sovereignty and subjection are ideas which cannot exist. It is the
compact on which society is formed that makes both. But to suppose the
people, contrary to their compacts, both to give away and retain the
same thing is altogether absurd. It is worse, for it supposes in any
strong combination of men a power and right of always dissolving the
social union; which power, however, if it exists, renders them again as
little sovereigns as subjects, but a mere unconnected multitude. It is
not easy to state for what good end, at a time like this, when the
foundations of all ancient and prescriptive governments, such as ours,
(to which people submit, not because they have chosen them, but because
they are born to them,) are undermined by perilous theories, that Mr.
Fox should be so fond of referring to those theories, upon all
occasions, even though speculatively they might be true,--which God
forbid they should! Particularly I do not see the reason why he should
be so fond of declaring that the principles of the Revolution have made
the crown of Great Britain _elective_,--why he thinks it seasonable to
preach up with so much earnestness, for now three years together, the
doctrine of resistance and revolution at all,--or to assert that our
last Revolution, of 1688, stands on the same or similar principles with
that of France. We are not called upon to bring forward these doctrines,
which are hardly ever resorted to but in cases of extremity, and where
they are followed by correspondent actions. We are not called upon by
any circumstance, that I know of, which can justify a revolt, or which
demands a revolution, or can make an election of a successor to the
crown necessary, whatever latent right may be supposed to exist for
effectuating any of these purposes.
40. Not the least alarming of the proceedings of Mr. Fox and his friends
in this session, especially taken in concurrence with their whole
proceedings with regard to France and its principles, is their eagerness
at this season, under pretence of Parliamentary reforms, (a project
which had been for some time rather dormant,) to discredit and disgrace
the House of Commons. For this purpose these gentlemen had found a way
to insult the House by several atrocious libels in the form of
petitions. In particular they brought up a libel, or rather a complete
digest of libellous matter, from the club called the Friends of the
People. It is, indeed, at once the most audacious and the most insidious
of all the performances of that kind which have yet appeared. It is said
to be the penmanship of Mr. Tierney, to bring whom into Parliament the
Duke of Portland formerly had taken a good deal of pains, and expended,
as I hear, a considerable sum of money.
41. Among the circumstances of danger from that piece, and from its
precedent, it is observable that this is the first petition (if I
remember right) _coming from a club or association, signed by
individuals, denoting neither local residence nor corporate capacity_.
This mode of petition, not being strictly illegal or informal, though in
its spirit in the highest degree mischievous, may and will lead to other
things of that nature, tending to bring these clubs and associations to
the French model, and to make them in the end answer French purposes: I
mean, that, without legal names, these clubs will be led to assume
political capacities; that they may debate the forms of Constitution;
and that from their meetings they may insolently dictate their will to
the regular authorities of the kingdom, in the manner in which the
Jacobin clubs issue their mandates to the National Assembly or the
National Convention. The audacious remonstrance, I observe, is signed
by all of that association (the Friends of the People) _who are not in
Parliament_, and it was supported most strenuously by all the
associators _who are members_, with Mr. Fox at their head. He and they
contended for referring this libel to a committee. Upon the question of
that reference they grounded all their debate for a change in the
constitution of Parliament. The pretended petition is, in fact, a
regular charge or impeachment of the House of Commons, digested into a
number of articles. This plan of reform is not a criminal impeachment,
but a matter of prudence, to be submitted to the public wisdom, which
must be as well apprised of the facts as petitioners can be. But those
accusers of the House of Commons have proceeded upon the principles of a
criminal process, and have had the effrontery to offer proof on each
article.
42. This charge the party of Mr. Fox maintained article by article,
beginning with the first,--namely, the interference of peers at
elections, and their nominating in effect several of the members of the
House of Commons. In the printed list of grievances which they made out
on the occasion, and in support of their charge, is found the borough
for which, under Lord Fitzwilliam's influence, I now sit. By this
remonstrance, and its object, they hope to defeat the operation of
property in elections, and in reality to dissolve the connection and
communication of interests which makes the Houses of Parliament a mutual
support to each other. Mr. Fox and the Friends of the People are not so
ignorant as not to know that peers do not interfere in elections as
peers, but as men of property; they well know that the House of Lords
is by itself the feeblest part of the Constitution; they know that the
House of Lords is supported only by its connections with the crown and
with the House of Commons, and that without this double connection the
Lords could not exist a single year. They know that all these parts of
our Constitution, whilst they are balanced as opposing interests, are
also connected as friends; otherwise nothing but confusion could be the
result of such a complex Constitution. It is natural, therefore, that
they who wish the common destruction of the whole and of all its parts
should contend for their total separation. But as the House of Commons
is that link which connects both the other parts of the Constitution
(the Crown and the Lords) _with the mass of the people_, it is to that
link (as it is natural enough) that their incessant attacks are
directed. That artificial representation of the people being once
discredited and overturned, all goes to pieces, and nothing but a plain
_French_ democracy or arbitrary monarchy can possibly exist.
