No More Learning

Those who
had undertaken to oppose the ministry, having no grievance of greater
magnitude, endeavoured to swell this decision into bulk, and distort it
into deformity, and then held it out to terrify the nation.

Every artifice of sedition has been since practised to awaken discontent
and inflame indignation. The papers of every day have been filled with
exhortations and menaces of faction. The madness has spread through all
ranks, and through both sexes; women and children have clamoured for Mr.
Wilkes; honest simplicity has been cheated into fury, and only the wise
have escaped infection.

The greater part may justly be suspected of not believing their own
position, and with them it is not necessary to dispute. They cannot be
convinced who are convinced already, and it is well known that they will
not be ashamed. The decision, however, by which the smaller number of
votes was preferred to the greater, has perplexed the minds of some,
whose opinions it were indecent to despise, and who, by their integrity,
well deserve to have their doubts appeased.

Every diffuse and complicated question may be examined by different
methods, upon different principles; and that truth, which is easily
found by one investigator, may be missed by another, equally honest and
equally diligent.

Those who inquire, whether a smaller number of legal votes can elect a
representative in opposition to a greater, must receive, from every
tongue, the same answer.

The question, therefore, must be, whether a smaller number of legal
votes shall not prevail against a greater number of votes not legal.

It must be considered, that those votes only are legal which are legally
given, and that those only are legally given, which are given for a
legal candidate.

It remains, then, to be discussed, whether a man expelled can be so
disqualified by a vote of the house, as that he shall be no longer
eligible by lawful electors.

Here we must again recur, not to positive institutions, but to the
unwritten law of social nature, to the great and pregnant principle of
political necessity. All government supposes subjects; all authority
implies obedience: to suppose in one the right to command what another
has the right to refuse, is absurd and contradictory; a state, so
constituted, must rest for ever in motionless equipoise, with equal
attractions of contrary tendency, with equal weights of power balancing
each other.

Laws which cannot be enforced can neither prevent nor rectify disorders.
A sentence which cannot be executed can have no power to warn or to
reform. If the commons have only the power of dismissing, for a few
days, the man whom his constituents can immediately send back; if they
can expel, but cannot exclude, they have nothing more than nominal
authority, to which, perhaps, obedience never may be paid.

The representatives of our ancestors had an opinion very different: they
fined and imprisoned their members; on great provocation, they disabled
them for ever; and this power of pronouncing perpetual disability is
maintained by Selden himself.

These claims seem to have been made and allowed, when the constitution
of our government had not yet been sufficiently studied. Such powers are
not legal, because they are not necessary; and of that power which only
necessity justifies, no more is to be admitted than necessity obtrudes.

The commons cannot make laws; they can only pass resolutions, which,
like all resolutions, are of force only to those that make them, and to
those, only while they are willing to observe them.

The vote of the house of commons has, therefore, only so far the force
of a law, as that force is necessary to preserve the vote from losing
its efficacy; it must begin by operating upon themselves, and extend its
influence to others, only by consequences arising from the first
intention. He that starts game on his own manor, may pursue it into
another.

They can properly make laws only for themselves: a member, while he
keeps his seat, is subject to these laws; but when he is expelled, the
jurisdiction ceases, for he is now no longer within their dominion.

The disability, which a vote can superinduce to expulsion, is no more
than was included in expulsion itself; it is only a declaration of the
commons, that they will permit no longer him, whom they thus censure, to
sit with them in parliament; a declaration made by that right, which
they necessarily possess, of regulating their own house, and of
inflicting punishment on their own delinquents.

They have, therefore, no other way to enforce the sentence of
incapacity, than that of adhering to it. They cannot otherwise punish
the candidate so disqualified for offering himself, nor the electors for
accepting him. But if he has any competitor, that competitor must
prevail, and if he has none, his election will be void; for the right of
the house to reject annihilates, with regard to the man so rejected, the
right of electing.

It has been urged, that the power of the house terminates with their
session; since a prisoner, committed by the speaker's warrant, cannot be
detained during the recess. That power, indeed, ceases with the session,
which must operate by the agency of others; because, when they do not
sit, they can employ no agent, having no longer any legal existence; but
that which is exercised on themselves revives at their meeting, when the
subject of that power still subsists: they can, in the next session,
refuse to re-admit him, whom, in the former session, they expelled. That
expulsion inferred exclusion, in the present case, must be, I think,
easily admitted. The expulsion, and the writ issued for a new election
were in the same session, and, since the house is, by the rule of
parliament, bound for the session by a vote once passed, the expelled
member cannot be admitted. He that cannot be admitted, cannot be
elected; and the votes given to a man ineligible being given in vain,
the highest number for an eligible candidate becomes a majority.

To these conclusions, as to most moral, and to all political positions,
many objections may be made. The perpetual subject of political
disquisition is not absolute, but comparative good. Of two systems of
government, or two laws relating to the same subject, neither will ever
be such as theoretical nicety would desire, and, therefore, neither can
easily force its way against prejudice and obstinacy; each will have its
excellencies and defects; and every man, with a little help from pride,
may think his own the best.

It seems to be the opinion of many, that expulsion is only a dismission
of the representative to his constituents, with such a testimony against
him, as his sentence may comprise; and that, if his constituents,
notwithstanding the censure of the house, thinking his case hard, his
fault trifling, or his excellencies such as overbalance it, should again
choose him, as still worthy of their trust, the house cannot refuse him,
for his punishment has purged his fault, and the right of electors must
not be violated.

This is plausible, but not cogent. It is a scheme of representation,
which would make a specious appearance in a political romance, but
cannot be brought into practice among us, who see every day the towering
head of speculation bow down unwillingly to groveling experience.

Governments formed by chance, and gradually improved by such expedients,
as the successive discovery of their defects happened to suggest, are
never to be tried by a regular theory. They are fabricks of dissimilar
materials, raised by different architects, upon different plans. We must
be content with them, as they are; should we attempt to mend their
disproportions, we might easily demolish, and difficultly rebuild them.

Laws are now made, and customs are established; these are our rules, and
by them we must be guided.

It is uncontrovertibly certain, that the commons never intended to leave
electors the liberty of returning them an expelled member; for they
always require one to be chosen in the room of him that is expelled, and
I see not with what propriety a man can be rechosen in his own room.

Expulsion, if this were its whole effect, might very often be desirable.
Sedition, or obscenity, might be no greater crimes in the opinion of
other electors, than in that of the freeholders of Middlesex; and many a
wretch, whom his colleagues should expel, might come back persecuted
into fame, and provoke, with harder front, a second expulsion.

Many of the representatives of the people can hardly be said to have
been chosen at all. Some, by inheriting a borough, inherit a seat; and
some sit by the favour of others, whom, perhaps, they may gratify by the
act which provoked the expulsion. Some are safe by their popularity, and
some by their alliances. None would dread expulsion, if this doctrine
were received, but those who bought their elections, and who would be
obliged to buy them again at a higher price.

