No More Learning

It is, indeed, to be confessed, that we did not exert our whole
naval strength; Marlborough was the governour of our counsels, and the
great view of Marlborough was a war by land, which he knew well how to
conduct, both to the honour of his country and his own profit. The fleet
was, therefore, starved, that the army might be supplied, and naval
advantages were neglected, for the sake of taking a town in Flanders, to
be garrisoned by our allies. The French, however, were so weakened by
one defeat after another, that, though their fleet was never destroyed
by any total overthrow, they at last retained it in their harbours, and
applied their whole force to the resistance of the confederate army,
that now began to approach their frontiers, and threatened to lay waste
their provinces and cities.

In the latter years of this war, the danger of their neighbourhood in
America, seems to have been considered, and a fleet was fitted out, and
supplied with a proper number of land forces, to seize Quebec, the
capital of Canada, or New France; but this expedition miscarried, like
that of Anson against the Spaniards, by the lateness of the season, and
our ignorance of the coasts on which we were to act. We returned with
loss, and only excited our enemies to greater vigilance, and, perhaps,
to stronger fortifications.

When the peace of Utrecht was made, which those, who clamoured among us
most loudly against it, found it their interest to keep, the French
applied themselves, with the utmost industry, to the extension of their
trade, which we were so far from hindering, that, for many years, our
ministry thought their friendship of such value, as to be cheaply
purchased by whatever concession.

Instead, therefore, of opposing, as we had hitherto professed to do, the
boundless ambition of the house of Bourbon, we became, on a sudden,
solicitous for its exaltation, and studious of its interest. We assisted
the schemes of France and Spain with our fleets, and endeavoured to make
these our friends by servility, whom nothing but power will keep quiet,
and who must always be our enemies, while they are endeavouring to grow
greater, and we determine to remain free.

That nothing might be omitted, which could testify our willingness to
continue, on any terms, the good friends of France, we were content to
assist, not only their conquests, but their traffick; and, though we did
not openly repeal the prohibitory laws, we yet tamely suffered commerce
to be carried on between the two nations, and wool was daily imported,
to enable them to make cloth, which they carried to our markets, and
sold cheaper than we.

During all this time they were extending and strengthening their
settlements in America, contriving new modes of traffick, and framing
new alliances with the Indian nations. They began now to find these
northern regions, barren and desolate as they are, sufficiently valuable
to desire, at least, a nominal possession, that might furnish a pretence
for the exclusion of others; they, therefore, extended their claim to
tracts of land, which they could never hope to occupy, took care to give
their dominions an unlimited magnitude, have given, in their maps, the
name of Louisiana to a country, of which part is claimed by the
Spaniards, and part by the English, without any regard to ancient
boundaries, or prior discovery.

When the return of Columbus from his great voyage had filled all Europe
with wonder and curiosity, Henry the seventh sent Sebastian Cabot to try
what could be found for the benefit of England: he declined the track of
Columbus, and, steering to the westward, fell upon the island, which,
from that time, was called by the English Newfoundland. Our princes seem
to have considered themselves as entitled, by their right of prior
seizure, to the northern parts of America, as the Spaniards were
allowed, by universal consent, their claim to the southern region for
the same reason; and we, accordingly, made our principal settlements
within the limits of our own discoveries, and, by degrees, planted the
eastern coast, from Newfoundland to Georgia.

As we had, according to the European principles, which allow nothing to
the natives of these regions, our choice of situation in this extensive
country, we naturally fixed our habitations along the coast, for the
sake of traffick and correspondence and all the conveniencies of
navigable rivers. And when one port or river was occupied, the next
colony, instead of fixing themselves in the inland parts behind the
former, went on southward, till they pleased themselves with another
maritime situation. For this reason our colonies have more length than
depth; their extent, from east to west, or from the sea to the interior
country, bears no proportion to their reach along the coast, from north
to south.

It was, however, understood, by a kind of tacit compact among the
commercial powers, that possession of the coast included a right to the
inland; and, therefore, the charters granted to the several colonies,
limit their districts only from north to south, leaving their
possessions from east to west unlimited and discretional, supposing
that, as the colony increases, they may take lands as they shall want
them, the possession of the coasts, excluding other navigators, and the
unhappy Indians having no right of nature or of nations.

