For it seems to be laid down as a maxim, that a king has some sort of interest in giving uneasiness to his subjects: that all who are pleasing to them, are to be of course
disagreeable
to him: that as soon as the persons who
are odious at court are known to be odious to the people, it is snatched at as a lucky occasion of show ering down upon them all kinds of emoluments and honors.
are odious at court are known to be odious to the people, it is snatched at as a lucky occasion of show ering down upon them all kinds of emoluments and honors.
Edmund Burke
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political sky will see a hurricane in a cloud no big ger than a hand at the very edge of the horizon, and will run into the first harbor. No lines can be laid down for civil or political wisdom. They are a mat ter incapable of exact definition. But, though no man can draw a stroke between the confines of day and night, yet light and darkness are upon the whole tolerably distinguishable. Nor will it be impossible for a prince to find out such a mode of government, and such persons to administer as will give great degree of content to his people without any curious and anxious research for that abstract, universal, per fect harmony, which while he seeking, he abandons those means of ordinary tranquillity which are in his power without any research at all.
not more the duty than the interest of prince, to aim at giving tranquillity to his govern ment. But those who advise him may have an interest in disorder and confusion. If the opinion of the peo ple against them, they will naturally wish that should have no prevalence. Here that the peo ple must on their part show themselves sensible of their own value. Their whole importance, in the first instance, and afterwards their whole freedom,
at stake. Their freedom cannot long survive their
? Here that the natural strength of the kingdom, the great peers, the leading landed gen
tlemen, the opulent merchants and manufacturers, the substantial yeomanry, must interpose, to rescue their prince, themselves, and their posterity.
We are at present at issue upon this point. We are in the great crisis of this contention and the part which men take, one way or other, will serve to discriminate their characters and their principles.
importance.
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Until the matter is decided, the country will re main in its present confusion. For while a system of administration is attempted, entirely repugnant to the genius of the people, and not conformable to the plan of their government, everything must necessa rily be disordered for a time, until this system de stroys the constitution, or the constitution gets the better of this system.
There in my opinion, peculiar venom and ma lignity in this political distemper beyond any that have heard or read of. In former times the project ors of arbitrary government attacked only the liber ties of their country; design surely mischievous enough to have satisfied mind of the most unruly ambition. But system unfavorable to freedom may be so formed, as considerably to exalt the grandeur of the state; and men may find, in the pride and splendor of that prosperity, some sort of consolation for the loss of their solid privileges. Indeed the in crease of the power of the state has often been urged by artful men, as pretext for some abridgment of the public liberty. But the scheme of the junto un
der consideration, no_t only strikes palsy into every nerve of our free constitution, but in the same degree benumbs and stupefies the whole executive power: rendering government in all its grand operations lan guid, uncertain, ineffective; making ministers fearful of attempting, and incapable of executing any useful plan of domestic arrangement, or of foreign politics. It tends to produce neither the security of free gov ernment, nor the energy of monarchy that abso lute. Accordingly the crown has dwindled away, in proportion to the unnatural and turgid growth of this excrescence on the court.
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The interior ministry are sensible, that war'is a sit uation which sets in its full light the value of the hearts of a people; and they well know, that the be ginning of the importance of the people must be the end of theirs. For this reason they discover upon all occasions the utmost fear of everything, which by pos sibility may lead to such an event. I do not mean that they manifest any of that pious fear which is backward to commit the safety of the country to the dubious experiment of war. Such a fear, being the tender sensation of virtue, excited, as it is regulated, by reason, frequently shows itself in a seasonable bold
ness, which keeps danger at a distance, by seeming to despise it. Their fear betrays to the first glance of the eye, its true cause, and its real object. Foreign powers, confident in the knowledge of their charac ter, have not scrupled to violate the most_s0lemn treaties; and, in defiance of them, to make conquests in the midst of a general peace, and in the heart of Europe. Such was the conquest of Corsica, by the professed enemies of the freedom of mankind, in de fiance of those who were formerly its professed defend ers. We have had just claims upon the same powers: rights which ought to have been sacred to them as well as to us, as they had their origin in our lenity and generosity towards France and Spain in the day of their great humiliation. Such I call the ransom of Manilla, and the demand on France for the East India prisoners. But these powers put a just confi dence in their resource of the double cabinet. These demands (one of them at least) are hastening fast
towards an acquittal by prescription. Oblivion begins to spread her cobwebs over all our spirited remon st'rances. Some of the most valuable branches of our
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I mean to mark and distinguish the trade of Por
trade are also on the point of perishing from the same cause. I do not mean those branches which bear without the hand of the vine-dresser; I mean those which the policy of treaties had formerly secured to
us ;
tugal, the loss of which, and the power of the cabal, have one and the same era.
If by any chance, the ministers who stand before the curtain possess or affect any spirit, it makes little or no impression. Foreign courts and ministers, who were among the first to discover and to profit by this invention of the doable cabinet, attend very little to their remonstrances. They know that those shad ows of ministers haveJ nothing to do in the ultimate
ealousies and animosities are sedulously nourished in the outward administration, and have been even considered as a causa sine qua
non in its constitution: thence foreign courts have a certainty, that nothing can be done by common coun sel in this nation. If one of those ministers officially takes up a business with spirit, it serves only the bet ter to signalize the meanness of the rest, and the dis cord of them all. His colleagues in office are in haste to shake him off, and to disclaim the whole of his proceedings. Of this nature was that astonishing
transaction, in which Lord Rochford, our ambassador at Paris, remonstrated against the attempt upon Cor sica, in consequence of a direct authority from Lord Shelburne. This remonstrance the French minister treated with the contempt that was natural: as he was assured, from the ambassador of his court to ours, that these orders of Lord Shelburne were not supported by the rest of the (I had like to have said British) administration. Lord Rochford, a man of
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spirit, could not endure this situation. The conse quences were, however, curious. He returns from Paris, and comes home full of anger. Lord Shel burne, who gave the orders, is obliged to give up the seals. Lord Rochford, who obeyed these orders, re ceives them. He goes, however, into another depart
ment of the same office, that he might not be obliged officially to acquiesce, in one situation, under what he had officially remonstrated against, in another. At Paris, the Duke of Choiseul considered this office arrangement as a compliment to him: here it was
spoken of as an attention to the delicacy of Lord Rochford. But whether the compliment was to one or both, to this nation it was the same. By this transaction the condition of our court lay exposed in all its nakedness. Our office correspondence has lost all pretence to authenticity: British policy is brought
into derision in those nations, that a while ago trem bled at the power of our arms, whilst they looked up with confidence to the equity, firmness, and candor, which shone in all our negotiations. I represent this matter exactly in the light in which it has been uni versally received.
Such has been the aspect of our foreign politics, under the influence of a double cabinet. With such an arrangement at court, it is impossible it should have been otherwise. Nor is it possible that this scheme should have a better effect upon the govern ment of our dependencies, the first, the dearest, and
most delicate objects, of the interior policy of this em pire. The colonies know, that administration is sep arated from the court, divided within itself, and detested by the nation. The double cabinet has, in
both the parts of shown the most malignant dis
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positions towards them, without being able to do them the smallest mischief.
They are convinced, by sufficient experience, that no plan, either of lenity, or rigor, can be pursued with uniformity and perseverance. Therefore they turn their eyes entirely from Great Britain, where they have neither dependence on friendship, nor ap prehension from enmity. They look to themselves, and their own arrangements.
into alienation from this country; and whilst they are becoming disconnected with our government, we have not the consolation to find, that they are even friendly in their new independence. Nothing can equal the futility, the weakness, the rashness, the timidity, the perpetual contradiction in the manage
ment of our affairs in that part of the world. A vol ume might be written on this melancholy subject; but it were better to leave it entirely to the reflec tions of the reader himself, than not to treat it in the extent it deserves.
In what manner our domestic economy is affected by this system, it is needless to explain. It is the perpetual subject of their own complaints.
