No More Learning

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. We were, at least, the general discoverers of the
Magellanick region, and have hitherto held it with all its adjacencies.
The justice of this tenure the world has, hitherto, admitted, and
yourselves, at least, tacitly allowed it, when, about twenty years ago,
you desisted from your purposed expedition, and expressly disowned any
design of settling, where you are now not content to settle and to
reign, without extorting such a confession of original right, as may
invite every other nation to follow you.

To considerations such as these, it is reasonable to impute that anxiety
of the Spaniards, from which the importance of this island is inferred
by Junius, one of the few writers of his despicable faction, whose name
does not disgrace the page of an opponent. The value of the thing
disputed may be very different to him that gains and him that loses it.
The Spaniards, by yielding Falkland's island, have admitted a precedent
of what they think encroachment; have suffered a breach to be made in
the outworks of their empire; and, notwithstanding the reserve of prior
right, have suffered a dangerous exception to the prescriptive tenure of
their American territories.

Such is the loss of Spain; let us now compute the profit of Britain. We
have, by obtaining a disavowal of Buccarelli's expedition, and a
restitution of our settlement, maintained the honour of the crown, and
the superiority of our influence. Beyond this what have we acquired?
What, but a bleak and gloomy solitude, an island, thrown aside from
human use, stormy in winter, and barren in summer; an island, which not
the southern savages have dignified with habitation; where a garrison
must be kept in a state that contemplates with envy the exiles of
Siberia; of which the expense will be perpetual, and the use only
occasional; and which, if fortune smile upon our labours, may become a
nest of smugglers in peace, and in war the refuge of future bucaniers.
To all this the government has now given ample attestation, for the
island has been since abandoned, and, perhaps, was kept only to quiet
clamours, with an intention, not then wholly concealed, of quitting it
in a short time.

This is the country of which we have now possession, and of which a
numerous party pretends to wish that we had murdered thousands for the
titular sovereignty. To charge any men with such madness approaches to
an accusation defeated by its own incredibility. As they have been long
accumulating falsehoods, it is possible that they are now only adding
another to the heap, and that they do not mean all that they profess.
But of this faction what evil may not be credited? They have hitherto
shown no virtue, and very little wit, beyond that mischievous cunning
for which it is held, by Hale, that children may be hanged!

As war is the last of remedies, "cuncta prius tentanda," all lawful
expedients must be used to avoid it. As war is the extremity of evil, it
is, surely, the duty of those, whose station intrusts them with the care
of nations, to avert it from their charge. There are diseases of animal
nature, which nothing but amputation can remove; so there may, by the
depravation of human passions, be sometimes a gangrene in collective
life, for which fire and the sword are the necessary remedies; but in
what can skill or caution be better shown, than preventing such dreadful
operations, while there is yet room for gentler methods!

It is wonderful with what coolness and indifference the greater part of
mankind see war commenced. Those that hear of it at a distance, or read
of it in books, but have never presented its evils to their minds,
consider it as little more than a splendid game, a proclamation, an
army, a battle, and a triumph. Some, indeed, must perish in the most
successful field, but they die upon the bed of honour, "resign their
lives amidst the joys of conquest, and, filled with England's glory,
smile in death. "

The life of a modern soldier is ill represented by heroick fiction. War
has means of destruction more formidable than the cannon and the sword.
Of the thousands and ten thousands, that perished in our late contests
with France and Spain, a very small part ever felt the stroke of an
enemy; the rest languished in tents and ships, amidst damps and
putrefaction; pale, torpid, spiritless, and helpless; gasping and
groaning, unpitied among men, made obdurate by long continuance of
hopeless misery; and were, at last, whelmed in pits, or heaved into the
ocean, without notice and without remembrance. By incommodious
encampments and unwholesome stations, where courage is useless, and
enterprise impracticable, fleets are silently dispeopled, and armies
sluggishly melted away.

Thus is a people gradually exhausted, for the most part, with little
effect. The wars of civilized nations make very slow changes in the
system of empire. The publick perceives scarcely any alteration, but an
increase of debt; and the few individuals who are benefited are not
supposed to have the clearest right to their advantages. If he that
shared the danger enjoyed the profit, and, after bleeding in the battle,
grew rich by the victory, he might show his gains without envy. But, at
the conclusion of a ten years' war, how are we recompensed for the death
of multitudes, and the expense of millions, but by contemplating the
sudden glories of paymasters and agents, contractors and commissaries,
whose equipages shine like meteors, and whose palaces rise like
exhalations!

These are the men who, without virtue, labour, or hazard, are growing
rich, as their country is impoverished; they rejoice, when obstinacy or
ambition adds another year to slaughter and devastation; and laugh, from
their desks, at bravery and science, while they are adding figure to
figure, and cipher to cipher, hoping for a new contract from a new
armament, and computing the profits of a siege or tempest.

Those who suffer their minds to dwell on these considerations, will
think it no great crime in the ministry, that they have not snatched,
with eagerness, the first opportunity of rushing into the field, when
they were able to obtain, by quiet negotiation, all the real good that
victory could have brought us.

Of victory, indeed, every nation is confident before the sword is drawn;
and this mutual confidence produces that wantonness of bloodshed, that
has so often desolated the world. But it is evident, that of
contradictory opinions, one must be wrong; and the history of mankind
does not want examples, that may teach caution to the daring, and
moderation to the proud.

Let us not think our laurels blasted by condescending to inquire,
whether we might not possibly grow rather less than greater by attacking
Spain. Whether we should have to contend with Spain alone, whatever has
been promised by our patriots, may very reasonably be doubted. A war
declared for the empty sound of an ancient title to a Magellanick rock,
would raise the indignation of the earth against us. These encroachers
on the waste of nature, says our ally the Russian, if they succeed in
their first effort of usurpation, will make war upon us for a title to
Kamtschatka. These universal settlers, says our ally the Dane, will, in
a short time, settle upon Greenland, and a fleet will batter Copenhagen,
till we are willing to confess, that it always was their own.

In a quarrel, like this, it is not possible that any power should favour
us, and it is very likely that some would oppose us. The French, we are
told, are otherwise employed: the contests between the king of France,
and his own subjects, are sufficient to withhold him from supporting
Spain. But who does not know that a foreign war has often put a stop to
civil discords? It withdraws the attention of the publick from domestick
grievances, and affords opportunities of dismissing the turbulent and
restless to distant employments. The Spaniards have always an argument
of irresistible persuasion: if France will not support them against
England, they will strengthen England against France.

