necessary effect of wars, defeats, misfortunes, and public calamities,
or even perhaps of victories and conquests. I must confess, when I
see princes and states fighting and quarrelling, amidst their debts,
funds, and public mortgages, it always brings to my mind a match of
cudgel-playing fought in a china-shop. How can it be expected that
sovereigns will spare a species of property which is pernicious to
themselves and to the public, when they have so little compassion
on lives and properties which are useful to both? Let the time
come (and surely it will come) when the new funds created for the
exigencies of the year are not subscribed to, and raise not the money
projected. Suppose either that the cash of the nation is exhausted,
or that our faith, which has hitherto been so ample, begins
to fail us; suppose that in this distress the nation is threatened
with an invasion; a rebellion is suspected or broken out at home; a
squadron cannot be equipped for want of pay, victuals, or repairs;
or even a foreign subsidy cannot be advanced—what must a prince or
minister do in such an emergence? The right of self-preservation is
unalienable in every individual, much more in every community; and
the folly of our statesmen must then be greater than the folly of
those who first contracted debt, or, what is more, than that of those
who trusted, or continue to trust this security, if these statesmen
have the means of safety in their hands and do not employ them. The
funds, created and mortgaged, will by that time bring in a large
yearly revenue, sufficient for the defence and security of the nation.
Money is perhaps lying in the exchequer, ready for the discharge of
the quarterly interest. Necessity calls, fear urges, reason exhorts,
compassion alone exclaims; the money will immediately be seized for
the current service—under the most solemn protestations, perhaps, of
being immediately replaced. But no more is requisite; the whole fabric,
already tottering, falls to the ground, and buries thousands in its
ruins. And this, I think, may be called the natural death of public
credit; for to this period it tends as naturally as an animal body to
its dissolution and destruction.[32]
These two events supposed above are calamitous, but not the most
calamitous. Thousands are hereby sacrificed to the safety of millions;
but we are not without danger that the contrary event may take place,
and that millions may be sacrificed for ever to the temporary safety
of thousands.[33] Our popular government perhaps will render it
difficult or dangerous for a minister to venture on so desperate an
expedient as that of a voluntary bankruptcy; and though the House of
Lords be altogether composed of the proprietors of lands, and the
House of Commons chiefly, and consequently neither of them can
be supposed to have great property in the funds, yet the connections
of the members may be so great with the proprietors as to render them
more tenacious of public faith than prudence, policy, or even justice,
strictly speaking, requires. And perhaps, too, our foreign enemies,
or rather enemy (for we have but one to dread) may be so politic as
to discover that our safety lies in despair, and may not therefore
show the danger open and barefaced till it be inevitable. The balance
of power in Europe, our grandfathers, our fathers, and we, have all
justly esteemed too unequal to be preserved without our attention and
assistance. But our children, weary with the struggle, and fettered
with encumbrances, may sit down secure and see their neighbours
oppressed and conquered, till at last they themselves and their
creditors lie both at the mercy of the conqueror. And this may properly
enough be denominated the violent death of our public credit.
These seem to be the events which are not very remote, and which reason
foresees as clearly almost as she can do anything that lies in the womb
of time. And though the ancients maintained that, in order to reach the
gift of prophecy, a certain divine fury or madness was requisite, one
may safely affirm that, in order to deliver such prophecies as these,
no more is necessary than merely to be in one’s senses, free from the
influence of popular madness and delusion.
NOTES, OF PUBLIC CREDIT.
[27] Essay _Of the Balance of Trade_.
[28] Plut. in _Vita Alex_. He makes these treasures amount to 80,000
talents, or about 15 millions sterling. Quintus Curtius (lib. 5, cap.
2) says that Alexander found in Susa above 50,000 talents.
[29] Melon, Du Tot, Law, in the pamphlets published in France.
[30] In times of peace and security, when alone it is possible to pay
debt, the moneyed interest are averse to receive partial payments,
which they know not how to dispose of to advantage, and the landed
interest are averse to continue the taxes requisite for that purpose.
Why therefore should a minister persevere in a measure so disagreeable
to all parties? For the sake, I suppose, of a posterity which he will
never see, or of a few reasonable, reflecting people whose united
interest perhaps will not be able to secure him the smallest borough
in England. It is not likely we shall ever find any minister so bad a
politician. With regard to these narrow, destructive maxims of politics
all ministers are expert enough.
