The
principle of credit was not weakened by that bill.
principle of credit was not weakened by that bill.
Edmund Burke
I could hardly serve you as Ihave done, and
court you too. Most of you have heard that I do not
very remarkably spare myself in public business; and
in the private business of my constituents I have done
very near as much as those who have nothing else
to do. My canvass of you was not on the'change,
nor in the county meetings, nor in the clubs of this
city: it was in the House of Commons; it was at the
Custom-House; it was at the Council; it was at the
Treasury; it was at the Admiralty. I canvassed you
through your affairs, and not your persons. I was
not only your representative as a body; I was the
agent, the solicitor of individuals; I ran about wherever your affairs could call me; and in acting for you, I often appeared rather as a ship-broker than as
a member of Parliament. There was nothing too
laborious or too low for me to undertake. The
meanness of the business was raised by the dignity
of the object. If some lesser matters have slipped
through my fingers, it was because I filled my hands
too full, and, in my eagerness to serve you,' took in
more than any hands could grasp. Several gentlemen' stand round me who are my willing witnesses;
? ? ? ? 374 SPEECH AT BRISTOL,
and there are others who, if they were here, would
be still better, because they would be unwilling witnesses to the same truth. It was in the middle of a summer residence in London, and in the middle of
a negotiation at the Admiralty for your trade, that I
was called to Bristol; and this late visit, at this late
day, has'been possibly in prejudice to your affairs.
Since. I have touched upon this matter, let me say,
Gentlemen, that, if I had a disposition or a right to
complain, I have some cause of complaint on my side.
With a petition of this city in my hand, passed through
the corporation without a dissenting voice, a petition
in unison with almost the whole voice of the kingdom, (with whose formal thanks I was covered over,) whilst I labored on no less than five bills for a public
reform, and fought, against the opposition of great
abilities and of the greatest power, every clause and
every'word of the largest of those bills, almost to the
very last day of a very long session, - all this time a
canvass in Bristol was as calmly carried on as if I
were dead. I was considered as a man wholly out
of the question. Whilst I watched and fasted and
sweated in the House of Commons, by the most
easy and ordinary arts of election, by dinners and
visits, by " How do you dos," and "My worthy
friends," I was to be quietly moved out of my seat,and promises were made, and engagements entered into, without any exception or reserve, as if my laborious zeal in my duty had been a regular abdication of my trust.
To open my whole heart to you on this subject, I
do confess, however, that there were other times, besides'the two years in which I did visit you, when I was not wholly without leisure for repeating'that
? ? ? ? PREVIOUS TO THE ELECTION. 375
mark of my respect. But I could not bring my mind
to see you. You remember that in the beginning of
this American war (that era of calamity, disgrace,
and downfall, an era which no feeling mind will ever
mention without a tear for England) you were greatly
divided,- and a very strong body, if not the strongest, opposed itself to the madness which every art
and every power were employed to render popular, in
order that the errors of the rulers might be lost in
the general blindness of the nation. This opposition
continued until after our great, but most unfortunate
victory at Long Island. Then all the mounds and
banks of our constancy were borne down at once,
and the frenzy of the American war broke in upon us
like a deluge. This victory, which seemed to put an
immediate end to all difficulties, perfected us in that
spirit of domination which our unparalleled prosperity
had but too long nurtured. We had been so very
powerful, and so very prosperous, that even the humblest of us were degraded into the vices and follies of kings. We lost all measure between means and
ends; and our headlong desires became our politics
and our morals. All men who wished for peace, or
retained any sentiments of moderation, were bverborne or silenced; and this city was led by every
artifice (and probably with the more management
because I was one of your members) to distinguish
itself by its zeal for that fatal cause. In this temper
of yours and of my mind, I should sooner have fled to
the extremities of the earth than have shown myself
here. I, who saw in every American victory (for you
have had a long series of these misfortunes) the germ
and seed of the naval power of France and Spain,
which all our heat and warmth against America was
? ? ? ? 376 SPEECH AT' BRISTOL,
only hatching into life, -I should not have been a
welcome visitant, with the brow and the language of
such feelings. When afterwards the other face of
your calamity was turned upon you, and showed itself in defeat and distress, I shunned you full as
much. I felt sorely this variety in our wretchedness;
and I did not wish to have the least appearance of
insulting you with that show of superiority, which,
though it may not be assumed, is generally suspected,
in a time of calamity, from those whose previous warnings have been despised. I could not bear to show you a representative whose face did not reflect that of his
constituents, -a face that could not joy in your joys,
and sorrow in your sorrows. But time at length has
made us all of one opinion, and we have all opened
our eyes on the true nature of the American war, - to
the true nature of all its successes and all its failures.
In that public storm, too, I had my private feelings. I had seen blown down and prostrate on the
ground several of those:houses to whom I was chiefly
indebted for the honor this city has done me. I confess, that, whilst the wounds of those I loved were
yet green, I could not bear to show myself in pride
and triumph in that place into which their partiality
had brought me, and to appear at feasts and rejoicings in the midst of the grief and calamity of my
warm friends, my zealous supporters, my generous
benefactors. This is a true, unvarnished, undisguised
state of the affair. You will judge of it.
This is the only one of the charges in which I am
personally concerned. As to the other matters objected against me, which in their turn I shall mention
to you, remember once more I do not mean to extenuate or excuse. Why should I, when the things
? ? ? ? PREVIOUS TO THE ELECTION. 377
charged are among those upon which I found all my
reputation? What would be left to me, if I myself
was the man who softened and blended and diluted
and weakened all the distinguishing colors of my
life, so as to leave nothing distinct and determinate
in my whole conduct?
It has been said, and it is the second charge, that
in the questions of the Irish trade I did not consult
the interest of my constituents,- -or, to speak out
strongly, that I rather acted as a native of Ireland
than as an English member of Parliament.
I certainly have very warm good wishes for the
place of my birth. But the sphere of my duties is my
true country. It was as a man attached to your interests, and zealous for the conservation of your power and dignity, that I acted on that occasion, and on all occasions. You were involved in the American
war. A new world of policy was opened, to which
it was necessary we should conform, whether we
would or not; and my only thought was how to conform to our situation in such a manner as to unite to
this kingdom, in prosperity and in affection, whatever
remained of the empire. I was true to my old, stand --
ing, invariable principle, that all things which came
from Great Britain should issue as a gift of her
bounty and beneficence, rather than as claims recovered against a struggling litigant, - or at least, that,
if your beneficence obtained no credit in your concessions, yet that they should appear the salutary provisions of your wisdom and foresight, not as things wrung from you with your blood by the cruel gripe
of a rigid necessity. The first concessions, by being
(mLuch against my will) mangled and stripped of the
parts which were necessary to make out their just
? ? ? ? 378 SPEECH AT BRISTOL,
correspondence and connection in trade, were of no
use. The next year a feeble attempt was made to
bring the thing into better shape. This attempt,
(countenanced by the minister,) on the very first appearance of some popular uneasiness, was, after a
considerable progress through the House, thrown
out by him.
What was the consequence? The whole kingdom
of Ireland was instantly in a flame. Threatened by
foreigners, and, as they thought, insulted by England,
they resolved at once to resist the power of France
and to cast off yours. As for us, we were able
neither to protect nor to restrain them. Forty thousand men were raised and disciplined without commission from the crown. Two illegal armies were seen with banners displayed at the same time and in
the same country. No executive magistrate, no judicature, in Ireland, would acknowledge the legality
of the army which bore the king's commission; and
no law, or appearance of law, authorized the army
commissioned by itself. In this unexampled state of
things, which the least error, the least trespass on
the right or left, would have hurried down the precipice into an abyss of blood and confusion, the people
of Ireland demand a freedom of trade with arms in
their hands. They interdict all commerce between
the two nations. They deny all new supply in the
House of Commons, although in time of war. They
stint the trust of the old revenue, given for two years
to all the king's predecessors, to six months. The
British Parliament, in a former session, frightened
into a limited concession by the menaces of Ireland,
frightened out of it by the menaces of England, was
now frightened back again, and made an universal
? ? ? ? PREVIOUS TO THE ELECTION. 379
surrender of all that had been thought the peculiar,
reserved, uncommunicable rights of England: the
exclusive commerce of America, of Africa, of the West
Indies, --all the enumerations of the Acts of Navigation, - all the manufactures, - iron, glass, even
the last pledge of jealousy and pride, the interest hid
in the secret of our hearts, the inveterate prejudice
moulded into the constitution of our frame, even the
sacred fleece itself, all went together. No reserve,
no exception; no debate, no discussion. A sudden
light broke in upon us all. It broke in, not through
well-contrived and well-disposed windows, but through
flaws and breaches, - through the yawning chasms of
our ruin. We were taught wisdom by humiliation.
