This is that matchless Pigs meat so famous far and near
Oppressors hearts it fills with Dread. But poor Mens hearts does cheer.
PIGS' MEAT; OR, LESSONS FOR THE
SWINISH MULTITUDE.
PUBLISHED IN WEEKLY PENNY NUMBERS,
Collected by the Poor Man's Advocate (an old Veteran in the Cause of Freedom) in the Course of his Reading for more than Twenty Years.
INTENDED To promote among the Labouring Part of Mankind proper Ideas of their Situation, of their Importance, and of their Rights.
AND TO CONVINCE THEM That their forlorn Condition has not been entirely overlooked and forgotten, nor their just Cause unpleaded, neither by their Maker nor by the best and most enlightened of Men in all ages.
For the oppression of the Poor, for the sighing of the Needy, now will I arise, saith the Lord, I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him.
PSALM xii. ver. 5.
And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their task-masters: for I know their sorrows.
EXODUS, chap. iii. ver. 7.
THE THIRD EDITION.
LONDON: PRINTED FOR T. SPENCE, AT THE HIVE OF LIBERTY, No. 8, LITTLE-TURNSTILE, HIGH-HOLBORN.
Behold I conspired against my master, and slew him: but who sl
w all these?
2 Kings x. 9.
INTRODUCTION. A judicious Compiler is better than a bad Author.
THE BEE AND THE SPIDER. FROM DODSLEY'S FABLES.
THE Bee and the Spider once entered into a warm debate which was the better artist. The Spider urged her skill in the mathematics, and asserted, that no one was half so well acquainted as herself with the construction of lines, angles, squares and circles: that the web she daily wove was a specimen of art inimitable by any other creature in the universe: and, besides, that her works were derived from herself alone, the product of her own bowels; whereas the boasted honey of the Bee was stolen from every herb and flower of the field; nay, that
he had obligations even to the meanest weeds. To this the Bee replied, that she was in hopes the art of extracting honey from the meanest weeds would at least have been allowed her as an excellence; and, that, as to her stealing sweets from the herbs, and flowers of the field, her skill was therein so conspicuous, that no flower ever suffered the least diminution of its fragrance from so delicate an operation. Then, as to the Spider's vaunted knowledge in the construction of lines and angles, she believed she might safely rest the merits of her cause on the regularity alone of her combs; but since she could add this, the sweetness and excellence of her honey, and the various purposes to which her wax was employed, she had nothing to fear from the comparison of her skill with that of the weaver of a flimsy cobweb; for the value of every art, she observed, is chiefly to be estimated by its use.
FROM CATO's LETTERS. ON FREEDOM OF SPEECH.
SIR,
WITHOUT freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty, without freedom of speech: which is the right of every man, as far as by it he does not hurt and controul the right of another; and this is the only check which it ought to suffer, the only bounds which it ought to know.
This sacred privilege is so essential to free government, that the security of property and the freedom of speech always go together; and in those wretched countries where a man cannot call his tongue his own, he can scarce call any thing else his own. Whoever would overthow the liberty of the nation, must begin by subduing the liberty of speech; a thing terrible to public traitors.
This secret was so well known to the court of King Charles the first, that his wicked ministry procured a proclamation to forbid the people to talk of parliaments, which those traitors had laid aside. To assert the undoubted right of the subject, and defend his majesty's legal prerogative, was called disaffection, and punished as sedition. Nay, people were forbid to talk of religion in their families: for the priests too had combined to cook up tyranny, and suppress truth and the law. While the late King James, when Duke of York, went avowedly to mass, men were fined, imprisoned, and undone, for saying he was a papist: and that King Charles the second might live more securely a papist, there was an act of parliament made, declaring it treason to say that he was one.
That men ought to speak well of their governors, is true, while their governors deserve to be well spoken of; but to do public mischief without hearing of it, is only the prerogative and felicity of tyranny; a free people will be shewing they are
o, by their freedom of speech.
The administration of government is nothing else but the attendance of the trustees of the people, upon the interest and affairs of the people. And as it is the part and business of the people, for whose sake alone all public matters are, or ought to be transacted, to see whether they be well or ill transacted; so it is the interest, and ought to be the ambition, of all honest magistrates, to have their deeds openly examined, and publicly scanned: only the wicked governors of men dread what is said of them.
Freedom of speech is the great bulwark of liberty; they prosper and die together: and it is the terror of traitors and oppressors, and a barrier against them. It produces excellent writers, and encourages men of fine genius. Tacitus tells us, that the Roman commonwealth bred great and numerous authors, who wrote with equal boldness and eloquence: but when it was enslaved, those great wits were no more. Tyranny had usurped the place of equality, which is the soul of liberty, and destroyed public courage. The minds of men, terrified by unjust power, degenerated into all the vileness and methods of servitude: abject, sycophancy and blind submission grew the only means of preferment, and indeed of safety; men durst not open their mouths but to flatter.
Pliny the younger observes, that this dread of tyranny had such effect, that the senate, the great Roman senate, became at last stupid and dumb. Hence, says he, our spirit and genius are stupified, broken and sunk for ever. And in one of his epistles, speaking of the works of his uncle, he makes an apology for eight of them, as not written with the same vigour which was to be found in the rest; for that these eight were written in the reign of Nero, when the spirit of writing was cramped with fear.
I have long thought that the world are very much mistaken in their idea and distinction of libels. It has been hitherto generally understood that there are no other libels but those against magistrates, and those against private men: now to me there seems to be a third sort of libels, full as destructive as any of the former can possibly be, I mean libels against the people. It was otherwise at Athens and Rome; where, though, particular men, and even great men, were often treated with much freedom and severity, when they deserved it; yet the people, the body of the people, were spoken of with the utmost regard and reverence; the sacred privileges of the people, the inviolable majesty of the people, and the unappealable judgment of the people, were phrases common in those wise, great, and free cities. Other modes of speech are since grown fashionable, and popular madness is now almost proverbial; but this madness of theirs, whenever it happens, is derived from external causes. Oppression, they say, will make a wise man mad; and delusion has not less force; but where there are neither oppression nor imposters, the judgment of the people in the business of property, the preservation of which is the principal business of government, does rarely err. Perhaps they are destitute of grimace, mystery, reserve, and other accomplishments of courtiers; but as these are only masks to conceal the absence of honesty and sense, the people, who possess as they do th
substance, have reason to despise such insipid and contemptible shadows.
Machiavel, in the chapter where he proves that a multitude is wiser and more constant than a prince, complains, that the credid which the people should be in declines daily: For, says he, every man has liberty to speak what he pleases against them, but against a prince no man can talk without a thousand apprehensions and dangers. I have indeed often wondered, that the inveighing against the interest of the people, and calling their liberties in question, as has been, and is commonly done amongst us by old knaves and young fools, has never been made an express crime.
I must own, I know not what treason is, if sapping and betraying the liberties of a people be not treason, in the eternal and original nature of things. Let it be remembered for whose sake government is, or could be appointed; then let it be considered who are more to be regarded, the governors, or the governed; they indeed owe one another mutual duties; but if there be any transgressions committed, the side that is most obliged, ought doubtless to bear the most: and yet it is so far otherwise, that almost all over the earth, the people, for one injury that they do their governors, receive ten thousand from them: any, in some countries, it is made death and damnation, not to bear all the oppressions and cruelties which men, made wanton by power, inflict upon those that gave it them.
The truth is; If the people are suffered to keep their own, it is the most th
t they desire: but even that is a happiness which in few places falls to their lot; they are frequently robbed by those whom they pay to protect them. I know that it is a general charge against the people. that they are turbulent, restless, fickle, and unruly; than which there can be nothing more untrue, for they are only so, where they are made so. As to their being fickle, it is so false, that, on the contrary, they have almost ever a strong bent to received customs, and as strong a partiality to names and families that they have been used to: and as to their being turbulent, it is as false; since there is scarce and example in an hundred years of any people's giving governors any uneasiness, till their governors had made them uneasy: nay, for the most part, they bear many evils without returning one, and seldom throw off their burdens so long as they can stand under them.
From Swift's Sermon on False Witness.
A
Second
way by which a man becometh a false witness, is, when he mixeth falsehood and truth together, or concealeth some circumstances, which, if they were told, would destroy the falsehoods he uttered. So the two false witnesses who accused our Saviour before the chief priests, by a very little perverting his words, would have made him guilty of a capital crime; for so it was among the Jews to prophecy any evil against the temple.
This fellow said, I am able to destroy the Temple of God, and to rebuild it again in three days
Mat. xxvi. 6.
; whereas the words, as our Saviour spoke them, were to another end, and differently expressed; for when the Jews asked him to shew them a sign, he said,
Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
In such cases as these, an innocent man is half confounded, and looketh as if he were guilty, since he neither can deny his words, nor perhaps readily strip them from the malicious additions of a false witness.
Thirdly,
A man is a false witness, when, in accusing his neighbour, he endeavoureth to aggravate, by his gestures and tone of his voice, or when he chargeth a man with words, which were only repeated o
quoted from somebody else. As if any one should tell me that he heard another speak certain dangerous and seditious speeches, and I should immediately accuse him for speeking them himself; and so drop the only circumstance that made him innocent. This was the case of St. Stephen. The false witnesses said,
This man ceas
th not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place and the law
Acts vi, 13
. Whereas St. Stephen said no such words, but only repeated some prophesies of
Jeremiah
or
Malachi.
which threatened
Jerusalem
with destruction if it did not repent: However, by the fury of the people, this innocent holy person was stoned to death, for words he never spoke.
Fourthly,
The blackest kind of false witnesses, are those who do the offices of the devil, by tempting their brethren in order to betray them, I cannot call to mind any instances of this kind mentioned in holy scripture; but I am afraid this vile practice hath been too much followed in the world. When a man's temper hath been so soured by his misfortunes and hard usage, that perhaps he hath reason enough to complain; then one of these seducers, under the pretence of friendship, will seem to lament his case, urge the hardships he hath suffered, and endeavour to raise his passions, until he hath said something that a malicious informer can pervert or aggravate against him in a court of justice.
Fifthly,
Whoever beareth witness against his neighbour, out of a principle of malice and revenge, from any old grudge, or hatred to his person; such a man is a false witness in the sight of God, although what he says be true; because the motive or cause is evil, not to serve his prince or country, but to gratify his own resentments. And therefore, although a man thus accused, may be very justly punished by the law, yet this doth by no means acquit the accuser, who, instead of regarding the public service, intended only to glut his private rage and spite.
Sixthly,
I number among false witnesses, all those who make a trade of being informers, in hope of favour and reward; and to this end employ their time, either by listening in public places, to catch up an accidental word, or in corrupting men's servants to discover any unwary expression of their master; or thrusting themselves into company, and then using the most indecent scurrilous language; fastening a thousand falsehoods and scandals upon a whole party, on purpose to provoke such an answer as they may turn to an accusation: And truly this ungodly race is said to be grown so numerous, that men of different parties can hardly converse together with any security. Even the pulpit hath not been free from the misrepresentations of these informers; of whom the clergy have not wanted occasions to complain with holy
David: They daily mistake my words, all they imagine is to do me evil.
