differed exceedingly from the present Illuminators in their notions,
and have enacted that the clergy shall be well instructed in natural
philosophy, judging that a knowledge of the symmetry of nature,
and the beautiful adjustment of all her operations, would produce
a firm belief of a wisdom and power which is the source of all
this fair order, the Author and Conductor of all, and therefore
the natural object of admiration and of love. A good heart is open
to this impression, and feels no reluctance, but on the contrary a
pleasure, in thinking man the subject of his government, and the
object of his care. This point being once gained, I should think
that the salutary truths of Religion will be highly welcome. I
should think that it will be easy to convince such minds, that in
the midst of the immense variety of the works of God there is one
great plan to which every thing seems to refer, namely, the crowding
this world, to the utmost degree of possibility, with life, with
beings that enjoy the things around them, each in its own degree and
manner. Among these, man makes a most conspicuous figure, and the
_maximum_ of his enjoyments seems a capital article in the ways of
Providence. It will, I think, require little trouble to shew that
the natural dictates of Religion, or the immediate results of the
belief of God's moral government of the universe, coincide in every
circumstance of sentiment, disposition, and conduct, with those that
are most productive of enjoyment (on the whole) in social life. The
same train of thought will shew, that the real improvements in the
pleasures of society, are, in fact, improvements of man's rational
nature, and so many steps toward that perfection which our own
consciences tell us we are capable of, and which Religion encourages
us to hope for in another state of being.--And thus will "the ways
of Wisdom appear to be ways of pleasantness, and all her paths to be
peace."
Dwelling on such topics, there is no occasion for any political
discussion. This would be equally improper and hurtful. Such
discussions never fail to produce ill-humour.--But surely the
highest complacence must result from the thought that we are
co-operating with the Author of all wisdom and goodness, and helping
forward the favourite plans of his providence. Such a thought must
elevate the mind which thus recognises a sort of alliance with the
Author of nature.--Our brethren in society appear brethren indeed,
heirs of the same hopes, and travelling to the same country.
This will be a sort of moral patriotism, and should, I think,
produce mutual forbearance, since we discover imperfections in all
creatures, and are conscious of them in ourselves--notwithstanding
which, we hope to be all equal at last in worth and in happiness.
I should gladly hope that I shall not be accused of presumption in
this address. There is no profession that I more sincerely respect
than that of the religious and moral instructor of my country. I
am saying nothing here that I am not accustomed to urge at much
greater length in the course of my professional duty. And I do not
think that I am justly chargeable with vanity, when I suppose that
many years of delightful study of the works of God have given me
somewhat more acquaintance with them than is probably attained by
those who never think of the matter, being continually engaged in
the bustle of life. Should one of this description say that all is
fate or chance, and that "the same thing happens to all," &c. as
is but too common, I should think that a prudent man will give so
much preference to _my_ assertion, as at least to think seriously
about the thing, before he allow himself any indulgence in things
which I affirm to be highly dangerous to his future peace and
happiness.----For this reason I hope not to be accused of going out
of my line, nor hear any one say "_Ne sutor ultra crepidam_." The
present is a season of anxiety, and it is the duty of every man to
contribute his mite to the general good.
It is in some such hopes that I have written these pages; and
if they have any such effect, I shall think myself fortunate
in having by chance hit on something useful, when I was only
trying to amuse myself during the tedious hours of bad health and
confinement. No person is more sensible of the many imperfections
of this performance than myself. But, as I have no motive for the
publication but the hopes of doing some good, I trust that I shall
obtain a favourable acceptance of my endeavours from an intelligent,
a candid, and a good-natured public. I must entreat that it
be remembered that these sheets are not the work of an author
determined to write a book. They were for the most part notes, which
I took from books I had borrowed, that I might occasionally have
recourse to them when occupied with Free Masonry, the first object
of my curiosity. My curiosity was diverted to many other things as
I went along, and when the Illuminati came in my way, I regretted
the time I had thrown away on Free Masonry.--But, observing their
connection, I thought that I perceived the progress of one and
the same design. This made me eager to find out any remains of
Weishaupt's Association. I was not surprized when I saw marks of
its interference in the French Revolution.--In hunting for clearer
proofs I found out the German Union--and, in fine, the whole
appeared to be one great and wicked project, fermenting and working
over all Europe.--Some highly respected friends encouraged me in
the hope of doing some service by laying my informations before the
public, and said that no time should be lost.--I therefore set about
collecting my scattered facts.--I undertook this task at a time when
my official duty pressed hard on me, and bad health made me very
unfit for study.--The effects of this must appear in many faults,
which I see, without being able at present to amend them. I owe this
apology to the public, and I trust that my good intentions will
procure it acceptance[28].