[31] Some neighbouring states practise an easy expedient, by which they
lighten their public debts. The French have a custom (as the Romans
formerly had) of augmenting their money, and this the nation has been
so much familiarized to that it hurts not public credit, though it be
really cutting off at once, by an edict, so much of their debts. The
Dutch diminish the interest without the consent of their creditors;
or, which is the same thing, they arbitrarily tax the funds as well
as other property. Could we practise either of these methods, we need
never be oppressed by the national debt; and it is not impossible but
one of these, or some other method, may, at all adventures, be tried,
on the augmentation of our encumbrances and difficulties. But people
in this country are so good reasoners upon whatever regards their
interest, that such a practice will deceive nobody, and public credit
will probably tumble at once by so dangerous a trial.
[32] So great dupes are the generality of mankind, that notwithstanding
such a violent shock to public credit as a voluntary bankruptcy in
England would occasion, it would not probably be long ere credit would
again revive in as flourishing a condition as before. The present
King of France, during the late war, borrowed money at lower interest
than ever his grandfather did, and as low as the British Parliament,
comparing the natural rate of interest in both kingdoms. And though
men are commonly more governed by what they have seen than by what
they foresee, with whatever certainty, yet promises, protestations,
fair appearances, with the allurements of present interest, have such
powerful influence as few are able to resist. Mankind are, in all ages,
caught by the same baits. The same tricks, played over and over again,
still trepan them. The heights of popularity and patriotism are still
the beaten road to power and tyranny; flattery to treachery; standing
armies to arbitrary government; and the glory of God to the temporal
interest of the clergy. The fear of an everlasting destruction of
credit, allowing it to be an evil, is a needless bugbear. A prudent
man, in reality, would rather lend to the public immediately after
they had taken a sponge to their debts, than at present; as much as
an opulent knave, even though one could not force him to pay, is a
preferable debtor to an honest bankrupt; for the former, in order to
carry on business, may find it his interest to discharge his debts,
where they are not exorbitant. The latter has it not in his power.
The reasoning of Tacitus (_Hist._ lib. 3), as it is eternally true,
is very applicable to our present case: “Sed vulgus ad magnitudinem
beneficiorum aderat: Stultissimus quisque pecuniis mercabatur: Apud
sapientes cassa habebantur, quæ neque dari neque accipi, salva
republica, poterant.” The public is a debtor, whom no man can oblige to
pay. The only check which the creditors have on it is the interest of
preserving credit; an interest which may easily be overbalanced by a
very great debt, and by a difficult and extraordinary emergence, even
supposing that credit irrecoverable. Not to mention that a present
necessity often forces states into measures which are, strictly
speaking, against their interest.
[33] I have heard it has been computed that all the creditors of the
public, natives and foreigners, amount only to 17,000. These make a
figure at present on their income; but in case of a public bankruptcy
would in an instant become the lowest, as well as the most wretched of
the people. The dignity and authority of the landed gentry and nobility
is much better rooted, and would render the contention very unequal,
if ever we come to that extremity. One would incline to assign to this
event a very near period, such as half a century, had not our fathers’
prophecies of this kind been already found fallacious by the duration
of our public credit so much beyond all reasonable expectation. When
the astrologers in France were every year foretelling the death of
Henry IV., “These fellows,” says he, “must be right at last.” We shall
therefore be more cautious than to assign any precise date, and shall
content ourselves with pointing out the event in general.
OF SOME REMARKABLE CUSTOMS.
I shall observe three remarkable customs in three celebrated
governments, and shall conclude from the whole that all general maxims
in politics ought to be established with great reserve, and that
irregular and extraordinary appearances are frequently discovered
in the moral as well as in the physical world. The former
perhaps can we better account for after they happen, from springs and
principles of which every one has within himself, or from obvious
observation, the strongest assurance and conviction; but it is often
fully as impossible for human prudence beforehand to foresee and
foretell them.
I. One would think it essential to every supreme council or assembly
which debates, that entire liberty of speech should be granted to
every member, and that all motions or reasonings should be received
which can any way tend to illustrate the point under deliberation.