Nor is it any wonder at all, that this trade of informing should be now in a flourishing condition. since our case is manifestly thus; we are divided into two parties, with very little charity or temper toward each other: the prevailing side may talk of past things as they please with security, and generally do it in the most provoking words they can invent: while those who are down, are sometimes tempted to speak in favour of a lost cause, and therefore without great caution, must needs be often caught tripping, and thereby furnish plenty of materials for witnesses and informers.
Lastly,
Those may well be reckoned among false witnesses against their neighbour, who bring him into trouble and punishment by such accusations as are of no consequence at all to the public, nor can be of any other use but to create vexation. Such witnesses are those who cannot hear an idle intemperate expression, but they must immediately run to the magistrate to inform; or perhaps wrangling in their cups over night, when they were not able to speak or apprehend three words of common sense, will pretend to remember every thing in the morning, and think themselves very properly qualified to be accusers of their brethren.
It might perhaps be thought proper to have added something by way of advice to those who are unhappily engaged in this abominabe trade and sin of bearing false witness; but I am far from believing or supposing any of that destructive tribe are now my hearers. I look upon them as a sort of people that seldom frequent these holy places, where they can hardly pick up any materials to serve their turn, unless they think it worth their while to misrepresent or pervert the words of the preacher: and whoever is that way disposed, I doubt cannot be in a very good condition to edify and reform himself by what he heareth. God in his mercy preserve us all from the guilt of this grievous sin, forbidden in my text
Exod, xx. 16. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
and from the snares of those who are guilty of it!
I shall conclude with one or two precepts given by
Moses
from God to the children of Israel, in the xxiii. of
Exod.
1.2.
Thou shalt not raise a false report: put not thine hand with the wicked, to be an unrighteous witness.
Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil, neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many, to wrest judgment.
Now to God the father, &c.
SOME CAUSES OF ENGLISH MISERY.
BY SMOLLET.
NOTWITHSTANDING the improvements, the capital is become an overgrown monster; which, like a dropsical head, will in time leave the body and extremities without nourishment and support, The absurdity will appear in it full force; when we consider, that one sixth part of the natives of this whole extensive kingdom, is crowded within the bills of mortality.
What wonder that our villages are depopulated and our farms in want of day labours: The abolition of small farms, is but one cause of the decrease of population. Indeed, the incredible increase of horses and black cattle, to answer the purposes of luxury, requires a prodegious quantity of hay and grass, which are raised and managed without much labour; but a number of hands will always be wanted for the different branches of agriculter, whether the farms be large or small. The tide of luxury has swept all the inhabitants from the open country—the poorest squire, as well as the richest peer, must have his house in town, and make a figure with an extraordinary number of domestics. The plough boys', cow herds, and lower kinds, are debauched and seduced by the appearance and discourse of those coxcombs in livery, when they make their summer excurtions, they desert their dirt and drudgery, and swarm up to London, in hopes of getting into service, where they can live luxuriously, and wear fine cloaths, without being obliged to work; for idleness is natural to man.— Great numbers of those being disappointed in their expectation, become thieves and sharpers.
ON THE EXECUTION OF LOUIS CAPAT. From a Pamphlet entitled.
"Peace and Union."
By William Friend,
M. A.
LOUIS CAPET has afforded an excellent topick for parliamentary declamation. Let us strip the subject of figures of rhetorick, and no Englishman need be alarmed at the execution of and individual at Paris. Louis Capet was once King of France, and entitled to the honours of that exalted station. The supreme power of the nation declared that France should be a Republic; from that moment Louis Capet lost his titles. He was accused of enormous crimes, confined as a state prisoner, tried by the National Convention, found guilty, condemned, and executed. What is there wonderful in all this? Our revolution, the boast of the present days, pursued the same conduct as nearly as possible. Our Convention declared, that James the Second should be no longer king; it did not chuse to abolish kingship, but dignified William the Third with regal honours. James was stripped of his titles, and became plain James Stuart, and the rebublican William became a sovereign. James was not tried, condemned, and executed, because he saved his life by flight: but the laws against himself and his son, and the proceedings in the years fifteen and forty-five, must convince the most superficial reasoner, that the maxims of the English and French nations, with respect to the dethroning of kings, are exactly the same. But some one will say, Louis Capet was unjustly condemned. Ninety-nine out of a hundred, who make this objection, have not given themselves the trouble of examining the records of the trial; and why should I give greater credit to the remaining objector than to the verdict of the court? If Louis Capet did when king encourage the invasion of his country, however, we may be inclined to pity the unfortunate man, for the error of his conduct, we have no right to proclaim him innocent in pomt of law. It is, in short, no business of ours; and if all the crowned heads in the continent are taken off, it is no business of ours. We should be unworthy of the constitution settled at the revolution, and enemies to the Brunswick families now seated on our throne, if we denied to any nation the right of settling, as it pleased, its own internal government. These sentiments do not prevent us from commiserating the situation of the French refugees. They are entitled to our compassion; and it is but right that we should attend to their distresses, since foreign countries have been put to the expence of maintaining those refugees from our own island, who, for their attachment to an ancient family, were, by the rigour of the two foreign reigns, subjected to all the penalties exacted from recusant by the present government in France.
ON POLITICAL SUPERSTITION.
[From Barlow's Advice to the Privileged Orders.]
THERE is another consideration from which we may argue the total extinction of wars, as a necessary consequence of establishing governments on the representative wisdom of the people. We are all sensible that superstition is a blemish of human nature, by no means confined to subjects connected with religion. Political superstition is almost as strong as religious; and it is quite as universally used as an instrument of tyranny. To enumerate the variety of ways in which this instrument operates on the mind, would be more difficult than to form a general idea of the result of its operations. In monarchies it induces men to spill their blood for a particular family, or for a particular branch of that family who happens to have been born first, or last; or to have been taught to repeat a certain creed, in preference to other creeds. But the effect which I am going chiefly to notice, is that which respects the territorial boundaries of a government. For a man in Portugal of Spain to prefer belonging to one of those nations rather than the other, is as much superstition, as to prefer the house of Braganza to that of Bourbon, or Mary the second of England to her brother. All these subjects of preference stand upon the same footing as the turban and the hat, the cross and the crescent, or, the lily and the rose.
The boundaries of nations have been fixed for the accommodation of the
government,
without the least regard to the convenience of the people. Kings and ministers, who make a profitable trade of governing, are interested in extending the limits of their dominion as far as possible. They have a property in the people, and in the territory that they cover. The country and its inhabitants are to them a farm stocked with sheep. When they call up these sheep to be sheared, they teach them to know their names, to follow their master, and avoid a stranger. By this unaccountable imposition it is, that men are led from one extravagant folly to another,—to adore their king, to boast of their nation, and to wish for conquest,—circumstances equally ridiculous in themselves, and equally incomp
table with that rational estimation of things, which arises from the science of liberty.
FROM MERRY's ODE,
For the
14th.
of July,
1791.
HAVE kings and nobles
rights
alone?
Is this prolific globe
their own?
And is the mingled mass beside,
Form'd as the creature of their pride?
Not, so,—the dire deception o'er,
Mankind can now mankind adore;
Nor bauble crowns, nor regal toys,
Shall ch
at them of their natural joys,
Nor shall they more, by artifice subdued,
Kiss the oppressor's rod, "A SWINISH MULTITUDE."
Have not the titled sons of earth,
Usurp
d prerogative of birth;
As though appropriate to
descent,
Were high and noble sentiment?
What sentiments can noble be,
But those of truth and liberty?
And what can dignity dispense,
But justice and benevolence?
And are not these the common share,
Of all who breathe this vital air?
And has not kind impartial Heav'n,
To every rank an equal feeling given?
Virtue alone should vice
subdue,
Nor are THE MANY baser than THE FEW.
The Effects of War on the Poor.
(From Mr. Frend's Pamphlet entitled, "Peace and Union.")
THREE days after the debate on the king's message, I was walking from my friend's house to the neighbouring town, to inspect the printing of these few sheets, and in my way joined company with two men of the village, who, being employed by the Wool-staplers to let out spinning to the poor, had lately received orders to lower the value of labour. We were talking on this subject, when the exclamations of a groupe of poor women going to market, overhearing our conversation, made an impression on my mind which all the eloquence of the Houses of Lords and Commons cannot efface.— We are to be sconced three pence in the shilling; let others work for me, I'll not. We are to be sconced a fourth part of our labour. What is all this for? I did not dare to tell them what it was for, nor to add insult to misery. What is the beheading of a monarch to them? What is the navigation of the Scheldt to them? What is the freedom of a great nation to them, but reason for joy? Yet the debating only on these subjects has reached their cottages. They are already sconced three-pence in the shilling. What must be their fate, when we suffer under the most odious scourge of the human race, and the accumulation of taxes takes away half of that daily bread which is scarce sufficient at present for their support?
Oh! that I had the warning voice of an ancient Prophet, that I might penetrate into the inmost recesses of palaces, and appal the harranguers of senates. I would use no other language than that of the poor market-women. I would cry aloud in the ears of the first magistrate: We are sconced three-pence in the shilling, the fourth part of our labour, for what? I would address myself to the deliberating bodies: We are sconced three pence in the shilling, the fourth part of our labour, for what? Is there a man that could stand out against this eloquence? Yes. Thousands. Three-pence in the shilling for spinning conveys no ideas to them. They know not what a cottage is, they know not how the poor live, how they make up their scanty meal. Perhaps there may be some one in our House of Commons, whose feelings are in union with mine; communicate them to your colleagues, impress them with the horror attendant on their deliberations; tell them what the deduction of three-pence in the shilling occasions among the myriads of England, And should any grave courtier, pitying the distresses of the poor, be anxious to relieve them, say to him, There is an easy method: let the first magistrate, the peers, the representatives of the people, the rich men of the nation, all who are for war, be sconced one fourth part of their annual income to defray the expence of it. Let them be the first sufferers, let the burden fall on them not on the poor. Alas! my poor countrymen how many years calamity awaits you, before a single dish or a glass of wine will be withdrawn from the tables of opulence!
At this moment, perhaps the decree is gone forth for war. Let others talk of glory, let others celebrate the heroes, who are to deluge the world with blood—the words of the poor market-women will still resound in my ears—We are sconced three-pence in the shilling, one fourth of our labour. For what!!!
A Prognostic of the French Revolution. CHESTERFIELD TO HIS SON.
London
April,
13,
O. S.
1751.
I Received this moment your letter of the 19th, N. S. with the enclosed pieces relative to the present dispute between the king and the parliament I shall return them by Lord Huntingdon, whom you will soon see at Paris, and who will likewise carry you the piece, which I forgot in making up the packet I sent you by the Spanish Ambassador. The representation of the parliament is very well drawn,
suavitor in modo, fortiter in re.
