others have been so too, that the Chevalier at the bottom was not a
bigot; that whilst he remained abroad and could expect no succour, either
present or future, from any Princes but those of the Roman Catholic
Communion, it was prudent, whatever he might think, to make no
demonstration of a design to change; but that his temper was such, and he
was already so disposed, that we might depend on his compliance with what
should be desired of him if ever he came amongst us, and was taken from
under the wing of the Queen his mother. To strengthen this opinion of
his character, it was said that he had sent for Mr. Leslie over; that he
allowed him to celebrate the Church of England service in his family; and
that he had promised to hear what this divine should represent on the
subject of religion to him. When I came abroad, the same things, and
much more, were at first insinuated to me; and I began to let them make
impression upon me, notwithstanding what I had seen under his hand. I
would willingly flatter myself that this impression disposed me to
incline to Jacobitism rather than allow that the inclination to
Jacobitism disposed me easily to believe what, upon that principle, I had
so much reason to wish might be true. Which was the cause, and which the
effect, I cannot well determine: perhaps they did mutually occasion each
other. Thus much is certain—that I was far from weighing this matter as
I ought to have done when the solicitation of my friends and the
persecution of my enemies precipitated me into engagements with the
Pretender.
I was willing to take it for granted that since you were as ready to
declare as I believed you at that time, you must have had entire
satisfaction on the article of religion. I was soon undeceived; this
string had never been touched. My own observation, and the unanimous
report of all those who from his infancy have approached the Pretender’s
person, soon taught me how difficult it is to come to terms with him on
this head, and how unsafe to embark without them.
His religion is not founded on the love of virtue and the detestation of
vice; on a sense of that obedience which is due to the will of the
Supreme Being, and a sense of those obligations which creatures formed to
live in a mutual dependence on one another lie under. The spring of his
whole conduct is fear. Fear of the horns of the devil and of the flames
of hell. He has been taught to believe that nothing but a blind
submission to the Church of Rome and a strict adherence to all the terms
of that communion can save him from these dangers. He has all the
superstition of a Capuchin, but I found on him no tincture of the
religion of a prince. Do not imagine that I loose the reins to my
imagination, or that I write what my resentments dictate: I tell you
simply my opinion. I have heard the same description of his character
made by those who know him best, and I conversed with very few among the
Roman Catholics themselves who did not think him too much a Papist.
Nothing gave me from the beginning so much uneasiness as the
consideration of this part of his character, and of the little care which
had been taken to correct it. A true turn had not been given to the
first steps which were made with him. The Tories who engaged afterwards,
threw themselves, as it were, at his head. He had been suffered to think
that the party in England wanted him as much as he wanted them. There
was no room to hope for much compliance on the head of religion when he
was in these sentiments, and when he thought the Tories too far advanced
to have it in their power to retreat; and little dependence was at any
time to be placed on the promises of a man capable of thinking his
damnation attached to the observance, and his salvation to the breach, of
these very promises. Something, however, was to be done, and I thought
that the least which could be done was to deal plainly with him, and to
show him the impossibility of governing our nation by any other expedient
than by complying with that which would be expected from him as to his
religion. This was thought too much by the Duke of Ormond and Mr.
Leslie; although the duke could be no more ignorant than the minister how
ill the latter had been used, how far the Chevalier had been from keeping
the word which he had given, and on the faith of which Mr. Leslie had
come over to him. They both knew that he not only refused to hear
himself, but that he sheltered the ignorance of his priests, or the
badness of his cause, or both, behind his authority, and absolutely
forbade all discourse concerning religion. The duke seemed convinced
that it would be time enough to talk of religion to him when he should be
restored, or, at soonest, when he should be landed in England; that the
influence under which he had lived being at a distance, the
reasonableness of what we might propose, joined to the apparent necessity
which would then stare him in the face, could not fail to produce all the
effects which we could desire.
