POLITICAL AFFAIRS.--PUBLIC OCCUPATIONS.--RELATIONS WITH THE KING.
Notwithstanding his retirement to Oates, and his incessant literary
activity, Locke never lost his interest in politics, and, as the friend
and admirer of men like Monmouth, Somers, and Clarke, he must always
have exercised a considerable influence on the policy of the Whig
party. In the spring of 1695 he seems to have taken a primary share
in determining a measure which for a time divided the Houses of Lords
and Commons, and which must have enlisted his warmest sympathies. This
was the repeal of the Licensing Act. The English Press had never been
wholly free, and the Act of Charles II., which was still in force,
was peculiarly stringent. Occasion had been taken by the Commons,
when it was proposed, in the session of 1694-95, to renew certain
temporary statutes, to strike out this particular statute from the
list. The Lords dissented, and re-inserted it. The Commons refused to
accept the amendment. A conference of both Houses took place, Clarke
of Chipley being the leading manager on the part of the Commons, and
the result was that the Lords waived their objections. The paper of
reasons tendered by the Commons' managers on this occasion is said,
by a writer in the _Craftsman_ for Nov. 20, 1731, to have been drawn
up by Locke. As Clarke was one of his most intimate friends, and as
the Reasons correspond pretty closely with a paper of criticisms on
the Act written by Locke, this statement is probably true, so far
at least as concerns their substance. The arguments employed are
mainly practical, consisting of objections in detail, and pointing
out inconveniences, financial and otherwise, which resulted from the
operation of the Act. But these arguments, "suited to the capacity
of the parliamentary majority," did, as Macaulay has remarked, what
Milton's _Areopagitica_ had failed to do, and a vote, "of which the
history can be but imperfectly traced in the Journals of the House, has
done more for liberty and for civilization than the Great Charter or
the Bill of Rights." Locke's paper of criticisms, which is published
_in extenso_ in _Lord King's Life_, asks very pertinently "why a man
should not have liberty to print whatever he would speak, and be
answerable for the one, just as he is for the other, if he transgresses
the law in either." He then offers a suggestion, to take the place of
the licensing provisions:--"Let the printer or bookseller be answerable
for whatever is against law in the book, as if he were the author,
unless he can produce the person he had it from, which is all the
restraint ought to be upon printing." It appears from this paper that
the monopoly of the Stationers' Company had become so oppressive that
books printed in London could be bought cheaper at Amsterdam than in
St. Paul's Church Yard. Except for the few monopolists, the book-trade
had been ruined in England. But then, he reflects, "our ecclesiastical
laws seldom favour trade, and he that reads this Act with attention
will find it upse" (that is, highly) "ecclesiastical."
This question had hardly been settled before Locke had another
opportunity of influencing legislation on a subject which absorbed
much of his interest, and on which he had already employed his pen.
Probably at no time in the history of our country has the condition of
the coinage become so burning a question, or caused such wide-spread
distress, as in the years immediately succeeding the Revolution. To
understand the monetary difficulties occasioned by clipping the coin,
it must be remembered that, at the time of which I am speaking, two
kinds of silver money (if we neglect the imperfectly milled money which
was executed between 1561 and 1663) were in circulation, hammered money
with unmarked rims, and what was called milled money, from being made
in a coining-mill, with a legend on the rim of the larger and graining
on the rim of the smaller pieces. The latter kind of coins, too, had
the additional advantage of being almost perfectly circular, while
the shape of the former was almost always more or less irregular. The
hammered money, it is plain, could be easily clipped or pared, whereas
the milling was an absolute protection against this mode of fraud.
Though milling, in much its present form, had been introduced into our
mint in the year 1663, and then became the exclusive mode of coining,
the old hammered money still continued to be legal tender; and, as the
milled money was always worth its weight in silver, and the hammered
money was generally current at something much above its intrinsic
worth, the milled money was naturally melted down or exported abroad,
leaving the hammered money in almost exclusive possession of the field.
The milled money disappeared almost as fast as it was coined, and
the hammered money was clipped and pared more and more, till it was
often not worth half or even a third of the sum for which it passed.