They tell the king very respectfully that in a certain case,
which they should think it criminal to suppose,
they would not obey him. This hath a tendency to, what we call here revolution principles. I do not know what the Lord's anointed, his vicegerent upon earth, divinely appointed by him, and accountable to none but him for his actions, will either think or do, upon these symptoms of reason and good sense, which seem to be breaking out all over France; but this I foresee, that before the end of this century, the trade of both king and priest will not be half so good a one as it has been. Du Clos, in his Reflections, hath observed, and very truly,
qu'il y a un germe rasion qui commence â se dêveloper en France.
A
developpement
that must prove fatal to regal and papal pretensions. Prudence may, in many cases recommend an occasional submission to either; but when that ignorance, upon which an implicit faith in both could only be founded, is once removed, God's vicegerent, and Christ's vicar, will only be obeyed and believed, as far as what the one orders, and the other says, is conformable to reason and truth.
A LESSON FOR ANTIGALLICANS.
Extracts from a pamphlet, enti
led "A Tour through the Theatre of War, in the Months of November and December,
1792,
and January
1793.
"
—THERE is a vice in the civil polity of almost every state in Europe, that is necessarily the parent of revolution, creating all the misery-and crimes that afflict the great mass of mankind, and driving them to insurrection as a last resource. The government draws the money out of the pockets of the poor, to give it, under the denomination of places and pensions, to the rich. The rich avail themselves of this to accumulate property; till at last their colossal stride reaches from province to province, and the whole land, that seems the birth right of the community, is monopolized by a few individuals. The rest of the nation is then left at their mercy; and both the knowledge of mankind and experience prove, that the rest of the nation have nothing to hope for at their hands, but what they can obtain by making
their own
subservient to the support, the luxury, and the pleasure of their lordly masters, who always take care that the salary of their day's labour shall be precisely enough to supply rest and strength for the labours of the next. Thus are they reduced to more working automata, with neither the means nor leisure necessary to acquire instruction, or to soften their manners to social intercourse and enjoyments; and thus is the human species degraded, The evil, by a necessary progression, grows greater; for the number of rich growing smaller, proportion as the most wealthy swallow up the rest, the demand for labour becomes less, while the competition for employment increases. A harder bargain is consequently made, till at last the point of sufferance is past, the boast of burden kicks the load off his back, turns to a beast of prey, tears every thing he meets with to pieces, and takes a blind and furious vengeance for all the oppression he has suffered. Of this continued the Frenchinan with a sigh, my country is a lamentable example.
After this monopoly of landed property, the grand source of human vices and misfortunes. the greatest scourge that can afflict a people is an extensiv
foreign commerce. If by the nation be understood a few merchants. ship owners. ship's husbands, brokers, bankers manufact
re
s, and fiscal officers, the nation is indeed prosperous when trade is in a thriving state. But if by the nation we may be allowed to understand all those not comprised in the above description, that is to say at least nine-tenths of the community, the case is the reverse. It is self evident, that foreign commerce can only consist of exportation and importation,
less indeed where a people should be merely brokers and carriers for others. It is equally evident, that a country can only export what is produced by the labour of its inhabitants on the soil. or by their drudgery in manufactures If then no part of what is imported comes to the share of those who drudge and toil. can it be denied that they give up ease, plenty and leisure, for nothing? that the necessaries of life, the enjoyments, and repose of the many, are sacrificed to feed the luxury of the few? What a noble export trade does Ireland carry on in beef, pork, butter, and flour! Well, what does the nation at large. that live in that fertile country get in return? The advantage of never lasting meat, bread, or butter: of feed
ng on potatoes and butter-milk, and sleeping among the litter of their pigs; all which their
noble landlords
while drinking French wines, and wearing French silks, assure us is
vastly
conducive to their health! Oh! but in some other countries those who furnish all the exports, obtain a small portion of the returns. Yes; from America a noxious and intoxicating weed, an enervating drink from Asia, and from the other parts of Europe liquid poisons, that do indeed for a moment make them forget the sacrifice they cost.
This evil is the offspring of the former; for if property were divided with any tolerable equality, a man would begin by providing amply for his support, comfort, and enjoyment; and would only suffer the surplus to be exchanged for foreign superfluities; nor would he for superfluities condemn himself to incessant labour. I have made an exact calculation, continued he; and I find that four hours of work in a day, in our temperate climates, would suffice for the subsistence of a man and his family. Those that remain would afford him leisure for instruction and reflection; and it would then become impossible for such men to be imposed upon by the cant of a few interested individuals, who assure them that the nation has reached the highest pitch of prosperity, because they themselves have obtained every gratification o
not and luxury that they can devise. But to keep men ignorant, you must make them work, and to make them work you must keep them ignorant. This is the eternal circle in which rolls the torrent of abuse. I have often heard it said, that Heaven made some for enjoyment, and some for toil. I confess that I cannot myself see, why those who do nothing should have all, and why those who do all should have nothing.
He hold a number of political tenets more extraordinary still. He said, when wars were declared by the caprice, or for the interests of kings, that kings alone should fight the battles; that i
a nation at large were consulted, hostilities would rarely occur; that a country should never engage in a war in defence of a state, on which it is found it cannot depend for defence; that a minister who should attempt to embroil his country for futile or insufficient reasons, should be sent abroad, to fulfil in person the engagements he might have made; that the best way to prevent wars would be for every one to understand the use
which is indeed the bounden duty of every freeman; for without the means of resisting oppression, who can fla
ter himself that he is free?—A large state would then be unattackable, and the fee simple of a small one would not be worth the conquest.
He said, that magistrates, who should assume no improper power, could never be afraid of its being wrested out of their hand; and that the majori
y of a nation has a right to a bad government, upon the absurd supposition of its chusing such a one, in preference to a good one's b
ing thrust down their throats. But these and many other of his strange opinions, I forbear to mention, lest I should expose my new acquaintance to the censure of
Those wholesale c
tics, that in Coffee.
Houses cry down all philosophy.
All along the road from Calais to Dunkirk, from Dunkirk to Lisle, add from Lisle to Valenciennes we hardly saw a man that had not assumed some, thing of a military garb and appearance. Some had a sword and belt thrown over their shoulder, some had a feather in their hats, and some were fully accoutred. In a word, or rather in the words of Shakespeare, we found them
All furnish'd, all in arms,
All plum'd like est
id
es.
The diligence with which they were practising the military exercise in many places, and the heartiness in the cause that they expressed in all would have sufficed to convince us, that the idea many people in England affect to entertain of a small faction domineering it over the whole nation, was totally destitute of foundation, had any proof been wanting to overthrow an opinion so indefensible. How is it possible for a small part to oppress the whole, when all are armed? Yes: but the party averse to the revolutionists, though the most numerous, are afraid to shew themselves.—Why, then what a wretched opinion must they have of their cause, or what sorry dastards must they be? However, to "make assurance doubly sure," I conversed with numbers of people, of all ranks, on my way and found them, with very few exceptions, agreed upon the great principle of liberty. They frequently lamented that many unwise steps had been taken by their representatives, and reprobated the infamous crimes of particular factions; but they considered them, at the same time, as partial and accidental abuses of a system generally and essentially good. Here and there I met with a man, who openly regretted the old government: nor was it a little remarkable, that the greatest aristocrats I heard speak of politics, were employed by the new government in the civil and military line. Let it however be remembered, that the Department of the north is one of those the most suspected of aristocracy,
On December 6th we set off for Brussels. Desirous of not meeting with the same difficulties in our way that we had experienced in coming from Valenciennes, we hi
e
i an excellemt carriage, with four horses. This was the more necessary, as we did not leave Mons till the morning was far advanced. We found the roads entirely covered with convoys going to the army, with detachments of troops, and with straggling soldiers trudging on to join their respective regiments.
A thaw had lately taken place, the carriages deprived them of the benefit of the pavement, and they were obliged to wade through mud half way up their legs. Yet still their native gaiety supported them, and on they went, singing
ca ira,
and other patriotic tunes. We took up behind us two of th
se that seemed the most tired. It is only giving a florin or two more to the coachman, said my companion, and sleeping in the superbs instead of the town A little further on, as we were going slowly up a hill, I saw a young lad walking very lame, and losing his shoe at every moment in the mud. As he did not call upon pestilence and the devil to run away with them, and the road into the bargain, I was sure he could not be a Frenchman. although he had the national uniform on his back. We asked him if he also would get up behind, and he joyfully accepted our offer. But as the weather was cold, and he seemed weakly, we soon after found means to make room for him in our carriage. I then asked him if he had been wounded.—
Dieu merci!
he had only been cut down at the battle of Jemappe, and then wounded in the foot, while lying on the ground, which was the reason of his walking so lame. I told him he was too young to run such hazards, and bear the fatigues of a military life. Too young! said he, with a proud smile, that ill concealed a little indignation; too young! why I am now nineteen, and near three years ago was shot through the body in the Belgic war. He added that at the beginning of the present campaign he had been ill of a fever; that he had been sent to the hospital at Maubeuge; that in the time of his convalescence, he had walked out with some of his comrades; that they had fallen in with a party of French, who were engaged with the enemy at Grisoelle; that he had taken up a dead man's musket to have his shot,
tout comme un autre;
and that a ball from the rifle gun of a Tyrolian chasseur, had hit him in the neck.
When I enquired into the motives of his taking up arms, he said he had been on the side of the patriots before, and had heard that they were up again, and so he had l
ft his home at Namur, where he had a father, a mother, and a little sister
assez aimable,
and he would leave them again, as soon as it should please God and the blessed Virgin to cure the lameness of his foot; for a patriot should always fight for his country, and should not mind a wound or two, or a little pain, in a good cause. I am now going to Brussels, said he, to see some relations I have there.—Go where thou wilt, said I to myself, thou art a brave youth, and not only a patriot but a philosopher, although
I
verily believe thou dost not know the meaning of the word.
Gaiety was ever the Frenchman's birth-right, but never was it so strongly exhibited as since they have been animated by the spirit of Patriotism. This cheerfulness is always accompanied by another characteristic of the nation; an uncommon degree of carelessness and disregard of danger. In the plains of Champaigne, the two armies were often in sight and almost within shot of each other: At such times, there stood the Prussians menacing a charge, in regular array, with supported arms, and motionless as statues; and here were the French, dancing in rings around their fires, and broiling their meat on the points of their bayonets.
On a march, woe to the game that gets up before them; a hundred soldiers are sure to send after it the contents of their muskets, not without danger of shooting their comrades, Even the presence of the enemy is insufficient to correct this deviation from discipline. It once happened, as a battalion of volunteers was advancing to the attack, in the momentary expectation of receiving and returning the enemy's fire, that they trod up a solitary hare. As she run along the line, she was saluted with an universal shout, and with a shot or two at least from every company she passed. The fugitive however escaped it being no easy matter to kill so small an animal with a single ball.
