himself, and to plead against his own acts, is another question. The law
will decide it. I shall only speak of it as it concerns the propriety of
public conduct in this city. I do not pretend to lay down rules of
decorum for other gentlemen. They are best judges of the mode of
proceeding that will recommend them to the favor of their
fellow-citizens. But I confess I should look rather awkward, if I had
been _the very first to produce the new copies of freedom_,--if I had
persisted in producing them to the last,--if I had ransacked, with the
most unremitting industry and the most penetrating research, the
remotest corners of the kingdom to discover them,--if I were then, all
at once, to turn short, and declare that I had been sporting all this
while with the right of election, and that I had been drawing out a
poll, upon no sort of rational grounds, which disturbed the peace of my
fellow-citizens for a month together;--I really, for my part, should
appear awkward under such circumstances.
It would be still more awkward in me, if I were gravely to look the
sheriffs in the face, and to tell them they were not to determine my
cause on my own principles, nor to make the return upon those votes upon
which I had rested my election. Such would be my appearance to the court
and magistrates.
But how should I appear to the _voters_ themselves? If I had gone round
to the citizens entitled to freedom, and squeezed them by the
hand,--"Sir, I humbly beg your vote,--I shall be eternally
thankful,--may I hope for the honor of your support?--Well!--come,--we
shall see you at the Council-House."--If I were then to deliver them to
my managers, pack them into tallies, vote them off in court, and when I
heard from the bar,--"Such a one only! and such a one forever!--he's my
man!"--"Thank you, good Sir,--Hah! my worthy friend! thank you
kindly,--that's an honest fellow,--how is your good family?"--Whilst
these words were hardly out of my mouth, if I should have wheeled round
at once, and told them,--"Get you gone, you pack of worthless fellows!
you have no votes,--you are usurpers! you are intruders on the rights of
real freemen! I will have nothing to do with you! you ought never to
have been produced at this election, and the sheriffs ought not to have
admitted you to poll!"--
Gentlemen, I should make a strange figure, if my conduct had been of
this sort. I am not so old an acquaintance of yours as the worthy
gentleman. Indeed, I could not have ventured on such kind of freedoms
with you. But I am bound, and I will endeavor, to have justice done to
the rights of freemen,--even though I should at the same time be obliged
to vindicate the former[17] part of my antagonist's conduct against his
own present inclinations.
I owe myself, in all things, to _all_ the freemen of this city. My
particular friends have a demand on mo that I should not deceive their
expectations. Never was cause or man supported with more constancy, more
activity, more spirit. I have been supported with a zeal, indeed, and
heartiness in my friends, which (if their object had been at all
proportioned to their endeavors) could never be sufficiently commended.
They supported me upon the most liberal principles. They wished that the
members for Bristol should be chosen for the city, and for their country
at large, and not for themselves.
So far they are not disappointed. If I possess nothing else, I am sure I
possess the temper that is fit for your service. I know nothing of
Bristol, but by the favors I have received, and the virtues I have seen
exerted in it.
I shall ever retain, what I now feel, the most perfect and grateful
attachment to my friends,--and I have no enmities, no resentments. I
never can consider fidelity to engagements and constancy in friendships
but with the highest approbation, even when those noble qualities are
employed against my own pretensions. The gentleman who is not so
fortunate as I have been in this contest enjoys, in this respect, a
consolation full of honor both to himself and to his friends. They have
certainly left nothing undone for his service.
As for the trifling petulance which the rage of party stirs up in little
minds, though it should show itself even in this court, it has not made
the slightest impression on me. The highest flight of such clamorous
birds is winged in an inferior region of the air. We hear them, and we
look upon them, just as you, Gentlemen, when you enjoy the serene air on
your lofty rocks, look down upon the gulls that skim the mud of your
river, when it is exhausted of its tide.
I am sorry I cannot conclude without saying a word on a topic touched
upon by my worthy colleague. I wish that topic had been passed by at a
time when I have so little leisure to discuss it. But since he has
thought proper to throw it out, I owe you a clear explanation of my poor
sentiments on that subject.
He tells you that "the topic of instructions has occasioned much
altercation and uneasiness in this city"; and he expresses himself (if I
understand him rightly) in favor of the coercive authority of such
instructions.
Certainly, Gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of a
representative to live in the strictest union, the closest
correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his
constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their
opinions high respect; their business unremitted attention. It is his
duty to sacrifice his repose, his _pleasure_, _his satisfactions_, _to
theirs_,--and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their
interest to his own.
But his unbiased opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened
conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set
of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure,--no, nor
from the law and the Constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for
the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes
you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of
serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.