The court party resolve the whole into faction Having said something before upon this subject, I shall only observe here, that, when they give this ac count of the prevalence of faction, they present no very favorable aspect of the confidence of the people in their own government. They may be assured, that however they amuse themselves with a variety of pro jects for substituting something else in the place of that great and only foundation of government, the confidence of the people, every attempt will but make their condition worse. When men imagine that their
They grow every day
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483
food is only a cover for poison, and when they neither love nor trust the hand that serves not the name of the roast beef of Old England, that will per suade them to sit down to the table that spread f'or them. When the people conceive that laws, and tri bunals, and even popular assemblies, are perverted from the ends of their institution, they find in those
names of degenerated establishments only new mo tives to discontent. Those bodies, which, when full of life and beauty, lay in their arms, and were their joy and comfort, when dead and putrid, become but the more loathsome from remembrance of former en dearments. sullen gloom and furious disorder prevail by fits; the nation loses its relish for peace
and prosperity; as did in that season of fulness which opened our troubles in the time of Charles the First. species of men to wh'om state of order would become sentence of obscurity are nourished into dangerous magnitude by the heat of intestine disturbances; and no wonder that, by sort of
sinister piety, they cherish, in their turn, the disor ders which are the parents of all their consequence. Superficial observers consider such persons as the cause of the public uneasiness, when, in truth, they are nothing more than the effect of it. Good men look upon this distracted scene with sorrow and in dignation. Their hands are tied behind them. They
are despoiled of all the power which might enable them to reconcile the strength of government with the rights of the people. They stand in most dis tressing alternative. But in the election among evils they hope better things from temporary confusion, than from established servitude. In the mean time,
the voice of law not to be heard. Fierce licentious
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ness begets violent restraints. The military arm is the sole reliance; and then, call your constitution what you please, it is the sword that governs. The civil power, like every other that calls in the aid of an ally stronger than itself, perishes by the assistance it receives. But the contrivers of this scheme of gov ernment will not trust solely to the military power; because they are cunning men. Their restless and crooked spirit drives them to rake in the dirt of every kind of expedient. Unable to rule the multitude, they endeavor to raise divisions amongst them. One mob is hired to destroy another; a procedure which at once encourages the boldness of the populace, and
justly increases their discontent. Men become pen sioners of state on account of their abilities in the array of riot, and the discipline of confusion. Gov ernment is put under the disgraceful necessity of protecting from the severity of the laws that very licentiousness, which the laws had been before vio lated to repress. Everything partakes of the original disorder. Anarchy predominates without freedom, and servitude without submission or subordination. These are the consequences inevitable to our public peace, from the scheme of rendering the executory government at once odious and feeble ; of freeing ad ministration from the constitutional and salutary con trol of Parliament, and inventing for it a new control, unknown to the constitution, an interior cabinet; which brings the whole' body of government into cou fusion and contempt. I am able, the
After having stated, as shortly as
effects of this system on our foreign affairs, on the policy of our government with regard to our depen dencies, and on the interior economy of the common
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wealth; there remains only, in this part of my design, to say something of the grand principle which first recommendedthis system at court. The pretence was, to prevent the king from being enslaved by a faction, and made a prisoner in his closet. This scheme might have been expected to answer at least its own end, and to indemnify the king, in his per sonal capacity, for all the confusion into which it has thrown his government. But has it in reality an swered this purpose? Iam sure, if it had, every
affectionate subject would have one motive for endur ing with patience all the evils which attend it.
In order to come at the truth in this matter, it may not be amiss to consider it somewhat in detail. I speak here of the king, and not of the crown; the interests of which we have already touched. Inde pendent of that greatness which a king possesses merely by being a representative of the national dig nity, the things in which he may have an individual interest seem to be these:--wealth accumulated;
wealth spent in magnificence, pleasure, or benefi cence; personal respect and attention; and, above all, private ease and repose of mind. These com pose the inventory of prosperous circumstances, whether they regard a prince or a subject; their enjoyments differing only in the scale upon which they are formed.
Suppose then we were to ask, whether the king has been richer than his predecessors in accumulated wealth, since the establishment of the plan of favor itism? I believe it will be found that the picture of
royal indigence, which our court has presented until this year, has been truly humiliating. Nor has it been relieved from this unseemly distress, but by
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means which have hazarded the afiection of the peo ple, and shaken their confidence in Parliament. If the public treasures had been exhausted in magnifi cence and splendor, this distress would have been ac counted for, and in some measure justified.
Nothing would be more unworthy of this nation, than with a mean and mechanical rule, to mete out the splendor
of the crown. Indeed I have found very few persons disposed to so ungenerous a procedure. But the generality of people, it must be confessed, do feel a good deal mortified, when they compare the wants of the court with its expenses. They do not behold the cause of this distress in any part of the apparatus of royal magnificence. In all this, they see nothing but the operations of parsimony, attended with all the consequences of profusion. Nothing expended, nothing saved. Their wonder is increased by their knowledge, that besides the revenue settled on his Majesty's civil list to the amount of 800,000l. a year, he has a farther aid from a large pension list, near 90,000l. a year, in Ireland; from the produce of the duchy of Lancaster (which we are told has been greatly improved); from the revenue of the duchy of Cornwall; from the American quit-rents; from the four and a half per cent duty in the Leeward Islands ; this last worth to be sure considerably more than 40,000l. a year. The whole is certainly not much short of a million annually.
These are revenues within the knowledge and cog nizance of our national councils. We have no direct right to examine into the receipts from his Ma. jesty's German dominions, and the bishopric of Osnaburg. This is unquestionably true. But that which is not within the province of Parliament, is yet within the
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sphere of every man's own reflection. If a foreign prince resided amongst us, the state of his revenues could not fail of becoming the subject of our specula tion. Filled with an anxious concern for whatever regards the welfare of our sovereign, it is impossible, in considering the miserable circumstances into which he has been brought, that this obvious topic should be entirely passed over. There is an opinion univer sal, that these revenues produce something not incon siderable, clear of all charges and establishments. This produce the people do not believe to be hoarded, nor perceive to be spent. It is accounted for in the only manner it can, by supposing that it is drawn away, for the support of that court faction, which, whilst it distresses the nation, impoverishes the prince in every one of his resources. I once more
caution the reader, that I do not urge this considera tion concerning the foreign revenue, as if I supposed we had a direct right to examine into the expendi ture of any part of it; but solely for the purpose of showing how little this system of favoritism has been advantageous to the monarch himself; which, with out magnificence, has sunk him into a state of unnat ural poverty; at the same time that he possessed every means of affluence, from ample revenues, both in this country, and in other parts of his dominions.
Has this system provided better for the treatment becoming his high and sacred character, and secured the king from those disgusts attached to the neces sity of employing men who are not personally agreea ble? This is a topic upon which for many reasons I could wish to be silent; but the pretence of securing against such causes of uneasiness, is the corner-stone of the court-party. It has however so happened, that
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if I were to fix upon any one point, in which this sys tem has been more particularly and shamefully blam able, the effects which it has produced would justify me in choosing for that point its tendency to degrade the personal dignity of' the sovereign, and to expose him to a thousand contradictions and mortifications. It is but too evident in what manner these projectors of royal greatness have fulfilled all their magnificent promises. Without recapitulating all the circum stances of the reign, every one of which more or less, melancholy proof of the truth of what have advanced, let us consider the language of the court but few years ago, concerning most of the persons now in the external administration: let me ask, whether any enemy to the personal feelings of the sovereign could possibly contrive keener instrument of mortification, and degradation of all dignity, than almost every part and member of the present arrange ment? Nor, in the whole course of our history, has any compliance with the will of the people ever been known to extort from any prince greater contradic tion to all his own declared affections and dislikes, than that which now adopted, in direct opposition to everything the people approve and desire.
An opinion prevails, that greatness has been more than once advised to submit to certain condescensions towards individuals, which have been denied to the entreaties of nation. For the meanest and most dependent instrument of this system knows, that there are hours when its existence may depend upon his adherence to it; and he takes his advantage accord
? Indeed law of nature, that whoever necessary to what we have made our object sure, in some way, or in some time or other, to become our
ingly.
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master. All this however is submitted to, in order to avoid that monstrous evil of governing in concur rence with the opinion of the people.
For it seems to be laid down as a maxim, that a king has some sort of interest in giving uneasiness to his subjects: that all who are pleasing to them, are to be of course disagreeable to him: that as soon as the persons who
are odious at court are known to be odious to the people, it is snatched at as a lucky occasion of show ering down upon them all kinds of emoluments and honors. None are considered as well-wishers to the crown, but those who advise to some unpopular course of action; none capable of serving but those who are obliged to call at every instant upon all its power for the safety of their lives. None are supposed to be fit priests in the temple of govern ment, but the persons who are compelled to fly into
for sanctuary. Such the effect of this refined
such ever the result of all the contriv ances, which are used to free men from the servitude of their reason, and from the necessity of ordering their affairs according to their evident interests. These contrivances oblige them to run into real and ruinous servitude, in order to avoid supposed re straint, that might be attended with advantage.