The old animosity, and false point of honour, that used to set regiment against regiment, and man against man, and that were supposed every year to cost the state the lives of five hundred soldiers, are so much forgot, that a duel is now a thing of very unfrequent occurrence. It was predicted, that endless dissensions and jealousies would embroil the regular troops with the national guards, but these fears were so ill founded, that it is impossible to conceive an army living in more universal harmony than that of Dumourier. At public and private tables, nothing is more common than to see the shoulder-knot of a grenadier touching the epaulet of a Colonel; nor does this vicinage seem to surprise either party. The one shews no haughtiness, the other no servility, and both interchange upon equal terms the salutation of
Citizen
or Comrade. Though a stranger may be startled at it at first, his wonder diminishes when he finds that not a few of the common national volunteers are men of property, some of them possessing ten, twenty, and thirty thousand livres a year. Many of those I spoke with supported well the national character of politeness, but they had discarded the frivolous flippancy that was but too frequently its companion. They assumed no credit for their courage, spoke of their giving up ease and comfort to encounter the danger and hardships of a military life, as only discharging a debt they owed to their country; lamented its being desolated by war and faction; and vowed to see their enemies humbled, or to sleep in the dust. I listened to them with admiration, and, God and Mr. Burke forgive me, I thought I should have disgraced them by a comparison with the defunct chivalry of France.
Many of the officers, many even of the superior ranks, have been raised from that of a private soldier. In a ball or drawing-room, they would, no doubt, make an aukward figure; but surely, after a long apprenticeship to war, they are as fit to lead a company or a battalion into the fire, as a giddy and beardless boy, just broke loose from the military school.
Republican severity is by degrees removing that foppishness in dress and manners that sprung from the example of a frivolous court. The small sword, that formerly dangled at the side of the French officers and soldiers, has resigned its place to a weighty sabre. The three-cornered hat, that sheltered them neither from rain, sun, nor blows, is very generally changed into a helmet. Their hair, far the most part cut short, is in the state nature gave it; and many of their whiskers grow unchecked by the razor. The whole of their dress, in short, bespeaks more attention to utility than show. Some of their new corps must however be excepted, particularly the legion of the celebrated St. George. This is a body of seven hundred men, composed of Creoles, Negroes, and Mulattoes, and is dressed and accoutred in the richest and most brilliant manner.
I dined one day in company with a black captain of horse, and judged this new Othello to be worthy of his occupation. His easy and polite manners deserved, and met with the respect and attention of a great number of officers that were present. As for me, it did me good to see the general fraternity of mankind so nobly established, and convinced me, that all the worthless parts of the human race are only so, because debased by their political institutions.
Till I came to Liege, I never could give entire belief to the wonderful effects said to have been produced by the music of the ancients. How is it possible, I used to say, that among the multitude of our instruments, and the endless variety of our compositions, one of those moving sounds, or powerful passages, should never yet have been hit upon? But when I came to Liege, the struggle between my faith and my reason was at an end. I thought I discovered, that those enthusiastic emotions were not excited in the Greeks by the mechanical operation of "a concord of sweet sounds," but by the subject of their lays, the circumstances they stood in, and the disposition of their minds. In their old popular governments, glory and duty went hand in hand, and the persecution of their liberty, called forth the fanaticism of freedom. Such is the situation of the French, and such are their feelings, as I had an opportunity of observing at the dinner I have just mentioned. While we were at table, some itinerant musicians were admitted. I need not say that their music, vocal and instrumental, was far from being of an excellent kind. It was, nevertheless, astonishing to see the effect the Marseilles Hymn produced upon the company. When they came to the passage
aux armes, Citoyens!
all the French officers joined them in concert, most untuneable indeed, but with very forcible expression. Some of them stood up erect in military attitude, grasping their swords; and I saw tears trickle down faces as hard as iron. In my early youth I had felt much of the martial
mania
myself; but my long vacancy from warlike occupation, since the last peace, had given time to reason to take the place of sentiment; and cold calculations of safety and repose had damped if not extinguished all military ardour. The contagion, however, reached me; I repeated
aux armes
with the rest, and felt that I was again become a soldier.
This valour at table is well maintained in the field. If I had only the bare word of the French for it, I should not fail to make a large abatement for this self-praise. Credit, however, cannot be refused to the universal testimony of the natives of the country, who speak with artless wonder of what they call the
rage
of the new republicans. This bravery is the more meritorious, as a large proportion of their soldiers are boys. But they are boys, according to the words of our favourite dramatist, "with ladies' faces and fierce dragon's spleen."
During the whole of the journey we remarked, that the apprehension of a war with England was peculiarly painful to the French. Though flushed with their late successes, and "confident against a world in arms," it was evident there was nothing they dreaded more than such an event; not merely on account of the mischief that might ensue, but because it would force them to regard as enemies the only nation in Europe they considered as their friends.
All along the road, they anxiously asked us what we thought would be the consequence of the armament in England? We frankly told them, we presumed it would be war, and generally observed a moment of silence and dejection follow the delivery of our opinion. But soon, bristling up at the aspect of new dangers, several of them said—"Well! if all the world be determined to fight with us, we will fight with all the world. We can be killed but once.
The imminence of hostilities, however, diminished in no degree the respect they shewed us as Englishmen; and not only we did not meet with any thing like an insult in the whole of our tour; but, on the contrary, we experienced every where particular kindness and attention. They seemed eagerly to court our good opinion; and frequently begged us not to ascribe to a whole nation the faults of individuals, and not to charge their government with disorders its present state of vacillation rendered it incompetent to repress. If there was any disputing such high authorities as Mr. Burke, and the collective wisdom of the kings of the continent, I confess I should never have suspected, that I was travelling among a nation of savages, madmen, and assassins. I should rather have wished with Shakespeare,
—that these contending kingdoms,
England and France, whose very shores look pale
With envy of each other's happiness,
May cease their hatred—
—that never war advance
Her bleeding sword 'twixt England and fair France—
That English may as French, French Englishmen,
Receive each other.
They looked upon Louis XVI. as a tyrant and a traitor, who had brought a disastrous war upon their country. Though a king, they considered him as no more than another man. And let us Britons,
penitus ab orbe divisi,
who have a special privilege for judging better of what passes all over the world, than all the world, pity this lamentable mistake. Let us be the more indulgent, as the superior beings expressed no particular concern. The Heavens did not shed a tear; no earthly convulsion rent the veil of the Temple, nor did the thunder, rolling on the left of the guilty city, reprobate the atrocity of the action.
Nay, in proportion as our feelings are sensibly affected at the death of a king we have so few of us seen, let us make some allowance for the feelings of others. The minds of the Parisians were peculiarly irritated. Thousands of them had lost their dearest friends, and their nearest relatives, in the bloody seenes of which the deceased monarch had been the wilful, or the occasional cause; and they all saw their country invested by cruel and innumerable foes, who were come with the declared intention of reinstating him in his former despotism, and who asserted that he was the insidious accomplice of their hostile attack.
The same deeds done in different circumstances may stand as wide asunder as the poles. The killing of a man from whom we have received no offence, or upon strong provocation, constitutes in the first case, a horrible crime; in the second, a fault that may admit of excuse. Considered in this point of view, even the sanguinary scenes of the beginning of September may allow some little extenuation. Let no man imagine, that I mean in any degree to justify what I have never yet suffered with patience a Frenchman to defend. My blood has ever been chilled by the horrid recital; nor have I a dearer wish, than to see the instigators and preformers of these base and atrocious actions punished as they deserve. But it is not the less true, that the Parisians were driven to despair by the Duke of Brunswick's approach to Paris, and by his infamous manifestoes. Bouille's threat of not leaving stone upon stone in the capital, was backed by the menaces of the Emigrants. Their cruel conduct on the frontiers plainly showed the inhabitants of Paris what they had to expect. When the whole strength of the city rose to repel the enemy, they feared that they should leave their aged fathers, and their defenceless children, to the mercy of a band of conspirator, of which the part that was in the prisons was to be set at liberty by their accomplices without.
Be this true or false, it is certain that such was their persuasion; and I have been assured by a respectable French merchant, who mixed, without participating in these horrid scenes, that all the prisoners had received a day or two before stockings, striped blue and white, to enable them to recognize each other. Their being in this uniform, he said he could attest from his own observation. The nobles and the priests had also their distinctive marks. If I could doubt the assertions of numbers who pretend to have seen these marks, I could not easily reject the testimony of a youth, too ingenuous to deceive, and too young to invent, who was present at the massacre in the Convent of Carmelite Friars. He says, that he saw cards, taken from the breasts of the murdered priests, on which were depicted a royal crown, and a crown of thorns, with the words
Regiment de Salomon
written above, and below
miserere nostri.
Why then should an event, enchained with so many incidents and circumstances, be considered as the natural consequence of the revolution? Those who affect to look upon it in this light, and who would fain make it an argument for the extermination of the new principles of liberty, are not aware, that while the Saint Bartholomew in France, and the massacre of protestants in Ireland (scenes of blood far less provoked, and of much greater extent) are upon record; they are not aware, I say, that their bold conclusion involves the condemnation of the christian religion, and the proscription of all kings.
But admitting that the page of history was never so fouly stained before, this is so far from being a reason for bringing the French under the yoke of their old despotism, that it is the strongest argument that can be found for letting them try the experiment of a new government. As the cruelty with which they are reproached has marked their conduct from the first day of the revolution, it is evident that their old government made them what they are; for who will believe, that there is any thing in the kindly climate or grateful soil of France to render its inhabitants serocious, or that the taking of the Bastile instilled this sudden venom into their souls. It is indeed little to be wondered at, that a people treated like brutes, for so many centuries, should become like brutes when they broke their chain.
It may perhaps be safer, in this christian land, for the man who rejoiced that there were prisons for the libellers of a queen, to libel a whole nation, and to advise the cutting of his fellow-creatures throats, from generation to generation, than it is for another to inculcate charity to our neighbours, by a candid statement of facts, and demonstrable truth. But as my tour induced me to relate the things I saw, and as these things led me naturally to the reflections that accompany the mention of them, I defy reproach, and trust that my readers will shew some indulgence to the hasty production of an unskilful pen.
ON THE EXCELLENCY OF A FREE GOVERNMENT, AND ITS TENDENCY TO EXALT THE NATURE OF MAN.
By
Dr. Price.
EVERY Member of a Free State, having his property secure, and knowing himself his own governor, possesses a consciousness of dignity in himself, and feels incitements to emulation and improvement, to which the miserable slaves of arbitrary power must be utter strangers. In such a state all the springs of action have room to operate, and the mind is stimulated to the noblest exertions. But to be obliged, from our birth, to look up to a creature no better than ourselves, as the master of our fortunes; and to receive his will as our law—What can be more humiliating? What elevated ideas can enter a mind in such a situation?—Agreeably to this remark, the subjects of free states have, in all ages, been most distinguished for genius and knowledge. Liberty is the soil where the arts and sciences have flourished; and the more free a state has been, the more have the powers of the human mind been drawn forth into action; and the greater number of BRAVE men has it produced. With what lustre do the ancient free states of
Greece
shine in the annals of the world? How different is that country now, under the Great Turk? The difference between a country inhabited by men, and by brutes, is not greater.
These are reflections which should be constantly present to every mind in this country. As
moral
liberty is the prime blessing of man in his
private
capacity, so is
civil
liberty in his
public
capacity. There is nothing that requires more to be
w
hed
than power. There is nothing that ought to be opposed with a more determined resolution than its
roachments. Sleep in a state, as
Montesquien
says, is always followed by slavery.
