And besides a list of items of this kind, sufficient to fill a quire of
paper, the Pension lists alone are 107,404L. 13s. 4d. which is a greater
sum than all the expences of the federal Government in America amount
to.
Among the items, there are two I had no expectation of finding, and
which, in this day of enquiry after Civil List influence, ought to be
exposed. The one is an annual payment of one thousand seven hundred
pounds to the Dissenting Ministers in England, and the other, eight
hundred pounds to those of Ireland.
This is the fact; and the distribution, as I am informed, is as follows:
The whole sum of 1,700L. is paid to one person, a Dissenting Minister
in London, who divides it among eight others, and those eight among such
others as they please. The Lay-body of the Dissenters, and many of their
principal Ministers, have long considered it as dishonourable, and have
endeavoured to prevent it, but still it continues to be secretly paid;
and as the world has sometimes seen very fulsome Addresses from parts of
that body, it may naturally be supposed that the receivers, like Bishops
and other Court-Clergy, are not idle in promoting them. How the money is
distributed in Ireland, I know not.
To recount all the secret history of the Civil List, is not the
intention of this publication. It is sufficient, in this place, to
expose its general character, and the mass of influence it keeps alive.
It will necessarily become one of the objects of reform; and therefore
enough is said to shew that, under its operation, no application to
Parliament can be expected to succeed, nor can consistently be made.
Such reforms will not be promoted by the Party that is in possession of
those places, nor by the Opposition who are waiting for them; and as
to a _mere reform_, in the state of the Representation, the idea that
another Parliament, differently elected from the present, but still a
third component part of the same system, and subject to the controul of
the other two parts, will abolish those abuses, is altogether delusion;
because it is not only impracticable on the ground of formality, but is
unwisely exposing another set of men to the same corruptions that have
tainted the present.
Were all the objects that require reform accomplishable by a mere reform
in the state of the Representation, the persons who compose the present
Parliament might, with rather more propriety, be asked to abolish all
the abuses themselves, than be applied to as the more instruments of
doing it by a future Parliament. If the virtue be wanting to abolish the
abuse, it is also wanting to act as the means, and the nation must, from
necessity, proceed by some other plan.
Having thus endeavoured to shew what the abject condition of Parliament
is, and the impropriety of going a second time over the same ground that
has before miscarried, I come to the remaining part of the subject.
There ought to be, in the constitution of every country, a mode of
referring back, on any extraordinary occasion, to the sovereign and
original constituent power, which is the nation itself. The right of
altering any part of a Government, cannot, as already observed, reside
in the Government, or that Government might make itself what it pleased.
It ought also to be taken for granted, that though a nation may feel
inconveniences, either in the excess of taxation, or in the mode of
expenditure, or in any thing else, it may not at first be sufficiently
assured in what part of its government the defect lies, or where the
evil originates. It may be supposed to be in one part, and on enquiry
be found to be in another; or partly in all. This obscurity is naturally
interwoven with what are called mixed Governments.
Be, however, the reform to be accomplished whatever it may, it can only
follow in consequence of obtaining a full knowledge of all the causes
that have rendered such reform necessary, and every thing short of this
is guess-work or frivolous cunning. In this case, it cannot be supposed
that any application to Parliament can bring forward this knowledge.
That body is itself the supposed cause, or one of the supposed causes,
of the abuses in question; and cannot be expected, and ought not to be
asked, to give evidence against itself. The enquiry, therefore, which
is of necessity the first step in the business, cannot be trusted to
Parliament, but must be undertaken by a distinct body of men, separated
from every suspicion of corruption or influence.
Instead, then, of referring to rotten Boroughs and absurd Corporations
for Addresses, or hawking them about the country to be signed by a few
dependant tenants, the real and effectual mode would be to come at once
to the point, and to ascertain the sense of the nation by electing a
National Convention. By this method, as already observed, the general
WILL, whether to reform or not, or what the reform shall be, or how
far it shall extend, will be known, and it cannot be known by any other
means. Such a body, empowered and supported by the nation, will have
authority to demand information upon all matters necessary to be
en-quired into; and no Minister, nor any person, will dare to refuse it.
It will then be seen whether seventeen millions of taxes are necessary,
and for what purposes they are expended. The concealed Pensioners will
then be obliged to unmask; and the source of influence and corruption,
if any such there be, will be laid open to the nation, not for the
purpose of revenge, but of redress.