But let us indulge a dream of idle speculation, and suppose that we are
to engage with Spain, and with Spain alone; it is not even yet very
certain that much advantage will be gained. Spain is not easily
vulnerable; her kingdom, by the loss or cession of many fragments of
dominion, is become solid and compact. The Spaniards have, indeed, no
fleet able to oppose us, but they will not endeavour actual opposition:
they will shut themselves up in their own territories, and let us
exhaust our seamen in a hopeless siege: they will give commissions to
privateers of every nation, who will prey upon our merchants without
possibility of reprisal. If they think their Plata fleet in danger, they
will forbid it to set sail, and live awhile upon the credit of treasure
which all Europe knows to be safe; and which, if our obstinacy should
continue till they can no longer be without it, will be conveyed to them
with secrecy and security, by our natural enemies the French, or by the
Dutch our natural allies.

But the whole continent of Spanish America will lie open to invasion; we
shall have nothing to do but march into these wealthy regions, and make
their present masters confess, that they were always ours by ancient
right. We shall throw brass and iron out of our houses, and nothing but
silver will be seen among us.

All this is very desirable, but it is not certain that it can be easily
attained. Large tracts of America were added, by the last war, to the
British dominions; but, if the faction credit their own Apollo, they
were conquered in Germany. They, at best, are only the barren parts of
the continent, the refuse of the earlier adventurers, which the French,
who came last, had taken only as better than nothing.

Against the Spanish dominions we have never, hitherto, been able to do
much. A few privateers have grown rich at their expense, but no scheme
of conquest has yet been successful. They are defended, not by walls
mounted with cannons, which by cannons may be battered, but by the
storms of the deep, and the vapours of the land, by the flames of
calenture and blasts of pestilence.

In the reign of Elizabeth, the favourite period of English greatness, no
enterprises against America had any other consequence than that of
extending English navigation. Here Cavendish perished, after all his
hazards; and here Drake and Hawkins, great as they were in knowledge and
in fame, having promised honour to themselves, and dominion to the
country, sunk by desperation and misery in dishonourable graves.

During the protectorship of Cromwell, a time of which the patriotick
tribes still more ardently desire the return, the Spanish dominions were
again attempted; but here, and only here, the fortune of Cromwell made a
pause. His forces were driven from Hispaniola; his hopes of possessing
the West Indies vanished; and Jamaica was taken, only that the whole
expedition might not grow ridiculous.

The attack of Carthagena is yet remembered, where the Spaniards, from
the ramparts, saw their invaders destroyed by the hostility of the
elements, poisoned by the air, and crippled by the dews; where every
hour swept away battalions; and, in the three days that passed between
the descent and reembarkation, half an army perished.

In the last war the Havanna was taken; at what expense is too well
remembered. May my country be never cursed with such another conquest!

These instances of miscarriage, and these arguments of difficulty, may,
perhaps, abate the military ardour of the publick. Upon the opponents of
the government their operation will be different; they wish for war, but
not for conquest; victory would defeat their purposes equally with
peace, because prosperity would naturally continue the trust in those
hands which had used it fortunately. The patriots gratified themselves
with expectations that some sinistrous accident, or erroneous conduct,
might diffuse discontent, and inflame malignity. Their hope is
malevolence, and their good is evil.

Of their zeal for their country we have already had a specimen. While
they were terrifying the nation with doubts, whether it was any longer
to exist; while they represented invasive armies as hovering in the
clouds, and hostile fleets, as emerging from the deeps; they obstructed
our levies of seamen, and embarrassed our endeavours of defence. Of such
men he thinks with unnecessary candour who does not believe them likely
to have promoted the miscarriage, which they desired, by intimidating
our troops, or betraying our counsels.

It is considered as an injury to the publick, by those sanguinary
statesmen, that though the fleet has been refitted and manned, yet no
hostilities have followed; and they, who sat wishing for misery and
slaughter, are disappointed of their pleasure. But as peace is the end
of war, it is the end, likewise, of preparations for war; and he may be
justly hunted down, as the enemy of mankind, that can choose to snatch,
by violence and bloodshed, what gentler means can equally obtain.

The ministry are reproached, as not daring to provoke an enemy, lest ill
success should discredit and displace them. I hope that they had better
reasons; that they paid some regard to equity and humanity; and
considered themselves as intrusted with the safety of their
fellow-subjects, and as the destroyers of all that should be
superfluously slaughtered. But let us suppose, that their own safety had
some influence on their conduct, they will not, however, sink to a level
with their enemies. Though the motive might be selfish, the act was
innocent. They, who grow rich by administering physick, are not to be
numbered with them that get money by dispensing poison. If they maintain
power by harmlessness and peace, they must for ever be at a great
distance from ruffians, who would gain it by mischief and confusion. The
watch of a city may guard it for hire; but are well employed in
protecting it from those, who lie in wait to fire the streets, and rob
the houses, amidst the conflagration.

An unsuccessful war would, undoubtedly, have had the effect which the
enemies of the ministry so earnestly desire; for who could have
sustained the disgrace of folly ending in misfortune? But had wanton
invasion undeservedly prospered, had Falkland's island been yielded
unconditionally, with every right, prior and posterior; though the
rabble might have shouted, and the windows have blazed, yet those who
know the value of life, and the uncertainty of publick credit, would
have murmured, perhaps unheard, at the increase of our debt, and the
loss of our people.

This thirst of blood, however the visible promoters of sedition may
think it convenient to shrink from the accusation, is loudly avowed by
Junius, the writer to whom his party owes much of its pride, and some of
its popularity. Of Junius it cannot be said, as of Ulysses, that he
scatters ambiguous expressions among the vulgar; for he cries havock,
without reserve, and endeavours to let slip the dogs of foreign or of
civil war, ignorant whither they are going, and careless what may be
their prey.

Junius has sometimes made his satire felt, but let not injudicious
admiration mistake the venom of the shaft for the vigour of the bow. He
has sometimes sported with lucky malice; but to him that knows his
company, it is not hard to be sarcastick in a mask. While he walks, like
Jack the giant-killer, in a coat of darkness, he may do much mischief
with little strength. Novelty captivates the superficial and
thoughtless; vehemence delights the discontented and turbulent. He that
contradicts acknowledged truth will always have an audience; he that
vilifies established authority will always find abettors.