[28] While the sheet commencing p. 341 was printing off, I got
a sight of a work published in Paris last year entitled _La
Conjuration d'Orleans_. It confirms all that I have said respecting
the use made of the Free Mason Lodges.--It gives a particular
account of the formation of the Jacobin Club, by the Club Breton.
This last appears to have been the Association formed with the
assistance of the German deputies. The Jacobin Club had several
committees, similar to those of the National Assembly. Among others,
it had a Committee of Enquiry and Correspondence, whose business it
was to gain partizans, to discover enemies, to decide on the merits
of the Brethren, and to form similar Clubs in other places.
The author of the above-mentioned work writes as follows, (vol.
iii. p. 19.) We may judge of what the D. of Orleans could do in
other places, by what he did during his stay in England. During his
stay in London, he gained over to his interest Lord Stanhope and
Dr. Price, two of the most respectable members of the _Revolution
Society_. This Society had no other object (it said) but to support
the Revolution, which had driven James II. from the throne of his
ancestors.
Orleans made of this association a true Jacobin Club.--It entered
into correspondence with the Committee of Enquiry of our Commune,
with the same Committee of our Jacobin Club, and at last with our
National Assembly. It even sent to the Assembly an ostensible
letter, in which we may see the following passages:
"The Society congratulate the National Assembly of France on
the Revolution which has taken place in that country. It cannot
but earnestly wish for the happy conclusion of so important a
Revolution, and, at the same time, express the extreme satisfaction
which it feels in reflecting on the glorious example which France
has given to the world." (The Reader will remark, that in this
example are contained all the horrors which had been exhibited in
France before the month of March 1790; and that before this time,
the conduct of the Duke of Orleans on the 5th and 6th of October
1789, with all the shocking atrocities of those days, were fully
known in England.)
"The Society resolves unanimously to invite all the people of
England to establish Societies through the kingdom, to support
the principles of the Revolution, to form correspondence between
themselves, and by these means to establish a great concerted Union
of all the true Friends of Liberty."
Accordingly (says the French author) this was executed, and Jacobin
Clubs were established in several cities of England, Scotland, and
Ireland.
Nothing would give me more sincere pleasure than to see the whole
proved to be a mistake;--to be convinced that there is no such plot,
and that we run no risk of the contagion; but that Britain will
continue, by the abiding prevalence of honour, of virtue, and of
true religion, to exhibit the fairest specimen of civil government
that ever was seen on earth, and a national character and conduct
not unworthy of the inestimable blessings that we enjoy. Our
excellent Sovereign, at his accession to the throne, declared to
his Parliament that HE GLORIED IN HAVING BEEN BORN A BRITON.--Would
to God that all and each of his subjects had entertained the same
lofty notions of this good fortune! Then would they have laboured,
as he has done for near forty years, to support the honour of the
British name by setting as bright an example of domestic and of
public virtue.--Then would Britons have been indeed the boast of
humanity--then we should have viewed these wicked plots of our
neighbours with a smile of contempt, and of sincere pity--and
there would have been no need of this imperfect but well-meant
performance.
_Postscript._
Although I saw no reason to doubt of the validity of the proofs
which I have offered in the preceding pages, of a conspiracy
against the dearest interests of every nation of Europe, nor of
the importance of the information to my own countrymen, it gives
me great satisfaction to learn that it has been received with
favour and indulgence. This I may conclude from the impression's
being exhausted in a few days, and because the publisher informs
me that another edition is wanted immediately. I could have wished
that this were deferred for some time, that I might have availed
myself of the observations of others, and be enabled to correct
the mistakes into which I have been led by my scanty knowledge of
the German language, and the mistakes of the writers from whom I
derived all my informations. I should, in that case, have attempted
to make the work more worthy of the public eye, by correcting many
imperfections, which the continual distraction of bad health, and my
haste to bring it before the public, have occasioned. I should have
made the disposition more natural and perspicuous, and have lopped
off some redundances and repetitions. But the printer tells me, that
this would greatly retard the publication, by changing the series of
the pages. At any rate, I am not at present in a condition to engage
in any work that requires dispatch. I must yield therefore to those
reasons, and content myself with such corrections as can be made
immediately.
I have found, after minute enquiry, that I was mistaken as to the
expression of an eminent follower of Dr. Priestley, mentioned
before. The person alluded to disclaims all sanguinary proceedings,
and my information arose from a very erroneous account which was
circulated of the conversation. But I still think the caution
equally necessary, which I recommended to the hearers of the
frequent and violent declamations made by those alluded to, against
all religious establishments.
Except the anecdote of Diderot's library, I do not recollect another
assertion in the book, for which I have not the authority of printed
evidence. This story was told me by so many persons of credit, who
were on the spot at the time, that I have no doubt of its truth.