The people of this kingdom were once warmed by such sentiments as these. Many a sycophant of power have they sacrificed. Often have they fought and bled in the cause of Liberty. But that time seems to be going. The fair inheritance of liberty left us by our ancestors many of us are not unwilling to resign. An unbounded venality, the inseparable companion of dissipation and extravagance, has poisoned the springs of public virtue among us: and should any events ever arise that should render the same opposition necessary that took place in the times of King
Charles
the First, and
James
the Second, I am afraid all that is valuable to us would be lost.—
The terror of the standing army, the danger of the public funds, and the all-corrupting influence of the treasury, would deaden all zeal, and produce general acquiescence and servility.
A LAMENTATION FOR THE OPPRESSED.
From the
Deserted Village.
SWEET smiling Village, loveliest of the lawn,
Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn;
Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen,
And desolation saddens all the green;
One only master grasps the whole domain,
And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain:
No more thy glassy brook reflects the day,
But choak'd with sedges, works its weedy way.
Along thy glades, a solitary guest,
The hollow sounding bittern guards its nest;
Amidst thy desart walks the lapwing flies,
And tires their echoes with unvaried cries.
Sunk are thy bowers, in shapeless ruin all,
And the long grass o'ertops the mould'ring wall;
And trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand,
Far, far away, thy children leave the land.
Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay;
Princes and lords may flourish or may fade;
A breath can make them, as a breath has made;
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroy'd, can never be supplied.
A time there was, ere England's griefs began,
When every rood of ground maintain'd its man,
For him light labour spread her wholesome store,
Just gave what life required, but gave no more:
His best companions, innocence and health;
And his best riches, ignorance of wealth.
But times are alter'd; trade's unfeeling train
Usurp the land, and dispossess the swain;
Along the lawn, where scattered hamlets rose,
Unweildy wealth, and cumbrous pomp repose;
And every want to opulence allied,
And every pang that folly pays to pride.
These gentle hours that plenty bade to bloom,
Those calm desires that ask'd but little room,
Those healthful sports that grac'd the peaceful scene▪
Liv'd in each look, and brighten'd all the green;
These far departing seek a kinder shore,
And rural mirth and manners are no more.
Yes! let the rich deride, the proud disdain,
These simple blessings of the lowly train;
To me more dear, congenial to my heart,
One native charm, than all the gloss of art;
Spontaneous joys, where nature has its play,
The soul adopt, and owns their first-born sway;
Lightly they frolic o'er the vacant mind,
Unenvied, unmolested, unconfin'd.
But the long pomp, the midnight masquerade,
With all the freaks of wanton wealth array'd,
In these, ere trifles half their wish obtain,
The toiling pleasure sickens into pain;
And, even while fashions brightest arts decoy,
The heart distrusting asks, if this be joy?
Ye friends to truth, ye statesmen, who survey
The rich man's joys encrease, the poor's decay,
Tis yours to judge, how wide the limits stand
Between a splendid and an happy land.
Proud swells the tide with loads of freighted ore,
And snouring folly hails them from her shore;
Hoards even beyond the miser's wish abound,
And rich men flock from all the world around,
Yet count our gains. This wealth is but a name
That leaves our useful products still the same.
Not so the loss. The man of wealth and pride,
Takes up a space that many poor supplied;
Space for his lake; his parks extended bounds;
Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds;
The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth,
Has robb'd the neighbouring fields of half their growth;
His seat, where solitary sports are seen,
Indignant spurns the cottage from the green;
Around the world each needful product flies,
For all the luxuries the world supplies,
While thus the land adorn'd for pleasure, all
In barren splendor feebly waits the fall.
As some fair female unadorn'd and plain,
Secure to please while youth confirms her reign,
Slights every borrowed charm that dress supplies,
Nor shares with art the triumph of her eyes;
But when those charms are past, for charms are frail,
When time advances and when lovers fail,
She then shines forth, solicitous to bless,
In all the glaring impotence of dress.
Thus fares the land by luxury betrayed,
In nature's simplest charmes at first arrayed,
But verging to decline, its splendors rife,
Its vistas strike, its palaces surprize;
While scourg'd by famine from the smiling land,
The mournful peasant leads his humble band;
And while he sinks without one arm to save,
The country blooms—a garden, and a grave.
Where then, ah where, shall poverty reside,
To scape the pressure of contiguous pride.
If to some common's fenceless limits stray'd,
He drives his flock to pick the scanty blade.
Those fenceless fields the sons of whealth divide,
And even the bare-worn common is denied.
If to the city sped—What waits him there?
To see profusion that he must not share;
To see ten thousand baneful arts combin'd
To pamper luxury and thin mankind;
To see those joys the sons of pleasure know,
Extorted from his fellow-creatures' woe.
Here where the courtier glitters in brocade,
There the pale artist plies the sickly trade;
Here, while the proud their long-dawn pomps display,
There the black gibbet glooms beside the way.
The dome where pleasure holds her midnight reign,
Here richly deck'd, admits the gorgeous train;
Tumultuous grandeur crowds the blazing square,
The rattling chariots clash, the torches glare.
Sure scenes like these no troubles e'er annoy?
Sure these denote one universal joy?
Are these thy serious thoughts?—Ah, turn thine eyes
Where the poor houseless shivering female lies.
She once perhaps in village plenty blest,
Has wept at tales of innocence distrest;
Her modest looks the cottage might adorn,
Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn;
Now lost to all; her friends, her virtue sled;
Near her betrayer's door she lays her head,
And pinch'd with cold, and shrinking from the shower,
With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour,
When idly first ambitious of the town,
She left her wheel and robes of country brown.
ON THE RESPONSIBILITY OF KINGS.
From
THE CANDID PHILOSOPHER.
I ONCE thought that in point of morals the actions of all men, however distinguished in rank, stood on the same footing, and were entitled to the same praise or censure. I thought that the morality of a monarch and of a private man, as prescribed by the same divine authority, were exactly the same. But I find the world thinks otherwise. The world thinks, that what is fit and just in a subject is not so in a king; that a king is not bound by those narrow rules that were only intended to bind the vulgar herd; and that a king may commit actions which, though highly criminal in a subject, are not so in him. Owing to these opinions, a political and practical system has been drawn by acute statesmen, and metaphysical lawyers; in which, among other equally judicious principles, they lay it down as a rule, that though in the case of a subject the master is answerable for the ill conduct of his servants, yet in the case of a sovereign, he is not responsible for the errors and misconduct of his ministers▪ So far from it,
they
are accountable for
his
misconduct and errors, if such he
could
commit, for they say he cannot. They say he is not a FREE AGENT, but a
more machine.
and as such can
do no wrong
[therefore can do no right] the reason of this they tell us is, that the king is always supposed to be advised by his ministers, and, therefore, to imagine he was capable of doing injustice, or was to be made responsible for his actions, would be to destroy his independence. This is paying the king but a very
scorbutic
compliment. To represent him as a
machine,
and the
mouth-piece
of his ministers, is treating him as an idiot, or a puppet moved by wires. And with respect to the
independency
they want to ascribe to the king, I insist on it they rob him of it entirely, according to their system; and render him the most abject, pitiful dependent creature imaginable, dependent on the nod, the wink, the command of his servants. They make him a very child in leading strings, unfit to walk himself, but to be led blind-fold wherever his tutors shall be pleased to drag him. Whether this is the case in reality with any king now living, I presume not to say; but it has been the case of multitudes, whom HISTORY has damned to everlasting infamy in her fair and impartial page. If in a point of this delicate nature I may dare to hazard an opinion, I would say, that I think a king (I mean of Utopia not of England) ought to be personally responsible for his misconduct, as much as a private man is for his: that a king ought to be responsible for his misconduct in choosing ignorant or wicked ministers: That though a king takes the advice of others, yet, as advice does not bind his conduct, he is as much accountable for it as the
private
malefactor would be in taking and pursuing the ill advice of his comrades to rob or murder.
FROM THE SAME. ROMAN PATRIOTISM FOUNDED ON INJUSTICE, AND THE RUIN OF MANKIND.
THE patriotism of ancient Rome has been much extolled by modern writers, but I think unjustly. Her patriotism was founded on the most flagrant injustice and iniquity, and therefore deserved not so much to be called patriotism, as a desire to render Rome the mistress of the universe.
For this purpose she scrupled not committing all manner of tyrannous and wicked acts against the liberties of mankind. Her feverish fondness for universal empire laid desolate all the known world. The possessions, the habitations, the paintings, the sculptures, all the riches of the Romans, were the spoils of plundered nations. Thus they erected to themselves an empire as unwieldy as it was unjust, on the ruins of their fellow creatures. What then are all their beautiful lectures and pompous declamations on the love of their country? What their laboured orations in praise of LIBERTY? Indisputable proofs indeed of their eloquence; but not of their humanity. If the language of benevolence were to constitute the character, we must allow it is due to these Romans; but if actions are to afertain the right, and to be considered as the criterion of justice, we shall find it a difficult matter to make good their claim, though we were masters of eloquence equal to their own.
A DESCRIPTION OF ENGLAND.
From the
LETTERS OF A PERSIAN IN ENGLAND, TO HIS FRIEND AT ISPAHAN.
THOU askest if the English are as free as heretofore? the courtiers assure me confidently that they are; but the men who have least relation to the court, are daily alarming themselves and others with apprehension of danger to their liberty.—I have been told that the Parliament is the curb to the king's authority: and yet I am well informed, that the only way to advancement in the court is to gain a seat in Parliament.
The House of Commons is the representative of the nation, nevertheless there are many great
towns
which send to deputies thither, and many hamlets, almost uninhabited, that have a right of sending
two.
Several members have never seen their electors, and several are elected by the
Paliament,
who were rejected by the
people.
All the electors swear not to sell their voices, yet many of the candidates are undone by the expence of
buying them.
This whole affair is involved in deep mistery, and inexplicable difficulties.
Thou askest if commerce be as flourishing as formerly: Some whom I have consulted upon that head say, it is now in its meridian; and there is really an appearance of its being so; for luxury is
prodigiously
encreased, and it is hard to imagine how it can be supported without an inexhaustible trade: But
others
pretend, that
this very luxury
is a proof of its decline; and they add, that the
frauds
and
villanies
in all the trading companies, are so many inward poisons, which if not speedily expelled, will destroy it entirely in a little time.
Thou wouldst know if property be so safely guarded as is generally believed: It is certain that the whole power of a King of
England
cannot force an acre of land from the weakest of his subjects; but a
knavish attorney
will take away his whole estate by those very
laws
which were designed for its security: The
judges
are uncorrupt,
appeals
are free, and notwithstanding all these advantages it is usually better for a man to lose his right than to sue for it.
These,
Mirza,
are the
contradictions
that perplex me. My judgment is bewildered in uncertainty; I doubt my own observations and distrust the relations of others: more time and better information may perhaps clear them up to me; till then modesty forbids me to impose my conjectures upon thee, after the manner of Christian
travellers,
whose prompt decisions are the effect rather of folly than penetration.