Junius burst into notice with a blaze of impudence which has rarely
glared upon the world before, and drew the rabble after him, as a
monster makes a show. When he had once provided for his safety, by
impenetrable secrecy, he had nothing to combat but truth and justice,
enemies whom he knows to be feeble in the dark. Being then at liberty to
indulge himself in all the immunities of invisibility; out of the reach
of danger, he has been bold; out of the reach of shame, he has been
confident. As a rhetorician, he has had the art of persuading, when he
seconded desire; as a reasoner, he has convinced those who had no doubt
before; as a moralist, he has taught, that virtue may disgrace; and, as
a patriot, he has gratified the mean by insults on the high. Finding
sedition ascendant, he has been able to advance it; finding the nation
combustible, he has been able to inflame it. Let us abstract from his
wit the vivacity of insolence, and withdraw from his efficacy the
sympathetick favour of plebeian malignity; I do not say that we shall
leave him nothing; the cause that I defend, scorns the help of
falsehood; but if we leave him only his merit, what will be his praise?

It is not by his liveliness of imagery, his pungency of periods, or his
fertility of allusion, that he detains the cits of London, and the boors
of Middlesex. Of style and sentiment they take no cognizance. They
admire him, for virtues like their own, for contempt of order, and
violence of outrage; for rage of defamation, and audacity of falsehood.
The supporters of the bill of rights feel no niceties of composition,
nor dexterities of sophistry; their faculties are better proportioned to
the bawl of Bellas, or barbarity of Beckford; but they are told, that
Junius is on their side, and they are, therefore, sure that Junius is
infallible. Those who know not whither he would lead them, resolve to
follow him; and those who cannot find his meaning, hope he means
rebellion.

Junius is an unusual phenomenon, on which some have gazed with wonder,
and some with terrour, but wonder and terrour are transitory passions.
He will soon be more closely viewed, or more attentively examined; and
what folly has taken for a comet, that from its flaming hair shook
pestilence and war, inquiry will find to be only a meteor, formed by the
vapours of putrefying democracy, and kindled into flame by the
effervescence of interest, struggling with conviction; which, after
having plunged its followers in a bog, will leave us, inquiring why we
regard it.

Yet, though I cannot think the style of Junius secure from criticism,
though his expressions are often trite, and his periods feeble, I should
never have stationed him where he has placed himself, had I not rated
him by his morals rather than his faculties. What, says Pope, must be
the priest, where a monkey is the god? What must be the drudge of a
party, of which the heads are Wilkes and Crosby, Sawbridge and Townsend?

Junius knows his own meaning, and can, therefore, tell it. He is an
enemy to the ministry; he sees them growing hourly stronger. He knows
that a war, at once unjust and unsuccessful, would have certainly
displaced them, and is, therefore, in his zeal for his country, angry
that war was not unjustly made, and unsuccessfully conducted. But there
are others whose thoughts are less clearly expressed, and whose schemes,
perhaps, are less consequentially digested; who declare that they do not
wish for a rupture, yet condemn the ministry for not doing that, by
which a rupture would naturally have been made.

If one party resolves to demand what the other resolves to refuse, the
dispute can be determined only by arbitration; and between powers who
have no common superiour, there is no other arbitrator than the sword.

Whether the ministry might not equitably have demanded more is not worth
a question. The utmost exertion of right is always invidious, and, where
claims are not easily determinable, is always dangerous. We asked all
that was necessary, and persisted in our first claim, without mean
recession, or wanton aggravation. The Spaniards found us resolute, and
complied, after a short struggle.

The real crime of the ministry is, that they have found the means of
avoiding their own ruin; but the charge against them is multifarious and
confused, as will happen, when malice and discontent are ashamed of
their complaint. The past and the future are complicated in the censure.
We have heard a tumultuous clamour about honour and rights, injuries and
insults, the British flag and the Favourite's rudder, Buccarelli's
conduct and Grimaldi's declarations, the Manilla ransome, delays and
reparation.

Through the whole argument of the faction runs the general errour, that
our settlement on Falkland's island was not only lawful, but
unquestionable; that our right was not only certain, but acknowledged;
and that the equity of our conduct was such, that the Spaniards could
not blame or obstruct it, without combating their own conviction, and
opposing the general opinion of mankind.

If once it be discovered that, in the opinion of the Spaniards, our
settlement was usurped, our claim arbitrary, and our conduct insolent,
all that has happened will appear to follow by a natural concatenation.
Doubts will produce disputes and disquisition; disquisition requires
delay, and delay causes inconvenience.

Had the Spanish government immediately yielded, unconditionally, all
that was required, we might have been satisfied; but what would Europe
have judged of their submission? that they shrunk before us, as a
conquered people, who, having lately yielded to our arms, were now
compelled to sacrifice to our pride. The honour of the publick is,
indeed, of high importance; but we must remember, that we have had to
transact with a mighty king and a powerful nation, who have unluckily
been taught to think, that they have honour to keep or lose, as well as
ourselves.

When the admiralty were told, in June, of the warning given to Hunt,
they were, I suppose, informed that Hunt had first provoked it by
warning away the Spaniards, and naturally considered one act of
insolence as balanced by another, without expecting that more would be
done on either side. Of representations and remonstrances there would be
no end, if they were to be made whenever small commanders are uncivil to
each other; nor could peace ever be enjoyed, if, upon such transient
provocations, it be imagined necessary to prepare for war. We might
then, it is said, have increased our force with more leisure and less
inconvenience; but this is to judge only by the event. We omitted to
disturb the publick, because we did not suppose that an armament would
be necessary.

Some months afterwards, as has been told, Buccarelli, the governour of
Buenos Ayres, sent against the settlement of port Egmont a force which
ensured the conquest. The Spanish commander required the English
captains to depart, but they, thinking that resistance necessary, which
they knew to be useless, gave the Spaniards the right of prescribing
terms of capitulation. The Spaniards imposed no new condition, except
that the sloop should not sail under twenty days; and of this they
secured the performance by taking off the rudder.