At Oxford, indeed, a hundred pounds' worth of the current silver
money, which ought to have weighed four hundred ounces, was found to
weigh only a hundred and sixteen. Every month the state of things
was becoming worse and worse. The cost of commodities was constantly
rising, and every payment of any amount involved endless altercations.
In a bargain not only had the price of the article to be settled, but
also the value of the money in which it was to be paid. A guinea, which
at one place counted for only twenty-two shillings, would at another
fetch thirty, and might have brought far more, had not the Government
fixed that sum as the maximum at which it would be taken in the payment
of taxes. Thus, all commercial transactions had become disarranged;
no one knew what he was really worth, or what any commodity might
cost him a few months hence. Macaulay, who has given a most graphic
description of the financial condition of the country at this time,
hardly exaggerates when he says, "It may be doubted whether all the
misery which had been inflicted on the English nation in a quarter of a
century by bad kings, bad ministers, bad parliaments, and bad judges,
was equal to the misery caused in a single year by bad crowns and bad
shillings." Almost from the moment of his return to England, Locke
had felt the gravest anxiety on this subject. "When at my lodgings in
London," says Lady Masham, speaking of the time immediately succeeding
the Revolution, "the company there, finding him often afflicted about a
matter which nobody else took any notice of, have rallied him upon this
uneasiness as being a visionary trouble, he has more than once replied,
'We might laugh at it, but it would not be long before we should want
money to send our servants to market with for bread and meat,' which
was so true, five or six years after, that there was not a family
in England who did not find this a difficulty." The letter on "Some
Considerations of the Consequences of Lowering of Interest and Raising
the Value of Money," the latter part of which dealt with this question,
is dated as early as Nov. 7, 1691, and had been, in the main, as he
tells us, put into writing about twelve months before. Here he not only
points out the intolerable character of the grievances under which the
nation was labouring, but also protests most emphatically against one
of the proposed methods of remedying them, namely, "raising the value
of money," as it was called; that is, depreciating the intrinsic value
of the money coined, or raising the denomination, so, for instance, as
to put into a crown-piece or a shilling, when coined, less than the
customary amount of silver. To the consideration of this scheme, which
at one time found much favour, we shall soon see that he had occasion
to recur. Universal as were the complaints about the existing state
of things, no active measures, if we except wholesale and frequent
hangings for "clipping the coin," and increased measures of vigilance
for the purpose of detecting the delinquents, were taken for stopping
the evil, until the year 1695. Under the malign ascendancy of Danby,
the Government had other views and objects than to ameliorate the
condition of the people. But, in the years 1694 and 1695, other and
more enlightened statesmen were gradually winning their way into the
royal councils, or beginning to occupy a more important position in
them. For at this period, we must recollect, the high officers of state
were not all, as now, necessarily of one uniform political pattern.
In April, 1694, immediately after the establishment of the Bank of
England, Charles Montague, afterwards Lord Halifax, one of the greatest
of English financiers, had been made Chancellor of the Exchequer.
And, on occasion of the king's departure for the Continent in May,
1695, two of Locke's most intimate friends--Lord Keeper Somers and the
Earl of Pembroke--were nominated among the seven Lords Justices, who
were to govern the kingdom during William's absence. To discerning
and judicious statesmen like Somers and Montague it must have been
quite apparent that the penal laws for protecting the coinage were
altogether inadequate to the purpose. The gains to be made were so
large and so easily obtained, that men were ready to run the risk of
the punishment. And, moreover, even if the crime were detected, the
punishment was by no means certain or unattended with sympathy. Great
as were the suffering and inconveniences inflicted on the people by
these practices, the punishment of death appeared to many to be in
excess of the offence. Juries were often unwilling to convict, and
the disgrace incurred by the criminal was very different from that
which attended the murderer or the ordinary thief. That wise financial
legislation, and not the more stringent execution of the penal laws,
was the true and only effectual mode of eradicating the disease, was
at length recognized by the Government, and the new Lords Justices
soon set about to devise the remedy. To Locke, who was well known to
have been the author of the pamphlet which appeared on the subject in
1692, they naturally turned for advice. In the early part of October,
while the king was on his way back from his successful campaign in the
Netherlands, he was summoned up from Oates to confer with them. Writing
to Molyneux the next month, and informing him of the fact, he adds,
with characteristic modesty: "This is too publicly known here to make
the mentioning of it to you appear vanity in me." Notwithstanding the
subordinate part which Locke here seems to assign to himself, there
can be no doubt that his share in the measures of the Government,
as ultimately matured, was a principal, if not the principal, one.
