THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS

It is an undertaking of some degree of delicacy to examine into the cause

of public disorders. If a man happens not to succeed in such an inquiry,

he will be thought weak and visionary; if he touches the true grievance,

there is a danger that he may come near to persons of weight and

consequence, who will rather be exasperated at the discovery of their

errors than thankful for the occasion of correcting them. If he should

be obliged to blame the favourites of the people, he will be considered

as the tool of power; if he censures those in power, he will be looked on

as an instrument of faction. But in all exertions of duty something is

to be hazarded. In cases of tumult and disorder, our law has invested

every man, in some sort, with the authority of a magistrate. When the

affairs of the nation are distracted, private people are, by the spirit

of that law, justified in stepping a little out of their ordinary sphere.

They enjoy a privilege of somewhat more dignity and effect than that of

idle lamentation over the calamities of their country. They may look

into them narrowly; they may reason upon them liberally; and if they

should be so fortunate as to discover the true source of the mischief,

and to suggest any probable method of removing it, though they may

displease the rulers for the day, they are certainly of service to the

cause of Government. Government is deeply interested in everything

which, even through the medium of some temporary uneasiness, may tend

finally to compose the minds of the subjects, and to conciliate their

affections. I have nothing to do here with the abstract value of the

voice of the people. But as long as reputation, the most precious

possession of every individual, and as long as opinion, the great support

of the State, depend entirely upon that voice, it can never be considered

as a thing of little consequence either to individuals or to Government.

Nations are not primarily ruled by laws; less by violence. Whatever

original energy may be supposed either in force or regulation, the

operation of both is, in truth, merely instrumental. Nations are

governed by the same methods, and on the same principles, by which an

individual without authority is often able to govern those who are his

equals or his superiors, by a knowledge of their temper, and by a

judicious management of it; I mean, when public affairs are steadily and

quietly conducted: not when Government is nothing but a continued scuffle

between the magistrate and the multitude, in which sometimes the one and

sometimes the other is uppermost--in which they alternately yield and

prevail, in a series of contemptible victories and scandalous

submissions. The temper of the people amongst whom he presides ought

therefore to be the first study of a statesman. And the knowledge of

this temper it is by no means impossible for him to attain, if he has not

an interest in being ignorant of what it is his duty to learn.

To complain of the age we live in, to murmur at the present possessors of

power, to lament the past, to conceive extravagant hopes of the future,

are the common dispositions of the greater part of mankind--indeed, the

necessary effects of the ignorance and levity of the vulgar. Such

complaints and humours have existed in all times; yet as all times have

_not_ been alike, true political sagacity manifests itself, in

distinguishing that complaint which only characterises the general

infirmity of human nature from those which are symptoms of the particular

distemperature of our own air and season.

* * * * *

Nobody, I believe, will consider it merely as the language of spleen or

disappointment, if I say that there is something particularly alarming in

the present conjuncture. There is hardly a man, in or out of power, who

holds any other language. That Government is at once dreaded and

contemned; that the laws are despoiled of all their respected and

salutary terrors; that their inaction is a subject of ridicule, and their

exertion of abhorrence; that rank, and office, and title, and all the

solemn plausibilities of the world, have lost their reverence and effect;

that our foreign politics are as much deranged as our domestic economy;

that our dependencies are slackened in their affection, and loosened from

their obedience; that we know neither how to yield nor how to enforce;

that hardly anything above or below, abroad or at home, is sound and

entire; but that disconnection and confusion, in offices, in parties, in

families, in Parliament, in the nation, prevail beyond the disorders of

any former time: these are facts universally admitted and lamented.

This state of things is the more extraordinary, because the great parties

which formerly divided and agitated the kingdom are known to be in a

manner entirely dissolved. No great external calamity has visited the

nation; no pestilence or famine. We do not labour at present under any

scheme of taxation new or oppressive in the quantity or in the mode. Nor

are we engaged in unsuccessful war, in which our misfortunes might easily

pervert our judgment, and our minds, sore from the loss of national

glory, might feel every blow of fortune as a crime in Government.

* * * * *

It is impossible that the cause of this strange distemper should not

sometimes become a subject of discourse. It is a compliment due, and

which I willingly pay, to those who administer our affairs, to take

notice in the first place of their speculation. Our Ministers are of

opinion that the increase of our trade and manufactures, that our growth

by colonisation and by conquest, have concurred to accumulate immense

wealth in the hands of some individuals; and this again being dispersed

amongst the people, has rendered them universally proud, ferocious, and

ungovernable; that the insolence of some from their enormous wealth, and

the boldness of others from a guilty poverty, have rendered them capable

of the most atrocious attempts; so that they have trampled upon all

subordination, and violently borne down the unarmed laws of a free

Government--barriers too feeble against the fury of a populace so fierce

and licentious as ours. They contend that no adequate provocation has

been given for so spreading a discontent, our affairs having been

conducted throughout with remarkable temper and consummate wisdom. The

wicked industry of some libellers, joined to the intrigues of a few

disappointed politicians, have, in their opinion, been able to produce

this unnatural ferment in the nation.

Nothing indeed can be more unnatural than the present convulsions of this

country, if the above account be a true one. I confess I shall assent to

it with great reluctance, and only on the compulsion of the clearest and

firmest proofs; because their account resolves itself into this short but

discouraging proposition, "That we have a very good Ministry, but that we

are a very bad people;" that we set ourselves to bite the hand that feeds

us; that with a malignant insanity we oppose the measures, and

ungratefully vilify the persons, of those whose sole object is our own

peace and prosperity. If a few puny libellers, acting under a knot of

factious politicians, without virtue, parts, or character (such they are

constantly represented by these gentlemen), are sufficient to excite this

disturbance, very perverse must be the disposition of that people amongst

whom such a disturbance can be excited by such means. It is besides no

small aggravation of the public misfortune that the disease, on this

hypothesis, appears to be without remedy. If the wealth of the nation be

the cause of its turbulence, I imagine it is not proposed to introduce

poverty as a constable to keep the peace. If our dominions abroad are

the roots which feed all this rank luxuriance of sedition, it is not

intended to cut them off in order to famish the fruit. If our liberty

has enfeebled the executive power, there is no design, I hope, to call in

the aid of despotism to fill up the deficiencies of law. Whatever may be

intended, these things are not yet professed. We seem therefore to be

driven to absolute despair, for we have no other materials to work upon

but those out of which God has been pleased to form the inhabitants of

this island. If these be radically and essentially vicious, all that can

be said is that those men are very unhappy to whose fortune or duty it

falls to administer the affairs of this untoward people. I hear it

indeed sometimes asserted that a steady perseverance in the present

measures, and a rigorous punishment of those who oppose them, will in

course of time infallibly put an end to these disorders. But this, in my

opinion, is said without much observation of our present disposition, and

without any knowledge at all of the general nature of mankind. If the

matter of which this nation is composed be so very fermentable as these

gentlemen describe it, leaven never will be wanting to work it up, as

long as discontent, revenge, and ambition have existence in the world.

Particular punishments are the cure for accidental distempers in the

State; they inflame rather than allay those heats which arise from the

settled mismanagement of the Government, or from a natural ill

disposition in the people. It is of the utmost moment not to make

mistakes in the use of strong measures, and firmness is then only a

virtue when it accompanies the most perfect wisdom. In truth,

inconstancy is a sort of natural corrective of folly and ignorance.

I am not one of those who think that the people are never in the wrong.

They have been so, frequently and outrageously, both in other countries

and in this. But I do say that in all disputes between them and their

rulers the presumption is at least upon a par in favour of the people.

Experience may perhaps justify me in going further. When popular

discontents have been very prevalent, it may well be affirmed and

supported that there has been generally something found amiss in the

constitution or in the conduct of Government. The people have no

interest in disorder. When they do wrong, it is their error, and not

their crime. But with the governing part of the State it is far

otherwise. They certainly may act ill by design, as well as by mistake.

"Les revolutions qui arrivent dans les grands etats ne sont point un

effect du hasard, ni du caprice des peuples. Rien ne revolte les grands

d'un royaume comme un Gouvernoment foible et derange. Pour la populace,

ce n'est jamais par envie d'attaquer qu'elle se souleve, mais par

impatience de souffrir." These are the words of a great man, of a

Minister of State, and a zealous assertor of Monarchy. They are applied

to the system of favouritism which was adopted by Henry the Third of

France, and to the dreadful consequences it produced. What he says of

revolutions is equally true of all great disturbances. If this

presumption in favour of the subjects against the trustees of power be

not the more probable, I am sure it is the more comfortable speculation,

because it is more easy to change an Administration than to reform a

people.

