Their whole importance, in the first instance, and
afterwards
their whole freedom,
at stake.
at stake.
Edmund Burke
To promote any of them to con siderable rank or emolument, they commonly take care that the recommendation shall pass through the hands of the ostensible ministry: such a recommen dation might however appear to the world, as some proof of the credit of ministers, and some means of increasing their strength.
To prevent this, the per sons so advanced are directed, in all companies, indus triously to declare, that they are under no obligations whatsoever to administration ; that they have received their office from another quarter; that they are to tally free and independent.
When the faction has any job of lucre to obtain, or of vengeance to perpetrate, their way to select, for the execution, those very persons to whose habits, friendships, principles, and declarations, such pro
? ? ? is,
? THOUGHTS ON THE CAUSE
ceedings are publicly known to be the most adverse; at once to render the instruments the more odious, and therefore the more dependent, and to prevent the people from ever reposing a confidence in any appear ance of private friendship or public principle.
If the administration seem now and then, from re missness, or from fear of making themselves disagree able, to suffer any popular excesses to go unpunished, the cabal immediately sets up some creature of theirs to raise a clamor against the ministers, as having shamefully betrayed the dignity of government. Then they compel the ministry to become active in confer ring rewards and honors on the persons who have been the instruments of their disgrace; and, after having first vilified them with the higher orders for suffer ing the laws to sleep over the licentiousness of the
populace, they drive them (in order to make amends for their former inactivity) to some act of atrocious violence, which renders them completely abhorred by the people. They, who remember the riots which at tended the Middlesex election, the opening of the present Parliament, and the transactions relative to Saint George's Fields, will not be at a loss for an ap plication of these remarks.
That this body may be enabled to compass all the ends of its institution, its members are scarcely ever to aim at the high and responsible offices of the state.
They are distributed with art and judgment through all the secondary, but efficient, departments of office, and through the households of all the branches of the royal family: so as on one hand to occupy all the avenues to the throne ; and on the other to forward or frustrate the execution of any measure, according to their own interests. For with the credit and sup
? ? ? ? or THE PRESENT n1scomnnrs. 465
port which they are known to have, though for the greater part in places which are only a genteel excuse for salary, they possess all the influence of the high est posts ; and they dictate publicly in almost every thing, even with a parade of superiority. Whenever they dissent (as it often happens) from their nominal leaders, the trained part of the senate, instinctively in the secret, is sure to follow them: provided the leaders, sensible of their situation, do not of them selves recede in time from their most declared opin ions. This latter is generally the case. It will not be conceivable to any one who has not seen what pleasure taken by the cabal in rendering these heads of office thoroughly contemptible and ridicu lous. And when they are become so, they have then the best chance for being well supported.
The members of the court faction are fully indom nified for not holding places on the slippery heights of the kingdom, not only by the lead in all affairs, but also by the perfect security in which they enjoy less conspicuous, but very advantageous situations. Their places are in express legal tenure, or, in effect, all of them for life. Whilst the first and most respec table persons in the kingdom are tossed about like tennis-balls, the sport of blind and insolent caprice, no minister dares even to cast an oblique glance at the lowest of their body. If an attempt be made
upon one of this corps, immediately he flies to sanctu ary, and pretends to the most inviolable of all prom ises. conveniency of public arrangement avail able to remove any one of them from the specific situation he holds; and the slightest attempt upon one of them, the most powerful minister, cer
tain preliminary to his own destruction. von. 1. 30
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Conscious of their independence, they bear them selves with a lofty air to the exterior ministers. Like janissaries, they derive a kind of freedom from the very condition of their servitude. They may act just as they please; provided they are true to the great ruling principle of their institution. It is, therefore, not at all wonderful, that people should be so desir ous of adding themselves to that body, in which they may possess and reconcile satisfactions the most allur ing, and seemingly the most contradictory ; enjoying at once all the spirited pleasure of independence, and all the gross lucre and fat emoluments of servitude.
Here is a sketch, though a slight one, of the consti tution, laws, and policy of this new court corporation. The name by which they choose to distinguish them selves, is that of king's men or the king's friends, by an invidious exclusion of the rest of his Majesty's most loyal and affectionate subjects. The whole sys tem, comprehending the exterior and interior admin istrations, is commonly called, in the technical lan guage of the court, double cabinet ; in French or English, as you choose to pronounce it.
Whether all this be a vision of a distracted brain, or the invention of a malicious heart, or. a real faction in the country, must be judged by the appearances which things have worn for eight years past. Thus far I am certain, that there is not a single public man, in or out of office, who has not, at some time or other, borne testimony to the truth of what I have now related. In particular, no persons have been more strong in their assertions, and louder and more indecent in their complaints, than those who compose all the exterior part of the present administration; in whose time that faction has arrived at such an
'-
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? ? ? ? or rnn PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 467
neight of power, and of boldness in the use of as may, in the end, perhaps bring about its total destruc tion. _
It true, that about four years ago, during the administration of the Marquis of Rockingham, an at
was made to carry on government without their concurrence. However, this was only tran sient cloud; they were hid but for moment; and their constellation blazed out with greater brightness, and far more vigorous influence, some time after was blown over. An attempt was at that time made (but without any idea of proscription) to break their
corps, to discountenance their doctrines, to revive connections of different kind, to restore the princi ples and policy of the Whigs, to reanimate the cause of liberty by ministerial countenance; and then for the first time were men seen attached in office to every principle they had maintained in opposition. No one will doubt, that such men were abhorred and violently opposed by the court faction, and that such
system could have but short duration.
It may appear somewhat affected, that in so much discourse upon this extraordinary party, should say so little of the Earl of Bute, who the supposed head
of it. But this was neither owing to affectation nor inadvertence. have carefully avoided the introduc tion of personal reflections of any kind. Much the greater part of the topics which have been used to blacken this nobleman are either unjust or frivolous. At best, they have tendency to give the resentment of this bitter calamity wrong direction, and to turn a public grievance into mean, personal, or dan gerous national quarrel. Where there regular scheme of operations carried on, the system, and
tempt
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not any individual person who acts in that
truly This system has not arisen solely from
dangerous.
the ambition of Lord Bute, but from the circumstan ces which favored and from an indifference to the constitution which had been for some time growing among our gentry. We should have been tried with
the Earl of Bute had never existed and will want neither contriving head nor active members, when the Earl of Bute exists no longer. It not, therefore, to rail at Lord Bute, but firmly to embody against this court party and its practices, which can afford us any prospect of relief in our present condi
tion.
Another motive induces me to put the personal
consideration of Lord Bute wholly out of the ques tion. He communicates very little in direct man ner with the greater part of our men of business. This has never been his custom. It enough for him that he surrounds them with his creatures. Sev eral imagine, therefore, that they have very good excuse for doing all the work of this faction, when they have no personal connection with Lord Bute. But whoever becomes party to an administration, composed of insulated individuals, without faith plighted, tie, or common principle; an administra tion constitutionally impotent, because supported by no party in the nation; he who contributes to de stroy the connections of men and their trust in one another, or in any sort to throw the dependence of public counsels upon private will and favor, possibly may have nothing to do with the Earl of Bute. It matters little whether he be the friend or the enemy of that particular person. But let him be who or what he will, he abets faction that driving hard
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469
to the ruin of his country. He is sapping the founda tion of its liberty, disturbing the sources of its domes tic tranquillity, weakening its government over its dependencies, degrading it from all its importance in the system of Europe.
It is this unnatural infusion of a system of favor itism into a government which in a great part of its constitution is popular, that has raised the present ferment in the nation. The people, without entering deeply into its principles, could plainly perceive its effects, in much violence, in a great spirit of innova tion, and a general disorder in all the functions of government. I keep my eye solely on this system; if I speak of those measures which have arisen from
will be so far only as they illustrate the general scheme. This the fountain of all those bitter wa ters of which, through an hundred different conduits, we have drunk until we are ready to burst. The discretionary power of the crown in the formation of ministry, abused by bad or weak men, has given rise
to system, which, without directly violating the let ter of any law, operates against the spirit of the
'
essentially at variance with the plan of our legislature. One great end undoubtedly of mixed government like ours, composed of monarchy, and of controls, on the part of the higher people and the lower, that the prince shall not be able to violate the laws. This useful indeed and fundamental. But this, even at first view, no more than negative ad vantage an armor merely defensive. It therefore next in order, and equal in importance, that the dis cretionary powers which are necessarily vested in the
? whole constitution.