If therefore this system has so ill answered its own grand pretence of saving the king from the necessity of employing persons disagreeable to him, has given more peace and tranquillity to his Majesty's private hours? No, most certainly. The father of his peo ple cannot possibly enjoy repose, while his family in such state of distraction. Then what has the crown
or the king profited by all this fine-wrought scheme Is he _more rich, or more splendid, or more powerful,
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or more at his ease, by so many labors and contriv ances? Have they not beggared his" exchequer, tar nished the splendor of his court, sunk his dignity, galled his feelings, discomposed the whole order and happiness of his private life ?
It will be very hard, I believe, to state in what re spect the king has profited by that faction which pre sumptuously choose to call themselves his friends.
If particular men had grown into an attachment, by the distinguished honor of the society of their sov ereign; and, by being the partakers of his amuse ments, came sometimes to prefer the gratification of his personal inclinations to the support of his high character, the thing would be very natural, and it would be excusable enough. But the pleasant part of the story that these king's friends have no more ground for usurping such title, than resident free holder in Cumberland or in Cornwall. They are only known to their sovereign by kissing his hand, for the ofiices, pensions, and grants, into which they have deceived his benignity. May no storm ever come, which will put the firmness of their attachment to the proof; and which, in the midst of confusions, and terrors, and sufferings, may demonstrate the eternal difierence between true and severe friend to the monarchy, and slippery sycophant of the court! Quantum infido scarrre distabit amicus.
So far have considered the effect of-the court system, chiefly as operates upon the executive gov ernment, on the temper of the people, and on the happiness of the sovereign. It remains that we should consider, with little attention, its operation upon Parliament.
Parliament was indeed the great object of all these
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politics, the end at which they aimed, as well as the instrument by which they were to operate. But, be fore Parliament could be made subservient to a sys tem, by which it was to be degraded from the dignity of a national council into a mere member of the court, it must be greatly changed from its original character.
In speaking of this body, I have my eye chiefly on the House of Commons. I hope I shall be indulged in a few observations on the nat1u. e and character of that assembly; not with regard to its legal form and
power, but to its spirit, and to the purposes it is meant to answer in the constitution.
The House of Commons was supposed originally to be no part of the standing government of this country. It was considered as a control issuing immediately from the people, and speedily to be resolved into the mass from whence it arose. In this respect it was in the higher part of government what juries are in the low er. The capacity of a magistrate being transitory, and that of a citizen permanent, the latter capacity it was
hoped would of course preponderate in all discus sions, not only between the people and the standing authority of the crown, but between the people and the fleeting authority of the House of Commons itself. It was hoped that, being of a middle nature between subject and government, they would feel with a more tender and a nearer interest everything that con cerned the people, than the other remoter and more permanent parts of legislature.
Whatever alterations time and the necessary ac commodation of business may have introduced, this character can never be sustained, unless the House of Commons shall be made to bear some stamp of the
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actual disposition of the people at large. It would (among public misfortunes) be an evil more natural and tolerable, that the House of Commons should be infected with every epidemical frenzy of the people, as this would indicate some consanguinity, some sym pathy of nature with their constituents, than that they should in all eases be wholly untouched by the opin ions and feelings of the people out of doors. By this want of sympathy they would cease to be a House of Commons. For it is not the derivation of the power of that House from the people, which makes it in a distinct sense their representative. The king is the representative of the people ; so are the lords; so are the judges. They all are trustees for the people, as well as the commons; because no power is given for the sole sake of the holder; and although govern ment certainly is an institution of divine authority, yet its forms, and the persons who administer all originate from the people.
A popular origin cannot therefore be the character istical distinction of popular representative. This Ir belongs equally to all parts of government and in all forms. The virtue, spirit, and essence of House of Commons consists in its being the express image of the feelings of the nation. It was not instituted to
be control upon the people, as of late has been taught, by doctrine of the most pernicious tendency. It was designed as control for the people. Other institutions have been formed for the purpose of checking popular excesses; and they are, appre hend, fully adequate to their object. If not, they ought to be made so. The House of Commons, as
was never intended for the support of peace and subordination, miserably appointed for that service;
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having no stronger weapon than its mace, and no bet ter officer than its serjeant-at-arms, which it can com mand of its own proper authority. A vigilant and
jealous eye over executory and judicial magistracy ; an anxious care of public money; an openness, ap proaching towards facility, to public complaint: these seem to be the true characteristics of a House of Com mons. But an addressing House of Commons, and a petitioning nation ; a House of Commons full of con fidence, when the nation is plunged in despair; in the utmost harmony with ministers, whom the peo ple regard with the utmost abhorrence; who vote thanks, when the public opinion calls upon them for impeachments ; who are eager to grant, when the gen eral voice demands account; who, in all disputes be tween the people and administration, presume against the people; who punish their disorders, but refuse even to inquire into the provocations to them; this is an unnatural, a monstrous state of things in this constitution. Such an assembly may be a great, wise, awful senate; but it is not, to any popular pur pose, a House of Commons. This change from an immediate state of procuration and delegation to a course of acting as from original power, is the way in which all the popular magistracies in the world have been perverted from their purposes. It is in deed their greatest and sometimes their incurable cor
For there is a material distinction between that corruption by which particular points are carried against reason, (this is a thing which cannot be pre vented by human_ wisdom, and is of less conse quence,) and the corruption of the principle itself. For then the evil is not accidental, but settled. The distemper becomes the natural habit.
? ruption.
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For my part, I shall be compelled to conclude the principle of Parliament to be totally corrupted, and therefore its ends entirely defeated, when I see two symptoms: first, a rule of indiscriminate support to all ministers; because this destroys the very end of Parliament as a control, and is a general, previous sanction to misgovernment: and secondly, the setting up any claims adverse to the right of free election; for this tends to subvert the legal authority by which the House of Commons sits.
I know that, since the Revolution, along with many dangerous, many useful powers of government have been weakened. It is absolutely necessary to have frequent recourse to the legislature. Parlia ments must therefore sit every year, and for great part of the year. The dreadful disorders of frequent elections have also necessitated a septennial instead of a triennial duration. These circumstances, I mean
the constant habit of authority, and the unfrequency of elections, have tended very much to draw the House of Commons towards the character of a stand ing senate. It is a disorder which has arisen from the cure of greater disorders; it has arisen from the extreme difficulty of reconciling liberty under a mo narchical government, with external strength and with internal tranquillity.
It is very clear that we cannot free ourselves en tirely from this great inconvenience; but I would not increase an evil, because I was not able to remove it; and because it was not in my power to keep the House of Commons religiously true to its first princi ples, I would not argue for carrying it to a total ob
livion of them. This has been the great scheme of power in our time. They, who will not conform their
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ah
conduct to the public good, and cannot support
the prerogative of the crown, have adopted
plan. They have totally abandoned the shattered and old-fashioned fortress of prerogative, and made lodgment in the stronghold of Parliament itself. If they have any evil design to which there no ordina ry legal power commensurate, they bring into Par
In Parliament the whole executed from the beginning to the end. In Parliament the power of obtaining their object absolute; and the safety in the proceeding perfect: no rules to confine, no af ter-reckonings to terrify. Parliament cannot, with
any great propriety, punish others for things in which they themselves have been accomplices. Thus the control of Parliament upon the executory power lost; because Parliament made to partake in every considerable act of government. Impeachment, that
great guardian the purity the constitution, in danger being lost, even to the idea it.
By this plan several important ends are answered to the cabal. If the authority of Parliament supports itself, the credit of every act of government, which they contrive, saved; but the act be so very odi ous that the whole strength of Parliament insuffi cient to recommend then Parliament itself dis credited; and this discredit increases more and more
that indifference to the constitution, which the constant aim of its enemies, by their abuse of Parlia mentary powers, to render general among the people. Whenever Parliament persuaded to assume the ofli ces of executive government, will lose all the confi dence, love, and veneration, which has ever enjoyed Whilst was supposed the corrective and control of the acting powers of the state. This would be the event,
liament.
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though its conduct in such a perversion of its func tions should be tolerably just and moderate ; but if it should be iniquitous, violent, full of passion, and full of faction, it would be considered as the most intoler able of all the modes of tyranny.
