This is a question altogether different from the disqualification of a particular description of revenue
officers
from seats in Parliament ; or, perhaps, of all the lower sorts of them from votes in elections.
Edmund Burke
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arrogating to its sole resolution the most harsh and odious part of legislative authority, that degree of submission which is due only to the legislature itself.
When the House of Commons, in an endeavor to obtain new advantages at the expense of the other orders of the state, for the benefit of the commons at large, have pursued strong measures; if it were not
just, it was at least natural, that the constituents should connive at all their proceedings; because we were ourselves ultimately to profit. But when this submission is urged to us, in a contest between the representatives and ourselves, and where nothing can be put into their scale which is not taken from oiu's,
? they fancy us to be children when they tell us they are our representatives, our own flesh and blood, and that all the stripes they give us are for our good. The very desire of that body to have such a trust contrary to law reposed in them, shows that they are not worthy of it. They certainly will abuse it; be cause all men possessed of an uncontrolled discretion ary power leading to the aggrandizement and profit
of their own body have always abused it: and I see no particular sanctity in oiu' times, that is at all likely, by a miraculous operation, to overrule the course of nature.
But we must purposely shut our eyes, if we con sider this matter merely as a contest between the House of Commons and the electors. The true con test is between the electors of the kingdom and the crown ; the crown acting by an instrumental House of Commons. It is precisely the same, whether the ministers of the crown can disqualify by a dependent House of Commons, or by a dependent Court of Star
Chamber, or by a dependent Court of King's Bench.
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If once members of Parliament can be practically convinced that they do not depend on the affection or opinion of the people for their political being, they will give themselves over, without even an appear ance of reserve, to the influence of the court.
Indeed a Parliament unconnected with the
ple is essential to a ministry unconnected with the people; and therefore those who saw through what mighty difficulties the interior ministry waded, and the exterior were dragged, in this business, will eon ceive of what prodigious importance, the new corps of king's men held this principle of occasional and personal incapacitation, to the whole body of their design.
When the House of Commons was thus made to consider itself as the master of its constituents, there wanted but one thing to secure that House against all possible future deviation towards popularity: an unlimited fund of money to be laid out according to the pleasure of the court.
To complete the scheme of bringing our court to a resemblance to the neighboring monarchies, it was
in effect, to destroy those appropriations of revenue, which seem to limit the property, as the other laws had done the powers, of the crown. An opportunity for this purpose was taken, upon an application to Parliament for payment of the debts of the civil list; which in 1769 had amounted to 513,00()l. Such application had been made upon former occasions ; but to do it in the former manner would by no means answer the present purpose.
Whenever the crown had come to the commons to desire a supply for the discharging of debts due on the civil list, it was always asked and granted with
peo
? necessary,
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one of the three following qualifications; sometimes with all of them. Either it was stated, that the rev enue had been diverted from its purposes by Parlia ment; or that those duties had fallen short of the sum for which they were given by Parliament, and that the intention of the legislature had not been ful filled ; or that the money required to discharge the civil list debt was to be raised chargeable on the civil list duties. In the reign of Queen Anne, the crown was found in debt. The lessening and grant ing away some part of her revenue by Parliament was alleged as the cause of that debt, and pleaded as an equitable ground, such it certainly was, for dis charging it. It does not appear that the duties which were then applied to the ordinary government pro duced elear above 580,000l. a year; because, when they were afterwards granted to George the First, 120,000l. was added to complete the whole to 700,00Ol. a year. Indeed it was then asserted, and, I have no doubt, truly, that for many years the net produce did
not amount to above 550,000l. The queen's extraor dinary charges were besides very considerable ; equal, at least, to any we have known in our time. The ap plication to Parliament was not for an absolute grant of money; but to empower the queen to raise it by borrowing upon the civil list funds.
The civil list debt was twice paid in the reign of George the First. The money was granted upon the same plan which had been followed in the reign of
? AJH1e. The civil list revenues were then mortgaged for the sum to be raised, and stood charged with the ransom of their own deliverance.
George the Second received an addition to his civil list. Duties were granted for the purpose of raising
Queen
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800,000l. a year. It was not until he had reigned nineteen years, and after the last rebellion, that he called upon Parliament for a discharge of the civil list debt. The extraordinary charges brought on by the rebellion, account fi1lly for the necessities of the crown. However, the extraordinary charges of gov ernment were not thought a ground fit to be relied on.
A deficiency of the civil list duties for several years before was stated as the principal, if not the sole ground on which an application to Parliament could be justified. About this time the produce of these duties had fallen pretty low ; and even upon an aver age of the whole reign they never produced 800,000l. a year clear to the treasury.
That prince reigned fourteen years afterwards: not only no new demands were made; but with so much good order were his revenues and expenses regulated, that, although many parts of the establish ment of the court were upon a larger and more liberal scale than they have been since, there was a consider able sum in hand, on his decease, amounting to about 170,000l. applicable to the service of the civil list of his present Majesty. So that, if this reign com menced with a greater charge than usual, there was enough and more than enough, abundantly to supply all the extraordinary expense. That the civil list should have been exceeded in the two former reigns, especially in the reign of George the First, was not at all surprising. His revenue was but 700,000l. annu ally; if it ever produced so much clear. The prodi gious and dangerous disaffection to the very being of the establishment, and the cause of a pretender then
powerfully abetted from abroad, produced many de
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511
mands of an extraordinary nature both abroad and at home. Much management and great expenses were necessary. But the throne of no prince has stood upon more unshaken foundations than that of his present Majesty.
To have exceeded the sum given for the civil list, and to have incurred a debt without special authority of Parliament, was prima facie, a criminal act: as such, ministers ought naturally rather to have with drawn it from the inspection, than to have exposed it to the scrutiny of Parliament. Certainly they ought, of themselves, officially to have come armed with every sort of argument, which, by explaining, could excuse, a matter in itself of presumptive guilt. But the terrors of the House of Commons are no longer for ministers.
On the other hand, the peculiar character of the House of Commons, as trustee of the public purse, would have led them to call with a punctilious solici tude for every public account, and to have examined into them with the most rigorous accuracy.
The capital use of an account that the reality of the charge, the reason of incurring and the justice and necessity of discharging should all appear ante cedent to the payment. No man ever pays first, and calls for his account afterwards; because he would thereby let out of his hands the principal, and indeed only effectual, means of compelling full and fair one. But, in national business, there an addition al reason for previous production of every account. It check, perhaps the only one, upon corrupt and prodigal use of public money. An account after payment to no rational purpose an account. However, the House of Commons thought all these to
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the most Parliamentary way of proceeding was. to pay first what the court thought proper to demand, and to take its chance for an examination into ac counts at some time of greater leisure.
The nation had settled 800,000l. a year on the crown, as sufficient for the support of its dignity, upon the estimate of its own ministers. When min isters came to Parliament, and said that this allow ance had not been sufficient for the purpose, and that they had incurred a debt of 500,000l. , would it not
have been natural for Parliament first to have asked how, and by what means, their appropriated allow ance came to be insufficient? Would it not have savored of some attention to justice, to have seen in what periods of administration this debt had been originally incurred; that they might discover, and if need were, animadvert on the persons who were found the most culpable? To put their hands upon such articles of expenditure as they thought improp er or excessive, and to secure, in future, against such misapplication or exceeding? Accounts for any other purposes are but a matter of curiosity, and
no genuine Parliamentary object. All the accounts which could answer any Parliamentary end were re fused, or postponed by previous questions. Every idea of prevention was rejected, as conveying an im proper suspicion of the ministers of the crown.
When every leading account had been refused, many others were granted with sufficient facility.
But with great candor also, the House was in formed, that hardly any of them could be ready until the next session; some of them perhaps not so soon. But, in order firmly to establish the prece
512 THOUGHTS ON THE CAUSE
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dent of payment previous to account, and to form it into a settled rule of the House, the god in the ma chine was brought down, nothing less than the won der-working law of Parliament. It was alleged, that it is the law of Parliament, when any demand comes from the crown, that the House must go immediately into the committee of supply; in which committee it
was allowed, that the production and examination of accounts would be quite proper and regular. It was therefore carried, that they should go into the com mittee without delay, and without accounts, in order to examine with great order and regularity things that could not possibly come before them. After this stroke of orderly and Parliamentary wit and humor, they went into the committee; and very generously voted the payment.