One would conclude, with still greater assurance, that after a motion
was made, which was voted and approved by that assembly in which the
legislative power is lodged, the member who made the motion must for
ever be exempted from further trial or inquiry. But no political maxim
can at first sight appear more undisputable than that he must at least
be secured from all inferior jurisdiction, and that nothing less than
the same supreme legislative assembly, in their subsequent meetings,
could render him accountable for those motions and harangues which they
had before approved of. But these axioms, however irrefragable they may
appear, have all failed in the Athenian government, from causes, and
principles too, which appear almost inevitable.
By the γραφη παρανομων, or “indictment of illegality” (though it has
not been remarked by antiquaries or commentators), any man was tried
and punished by any common court of judicature for any law which
had passed upon his motion in the assembly of the people, if that
law appeared to the court unjust or prejudicial to the public. Thus
Demosthenes, finding that ship-money was levied irregularly, and that
the poor bore the same burden as the rich in equipping the galleys,
corrected this inequality by a very useful law, which proportioned the
expense to the revenue and income of each individual. He moved for
this law in the assembly, he proved its advantages,[34] he
convinced the people, the only legislature in Athens, the law passed
and was carried into execution; and yet he was tried in a criminal
court for that law upon the complaint of the rich, who resented the
alteration he had introduced into the finances. He was indeed acquitted
upon proving anew the usefulness of his law.
Ctesiphon moved in the assembly of the people that particular honours
should be conferred on Demosthenes, as on a citizen affectionate and
useful to the commonwealth. The people, convinced of this truth, voted
those honours; yet was Ctesiphon tried by the γραφη παρανομων. It was
asserted, among other topics, that Demosthenes was not a good citizen,
nor affectionate to the commonwealth, and the orator was called upon to
defend his friend, and consequently himself, which he executed by that
sublime piece of eloquence that has ever since been the admiration of
mankind.
After the battle of Chæronea a law was passed, upon the motion
of Hyperides, giving liberty to slaves and enrolling them in the
troops.[35] On account of this law the orator was afterwards tried
by the indictment above mentioned, and defended himself, among other
topics, by that stroke celebrated by Plutarch and Longinus. “It was not
I,” said he, “that moved for this law: it was the necessities of war;
it was the battle of Chæronea.” The orations of Demosthenes abound with
many instances of trials of this nature, and prove clearly that nothing
was more commonly practised.
The Athenian Democracy was such a tumultuary government as we can
scarce form a notion of in the present age of the world. The whole
collective body of the people voted in every law without any limitation
of property, without any distinction of rank, without control of any
magistracy or senate;[36] and consequently without regard to
order, justice, or prudence. The Athenians soon became sensible of the
mischiefs attending this constitution, but being averse to the checking
themselves by any rule or restriction, they resolved at least to check
their demagogues or counsellors by the fear of future punishment
and inquiry. They accordingly instituted this remarkable law, a law
esteemed so essential to their government that Æschines insists on
it as a known truth, that were it abolished or neglected it were
impossible for the Democracy to subsist.[37]
The people feared not any ill consequence to liberty from the authority
of the criminal courts, because these were nothing but very numerous
juries, chosen by lot from among the people; and they considered
themselves justly as in a state of perpetual pupilage, where they had
an authority, after they came to the use of reason, not only to retract
and control whatever had been determined, but to punish any guardian
for measures which they had embraced by his persuasion. The same law
had place in Thebes, and for the same reason.
It appears to have been a usual practice in Athens, on the
establishment of any law esteemed very useful or popular, to prohibit
for ever its abrogation and repeal. Thus the demagogue who diverted
all the public revenues to the support of shows and spectacles, made
it criminal so much as to move for a repeal of this law; thus Leptines
moved for a law, not only to recall all the immunities formerly
granted, but to deprive the people for the future of the power of
granting any more; thus all bills of attainder were forbid, or laws
that affected one Athenian without extending to the whole
commonwealth. These absurd clauses, by which the legislature vainly
attempted to bind itself for ever, proceeded from a universal sense of
the levity and inconstancy of the people.