My worthy colleague says, his will ought to be subservient to yours. If
that be all, the thing is innocent. If government were a matter of will
upon any side, yours, without question, ought to be superior. But
government and legislation are matters of reason and judgment, and not
of inclination; and what sort of reason is that in which the
determination precedes the discussion, in which one set of men
deliberate and another decide, and where those who form the conclusion
are perhaps three hundred miles distant from those who hear the
arguments?
To deliver an opinion is the right of all men; that of constituents is a
weighty and respectable opinion, which a representative ought always to
rejoice to hear, and which he ought always most seriously to consider.
But _authoritative_ instructions, _mandates_ issued, which the member is
bound blindly and implicitly to obey, to vote, and to argue for, though
contrary to the clearest conviction of his judgment and
conscience,--these are things utterly unknown to the laws of this land,
and which arise from a fundamental mistake of the whole order and tenor
of our Constitution.
Parliament is not a _congress_ of ambassadors from different and hostile
interests, which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate,
against other agents and advocates; but Parliament is a _deliberative_
assembly of _one_ nation, with _one_ interest, that of the whole--where
not local purposes, not local prejudices, ought to guide, but the
general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose
a member, indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not member of
Bristol, but he is a member of _Parliament_. If the local constituent
should have an interest or should form an hasty opinion evidently
opposite to the real good of the rest of the community, the member for
that place ought to be as far as any other from any endeavor to give it
effect. I beg pardon for saying so much on this subject; I have been
unwillingly drawn into it; but I shall ever use a respectful frankness
of communication with you. Your faithful friend, your devoted servant, I
shall be to the end of my life: a flatterer you do not wish for. On this
point of instructions, however, I think it scarcely possible we ever can
have any sort of difference. Perhaps I may give you too much, rather
than too little trouble.
From the first hour I was encouraged to court your favor, to this happy
day of obtaining it, I have never promised you anything but humble and
persevering endeavors to do my duty. The weight of that duty, I confess,
makes me tremble; and whoever well considers what it is, of all things
in the world, will fly from what has the least likeness to a positive
and precipitate engagement. To be a good member of Parliament is, let me
tell you, no easy task,--especially at this time, when there is so
strong a disposition to run into the perilous extremes of servile
compliance or wild popularity. To unite circumspection with vigor is
absolutely necessary, but it is extremely difficult. We are now members
for a rich commercial _city_; this city, however, is but a part of a
rich commercial _nation_, the interests of which are various, multiform,
and intricate. We are members for that great nation, which, however, is
itself but part of a great _empire_, extended by our virtue and our
fortune to the farthest limits of the East and of the West. All these
wide-spread interests must be considered,--must be compared,--must be
reconciled, if possible. We are members for a _free_ country; and surely
we all know that the machine of a free constitution is no simple thing,
but as intricate and as delicate as it is valuable. We are members in a
great and ancient _monarchy_; and we must preserve religiously the true,
legal rights of the sovereign, which form the keystone that binds
together the noble and well-constructed arch of our empire and our
Constitution. A constitution made up of balanced powers must ever be a
critical thing. As such I mean to touch that part of it which comes
within my reach. I know my inability, and I wish for support from every
quarter. In particular I shall aim at the friendship, and shall
cultivate the best correspondence, of the worthy colleague you have
given me.
I trouble you no farther than once more to thank you all: you,
Gentlemen, for your favors; the candidates, for their temperate and
polite behavior; and the sheriffs, for a conduct which may give a model
for all who are in public stations.
FOOTNOTES:
[17] Mr. Brickdale opened his poll, it seems, with a tally of those very
kind of freemen, and voted many hundreds of them.
SPEECH
ON
MOVING HIS RESOLUTIONS FOR CONCILIATION WITH THE COLONIES.
MARCH 22, 1775.
I hope, Sir, that, notwithstanding the austerity of the Chair, your
good-nature will incline you to some degree of indulgence towards human
frailty. You will not think it unnatural, that those who have an object
depending, which strongly engages their hopes and fears, should be
somewhat inclined to superstition. As I came into the House, full of
anxiety about the event of my motion, I found, to my infinite surprise,
that the grand penal bill by which we had passed sentence on the trade
and sustenance of America is to be returned to us from the other
House.[18] I do confess, I could not help looking on this event as a
fortunate omen. I look upon it as a sort of Providential favor, by which
we are put once more in possession of our deliberative capacity, upon a
business so very questionable in its nature, so very uncertain in its
issue. By the return of this bill, which seemed to have taken its flight
forever, we are at this very instant nearly as free to choose a plan for
our American government as we were on the first day of the session. If,
Sir, we incline to the side of conciliation, we are not at all
embarrassed (unless we please to make ourselves so) by any incongruous
mixture of coercion and restraint. We are therefore called upon, as it
were by a superior warning voice, again to attend to America,--to attend
to the whole of it together,--and to review the subject with an unusual
degree of care and calmness.