But as uncertainties are to be determined by things certain, and customs
to be explained, where it is possible, by written law, the patriots have
triumphed with a quotation from an act of the fourth and fifth of Anne,
which permits those to be rechosen, whose seats are vacated by the
acceptance of a place of profit. This they wisely consider as an
expulsion, and from the permission, in this case, of a reelection,
infer, that every other expulsion leaves the delinquent entitled to the
same indulgence. This is the paragraph:

"If any person, being chosen a member of the house of commons, shall
accept of any office from the crown, during such time as he shall
continue a member, his election shall be, and is hereby declared to be
void; and a new writ shall issue for a new election, as if such person,
so accepting, was naturally dead. Nevertheless such person shall be
capable of being again elected, as if his place had not become void as
aforesaid. "

How this favours the doctrine of readmission, by a second choice, I am
not able to discover. The statute of the thirtieth of Charles the second
had enacted, that "he who should sit in the house of commons, without
taking the oaths, and subscribing the test, should be disabled to sit in
the house during that parliament, and a writ should issue for the
election of a new member, in place of the member so disabled, as if such
member had naturally died. "

This last clause is, apparently, copied in the act of Anne, but with the
common fate of imitators. In the act of Charles, the political death
continued during the parliament; in that of Anne it was hardly worth the
while to kill the man whom the next breath was to revive. It is,
however, apparent, that in the opinion of the parliament, the dead-doing
lines would have kept him motionless, if he had not been recovered by a
kind exception. A seat vacated could not be regained, without express
permission of the same statute.

The right of being chosen again to a seat thus vacated, is not enjoyed
by any general right, but required a special clause and solicitous
provision.

But what resemblance can imagination conceive between one man vacating
his seat by a mark of favour from the crown, and another driven from it
for sedition and obscenity? The acceptance of a place contaminates no
character; the crown that gives it, intends to give with it always
dignity, sometimes authority. The commons, it is well known, think not
worse of themselves, or others, for their offices of profit; yet profit
implies temptation, and may expose a representative to the suspicion of
his constituents; though, if they still think him worthy of their
confidence, they may again elect him.

Such is the consequence. When a man is dismissed by law to his
constituents, with new trust and new dignity, they may, if they think
him incorruptible, restore him to his seat; what can follow, therefore,
but that, when the house drives out a varlet, with publick infamy, he
goes away with the like permission to return?

If infatuation be, as the proverb tells us, the forerunner of
destruction, how near must be the ruin of a nation that can be incited
against its governours by sophistry like this! I may be excused, if I
catch the panick, and join my groans, at this alarming crisis, with the
general lamentation of weeping patriots.

Another objection is, that the commons, by pronouncing the sentence of
disqualification, make a law, and take upon themselves the power of the
whole legislature. Many quotations are then produced to prove, that the
house of commons can make no laws.

Three acts have been cited, disabling members, for different terms, on
different occasions; and it is profoundly remarked, that if the commons
could, by their own privilege, have made a disqualification, their
jealousy of their privileges would never have admitted the concurrent
sanction of the other powers.

I must for ever remind these puny controvertists, that those acts are
laws of permanent obligation; that two of them are now in force, and
that the other expired only when it had fulfilled its end. Such laws the
commons cannot make; they could, perhaps, have determined for
themselves, that they would expel all who should not take the test, but
they could leave no authority behind them, that should oblige the next
parliament to expel them. They could refuse the South sea directors, but
they could not entail the refusal. They can disqualify by vote, but not
by law; they cannot know that the sentence of disqualification
pronounced to-day may not become void to-morrow, by the dissolution of
their own house. Yet, while the same parliament sits, the
disqualification continues, unless the vote be rescinded; and, while it
so continues, makes the votes, which freeholders may give to the
interdicted candidate, useless and dead, since there cannot exist, with
respect to the same subject, at the same time, an absolute power to
choose and an absolute power to reject.

In 1614, the attorney general was voted incapable of a seat in the house
of commons; and the nation is triumphantly told, that, though the vote
never was revoked, the attorney general is now a member. He, certainly,
may now be a member, without revocation of the vote. A law is of
perpetual obligation; but a vote is nothing, when the voters are gone. A
law is a compact reciprocally made by the legislative powers, and,
therefore, not to be abrogated but by all the parties. A vote is simply
a resolution, which binds only him that is willing to be bound.

I have thus punctiliously and minutely pursued this disquisition,
because I suspect, that these reasoners, whose business is to deceive
others, have sometimes deceived themselves, and I am willing to free
them from their embarrassment, though I do not expect much gratitude for
my kindness.

Other objections are yet remaining, for of political objections there
cannot easily be an end. It has been observed, that vice is no proper
cause of expulsion; for if the worst man in the house were always to be
expelled, in time none would be left; but no man is expelled for being
worst, he is expelled for being enormously bad; his conduct is compared,
not with that of others, but with the rule of action.

The punishment of expulsion, being in its own nature uncertain, may be
too great or too little for the fault.

This must be the case of many punishments. Forfeiture of chattels is
nothing to him that has no possessions. Exile itself may be accidentally
a good; and, indeed, any punishment, less than death, is very different
to different men.

But, if this precedent be admitted and established, no man can,
hereafter, be sure that he shall be represented by him whom he would
choose. One half of the house may meet early in the morning, and snatch
an opportunity to expel the other, and the greater part of the nation
may, by this stratagem, be without its lawful representatives.

He that sees all this, sees very far. But I can tell him of greater
evils yet behind. There is one possibility of wickedness, which, at this
alarming crisis, has not yet been mentioned. Every one knows the malice,
the subtlety, the industry, the vigilance, and the greediness of the
Scots. The Scotch members are about the number sufficient to make a
house. I propose it to the consideration of the supporters of the bill
of rights, whether there is not reason to suspect that these hungry
intruders from the north are now contriving to expel all the English. We
may then curse the hour in which it was determined, that expulsion and
exclusion are the same; for who can guess what may be done, when the
Scots have the whole house to themselves?

Thus agreeable to custom and reason, notwithstanding all objections,
real or imaginary, thus consistent with the practice of former times,
and thus consequential to the original principles of government, is that
decision, by which so much violence of discontent has been excited,
which has been so dolorously bewailed, and so outrageously resented.

Let us, however, not be seduced to put too much confidence in justice or
in truth: they have often been found inactive in their own defence, and
give more confidence than help to their friends and their advocates. It
may, perhaps, be prudent to make one momentary concession to falsehood,
by supposing the vote in Mr. Lutterel's favour to be wrong.

All wrong ought to be rectified. If Mr. Wilkes is deprived of a lawful
seat, both he and his electors have reason to complain; but it will not
be easily found, why, among the innumerable wrongs of which a great part
of mankind are hourly complaining, the whole care of the publick should
be transferred to Mr. Wilkes and the freeholders of Middlesex, who might
all sink into nonexistence, without any other effect, than that there
would be room made for a new rabble, and a new retailer of sedition and
obscenity. The cause of our country would suffer little; the rabble,
whencesoever they come, will be always patriots, and always supporters
of the bill of rights.

The house of commons decides the disputes arising from elections. Was it
ever supposed, that in all cases their decisions were right? Every man,
whose lawful election is defeated, is equally wronged with Mr. Wilkes,
and his constituents feel their disappointment, with no less anguish
than the freeholders of Middlesex. These decisions have often been
apparently partial, and, sometimes, tyrannically oppressive. A majority
has been given to a favourite candidate, by expunging votes which had
always been allowed, and which, therefore, had the authority by which
all votes are given, that of custom uninterrupted. When the commons
determine who shall be constituents, they may, with some propriety, be
said to make law, because those determinations have, hitherto, for the
sake of quiet, been adopted by succeeding parliaments. A vote,
therefore, of the house, when it operates as a law, is to individuals a
law only temporary, but to communities perpetual.