No town in England presumed to have a prejudice,
or dared to mutter a petition. What was worse, the
whole Parliament of England, which retained authority for nothing but surrenders, was despoiled of every
shadow of its superintendence. It was, without any
qualification, denied in theory, as it had been trampled upon in practice. This scene of shame and disgrace has, in a manner, whilst I am speaking, ended by the perpetual establishment of a military power in
the dominions of this crown, without consent of the
British legislature,* contrary to the policy of the Constitution, contrary to the Declaration of Right; and
by this your liberties are swept away along with your
supreme authority, - and both, linked together from
the beginning, have, I am afraid, both together perished forever.
What! Gentlemen, was I not to foresee, or foreseeing, was I not to endeavor to save you from all these
multiplied mischiefs and disgraces? Would the little,
* Irish Perpetual Mutiny Act.
? ? ? ? 380 SPEECH, AT BRISTOL,
silly, canvass prattle of obeying instructions, and hav.
ing no opinions but yours, and such idle, senseless
tales, which amuse the vacant ears of unthinking men,
have saved you from "the pelting of that pitiless
storm," to which the loose improvidence, the cowardly rashness, of those who dare not look danger in the face so as to provide against it in time, and therefore
throw themselves headlong into the midst of it, have
exposed this degraded nation, beat down and prostrate on the earth, unsheltered, unarmed, unresisting? Was I an Irishman on that day that I boldly withstood our pride? or on the day that I hung down my
head, and wept in shame and silence over the humiliation of Great Britain? I became unpopular in England for the one, and in Ireland for the other.
What then? What obligation lay on me to be popular? I was bound to serve both kingdoms. To be
pleased with my service was their affair, not mine.
I was an Irishman in the Irish business, just as
much as I was an American, when, on the same principles, I wished you to concede to America at a time when she prayed concession at our feet. Just as
much was I an. American, when I wished Parliament
to offer terms in victory, and not to wait the wellchosen hour of defeat, for making good by weakness
and by supplication a claim of prerogative, preeminence, and authority.
Instead of requiring it from me, as a point of duty,
to kindle with your passions, had you all been as cool
as I was, you would have been saved disgraces and
distresses that are unutterable. Do you remember
our commission? We sent out a solemn embassy
across the Atlantic Ocean, to lay the crown, the peerage, the commons of Great Britain at the feet of the
? ? ? ? PREVIOUS TO THE ELECTION. 381
American Congress. That our disgrace might want
no sort of brightening and burnishing, observe who
they were that composed this famous embassy. My
Lord Carlisle is among the first ranks of our nobility.
He is the identical man who, but two years before,
had been put forward, at the opening of a session, in
the House of Lords, as the mover of an haughty and
rigorous address against America. He was put in
the front of the embassy of submission. Mr. Eden
was taken from the office of Lord Suffolk, to whom
he was then Under-Secretary of State, from the
office of that Lord Suffolk who but a few weeks before,
in his place in Parliament, did not deign to inquire
where a congress of vagrants was to be found. This
Lord Suffolk sent Mr. Eden to find these vagrants,
without knowing where his king's generals were to
be found who were joined in the same commission
of supplicating those whom they were sent to subdue.
They enter the capital of America only to abandon it;
and these assertors and representatives of the dignity
of England, at the tail of a flying army, let fly their
Parthian shafts of memorials and remonstrances at
random behind them. Their promises and their offers,
their flatteries and their menaces, were all despised;
and we were saved the disgrace of their formal reception only because the Congress scorned to receive
them; whilst the state-house of independent Philadelphia opened her doors to the public entry of the ambassador of France. From war and blood we went to submission, and from submission plunged back
again to war and blood, to desolate and be desolated,
without measure, hope, or end. I am a Royalist: I
blushed for this degradation of the crown. I am a
Whig: I blushed for the dishonor of Parliament. I
? ? ? ? 382 SPEECH AT BRISTOL,
am a true Englishman: I felt to the quick for the
disgrace of England. I am a man: I felt for the
melancholy reverse of human affairs in the fall of
the first power in the world.
To read what was approaching in Ireland, in the
black and bloody characters of the American war,
was a painful, but it was a necessary part of my public duty. For, Gentlemen, it is not your fond desires or mine that can alter the nature of things; by contending against which, what have we got, or shall
ever get, but defeat and shame? I did not obey your
instructions. No. I conformed to the instructions
of truth and Nature, and maintained your interest,
against your opinions, with a constancy that became
me. A representative worthy of you ought to be a
person of stability. I am to look, indeed, to your
opinions, -- but to such opinions as you and I must
have five years hence. I was not to look to the flash
of the day. I knew that you chose me, in my place,
along with others, to be a pillar of the state, and not
a weathercock on the top of the edifice, exalted for
my levity and versatility, and of no use but to indicate the shiftings of every fashionable gale. Would
to God the value of my sentiments on Ireland and on
America had- been at this day a subject of doubt and
discussion! No matter what my sufferings had been,
so that this kingdom had kept the authority I wished
it to maintain, by a grave foresight, and by an equir
table temperance in the use of its power.
The next article of charge on my public conduct,
and that which I find rather the most prevalent of all,
is Lord Beauchamp's bill: I mean his bill of last
session, for reforming the law-process concerning imprisonment. It is said, to aggravate the offence, that
? ? ? ? PREVIOUS TO THE ELECTION. 383
I treated the petition of this city with contempt even
in presenting it to the House, and expressed myself
in terms of marked disrespect. Had this latter part
of the charge been true, no merits on the side of the
question which I took could possibly excuse me. But
I am incapable of treating this city with disrespect.
Very fortunately, at this minute, (if my bad eyesight
does not deceive me,) the worthy gentleman * deputed
on this business stands directly before me. To him
I appeal, whether I did not, though it militated with
my oldest and my most recent public opinions, deliver the petition with a strong and more than usual
recommendation to the consideration of the House,
on account of the character and consequence of those
who signed it. I believe the worthy gentleman will
tell you, that, the very day I received it, I applied to
the Solicitor, now the Attorney General, to give it an
immediate consideration; and he most obligingly and
instantly consented to employ a great deal of his very
valuable time to write an explanation of the bill. I
attended the committee with all possible care and diligence, in order that every objection of yours might
meet with a solution, or produce an alteration. I
entreated your learned recorder (always ready in business in which you take a concern) to attend. But
what will you say to those who blame me for supporting Lord Beauchamp's bill, as a disrespectful treatment of your petition, when you hear, that, out of respect to you, I myself was the cause of the loss of
that very bill? For the noble lord who brought it in,
and who, I must say, has much merit for this and some
other measures, at my request consented to put it off
for a week, which the Speaker's, illness lengthened
* Mr. Williams.
? ? ? ? 384 SPEECH AT BRISTOL,
to a fortnight; and then the frantic tumult about
Popery drove that and every rational business from
the House. So that, if I chose to make a defence of
myself, on the little principles of a culprit, pleading
in his exculpation, I might not only secure my acquittal, but make merit with the opposers of the bill.
But I shall do no such thing. The truth is, that I
did occasion the loss of the bill, and by a delay caused
by my respect to you. But such an event was never
in my contemplation. And I am so far from taking
credit for the defeat of that measure, that I cannot
sufficiently lament my misfortune, if but one man,
who ought to be at large, has passed a year in prison
by my means. I am a debtor to the debtors. I confess judgment. I owe what, if ever it be in my power,
I shall most certainly pay,- ample atonement and
usurious amends to liberty and humanity for my
unhappy lapse. For, Gentlemen, Lord Beauchamp's
bill was a law of justice and policy, as far as it went:
I say, as far as it went; for its fault was its being in
the remedial part miserably defective.
There are two capital faults in our law with relation to civil debts. One is, that every man is presumed solvent: a presumption, in innumerable cases, directly against truth. Therefore the debtor is ordered, on a supposition of ability and fraud, to be
coerced his liberty until he makes payment. By this
means, in all cases of civil insolvency, without a pardon from his creditor, he is to be imprisoned for life;
and thus a miserable mistaken invention of artificial science operates to change a civil into a criminal
judgment, and to scourge misfortune or indiscretion
with a punishment which the law does not inflict on
the greatest crimes.
? ? ? ? PREVIOUS TO THE ELECTION. 385
The next fault is, that the inflicting of that punishment is not on the opinion of an equal and public
judge, but is referred to the arbitrary discretion of
a private, nay, interested, and irritated, individual.
He, who formally is, and substantially ought to be,
the judge, is in reality no more than ministerial, a
mere executive instrument of a private man, who is
at once judge and party. Every idea of judicial order
is subverted by this procedure. If the insolvency
be no crime, why is it punished with arbitrary imprisonment? If it be a crime, why is it delivered into private hands to pardon without discretion, or to punish without mercy and without measure?
To these faults, gross and cruel faults in our law,
the excellent principle of Lord Beauchamp's bill applied some sort of remedy. I know that credit must
be preserved: but equity must be preserved, too; and'
it is impossible that anything should be necessary to
commerce which is inconsistent with justice.