To an inhabitant of the land there appears nothing in all this
unreasonable or offensive. If the English intended to keep their
stipulation, how were they injured by the detention of the rudder? If
the rudder be to a ship, what his tail is in fables to a fox, the part
in which honour is placed, and of which the violation is never to be
endured, I am sorry that the Favourite suffered an indignity, but cannot
yet think it a cause for which nations should slaughter one another.

When Buccarelli's invasion was known, and the dignity of the crown
infringed, we demanded reparation and prepared for war, and we gained
equal respect by the moderation of our terms, and the spirit of our
exertion. The Spanish minister immediately denied that Buccarelli had
received any particular orders to seize port Egmont, nor pretended that
he was justified, otherwise than by the general instructions by which
the American governours are required to exclude the subjects of other
powers.

To have inquired whether our settlement at port Egmont was any violation
of the Spanish rights, had been to enter upon a discussion, which the
pertinacity of political disputants might have continued without end.
We, therefore, called for restitution, not as a confession of right, but
as a reparation of honour, which required that we should be restored to
our former state upon the island, and that the king of Spain should
disavow the action of his governour.

In return to this demand, the Spaniards expected from us a disavowal of
the menaces, with which they had been first insulted by Hunt; and if the
claim to the island be supposed doubtful, they certainly expected it
with equal reason. This, however, was refused, and our superiority of
strength gave validity to our arguments.

But we are told, that the disavowal of the king of Spain is temporary
and fallacious; that Buccarelli's armament had all the appearance of
regular forces and a concerted expedition; and that he is not treated at
home as a man guilty of piracy, or as disobedient to the orders of his
master.
That the expedition was well planned, and the forces properly supplied,
affords no proof of communication between the governour and his court.
Those who are intrusted with the care of kingdoms in another hemisphere,
must always be trusted with power to defend them.

As little can be inferred from his reception at the Spanish court. He is
not punished, indeed; for what has he done that deserves punishment? He
was sent into America to govern and defend the dominions of Spain. He
thought the English were encroaching, and drove them away. No Spaniard
thinks that he has exceeded his duty, nor does the king of Spain charge
him with excess. The boundaries of dominion, in that part of the world,
have not yet been settled; and he mistook, if a mistake there was, like
a zealous subject, in his master's favour.

But all this inquiry is superfluous. Considered as a reparation of
honour, the disavowal of the king of Spain, made in the sight of all
Europe, is of equal value, whether true or false. There is, indeed, no
reason to question its veracity; they, however, who do not believe it,
must allow the weight of that influence, by which a great prince is
reduced to disown his own commission.

But the general orders, upon which the governour is acknowledged to have
acted, are neither disavowed _nor_ explained. Why the Spaniards should
disavow the defence of their own territories, the warmest disputant will
find it difficult to tell; and, if by an explanation is meant an
accurate delineation of the southern empire, and the limitation of their
claims beyond the line, it cannot be imputed to any very culpable
remissness, that what has been denied for two centuries to the European
powers, was not obtained in a hasty wrangle about a petty settlement.

The ministry were too well acquainted with negotiation to fill their
heads with such idle expectations. The question of right was
inexplicable and endless. They left it, as it stood. To be restored to
actual possession was easily practicable. This restoration they required
and obtained.

But they should, say their opponents, have insisted upon more; they
should have exacted not only, reparation of our honour, but repayment of
our expense. Nor are they all satisfied with the recovery of the costs
and damages of the present contest; they are for taking this opportunity
of calling in old debts, and reviving our right to the ransome of
Manilla.

The Manilla ransome has, I think, been most mentioned by the inferiour
bellowers of sedition. Those who lead the faction know that it cannot be
remembered much to their advantage. The followers of lord Rockingham
remember, that his ministry began and ended without obtaining it; the
adherents to Grenville would be told, that he could never be taught to
understand our claim. The law of nations made little of his knowledge.
Let him not, however, be depreciated in his grave. If he was sometimes
wrong, he was often right. [29]

Of reimbursement the talk has been more confident, though not more
reasonable. The expenses of war have been often desired, have been
sometimes required, but were never paid; or never, but when resistance
was hopeless, and there remained no choice between submission and
destruction.

Of our late equipments, I know not from whom the charge can be very
properly expected. The king of Spain disavows the violence which
provoked us to arm, and for the mischiefs, which he did not do, why
should he pay? Buccarelli, though he had learned all the arts of an
East Indian governour, could hardly have collected, at Buenos Ayres, a
sum sufficient to satisfy our demands. If he be honest, he is hardly
rich; and if he be disposed to rob, he has the misfortune of being
placed, where robbers have been before him.

The king of Spain, indeed, delayed to comply with our proposals, and our
armament was made necessary by unsatisfactory answers and dilatory
debates. The delay certainly increased our expenses, and, it is not
unlikely, that the increase of our expenses put an end to the delay.

But this is the inevitable process of human affairs. Negotiation
requires time, What is not apparent to intuition must be found by
inquiry. Claims that have remained doubtful for ages cannot be settled
in a day. Reciprocal complaints are not easily adjusted, but by
reciprocal compliance. The Spaniards, thinking themselves entitled to
the island, and injured by captain Hunt, in their turn demanded
satisfaction, which was refused; and where is the wonder, if their
concessions were delayed! They may tell us, that an independent nation
is to be influenced not by command, but by persuasion; that, if we
expect our proposals to be received without deliberation, we assume that
sovereignty which they do not grant us; and that if we arm, while they
are deliberating, we must indulge our martial ardour at our own charge.

The English ministry asked all that was reasonable, and enforced all
that they asked. Our national honour is advanced, and our interest, if
any interest we have, is sufficiently secured. There can be none amongst
us, to whom this transaction does not seem happily concluded, but those
who, having fixed their hopes on publick calamities, sat, like vultures,
waiting for a day of carnage. Having worn out all the arts of domestick
sedition, having wearied violence, and exhausted falsehood, they yet
flattered themselves with some assistance from the pride or malice of
Spain; and when they could no longer make the people complain of
grievances, which they did not feel, they had the comfort yet of
knowing, that real evils were possible, and their resolution is well
known of charging all evil on their governours.