I also find that I was mistaken in my conjecture that Mr. _Le Franc_
communicated his suspicions of the horrid designs of the Free
Masons to Archbishop _Gobet_. It must have been to Mr. _Le Clerc
de Juigne_, a most worthy prelate, whom the hatred of the Jacobins
obliged to fly into Switzerland. The Catholic clergy were butchered
or banished, and the Jacobins substituted in their places such as
would second their views. _Gobet_ was worthy of their confidence,
and the _Archbishop of Thoulouse_ (_Brienne_) himself could not have
served the cause of the philosophists more effectually, had they
succeeded in their attempts to get him continued Archbishop of Paris.
As the poetical picture of unqualified Liberty and Equality, and
the indolent pleasures of the patriarchal life, are the charm
by which the Illuminators hope to fascinate all hearts, and as
they reprobate every construction of society which tolerates any
permanent subordination, and particularly such as found this
subordination on distinctions of ranks, and scout all privileges
allowed to particular orders of men, I hope that it will not be
thought foreign to the general purpose of the foregoing Work, if, I
with great deference, lay before the Reader some of my reasons for
asserting, without hesitation, in a former part, that the British
constitution is the only one that will give permanent happiness
to a great and luxurious nation, and is peculiarly calculated to
give full exercise to the best propensities of cultivated minds.
I am the more desirous of doing this, because it seems to me that
most of the political writers on the Continent, and many of my
countrymen, have not attended to important circumstances which
distinguish our constitution from the States General of France
and other countries. The republicans in France have, since the
Revolution, employed the pains in searching their records, which
ought to have been taken before the convocation of the States, and
which would probably have prevented that step altogether. They
have shewn that the meetings of the States, if we except that in
1614 and 1483, were uniformly occasions of mutual contests between
the different Orders, in which the interests of the nation and the
authority of the Crown were equally forgotten, and the kingdom was
plunged into all the horrors of a rancorous civil war. Of this they
give us a remarkable instance during the captivity of King John in
1355 and 1356, the horrors of which were hardly exceeded by any
thing that has happened in our days. They have shewn the same dismal
consequences of the assembly of the different Orders in Brabant;
and still more remarkably in Sweden and Denmark, where they have
frequently produced a revolution and change of government, all
of which have terminated in the absolute government, either of
the Crown, or of one of the contending Orders. They laugh at the
simplicity of the British for expecting that the permanent fruits of
our constitution, which is founded on the same jarring principles,
shall be any better; and assert, that the peaceable exercise of its
several powers for somewhat more than a century, (a thing never
experienced by us in former times,) has proceeded from circumstances
merely accidental. With much address they have selected the former
disturbances, and have connected them by a sort of principle, so
as to support their system, "that a States General or Parliament,
consisting of a representation of the different classes of citizens,
can never deliberate for the general good, but must always occupy
their time in contentions about their mutual invasions of privilege,
and will saddle every aid to the executive power, with some unjust
and ruinous aggrandisement of the victorious Order." They have the
effrontery to give the MAGNA CHARTA as an instance of an usurpation
of the great feudatories, and have represented it in such a light as
to make it the game of their writers and of the tribunes.--All this
they have done in order to reconcile the minds of the few thinking
men of the nation to the abolition of the different Orders of the
State, and to their National Convention in the form of a chaotic
mass of Frenchmen, one and indivisible:
_Non bene junctarum discordia semina rerum,
Ubi frigida puegnabant calidis, humentia siccis,
Mollia cum duris, sine pondere habentia pondus._
Their reasonings would be just, and their proofs from history
would be convincing, if their premises were true; if the British
Parliament were really an assembly of three Orders, either
personally, or by representation, deliberating apart, each having
a _veto_ on the decisions of the other two. And I apprehend that
most of my countrymen, who have not had occasion to canvas the
subject with much attention, suppose this to be really the British
Constitution: for, in the ordinary table conversations on the
subject, they seldom go farther, and talk with great complacence
of the balance of hostile powers, of the King as the umpire of
differences, and of the peace and prosperity that results from the
whole.