For a considerable time this separation of the rep resentatives from their constituents went on with a silent progress; and had those, who conducted the plan for their total separation,been persons of temper
"and abilities any way equal to the magnitude of their design, the success would have been infallible: but by their precipitancy they have laid it open in all its nakedness; the nation is alarmed at it: and the event may not be pleasant to the contrivers of the scheme. In the last session, the corps called the king's friends made a hardy attempt, all at once, to alter the right of election itself; to put it into the pow er of the House of Commons to disable any person disagreeable to them from sitting in Parliament, without any other rule than their own pleasure; to make incapacities, either general for descriptions of men, or particular for individuals; and to take into their body, persons who avowedly had never been chosen by the majority of legal electors, nor agreea bly to any known rule of law.
The arguments upon which this claim was founded and combated, are not my business here. Never has a subject been more amply and more learnedly han dled, nor upon one side, in my opinion, more satisfac torily ; they who are not convinced by what is already written would not receive conviction though one arose from the dead.
I too have thought on this subject: but my pur pose here, is only to consider it as a part of the favor
'we
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ite project of government ; to observe on the motives which led to it ; and to trace its political consequences.
A violent rage for the punishment of Mr. Wilkes was the pretence of the whole. This gentleman, by
himself strongly in opposition to the court cabal, had become at once an object of their persecu tion, and of the popular favor. The hatred of the court party pursuing, and the countenance of the peo ple protecting him, it very soon became not at all a question on the man, but a trial of strength between the two parties. The advantage of the victory in this particular contest was the present, but not the only, nor by any means the principal object. Its operation upon the character of the House of Com
mons was the great point in view. The point to be gained by the cabal was this ; that a precedent should be established, tending to show, That the favor of the
people was not so sure a road as the favor of the court even to popular honors and popular trusts. A strenuous resistance to every appearance of lawless power; a spirit of independence carried to some degree of enthu siasm ; an inquisitive character to discover, and a bold one to display, every corruption and every error of
government ; these are the qualities which recom mend a man to a seat in the House of Commons, in open and merely popular elections. An indolent and submissive disposition ; a disposition to think charita bly of all the actions of men in power, and to live in a mutual intercourse of favors with them; an inclina tion rather to countenance a strong use of authority, than to bear any sort of licentiousness on the part of the people ; these are unfavorable qualities in an open
election for members of Parliament.
The instinct which carries the people towards the VOL. I. 32
setting
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choice of the former, is justified by reason ; because a man of such a character, even in its exorbitances, does not directly contradict the purposes of a trust, the end of which is a control on power. The latter character, even when it is not in its extreme, will ex ecute this trust but very imperfectly ; and, if deviat ing to the least excess, will certainly frustrate instead of forwarding the purposes of a control on govern ment. But when the House of Commons was to be new modelled, this principle was not only to be changed but reversed. Whilst any errors committed
in support of power were left to the law, with every advantage of favorable construction, of mitigation, and finally of pardon ; all excesses on the side of lib erty, or in pursuit of popular favor, or in defence of popular rights and privileges, were not only to be punished by the rigor of the known law, but by a discretionary proceeding, which brought on the loss of the popular object itself. Popularity was to be ren dered, if not directly penal, at least highly dangerous. The favor of the people might lead even to a disqual ification of representing them. Their odium might become, strained through the medium of two or three constructions, the means of sitting as the trustee of all that was dear to them. This is punishing the oil fence in the offending part. Until this time, the
opinion of the people, through the power of an as sembly, still in some sort popular, led to the greatest honors and emoluments in the gift of the crown. Now the principle is reversed; and the favor of the court is the only sure way of obtaining and holding those honors which 'ought to be in the disposal of the people.
It signifies very little how this matter may be quib
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bled away. Example, the only argument of effect in
civil life, demonstrates the truth of my proposition.
Nothing can alter my opinion concerning the perni cious tendency of this example, until I see some man for his indiscretion in the support of power, for his violent and intemperate servility, rendered incapable of sitting in Parliament. For as it now stands, the fault of overstraining popular qualities, and, irregu larly if you please, asserting popular privileges, has
led to disqualification; the opposite fault never has produced the slightest pi. Ll1lShIIl0nl3. Resistance to power has shut the door of the House of Commons to one man ; obsequiousness and servility, to none.
Not that I would encourage popular disorder, or any disorder. But I would leave such offences to the law, to be punished in measure and proportion. The laws of this country are for the most part constituted, and wisely so, for the general ends of government, rather than for the preservation of our particular lib erties. Whatever therefore is done in support of liberty, by persons not in public trust, or not acting merely in that trust, is liable to be more or less out
of the ordinary course of the law; and the law itself is sufficient to animadvert upon it with great sever ity. Nothing indeed can hinder that severe letter from crushing us, except the temperaments it may receive from a trial by jury. But if the habit pre vails of going beyond the law, and superseding this judicature, of carrying offences, real or supposed,
into the legislative bodies, who shall establish them selves into courts qf criminal equity (so the Star Cham ber has been called by Lord Bacon), all the evils of the Star Chamber are revived. A large and liberal construction in ascertaining offences, and a discre
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tionary power in punishing them, is the idea of crim inal equity ; which is in truth a monster in jurispru dence. It signifies nothing whether a court for this purpose be a committee of council, or a House of Commons, or a House of Lords; the liberty of the
will be equally subverted by it. The true end and purpose of that House of Parliament, which entertains such a jurisdiction, will be destroyed by it.
I will not believe, what no other man believes, that Mr. Wilkes was punished for the in decency of his publications, or the impiety of his ransacked closet. If he had fallen in a common slaughter of libellers and blasphemers, I could well believe that nothing more was meant than was pre tended. But when I see, that, for years together, full as impious, and perhaps more dangerous writings to religion, and virtue, and order, have not been pun ished, nor their authors discountenanced; that the most audacious libels on royal majesty have passed without notice; that the most treasonable invectives against the laws, liberties, and constitution of the country, have not met with the slightest animadver
I must consider this as a shocking and shame less pretence. Never did an envenomed scurrility against everything sacred and civil, public and pri vate, rage through the kingdom with such a furious and unbridled license. All this while the peace of the nation must be shaken, to ruin one libeller, and to tear from the populace a single favorite.
Nor is it that vice merely skulks in an 0bsciu'c and contemptible impunity. Does not the public behold with indignation, persons not only generally scanda lous in their lives, but the identical persons who, by their society, their instruction, their example, their
subject
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encouragement, have drawn this man into the very
faults which have furnished the cabal with a pretence
for his persecution, loaded with every kind of favor, honor, and distinction, which a court can bestow? Add but the crime of servility (the fazdum crimen ser vitutis) to every other crime, and the whole mass is immediately transmuted into virtue, and becomes the
just subject of reward and honor. When therefore I reflect upon this method pursued by the cabal in distributing rewards and punislnnents, I must con clude that Mr. Wilkes is the object of persecution, not on account of what he has done in common with others who are the objects of reward, but for that in which he differs from many of them: that h_e is pursued for the spirited dispositions which are blended with his vices; for his unconquerable firm ness, for his resolute, indefatigable, strenuous resist ance against oppression.
In this case, therefore, it was not the man that was to be punished, nor his faults that were to be dis countenanced. Opposition to acts of power was to be marked by a kind of civil proscription. The pop ularity which should arise from such an opposition was to be shown unable to protect it. The qualities by which court is made to the people, were to render every fault inexpiable, and every error irretrievable. The qualities by which court is made to power, were to cover and to sanctify everything. He that will have a sure and honorable seat in the House of Commons must take care how he adventures to cultivate pop ular qualities; otherwise he may remember the old maxim, Breves et infaustos populi Romani amorcs. If, therefore, a pursuit of popularity expose a man to greater dangers than a disposition to servility, the
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principle which is the life and soul of popular elec tions will perish out of the constitution.
