprian himself was) reported formerly, that they might +establish the proud pretensions of the clergy, so we have no +reason to believe that five men of this order have any more of +the Divine Spirit in our time, after they are ordained, than they +had before. It would be a farce to provoke laughter, if +there was no suspicion of profanation in it, to see them gravely +lay hands on one another, and bid one another receive the Holy +Ghost.</p> +<p>Will you tell me finally, in opposition to what has been said, +and that you may anticipate what remains to be said, that laymen +are not only unauthorised, but quite unequal, without the +assistance of divines, to the task I propose? If you do, I +shall make no scruple to tell you, in return, that laymen may be, +if they please, in every respect as fit, and are in one important +respect more fit than divines to go through this examination, and +to judge for themselves upon it. We say that the +Scriptures, concerning the divine authenticity of which all the +professors of Christianity agree, are the sole criterion of +Christianity. You add tradition, concerning which there may +be, and there is, much dispute. We have, then, a certain +invariable rule whenever the Scriptures speak plainly. +Whenever they do not speak so, we have this comfortable +assurance—that doctrines which nobody understands are +revealed to nobody, and are therefore improper objects of human +inquiry. We know, too, that if we receive the explanations +and commentaries of these dark sayings from the clergy, we take +the greatest part of our religion from the word of man, not from +the Word of God. Tradition, indeed, however derived, is not +to be totally rejected; for if it was, how came the canon of the +Scriptures, even of the Gospels, to be fixed? How was it +conveyed down to us? Traditions of general facts, and +general propositions plain and uniform, may be of some authority +and use. But particular anecdotical traditions, whose +original authority is unknown, or justly suspicious, and that +have acquired only an appearance of generality and notoriety, +because they have been frequently and boldly repeated from age to +age, deserve no more regard than doctrines evidently added to the +Scriptures, under pretence of explaining and commenting them, by +men as fallible as ourselves. We may receive the +Scriptures, and be persuaded of their authenticity, on the faith +of ecclesiastical tradition; but it seems to me that we may +reject, at the same time, all the artificial theology which has +been raised on these Scriptures by doctors of the Church, with as +much right as they receive the Old Testament on the authority of +Jewish scribes and doctors whilst they reject the oral law and +all rabbinical literature.</p> +<p>He who examines on such principles as these, which are +conformable to truth and reason, may lay aside at once the +immense volumes of Fathers and Councils, of schoolmen, casuists, +and controversial writers, which have perplexed the world so +long. Natural religion will be to such a man no longer +intricate, revealed religion will be no longer mysterious, nor +the Word of God equivocal. Clearness and precision are two +great excellences of human laws. How much more should we +expect to find them in the law of God? They have been +banished from thence by artificial theology, and he who is +desirous to find them must banish the professors of it from his +councils, instead of consulting them. He must seek for +genuine Christianity with that simplicity of spirit with which it +is taught in the Gospel by Christ Himself. He must do the +very reverse of what has been done by the persons you advise him +to consult.</p> +<p>You see that I have said what has been said, on a supposition +that, however obscure theology may be, the Christian religion is +extremely plain, and requires no great learning nor deep +meditation to develop it. But if it was not so plain, if +both these were necessary to develop it, is great learning the +monopoly of the clergy since the resurrection of letters, as a +little learning was before that era? Is deep meditation and +justness of reasoning confined to men of that order by a peculiar +and exclusive privilege? In short, and to ask a question +which experience will decide, have these men who boast that they +are appointed by God “to be the interpreters of His secret +will, to represent His person, and to answer in His name, as it +were, out of the sanctuary”—have these men, I say, +been able in more than seventeen centuries to establish an +uniform system of revealed religion—for natural religion +never wanted their help among the civil societies of +Christians—or even in their own? They do not seem to +have aimed at this desirable end. Divided as they have +always been, they have always studied in order to believe, and to +take upon trust, or to find matter of discourse, or to contradict +and confute, but never to consider impartially nor to use a free +judgment. On the contrary, they who have attempted to use +this freedom of judgment have been constantly and cruelly +persecuted by them.</p> +<p>The first steps towards the establishment of artificial +theology, which has passed for Christianity ever since, were +enthusiastical. They were not heretics alone who delighted +in wild allegories and the pompous jargon of mystery; they were +the orthodox Fathers of the first ages, they were the disciples +of the Apostles, or the scholars of their disciples; for the +truth of which I may appeal to the epistles and other writings of +these men that are extant—to those of Clemens, of Ignatius, +or of Irenæus, for instance—and to the visions of +Hermes, that have so near a resemblance to the productions of +Bunyan.</p> +<p>The next steps of the same kind were rhetorical. They +were made by men who declaimed much and reasoned ill, but who +imposed on the imaginations of others by the heat of their own, +by their hyperboles, their exaggerations, the acrimony of their +style, and their violent invectives. Such were the +Chrysostoms, the Jeromes, an Hilarius, a Cyril, and most of the +Fathers.