By taking this public and national ground, all objections against
partial Addresses on the one side, or private associations on the other,
will be done away; THE NATION WILL DECLARE ITS OWN REFORMS; and the
clamour about Party and Faction, or Ins or Outs, will become ridiculous.
The plan and organization of a convention is easy in practice.
In the first place, the number of inhabitants in every county can be
sufficiently ascertained from the number of houses assessed to the
House and Window-light tax in each county. This will give the rule
for apportioning the number of Members to be elected to the National
Convention in each of the counties.
If the total number of inhabitants in England be seven millions, and the
total number of Members to be elected to the Convention be one thousand,
the number of members to be elected in a county containing one hundred
and fifty thousand inhabitants will be _twenty-one_, and in like
proportion for any other county.
As the election of a Convention must, in order to ascertain the general
sense of the nation, go on grounds different from that of Parliamentary
elections, the mode that best promises this end will have no
difficulties to combat with from absurd customs and pretended rights.
The right of every man will be the same, whether he lives in a city,
a town, or a village. The custom of attaching Rights to _place_, or
in other words, to inanimate matter, instead of to the _person_,
independently of place, is too absurd to make any part of a rational
argument.
As every man in the nation, of the age of twenty-one years, pays taxes,
either out of the property he possesses, or out of the product of his
labor, which is property to him; and is amenable in his own person to
every law of the land; so has every one the same equal right to vote,
and no one part of the nation, nor any individual, has a right to
dispute the right of another. The man who should do this ought to
forfeit the exercise of his _own_ right, for a term of years. This would
render the punishment consistent with the crime.
When a qualification to vote is regulated by years, it is placed on the
firmest possible ground; because the qualification is such, as nothing
but dying before the time can take away; and the equality of Rights, as
a principle, is recognized in the act of regulating the exercise. But
when Rights are placed upon, or made dependant upon property, they are
on the most precarious of all tenures. "Riches make themselves wings,
and fly away," and the rights fly with them; and thus they become lost
to the man when they would be of most value.
It is from a strange mixture of tyranny and cowardice, that exclusions
have been set up and continued. The boldness to do wrong at first,
changes afterwards into cowardly craft, and at last into fear. The
Representatives in England appear now to act as if they were afraid to
do right, even in part, lest it should awaken the nation to a sense of
all the wrongs it has endured. This case serves to shew, that the same
conduct that best constitutes the safety of an individual, namely,
a strict adherence to principle, constitutes also the safety of a
Government, and that without it safety is but an empty name. When the
rich plunder the poor of his rights, it becomes an example to the poor
to plunder the rich of his property; for the rights of the one are
as much property to him, as wealth is property to the other, and the
_little all_ is as dear as the _much_. It is only by setting out on just
principles that men are trained to be just to each other; and it will
always be found, that when the rich protect the rights of the poor, the
poor will protect the property of the rich. But the guarantee, to be
effectual, must be parliamentarily reciprocal.
Exclusions are not only unjust, but they frequently operate as
injuriously to the party who monopolizes, as to those who are excluded.
When men seek to exclude others from participating in the exercise of
any right, they should, at least, be assured, that they can effectually
perform the whole of the business they undertake; for, unless they do
this, themselves will be losers by the monopoly. This has been the case
with respect to the monopolized right of Election. The monopolizing
party has not been able to keep the Parliamentary Representation, to
whom the power of taxation was entrusted, in the state it ought to have
been, and have thereby multiplied taxes upon themselves equally with
those who were excluded.
A great deal has been, and will continue to be said, about
disqualifications, arising from the commission of offences; but were
this subject urged to its full extent, it would disqualify a great
number of the present Electors, together with their Representatives;
for, of all offences, none are more destructive to the morals of Society
than Bribery and Corruption. It is, therefore, civility to such persons
to pass this subject over, and to give them a fair opportunity of
recovering, or rather of creating character.
Every thing, in the present mode of electioneering in England, is the
reverse of what it ought to be, and the vulgarity that attends elections
is no other than the natural consequence of inverting the order of the
system.
In the first place, the Candidate seeks the Elector, instead of the
Elector seeking for a Representative; and the Electors are advertised as
being in the interest of the Candidate, instead of the Candidate being
in the interest of the Electors. The Candidate pays the Elector for his
vote, instead of the Nation paying the Representative for his time and
attendance on public business. The complaint for an undue election is
brought by the Candidate, as if he, and not the Electors, were the party
aggrieved; and he takes on himself, at any period of the election, to
break it up, by declining, as if the election was in his right and not
in theirs.
