OF THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION.
Xenophon observes,[365] that if the Athenians, together with the
sovereignty of the seas, had enjoyed the advantageous situation of an
island, they might with great ease have given law to their neighbours.
For the same fleets which enabled them to ravage the seacoasts of the
continent at discretion, could equally have protected their own country
from the insults of their enemies as long as they maintained their naval
superiority. One would imagine, says the great Montesquieu,[366] that
Xenophon in this passage was speaking of the island of Britain. The
judicious and glorious exertion of our naval force under the present
ministry, so strongly confirms Xenophon’s remark, that one would imagine
their measures were directed, as well as dictated, by his consummate
genius. We are masters both of those natural and acquired advantages,
which Xenophon required to make his countrymen invincible. We daily feel
their importance more and more, and must be sensible that our liberty,
our happiness, and our very existence as a people, depend upon our naval
superiority supported by our military virtue and publick spirit.
Nothing, humanly speaking, but luxury, effeminacy and corruption, can
ever deprive us of this envied superiority. What an accumulated load of
guilt therefore must lie upon any future administration, who, to serve
the ends of faction, should ever precipitate Britain from her present
height down to the abject state of Athens, by encouraging those evils to
blast all publick virtue in their unlimited progress.
As Britain is so confessedly superior to all the maritime powers of the
ancients by the advantages of situation; so the British constitution, as
settled at the revolution, is demonstrably far preferable to, and better
formed for duration, than any of the most celebrated republicks of
antiquity. As the executive power is vested in a single person, who is
deemed the first branch in the legislature; and as that power is for
life and hereditary; our constitution is neither liable to those
frequent convulsions, which attended the annual elections of consuls,
nor to that solecism in politicks, two supreme heads of one body for
life, and hereditary, which was the great defect in the Spartan
institution. As the house of commons, elected by, and out of the body of
the people, is vested with all the power annexed to the tribunitial
office amongst the Romans; the people enjoy every advantage which ever
accrued to the Roman people by that institution, whilst the nation is
secure from all those calamitous seditions, in which every factious
tribune could involve his country at pleasure. And as all our questions
in parliament are decided by a majority of voices; we can never be
subject to that capital defect in the Carthaginian constitution, where
the single _veto_, of one discontented senator, referred the decision of
the most important affair to a wrong-headed, ungovernable populace. The
house of peers is placed in the middle of the balance, to prevent the
regal scale from preponderating to despotism or tyranny; or the
democratical to anarchy and its consequences. The equitable intent of
our laws is plainly calculated, like those of Solon, to preserve the
liberty and property of every individual in the community; and to
restrain alike the richest or the poorest, the greatest or the meanest,
from doing or suffering wrong from each other. This is the wise and
salutary plan of power established at the revolution. Would we always
adhere steadily to this plan, and preserve the just æquilibrium, as
delivered down to us by our great ancestors, our constitution would
remain firm and unshaken to the end of time.
I have already showed in the course of these papers that, since that
ever memorable æra, we suffered some breaches to be made in the most
interesting part of this constitution, not by the hand of open violence,
but by the insidious, and consequently more dangerous arts of
corruption. The great increase in our commerce after the peace of
Utrecht, brought in a vast accession of wealth; and that wealth revived,
and gradually diffused that luxury through the whole nation, which had
lain dormant during the dangerous reign of James the second, and the
warlike reigns of William and Ann. To this universal luxury, and this
only, we must impute that amazing progress of corruption, which seized
the very vitals of our constitution. If therefore we impartially compare
the present state of our own country with that of Rome and Carthage, we
shall find, that we resemble them most when in their declining period.