The
principle of credit was not weakened by that bill. God
forbid! The enforcement of that credit was only put
into the same public judicial hands on which we depend for our lives and all that makes life dear to us.
But, indeed, this business was taken up too warmly,
both here and elsewhere. The bill was extremely
mistaken. It was supposed to enact what it never
enacted; and complaints were made of clauses in it,
as novelties, which. existed before the noble lord that
brought in the bill was born. There was a fallacy
that ran through the whole of the objections. The
gentlemen who opposed the bill always argued as if
the option lay between that bill and the ancient law.
But this is a grand mistake. For, practically, the
option is between not that bill and the old law, but
VOL. II. 25
? ? ? ? 886 SPEECH AT BRISTOL,
between that bill and those occasional laws called
acts of grace. For the operation of the old law is. so
savage, and so inconvenient to society, that for a long
time past, once in every Parliament, and lately twice,
the legislature has been obliged to make a general
arbitrary jail-delivery, and at once to set open, by its'sovereign authority, all the prisons in England.
Gentlemen, I never relished acts of grace, nor
ever submitted to them but from despair of better.
They are a dishonorable invention, by which, not
from humanity, not from policy, but merely because
we have not room enough to hold these victims of
the absurdity of our laws, we turn loose upon the
public three or four thousand naked wretches, corrupted by the habits, debased by the ignominy of a
prison. If the creditor had a right to those carcasses
as a natural security for his property, I am sure we
have no right to deprive him of that security. But
if the few pounds of flesh were - not necessary to his
security, we had not a right to detain the unfortunate debtor, without any benefit at all to the person
who confined him. Take it as you will, we commit
injustice. Now Lord Beauchamp's bill intended to
do deliberately, and with great caution and circumspection, upon each several case, and with all attention to the just claimant, what acts of grace do in a much greater measure, and with very little care,
caution, or deliberation.
I suspect that here, too, if we contrive to oppose
this bill, we shall be found in a struggle against the
nature of things. - For, as we grow enlightened, the
public will not bear, for any length of time, to pay
for the maintenance of whole armies of prisoners,
nor, at their own expense, submit to keep jails as-a
? ? ? ? PREVIOUS TO THE ELECTION. 387
sort of garrisons, merely to fortify the absurd principle of making men judges in their own cause. For credit has little or no concern in this cruelty. I
speak in a commercial assembly. You know that
credit is given because capital must be employed;
that men calculate the chances of insolvency; and
they either -withhold the credit, or make the debtor
pay the risk in the price. The counting-house has
no -alliance with the jail. ; Holland understands trade
as well as we, and she has done much more than this
obnoxious bill intended to do. There-was not, when
Mr. Howard visited Holland, more than one prisoner
for debt in the great city of Rotterdam. Although
Lord Beauchamp's act (which was previous to'this
bill, and intended to feel the way for it) has already
preserved liberty to thousands, and though it is not
three years since the last act of grace passed, yet,
by Mr. Howard's last account, there were near three
thousand again in jail. I cannot name this gentleman without remarking that his labors and writings have done much to open the eyes and hearts of mankind. He has visited all Europe, - not to survey the sumptuousness of palaces or the stateliness of temples, not to make accurate measurements of the remains of ancient grandeur nor to form a scale of
the curiosity of modern art, not to collect medals or
collate manuscripts, --but to dive into the depths of
dungeons, to plunge into the infection of hospitals,
to survey the mansions of sorrow and pain; to take
the gauge and dimensions of misery, depression, and
contempt, to remember the forgotten, to attend to
the neglected, to visit the forsaken, and, to compare
and collate the distresses of all men in all countries.
HIis plan is original; and! it is. . as full of genius as it
? ? ? ? '388 SPEECH AT BRISTOL,
is of hllmanity. It was a voyage of discovery, a circumnavigation' of charity. Already the benefit of his
labor is felt more or less in every country; I hope
he will anticipate his final reward by seeing all its
effects fully realized in his own. He will receive,
not by retail, but in gross, the reward of those who
visit the prisoner; and he has so forestalled and monopolized this branch of charity, that there will be,
I trust, little room to merit by such acts of benevolence hereafter.
Nothing now remains to trouble you with but the
fourth charge against me, -the business of the Roman Catholics. It is a business closely connected
with the rest. They are all on one and the same
principle. My little scheme of conduct, such as it is,
is all arranged. I could do nothing but what I have
done on this subject, without confounding the whole
train of my ideas and disturbing the whole order
of my life. Gentlemen, I ought to apologize to you
for seeming to think anything at all necessary to be
said upon this matter. The calumny is fitter to be
scrawled with the midnight chalk of incendiaries,
with " No Popery," on walls and doors of devoted
houses, than to be mentioned in ally civilized company. I had heard that the spirit of discontent on
that subject was very prevalent here. With pleasure I find that I have been grossly misinformed. If
it exists at all in this city, the laws have crushed its
exertions, and our morals have shamed its appearance in daylight. I have pursued this spirit wherever I could trace it; but it still fled from me. It was a ghost which all had heard of, but none had
seen. None would acknowledge that he thought the
public proceeding with regard to our Catholic -dis
? ? ? ? PREVIOUS TO THE ELECTION. 389
senters to be. blamable; but several were sorry it had
made an ill impression upon others, and that my
interest was hurt by my share in the business. I
find with satisfaction and pride, that not above four
or five in this city (and I dare say these misled by
some gross misrepresentation) have signed that symbol of delusion and bond of sedition, that libel on the
national religion and English character, the Protestant Association. It is, therefore, Gentlemen, not by
way of cure, but of prevention, and lest the arts of
wicked men may prevail over the integrity of any
one amongst us, that I think it necessary to open to
you the merits of this transaction pretty much at
large; and I beg your patience upon it: for, although the reasonings that have been used to depreciate the act are of little force, and though the
authority of the men concerned in this ill design is
not very imposing, yet the audaciousness of these
conspirators against the national honor, and the extensive wickedness of their attempts, have raised persons of little importance to a degree of evil eminence, and imparted a sort of sinister dignity to proceedings
that had their origin in only the meanest and blinde'st malice.
In explaining to you the proceedings of Parliament
which have been complained of, I will state to you,
- first, the thing that was done, - next, the persons
who did it,'and lastly, the grounds and reasons
upon which the legislature proceeded in this deliberate act of puiblic justice and public prudence.
Gentlemen, the condition of our nature is such
that we buy our blessings at a price. The Reformation, one of the greatest periods of human iniprovement, was a time of trouble and confusion. The vast
? ? ? ? 390 SPEECH AT BRISTOL,
structure of superstition and tyranny which had been
for ages in rearing, and which was combined with
the interest of the great and of the many, which was
moulded into the laws, the manners, and civil institutions of nations, and blended with the- frame and policy of states, could not be brought to the ground
without a fearful struggle; nor could it fall without
a violent concussion of itself and all about it. When
this great revolution was attempted in a more regular
mode by government, it was opposed by plots and seditions of the people; when by popular efforts, it-was repressed as rebellion by the hand of power; and
bloody executions (often bloodily returned) marked
the whole of its. progress through all its stages. The
affairs of religion, which are no longer heard of in the
tumult of ou;r present contentions, made a principal
ingredient in the wars and politics of that time: the
enthusiasm of religion threw a gloom over the politics;
and political interests poisoned and perverted the spirit
of religion upon all sides. The Protestant religion, in
that violent struggle, infected, as the Popish had been
before, by worldly interests and worldly passions, became a persecutor in its turn, sometimes of the new sects, which carried their own principles further. than
it was convenient to the original reformers, and always of the body from whom they parted: and this persecuting spirit arose, not only from the bitterness
of retaliation, but from the merciless policy of fear.
It was long before the spirit of true piety and true
wisdom, involved in the principles of the Reformation,
could be depurated from the dregs and feculence of
the contention with which it was carried through.
However, until this be done, the Reformation is not
complete: and those who think themselves good
? ? ? ? PREVIOUS TO THE ELECTION. 391
Protestants, from their animosity to others, are in
that respect no Protestants at all. It was at first
thought necessary, perhaps, to oppose to Popery another Popery, to get the better of it. Whatever was the cause, laws were made in many countries, and in
this kingdom in particular, against Papists, which are
as bloody as any of those which had been enacted by
the Popish princes and states: and where. those laws
were not bloody, in my opinion, they were worse; as
they were slow, cruel outrages on our nature, and
kept men alive only to insult in their persons every
one of the rights and feelings of. humanity. I pass
those statutes, because I would spare your pious ears
the repetition of such shocking things; and I come
to that particular law the repeal of which has produced so many unnatural and unexpected consequences. A statute was fabricated in the year 1699, by which
the saying mass (a church service in the Latin tongue,
not exactly the same as our liturgy, but very near it,
and containing no offence whatsoever against the laws,
or against good morals) was forged into a crime, punishable with perpetual imprisonment. The teaching school, an useful and virtuous occupation, even the
teaching in a private family, was in every Catholic
subjected to the same unproportioned punishment.