The compact that was entered into at the last Westminster election
between two of the candidates (Mr. Fox and Lord Hood,) was an indecent
violation of the principles of election. The Candidates assumed, in
their own persons, the rights of the Electors; for, it was only in the
body of the Electors, and not at all in the Candidates, that the
right of making any such compact, or compromise, could exist. But the
principle of Election and Representation is so completely done away,
in every stage thereof, that inconsistency has no longer the power of
surprising.
Neither from elections thus conducted, nor from rotten Borough
Addressers, nor from County-meetings, promoted by Placemen and
Pensioners, can the sense of the nation be known. It is still corruption
appealing to itself. But a Convention of a thousand persons, fairly
elected, would bring every matter to a decided issue.
As to County-meetings, it is only persons of leisure, or those who live
near to the place of meeting, that can attend, and the number on such
occasions is but like a drop in the bucket compared with the whole. The
only consistent service which such meetings could render, would be that
of apportioning the county into convenient districts, and when this is
done, each district might, according to its number of inhabitants, elect
its quota of County Members to the National Convention; and the vote of
each Elector might be taken in the parish where he resided, either by
ballot or by voice, as he should chuse to give it.
A National Convention thus formed, would bring together the sense and
opinions of every part of the nation, fairly taken. The science of
Government, and the interest of the Public, and of the several parts
thereof, would then undergo an ample and rational discussion, freed from
the language of parliamentary disguise.
But in all deliberations of this kind, though men have a right to
reason with, and endeavour to convince each other, upon any matter that
respects their common good, yet, in point of practice, the majority of
opinions, when known, forms a rule for the whole, and to this rule every
good citizen practically conforms.
Mr. Burke, as if he knew, (for every concealed Pensioner has the
opportunity of knowing,) that the abuses acted under the present system,
are too flagrant to be palliated, and that the majority of opinions,
whenever such abuses should be made public, would be for a general and
effectual reform, has endeavoured to preclude the event, by sturdily
denying the right of a majority of a nation to act as a whole. Let us
bestow a thought upon this case.
When any matter is proposed as a subject for consultation, it
necessarily implies some mode of decision. Common consent, arising from
absolute necessity, has placed this in a majority of opinions; because,
without it, there can be no decision, and consequently no order. It is,
perhaps, the only case in which mankind, however various in their ideas
upon other matters, can consistently be unanimous; because it is a mode
of decision derived from the primary original right of every individual
concerned; _that_ right being first individually exercised in giving an
opinion, and whether that opinion shall arrange with the minority or the
majority, is a subsequent accidental thing that neither increases nor
diminishes the individual original right itself. Prior to any debate,
enquiry, or investigation, it is not supposed to be known on which side
the majority of opinions will fall, and therefore, whilst this mode of
decision secures to every one the right of giving an opinion, it admits
to every one an equal chance in the ultimate event.
Among the matters that will present themselves to the consideration of
a national convention, there is one, wholly of a domestic nature, but so
marvellously loaded with con-fusion, as to appear at first sight, almost
impossible to be reformed. I mean the condition of what is called Law.
But, if we examine into the cause from whence this confusion, now so
much the subject of universal complaint, is produced, not only the
remedy will immediately present itself, but, with it, the means of
preventing the like case hereafter.
In the first place, the confusion has generated itself from the
absurdity of every Parliament assuming to be eternal in power, and
the laws partake in a similar manner, of this assumption. They have no
period of legal or natural expiration; and, however absurd in principle,
or inconsistent in practice many of them have become, they still are,
if not especially repealed, considered as making a part of the general
mass. By this means the body of what is called Law, is spread over a
space of _several hundred years_, comprehending laws obsolete, laws
repugnant, laws ridiculous, and every other kind of laws forgotten
or remembered; and what renders the case still worse, is, that the
confusion multiplies with the progress of time. (*)
To bring this misshapen monster into form, and to prevent its lapsing
again into a wilderness state, only two things, and those very simple,
are necessary.
The first is, to review the whole mass of laws, and to bring forward
such only as are worth retaining, and let all the rest drop; and to give
to the laws so brought forward a new era, commencing from the time of
such reform.
* In the time of Henry IV. a law was passed making it felony
"to multiply gold or silver, or to make use of the craft of
multiplication," and this law remained two hundred and
eighty-six years upon the statute books. It was then
repealed as being ridiculous and injurious.--_Author_.
Secondly; that at the expiration of every twenty-one years (or any other
stated period) a like review shall again be taken, and the laws, found
proper to be retained, be again carried forward, commencing with that
date, and the useless laws dropped and discontinued.
