When the complaints of a brave and powerful people are observed to
increase in proportion to the wrongs they have suffered, when, instead
of sinking into submission, they are roused to resistance, the time
will soon arrive at which every inferior consideration must yield to
the security of the sovereign, and to the general safety of the state.
There is a moment of difficulty and danger at which flattery and
falsehood can no longer deceive, and simplicity itself can no longer be
misled. Let us suppose it arrived; let us suppose a gracious,
well-intentioned prince, made sensible at last of the great duty he
owes to his people, and of his own disgraceful situation; that he looks
round him for assistance, and asks for no advice but how to gratify the
wishes and secure the happiness of his subjects. In these
circumstances, it may be matter of curious _speculation_ to consider,
if an honest man were permitted to approach a king, in what terms he
would address himself to his sovereign. Let it be imagined, no matter
how improbable, that the first prejudice against his character is
removed; that the ceremonious difficulties of an audience are
surmounted; that he feels himself animated by the purest and most
honourable affections to his king and country; and that the great
person whom he addresses has spirit enough to bid him speak freely, and
understanding enough to listen to him with attention. Unacquainted with
the vain impertinence of forms, he would deliver his sentiments with
dignity and firmness, but not without respect.
Sir,
It is the misfortune of your life, and originally the cause of every
reproach and distress which has attended your government, that you
should never have been acquainted with the language of truth until you
heard it in the complaints of your people. It is not, however, too late
to correct the error of your education. We are still inclined to make
an indulgent allowance for the pernicious lessons you received in your
youth, and to form the most sanguine hopes from the natural benevolence
of your disposition. We are far from thinking you capable of a direct,
deliberate purpose to invade those original rights of your subjects on
which all their civil and political liberties depend. Had it been
possible for us to entertain a suspicion so dishonourable to your
character, we should long since have adopted a style of remonstrance
very distant from the humility of complaint. The doctrine inculcated by
our laws, _That the king can do no-wrong_, is admitted without
reluctance. We separate the amiable, good-natured prince from the folly
and treachery of his servants, and the private virtues of the man from
the vices of his government. Were it not for this just distinction, I
know not whether your Majesty's condition, or that of the English
nation, would deserve most to be lamented. I would prepare your mind
for a favourable reception of truth by removing every painful,
offensive idea of personal reproach. Your subjects, Sir, wish for
nothing but that, as _they_ are reasonable and affectionate enough to
separate your person from your government, so _you_, in your turn,
should distinguish between the conduct which becomes the permanent
dignity of a king and that which serves only to promote the temporary
interest and miserable ambition of a minister.
You ascended the throne with a declared--and, I doubt not, a
sincere--resolution of giving universal satisfaction to your subjects.
You found them pleased with the novelty of a young prince whose
countenance promised even more than his words, and loyal to you, not
only from principle, but passion. It was not a cold profession of
allegiance to the first magistrate, but a partial, animated attachment
to a favourite prince, the native of their country. They did not wait
to examine your conduct nor to be determined by experience, but gave
you a generous credit for the future blessings of your reign, and paid
you in advance the dearest tribute of their affections. Such, Sir, was
once the disposition of a people who now surround your throne with
reproaches and complaints.--Do justice to yourself. Banish from your
mind those unworthy opinions with which some interested persons have
laboured to possess you.--Distrust the men who tell you that the
English are naturally light and inconstant; that they complain without
a cause. Withdraw your confidence equally from all parties--from
ministers, favourites, and relations; and let there be one moment in
your life in which you have consulted your own understanding.
When you affectedly renounced the name of Englishman, believe me, Sir,
you were persuaded to pay a very ill-judged compliment to one part of
your subjects at the expense of another. While the natives of Scotland
are not in actual rebellion, they are undoubtedly entitled to
protection; nor do I mean to condemn the policy of giving some
encouragement to the novelty of their affections for the House of
Hanover. I am ready to hope for everything from their new-born zeal,
and from the future steadiness of their allegiance, but hitherto they
have no claim to your favour. To honour them with a determined
predilection and confidence, in exclusion of your English subjects, who
placed your family, and, in spite of treachery and rebellion, have
supported it, upon the throne, is a mistake too gross even for the
unsuspecting generosity of youth. In this error we see a capital
violation of the most obvious rules of policy and prudence. We trace
it, however, to an original bias in your education, and are ready to
allow for your inexperience.