A plan of favoritism for our executory government
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monarch, whether for the ercecation of the laws, or for the nomination to magistracg and oflice, or for conduct ing the afairs of peace and war, or for ordering the revenue, should all be exercised upon public principles and national grounds, and not on the lihings or preju dices, the intrigues or policies, of a court. This, I said, is equal in importance to the securing a government according to law. The laws reach but_a very little
way. Constitute government how you please, infi nitely the greater part of it must depend upon the exercise of the powers which are left at large to the prudence and uprightness of ministers of state. Even all the use and potency of the laws depends upon them. Without them, your commonwealth is no better than a scheme upon paper; and not a liv ing, active, effective constitution. It is possible that through negligence, or ignorance, or design artfully conducted, ministers may suffer one part of govern ment to languish, another to be perverted from its
purposes, and every valuable interest of the country to fall into ruin and decay, without possibility of fix
? act on which a criminal prosecution can be justly grounded. The" due arrangement of men in the active part of the state, far from being foreign to the purposes of a wise government, ought
to be among its very first and dearest objects. When, therefore, the abettors of the new system tell us, that between them and their opposers there is nothing but a struggle for power, and that therefore we are no ways concerned in it; we must tell those who have the impudence to insult us in this manner, that, of all things, we ought to be the most concerned who, and what sort of men they are that hold the trust of everything that is dear to us. Nothing can render
ing any single
? ? ? or THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS.
471
this a point of indifference to the nation, but what must either render us totally desperate, or soothe us into the security of idiots. We must soften into a credulity below the milkiness of infancy to think all men virtuous. We. must be tainted with a malignity truly diabolical to believe all the world to be equally wicked and corrupt. Men are in public life as in pri vate, some good, some evil. The elevation of the one, and the depression of the other, are the first ob jects of all true policy. But that form of govern ment, which, neither in its direct institutions, nor in their immediate tendency, has contrived to throw its affairs into the most trustworthy hands, but has left its whole executory system to be disposed of agreea
bly to the uncontrolled pleasure of any one man, however excellent or virtuous, is a plan of polity de fective not only in that member, but consequentially erroneous in every part of it.
In arbitrary governments, the constitution of the ministry follows the constitution of the legislature. Both the law and the magistrate are the creatures of will. It must be so. Nothing, indeed, will appear more certain, on any tolerable consideration of this matter, than that every sort of government ought to have its administration correspondent to its legislature. If it should be otherwise, things must fall into an hideous disorder. The people of a free commonwealth, who have taken such care that their laws should be the re sult of general consent, cannot be so senseless as to
suffer their executory system to be composed of per sons on whom they have no dependence, and whom no
? of the public love and confidence have recom mended to those powers, upon the use of which the very being of the state depends.
proofs
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ruoucnrs on rnn CAUSE
1
The popular election of magistrates, and popular disposition of rewards and honors, is one of the first advantages of a free state. Without or something equivalent to perhaps the people cannot long enjoy the substance of freedom certainly none of the vivi fying energy of good government. The frame of our commonwealth did not admit of such an actual elec tion: but provided as well, and (while the spirit of the constitution preserved) better for all the effects of than by the method of suffrage in any democratic state whatsoever. It had always, until of late, been held the first duty of Parliament to refuse to support
government, until power was in the hands persons
who were acceptable to the people, or while factions pre dominated in the court in which the nation had no confi
dence. Thus all the good effects of popular election were supposed to be secured to us, without the mis chiefs attending on perpetual intrigue, and distinct canvass for every particular office throughout the body of the people. This was the most noble and refined part of our constitution. The people, by their repre sentatives and grandees, were intrusted with delib erative power in making laws the king with the control of his negative. The king was intrusted with the deliberative choice and the election to oflice the people had the negative in Parliamentary refusal to support. Formerly this power of control was what kept ministers in awe of Parliaments, and Parliaments in reverence with the people. If the use of this pow er of control on the system and persons of adminis tration gone, everything lost, Parliament and all. We may assure ourselves, that Parliament will tamely see evil men take possession of all the strongholds of their country, and allow them time
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and means to fortify themselves, under a pretence of giving them a fair trial, and upon a hope of discover ing, whether they will not be reformed by power, and whether their measures will not be better than their morals ; such a Parliament will give countenance to their measures also, whatever that Parliament may pretend, and whatever those measures may be.
Every good political institution must have a pro ventive operation as well as a remedial. It ought to have a natural tendency to exclude bad men from government, and not to trust for the safety of the state to subsequent punishment alone; punishment, which has ever been tardy and uncertain ; and which, when power is suffered in bad hands, may chance to fall rather on the injured than the criminal.
Before men are put forward into the great trusts of the state, they ought by their conduct to have ob tained such a degree of estimation in their country, as may be some sort of pledge and security to the public, that they will not abuse those trusts. It is no mean security for a proper use of power, that a man has shown by the general tenor of his actions, that the affection, the good opinion, the confidence of his fellow-citizens have been among the principal objects
of his life; and that he has owed none of the gra dations of his power or fortune to a settled contempt, or occasional forfeiture of their esteem.
That man who before he comes into power has no friends, or who coming into power is obliged to de sert his friends, or who losing it has no friends to sympathize with him; he who has no sway among any part of the landed or commercial interest, but whose whole importance has begun with his office, and is sure to end with person who ought
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never to be suffered by a controlling Parliament to continue in any of those situations which confer the lead and direction of all our public affairs; because such a man has no connection with the interest of the
people.
Those knots or cabals of men who have got to
gether, avowedly without any public principle, in or der to sell their conjunct iniquity at the higher rate, and are therefore universally odious, ought never to be suffered to domineer in the state; because they have no connection with the sentiments and opinions of the people.
These are considerations which in my opinion en force the necessity of having some better reason, in a free country, and a free Parliament, for supporting the ministers of the crown, than that short one, That the king has thought proper to appoint them. There is something very courtly in this. But it is a princi ple pregnant with all sorts of mischief, in a constitu tion like ours, to turn the views of active men from the country to the court. Whatever be the road to power, that is the road which will be trod. If the opinion of the country be of no use as a means of power or consideration, the qualities which usually procure that opinion will be no longer cultivated. And whether it will be right, in a state so popular in its constitution as ours, to leave ambition without popular motives, and to trust all to the operation of pure virtue in the minds of kings, and ministers, and public men, must be submitted to the judgment and good sense of the people of England.
Cunning men are here apt to break in, and, with out dircctly controverting the principle, to raise ob
jections from the difficulty under which the sovereign
? ? ? ? OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS.
labors, to distinguish the genuine voice and senti ments of his people, from the clamor of a faction, by which it is so easily counterfeited. The nation, they say, is generally divided into parties, with views and passions utterly irreconcilable. If the king should put his affairs into the hands of any one of them, he is sure to disgust the rest; if he select particular men from among them all, it is a hazard that he dis gusts them all. Those who are left out, however di vided before, will soon run into a body of opposition; which, being a collection of many discontents into one focus, will without doubt be hot and violent enough. Faction will make its cries resound through the nation, as if the whole were in an uproar, when by far the majority, and much the better part, will seem for a while as it were annihilated by the quiet in which their virtue and moderation incline them to enjoy the blessings of government. Besides that the opinion of the mere vulgar is a miserable rule even with regard to themselves, on account of their vio lence and instability. So that if you were to gratify them in their humor to-day, that very gratification would be a ground of their dissatisfaction on the next. Now as all these rules of public opinion are to be'collected with great difficulty, and to be applied with equal uncertainty as to the effect, what better can a king of England do, than to employ such men as he finds to have views and inclinations most con formable to his own ; who are least infected with
pride and self-will ; and who are least moved by such popular humors as are perpetually traversing his de signs, and disturbing his service ; trusting that, when he means no ill to his people, he will be supported in his appointments, whether he chooses to keep or to
? ? ? ? 4'76 ruoucnrs on rnn causn
change, as his private judgment or his pleasure leads him? He will find a sure resource in the real weight and influence of the crown, when it is not suffered to become an instrument in the hands of a faction.