This right of the first European possessour was not disputed, till it
became the interest of the French to question it. Canada, or New France,
on which they made their first settlement, is situated eastward of our
colonies, between which they pass up the great river of St. Lawrence,
with Newfoundland on the north, and Nova Scotia on the south. Their
establishment in this country was neither envied nor hindered; and they
lived here, in no great numbers, a long time, neither molesting their
European neighbours, nor molested by them.

But when they grew stronger and more numerous, they began to extend
their territories; and, as it is natural for men to seek their own
convenience, the desire of more fertile and agreeable habitations
tempted them southward. There is land enough to the north and west of
their settlements, which they may occupy with as good right as can be
shown by the other European usurpers, and which neither the English nor
Spaniards will contest; but of this cold region, they have enough
already, and their resolution was to get a better country. This was not
to be had, but by settling to the west of our plantations, on ground
which has been, hitherto, supposed to belong to us.

Hither, therefore, they resolved to remove, and to fix, at their own
discretion, the western border of our colonies, which was, heretofore,
considered as unlimited. Thus by forming a line of forts, in some
measure parallel to the coast, they inclose us between their garrisons,
and the sea, and not only hinder our extension westward, but, whenever
they have a sufficient navy in the sea, can harass us on each side, as
they can invade us, at pleasure, from one or other of their forts.

This design was not, perhaps, discovered as soon as it was formed, and
was certainly not opposed so soon as it was discovered: we foolishly
hoped, that their encroachments would stop; that they would be prevailed
on, by treaty and remonstrance, to give up what they had taken, or to
put limits to themselves. We suffered them to establish one settlement
after another, to pass boundary after boundary, and add fort to fort,
till, at last, they grew strong enough to avow their designs, and defy
us to obstruct them.

By these provocations, long continued, we are, at length, forced into a
war, in which we have had, hitherto, very ill fortune. Our troops, under
Braddock, were dishonourably defeated; our fleets have yet done nothing
more than taken a few merchant ships, and have distressed some private
families, but have very little weakened the power of France. The
detention of their seamen makes it, indeed, less easy for them to fit
out their navy; but this deficiency will be easily supplied by the
alacrity of the nation, which is always eager for war.

It is unpleasing to represent our affairs to our own disadvantage; yet
it is necessary to show the evils which we desire to be removed; and,
therefore, some account may very properly be given of the measures which
have given them their present superiority.

They are said to be supplied from France with better governours than our
colonies have the fate to obtain from England. A French governour is
seldom chosen for any other reason than his qualifications for his
trust. To be a bankrupt at home, or to be so infamously vitious, that he
cannot be decently protected in his own country, seldom recommends any
man to the government of a French colony. Their officers are commonly
skilful, either in war or commerce, and are taught to have no
expectation of honour or preferment, but from the justice and vigour of
their administration.

Their great security is the friendship of the natives, and to this
advantage they have certainly an indubitable right; because it is the
consequence of their virtue. It is ridiculous to imagine, that the
friendship of nations, whether civil or barbarous, can be gained and
kept but by kind treatment; and, surely, they who intrude, uncalled,
upon the country of a distant people, ought to consider the natives as
worthy of common kindness, and content themselves to rob, without
insulting them. The French, as has been already observed, admit the
Indians, by intermarriage, to an equality with themselves; and those
nations, with which they have no such near intercourse, they gain over
to their interest by honesty in their dealings. Our factors and traders,
having no other purpose in view than immediate profit, use all the arts
of an European counting-house, to defraud the simple hunter of his furs.

These are some of the causes of our present weakness; our planters are
always quarrelling with their governour, whom they consider as less to
be trusted than the French; and our traders hourly alienate the Indians
by their tricks and oppressions, and we continue every day to show, by
new proofs; that no people can be great, who have ceased to be virtuous.




OBSERVATIONS ON THE TREATY

Between his Britannick majesty and imperial majesty of all the Russias,
signed at Moscow, Dec. 11, 1742; the treaty between his Britannick
majesty and the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel, signed June 18, 1755; and the
treaty between his Britannick majesty and her imperial majesty of all
the Russias, signed at St. Petersburg, Sept. 19/20, 1755 [26].


These are the treaties which, for many months, filled the senate with
debates, and the kingdom with clamours; which were represented, on one
part, as instances of the most profound policy and the most active care
of the publick welfare, and, on the other, as acts of the most
contemptible folly and most flagrant corruption, as violations of the
great trust of government, by which the wealth of Britain is sacrificed
to private views and to a particular province.