There was a circumstance in that debate too re markable to be overlooked. This debt of the civil list was all along argued upon the same footing as a debt of the state, contracted upon national authority. Its payment was urged as equally pressing upon the pub lic faith and honor; and when the whole year's ac count was stated, in what is called the budget, the min istry valued themselves on the payment of so much public debt, just as if they had discharged 500,000t. of navy or exchequer bills. Though, in truth, their payment, from the sinking fund, of debt which was never contracted by Parliamentary authority, was, to all intents and purposes, so much debt incurred. But such is the present notion of public credit, and payment of debt. No wonder that it produces such effects.
Nor was the House at all more attentive to a provi
dent security against future, than it had been to a vin VOL. I. 33
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dictive retrospect to past mismanagements. I should have thought indeed that a ministerial promise, dur ing their own continuance in office, might have been given, though this would have been but a poor secu rity for the public. Mr. Pelham gave such an assur ance, aud he kept his word. But nothing was capable of extorting from our ministers anything which had the least resemblance to a promise of confining the expenses of the civil list within the limits which had been settled by Parliament. This reserve of theirs I look upon to be equivalent to the clearest declaration, that they were resolved upon a contrary course.
However, to put the matter beyond all doubt, in the speech from the throne, after thanking Parlia ment for the relief so liberally granted, the ministers inform the two Houses, that they will endeavor to con fine the expenses of the civil government--within what limits, think you? those which the law had pre scribed? Not in the 1east--" such limits as the hon or of the crown can possibly admit. "
Thus they established an arbitrary standard for that dignity which Parliament had defined and limited to a legal standard. They gave themselves, under the lax and indeterminate idea of the honor of the crown, a full loose for all manner of dissipation, and all man ner of corruption. This arbitrary standard they were not afraid to hold out to both Houses ; while an idle and unoperative act of Parliament, estimating the dig nity of the crown'at 800,000l. and confining it to that sum, adds to the number of obsolete statutes which load the shelves of libraries, without any sort of ad vantage to the people.
? After this proceeding, I suppose that no man can be so weak as to think that the crown is limited to
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any settled allowance whatsoever. For if the minis try has 800,000l. a year by the law of the land ; and if by the law of Parliament all the debts which exceed it are to be paid previously to the production of any account; I presume that this is equivalent to an in come with no other limits than the abilities of the subject and the moderation of the court; that is to say, it is such an income as is possessed by every ab solute monarch in Europe. It amounts, as a person of great ability said,in the debate, to an unlimited power of drawing upon the sinking fund. Its effect on the public credit of this kingdom must be obvious ; for in vain is the sinking fund the great buttress of all the rest, if it be in the power of the ministry to resort to it for the payment of any debts which they may choose to incur, under the name of the civil list, and through the medium of a committee, which thinks it self obliged by law to vote supplies without any other account than that of the mere existence of the debt.
Five hundred thousand pounds is a serious sum. But it is nothing to the prolific principle upon which the sum was voted: a principle that may be well called, the fruitful mother of an hundred more. Nei ther is the damage to public credit of very great con sequence, when compared with that which results to public morals and to the safety of the constitution, from the exhaustless mine of corruption
the precedent, and to be wrought by the principle, of
the late payment of the debts of the civil list. The power of discretionary disqualification by one law of Parliament, and the necessity of paying every debt of the civil list by another law of Parliament, if suffered to pass unnoticed, must establish such a fund of re
wards and terrors as will make Parliament the best
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appendage and support of arbitrary power that ever was invented by the wit of man. This is felt. The quarrel is begun between the representatives and the
people. them.
The court faction have at length committed
In such a strait the wisest may well be perplexed, and the boldest staggered. The circumstances are in a great measure new. We have hardly any land marks from the wisdom of our ancestors, to guide us. At best we can only follow the spirit of their proceed ing in other cases. I know the diligence with which my observations on our public disorders have been made; I am very sure of the integrity of the motives on which they are published: I cannot be equally confident in any plan for the absolute cure of those disorders, or for their certain future prevention. My aim is to bring this matter into more public discus sion. Let the sagacity of others work upon it. It is not ILIICOIDIIIOII for medical writers to describe histo ries of diseases very accurately, on whose cure they can say but very little.
The first ideas which generally suggest themselves, for the cure of Parliamentary disorders, are, to short en the duration of Parliaments; and to disqualify all, or a great number of placemen, from a seat in the House of Commons. Whatever efficacy there may be in those remedies, I am sure in the present state of things it is impossible to apply them. A restoration of the right of free election is a prelimina ry indispensable to every other reformation. What alterations ought afterwards to be made in the consti tution, is a matter of deep and difiicult research.
? If I wrote merely to please the popular palate, it would indeed be as little troublesome to me as to an
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517
other, to extol these remedies, so famous in specula tion, but to which their greatest admirers have never attempted seriously to resort in practice. I confess then, that I have no sort of reliance upon either a tri ennial Parliament, or a place-bill. With regard to the former, perhaps it might rather serve to counter act, than to promote the ends that are proposed by it. To say nothing of the horrible disorders among the people attending frequent elections, I should be fear ful of committing, every three years, the independent gentlemen of the country into a contest with the treasury. It is easy to see which of the contending parties would be ruined first. Whoever has taken a careful view of public proceedings, so as to endeavor to ground his speculations on his experience, must have observed how prodigiously greater the power of ministry is in the first and last session of a Parlia ment, than it is in the intermediate period, when members sit a little firm on their seats. The persons of the greatest Parliamentary experience, with whom I have conversed, did constantly, in canvassing the fate of questions, allow something to the court side, upon account of the elections depending or immi nent. The evil complained of, if it exists in the pres ent state of things, would hardly be removed by a
triennial Parliament: for, unless the influence of government in elections can be entirely taken away, the more frequently they return, the more they will harass private independence; the more generally men will be compelled to fly to the settled system atic interest of government, and to the resources of a boundless civil list. Certainly something may be done, and ought to be done, towards lessening that influence in elections; and this will be necessary up
? ? ? ? 518 THOUGHTS ON THE CAUSE
on a plan either of longer or shorter duration of Par liament. But nothing can so perfectly remove the evil, as not to render such contentions, too frequent ly repeated, utterly ruinous, first to independence of fortune, and then to independence of spirit. As I am only giving an opinion on this point, and not at all debating it in an adverse line, I hope I may be excused in another observation. With great truth I may aver, that I never remember to have talked on this subject with any man much conversant with public business, who considered short Parliaments as a real improvement of the constitution. Gentlemen, warm in a popular cause, are ready enough to attrib ute all the declarations of such persons to corrupt
? motives. But the habit of affairs, tends to corrupt the mind, furnishes with the means of better information.
on one hand, on the other, The authori
of such persons will always have some weight. It may stand upon par with the speculations of those who are less practised in business; and who, with perhaps purer intentions, have not so effectual means of judging. It besides an effect of vulgar and pu erile malignity to imagine, that every statesman of course corrupt; and that his opinion, upon every constitutional point, solely formed upon some sinis ter interest.
The next favorite remedy place-bill. The same principle guides in both; mean, the opinion which entertained by many, of the infallibility of laws
and regulations, in the cure of public distempers. Without being as unreasonably doubtful as many are unwisely confident, will only say, that this also
matter very well worthy of serious and mature re flection. It not easy to foresee, what the effect
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would be, of disconnecting with Parliament the great est part of those who hold civil employments, and of such mighty and important bodies as the military and naval establishments. It were better, perhaps, that they should have a corrupt interest in the forms of the constitution, than that they should have none at all.
This is a question altogether different from the disqualification of a particular description of revenue officers from seats in Parliament ; or, perhaps, of all the lower sorts of them from votes in elections. In the former case, only the few are affected; in the lat ter, only the inconsiderable. But a great official, a great professional, a great military and naval interest, all necessarily comprehending many people of the first weight, ability, wealth, and spirit, has been grad ually formed in the kingdom. These new interests must be let into a share of representation, else pos sibly they may be inclined to destroy those institu tions of which they are not permitted to partake. This is not a thing to be trifled with ; nor is it every well-meaning man that is fit to put his hands to it. Many other serious considerations occur. I do not open them here, because they are not directly to my purpose ; proposing only to give the reader some taste of the difficulties that attend all capital changes in the constitution ; just to hint the uncertainty, to say no worse, of being able to prevent the court, as long as it has the means of influence abundantly in its
power, of applying that influence to Parliament ; and
perhaps, if the public method were preqluded, of doing it in some worse and more dangerous meth od. Underhand and oblique ways would be studied. The science of evasion, already tolerably m1derstood, would then be brought to the greatest perfection.