Surely it is an awful subject,--or there is none so on this side of the
grave. When I first had the honor of a seat in this House, the affairs
of that continent pressed themselves upon us as the most important and
most delicate object of Parliamentary attention. My little share in this
great deliberation oppressed me. I found myself a partaker in a very
high trust; and having no sort of reason to rely on the strength of my
natural abilities for the proper execution of that trust, I was obliged
to take more than common pains to instruct myself in everything which
relates to our colonies. I was not less under the necessity of forming
some fixed ideas concerning the general policy of the British empire.
Something of this sort seemed to be indispensable, in order, amidst so
vast a fluctuation of passions and opinions, to concentre my thoughts,
to ballast my conduct, to preserve me from being blown about by every
wind of fashionable doctrine. I really did not think it safe or manly to
have fresh principles to seek upon every fresh mail which should arrive
from America.
At that period I had the fortune to find myself in perfect concurrence
with a large majority in this House. Bowing under that high authority,
and penetrated with the sharpness and strength of that early
impression, I have continued ever since, without the least deviation,
in my original sentiments. Whether this be owing to an obstinate
perseverance in error, or to a religious adherence to what appears to me
truth and reason, it is in your equity to judge.
Sir, Parliament, having an enlarged view of objects, made, during this
interval, more frequent changes in their sentiments and their conduct
than could be justified in a particular person upon the contracted scale
of private information. But though I do not hazard anything approaching
to a censure on the motives of former Parliaments to all those
alterations, one fact is undoubted,--that under them the state of
America has been kept in continual agitation. Everything administered as
remedy to the public complaint, if it did not produce, was at least
followed by, an heightening of the distemper, until, by a variety of
experiments, that important country has been brought into her present
situation,--a situation which I will not miscall, which I dare not name,
which I scarcely know how to comprehend in the terms of any description.
In this posture, Sir, things stood at the beginning of the session.
About that time, a worthy member,[19] of great Parliamentary experience,
who in the year 1766 filled the chair of the American Committee with
much ability, took me aside, and, lamenting the present aspect of our
politics, told me, things were come to such a pass that our former
methods of proceeding in the House would be no longer tolerated,--that
the public tribunal (never too indulgent to a long and unsuccessful
opposition) would now scrutinize our conduct with unusual
severity,--that the very vicissitudes and shiftings of ministerial
measures, instead of convicting their authors of inconstancy and want of
system, would be taken as an occasion of charging us with a
predetermined discontent which nothing could satisfy, whilst we accused
every measure of vigor as cruel and every proposal of lenity as weak and
irresolute. The public, he said, would not have patience to see us play
the game out with our adversaries; we must produce our hand: it would be
expected that those who for many years had been active in such affairs
should show that they had formed some clear and decided idea of the
principles of colony government, and were capable of drawing out
something like a platform of the ground which might be laid for future
and permanent tranquillity.
I felt the truth of what my honorable friend represented; but I felt my
situation, too. His application might have been made with far greater
propriety to many other gentlemen. No man was, indeed, ever better
disposed, or worse qualified, for such an undertaking, than myself.
Though I gave so far into his opinion, that I immediately threw my
thoughts into a sort of Parliamentary form, I was by no means equally
ready to produce them. It generally argues some degree of natural
impotence of mind, or some want of knowledge of the world, to hazard
plans of government, except from a seat of authority. Propositions are
made, not only ineffectually, but somewhat disreputably, when the minds
of men are not properly disposed for their reception; and for my part, I
am not ambitious of ridicule, not absolutely a candidate for disgrace.
Besides, Sir, to speak the plain truth, I have in general no very
exalted opinion of the virtue of paper government, nor of any polities
in which the plan is to be wholly separated from the execution. But when
I saw that anger and violence prevailed every day more and more, and
that things were hastening towards an incurable alienation of our
colonies, I confess my caution gave way. I felt this as one of those few
moments in which decorum yields to an higher duty. Public calamity is a
mighty leveller; and there are occasions when any, even the slightest,
chance of doing good must be laid hold on, even by the most
inconsiderable person.
To restore order and repose to an empire so great and so distracted as
ours is, merely in the attempt, an undertaking that would ennoble the
flights of the highest genius, and obtain pardon for the efforts of the
meanest understanding. Struggling a good while with these thoughts, by
degrees I felt myself more firm. I derived, at length, some confidence
from what in other circumstances usually produces timidity. I grew less
anxious, even from the idea of my own insignificance. For, judging of
what you are by what you ought to be, I persuaded myself that you would
not reject a reasonable proposition because it had nothing but its
reason to recommend it. On the other hand, being totally destitute of
all shadow of influence, natural or adventitious, I was very sure, that,
if my proposition were futile or dangerous, if it were weakly conceived
or improperly timed, there was nothing exterior to it of power to awe,
dazzle, or delude you. You will see it just as it is, and you will treat
it just as it deserves.