To me this whole reasoning appeared fallacious. Our business was not to
make him change appearances on this side of the water, but to prepare him
to give those which would be necessary on the other; and there was no
room to hope that if we could gain nothing on his prejudices here, we
should be able to overcome them in Britain. I would have argued just as
the Duke of Ormond and Leslie if I had been a Papist; and I saw well
enough that some people about him, for in a great dearth of ability there
was cunning to be met with, affected nothing more than to keep off all
discourse of religion. To my apprehension it was exceeding plain that we
should find, if we were once in England, the necessity of going forward
at any rate with him much greater than he would find that of complying
with us. I thought it an unpardonable fault to have taken a formal
engagement with him, when no previous satisfaction had been obtained on a
point at least as essential to our civil as to our religious rights; to
the peace of the State as to the prosperity of the Church; and I looked
on this fault to be aggravated by every day’s delay. Our silence was
unfair both to the Chevalier and to our friends in England. He was
induced by it to believe that they would exact far less from him than we
knew they expected, and they were confirmed in an opinion of his
docility, which we knew to be void of all foundation. The pretence of
removing that influence under which he had lived was frivolous, and
should never have been urged to me, who saw plainly that, according to
the measures pursued by the very persons who urged it, he must be
environed in England by the same people that surrounded him here; and
that the Court of St. James’s would be constituted, if ever he was
restored, in the same manner as that of St. Germains was.
When the draft of a declaration and other papers which were to be
dispersed in Great Britain came to be settled, it appeared that my
apprehension and distrust were but too well founded. The Pretender took
exception against several passages, and particularly against those
wherein a direct promise of securing the Churches of England and Ireland
was made. He was told, he said, that he could not in conscience make
such a promise, and, the debate being kept up a little while, he asked me
with some warmth why the Tories were so desirous to have him if they
expected those things from him which his religion did not allow. I left
these drafts, by his order, with him, that he might consider and amend
them. I cannot say that he sent them to the Queen to be corrected by her
confessor and the rest of her council, but I firmly believe it. Sure I
am that he took time sufficient to do this before he sent them from Bar,
where he then was, to Paris, whither I was returned. When they were
digested in such a manner as satisfied his casuists he made them be
printed, and my name was put to the declaration, as if the original had
been signed by me. I had hitherto submitted my opinion to the judgment
of others, but on this occasion I took advice from myself. I declared to
him that I would not suffer my name to be at the bottom of this paper.
All the copies which came to my hands I burnt, and another was printed
off without any countersigning.
The whole tenor of the amendments was one continued instance of the
grossest bigotry, and the most material passages were turned with all the
Jesuitical prevarication imaginable. As much as it was his interest at
that time to cultivate the respect which many of the Tories really had
for the memory of the late Queen, and which many others affected as a
farther mark of their opposition to the Court and to the Whig party; as
much as it was his interest to weave the honour of her name into his
cause, and to render her, even after her death, a party to the dispute,
he could not be prevailed upon to give her that character which her
enemies allowed her, nor to make use of those expressions, in speaking of
her, which, by the general manner of their application, are come to be
little more than terms of respect and words of form proper in the style
of public acts. For instance:—
She was called in the original draft “his sister of glorious and blessed
memory.” In that which he published, the epithet of “blessed” was left
out. Her eminent justice and her exemplary piety were occasionally
mentioned; in lieu of which he substituted a flat, and, in this case, an
invidious expression, “her inclinations to justice.”
Not content with declaring her neither just nor pious in this world he
did little less than declare her damned in the other, according to the
charitable principles of the Church of Rome.
“When it pleased Almighty God to take her to Himself,” was the expression
used in speaking of the death of the Queen. This he erased, and instead
thereof inserted these words: “When it pleased Almighty God to put a
period to her life.”
He graciously allowed the Universities to be nurseries of loyalty; but
did not think that it became him to style them “nurseries of religion.”