What honours our ministers and negotiators may expect to be paid to
their wisdom; it is hard to determine, for the demands of vanity are not
easily estimated. They should consider, before they call too loudly for
encomiums, that they live in an age, when the power of gold is no longer
a secret, and in which no man finds much difficulty in making a bargain,
with money in his hand. To hire troops is very easy to those who are
willing to pay their price. It appears, therefore, that whatever has
been done, was done by means which every man knows how to use, if
fortune is kind enough to put them in his power. To arm the nations of
the north in the cause of Britain, to bring down hosts against France,
from the polar circle, has, indeed, a sound of magnificence, which might
induce a mind unacquainted with publick affairs to imagine, that some
effort of policy, more than human, had been exerted, by which distant
nations were armed in our defence, and the influence of Britain was
extended to the utmost limits of the world. But when this striking
phenomenon of negotiation is more nearly inspected, it appears a
bargain, merely mercantile, of one power that wanted troops more than
money, with another that wanted money, and was burdened with troops;
between whom their mutual wants made an easy contract, and who have no
other friendship for each other, than reciprocal convenience happens to
produce.

We shall, therefore, leave the praises of our ministers to others, yet
not without this acknowledgment, that if they have done little, they do
not seem to boast of doing much; and, that whether influenced by modesty
or frugality, they have not wearied the publick with mercenary
panegyrists, but have been content with the concurrence of the
parliament, and have not much solicited the applauses of the people.

In publick, as in private transactions, men more frequently deviate from
the right, for want of virtue, than of wisdom; and those who declare
themselves dissatisfied with these treaties, impute them not to folly,
but corruption.

By these advocates for the independence of Britain, who, whether their
arguments be just, or not, seem to be most favourably heard by the
people, it is alleged, that these treaties are expensive, without
advantage; that they waste the treasure, which we want for our own
defence, upon a foreign interest; and pour the gains of our commerce
into the coffers of princes, whose enmity cannot hurt, nor friendship
help us; who set their subjects to sale, like sheep or oxen, without any
inquiry after the intentions of the buyer; and will withdraw the troops,
with which they have supplied us, whenever a higher bidder shall be
found.

This, perhaps, is true; but whether it be true, or false, is not worth
inquiry. We did not expect to buy their friendship, but their troops;
nor did we examine upon what principle we were supplied with assistance;
it was sufficient that we wanted forces, and that they were willing to
furnish them. Policy never pretended to make men wise and good; the
utmost of her power is to make the best use of men, such as they are, to
lay hold on lucky hours, to watch the present wants, and present
interests of others, and make them subservient to her own convenience.

It is further urged, with great vehemence, that these troops of Russia
and Hesse are not hired in defence of Britain; that we are engaged, in a
naval war, for territories on a distant continent; and that these
troops, though mercenaries, can never be auxiliaries; that they increase
the burden of the war, without hastening its conclusion, or promoting
its success; since they can neither be sent into America, the only part
of the world where England can, on the present occasion, have any
employment for land-forces, nor be put into our ships, by which, and by
which only, we are now to oppose and subdue our enemies.

Nature has stationed us in an island, inaccessible but by sea; and we
are now at war with an enemy, whose naval power is inferiour to our own,
and from whom, therefore, we are in no danger of invasion: to what
purpose, then, are troops hired in such uncommon numbers? To what end do
we procure strength, which we cannot exert, and exhaust the nation with
subsidies, at a time when nothing is disputed, which the princes, who
receive our subsidies, can defend? If we had purchased ships, and hired
seamen, we had apparently increased our power, and made ourselves
formidable to our enemies, and, if any increase of security be possible,
had secured ourselves still better from invasions: but what can the
regiments of Russia, or of Hesse, contribute to the defence of the
coasts of England; or, by what assistance can they repay us the sums,
which we have stipulated to pay for their costly friendship?

The king of Great Britain has, indeed, a territory on the continent, of
which the natives of this island scarcely knew the name, till the
present family was called to the throne, and yet know little more than
that our king visits it from time to time. Yet, for the defence of this
country, are these subsidies apparently paid, and these troops evidently
levied. The riches of our nation are sent into distant countries, and
the strength, which should be employed in our own quarrel, consequently
impaired, for the sake of dominions, the interest of which has no
connexion with ours, and which, by the act of succession, we took care
to keep separate from the British kingdoms.