</p> +<p>The last of the steps I shall mention were logical, and these +were made very opportunely and very advantageously for the Church +and for artificial theology. Absurdity in speculation and +superstition in practice had been cultivated so long, and were +become so gross, that men began to see through the veils that had +been thrown over them, as ignorant as those ages were. Then +the schoolmen arose. I need not display their character; it +is enough known. This only I will say—that having +very few materials of knowledge and much subtilty of wit they +wrought up systems of fancy on the little they knew, and invented +an art, by the help of Aristotle, not of enlarging, but of +puzzling, knowledge with technical terms, with definitions, +distinctions, and syllogisms merely verbal. They taught +what they could not explain, evaded what they could not answer, +and he who had the most skill in this art might put to silence, +when it came into general use, the man who was consciously +certain that he had truth and reason on his side.</p> +<p>The authority of the schools lasted till the resurrection of +letters. But as soon as real knowledge was enlarged, and +the conduct of the understanding better understood, it fell into +contempt. The advocates of artificial theology have had +since that time a very hard task. They have been obliged to +defend in the light what was imposed in the dark, and to acquire +knowledge to justify ignorance. They were drawn to it with +reluctance. But learning, that grew up among the laity, and +controversies with one another, made this unavoidable, which was +not eligible on the principles of ecclesiastical policy. +They have done with these new arms all that great parts, great +pains, and great zeal could do under such disadvantages, and we +may apply to this order, on this occasion, “si Pergama +dextra,” etc. But their Troy cannot be defended; +irreparable breaches have been made in it. They have +improved in learning and knowledge, but this improvement has been +general, and as remarkable at least among the laity as among the +clergy. Besides which it must be owned that the former have +had in this respect a sort of indirect obligation to the latter; +for whilst these men have searched into antiquity, have improved +criticism, and almost exhausted subtilty, they have furnished so +many arms the more to such of the others as do not submit +implicitly to them, but examine and judge for themselves. +By refuting one another, when they differ, they have made it no +hard matter to refute them all when they agree. And I +believe there are few books written to propagate or defend the +received notions of artificial theology which may not be refuted +by the books themselves. I conclude, on the whole, that +laymen have, or need to have, no want of the clergy in examining +and analysing the religion they profess.</p> +<p>But I said that they are in one important respect more fit to +go through this examination without the help of divines than with +it. A layman who seeks the truth may fall into error; but +as he can have no interest to deceive himself, so he has none of +profession to bias his private judgment, any more than to engage +him to deceive others. Now, the clergyman lies strongly +under this influence in every communion. How, indeed, +should it be otherwise? Theology is become one of those +sciences which Seneca calls “scientiæ in lucrum +exeuntes;” and sciences, like arts whose object is gain, +are, in good English, trades. Such theology is, and men who +could make no fortune, except the lowest, in any other, make +often the highest in this; for the proof of which assertion I +might produce some signal instances among my lords the +bishops. The consequence has been uniform; for how ready +soever the tradesmen of one Church are to expose the false +wares—that is, the errors and abuses—of another, they +never admit that there are any in their own; and he who admitted +this in some particular instance would be driven out of the +ecclesiastical company as a false brother and one who spoiled the +trade.</p> +<p>Thus it comes to pass that new Churches may be established by +the dissensions, but that old ones cannot be reformed by the +concurrence, of the clergy. There is no composition to be +made with this order of men. He who does not believe all +they teach in every communion is reputed nearly as criminal as he +who believes no part of it. He who cannot assent to the +Athanasian Creed, of which Archbishop Tillotson said, as I have +heard, that he wished we were well rid, would receive no better +quarter than an atheist from the generality of the clergy. +What recourse now has a man who cannot be thus implicit? +Some have run into scepticism, some into atheism, and, for fear +of being imposed on by others, have imposed on themselves. +The way to avoid these extremes is that which has been chalked +out in this introduction. We may think freely without +thinking as licentiously as divines do when they raise a system +of imagination on true foundations, or as sceptics do when they +renounce all knowledge, or as atheists do when they attempt to +demolish the foundations of all religion and reject +demonstration. As we think for ourselves, we may keep our +thoughts to ourselves, or communicate them with a due reserve and +in such a manner only as it may be done without offending the +laws of our country and disturbing the public peace.