Your industry, and the bread of your children, was
taxed for a pecuniary reward to stimulate avarice
to do what Nature refused, to inform and prosecute
on this law. Every Roman Catholic was, under the
same act, to forfeit his estate to his nearest Protestant relation, until, through a profession of what he
did not believe, he redeemed by his hypocrisy what
the law had transferred to the kinsman as the recom
? ? ? ? 392 SPEECH AT BRISTOL,
pense of his profligacy. When thus turned out of
doors from his paternal estate, he was disabled from
acquiring any other by any industry, donation, or
charity; but was rendered a foreigner in his native
land, only because he retained the religion, along
with the property, handed down to him from those
who had been the old inhabitants of that land before
him.
Does any one who hears me approve this scheme
of things, or think there is common justice, common
sense, or common honesty in any part of it? If any
does, let him say it, and I am ready to discuss the
point with temper and candor. But instead of approving, 1 perceive a virtuous indignation beginning
to rise in your minds on the mere cold stating of the
statute.
But what will you feel, when you know from history how this statute passed, and what were the motives, and what the mode of making it? A party in this nation, enemies to the system of the Revolution,
were in opposition to the government of King William. They knew that our glorious deliverer was an
enemy to all persecution. They knew that he came
to free us from slavery and Popery, out of a country
where a thiird of the people are contented Catholics
Under a Protestant government. He came with a
part of his army composed of those very Catholics, to
overset the power of a Popish prince. Such is the
effect of a tolerating spirit; and so much is liberty
served in every way, and by all persons, by a manly
adherence to its own principles. Whilst freedom is
true to itself, everything becomes subject to it, and
its very adversaries are an instrument in its hands.
The party I speak of (like some amongst us who
? ? ? ? PREVIOUS TO THE ELECTION. 393
would disparage the best friends of their country)
resolved to make the king either violate his principles
of toleration or incur the odium of protecting Papists.
They therefore brought in this bill, and made it purposely wicked and absurd that it might be rejected. The then court party, discovering their game, turned
the tables on them, and returned their bill to them
stuffed with still greater absurdities, that its loss
might lie upon its original authors. They, finding
their 6wn ball thrown back to them, kicked it back
again to their adversaries. And thus this act, loaded
with the double injustice of two parties, neither of
whom intended to pass what they hoped the other
would be persuaded to reject, went through the legislature, contrary to the real wish of all parts of it, and of all the parties that composed it. In this manner
these insolent and profligate factions, as if they were
playing with balls and counters, made a sport of the
fortunes and the liberties of their fellow-creatures.
Other acts of persecution have been acts of malice.
This was a subversion of justice from wantonness and
petulance. Look into the history of Bishop Burnet.
He is a witness without exception.
The effects of the act have been as mischievous as
its origin was ludicrous and shameful. From that
time, every person of that communion, lay and ecclesiastic, has been obliged to fly from the face of day. The clergy, concealed in garrets of private houses, or
obliged to take a shelter (hardly safe to themselves,
but infinitely dangerous to their country) under the
privileges of foreign ministers, officiated as their servants and under their protection. The whole body
of the Catholics, condemned to beggary and to ignorance in their native land, have been obliged to learn
? ? ? ? 394 SPEECH AT BRISTOL,
the principles of letters, at the hazard of all their
other principles, from the charity of your enemies.
They have been taxed to their ruin at the pleasure of
necessitous and profligate relations, and according to
the measure of their necessity and profligacy. Examples of this are many and affecting. Some of them are known by a friend who stands near me in this
hall. It is but six or seven years since a clergyman,
of the name of Malony, a man of morals, neither
guilty nor accused of anytlling noxious to the state,
was condemned to perpetual imprisonment for exercising the functions of his religion; and after lying
in jail two or three years, was relieved by the mercy
of government from perpetual imprisonment; on condition of perpetual banishment. A brother of the
Earl of Shrewsbury, a Talbot, a name respectable in
this country whilst its glory is any part of its concern,
was hauled to the bar of the Old Bailey, among common felons, and only escaped the same doom, either by some error in the process, or that the wretch who
brought him there could not correctly describe his person, - I now forget which. In short, the persecution would never have relented for a moment, if the judges,
superseding (though with an ambiguous example) the
strict rule of their artificial duty by the higher obligation of their conscience, did not constantly throw every difficulty in the way of such informers. But
so ineffectual is the power of legal evasion against
legal iniquity, that it was but the other day that a
lady of condition, beyond the middle of life, was on
the point of being stripped of her whole fortune by
a near relation to whom she had been a friend and
benefactor; and she must have been totally ruined,'without a power of redress or mitigation from the
? ? ? ? PREVIOUS TO THE ELECTION. 895
courts of law, had not the legislature itself rushed in,
and by a special act of Parliament rescued her from
the injustice of its own statutes. One of the acts authorizing such things was that which we in part repealed, knowing what our duty was, and doing that duty as men of honor and virtue, as good Protestants,
and as good citizens. Let him stand forth that disapproves what we have done!
Gentlemen, bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.
In such a country as this they are of all bad things the
worst, -worse By far than anywhere else; and they
derive a particular malignity even from the wisdom
and soundness of the rest of our institutions. For
very obvious reasons you cannot trust the crown with
a dispensing power over any of your laws. However,
a government, be it as bad as it may, will, in the exercise of a discretionary power, discriminate times and
persons, and will not ordinarily pursue any man,
when its own safety is not concerned. A mercenary
informer knows no distinction. Under such a system, the obnoxious people are slaves not only to the
government, but they live at the mercy of every
individual; they are at once the slaves of the whlole
community and of every part of it; and the worst
and most unmerciful men are those on whose goodness they most depend.
In this situation, men not only shrink from the
frowns of a stern magistrate, but they are obliged to
fly from their very species. The seeds of destruction
are sown in civil intercourse, in social habitudes.
The blood of wholesome kindred is infected. Their
tables and beds are surrounded with snares. All the
means given by Providence to make life safe and
comfo table are perverted into instruments of terror
? ? ? ? 396 SPEECH AT BRISTOL,
and torment. This species of universal subserviency,
that makes the very servant who waits behind your
chair the arbiter of your life and fortune, has such a
tendency to degrade and abase mankind, and to deprive them of that assured and liberal state of mind
which alone can make us what we ought to be, that
I vow to God I would sooner bring myself to'put a
man to immediate death for opinions I disliked, and
so to get rid of the man and his opinions at once,
than to fret him with a feverish being, tainted with
the jail-distemper of a contagious servitude, to keep
him above ground an animated mass of putrefactioni
corrupted himself, and corrupting all about him.
The act repealed was of this direct tendency; and
it was made in the manner which I have related to
you. I will now tell you by whom the bill of repeal
was brought into Parliament. I find it has been industriously given out in this city (from kindness to
me, unquestionably) that I was the mover or the see
onder. The fact is, I did not once open my lips on
the subject during the whole progress of the bill. I
do not say this as disclaiming my share in that measure. Very far from it. I inform you of this fact,
lest I should seem to arrogate to myself the merits
which belong to others. To have been the man
chosen out to redeem our fellow-citizens firom slavery, to purify our laws from absurdity and injustice, and to cleanse our religion from the blot and stain of persecution, would be an honor and happiness to which my wishes would undoubtedly aspire,
but to which nothing but my wishes could possibly
have entitled me. That great work was in hands in
every respect far better qualified tlan mine. The
mover of the bill was Sir George Savile.
? ? ? ? PREVIOUS TO THE. ELECTION. 397
When an act of. great and signal humanity was to
be done, and done with all the weight and authority
that belonged to it, the world could cast its eyes upon
none but him. I hope that few things which have a
tendency to bless or to adorn life have wholly escaped
my observation in my passage through it. I have
sought the acquaintance of that gentleman, and have
seen him in all situations. He is a true genius; with
an understanding vigorous, and acute, and refined,
and distinguishing even to excess; and illuminated
with a most unbounded, peculiar, and original cast
of imagination. With these he possesses many external and instrumental advantages; and he makes use
of them all. His fortune is among the largest, --a
fortune which, wholly unincumbered as it is with
one single charge from luxury, vanity, or excess,
sinks under the benevolence of its dispenser. This
private benevolence, expanding itself into patriotism,
renders his whole being the estate of the public, in
which he has not reserved a peculium for himself of
profit, diversion, or relaxation. During the session
the first in and the last out of the House of Commons, he passes from the senate. to the camp; and,seldom seeing the seat of his ancestors, he is always in Parliament to serve his country or in the field to
defend it. But in all well-wrought compositions some
particulars stand out more eminently than the rest;
and the things which will carry his name to posterity
are his two bills: I mean that for a limitation of the
claims of the crown upon landed estates, and this for
the relief of the Roman Catholics. By the former he
has emancipated property; by the latter he has quieted conscience; and by both he has taught that
grand lesson to government and subject, - no longer
to regard each other as adverse parties.