* * * * *

Upon a supposition, therefore, that, in the opening of the cause, the

presumptions stand equally balanced between the parties, there seems

sufficient ground to entitle any person to a fair hearing who attempts

some other scheme besides that easy one which is fashionable in some

fashionable companies, to account for the present discontents. It is not

to be argued that we endure no grievance, because our grievances are not

of the same sort with those under which we laboured formerly--not

precisely those which we bore from the Tudors, or vindicated on the

Stuarts. A great change has taken place in the affairs of this country.

For in the silent lapse of events as material alterations have been

insensibly brought about in the policy and character of governments and

nations as those which have been marked by the tumult of public

revolutions.

It is very rare indeed for men to be wrong in their feelings concerning

public misconduct; as rare to be right in their speculation upon the

cause of it. I have constantly observed that the generality of people

are fifty years, at least, behindhand in their politics. There are but

very few who are capable of comparing and digesting what passes before

their eyes at different times and occasions, so as to form the whole into

a distinct system. But in books everything is settled for them, without

the exertion of any considerable diligence or sagacity. For which reason

men are wise with but little reflection, and good with little

self-denial, in the business of all times except their own. We are very

uncorrupt and tolerably enlightened judges of the transactions of past

ages; where no passions deceive, and where the whole train of

circumstances, from the trifling cause to the tragical event, is set in

an orderly series before us. Few are the partisans of departed tyranny;

and to be a Whig on the business of a hundred years ago is very

consistent with every advantage of present servility. This retrospective

wisdom and historical patriotism are things of wonderful convenience, and

serve admirably to reconcile the old quarrel between speculation and

practice. Many a stern republican, after gorging himself with a full

feast of admiration of the Grecian commonwealths and of our true Saxon

constitution, and discharging all the splendid bile of his virtuous

indignation on King John and King James, sits down perfectly satisfied to

the coarsest work and homeliest job of the day he lives in. I believe

there was no professed admirer of Henry the Eighth among the instruments

of the last King James; nor in the court of Henry the Eighth was there, I

dare say, to be found a single advocate for the favourites of Richard the

Second.

No complaisance to our Court, or to our age, can make me believe nature

to be so changed but that public liberty will be among us, as among our

ancestors, obnoxious to some person or other, and that opportunities will

be furnished for attempting, at least, some alteration to the prejudice

of our constitution. These attempts will naturally vary in their mode,

according to times and circumstances. For ambition, though it has ever

the same general views, has not at all times the same means, nor the same

particular objects. A great deal of the furniture of ancient tyranny is

worn to rags; the rest is entirely out of fashion. Besides, there are

few statesmen so very clumsy and awkward in their business as to fall

into the identical snare which has proved fatal to their predecessors.

When an arbitrary imposition is attempted upon the subject, undoubtedly

it will not bear on its forehead the name of _Ship-money_. There is no

danger that an extension of the _Forest laws_ should be the chosen mode

of oppression in this age. And when we hear any instance of ministerial

rapacity to the prejudice of the rights of private life, it will

certainly not be the exaction of two hundred pullets, from a woman of

fashion, for leave to lie with her own husband.

Every age has its own manners, and its politics dependent upon them; and

the same attempts will not be made against a constitution fully formed

and matured, that were used to destroy it in the cradle, or to resist its

growth during its infancy.

Against the being of Parliament, I am satisfied, no designs have ever

been entertained since the Revolution. Every one must perceive that it

is strongly the interest of the Court to have some second cause

interposed between the Ministers and the people. The gentlemen of the

House of Commons have an interest equally strong in sustaining the part

of that intermediate cause. However they may hire out the _usufruct_ of

their voices, they never will part with the _fee and inheritance_.

Accordingly those who have been of the most known devotion to the will

and pleasure of a Court, have at the same time been most forward in

asserting a high authority in the House of Commons. When they knew who

were to use that authority, and how it was to be employed, they thought

it never could be carried too far. It must be always the wish of an

unconstitutional statesman, that a House of Commons who are entirely

dependent upon him, should have every right of the people entirely

dependent upon their pleasure. It was soon discovered that the forms of

a free, and the ends of an arbitrary Government, were things not

altogether incompatible.

The power of the Crown, almost dead and rotten as Prerogative, has grown

up anew, with much more strength, and far less odium, under the name of

Influence. An influence which operated without noise and without

violence; an influence which converted the very antagonist into the

instrument of power; which contained in itself a perpetual principle of

growth and renovation; and which the distresses and the prosperity of the

country equally tended to augment, was an admirable substitute for a

prerogative that, being only the offspring of antiquated prejudices, had

moulded in its original stamina irresistible principles of decay and

dissolution. The ignorance of the people is a bottom but for a temporary

system; the interest of active men in the State is a foundation perpetual

and infallible. However, some circumstances, arising, it must be

confessed, in a great degree from accident, prevented the effects of this

influence for a long time from breaking out in a manner capable of

exciting any serious apprehensions. Although Government was strong and

flourished exceedingly, the _Court_ had drawn far less advantage than one

would imagine from this great source of power.

* * * * *

At the Revolution, the Crown, deprived, for the ends of the Revolution

itself, of many prerogatives, was found too weak to struggle against all

the difficulties which pressed so new and unsettled a Government. The

Court was obliged therefore to delegate a part of its powers to men of

such interest as could support, and of such fidelity as would adhere to,

its establishment. Such men were able to draw in a greater number to a

concurrence in the common defence. This connection, necessary at first,

continued long after convenient; and properly conducted might indeed, in

all situations, be a useful instrument of Government. At the same time,

through the intervention of men of popular weight and character, the

people possessed a security for their just proportion of importance in

the State. But as the title to the Crown grew stronger by long

possession, and by the constant increase of its influence, these helps

have of late seemed to certain persons no better than incumbrances. The

powerful managers for Government were not sufficiently submissive to the

pleasure of the possessors of immediate and personal favour, sometimes

from a confidence in their own strength, natural and acquired; sometimes

from a fear of offending their friends, and weakening that lead in the

country, which gave them a consideration independent of the Court. Men

acted as if the Court could receive, as well as confer, an obligation.

The influence of Government, thus divided in appearance between the Court

and the leaders of parties, became in many cases an accession rather to

the popular than to the royal scale; and some part of that influence,

which would otherwise have been possessed as in a sort of mortmain and

unalienable domain, returned again to the great ocean from whence it

arose, and circulated among the people. This method therefore of

governing by men of great natural interest or great acquired

consideration, was viewed in a very invidious light by the true lovers of

absolute monarchy. It is the nature of despotism to abhor power held by

any means but its own momentary pleasure; and to annihilate all

intermediate situations between boundless strength on its own part, and

total debility on the part of the people.

To get rid of all this intermediate and independent importance, and _to

secure to the Court the unlimited and uncontrolled use of its own vast

influence_, _under the sole direction of its own private favour_, has for

some years past been the great object of policy. If this were compassed,

the influence of the Crown must of course produce all the effects which

the most sanguine partisans of the Court could possibly desire.

Government might then be carried on without any concurrence on the part

of the people; without any attention to the dignity of the greater, or to

the affections of the lower sorts. A new project was therefore devised

by a certain set of intriguing men, totally different from the system of

Administration which had prevailed since the accession of the House of

Brunswick. This project, I have heard, was first conceived by some

persons in the Court of Frederick, Prince of Wales.

The earliest attempt in the execution of this design was to set up for

Minister a person, in rank indeed respectable, and very ample in fortune;

but who, to the moment of this vast and sudden elevation, was little

known or considered in the kingdom. To him the whole nation was to yield

an immediate and implicit submission. But whether it was from want of

firmness to bear up against the first opposition, or that things were not

yet fully ripened, or that this method was not found the most eligible,

that idea was soon abandoned. The instrumental part of the project was a

little altered, to accommodate it to the time, and to bring things more

gradually and more surely to the one great end proposed.

The first part of the reformed plan was to draw _a line which should

separate the Court from the Ministry_. Hitherto these names had been

looked upon as synonymous; but, for the future, Court and Administration

were to be considered as things totally distinct. By this operation, two

systems of Administration were to be formed: one which should be in the

real secret and confidence; the other merely ostensible, to perform the

official and executory duties of Government. The latter were alone to be

responsible; whilst the real advisers, who enjoyed all the power, were

effectually removed from all the danger.