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It is no inconsiderable part of wisdom, to know how
much of an evil ought to be tolerated; lest, by at
tempting a degree of purity impracticable in degener ate times and manners, instead of cutting off the
subsisting ill-practices, new corruptions might be pro duced for the concealment and security of the old. It were better, undoubtedly, that no influence at all could affect the mind of a member of Parliament. But of all modes of influence, in my opinion, a place under the government is the least disgraceful to the man who holds and by far the most safe to the country. would not shut out that sort of influence which open and visible, which connected with the dignity and the service of the state, when
not in my power to prevent the influence of contracts, of subscriptions, of direct bribery, and those innumer able methods of clandestine corruption, which are abundantly in the hands of the court, and which will be applied as long as these means of corruption, and the disposition to be corrupted, have existence amongst us. Our constitution stands on nice equi poise, with steep precipices and deep waters upon all sides of it. In removing from dangerous leaning towards one side, there may be risk of oversetting
on the other. Every project of material change in government so complicated as ours, combined at the same time with external circumstances still more complicated, matter full of difficulties in which
considerate man will not be too ready to decide a prudent man too ready to undertake; or an honest man too ready to promise. They do not respect the public nor themselves, who engage for more than they are sure that "they ought to attempt, or that they are able to perform. These are my sentiments, weak
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but honest and unbiassed; and submitted entirely to the opinion of grave men, well-affected to the constitution of their country, and of experience in what may best promote or hurt it.
Indeed, in the situation in which we stand, with an immense revenue, an enormous debt, mighty estab lishments, government itself a great banker and a great merchant, I see no other way for the preserva tion of a decent attention to public interest in the representatives, but the interposition of the body of the
perhaps,
people itself, whenever it shall appear, by some flagrant and notorious act, by some capital innovation, that these representatives are going to overleap the fences of the law, and to introduce an arbitrary
? power. This interposition is a most unpleasant remedy. But,
if it be a legal remedy, it is intended on some occa sion to be used; to be used then only, when it is evident that nothing else can hold the constitution
to its true principles.
The distempers of monarchy were the great sub
jects of apprehension and redress, in the last cen tury; in this the distempers of Parliament. It is not in Parliament alone that the remedy for Parlia mentary disorders can be completed ; hardly indeed can it begin there. Until a confidence in govern ment is re-established, the people ought to be excited to a more strict and detailed attention to the conduct of their representatives. Standards for judging more systematically upon their conduct ought to be settled in the meetings of counties and corporations. Fre
quent and correct lists of the voters in all important questions ought to be procured.
By such means something may be done. By such means it may appear who those are, that, by an indis
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criminate support of all administrations, have totally banished all integrity and confidence out of public proceedings ; have confounded the best men with the worst; and weakened and dissolved, instead of strengthening and compacting, the general frame of government. If any person is more concerned for government and order, than for the liberties of his country; even he is equally concerned to put an end to this course of indiscriminate support. It is this blind and u1idistinguishing support, that feeds the spring of those very disorders, by which he is fright ened into the arms of the faction which contains in itself the source of all disorders, by enfeebling all the visible and regular authority of the state. The dis temper is increased by his injudicious and preposter ous endeavors, or pretences, for the cure of it.
An exterior administration, chosen for its impo tency, or after it is chosen purposely rendered impo tent, in order to be rendered subservient, will not be obeyed. The laws themselves will not be respected, when those who execute them are despised: and they will be despised, when their power is not immediate from the crown, or natural in the kingdom. Never were ministers better supported in Parliament. Par liamentary support comes and goes with office, totally regardless of the man, or the merit. Is government strengthened? It grows weaker and weaker. The popular torrent gains upon it every hour. Let us learn from our experience. It is not support that is wanting to government, but reformation. When ministry rests upon public opinion, it is not indeed built upon a rock of adamant ; it has, however, some stability. But when it stands upon private humor,
its structure is of stubble, and its foundation is on
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quicksand. I repeat it again, -- He that supports ev ery administration subverts all government. The reason is this: The whole business in which a court usually takes an interest goes on at present equally well, in whatever hands, whether high or low, wise or foolish, scandalous or reputable; there is nothing therefore to hold it firm to any one body of men, or to any one consistent scheme of politics. Nothing interposes, to prevent the full operation of all the ca prices and all the passions of a court upon the ser vants of the public. The system of administration is open to continual shocks and changes, upon the prin ciples of the meanest cabal, and the most contemptible intrigue. Nothing can be solid and permanent. All good men at length fly with horror from such a ser vice. Men of rank and ability, with the spirit which ought to animate such men in a free state, while they decline the jurisdiction of dark cabal on their actions and their fortunes, will, for both, cheerfully put themselves upon their country. They will trust an inquisitive and distinguishing Parliament; because it does inquire, and does distinguish. If they act well, they know, that, in such a Parliament they will be supported against any intrigue; if they act ill, they know that no intrigue can protect them. This situa tion, however awful, is honorable. But in one hour, and in the self-same assembly, without any assigned or assignable cause, to be precipitated from the high est authority to the most marked neglect, possibly in to the greatest peril of life and reputation, is a situa tion full of danger, and destitute of honor. It will be shunned equally by every man of prudence, and every man of spirit.
Such are the consequences of the division of court
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from the administration; and of the division of pub lic men among themselves. By the former of these, lawful government is undone ; by the latter, all oppo sition to lawless power is rendered impotent. Gov ernment may in a great measure be restored, if any considerable bodies of men have honesty and resolu tion enough never to accept administration, unless this garrison of king's men, which is stationed, as in a citadel, to control and enslave it, be entirely broken and disbanded, and every work they have thrown up be levelled with the ground. The disposition of pub lic men to keep this corps together, and to act under
or to co-operate with touchstone by which every administration ought in future to be tried. There has not been one which has not sufficiently ex
the utter incompatibility of that faction with the public peace, and with all the ends of good government: since, they opposed they soon lost every power of serving the crown; they submitted to they lost all the esteem of their country. Until ministers give to the public full proof of their entire alienation from that system, however plausible their pretences, we may be sure they are more intent on the emoluments than the duties of office. If they re fuse to give this proof, we know of what stuff they are made. In this particular, ought to be the elec tors' business to look to their representatives. The electors ought to esteem no less culpable in their member to give single vote in Parliament to such an administration, than to take an office under to endure than to act in it. The notorious. infidelity and versatility of members of Parliament, in their
opinions of men and things, ought in particular manner to be considered by the electors in the in
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quiry which is recommended to them. This is one of the principal holdings of that destructive system, which has endeavored to unhinge all the virtuous, honorable, and useful connections in the kingdom.
This cabal has, with great success, propagated a doctrine which serves for a color to those acts of treachery ; and whilst it receives any degree of coun tenance it will be utterly senseless to look for a vig orous opposition to the court party. The doctrine is this: That all political connections are in their na ture factious, and as such ought to be dissipated and destroyed ; and that the rule for forming administra tions is mere personal ability, rated by the judgment of this cabal upon and taken by draughts from every division and denomination of public men. This decree was solemnly promulgated the head of the court corps, the Earl of Bute himself, in speech
which he made, in the year 1766, against the then administration, the only administration which he has ever been known directly and publicly to oppose.
indeed in no way wonderful, that such persons should make such declarations. That connection and faction are equivalent terms, an opinion which has been carefully inculcated at all times by unconstitu tional statesmen. The reason evident. Whilst men are linked together, they easily and speedily communi cate the alarm of any evil design. They are enabled to fathom with common counsel, and to oppose with united strength. Whereas, when they lie dis persed, without concert, order, or discipline, commu nication uncertain, counsel difficult, and resistance
? Where men are not acquainted with each other's principles, nor experienced in each oth er's talents, nor at all practised in their mutual habi
impracticable.