That legislative measures would now be taken, there was no longer
any question. But the danger of which Locke was chiefly afraid was
the raising the denomination of the coin, or, in other words, the
legalized depreciation of the currency, a scheme against which he had
formerly protested, and which was now officially recommended to the
Government by one of their own subordinates, William Lowndes. Orders
had been given to Lowndes, who, after many years of good service in
a subordinate capacity, had recently been appointed Secretary to the
Treasury, to collect statistics relating to the monetary condition
of the country, and to report on the most practicable methods of
re-coining the current silver money. In executing the former part of
his task, he left no doubt as to the necessity of speedily applying
some remedy. The silver coins brought into the Exchequer during three
months of 1695 ought to have weighed 221,418 ounces. Their actual
weight was 113,771 ounces, or barely over one-half. In consequence of
the vitiating, diminishing, and counterfeiting of the current moneys,
he says, "It is come to pass that great contentions do daily arise
amongst the king's subjects in fairs, markets, shops, and other places
throughout the kingdom, about the passing and refusing of the same, to
the great disturbance of the public peace. Many bargains, doings, and
dealings are totally prevented and laid aside, which lessens trade in
general." The necessity of setting the price of commodities according
to the value of the money to be received, is, he considers, "one great
cause of raising the price, not only of merchandise, but even of
edibles and other necessaries for the sustenance of the common people,
to their great grievance." So far, his political economy was perfectly
sound; but when he comes to discuss the question of re-coinage, he
advocates, without any misgiving, a scheme for the depreciation of the
currency to the extent of one-fifth. A crown-piece was henceforth to
count as 6_s._ 3_d._, and the nominal value of half-crowns, shillings,
and sixpences was to be raised proportionately. Locke, with his clearer
mind, saw, of course, that this would only be for the state to do
systematically and by law the very same thing for which the clippers
were being hanged. It would be to legalize the disarrangement of all
monetary transactions, and to deprive every creditor of one-fifth of
his debts. Montague and Somers were as clear on this point as he was,
and Somers at once urged him to reply. Locke had returned to Oates,
in consequence of the sudden death of Mrs. Cudworth, on the 16th of
November, and at once set about his answer.
This tract, which formed a pamphlet of more than a hundred pages, was
submitted to the Lords Justices, printed, and published before the
end of December. It was entitled _Further Considerations concerning
Raising the Value of Money_, and simplified and enforced the arguments
contained in a previous pamphlet which Locke had also drawn up for the
use of the Lords Justices earlier in the year, under the title, _Some
Observations on a Printed Paper, entitled, For Encouraging the Coining
Silver money in England, and after for keeping it here_. Meanwhile,
Montague had, under the sanction of a committee of the whole House,
introduced his resolutions into the House of Commons, and there can be
little doubt that, in drawing up these, he and the Lords Justices had
been assisted by Locke. Any way, the resolutions embodied in the main
the opinions which Locke had been so instrumental in impressing on
those in authority. The old standard value of the silver pieces was to
be retained both as to weight and fineness, the point for which he had
fought so persistently. The clipped pieces were, after a certain day,
only to be received in payment of taxes, or in loans to the Exchequer;
after a further day, they were to cease to be legal tender altogether.