The reconciliation was, therefore, considered as the loss of their last
anchor; and received not only with the fretfulness of disappointment,
but the rage of desperation. When they found that all were happy, in
spite of their machinations, and the soft effulgence of peace shone out
upon the nation, they felt no motion but that of sullen envy; they could
not, like Milton's prince of hell, abstract themselves a moment from
their evil; as they have not the wit of Satan, they have not his virtue;
they tried, once again, what could be done by sophistry without art, and
confidence without credit. They represented their sovereign as
dishonoured, and their country as betrayed, or, in their fiercer
paroxysms of fury, reviled their sovereign as betraying it.

Their pretences I have here endeavoured to expose, by showing, that more
than has been yielded, was not to be expected, that more, perhaps, was
not to be desired, and that, if all had been refused, there had scarcely
been an adequate reason for a war.

There was, perhaps, never much danger of war, or of refusal, but what
danger there was, proceeded from the faction. Foreign nations,
unacquainted with the insolence of common councils, and unaccustomed to
the howl of plebeian patriotism, when they heard of rabbles and riots,
of petitions and remonstrances, of discontent in Surrey, Derbyshire, and
Yorkshire; when they saw the chain of subordination broken, and the
legislature threatened and defied, naturally imagined, that such a
government had little leisure for Falkland's island; they supposed that
the English, when they returned ejected from port Egmont, would find
Wilkes invested with the protectorate, or see the mayor of London, what
the French have formerly seen their mayors of the palace, the commander
of the army, and tutor of the king; that they would be called to tell
their tale before the common council; and that the world was to expect
war or peace from a vote of the subscribers to the bill of rights.

But our enemies have now lost their hopes, and our friends, I hope, are
recovered from their fears. To fancy that our government can be
subverted by the rabble, whom its lenity has pampered into impudence, is
to fear that a city may be drowned by the overflowing of its kennels.
The distemper which cowardice or malice thought either decay of the
vitals, or resolution of the nerves, appears, at last, to have been
nothing more than a political _phtheiriasis_, a disease too loathsome
for a plainer name, but the effect of negligence rather than of
weakness, and of which the shame is greater than the danger.

Among the disturbers of our quiet are some animals of greater bulk, whom
their power of roaring persuaded us to think formidable; but we now
perceive that sound and force do not always go together. The noise of a
savage proves nothing but his hunger.

After all our broils, foreign and domestick, we may, at last, hope to
remain awhile in quiet, amused with the view of our own success. We have
gained political strength, by the increase of our reputation; we have
gained real strength, by the reparation of our navy; we have shown
Europe, that ten years of war have not yet exhausted us; and we have
enforced our settlement on an island on which, twenty years ago, we
durst not venture to look.

These are the gratifications only of honest minds; but there is a time,
in which hope comes to all. From the present happiness of the publick,
the patriots themselves may derive advantage. To be harmless, though by
impotence, obtains some degree of kindness: no man hates a worm as he
hates a viper; they were once dreaded enough to be detested, as serpents
that could bite; they have now shown that they can only hiss, and may,
therefore, quietly slink into holes, and change their slough, unmolested
and forgotten.




THE PATRIOT. [30]

ADDRESSED TO THE ELECTORS OF GREAT BRITAIN. 1774.

They bawl for freedom in their senseless mood,
Yet still revolt when truth would set them free;
License they mean, when they cry liberty,
For who loves that must first be wise and good.

MILTON.


To improve the golden moment of opportunity, and catch the good that is
within our reach, is the great art of life. Many wants are suffered,
which might once have been supplied; and much time is lost in regretting
the time which had been lost before.

At the end of every seven years comes the saturnalian season, when the
freemen of great Britain may please themselves with the choice of their
representatives. This happy day has now arrived, somewhat sooner than it
could be claimed.

To select and depute those, by whom laws are to be made, and taxes to be
granted, is a high dignity, and an important trust; and it is the
business of every elector to consider, how this dignity may be well
sustained, and this trust faithfully discharged.

It ought to be deeply impressed on the minds of all who have voices in
this national deliberation, that no man can deserve a seat in
parliament, who is not a patriot. No other man will protect our rights:
no other man can merit our confidence.

A patriot is he whose publick conduct is regulated by one single motive,
the love of his country; who, as an agent in parliament, has, for
himself, neither hope nor fear, neither kindness nor resentment, but
refers every thing to the common interest.

That of five hundred men, such as this degenerate age affords, a
majority can be found thus virtuously abstracted, who will affirm? Yet
there is no good in despondence: vigilance and activity often effect
more than was expected. Let us take a patriot, where we can meet him;
and, that we may not flatter ourselves by false appearances, distinguish
those marks which are certain, from those which may deceive; for a man
may have the external appearance of a patriot, without the constituent
qualities; as false coins have often lustre, though they want weight.
Some claim a place in the list of patriots, by an acrimonious and
unremitting opposition to the court.

This mark is by no means infallible. Patriotism is not necessarily
included in rebellion. A man may hate his king, yet not love his
country. He that has been refused a reasonable, or unreasonable request,
who thinks his merit underrated, and sees his influence declining,
begins soon to talk of natural equality, the absurdity of "many made for
one," the original compact, the foundation of authority, and the majesty
of the people. As his political melancholy increases, he tells, and,
perhaps, dreams, of the advances of the prerogative, and the dangers of
arbitrary power; yet his design, in all his declamation, is not to
benefit his country, but to gratify his malice.

These, however, are the most honest of the opponents of government;
their patriotism is a species of disease; and they feel some part of
what they express. But the greater, far the greater number of those who
rave and rail, and inquire and accuse, neither suspect nor fear, nor
care for the publick; but hope to force their way to riches, by
virulence and invective, and are vehement and clamorous, only that they
may be sooner hired to be silent.

A man sometimes starts up a patriot, only by disseminating discontent,
and propagating reports of secret influence, of dangerous counsels, of
violated rights, and encroaching usurpation.

This practice is no certain note of patriotism. To instigate the
populace with rage beyond the provocation, is to suspend publick
happiness, if not to destroy it. He is no lover of his country, that
unnecessarily disturbs its peace. Few errours and few faults of
government, can justify an appeal to the rabble; who ought not to judge
of what they cannot understand, and whose opinions are not propagated by
reason, but caught by contagion.

