It is plain that the mind of this POLITICAL preacher was at the time
big with some extraordinary design; and it is very probable that the
thoughts of his audience, who understood him better than I do, did
all along run before him in his reflection, and in the whole train
of consequences to which it led. Before I read that sermon, I really
thought I had lived in a free country; and it was an error I cherished,
because it gave me a greater liking to the country I lived in. I was
indeed aware, that a jealous, ever-waking vigilance, to guard the
treasure of our liberty, not only from invasion, but from decay
and corruption, was our best wisdom, and our first duty. However, I
considered that treasure rather as a possession to be secured, than as
a prize to be contended for. I did not discern how the present time came
to be so very favourable to all EXERTIONS in the cause of freedom. The
present time differs from any other only by the circumstance of what is
doing in France. If the example of that nation is to have an influence
on this, I can easily conceive why some of their proceedings which
have an unpleasant aspect, and are not quite reconcilable to humanity,
generosity, good faith, and justice, are palliated with so much milky
good-nature towards the actors, and born with so much heroic fortitude
towards the sufferers. It is certainly not prudent to discredit the
authority of an example we mean to follow. But allowing this, we are led
to a very natural question:--What is that cause of liberty, and what
are those exertions in its favour, to which the example of France is so
singularly auspicious? Is our monarchy to be annihilated, with all
the laws, all the tribunals, and all the ancient corporations of the
kingdom? Is every land-mark of the country to be done away in favour of
a geometrical and arithmetical constitution? Is the House of Lords to be
voted useless? Is episcopacy to be abolished? Are the church lands to
be sold to Jews and jobbers; or given to bribe new-invented municipal
republics into a participation in sacrilege? Are all the taxes to be
voted grievances, and the revenue reduced to a patriotic contribution,
or patriotic presents? Are silver shoe-buckles to be substituted in the
place of the land-tax and the malt-tax, for the support of the naval
strength of this kingdom? Are all orders, ranks, and distinctions to
be confounded, that out of universal anarchy, joined to national
bankruptcy, three or four thousand democracies should be formed into
eighty-three, and that they may all, by some sort of unknown attractive
power, be organized into one? For this great end is the army to be
seduced from its discipline and its fidelity, first by every kind of
debauchery, and then by the terrible precedent of a donative in the
increase of pay? Are the curates to be secluded from their bishops, by
holding out to them the delusive hope of a dole out of the spoils of
their own order? Are the citizens of London to be drawn from their
allegiance by feeding them at the expense of their fellow-subjects? Is
a compulsory paper currency to be substituted in the place of the legal
coin of this kingdom? Is what remains of the plundered stock of public
revenue to be employed in the wild project of maintaining two armies to
watch over and to fight with each other? If these are the ends and means
of the Revolution Society, I admit they are well assorted; and France
may furnish them for both with precedents in point. I see that your
example is held out to shame us. I know that we are supposed a dull,
sluggish race, rendered passive by finding our situation tolerable, and
prevented by a mediocrity of freedom from ever attaining to its full
perfection. Your leaders in France began by affecting to admire, almost
to adore, the British constitution; but, as they advanced, they came
to look upon it with a sovereign contempt. The friends of your National
Assembly amongst us have full as mean an opinion of what was formerly
thought the glory of their country. The Revolution Society has
discovered that the English nation is not free. They are convinced that
the inequality in our representation is a"defect in our constitution SO
GROSS AND PALPABLE, as to make it excellent chiefly in FORM and THEORY."
(Discourse on the Love of our Country, 3rd edition page 39.) That a
representation in the legislature of a kingdom is not only the basis
of all constitutional liberty in it, but of "ALL LEGITIMATE GOVERNMENT;
that without it a GOVERNMENT is nothing but a USURPATION;"--that "when
the representation is PARTIAL, the kingdom possesses liberty only
PARTIALLY; and if extremely partial it gives only a SEMBLANCE; and
if not only extremely partial, but corruptly chosen, it becomes a
NUISANCE." Dr. Price considers this inadequacy of representation as
our FUNDAMENTAL GRIEVANCE; and though, as to the corruption of this
semblance of representation, he hopes it is not yet arrived to its full
perfection of depravity, he fears that "nothing will be done towards
gaining for us this ESSENTIAL BLESSING, until some GREAT ABUSE OF POWER
again provokes our resentment, or some GREAT CALAMITY again alarms
our fears, or perhaps till the acquisition of a PURE AND EQUAL
REPRESENTATION BY OTHER COUNTRIES, whilst we are MOCKED with the SHADOW,
kindles our shame." To this he subjoins a note in these words. "A
representation chosen chiefly by the treasury, and a FEW thousands of
the DREGS of the people, who are generally paid for their votes."
You will smile here at the consistency of those democratists, who, when
they are not on their guard, treat the humbler part of the community
with the greatest contempt, whilst, at the same time, they pretend
to make them the depositories of all power. It would require a long
discourse to point out to you the many fallacies that lurk in
the generality and equivocal nature of the terms "inadequate
representation." I shall only say here, in justice to that
old-fashioned constitution, under which we have long prospered, that our
representation has been found perfectly adequate to all the purposes for
which a representation of the people can be desired or devised. I defy
the enemies of our constitution to show the contrary. To detail the
particulars in which it is found so well to promote its ends, would
demand a treatise on our practical constitution. I state here the
doctrine of the revolutionists, only that you and others may see,
what an opinion these gentlemen entertain of the constitution of their
country, and why they seem to think that some great abuse of power,
or some great calamity, as giving a chance for the blessing of a
constitution according to their ideas, would be much palliated to their
feelings; you see WHY THEY are so much enamoured of your fair and
equal representation, which being once obtained, the same effects
might follow. You see they consider our House of Commons as only "a
semblance," "a form," "a theory," "a shadow," "a mockery," perhaps "a
nuisance."