Since his father passes already for a saint, and since reports are
encouraged of miracles which they suppose to be wrought at his tomb, he
might have allowed his grandfather to pass for a martyr; but he struck
out of the draft these words, “that blessed martyr who died for his
people,” which were applied to King Charles I., and would say nothing
more of him than that “he fell a sacrifice to rebellion.”
In the clause which related to the Churches of England and Ireland there
was a plain and direct promise inserted of “effectual provision for their
security, and for their re-establishment in all those rights which belong
to them.” This clause was not suffered to stand, but another was formed,
wherein all mention of the Church of Ireland was omitted, and nothing was
promised to the Church of England but the security, and “re-establishment
of all those rights, privileges, immunities, and possessions which belong
to her,” and wherein he had already promised by his declaration of the
20th of July, to secure and “protect all her members.”
I need make no comment on a proceeding so easy to be understood. The
drift of these evasions, and of this affected obscurity, is obvious
enough—at least, it will appear so by the observations which remain to be
made.
He was so afraid of admitting any words which might be construed into a
promise of his consenting to those things which should be found necessary
for the present or future security of our constitution, that in a
paragraph where he was made to say that he thought himself obliged to be
solicitous for the prosperity of the Church of England, the word
prosperity was expunged, and we were left by this mental reservation to
guess what he was solicitous for. It could not be for her prosperity:
that he had expunged. It must therefore be for her destruction, which in
his language would have been styled her conversion.
Another remarkable proof of the same kind is to be found towards the
conclusion of the declaration. After having spoken of the peace and
flourishing estate of the kingdom, he was made to express his readiness
to concert with the two Houses such further measures as should be thought
necessary for securing the same to future generations. The design of
this paragraph you see. He and his council saw it too, and therefore the
word “securing” was laid aside, and the word “leaving” was inserted in
lieu of it.
One would imagine that a declaration corrected in this manner might have
been suffered to go abroad without any farther precaution. But these
papers had been penned by Protestants; and who could answer that there
might not be still ground sufficient from the tenor of them to insist on
everything necessary for the security of that religion? The declaration
of the 20th of July had been penned by a priest of the Scotch college,
and the expressions had been measured so as to suit perfectly with the
conduct which the Chevalier intended to hold; so as to leave room to
distinguish him, upon future occasions, with the help of a little pious
sophistry, out of all the engagements which he seemed to take in it.
This orthodox paper was therefore to accompany the heretical paper into
the world, and no promise of moment was to stand in the latter, unless
qualified by a reference to the former. Thus the Church was to be
secured in the rights, etc., which belong to her. How? No otherwise
than according to the declaration of the month of July. And what does
that promise? Security and protection to the members of this Church in
the enjoyment of their property. I make no doubt but Bellarmine, if he
had been the Chevalier’s confessor, would have passed this paragraph thus
amended. No engagement whatever taken in favour of the Church of
Ireland, and a happy distinction found between securing that of England,
and protecting her members. Many a useful project for the destruction of
heretics, and for accumulating power and riches to the See of Rome, has
been established on a more slender foundation.
The same spirit reigns through the whole. Civil and religious rights are
no otherwise to be confirmed than in conformity to the declaration of
July; nay, the general pardon is restrained and limited to the terms
prescribed therein.
This is the account which I judged too important to be omitted, and which
I chose to give you all together. I shall surely be justified at present
in concluding that the Tories are grossly deluded in their opinion of
this Prince’s character, or else that they sacrifice all which ought to
be esteemed precious and sacred among men to their passions. In both
these cases I remain still a Tory, and am true to the party. In the
first, I endeavour to undeceive you by an experience purchased at my
expense and for your sakes: in the second, I endeavour to prevail on you
to revert to that principle from which we have deviated. You never
intended, whilst I lived amongst you, the ruin of your country; and yet
every step which you now make towards the restoration you are so fond of,
is a step towards this ruin. No man of sense, well informed, can ever go
into measures for it, unless he thinks himself and his country in such
desperate circumstances that nothing is left them but to choose of two
ruins that which they like best.