It behoves the people of England to consider how the House of Commons, under the operation of these examples, must of necessity be constituted. On the side of the court will be, all honors, offices, emolu ments ; every sort of personal gratification to avarice or vanity; and, what is of more moment to most gen tlemen, the means of growing, by innumerable petty services to individuals, into a spreading interest in their country. On the other hand, let us suppose a person unconnected with the court, and in opposition to its system. For his own person, no office, or emol ument, or title; no promotion, ecclesiastical, or civil, or military, or naval, for children, or brothers, or kin dred. In vain an expiring interest in a borough calls
for offices, or small livings, for the children of may ors, and aldermen, and capital burgesses. His court rival has them all. He can do an infinite number of acts of generosity and kindness, and even of public spirit. He can procure indemnity from quarters. He can procure advantages in trade. He can' get pardons for offences.
political sky will see a hurricane in a cloud no big ger than a hand at the very edge of the horizon, and will run into the first harbor. No lines can be laid down for civil or political wisdom. They are a mat ter incapable of exact definition. But, though no man can draw a stroke between the confines of day and night, yet light and darkness are upon the whole tolerably distinguishable. Nor will it be impossible for a prince to find out such a mode of government, and such persons to administer as will give great degree of content to his people without any curious and anxious research for that abstract, universal, per fect harmony, which while he seeking, he abandons those means of ordinary tranquillity which are in his power without any research at all.
not more the duty than the interest of prince, to aim at giving tranquillity to his govern ment. But those who advise him may have an interest in disorder and confusion. If the opinion of the peo ple against them, they will naturally wish that should have no prevalence. Here that the peo ple must on their part show themselves sensible of their own value. Their whole importance, in the first instance, and afterwards their whole freedom,
at stake. Their freedom cannot long survive their
? Here that the natural strength of the kingdom, the great peers, the leading landed gen
tlemen, the opulent merchants and manufacturers, the substantial yeomanry, must interpose, to rescue their prince, themselves, and their posterity.
We are at present at issue upon this point. We are in the great crisis of this contention and the part which men take, one way or other, will serve to discriminate their characters and their principles.
importance.
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Until the matter is decided, the country will re main in its present confusion. For while a system of administration is attempted, entirely repugnant to the genius of the people, and not conformable to the plan of their government, everything must necessa rily be disordered for a time, until this system de stroys the constitution, or the constitution gets the better of this system.
There in my opinion, peculiar venom and ma lignity in this political distemper beyond any that have heard or read of. In former times the project ors of arbitrary government attacked only the liber ties of their country; design surely mischievous enough to have satisfied mind of the most unruly ambition. But system unfavorable to freedom may be so formed, as considerably to exalt the grandeur of the state; and men may find, in the pride and splendor of that prosperity, some sort of consolation for the loss of their solid privileges. Indeed the in crease of the power of the state has often been urged by artful men, as pretext for some abridgment of the public liberty. But the scheme of the junto un
der consideration, no_t only strikes palsy into every nerve of our free constitution, but in the same degree benumbs and stupefies the whole executive power: rendering government in all its grand operations lan guid, uncertain, ineffective; making ministers fearful of attempting, and incapable of executing any useful plan of domestic arrangement, or of foreign politics. It tends to produce neither the security of free gov ernment, nor the energy of monarchy that abso lute. Accordingly the crown has dwindled away, in proportion to the unnatural and turgid growth of this excrescence on the court.
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The interior ministry are sensible, that war'is a sit uation which sets in its full light the value of the hearts of a people; and they well know, that the be ginning of the importance of the people must be the end of theirs. For this reason they discover upon all occasions the utmost fear of everything, which by pos sibility may lead to such an event. I do not mean that they manifest any of that pious fear which is backward to commit the safety of the country to the dubious experiment of war. Such a fear, being the tender sensation of virtue, excited, as it is regulated, by reason, frequently shows itself in a seasonable bold
ness, which keeps danger at a distance, by seeming to despise it. Their fear betrays to the first glance of the eye, its true cause, and its real object. Foreign powers, confident in the knowledge of their charac ter, have not scrupled to violate the most_s0lemn treaties; and, in defiance of them, to make conquests in the midst of a general peace, and in the heart of Europe. Such was the conquest of Corsica, by the professed enemies of the freedom of mankind, in de fiance of those who were formerly its professed defend ers. We have had just claims upon the same powers: rights which ought to have been sacred to them as well as to us, as they had their origin in our lenity and generosity towards France and Spain in the day of their great humiliation. Such I call the ransom of Manilla, and the demand on France for the East India prisoners. But these powers put a just confi dence in their resource of the double cabinet. These demands (one of them at least) are hastening fast
towards an acquittal by prescription. Oblivion begins to spread her cobwebs over all our spirited remon st'rances. Some of the most valuable branches of our
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I mean to mark and distinguish the trade of Por
trade are also on the point of perishing from the same cause. I do not mean those branches which bear without the hand of the vine-dresser; I mean those which the policy of treaties had formerly secured to
us ;
tugal, the loss of which, and the power of the cabal, have one and the same era.
If by any chance, the ministers who stand before the curtain possess or affect any spirit, it makes little or no impression. Foreign courts and ministers, who were among the first to discover and to profit by this invention of the doable cabinet, attend very little to their remonstrances. They know that those shad ows of ministers haveJ nothing to do in the ultimate
ealousies and animosities are sedulously nourished in the outward administration, and have been even considered as a causa sine qua
non in its constitution: thence foreign courts have a certainty, that nothing can be done by common coun sel in this nation. If one of those ministers officially takes up a business with spirit, it serves only the bet ter to signalize the meanness of the rest, and the dis cord of them all. His colleagues in office are in haste to shake him off, and to disclaim the whole of his proceedings. Of this nature was that astonishing
transaction, in which Lord Rochford, our ambassador at Paris, remonstrated against the attempt upon Cor sica, in consequence of a direct authority from Lord Shelburne. This remonstrance the French minister treated with the contempt that was natural: as he was assured, from the ambassador of his court to ours, that these orders of Lord Shelburne were not supported by the rest of the (I had like to have said British) administration. Lord Rochford, a man of
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spirit, could not endure this situation. The conse quences were, however, curious. He returns from Paris, and comes home full of anger. Lord Shel burne, who gave the orders, is obliged to give up the seals. Lord Rochford, who obeyed these orders, re ceives them. He goes, however, into another depart
ment of the same office, that he might not be obliged officially to acquiesce, in one situation, under what he had officially remonstrated against, in another. At Paris, the Duke of Choiseul considered this office arrangement as a compliment to him: here it was
spoken of as an attention to the delicacy of Lord Rochford. But whether the compliment was to one or both, to this nation it was the same. By this transaction the condition of our court lay exposed in all its nakedness. Our office correspondence has lost all pretence to authenticity: British policy is brought
into derision in those nations, that a while ago trem bled at the power of our arms, whilst they looked up with confidence to the equity, firmness, and candor, which shone in all our negotiations. I represent this matter exactly in the light in which it has been uni versally received.
Such has been the aspect of our foreign politics, under the influence of a double cabinet. With such an arrangement at court, it is impossible it should have been otherwise. Nor is it possible that this scheme should have a better effect upon the govern ment of our dependencies, the first, the dearest, and
most delicate objects, of the interior policy of this em pire. The colonies know, that administration is sep arated from the court, divided within itself, and detested by the nation. The double cabinet has, in
both the parts of shown the most malignant dis
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positions towards them, without being able to do them the smallest mischief.
They are convinced, by sufficient experience, that no plan, either of lenity, or rigor, can be pursued with uniformity and perseverance. Therefore they turn their eyes entirely from Great Britain, where they have neither dependence on friendship, nor ap prehension from enmity. They look to themselves, and their own arrangements.
into alienation from this country; and whilst they are becoming disconnected with our government, we have not the consolation to find, that they are even friendly in their new independence. Nothing can equal the futility, the weakness, the rashness, the timidity, the perpetual contradiction in the manage
ment of our affairs in that part of the world. A vol ume might be written on this melancholy subject; but it were better to leave it entirely to the reflec tions of the reader himself, than not to treat it in the extent it deserves.
In what manner our domestic economy is affected by this system, it is needless to explain. It is the perpetual subject of their own complaints.