Yet, though all this has been done, and though, at every new parliament,
much of this is expected to be done again, it has never produced, in any
former time, such an alarming crisis. We have found, by experience, that
though a squire has given ale and venison in vain, and a borough has
been compelled to see its dearest interest in the hands of him whom it
did not trust, yet the general state of the nation has continued the
same. The sun has risen, and the corn has grown, and, whatever talk has
been of the danger of property, yet he that ploughed the field commonly
reaped it; and he that built a house was master of the door; the
vexation excited by injustice suffered, or supposed to be suffered, by
any private man, or single community, was local and temporary, it
neither spread far, nor lasted long.

The nation looked on with little care, because there did not seem to be
much danger. The consequence of small irregularities was not felt, and
we had not yet learned to be terrified by very distant enemies.

But quiet and security are now at an end. Our vigilance is quickened,
and our comprehension is enlarged. We not only see events in their
causes, but before their causes; we hear the thunder while the sky is
clear, and see the mine sprung before it is dug. Political wisdom has,
by the force of English genius, been improved, at last, not only to
political intuition, but to political prescience.

But it cannot, I am afraid, be said, that as we are grown wise, we are
made happy. It is said of those who have the wonderful power called
second sight, that they seldom see any thing but evil: political second
sight has the same effect; we hear of nothing but of an alarming crisis,
of violated rights, and expiring liberties. The morning rises upon new
wrongs, and the dreamer passes the night in imaginary shackles.

The sphere of anxiety is now enlarged; he that hitherto cared only for
himself, now cares for the publick; for he has learned, that the
happiness of individuals is comprised in the prosperity of the whole;
and that his country never suffers, but he suffers with it, however it
happens that he feels no pain.

Fired with this fever of epidemick patriotism, the tailor slips his
thimble, the draper drops his yard, and the blacksmith lays down his
hammer; they meet at an honest ale-house, consider the state of the
nation, read or hear the last petition, lament the miseries of the time,
are alarmed at the dreadful crisis, and subscribe to the support of the
bill of rights.

It sometimes, indeed, happens, that an intruder, of more benevolence
than prudence, attempts to disperse their cloud of dejection, and ease
their hearts by seasonable consolation. He tells them, that though the
government cannot be too diligently watched, it may be too hastily
accused; and that, though private judgment is every man's right, yet we
cannot judge of what we do not know; that we feel at present no evils
which government can alleviate, and that the publick business is
committed to men, who have as much right to confidence as their
adversaries; that the freeholders of Middlesex, if they could not choose
Mr. Wilkes, might have chosen any other man, and that "he trusts we have
within the realm, five hundred as good as he;" that even if this, which
has happened to Middlesex, had happened to every other county, that one
man should be made incapable of being elected, it could produce no great
change in the parliament, nor much contract the power of election; that,
what has been done is, probably, right; and that if it be wrong, it is
of little consequence, since a like case cannot easily occur; that
expulsions are very rare, and if they should, by unbounded insolence of
faction, become more frequent, the electors may easily provide a second
choice.

All this he may say, but not half of this will be heard; his opponents
will stun him and themselves with a confused sound of pensions and
places, venality and corruption, oppression and invasion, slavery and
ruin.

Outcries, like these, uttered by malignity, and echoed by folly; general
accusations of indeterminate wickedness; and obscure hints of impossible
designs, dispersed among those that do not know their meaning, by those
that know them to be false, have disposed part of the nation, though but
a small part, to pester the court with ridiculous petitions.

The progress of a petition is well known. An ejected placeman goes down
to his county or his borough, tells his friends of his inability to
serve them, and his constituents of the corruption of the government.
His friends readily understand that he who can get nothing, will have
nothing to give. They agree to proclaim a meeting; meat and drink are
plentifully provided; a crowd is easily brought together, and those who
think that they know the reason of their meeting, undertake to tell
those who know it not; ale and clamour unite their powers; the crowd,
condensed and heated, begins to ferment with the leaven of sedition: all
see a thousand evils, though they cannot show them; and grow impatient
for a remedy, though they know not what.

A speech is then made by the _Cicero_ of the day; he says much, and
suppresses more; and credit is equally given to what he tells, and what
he conceals. The petition is read, and universally approved. Those who
are sober enough to write, add their names, and the rest would sign it,
if they could.

Every man goes home and tells his neighbour of the glories of the day;
how he was consulted, and what he advised; how he was invited into the
great room, where his lordship called him by his name; how he was
caressed by sir Francis, sir Joseph, or sir George; how he eat turtle
and venison, and drank unanimity to the three brothers.

The poor loiterer, whose shop had confined him, or whose wife had locked
him up, hears the tale of luxury with envy, and, at last, inquires what
was their petition. Of the petition nothing is remembered by the
narrator, but that it spoke much of fears and apprehensions, and
something very alarming, and that he is sure it is against the
government; the other is convinced that it must be right, and wishes he
had been there, for he loves wine and venison, and is resolved, as long
as he lives, to be against the government.

The petition is then handed from town to town, and from house to house;
and, wherever it comes, the inhabitants flock together, that they may
see that which must be sent to the king. Names are easily collected. One
man signs, because he hates the papists; another, because he has vowed
destruction to the tumpikes; one, because it will vex the parson;
another, because he owes his landlord nothing; one, because he is rich;
another, because he is poor; one, to show that he is not afraid; and
another, to show that he can write.

The passage, however, is not always smooth. Those who collect
contributions to sedition, sometimes apply to a man of higher rank and
more enlightened mind, who, instead of lending them his name, calmly
reproves them for being seducers of the people.

You who are here, says he, complaining of venality, are yourselves the
agents of those who having estimated themselves at too high a price, are
only angry that they are not bought. You are appealing from the
parliament to the rabble, and inviting those who, scarcely, in the most
common affairs, distinguish right from wrong, to judge of a question
complicated with law written and unwritten, with the general principles
of government, and the particular customs of the house of commons; you
are showing them a grievance, so distant that they cannot see it, and so
light that they cannot feel it; for how, but by unnecessary intelligence
and artificial provocation, should the farmers and shopkeepers of
Yorkshire and Cumberland know or care how Middlesex is represented?
Instead of wandering thus round the county to exasperate the rage of
party, and darken the suspicions of ignorance, it is the duty of men
like you, who have leisure for inquiry, to lead back the people to their
honest labour; to tell them, that submission is the duty of the
ignorant, and content the virtue of the poor; that they have no skill in
the art of government, nor any interest in the dissensions of the great;
and when you meet with any, as some there are, whose understandings are
capable of conviction, it will become you to allay this foaming
ebullition, by showing them, that they have as much happiness as the
condition of life will easily receive; and that a government, of which
an erroneous or unjust representation of Middlesex is the greatest crime
that interest can discover, or malice can upbraid, is government
approaching nearer to perfection, than any that experience has known, or
history related.

The drudges of sedition wish to change their ground; they hear him with
sullen silence, feel conviction without repentance, and are confounded,
but not abashed; they go forward to another door, and find a kinder
reception from a man enraged against the government, because he has just
been paying the tax upon his windows.