But I cannot help thinking that this is a misconception, almost in
every circumstance. I do not know any opposite interests in the
State, except the general one of the governor and the governed, the
king and the subject.--If there is an umpire in our constitution,
it is the house of Lords--but this is not as a representation of
the persons of birth, but as a court of hereditary magistrates: the
Peers do not meet to defend their own privileges as citizens, but
either as the counsellors of the King, or as judges in the last
resort. The privileges for which we see them sometimes contend, are
not the privileges of the high-born, of the great vassals of the
Crown, but the privileges of the House of Lords, of the supreme
Court of Judicature, or of the King's Council. In all the nations
on the Continent, the different Orders, as they are called, of the
State, are corporations, bodies politic, which have jurisdiction
within themselves, and rights which they can maintain at their
own hand, and privileges which mark them most distinctly, and
produce such a complete separation between the different Orders,
that they can no more mix than oil and water. Yet the great
president Montesquieu says, that the Peerage of England is a _body_
of Nobility; and he uses the term _body_ in the strict sense now
mentioned, as synonymous to corporation. He has repeatedly used
this term to denote the second order of Frenchmen, persons of
noble birth, or ennobled, (that is, vested in the privileges and
distinctions of the nobly born,) united by law, and having authority
to maintain their privileges. The history of France, nay of our own
country, shows us that this body may enjoy all its distinctions
of nobility, and that the Great Barons may enjoy the prerogatives
of their baronies, although the authority of the Crown is almost
annihilated.--We have no cogent reason, therefore, for thinking
that they will be constantly careful to support the authority of
the Crown; and much less to believe that they will, at the same
time, watch over the liberties of the people. In the election of
their representatives, (for the whole body of the gentlemen must
appear by representation,) we must not expect that they will select
such of their own number as will take care of those two essential
objects of our constitution.--Equally jealous of the authority
of the Crown and of the encroachments of all those who are not
gentlemen, and even fearful of the assumptions of the Great Barons,
the powerful individuals of their own order, they will always choose
such representatives as will defend their own rights in the first
place. Such persons are by no means fit for maintaining the proper
authority of the Crown, and keeping the representatives of the lower
classes within proper bounds.
But this is not the nature of our House of Lords in the present day.
It was so formerly in a great measure, and had the same effects
as in other countries. But since the Revolution, the Peers of
Great-Britain have no important privileges which relate merely or
chiefly to birth. These all refer to their functions as Magistrates
of the Supreme Court. The King can, at any time, place in this House
any eminent person whom he thinks worthy of the office of hereditary
magistrate. The Peers are noble--that is, remarkable, illustrious;
but are not necessarily, nor in every instance, persons of high
birth. This House therefore is not, in any sort, the representative
of what is called in France the Noblesse--a particular cast of
the nation;--nor is it a junction of the proprietors of the great
fees of the Crown, as such;--for many, very many, of the greatest
baronies are in the hands of those we call Commoners.--They sit as
the King's Counsellors, or as Judges.--Therefore the members of our
Upper House are not swayed by the prejudices of any class of the
citizens. They are hereditary magistrates, created by the Sovereign,
for his counsel, to defend his prerogatives, to hold the balance
between the throne and the people. The greatest part of the Nobility
(in the continental sense of the word) are not called into this
House, but they may be members of the Lower House, which we call the
Commons; nay the sons and the brothers of the Peers are in the same
situation. The Peers therefore cannot be hostile or indifferent to
the liberty, the rights, or the happiness of the Commons, without
being the enemies of their own families.
Nor is our House of Commons at all similar to the _Third Estate_ of
any of the neighbouring kingdoms. They are not the representatives
of the ignobly born, or of any class of citizens. The members are
the proper representatives of the _whole nation_, and consist of
persons of every class, persons of the highest birth, persons of
great fortune, persons of education, of knowledge, of talents.
Thus the causes of dissension which refer to the distinctive rights
or prerogatives of the different classes of citizens are removed,
because in each House there are many individuals selected from all
the classes.
A Peer, having attained the highest honours of the state, must be an
enemy to every revolution. Revolution must certainly degrade him,
whether it places an absolute monarch, or a democratic junto, on the
throne.
The Sovereign naturally looks for the support of the Upper House,
and in every measure agreeable to the constitution, and to the
public weal, exerts his influence on the House of Commons. Here the
character of the monarch and his choice of ministers must appear, as
in any other constitution; but with much less chance of danger to
political liberty.--The great engine of monarchy in Europe, has been
the jarring privileges of the different Orders; and the Sovereign,
by siding with one of them, obtained accessions of prerogative and
power.--It was thus that, under the House of Tudor, our constitution
advanced with hasty strides to absolute monarchy; and would have
attained it, had James the First been as able as he was willing to
secure what he firmly believed to be the divine rights of his Crown.
I do not recollect hearing the lower ranks of the State venting much
of their discontents against the Peers, and they seem to perceive
pretty clearly the advantages arising from their prerogatives.
They seem to look up to them as the first who will protect them
against the agents of sovereignty. They know that a man may rise
from the lowest station to the peerage, and that in that exaltation
he remains connected with themselves by the dearest ties; and the
House of Commons take no offence at the creation of new Peers,
because their privileges as a Court, and their private rights, are
not affected by it. Accordingly, the House has always opposed every
project of limiting the King's prerogative in this respect.