43. Some of these gentlemen who have attacked the House of Commons lean
to a representation of the people by the head,--that is, to _individual
representation_. None of them, that I recollect, except Mr. Fox,
directly rejected it. It is remarkable, however, that he only rejected
it by simply declaring an opinion. He let all the argument go against
his opinion. All the proceedings and arguments of his reforming friends
lead to individual representation, and to nothing else. It deserves to
be attentively observed, _that this individual representation is the
only plan of their reform which has been explicitly proposed_. In the
mean time, the conduct of Mr. Fox appears to be far more inexplicable,
on any good ground, than theirs, who propose the individual
representation; for he neither proposes anything, nor even suggests that
he has anything to propose, in lieu of the present mode of constituting
the House of Commons; on the contrary, he declares against all the plans
which have yet been suggested, either from himself or others: yet, thus
unprovided with any plan whatsoever, he pressed forward this unknown
reform with all possible warmth; and for that purpose, in a speech of
several hours, he urged the referring to a committee the libellous
impeachment of the House of Commons by the association of the Friends of
the People. But for Mr. Fox to discredit Parliament _as it stands_, to
countenance leagues, covenants, and associations for its further
discredit, to render it perfectly odious and contemptible, and at the
same time to propose nothing at all in place of what he disgraces, is
worse, if possible, than to contend for personal individual
representation, and is little less than demanding, in plain terms, to
bring on plain anarchy.
44. Mr. Fox and these gentlemen have for the present been defeated; but
they are neither converted nor disheartened. They have solemnly declared
that they will persevere until they shall have obtained their
ends,--persisting to assert that the House of Commons not only is not
the true representative of the people, but that it does not answer the
purpose of such representation: most of them insist that all the debts,
the taxes, and the burdens of all kinds on the people, with every other
evil and inconvenience which we have suffered since the Revolution, have
been owing solely to an House of Commons which does not speak the sense
of the people.
45. It is also not to be forgotten, that Mr. Fox, and all who hold with
him, on this, as on all other occasions of pretended reform, most
bitterly reproach Mr. Pitt with treachery, in declining to support the
scandalous charges and indefinite projects of this infamous libel from
the Friends of the People. By the animosity with which they persecute
all those who grow cold in this cause of pretended reform, they hope,
that, if, through levity, inexperience, or ambition, any young person
(like Mr. Pitt, for instance) happens to be once embarked in their
design, they shall by a false shame keep him fast in it forever. Many
they have so hampered.
46. I know it is usual, when the peril and alarm of the hour appears to
be a little overblown, to think no more of the matter. But, for my part,
I look back with horror on what we have escaped, and am full of anxiety
with regard to the dangers which in my opinion are still to be
apprehended both at home and abroad. This business has cast deep roots.
Whether it is necessarily connected in theory with Jacobinism is not
worth a dispute. The two things are connected in fact. The partisans of
the one are the partisans of the other. I know it is common with those
who are favorable to the gentlemen of Mr. Fox's party and to their
leader, though not at all devoted to all their reforming projects or
their Gallican politics, to argue, in palliation of their conduct, that
it is not in their power to do all the harm which their actions
evidently tend to. It is said, that, as the people will not support
them, they may safely be indulged in those eccentric fancies of reform,
and those theories which lead to nothing. This apology is not very much
to the honor of those politicians whose interests are to be adhered to
in defiance of their conduct. I cannot flatter myself that these
incessant attacks on the constitution of Parliament are safe. It is not
in my power to despise the unceasing efforts of a confederacy of about
fifty persons of eminence: men, for the far greater part, of very ample
fortunes either in possession or in expectancy; men of decided
characters and vehement passions; men of very great talents of all
kinds, of much boldness, and of the greatest possible spirit of
artifice, intrigue, adventure, and enterprise, all operating with
unwearied activity and perseverance. These gentlemen are much stronger,
too, without doors than some calculate. They have the more active part
of the Dissenters with them, and the whole clan of speculators of all
denominations,--a large and growing species. They have that floating
multitude which goes with events, and which suffers the loss or gain of
a battle to decide its opinions of right and wrong. As long as by every
art this party keeps alive a spirit of disaffection against the very
Constitution of the kingdom, and attributes, as lately it has been in
the habit of doing, all the public misfortunes to that Constitution, it
is absolutely _impossible_ but that some moment must arrive in which
they will be enabled to produce a pretended reform and a real
revolution. If ever the body of this _compound Constitution_ of ours is
subverted, either in favor of unlimited monarchy or of wild democracy,
that ruin will _most certainly_ be the result of this very sort of
machinations against the House of Commons. It is not from a confidence
in the views or intentions of any statesman that I think he is to be
indulged in these perilous amusements.