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tudes and dispositions by joint efforts in business; no personal confidence, no friendship, no common inter est, subsisting among them; it is evidently impossible that they can act a public part with uniformity, per severance, or efficacy. In, a connection, the most in considerable man, by adding to the weight of the whole, has his value, and his use; out of the great est talents are wholly unserviceable to the public. N man, who not inflamed by vainglory into enthusi asm, can flatter himself that his single, unsupported, desultory, unsystematic endeavors are of power to de feat the subtle designs and united cabals of ambitious citizens. When bad men combine, the good must as sociate else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in
? contemptible struggle.
It not enough in situation of trust in the com
monwealth, that man means well to his country; not enough that in his single person he never
did an evil act, but always voted according to his conscience, and even harangued against every design which he apprehended to be prejudicial to the inter ests of his country. This innoxious and ineffectual character, that seems formed upon plan of apology and disculpation, falls miserably short of the mark of public duty. That duty demands and requires, that what right should not only be made known, but made prevalent that what evil should not only be detected, but defeated. When the public man omits to put himself in situation of doing his duty with effect, an omission that frustrates the purposes of his trust almost as much as he had formally be trayed it. It surely no very rational account of man's life, that he has always acted right; but has taken special care, to act in such manner that his
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endeavors could not possibly be productive of any consequence.
I do not wonder that the behavior of many par ties should have made persons of tender and scrupu lous virtue somewhat out of humor with all sorts of connection in politics. I admit that people frequently acquire in such confederacies a narrow, bigoted, and proscriptive spirit ; that they are apt to sink the idea of the general good in this circumscribed and par tial interest. But, where duty renders a critical sit uation a necessary one, it is our business to keep free from the evils attendant upon it; and not to fly from the situation itself. If a fortress is seated in an un wholesome air, an officer of the garrison is obliged to be attentive to his health, but he must not desert his station. Every profession, not excepting the glori ous one of a soldier, or the sacred one of a priest, is liable to its own particular vices; which, however, form no argument against those ways of life ; nor are the vices themselves inevitable to every individual in those professions. Of such a nature are connections in politics; essentially necessary for the full perform ance of our public duty, accidentally liable to de generate into faction. Commonwealths are made of families, free commonwealths of parties also ; and we
may as well affirm, that our natural regards and ties of blood tend inevitably to make men bad citizens, as that the bonds of our party weaken those by which
? we are held to our country.
Some legislators went so far as to make neutrality
in party a crime against the state. I do not know whether this might not have been rather to overstrain the principle. Certain it the best patriots in the greatest commonwealths have always commended
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and promoted such connections. Idem sentire de republica, was with them a principal ground of friend ship and attachment ; nor do I know any other capa ble of forming firmer, dearer, more pleasing, more honorable, and more virtuous habitudes. The Ro mans carried this principle a great way. Even the holding of offices together, the disposition of which arose from chance, not selection, gave rise to a rela tion which continued for life. It was called necessi tudo sortie; and it was looked upon with a sacred reverence. Breaches of any of these kinds of civil relation were considered as acts of the most distin guished turpitude. The whole people was distributed into political societies, in which they acted in support of such interests in the state as they severally affect ed. For it was then thought no crime to endeavor by every honest means to advance to superiority and power those of your own sentiments and opinions. This wise people was far from imagining that those
connections had no tie, and obliged to no duty; but that men might quit them without shame, upon every call of interest. They believed private honor to be the great foundation of public trust ; that friend ship was no mean step towards patriotism; that he who, in the common intercourse of life, showed he regarded somebody besides himself, when he came to act in a public situation, might probably consult some other interest than his own. Never may we become plus sages que les sages, as the French comedian has happily expressed wiser than all the wise and good men who have lived before us. It was their wish, to see public and private virtues, not dissonant and jar ring, and mutually destructive, but harmoniously combined, growing out of one another in noble
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and orderly gradation, reciprocally supporting and supported. In one of the most fortunate periods of our history this country was governed by a connection ; I mean, the great connection of Whigs in the reign of Queen Anne. They were complimented upon the principle of this connection by a poet who was in high esteem with them. Addison, who knew their senti ments, could not praise them for what they considered as no proper subject of commendation. As a poet who knew his business, he could not applaud them for a thing which in general estimation was not highly reputable. Addressing himself to Britain,--
" Thy favorites grow not up by fortune's sport,
Or from the crimes or follies of a court.
On the firm basis of desert they rise,
From long-tried faith, and friendship's holy ties. "
The Whigs of those days believed that the only proper method of rising into power was through hard essays of practised friendship and experimented fidel ity. At that time it was not imagined, that patriot ism was a bloody idol, which required the sacrifice of children and parents, or dearest connections in pri vate life, and of all the virtues that rise from those relations. They were not of that ingenious paradox ical morality, to imagine that a spirit of moderation was properly shown in patiently bearing the sufier ings of your friends; or that disinterestedness was clearly manifested at the expense of other people's fortune. They believed that no men could act with effect, who did not act in concert ; that no men could act in concert, who did not act with confidence ; that no men could act with confidence, who were not bound together by common opinions, common affec
? tions, and common interests. vor. . i. 84
'
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These wise men, for such I must call Lord Sunder land, Lord Godolphin, Lord Somers, and Lord Marl borough, were too well principled in these maxims upon which the whole fabric of public strength is built, to be blown off their ground by the breath of every childish talker. They were not afraid that they should be called an ambitious junto; or that their resolution to stand or fall together should, by placemen, be interpreted into a scuffle for places.
Party is a body of men united for promoting by their joint endeavors the national interest upon some particular principle in which they are all agreed. For my part, I find it impossible to conceive, that any one believes in his own politics, or thinks them to be of any weight, who refuses to adopt the means of having them reduced into practice. It is the busi ness of the speculative philosopher to mark the proper ends of government. It is the business of the poli tician, who is the philosopher in action, to find out proper means towards those ends, and to employ them with effect. Therefore every honorable con nection will avow it is their first purpose, to pursue every just method to put the men who hold their opinions into such a condition as may enable them to carry their common plans into execution, with all the power and authority of the state. As this power is attached to certain situations, it is their duty to con tend for these situations. Without a proscription of others, they are bound to give to their own party the preference in all things; and by no means, for pri
vate considerations, to accept any offers of power in which the whole body is not included ; nor to suffer themselves to be led, or to be controlled, or to be overbalanced, in office or in council, by those who
? ? ? ? or rnn rnnsnnr DISCONTENTS. 531
contradict the very fundamental principles on which their party is formed, and even those upon which every fair connection must stand. Such a generous contention for power, on such manly and honorable maxims, will easily be distinguished from the mean and interested struggle for place and emolument.
The very style of such persons will serve to discrim inate them from those numberless impostors, who have deluded the ignorant with professions incompat ible with human practice, and have afterwards in censed them by practices below the level of vulgar rectitude.
It is an advantage to all narrow wisdom and nar row morals, that their maxims have a plausible air: and, on a cursory view, appear equal to first princi ples. They are light and portable. They are as cur rent as copper coin; and about as valuable. They serve equally the first capacities and the lowest; and they are, at least, as useful to the worst men as to the best. Of this stamp is the cant of Not men, but meas ures ; a sort of charm by which many people get loose from every honorable engagement. When I see a man acting this desultory and disconnected part, with as much detriment to his own fortune as prejudice to the cause of any party, I am not persuaded that he is right; but I am ready to believe he is in earnest. I respect virtue in all its situations; even when it is found in the unsuitable company of weakness. I la ment to see qualities, rare and valuable, squandered away without any public utility. But when a gentle man with grcat visible emoluments abandons the party in which he has long acted, and tells you, it is
because he proceeds upon his own judgment; that he acts on the merits of the several measures as they
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arise; and that he is obliged to follow his own con science, and not that of others; he gives reasons which it is impossible to controvert, and discovers a character which it is impossible to mistake. What shall we think of him who never differed from a cer tain set of men until the moment they lost their power, and who never agreed with them in a single instance afterwards? Would not such a coincidence of interest and opinion be rather fortunate ? Would it not be an extraordinary cast upon the dice, that a
man's connections should degenerate into faction, precisely at the critical moment when they lose their power, or he accepts a place? When people desert their connections, the desertion is a manifest fact, upon which a direct simple issue lies, triable by plain men. Whether a measure of government be right or wrong, is no matter offact, but a mere affair of opin ion, on which men may, as they do, dispute and wran gle without end.
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arrogating to its sole resolution the most harsh and odious part of legislative authority, that degree of submission which is due only to the legislature itself.