The fallaciousness of this note of patriotism is particularly apparent,
when the clamour continues after the evil is past. They who are still
filling our ears with Mr. Wilkes, and the freeholders of Middlesex,
lament a grievance that is now at an end. Mr. Wilkes may be chosen, if
any will choose him, and the precedent of his exclusion makes not any
honest, or any decent man, think himself in clanger.

It may be doubted, whether the name of a patriot can be fairly given, as
the reward of secret satire, or open outrage. To fill the newspapers
with sly hints of corruption and intrigue, to circulate the Middlesex
Journal, and London Pacquet, may, indeed, be zeal; but it may, likewise,
be interest and malice. To offer a petition, not expected to be granted;
to insult a king-with a rude remonstrance, only because there is no
punishment for legal insolence, is not courage, for there is no danger;
nor patriotism, for it tends to the subversion of order, and lets
wickedness loose upon the land, by destroying the reverence due to
sovereign authority.

It is the quality of patriotism to be jealous and watchful, to observe
all secret machinations, and to see publick dangers at a distance. The
true lover of his country is ready to communicate his fears, and to
sound the alarm, whenever he perceives the approach of mischief. But he
sounds no alarm, when there is no enemy; he never terrifies his
countrymen till he is terrified himself. The patriotism, therefore, may
be justly doubted of him, who professes to be disturbed by
incredibilities; who tells, that the last peace was obtained by bribing
the princess of Wales; that the king is grasping at arbitrary power;
and, that because the French, in the new conquests, enjoy their own
laws, there is a design at court of abolishing, in England, the trial by
juries.

Still less does the true patriot circulate opinions which he knows to be
false. No man, who loves his country, fills the nation with clamorous
complaints, that the protestant religion is in danger, because "popery
is established in the extensive province of Quebec," a falsehood so open
and shameless, that it can need no confutation among those who know that
of which it is almost impossible for the most unenlightened zealot to be
ignorant:

That Quebec is on the other side of the Atlantick, at too great a
distance to do much good or harm to the European world:

That the inhabitants, being French, were always papists, who are
certainly more dangerous as enemies than as subjects:

That though the province be wide, the people are few, probably not so
many as may be found in one of the larger English counties:

That persecution is not more virtuous in a protestant than a papist; and
that, while we blame Lewis the fourteenth, for his dragoons and his
galleys, we ought, when power comes into our hands, to use it with
greater equity:

That when Canada, with its inhabitants, was yielded, the free enjoyment
of their religion was stipulated; a condition, of which king William,
who was no propagator of popery, gave an example nearer home, at the
surrender of Limerick:

That in an age, where every mouth is open for _liberty of conscience_,
it is equitable to show some regard to the conscience of a papist, who
may be supposed, like other men, to think himself safest in his own
religion; and that those, at least, who enjoy a toleration, ought not to
deny it to our new subjects.

If liberty of conscience be a natural right, we have no power to
withhold it; if it be an indulgence, it may be allowed to papists, while
it is not denied to other sects.

A patriot is necessarily and invariably a lover of the people. But even
this mark may sometimes deceive us.

The people is a very heterogeneous and confused mass of the wealthy and
the poor, the wise and the foolish, the good and the bad. Before we
confer on a man, who caresses the people, the title of patriot, we must
examine to what part of the people he directs his notice. It is
proverbially said, that he who dissembles his own character, may be
known by that of his companions. If the candidate of patriotism
endeavours to infuse right opinions into the higher ranks, and, by their
influence, to regulate the lower; if he consorts chiefly with the wise,
the temperate, the regular, and the virtuous, his love of the people may
be rational and honest. But if his first or principal application be to
the indigent, who are always inflammable; to the weak, who are naturally
suspicious; to the ignorant, who are easily misled; and to the
profligate, who have no hope but from mischief and confusion; let his
love of the people be no longer boasted. No man can reasonably be
thought a lover of his country, for roasting an ox, or burning a boot,
or attending the meeting at Mile-end, or registering his name in the
lumber troop. He may, among the drunkards, be a hearty fellow, and,
among sober handicraftsmen, a free-spoken gentleman; but he must have
some better distinction, before he is a patriot.

A patriot is always ready to countenance the just claims, and animate
the reasonable hopes of the people; he reminds them, frequently, of
their rights, and stimulates them to resent encroachments, and to
multiply securities.

But all this may be done in appearance, without real patriotism. He that
raises false hopes to serve a present purpose, only makes a way for
disappointment and discontent. He who promises to endeavour, what he
knows his endeavours unable to effect, means only to delude his
followers by an empty clamour of ineffectual zeal.

A true patriot is no lavish promiser: he undertakes not to shorten
parliaments; to repeal laws; or to change the mode of representation,
transmitted by our ancestors; he knows that futurity is not in his
power, and that all times are not alike favourable to change.

Much less does he make a vague and indefinite promise of obeying the
mandates of his constituents. He knows the prejudices of faction, and
the inconstancy of the multitude. He would first inquire, how the
opinion of his constituents shall be taken. Popular instructions are,
commonly, the work, not of the wise and steady, but the violent and
rash; meetings held for directing representatives are seldom attended
but by the idle and the dissolute; and he is not without suspicion, that
of his constituents, as of other numbers of men, the smaller part may
often be the wiser.

He considers himself as deputed to promote the publick good, and to
preserve his constituents, with the rest of his countrymen, not only
from being hurt by others, but from hurting themselves.

The common marks of patriotism having been examined, and shown to be
such as artifice may counterfeit, or folly misapply, it cannot be
improper to consider, whether there are not some characteristical modes
of speaking or acting, which may prove a man to be not a patriot.

In this inquiry, perhaps, clearer evidence may be discovered, and firmer
persuasion attained; for it is, commonly, easier to know what is wrong
than what is right; to find what we should avoid, than what we should
pursue.

As war is one of the heaviest of national evils, a calamity in which
every species of misery is involved; as it sets the general safety to
hazard, suspends commerce, and desolates the country; as it exposes
great numbers to hardships, dangers, captivity, and death; no man, who
desires the publick prosperity, will inflame general resentment by
aggravating minute injuries, or enforcing disputable rights of little
importance.

It may, therefore, be safely pronounced, that those men are no patriots,
who, when the national honour was vindicated in the sight of Europe, and
the Spaniards having invaded what they call their own, had shrunk to a
disavowal of their attempt, and a relaxation of their claim, would still
have instigated us to a war, for a bleak and barren spot in the
Magellanick ocean, of which no use could be made, unless it were a place
of exile for the hypocrites of patriotism.