To the commercial maxims of the Carthaginians, we have added their
insatiable lust of gain, without their economy, and contempt of luxury
and effeminacy. To the luxury and dissipation of the Romans, we have
joined their venality, without their military spirit: and we feel the
pernicious effects of the same species of faction, which was the great
leading cause to ruin in both those republicks. The Roman institution
was formed to make and to preserve their conquests. Abroad invincible,
at home invulnerable, they possessed all the resources requisite for a
warlike nation within themselves. The military spirit of their people,
where every citizen was a soldier, furnished inexhaustible supplies for
their armies abroad, and secured them at home from all attempts of
invasion. The Carthaginian was better calculated to acquire than to
preserve. They depended upon commerce for the acquisition of wealth, and
upon their wealth for the protection of their commerce. They owed their
conquests to the venal blood and sinews of other people, and, like
their ancestors the Phœnicians, exhibited their money-bags as symbols of
their power. They trusted too much to the valour of foreigners, and too
little to that of their own natives. Thus whilst they were formidable
abroad by their fleets and mercenary armies, they were weak and
defenceless at home. But the event showed, how dangerous it is for the
greatest commercial nation to rely on this kind of mercantile policy;
and that a nation of unarmed undisciplined traders can never be a match,
whilst they are so circumstanced, for a nation of soldiers. About two
centuries ago a handful (comparatively speaking) of rude irregular
Tartars subdued, and still enjoy the dominion of China, the most
populous, and the richest commercial empire in the universe. And a
neighbouring mercantile republick, by adhering too closely to these
maxims, is at this time neither respected by her friends, nor feared by
her enemies.
The English constitution was originally military, like that of every
kingdom founded by our Gothick ancestors. Henry the seventh gave the
first spur to commerce by diffusing property more equally amongst the
commons at the expense of the nobility. From that time, the ancient
military spirit of this nation has gradually dwindled to the low ebb, at
which we now find it. But the great epocha of our marine, as well as
commerce, ought properly to be fixed to the glorious reign of Elizabeth.
The colonies settled during the peaceful reign of James the first, laid
the foundation of our present extensive commerce. The civil wars between
Charles the first and the parliament, revived and diffused the ancient
military spirit through the whole body of the people; and the able
Cromwell made the English name more respectable in Europe, than it ever
had been under any of our monarchs. Our naval glory seems to have
reached its summit under that period; for though our marine is greatly
increased both in the number and strength of our shipping, yet we have
by no means surpassed the commanders and seamen of that time either in
bravery or ability. The reason is evident. Publick virtue then existed
in its full force, and zeal for the national glory was the great spur to
action. The commanders sailed in quest of honour, not lucre, and
esteemed the glory of the capture as an adequate reward for the most
hazardous enterprises. Luxury was as much unknown to the highest class,
as spirituous liquors were to the lowest. Discipline, sobriety, and an
awful sense of religion, were strictly kept up amongst the private
seamen; whilst the humane usage of the officers taught them to obey from
love, and a just sense of their duty, not from the slavish principle of
fear only. The immortal Blake esteemed five hundred pounds for a ring,
and the publick thanks of parliament, a glorious recompense for all
those illustrious actions, which made Africa and Europe tremble, and
raised the English flag to the summit of glory. Inferior merit, in
later times, has been rewarded with coronets and great lucrative
employments.
Luxury with its fatal effects was imported by Charles the second at the
restoration. The contagious influence of that bane to publick virtue and
liberty, corrupted our manners, enervated our bodies, and debased our
minds, whilst our military spirit subsided, in proportion as the love of
pleasure increased. Charles the second nurtured in the high principles
of prerogative, was diffident of a militia composed of the whole body of
the people. He obtained a standing force of about four or five thousand
men under the specious denomination of guards and garrisons; which he
increased afterwards to eight thousand, and suffered the militia
gradually to decay, until it became almost useless. A policy fatal to
liberty, which has been too successfully copied, since that reign, by
every iniquitous minister, who support himself by faction. James the
second, devoted to bigotry, and influenced by the most weak, as well as
the most wicked counsels, that ever prevailed in this kingdom, at one
stroke disarmed the people, and established a large standing army. As
the militia were unwilling to act against Monmouth and his followers,
whom they looked upon as the protectors of their religion and liberties,
James, concealing the true reason, declared to his parliament, that he
had found the militia useless and unserviceable by experience, and
insisted upon such supplies, as would enable him to support those
additional troops, which he should find necessary for his security. And
he had actually increased his army to thirty thousand men at the time of
the revolution. The whole reigns of William the third and Ann are
distinguished by war abroad and factions at home. Yet though we entered
into both those wars as principals, the military spirit of our people
was not much improved; our national troops composed by a small part of
the allied armies, and we placed our chief dependance upon foreign
mercenaries.