To this the advocates for the subsidies say, that unreasonable
stipulations, whether in the act of settlement, or any other contract,
are, in themselves, void; and that if a country connected with England,
by subjection to the same sovereign, is endangered by an English
quarrel, it must be defended by English force; and that we do not engage
in a war, for the sake of Hanover, but that Hanover is, for our sake,
exposed to danger.

Those who brought in these foreign troops have still something further
to say in their defence, and of no honest plea is it our intention to
defraud them. They grant, that the terrour of invasion may, possibly, be
groundless; that the French may want the power, or the courage, to
attack us in our own country; but they maintain, likewise, that an
invasion is possible, that the armies of France are so numerous, that
she may hazard a large body on the ocean, without leaving herself
exposed; that she is exasperated to the utmost degree of acrimony, and
would be willing to do us mischief, at her own peril. They allow, that
the invaders may be intercepted at sea, or that, if they land, they may
be defeated by our native troops. But they say, and say justly, that
danger is better avoided than encountered; that those ministers consult
more the good of their country, who prevent invasion, than repel it; and
that, if these auxiliaries have only saved us from the anxiety of
expecting an enemy at our doors, or from the tumult and distress which
an invasion, how soon soever repressed, would have produced, the publick
money is not spent in vain.

These arguments are admitted by some, and by others rejected. But even
those that admit them, can admit them only as pleas of necessity; for
they consider the reception of mercenaries into our country, as the
desperate "remedy of desperate distress;" and think, with great reason,
that all means of prevention should be tried, to save us from any second
need of such doubtful succours.

That we are able to defend our own country, that arms are most safely
entrusted to our own hands, and that we have strength, and skill, and
courage, equal to the best of the nations of the continent, is the
opinion of every Englishman, who can think without prejudice, and speak
without influence; and, therefore, it will not be easy to persuade the
nation, a nation long renowned for valour, that it can need the help of
foreigners to defend it from invasion. We have been long without the
need of arms by our good fortune, and long without the use by our
negligence; so long, that the practice, and almost the name, of our old
trained bands is forgotten; but the story of ancient times will tell us,
that the trained bands were once able to maintain the quiet and safety
of their country; and reason, without history, will inform us, that
those men are most likely to fight bravely, or, at least, to fight
obstinately, who fight for their own houses and farms, for their own
wives and children.

A bill was, therefore, offered for the prevention of any future danger
or invasion, or necessity of mercenary forces, by reestablishing and
improving the militia. It was passed by the commons, but rejected by the
lords. That this bill, the first essay of political consideration, as a
subject long forgotten, should be liable to objection, cannot be
strange; but surely, justice, policy, common reason, require, that we
should be trusted with our own defence, and be kept, no longer in such a
helpless state as, at once, to dread our enemies and confederates.

By the bill, such as it was formed, sixty thousand men would always be
in arms. We have shown [27] how they may be, upon any exigence, easily
increased to a hundred and fifty thousand; and, I believe, neither our
friends nor enemies will think it proper to insult our coasts, when they
expect to find upon them a hundred and fifty thousand Englishmen, with
swords in their hands.




INTRODUCTION TO THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE COMMITTEE,

Appointed to manage the contributions begun at London, December 18,
1758, for clothing French prisoners of war.


The committee intrusted with the money, contributed to the relief of the
subjects of France, now prisoners in the British dominions, here lay
before the publick an exact account of all the sums received and
expended, that the donors may judge how properly their benefactions have
been applied.

Charity would lose its name, were it influenced by so mean a motive as
human praise; it is, therefore, not intended to celebrate, by any
particular memorial, the liberality of single persons, or distinct
societies; it is sufficient, that their works praise them.

Yet he, who is far from seeking honour, may very justly obviate censure.
If a good example has been set, it may lose its influence by
misrepresentation; and, to free charity from reproach is itself a
charitable action.

Against the relief of the French only one argument has been brought; but
that one is so popular and specious, that, if it were to remain
unexamined, it would, by many, be thought irrefragable. It has been
urged, that charity, like other virtues, may be improperly and
unseasonably exerted; that, while we are relieving Frenchmen, there
remain many Englishmen unrelieved; that, while we lavish pity on our
enemies, we forget the misery of our friends.

Grant this argument all it can prove, and what is the conclusion? --That
to relieve the French is a good action, but that a better may be
conceived. This is all the result, and this all is very little. To do
the best can seldom be the lot of man: it is sufficient if, when
opportunities are presented, he is ready to do good. How little virtue
could be practised, if beneficence were to wait always for the most
proper objects, and the noblest occasions; occasions that may never
happen, and objects that may never be found.