A LESSON FOR GENTLEMEN VOLUNTEERS.
From the
LETTERS OF A PERSIAN IN ENGLAND TO HIS FRIEND AT ISPAHAN.
AS I was walking in the fields, near this city, the other morning, a disbanded soldier, somewhat in years, implored my charity, and to excite my compassion, bared his bosom, on which were the scars of many wounds, all received in the service of his country. I gladly relieved his wants, and being desirous to inform myself of every thing, fell into discourse with him on the wars in which he had served. He told me he had been present at the taking of ten or twelve strong towns, and had a share in the danger and glory of almost as many victories. How then, said I, comes it to pass that you are laid aside? Thy strength is indeed in its decline, but not yet wasted; and I should think that experience would well supply the loss of youth. Alas! Sir, answered he, I have a good heart, and tolerable limbs, but I want three inches more of stature: I am brave and able enough, thank God, but not quite handsome enough to be a soldier.
How then didst thou serve so long, returned I, in
Flanders?
Sir, said he, there were some thousands such ill-looking fellows, who did very well in the day of battle, but would make no figure at a review.—It appears to me very strange, replied I, that thou shouldest be poor after fighting so many years with such great success. The plunder of a single town in the
east
is enough to enrich every soldier that helped to take it. Plunder! Sir, said he; we have no such term in the modern art of war. We fight for sixpence a day.—But when you have gained a battle do you get nothing by it?—Yes, said he, we have the advantage to go on and besiege a town.—Ay, then, my honest lad, comes your harvest.—Then, Sir, replied he, it defends itself till we are half of us destroyed: and when it can hold out no longer, it capitulates; that is, every burgher saves his house, and every soldier carries off his baggage.—What becomes of the conquering army?—Why the conquering army has the pleasure to besiege another town, which capitulates also; and at the end of the campaign it goes into quarters.—But when you enter an enemy's country don't you raise contributions? The generals do, answered he, but military discipline allows no part of it to the common soldiers; they have just sixpence a day as they had before.
A LESSON FOR ALL MEN.
From
LOOKE ON GOVERNMENT.
WHETHER we consider natural reason, which tells us, that men, being once born, have a right to their preservation, and consequently to meat and drink, and such other things as nature affords for their subsistence: Or revelation, which gives us an account of those grants God made of the world to Adam, and to Noah, and his sons; it is very
clear,
that God, (as King David says,
Psal.
115.16.) HAS GIVEN THE EARTH TO THE CHILDREN OF MEN, GIVEN IT TO MANKIND IN COMMON.
FROM SPENCE's RIGHTS OF MAN.
A
SONG,
to be sung at the Commencement of the Milennium, when there shall be neither Lords nor Landlords, but God and Man will be all in all.
FIRST PRINTED IN THE YEAR 1782.
Tune,
"God save the King."
1
HARK! how the trumpet's sound
See Leviticus, Chap. 25.
Proclaims the land around
The Jubilee!
Tells all the poor oppress'd,
No more they shall be cess'd,
Nor landlords more molest
Their property.
2.
Rents t' ourselves now we pay,
Dreading no quarter day,
Fraught with distress.
Welcome that day draws near,
For then our rents we share
Though the inhabitants in every district or parish in the world have an undoubted right to divide the WHOLE of the rents equally among them, and suffer the state and all public affairs to be supported by taxes as usual; yet from the numerous evils and restraints attending revenue laws, and the number of collectors, informers, &c. appendant on the fame, it is supposed, they would rather prefer, That after the whole amount of the rents are collected in a parish from every person, according to the full value of the premises which they occupy, so much per pound, according to act of parliament, should be set apart for support of the state instead of all taxes; that another sum should next be deducted for support of the parish establishment, instead of tolls, tythes, rates, cesses, &c. and that after these important matters were provided for, the remainder of the money should be equally divided among all the settled inhabitants, whether poor or rich.
,
Earth's rightful lords we are
Ordain'd for this.
3.
How hath the oppressor ceas'd,
Isaiah, Chap. 14.
And all the world releas'd
From misery!
The fir-trees all rejoice,
And cedars lift their voice,
Ceas'd now the FELLER's noise,
Long rais'd by thee.
4.
The sceptre now is broke,
Which with continual stroke
The nations smote!
Hell from beneath doth rise,
To meet thy lofty eyes,
From the most pompous size,
How brought to nought!
5.
Since then this Jubilee
Sets all at Liberty
Let us be glad.
Behold each man return
To his possession
No more like doves to mourn
By landlords sad!
ALL MONARCHIES NATURALLY TEND TO DESPOTISM.
From
CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS.
THOUGH Monarchies may differ a good deal, Kings differ very little. Those who are absolute desire to continue so, and those who are not, endeavour to become so; hence, the same maxims and manners, almost in all courts: Voluptuousness and profusion are encouraged, the one to sink the people into indolence, the other into poverty, consequently into despondency.
A MODEST PLEA FOR AN EQUAL COMMONWEALTH, AGAINST MONARCHY.
Published in the Year
1659.
THOUGH I was never possest with a
evil spirit of opposition, or genius of contrad
g and snarling at what is present; but rather studied at least a passive, if not an active compliance with the present power; as knowing there was never any power, whose commission was not passed, if not under the
broad seal
of Heaven's
approbation,
yet at least by the
privy-seal
of God's permissive
providence;
which I have always taken as a sufficient warrant for paying the tribute of passive obedience, wheresoever I received the benefit of reciprocal protection: Yet I cann
but acknowledge some governments more pure, refined, and less prone to corruption, than others; and certainly, those wherein the supreme magistrate (whether one or more) hath an interest distinct from that of the people, must be most apt to degenerate, and have greatest propensity to tyranny and oppression. Now whether
monarchy,
that winds up all the strings in the
instrument of government
to the interest of a
single person;
that tunes laws, religion, and all things, to an harmony and compliance with the
monarch's
single will, may not justly be suspected of this strain, I leave at the bar of any considerate man's judgment to be decided.
Certainly, whatever gloss or varnish the courtship or flatteries of
princes
or their
parasites
may set upon it, such a
government
is diametrically opposite to, and inconsistent with, the true liberty and happiness of any people.
I remember to have read a pretty strange passage of one of the French kings, that he was the most religious prince, and greatest tyrant that ever wore the crown of
France.
I was (I confess) some time startled at the strangeness of the
character;
but our late experience of one, might wear the same livery, makes me able not only to digest the wonder, but also to give credence to this general
aphorism,
that whatever may be the qualifications of any prince in reference to the personal endowments of his mind, the title of
good
was never justly attributed to any
king,
in reference to his office, except comparatively: And therefore, in my apprehension,
elective
kingdoms have small advantage of
hereditary,
by reason the unhappiness of such governments seems not so much to spring from the nature of the person administering, as of the office and dignity, which ever lays an iron yoke of slavery and oppression on the peoples' necks: So that, considering the vast expence of blood and treasure with which the competition of the office and dignity is usually managed by the scarlet candidates of crowns and sceptres, an hereditary monarchy may seem eligible, as the lesser evil; especially, if by some fundamental constitution, like the
Salique
law of
France,
the absurd (though not unusual) pretensions of women and children might be cut off: For to hang the keys of the power civil and ecclesiastic upon
apron strings,
and to put the sceptre into a hand sitter to were a distaff, is to invert the order both of God and nature, and to set a nation with its heels upwards. And yet I know it is the opinion of some, that women and children are fittest to make princes, as being of a more passive spirit; and therefore likeliest to steer by the ad
ice of wise council: by reason they repose less stress and confidence in their own prudence than men; in authority of which, the happy and prosperous reign of Queen
Elizabeth
is usually alledg'd; but whether without wrong to the more than masculine vigour of her spirit, and matchless quickness of parts, whereby she was, to a wonder, qualified for government, and reported rather to out-strip than come short of the more noble sex, I leave others to judge. But should we grant this assertion to have the countenance of reason, and that experience had also set to it its seal of confirmation; it is so far from being of any advantage to monarchy, by warding off the blow usually given by such as skirmish against it, with their reasons sharpened with these inconveniences, that it gives the deepest wound to its reputation that could be desired, by asserting
oligarchy,
which by the general consent of all times and ages, hath been exploded as one of the worst of tyrannies, to be the best of monarchies.
I have met with some, that plead much for the
single person
that should be only the name, without the thing; the office, without the power; the shadow or image, without the substance; as if it were impossible for men, that are the masters and proprietors of reason, to be knit together into civil society and peace for their own common interest and safety, without erecting either some gaudy thing to humour them, or some scare-crow to fright them into obedience; Nor do I know whose convenience would be herein consulted, except the lawyers, who (if like pack-horses trained up in one road) not able to change their accustomed pace or stile, it be prudence for the nation to hazard a relapse into tyranny, and again expose their lives and liberties to the will and lust of an arbitrary power, to set up a
John
of
Oke,
or
Will
of
Stile,
with infinite expence of blood and treasure, by reimposing the yoke so lately cast off, that this pack, &c. may not alter the stile and form of their writs, &c. I say wherefore the nation should be so over-indulgent to a corrupt interest of men, rather than to regulate and reform the forms of law, that, through the subtility of this generation, are become rather snares than fences of our es
ates and properties, falls not within the precincts of my apprehension.
Should we now unbowel and trace to its original this name, for which there have of late appeared so many advocates, I presume it would be found of as ill complexion as the word
Tyrant
was accounted among the Greeks; the English word
king,
being but the abbreviate of
cunning,
the usual epithet (as all men know) of knaves; and to speak truth, experience hath made good, though never so great a saint hath sate upon the throne, the devil and a bishop have ever stept into the office: For I am not of that fond opinion, that
kings
are not capable in their private capacities of like virtues and qualifications with other men; but that, notwithstanding their accomplishments, how excellent, how bright, how orient soever are their personal virtues, they stand on slippery places, and their dignities, their interests, their parasites, their flatterers, are snares too great for them to retain their integrity, and therefore that the talent of sovereign power is too great, too precious to be intrusted or deposited, in one man's hand, though an
angel,
left so great a
temptation
should endanger his fall, and make him apostate to a devil.
That kings are God's scourges, and given in wrath, we have the testimony of scripture.
Nimrod
was a great hunter, a mighty man, a great oppressor, and the first king or prince we read of; the first that invaded the liberty of the world, that usurped first authority, and presumed to exercise dominion over his brethren; the first that put a period to that golden age, wherein no other than paternal government was known; but though thus nigh the morning of time, God sent his scourge
Nimrod
as a just plague amongst the other nations of the earth; yet the people of God, the seed of
Abraham,
the children of
Israel,
were a long while after free, a free state, and enjoyed their native liberties till the time of
Samuel,
when they rebelled, and desired a king like the other nations, that they might be like the heathen whom God had cast out before them; which God construed no other than apostacy, and rejecting of him, than rebellion and high treason against his own divine majesty; and said,
They have rejected me:
And then tells them what would be the issue, fruit, and product thereof.
They should give away their liberty, and be subjected to an arbitrary power, and become the slaves and vassals of their king, who should take their sons and their daughters to make them his servants, and send them forth to fight his battles; that is, to be the instruments of his pride and luxury, and the champions of his malice and ambition.