?
court you too. Most of you have heard that I do not
very remarkably spare myself in public business; and
in the private business of my constituents I have done
very near as much as those who have nothing else
to do. My canvass of you was not on the'change,
nor in the county meetings, nor in the clubs of this
city: it was in the House of Commons; it was at the
Custom-House; it was at the Council; it was at the
Treasury; it was at the Admiralty. I canvassed you
through your affairs, and not your persons. I was
not only your representative as a body; I was the
agent, the solicitor of individuals; I ran about wherever your affairs could call me; and in acting for you, I often appeared rather as a ship-broker than as
a member of Parliament. There was nothing too
laborious or too low for me to undertake. The
meanness of the business was raised by the dignity
of the object. If some lesser matters have slipped
through my fingers, it was because I filled my hands
too full, and, in my eagerness to serve you,' took in
more than any hands could grasp. Several gentlemen' stand round me who are my willing witnesses;
? ? ? ? 374 SPEECH AT BRISTOL,
and there are others who, if they were here, would
be still better, because they would be unwilling witnesses to the same truth. It was in the middle of a summer residence in London, and in the middle of
a negotiation at the Admiralty for your trade, that I
was called to Bristol; and this late visit, at this late
day, has'been possibly in prejudice to your affairs.
Since. I have touched upon this matter, let me say,
Gentlemen, that, if I had a disposition or a right to
complain, I have some cause of complaint on my side.
With a petition of this city in my hand, passed through
the corporation without a dissenting voice, a petition
in unison with almost the whole voice of the kingdom, (with whose formal thanks I was covered over,) whilst I labored on no less than five bills for a public
reform, and fought, against the opposition of great
abilities and of the greatest power, every clause and
every'word of the largest of those bills, almost to the
very last day of a very long session, - all this time a
canvass in Bristol was as calmly carried on as if I
were dead. I was considered as a man wholly out
of the question. Whilst I watched and fasted and
sweated in the House of Commons, by the most
easy and ordinary arts of election, by dinners and
visits, by " How do you dos," and "My worthy
friends," I was to be quietly moved out of my seat,and promises were made, and engagements entered into, without any exception or reserve, as if my laborious zeal in my duty had been a regular abdication of my trust.
To open my whole heart to you on this subject, I
do confess, however, that there were other times, besides'the two years in which I did visit you, when I was not wholly without leisure for repeating'that
? ? ? ? PREVIOUS TO THE ELECTION. 375
mark of my respect. But I could not bring my mind
to see you. You remember that in the beginning of
this American war (that era of calamity, disgrace,
and downfall, an era which no feeling mind will ever
mention without a tear for England) you were greatly
divided,- and a very strong body, if not the strongest, opposed itself to the madness which every art
and every power were employed to render popular, in
order that the errors of the rulers might be lost in
the general blindness of the nation. This opposition
continued until after our great, but most unfortunate
victory at Long Island. Then all the mounds and
banks of our constancy were borne down at once,
and the frenzy of the American war broke in upon us
like a deluge. This victory, which seemed to put an
immediate end to all difficulties, perfected us in that
spirit of domination which our unparalleled prosperity
had but too long nurtured. We had been so very
powerful, and so very prosperous, that even the humblest of us were degraded into the vices and follies of kings. We lost all measure between means and
ends; and our headlong desires became our politics
and our morals. All men who wished for peace, or
retained any sentiments of moderation, were bverborne or silenced; and this city was led by every
artifice (and probably with the more management
because I was one of your members) to distinguish
itself by its zeal for that fatal cause. In this temper
of yours and of my mind, I should sooner have fled to
the extremities of the earth than have shown myself
here. I, who saw in every American victory (for you
have had a long series of these misfortunes) the germ
and seed of the naval power of France and Spain,
which all our heat and warmth against America was
? ? ? ? 376 SPEECH AT' BRISTOL,
only hatching into life, -I should not have been a
welcome visitant, with the brow and the language of
such feelings. When afterwards the other face of
your calamity was turned upon you, and showed itself in defeat and distress, I shunned you full as
much. I felt sorely this variety in our wretchedness;
and I did not wish to have the least appearance of
insulting you with that show of superiority, which,
though it may not be assumed, is generally suspected,
in a time of calamity, from those whose previous warnings have been despised. I could not bear to show you a representative whose face did not reflect that of his
constituents, -a face that could not joy in your joys,
and sorrow in your sorrows. But time at length has
made us all of one opinion, and we have all opened
our eyes on the true nature of the American war, - to
the true nature of all its successes and all its failures.
In that public storm, too, I had my private feelings. I had seen blown down and prostrate on the
ground several of those:houses to whom I was chiefly
indebted for the honor this city has done me. I confess, that, whilst the wounds of those I loved were
yet green, I could not bear to show myself in pride
and triumph in that place into which their partiality
had brought me, and to appear at feasts and rejoicings in the midst of the grief and calamity of my
warm friends, my zealous supporters, my generous
benefactors. This is a true, unvarnished, undisguised
state of the affair. You will judge of it.
This is the only one of the charges in which I am
personally concerned. As to the other matters objected against me, which in their turn I shall mention
to you, remember once more I do not mean to extenuate or excuse. Why should I, when the things
? ? ? ? PREVIOUS TO THE ELECTION. 377
charged are among those upon which I found all my
reputation? What would be left to me, if I myself
was the man who softened and blended and diluted
and weakened all the distinguishing colors of my
life, so as to leave nothing distinct and determinate
in my whole conduct?
It has been said, and it is the second charge, that
in the questions of the Irish trade I did not consult
the interest of my constituents,- -or, to speak out
strongly, that I rather acted as a native of Ireland
than as an English member of Parliament.
I certainly have very warm good wishes for the
place of my birth. But the sphere of my duties is my
true country. It was as a man attached to your interests, and zealous for the conservation of your power and dignity, that I acted on that occasion, and on all occasions. You were involved in the American
war. A new world of policy was opened, to which
it was necessary we should conform, whether we
would or not; and my only thought was how to conform to our situation in such a manner as to unite to
this kingdom, in prosperity and in affection, whatever
remained of the empire. I was true to my old, stand --
ing, invariable principle, that all things which came
from Great Britain should issue as a gift of her
bounty and beneficence, rather than as claims recovered against a struggling litigant, - or at least, that,
if your beneficence obtained no credit in your concessions, yet that they should appear the salutary provisions of your wisdom and foresight, not as things wrung from you with your blood by the cruel gripe
of a rigid necessity. The first concessions, by being
(mLuch against my will) mangled and stripped of the
parts which were necessary to make out their just
? ? ? ? 378 SPEECH AT BRISTOL,
correspondence and connection in trade, were of no
use. The next year a feeble attempt was made to
bring the thing into better shape. This attempt,
(countenanced by the minister,) on the very first appearance of some popular uneasiness, was, after a
considerable progress through the House, thrown
out by him.
What was the consequence? The whole kingdom
of Ireland was instantly in a flame. Threatened by
foreigners, and, as they thought, insulted by England,
they resolved at once to resist the power of France
and to cast off yours. As for us, we were able
neither to protect nor to restrain them. Forty thousand men were raised and disciplined without commission from the crown. Two illegal armies were seen with banners displayed at the same time and in
the same country. No executive magistrate, no judicature, in Ireland, would acknowledge the legality
of the army which bore the king's commission; and
no law, or appearance of law, authorized the army
commissioned by itself. In this unexampled state of
things, which the least error, the least trespass on
the right or left, would have hurried down the precipice into an abyss of blood and confusion, the people
of Ireland demand a freedom of trade with arms in
their hands. They interdict all commerce between
the two nations. They deny all new supply in the
House of Commons, although in time of war. They
stint the trust of the old revenue, given for two years
to all the king's predecessors, to six months. The
British Parliament, in a former session, frightened
into a limited concession by the menaces of Ireland,
frightened out of it by the menaces of England, was
now frightened back again, and made an universal
? ? ? ? PREVIOUS TO THE ELECTION. 379
surrender of all that had been thought the peculiar,
reserved, uncommunicable rights of England: the
exclusive commerce of America, of Africa, of the West
Indies, --all the enumerations of the Acts of Navigation, - all the manufactures, - iron, glass, even
the last pledge of jealousy and pride, the interest hid
in the secret of our hearts, the inveterate prejudice
moulded into the constitution of our frame, even the
sacred fleece itself, all went together. No reserve,
no exception; no debate, no discussion. A sudden
light broke in upon us all. It broke in, not through
well-contrived and well-disposed windows, but through
flaws and breaches, - through the yawning chasms of
our ruin. We were taught wisdom by humiliation.