Secondly, _a party under these leaders was to be formed in favour of the

Court against the Ministry_: this party was to have a large share in the

emoluments of Government, and to hold it totally separate from, and

independent of, ostensible Administration.

The third point, and that on which the success of the whole scheme

ultimately depended, was _to bring Parliament to an acquiescence in this

project_. Parliament was therefore to be taught by degrees a total

indifference to the persons, rank, influence, abilities, connections, and

character of the Ministers of the Crown. By means of a discipline, on

which I shall say more hereafter, that body was to be habituated to the

most opposite interests, and the most discordant politics. All

connections and dependencies among subjects were to be entirely

dissolved. As hitherto business had gone through the hands of leaders of

Whigs or Tories, men of talents to conciliate the people, and to engage

their confidence, now the method was to be altered; and the lead was to

be given to men of no sort of consideration or credit in the country.

This want of natural importance was to be their very title to delegated

power. Members of parliament were to be hardened into an insensibility

to pride as well as to duty. Those high and haughty sentiments, which

are the great support of independence, were to be let down gradually.

Point of honour and precedence were no more to be regarded in

Parliamentary decorum than in a Turkish army. It was to be avowed, as a

constitutional maxim, that the King might appoint one of his footmen, or

one of your footmen, for Minister; and that he ought to be, and that he

would be, as well followed as the first name for rank or wisdom in the

nation. Thus Parliament was to look on, as if perfectly unconcerned

while a cabal of the closet and back-stairs was substituted in the place

of a national Administration.

With such a degree of acquiescence, any measure of any Court might well

be deemed thoroughly secure. The capital objects, and by much the most

flattering characteristics of arbitrary power, would be obtained.

Everything would be drawn from its holdings in the country to the

personal favour and inclination of the Prince. This favour would be the

sole introduction to power, and the only tenure by which it was to be

held: so that no person looking towards another, and all looking towards

the Court, it was impossible but that the motive which solely influenced

every man's hopes must come in time to govern every man's conduct; till

at last the servility became universal, in spite of the dead letter of

any laws or institutions whatsoever.

How it should happen that any man could be tempted to venture upon such a

project of Government, may at first view appear surprising. But the fact

is that opportunities very inviting to such an attempt have offered; and

the scheme itself was not destitute of some arguments, not wholly

unplausible, to recommend it. These opportunities and these arguments,

the use that has been made of both, the plan for carrying this new scheme

of government into execution, and the effects which it has produced, are

in my opinion worthy of our serious consideration.

His Majesty came to the throne of these kingdoms with more advantages

than any of his predecessors since the Revolution. Fourth in descent,

and third in succession of his Royal family, even the zealots of

hereditary right, in him, saw something to flatter their favourite

prejudices; and to justify a transfer of their attachments, without a

change in their principles. The person and cause of the Pretender were

become contemptible; his title disowned throughout Europe, his party

disbanded in England. His Majesty came indeed to the inheritance of a

mighty war; but, victorious in every part of the globe, peace was always

in his power, not to negotiate, but to dictate. No foreign habitudes or

attachments withdrew him from the cultivation of his power at home. His

revenue for the Civil establishment, fixed (as it was then thought) at a

large, but definite sum, was ample, without being invidious; his

influence, by additions from conquest, by an augmentation of debt, by an

increase of military and naval establishment, much strengthened and

extended. And coming to the throne in the prime and full vigour of

youth, as from affection there was a strong dislike, so from dread there

seemed to be a general averseness from giving anything like offence to a

monarch against whose resentment opposition could not look for a refuge

in any sort of reversionary hope.

These singular advantages inspired his Majesty only with a more ardent

desire to preserve unimpaired the spirit of that national freedom to

which he owed a situation so full of glory. But to others it suggested

sentiments of a very different nature. They thought they now beheld an

opportunity (by a certain sort of statesman never long undiscovered or

unemployed) of drawing to themselves, by the aggrandisement of a Court

faction, a degree of power which they could never hope to derive from

natural influence or from honourable service; and which it was impossible

they could hold with the least security, whilst the system of

Administration rested upon its former bottom. In order to facilitate the

execution of their design, it was necessary to make many alterations in

political arrangement, and a signal change in the opinions, habits, and

connections of the greater part of those who at that time acted in

public.

In the first place, they proceeded gradually, but not slowly, to destroy

everything of strength which did not derive its principal nourishment

from the immediate pleasure of the Court. The greatest weight of popular

opinion and party connection were then with the Duke of Newcastle and Mr.

Pitt. Neither of these held his importance by the _new tenure_ of the

Court; they were not, therefore, thought to be so proper as others for

the services which were required by that tenure. It happened very

favourably for the new system, that under a forced coalition there

rankled an incurable alienation and disgust between the parties which

composed the Administration. Mr. Pitt was first attacked. Not satisfied

with removing him from power, they endeavoured by various artifices to

ruin his character. The other party seemed rather pleased to get rid of

so oppressive a support; not perceiving that their own fall was prepared

by his, and involved in it. Many other reasons prevented them from

daring to look their true situation in the face. To the great Whig

families it was extremely disagreeable, and seemed almost unnatural, to

oppose the Administration of a Prince of the House of Brunswick. Day

after day they hesitated, and doubted, and lingered, expecting that other

counsels would take place; and were slow to be persuaded that all which

had been done by the Cabal was the effect, not of humour, but of system.

It was more strongly and evidently the interest of the new Court faction

to get rid of the great Whig connections than to destroy Mr. Pitt. The

power of that gentleman was vast indeed, and merited; but it was in a

great degree personal, and therefore transient. Theirs was rooted in the

country. For, with a good deal less of popularity, they possessed a far

more natural and fixed influence. Long possession of Government; vast

property; obligations of favours given and received; connection of

office; ties of blood, of alliance, of friendship (things at that time

supposed of some force); the name of Whig, dear to the majority of the

people; the zeal early begun and steadily continued to the Royal Family;

all these together formed a body of power in the nation, which was

criminal and devoted. The great ruling principle of the Cabal, and that

which animated and harmonised all their proceedings, how various soever

they may have been, was to signify to the world that the Court would

proceed upon its own proper forces only; and that the pretence of

bringing any other into its service was an affront to it, and not a

support. Therefore when the chiefs were removed, in order to go to the

root, the whole party was put under a proscription, so general and severe

as to take their hard-earned bread from the lowest officers, in a manner

which had never been known before, even in general revolutions. But it

was thought necessary effectually to destroy all dependencies but one,

and to show an example of the firmness and rigour with which the new

system was to be supported.

Thus for the time were pulled down, in the persons of the Whig leaders

and of Mr. Pitt (in spite of the services of the one at the accession of

the Royal Family, and the recent services of the other in the war), the

_two only securities for the importance of the people_: _power arising

from popularity_, _and power arising from connection_. Here and there

indeed a few individuals were left standing, who gave security for their

total estrangement from the odious principles of party connection and

personal attachment; and it must be confessed that most of them have

religiously kept their faith. Such a change could not, however, be made

without a mighty shock to Government.

To reconcile the minds of the people to all these movements, principles

correspondent to them had been preached up with great zeal. Every one

must remember that the Cabal set out with the most astonishing prudery,

both moral and political. Those who in a few months after soused over

head and ears into the deepest and dirtiest pits of corruption, cried out

violently against the indirect practices in the electing and managing of

Parliaments, which had formerly prevailed. This marvellous abhorrence

which the Court had suddenly taken to all influence, was not only

circulated in conversation through the kingdom, but pompously announced

to the public, with many other extraordinary things, in a pamphlet which

had all the appearance of a manifesto preparatory to some considerable

enterprise. Throughout, it was a satire, though in terms managed and

decent enough, on the politics of the former reign. It was indeed

written with no small art and address.

In this piece appeared the first dawning of the new system; there first

appeared the idea (then only in speculation) of _separating the Court

from the Administration_; of carrying everything from national connection

to personal regards; and of forming a regular party for that purpose,

under the name of _King's men_.