</p> +<p>I cannot conclude my discourse on this occasion better than by +putting you in mind of a passage you quoted to me once, with +great applause, from a sermon of Foster, and to this effect: +“Where mystery begins, religion ends.” The +apophthegm pleased me much, and I was glad to hear such a truth +from any pulpit, since it shows an inclination, at least, to +purify Christianity from the leaven of artificial theology, which +consists principally in making things that are very plain +mysterious, and in pretending to make things that are +impenetrably mysterious very plain. If you continue still +of the same mind, I shall have no excuse to make to you for what +I have written and shall write. Our opinions +coincide. If you have changed your mind, think again and +examine further. You will find that it is the modest, not +the presumptuous, inquirer who makes a real and safe progress in +the discovery of divine truths. One follows Nature and +Nature’s God—that is, he follows God in His works and +in His Word; nor presumes to go further, by metaphysical and +theological commentaries of his own invention, than the two +texts, if I may use this expression, carry him very +evidently. They who have done otherwise, and have affected +to discover, by a supposed science derived from tradition or +taught in the schools, more than they who have not such science +can discover concerning the nature, physical and moral, of the +Supreme Being, and concerning the secrets of His providence, have +been either enthusiasts or knaves, or else of that numerous tribe +who reason well very often, but reason always on some arbitrary +supposition.</p> +<p>Much of this character belonged to the heathen divines, and it +is in all its parts peculiarly that of the ancient Fathers and +modern doctors of the Christian Church. The former had +reason, but no revelation, to guide them; and though reason be +always one, we cannot wonder that different prejudices and +different tempers of imagination warped it in them on such +subjects as these, and produced all the extravagances of their +theology. The latter had not the excuse of human frailty to +make in mitigation of their presumption. On the contrary, +the consideration of this frailty, inseparable from their nature, +aggravated their presumption. They had a much surer +criterion than human reason; they had divine reason and the Word +of God to guide them and to limit their inquiries. How came +they to go beyond this criterion? Many of the first +preachers were led into it because they preached or wrote before +there was any such criterion established, in the acceptance of +which they all agreed, because they preached or wrote, in the +meantime, on the faith of tradition and on a confidence that they +were persons extraordinarily gifted. Other reasons +succeeded these. Skill in languages, not the gift of +tongues, some knowledge of the Jewish cabala and some of heathen +philosophy, of Plato’s especially, made them presume to +comment, and under that pretence to enlarge the system of +Christianity with as much licence as they could have taken if the +word of man, instead of the Word of God, had been concerned, and +they had commented the civil, not the divine, law. They did +this so copiously that, to give one instance of it, the +exposition of St. Matthew’s Gospel took up ninety homilies, +and that of St. John’s eighty-seven, in the works of +Chrysostom; which puts me in mind of a Puritanical parson who, if +I mistake not—for I have never looked into the folio since +I was a boy and condemned sometimes to read in it—made one +hundred and nineteen sermons on the hundred and nineteenth +Psalm.</p> +<p>Now all these men, both heathens and Christians, appeared +gigantic forms through the false medium of imagination and +habitual prejudice; but were, in truth, as arrant dwarfs in the +knowledge to which they pretended as you and I and all the sons +of Adam. The former, however, deserved some excuse; the +latter none. The former made a very ill use of their +reason, no doubt, when they presume to dogmatise about the divine +nature, but they deceived nobody. What they taught, they +taught on their own authority, which every other man was at +liberty to receive or reject as he approved or disapproved the +doctrine. Christians, on the other hand, made a very ill +use of revelation and reason both. Instead of employing the +superior principle to direct and confine the inferior, they +employed it to sanctify all that wild imagination, the passions, +and the interests of the ecclesiastical order suggested. +This abuse of revelation was so scandalous that whilst they were +building up a system of religion under the name of Christianity, +every one who sought to signalise himself in the +enterprise—and they were multitudes—dragged the +Scriptures to his opinion by different interpretations, +paraphrases, comments. Arius and Nestorius both pretended +that they had it on their sides; Athanasius and Cyril on +theirs. They rendered the Word of God so dubious that it +ceased to be a criterion, and they had recourse to +another—to Councils and the decrees of Councils. He +must be very ignorant in ecclesiastical antiquity who does not +know by what intrigues of the contending factions—for such +they were, and of the worst kind—these decrees were +obtained; and yet, an opinion prevailing that the Holy Ghost, the +same Divine Spirit who dictated the Scriptures, presided in these +assemblies and dictated their decrees, their decrees passed for +infallible decisions, and sanctified, little by little, much of +the superstition, the nonsense, and even the blasphemy which the +Fathers taught, and all the usurpations of the Church. This +opinion prevailed and influenced the minds of men so powerfully +and so long that Erasmus, who owns in one of his letters that the +writings of Œcolampadius against transubstantiation seemed +sufficient to seduce even the elect (“ut seduci posse +videantur etiam electi”), declares in another that nothing +hindered him from embracing the doctrine of Œcolampadius +but the consent of the Church to the other doctrine (“nisi +obstaret consensus Ecclesiæ”). Thus artificial +theology rose on the demolitions, not on the foundations, of +Christianity; was incorporated into it; and became a principal +part of it. How much it becomes a good Christian to +distinguish them, in his private thoughts at least, and how unfit +even the greatest, the most moderate, and the least ambitious of +the ecclesiastical order are to assist us in making this +distinction, I have endeavoured to show you by reason and by +example.</p> +<p>It remains, then, that we apply ourselves to the study of the +first philosophy without any other guides than the works and the +Word of God. In natural religion the clergy are +unnecessary; in revealed they are dangerous guides.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTERS TO SIR WILLIAM WINDHAM AND +MR. 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