Yet let it not be forgotten, that, by the howling violence of patriotick
rage, the nation was, for a time, exasperated to such madness, that, for
a barren rock under a stormy sky, we might have now been fighting and
dying, had not our competitors been wiser than ourselves; and those who
are now courting the favour of the people, by noisy professions of
publick spirit, would, while they were counting the profits of their
artifice, have enjoyed the patriotick pleasure of hearing, sometimes,
that thousands had been slaughtered in a battle, and, sometimes, that a
navy had been dispeopled by poisoned air and corrupted food. He that
wishes to see his country robbed of its rights cannot be a patriot.

That man, therefore, is no patriot, who justifies the ridiculous claims
of American usurpation; who endeavours to deprive the nation of its
natural and lawful authority over its own colonies; those colonies,
which were settled under English protection; were constituted by an
English charter; and have been defended by English arms.

To suppose, that by sending out a colony, the nation established an
independent power; that when, by indulgence and favour, emigrants are
become rich, they shall not contribute to their own defence, but at
their own pleasure; and that they shall not be included, like millions
of their fellow-subjects, in the general system of representation;
involves such an accumulation of absurdity, as nothing but the show of
patriotism could palliate.

He that accepts protection, stipulates obedience. We have always
protected the Americans; we may, therefore, subject them to government.

The less is included in the greater. That power which can take away
life, may seize upon property. The parliament may enact, for America, a
law of capital punishment; it may, therefore, establish a mode and
proportion of taxation.

But there are some who lament the state of the poor Bostonians, because
they cannot all be supposed to have committed acts of rebellion, yet all
are involved in the penalty imposed. This, they say, is to violate the
first rule of justice, by condemning the innocent to suffer with the
guilty.

This deserves some notice, as it seems dictated by equity and humanity,
however it may raise contempt by the ignorance which it betrays of the
state of man, and the system of things. That the innocent should be
confounded with the guilty, is, undoubtedly, an evil; but it is an evil
which no care or caution can prevent. National crimes require national
punishments, of which many must necessarily have their part, who have
not incurred them by personal guilt. If rebels should fortify a town,
the cannon of lawful authority will endanger, equally, the harmless
burghers and the criminal garrison.

In some cases, those suffer most who are least intended to be hurt. If
the French, in the late war, had taken an English city, and permitted
the natives to keep their dwellings, how could it have been recovered,
but by the slaughter of our friends? A bomb might as well destroy an
Englishman as a Frenchman; and, by famine, we know that the inhabitants
would be the first that should perish.

This infliction of promiscuous evil may, therefore, be lamented, but
cannot be blamed. The power of lawful government must be maintained; and
the miseries which rebellion produces, can be charged only on the
rebels.

That man, likewise, is not a patriot, who denies his governours their
due praise, and who conceals from the people the benefits which they
receive. Those, therefore, can lay no claim to this illustrious
appellation, who impute want of publick spirit to the late parliament;
an assembly of men, whom, notwithstanding some fluctuation of counsel,
and some weakness of agency, the nation must always remember with
gratitude, since it is indebted to them for a very ample concession, in
the resignation of protections, and a wise and honest attempt to improve
the constitution, in the new judicature instituted for the trial of
elections.

The right of protection, which might be necessary, when it was first
claimed, and was very consistent with that liberality of immunities, in
which the feudal constitution delighted, was, by its nature, liable to
abuse, and had, in reality, been sometimes misapplied to the evasion of
the law, and the defeat of justice. The evil was, perhaps, not adequate
to the clamour; nor is it very certain, that the possible good of this
privilege was not more than equal to the possible evil. It is, however,
plain, that, whether they gave any thing or not to the publick, they, at
least, lost something from themselves. They divested their dignity of a
very splendid distinction, and showed that they were more willing than
their predecessors to stand on a level with their fellow-subjects.

The new mode of trying elections, if it be found effectual, will diffuse
its consequences further than seems yet to be foreseen. It is, I
believe, generally considered as advantageous only to those who claim
seats in parliament; but, if to choose representatives be one of the
most valuable rights of Englishmen, every voter must consider that law
as adding to his happiness, which makes his suffrage efficacious; since
it was vain to choose, while the election could be controlled by any
other power.

With what imperious contempt of ancient rights, and what audaciousness
of arbitrary authority former parliaments have judged the disputes about
elections, it is not necessary to relate. The claim of a candidate, and
the right of electors, are said scarcely to have been, even in
appearance, referred to conscience; but to have been decided by party,
by passion, by prejudice, or by frolick. To have friends in the borough
was of little use to him, who wanted friends in the house; a pretence
was easily found to evade a majority, and the seat was, at last, his,
that was chosen, not by his electors, but his fellow-senators.

Thus the nation was insulted with a mock election, and the parliament
was filled with spurious representatives one of the most important
claims, that of right to sit in the supreme council of the kingdom, was
debated in jest, and no man could be confident of success from the
justice of his cause.

A disputed election is now tried with the same scrupulousness and
solemnity, as any other title. The candidate that has deserved well of
his neighbours, may now be certain of enjoying the effect of their
approbation; and the elector, who has voted honestly for known merit,
may be certain, that he has not voted in vain.

Such was the parliament, which some of those, who are now aspiring to
sit in another, have taught the rabble to consider as an unlawful
convention of men, worthless, venal, and prostitute, slaves of the
court, and tyrants of the people.

That the next house of commons may act upon the principles of the last,
with more constancy and higher spirit, must be the wish of all who wish
well to the publick; and, it is surely not too much to expect, that the
nation will recover from its delusion, and unite in a general abhorrence
of those, who, by deceiving the credulous with fictitious mischiefs,
overbearing the weak by audacity of falsehood, by appealing to the
judgment of ignorance, and flattering the vanity of meanness, by
slandering honesty, and insulting dignity, have gathered round them
whatever the kingdom can supply of base, and gross, and profligate; and
"raised by merit to this bad eminence," arrogate to themselves the name
of patriots.




TAXATION NO TYRANNY;

An answer [31] to the resolutions and address of the American congress.
1775.


In all the parts of human knowledge, whether terminating in science
merely speculative, or operating upon life, private or civil, are
admitted some fundamental principles, or common axioms, which,
being-generally received, are little doubted, and, being little doubted,
have been rarely proved.