All the hammered money, as it came into the mint in payment of loans or
taxes, was to be re-coined as milled money, and the loss to be borne
by the Exchequer. When the resolution that the old standard was to be
retained was put to the House, it was challenged, and an amendment
moved by those who were of Lowndes' opinion that the word "both" be
omitted. On a division, there were 225 for retaining the word, and
114 against. The House thus, by a large majority, affirmed what all
economists would now regard as an elementary principle of finance. A
Bill embodying the resolution was soon passed, but, in consequence
of difficulties with the Lords, had to be dropped. A fresh Bill was
introduced on the 13th of January, substantially embodying the same
provisions as the old Bill, and was hurried through its various stages
so fast that it received the Royal Assent on the 21st of January,
1695-96. Up to the 4th of May, 1696, the clipped money was to be
received in payment of taxes, and up to the 24th of June, for loans
or other payments into the Exchequer. But after the 10th of February
ensuing, it was to cease to be legal tender in ordinary payments. Thus,
in spite of much temporary inconvenience caused by the scarcity of
money during the time of transition, the silver coinage of the country
was, once for all, put upon a sound basis. Late as Locke's pamphlet
appeared, it probably helped to facilitate the passage of the Bill
through the two Houses, as the reiterated statement of his opinions
had undoubtedly contributed in very large measure to shape and confirm
the action of the government. It may be mentioned that the loss to the
Exchequer, estimated as 1,200,000_l._, was made up by the imposition of
a house tax and window tax, the former of which still continues, while
the latter existed within the memory of many men now only of middle age.
Great as is the debt which philosophy owes to Locke's _Essay_,
constitutional theory to his treatises on government, the freedom of
religious speculation to his Letters on Toleration, and the ways of
"sweet reasonableness" to all these, and indeed to all his works, it
would form a nice subject of discussion whether mankind at large has
not been more benefited by the share which he took in practical reforms
than by his literary productions. It would undoubtedly be too much to
affirm that, without his initiative or assistance, the state of the
coinage would never have been reformed, the monopoly of the Stationers'
Company abolished, or the shackles of the Licensing Act struck off. But
had it not been for his clearness of vision, and the persistence of
his philanthropic efforts, these measures might have been indefinitely
retarded or clogged with provisos and compromises which might have
robbed them of more than half their effects. A generation ago it was
the fashion in many circles to speak contemptuously of the writers
and statesmen of William's reign, and even now but scant and grudging
justice is often done to them. The admirers of mystical philosophy and
romantic politics may, however, fairly be challenged to show that their
heroes, whether in letters or action, have borne equal fruit with the
vigorous understanding and plain, direct, practical common-sense of men
like Halifax, Somers, and Locke.
It has already been stated that soon after his return to England
Locke was appointed a Commissioner of Appeals, a post which, though
not entirely without duties, seems to have taken up but little of his
time. One of his letters to Clarke shows the difficulty of forming
a quorum, and perhaps illustrates the fact that when the duties of
an office are slight, they are generally neglected altogether. But
towards the end of the year 1695 the government, now virtually under
the leadership of Somers, determined to revive the council of trade and
plantations of which, it will be recollected, Locke had been Secretary
when Shaftesbury's counsels were in the ascendant at the court of
Charles II., as far back as the year 1673. At first there were some
difficulties with the king, but ultimately; on the 15th of May, 1696,
he was induced to issue the patent appointing and defining the duties
of a commission. Besides the great officers of state, there were to
be certain paid commissioners, with a salary of 1000_l._ a year, of
whom Locke was one. His name was inserted in the first draft of the
commission without his express consent, and he appears, as we can well
understand, to have accepted the office only with extreme reluctance.
Writing to Molyneux, who had congratulated him on the appointment, he
says with evident sincerity:
"Your congratulation I take as you meant, kindly and seriously,
and, it may be, it is what another would rejoice in; but 'tis a
preferment I shall get nothing by, and I know not whether my country
will, though that I shall aim at with all my endeavours. Riches
may be instrumental to so many good purposes, that it is, I think,
vanity rather than religion or philosophy to pretend to contemn them.
But yet they may be purchased too dear. My age and health demand a
retreat from bustle and business, and the pursuit of some inquiries
I have in my thoughts makes it more desirable than any of those
rewards which public employments tempt people with. I think the
little I have enough, and do not desire to live higher or die richer
than I am. And therefore you have reason rather to pity the folly,
than congratulate the fortune, that engages me in the whirlpool."