I will not pretend to say, that there is nothing at all in this mode of reasoning; because I will not as sert that there is no difficulty in the art of govern ment. Undoubtedly the very best administration must encounter a great deal of opposition; and the very worst will find more support than it deserves. Sufficient appearances will never be wanting to those who have a mind to deceive themselves. It is a fal lacy in constant use with those who would level all things, and confound right with wrong, to insist upon the inconveniences which are attached to every choice, without taking into consideration the different weight and consequence of those inconveniences. The ques tion is not concerning absolute discontent or perfect satisfaction in government ; neither of which can be
pure and unmixed at any time, or upon any system. The controversy is about that degree of good humor in the people, which may possibly be attained, and ought certainly to be looked for. While some poli ticians may be waiting to know whether the sense of every individual be against them, accurately distin guishing the vulgar from the better sort, drawing lines between the enterprises of a faction and the efforts
of a people, they may chance to see the government, which they are so nicely weighing, and dividing, and distinguishing, tumble to the ground in the midst of their wise deliberation. Prudent men, when so great an object as the security of government, or even its peace, is at stake, will not run the risk of a decision which may be fatal to it. They who can read the
? ? ? ? OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS.
political sky will see a hurricane in a cloud no big ger than a hand at the very edge of the horizon, and will run into the first harbor. No lines can be laid down for civil or political wisdom. They are a mat ter incapable of exact definition. But, though no man can draw a stroke between the confines of day and night, yet light and darkness are upon the whole tolerably distinguishable. Nor will it be impossible for a prince to find out such a mode of government, and such persons to administer as will give great degree of content to his people without any curious and anxious research for that abstract, universal, per fect harmony, which while he seeking, he abandons those means of ordinary tranquillity which are in his power without any research at all.
not more the duty than the interest of prince, to aim at giving tranquillity to his govern ment. But those who advise him may have an interest in disorder and confusion. If the opinion of the peo ple against them, they will naturally wish that should have no prevalence. Here that the peo ple must on their part show themselves sensible of their own value.
Their whole importance, in the first instance, and afterwards their whole freedom,
at stake. Their freedom cannot long survive their
? Here that the natural strength of the kingdom, the great peers, the leading landed gen
tlemen, the opulent merchants and manufacturers, the substantial yeomanry, must interpose, to rescue their prince, themselves, and their posterity.
We are at present at issue upon this point. We are in the great crisis of this contention and the part which men take, one way or other, will serve to discriminate their characters and their principles.
importance.
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Until the matter is decided, the country will re main in its present confusion. For while a system of administration is attempted, entirely repugnant to the genius of the people, and not conformable to the plan of their government, everything must necessa rily be disordered for a time, until this system de stroys the constitution, or the constitution gets the better of this system.
There in my opinion, peculiar venom and ma lignity in this political distemper beyond any that have heard or read of. In former times the project ors of arbitrary government attacked only the liber ties of their country; design surely mischievous enough to have satisfied mind of the most unruly ambition. But system unfavorable to freedom may be so formed, as considerably to exalt the grandeur of the state; and men may find, in the pride and splendor of that prosperity, some sort of consolation for the loss of their solid privileges. Indeed the in crease of the power of the state has often been urged by artful men, as pretext for some abridgment of the public liberty. But the scheme of the junto un
der consideration, no_t only strikes palsy into every nerve of our free constitution, but in the same degree benumbs and stupefies the whole executive power: rendering government in all its grand operations lan guid, uncertain, ineffective; making ministers fearful of attempting, and incapable of executing any useful plan of domestic arrangement, or of foreign politics. It tends to produce neither the security of free gov ernment, nor the energy of monarchy that abso lute. Accordingly the crown has dwindled away, in proportion to the unnatural and turgid growth of this excrescence on the court.
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The interior ministry are sensible, that war'is a sit uation which sets in its full light the value of the hearts of a people; and they well know, that the be ginning of the importance of the people must be the end of theirs. For this reason they discover upon all occasions the utmost fear of everything, which by pos sibility may lead to such an event. I do not mean that they manifest any of that pious fear which is backward to commit the safety of the country to the dubious experiment of war. Such a fear, being the tender sensation of virtue, excited, as it is regulated, by reason, frequently shows itself in a seasonable bold
ness, which keeps danger at a distance, by seeming to despise it. Their fear betrays to the first glance of the eye, its true cause, and its real object. Foreign powers, confident in the knowledge of their charac ter, have not scrupled to violate the most_s0lemn treaties; and, in defiance of them, to make conquests in the midst of a general peace, and in the heart of Europe. Such was the conquest of Corsica, by the professed enemies of the freedom of mankind, in de fiance of those who were formerly its professed defend ers. We have had just claims upon the same powers: rights which ought to have been sacred to them as well as to us, as they had their origin in our lenity and generosity towards France and Spain in the day of their great humiliation. Such I call the ransom of Manilla, and the demand on France for the East India prisoners. But these powers put a just confi dence in their resource of the double cabinet. These demands (one of them at least) are hastening fast
towards an acquittal by prescription. Oblivion begins to spread her cobwebs over all our spirited remon st'rances. Some of the most valuable branches of our
? ? ? ? 480 THOUGHTS on THE causn
I mean to mark and distinguish the trade of Por
trade are also on the point of perishing from the same cause. I do not mean those branches which bear without the hand of the vine-dresser; I mean those which the policy of treaties had formerly secured to
us ;
tugal, the loss of which, and the power of the cabal, have one and the same era.
If by any chance, the ministers who stand before the curtain possess or affect any spirit, it makes little or no impression. Foreign courts and ministers, who were among the first to discover and to profit by this invention of the doable cabinet, attend very little to their remonstrances. They know that those shad ows of ministers haveJ nothing to do in the ultimate
ealousies and animosities are sedulously nourished in the outward administration, and have been even considered as a causa sine qua
non in its constitution: thence foreign courts have a certainty, that nothing can be done by common coun sel in this nation. If one of those ministers officially takes up a business with spirit, it serves only the bet ter to signalize the meanness of the rest, and the dis cord of them all. His colleagues in office are in haste to shake him off, and to disclaim the whole of his proceedings. Of this nature was that astonishing
transaction, in which Lord Rochford, our ambassador at Paris, remonstrated against the attempt upon Cor sica, in consequence of a direct authority from Lord Shelburne. This remonstrance the French minister treated with the contempt that was natural: as he was assured, from the ambassador of his court to ours, that these orders of Lord Shelburne were not supported by the rest of the (I had like to have said British) administration. Lord Rochford, a man of
-'1
? disposal of things.
? ? ? OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS.
spirit, could not endure this situation. The conse quences were, however, curious. He returns from Paris, and comes home full of anger. Lord Shel burne, who gave the orders, is obliged to give up the seals. Lord Rochford, who obeyed these orders, re ceives them. He goes, however, into another depart
ment of the same office, that he might not be obliged officially to acquiesce, in one situation, under what he had officially remonstrated against, in another. At Paris, the Duke of Choiseul considered this office arrangement as a compliment to him: here it was
spoken of as an attention to the delicacy of Lord Rochford. But whether the compliment was to one or both, to this nation it was the same. By this transaction the condition of our court lay exposed in all its nakedness. Our office correspondence has lost all pretence to authenticity: British policy is brought
into derision in those nations, that a while ago trem bled at the power of our arms, whilst they looked up with confidence to the equity, firmness, and candor, which shone in all our negotiations. I represent this matter exactly in the light in which it has been uni versally received.
Such has been the aspect of our foreign politics, under the influence of a double cabinet. With such an arrangement at court, it is impossible it should have been otherwise. Nor is it possible that this scheme should have a better effect upon the govern ment of our dependencies, the first, the dearest, and
most delicate objects, of the interior policy of this em pire. The colonies know, that administration is sep arated from the court, divided within itself, and detested by the nation. The double cabinet has, in
both the parts of shown the most malignant dis
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positions towards them, without being able to do them the smallest mischief.
They are convinced, by sufficient experience, that no plan, either of lenity, or rigor, can be pursued with uniformity and perseverance. Therefore they turn their eyes entirely from Great Britain, where they have neither dependence on friendship, nor ap prehension from enmity. They look to themselves, and their own arrangements.
into alienation from this country; and whilst they are becoming disconnected with our government, we have not the consolation to find, that they are even friendly in their new independence. Nothing can equal the futility, the weakness, the rashness, the timidity, the perpetual contradiction in the manage
ment of our affairs in that part of the world. A vol ume might be written on this melancholy subject; but it were better to leave it entirely to the reflec tions of the reader himself, than not to treat it in the extent it deserves.
In what manner our domestic economy is affected by this system, it is needless to explain. It is the perpetual subject of their own complaints.