Of these gratuitous and acknowledged truths, it is often the fate to
become less evident by endeavours to explain them, however necessary
such endeavours may be made by the misapprehensions of absurdity, or the
sophistries of interest. It is difficult to prove the principles of
science; because notions cannot always be found more intelligible than
those which are questioned. It is difficult to prove the principles of
practice, because they have, for the most part, not been discovered by
investigation, but obtruded by experience; and the demonstrator will
find, after an operose deduction, that he has been trying to make that
seen, which can be only felt.

Of this kind is the position, that "the supreme power of every community
has the right of requiring, from all its subjects, such contributions as
are necessary to the publick safety or publick prosperity," which was
considered, by all mankind, as comprising the primary and essential
condition of all political society, till it became disputed by those
zealots of anarchy, who have denied, to the parliament of Britain the
right of taxing the American colonies.

In favour of this exemption of the Americans from the authority of their
lawful sovereign, and the dominion of their mother-country, very loud
clamours have been raised, and many wild assertions advanced, which, by
such as borrow their opinions from the reigning fashion, have been
admitted as arguments; and, what is strange, though their tendency is to
lessen English honour and English power, have been heard by Englishmen,
with a wish to find them true. Passion has, in its first violence,
controlled interest, as the eddy for awhile runs against the stream.

To be prejudiced is always to be weak; yet there are prejudices so near
to laudable, that they have been often praised, and are always pardoned.
To love their country has been considered as virtue in men, whose love
could not be otherwise than blind, because their preference was made
without a comparison; but it has never been my fortune to find, either
in ancient or modern writers, any honourable mention of those, who have,
with equal blindness, hated their country.

These antipatriotick prejudices are the abortions of folly impregnated
by faction, which, being produced against the standing order of nature,
have not strength sufficient for long life. They are born only to scream
and perish, and leave those to contempt or detestation, whose kindness
was employed to nurse them into mischief.

To perplex the opinion of the publick many artifices have been used,
which, as usually happens, when falsehood is to be maintained by fraud,
lose their force by counteracting one another.

The nation is, sometimes, to be mollified by a tender tale of men, who
fled from tyranny to rocks and deserts, and is persuaded to lose all
claims of justice, and all sense of dignity, in compassion for a
harmless people, who, having worked hard for bread in a wild country,
and obtained, by the slow progression of manual industry, the
accommodations of life, are now invaded by unprecedented oppression, and
plundered of their properties by the harpies of taxation.

We are told how their industry is obstructed by unnatural restraints,
and their trade confined by rigorous prohibitions; how they are
forbidden to enjoy the products of their own soil, to manufacture the
materials which nature spreads before them, or to carry their own goods
to the nearest market; and surely the generosity of English virtue will
never heap new weight upon those that are already overladen; will never
delight in that dominion, which cannot be exercised, but by cruelty and
outrage.

But, while we are melting in silent sorrow, and, in the transports of
delirious pity, dropping both the sword and balance from our hands,
another friend of the Americans thinks it better to awaken another
passion, and tries to alarm our interest, or excite our veneration, by
accounts of their greatness and their opulence, of the fertility of
their land, and the splendour of their towns. We then begin to consider
the question with more evenness of mind, are ready to conclude that
those restrictions are not very oppressive, which have been found
consistent with this speedy growth of prosperity; and begin to think it
reasonable, that they who thus flourish under the protection of our
government, should contribute something towards its expense.

But we are soon told, that the Americans, however wealthy, cannot be
taxed; that they are the descendants of men who left all for liberty,
and that they have constantly preserved the principles and stubbornness
of their progenitors; that they are too obstinate for persuasion, and
too powerful for constraint; that they will laugh at argument, and
defeat violence; that the continent of North America contains three
millions, not of men merely, but of whigs, of whigs fierce for liberty,
and disdainful of dominion; that they multiply with the fecundity of
their own rattlesnakes, so that every quarter of a century doubles their
numbers.

Men accustomed to think themselves masters do not love to be threatened.
This talk is, I hope, commonly thrown away, or raises passions different
from those which it was intended to excite. Instead of terrifying the
English hearer to tame acquiescence, it disposes him to hasten the
experiment of bending obstinacy, before it is become yet more obdurate,
and convinces him that it is necessary to attack a nation thus
prolifick, while we may yet hope to prevail. When he is told, through
what extent of territory we must travel to subdue them, he recollects
how far, a few years ago, we travelled in their defence. When it is
urged, that they will shoot up, like the hydra, he naturally considers
how the hydra was destroyed.

Nothing dejects a trader like the interruption of his profits. A
commercial people, however magnanimous, shrinks at the thought of
declining traffick and an unfavourable balance. The effect of this
terrour has been tried. We have been stunned with the importance of our
American commerce, and heard of merchants, with warehouses that are
never to be emptied, and of manufacturers starving for want of work.

That our commerce with America is profitable, however less than
ostentatious or deceitful estimates have made it, and that it is our
interest to preserve it, has never been denied; but, surely, it will
most effectually be preserved, by being kept always in our own power.
Concessions may promote it for a moment, but superiority only can ensure
its continuance. There will always be a part, and always a very large
part of every community, that have no care but for themselves, and whose
care for themselves reaches little further than impatience of immediate
pain, and eagerness for the nearest good. The blind are said to feel
with peculiar nicety. They who look but little into futurity, have,
perhaps, the quickest sensation of the present. A merchant's desire is
not of glory, but of gain; not of publick wealth, but of private
emolument; he is, therefore, rarely to be consulted about war and peace,
or any designs of wide extent and distant consequence.

Yet this, like other general characters, will sometimes fail. The
traders of Birmingham have rescued themselves from all imputation of
narrow selfishness, by a manly recommendation to parliament of the
rights and dignity of their native country.

To these men I do not intend to ascribe an absurd and enthusiastick
contempt of interest, but to give them the rational and just praise of
distinguishing real from seeming good; of being able to see through the
cloud of interposing difficulties, to the lasting and solid happiness of
victory and settlement.

Lest all these topicks of persuasion should fail, the greater actor of
patriotism has tried another, in which terrour and pity are happily
combined, not without a proper superaddition of that admiration which
latter ages have brought into the drama.