No town in England presumed to have a prejudice,
or dared to mutter a petition. What was worse, the
whole Parliament of England, which retained authority for nothing but surrenders, was despoiled of every
shadow of its superintendence. It was, without any
qualification, denied in theory, as it had been trampled upon in practice. This scene of shame and disgrace has, in a manner, whilst I am speaking, ended by the perpetual establishment of a military power in
the dominions of this crown, without consent of the
British legislature,* contrary to the policy of the Constitution, contrary to the Declaration of Right; and
by this your liberties are swept away along with your
supreme authority, - and both, linked together from
the beginning, have, I am afraid, both together perished forever.
What! Gentlemen, was I not to foresee, or foreseeing, was I not to endeavor to save you from all these
multiplied mischiefs and disgraces? Would the little,
* Irish Perpetual Mutiny Act.
? ? ? ? 380 SPEECH, AT BRISTOL,
silly, canvass prattle of obeying instructions, and hav.
ing no opinions but yours, and such idle, senseless
tales, which amuse the vacant ears of unthinking men,
have saved you from "the pelting of that pitiless
storm," to which the loose improvidence, the cowardly rashness, of those who dare not look danger in the face so as to provide against it in time, and therefore
throw themselves headlong into the midst of it, have
exposed this degraded nation, beat down and prostrate on the earth, unsheltered, unarmed, unresisting? Was I an Irishman on that day that I boldly withstood our pride? or on the day that I hung down my
head, and wept in shame and silence over the humiliation of Great Britain? I became unpopular in England for the one, and in Ireland for the other.
What then? What obligation lay on me to be popular? I was bound to serve both kingdoms. To be
pleased with my service was their affair, not mine.
I was an Irishman in the Irish business, just as
much as I was an American, when, on the same principles, I wished you to concede to America at a time when she prayed concession at our feet. Just as
much was I an. American, when I wished Parliament
to offer terms in victory, and not to wait the wellchosen hour of defeat, for making good by weakness
and by supplication a claim of prerogative, preeminence, and authority.
Instead of requiring it from me, as a point of duty,
to kindle with your passions, had you all been as cool
as I was, you would have been saved disgraces and
distresses that are unutterable. Do you remember
our commission? We sent out a solemn embassy
across the Atlantic Ocean, to lay the crown, the peerage, the commons of Great Britain at the feet of the
? ? ? ? PREVIOUS TO THE ELECTION. 381
American Congress. That our disgrace might want
no sort of brightening and burnishing, observe who
they were that composed this famous embassy. My
Lord Carlisle is among the first ranks of our nobility.
He is the identical man who, but two years before,
had been put forward, at the opening of a session, in
the House of Lords, as the mover of an haughty and
rigorous address against America. He was put in
the front of the embassy of submission. Mr. Eden
was taken from the office of Lord Suffolk, to whom
he was then Under-Secretary of State, from the
office of that Lord Suffolk who but a few weeks before,
in his place in Parliament, did not deign to inquire
where a congress of vagrants was to be found. This
Lord Suffolk sent Mr. Eden to find these vagrants,
without knowing where his king's generals were to
be found who were joined in the same commission
of supplicating those whom they were sent to subdue.
They enter the capital of America only to abandon it;
and these assertors and representatives of the dignity
of England, at the tail of a flying army, let fly their
Parthian shafts of memorials and remonstrances at
random behind them. Their promises and their offers,
their flatteries and their menaces, were all despised;
and we were saved the disgrace of their formal reception only because the Congress scorned to receive
them; whilst the state-house of independent Philadelphia opened her doors to the public entry of the ambassador of France. From war and blood we went to submission, and from submission plunged back
again to war and blood, to desolate and be desolated,
without measure, hope, or end. I am a Royalist: I
blushed for this degradation of the crown. I am a
Whig: I blushed for the dishonor of Parliament. I
? ? ? ? 382 SPEECH AT BRISTOL,
am a true Englishman: I felt to the quick for the
disgrace of England. I am a man: I felt for the
melancholy reverse of human affairs in the fall of
the first power in the world.
To read what was approaching in Ireland, in the
black and bloody characters of the American war,
was a painful, but it was a necessary part of my public duty. For, Gentlemen, it is not your fond desires or mine that can alter the nature of things; by contending against which, what have we got, or shall
ever get, but defeat and shame? I did not obey your
instructions. No. I conformed to the instructions
of truth and Nature, and maintained your interest,
against your opinions, with a constancy that became
me. A representative worthy of you ought to be a
person of stability. I am to look, indeed, to your
opinions, -- but to such opinions as you and I must
have five years hence. I was not to look to the flash
of the day. I knew that you chose me, in my place,
along with others, to be a pillar of the state, and not
a weathercock on the top of the edifice, exalted for
my levity and versatility, and of no use but to indicate the shiftings of every fashionable gale. Would
to God the value of my sentiments on Ireland and on
America had- been at this day a subject of doubt and
discussion! No matter what my sufferings had been,
so that this kingdom had kept the authority I wished
it to maintain, by a grave foresight, and by an equir
table temperance in the use of its power.
The next article of charge on my public conduct,
and that which I find rather the most prevalent of all,
is Lord Beauchamp's bill: I mean his bill of last
session, for reforming the law-process concerning imprisonment. It is said, to aggravate the offence, that
? ? ? ? PREVIOUS TO THE ELECTION. 383
I treated the petition of this city with contempt even
in presenting it to the House, and expressed myself
in terms of marked disrespect. Had this latter part
of the charge been true, no merits on the side of the
question which I took could possibly excuse me. But
I am incapable of treating this city with disrespect.
Very fortunately, at this minute, (if my bad eyesight
does not deceive me,) the worthy gentleman * deputed
on this business stands directly before me. To him
I appeal, whether I did not, though it militated with
my oldest and my most recent public opinions, deliver the petition with a strong and more than usual
recommendation to the consideration of the House,
on account of the character and consequence of those
who signed it. I believe the worthy gentleman will
tell you, that, the very day I received it, I applied to
the Solicitor, now the Attorney General, to give it an
immediate consideration; and he most obligingly and
instantly consented to employ a great deal of his very
valuable time to write an explanation of the bill. I
attended the committee with all possible care and diligence, in order that every objection of yours might
meet with a solution, or produce an alteration. I
entreated your learned recorder (always ready in business in which you take a concern) to attend. But
what will you say to those who blame me for supporting Lord Beauchamp's bill, as a disrespectful treatment of your petition, when you hear, that, out of respect to you, I myself was the cause of the loss of
that very bill? For the noble lord who brought it in,
and who, I must say, has much merit for this and some
other measures, at my request consented to put it off
for a week, which the Speaker's, illness lengthened
* Mr. Williams.
? ? ? ? 384 SPEECH AT BRISTOL,
to a fortnight; and then the frantic tumult about
Popery drove that and every rational business from
the House. So that, if I chose to make a defence of
myself, on the little principles of a culprit, pleading
in his exculpation, I might not only secure my acquittal, but make merit with the opposers of the bill.
But I shall do no such thing. The truth is, that I
did occasion the loss of the bill, and by a delay caused
by my respect to you. But such an event was never
in my contemplation. And I am so far from taking
credit for the defeat of that measure, that I cannot
sufficiently lament my misfortune, if but one man,
who ought to be at large, has passed a year in prison
by my means. I am a debtor to the debtors. I confess judgment. I owe what, if ever it be in my power,
I shall most certainly pay,- ample atonement and
usurious amends to liberty and humanity for my
unhappy lapse. For, Gentlemen, Lord Beauchamp's
bill was a law of justice and policy, as far as it went:
I say, as far as it went; for its fault was its being in
the remedial part miserably defective.
There are two capital faults in our law with relation to civil debts. One is, that every man is presumed solvent: a presumption, in innumerable cases, directly against truth. Therefore the debtor is ordered, on a supposition of ability and fraud, to be
coerced his liberty until he makes payment. By this
means, in all cases of civil insolvency, without a pardon from his creditor, he is to be imprisoned for life;
and thus a miserable mistaken invention of artificial science operates to change a civil into a criminal
judgment, and to scourge misfortune or indiscretion
with a punishment which the law does not inflict on
the greatest crimes.
? ? ? ? PREVIOUS TO THE ELECTION. 385
The next fault is, that the inflicting of that punishment is not on the opinion of an equal and public
judge, but is referred to the arbitrary discretion of
a private, nay, interested, and irritated, individual.
He, who formally is, and substantially ought to be,
the judge, is in reality no more than ministerial, a
mere executive instrument of a private man, who is
at once judge and party. Every idea of judicial order
is subverted by this procedure. If the insolvency
be no crime, why is it punished with arbitrary imprisonment? If it be a crime, why is it delivered into private hands to pardon without discretion, or to punish without mercy and without measure?
To these faults, gross and cruel faults in our law,
the excellent principle of Lord Beauchamp's bill applied some sort of remedy. I know that credit must
be preserved: but equity must be preserved, too; and'
it is impossible that anything should be necessary to
commerce which is inconsistent with justice.
The
principle of credit was not weakened by that bill. God
forbid! The enforcement of that credit was only put
into the same public judicial hands on which we depend for our lives and all that makes life dear to us.