The proposition is peace. Not peace through the medium of war; not peace
to be hunted through the labyrinth of intricate and endless
negotiations; not peace to arise out of universal discord, fomented from
principle, in all parts of the empire; not peace to depend on the
juridical determination of perplexing questions, or the precise marking
the shadowy boundaries of a complex government. It is simple peace,
sought in its natural course and in its ordinary haunts. It is peace
sought in the spirit of peace, and laid in principles purely pacific. I
propose, by removing the ground of the difference, and by restoring the
_former unsuspecting confidence of the colonies in the mother country_,
to give permanent satisfaction to your people,--and (far from a scheme
of ruling by discord) to reconcile them to each other in the same act
and by the bond of the very same interest which reconciles them to
British government.
My idea is nothing more. Refined policy ever has been the parent of
confusion,--and ever will be so, as long as the world endures. Plain
good intention, which is as easily discovered at the first view as fraud
is surely detected at last, is, let me say, of no mean force in the
government of mankind. Genuine simplicity of heart is an healing and
cementing principle. My plan, therefore, being formed upon the most
simple grounds imaginable, may disappoint some people, when they hear
it. It has nothing to recommend it to the pruriency of curious ears.
There is nothing at all new and captivating in it. It has nothing of the
splendor of the project which has been lately laid upon your table by
the noble lord in the blue riband.[20] It does not propose to fill your
lobby with squabbling colony agents, who will require the interposition
of your mace at every instant to keep the peace amongst them. It does
not institute a magnificent auction of finance, where captivated
provinces come to general ransom by bidding against each other, until
you knock down the hammer, and determine a proportion of payments beyond
all the powers of algebra to equalize and settle.
The plan which I shall presume to suggest derives, however, one great
advantage from the proposition and registry of that noble lord's
project. The idea of conciliation is admissible. First, the House, in
accepting the resolution moved by the noble lord, has admitted,
notwithstanding the menacing front of our address, notwithstanding our
heavy bill of pains and penalties, that we do not think ourselves
precluded from all ideas of free grace and bounty.
The House has gone farther: it has declared conciliation admissible
_previous_ to any submission on the part of America. It has even shot a
good deal beyond that mark, and has admitted that the complaints of our
former mode of exerting the right of taxation were not wholly unfounded.
That right thus exerted is allowed to have had something reprehensible
in it,--something unwise, or something grievous; since, in the midst of
our heat and resentment, we, of ourselves, have proposed a capital
alteration, and, in order to get rid of what seemed so very
exceptionable, have instituted a mode that is altogether new,--one that
is, indeed, wholly alien from all the ancient methods and forms of
Parliament.
The _principle_ of this proceeding is large enough for my purpose. The
means proposed by the noble lord for carrying his ideas into execution,
I think, indeed, are very indifferently suited to the end; and this I
shall endeavor to show you before I sit down. But, for the present, I
take my ground on the admitted principle. I mean to give peace. Peace
implies reconciliation; and where there has been a material dispute,
reconciliation does in a manner always imply concession on the one part
or on the other. In this state of things I make no difficulty in
affirming that the proposal ought to originate from us. Great and
acknowledged force is not impaired, either in effect or in opinion, by
an unwillingness to exert itself. The superior power may offer peace
with honor and with safety. Such an offer from such a power will be
attributed to magnanimity. But the concessions of the weak are the
concessions of fear. When such a one is disarmed, he is wholly at the
mercy of his superior; and he loses forever that time and those chances
which, as they happen to all men, are the strength and resources of all
inferior power.
The capital leading questions on which you must this day decide are
these two: First, whether you ought to concede; and secondly, what your
concession ought to be. On the first of these questions we have gained
(as I have just taken the liberty of observing to you) some ground. But
I am sensible that a good deal more is still to be done. Indeed, Sir, to
enable us to determine both on the one and the other of these great
questions with a firm and precise judgment, I think it may be necessary
to consider distinctly the true nature and the peculiar circumstances of
the object which we have before us: because, after all our struggle,
whether we will or not, we must govern America according to that nature
and to those circumstances, and not according to our own imaginations,
not according to abstract ideas of right, by no means according to mere
general theories of government, the resort to which appears to me, in
our present situation, no better than arrant trifling. I shall therefore
endeavor, with your leave, to lay before you some of the most material
of these circumstances in as full and as clear a manner as I am able to
state them.