When the House of Commons, in an endeavor to obtain new advantages at the expense of the other orders of the state, for the benefit of the commons at large, have pursued strong measures; if it were not
just, it was at least natural, that the constituents should connive at all their proceedings; because we were ourselves ultimately to profit. But when this submission is urged to us, in a contest between the representatives and ourselves, and where nothing can be put into their scale which is not taken from oiu's,
? they fancy us to be children when they tell us they are our representatives, our own flesh and blood, and that all the stripes they give us are for our good. The very desire of that body to have such a trust contrary to law reposed in them, shows that they are not worthy of it. They certainly will abuse it; be cause all men possessed of an uncontrolled discretion ary power leading to the aggrandizement and profit
of their own body have always abused it: and I see no particular sanctity in oiu' times, that is at all likely, by a miraculous operation, to overrule the course of nature.
But we must purposely shut our eyes, if we con sider this matter merely as a contest between the House of Commons and the electors. The true con test is between the electors of the kingdom and the crown ; the crown acting by an instrumental House of Commons. It is precisely the same, whether the ministers of the crown can disqualify by a dependent House of Commons, or by a dependent Court of Star
Chamber, or by a dependent Court of King's Bench.
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If once members of Parliament can be practically convinced that they do not depend on the affection or opinion of the people for their political being, they will give themselves over, without even an appear ance of reserve, to the influence of the court.
Indeed a Parliament unconnected with the
ple is essential to a ministry unconnected with the people; and therefore those who saw through what mighty difficulties the interior ministry waded, and the exterior were dragged, in this business, will eon ceive of what prodigious importance, the new corps of king's men held this principle of occasional and personal incapacitation, to the whole body of their design.
When the House of Commons was thus made to consider itself as the master of its constituents, there wanted but one thing to secure that House against all possible future deviation towards popularity: an unlimited fund of money to be laid out according to the pleasure of the court.
To complete the scheme of bringing our court to a resemblance to the neighboring monarchies, it was
in effect, to destroy those appropriations of revenue, which seem to limit the property, as the other laws had done the powers, of the crown. An opportunity for this purpose was taken, upon an application to Parliament for payment of the debts of the civil list; which in 1769 had amounted to 513,00()l. Such application had been made upon former occasions ; but to do it in the former manner would by no means answer the present purpose.
Whenever the crown had come to the commons to desire a supply for the discharging of debts due on the civil list, it was always asked and granted with
peo
? necessary,
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one of the three following qualifications; sometimes with all of them. Either it was stated, that the rev enue had been diverted from its purposes by Parlia ment; or that those duties had fallen short of the sum for which they were given by Parliament, and that the intention of the legislature had not been ful filled ; or that the money required to discharge the civil list debt was to be raised chargeable on the civil list duties. In the reign of Queen Anne, the crown was found in debt. The lessening and grant ing away some part of her revenue by Parliament was alleged as the cause of that debt, and pleaded as an equitable ground, such it certainly was, for dis charging it. It does not appear that the duties which were then applied to the ordinary government pro duced elear above 580,000l. a year; because, when they were afterwards granted to George the First, 120,000l. was added to complete the whole to 700,00Ol. a year. Indeed it was then asserted, and, I have no doubt, truly, that for many years the net produce did
not amount to above 550,000l. The queen's extraor dinary charges were besides very considerable ; equal, at least, to any we have known in our time. The ap plication to Parliament was not for an absolute grant of money; but to empower the queen to raise it by borrowing upon the civil list funds.
The civil list debt was twice paid in the reign of George the First. The money was granted upon the same plan which had been followed in the reign of
? AJH1e. The civil list revenues were then mortgaged for the sum to be raised, and stood charged with the ransom of their own deliverance.
George the Second received an addition to his civil list. Duties were granted for the purpose of raising
Queen
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800,000l. a year. It was not until he had reigned nineteen years, and after the last rebellion, that he called upon Parliament for a discharge of the civil list debt. The extraordinary charges brought on by the rebellion, account fi1lly for the necessities of the crown. However, the extraordinary charges of gov ernment were not thought a ground fit to be relied on.
A deficiency of the civil list duties for several years before was stated as the principal, if not the sole ground on which an application to Parliament could be justified. About this time the produce of these duties had fallen pretty low ; and even upon an aver age of the whole reign they never produced 800,000l. a year clear to the treasury.
That prince reigned fourteen years afterwards: not only no new demands were made; but with so much good order were his revenues and expenses regulated, that, although many parts of the establish ment of the court were upon a larger and more liberal scale than they have been since, there was a consider able sum in hand, on his decease, amounting to about 170,000l. applicable to the service of the civil list of his present Majesty. So that, if this reign com menced with a greater charge than usual, there was enough and more than enough, abundantly to supply all the extraordinary expense. That the civil list should have been exceeded in the two former reigns, especially in the reign of George the First, was not at all surprising. His revenue was but 700,000l. annu ally; if it ever produced so much clear. The prodi gious and dangerous disaffection to the very being of the establishment, and the cause of a pretender then
powerfully abetted from abroad, produced many de
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511
mands of an extraordinary nature both abroad and at home. Much management and great expenses were necessary. But the throne of no prince has stood upon more unshaken foundations than that of his present Majesty.
To have exceeded the sum given for the civil list, and to have incurred a debt without special authority of Parliament, was prima facie, a criminal act: as such, ministers ought naturally rather to have with drawn it from the inspection, than to have exposed it to the scrutiny of Parliament. Certainly they ought, of themselves, officially to have come armed with every sort of argument, which, by explaining, could excuse, a matter in itself of presumptive guilt. But the terrors of the House of Commons are no longer for ministers.
On the other hand, the peculiar character of the House of Commons, as trustee of the public purse, would have led them to call with a punctilious solici tude for every public account, and to have examined into them with the most rigorous accuracy.
The capital use of an account that the reality of the charge, the reason of incurring and the justice and necessity of discharging should all appear ante cedent to the payment. No man ever pays first, and calls for his account afterwards; because he would thereby let out of his hands the principal, and indeed only effectual, means of compelling full and fair one. But, in national business, there an addition al reason for previous production of every account. It check, perhaps the only one, upon corrupt and prodigal use of public money. An account after payment to no rational purpose an account. However, the House of Commons thought all these to
? ? ? a is
is a
is a a
is, it,
it,
? . _ be antiquated principles: they were of opinion, that
the most Parliamentary way of proceeding was. to pay first what the court thought proper to demand, and to take its chance for an examination into ac counts at some time of greater leisure.
The nation had settled 800,000l. a year on the crown, as sufficient for the support of its dignity, upon the estimate of its own ministers. When min isters came to Parliament, and said that this allow ance had not been sufficient for the purpose, and that they had incurred a debt of 500,000l. , would it not
have been natural for Parliament first to have asked how, and by what means, their appropriated allow ance came to be insufficient? Would it not have savored of some attention to justice, to have seen in what periods of administration this debt had been originally incurred; that they might discover, and if need were, animadvert on the persons who were found the most culpable? To put their hands upon such articles of expenditure as they thought improp er or excessive, and to secure, in future, against such misapplication or exceeding? Accounts for any other purposes are but a matter of curiosity, and
no genuine Parliamentary object. All the accounts which could answer any Parliamentary end were re fused, or postponed by previous questions. Every idea of prevention was rejected, as conveying an im proper suspicion of the ministers of the crown.
When every leading account had been refused, many others were granted with sufficient facility.
But with great candor also, the House was in formed, that hardly any of them could be ready until the next session; some of them perhaps not so soon. But, in order firmly to establish the prece
512 THOUGHTS ON THE CAUSE
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dent of payment previous to account, and to form it into a settled rule of the House, the god in the ma chine was brought down, nothing less than the won der-working law of Parliament. It was alleged, that it is the law of Parliament, when any demand comes from the crown, that the House must go immediately into the committee of supply; in which committee it
was allowed, that the production and examination of accounts would be quite proper and regular. It was therefore carried, that they should go into the com mittee without delay, and without accounts, in order to examine with great order and regularity things that could not possibly come before them. After this stroke of orderly and Parliamentary wit and humor, they went into the committee; and very generously voted the payment.
