--_Longa est injuria, longae
Ambages, sed summa sequar fastigia rerum_.[2]
It is a practice I have generally followed, to converse in equal freedom
with the deserving men of both parties; and it was never without some
contempt, that I have observed persons wholly out of employment, affect
to do otherwise: I doubted whether any man could owe so much to the side
he was of, though he were retained by it; but without some great point of
interest, either in possession or prospect, I thought it was the mark of
a low and narrow spirit.
It is hard, that, for some weeks past, I have been forced in my own
defence, to follow a proceeding that I have so much condemned in others.
But several of my acquaintance among the declining party, are grown so
insufferably peevish and splenetic, profess such violent apprehensions
for the public, and represent the state of things in such formidable
ideas, that I find myself disposed to share in their afflictions, though
I know them to be groundless and imaginary, or, which is worse, purely
affected. To offer them comfort one by one, would be not only an
endless, but a disobliging task. Some of them, I am convinced would be
less melancholy, if there were more occasion. I shall therefore, instead
of hearkening to further complaints, employ some part of this paper for
the future, in letting such men see, that their natural or acquired fears
are ill-grounded, and their artificial ones as ill-intended. That all
our present inconveniencies,[3] are the consequence of the very counsels
they so much admire, which would still have increased, if those had
continued: and that neither our constitution in Church or State, could
probably have been long preserved, without such methods as have been
lately taken.
The late revolutions at court, have given room to some specious
objections, which I have heard repeated by well-meaning men, just as they
had taken them up on the credit of others, who have worse designs. They
wonder the Queen would choose to change her ministry at this juncture,[4]
and thereby give uneasiness to a general who has been so long successful
abroad; and might think himself injured, if the entire ministry were not
of his own nomination. That there were few complaints of any consequence
against the late men in power, and none at all in Parliament; which on
the contrary, passed votes in favour of the chief minister. That if her
Majesty had a mind to introduce the other party, it would have been more
seasonable after a peace, which now we have made desperate, by spiriting
the French, who rejoice at these changes, and by the fall of our credit,
which unqualifies us for continuing the war. That the Parliament so
untimely dissolved,[5] had been diligent in their supplies, and dutiful
in their behaviour. That one consequence of these changes appears already
in the fall of the stocks: that we may soon expect more and worse: and
lastly, that all this naturally tends to break the settlement of the
Crown, and call over the Pretender.
These and the like notions are plentifully scattered abroad, by the
malice of a ruined party, to render the Queen and her administration
odious, and to inflame the nation. And these are what, upon occasion, I
shall endeavour to overthrow, by discovering the falsehood and absurdity
of them.
It is a great unhappiness, when in a government constituted like ours, it
should be so brought about, that the continuance of a war, must be for
the interest of vast numbers (peaceable as well as military) who would
otherwise have been as unknown as their original. I think our present
condition of affairs, is admirably described by two verses in Lucan,
_Hinc usura vorax, avidumque in tempore foenus,
Hinc concussa fides, et multis utile bellum_,[6]
which without any great force upon the words, may be thus translated,
"Hence are derived those exorbitant interests and annuities; hence those
large discounts for advances and prompt payment; hence public credit is
shaken, and hence great numbers find their profit in prolonging the war."
It is odd, that among a free trading people, as we take ourselves to be,
there should so many be found to close in with those counsels, who have
been ever averse from all overtures towards a peace. But yet there is no
great mystery in the matter. Let any man observe the equipages in this
town; he shall find the greater number of those who make a figure, to be
a species of men quite different from any that were ever known before the
Revolution, consisting either of generals and colonels, or of such whose
whole fortunes lie in funds and stocks: so that power, which according to
the old maxim, was used to follow land, is now gone over to money; and
the country gentleman is in the condition of a young heir, out of whose
estate a scrivener receives half the rents for interest, and hath a
mortgage on the whole, and is therefore always ready to feed his vices
and extravagancies while there is any thing left. So that if the war
continues some years longer, a landed man will be little better than a
farmer at a rack rent, to the army, and to the public funds.
It may perhaps be worth inquiring from what beginnings, and by what steps
we have been brought into this desperate condition: and in search of
this, we must run up as high as the Revolution.
Most of the nobility and gentry who invited over the Prince of Orange, or
attended him in his expedition, were true lovers of their country and its
constitution, in Church and State; and were brought to yield to those
breaches in the succession of the crown, out of a regard to the necessity
of the kingdom, and the safety of the people, which did, and could only,
make them lawful; but without intention of drawing such a practice into
precedent, or making it a standing measure by which to proceed in all
times to come; and therefore we find their counsels ever tended to keep
things as much as possible in the old course. But soon after, an under
set of men, who had nothing to lose, and had neither borne the burthen
nor heat of the day, found means to whisper in the king's ear, that the
principles of loyalty in the Church of England, were wholly inconsistent
with the Revolution.[7] Hence began the early practice of caressing
the dissenters, reviling the universities, as maintainers of arbitrary
power, and reproaching the clergy with the doctrines of divine-right,
passive obedience and non-resistance.[8] At the same time, in order to
fasten wealthy people to the new government, they proposed those
pernicious expedients of borrowing money by vast _premiums_, and at
exorbitant interest: a practice as old as Eumenes,[9] one of Alexander's
captains, who setting up for himself after the death of his master,
persuaded his principal officers to lend him great sums, after which they
were forced to follow him for their own security.