The court party resolve the whole into faction Having said something before upon this subject, I shall only observe here, that, when they give this ac count of the prevalence of faction, they present no very favorable aspect of the confidence of the people in their own government. They may be assured, that however they amuse themselves with a variety of pro jects for substituting something else in the place of that great and only foundation of government, the confidence of the people, every attempt will but make their condition worse. When men imagine that their
They grow every day
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483
food is only a cover for poison, and when they neither love nor trust the hand that serves not the name of the roast beef of Old England, that will per suade them to sit down to the table that spread f'or them. When the people conceive that laws, and tri bunals, and even popular assemblies, are perverted from the ends of their institution, they find in those
names of degenerated establishments only new mo tives to discontent. Those bodies, which, when full of life and beauty, lay in their arms, and were their joy and comfort, when dead and putrid, become but the more loathsome from remembrance of former en dearments. sullen gloom and furious disorder prevail by fits; the nation loses its relish for peace
and prosperity; as did in that season of fulness which opened our troubles in the time of Charles the First. species of men to wh'om state of order would become sentence of obscurity are nourished into dangerous magnitude by the heat of intestine disturbances; and no wonder that, by sort of
sinister piety, they cherish, in their turn, the disor ders which are the parents of all their consequence. Superficial observers consider such persons as the cause of the public uneasiness, when, in truth, they are nothing more than the effect of it. Good men look upon this distracted scene with sorrow and in dignation. Their hands are tied behind them. They
are despoiled of all the power which might enable them to reconcile the strength of government with the rights of the people. They stand in most dis tressing alternative. But in the election among evils they hope better things from temporary confusion, than from established servitude. In the mean time,
the voice of law not to be heard. Fierce licentious
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ness begets violent restraints. The military arm is the sole reliance; and then, call your constitution what you please, it is the sword that governs. The civil power, like every other that calls in the aid of an ally stronger than itself, perishes by the assistance it receives. But the contrivers of this scheme of gov ernment will not trust solely to the military power; because they are cunning men. Their restless and crooked spirit drives them to rake in the dirt of every kind of expedient. Unable to rule the multitude, they endeavor to raise divisions amongst them. One mob is hired to destroy another; a procedure which at once encourages the boldness of the populace, and
justly increases their discontent. Men become pen sioners of state on account of their abilities in the array of riot, and the discipline of confusion. Gov ernment is put under the disgraceful necessity of protecting from the severity of the laws that very licentiousness, which the laws had been before vio lated to repress. Everything partakes of the original disorder. Anarchy predominates without freedom, and servitude without submission or subordination. These are the consequences inevitable to our public peace, from the scheme of rendering the executory government at once odious and feeble ; of freeing ad ministration from the constitutional and salutary con trol of Parliament, and inventing for it a new control, unknown to the constitution, an interior cabinet; which brings the whole' body of government into cou fusion and contempt. I am able, the
After having stated, as shortly as
effects of this system on our foreign affairs, on the policy of our government with regard to our depen dencies, and on the interior economy of the common
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wealth; there remains only, in this part of my design, to say something of the grand principle which first recommendedthis system at court. The pretence was, to prevent the king from being enslaved by a faction, and made a prisoner in his closet. This scheme might have been expected to answer at least its own end, and to indemnify the king, in his per sonal capacity, for all the confusion into which it has thrown his government. But has it in reality an swered this purpose? Iam sure, if it had, every
affectionate subject would have one motive for endur ing with patience all the evils which attend it.
In order to come at the truth in this matter, it may not be amiss to consider it somewhat in detail. I speak here of the king, and not of the crown; the interests of which we have already touched. Inde pendent of that greatness which a king possesses merely by being a representative of the national dig nity, the things in which he may have an individual interest seem to be these:--wealth accumulated;
wealth spent in magnificence, pleasure, or benefi cence; personal respect and attention; and, above all, private ease and repose of mind. These com pose the inventory of prosperous circumstances, whether they regard a prince or a subject; their enjoyments differing only in the scale upon which they are formed.
Suppose then we were to ask, whether the king has been richer than his predecessors in accumulated wealth, since the establishment of the plan of favor itism? I believe it will be found that the picture of
royal indigence, which our court has presented until this year, has been truly humiliating. Nor has it been relieved from this unseemly distress, but by
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means which have hazarded the afiection of the peo ple, and shaken their confidence in Parliament. If the public treasures had been exhausted in magnifi cence and splendor, this distress would have been ac counted for, and in some measure justified.
Nothing would be more unworthy of this nation, than with a mean and mechanical rule, to mete out the splendor
of the crown. Indeed I have found very few persons disposed to so ungenerous a procedure. But the generality of people, it must be confessed, do feel a good deal mortified, when they compare the wants of the court with its expenses. They do not behold the cause of this distress in any part of the apparatus of royal magnificence. In all this, they see nothing but the operations of parsimony, attended with all the consequences of profusion. Nothing expended, nothing saved. Their wonder is increased by their knowledge, that besides the revenue settled on his Majesty's civil list to the amount of 800,000l. a year, he has a farther aid from a large pension list, near 90,000l. a year, in Ireland; from the produce of the duchy of Lancaster (which we are told has been greatly improved); from the revenue of the duchy of Cornwall; from the American quit-rents; from the four and a half per cent duty in the Leeward Islands ; this last worth to be sure considerably more than 40,000l. a year. The whole is certainly not much short of a million annually.
These are revenues within the knowledge and cog nizance of our national councils. We have no direct right to examine into the receipts from his Ma. jesty's German dominions, and the bishopric of Osnaburg. This is unquestionably true. But that which is not within the province of Parliament, is yet within the
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sphere of every man's own reflection. If a foreign prince resided amongst us, the state of his revenues could not fail of becoming the subject of our specula tion. Filled with an anxious concern for whatever regards the welfare of our sovereign, it is impossible, in considering the miserable circumstances into which he has been brought, that this obvious topic should be entirely passed over. There is an opinion univer sal, that these revenues produce something not incon siderable, clear of all charges and establishments. This produce the people do not believe to be hoarded, nor perceive to be spent. It is accounted for in the only manner it can, by supposing that it is drawn away, for the support of that court faction, which, whilst it distresses the nation, impoverishes the prince in every one of his resources. I once more
caution the reader, that I do not urge this considera tion concerning the foreign revenue, as if I supposed we had a direct right to examine into the expendi ture of any part of it; but solely for the purpose of showing how little this system of favoritism has been advantageous to the monarch himself; which, with out magnificence, has sunk him into a state of unnat ural poverty; at the same time that he possessed every means of affluence, from ample revenues, both in this country, and in other parts of his dominions.
Has this system provided better for the treatment becoming his high and sacred character, and secured the king from those disgusts attached to the neces sity of employing men who are not personally agreea ble? This is a topic upon which for many reasons I could wish to be silent; but the pretence of securing against such causes of uneasiness, is the corner-stone of the court-party. It has however so happened, that
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if I were to fix upon any one point, in which this sys tem has been more particularly and shamefully blam able, the effects which it has produced would justify me in choosing for that point its tendency to degrade the personal dignity of' the sovereign, and to expose him to a thousand contradictions and mortifications. It is but too evident in what manner these projectors of royal greatness have fulfilled all their magnificent promises. Without recapitulating all the circum stances of the reign, every one of which more or less, melancholy proof of the truth of what have advanced, let us consider the language of the court but few years ago, concerning most of the persons now in the external administration: let me ask, whether any enemy to the personal feelings of the sovereign could possibly contrive keener instrument of mortification, and degradation of all dignity, than almost every part and member of the present arrange ment? Nor, in the whole course of our history, has any compliance with the will of the people ever been known to extort from any prince greater contradic tion to all his own declared affections and dislikes, than that which now adopted, in direct opposition to everything the people approve and desire.
An opinion prevails, that greatness has been more than once advised to submit to certain condescensions towards individuals, which have been denied to the entreaties of nation. For the meanest and most dependent instrument of this system knows, that there are hours when its existence may depend upon his adherence to it; and he takes his advantage accord
? Indeed law of nature, that whoever necessary to what we have made our object sure, in some way, or in some time or other, to become our
ingly.
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master. All this however is submitted to, in order to avoid that monstrous evil of governing in concur rence with the opinion of the people. For it seems to be laid down as a maxim, that a king has some sort of interest in giving uneasiness to his subjects: that all who are pleasing to them, are to be of course disagreeable to him: that as soon as the persons who
are odious at court are known to be odious to the people, it is snatched at as a lucky occasion of show ering down upon them all kinds of emoluments and honors. None are considered as well-wishers to the crown, but those who advise to some unpopular course of action; none capable of serving but those who are obliged to call at every instant upon all its power for the safety of their lives. None are supposed to be fit priests in the temple of govern ment, but the persons who are compelled to fly into
for sanctuary. Such the effect of this refined
such ever the result of all the contriv ances, which are used to free men from the servitude of their reason, and from the necessity of ordering their affairs according to their evident interests. These contrivances oblige them to run into real and ruinous servitude, in order to avoid supposed re straint, that might be attended with advantage.