The duties of the commission could hardly have been more widely defined
than they were. It was to be at once a Board of Trade, a Poor-Law
Board, and a Colonial Office. The commissioners were to inquire
into the general condition of trade in the country, both internal
and external, and "to consider by what means the several useful and
profitable manufactures already settled in the kingdom may be further
improved; and how, and in what manner, new and profitable manufactures
may be introduced." They were also "to consider of some proper methods
for setting on work and employing the poor of the kingdom, and making
them useful to the public, and thereby easing our subjects of that
burthen." Finally, they were to inform themselves of the present
condition of the plantations, as the colonies were then called, not
only in relation to commerce, but also to the administration of
government and justice, as well as to suggest means of rendering them
more useful to the mother country, especially in the supply of naval
stores. Here, surely, was work enough for men far younger and more
vigorous than Locke; but, having undertaken the duties of the office,
he appears in no way to have spared himself. In the summer and autumn
months he resided in London, and attended the meetings of the board
personally, often day after day, and in the evening as well as the
day-time. In the winter and spring his health compelled him to reside
at Oates, but he was constantly sending up long minutes for the use of
his colleagues. Mr. Fox Bourne, who has been carefully through the
proceedings of the commission, informs us that Locke was altogether
its presiding genius. He was a member of this board a little over
four years, having been compelled by increasing ill-health, or, as
the minutes of the council put it, "finding his health more and more
impaired by the air of this city," to resign on the 28th of June, 1700.
The king, we are told by Lady Masham, was most unwilling to receive his
resignation, "telling him that, were his attendance ever so small, he
was sensible his continuance in the commission would be useful to him,
and that he did not desire he should be one day in town on that account
to the prejudice of his health." Locke, however, was too conscientious
to retain a place with large emoluments, of which he felt that he could
no longer perform the duties to his own satisfaction. It is interesting
to find that his successor was Matthew Prior, the poet.
When we have seen the wide powers of the commission, we hardly need
feel surprise that its business was multifarious. It at once set to
work to collect evidence of the state of trade in the colonies, of
our commercial relations with foreign ports, of the condition of the
linen and paper manufactures at home, of the number of paupers in the
kingdom, and the mode of their relief, as well as to devise means for
increasing the woollen trade and preventing the exportation of wool.
Locke was specially commissioned "to draw up a scheme of some method
of determining differences between merchants by referees that might
be decisive without appeal." In the winter of 1696-97, finding that
his work followed him to Oates, and being then apparently in a feebler
state of health than usual, he made an ineffectual attempt to escape
from his new employment, but Somers refused to hand in his resignation
to the king. From a Letter to Molyneux we find that it was not simply
his ill-health, but the "corruption of the age," which made him averse
to continuing in office. And we can well understand how troublesome,
and apparently hopeless, it must have been to deal with the various
threatened interests of that time, when monopolies, patents, and
pensions were regarded by the governing classes almost as a matter of
course.
In the summer of 1697 the principal subject which engaged the attention
of the commission was the best means of discouraging the Irish woollen
manufacture, and of, at the same time, encouraging the Irish linen
manufacture. Each commissioner was invited to bring up a separate
report. Three did so. Locke's was the one selected, and, with slight
alterations, was signed by the other commissioners on the 31st of
August, and forwarded almost immediately afterwards to the Lords
Justices. This interesting state-document proceeds entirely upon the
notions of protection to native industries which were then almost
universally current among statesmen and merchants. The problems were
to secure to England the monopoly of what was then regarded as its
peculiar and appropriate manufacture, the woollen trade, and to assign
to Ireland, in return for the restrictions imposed upon her, some
compensating branch of industry. According to the ideas then commonly
prevalent, the scheme was perfectly equitable to both countries. But,
naturally, the interests of England are put in the foreground. The
interests of the Irish people, however, were not to be neglected, and
what Locke doubtless conceived as full compensation was to be given
them for the loss of their woollen trade. "And since it generally
proves ineffectual, and we conceive it hard to endeavour to drive men
from the trade they are employed in by bare prohibition, without
offering them at the same time some other trade which, if they please,
may turn to account, we humbly propose that the linen manufacture be
set on foot, and so encouraged in Ireland as may make it the general
trade of that country as effectually as the woollen manufacture is,
and must be, of England." Linen cloth and all other manufactures made
of flax or hemp, without any mixture of wool, were to be exported to
all places duty free, as indeed had already been provided by Act of
Parliament with regard to England. One method by which Locke proposed
to encourage the linen manufacture in Ireland runs so counter to modern
notions with regard both to the education of the poor and to freedom
of employment, that it may be interesting to the reader to see the
suggestion at length:
"And, because the poorest earning in the several parts of the linen
manufacture is at present in the work of the spinners, who therefore
need the greatest encouragement, and ought to be increased as much as
possible, that therefore spinning schools be set up in such places
and at such distances as the directors shall appoint, where whoever
will come to learn to spin shall be taught gratis, and to which all
persons that have not forty shillings a year estate shall be obliged
to send all their children, both male and female, that they have
at home with them, from six to fourteen years of age, and may have
liberty to send those also between four and six if they please, to
be employed there in spinning ten hours in the day when the days are
so long, or as long as it is light when they are shorter: provided
always that no child shall be obliged to go above two miles to any
such school."