That a petition for a dissolution of the parliament will, at all times,
have its favourers, may be easily imagined. The people, indeed, do not
expect that one house of commons will be much honester or much wiser
than another; they do not suppose that the taxes will be lightened; or,
though they have been so often taught to hope it, that soap and candles
will be cheaper; they expect no redress of grievances, for of no
grievances, but taxes, do they complain; they wish not the extension of
liberty, for they do not feel any restraint; about the security of
privilege or property they are totally careless, for they see no
property invaded, nor know, till they are told, that any privilege has
suffered violation.

Least of all do they expect, that any future parliament will lessen its
own powers, or communicate to the people that authority which it has
once obtained.

Yet a new parliament is sufficiently desirable. The year of election is
a year of jollity; and, what is still more delightful, a year of
equality: the glutton now eats the delicacies for which he longed when
he could not purchase them, and the drunkard has the pleasure of wine,
without the cost: the drone lives awhile without work, and the
shopkeeper, in the flow of money, raises his price: the mechanick, that
trembled at the presence of sir Joseph, now bids him come again for an
answer: and the poacher, whose gun has been seized, now finds an
opportunity to reclaim it. Even the honest man is not displeased to see
himself important, and willingly resumes, in two years, that power which
he had resigned for seven. Few love their friends so well as not to
desire superiority by unexpensive benefaction.

Yet, notwithstanding all these motives to compliance, the promoters of
petitions have not been successful. Few could be persuaded to lament
evils which they did not suffer, or to solicit for redress which they do
not want. The petition has been, in some places, rejected; and, perhaps,
in all but one, signed only by the meanest and grossest of the people.

Since this expedient, now invented or revived, to distress the
government, and equally practicable, at all times, by all who shall be
excluded from power and from profit, has produced so little effect, let
us consider the opposition as no longer formidable. The great engine has
recoiled upon them. They thought, that _the terms_, they _sent, were
terms of weight_, which would have _amazed all, and stumbled many_; but
the consternation is now over, and their foes _stand upright_, as
before.

With great propriety and dignity the king has, in his speech, neglected
or forgotten them. He might easily know, that what was presented, as the
sense of the people, is the sense only of the profligate and dissolute;
and, that whatever parliament should be convened, the same petitioners
would be ready, for the same reason, to request its dissolution.

As we once had a rebellion of the clowns, we have now an opposition of
the pedlers. The quiet of the nation has been, for years, disturbed by a
faction, against which all factions ought to conspire; for its original
principle is the desire of leveling; it is only animated, under the name
of zeal, by the natural malignity of the mean against the great.

When, in the confusion which the English invasions produced in France,
the villains, imagining that they had found the golden hour of
emancipation, took arms in their hands, the knights of both nations
considered the cause as common, and suspending the general hostility,
united to chastise them.

The whole conduct of this despicable faction is distinguished by
plebeian grossness, and savage indecency. To misrepresent the actions
and the principles of their enemies is common to all parties; but the
insolence of invective, and brutality of reproach, which have lately
prevailed, are peculiar to this.

An infallible characteristick of meanness is cruelty. This is the only
faction, that has shouted at the condemnation of a criminal, and that,
when his innocence procured his pardon, has clamoured for his blood.

All other parties, however enraged at each other, have agreed to treat
the throne with decency; but these low-born railers have attacked not
only the authority, but the character of their sovereign, and have
endeavoured, surely without effect, to alienate the affections of the
people from the only king, who, for almost a century, has much appeared
to desire, or much endeavoured to deserve them. They have insulted him
with rudeness, and with menaces, which were never excited by the gloomy
sullenness of William, even when half the nation denied him their
allegiance; nor by the dangerous bigotry of James, unless, when he was
finally driven from his palace; and with which scarcely the open
hostilities of rebellion ventured to vilify the unhappy Charles, even in
the remarks on the cabinet of Naseby.

It is surely not unreasonable to hope, that the nation will consult its
dignity, if not its safety, and disdain to be protected or enslaved by
the declaimers, or the plotters of a city tavern. Had Rome fallen by the
Catilinarian conspiracy, she might have consoled her fate by the
greatness of her destroyers; but what would have alleviated the disgrace
of England, had her government been changed by Tiler or by Ket?

One part of the nation has never before contended with the other, but
for some weighty and apparent interest. If the means were violent, the
end was great. The civil war was fought for what each army called, and
believed, the best religion and the best government. The struggle in the
reign of Anne, was to exclude or restore an exile king. We are now
disputing, with almost equal animosity, whether Middlesex shall be
represented, or not, by a criminal from a gaol.

The only comfort left, in such degeneracy, is, that a lower state can be
no longer possible.

In this contemptuous censure, I mean not to include every single man. In
all lead, says the chymist, there is silver; and in all copper there is
gold. But mingled masses are justly denominated by the greater quantity,
and when the precious particles are not worth extraction, a faction and
a pig must be melted down together to the forms and offices that chance
allots them:

"Fiunt urceoli, pelves, sartago, patellæ. "

A few weeks will now show, whether the government can be shaken by empty
noise, and whether the faction, which depends upon its influence, has
not deceived, alike, the publick and itself. That it should have
continued till now, is sufficiently shameful. None can, indeed, wonder
that it has been supported by the sectaries, the natural fomenters of
sedition, and confederates of the rabble, of whose religion little now
remains but hatred of establishments, and who are angry to find
separation now only tolerated, which was once rewarded; but every honest
man must lament, that it has been regarded with frigid neutrality by the
tories, who, being long accustomed to signalize their principles by
opposition to the court, do not yet consider, that they have, at last, a
king, who knows not the name of party, and who wishes to be the common
father of all his people.

As a man inebriated only by vapours soon recovers in the open air; a
nation discontented to madness, without any adequate cause, will return
to its wits and its allegiance, when a little pause has cooled it to
reflection. Nothing, therefore, is necessary, at this alarming crisis,
but to consider the alarm as false. To make concessions is to encourage
encroachment. Let the court despise the faction, and the disappointed
people will soon deride it.




PREFATORY OBSERVATIONS ON FALKLAND'S ISLANDS.


The following thoughts were published in 1771; from materials furnished
to the author by the ministry. His description of the miseries of war is
most eloquently persuasive, and his invectives against the opposition,
and their mysterious champion, abound with the most forcible and
poignant satire. In a letter to Mr. Langton, from Johnson, we find that
lord North stopped the sale, before many copies had been dispersed.
Johnson avowed to his friend, that he did not distinctly know the reason
of the minister's conduct; but, in all probability, it was dictated by a
dread of the effects of unqualified asperity, and, accordingly, in the
second edition, many of the more violent expressions were softened down
or expunged. It has been thought, by some, that Dr. Johnson rated the
value of the Falkland islands to England too low. --ED.




THOUGHTS ON THE LATE TRANSACTIONS RESPECTING FALKLAND'S ISLANDS. 1771.


To proportion the eagerness of contest to its importance seems too hard
a task for human wisdom. The pride of wit has kept ages busy in the
discussion of useless questions, and the pride of power has destroyed
armies, to gain or to keep unprofitable possessions.