But, indeed, this business was taken up too warmly,
both here and elsewhere. The bill was extremely
mistaken. It was supposed to enact what it never
enacted; and complaints were made of clauses in it,
as novelties, which. existed before the noble lord that
brought in the bill was born. There was a fallacy
that ran through the whole of the objections. The
gentlemen who opposed the bill always argued as if
the option lay between that bill and the ancient law.
But this is a grand mistake. For, practically, the
option is between not that bill and the old law, but
VOL. II. 25
? ? ? ? 886 SPEECH AT BRISTOL,
between that bill and those occasional laws called
acts of grace. For the operation of the old law is. so
savage, and so inconvenient to society, that for a long
time past, once in every Parliament, and lately twice,
the legislature has been obliged to make a general
arbitrary jail-delivery, and at once to set open, by its'sovereign authority, all the prisons in England.
Gentlemen, I never relished acts of grace, nor
ever submitted to them but from despair of better.
They are a dishonorable invention, by which, not
from humanity, not from policy, but merely because
we have not room enough to hold these victims of
the absurdity of our laws, we turn loose upon the
public three or four thousand naked wretches, corrupted by the habits, debased by the ignominy of a
prison. If the creditor had a right to those carcasses
as a natural security for his property, I am sure we
have no right to deprive him of that security. But
if the few pounds of flesh were - not necessary to his
security, we had not a right to detain the unfortunate debtor, without any benefit at all to the person
who confined him. Take it as you will, we commit
injustice. Now Lord Beauchamp's bill intended to
do deliberately, and with great caution and circumspection, upon each several case, and with all attention to the just claimant, what acts of grace do in a much greater measure, and with very little care,
caution, or deliberation.
I suspect that here, too, if we contrive to oppose
this bill, we shall be found in a struggle against the
nature of things. - For, as we grow enlightened, the
public will not bear, for any length of time, to pay
for the maintenance of whole armies of prisoners,
nor, at their own expense, submit to keep jails as-a
? ? ? ? PREVIOUS TO THE ELECTION. 387
sort of garrisons, merely to fortify the absurd principle of making men judges in their own cause. For credit has little or no concern in this cruelty. I
speak in a commercial assembly. You know that
credit is given because capital must be employed;
that men calculate the chances of insolvency; and
they either -withhold the credit, or make the debtor
pay the risk in the price. The counting-house has
no -alliance with the jail. ; Holland understands trade
as well as we, and she has done much more than this
obnoxious bill intended to do. There-was not, when
Mr. Howard visited Holland, more than one prisoner
for debt in the great city of Rotterdam. Although
Lord Beauchamp's act (which was previous to'this
bill, and intended to feel the way for it) has already
preserved liberty to thousands, and though it is not
three years since the last act of grace passed, yet,
by Mr. Howard's last account, there were near three
thousand again in jail. I cannot name this gentleman without remarking that his labors and writings have done much to open the eyes and hearts of mankind. He has visited all Europe, - not to survey the sumptuousness of palaces or the stateliness of temples, not to make accurate measurements of the remains of ancient grandeur nor to form a scale of
the curiosity of modern art, not to collect medals or
collate manuscripts, --but to dive into the depths of
dungeons, to plunge into the infection of hospitals,
to survey the mansions of sorrow and pain; to take
the gauge and dimensions of misery, depression, and
contempt, to remember the forgotten, to attend to
the neglected, to visit the forsaken, and, to compare
and collate the distresses of all men in all countries.
HIis plan is original; and! it is. . as full of genius as it
? ? ? ? '388 SPEECH AT BRISTOL,
is of hllmanity. It was a voyage of discovery, a circumnavigation' of charity. Already the benefit of his
labor is felt more or less in every country; I hope
he will anticipate his final reward by seeing all its
effects fully realized in his own. He will receive,
not by retail, but in gross, the reward of those who
visit the prisoner; and he has so forestalled and monopolized this branch of charity, that there will be,
I trust, little room to merit by such acts of benevolence hereafter.
Nothing now remains to trouble you with but the
fourth charge against me, -the business of the Roman Catholics. It is a business closely connected
with the rest. They are all on one and the same
principle. My little scheme of conduct, such as it is,
is all arranged. I could do nothing but what I have
done on this subject, without confounding the whole
train of my ideas and disturbing the whole order
of my life. Gentlemen, I ought to apologize to you
for seeming to think anything at all necessary to be
said upon this matter. The calumny is fitter to be
scrawled with the midnight chalk of incendiaries,
with " No Popery," on walls and doors of devoted
houses, than to be mentioned in ally civilized company. I had heard that the spirit of discontent on
that subject was very prevalent here. With pleasure I find that I have been grossly misinformed. If
it exists at all in this city, the laws have crushed its
exertions, and our morals have shamed its appearance in daylight. I have pursued this spirit wherever I could trace it; but it still fled from me. It was a ghost which all had heard of, but none had
seen. None would acknowledge that he thought the
public proceeding with regard to our Catholic -dis
? ? ? ? PREVIOUS TO THE ELECTION. 389
senters to be. blamable; but several were sorry it had
made an ill impression upon others, and that my
interest was hurt by my share in the business. I
find with satisfaction and pride, that not above four
or five in this city (and I dare say these misled by
some gross misrepresentation) have signed that symbol of delusion and bond of sedition, that libel on the
national religion and English character, the Protestant Association. It is, therefore, Gentlemen, not by
way of cure, but of prevention, and lest the arts of
wicked men may prevail over the integrity of any
one amongst us, that I think it necessary to open to
you the merits of this transaction pretty much at
large; and I beg your patience upon it: for, although the reasonings that have been used to depreciate the act are of little force, and though the
authority of the men concerned in this ill design is
not very imposing, yet the audaciousness of these
conspirators against the national honor, and the extensive wickedness of their attempts, have raised persons of little importance to a degree of evil eminence, and imparted a sort of sinister dignity to proceedings
that had their origin in only the meanest and blinde'st malice.
In explaining to you the proceedings of Parliament
which have been complained of, I will state to you,
- first, the thing that was done, - next, the persons
who did it,'and lastly, the grounds and reasons
upon which the legislature proceeded in this deliberate act of puiblic justice and public prudence.
Gentlemen, the condition of our nature is such
that we buy our blessings at a price. The Reformation, one of the greatest periods of human iniprovement, was a time of trouble and confusion. The vast
? ? ? ? 390 SPEECH AT BRISTOL,
structure of superstition and tyranny which had been
for ages in rearing, and which was combined with
the interest of the great and of the many, which was
moulded into the laws, the manners, and civil institutions of nations, and blended with the- frame and policy of states, could not be brought to the ground
without a fearful struggle; nor could it fall without
a violent concussion of itself and all about it. When
this great revolution was attempted in a more regular
mode by government, it was opposed by plots and seditions of the people; when by popular efforts, it-was repressed as rebellion by the hand of power; and
bloody executions (often bloodily returned) marked
the whole of its. progress through all its stages. The
affairs of religion, which are no longer heard of in the
tumult of ou;r present contentions, made a principal
ingredient in the wars and politics of that time: the
enthusiasm of religion threw a gloom over the politics;
and political interests poisoned and perverted the spirit
of religion upon all sides. The Protestant religion, in
that violent struggle, infected, as the Popish had been
before, by worldly interests and worldly passions, became a persecutor in its turn, sometimes of the new sects, which carried their own principles further. than
it was convenient to the original reformers, and always of the body from whom they parted: and this persecuting spirit arose, not only from the bitterness
of retaliation, but from the merciless policy of fear.
It was long before the spirit of true piety and true
wisdom, involved in the principles of the Reformation,
could be depurated from the dregs and feculence of
the contention with which it was carried through.
However, until this be done, the Reformation is not
complete: and those who think themselves good
? ? ? ? PREVIOUS TO THE ELECTION. 391
Protestants, from their animosity to others, are in
that respect no Protestants at all. It was at first
thought necessary, perhaps, to oppose to Popery another Popery, to get the better of it. Whatever was the cause, laws were made in many countries, and in
this kingdom in particular, against Papists, which are
as bloody as any of those which had been enacted by
the Popish princes and states: and where. those laws
were not bloody, in my opinion, they were worse; as
they were slow, cruel outrages on our nature, and
kept men alive only to insult in their persons every
one of the rights and feelings of. humanity. I pass
those statutes, because I would spare your pious ears
the repetition of such shocking things; and I come
to that particular law the repeal of which has produced so many unnatural and unexpected consequences. A statute was fabricated in the year 1699, by which
the saying mass (a church service in the Latin tongue,
not exactly the same as our liturgy, but very near it,
and containing no offence whatsoever against the laws,
or against good morals) was forged into a crime, punishable with perpetual imprisonment. The teaching school, an useful and virtuous occupation, even the
teaching in a private family, was in every Catholic
subjected to the same unproportioned punishment.
