diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'old/ltww10h.htm')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/ltww10h.htm | 4615 |
1 files changed, 4615 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/old/ltww10h.htm b/old/ltww10h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..35b4526 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/ltww10h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4615 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII"> +<title>Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope</title> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope, by Lord Bolingbroke</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope +by Lord Bolingbroke +(#1 in our series by Lord Bolingbroke) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope + +Author: Lord Bolingbroke + +Release Date: February, 2004 [EBook #5132] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on May 7, 2002] +[Most recently updated: May 7, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII +</pre> +<p> +<a name="startoftext"></a> +This eBook was produced by Les Bowler, St. Ives, Dorset.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +LETTERS TO SIR WILLIAM WINDHAM AND MR. POPE<br> +BY LORD BOLINGBROKE<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Contents<br> + Introduction By Henry Morley<br> + Letter To Sir William Windham<br> + Letter To Alexander Pope<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +INTRODUCTION<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Henry St. John, 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.”<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +James II. died at St. Germains, a pensioner of France, aged sixty-eight, +on the 6th of September, 1701.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.”<br> +<br> +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.”<br> +<br> +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.”<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +H.M.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +A LETTER TO SIR WILLIAM WINDHAM<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +I was 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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.”<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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?<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.”<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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 Graecia +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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?<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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?<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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:-<br> +<br> +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.”<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +“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.”<br> +<br> +He graciously allowed the Universities to be nurseries of loyalty; but +did not think that it became him to style them “nurseries of religion.”<br> +<br> +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.”<br> +<br> +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.”<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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?<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.”<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +A LETTER TO ALEXANDER POPE<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Dear Sir, - 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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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, be 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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +</i>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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.”<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.”<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, LETTERS BY BOLINGBROKE ***<br> +<pre> + +******This file should be named ltww10h.htm or ltww10h.zip****** +Corrected EDITIONS of our EBooks get a new NUMBER, ltww11h.htm +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, ltww10ah.htm + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. + +Most people start at our Web sites at: +http://gutenberg.net or +http://promo.net/pg + +These Web sites include award-winning information about Project +Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new +eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!). + + +Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement +can get to them as follows, and just download by date. This is +also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the +indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an +announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter. + +http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext04 or +ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext04 + +Or /etext03, 02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90 + +Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want, +as it appears in our Newsletters. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours +to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. Our +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If the value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text +files per month: 1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+ +We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002 +If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total +will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks! +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users. + +Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated): + +eBooks Year Month + + 1 1971 July + 10 1991 January + 100 1994 January + 1000 1997 August + 1500 1998 October + 2000 1999 December + 2500 2000 December + 3000 2001 November + 4000 2001 October/November + 6000 2002 December* + 9000 2003 November* +10000 2004 January* + + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created +to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people +and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, +Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, +Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, +Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New +Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, +Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South +Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West +Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. + +We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones +that have responded. + +As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list +will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states. +Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state. + +In answer to various questions we have received on this: + +We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally +request donations in all 50 states. If your state is not listed and +you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have, +just ask. + +While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are +not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting +donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to +donate. + +International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about +how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made +deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are +ways. + +Donations by check or money order may be sent to: + +Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +PMB 113 +1739 University Ave. +Oxford, MS 38655-4109 + +Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment +method other than by check or money order. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by +the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN +[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154. Donations are +tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law. As fund-raising +requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be +made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +You can get up to date donation information online at: + +http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html + + +*** + +If you can't reach Project Gutenberg, +you can always email directly to: + +Michael S. Hart hart@pobox.com + +Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message. + +We would prefer to send you information by email. + + +**The Legal Small Print** + + +(Three Pages) + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks, +is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart +through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project"). +Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook +under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market +any commercial products without permission. + +To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may +receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims +all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation, +and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated +with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including +legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the +following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this eBook, +[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook, +or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + eBook or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word + processing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the eBook (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the + gross profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation" + the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were + legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent + periodic) tax return. Please contact us beforehand to + let us know your plans and to work out the details. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of +public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed +in machine readable form. + +The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time, +public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses. +Money should be paid to the: +"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or +software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at: +hart@pobox.com + +[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only +when distributed free of all fees. Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by +Michael S. Hart. Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be +used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be +they hardware or software or any other related product without +express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END* +</pre></body> +</html> |