There was a circumstance in that debate too re markable to be overlooked. This debt of the civil list was all along argued upon the same footing as a debt of the state, contracted upon national authority. Its payment was urged as equally pressing upon the pub lic faith and honor; and when the whole year's ac count was stated, in what is called the budget, the min istry valued themselves on the payment of so much public debt, just as if they had discharged 500,000t. of navy or exchequer bills. Though, in truth, their payment, from the sinking fund, of debt which was never contracted by Parliamentary authority, was, to all intents and purposes, so much debt incurred. But such is the present notion of public credit, and payment of debt. No wonder that it produces such effects.
Nor was the House at all more attentive to a provi
dent security against future, than it had been to a vin VOL. I. 33
? ? ? ? 514 ruouenrs on rnn (musn
dictive retrospect to past mismanagements. I should have thought indeed that a ministerial promise, dur ing their own continuance in office, might have been given, though this would have been but a poor secu rity for the public. Mr. Pelham gave such an assur ance, aud he kept his word. But nothing was capable of extorting from our ministers anything which had the least resemblance to a promise of confining the expenses of the civil list within the limits which had been settled by Parliament. This reserve of theirs I look upon to be equivalent to the clearest declaration, that they were resolved upon a contrary course.
However, to put the matter beyond all doubt, in the speech from the throne, after thanking Parlia ment for the relief so liberally granted, the ministers inform the two Houses, that they will endeavor to con fine the expenses of the civil government--within what limits, think you? those which the law had pre scribed? Not in the 1east--" such limits as the hon or of the crown can possibly admit. "
Thus they established an arbitrary standard for that dignity which Parliament had defined and limited to a legal standard. They gave themselves, under the lax and indeterminate idea of the honor of the crown, a full loose for all manner of dissipation, and all man ner of corruption. This arbitrary standard they were not afraid to hold out to both Houses ; while an idle and unoperative act of Parliament, estimating the dig nity of the crown'at 800,000l. and confining it to that sum, adds to the number of obsolete statutes which load the shelves of libraries, without any sort of ad vantage to the people.
? After this proceeding, I suppose that no man can be so weak as to think that the crown is limited to
? ? ? or THE PRESENT msconranrs. 515
any settled allowance whatsoever. For if the minis try has 800,000l. a year by the law of the land ; and if by the law of Parliament all the debts which exceed it are to be paid previously to the production of any account; I presume that this is equivalent to an in come with no other limits than the abilities of the subject and the moderation of the court; that is to say, it is such an income as is possessed by every ab solute monarch in Europe. It amounts, as a person of great ability said,in the debate, to an unlimited power of drawing upon the sinking fund. Its effect on the public credit of this kingdom must be obvious ; for in vain is the sinking fund the great buttress of all the rest, if it be in the power of the ministry to resort to it for the payment of any debts which they may choose to incur, under the name of the civil list, and through the medium of a committee, which thinks it self obliged by law to vote supplies without any other account than that of the mere existence of the debt.
Five hundred thousand pounds is a serious sum. But it is nothing to the prolific principle upon which the sum was voted: a principle that may be well called, the fruitful mother of an hundred more. Nei ther is the damage to public credit of very great con sequence, when compared with that which results to public morals and to the safety of the constitution, from the exhaustless mine of corruption
the precedent, and to be wrought by the principle, of
the late payment of the debts of the civil list. The power of discretionary disqualification by one law of Parliament, and the necessity of paying every debt of the civil list by another law of Parliament, if suffered to pass unnoticed, must establish such a fund of re
wards and terrors as will make Parliament the best
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appendage and support of arbitrary power that ever was invented by the wit of man. This is felt. The quarrel is begun between the representatives and the
people. them.
The court faction have at length committed
In such a strait the wisest may well be perplexed, and the boldest staggered. The circumstances are in a great measure new. We have hardly any land marks from the wisdom of our ancestors, to guide us. At best we can only follow the spirit of their proceed ing in other cases. I know the diligence with which my observations on our public disorders have been made; I am very sure of the integrity of the motives on which they are published: I cannot be equally confident in any plan for the absolute cure of those disorders, or for their certain future prevention. My aim is to bring this matter into more public discus sion. Let the sagacity of others work upon it. It is not ILIICOIDIIIOII for medical writers to describe histo ries of diseases very accurately, on whose cure they can say but very little.
The first ideas which generally suggest themselves, for the cure of Parliamentary disorders, are, to short en the duration of Parliaments; and to disqualify all, or a great number of placemen, from a seat in the House of Commons. Whatever efficacy there may be in those remedies, I am sure in the present state of things it is impossible to apply them. A restoration of the right of free election is a prelimina ry indispensable to every other reformation. What alterations ought afterwards to be made in the consti tution, is a matter of deep and difiicult research.
? If I wrote merely to please the popular palate, it would indeed be as little troublesome to me as to an
? ? ? or run PRESENT DISCONTENTS.
517
other, to extol these remedies, so famous in specula tion, but to which their greatest admirers have never attempted seriously to resort in practice. I confess then, that I have no sort of reliance upon either a tri ennial Parliament, or a place-bill. With regard to the former, perhaps it might rather serve to counter act, than to promote the ends that are proposed by it. To say nothing of the horrible disorders among the people attending frequent elections, I should be fear ful of committing, every three years, the independent gentlemen of the country into a contest with the treasury. It is easy to see which of the contending parties would be ruined first. Whoever has taken a careful view of public proceedings, so as to endeavor to ground his speculations on his experience, must have observed how prodigiously greater the power of ministry is in the first and last session of a Parlia ment, than it is in the intermediate period, when members sit a little firm on their seats. The persons of the greatest Parliamentary experience, with whom I have conversed, did constantly, in canvassing the fate of questions, allow something to the court side, upon account of the elections depending or immi nent. The evil complained of, if it exists in the pres ent state of things, would hardly be removed by a
triennial Parliament: for, unless the influence of government in elections can be entirely taken away, the more frequently they return, the more they will harass private independence; the more generally men will be compelled to fly to the settled system atic interest of government, and to the resources of a boundless civil list. Certainly something may be done, and ought to be done, towards lessening that influence in elections; and this will be necessary up
? ? ? ? 518 THOUGHTS ON THE CAUSE
on a plan either of longer or shorter duration of Par liament. But nothing can so perfectly remove the evil, as not to render such contentions, too frequent ly repeated, utterly ruinous, first to independence of fortune, and then to independence of spirit. As I am only giving an opinion on this point, and not at all debating it in an adverse line, I hope I may be excused in another observation. With great truth I may aver, that I never remember to have talked on this subject with any man much conversant with public business, who considered short Parliaments as a real improvement of the constitution. Gentlemen, warm in a popular cause, are ready enough to attrib ute all the declarations of such persons to corrupt
? motives. But the habit of affairs, tends to corrupt the mind, furnishes with the means of better information.
on one hand, on the other, The authori
of such persons will always have some weight. It may stand upon par with the speculations of those who are less practised in business; and who, with perhaps purer intentions, have not so effectual means of judging. It besides an effect of vulgar and pu erile malignity to imagine, that every statesman of course corrupt; and that his opinion, upon every constitutional point, solely formed upon some sinis ter interest.
The next favorite remedy place-bill. The same principle guides in both; mean, the opinion which entertained by many, of the infallibility of laws
and regulations, in the cure of public distempers. Without being as unreasonably doubtful as many are unwisely confident, will only say, that this also
matter very well worthy of serious and mature re flection. It not easy to foresee, what the effect
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would be, of disconnecting with Parliament the great est part of those who hold civil employments, and of such mighty and important bodies as the military and naval establishments. It were better, perhaps, that they should have a corrupt interest in the forms of the constitution, than that they should have none at all.
This is a question altogether different from the disqualification of a particular description of revenue officers from seats in Parliament ; or, perhaps, of all the lower sorts of them from votes in elections. In the former case, only the few are affected; in the lat ter, only the inconsiderable. But a great official, a great professional, a great military and naval interest, all necessarily comprehending many people of the first weight, ability, wealth, and spirit, has been grad ually formed in the kingdom. These new interests must be let into a share of representation, else pos sibly they may be inclined to destroy those institu tions of which they are not permitted to partake. This is not a thing to be trifled with ; nor is it every well-meaning man that is fit to put his hands to it. Many other serious considerations occur. I do not open them here, because they are not directly to my purpose ; proposing only to give the reader some taste of the difficulties that attend all capital changes in the constitution ; just to hint the uncertainty, to say no worse, of being able to prevent the court, as long as it has the means of influence abundantly in its
power, of applying that influence to Parliament ; and
perhaps, if the public method were preqluded, of doing it in some worse and more dangerous meth od. Underhand and oblique ways would be studied. The science of evasion, already tolerably m1derstood, would then be brought to the greatest perfection.