If therefore this system has so ill answered its own grand pretence of saving the king from the necessity of employing persons disagreeable to him, has given more peace and tranquillity to his Majesty's private hours? No, most certainly. The father of his peo ple cannot possibly enjoy repose, while his family in such state of distraction. Then what has the crown
or the king profited by all this fine-wrought scheme Is he _more rich, or more splendid, or more powerful,
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ceedings are publicly known to be the most adverse; at once to render the instruments the more odious, and therefore the more dependent, and to prevent the people from ever reposing a confidence in any appear ance of private friendship or public principle.
If the administration seem now and then, from re missness, or from fear of making themselves disagree able, to suffer any popular excesses to go unpunished, the cabal immediately sets up some creature of theirs to raise a clamor against the ministers, as having shamefully betrayed the dignity of government. Then they compel the ministry to become active in confer ring rewards and honors on the persons who have been the instruments of their disgrace; and, after having first vilified them with the higher orders for suffer ing the laws to sleep over the licentiousness of the
populace, they drive them (in order to make amends for their former inactivity) to some act of atrocious violence, which renders them completely abhorred by the people. They, who remember the riots which at tended the Middlesex election, the opening of the present Parliament, and the transactions relative to Saint George's Fields, will not be at a loss for an ap plication of these remarks.
That this body may be enabled to compass all the ends of its institution, its members are scarcely ever to aim at the high and responsible offices of the state.
They are distributed with art and judgment through all the secondary, but efficient, departments of office, and through the households of all the branches of the royal family: so as on one hand to occupy all the avenues to the throne ; and on the other to forward or frustrate the execution of any measure, according to their own interests. For with the credit and sup
? ? ? ? or THE PRESENT n1scomnnrs. 465
port which they are known to have, though for the greater part in places which are only a genteel excuse for salary, they possess all the influence of the high est posts ; and they dictate publicly in almost every thing, even with a parade of superiority. Whenever they dissent (as it often happens) from their nominal leaders, the trained part of the senate, instinctively in the secret, is sure to follow them: provided the leaders, sensible of their situation, do not of them selves recede in time from their most declared opin ions. This latter is generally the case. It will not be conceivable to any one who has not seen what pleasure taken by the cabal in rendering these heads of office thoroughly contemptible and ridicu lous. And when they are become so, they have then the best chance for being well supported.
The members of the court faction are fully indom nified for not holding places on the slippery heights of the kingdom, not only by the lead in all affairs, but also by the perfect security in which they enjoy less conspicuous, but very advantageous situations. Their places are in express legal tenure, or, in effect, all of them for life. Whilst the first and most respec table persons in the kingdom are tossed about like tennis-balls, the sport of blind and insolent caprice, no minister dares even to cast an oblique glance at the lowest of their body. If an attempt be made
upon one of this corps, immediately he flies to sanctu ary, and pretends to the most inviolable of all prom ises. conveniency of public arrangement avail able to remove any one of them from the specific situation he holds; and the slightest attempt upon one of them, the most powerful minister, cer
tain preliminary to his own destruction. von. 1. 30
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Conscious of their independence, they bear them selves with a lofty air to the exterior ministers. Like janissaries, they derive a kind of freedom from the very condition of their servitude. They may act just as they please; provided they are true to the great ruling principle of their institution. It is, therefore, not at all wonderful, that people should be so desir ous of adding themselves to that body, in which they may possess and reconcile satisfactions the most allur ing, and seemingly the most contradictory ; enjoying at once all the spirited pleasure of independence, and all the gross lucre and fat emoluments of servitude.
Here is a sketch, though a slight one, of the consti tution, laws, and policy of this new court corporation. The name by which they choose to distinguish them selves, is that of king's men or the king's friends, by an invidious exclusion of the rest of his Majesty's most loyal and affectionate subjects. The whole sys tem, comprehending the exterior and interior admin istrations, is commonly called, in the technical lan guage of the court, double cabinet ; in French or English, as you choose to pronounce it.
Whether all this be a vision of a distracted brain, or the invention of a malicious heart, or. a real faction in the country, must be judged by the appearances which things have worn for eight years past. Thus far I am certain, that there is not a single public man, in or out of office, who has not, at some time or other, borne testimony to the truth of what I have now related. In particular, no persons have been more strong in their assertions, and louder and more indecent in their complaints, than those who compose all the exterior part of the present administration; in whose time that faction has arrived at such an
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neight of power, and of boldness in the use of as may, in the end, perhaps bring about its total destruc tion. _
It true, that about four years ago, during the administration of the Marquis of Rockingham, an at
was made to carry on government without their concurrence. However, this was only tran sient cloud; they were hid but for moment; and their constellation blazed out with greater brightness, and far more vigorous influence, some time after was blown over. An attempt was at that time made (but without any idea of proscription) to break their
corps, to discountenance their doctrines, to revive connections of different kind, to restore the princi ples and policy of the Whigs, to reanimate the cause of liberty by ministerial countenance; and then for the first time were men seen attached in office to every principle they had maintained in opposition. No one will doubt, that such men were abhorred and violently opposed by the court faction, and that such
system could have but short duration.
It may appear somewhat affected, that in so much discourse upon this extraordinary party, should say so little of the Earl of Bute, who the supposed head
of it. But this was neither owing to affectation nor inadvertence. have carefully avoided the introduc tion of personal reflections of any kind. Much the greater part of the topics which have been used to blacken this nobleman are either unjust or frivolous. At best, they have tendency to give the resentment of this bitter calamity wrong direction, and to turn a public grievance into mean, personal, or dan gerous national quarrel. Where there regular scheme of operations carried on, the system, and
tempt
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not any individual person who acts in that
truly This system has not arisen solely from
dangerous.
the ambition of Lord Bute, but from the circumstan ces which favored and from an indifference to the constitution which had been for some time growing among our gentry. We should have been tried with
the Earl of Bute had never existed and will want neither contriving head nor active members, when the Earl of Bute exists no longer. It not, therefore, to rail at Lord Bute, but firmly to embody against this court party and its practices, which can afford us any prospect of relief in our present condi
tion.
Another motive induces me to put the personal
consideration of Lord Bute wholly out of the ques tion. He communicates very little in direct man ner with the greater part of our men of business. This has never been his custom. It enough for him that he surrounds them with his creatures. Sev eral imagine, therefore, that they have very good excuse for doing all the work of this faction, when they have no personal connection with Lord Bute. But whoever becomes party to an administration, composed of insulated individuals, without faith plighted, tie, or common principle; an administra tion constitutionally impotent, because supported by no party in the nation; he who contributes to de stroy the connections of men and their trust in one another, or in any sort to throw the dependence of public counsels upon private will and favor, possibly may have nothing to do with the Earl of Bute. It matters little whether he be the friend or the enemy of that particular person. But let him be who or what he will, he abets faction that driving hard
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469
to the ruin of his country. He is sapping the founda tion of its liberty, disturbing the sources of its domes tic tranquillity, weakening its government over its dependencies, degrading it from all its importance in the system of Europe.
It is this unnatural infusion of a system of favor itism into a government which in a great part of its constitution is popular, that has raised the present ferment in the nation. The people, without entering deeply into its principles, could plainly perceive its effects, in much violence, in a great spirit of innova tion, and a general disorder in all the functions of government. I keep my eye solely on this system; if I speak of those measures which have arisen from
will be so far only as they illustrate the general scheme. This the fountain of all those bitter wa ters of which, through an hundred different conduits, we have drunk until we are ready to burst. The discretionary power of the crown in the formation of ministry, abused by bad or weak men, has given rise
to system, which, without directly violating the let ter of any law, operates against the spirit of the
'
essentially at variance with the plan of our legislature. One great end undoubtedly of mixed government like ours, composed of monarchy, and of controls, on the part of the higher people and the lower, that the prince shall not be able to violate the laws. This useful indeed and fundamental. But this, even at first view, no more than negative ad vantage an armor merely defensive. It therefore next in order, and equal in importance, that the dis cretionary powers which are necessarily vested in the
? whole constitution.