This introduced a number of new dexterous men into business and credit:
It was argued, that the war could not last above two or three campaigns,
and that it was easier for the subject to raise a fund for paying
interest, than to tax them annually to the full expense of the war.
Several persons who had small or encumbered estates, sold them, and
turned their money into those funds to great advantage: merchants, as
well as other moneyed men, finding trade was dangerous, pursued the same
method: But the war continuing, and growing more expensive, taxes were
increased, and funds multiplied every year, till they have arrived at the
monstrous height we now behold them. And that which was at first a
corruption, is at last grown necessary, and what every good subject must
now fall in with, though he may be allowed to wish it might soon have an
end; because it is with a kingdom, as with a private fortune, where every
new incumbrance adds a double weight. By this means the wealth of the
nation, that used to be reckoned by the value of land, is now computed by
the rise and fall of stocks: and although the foundation of credit be
still the same, and upon a bottom that can never be shaken; and though
all interest be duly paid by the public, yet through the contrivance and
cunning of stock-jobbers, there has been brought in such a complication
of knavery and cozenage, such a mystery of iniquity, and such an
unintelligible jargon of terms to involve it in, as were never known in
any other age or country of the world. I have heard it affirmed by
persons skilled in these calculations, that if the funds appropriated to
the payment of interest and annuities, were added to the yearly taxes,
and the four-shilling aid[10] strictly exacted in all counties of the
kingdom, it would very near, if not fully, supply the occasions of the
war, at least such a part, as in the opinion of very able persons, had
been at that time prudence not to exceed. For I make it a question,
whether any wise prince or state, in the continuance of a war, which was
not purely defensive, or immediately at his own door, did ever propose
that his expense should perpetually exceed what he was able to impose
annually upon his subjects? Neither if the war lasts many years longer,
do I see how the next generation will be able to begin another, which in
the course of human affairs, and according to the various interests and
ambition of princes, may be as necessary for them as it has been for us.
And had our fathers left us as deeply involved as we are like to leave
our children, I appeal to any man, what sort of figure we should have
been able to make these twenty years past. Besides, neither our enemies,
nor allies, are upon the same foot with us in this particular. France and
Holland, our nearest neighbours, and the farthest engaged, will much
sooner recover themselves after a war. The first, by the absolute power
of the prince who being master of the lives and fortunes of his subjects,
will quickly find expedients to pay his debts: and so will the other, by
their prudent administration, the greatness of their trade, their
wonderful parsimony, the willingness of their people to undergo all kind
of taxes, and their justice in applotting as well as collecting them. But
above all, we are to consider that France and Holland fight in the
continent, either upon, or near their own territories, and the greatest
part of the money circulates among themselves; whereas ours crosses the
sea either to Flanders, Spain, or Portugal, and every penny of it,
whether in specie or returns, is so much lost to the nation for ever.
Upon these considerations alone, it was the most prudent course
imaginable in the Queen, to lay hold of the disposition of the people for
changing the Parliament and ministry at this juncture, and extricating
herself, as soon as possible, out of the pupillage of those who found
their accounts only in perpetuating the war. Neither have we the least
reason to doubt, but the ensuing Parliament will assist her Majesty with
the utmost vigour,[11] till her enemies _again_ be brought to sue for
peace, and _again_ offer such terms as will make it both honourable and
lasting; only with this difference, that the Ministry perhaps will not
_again_ refuse them.[12]
_Audiet pugnas vitio parentum
Rara Juventus_.[13]
[Footnote 1: No. 13 in the reprint. The No. 13 (from Thursday, October
19, to Thursday, October 26, 1710) of the original is omitted from the
reprint, and the Nos. from 14 to 48 are slipped back one. No. 49 also
is omitted, and Nos. 50 to 52 slipped back two. [T.S.]]
[Footnote 2: Virgil, "Aeneid," i. 341-2.
"Her whole tale of wrong
'Twere tedious to relate. But I will give
The leading facts."--R. KENNEDY.
[T.S.]]
[Footnote 3: "The Observator" of Nov. 8th, commenting on this statement,
remarks: "All the inconveniences we labour under at present, are so far
from being the consequence of the counsels of the late ministry, that
they are visibly the consequence of those of the 'Examiner's' party,
who brought the nation to the brink of Popery and slavery, from which
they were delivered by the Revolution; and are pursuing the same
measures again," etc. [T.S.]]
[Footnote 4: See "Memoirs relating to that Change" (vol. v., pp. 359-90).
The Queen's action in dismissing her ministers and dissolving Parliament
in September was, even to Swift himself, a matter for wonder:
"I never remember," he writes to Stella (Sept. 20th, 1710), "such
bold steps taken by a Court." And Tindal, commenting on the change,
says: "So sudden and so entire a change in the ministry is scarce to be
found in our history, especially where men of great abilities had served
with such zeal and success." ("Hist. of England," iv. 192.) [T.S.]]
[Footnote 5: Parliament was dissolved by proclamation on September 21st.
[T.S.]]
[Footnote 6: "Pharsalia," i. 181-2.
"Hence debt unthrifty, careless to repay,
And usury still watching for its day:
Hence perjuries in every wrangling court;
And war, the needy bankrupt's last resort,"
N. ROWE.