Not, many years have passed, since the cruelties of war were filling the
world with terrour and with sorrow; rage was at last appeased, or
strength exhausted, and, to the harassed nations peace was restored with
its pleasures and its benefits. Of this state all felt the happiness,
and all implored the continuance; but what continuance of happiness can
be expected, when the whole system of European empire can be in danger
of a new concussion, by a contention for a few spots of earth, which, in
the deserts of the ocean, had almost escaped human notice, and which, if
they had not happened to make a seamark, had, perhaps, never had a name!

Fortune often delights to dignify what nature has neglected; and that
renown which cannot be claimed by intrinsick excellence or greatness,
is, sometimes, derived from unexpected accidents. The Rubicon was
ennobled by the passage of Caesar, and the time is now come, when
Falkland's islands demand their historian.

But the writer, to whom this employment shall be assigned, will have few
opportunities of descriptive splendour, or narrative elegance. Of other
countries it is told, how often they have changed their government;
these islands have, hitherto, changed only their name. Of heroes to
conquer, or legislators to civilize, here has been no appearance;
nothing has happened to them, but that they have been, sometimes, seen
by wandering navigators, who passed by them in search of better
habitations.

When the Spaniards, who, under the conduct of Columbus, discovered
America, had taken possession of its most wealthy regions, they
surprised and terrified Europe, by a sudden and unexampled influx of
riches. They were made, at once, insupportably insolent, and might,
perhaps, have become irresistibly powerful, had not their mountainous
treasures been scattered in the air, with the ignorant profusion of
unaccustomed opulence.

The greater part of the European potentates saw this stream of riches
flowing into Spain, without attempting to dip their own hands in the
golden fountain. France had no naval skill or power; Portugal was
extending her dominions in the east, over regions formed in the gaiety
of nature; the Hanseatick league, being planned only for the security of
traffick, had no tendency to discovery or invasion; and the commercial
states of Italy, growing rich by trading between Asia and Europe, and
not lying upon the ocean, did not desire to seek, by great hazards, at a
distance, what was, almost at home, to be found with safety.

The English, alone, were animated by the success of the Spanish
navigators, to try if any thing was left that might reward adventure, or
incite appropriation. They sent Cabot into the north, but in the north
there was no gold or silver to be found. The best regions were
pre-occupied, yet they still continued their hopes and their labours.
They were the second nation that dared the extent of the Pacifick ocean,
and the second circumnavigators of the globe.

By the war between Elizabeth and Philip, the wealth of America became
lawful prize, and those who were less afraid of danger than of poverty,
supposed that riches might easily be obtained by plundering the
Spaniards. Nothing is difficult, when gain and honour unite their
influence; the spirit and vigour of these expeditions enlarged our views
of the new world, and made us first acquainted with its remoter coasts.

In the fatal voyage of Cavendish, (1592,) captain Davis, who, being sent
out as his associate, was afterwards parted from him, or deserted him,
as he was driven, by violence of weather, about the straits of Magellan,
is supposed to have been the first who saw the lands now called
Falkland's islands, but his distress permitted him not to make any
observation; and he left them, as he found them, without a name.

Not long afterwards, (1594,) sir Richard Hawkins being in the same seas,
with the same designs, saw these islands again, if they are, indeed, the
same islands, and, in honour of his mistress, called them Hawkins's
maiden land.

This voyage was not of renown sufficient to procure a general reception
to the new name; for when the Dutch, who had now become strong enough
not only to defend themselves, but to attack their masters, sent (1598)
Verhagen and Sebald de Wert into the South seas, these islands, which
were not supposed to have been known before, obtained the denomination
of Sebald's islands, and were, from that time, placed in the charts;
though Frezier tells us, that they were yet considered as of doubtful
existence.

Their present English name was, probably, given them (1689) by Strong,
whose journal, yet unprinted, may be found in the Museum. This name was
adopted by Halley, and has, from that time, I believe, been received
into our maps.

The privateers, which were put into motion by the wars of William and
Anne, saw those islands, and mention them; but they were yet not
considered as territories worth a contest. Strong affirmed that there
was no wood; and Dampier suspected that they had no water.

Frezier describes their appearance with more distinctness, and mentions
some ships of St. Malo's, by which they had been visited, and to which
he seems willing enough to ascribe the honour of discovering islands,
which yet he admits to have been seen by Hawkins, and named by Sebald de
Wert. He, I suppose, in honour of his countrymen, called them the
Malouines, the denomination now used by the Spaniards, who seem not,
till very lately, to have thought them important enough to deserve a
name.

Since the publication of Anson's voyage, they have very much changed
their opinion, finding a settlement in Pepys's, or Falkland's island,
recommended by the author as necessary to the success of our future
expeditions against the coast of Chili, and as of such use and
importance, that it would produce many advantages in peace, and, in war,
would make us masters of the South sea.

Scarcely any degree of judgment is sufficient to restrain the
imagination from magnifying that on which it is long detained. The
relater of Anson's voyage had heated his mind with its various events;
had partaken the hope with which it was begun, and the vexation suffered
by its various miscarriages, and then thought nothing could be of
greater benefit to the nation, than that which might promote the success
of such another enterprise.

Had the heroes of that history even performed and attained all that,
when they first spread their sails, they ventured to hope, the
consequence would yet have produced very little hurt to the Spaniards,
and very little benefit to the English. They would have taken a few
towns; Anson and his companions would have shared the plunder or the
ransome; and the Spaniards, finding their southern territories
accessible, would, for the future, have guarded them better.

That such a settlement may be of use in war, no man, that considers its
situation, will deny. But war is not the whole business of life; it
happens but seldom, and every man, either good or wise, wishes that its
frequency were still less. That conduct which betrays designs of future
hostility, if it does not excite violence, will always generate
malignity; it must for ever exclude confidence and friendship, and
continue a cold and sluggish rivalry, by a sly reciprocation of indirect
injuries, without the bravery of war or the security of peace.

The advantage of such a settlement, in time of peace, is, I think, not
easily to be proved. For what use can it have, but of a station for
contraband traders, a nursery of fraud, and a receptacle of theft!
Narborough, about a century ago, was of opinion, that no advantage could
be obtained in voyages to the South sea, except by such an armament as,
with a sailor's morality, _might trade by force_. It is well known, that
the prohibitions of foreign commerce, are, in these countries, to the
last degree, rigorous, and that no man, not authorized by the king of
Spain, can trade there but by force or stealth. Whatever profit is
obtained must be gained by the violence of rapine, or dexterity of
fraud.

Government will not, perhaps, soon arrive at such purity and excellence,
but that some connivance, at least, will be indulged to the triumphant
robber and successful cheat. He that brings wealth home is seldom
interrogated by what means it was obtained. This, however, is one of
those modes of corruption with which mankind ought always to struggle,
and which they may, in time, hope to overcome. There is reason to
expect, that, as the world is more enlightened, policy and morality
will, at last, be reconciled, and that nations will learn not to do what
they would not suffer.

But the silent toleration of suspected guilt is a degree of depravity
far below that which openly incites, and manifestly protects it. To
pardon a pirate may be injurious to mankind; but how much greater is the
crime of opening a port, in which all pirates shall be safe! The
contraband trader is not more worthy of protections; if, with
Narborough, he trades by force, he is a pirate; if he trade secretly, he
is only a thief. Those who honestly refuse his traffick, he hates, as
obstructers of his profit; and those, with whom he deals, he cheats,
because he knows that they dare not complain. He lives with a heart full
of that malignity, which fear of detection always generates in those,
who are to defend unjust acquisitions against lawful authority; and when
he comes home, with riches thus acquired, he brings a mind hardened in
evil, too proud for reproof, and too stupid for reflection; he offends
the high by his insolence, and corrupts the low by his example.