To the same early influence we attribute it that you have descended to
take a share, not only in the narrow views and interests of particular
persons, but in the fatal malignity of their passions. At your
accession to the throne the whole system of government was altered, not
from wisdom or deliberation, but because it had been adopted by your
predecessor. A little personal motive of pique and resentment was
sufficient to remove the ablest servants of the Crown; but it is not in
this country, Sir, that such men can be dishonoured by the frowns of a
king. They were dismissed, but could not be disgraced. Without entering
into a minuter discussion of the merits of the peace, we may observe,
in the imprudent hurry with which the first overtures from France were
accepted, in the conduct of the negotiation, and terms of the treaty,
the strongest marks of that precipitate spirit of concession with which
a certain part of your subjects have been at all times ready to
purchase a peace with the natural enemies of this country. On _your_
part we are satisfied that everything was honourable and sincere; and,
if England was sold to France, we doubt not that your Majesty was
equally betrayed. The conditions of the peace were matter of grief and
surprise to your subjects, but not the immediate cause of their present
discontent.
Hitherto, Sir, you had been sacrificed to the prejudices and passions
of others. With what firmness will you bear the mention of your own?
A man, not very honourably distinguished in the world, commences a
formal attack upon your favourite, considering nothing but how he might
best expose his person and principles to detestation, and the national
character of his countrymen to contempt. The natives of that country,
Sir, are as much distinguished by a peculiar character as by your
Majesty's favour. Like another chosen people, they have been conducted
into the land of plenty, where they find themselves effectually marked
and divided from mankind. There is hardly a period at which the most
irregular character may not be redeemed. The mistakes of one sex find a
retreat in patriotism, those of the other in devotion. Mr. Wilkes
brought with him into politics the same liberal sentiments by which his
private conduct had been directed, and seemed to think that, as there
are few excesses in which an English gentleman may not be permitted to
indulge, the same latitude was allowed him in the choice of his
political principles, and in the spirit of maintaining them. I mean to
state, not entirely to defend, his conduct. In the earnestness of his
zeal he suffered some unwarrantable insinuations to escape him. He said
more than moderate men would justify, but not enough to entitle him to
the honour of your Majesty's personal resentment. The rays of royal
indignation, collected upon him, served only to illuminate, and could
not consume. Animated by the favour of the people on the one side, and
heated by persecution on the other, his views and sentiments changed
with his situation. Hardly serious at first, he is now an enthusiast.
The coldest bodies warm with opposition, the hardest sparkle in
collision.--There is a holy, mistaken zeal in politics as well as
religion. By persuading others, we convince ourselves. The passions are
engaged, and create a material affection in the mind, which forces us
to love the cause for which we suffer. Is this a contention worthy of a
king? Are you not sensible how much the meanness of the cause gives an
air of ridicule to the serious difficulties into which you have been
betrayed? The destruction of one man has been now, for many years, the
sole object of your government; and, if there can be anything still
more disgraceful, we have seen, for such an object, the utmost
influence of the executive power, and every ministerial artifice,
exerted without success. Nor can you ever succeed, unless he should be
imprudent enough to forfeit the protection of those laws to which you
owe your crown, or unless your minister should persuade you to make it
a question of force alone, and try the whole strength of government in
opposition to the people. The lessons he has received from experience
will probably guard him from such excess of folly, and in your
Majesty's virtues we find an unquestionable assurance that no illegal
violence will be attempted.
Far from suspecting you of so horrible a design, we would attribute his
continued violation of the laws, and even the last enormous attack upon
the vital principles of the constitution, to an ill-advised, unworthy,
personal resentment. From one false step you have been betrayed into
another, and, as the cause was unworthy of you, your ministers were
determined that the prudence executed should correspond with the
wisdom and dignity of the design. They have reduced you to the
necessity of choosing out of a variety of difficulties; to a situation
so unhappy that you can neither do wrong without ruin, nor right
without affliction. These worthy servants have undoubtedly given you
many singular proofs of their abilities. Not contented with making Mr.
Wilkes a man of importance, they have judiciously transferred the
question from the rights and interests of one man to the most important
rights and interests of the people, and forced your subjects from
wishing well to the cause of an individual to unite with him in their
own. Let them proceed as they have begun, and your Majesty need not
doubt that the catastrophe will do no dishonour to the conduct of the
piece.
The circumstances to which you are reduced will not admit of a
compromise with the English nation. Undecisive, qualifying measures
will disgrace your government still more than open violence, and,
without satisfying the people, will excite their contempt. They have
too much understanding and spirit to accept of an indirect satisfaction
for a direct injury. Nothing less than a repeal, as formal as the
resolution itself, can heal the wound which has been given to the
constitution, nor will anything less be accepted. I can readily believe
that there is an influence sufficient to recall that pernicious vote.