The exile of the royal family, under Cromwell’s usurpation, was the
principal cause of all those misfortunes in which Britain has been
involved, as well as of many of those which have happened to the rest of
Europe, during more than half a century.
The two brothers, Charles and James, became then infected with Popery to
such degrees as their different characters admitted of. Charles had
parts, and his good understanding served as an antidote to repel the
poison. James, the simplest man of his time, drank off the whole
chalice. The poison met in his composition with all the fear, all the
credulity, and all the obstinacy of temper proper to increase its
virulence and to strengthen its effect. The first had always a wrong
bias upon him; he connived at the establishment, and indirectly
contributed to the growth, of that power which afterwards disturbed the
peace and threatened the liberty of Europe so often; but he went no
further out of the way. The opposition of his Parliaments and his own
reflections stopped him here. The Prince and the people were, indeed,
mutually jealous of one another, from whence much present disorder
flowed, and the foundation of future evils was laid; but his good and his
bad principles combating still together, he maintained, during a reign of
more than twenty years, in some tolerable degree, the authority of the
Crown and the flourishing estate of the nation. The last, drunk with
superstitious and even enthusiastic zeal, ran headlong into his own ruin
whilst he endeavoured to precipitate ours. His Parliament and his people
did all they could to save themselves by winning him. But all was vain;
he had no principle on which they could take hold. Even his good
qualities worked against them, and his love of his country went halves
with his bigotry. How he succeeded we have heard from our fathers. The
revolution of 1688 saved the nation and ruined the King.
Now the Pretender’s education has rendered him infinitely less fit than
his uncle—and at least as unfit as his father—to be King of Great
Britain. Add to this that there is no resource in his understanding.
Men of the best sense find it hard to overcome religious prejudices,
which are of all the strongest; but he is a slave to the weakest. The
rod hangs like the sword of Damocles over his head, and he trembles
before his mother and his priest. What, in the name of God, can any
member of the Church of England promise himself from such a character?
Are we by another revolution to return into the same state from which we
were delivered by the first? Let us take example from the Roman
Catholics, who act very reasonably in refusing to submit to a Protestant
Prince. Henry IV. had at least as good a title to the crown of France as
the Pretender has to ours. His religion alone stood in his way, and he
had never been King if he had not removed that obstacle. Shall we submit
to a Popish Prince, who will no more imitate Henry IV. in changing his
religion than he will imitate those shining qualities which rendered him
the honestest gentleman, the bravest captain, and the greatest prince of
his age? Allow me to give a loose to my pen for a moment on this
subject. General benevolence and universal charity seem to be
established in the Gospel as the distinguishing badges of Christianity.
How it happens I cannot tell; but so it is, that in all ages of the
Church the professors of Christianity seem to have been animated by a
quite contrary spirit. Whilst they were thinly scattered over the world,
tolerated in some places, but established nowhere, their zeal often
consumed their charity. Paganism, at that time the religion by law
established, was insulted by many of them; the ceremonies were disturbed,
the altars thrown down. As soon as, by the favour of Constantine, their
numbers were increased, and the reins of government were put into their
hands, they began to employ the secular arm, not only against different
religions, but against different sects which arose in their own religion.
A man may boldly affirm that more blood has been shed in the disputes
between Christian and Christian than has ever been drawn from the whole
body of them in the persecutions of the heathen emperors and in the
conquests of the Mahometan princes. From these they have received
quarter, but never from one another. The Christian religion is actually
tolerated among the Mahometans, and the domes of churches and mosques
arise in the same city. But it will be hard to find an example where one
sect of Christians has tolerated another which it was in their power to
extirpate. They have gone farther in these later ages; what was
practised formerly has been taught since. Persecution has been reduced
into system, and the disciples of the meek and humble Jesus have avowed a
tyranny which the most barbarous conquerors never claimed. The wicked
subtilty of casuists has established breach of faith with those who
differ from us as a duty in opposition to faith, and murder itself has
been made one of the means of salvation. I know very well that the
Reformed Churches have been far from going those cruel lengths which are
authorised by the doctrine as well as example of that of Rome, though
Calvin put a flaming sword on the title of a French edition of his
Institute, with this motto, “Je ne suis point venu mettre la paix, mais
l’epée;” but I know likewise that the difference lies in the means and
not in the aim of their policy. The Church of England, the most humane
of all of them, would root out every other religion if it was in her
power. She would not hang and burn; her measures would be milder, and
therefore, perhaps, more effectual.