Whether these truths were forgotten, or despised; or, whether some
better purpose was then in agitation, the representation made in Anson's
voyage had such effect upon the statesmen of that time, that, in 1748,
some sloops were fitted out for the fuller knowledge of Pepys's and
Falkland's islands, and for further discoveries in the South sea. This
expedition, though, perhaps, designed to be secret, was not long
concealed from Wall, the Spanish ambassadour, who so vehemently opposed
it, and so strongly maintained the right of the Spaniards to the
exclusive dominion of the South sea, that the English ministry
relinquished part of their original design, and declared, that the
examination of those two islands was the utmost that their orders should
comprise.

This concession was sufficiently liberal or sufficiently submissive; yet
the Spanish court was neither gratified by our kindness, nor softened by
our humility. Sir Benjamin Keene, who then resided at Madrid, was
interrogated by Carvajal, concerning the visit intended to Pepys's and
Falkland's islands, in terms of great jealousy and discontent; and the
intended expedition was represented, if not as a direct violation of the
late peace, yet as an act inconsistent with amicable intentions, and
contrary to the professions of mutual kindness, which then passed
between Spain and England. Keene was directed to protest, that nothing
more than mere discovery was intended, and that no settlement was to be
established. The Spaniard readily replied, that, if this was a voyage of
wanton curiosity, it might be gratified with less trouble, for he was
willing to communicate whatever was known; that to go so far only to
come back was no reasonable act; and it would be a slender sacrifice to
peace and friendship to omit a voyage, in which nothing was to be
gained; that if we left the, places as we found them, the voyage was
useless; and if we took possession, it was a hostile armament; nor could
we expect that the Spaniards would suppose us to visit the southern
parts of America only from curiosity, after the scheme proposed by the
author of Anson's voyage.

When once we had disowned all purpose of settling, it is apparent, that
we could not defend the propriety of our expedition by arguments
equivalent to Carvajal's objections. The ministry, therefore, dismissed
the whole design, but no declaration was required, by which our right to
pursue it, hereafter, might be annulled.

From this time Falkland's island was forgotten or neglected, till the
conduct of naval affairs was intrusted to the earl of Egmont, a man
whose mind was vigorous and ardent, whose knowledge was extensive, and
whose designs were magnificent; but who had somewhat vitiated his
judgment by too much indulgence of romantick projects and airy
speculations.

Lord Egmont's eagerness after something new determined him to make
inquiry after Falkland's island, and he sent out captain Byron, who, in
the beginning of the year 1765, took, he says, a formal possession, in
the name of his Britannick majesty.

The possession of this place is, according to Mr. Byron's
representation, no despicable acquisition. He conceived the island to be
six or seven hundred miles round, and represented it, as a region naked
indeed of wood, but which, if that defect were supplied, would have all
that nature, almost all that luxury could want. The harbour he found
capacious and secure, and, therefore, thought it worthy of the name of
Egmont. Of water there was no want, and the ground he described, as
having all the excellencies of soil, and as covered with antiscorbutick
herbs, the restoratives of the sailor. Provision was easily to be had,
for they killed, almost every day, a hundred geese to each ship, by
pelting them with stones. Not content with physick and with food, he
searched yet deeper for the value of the new dominion. He dug in quest
of ore; found iron in abundance, and did not despair of nobler metals.

A country thus fertile and delightful, fortunately found where none
would have expected it, about the fiftieth degree of southern latitude,
could not, without great supineness, be neglected. Early in the next
year, (January 8, 1766,) captain Macbride arrived at port Egmont, where
he erected a small block-house, and stationed a garrison; His
description was less flattering. He found what he calls a mass of
islands and broken lands, of which the soil was nothing but a bog, with
no better prospect than that of barren mountains, beaten by storms
almost perpetual. Yet this, says he, is summer, and if the winds of
winter hold their natural proportion, those who lie but two cables'
length from the shore, must pass weeks without any communication with
it. The plenty which regaled Mr. Byron, and which might have supported
not only armies, but armies of Patagons, was no longer to be found. The
geese were too wise to stay, when men violated their haunts, and Mr.
Macbride's crew could only now and then kill a goose, when the weather
would permit. All the quadrupeds which he met there were foxes, supposed
by him to have been brought upon the ice; but of useless animals, such
as sea lions and penguins, which he calls vermin, the number was
incredible. He allows, however, that those who touch at these islands
may find geese and snipes, and, in the summer months, wild celery and
sorrel.

No token was seen, by either, of any settlement ever made upon this
island; and Mr. Macbride thought himself so secure from hostile
disturbance, that, when he erected his wooden block-house, he omitted to
open the ports and loopholes.

When a garrison was stationed at port Egmont, it was necessary to try
what sustenance the ground could be, by culture, excited to produce. A
garden was prepared; but the plants that sprung up withered away in
immaturity: some fir seeds were sown; but, though this be the native
tree of rugged climates, the young firs, that rose above the ground,
died like weaker herbage: the cold continued long, and the ocean seldom
was at rest.

Cattle succeeded better than vegetables. Goats, sheep, and hogs, that
were carried thither, were found to thrive and increase, as in other
places.

"Nil mortalibus arduum est:" there is nothing which human courage will
not undertake, and little that human, patience will not endure. The
garrison lived upon Falkland's island, shrinking from the blast, and
shuddering at the billows.

This was a colony which could never become independent, for it never
could be able to maintain itself. The necessary supplies were annually
sent from England, at an expense which the admiralty began to think
would not quickly be repaid. But shame of deserting a project, and
unwillingness to contend with a projector that meant well, continued the
garrison, and supplied it with regular remittances of stores and
provision.

That of which we were almost weary ourselves, we did not expect any one
to envy; and, therefore, supposed that we should be permitted to reside
in Falkland's island, the undisputed lords of tempest-beaten barrenness.

But, on the 28th of November, 1769, captain Hunt, observing a Spanish
schooner hovering about the island, and surveying it, sent the commander
a message, by which he required him to depart. The Spaniard made an
appearance of obeying, but, in two days, came back with letters, written
by the governour of port Solidad, and brought by the chief officer of a
settlement, on the east part of Falkland's island.

In this letter, dated Malouina, November 30, the governour complains,
that captain Hunt, when he ordered the schooner to depart, assumed a
power to which he could have no pretensions, by sending an imperious
message to the Spaniards, in the king of Spain's own dominions.

In another letter, sent at the same time, he supposes the English to be
in that part only by accident, and to be ready to depart, at the first
warning. This letter was accompanied by a present, of which, says he,
"If it be neither equal to my desire nor to your merit, you must impute
the deficiency to the situation of us both. "

In return to this hostile civility, captain Hunt warned them from the
island, which he claimed in the name of the king, as belonging to the
English, by right of the first discovery and the first settlement.

This was an assertion of more confidence than certainty. The right of
discovery, indeed, has already appeared to be probable, but the right
which priority of settlement confers, I know not whether we yet can
establish.