To recommend this system to the people, a perspective view of the Court,

gorgeously painted, and finely illuminated from within, was exhibited to

the gaping multitude. Party was to be totally done away, with all its

evil works. Corruption was to be cast down from Court, as _Ate_ was from

heaven. Power was thenceforward to be the chosen residence of public

spirit; and no one was to be supposed under any sinister influence,

except those who had the misfortune to be in disgrace at Court, which was

to stand in lieu of all vices and all corruptions. A scheme of

perfection to be realised in a Monarchy, far beyond the visionary

Republic of Plato. The whole scenery was exactly disposed to captivate

those good souls, whose credulous morality is so invaluable a treasure to

crafty politicians. Indeed, there was wherewithal to charm everybody,

except those few who are not much pleased with professions of

supernatural virtue, who know of what stuff such professions are made,

for what purposes they are designed, and in what they are sure constantly

to end. Many innocent gentlemen, who had been talking prose all their

lives without knowing anything of the matter, began at last to open their

eyes upon their own merits, and to attribute their not having been Lords

of the Treasury and Lords of Trade many years before merely to the

prevalence of party, and to the Ministerial power, which had frustrated

the good intentions of the Court in favour of their abilities. Now was

the time to unlock the sealed fountain of Royal bounty, which had been

infamously monopolised and huckstered, and to let it flow at large upon

the whole people. The time was come to restore Royalty to its original

splendour. _Mettre le Roy hors de page_, became a sort of watchword. And

it was constantly in the mouths of all the runners of the Court, that

nothing could preserve the balance of the constitution from being

overturned by the rabble, or by a faction of the nobility, but to free

the Sovereign effectually from that Ministerial tyranny under which the

Royal dignity had been oppressed in the person of his Majesty's

grandfather.

These were some of the many artifices used to reconcile the people to the

great change which was made in the persons who composed the Ministry, and

the still greater which was made and avowed in its constitution. As to

individuals, other methods were employed with them, in order so

thoroughly to disunite every party, and even every family, that _no

concert_, _order_, _or effect_, _might appear in any future opposition_.

And in this manner an Administration without connection with the people,

or with one another, was first put in possession of Government. What

good consequences followed from it, we have all seen; whether with regard

to virtue, public or private; to the ease and happiness of the Sovereign;

or to the real strength of Government. But as so much stress was then

laid on the necessity of this new project, it will not be amiss to take a

view of the effects of this Royal servitude and vile durance, which was

so deplored in the reign of the late Monarch, and was so carefully to be

avoided in the reign of his successor. The effects were these.

In times full of doubt and danger to his person and family, George the

Second maintained the dignity of his Crown connected with the liberty of

his people, not only unimpaired, but improved, for the space of thirty-

three years. He overcame a dangerous rebellion, abetted by foreign

force, and raging in the heart of his kingdoms; and thereby destroyed the

seeds of all future rebellion that could arise upon the same principle.

He carried the glory, the power, the commerce of England, to a height

unknown even to this renowned nation in the times of its greatest

prosperity: and he left his succession resting on the true and only true

foundation of all national and all regal greatness; affection at home,

reputation abroad, trust in allies, terror in rival nations. The most

ardent lover of his country cannot wish for Great Britain a happier fate

than to continue as she was then left. A people emulous as we are in

affection to our present Sovereign, know not how to form a prayer to

Heaven for a greater blessing upon his virtues, or a higher state of

felicity and glory, than that he should live, and should reign, and, when

Providence ordains it, should die, exactly like his illustrious

predecessor.

A great Prince may be obliged (though such a thing cannot happen very

often) to sacrifice his private inclination to his public interest. A

wise Prince will not think that such a restraint implies a condition of

servility; and truly, if such was the condition of the last reign, and

the effects were also such as we have described, we ought, no less for

the sake of the Sovereign whom we love, than for our own, to hear

arguments convincing indeed, before we depart from the maxims of that

reign, or fly in the face of this great body of strong and recent

experience.

One of the principal topics which was then, and has been since, much

employed by that political school, is an effectual terror of the growth

of an aristocratic power, prejudicial to the rights of the Crown, and the

balance of the constitution. Any new powers exercised in the House of

Lords, or in the House of Commons, or by the Crown, ought certainly to

excite the vigilant and anxious jealousy of a free people. Even a new

and unprecedented course of action in the whole Legislature, without

great and evident reason, may be a subject of just uneasiness. I will

not affirm, that there may not have lately appeared in the House of Lords

a disposition to some attempts derogatory to the legal rights of the

subject. If any such have really appeared, they have arisen, not from a

power properly aristocratic, but from the same influence which is charged

with having excited attempts of a similar nature in the House of Commons;

which House, if it should have been betrayed into an unfortunate quarrel

with its constituents, and involved in a charge of the very same nature,

could have neither power nor inclination to repel such attempts in

others. Those attempts in the House of Lords can no more be called

aristocratic proceedings, than the proceedings with regard to the county

of Middlesex in the House of Commons can with any sense be called

democratical.

It is true, that the Peers have a great influence in the kingdom, and in

every part of the public concerns. While they are men of property, it is

impossible to prevent it, except by such means as must prevent all

property from its natural operation: an event not easily to be compassed,

while property is power; nor by any means to be wished, while the least

notion exists of the method by which the spirit of liberty acts, and of

the means by which it is preserved. If any particular Peers, by their

uniform, upright, constitutional conduct, by their public and their

private virtues, have acquired an influence in the country; the people on

whose favour that influence depends, and from whom it arose, will never

be duped into an opinion, that such greatness in a Peer is the despotism

of an aristocracy, when they know and feel it to be the effect and pledge

of their own importance.

I am no friend to aristocracy, in the sense at least in which that word

is usually understood. If it were not a bad habit to moot cases on the

supposed ruin of the constitution, I should be free to declare, that if

it must perish, I would rather by far see it resolved into any other

form, than lost in that austere and insolent domination. But, whatever

my dislikes may be, my fears are not upon that quarter. The question, on

the influence of a Court, and of a Peerage, is not, which of the two

dangers is the most eligible, but which is the most imminent. He is but

a poor observer, who has not seen, that the generality of Peers, far from

supporting themselves in a state of independent greatness, are but too

apt to fall into an oblivion of their proper dignity, and to run headlong

into an abject servitude. Would to God it were true, that the fault of

our Peers were too much spirit! It is worthy of some observation, that

these gentlemen, so jealous of aristocracy, make no complaints of the

power of those peers (neither few nor inconsiderable) who are always in

the train of a Court, and whose whole weight must be considered as a

portion of the settled influence of the Crown. This is all safe and

right; but if some Peers (I am very sorry they are not as many as they

ought to be) set themselves, in the great concern of Peers and Commons,

against a back-stairs influence and clandestine government, then the

alarm begins; then the constitution is in danger of being forced into an

aristocracy.

I rest a little the longer on this Court topic, because it was much

insisted upon at the time of the great change, and has been since

frequently revived by many of the agents of that party: for, whilst they

are terrifying the great and opulent with the horrors of mob-government,

they are by other managers attempting (though hitherto with little

success) to alarm the people with a phantom of tyranny in the Nobles. All

this is done upon their favourite principle of disunion, of sowing

jealousies amongst the different orders of the State, and of disjointing

the natural strength of the kingdom; that it may be rendered incapable of

resisting the sinister designs of wicked men, who have engrossed the

Royal power.

* * * * *

Thus much of the topics chosen by the courtiers to recommend their

system; it will be necessary to open a little more at large the nature of

that party which was formed for its support. Without this, the whole

would have been no better than a visionary amusement, like the scheme of

Harrington's political club, and not a business in which the nation had a

real concern. As a powerful party, and a party constructed on a new

principle, it is a very inviting object of curiosity.

It must be remembered, that since the Revolution, until the period we are

speaking of, the influence of the Crown had been always employed in

supporting the Ministers of State, and in carrying on the public business

according to their opinions. But the party now in question is formed

upon a very different idea. It is to intercept the favour, protection,

and confidence of the Crown in the passage to its Ministers; it is to

come between them and their importance in Parliament; it is to separate

them from all their natural and acquired dependencies; it is intended as

the control, not the support, of Administration. The machinery of this

system is perplexed in its movements, and false in its principle. It is

formed on a supposition that the King is something external to his

government; and that he may be honoured and aggrandised, even by its

debility and disgrace. The plan proceeds expressly on the idea of

enfeebling the regular executory power. It proceeds on the idea of

weakening the State in order to strengthen the Court. The scheme

depending entirely on distrust, on disconnection, on mutability by

principle, on systematic weakness in every particular member; it is

impossible that the total result should be substantial strength of any

kind.