The House of Commons undoubtedly consider their duty to the Crown as
paramount to all other obligations. To us they are only indebted for an
accidental existence, and have justly transferred their gratitude from
their parents to their benefactors, from those who gave them birth to
the minister from whose benevolence they derive the comforts and
pleasure of their political life, who has taken the tenderest care of
their infancy and relieves their necessities without offending their
delicacy. But if it were possible for their integrity to be degraded
to a condition so vile and abject that, compared with it, the present
estimation they stand in is a state of honour and respect, consider,
Sir, in what manner you will afterwards proceed. Can you conceive that
the people of this country will long submit to be governed by so
flexible a House of Commons? It is not in the nature of human society
that any form of government, in such circumstances, can long be
preserved. In ours, the general contempt of the people is as fatal as
their detestation. Such, I am persuaded, would be the necessary effect
of any base concession made by the present House of Commons, and, as a
qualifying measure would not be accepted, it remains for you to decide
whether you will, at any hazard, support a set of men who have reduced
you to this unhappy dilemma, or whether you will gratify the united
wishes of the whole people of England by dissolving the Parliament.
Taking it for granted, as I do very sincerely, that you have personally
no design against the constitution, nor any view inconsistent with the
good of your subjects, I think you cannot hesitate long upon the choice
which it equally concerns your interests and your honour to adopt. On
one side you hazard the affection of all your English subjects, you
relinquish every hope of repose to yourself, and you endanger the
establishment of your family for ever. All this you venture for no
object whatsoever, or for such an object as it would be an affront to
you to name. Men of sense will examine your conduct with suspicion,
while those who are incapable of comprehending to what degree they are
injured afflict you with clamours equally insolent and unmeaning.
Supposing it possible that no fatal struggle should ensue, you
determine at once to be unhappy, without the hope of a compensation
either from interest or ambition. If an English king be hated or
despised, he _must_ be unhappy; and this, perhaps, is the only
political truth which he ought to be convinced of without experiment.
But if the English people should no longer confine their resentment to
a submissive representation of their wrongs; if, following the glorious
example of their ancestors, they should no longer appeal to the
creature of the constitution, but to that high Being who gave them the
rights of humanity, whose gifts it were sacrilege to surrender, let me
ask you, Sir, upon what part of your subjects would you rely for
assistance?
The people of Ireland have been uniformly plundered and oppressed. In
return they give you every day fresh marks of their resentment. They
despise the miserable governor you have sent them, because he is the
creature of Lord Bute, nor is it from any natural confusion in their
ideas that they are so ready to confound the original of a king with
the disgraceful representation of him.
The distance of the colonies would make it impossible for them to take
an active concern in your affairs, if they were as well affected to
your government as they once pretended to be to your person. They were
ready enough to distinguish between you and your ministers. They
complained of an act of the legislature, but traced the origin of it no
higher than to the servants of the Crown; they pleased themselves with
the hope that their sovereign, if not favourable to their cause, at
least was impartial. The decisive personal part you took against them
has effectually banished that first distinction from their minds. They
consider you as united with your servants against America, and know how
to distinguish the sovereign and a venal parliament on one side from
the real sentiments of the English people on the other. Looking forward
to independence, they might possibly receive you for their king; but,
if ever you retire to America, be assured they will give you such a
covenant to digest as the presbytery of Scotland would have been
ashamed to offer to Charles the Second. They left their native land in
search of freedom, and found it in a desert. Divided as they are into a
thousand forms of policy and religion, there is one point in which they
all agree: they equally detest the pageantry of a king and the
supercilious hypocrisy of a bishop.
It is not, then, from the alienated affections of Ireland or America
that you can reasonably look for assistance; still less from the people
of England, who are actually contending for their rights, and in this
great question are parties against you. You are not, however, destitute
of every appearance of support: you have all the Jacobites, Non-jurors,
Roman Catholics, and Tories of this country, and all Scotland, without
exception. Considering from what family you are descended, the choice
of your friends has been singularly directed; and truly, Sir, if you
had not lost the Whig interest of England, I should admire your
dexterity in turning the hearts of your enemies. Is it possible for you
to place any confidence in men who, before they are faithful to you,
must renounce every opinion and betray every principle, both in church
and state, which they inherit from their ancestors and are confirmed in
by their education; whose numbers are so inconsiderable that they have
long since been obliged to give up the principles and language which
distinguish them as a party, and to fight under the banners of their
enemies? Their zeal begins with hypocrisy, and must conclude in
treachery. At first they deceive, at last they betray.