47. Before it is made the great object of any man's political life to
raise another to power, it is right to consider what are the real
dispositions of the person to be so elevated. We are not to form our
judgment on those dispositions from the rules and principles of a court
of justice, but from those of private discretion,--not looking for what
would serve to criminate another, but what is sufficient to direct
ourselves. By a comparison of a series of the discourses and actions of
certain men for a reasonable length of time, it is impossible not to
obtain sufficient indication of the general tendency of their views and
principles. There is no other rational mode of proceeding. It is true,
that in some one or two perhaps not well-weighed expressions, or some
one or two unconnected and doubtful affairs, we may and ought to judge
of the actions or words by our previous good or ill opinion of the man.
But this allowance has its bounds. It does not extend to any regular
course of systematic action, or of constant and repeated discourse. It
is against every principle of common sense, and of justice to one's self
and to the public, to judge of a series of speeches and actions from the
man, and not of the man from the whole tenor of his language and
conduct. I have stated the above matters, not as inferring a criminal
charge of evil intention. If I had meant to do so, perhaps they are
stated with tolerable exactness. But I have no such view. The intentions
of these gentlemen may be very pure. I do not dispute it. But I think
they are in some great error. If these things are done by Mr. Fox and
his friends with good intentions, they are not done less dangerously;
for it shows these good intentions are not under the direction of safe
maxims and principles.
48. Mr. Fox, Mr. Sheridan, and the gentlemen who call themselves the
Phalanx, have not been so very indulgent to others. They have thought
proper to ascribe to those members of the House of Commons, who, in
exact agreement with the Duke of Portland and Lord Fitzwilliam, abhor
and oppose the French system, the basest and most unworthy motives for
their conduct;--as if none could oppose that atheistic, immoral, and
impolitic project set up in France, so disgraceful and destructive, as I
conceive, to human nature itself, but with some sinister intentions.
They treat those members on all occasions with a sort of lordly
insolence, though they are persons that (whatever homage they may pay to
the eloquence of the gentlemen who choose to look down upon them with
scorn) are not their inferiors in any particular which calls for and
obtains just consideration from the public: not their inferiors in
knowledge of public law, or of the Constitution of the kingdom; not
their inferiors in their acquaintance with its foreign and domestic
interests; not their inferiors in experience or practice of business;
not their inferiors in moral character; not their inferiors in the
proofs they have given of zeal and industry in the service of their
country. Without denying to these gentlemen the respect and
consideration which it is allowed justly belongs to them, we see no
reason why they should not as well be obliged to defer something to our
opinions as that we should be bound blindly and servilely to follow
those of Mr. Fox, Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Grey, Mr. Courtenay, Mr. Lambton,
Mr. Whitbread, Mr. Taylor, and others. We are members of Parliament and
their equals. We never consider ourselves as their followers. These
gentlemen (some of them hardly born when some of us came into
Parliament) have thought proper to treat us as deserters,--as if we had
been listed into their phalanx like soldiers, and had sworn to live and
die in their French principles. This insolent claim of superiority on
their part, and of a sort of vassalage to them on that of other members,
is what no liberal mind will submit to bear.