And then he should destroy their property, and take away their houses, and their vineyards, and give them to his servants. Thus the spirit of God gives the same description of a
King
as of what we call a
Tyrant,
a
Nero,
a
Monster,
as if they were all one, and it were essential to the nature of the office or dignity to be a
beast of prey, a l
viathan,
an oppressor and devourer of the people; which character hath been too easy to be read in the lives of most of the best kings, whose names are not taken off the file of memory.
Now as for those that would have a mock, a counterfeit, a limited king, a king and no king, an empty title, a bare name,
vox & preterea nihil,
or I know not what: they propose a remedy worse than the disease; for to divide the sovereignty, is to say a seene of blood, to sow the seed of a perpetual civil war, and intail ruin on ourselves and posterity:
What is divided cannot stand;
there will spring up perpetual jealousies, fears and animosities, which will cause intrenchings on each others authority, until the one have supplanted and overturned the other, this is to institute a civil war, anarchy and confusion, instead of a well ordered commonwealth or politic.
Having thus unmasked the true nature of monarchy, which is no other than the mere gentle or civil expression of tyranny, I shall endeavour to obviate some of the most plausible and strenuous arguments, by whose strength and subtility it is endeavoured to be obtruded, and our assents conciliated to the reception thereof.
One of the grand arguments whereby the betrayers of our liberty endeavour to decoy us into the iron yoke, we have so lately shaken of, is taken from our long use and custom to draw therein, which hath rendered slavery a second nature to us, and therefore endeavour to scare us from our liberty as a novel and dangerous thing; as if servitude were more natural to a nation than freedom, or any custom could utterly expunge nature: I am sure the former cannot reflect with the greater disgrace, or more derogate from the honour of our nation, that we should be of so coarse a metal, so base an alloy, of so spaniel-like couchant, slavish, and degenerate a spirit, than the other doth deviate from truth; but the worthy advocates of this cause, measure truth by the wicked standard of their base and corrupt designs, as they take altitude of all other mens spirits, though never so brave and elevated by the Jacob's staff of their own pitiful crouching, fawning humour.
It would waste more ink and paper than I am either willing, or have leisure to bestow, should I shew how much the state of our nation is altered, and into how great an unsuitableness we are of late travelled unto that government, this argument would plead precription for.
But of what weight or trurh is it of, will easily appear to any that have taken notice of that, passage of our modern history of the last century, which c
erns the gallant hero Sir Philip Sidney; who though born in that most unlucky juncture of time for prod
cing brave spirits, when the nation tr
led under the government of a woman, was yet thought word
y of the Polish crown, and had an overture in order to his election thereto, had not his jealous mistress prevented; if, then, one born, under the inf
ences of a female government, and not of the highest rank of nobility, was thought si
to sway a scepter, of how great blasphemy against the honour of our nation, may they be thought guilty, who say, the
r
-born people of England, after they have
roke the more ancient Norman yoke, and the more modern of a latter, &c. are not
to enjoy that liberty, that hath been the price of so much blood and treasure: But should we concede all the argument seem
to beg, that our necks are used to the yoke, and we are become familiar to servitude; shall
e the
fore willingly suffer our ears to be bored to the posts of our new masters, and become slave
for ever? Shall we court our bonds, and glory in that which is our shame? Shall we never learn to be free, and value liberty? Shall we never emancipate ourselves and posterity, but intail thraldom and s
cry on them also, to all generations? For so long as we draw in this yoke, our condition is the
with slaves; whatsoever is born unto us is a ves
l of our Lords; the fruit of our loins must drink of the same cup with us, draw in the same yoke, groan under the same tyranny and oppression we bequeath unto them: nay, who knows but their bondage may
n
rease, li
e that of Israel's under the son or Solomon, whose little finger was heavier than his father's l
ins; for tyrannies usually exasperate and wax worse with continuance: shall we now bequeath our children liberty or bonds, freedom or oppression? If we, who have had our necks worn with the yoke, and our backs bowed down with heavy burdens, are of a couchant slavish spirit, perhaps our posterity, if born in a freer air, and under the influences of a more benign government, may prove of more generous and noble spirits, worthy of, and knowing how to prize their liberty. But without doubt, those brave and gallant souls, by the conduct of whose valour and prudence we have broken the iron yoke of arbitrary and exorbitant power; and by the good providence of God, redeemed the captivity of our nation, from the unrighteous bonds of its wicked oppressors, are worthy of, and know how to prize and improve what hath been purchased with so much
eat and oil, and will not in the end sell their birth-right for a mess of pottage, but leave an offspring, heirs of their own valour and gallantry, that will, with the utmost peril of their lives and fortunes, desend and preserve what the labours of their ancestors hath purchased, with sore travel both of mind and body, and so transmit it intire to their posterity, through msny generations, till the consummation of all things, and that time shall be no more.
But for a farther and more fatisfactory answer, to silence this argument, we may consider how the scene is changed, and balance of lands altered since these last centuries; and by reason thereof, with how great difficulty monarchy hath made good its ground since Henry the Eighth's days, in which it first began most visible to decline, and hath ever since been posting to its period.
For that wilful prince, by alienating the church revenues, quite altered the balance of lands that was the basis of his government, and thereby did that service unawares, that pulled up the stake of monarchy: for the church (which with all its preferments, was at the king's devotion and sole dispose) did at that time possess a third part of the lands and wealth of the whole nation: which being afterwards sold, and coming into the hands of private men, set up many thousands of families that had no dependence on the crown. Since which time, the number of freeholders being much encreased, the nation hath had a natural and strong vergency towards a commonwealth; which hath been much discovered in the spirit and complexion of our parliaments, of which the house of commons (heretofore an inconsiderable truckling kind of court, that was only summoned for the Prince to milk their purses, and let the people blood in the silver vein) grew now more peremptory, and began to give check to their princes exorbitances; insomuch, that Queen Elizabeth was put to her courtship to retain them in allegiance; as afterwards King James, to a thousand shifts and juggles: who, notwithstanding all his King-craft and cunning, in which he so much gloried, and boasted himself so great a master, was scarce able, with much juggling and dissimulation, to divert the storm from falling on his own head, which afterward rained so much blood and vengeance on his son and posterity, to the utter ruin and confusion of his family.
To conclude therefore this particular, it being a maxim of truth, placed beyond all hazard of contradiction, that no government can be fixed in this nation, but according to the balance of land. That Prince that is not able, neither by his own nor the public revenue, in some measure to counterpoise, if not over balance the greater part of the people, must necessarily be tenant at will for the crown he wears: for they that are the proprietors of the land and wealth of any nation, will with ease be able, by that magnetism, to draw the greatest number of abettors to their side, and so to gild over their pretensions, as to render them current with the people, and so in the end, give law to the rest of their brethren: Therefore, where there is one proprietor or landlord, as in Turkey, there is absolute monarchy; where a few, aristocracy, &c.
Now, since the crown lands, and church lands of this nation are sold, what other prop or pillar of security is left for the throne of a prince to rest upon, except that of a mercenary army, lies not within view of my apprehensions; and then how wholesome or safe advice the re-establishing of monarchy is to this nation, I leave all men (that have not altogether abjured their reason and conscience, to judge and determine.
As for those poetical, if not prophane flourishes, wherewith orators and poets, the constant parasites of princes, use to gild over monarchy, pretending it the most natural and rational of all other forms of government, and that whose pattern was first shown in the mount, or rather let down from heaven, parale
ling it with God's regimen of the universe, which is alledged as its prototype first
exemplar;
and therefore to have something more of a divine right and character impressed upon it than any other, &c.
These, I say, are such trite, bald, and slight reasonings, that they do not merit so much respect as to receive an answer; for may we not as well by this loose and allusive way of arguing, borrow a pattern from heaven for the triumvirate, that Augustus, Lepidus, and Mare Antony sometime imposed on Rome.
Doth it not as well quadrate with the sacred Trinity, by the triple sceptred of whose divine providence the empire of the world is administered, as by their's sometime that of the Romans? Will any one therefore be so bold as to say, that it was the most natural and rational government, and founded by no less than a divine right, according to its pattern and archetype in the heavens! notwithstanding the brand of the blackest and bloodiest tyranny Rome ever saw hath been set thereon, by the universal consent of all historians.
Or may we not, considering the pride, ambition, rapine, extortion, injury and oppression, that usually crowd into the courts of the best princes, with as much or more reason parallel absolute monarchy, with that of the prince of darkness, in which there is no Trinity, as in the other; and therefore more exactly quadrate to the absoluteness our proud monarchs so much endeavour to obtain?
I confess, could we have a prince to whom majesty might be atributed, without prophane hyperboles, that was a true vicar or lieutenant of God, that was not subject to the passions and infirmities, much less the vices and monstrosities of human nature, that could neither be imposed on by deceit, nor abused by flattery, whom the passions neither of fear nor affection, could warp to the least declivity, from what is right and honest; whose reason could never be biassed by any private interest or base respect, to decline the paths of justice and equity, but would manage the reins of his power with a like constancy and steadiness, as by the hand of Providence the helm of the universe is steered: I should then become an advocate of monarchy, and acknowledge it to have the impress of divinity, and bear the character and inscription of God upon it, to be the best and most absolute form of government, and a true copy of its divine original: but till security be given for such a righteous administration, I desire to be excused from being a pander to ambition, or the advocate of tyranny, as having learnt,
It is not good for man to be alone,
especially on the high and slippery places, where the strongest heads are apt to wax giddy; but,
in the multitude of counsellors there is safety:
and methinks, the very dialect of princes in the plural number (whatever of state or majesty may be pretended) is a witness of, and doth clearly speak the unnaturalness of such exorbitant monopolies of power, and that though they act in a single capacity, are willing to speak like a commonwealth.
Most of the other arguments, of which the advocates of tyranny make use, are drawn from the pretended advantages of that government, above and beyond others in respect of secrecy, celerity, unanimity, and the like, which though conveniencies, yet being far too light to counterpoise and balance the other in commodities, together with the great charge and excise they are rated at, require no other answer, nor shall I waste more time and ink upon them.
Having thus passed the pikes of the sharpest arguments, that are usually raised in defence of the odd thing called a single person, I shall only speak a word or two to that is founded on the single command, that in times of war and eminent danger, when the gates of Janus's temple are set open, is committed to one man, it being a received maxim, that reason hath always conceded an advantage to the absolute jurisdiction of a single person in the field, prescribing to that end but one general to an army, for fear of divisions upon contrary counsels and commands.
To which may be replied, notwithstanding generals are not taken upon trust, as
kings
in successive
monarchies,
but upon the test of experience, and proved sufficiency manifested in former services; yet if it seem expedient to the
commonwealth,
there may be a rotation in that office as well as others, as was anciently in the
Roman republic,
whose armies were led forth by their annual successive consuls, and that with great success and victory.