As a foundation of their scheme, the Cabal have established a sort of

_Rota_ in the Court. All sorts of parties, by this means, have been

brought into Administration, from whence few have had the good fortune to

escape without disgrace; none at all without considerable losses. In the

beginning of each arrangement no professions of confidence and support

are wanting, to induce the leading men to engage. But while the

Ministers of the day appear in all the pomp and pride of power, while

they have all their canvas spread out to the wind, and every sail filled

with the fair and prosperous gale of Royal favour, in a short time they

find, they know not how, a current, which sets directly against them;

which prevents all progress, and even drives them backwards. They grow

ashamed and mortified in a situation, which, by its vicinity to power,

only serves to remind them the more strongly of their insignificance.

They are obliged either to execute the orders of their inferiors, or to

see themselves opposed by the natural instruments of their office. With

the loss of their dignity, they lose their temper. In their turn they

grow troublesome to that Cabal, which, whether it supports or opposes,

equally disgraces and equally betrays them. It is soon found necessary

to get rid of the heads of Administration; but it is of the heads only.

As there always are many rotten members belonging to the best

connections, it is not hard to persuade several to continue in office

without their leaders. By this means the party goes out much thinner

than it came in; and is only reduced in strength by its temporary

possession of power. Besides, if by accident, or in course of changes,

that power should be recovered, the Junto have thrown up a retrenchment

of these carcases, which may serve to cover themselves in a day of

danger. They conclude, not unwisely, that such rotten members will

become the first objects of disgust and resentment to their ancient

connections.

They contrive to form in the outward Administration two parties at the

least; which, whilst they are tearing one another to pieces, are both

competitors for the favour and protection of the Cabal; and, by their

emulation, contribute to throw everything more and more into the hands of

the interior managers.

A Minister of State will sometimes keep himself totally estranged from

all his colleagues; will differ from them in their counsels, will

privately traverse, and publicly oppose, their measures. He will,

however, continue in his employment. Instead of suffering any mark of

displeasure, he will be distinguished by an unbounded profusion of Court

rewards and caresses; because he does what is expected, and all that is

expected, from men in office. He helps to keep some form of

Administration in being, and keeps it at the same time as weak and

divided as possible.

However, we must take care not to be mistaken, or to imagine that such

persons have any weight in their opposition. When, by them,

Administration is convinced of its insignificancy, they are soon to be

convinced of their own. They never are suffered to succeed in their

opposition. They and the world are to be satisfied, that neither office,

nor authority, nor property, nor ability, eloquence, counsel, skill, or

union, are of the least importance; but that the mere influence of the

Court, naked of all support, and destitute of all management, is

abundantly sufficient for all its own purposes.

When any adverse connection is to be destroyed, the Cabal seldom appear

in the work themselves. They find out some person of whom the party

entertains a high opinion. Such a person they endeavour to delude with

various pretences. They teach him first to distrust, and then to quarrel

with his friends; among whom, by the same arts, they excite a similar

diffidence of him; so that in this mutual fear and distrust, he may

suffer himself to be employed as the instrument in the change which is

brought about. Afterwards they are sure to destroy him in his turn; by

setting up in his place some person in whom he had himself reposed the

greatest confidence, and who serves to carry on a considerable part of

his adherents.

When such a person has broke in this manner with his connections, he is

soon compelled to commit some flagrant act of iniquitous personal

hostility against some of them (such as an attempt to strip a particular

friend of his family estate), by which the Cabal hope to render the

parties utterly irreconcilable. In truth, they have so contrived

matters, that people have a greater hatred to the subordinate instruments

than to the principal movers.

As in destroying their enemies they make use of instruments not

immediately belonging to their corps, so in advancing their own friends

they pursue exactly the same method. To promote any of them to

considerable rank or emolument, they commonly take care that the

recommendation shall pass through the hands of the ostensible Ministry:

such a recommendation might, however, appear to the world as some proof

of the credit of Ministers, and some means of increasing their strength.

To prevent this, the persons so advanced are directed in all companies,

industriously to declare, that they are under no obligations whatsoever

to Administration; that they have received their office from another

quarter; that they are totally free and independent.

When the Faction has any job of lucre to obtain, or of vengeance to

perpetrate, their way is, to select, for the execution, those very

persons to whose habits, friendships, principles, and declarations, such

proceedings are publicly known to be the most adverse; at once to render

the instruments the more odious, and therefore the more dependent, and to

prevent the people from ever reposing a confidence in any appearance of

private friendship, or public principle.

If the Administration seem now and then, from remissness, or from fear of

making themselves disagreeable, to suffer any popular excesses to go

unpunished, the Cabal immediately sets up some creature of theirs to

raise a clamour against the Ministers, as having shamefully betrayed the

dignity of Government. Then they compel the Ministry to become active in

conferring rewards and honours on the persons who have been the

instruments of their disgrace; and, after having first vilified them with

the higher orders for suffering the laws to sleep over the licentiousness

of the populace, they drive them (in order to make amends for their

former inactivity) to some act of atrocious violence, which renders them

completely abhorred by the people. They who remember the riots which

attended the Middlesex Election; the opening of the present Parliament;

and the transactions relative to Saint George's Fields, will not be at a

loss for an application of these remarks.

That this body may be enabled to compass all the ends of its institution,

its members are scarcely ever to aim at the high and responsible offices

of the State. They are distributed with art and judgment through all the

secondary, but efficient, departments of office, and through the

households of all the branches of the Royal Family: so as on one hand to

occupy all the avenues to the Throne; and on the other to forward or

frustrate the execution of any measure, according to their own interests.

For with the credit and support which they are known to have, though for

the greater part in places which are only a genteel excuse for salary,

they possess all the influence of the highest posts; and they dictate

publicly in almost everything, even with a parade of superiority.

Whenever they dissent (as it often happens) from their nominal leaders,

the trained part of the Senate, instinctively in the secret, is sure to

follow them; provided the leaders, sensible of their situation, do not of

themselves recede in time from their most declared opinions. This latter

is generally the case. It will not be conceivable to any one who has not

seen it, what pleasure is taken by the Cabal in rendering these heads of

office thoroughly contemptible and ridiculous. And when they are become

so, they have then the best chance, for being well supported.

The members of the Court faction are fully indemnified for not holding

places on the slippery heights of the kingdom, not only by the lead in

all affairs, but also by the perfect security in which they enjoy less

conspicuous, but very advantageous, situations. Their places are, in

express legal tenure, or in effect, all of them for life. Whilst the

first and most respectable persons in the kingdom are tossed about like

tennis balls, the sport of a blind and insolent caprice, no Minister

dares even to cast an oblique glance at the lowest of their body. If an

attempt be made upon one of this corps, immediately he flies to

sanctuary, and pretends to the most inviolable of all promises. No

conveniency of public arrangement is available to remove any one of them

from the specific situation he holds; and the slightest attempt upon one

of them, by the most powerful Minister, is a certain preliminary to his

own destruction.

Conscious of their independence, they bear themselves with a lofty air to

the exterior Ministers. Like Janissaries, they derive a kind of freedom

from the very condition of their servitude. They may act just as they

please; provided they are true to the great ruling principle of their

institution. It is, therefore, not at all wonderful, that people should

be so desirous of adding themselves to that body, in which they may

possess and reconcile satisfactions the most alluring, and seemingly the

most contradictory; enjoying at once all the spirited pleasure of

independence, and all the gross lucre and fat emoluments of servitude.

Here is a sketch, though a slight one, of the constitution, laws, and

policy, of this new Court corporation. The name by which they choose to

distinguish themselves, is that of _King's men_, or the _King's friends_,

by an invidious exclusion of the rest of his Majesty's most loyal and

affectionate subjects. The whole system, comprehending the exterior and

interior Administrations, is commonly called, in the technical language

of the Court, _Double Cabinet_; in French or English, as you choose to

pronounce it.

Whether all this be a vision of a distracted brain, or the invention of a

malicious heart, or a real faction in the country, must be judged by the

appearances which things have worn for eight years past. Thus far I am

certain, that there is not a single public man, in or out of office, who

has not, at some time or other, borne testimony to the truth of what I

have now related. In particular, no persons have been more strong in

their assertions, and louder and more indecent in their complaints, than

those who compose all the exterior part of the present Administration; in

whose time that faction has arrived at such a height of power, and of

boldness in the use of it, as may, in the end, perhaps bring about its

total destruction.

It is true, that about four years ago, during the administration of the

Marquis of Rockingham, an attempt was made to carry on Government without

their concurrence. However, this was only a transient cloud; they were

hid but for a moment; and their constellation blazed out with greater

brightness, and a far more vigorous influence, some time after it was

blown over. An attempt was at that time made (but without any idea of

proscription) to break their corps, to discountenance their doctrines, to

revive connections of a different kind, to restore the principles and

policy of the Whigs, to reanimate the cause of Liberty by Ministerial

countenance; and then for the first time were men seen attached in office

to every principle they had maintained in opposition. No one will doubt,

that such men were abhorred and violently opposed by the Court faction,

and that such a system could have but a short duration.