49. The society of the Liberty of the Press, the Whig Club, and the
Society for Constitutional Information, and (I believe) the Friends of
the People, as well as some clubs in Scotland, have, indeed, declared,
"that their confidence in and attachment to Mr. Fox has lately been
confirmed, strengthened, and increased by the calumnies" (as they are
called) "against him." It is true, Mr. Fox and his friends have those
testimonies in their favor, against certain old friends of the Duke of
Portland. Yet, on a full, serious, and, I think, dispassionate
consideration of the whole of what Mr. Fox and Mr. Sheridan and their
friends have acted, said, and written, in this session, instead of doing
anything which might tend to procure power, or any share of it
whatsoever, to them or to their phalanx, (as they call it,) or to
increase their credit, influence, or popularity in the nation, I think
it one of my most serious and important public duties, in whatsoever
station I may be placed for the short time I have to live, effectually
to employ my best endeavors, by every prudent and every lawful means, to
traverse all their designs. I have only to lament that my abilities are
not greater, and that my probability of life is not better, for the
more effectual pursuit of that object. But I trust that neither the
principles nor exertions will die with me. I am the rather confirmed in
this my resolution, and in this my wish of transmitting it, because
every ray of hope concerning a possible control or mitigation of the
enormous mischiefs which the principles of these gentlemen, and which
their connections, full as dangerous as their principles, might receive
from the influence of the Duke of Portland and Lord Fitzwilliam, on
becoming their colleagues in office, is now entirely banished from the
mind of every one living. It is apparent, even to the world at large,
that, so far from having a power to direct or to guide Mr. Fox, Mr.
Sheridan, Mr. Grey, and the rest, in any important matter, they have
not, through this session, been able to prevail on them to forbear, or
to delay, or mitigate, or soften, any one act, or any one expression,
upon subjects on which they essentially differed.
50. Even if this hope of a possible control did exist, yet the declared
opinions, and the uniform line of conduct conformable to those opinions,
pursued by Mr. Fox, must become a matter of serious alarm, if he should
obtain a power either at court or in Parliament or in the nation at
large, and for this plain reason: he must be the most active and
efficient member in any administration of which he shall form a part.
That a man, or set of men, are guided by such not dubious, but delivered
and avowed principles and maxims of policy, as to need a watch and check
on them in the exercise of the highest power, ought, in my opinion, to
make every man, who is not of the same principles and guided by the
same maxims, a little cautious how he makes himself one of the
traverses of a ladder to help such a man, or such a set of men, to climb
up to the highest authority. A minister of this country is to be
controlled by the House of Commons. He is to be trusted, not
_controlled_, by his colleagues in office: if he were to be controlled,
government, which ought to be the source of order, would itself become a
scene of anarchy. Besides, Mr. Fox is a man of an aspiring and
commanding mind, made rather to control than to be controlled, and he
never will be nor can be in any administration in which he will be
guided by any of those whom I have been accustomed to confide in. It is
absurd to think that he would or could. If his own opinions do not
control him, nothing can. When we consider of an adherence to a man
which leads to his power, we must not only see what the man is, but how
he stands related. It is not to be forgotten that Mr. Fox acts in close
and inseparable connection with another gentleman of exactly the same
description as himself, and who, perhaps, of the two, is the leader. The
rest of the body are not a great deal more tractable; and over them, if
Mr. Fox and Mr. Sheridan have authority, most assuredly the Duke of
Portland has not the smallest degree of influence.
51. One must take care that a blind partiality to some persons, and as
blind an hatred to others, may not enter into our minds under a color of
inflexible public principle. We hear, as a reason for clinging to Mr.
Fox at present, that nine years ago Mr. Pitt got into power by
mischievous intrigues with the court, with the Dissenters, and with
other factious people out of Parliament, to the discredit and weakening
of the power of the House of Commons. His conduct nine years ago I still
hold to be very culpable. There are, however, many things very culpable
that I do not know how to punish. My opinion on such matters I must
submit to the good of the state, as I have done on other occasions,--and
particularly with regard to the authors and managers of the American
war, with whom I have acted, both in office and in opposition, with
great confidence and cordiality, though I thought many of their acts
criminal and impeachable. Whilst the misconduct of Mr. Pitt and his
associates was yet recent, it was not possible to get Mr. Fox of himself
to take a single step, or even to countenance others in taking any step,
upon the ground of that misconduct and false policy; though, if the
matters had been then taken up and pursued, such a step could not have
appeared so evidently desperate as now it is. So far from pursuing Mr.
Pitt, I know that then, and for some time after, some of Mr. Fox's
friends were actually, and with no small earnestness, looking out to a
coalition with that gentleman. For years I never heard this circumstance
of Mr. Pitt's misconduct on that occasion mentioned by Mr. Fox, either
in public or in private, as a ground for opposition to that minister.
All opposition, from that period to this very session, has proceeded
upon the separate measures as they separately arose, without any
vindictive retrospect to Mr. Pitt's conduct in 1784. My memory, however,
may fail me. I must appeal to the printed debates, which (so far as Mr.
Fox is concerned) are unusually accurate.