The court party resolve the whole into faction Having said something before upon this subject, I shall only observe here, that, when they give this ac count of the prevalence of faction, they present no very favorable aspect of the confidence of the people in their own government. They may be assured, that however they amuse themselves with a variety of pro jects for substituting something else in the place of that great and only foundation of government, the confidence of the people, every attempt will but make their condition worse. When men imagine that their
They grow every day
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food is only a cover for poison, and when they neither love nor trust the hand that serves not the name of the roast beef of Old England, that will per suade them to sit down to the table that spread f'or them. When the people conceive that laws, and tri bunals, and even popular assemblies, are perverted from the ends of their institution, they find in those
names of degenerated establishments only new mo tives to discontent. Those bodies, which, when full of life and beauty, lay in their arms, and were their joy and comfort, when dead and putrid, become but the more loathsome from remembrance of former en dearments. sullen gloom and furious disorder prevail by fits; the nation loses its relish for peace
and prosperity; as did in that season of fulness which opened our troubles in the time of Charles the First. species of men to wh'om state of order would become sentence of obscurity are nourished into dangerous magnitude by the heat of intestine disturbances; and no wonder that, by sort of
sinister piety, they cherish, in their turn, the disor ders which are the parents of all their consequence. Superficial observers consider such persons as the cause of the public uneasiness, when, in truth, they are nothing more than the effect of it. Good men look upon this distracted scene with sorrow and in dignation. Their hands are tied behind them. They
are despoiled of all the power which might enable them to reconcile the strength of government with the rights of the people. They stand in most dis tressing alternative. But in the election among evils they hope better things from temporary confusion, than from established servitude. In the mean time,
the voice of law not to be heard. Fierce licentious
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ness begets violent restraints. The military arm is the sole reliance; and then, call your constitution what you please, it is the sword that governs. The civil power, like every other that calls in the aid of an ally stronger than itself, perishes by the assistance it receives. But the contrivers of this scheme of gov ernment will not trust solely to the military power; because they are cunning men. Their restless and crooked spirit drives them to rake in the dirt of every kind of expedient. Unable to rule the multitude, they endeavor to raise divisions amongst them. One mob is hired to destroy another; a procedure which at once encourages the boldness of the populace, and
justly increases their discontent. Men become pen sioners of state on account of their abilities in the array of riot, and the discipline of confusion. Gov ernment is put under the disgraceful necessity of protecting from the severity of the laws that very licentiousness, which the laws had been before vio lated to repress. Everything partakes of the original disorder. Anarchy predominates without freedom, and servitude without submission or subordination. These are the consequences inevitable to our public peace, from the scheme of rendering the executory government at once odious and feeble ; of freeing ad ministration from the constitutional and salutary con trol of Parliament, and inventing for it a new control, unknown to the constitution, an interior cabinet; which brings the whole' body of government into cou fusion and contempt. I am able, the
After having stated, as shortly as
effects of this system on our foreign affairs, on the policy of our government with regard to our depen dencies, and on the interior economy of the common
? ? ? ? or THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 485
wealth; there remains only, in this part of my design, to say something of the grand principle which first recommendedthis system at court. The pretence was, to prevent the king from being enslaved by a faction, and made a prisoner in his closet. This scheme might have been expected to answer at least its own end, and to indemnify the king, in his per sonal capacity, for all the confusion into which it has thrown his government. But has it in reality an swered this purpose? Iam sure, if it had, every
affectionate subject would have one motive for endur ing with patience all the evils which attend it.
In order to come at the truth in this matter, it may not be amiss to consider it somewhat in detail. I speak here of the king, and not of the crown; the interests of which we have already touched. Inde pendent of that greatness which a king possesses merely by being a representative of the national dig nity, the things in which he may have an individual interest seem to be these:--wealth accumulated;
wealth spent in magnificence, pleasure, or benefi cence; personal respect and attention; and, above all, private ease and repose of mind. These com pose the inventory of prosperous circumstances, whether they regard a prince or a subject; their enjoyments differing only in the scale upon which they are formed.
Suppose then we were to ask, whether the king has been richer than his predecessors in accumulated wealth, since the establishment of the plan of favor itism? I believe it will be found that the picture of
royal indigence, which our court has presented until this year, has been truly humiliating. Nor has it been relieved from this unseemly distress, but by
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means which have hazarded the afiection of the peo ple, and shaken their confidence in Parliament. If the public treasures had been exhausted in magnifi cence and splendor, this distress would have been ac counted for, and in some measure justified.
Nothing would be more unworthy of this nation, than with a mean and mechanical rule, to mete out the splendor
of the crown. Indeed I have found very few persons disposed to so ungenerous a procedure. But the generality of people, it must be confessed, do feel a good deal mortified, when they compare the wants of the court with its expenses. They do not behold the cause of this distress in any part of the apparatus of royal magnificence. In all this, they see nothing but the operations of parsimony, attended with all the consequences of profusion. Nothing expended, nothing saved. Their wonder is increased by their knowledge, that besides the revenue settled on his Majesty's civil list to the amount of 800,000l. a year, he has a farther aid from a large pension list, near 90,000l. a year, in Ireland; from the produce of the duchy of Lancaster (which we are told has been greatly improved); from the revenue of the duchy of Cornwall; from the American quit-rents; from the four and a half per cent duty in the Leeward Islands ; this last worth to be sure considerably more than 40,000l. a year. The whole is certainly not much short of a million annually.
These are revenues within the knowledge and cog nizance of our national councils. We have no direct right to examine into the receipts from his Ma. jesty's German dominions, and the bishopric of Osnaburg. This is unquestionably true. But that which is not within the province of Parliament, is yet within the
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sphere of every man's own reflection. If a foreign prince resided amongst us, the state of his revenues could not fail of becoming the subject of our specula tion. Filled with an anxious concern for whatever regards the welfare of our sovereign, it is impossible, in considering the miserable circumstances into which he has been brought, that this obvious topic should be entirely passed over. There is an opinion univer sal, that these revenues produce something not incon siderable, clear of all charges and establishments. This produce the people do not believe to be hoarded, nor perceive to be spent. It is accounted for in the only manner it can, by supposing that it is drawn away, for the support of that court faction, which, whilst it distresses the nation, impoverishes the prince in every one of his resources. I once more
caution the reader, that I do not urge this considera tion concerning the foreign revenue, as if I supposed we had a direct right to examine into the expendi ture of any part of it; but solely for the purpose of showing how little this system of favoritism has been advantageous to the monarch himself; which, with out magnificence, has sunk him into a state of unnat ural poverty; at the same time that he possessed every means of affluence, from ample revenues, both in this country, and in other parts of his dominions.
Has this system provided better for the treatment becoming his high and sacred character, and secured the king from those disgusts attached to the neces sity of employing men who are not personally agreea ble? This is a topic upon which for many reasons I could wish to be silent; but the pretence of securing against such causes of uneasiness, is the corner-stone of the court-party. It has however so happened, that
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if I were to fix upon any one point, in which this sys tem has been more particularly and shamefully blam able, the effects which it has produced would justify me in choosing for that point its tendency to degrade the personal dignity of' the sovereign, and to expose him to a thousand contradictions and mortifications. It is but too evident in what manner these projectors of royal greatness have fulfilled all their magnificent promises. Without recapitulating all the circum stances of the reign, every one of which more or less, melancholy proof of the truth of what have advanced, let us consider the language of the court but few years ago, concerning most of the persons now in the external administration: let me ask, whether any enemy to the personal feelings of the sovereign could possibly contrive keener instrument of mortification, and degradation of all dignity, than almost every part and member of the present arrange ment? Nor, in the whole course of our history, has any compliance with the will of the people ever been known to extort from any prince greater contradic tion to all his own declared affections and dislikes, than that which now adopted, in direct opposition to everything the people approve and desire.
An opinion prevails, that greatness has been more than once advised to submit to certain condescensions towards individuals, which have been denied to the entreaties of nation. For the meanest and most dependent instrument of this system knows, that there are hours when its existence may depend upon his adherence to it; and he takes his advantage accord
? Indeed law of nature, that whoever necessary to what we have made our object sure, in some way, or in some time or other, to become our
ingly.
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master. All this however is submitted to, in order to avoid that monstrous evil of governing in concur rence with the opinion of the people.
For it seems to be laid down as a maxim, that a king has some sort of interest in giving uneasiness to his subjects: that all who are pleasing to them, are to be of course disagreeable to him: that as soon as the persons who
are odious at court are known to be odious to the people, it is snatched at as a lucky occasion of show ering down upon them all kinds of emoluments and honors. None are considered as well-wishers to the crown, but those who advise to some unpopular course of action; none capable of serving but those who are obliged to call at every instant upon all its power for the safety of their lives. None are supposed to be fit priests in the temple of govern ment, but the persons who are compelled to fly into
for sanctuary. Such the effect of this refined
such ever the result of all the contriv ances, which are used to free men from the servitude of their reason, and from the necessity of ordering their affairs according to their evident interests. These contrivances oblige them to run into real and ruinous servitude, in order to avoid supposed re straint, that might be attended with advantage.