It may appear somewhat affected, that in so much discourse upon this

extraordinary party, I should say so little of the Earl of Bute, who is

the supposed head of it. But this was neither owing to affectation nor

inadvertence. I have carefully avoided the introduction of personal

reflections of any kind. Much the greater part of the topics which have

been used to blacken this nobleman are either unjust or frivolous. At

best, they have a tendency to give the resentment of this bitter calamity

a wrong direction, and to turn a public grievance into a mean personal,

or a dangerous national, quarrel. Where there is a regular scheme of

operations carried on, it is the system, and not any individual person

who acts in it, that is truly dangerous. This system has not risen

solely from the ambition of Lord Bute, but from the circumstances which

favoured it, and from an indifference to the constitution which had been

for some time growing among our gentry. We should have been tried with

it, if the Earl of Bute had never existed; and it will want neither a

contriving head nor active members, when the Earl of Bute exists no

longer. It is not, therefore, to rail at Lord Bute, but firmly to embody

against this Court party and its practices, which can afford us any

prospect of relief in our present condition.

Another motive induces me to put the personal consideration of Lord Bute

wholly out of the question. He communicates very little in a direct

manner with the greater part of our men of business. This has never been

his custom. It is enough for him that he surrounds them with his

creatures. Several imagine, therefore, that they have a very good excuse

for doing all the work of this faction, when they have no personal

connection with Lord Bute. But whoever becomes a party to an

Administration, composed of insulated individuals, without faith

plighted, tie, or common principle; an Administration constitutionally

impotent, because supported by no party in the nation; he who contributes

to destroy the connections of men and their trust in one another, or in

any sort to throw the dependence of public counsels upon private will and

favour, possibly may have nothing to do with the Earl of Bute. It

matters little whether he be the friend or the enemy of that particular

person. But let him be who or what he will, he abets a faction that is

driving hard to the ruin of his country. He is sapping the foundation of

its liberty, disturbing the sources of its domestic tranquillity,

weakening its government over its dependencies, degrading it from all its

importance in the system of Europe.

It is this unnatural infusion of a _system of Favouritism_ into a

Government which in a great part of its constitution is popular, that has

raised the present ferment in the nation. The people, without entering

deeply into its principles, could plainly perceive its effects, in much

violence, in a great spirit of innovation, and a general disorder in all

the functions of Government. I keep my eye solely on this system; if I

speak of those measures which have arisen from it, it will be so far only

as they illustrate the general scheme. This is the fountain of all those

bitter waters of which, through a hundred different conducts, we have

drunk until we are ready to burst. The discretionary power of the Crown

in the formation of Ministry, abused by bad or weak men, has given rise

to a system, which, without directly violating the letter of any law,

operates against the spirit of the whole constitution.

A plan of Favouritism for our executory Government is essentially at

variance with the plan of our Legislature. One great end undoubtedly of

a mixed Government like ours, composed of Monarchy, and of controls, on

the part of the higher people and the lower, is that the Prince shall not

be able to violate the laws. This is useful indeed and fundamental. But

this, even at first view, is no more than a negative advantage; an armour

merely defensive. It is therefore next in order, and equal in

importance, _that the discretionary powers which are necessarily vested

in the Monarch_, _whether for the execution of the laws_, _or for the

nomination to magistracy and office_, _or for conducting the affairs of

peace and war_, _or for ordering the revenue_, _should all be exercised

upon public principles and national grounds_, _and not on the likings or

prejudices_, _the intrigues or policies of a Court_. This, I said, is

equal in importance to the securing a Government according to law. The

laws reach but a very little way. Constitute Government how you please,

infinitely the greater part of it must depend upon the exercise of the

powers which are left at large to the prudence and uprightness of

Ministers of State. Even all the use and potency of the laws depends

upon them. Without them, your Commonwealth is no better than a scheme

upon paper; and not a living, active, effective constitution. It is

possible, that through negligence, or ignorance, or design artfully

conducted, Ministers may suffer one part of Government to languish,

another to be perverted from its purposes: and every valuable interest of

the country to fall into ruin and decay, without possibility of fixing

any single act on which a criminal prosecution can be justly grounded.

The due arrangement of men in the active part of the state, far from

being foreign to the purposes of a wise Government, ought to be among its

very first and dearest objects. When, therefore, the abettors of new

system tell us, that between them and their opposers there is nothing but

a struggle for power, and that therefore we are no-ways concerned in it;

we must tell those who have the impudence to insult us in this manner,

that, of all things, we ought to be the most concerned, who and what sort

of men they are, that hold the trust of everything that is dear to us.

Nothing can render this a point of indifference to the nation, but what

must either render us totally desperate, or soothe us into the security

of idiots. We must soften into a credulity below the milkiness of

infancy, to think all men virtuous. We must be tainted with a malignity

truly diabolical, to believe all the world to be equally wicked and

corrupt. Men are in public life as in private--some good, some evil. The

elevation of the one, and the depression of the other, are the first

objects of all true policy. But that form of Government, which, neither

in its direct institutions, nor in their immediate tendency, has

contrived to throw its affairs into the most trustworthy hands, but has

left its whole executory system to be disposed of agreeably to the

uncontrolled pleasure of any one man, however excellent or virtuous, is a

plan of polity defective not only in that member, but consequentially

erroneous in every part of it.

In arbitrary Governments, the constitution of the Ministry follows the

constitution of the Legislature. Both the Law and the Magistrate are the

creatures of Will. It must be so. Nothing, indeed, will appear more

certain, on any tolerable consideration of this matter, than that _every

sort of Government ought to have its Administration correspondent to its

Legislature_. If it should be otherwise, things must fall into a hideous

disorder. The people of a free Commonwealth, who have taken such care

that their laws should be the result of general consent, cannot be so

senseless as to suffer their executory system to be composed of persons

on whom they have no dependence, and whom no proofs of the public love

and confidence have recommended to those powers, upon the use of which

the very being of the State depends.

The popular election of magistrates, and popular disposition of rewards

and honours, is one of the first advantages of a free State. Without it,

or something equivalent to it, perhaps the people cannot long enjoy the

substance of freedom; certainly none of the vivifying energy of good

Government. The frame of our Commonwealth did not admit of such an

actual election: but it provided as well, and (while the spirit of the

constitution is preserved) better, for all the effects of it, than by the

method of suffrage in any democratic State whatsoever. It had always,

until of late, been held the first duty of Parliament _to refuse to

support Government_, _until power was in the hands of persons who were

acceptable to the people_, _or while factions predominated in the Court

in which the nation had no confidence_. Thus all the good effects of

popular election were supposed to be secured to us, without the mischiefs

attending on perpetual intrigue, and a distinct canvass for every

particular office throughout the body of the people. This was the most

noble and refined part of our constitution. The people, by their

representatives and grandees, were intrusted with a deliberative power in

making laws; the King with the control of his negative. The King was

intrusted with the deliberative choice and the election to office; the

people had the negative in a Parliamentary refusal to support. Formerly

this power of control was what kept Ministers in awe of Parliaments, and

Parliaments in reverence with the people. If the use of this power of

control on the system and persons of Administration is gone, everything

is lost, Parliament and all. We may assure ourselves, that if Parliament

will tamely see evil men take possession of all the strongholds of their

country, and allow them time and means to fortify themselves, under a

pretence of giving them a fair trial, and upon a hope of discovering,

whether they will not be reformed by power, and whether their measures

will not be better than their morals; such a Parliament will give

countenance to their measures also, whatever that Parliament may pretend,

and whatever those measures may be.

Every good political institution must have a preventive operation as well

as a remedial. It ought to have a natural tendency to exclude bad men

from Government, and not to trust for the safety of the State to

subsequent punishment alone--punishment which has ever been tardy and

uncertain, and which, when power is suffered in bad hands, may chance to

fall rather on the injured than the criminal.

Before men are put forward into the great trusts of the State, they ought

by their conduct to have obtained such a degree of estimation in their

country as may be some sort of pledge and security to the public that

they will not abuse those trusts. It is no mean security for a proper

use of power, that a man has shown by the general tenor of his actions,

that the affection, the good opinion, the confidence of his

fellow-citizens have been among the principal objects of his life, and

that he has owed none of the gradations of his power or fortune to a

settled contempt or occasional forfeiture of their esteem.