? ? ? ? 520
ruoucnrs on THE causn
It is no inconsiderable part of wisdom, to know how
much of an evil ought to be tolerated; lest, by at
tempting a degree of purity impracticable in degener ate times and manners, instead of cutting off the
subsisting ill-practices, new corruptions might be pro duced for the concealment and security of the old. It were better, undoubtedly, that no influence at all could affect the mind of a member of Parliament. But of all modes of influence, in my opinion, a place under the government is the least disgraceful to the man who holds and by far the most safe to the country. would not shut out that sort of influence which open and visible, which connected with the dignity and the service of the state, when
not in my power to prevent the influence of contracts, of subscriptions, of direct bribery, and those innumer able methods of clandestine corruption, which are abundantly in the hands of the court, and which will be applied as long as these means of corruption, and the disposition to be corrupted, have existence amongst us. Our constitution stands on nice equi poise, with steep precipices and deep waters upon all sides of it. In removing from dangerous leaning towards one side, there may be risk of oversetting
on the other. Every project of material change in government so complicated as ours, combined at the same time with external circumstances still more complicated, matter full of difficulties in which
considerate man will not be too ready to decide a prudent man too ready to undertake; or an honest man too ready to promise. They do not respect the public nor themselves, who engage for more than they are sure that "they ought to attempt, or that they are able to perform. These are my sentiments, weak
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but honest and unbiassed; and submitted entirely to the opinion of grave men, well-affected to the constitution of their country, and of experience in what may best promote or hurt it.
Indeed, in the situation in which we stand, with an immense revenue, an enormous debt, mighty estab lishments, government itself a great banker and a great merchant, I see no other way for the preserva tion of a decent attention to public interest in the representatives, but the interposition of the body of the
perhaps,
people itself, whenever it shall appear, by some flagrant and notorious act, by some capital innovation, that these representatives are going to overleap the fences of the law, and to introduce an arbitrary
? power. This interposition is a most unpleasant remedy. But,
if it be a legal remedy, it is intended on some occa sion to be used; to be used then only, when it is evident that nothing else can hold the constitution
to its true principles.
The distempers of monarchy were the great sub
jects of apprehension and redress, in the last cen tury; in this the distempers of Parliament. It is not in Parliament alone that the remedy for Parlia mentary disorders can be completed ; hardly indeed can it begin there. Until a confidence in govern ment is re-established, the people ought to be excited to a more strict and detailed attention to the conduct of their representatives. Standards for judging more systematically upon their conduct ought to be settled in the meetings of counties and corporations. Fre
quent and correct lists of the voters in all important questions ought to be procured.
By such means something may be done. By such means it may appear who those are, that, by an indis
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criminate support of all administrations, have totally banished all integrity and confidence out of public proceedings ; have confounded the best men with the worst; and weakened and dissolved, instead of strengthening and compacting, the general frame of government. If any person is more concerned for government and order, than for the liberties of his country; even he is equally concerned to put an end to this course of indiscriminate support. It is this blind and u1idistinguishing support, that feeds the spring of those very disorders, by which he is fright ened into the arms of the faction which contains in itself the source of all disorders, by enfeebling all the visible and regular authority of the state. The dis temper is increased by his injudicious and preposter ous endeavors, or pretences, for the cure of it.
An exterior administration, chosen for its impo tency, or after it is chosen purposely rendered impo tent, in order to be rendered subservient, will not be obeyed. The laws themselves will not be respected, when those who execute them are despised: and they will be despised, when their power is not immediate from the crown, or natural in the kingdom. Never were ministers better supported in Parliament. Par liamentary support comes and goes with office, totally regardless of the man, or the merit. Is government strengthened? It grows weaker and weaker. The popular torrent gains upon it every hour. Let us learn from our experience. It is not support that is wanting to government, but reformation. When ministry rests upon public opinion, it is not indeed built upon a rock of adamant ; it has, however, some stability. But when it stands upon private humor,
its structure is of stubble, and its foundation is on
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_ 523
quicksand. I repeat it again, -- He that supports ev ery administration subverts all government. The reason is this: The whole business in which a court usually takes an interest goes on at present equally well, in whatever hands, whether high or low, wise or foolish, scandalous or reputable; there is nothing therefore to hold it firm to any one body of men, or to any one consistent scheme of politics. Nothing interposes, to prevent the full operation of all the ca prices and all the passions of a court upon the ser vants of the public. The system of administration is open to continual shocks and changes, upon the prin ciples of the meanest cabal, and the most contemptible intrigue. Nothing can be solid and permanent. All good men at length fly with horror from such a ser vice. Men of rank and ability, with the spirit which ought to animate such men in a free state, while they decline the jurisdiction of dark cabal on their actions and their fortunes, will, for both, cheerfully put themselves upon their country. They will trust an inquisitive and distinguishing Parliament; because it does inquire, and does distinguish. If they act well, they know, that, in such a Parliament they will be supported against any intrigue; if they act ill, they know that no intrigue can protect them. This situa tion, however awful, is honorable. But in one hour, and in the self-same assembly, without any assigned or assignable cause, to be precipitated from the high est authority to the most marked neglect, possibly in to the greatest peril of life and reputation, is a situa tion full of danger, and destitute of honor. It will be shunned equally by every man of prudence, and every man of spirit.
Such are the consequences of the division of court
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ruoucnrs on rnn causn
from the administration; and of the division of pub lic men among themselves. By the former of these, lawful government is undone ; by the latter, all oppo sition to lawless power is rendered impotent. Gov ernment may in a great measure be restored, if any considerable bodies of men have honesty and resolu tion enough never to accept administration, unless this garrison of king's men, which is stationed, as in a citadel, to control and enslave it, be entirely broken and disbanded, and every work they have thrown up be levelled with the ground. The disposition of pub lic men to keep this corps together, and to act under
or to co-operate with touchstone by which every administration ought in future to be tried. There has not been one which has not sufficiently ex
the utter incompatibility of that faction with the public peace, and with all the ends of good government: since, they opposed they soon lost every power of serving the crown; they submitted to they lost all the esteem of their country. Until ministers give to the public full proof of their entire alienation from that system, however plausible their pretences, we may be sure they are more intent on the emoluments than the duties of office. If they re fuse to give this proof, we know of what stuff they are made. In this particular, ought to be the elec tors' business to look to their representatives. The electors ought to esteem no less culpable in their member to give single vote in Parliament to such an administration, than to take an office under to endure than to act in it. The notorious. infidelity and versatility of members of Parliament, in their
opinions of men and things, ought in particular manner to be considered by the electors in the in
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quiry which is recommended to them. This is one of the principal holdings of that destructive system, which has endeavored to unhinge all the virtuous, honorable, and useful connections in the kingdom.
This cabal has, with great success, propagated a doctrine which serves for a color to those acts of treachery ; and whilst it receives any degree of coun tenance it will be utterly senseless to look for a vig orous opposition to the court party. The doctrine is this: That all political connections are in their na ture factious, and as such ought to be dissipated and destroyed ; and that the rule for forming administra tions is mere personal ability, rated by the judgment of this cabal upon and taken by draughts from every division and denomination of public men. This decree was solemnly promulgated the head of the court corps, the Earl of Bute himself, in speech
which he made, in the year 1766, against the then administration, the only administration which he has ever been known directly and publicly to oppose.
indeed in no way wonderful, that such persons should make such declarations. That connection and faction are equivalent terms, an opinion which has been carefully inculcated at all times by unconstitu tional statesmen. The reason evident. Whilst men are linked together, they easily and speedily communi cate the alarm of any evil design. They are enabled to fathom with common counsel, and to oppose with united strength. Whereas, when they lie dis persed, without concert, order, or discipline, commu nication uncertain, counsel difficult, and resistance
? Where men are not acquainted with each other's principles, nor experienced in each oth er's talents, nor at all practised in their mutual habi
impracticable.