Your industry, and the bread of your children, was
taxed for a pecuniary reward to stimulate avarice
to do what Nature refused, to inform and prosecute
on this law. Every Roman Catholic was, under the
same act, to forfeit his estate to his nearest Protestant relation, until, through a profession of what he
did not believe, he redeemed by his hypocrisy what
the law had transferred to the kinsman as the recom
? ? ? ? 392 SPEECH AT BRISTOL,
pense of his profligacy. When thus turned out of
doors from his paternal estate, he was disabled from
acquiring any other by any industry, donation, or
charity; but was rendered a foreigner in his native
land, only because he retained the religion, along
with the property, handed down to him from those
who had been the old inhabitants of that land before
him.
Does any one who hears me approve this scheme
of things, or think there is common justice, common
sense, or common honesty in any part of it? If any
does, let him say it, and I am ready to discuss the
point with temper and candor. But instead of approving, 1 perceive a virtuous indignation beginning
to rise in your minds on the mere cold stating of the
statute.
But what will you feel, when you know from history how this statute passed, and what were the motives, and what the mode of making it? A party in this nation, enemies to the system of the Revolution,
were in opposition to the government of King William. They knew that our glorious deliverer was an
enemy to all persecution. They knew that he came
to free us from slavery and Popery, out of a country
where a thiird of the people are contented Catholics
Under a Protestant government. He came with a
part of his army composed of those very Catholics, to
overset the power of a Popish prince. Such is the
effect of a tolerating spirit; and so much is liberty
served in every way, and by all persons, by a manly
adherence to its own principles. Whilst freedom is
true to itself, everything becomes subject to it, and
its very adversaries are an instrument in its hands.
The party I speak of (like some amongst us who
? ? ? ? PREVIOUS TO THE ELECTION. 393
would disparage the best friends of their country)
resolved to make the king either violate his principles
of toleration or incur the odium of protecting Papists.
They therefore brought in this bill, and made it purposely wicked and absurd that it might be rejected. The then court party, discovering their game, turned
the tables on them, and returned their bill to them
stuffed with still greater absurdities, that its loss
might lie upon its original authors. They, finding
their 6wn ball thrown back to them, kicked it back
again to their adversaries. And thus this act, loaded
with the double injustice of two parties, neither of
whom intended to pass what they hoped the other
would be persuaded to reject, went through the legislature, contrary to the real wish of all parts of it, and of all the parties that composed it. In this manner
these insolent and profligate factions, as if they were
playing with balls and counters, made a sport of the
fortunes and the liberties of their fellow-creatures.
Other acts of persecution have been acts of malice.
This was a subversion of justice from wantonness and
petulance. Look into the history of Bishop Burnet.
He is a witness without exception.
The effects of the act have been as mischievous as
its origin was ludicrous and shameful. From that
time, every person of that communion, lay and ecclesiastic, has been obliged to fly from the face of day. The clergy, concealed in garrets of private houses, or
obliged to take a shelter (hardly safe to themselves,
but infinitely dangerous to their country) under the
privileges of foreign ministers, officiated as their servants and under their protection. The whole body
of the Catholics, condemned to beggary and to ignorance in their native land, have been obliged to learn
? ? ? ? 394 SPEECH AT BRISTOL,
the principles of letters, at the hazard of all their
other principles, from the charity of your enemies.
They have been taxed to their ruin at the pleasure of
necessitous and profligate relations, and according to
the measure of their necessity and profligacy. Examples of this are many and affecting. Some of them are known by a friend who stands near me in this
hall. It is but six or seven years since a clergyman,
of the name of Malony, a man of morals, neither
guilty nor accused of anytlling noxious to the state,
was condemned to perpetual imprisonment for exercising the functions of his religion; and after lying
in jail two or three years, was relieved by the mercy
of government from perpetual imprisonment; on condition of perpetual banishment. A brother of the
Earl of Shrewsbury, a Talbot, a name respectable in
this country whilst its glory is any part of its concern,
was hauled to the bar of the Old Bailey, among common felons, and only escaped the same doom, either by some error in the process, or that the wretch who
brought him there could not correctly describe his person, - I now forget which. In short, the persecution would never have relented for a moment, if the judges,
superseding (though with an ambiguous example) the
strict rule of their artificial duty by the higher obligation of their conscience, did not constantly throw every difficulty in the way of such informers. But
so ineffectual is the power of legal evasion against
legal iniquity, that it was but the other day that a
lady of condition, beyond the middle of life, was on
the point of being stripped of her whole fortune by
a near relation to whom she had been a friend and
benefactor; and she must have been totally ruined,'without a power of redress or mitigation from the
? ? ? ? PREVIOUS TO THE ELECTION. 895
courts of law, had not the legislature itself rushed in,
and by a special act of Parliament rescued her from
the injustice of its own statutes. One of the acts authorizing such things was that which we in part repealed, knowing what our duty was, and doing that duty as men of honor and virtue, as good Protestants,
and as good citizens. Let him stand forth that disapproves what we have done!
Gentlemen, bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.
In such a country as this they are of all bad things the
worst, -worse By far than anywhere else; and they
derive a particular malignity even from the wisdom
and soundness of the rest of our institutions. For
very obvious reasons you cannot trust the crown with
a dispensing power over any of your laws. However,
a government, be it as bad as it may, will, in the exercise of a discretionary power, discriminate times and
persons, and will not ordinarily pursue any man,
when its own safety is not concerned. A mercenary
informer knows no distinction. Under such a system, the obnoxious people are slaves not only to the
government, but they live at the mercy of every
individual; they are at once the slaves of the whlole
community and of every part of it; and the worst
and most unmerciful men are those on whose goodness they most depend.
In this situation, men not only shrink from the
frowns of a stern magistrate, but they are obliged to
fly from their very species. The seeds of destruction
are sown in civil intercourse, in social habitudes.
The blood of wholesome kindred is infected. Their
tables and beds are surrounded with snares. All the
means given by Providence to make life safe and
comfo table are perverted into instruments of terror
? ? ? ? 396 SPEECH AT BRISTOL,
and torment. This species of universal subserviency,
that makes the very servant who waits behind your
chair the arbiter of your life and fortune, has such a
tendency to degrade and abase mankind, and to deprive them of that assured and liberal state of mind
which alone can make us what we ought to be, that
I vow to God I would sooner bring myself to'put a
man to immediate death for opinions I disliked, and
so to get rid of the man and his opinions at once,
than to fret him with a feverish being, tainted with
the jail-distemper of a contagious servitude, to keep
him above ground an animated mass of putrefactioni
corrupted himself, and corrupting all about him.
The act repealed was of this direct tendency; and
it was made in the manner which I have related to
you. I will now tell you by whom the bill of repeal
was brought into Parliament. I find it has been industriously given out in this city (from kindness to
me, unquestionably) that I was the mover or the see
onder. The fact is, I did not once open my lips on
the subject during the whole progress of the bill. I
do not say this as disclaiming my share in that measure. Very far from it. I inform you of this fact,
lest I should seem to arrogate to myself the merits
which belong to others. To have been the man
chosen out to redeem our fellow-citizens firom slavery, to purify our laws from absurdity and injustice, and to cleanse our religion from the blot and stain of persecution, would be an honor and happiness to which my wishes would undoubtedly aspire,
but to which nothing but my wishes could possibly
have entitled me. That great work was in hands in
every respect far better qualified tlan mine. The
mover of the bill was Sir George Savile.
? ? ? ? PREVIOUS TO THE. ELECTION. 397
When an act of. great and signal humanity was to
be done, and done with all the weight and authority
that belonged to it, the world could cast its eyes upon
none but him. I hope that few things which have a
tendency to bless or to adorn life have wholly escaped
my observation in my passage through it. I have
sought the acquaintance of that gentleman, and have
seen him in all situations. He is a true genius; with
an understanding vigorous, and acute, and refined,
and distinguishing even to excess; and illuminated
with a most unbounded, peculiar, and original cast
of imagination. With these he possesses many external and instrumental advantages; and he makes use
of them all. His fortune is among the largest, --a
fortune which, wholly unincumbered as it is with
one single charge from luxury, vanity, or excess,
sinks under the benevolence of its dispenser. This
private benevolence, expanding itself into patriotism,
renders his whole being the estate of the public, in
which he has not reserved a peculium for himself of
profit, diversion, or relaxation. During the session
the first in and the last out of the House of Commons, he passes from the senate. to the camp; and,seldom seeing the seat of his ancestors, he is always in Parliament to serve his country or in the field to
defend it. But in all well-wrought compositions some
particulars stand out more eminently than the rest;
and the things which will carry his name to posterity
are his two bills: I mean that for a limitation of the
claims of the crown upon landed estates, and this for
the relief of the Roman Catholics. By the former he
has emancipated property; by the latter he has quieted conscience; and by both he has taught that
grand lesson to government and subject, - no longer
to regard each other as adverse parties.
?