Frequent attempts have been made since that time to revive a national
disciplined militia, which have been as constantly defeated by
corruption and the malignity of faction. Our late fears of an invasion,
and the introduction of so large a body of foreign troops, a measure
highly unpopular and distasteful, procured at last the long wished for
act for a militia. Mutilated as it was, and clogged with almost
insuperable difficulties by the same faction, who durst no openly oppose
it at that dangerous juncture, the real well-wishers to their country
were glad to accept it. They looked upon it as a foundation laid for a
much more useful and extensive militia; which time and opportunity might
enable them to perfect. Much has been said, and many assertions boldly
thrown out of the utter impracticability of a national militia. But this
is either the language of corruption or of effeminacy and cowardice. The
Romans, in the first Punick war, found themselves unable to contend
with the Carthaginians for want of a marine. Yet that magnanimous
people, without any other knowledge of the mechanism of a ship, than
what they acquired from a galley of their enemies, thrown by accident
upon their coasts, without either shipwright or seamen, built, manned,
and fitted out a fleet under the consul Duilius, in three months time,
which engaged and totally defeated the grand fleet of Carthage, though
that republick had enjoyed the sovereignty of the sea unrivaled for time
immemorial. This effort of the Roman magnanimity gives a higher idea of
the Roman genius, than any other action recorded in their history. And
by this alone we must be convinced, “that nothing is insurmountable to
the unconquerable hand of liberty, when backed by publick virtue, and
the generous resolution of a brave and willing people.” The difficulties
and obstacles in either case, I mean of making a fleet or establishing a
good militia, will admit of no comparison. The Romans may almost be said
to have created a fleet out of nothing. We have nothing more to do than
to rouse and diffuse that martial spirit through the nation, which the
arts of ministerial policy have so long endeavoured to keep dormant.
Great indeed has been the outcry of the danger of trusting arms in the
dissolute hands of the scum and refuse of the nation in these licentious
times. These I consign to the proper severity of the martial discipline
of an army; for of this kind of people, the bulk of every army in Europe
is at this time composed. I speak to the nobility and gentry, the
traders and yeomanry of this kingdom, to all those who are possessed of
property, and have something to lose, and from the interest of their
respective shares, are equally concerned in the preservation of the
whole. Of such as these the Roman armies were composed who conquered
Italy. Every Roman soldier was a citizen possessed of property, and
equally interested in the safety of the republick. The wisdom of the
Romans in the choice of their soldiers never appeared in so conspicuous
a light as after the defeat at Cannæ. Every citizen pressed to take up
arms in defence of his country, and not only refused his pay, but
generously gave up what gold and silver he was master of, even to the
most trifling ornaments, for the publick service. The behaviour of the
women too, to their immortal honour, was equally great and
disinterested. Such is the spirit, which a truly brave and free people
will ever exert in a time of distress and danger. Marius was the first
man who broke through that wise maxim, and raised his forces out of the
sixth class, which consisted only of the dregs and refuse of the people.
Marius too gave the first stab to the constitution of his country.
People of property are not only the chief support, but the best and
safest defence of a free and opulent country; and their example will
always have a proper influence upon their inferiors.