As to the Scotch, I must suppose your heart and understanding so
biassed from your earliest infancy in their favour that nothing less
than _your own_ misfortunes can undeceive you. You will not accept of
the uniform experience of your ancestors; and, when once a man is
determined to believe, the very absurdity of the doctrine confirms him
in his faith. A bigoted understanding can draw a proof of attachment to
the House of Hanover from a notorious zeal for the House of Stuart, and
find an earnest of future loyalty in former rebellions. Appearances
are, however, in their favour: so strongly, indeed, that one would
think they had forgotten that you are their lawful king, and had
mistaken you for a pretender to the crown. Let it be admitted, then,
that the Scotch are as sincere in their present professions as if you
were in reality, not an Englishman, but a Briton of the North. You
would not be the first prince of their native country against whom they
have rebelled, nor the first whom they have basely betrayed. Have you
forgotten, Sir, or has your favourite concealed from you, that part of
our history when the unhappy Charles (and he, too, had private virtues)
fled from the open, avowed indignation of his English subjects, and
surrendered himself at discretion to the good faith of his own
countrymen? Without looking for support in their affections as
subjects, he applied only to their honour as gentlemen for protection.
They received him, as they would your Majesty, with bows and smiles and
falsehood, and kept him until they had settled their bargain with the
English parliament, then basely sold their native king to the vengeance
of his enemies. This, Sir, was not the act of a few traitors, but the
deliberate treachery of a Scotch parliament representing the nation. A
wise prince might draw from it two lessons of equal utility to himself.
On one side he might learn to dread the undisguised resentment of a
generous people who dare openly assert their rights, and who in a just
cause are ready to meet their sovereign in the field. On the other side
he would be taught to apprehend something far more formidable: a
fawning treachery against which no prudence can guard, no courage can
defend. The insidious smile upon the cheek would warn him of the canker
in the heart.
From the uses to which one part of the army has been too frequently
applied, you have some reason to expect that there are no services they
would refuse. Here, too, we trace the partiality of your understanding.
You take the sense of the army from the conduct of the guards, with the
same justice with which you collect the sense of the people from the
representations of the ministry. Your marching regiments, Sir, will not
make the guards their example either as soldiers or subjects. They feel
and resent, as they ought to do, that invariable, undistinguishing
favour with which the guards are treated, while those gallant troops,
by whom every hazardous, every laborious service is performed, are left
to perish in garrisons abroad, or pine in quarters at home, neglected
and forgotten. If they had no sense of the great original duty they owe
their country, their resentment would operate like patriotism, and
leave your cause to be defended by those on whom you have lavished the
rewards and honours of their profession. The Prætorian bands, enervated
and debauched as they were, had still strength enough to awe the Roman
populace, but when the distant legions took the alarm they marched to
Rome and gave away the empire.
On this side, then, whichever way you turn your eyes, you see nothing
but perplexity and distress. You may determine to support the very
ministry who have reduced your affairs to this deplorable situation;
you may shelter yourself under the forms of a parliament, and set the
people at defiance; but be assured, Sir, that such a resolution would
be as imprudent as it would be odious. If it did not immediately shake
your establishment, it would rob you of your peace of mind for ever.
On the other, how different is the prospect! How easy, how safe and
honourable, is the path before you! The English nation declare they are
grossly injured by their representatives, and solicit your Majesty to
exert your lawful prerogative, and give them an opportunity of
recalling a trust which they find has been scandalously abused. You are
not to be told that the power of the House of Commons is not original,
but delegated to them for the welfare of the people, from whom they
received it. A question of right arises between the constituent and the
representative body. By what authority shall it be decided? Will your
Majesty interfere in a question in which you have, properly, no
immediate concern? It would be a step equally odious and unnecessary.
Shall the Lords be called upon to determine the rights and privileges
of the Commons? They cannot do it without a flagrant breach of the
constitution. Or will you refer it to the judges? They have often told
your ancestors that the law of parliament is above them. What part then
remains but to leave it to the people to determine for themselves? They
alone are injured, and since there is no superior power to which the
cause can be referred, they alone ought to determine.