A plan of favoritism for our executory government
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monarch, whether for the ercecation of the laws, or for the nomination to magistracg and oflice, or for conduct ing the afairs of peace and war, or for ordering the revenue, should all be exercised upon public principles and national grounds, and not on the lihings or preju dices, the intrigues or policies, of a court. This, I said, is equal in importance to the securing a government according to law. The laws reach but_a very little
way. Constitute government how you please, infi nitely the greater part of it must depend upon the exercise of the powers which are left at large to the prudence and uprightness of ministers of state. Even all the use and potency of the laws depends upon them. Without them, your commonwealth is no better than a scheme upon paper; and not a liv ing, active, effective constitution. It is possible that through negligence, or ignorance, or design artfully conducted, ministers may suffer one part of govern ment to languish, another to be perverted from its
purposes, and every valuable interest of the country to fall into ruin and decay, without possibility of fix
? act on which a criminal prosecution can be justly grounded. The" due arrangement of men in the active part of the state, far from being foreign to the purposes of a wise government, ought
to be among its very first and dearest objects. When, therefore, the abettors of the new system tell us, that between them and their opposers there is nothing but a struggle for power, and that therefore we are no ways concerned in it; we must tell those who have the impudence to insult us in this manner, that, of all things, we ought to be the most concerned who, and what sort of men they are that hold the trust of everything that is dear to us. Nothing can render
ing any single
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471
this a point of indifference to the nation, but what must either render us totally desperate, or soothe us into the security of idiots. We must soften into a credulity below the milkiness of infancy to think all men virtuous. We. must be tainted with a malignity truly diabolical to believe all the world to be equally wicked and corrupt. Men are in public life as in pri vate, some good, some evil. The elevation of the one, and the depression of the other, are the first ob jects of all true policy. But that form of govern ment, which, neither in its direct institutions, nor in their immediate tendency, has contrived to throw its affairs into the most trustworthy hands, but has left its whole executory system to be disposed of agreea
bly to the uncontrolled pleasure of any one man, however excellent or virtuous, is a plan of polity de fective not only in that member, but consequentially erroneous in every part of it.
In arbitrary governments, the constitution of the ministry follows the constitution of the legislature. Both the law and the magistrate are the creatures of will. It must be so. Nothing, indeed, will appear more certain, on any tolerable consideration of this matter, than that every sort of government ought to have its administration correspondent to its legislature. If it should be otherwise, things must fall into an hideous disorder. The people of a free commonwealth, who have taken such care that their laws should be the re sult of general consent, cannot be so senseless as to
suffer their executory system to be composed of per sons on whom they have no dependence, and whom no
? of the public love and confidence have recom mended to those powers, upon the use of which the very being of the state depends.
proofs
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1
The popular election of magistrates, and popular disposition of rewards and honors, is one of the first advantages of a free state. Without or something equivalent to perhaps the people cannot long enjoy the substance of freedom certainly none of the vivi fying energy of good government. The frame of our commonwealth did not admit of such an actual elec tion: but provided as well, and (while the spirit of the constitution preserved) better for all the effects of than by the method of suffrage in any democratic state whatsoever. It had always, until of late, been held the first duty of Parliament to refuse to support
government, until power was in the hands persons
who were acceptable to the people, or while factions pre dominated in the court in which the nation had no confi
dence. Thus all the good effects of popular election were supposed to be secured to us, without the mis chiefs attending on perpetual intrigue, and distinct canvass for every particular office throughout the body of the people. This was the most noble and refined part of our constitution. The people, by their repre sentatives and grandees, were intrusted with delib erative power in making laws the king with the control of his negative. The king was intrusted with the deliberative choice and the election to oflice the people had the negative in Parliamentary refusal to support. Formerly this power of control was what kept ministers in awe of Parliaments, and Parliaments in reverence with the people. If the use of this pow er of control on the system and persons of adminis tration gone, everything lost, Parliament and all. We may assure ourselves, that Parliament will tamely see evil men take possession of all the strongholds of their country, and allow them time
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and means to fortify themselves, under a pretence of giving them a fair trial, and upon a hope of discover ing, whether they will not be reformed by power, and whether their measures will not be better than their morals ; such a Parliament will give countenance to their measures also, whatever that Parliament may pretend, and whatever those measures may be.
Every good political institution must have a pro ventive operation as well as a remedial. It ought to have a natural tendency to exclude bad men from government, and not to trust for the safety of the state to subsequent punishment alone; punishment, which has ever been tardy and uncertain ; and which, when power is suffered in bad hands, may chance to fall rather on the injured than the criminal.
Before men are put forward into the great trusts of the state, they ought by their conduct to have ob tained such a degree of estimation in their country, as may be some sort of pledge and security to the public, that they will not abuse those trusts. It is no mean security for a proper use of power, that a man has shown by the general tenor of his actions, that the affection, the good opinion, the confidence of his fellow-citizens have been among the principal objects
of his life; and that he has owed none of the gra dations of his power or fortune to a settled contempt, or occasional forfeiture of their esteem.
That man who before he comes into power has no friends, or who coming into power is obliged to de sert his friends, or who losing it has no friends to sympathize with him; he who has no sway among any part of the landed or commercial interest, but whose whole importance has begun with his office, and is sure to end with person who ought
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never to be suffered by a controlling Parliament to continue in any of those situations which confer the lead and direction of all our public affairs; because such a man has no connection with the interest of the
people.
Those knots or cabals of men who have got to
gether, avowedly without any public principle, in or der to sell their conjunct iniquity at the higher rate, and are therefore universally odious, ought never to be suffered to domineer in the state; because they have no connection with the sentiments and opinions of the people.
These are considerations which in my opinion en force the necessity of having some better reason, in a free country, and a free Parliament, for supporting the ministers of the crown, than that short one, That the king has thought proper to appoint them. There is something very courtly in this. But it is a princi ple pregnant with all sorts of mischief, in a constitu tion like ours, to turn the views of active men from the country to the court. Whatever be the road to power, that is the road which will be trod. If the opinion of the country be of no use as a means of power or consideration, the qualities which usually procure that opinion will be no longer cultivated. And whether it will be right, in a state so popular in its constitution as ours, to leave ambition without popular motives, and to trust all to the operation of pure virtue in the minds of kings, and ministers, and public men, must be submitted to the judgment and good sense of the people of England.
Cunning men are here apt to break in, and, with out dircctly controverting the principle, to raise ob
jections from the difficulty under which the sovereign
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labors, to distinguish the genuine voice and senti ments of his people, from the clamor of a faction, by which it is so easily counterfeited. The nation, they say, is generally divided into parties, with views and passions utterly irreconcilable. If the king should put his affairs into the hands of any one of them, he is sure to disgust the rest; if he select particular men from among them all, it is a hazard that he dis gusts them all. Those who are left out, however di vided before, will soon run into a body of opposition; which, being a collection of many discontents into one focus, will without doubt be hot and violent enough. Faction will make its cries resound through the nation, as if the whole were in an uproar, when by far the majority, and much the better part, will seem for a while as it were annihilated by the quiet in which their virtue and moderation incline them to enjoy the blessings of government. Besides that the opinion of the mere vulgar is a miserable rule even with regard to themselves, on account of their vio lence and instability. So that if you were to gratify them in their humor to-day, that very gratification would be a ground of their dissatisfaction on the next. Now as all these rules of public opinion are to be'collected with great difficulty, and to be applied with equal uncertainty as to the effect, what better can a king of England do, than to employ such men as he finds to have views and inclinations most con formable to his own ; who are least infected with
pride and self-will ; and who are least moved by such popular humors as are perpetually traversing his de signs, and disturbing his service ; trusting that, when he means no ill to his people, he will be supported in his appointments, whether he chooses to keep or to
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change, as his private judgment or his pleasure leads him? He will find a sure resource in the real weight and influence of the crown, when it is not suffered to become an instrument in the hands of a faction.