On December 10, the officer, sent by the governour of port Solidad, made
three protests against captain Hunt, for threatening to fire upon him;
for opposing his entrance into port Egmont; and for entering himself
into port Solidad. On the 12th, the governour of port Solidad formally
warned captain Hunt to leave port Egmont, and to forbear the navigation
of these seas, without permission from the king of Spain.

To this captain Hunt replied, by repeating his former claim; by
declaring that his orders were to keep possession; and by once more
warning the Spaniards to depart.

The next month produced more protests and more replies, of which the
tenour was nearly the same. The operations of such harmless enmity
having produced no effect, were then reciprocally discontinued, and the
English were left, for a time, to enjoy the pleasures of Falkland's
island, without molestation.

This tranquillity, however, did not last long. A few months afterwards,
(June 4, 1770,) the Industry, a Spanish frigate, commanded by an
officer, whose name was Madariaga, anchored in port Egmont, bound, as
was said, for port Solidad, and reduced, by a passage from Buenos Ayres
of fifty-three days, to want of water.

Three days afterwards, four other frigates entered the port, and a broad
pendant, such as is borne by the commander of a naval armament, was
displayed from the Industry. Captain Farmer, of the Swift frigate, who
commanded the garrison, ordered the crew of the Swift to come on shore,
and assist in its defence; and directed captain Maltby to bring the
Favourite frigate, which he commanded, nearer to the land. The Spaniards
easily discovering the purpose of his motion, let him know, that if he
weighed his anchor, they would fire upon his ship; but, paying no regard
to these menaces, he advanced toward the shore. The Spanish fleet
followed, and two shots were fired, which fell at a distance from him.
He then sent to inquire the reason of such hostility, and was told, that
the shots were intended only as signals.

Both the English captains wrote, the next day, to Madariaga, the Spanish
commodore, warning him from the island, as from a place which the
English held by right of discovery.

Madariaga, who seems to have had no desire of unnecessary mischief,
invited them (June 9) to send an officer, who should take a view of his
forces, that they might be convinced of the vanity of resistance, and do
that, without compulsion, which he was, upon refusal, prepared to
enfcrce.

An officer was sent, who found sixteen hundred men, with a train of
twenty-seven cannon, four mortars, and two hundred bombs. The fleet
consisted of five frigates, from twenty to thirty guns, which were now
stationed opposite to the block-house.

He then sent them a formal memorial, in which he maintained his master's
right to the whole Magellanick region, and exhorted the English to
retire quietly from the settlement, which they could neither justify by
right, nor maintain by power.

He offered them the liberty of carrying away whatever they were desirous
to remove, and promised his receipt for what should be left, that no
loss might be suffered by them.

His propositions were expressed in terms of great civility; but he
concludes with demanding an answer in fifteen minutes.

Having, while he was writing, received the letters of warning, written
the day before by the English captains, he told them, that he thought
himself able to prove the king of Spain's title to all those countries,
but that this was no time for verbal altercations. He persisted in his
determination, and allowed only fifteen minutes for an answer.

To this it was replied, by captain Farmer, that though there had been
prescribed yet a shorter time, he should still resolutely defend his
charge; that this, whether menace or force, would be considered as an
insult on the British flag, and that satisfaction would certainly be
required.

On the next day, June 10, Madariaga landed his forces, and it may be
easily imagined, that he had no bloody conquest. The English had only a
wooden block-house, built at Woolwich, and carried in pieces to the
island, with a small battery of cannon. To contend with obstinacy had
been only to lavish life without use or hope, After the exchange of a
very few shots, a capitulation was proposed.

The Spanish commander acted with moderation; he exerted little of the
conqueror; what he had offered before the attack, he granted after the
victory; the English were allowed to leave the place with every honour,
only their departure was delayed, by the terms of the capitulation,
twenty days; and, to secure their stay, the rudder of the Favourite was
taken off. What they desired to carry away they removed without
molestation; and of what they left, an inventory was drawn, for which
the Spanish officer, by his receipt, promised to be accountable.

Of this petty revolution, so sudden and so distant, the English ministry
could not possibly have such notice, as might enable them to prevent it.
The conquest, if such it may be called, cost but three days; for the
Spaniards, either supposing the garrison stronger than it was, or
resolving to trust nothing to chance, or considering that, as their
force was greater, there was less dariger of bloodshed, came with a
power that made resistance ridiculous, and, at once, demanded and
obtained possession.

The first account of any discontent expressed by the Spaniards, was
brought by captain Hunt, who arriving at Plymouth, June 3, 1770,
informed the admiralty, that the island had been claimed in December, by
the governour of port Solidad.

This claim, made by an officer of so little dignity, without any known
direction from his superiours, could be considered only as the zeal or
officiousness of an individual, unworthy of publick notice, or the
formality of remonstrance.

In August, Mr. Harris, the resident at Madrid, gave notice to lord
Weymouth, of an account newly brought to Cadiz, that the English were in
possession of port Cuizada, the same which we call port Egmont, in the
Magellanick sea; that in January, they had warned away two Spanish
ships; and that an armament was sent out in May, from Buenos Ayres, to
dislodge them.

It was, perhaps, not yet certain, that this account was true; but the
information, however faithful, was too late for prevention. It was
easily known, that a fleet despatched in May, had, before August,
succeeded or miscarried.

In October, captain Maltby came to England, and gave the account which I
have now epitomised, of his expulsion from Falkland's islands.

From this moment, the whole nation can witness, that no time was lost.
The navy was surveyed, the ships refitted, and commanders appointed; and
a powerful fleet was assembled, well manned and well stored, with
expedition, after so long a peace, perhaps, never known before, and with
vigour, which, after the waste of so long a war, scarcely any other
nation had been capable of exerting.

This preparation, so illustrious in the eyes of Europe, and so
efficacious in its event, was obstructed by the utmost power of that
noisy faction, which has too long filled the kingdom, sometimes with the
roar of empty menace, and sometimes with the yell of hypocritical
lamentation. Every man saw, and every honest man saw with detestation,
that they who desired to force their sovereign into war, endeavoured, at
the same time, to disable him from action.

The vigour and spirit of the ministry easily broke through all the
machinations of these pygmy rebels, and our armament was quickly such as
was likely to make our negotiations effectual.

The prince of Masseran, in his first conference with the English
ministers on this occasion, owned that he had from Madrid received
intelligence, that the English had been forcibly expelled from
Falkland's island, by Buccarelli, the governour of Buenos Ayres, without
any particular orders from the king of Spain. But being asked, whether,
in his master's name, he disavowed Buccarelli's violence, he refused to
answer, without direction.

The scene of negotiation was now removed to Madrid, and, in September,
Mr. Harris was directed to demand, from Grimaldi, the Spanish minister,
the restitution of Falkland's island, and a disavowal of Buccarelli's
hostilities.

It was to be expected that Grimaldi would object to us our own
behaviour, who had ordered the Spaniards to depart from the same island.
To this it was replied, that the English forces were, indeed, directed
to warn other nations away; but, if compliance were refused, to proceed
quietly in making their settlement, and suffer the subjects, of whatever
power, to remain there without molestation. By possession thus taken,
there was only a disputable claim advanced, which might be peaceably and
regularly decided, without insult and without force; and, if the
Spaniards had complained at the British court, their reasons would have
been heard, and all injuries redressed; but that, by presupposing the
justice of their own title, and having recourse to arms, without any
previous notice or remonstrance, they had violated the peace, and
insulted the British government; and, therefore, it was expected, that
satisfaction should be made by publick disavowal, and immediate
restitution.