By this means there can be no obsolete laws, and scarcely such a thing
as laws standing in direct or equivocal contradiction to each other, and
every person will know the period of time to which he is to look back
for all the laws in being.
It is worth remarking, that while every other branch of science is
brought within some commodious system, and the study of it simplified by
easy methods, the laws take the contrary course, and become every year
more complicated, entangled, confused, and obscure.
Among the paragraphs which the Attorney General has taken from the
_Rights of Man_, and put into his information, one is, that where I
have said, "that with respect to regular law, there is _scarcely such a
thing_."
As I do not know whether the Attorney-General means to show this
expression to be libellous, because it is TRUE, or because it is FALSE,
I shall make no other reply to him in this place, than by remarking,
that if almanack-makers had not been more judicious than law-makers,
the study of almanacks would by this time have become as abstruse as the
study of the law, and we should hear of a library of almanacks as we
now do of statutes; but by the simple operation of letting the obsolete
matter drop, and carrying forward that only which is proper to be
retained, all that is necessary to be known is found within the space of
a year, and laws also admit of being kept within some given period.
I shall here close this letter, so far as it respects the Addresses, the
Proclamation, and the Prosecution; and shall offer a few observations to
the Society, styling itself "The Friends of the People."
That the science of government is beginning to be better understood than
in former times, and that the age of fiction and political superstition,
and of craft and mystery, is passing away, are matters which the
experience of every day-proves to be true, as well in England as in
other countries.
As therefore it is impossible to calculate the silent progress of
opinion, and also impossible to govern a nation after it has changed
its habits of thinking, by the craft or policy that it was governed
by before, the only true method to prevent popular discontents and
commotions is, to throw, by every fair and rational argument, all the
light upon the subject that can possibly be thrown; and at the same
time, to open the means of collecting the general sense of the nation;
and this cannot, as already observed, be done by any plan so effectually
as a national convention. Here individual opinion will quiet itself by
having a centre to rest upon.
The society already mentioned, (which is made up of men of various
descriptions, but chiefly of those called Foxites,) appears to me,
either to have taken wrong grounds from want of judgment, or to have
acted with cunning reserve. It is now amusing the people with a
new phrase, namely, that of "a temperate and moderate reform," the
interpretation of which is, _a continuance of the abuses as long as
possible, If we cannot hold all let us hold some_.
Who are those that are frightened at reforms? Are the public afraid that
their taxes should be lessened too much? Are they afraid that sinecure
places and pensions should be abolished too fast? Are the poor afraid
that their condition should be rendered too comfortable? Is the worn-out
mechanic, or the aged and decayed tradesman, frightened at the prospect
of receiving ten pounds a year out of the surplus taxes? Is the soldier
frightened at the thoughts of his discharge, and three shillings per
week during life? Is the sailor afraid that press-warrants will be
abolished? The Society mistakes the fears of borough-mongers, placemen,
and pensioners, for the fears of the people; and the _temperate and
moderate Reform_ it talks of, is calculated to suit the condition of the
former.
Those words, "temperate and moderate," are words either of political
cowardice, or of cunning, or seduction.--A thing, moderately good, is
not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper, is always a virtue;
but moderation in principle, is a species of vice. But who is to be the
judge of what is a temperate and moderate Reform? The Society is the
representative of nobody; neither can the unrepresented part of the
nation commit this power to those in Parliament, in whose election they
had no choice; and, therefore, even upon the ground the Society has
taken, recourse must be had to a National Convention.
The objection which Mr. Fox made to Mr. Grey's proposed Motion for a
Parliamentary Reform was, that it contained no plan.--It certainly did
not. But the plan very easily presents itself; and whilst it is fair
for all parties, it prevents the dangers that might otherwise arise from
private or popular discontent.
Thomas Paine.
Editorial Note on Burke's Alleged Secret Pension.--By
reference to Vol. II., pp. 271, 360, of this work, it will
be seen that Paine mentions a report that Burke was a
"pensioner in a fictitious name." A letter of John Hall to a
relative in Leicester, (London, May 1,1792.) says: "You will
remember that there was a vote carried, about the conclusion
of the American war, that the influence of the Crown had
increased, was increasing, and should be diminished. Burke,
poor, and like a good angler, baited a hook with a bill to
bring into Parliament, that no pensions should be given
above L300 a year, but what should be publicly granted, and
for what, (I may not be quite particular.) To stop that he
took in another person's name L1500 a year for life, and
some time past he disposed of it, or sold his life out. He
has been very still since his declension from the Whigs, and
is not concerned in the slave-trade [question?] as I hear
of." This letter, now in possession of Hall's kinsman, Dr.