I will not pretend to say, that there is nothing at all in this mode of reasoning; because I will not as sert that there is no difficulty in the art of govern ment. Undoubtedly the very best administration must encounter a great deal of opposition; and the very worst will find more support than it deserves. Sufficient appearances will never be wanting to those who have a mind to deceive themselves. It is a fal lacy in constant use with those who would level all things, and confound right with wrong, to insist upon the inconveniences which are attached to every choice, without taking into consideration the different weight and consequence of those inconveniences. The ques tion is not concerning absolute discontent or perfect satisfaction in government ; neither of which can be
pure and unmixed at any time, or upon any system. The controversy is about that degree of good humor in the people, which may possibly be attained, and ought certainly to be looked for. While some poli ticians may be waiting to know whether the sense of every individual be against them, accurately distin guishing the vulgar from the better sort, drawing lines between the enterprises of a faction and the efforts
of a people, they may chance to see the government, which they are so nicely weighing, and dividing, and distinguishing, tumble to the ground in the midst of their wise deliberation. Prudent men, when so great an object as the security of government, or even its peace, is at stake, will not run the risk of a decision which may be fatal to it. They who can read the
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political sky will see a hurricane in a cloud no big ger than a hand at the very edge of the horizon, and will run into the first harbor. No lines can be laid down for civil or political wisdom. They are a mat ter incapable of exact definition. But, though no man can draw a stroke between the confines of day and night, yet light and darkness are upon the whole tolerably distinguishable. Nor will it be impossible for a prince to find out such a mode of government, and such persons to administer as will give great degree of content to his people without any curious and anxious research for that abstract, universal, per fect harmony, which while he seeking, he abandons those means of ordinary tranquillity which are in his power without any research at all.
not more the duty than the interest of prince, to aim at giving tranquillity to his govern ment. But those who advise him may have an interest in disorder and confusion. If the opinion of the peo ple against them, they will naturally wish that should have no prevalence. Here that the peo ple must on their part show themselves sensible of their own value.
Their whole importance, in the first instance, and afterwards their whole freedom,
at stake. Their freedom cannot long survive their
? Here that the natural strength of the kingdom, the great peers, the leading landed gen
tlemen, the opulent merchants and manufacturers, the substantial yeomanry, must interpose, to rescue their prince, themselves, and their posterity.
We are at present at issue upon this point. We are in the great crisis of this contention and the part which men take, one way or other, will serve to discriminate their characters and their principles.
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Until the matter is decided, the country will re main in its present confusion. For while a system of administration is attempted, entirely repugnant to the genius of the people, and not conformable to the plan of their government, everything must necessa rily be disordered for a time, until this system de stroys the constitution, or the constitution gets the better of this system.
There in my opinion, peculiar venom and ma lignity in this political distemper beyond any that have heard or read of. In former times the project ors of arbitrary government attacked only the liber ties of their country; design surely mischievous enough to have satisfied mind of the most unruly ambition. But system unfavorable to freedom may be so formed, as considerably to exalt the grandeur of the state; and men may find, in the pride and splendor of that prosperity, some sort of consolation for the loss of their solid privileges. Indeed the in crease of the power of the state has often been urged by artful men, as pretext for some abridgment of the public liberty. But the scheme of the junto un
der consideration, no_t only strikes palsy into every nerve of our free constitution, but in the same degree benumbs and stupefies the whole executive power: rendering government in all its grand operations lan guid, uncertain, ineffective; making ministers fearful of attempting, and incapable of executing any useful plan of domestic arrangement, or of foreign politics. It tends to produce neither the security of free gov ernment, nor the energy of monarchy that abso lute. Accordingly the crown has dwindled away, in proportion to the unnatural and turgid growth of this excrescence on the court.
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The interior ministry are sensible, that war'is a sit uation which sets in its full light the value of the hearts of a people; and they well know, that the be ginning of the importance of the people must be the end of theirs. For this reason they discover upon all occasions the utmost fear of everything, which by pos sibility may lead to such an event. I do not mean that they manifest any of that pious fear which is backward to commit the safety of the country to the dubious experiment of war. Such a fear, being the tender sensation of virtue, excited, as it is regulated, by reason, frequently shows itself in a seasonable bold
ness, which keeps danger at a distance, by seeming to despise it. Their fear betrays to the first glance of the eye, its true cause, and its real object. Foreign powers, confident in the knowledge of their charac ter, have not scrupled to violate the most_s0lemn treaties; and, in defiance of them, to make conquests in the midst of a general peace, and in the heart of Europe. Such was the conquest of Corsica, by the professed enemies of the freedom of mankind, in de fiance of those who were formerly its professed defend ers. We have had just claims upon the same powers: rights which ought to have been sacred to them as well as to us, as they had their origin in our lenity and generosity towards France and Spain in the day of their great humiliation. Such I call the ransom of Manilla, and the demand on France for the East India prisoners. But these powers put a just confi dence in their resource of the double cabinet. These demands (one of them at least) are hastening fast
towards an acquittal by prescription. Oblivion begins to spread her cobwebs over all our spirited remon st'rances. Some of the most valuable branches of our
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I mean to mark and distinguish the trade of Por
trade are also on the point of perishing from the same cause. I do not mean those branches which bear without the hand of the vine-dresser; I mean those which the policy of treaties had formerly secured to
us ;
tugal, the loss of which, and the power of the cabal, have one and the same era.
If by any chance, the ministers who stand before the curtain possess or affect any spirit, it makes little or no impression. Foreign courts and ministers, who were among the first to discover and to profit by this invention of the doable cabinet, attend very little to their remonstrances. They know that those shad ows of ministers haveJ nothing to do in the ultimate
ealousies and animosities are sedulously nourished in the outward administration, and have been even considered as a causa sine qua
non in its constitution: thence foreign courts have a certainty, that nothing can be done by common coun sel in this nation. If one of those ministers officially takes up a business with spirit, it serves only the bet ter to signalize the meanness of the rest, and the dis cord of them all. His colleagues in office are in haste to shake him off, and to disclaim the whole of his proceedings. Of this nature was that astonishing
transaction, in which Lord Rochford, our ambassador at Paris, remonstrated against the attempt upon Cor sica, in consequence of a direct authority from Lord Shelburne. This remonstrance the French minister treated with the contempt that was natural: as he was assured, from the ambassador of his court to ours, that these orders of Lord Shelburne were not supported by the rest of the (I had like to have said British) administration. Lord Rochford, a man of
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spirit, could not endure this situation. The conse quences were, however, curious. He returns from Paris, and comes home full of anger. Lord Shel burne, who gave the orders, is obliged to give up the seals. Lord Rochford, who obeyed these orders, re ceives them. He goes, however, into another depart
ment of the same office, that he might not be obliged officially to acquiesce, in one situation, under what he had officially remonstrated against, in another. At Paris, the Duke of Choiseul considered this office arrangement as a compliment to him: here it was
spoken of as an attention to the delicacy of Lord Rochford. But whether the compliment was to one or both, to this nation it was the same. By this transaction the condition of our court lay exposed in all its nakedness. Our office correspondence has lost all pretence to authenticity: British policy is brought
into derision in those nations, that a while ago trem bled at the power of our arms, whilst they looked up with confidence to the equity, firmness, and candor, which shone in all our negotiations. I represent this matter exactly in the light in which it has been uni versally received.
Such has been the aspect of our foreign politics, under the influence of a double cabinet. With such an arrangement at court, it is impossible it should have been otherwise. Nor is it possible that this scheme should have a better effect upon the govern ment of our dependencies, the first, the dearest, and
most delicate objects, of the interior policy of this em pire. The colonies know, that administration is sep arated from the court, divided within itself, and detested by the nation. The double cabinet has, in
both the parts of shown the most malignant dis
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positions towards them, without being able to do them the smallest mischief.
They are convinced, by sufficient experience, that no plan, either of lenity, or rigor, can be pursued with uniformity and perseverance. Therefore they turn their eyes entirely from Great Britain, where they have neither dependence on friendship, nor ap prehension from enmity. They look to themselves, and their own arrangements.
into alienation from this country; and whilst they are becoming disconnected with our government, we have not the consolation to find, that they are even friendly in their new independence. Nothing can equal the futility, the weakness, the rashness, the timidity, the perpetual contradiction in the manage
ment of our affairs in that part of the world. A vol ume might be written on this melancholy subject; but it were better to leave it entirely to the reflec tions of the reader himself, than not to treat it in the extent it deserves.
In what manner our domestic economy is affected by this system, it is needless to explain. It is the perpetual subject of their own complaints.
