No More Learning

The False Alarm was published in 1770, and "intended," says
Mr. Boswell, "to justify the conduct of the ministry, and their majority
in the house of commons, for having virtually assumed it as an axiom,
that the expulsion of a member of parliament was equivalent to
exclusion, and thus having declared colonel Lutterel to be duly elected
for the county of Middlesex, notwithstanding Mr. Wilkes had a great
majority of votes. This being justly considered as a gross violation of
the right of election, an alarm for the constitution extended itself all
over the kingdom. To prove this alarm to be false, was the purpose of
Johnson's pamphlet; but even his vast powers are inadequate to cope with
constitutional truth and reason, and his argument failed of effect; and
the house of commons have since expunged the offensive resolution from
their journals. That the house of commons might have expelled Mr. Wilkes
repeatedly, and as often as he should be rechosen, was not to be denied;
but incapacitation cannot be but by an act of the whole legislature. It
was wonderful to see how a prejudice in favour of government in general,
and an aversion to popular clamour, could blind and contract such an
understanding as Johnson's in this particular case. " Where Boswell
expresses himself with regard to Johnson, in terms so reprehensive as
the above, we cannot be accused of severity in repeating his just
censure. Several answers appeared, but, perhaps, all of them, in
compliance with the excited feelings of the times, dealt rather in
personal abuse of Johnson, as a pensioner and hireling, than in fair and
manly argument. The chief were, the Crisis; a Letter to Dr. Samuel
Johnson; and, the Constitution Defender and Pensioner exposed, in
Remarks on the False Alarm.




THE FALSE ALARM. 1770.


One of the chief advantages derived by the present generation from the
improvement and diffusion of philosophy, is deliverance from unnecessary
terrours, and exemption from false alarms. The unusual appearances,
whether regular or accidental, which once spread consternation over ages
of ignorance, are now the recreations of inquisitive security. The sun
is no more lamented when it is eclipsed, than when it sets; and meteors
play their coruscations without prognostick or prediction.

The advancement of political knowledge may be expected to produce, in
time, the like effects. Causeless discontent, and seditious violence,
will grow less frequent and less formidable, as the science of
government is better ascertained, by a diligent study of the theory of
man. It is not, indeed, to be expected, that physical and political
truth should meet with equal acceptance, or gain ground upon the world
with equal facility. The notions of the naturalist find mankind in a
state of neutrality, or, at worst, have nothing to encounter but
prejudice and vanity; prejudice without malignity, and vanity without
interest. But the politician's improvements are opposed by every passion
that can exclude conviction or suppress it; by ambition, by avarice, by
hope, and by terrour, by publick faction, and private animosity.

It is evident, whatever be the cause, that this nation, with all its
renown for speculation and for learning, has yet made little proficiency
in civil wisdom. We are still so much unacquainted with our own state,
and so unskilful in the pursuit of happiness, that we shudder without
danger, complain without grievances, and suffer our quiet to be
disturbed, and our commerce to be interrupted, by an opposition to the
government, raised only by interest, and supported only by clamour,
which yet has so far prevailed upon ignorance and timidity, that many
favour it, as reasonable, and many dread it, as powerful.

What is urged by those who have been so industrious to spread suspicion,
and incite fury, from one end of the kingdom to the other, may be known,
by perusing the papers which have been, at once, presented as petitions
to the king, and exhibited in print as remonstrances to the people. It
may, therefore, not be improper to lay before the publick the
reflections of a man, who cannot favour the opposition, for he thinks it
wicked, and cannot fear it, for he thinks it weak.

The grievance which has produced all this tempest of outrage, the
oppression in which all other oppressions are included, the invasion
which has left us no property, the alarm that suffers no patriot to
sleep in quiet, is comprised in a vote of the house of commons, by which
the freeholders of Middlesex are deprived of a Briton's
birthright--representation in parliament.

They have, indeed, received the usual writ of election; but that writ,
alas! was malicious mockery: they were insulted with the form, but
denied the reality, for there was one man excepted from their choice:

"Non de vi, neque cæde, nec veneno,
Sed lis est mihi de tribus capellis. "

The character of the man, thus fatally excepted, I have no purpose to
delineate. Lampoon itself would disdain to speak ill of him, of whom no
man speaks well. It is sufficient, that he is expelled the house of
commons, and confined in gaol, as being legally convicted of sedition
and impiety.

That this man cannot be appointed one of the guardians and counsellors
of the church and state, is a grievance not to be endured. Every lover
of liberty stands doubtful of the fate of posterity, because the chief
county in England cannot take its representative from a gaol.

Whence Middlesex should obtain the right of being denominated the chief
county cannot easily be discovered; it is, indeed, the county where the
chief city happens to stand, but, how that city treated the favourite of
Middlesex, is not yet forgotten. The county, as distinguished from the
city, has no claim to particular consideration. That a man was in gaol
for sedition and impiety, would, I believe, have been, within memory, a
sufficient reason why he should not come out of gaol a legislator. This
reason, notwithstanding the mutability of fashion, happens still to
operate on the house of commons. Their notions, however strange, may be
justified by a common observation, that few are mended by imprisonment,
and that he, whose crimes have made confinement necessary, seldom makes
any other use of his enlargement, than to do, with greater cunning, what
he did before with less.