That man who, before he comes into power, has no friends, or who, coming

into power, is obliged to desert his friends, or who, losing it, has no

friends to sympathise with him, he who has no sway among any part of the

landed or commercial interest, but whose whole importance has begun with

his office, and is sure to end with it, is a person who ought never to be

suffered by a controlling Parliament, to continue in any of those

situations which confer the lead and direction of all our public affairs;

because such a man _has no connection with the sentiments and opinions of

the people_.

Those knots or cabals of men who have got together, avowedly without any

public principle, in order to sell their conjunct iniquity at the higher

rate, and are therefore universally odious, ought never to be suffered to

domineer in the State; because they have _no connection with the

sentiments and opinions of the people_.

These are considerations which, in my opinion, enforce the necessity of

having some better reason, in a free country and a free Parliament, for

supporting the Ministers of the Crown, than that short one, _That the

King has thought proper to appoint them_. There is something very

courtly in this. But it is a principle pregnant with all sorts of

mischief, in a constitution like ours, to turn the views of active men

from the country to the Court. Whatever be the road to power, that is

the road which will be trod. If the opinion of the country be of no use

as a means of power or consideration, the qualities which usually procure

that opinion will be no longer cultivated. And whether it will be right,

in a State so popular in its constitution as ours, to leave ambition

without popular motives, and to trust all to the operation of pure virtue

in the minds of Kings and Ministers, and public men, must be submitted to

the judgment and good sense of the people of England.

* * * * *

Cunning men are here apt to break in, and, without directly controverting

the principle, to raise objections from the difficulty under which the

Sovereign labours to distinguish the genuine voice and sentiments of his

people from the clamour of a faction, by which it is so easily

counterfeited. The nation, they say, is generally divided into parties,

with views and passions utterly irreconcilable. If the King should put

his affairs into the hands of any one of them, he is sure to disgust the

rest; if he select particular men from among them all, it is a hazard

that he disgusts them all. Those who are left out, however divided

before, will soon run into a body of opposition, which, being a

collection of many discontents into one focus, will without doubt be hot

and violent enough. Faction will make its cries resound through the

nation, as if the whole were in an uproar, when by far the majority, and

much the better part, will seem for awhile, as it were, annihilated by

the quiet in which their virtue and moderation incline them to enjoy the

blessings of Government. Besides that, the opinion of the mere vulgar is

a miserable rule even with regard to themselves, on account of their

violence and instability. So that if you were to gratify them in their

humour to-day, that very gratification would be a ground of their

dissatisfaction on the next. Now as all these rules of public opinion

are to be collected with great difficulty, and to be applied with equal

uncertainty as to the effect, what better can a King of England do than

to employ such men as he finds to have views and inclinations most

conformable to his own, who are least infected with pride and self-will,

and who are least moved by such popular humours as are perpetually

traversing his designs, and disturbing his service; trusting that when he

means no ill to his people he will be supported in his appointments,

whether he chooses to keep or to change, as his private judgment or his

pleasure leads him? He will find a sure resource in the real weight and

influence of the Crown, when it is not suffered to become an instrument

in the hands of a faction.

I will not pretend to say that there is nothing at all in this mode of

reasoning, because I will not assert that there is no difficulty in the

art of government. Undoubtedly the very best Administration must

encounter a great deal of opposition, and the very worst will find more

support than it deserves. Sufficient appearances will never be wanting

to those who have a mind to deceive themselves. It is a fallacy in

constant use with those who would level all things, and confound right

with wrong, to insist upon the inconveniences which are attached to every

choice, without taking into consideration the different weight and

consequence of those inconveniences. The question is not concerning

absolute discontent or perfect satisfaction in Government, neither of

which can be pure and unmixed at any time or upon any system. The

controversy is about that degree of good-humour in the people, which may

possibly be attained, and ought certainly to be looked for. While some

politicians may be waiting to know whether the sense of every individual

be against them, accurately distinguishing the vulgar from the better

sort, drawing lines between the enterprises of a faction and the efforts

of a people, they may chance to see the Government, which they are so

nicely weighing, and dividing, and distinguishing, tumble to the ground

in the midst of their wise deliberation. Prudent men, when so great an

object as the security of Government, or even its peace, is at stake,

will not run the risk of a decision which may be fatal to it. They who

can read the political sky will seen a hurricane in a cloud no bigger

than a hand at the very edge of the horizon, and will run into the first

harbour. No lines can be laid down for civil or political wisdom. They

are a matter 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 it, as will give a great degree of content to his people,

without any curious and anxious research for that abstract, universal,

perfect harmony, which, while he is seeking, he abandons those means of

ordinary tranquillity which are in his power without any research at all.

It is not more the duty than it is the interest of a Prince to aim at

giving tranquillity to his Government. If those who advise him may have

an interest in disorder and confusion. If the opinion of the people is

against them, they will naturally wish that it should have no prevalence.

Here it is that the people must on their part show themselves sensible of

their own value. Their whole importance, in the first instance, and

afterwards their whole freedom, is at stake. Their freedom cannot long

survive their importance. Here it is that the natural strength of the

kingdom, the great peers, the leading landed gentlemen, 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. Until the

matter is decided, the country will remain 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 necessarily be disordered for a time, until

this system destroys the constitution, or the constitution gets the

better of this system.

There is, in my opinion, a peculiar venom and malignity in this political

distemper beyond any that I have heard or read of. In former lines the

projectors of arbitrary Government attacked only the liberties of their

country, a design surely mischievous enough to have satisfied a mind of

the most unruly ambition. But a system unfavourable to freedom may be so

formed as considerably to exalt the grandeur of the State, and men may

find in the pride and splendour of that prosperity some sort of

consolation for the loss of their solid privileges. Indeed, the increase

of the power of the State has often been urged by artful men, as a

pretext for some abridgment of the public liberty. But the scheme of the

junto under consideration not only strikes a 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

languid, 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 a free

Government, nor the energy of a Monarchy that is absolute. Accordingly,

the Crown has dwindled away in proportion to the unnatural and turgid

growth of this excrescence on the Court.

The interior Ministry are sensible that war is a situation which sets in

its full light the value of the hearts of a people, and they well know

that the beginning 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 possibility 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 boldness,

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 character,

have not scrupled to violate the most solemn 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 defiance of those who were formerly

its professed defenders. 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 confidence 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 remonstrances. Some of the most valuable

branches of our 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; I mean to mark and distinguish the trade of Portugal, 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 _double Cabinet_, attended very little to their

remonstrances. They know that those shadows of Ministers have nothing to

do in the ultimate disposal of things. Jealousies 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 counsel in

this nation. If one of those Ministers officially takes up a business

with spirit, it serves only the better to signalise the meanness of the

rest, and the discord 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 Corsica, 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 spirit, could not

endure this situation. The consequences were, however, curious. He

returns from Paris, and comes home full of anger. Lord Shelburne, who

gave the orders, is obliged to give up the seals. Lord Rochford, who

obeyed these orders, receives them. He goes, however, into another

department 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 spoke 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 trembled at the

power of our arms, whilst they looked up with confidence to the equity,

firmness, and candour, which shone in all our negotiations. I represent

this matter exactly in the light in which it has been universally

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 government of our dependencies, the first,

the dearest, and most delicate objects of the interior policy of this

empire. The Colonies know that Administration is separated from the

Court, divided within itself, and detested by the nation. The double

Cabinet has, in both the parts of it, shown the most malignant

dispositions towards them, without being able to do them the smallest

mischief.

They are convinced, by sufficient experience, that no plan, either of

lenity or rigour, can be pursued with uniformity and perseverance.

Therefore they turn their eyes entirely from Great Britain, where they

have neither dependence on friendship nor apprehension from enmity. They

look to themselves, and their own arrangements. They grow every day 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 management of our affairs in that part of the world. A volume might

be written on this melancholy subject; but it were better to leave it

entirely to the reflections 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 account of the prevalence of faction, they present no very

favourable aspect of the confidence of the people in their own

Government. They may be assured, that however they amuse themselves with

a variety of projects 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 food is only a cover for poison, and when they neither

love nor trust the hand that serves it, it is not the name of the roast

beef of Old England that will persuade them to sit down to the table that

is spread for them. When the people conceive that laws, and tribunals,

and even popular assemblies, are perverted from the ends of their

institution, they find in those names of degenerated establishments only

new motives 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

endearments. A sullen gloom, and furious disorder, prevail by fits: the

nation loses its relish for peace and prosperity, as it did in that

season of fulness which opened our troubles in the time of Charles the

First. A species of men to whom a state of order would become a sentence

of obscurity, are nourished into a dangerous magnitude by the heat of

intestine disturbances; and it is no wonder that, by a sort of sinister

piety, they cherish, in their turn, the disorders 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 indignation. 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 a

most distressing 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 is not to be heard. Fierce

licentiousness 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 Government 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 endeavour 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 pensioners of state on account of

their abilities in the array of riot, and the discipline of confusion.