If therefore this system has so ill answered its own grand pretence of saving the king from the necessity of employing persons disagreeable to him, has given more peace and tranquillity to his Majesty's private hours? No, most certainly. The father of his peo ple cannot possibly enjoy repose, while his family in such state of distraction. Then what has the crown
or the king profited by all this fine-wrought scheme Is he _more rich, or more splendid, or more powerful,
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or more at his ease, by so many labors and contriv ances? Have they not beggared his" exchequer, tar nished the splendor of his court, sunk his dignity, galled his feelings, discomposed the whole order and happiness of his private life ?
It will be very hard, I believe, to state in what re spect the king has profited by that faction which pre sumptuously choose to call themselves his friends.
If particular men had grown into an attachment, by the distinguished honor of the society of their sov ereign; and, by being the partakers of his amuse ments, came sometimes to prefer the gratification of his personal inclinations to the support of his high character, the thing would be very natural, and it would be excusable enough. But the pleasant part of the story that these king's friends have no more ground for usurping such title, than resident free holder in Cumberland or in Cornwall. They are only known to their sovereign by kissing his hand, for the ofiices, pensions, and grants, into which they have deceived his benignity. May no storm ever come, which will put the firmness of their attachment to the proof; and which, in the midst of confusions, and terrors, and sufferings, may demonstrate the eternal difierence between true and severe friend to the monarchy, and slippery sycophant of the court! Quantum infido scarrre distabit amicus.
So far have considered the effect of-the court system, chiefly as operates upon the executive gov ernment, on the temper of the people, and on the happiness of the sovereign. It remains that we should consider, with little attention, its operation upon Parliament.
Parliament was indeed the great object of all these
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politics, the end at which they aimed, as well as the instrument by which they were to operate. But, be fore Parliament could be made subservient to a sys tem, by which it was to be degraded from the dignity of a national council into a mere member of the court, it must be greatly changed from its original character.
In speaking of this body, I have my eye chiefly on the House of Commons. I hope I shall be indulged in a few observations on the nat1u. e and character of that assembly; not with regard to its legal form and
power, but to its spirit, and to the purposes it is meant to answer in the constitution.
The House of Commons was supposed originally to be no part of the standing government of this country. It was considered as a control issuing immediately from the people, and speedily to be resolved into the mass from whence it arose. In this respect it was in the higher part of government what juries are in the low er. The capacity of a magistrate being transitory, and that of a citizen permanent, the latter capacity it was
hoped would of course preponderate in all discus sions, not only between the people and the standing authority of the crown, but between the people and the fleeting authority of the House of Commons itself. It was hoped that, being of a middle nature between subject and government, they would feel with a more tender and a nearer interest everything that con cerned the people, than the other remoter and more permanent parts of legislature.
Whatever alterations time and the necessary ac commodation of business may have introduced, this character can never be sustained, unless the House of Commons shall be made to bear some stamp of the
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actual disposition of the people at large. It would (among public misfortunes) be an evil more natural and tolerable, that the House of Commons should be infected with every epidemical frenzy of the people, as this would indicate some consanguinity, some sym pathy of nature with their constituents, than that they should in all eases be wholly untouched by the opin ions and feelings of the people out of doors. By this want of sympathy they would cease to be a House of Commons. For it is not the derivation of the power of that House from the people, which makes it in a distinct sense their representative. The king is the representative of the people ; so are the lords; so are the judges. They all are trustees for the people, as well as the commons; because no power is given for the sole sake of the holder; and although govern ment certainly is an institution of divine authority, yet its forms, and the persons who administer all originate from the people.
A popular origin cannot therefore be the character istical distinction of popular representative. This Ir belongs equally to all parts of government and in all forms. The virtue, spirit, and essence of House of Commons consists in its being the express image of the feelings of the nation. It was not instituted to
be control upon the people, as of late has been taught, by doctrine of the most pernicious tendency. It was designed as control for the people. Other institutions have been formed for the purpose of checking popular excesses; and they are, appre hend, fully adequate to their object. If not, they ought to be made so. The House of Commons, as
was never intended for the support of peace and subordination, miserably appointed for that service;
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having no stronger weapon than its mace, and no bet ter officer than its serjeant-at-arms, which it can com mand of its own proper authority. A vigilant and
jealous eye over executory and judicial magistracy ; an anxious care of public money; an openness, ap proaching towards facility, to public complaint: these seem to be the true characteristics of a House of Com mons. But an addressing House of Commons, and a petitioning nation ; a House of Commons full of con fidence, when the nation is plunged in despair; in the utmost harmony with ministers, whom the peo ple regard with the utmost abhorrence; who vote thanks, when the public opinion calls upon them for impeachments ; who are eager to grant, when the gen eral voice demands account; who, in all disputes be tween the people and administration, presume against the people; who punish their disorders, but refuse even to inquire into the provocations to them; this is an unnatural, a monstrous state of things in this constitution. Such an assembly may be a great, wise, awful senate; but it is not, to any popular pur pose, a House of Commons. This change from an immediate state of procuration and delegation to a course of acting as from original power, is the way in which all the popular magistracies in the world have been perverted from their purposes. It is in deed their greatest and sometimes their incurable cor
For there is a material distinction between that corruption by which particular points are carried against reason, (this is a thing which cannot be pre vented by human_ wisdom, and is of less conse quence,) and the corruption of the principle itself. For then the evil is not accidental, but settled. The distemper becomes the natural habit.
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For my part, I shall be compelled to conclude the principle of Parliament to be totally corrupted, and therefore its ends entirely defeated, when I see two symptoms: first, a rule of indiscriminate support to all ministers; because this destroys the very end of Parliament as a control, and is a general, previous sanction to misgovernment: and secondly, the setting up any claims adverse to the right of free election; for this tends to subvert the legal authority by which the House of Commons sits.
I know that, since the Revolution, along with many dangerous, many useful powers of government have been weakened. It is absolutely necessary to have frequent recourse to the legislature. Parlia ments must therefore sit every year, and for great part of the year. The dreadful disorders of frequent elections have also necessitated a septennial instead of a triennial duration. These circumstances, I mean
the constant habit of authority, and the unfrequency of elections, have tended very much to draw the House of Commons towards the character of a stand ing senate. It is a disorder which has arisen from the cure of greater disorders; it has arisen from the extreme difficulty of reconciling liberty under a mo narchical government, with external strength and with internal tranquillity.
It is very clear that we cannot free ourselves en tirely from this great inconvenience; but I would not increase an evil, because I was not able to remove it; and because it was not in my power to keep the House of Commons religiously true to its first princi ples, I would not argue for carrying it to a total ob
livion of them. This has been the great scheme of power in our time. They, who will not conform their
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conduct to the public good, and cannot support
the prerogative of the crown, have adopted
plan. They have totally abandoned the shattered and old-fashioned fortress of prerogative, and made lodgment in the stronghold of Parliament itself. If they have any evil design to which there no ordina ry legal power commensurate, they bring into Par
In Parliament the whole executed from the beginning to the end. In Parliament the power of obtaining their object absolute; and the safety in the proceeding perfect: no rules to confine, no af ter-reckonings to terrify. Parliament cannot, with
any great propriety, punish others for things in which they themselves have been accomplices. Thus the control of Parliament upon the executory power lost; because Parliament made to partake in every considerable act of government. Impeachment, that
great guardian the purity the constitution, in danger being lost, even to the idea it.
By this plan several important ends are answered to the cabal. If the authority of Parliament supports itself, the credit of every act of government, which they contrive, saved; but the act be so very odi ous that the whole strength of Parliament insuffi cient to recommend then Parliament itself dis credited; and this discredit increases more and more
that indifference to the constitution, which the constant aim of its enemies, by their abuse of Parlia mentary powers, to render general among the people. Whenever Parliament persuaded to assume the ofli ces of executive government, will lose all the confi dence, love, and veneration, which has ever enjoyed Whilst was supposed the corrective and control of the acting powers of the state. This would be the event,
liament.
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though its conduct in such a perversion of its func tions should be tolerably just and moderate ; but if it should be iniquitous, violent, full of passion, and full of faction, it would be considered as the most intoler able of all the modes of tyranny.