It is far from certain, that a single Englishman will suffer by the
charity to the French. New scenes of misery make new impressions; and
much of the charity, which produced these donations, may be supposed to
have been generated by a species of calamity never known among us
before. Some imagine, that the laws have provided all necessary relief,
in common cases, and remit the poor to the care of the publick; some
have been deceived by fictitious misery, and are afraid of encouraging
imposture; many have observed want to be the effect of vice, and
consider casual alms-givers as patrons of idleness. But all these
difficulties vanish in the present case: we know, that for the prisoners
of war there is no legal provision; we see their distress, and are
certain of its cause; we know that they are poor and naked, and poor and
naked without a crime.

But it is not necessary to make any concessions. The opponents of this
charity must allow it to be good, and will not easily prove it not to be
the best. That charity is best, of which the consequences are most
extensive: the relief of enemies has a tendency to unite mankind in
fraternal affection; to soften the acrimony of adverse nations, and
dispose them to peace and amity; in the mean time, it alleviates
captivity, and takes away something from the miseries of war. The rage
of war, however mitigated, will always fill the world with calamity and
horrour; let it not, then, be unnecessarily extended; let animosity and
hostility cease together; and no man be longer deemed an enemy, than
while his sword is drawn against us.

The effects of these contributions may, perhaps, reach still further.
Truth is best supported by virtue: we may hope, from those who feel, or
who see, our charity, that they shall no longer detest, as heresy, that
religion, which makes its professors the followers of him, who has
commanded us to "do good to them that hate us. "




ON THE BRAVERY OF THE ENGLISH COMMON SOLDIERS [28],

By those who have compared the military genius of the English with that
of the French nation, it is remarked, that "the French officers will
always lead, if the soldiers will follow;" and that "the English
soldiers will always follow, if their officers will lead. "


In all pointed sentences, some degree of accuracy must be sacrificed to
conciseness; and, in this comparison, our officers seem to lose what our
soldiers gain. I know not any reason for supposing that the English
officers are less willing than the French to lead; but it is, I think,
universally allowed, that the English soldiers are more willing to
follow. Our nation may boast, beyond any other people in the world, of a
kind of epidemick bravery, diffused equally through all its ranks. We
can show a peasantry of heroes, and fill our armies with clowns, whose
courage may vie with that of their general.

There may be some pleasure in tracing the causes of this plebeian
magnanimity. The qualities which, commonly, make an army formidable, are
long habits of regularity, great exactness of discipline, and great
confidence in the commander. Regularity may, in time, produce a kind of
mechanical obedience to signals and commands, like that which the
perverse cartesians impute to animals; discipline may impress such an
awe upon the mind, that any danger shall be less dreaded, than the
danger of punishment; and confidence in the wisdom, or fortune, of the
general may induce the soldiers to follow him blindly to the most
dangerous enterprise.

What may be done by discipline and regularity, may be seen in the troops
of the Russian emperess, and Prussian monarch. We find, that they may be
broken without confusion, and repulsed without flight.

But the English troops have none of these requisites, in any eminent
degree. Regularity is, by no means, part of their character: they are
rarely exercised, and, therefore, show very little dexterity in their
evolutions, as bodies of men, or in the manual use of their weapons, as
individuals; they neither are thought by others, nor by themselves, more
active, or exact, than their enemies, and, therefore, derive none of
their courage from such imaginary superiority.

The manner in which they are dispersed in quarters, over the country,
during times of peace, naturally produces laxity of discipline: they are
very little in sight of their officers; and, when they are not engaged
in the slight duty of the guard, are suffered to live, every man his own
way.

The equality of English privileges, the impartiality of our laws, the
freedom of our tenures, and the prosperity of our trade, dispose us very
little to reverence superiours. It is not to any great esteem of the
officers, that the English soldier is indebted for his spirit in the
hour of battle; for, perhaps, it does not often happen, that he thinks
much better of his leader than of himself. The French count, who has
lately published the Art of War, remarks, how much soldiers are
animated, when they see all their dangers shared by those who were born
to be their masters, and whom they consider, as beings of a different
rank. The Englishman despises such motives of courage: he was born
without a master; and looks not on any man, however dignified by lace or
titles, as deriving, from nature, any claims to his respect, or
inheriting any qualities superiour to his own.