Then there follow many other minute and paternal regulations of the
same kind, the object of which was to turn the whole Irish nation
into spinners, and to supply with linen not only "the whole kingdom
of England," but foreign markets as well. The Irish authorities,
however, were meanwhile preparing a scheme of their own, and, after
controversies between the English and Irish officials, extending over
more than two years, Locke's plan was finally laid aside in favour
of that of Louis Crommelin. Besides the attempt to monopolize the
woollen trade for England and the linen trade for Ireland, much of
the time of the Council was devoted to schemes for the protection of
native industries, by forbidding or throwing obstacles in the way of
importation and exportation. But Locke and his colleagues were here
only following the track marked out for them by the ordinary opinion of
the time.
The main subject which occupied the attention of the Council in the
autumn of 1697 was the employment of the idle or necessitous poor.
From the beginning of its sessions, it had been collecting evidence
on this subject, and, in September of this year, it was decided that
each commissioner should draw up a scheme of reform, to be submitted
to the Council. As had been the case with his report on the Irish
linen manufacture, Locke's was the one selected. From a variety of
causes, however, his suggestions were never carried into effect, and
the various efforts of William's Government to deal with the gigantic
problem of pauperism proved abortive.
Locke's paper of suggestions assumes as a datum what was always
regarded at this time as an axiom of poor-law legislation, namely, that
it is the duty of each individual parish to maintain and employ its
own poor, having, as a set-off, the right of coercing the able-bodied
to work. Pernicious and partial as this principle was, we should have
more occasion for surprise if we found Locke contravening it than
conforming to it. The merit of his paper is that it offers excellent
suggestions for minimizing the evils necessarily attaching to the
system then in vogue. The recent growth of pauperism he refers to
"relaxation of discipline and corruption of manners, virtue and
industry being as constant companions on the one side as vice and
idleness are on the other. The first step, therefore," he continues,
"towards the setting of the poor on work ought to be a restraint of
their debauchery by a strict execution of the laws provided against it,
more particularly by the suppression of superfluous brandy-shops and
unnecessary ale-houses, especially in country parishes not lying upon
great roads." He then proposes a series of provisions, sufficiently
stringent, for the purpose of compelling the idle and able-bodied
poor to work, stating that, upon a very moderate computation, above
one-half of those who receive relief from the parishes are able to earn
their own livelihoods. In maritime counties, all those not physically
or mentally incapacitated, who were found begging out of their own
parish without a pass, were to be compelled to serve on board one of
his Majesty's ships, under strict discipline, for three years. In
the inland counties, all those so found begging were to be sent to
the nearest house of correction for a like period. But, besides the
able-bodied paupers, there were a great number not absolutely unable or
unwilling to do something for their livelihood, and yet prevented by
age or circumstances from wholly earning their own living. For these
he proposes to find employment in the woollen or other manufactures,
so as, at all events, to diminish the cost of their maintenance to the
public, and at the same time increase the industrial resources of the
country. One of the most distinctive features of Locke's scheme was the
proposal to set up working-schools for spinning or knitting, or some
other industrial occupation, in each parish, "to which the children
of all such as demand relief of the parish, above three and under
fourteen years of age, whilst they live at home with their parents, and
are not otherwise employed for their livelihood by the allowance of the
overseers of the poor, shall be obliged to come." The children were to
be fed at school, and this mode of relief was to take the place of the
existing allowance in money paid to a father who had a large number of
children, which, we are not surprised to learn, was frequently spent in