But the people have been told, with great confidence, that the house
cannot control the right of constituting representatives; that he who
can persuade lawful electors to choose him, whatever be his character,
is lawfully chosen, and has a claim to a seat in parliament, from which
no human authority can depose him.

Here, however, the patrons of opposition are in some perplexity. They
are forced to confess, that, by a train of precedents, sufficient to
establish a custom of parliament, the house of commons has jurisdiction
over its own members; that the whole has power over individuals; and
that this power has been exercised sometimes in imprisonment, and often
in expulsion.

That such power should reside in the house of commons, in some cases, is
inevitably necessary; since it is required, by every polity, that where
there is a possibility of offence, there should be a possibility of
punishment. A member of the house cannot be cited for his conduct in
parliament before any other court; and, therefore, if the house cannot
punish him, he may attack, with impunity, the rights of the people, and
the title of the king.

This exemption from the authority of other courts was, I think, first
established in favour of the five members in the long parliament. It is
not to be considered as an usurpation, for it is implied in the
principles of government. If legislative powers are not coordinate, they
cease, in part, to be legislative; and if they be coordinate, they are
unaccountable; for to whom must that power account, which has no
superiour?

The house of commons is, indeed, dissoluble by the king, as the nation
has, of late, been very clamorously told; but while it subsists it is
coordinate with the other powers, and this coordination ceases only,
when the house, by dissolution, ceases to subsist.

As the particular representatives of the people are, in their publick
character, above the control of the courts of law, they must be subject
to the jurisdiction of the house; and as the house, in the exercise of
its authority, can be neither directed nor restrained, its own
resolutions must be its laws, at least, if there is no antecedent
decision of the whole legislature.

This privilege, not confirmed by any written law or positive compact,
but by the resistless power of political necessity, they have exercised,
probably, from their first institution, but certainly, as their records
inform us, from the 23rd of Elizabeth, when they expelled a member for
derogating from their privileges.

It may, perhaps, be doubted, whether it was originally necessary, that
this right of control and punishment should extend beyond offences in
the exercise of parliamentary duty, since all other crimes are
cognizable by other courts. But they who are the only judges of their
own rights, have exerted the power of expulsion on other occasions, and
when wickedness arrived at a certain magnitude, have considered an
offence against society, as an offence against the house.

They have, therefore, divested notorious delinquents of their
legislative character, and delivered them up to shame or punishment,
naked and unprotected, that they might not contaminate the dignity of
parliament.

It is allowed, that a man attainted of felony cannot sit in parliament,
and the commons probably judged, that, not being bound to the forms of
law, they might treat these as felons, whose crimes were, in their
opinion, equivalent to felony; and that, as a known felon could not be
chosen, a man, so like a felon that he could not easily be
distinguished, ought to be expelled.

The first laws had no law to enforce them; the first authority was
constituted by itself. The power exercised by the house of commons is of
this kind; a power rooted in the principles of government, and branched
out by occasional practice; a power which necessity made just, and
precedents have made legal.

It will occur, that authority thus uncontroulable may, in times of heat
and contest, be oppressively and injuriously exerted, and that he who
suffers injustice is without redress, however innocent, however
miserable.

The position is true, but the argument is useless. The commons must be
controlled, or be exempt from control. If they are exempt, they may do
injury which cannot be redressed, if they are controlled, they are no
longer legislative.

If the possibility of abuse be an argument against authority, no
authority ever can be established: if the actual abuse destroys its
legality, there is no legal government now in the world.

This power, which the commons have so long exercised, they ventured to
use once more against Mr. Wilkes, and, on the 3rd of February, 1769,
expelled him the house, "for having printed and published a seditious
libel, and three obscene and impious libels. "

If these imputations were just, the expulsion was, surely, seasonable;
and that they were just, the house had reason to determine, as he had
confessed himself, at the bar, the author of the libel which they term
seditious, and was convicted, in the King's Bench, of both the
publications.

But the freeholders of Middlesex were of another opinion. They either
thought him innocent, or were not offended by his guilt. When a writ was
issued for the election of a knight for Middlesex, in the room of John
Wilkes, esq. expelled the house, his friends, on the sixteenth of
February, chose him again.

On the 17th, it was resolved, "that John Wilkes, esq. having been, in
this session of parliament, expelled the house, was, and is, incapable
of being elected a member to serve in this present parliament. "

As there was no other candidate, it was resolved, at the same time, that
the election of the sixteenth was a void election.

The freeholders still continued to think, that no other man was fit to
represent them, and, on the sixteenth of March, elected him once more.
Their resolution was now so well known, that no opponent ventured to
appear.

The commons began to find, that power, without materials for operation,
can produce no effect. They might make the election void for ever, but
if no other candidate could be found, their determination could only be
negative. They, however, made void the last election, and ordered a new
writ.

On the 13th of April was a new election, at which Mr. Lutterel, and
others, offered themselves candidates. Every method of intimidation was
used, and some acts of violence were done, to hinder Mr. Lutterel from
appearing. He was not deterred, and the poll was taken, which exhibited,
for

Mr. Wilkes 1143
Mr. Lutterel 296

The sheriff returned Mr. Wilkes; but the house, on April the fifteenth,
determined that Mr. Lutterel was lawfully elected.

From this day began the clamour, which has continued till now. 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.