There are some, perhaps, who would imagine, that every Englishman fights
better than the subjects of absolute governments, because he has more to
defend. But what has the English more than the French soldier? Property
they are both, commonly, without. Liberty is, to the lowest rank of
every nation, little more than the choice of working or starving; and
this choice is, I suppose, equally allowed in every country. The English
soldier seldom has his head very full of the constitution; nor has there
been, for more than a century, any war that put the property or liberty
of a single Englishman in danger.

Whence, then, is the courage of the English vulgar? It proceeds, in my
opinion, from that dissolution of dependence, which obliges every man to
regard his own character. While every man is fed by his own hands, he
has no need of any servile arts; he may always have wages for his
labour; and is no less necessary to his employer, than his employer is
to him. While he looks for no protection from others, he is naturally
roused to be his own protector; and having nothing to abate his esteem
of himself, he, consequently, aspires to the esteem of others. Thus
every man that crowds our streets is a man of honour, disdainful of
obligation, impatient of reproach, and desirous of extending his
reputation among those of his own rank; and, as courage is in most
frequent use, the fame of courage is most eagerly pursued. From this
neglect of subordination, I do not deny, that some inconveniencies may,
from time to time, proceed: the power of the law does not, always,
sufficiently supply the want of reverence, or maintain the proper
distinction between different ranks; but good and evil will grow up in
this world together; and they who complain, in peace, of the insolence
of the populace, must remember, that their insolence in peace is bravery
in war.






POLITICAL TRACTS.


Fallitur, egregio quisquis sub principe credit
Servitium, nunquam libertas gratior extat
Quam sub rege pio.

CLAUDIANUS.




PREFATORY OBSERVATIONS TO POLITICAL TRACTS.


On Johnson's character, as a political writer, we cannot dwell with
pleasure, since we cannot speak of it with praise. In the following
pamphlets, however, though we cannot honestly subscribe to their
doctrines, we must admire the same powers of composition, the same play
of imagination, the same keen sarcasm and indignant reproof, that
embellish his other productions. He might, and did, think wrongly on
these subjects, but he never wrote what he did not believe to be true,
and, therefore, must be acquitted of all charges of servility or
dishonesty. The False Alarm was published in 1770, and "intended," says
Mr. Boswell, "to justify the conduct of the ministry, and their majority
in the house of commons, for having virtually assumed it as an axiom,
that the expulsion of a member of parliament was equivalent to
exclusion, and thus having declared colonel Lutterel to be duly elected
for the county of Middlesex, notwithstanding Mr. Wilkes had a great
majority of votes. This being justly considered as a gross violation of
the right of election, an alarm for the constitution extended itself all
over the kingdom. To prove this alarm to be false, was the purpose of
Johnson's pamphlet; but even his vast powers are inadequate to cope with
constitutional truth and reason, and his argument failed of effect; and
the house of commons have since expunged the offensive resolution from
their journals. That the house of commons might have expelled Mr. Wilkes
repeatedly, and as often as he should be rechosen, was not to be denied;
but incapacitation cannot be but by an act of the whole legislature. It
was wonderful to see how a prejudice in favour of government in general,
and an aversion to popular clamour, could blind and contract such an
understanding as Johnson's in this particular case. " Where Boswell
expresses himself with regard to Johnson, in terms so reprehensive as
the above, we cannot be accused of severity in repeating his just
censure. Several answers appeared, but, perhaps, all of them, in
compliance with the excited feelings of the times, dealt rather in
personal abuse of Johnson, as a pensioner and hireling, than in fair and
manly argument. The chief were, the Crisis; a Letter to Dr. Samuel
Johnson; and, the Constitution Defender and Pensioner exposed, in
Remarks on the False Alarm.




THE FALSE ALARM. 1770.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If these imputations were just, the expulsion was, surely, seasonable;
and that they were just, the house had reason to determine, as he had
confessed himself, at the bar, the author of the libel which they term
seditious, and was convicted, in the King's Bench, of both the
publications.
But the freeholders of Middlesex were of another opinion. They either
thought him innocent, or were not offended by his guilt. When a writ was
issued for the election of a knight for Middlesex, in the room of John
Wilkes, esq. expelled the house, his friends, on the sixteenth of
February, chose him again.

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Wilkes 1143
Mr. Lutterel 296

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

From this day began the clamour, which has continued till now. Those who
had undertaken to oppose the ministry, having no grievance of greater
magnitude, endeavoured to swell this decision into bulk, and distort it
into deformity, and then held it out to terrify the nation.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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