Nothing but an extensive militia can revive the once martial spirit of
this nation, and we had even better once more be a nation of soldiers,
like our renowned ancestors, than a nation of abject crouching slaves to
the most rapacious, and most insolent people in the universe. Let us not
be too much elated, and lulled into a fatal security from some late
successes, in which our national forces had no share. Nothing is so
common as unexpected vicissitudes in war. Our enemies have many and
great resources; our heroick ally, in case of a reverse of fortune, few
or none. Our haughty and implacable enemy, unaccustomed to insults in
their own territories, will think the blot in their honour indelible,
until they have returned the affront upon our coasts with redoubled
vengeance. Whilst a pretender to this crown exists, France will never
want a plausible pretext for invading this kingdom. Their last attempt
answered the proposed end so well, that we may be certain, so politick
an enemy, instigated by revenge, will omit no opportunity of playing the
same successful engine once more against us. The French are now
perfectly well acquainted with our weak side. The violent shock our
national credit received by the inroad of a few Highlanders only, into
the heart of this country, has taught them the infallible method of
distressing us in that essential point. Should therefore our measures
for annoying that nation be ever so wisely planned, yet we can never
hope to execute them with proportionate vigour, whilst we remain
defenceless at home. If the bare alarm only of an invasion frightened us
so lately into the expense, as well as ignominy, of importing foreign
mercenaries for our own defence, the French know by experience, that an
actual attempt would compel us to recall our fleets and forces, and
again expose our commerce, colonies, and our only ally to their mercy.
No man, I believe, is so weak as to imagine, that France will be
deterred from such an attempt by the danger which may attend it. For if
we reflect upon the number of her troops, the risk of ten or twenty
thousand men, can hardly be deemed an object worthy the attention of so
formidable a power. For should they all perish in the attempt, yet
France would be amply repaid by the advantages she would draw from that
confusion, which they would necessarily occasion. The traitor who lately
pointed out the proper time, as well as place for an invasion, and the
fatal effects it would have upon publick credit, whatever success might
attend it, furnishes us with a convincing proof, that France never loses
sight of so useful a measure. A consideration which greatly enforces the
necessity of national union, and a national militia. The unequalled
abilities of one man[367] (humanly speaking) have given a turn to the
affairs of Germany, as happy, as it was amazing; and hope begins to dawn
upon our late despairing nation. The wise and vigorous measures of our
present patriot-ministry have conciliated not only the esteem, but the
universal confidence of the people. Under the present ministry we laid
the foundation of this long wished for, though long despaired of,
militia. If we support their administration with unanimity and vigour,
we may fix this great national object, upon that extensive and useful
plan, which was designed and hoped for by every lover of his country.
The fate therefore of the militia depends absolutely upon the present
crisis. For if we supinely neglect this auspicious opportunity, future
efforts will be just as ineffectual, as the point we have already
carried with so much labour and assiduity. For the same function, which
has invariably opposed every attempt for a national militia, are avowed
enemies to the present ministers, from that antipathy, which private
interest and the lust of power for selfish ends, will ever bear to
patriotism and publick virtue. Should therefore the evil genius of this
nation again prevail, and the same faction once more seize the helm of
government, we must give up all hopes of a militia as well as every
other national measure.
Let us throw but one glance upon the present situation of these once
glorious republicks, and we cannot help reflecting upon the final and
direful catastrophe, which will eternally result from the prevalence of
ambitious and selfish faction supported by corruption.
Greece, once the nurse of arts and sciences, the fruitful mother of
philosophers, lawgivers and heroes, now lies prostrate under the iron
yoke of ignorance and barbarism ... Carthage, once the mighty sovereign
of the ocean, and the centre of universal commerce, which poured the
riches of the nations into her lap, now puzzles the inquisitive
traveller in his researches after even the vestiges of her ruins.... And
Rome, the mistress of the universe, which once contained whatever was
esteemed great or brilliant in human nature, is now sunk into the
ignoble seat of whatever is esteemed mean and infamous.
Should faction again predominate and succeed in its destructive views,
and the dastardly maxims of luxury and effeminancy universally prevail
amongst us ... such too will soon be the fate of Britain.
[365] Xenophon, de Republ. Athen.
[366] Esprit des loix, vol. 2. p. 3.
[367] The king of Prussia.