The court party resolve the whole into faction Having said something before upon this subject, I shall only observe here, that, when they give this ac count of the prevalence of faction, they present no very favorable aspect of the confidence of the people in their own government. They may be assured, that however they amuse themselves with a variety of pro jects for substituting something else in the place of that great and only foundation of government, the confidence of the people, every attempt will but make their condition worse. When men imagine that their
They grow every day
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food is only a cover for poison, and when they neither love nor trust the hand that serves not the name of the roast beef of Old England, that will per suade them to sit down to the table that spread f'or them. When the people conceive that laws, and tri bunals, and even popular assemblies, are perverted from the ends of their institution, they find in those
names of degenerated establishments only new mo tives to discontent. Those bodies, which, when full of life and beauty, lay in their arms, and were their joy and comfort, when dead and putrid, become but the more loathsome from remembrance of former en dearments. sullen gloom and furious disorder prevail by fits; the nation loses its relish for peace
and prosperity; as did in that season of fulness which opened our troubles in the time of Charles the First. species of men to wh'om state of order would become sentence of obscurity are nourished into dangerous magnitude by the heat of intestine disturbances; and no wonder that, by sort of
sinister piety, they cherish, in their turn, the disor ders which are the parents of all their consequence. Superficial observers consider such persons as the cause of the public uneasiness, when, in truth, they are nothing more than the effect of it. Good men look upon this distracted scene with sorrow and in dignation. Their hands are tied behind them. They
are despoiled of all the power which might enable them to reconcile the strength of government with the rights of the people. They stand in most dis tressing alternative. But in the election among evils they hope better things from temporary confusion, than from established servitude. In the mean time,
the voice of law not to be heard. Fierce licentious
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ness begets violent restraints. The military arm is the sole reliance; and then, call your constitution what you please, it is the sword that governs. The civil power, like every other that calls in the aid of an ally stronger than itself, perishes by the assistance it receives. But the contrivers of this scheme of gov ernment will not trust solely to the military power; because they are cunning men. Their restless and crooked spirit drives them to rake in the dirt of every kind of expedient. Unable to rule the multitude, they endeavor to raise divisions amongst them. One mob is hired to destroy another; a procedure which at once encourages the boldness of the populace, and
justly increases their discontent. Men become pen sioners of state on account of their abilities in the array of riot, and the discipline of confusion. Gov ernment is put under the disgraceful necessity of protecting from the severity of the laws that very licentiousness, which the laws had been before vio lated to repress. Everything partakes of the original disorder. Anarchy predominates without freedom, and servitude without submission or subordination. These are the consequences inevitable to our public peace, from the scheme of rendering the executory government at once odious and feeble ; of freeing ad ministration from the constitutional and salutary con trol of Parliament, and inventing for it a new control, unknown to the constitution, an interior cabinet; which brings the whole' body of government into cou fusion and contempt. I am able, the
After having stated, as shortly as
effects of this system on our foreign affairs, on the policy of our government with regard to our depen dencies, and on the interior economy of the common
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wealth; there remains only, in this part of my design, to say something of the grand principle which first recommendedthis system at court. The pretence was, to prevent the king from being enslaved by a faction, and made a prisoner in his closet. This scheme might have been expected to answer at least its own end, and to indemnify the king, in his per sonal capacity, for all the confusion into which it has thrown his government. But has it in reality an swered this purpose? Iam sure, if it had, every
affectionate subject would have one motive for endur ing with patience all the evils which attend it.
In order to come at the truth in this matter, it may not be amiss to consider it somewhat in detail. I speak here of the king, and not of the crown; the interests of which we have already touched. Inde pendent of that greatness which a king possesses merely by being a representative of the national dig nity, the things in which he may have an individual interest seem to be these:--wealth accumulated;
wealth spent in magnificence, pleasure, or benefi cence; personal respect and attention; and, above all, private ease and repose of mind. These com pose the inventory of prosperous circumstances, whether they regard a prince or a subject; their enjoyments differing only in the scale upon which they are formed.
Suppose then we were to ask, whether the king has been richer than his predecessors in accumulated wealth, since the establishment of the plan of favor itism? I believe it will be found that the picture of
royal indigence, which our court has presented until this year, has been truly humiliating. Nor has it been relieved from this unseemly distress, but by
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means which have hazarded the afiection of the peo ple, and shaken their confidence in Parliament. If the public treasures had been exhausted in magnifi cence and splendor, this distress would have been ac counted for, and in some measure justified.
Nothing would be more unworthy of this nation, than with a mean and mechanical rule, to mete out the splendor
of the crown. Indeed I have found very few persons disposed to so ungenerous a procedure. But the generality of people, it must be confessed, do feel a good deal mortified, when they compare the wants of the court with its expenses. They do not behold the cause of this distress in any part of the apparatus of royal magnificence. In all this, they see nothing but the operations of parsimony, attended with all the consequences of profusion. Nothing expended, nothing saved. Their wonder is increased by their knowledge, that besides the revenue settled on his Majesty's civil list to the amount of 800,000l. a year, he has a farther aid from a large pension list, near 90,000l. a year, in Ireland; from the produce of the duchy of Lancaster (which we are told has been greatly improved); from the revenue of the duchy of Cornwall; from the American quit-rents; from the four and a half per cent duty in the Leeward Islands ; this last worth to be sure considerably more than 40,000l. a year. The whole is certainly not much short of a million annually.
These are revenues within the knowledge and cog nizance of our national councils. We have no direct right to examine into the receipts from his Ma. jesty's German dominions, and the bishopric of Osnaburg. This is unquestionably true. But that which is not within the province of Parliament, is yet within the
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sphere of every man's own reflection. If a foreign prince resided amongst us, the state of his revenues could not fail of becoming the subject of our specula tion. Filled with an anxious concern for whatever regards the welfare of our sovereign, it is impossible, in considering the miserable circumstances into which he has been brought, that this obvious topic should be entirely passed over. There is an opinion univer sal, that these revenues produce something not incon siderable, clear of all charges and establishments. This produce the people do not believe to be hoarded, nor perceive to be spent. It is accounted for in the only manner it can, by supposing that it is drawn away, for the support of that court faction, which, whilst it distresses the nation, impoverishes the prince in every one of his resources. I once more
caution the reader, that I do not urge this considera tion concerning the foreign revenue, as if I supposed we had a direct right to examine into the expendi ture of any part of it; but solely for the purpose of showing how little this system of favoritism has been advantageous to the monarch himself; which, with out magnificence, has sunk him into a state of unnat ural poverty; at the same time that he possessed every means of affluence, from ample revenues, both in this country, and in other parts of his dominions.
Has this system provided better for the treatment becoming his high and sacred character, and secured the king from those disgusts attached to the neces sity of employing men who are not personally agreea ble? This is a topic upon which for many reasons I could wish to be silent; but the pretence of securing against such causes of uneasiness, is the corner-stone of the court-party. It has however so happened, that
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if I were to fix upon any one point, in which this sys tem has been more particularly and shamefully blam able, the effects which it has produced would justify me in choosing for that point its tendency to degrade the personal dignity of' the sovereign, and to expose him to a thousand contradictions and mortifications. It is but too evident in what manner these projectors of royal greatness have fulfilled all their magnificent promises. Without recapitulating all the circum stances of the reign, every one of which more or less, melancholy proof of the truth of what have advanced, let us consider the language of the court but few years ago, concerning most of the persons now in the external administration: let me ask, whether any enemy to the personal feelings of the sovereign could possibly contrive keener instrument of mortification, and degradation of all dignity, than almost every part and member of the present arrange ment? Nor, in the whole course of our history, has any compliance with the will of the people ever been known to extort from any prince greater contradic tion to all his own declared affections and dislikes, than that which now adopted, in direct opposition to everything the people approve and desire.
An opinion prevails, that greatness has been more than once advised to submit to certain condescensions towards individuals, which have been denied to the entreaties of nation. For the meanest and most dependent instrument of this system knows, that there are hours when its existence may depend upon his adherence to it; and he takes his advantage accord
? Indeed law of nature, that whoever necessary to what we have made our object sure, in some way, or in some time or other, to become our
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master. All this however is submitted to, in order to avoid that monstrous evil of governing in concur rence with the opinion of the people. For it seems to be laid down as a maxim, that a king has some sort of interest in giving uneasiness to his subjects: that all who are pleasing to them, are to be of course disagreeable to him: that as soon as the persons who
are odious at court are known to be odious to the people, it is snatched at as a lucky occasion of show ering down upon them all kinds of emoluments and honors. None are considered as well-wishers to the crown, but those who advise to some unpopular course of action; none capable of serving but those who are obliged to call at every instant upon all its power for the safety of their lives. None are supposed to be fit priests in the temple of govern ment, but the persons who are compelled to fly into
for sanctuary. Such the effect of this refined
such ever the result of all the contriv ances, which are used to free men from the servitude of their reason, and from the necessity of ordering their affairs according to their evident interests. These contrivances oblige them to run into real and ruinous servitude, in order to avoid supposed re straint, that might be attended with advantage.
If therefore this system has so ill answered its own grand pretence of saving the king from the necessity of employing persons disagreeable to him, has given more peace and tranquillity to his Majesty's private hours? No, most certainly. The father of his peo ple cannot possibly enjoy repose, while his family in such state of distraction. Then what has the crown
or the king profited by all this fine-wrought scheme Is he _more rich, or more splendid, or more powerful,
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