The answer of Grimaldi was ambiguous and cold. He did not allow that any
particular orders had been given for driving the English from their
settlement; but made no scruple of declaring, that such an ejection was
nothing more than the settlers might have expected; and that Buccarelli
had not, in his opinion, incurred any blame, as the general injunctions
to the American governours were to suffer no encroachments on the
Spanish dominions.

In October, the prince of Masseran proposed a convention, for the
accommodation of differences by mutual concessions, in which the warning
given to the Spaniards, by Hunt, should be disavowed on one side, and
the violence used by Buccarelli, on the other. This offer was
considered, as little less than a new insult, and Grimaldi was told,
that injury required reparation; that when either party had suffered
evident wrong, there was not the parity subsisting, which is implied in
conventions and contracts; that we considered ourselves as openly
insulted, and demanded satisfaction, plenary and unconditional.

Grimaldi affected to wonder, that we were not yet appeased by their
concessions. They had, he said, granted all that was required; they had
offered to restore the island in the state in which they found it; but
he thought that they, likewise, might hope for some regard, and that the
warning, sent by Hunt, would be disavowed.

Mr. Harris, our minister at Madrid, insisted, that the injured party had
a right to unconditional reparation, and Grimaldi delayed his answer,
that a council might be called. In a few days, orders were despatched to
prince Masseran, by which he was commissioned to declare the king of
Spain's readiness to satisfy the demands of the king of England, in
expectation of receiving from him reciprocal satisfaction, by the
disavowal, so often required, of Hunt's warning.

Finding the Spaniards disposed to make no other acknowledgments, the
English ministry considered a war as not likely to be long avoided. In
the latter end of November, private notice was given of their danger to
the merchants at Cadiz, and the officers, absent from Gibraltar, were
remanded to their posts. Our naval force was every day increased, and we
made no abatement of our original demand.

The obstinacy of the Spanish court still continued, and, about the end
of the year, all hope of reconciliation was so nearly extinguished, that
Mr. Harris was directed to withdraw, with the usual forms, from his
residence at Madrid.

Moderation is commonly firm, and firmness is commonly successful; having
not swelled our first requisition with any superfluous appendages, we
had nothing to yield, we, therefore, only repeated our first
proposition, prepared for war, though desirous of peace.

About this time, as is well known, the king of France dismissed Choiseul
from his employments. What effect this revolution of the French court
had upon the Spanish counsels, I pretend not to be informed. Choiseul
had always professed pacifick dispositions; nor is it certain, however
it may be suspected, that he talked in different strains to different
parties.

It seems to be almost the universal errour of historians to suppose it
politically, as it is physically true, that every effect has a
proportionate cause. In the inanimate action of matter upon matter, the
motion produced can be but equal to the force of the moving power; but
the operations of life, whether private or publick, admit no such laws.
The caprices of voluntary agents laugh at calculation. It is not always
that there is a strong reason for a great event. Obstinacy and
flexibility, malignity and kindness, give place, alternately, to each
other; and the reason of these vicissitudes, however important may be
the consequences, often escapes the mind in which the change is made.

Whether the alteration, which began in January to appear in the Spanish
counsels, had any other cause than conviction of the impropriety of
their past conduct, and of the danger of a new war, it is not easy to
decide; but they began, whatever was the reason, to relax their
haughtiness, and Mr. Harris's departure was countermanded.

The demands first made by England were still continued, and on January
22d, the prince of Masseran delivered a declaration, in which the king
of Spain "disavows the violent enterprise of Buccarelli," and promises
"to restore the port and fort called Egmont, with all the artillery and
stores, according to the inventory. "

To this promise of restitution is subjoined, that "this engagement to
restore port Egmont cannot, nor ought, in any wise, to affect the
question of the prior right of sovereignty of the _Malouine_, otherwise
called Falkland's islands. "

This concession was accepted by the earl of Rochford, who declared, on
the part of his master, that the prince of Masseran, being authorized by
his catholick majesty, "to offer, in his majesty's name, to the king of
Great Britain, a satisfaction for the injury done him, by dispossessing
him of port Egmont;" and, having signed a declaration, expressing that
his catholick majesty "disavows the expedition against port Egmont, and
engages to restore it, in the state in which it stood before the 10th of
June, 1770, his Britannick majesty will look upon the said declaration,
together with the full performance of the engagement on the part of his
catholick majesty, as a satisfaction for the injury done to the crown of
Great Britain. "

This is all that was originally demanded. The expedition is disavowed,
and the island is restored. An injury is acknowledged by the reception
of lord Rochford's paper, who twice mentions the word _injury_, and
twice the word _satisfaction_.

The Spaniards have stipulated, that the grant of possession shall not
preclude the question of prior right, a question which we shall probably
make no haste to discuss, and a right, of which no formal resignation
was ever required. This reserve has supplied matter for much clamour,
and, perhaps the English ministry would have been better pleased had the
declaration been without it. But when we have obtained all that was
asked, why should we complain that we have not more? When the possession
is conceded, where is the evil that the right, which that concession
supposes to be merely hypothetical, is referred to the Greek calends for
a future disquisition? Were the Switzers less free, or less secure,
because, after their defection from the house of Austria, they had never
been declared independent before the treaty of Westphalia? Is the king
of France less a sovereign, because the king of England partakes his
title?

If sovereignty implies undisputed right, scarce any prince is a
sovereign through his whole dominions; if sovereignty consists in this,
that no superiour is acknowledged, our king reigns at port Egmont with
sovereign authority. Almost every new-acquired territory is, in some
degree, controvertible, and till the controversy is decided, a term very
difficult to be fixed, all that can be had is real possession and actual
dominion.

This, surely, is a sufficient answer to the feudal gabble of a man, who
is every day lessening that splendour of character which once
illuminated the kingdom, then dazzled, and afterwards inflamed it; and
for whom it will be happy if the nation shall, at last, dismiss him to
nameless obscurity, with that equipoise of blame and praise which
Corneille allows to Richelieu, a man who, I think, had much of his
merit, and many of his faults:

"Chacun parle à son gré de ce grand cardinal;
Mais, pour moi, je n'en dirai rien:
Il m'a fait trop de bien pour en dire du mal;
Il m'a fait trop de mal pour en dire du bien. "

To push advantages too far is neither generous nor just. Had we insisted
on a concession of antecedent right, it may not misbecome us, either as
moralists or politicians, to consider what Grimaldi could have answered.
We have already, he might say, granted you the whole effect of right,
and have not denied you the name. We have not said, that the right was
ours before this concession, but only that what right we had, is not, by
this concession, vacated. We have now, for more than two centuries,
ruled large tracts of the American continent, by a claim which, perhaps,
is valid only upon this consideration, that no power can produce a
better; by the right of discovery, and prior settlement. And by such
titles almost all the dominions of the earth are holden, except that
their original is beyond memory, and greater obscurity gives them
greater veneration. Should we allow this plea to be annulled, the whole
fabrick of our empire shakes at the foundation. When you suppose
yourselves to have first descried the disputed island, you suppose what
you can hardly prove.