II. A wheel within a wheel, such as we observe in the German Empire, is
considered by Lord Shaftesbury[38] as an absurdity in politics; but
what must we say to two equal wheels which govern the same political
machine without any mutual check, control, or subordination, and yet
preserve the greatest harmony and concord? To establish two distinct
legislatures, each of which possesses full and absolute authority
within itself, and stands in no need of the other’s assistance,
in order to give validity to its acts, this may appear beforehand
altogether impracticable as long as men are actuated by the passions
of ambition, emulation, and avarice, which have been hitherto their
chief governing principles. And should I assert that the state I
have in my eye was divided into two distinct factions, each of which
predominated in a distinct legislature, and yet produced no clashing in
these independent powers, the supposition may appear almost incredible;
and if, to augment the paradox, I should affirm that this disjointed,
irregular government was the most active, triumphant, and illustrious
commonwealth that ever yet appeared on the stage of the world, I
should certainly be told that such a political chimera was as absurd
as any vision of the poets. But there is no need for searching long in
order to prove the reality of the foregoing suppositions, for this was
actually the case with the Roman republic.
The legislative power was there lodged in the _comitia centuriata_
and _comitia tributa_. In the former, it is well known, the people
voted according to their census; so that when the first class was
unanimous, though it contained not perhaps the hundredth part of the
commonwealth, it determined the whole, and, with the authority of the
senate, established a law. In the latter, every vote was alike; and as
the authority of the senate was not there requisite, the lower
people entirely prevailed and gave law to the whole state. In all party
divisions, at first between the Patricians and Plebeians, afterwards
between the nobles and the people, the interest of the aristocracy was
predominant in the first legislature, that of the democracy in the
second. The one could always destroy what the other had established;
nay, the one by a sudden and unforeseen motion might take the start
of the other and totally annihilate its rival by a vote, which, from
the nature of the constitution, had the full authority of a law. But
no such contest or struggle is observed in the history of Rome: no
instance of a quarrel between these two legislatures, though many
between the parties that governed in each. Whence arose this concord,
which may seem so extraordinary?
The legislature established at Rome by the authority of Servius Tullius
was the _comitia centuriata_, which, after the expulsion of the kings,
rendered the government for some time altogether aristocratical.
But the people, having numbers and force on their side, and being
elated with frequent conquests and victories in their foreign wars,
always prevailed when pushed to extremities, and first extorted from
the senate the magistracy of the tribunes, and then the legislative
power of the _comitia tributa_. It then behoved the nobles to be more
careful than ever not to provoke the people, for beside the force
which the latter were always possessed of, they had now got possession
of legal authority, and could instantly break in pieces any order or
institution which directly opposed them. By intrigue, by influence, by
money, by combination, and by the respect paid their character, the
nobles might often prevail and direct the whole machine of government;
but had they openly set their _comitia centuriata_ in opposition to
the _tributa_, they had soon lost the advantage of that institution,
together with their consuls, prætors, ediles, and all the magistrates
elected by it. But the _comitia tributa_, not having the same reason
for respecting the _centuriata_, frequently repealed laws favourable
to the aristocracy; they limited the authority of the nobles,
protected the people from oppression, and controlled the actions of
the senate and magistracy. The _centuriata_ found it convenient always
to submit; and though equal in authority, yet being inferior in power,
durst never directly give any shock to the other legislature, either by
repealing its laws or establishing laws, which, it foresaw, would soon
be repealed by it.
No instance is found of any opposition or struggle between these
_comitia_, except one slight attempt of this kind mentioned by Appian
in the third book of his Civil Wars. Mark Antony, resolving to deprive
Decimus Brutus of the government of Cisalpine Gaul, railed in the
forum, and called one of the _comitia_ in order to prevent the meeting
of the other which had been ordered by the senate; but affairs were
then fallen into such confusion, and the Roman constitution was so near
its final dissolution, that no inference can be drawn from such an
expedient. This contest, besides, was founded more on form than party.
It was the senate who ordered the _comitia tributa_ that they might
obstruct the meeting of the _centuriata_, which, by the constitution,
or at least forms of the government, could alone dispose of provinces.
Cicero was recalled by the _comitia centuriata_, though banished by
the _tributa_—that is, by a _plebiscitum_. But his banishment, we may
observe, never was considered as a legal deed, arising from the free
choice and inclination of the people. It was always ascribed to the
violence alone of Clodius, and to the disorders introduced by him into
the government.