Dutton Steele of Philadelphia, contains an item not in
Paine's account, which may have been derived from it. Hall
was an English scientific engineer, and acquainted with
intelligent men in London. Paine was rather eager for a
judicial encounter with Burke, and probably expected to be
sued by him for libel, as he (Burke) had once sued the
"Public Advertiser" for a personal accusation. But Burke
remained quiet under this charge, and Paine, outlawed, and
in France, had no opportunity for summoning witnesses in its
support. The biographers of Burke have silently passed over
the accusation, and this might be fair enough were this
unconfirmed charge made against a public man of stainless
reputation in such matters. But though Burke escaped
parliamentary censure for official corruption (May 16, 1783,
by only 24 majority) he has never been vindicated. It was
admitted that he had restored to office a cashier and an
accountant dismissed for dishonesty by his predecessor.
("Pari. Hist.," xxiii., pp. 801,902.) He escaped censure by
agreeing to suspend them. One was proved guilty, the
other committed suicide. It was subsequently shown that one
of the men had been an agent of the Burkes in raising India
stock. (Dilke's "Papers of a Critic," ii-, p. 333--"Dict.
Nat Biography": art Burke.) Paine, in his letter to the
Attorney-General (IV. of this volume), charged that Burke
had been a "masked pensioner" ten years. The date
corresponds with a secret arrangement made in 1782 with
Burke for a virtual pension to his son, for life, and his
mother. Under date April 34 of that year, Burke, writing to
William Burke at Madras, reports his appointment as
Paymaster: "The office is to be 4000L. certain. Young
Richard [his son] is the deputy with a salary of 500L. The
office to be reformed according to the Bill. There is enough
emoluments. In decency it could not be more. Something
considerable is also to be secured for the life of young
Richard to be a security for him and his mother."("Mem. and
Cor. of Charles James Fox," i., p. 451.) It is thus certain
that the Rockingham Ministry were doing for the Paymaster
all they could "in decency," and that while posing as a
reformer in reducing the expenses of that office, he was
arranging for secret advantages to his family. It is said
that the arrangement failed by his loss of office, but while
so many of Burke's papers are withheld from the public (if
not destroyed), it cannot be certain that something was not
done of the kind charged by Paine. That Burke was not strict
in such matters is further shown by his efforts to secure
for his son the rich sinecure of the Clerkship of the Polls,
in which he failed. Burke was again Paymaster in 1783-4, and
this time remained long enough in office to repeat more
successfully his secret attempts to secure irregular
pensions for his family. On April 7, 1894, Messrs. Sotheby,
Wilkinson, and Hodge sold in London (Lot 404) a letter of
Burke (which I have not seen in print), dated July 16, 1795.
It was written to the Chairman of the Commission on Public
Accounts, who had required him to render his accounts for
the time he was in office as Paymaster-General, 1783-4.
Burke refuses to do so in four angry and quibbling pages,
and declares he will appeal to his country against the
demand if it is pressed. Why should Burke wish to conceal
his accounts? There certainly were suspicions around Burke,
and they may have caused Pitt to renounce his intention,
conveyed to Burke, August 30, 1794, of asking Parliament to
bestow on him a pension. "It is not exactly known," says one
of Burke's editors, "what induced Mr. Pitt to decline
bringing before Parliament a measure which he had himself
proposed without any solicitation whatever on the part of
Burke." (Burke's "Works," English Ed., 1852, ii., p. 252.)
The pensions were given without consultation with
Parliament--1200L. granted him by the King from the Civil
List, and 2500L. by Pitt in West Indian 41/2 per cents.
Burke, on taking his seat beside Pitt in the great Paine
Parliament (December, 1792), had protested that he had not
abandoned his party through expectation of a pension, but
the general belief of those with whom he had formerly acted
was that he had been promised a pension. A couplet of the
time ran:
"A pension makes him change his plan,
And loudly damn the rights of man."
Writing in 1819, Cobbett says: "As my Lord Grenville
introduced the name of Burke, suffer me, my Lord, to
introduce the name of the man [Paine] who put this Burke to
shame, who drove him off the public stage to seek shelter in
the Pension List, and who is now named fifty million times
where the name of the pensioned Burke is mentioned once."--
_Editor._