I do not mean to perplex you with a tedious argument upon a subject
already so discussed that inspiration could hardly throw a new light
upon it. There are, however, two points of view in which it
particularly imports your Majesty to consider the late proceedings of
the House of Commons. By depriving a subject of his birthright they
have attributed to their own vote an authority equal to an act of the
whole legislature, and, though perhaps not with the same motives, have
strictly followed the example of the Long Parliament, which first
declared the regal office useless, and soon after, with as little
ceremony, dissolved the House of Lords. The same pretended power which
robs an English subject of his birthright may rob an English king of
his crown. In another view, the resolution of the House of Commons,
apparently not so dangerous to your Majesty, is still more alarming to
your people. Not contented with divesting one man of his right, they
have arbitrarily conveyed that right to another. They have set aside a
return as illegal, without daring to censure those officers who were
particularly apprised of Mr. Wilkes' incapacity, not only by the
declaration of the House, but expressly by the writ directed to them,
and who, nevertheless, returned him as duly elected. They have rejected
the majority of votes, the only criterion by which our laws judge of
the sense of the people; they have transferred the right of election
from the collective to the representative body; and by these acts,
taken separately or together, they have essentially altered the
original constitution of the House of Commons. Versed as your Majesty
undoubtedly is in the English history, it cannot escape you how much it
is your interest as well as your duty to prevent one of the three
estates from encroaching upon the province of the other two, or
assuming the authority of them all. When once they have departed from
the great constitutional line by which all their proceedings should be
directed, who will answer for their future moderation? Or what
assurance will they give you that, when they have trampled upon their
equals, they will submit to a superior? Your Majesty may learn
hereafter how nearly the slave and tyrant are allied.
Some of your council, more candid than the rest, admit the abandoned
profligacy of the present House of Commons, but oppose their
dissolution, upon an opinion, I confess, not very unwarrantable, that
their successors would be equally at the disposal of the treasury. I
cannot persuade myself that the nation will have profited so little by
experience. But if that opinion were well founded, you might then
gratify our wishes at an easy rate, and appease the present clamour
against your government, without offering any material injury to the
favourite cause of corruption.
You have still an honourable part to act. The affections of your
subjects may still be recovered. But before you subdue their hearts you
must gain a noble victory over your own. Discard those little, personal
resentments which have too long directed your public conduct. Pardon
this man the remainder of his punishment; and, if resentment still
prevails, make it what it should have been long since--an act, not of
mercy, but of contempt. He will soon fall back into his natural
station, a silent senator, and hardly supporting the weekly eloquence
of a newspaper. The gentle breath of peace would leave him on the
surface, neglected and unremoved. It is only the tempest that lifts him
from his place.
Without consulting your minister, call together your whole council. Let
it appear to the public that you can determine and act for yourself.
Come forward to your people. Lay aside the wretched formalities of a
king, and speak to your subjects with the spirit of a man and in the
language of a gentleman. Tell them you have been fatally deceived. The
acknowledgment will be no disgrace, but rather an honour, to your
understanding. Tell them you are determined to remove every cause of
complaint against your government, that you will give your confidence
to no man who does not possess the confidence of your subjects, and
leave it to themselves to determine, by their conduct at a future
election, whether or no it be in reality the general sense of the
nation that their rights have been arbitrarily invaded by the present
House of Commons, and the constitution betrayed. They will then do
justice to their representatives and to themselves.
These sentiments, Sir, and the style they are conveyed in, may be
offensive, perhaps, because they are new to you. Accustomed to the
language of courtiers, you measure their affections by the vehemence of
their expressions, and when they only praise you indifferently, you
admire their sincerity. But this is not a time to trifle with your
fortune. They deceive you, Sir, who tell you that you have many
friends, whose affections are founded upon a principle of personal
attachment. The first foundation of friendship is not the power of
conferring benefits, but the equality with which they are received and
may be returned. The fortune which made you a king forbade you to have
a friend. It is a law of nature which cannot be violated with impunity.
The mistaken prince who looks for friendship will find a favourite, and
in that favourite the ruin of his affairs.
The people of England are loyal to the House of Hanover, not from a
vain preference of one family to another, but from a conviction that
the establishment of that family was necessary to the support of their
civil and religious liberties. This, Sir, is a principle of allegiance
equally solid and rational, fit for Englishmen to adopt, and well
worthy of your Majesty's encouragement. We cannot long be deluded by
nominal distinctions. The name of Stuart, of itself, is only
contemptible; armed with the sovereign authority, their principles are
formidable. The prince who imitates their conduct should be warned by
their example, and, while he plumes himself upon the security of his
title to the crown, should remember that, as it was acquired by one
revolution, it may be lost by another.