Government is put under the disgraceful necessity of protecting from the

severity of the laws that very licentiousness, which the laws had been

before violated 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 Administration from the

constitutional and salutary control of Parliament, and inventing for it a

new control, unknown to the constitution, an _interior_ Cabinet; which

brings the whole body of Government into confusion and contempt.

* * * * *

After having stated, as shortly as I am able, the effects of this system

on our foreign affairs, on the policy of our Government with regard to

our dependencies, and on the interior economy of the Commonwealth; there

remains only, in this part of my design, to say something of the grand

principle which first recommended this 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 personal capacity, for all

the confusion into which it has thrown his Government. But has it in

reality answered this purpose? I am sure, if it had, every affectionate

subject would have one motive for enduring 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. Independent of

that greatness which a King possesses merely by being a representative of

the national dignity, the things in which he may have an individual

interest seem to be these: wealth accumulated; wealth spent in

magnificence, pleasure, or beneficence; personal respect and attention;

and above all, private ease and repose of mind. These compose 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 Favouritism? 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 means which have hazarded the affection of the people, and shaken

their confidence in Parliament. If the public treasures had been

exhausted in magnificence and splendour, this distress would have been

accounted 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 splendour 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 800,000 pounds a year, he

has a farther aid, from a large pension list, near 90,000 pounds 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

40,000 pounds a year. The whole is certainly not much short of a million

annually.

These are revenues within the knowledge and cognizance of our national

Councils. We have no direct right to examine into the receipts from his

Majesty'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 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 speculation. 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 universal, that these revenues produce something not

inconsiderable, 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 consideration

concerning the foreign revenue, as if I supposed we had a direct right to

examine into the expenditure of any part of it; but solely for the

purpose of showing how little this system of Favouritism has been

advantageous to the Monarch himself; which, without magnificence, has

sunk him into a state of unnatural 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 necessity of employing men who are not personally agreeable? 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 if I were to

fix upon any one point, in which this system has been more particularly

and shamefully blameable, 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 circumstances of the reign,

every one of which is more or less a melancholy proof of the truth of

what I have advanced, let us consider the language of the Court but a 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 a keener instrument of

mortification, and degradation of all dignity, than almost every part and

member of the present arrangement? 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 a greater contradiction to all his own declared

affections and dislikes, than that which is now adopted, in direct

opposition to every thing 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 a 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

accordingly. Indeed it is a law of nature, that whoever is necessary to

what we have made our object, is sure, in some way, or in some time or

other, to become our master. All this however is submitted to, in order

to avoid that monstrous evil of governing in concurrence 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 showering down upon them

all kinds of emoluments and honours. None are considered as well-wishers

to the Crown, but those who advised to some unpopular course of action;

none capable of serving it, 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 Government, but the persons

who are compelled to fly into it for sanctuary. Such is the effect of

this refined project; such is ever the result of all the contrivances

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 a real and ruinous

servitude, in order to avoid a supposed restraint 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 it given more peace and tranquillity to his Majesty's private

hours? No, most certainly. The father of his people cannot possibly

enjoy repose, while his family is in such a 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, or more at his ease,

by so many labours and contrivances? Have they not beggared his

Exchequer, tarnished the splendour 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 respect the King has

profited by that faction which presumptuously choose to call themselves

_his friends_.

If particular men had grown into an attachment, by the distinguished

honour of the society of their Sovereign, and, by being the partakers of

his amusements, 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 is, that these _King's friends_ have no more

ground for usurping such a title, than a resident freeholder in

Cumberland or in Cornwall. They are only known to their Sovereign by

kissing his hand, for the offices, 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

difference between a true and severe friend to the Monarchy, and a

slippery sycophant of the Court; _Quantum infido scurrae distabit

amicus_!

* * * * *

So far I have considered the effect of the Court system, chiefly as it

operates upon the executive Government, on the temper of the people and

on the happiness of the Sovereign. It remains that we should consider,

with a little attention, its operation upon Parliament.

Parliament was indeed the great object of all these politics, the end at

which they aimed, as well as the instrument by which they were to

operate. But, before Parliament could be made subservient to a system,

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 nature 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 lower. 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 discussions, 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

concerned the people, than the other remoter and more permanent parts of

Legislature.

Whatever alterations time and the necessary accommodation 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 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 sympathy of nature with their constituents, than that

they should in all cases be wholly untouched by the opinions 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 Government certainly is an institution of Divine

authority, yet its forms, and the persons who administer it, all

originate from the people.

A popular origin cannot therefore be the characteristical distinction of

a popular representative. This belongs equally to all parts of

Government, and in all forms. The virtue, spirit, and essence of a House

of Commons consists in its being the express image of the feelings of the

nation. It was not instituted to be a control upon the people, as of

late it has been taught, by a doctrine of the most pernicious tendency.

It was designed as a control _for_ the people. Other institutions have

been formed for the purpose of checking popular excesses; and they are, I

apprehend, fully adequate to their object. If not, they ought to be made

so. The House of Commons, as it was never intended for the support of

peace and subordination, is miserably appointed for that service; having

no stronger weapon than its Mace, and no better officer than its Serjeant-

at-Arms, which it can command of its own proper authority. A vigilant

and jealous eye over executory and judicial magistracy; an anxious care

of public money, an openness, approaching towards facility, to public

complaint; these seem to be the true characteristics of a House of

Commons. But an addressing House of Commons, and a petitioning nation; a

House of Commons full of confidence, when the nation is plunged in

despair; in the utmost harmony with Ministers, whom the people regard

with the utmost abhorrence; who vote thanks, when the public opinion

calls upon them for impeachments; who are eager to grant, when the

general voice demands account; who, in all disputes between the people

and Administration, presume against the people; who punish their

disorder, 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 purpose, 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 indeed their greatest and

sometimes their incurable corruption. For there is a material

distinction between that corruption by which particular points are

carried against reason (this is a thing which cannot be prevented by

human wisdom, and is of less consequence), and the corruption of the

principle itself. For then the evil is not accidental, but settled. The

distemper becomes the natural habit.

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. Parliaments 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 infrequency of elections, have tended very much to

draw the House of Commons towards the character of a standing 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

monarchical Government, with external strength and with internal

tranquillity.

It is very clear that we cannot free ourselves entirely 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 principles, I would not argue for

carrying it to a total oblivion of them. This has been the great scheme

of power in our time. They who will not conform their conduct to the

public good, and cannot support it by the prerogative of the Crown, have

adopted a new plan. They have totally abandoned the shattered and old-

fashioned fortress of prerogative, and made a lodgment in the stronghold

of Parliament itself. If they have any evil design to which there is no

ordinary legal power commensurate, they bring it into Parliament. In

Parliament the whole is executed from the beginning to the end. In

Parliament the power of obtaining their object is absolute, and the

safety in the proceeding perfect: no rules to confine, no after

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 is lost; because

Parliament is made to partake in every considerable act of Government.

_Impeachment_, _that great guardian of the purity of the Constitution_,

_is in danger of being lost_, _even to the idea of 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, is saved; but if the act be so very

odious that the whole strength of Parliament is insufficient to recommend

it, then Parliament is itself discredited; and this discredit increases

more and more that indifference to the constitution, which it is the

constant aim of its enemies, by their abuse of Parliamentary powers, to

render general among the people. Whenever Parliament is persuaded to

assume the offices of executive Government, it will lose all the

confidence, love, and veneration which it has ever enjoyed, whilst it was

supposed the _corrective_ and _control_ of the acting powers of the

State. This would be the event, though its conduct in such a perversion

of its functions 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 intolerable of all the modes of tyranny.

For a considerable time this separation of the representatives 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 power 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 agreeably 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

handled, nor upon one side, in my opinion, more satisfactorily; 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 purpose here, is only to

consider it as a part of the favourite project of Government; to observe

on the motives which led to it; and to trace its political consequences.