the alehouse, whilst those for whose benefit it was given were left to
perish for want of necessaries. The food of the children of the poor at
that time, we are told, was seldom more than bread and water, and often
there was a very scanty supply of that. Another advantage which Locke
proposed to effect by the institution of these schools was the moral
and religious instruction of the children. They would be obliged to
come constantly to church every Sunday, along with their schoolmasters
or dames, "whereby they would be brought into some sense of religion,
whereas ordinarily now, in their idle and loose way of bringing up,
they are as utter strangers both to religion and morality as they are
to industry." One further provision of this scheme may be noticed, as
offering some mitigation of the parochial system of relief which then
obtained, namely, "that in all cities and towns corporate the poor's
tax be not levied by distinct parishes, but by one equal tax throughout
the whole corporation."
The anxiety of the king to retain Locke on the Commission has already
been mentioned. It would appear that they were in not infrequent
conference, and we know that the king entertained a very high opinion
both of his integrity and of his political capacity. A good deal of
mystery attaches to one of their interviews, but the explanation of
it proffered by Mr. Fox Bourne possesses, at any rate, considerable
plausibility. One bitter January morning, in the winter of 1697-98,
while Locke was at Oates, he received a pressing summons from the
king to repair to Kensington. He was at the time suffering more than
ordinarily from the bronchial affection to which he was constantly
subject, and Lady Masham attempted to dissuade him from running the
risk of the journey, but in vain. When he returned, the only account
that he would give of the interview was that "the king had a desire
to talk with him about his own health, as believing that there was
much similitude in their cases." It appears, however, from a letter
addressed by Locke to Somers a few days after his return to Oates, that
the king had offered him some important employment, and that he had
excused himself on the ground of his weak health, and his inexperience
in that kind of business, the business being such as required "skill
in dealing with men in their various humours, and drawing out their
secrets." Mr. Fox Bourne forms the reasonable conjecture that Locke
had been asked to go as right-hand man to William Bentinck, Earl of
Portland, who had just been nominated as special ambassador to the
Court of France. The peace of Ryswick had been ratified in the previous
November, and the mission to Louis XIV. was, of course, one requiring
great tact and sagacity. William had strongly urged Locke, some years
before, to represent him on another very important mission, the one
to the Elector of Brandenburg, and it may be that, on the present
occasion, no fitter person occurred to him. Any way, the employment was
one which would have advanced Locke in riches and honour; but as such,
glad as he might have been to serve his country disinterestedly to the
best of his power, it had no attractions for him. "He must have a heart
strongly touched with wealth or honours who, at my age, and laboring
for breath, can find any great relish for either of them."
On one occasion Locke accompanied the king, the latter going
_incognito_ to a meeting of the Society of Friends, where they listened
to the famous Quaker preacheress, Rebecca Collier. Locke afterwards
sent her a parcel of sweetmeats, with a very complimentary letter, and
is said to have found the meeting so agreeable that it removed his
objections to a female ministry.
With his resignation of the Commissionership of the Board of Trade, in
the summer of 1700, Locke's public life comes to an end. His friend
Somers had been sacrificed to the incessant and malignant attacks of
the Tories, and dismissed from the Chancellorship, in the previous
spring; and to those statesmen who were inspired by a sincere and
simple desire for the well-being of their country the political outlook
had become anything but cheerful. The condition of Locke's health
was quite a sufficient reason for his desiring to be relieved of the
anxieties of office; but we can hardly doubt that, on other grounds as
well, he was glad to escape from so intricate a maze as the field of
politics bade fair soon to become.