For a considerable time this separation of the rep resentatives from their constituents went on with a silent progress; and had those, who conducted the plan for their total separation,been persons of temper
"and abilities any way equal to the magnitude of their design, the success would have been infallible: but by their precipitancy they have laid it open in all its nakedness; the nation is alarmed at it: and the event may not be pleasant to the contrivers of the scheme. In the last session, the corps called the king's friends made a hardy attempt, all at once, to alter the right of election itself; to put it into the pow er of the House of Commons to disable any person disagreeable to them from sitting in Parliament, without any other rule than their own pleasure; to make incapacities, either general for descriptions of men, or particular for individuals; and to take into their body, persons who avowedly had never been chosen by the majority of legal electors, nor agreea bly to any known rule of law.
The arguments upon which this claim was founded and combated, are not my business here. Never has a subject been more amply and more learnedly han dled, nor upon one side, in my opinion, more satisfac torily ; they who are not convinced by what is already written would not receive conviction though one arose from the dead.
I too have thought on this subject: but my pur pose here, is only to consider it as a part of the favor
'we
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ite project of government ; to observe on the motives which led to it ; and to trace its political consequences.
A violent rage for the punishment of Mr. Wilkes was the pretence of the whole. This gentleman, by
himself strongly in opposition to the court cabal, had become at once an object of their persecu tion, and of the popular favor. The hatred of the court party pursuing, and the countenance of the peo ple protecting him, it very soon became not at all a question on the man, but a trial of strength between the two parties. The advantage of the victory in this particular contest was the present, but not the only, nor by any means the principal object. Its operation upon the character of the House of Com
mons was the great point in view. The point to be gained by the cabal was this ; that a precedent should be established, tending to show, That the favor of the
people was not so sure a road as the favor of the court even to popular honors and popular trusts. A strenuous resistance to every appearance of lawless power; a spirit of independence carried to some degree of enthu siasm ; an inquisitive character to discover, and a bold one to display, every corruption and every error of
government ; these are the qualities which recom mend a man to a seat in the House of Commons, in open and merely popular elections. An indolent and submissive disposition ; a disposition to think charita bly of all the actions of men in power, and to live in a mutual intercourse of favors with them; an inclina tion rather to countenance a strong use of authority, than to bear any sort of licentiousness on the part of the people ; these are unfavorable qualities in an open
election for members of Parliament.
The instinct which carries the people towards the VOL. I. 32
setting
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choice of the former, is justified by reason ; because a man of such a character, even in its exorbitances, does not directly contradict the purposes of a trust, the end of which is a control on power. The latter character, even when it is not in its extreme, will ex ecute this trust but very imperfectly ; and, if deviat ing to the least excess, will certainly frustrate instead of forwarding the purposes of a control on govern ment. But when the House of Commons was to be new modelled, this principle was not only to be changed but reversed. Whilst any errors committed
in support of power were left to the law, with every advantage of favorable construction, of mitigation, and finally of pardon ; all excesses on the side of lib erty, or in pursuit of popular favor, or in defence of popular rights and privileges, were not only to be punished by the rigor of the known law, but by a discretionary proceeding, which brought on the loss of the popular object itself. Popularity was to be ren dered, if not directly penal, at least highly dangerous. The favor of the people might lead even to a disqual ification of representing them. Their odium might become, strained through the medium of two or three constructions, the means of sitting as the trustee of all that was dear to them. This is punishing the oil fence in the offending part. Until this time, the
opinion of the people, through the power of an as sembly, still in some sort popular, led to the greatest honors and emoluments in the gift of the crown. Now the principle is reversed; and the favor of the court is the only sure way of obtaining and holding those honors which 'ought to be in the disposal of the people.
It signifies very little how this matter may be quib
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bled away. Example, the only argument of effect in
civil life, demonstrates the truth of my proposition.
Nothing can alter my opinion concerning the perni cious tendency of this example, until I see some man for his indiscretion in the support of power, for his violent and intemperate servility, rendered incapable of sitting in Parliament. For as it now stands, the fault of overstraining popular qualities, and, irregu larly if you please, asserting popular privileges, has
led to disqualification; the opposite fault never has produced the slightest pi. Ll1lShIIl0nl3. Resistance to power has shut the door of the House of Commons to one man ; obsequiousness and servility, to none.
Not that I would encourage popular disorder, or any disorder. But I would leave such offences to the law, to be punished in measure and proportion. The laws of this country are for the most part constituted, and wisely so, for the general ends of government, rather than for the preservation of our particular lib erties. Whatever therefore is done in support of liberty, by persons not in public trust, or not acting merely in that trust, is liable to be more or less out
of the ordinary course of the law; and the law itself is sufficient to animadvert upon it with great sever ity. Nothing indeed can hinder that severe letter from crushing us, except the temperaments it may receive from a trial by jury. But if the habit pre vails of going beyond the law, and superseding this judicature, of carrying offences, real or supposed,
into the legislative bodies, who shall establish them selves into courts qf criminal equity (so the Star Cham ber has been called by Lord Bacon), all the evils of the Star Chamber are revived. A large and liberal construction in ascertaining offences, and a discre
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tionary power in punishing them, is the idea of crim inal equity ; which is in truth a monster in jurispru dence. It signifies nothing whether a court for this purpose be a committee of council, or a House of Commons, or a House of Lords; the liberty of the
will be equally subverted by it. The true end and purpose of that House of Parliament, which entertains such a jurisdiction, will be destroyed by it.
I will not believe, what no other man believes, that Mr. Wilkes was punished for the in decency of his publications, or the impiety of his ransacked closet. If he had fallen in a common slaughter of libellers and blasphemers, I could well believe that nothing more was meant than was pre tended. But when I see, that, for years together, full as impious, and perhaps more dangerous writings to religion, and virtue, and order, have not been pun ished, nor their authors discountenanced; that the most audacious libels on royal majesty have passed without notice; that the most treasonable invectives against the laws, liberties, and constitution of the country, have not met with the slightest animadver
I must consider this as a shocking and shame less pretence. Never did an envenomed scurrility against everything sacred and civil, public and pri vate, rage through the kingdom with such a furious and unbridled license. All this while the peace of the nation must be shaken, to ruin one libeller, and to tear from the populace a single favorite.
Nor is it that vice merely skulks in an 0bsciu'c and contemptible impunity. Does not the public behold with indignation, persons not only generally scanda lous in their lives, but the identical persons who, by their society, their instruction, their example, their
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encouragement, have drawn this man into the very
faults which have furnished the cabal with a pretence
for his persecution, loaded with every kind of favor, honor, and distinction, which a court can bestow? Add but the crime of servility (the fazdum crimen ser vitutis) to every other crime, and the whole mass is immediately transmuted into virtue, and becomes the
just subject of reward and honor. When therefore I reflect upon this method pursued by the cabal in distributing rewards and punislnnents, I must con clude that Mr. Wilkes is the object of persecution, not on account of what he has done in common with others who are the objects of reward, but for that in which he differs from many of them: that h_e is pursued for the spirited dispositions which are blended with his vices; for his unconquerable firm ness, for his resolute, indefatigable, strenuous resist ance against oppression.
In this case, therefore, it was not the man that was to be punished, nor his faults that were to be dis countenanced. Opposition to acts of power was to be marked by a kind of civil proscription. The pop ularity which should arise from such an opposition was to be shown unable to protect it. The qualities by which court is made to the people, were to render every fault inexpiable, and every error irretrievable. The qualities by which court is made to power, were to cover and to sanctify everything. He that will have a sure and honorable seat in the House of Commons must take care how he adventures to cultivate pop ular qualities; otherwise he may remember the old maxim, Breves et infaustos populi Romani amorcs. If, therefore, a pursuit of popularity expose a man to greater dangers than a disposition to servility, the
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principle which is the life and soul of popular elec tions will perish out of the constitution.
It behoves the people of England to consider how the House of Commons, under the operation of these examples, must of necessity be constituted. On the side of the court will be, all honors, offices, emolu ments ; every sort of personal gratification to avarice or vanity; and, what is of more moment to most gen tlemen, the means of growing, by innumerable petty services to individuals, into a spreading interest in their country. On the other hand, let us suppose a person unconnected with the court, and in opposition to its system. For his own person, no office, or emol ument, or title; no promotion, ecclesiastical, or civil, or military, or naval, for children, or brothers, or kin dred. In vain an expiring interest in a borough calls
for offices, or small livings, for the children of may ors, and aldermen, and capital burgesses. His court rival has them all. He can do an infinite number of acts of generosity and kindness, and even of public spirit. He can procure indemnity from quarters. He can procure advantages in trade. He can' get pardons for offences.