III. The third custom which we proposed to observe regards England, and
though it be not so important as those which we have pointed out in
Athens and Rome, it is no less singular and remarkable. It is a maxim
in politics which we readily admit as undisputed and universal, that
a power, however great, when granted by law to an eminent magistrate
is not so dangerous to liberty as an authority, however considerable,
which he acquires from violence and usurpation; for, besides that
the law always limits every power which it bestows, the very
receiving it as a concession establishes the authority whence it is
derived and preserves the harmony of the constitution. By the same
right that one prerogative is assumed without law another may also
be claimed, and another with still greater facility; while the first
usurpations both serve as precedents to the following, and give force
to maintain them. Hence the heroism of Hampden, who sustained the whole
violence of royal prosecution rather than pay a tax of twenty shillings
not imposed by Parliament; hence the care of all English patriots to
guard against the first encroachments of the crown, and hence alone the
existence at this day of English liberty.
There is, however, one occasion where the Parliament has departed from
this maxim, and this is in the pressing of seamen. The exercise of an
illegal power is here tacitly permitted in the crown, and though it has
frequently been under deliberation how that power might be rendered
legal and granted under proper restrictions to the sovereign, no safe
expedient could ever be proposed for that purpose, and the danger
to liberty always appeared greater from law than from usurpation.
While this power is exercised to no other end than to man the Navy
men willingly submit to it from a sense of its use and necessity, and
the sailors, who are alone affected by it, find nobody to support
them in claiming the rights and privileges which the law grants
without distinction to all English subjects. But were this power on
any occasion made an instrument of faction or ministerial tyranny,
the opposite faction, and indeed all lovers of their country, would
immediately take the alarm and support the injured party. The liberty
of Englishmen would be asserted; juries would be implacable; and the
tools of tyranny acting both against law and equity would meet with the
severest vengeance. On the other hand, were the Parliament to grant
such an authority, they would probably fall into one of these two
inconveniences: they would either bestow it under so many restrictions
as would make it lose its effects by cramping the authority of the
crown, or they would render it so large and comprehensive as might give
occasion to great abuses, for which we could in that case have
no remedy. The very illegality of the power at present prevents its
abuses, by affording so easy a remedy against them.
I pretend not by this reasoning to exclude all possibility of
contriving a register for seamen, which might man the Navy without
being dangerous to liberty. I only observe that no satisfactory scheme
of that nature has yet been proposed. Rather than adopt any project
hitherto invented, we continue a practice seemingly the most absurd and
unaccountable. Authority, in times of full internal peace and concord,
is armed against law. A continued and open usurpation of the crown is
permitted amidst the greatest jealousy and watchfulness in the people;
nay, proceeding from those very principles, liberty, in a country of
the highest liberty, is left entirely to its own defence without any
countenance or protection; the wild state of nature is renewed in one
of the most civilized societies of mankind; and great violences and
disorders among the people, the most human and the best-natured, are
committed with impunity; while the one party pleads obedience to the
supreme magistrate, the other the sanction of fundamental laws.
NOTES, OF SOME REMARKABLE CUSTOMS.
[34] His harangue for it is still extant: περι Συμμοριας.
[35] Plutarchus in _vita decem oratorum_. Demosthenes gives a different
account of this law. (_Contra Aristogiton, Orat. II._) He says that its
purport was to render the ατιμοι επιτιμοι, or to restore the privilege
of bearing offices to those who had been declared incapable. Perhaps
these were both clauses of the same law.
[36] The senate of the Bean was only a less numerous mob chosen by lot
from among the people, and their authority was not great.
[37] _In Ctesiphontem._ It is remarkable that the first step after the
dissolution of the Democracy by Critias and the Thirty was to annul the
γραφη παρανομων, as we learn from Demosthenes κατα Τιμοκ. The orator
in this oration gives us the words of the law establishing the γραφη
παρανομων, p. 297, _ex edit._ _Aldi_. And he accounts for it from the
same principles we here reason upon.
[38] Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour, part 3, § 2.
OF THE POPULOUSNESS OF ANCIENT NATIONS.[39]