Since, then, there is this inveterate rancour among Christians, can
anything be more absurd than for those of one persuasion to trust the
supreme power, or any part of it, to those of another? Particularly must
it not be reputed madness in those of our religion to trust themselves in
the hands of Roman Catholics? Must it not be reputed impudence in a
Roman Catholic to expect that we should? he who looks upon us as
heretics, as men in rebellion against a lawful—nay, a divine—authority,
and whom it is, therefore, meritorious by all sorts of ways to reduce to
obedience? There are many, I know, amongst them who think more
generously, and whose morals are not corrupted by that which is called
religion; but this is the spirit of the priesthood, in whose scale that
scrap of a parable, “Compel them to come in,” which they apply as they
please, outweighs the whole Decalogue. This will be the spirit of every
man who is bigot enough to be under their direction; and so much is
sufficient for my present purpose.
During your last Session of Parliament it was expected that the Whigs
would attempt to repeal the Occasional Bill. The same jealousy
continues; there is, perhaps, foundation for it. Give me leave to ask
you upon what principle we argued for making this law, and upon what
principle you must argue against the repeal of it. I have mentioned the
principle in the beginning of this discourse. No man ought to be trusted
with any share of power under a Government who must, to act consistently
with himself, endeavour the destruction of that very Government. Shall
this proposition pass for true when it is applied to keep a Presbyterian
from being mayor of a corporation, and shall it become false when it is
applied to keep a Papist from being king? The proposition is equally
true in both cases; but the argument drawn from it is just so much
stronger in the latter than in the former case, as the mischiefs which
may result from the power and influence of a king are greater than those
which can be wrought by a magistrate of the lowest order. This seems to
my apprehension to be _argumentum ad hominem_, and I do not see by what
happy distinction a Jacobite Tory could elude the force of it.
It may be said, and it has been urged to me, that if the Chevalier was
restored, the knowledge of his character would be our security; “habet
fœnum in cornu;” there would be no pretence for trusting him, and by
consequence it would be easy to put such restrictions on the exercise of
the regal power as might hinder him from invading or sapping our religion
and liberty. But this I utterly deny. Experience has shown us how ready
men are to court power and profit, and who can determine how far either
the Tories or the Whigs would comply, in order to secure to themselves
the enjoyment of all the places in the kingdom? Suppose, however, that a
majority of true Israelites should be found, whom no temptation could
oblige to bow the knee to Baal; in order to preserve the Government on
one hand must they not destroy it on the other? The necessary
restrictions would in this case be so many and so important as to leave
hardly the shadow of a monarchy if he submitted to them; and if he did
not submit to them, these patriots would have no resource left but in
rebellion. Thus, therefore, the affair would turn if the Pretender was
restored. We might, most probably, lose our religion and liberty by the
bigotry of the Prince and the corruption of the people. We should have
no chance of preserving them but by an entire change of the whole frame
of our Government or by another revolution. What reasonable man would
voluntarily reduce himself to the necessity of making an option among
such melancholy alternatives?
The best which could be hoped for, were the Chevalier on the throne,
would be that a thread of favourable accidents, improved by the wisdom
and virtue of Parliament, might keep off the evil day during his reign.
But still the fatal cause would be established; it would be entailed upon
us, and every man would be apprised that sooner or later the fatal effect
must follow. Consider a little what a condition we should be in, both
with respect to our foreign interest and our domestic quiet, whilst the
reprieve lasted, whilst the Chevalier or his successors made no direct
attack upon the constitution.