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tudes and dispositions by joint efforts in business; no personal confidence, no friendship, no common inter est, subsisting among them; it is evidently impossible that they can act a public part with uniformity, per severance, or efficacy. In, a connection, the most in considerable man, by adding to the weight of the whole, has his value, and his use; out of the great est talents are wholly unserviceable to the public. N man, who not inflamed by vainglory into enthusi asm, can flatter himself that his single, unsupported, desultory, unsystematic endeavors are of power to de feat the subtle designs and united cabals of ambitious citizens. When bad men combine, the good must as sociate else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in
? contemptible struggle.
It not enough in situation of trust in the com
monwealth, that man means well to his country; not enough that in his single person he never
did an evil act, but always voted according to his conscience, and even harangued against every design which he apprehended to be prejudicial to the inter ests of his country. This innoxious and ineffectual character, that seems formed upon plan of apology and disculpation, falls miserably short of the mark of public duty. That duty demands and requires, that what right should not only be made known, but made prevalent that what evil should not only be detected, but defeated. When the public man omits to put himself in situation of doing his duty with effect, an omission that frustrates the purposes of his trust almost as much as he had formally be trayed it. It surely no very rational account of man's life, that he has always acted right; but has taken special care, to act in such manner that his
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endeavors could not possibly be productive of any consequence.
I do not wonder that the behavior of many par ties should have made persons of tender and scrupu lous virtue somewhat out of humor with all sorts of connection in politics. I admit that people frequently acquire in such confederacies a narrow, bigoted, and proscriptive spirit ; that they are apt to sink the idea of the general good in this circumscribed and par tial interest. But, where duty renders a critical sit uation a necessary one, it is our business to keep free from the evils attendant upon it; and not to fly from the situation itself. If a fortress is seated in an un wholesome air, an officer of the garrison is obliged to be attentive to his health, but he must not desert his station. Every profession, not excepting the glori ous one of a soldier, or the sacred one of a priest, is liable to its own particular vices; which, however, form no argument against those ways of life ; nor are the vices themselves inevitable to every individual in those professions. Of such a nature are connections in politics; essentially necessary for the full perform ance of our public duty, accidentally liable to de generate into faction. Commonwealths are made of families, free commonwealths of parties also ; and we
may as well affirm, that our natural regards and ties of blood tend inevitably to make men bad citizens, as that the bonds of our party weaken those by which
? we are held to our country.
Some legislators went so far as to make neutrality
in party a crime against the state. I do not know whether this might not have been rather to overstrain the principle. Certain it the best patriots in the greatest commonwealths have always commended
? ? is,
? 528 ruoucnrs on THE causn
and promoted such connections. Idem sentire de republica, was with them a principal ground of friend ship and attachment ; nor do I know any other capa ble of forming firmer, dearer, more pleasing, more honorable, and more virtuous habitudes. The Ro mans carried this principle a great way. Even the holding of offices together, the disposition of which arose from chance, not selection, gave rise to a rela tion which continued for life. It was called necessi tudo sortie; and it was looked upon with a sacred reverence. Breaches of any of these kinds of civil relation were considered as acts of the most distin guished turpitude. The whole people was distributed into political societies, in which they acted in support of such interests in the state as they severally affect ed. For it was then thought no crime to endeavor by every honest means to advance to superiority and power those of your own sentiments and opinions. This wise people was far from imagining that those
connections had no tie, and obliged to no duty; but that men might quit them without shame, upon every call of interest. They believed private honor to be the great foundation of public trust ; that friend ship was no mean step towards patriotism; that he who, in the common intercourse of life, showed he regarded somebody besides himself, when he came to act in a public situation, might probably consult some other interest than his own. Never may we become plus sages que les sages, as the French comedian has happily expressed wiser than all the wise and good men who have lived before us. It was their wish, to see public and private virtues, not dissonant and jar ring, and mutually destructive, but harmoniously combined, growing out of one another in noble
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and orderly gradation, reciprocally supporting and supported. In one of the most fortunate periods of our history this country was governed by a connection ; I mean, the great connection of Whigs in the reign of Queen Anne. They were complimented upon the principle of this connection by a poet who was in high esteem with them. Addison, who knew their senti ments, could not praise them for what they considered as no proper subject of commendation. As a poet who knew his business, he could not applaud them for a thing which in general estimation was not highly reputable. Addressing himself to Britain,--
" Thy favorites grow not up by fortune's sport,
Or from the crimes or follies of a court.
On the firm basis of desert they rise,
From long-tried faith, and friendship's holy ties. "
The Whigs of those days believed that the only proper method of rising into power was through hard essays of practised friendship and experimented fidel ity. At that time it was not imagined, that patriot ism was a bloody idol, which required the sacrifice of children and parents, or dearest connections in pri vate life, and of all the virtues that rise from those relations. They were not of that ingenious paradox ical morality, to imagine that a spirit of moderation was properly shown in patiently bearing the sufier ings of your friends; or that disinterestedness was clearly manifested at the expense of other people's fortune. They believed that no men could act with effect, who did not act in concert ; that no men could act in concert, who did not act with confidence ; that no men could act with confidence, who were not bound together by common opinions, common affec
? tions, and common interests. vor. . i. 84
'
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These wise men, for such I must call Lord Sunder land, Lord Godolphin, Lord Somers, and Lord Marl borough, were too well principled in these maxims upon which the whole fabric of public strength is built, to be blown off their ground by the breath of every childish talker. They were not afraid that they should be called an ambitious junto; or that their resolution to stand or fall together should, by placemen, be interpreted into a scuffle for places.
Party is a body of men united for promoting by their joint endeavors the national interest upon some particular principle in which they are all agreed. For my part, I find it impossible to conceive, that any one believes in his own politics, or thinks them to be of any weight, who refuses to adopt the means of having them reduced into practice. It is the busi ness of the speculative philosopher to mark the proper ends of government. It is the business of the poli tician, who is the philosopher in action, to find out proper means towards those ends, and to employ them with effect. Therefore every honorable con nection will avow it is their first purpose, to pursue every just method to put the men who hold their opinions into such a condition as may enable them to carry their common plans into execution, with all the power and authority of the state. As this power is attached to certain situations, it is their duty to con tend for these situations. Without a proscription of others, they are bound to give to their own party the preference in all things; and by no means, for pri
vate considerations, to accept any offers of power in which the whole body is not included ; nor to suffer themselves to be led, or to be controlled, or to be overbalanced, in office or in council, by those who
? ? ? ? or rnn rnnsnnr DISCONTENTS. 531
contradict the very fundamental principles on which their party is formed, and even those upon which every fair connection must stand. Such a generous contention for power, on such manly and honorable maxims, will easily be distinguished from the mean and interested struggle for place and emolument.
The very style of such persons will serve to discrim inate them from those numberless impostors, who have deluded the ignorant with professions incompat ible with human practice, and have afterwards in censed them by practices below the level of vulgar rectitude.
It is an advantage to all narrow wisdom and nar row morals, that their maxims have a plausible air: and, on a cursory view, appear equal to first princi ples. They are light and portable. They are as cur rent as copper coin; and about as valuable. They serve equally the first capacities and the lowest; and they are, at least, as useful to the worst men as to the best. Of this stamp is the cant of Not men, but meas ures ; a sort of charm by which many people get loose from every honorable engagement. When I see a man acting this desultory and disconnected part, with as much detriment to his own fortune as prejudice to the cause of any party, I am not persuaded that he is right; but I am ready to believe he is in earnest. I respect virtue in all its situations; even when it is found in the unsuitable company of weakness. I la ment to see qualities, rare and valuable, squandered away without any public utility. But when a gentle man with grcat visible emoluments abandons the party in which he has long acted, and tells you, it is
because he proceeds upon his own judgment; that he acts on the merits of the several measures as they
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arise; and that he is obliged to follow his own con science, and not that of others; he gives reasons which it is impossible to controvert, and discovers a character which it is impossible to mistake. What shall we think of him who never differed from a cer tain set of men until the moment they lost their power, and who never agreed with them in a single instance afterwards? Would not such a coincidence of interest and opinion be rather fortunate ? Would it not be an extraordinary cast upon the dice, that a
man's connections should degenerate into faction, precisely at the critical moment when they lose their power, or he accepts a place? When people desert their connections, the desertion is a manifest fact, upon which a direct simple issue lies, triable by plain men. Whether a measure of government be right or wrong, is no matter offact, but a mere affair of opin ion, on which men may, as they do, dispute and wran gle without end.