But the expedient our present parliament hath found out by commission, doth so fully answer this objection that I need say no more unto it; for without doubt, it is the interest of a free state to have all the people so trained up in military discipline, and made familiar with arms, that he may not be thought arrived at the just accomplishments of a gentleman, that is not able to lead an army in the field, it being among the Romans no absurd apostrophe to leave the ploughtail, to head an army, or,
vice versa,
when their military employments were accomplished: how much then may they be thought to fall short of the accomplishments of a gentleman, that know not how to manage the conduct of a troop of horse, as I fear, too many of our gentry, upon a due scrutiny would be found; who, notwithstanding all their great pretences to be accounted
armigeri,
or esquires, are scarce stout enough to discharge a pistol, or were ever militant beyond the borders of their ladies carpets.
I shall now sound a retreat to the further progress of my pen on this theme, lest I should seem too much to triumph over a baffled and prostrate enemy, it being my desire to use victory with like moderation, I desire to bear a foil, conquest or captivity: therefore, fince by the good providence of God, together with the gallant conduct of the no less prudent than valiant assertors of our native rights and liberties, we are re-instated in the possession of our birth-rights, I shall attempt the discovery of those rocks and shelves, on which in the late night of
apostacy
we split our liberties, and endanger the utter ruin and shipwreck of our lives and fortunes, in the dangerous sea of an exorbitant and unlimited
power;
and thereby strike some sparks of light for the future better steering of the commonwealth, in whose bottom, as all our lives and felicities are adventured, we are all concerned to endeavour its being brought into a safe port and harbour.
The work then of our present pilots, that sit at the stern, and manage the conduct of our affairs, is, to endeavour the commonwealth may be so equally balanced, as it may neither have propensity to a second relapse into monarchy, as of late; or
oligarchy,
which is worse: nor yet into
anarchy,
the worst of all three: But to settle a free-state upon such just and righteous foundations as cannot be moved, that may be a strong rampire of defence, not only to our civil liberties, as men, from the future enchroachment of tyranny, or inundation of exorbitant power; but also of security to our spiritual liberties, as Christians, from the invasion of those that desire to domineer and lord it over the consciences of their brethren: both which seem so linked and twisted to each other, that what conduces to the security of one, hath no smail tendency to the establishing of the other also, and do commonly so inseparable accompany each other, that wheresoever there is a free-state, or equal commonwealth, liberty of conscience is inviolably preserved, together with convenient and inoffensive latitude in toleration of religions, as in Holland, Venice, &c.
Now, for the better securing of these, we are to take notice of what persons or things are most inconsistent with, and have greatest enmity to, the interest of a free-state or equal commonwealth.
For discovery of which, as I know it a crime of presumption unpardonable, for one seated in the vale of a private condition, to pretend a fairer prospect into the interest of state, than those Providence hath placed in the watch-towers, and on the pinnacles of power; yet by reason a by-stander may be allowed to discern something of the game; and he that is out of play, to shew the ground to a bowler; and one that stands below may better know what props the foundation rests upon, than he that is on the top of the tower: and it being the duty of every one to cast in his mite to the vaster treasures of their knowledge, to whom Providence hath committed the conduct of our affairs, I am bold, being partly thereto encouraged by that great candour wherewith I observe the like tribute of zealous and faithful hearts are already received, to tender what in my apprehension may have a tendency to a future settlement and security. I confess, were we at this time bowed down under the government of a monarch, in whose court every counsellor of state is to be taken on an implicit faith to enjoy by his prince's patent and favour, a monopoly of reason as well as honour; and that his understanding is no less elevated than according to the proportion his titles and fortunes swell above the tide of other mens: I might justly be accounted absurd to offer any thing of this nature, as knowing with what scorn and contempt so rash an adventure would be encountered.
But in a free state, where the greatest senators are not ashamed to confer with the meanest persons, I am not afraid to put myself into the crowd of those that make addresses of this nature: wherefore, to conclude this parenthesis, and resume the thread of our discourse, there are nor, as I presume, past two or three sorts of persons, whose interests run counter to, or, indeed are not twisted and wound up in the same botton with that of a free state, or at least in the spinning out of a few years, might not be interwoven therewith; and those are, the Lawyer, the Divine, and Hereditary Nobility; as for the Cavalier and Courtier, I question not but a little time would breathe out their antipathy, and warp their affections to a perfect compliance, and closing with an equal commonwealth.
Discontent productive of Human Happiness and the Elevation of the Species.
From
Young's Spirit of Athens.
WHY are we tenacious of liberty, but because it gives an open field to that exertion of our minds or bodies, whence alone pleasure can proceed? —whether they are employed in tracking a wild beast, or in exploring a system, it is the same pleasure; and restriction to the man who hath once tasted it, is surely worse than death.
The discontented spirit of mankind, so often and so much deprecated by every trifler in metaphysics, is then found to be consistent with their happiness, and necessary to their improvement. Divinely is it thus instituted, that the activity of our faculties should constitute our happiness, whilst what blesses the individual, enriches the species; and the pursuit which gives pleasure to each, tends to some acquisition productive of further distinctions to humanity, and elivating it more and more, in the system in which it makes a part.
AN ODE, IN IMITATION OF ALCAEUS.
By Sir
WILLIAM JONES,
Kt.
One of the Judges of the Supreme Court of Judicature at
Calcutta.
WHAT constitutes a State?
Not high-rais'd battlement, or labour'd mound,
Thick wall, or moated gate;
Not cities proud with spires, and turrets crown'd;
Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride;
Not starr'd and spangled courts,
Where low-bred baseness wafts perfume to pride;
No:—MEN, high-minded MEN,
With pow'rs as far above dull brutes endu'd,
In sorest, brake, or den,
As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude;
Men, who their
duties
know,
But know their
rights,
and, knowing, dare maintain,
Prevent the long-aim'd blow,
And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain:
These
constitute a State,
And sov'reign LAW,
that State's collected will,
O'er thrones and globes elate
Sits Empress, crowning good, repressing ill;
Smit by her sacred frown
The fiend
Discrection
like a vapour sinks,
And e'en the all-dazzling
Crown
Hides his faint rays, and at her bidding shrinks,
Such
was
this heav'n-lov'd isle,
That
Lesbos
fairer and the
Cretan
shore!
No more shall freedom smile?
Shall
Britons
languish, and be MEN no more?
Since all must life resign,
Those sweet rewards, which decorate the brave,
'Tis folly to decline,
And steal inglorious to the silent grave.
Every Man is born with an imprescriptible Claim to a Portion of the Elements.
From
Barlow's Advice to the Privileged Orders.
IT is a truth, I believe, not to be called in question, that every man is born with an imprescriptible claim to a portion of the elements, which portion is termed his
birth-right.
Society may vary this right, as to its form, but never can destroy it in substance. She has no controul over the man till he is born; and the right being born with him, and being necessary to his existence, she can no more annihilate the one than the other, though she has the power of new-modelling both. But on coming into the world, he finds that the ground which nature had promised him is taken up, and in the occupancy of others; society has changed the form of his birth-right; the general stock of elements, from which the lives of men are to be supported, has undergone a new modification; and his portion among the rest. He is told, that he cannot claim it in its present form, as an independent inheritance; that he must draw on the stock of society, instead of the stock of nature; that he is banished from the mother and must cleave to the nurse. In this unexpected occurrence he is unprepared to act; but knowledge is a part of the stock of society: and an indispensible part to be allotted to the portion of the claimant, is
instruction
relative to the new arrangement of natural right. To withhold this instruction, therefore, would be not merely the omission of a duty, but the commission of a crime; and society in this case would sin against the man, before the man could sin against society.
I should hope to meet the assent of all unprejudiced readers, in carrying this idea still further. In cases where a person is born of poor parents, or finds himself brought into the community of men, without the means of subsistence, society is bound in duty to furnish him with the means. She ought not only to instruct him in the artificial laws by which property is secured, but in the artificial industry by which it is obtained. She is bound in
justice
as well as policy, to give him some art or trade. For the reason of his incapacity is, that
she
has usurped his birth-right; and this restoring it to him in another form, more convenient to both parties. The failure of society in this branch of her duty, is the occasion of much the greater part of the evils that call for criminal jurisprudence. The individual feels that he is robbed of his natural right; he cannot bring his process to reclaim it from the great community by which he is overpowered; he therefore feels authorized in reprisal; in taking another's goods to replace his own. And it must be confessed, that in numberless instances the conduct of society justifies him in this proceeding, she has seized
his
property and commenced the war against him.
Some, who perceive these truths, say that it is unsafe for society to publish them; but I say it is unsafe not to publish them. For the party from which the mischief is expected to arise, has the knowledge of them already, and has acted upon them in all ages. It is the wise who are ignorant of these things, and not the foolish. They are truths of nature; and in them the teachers of mankind are the only party that remains to be taught: It is a subject on which the logic of indigence is much clearer than that of opulence. The latter reasons from contrivance, the former from feeling; and God has not endowed us with false feelings, in things that so weightily concern our happiness.
None can deny that the obligation is much stronger on me to support my life, than to support the claim that my neighbour has to his property. Nature commands the first, society the second:—In one I obey the laws of God, which are universal and eternal; in the other the laws of man, which are local and temporary.
It has been the folly of old governments to begin every thing at the wrong end, and to erect their institutions on an inversion of principle. This is more sadly the case in their systems of jurisprudence, than is commonly imagined.
Compelling
justice is always mistaken for
rendering
justice. But this important branch of administration consists not merely in compelling men to be just to each other, and individuals to society,—this is not the whole, nor is it the principal part, nor even the beginning, of the operation. The source of power is said to be the source of justice; but it does not answer this description, as long as it contents itself with
compulsion.
Justice must begin by flowing from its source; and the first, as well as the most important object is, to open its channels from society to all the individual members. This part of the administration being well devised and diligently executed, the other parts would lessen away by degrees to matters of inferior consideration.
It is an undoubted truth, that our duty is inseparably connected with our happiness; and why should we despair of convincing every member of society of a truth so important for him to know? Should any person object, by saying, that nothing like this has ever been tried. Society has hitherto been curst with governments whose existence depended on the extinction of truth. Every moral light has been smothered under the bushel of perpetual imposition; from whence it emits but faint and glimmering rays, always insufficient to form any luminous system on any of the civil concerns of men. But these covers are crumbling to the dust, with the governments which they support; and the probability becomes more apparent, the more it is considered, that society is capable of curing all the evils to which it has given birth.
HOW TO CONSTITUTE A FREE GOVERNMENT.
From
CATO'S LETTERS.
THE only Secret in forming a Free Government, is to make the interests of the Governors and of the Governed the same, as far as human policy can contrive. Liberty cannot be preserved any other way. Men have long found, from the weakness and depravity of themselves and one another, that most men will act for interest against duty, as often as they dare. So that to engage them to their duty, interest must be linked to the observance of it, and danger to the breach of it. Personal advantages and security, must be the rewards of duty and obedience; and disgrace, torture, and death, the punishment of treachery and corruption.
Human wisdom has yet found out but one certain expedient to effect this; and that is, to have the concerns of all directed by all, as far as possibly can be: and where the persons interested are too numerous, or live too distant to meet together on all emergencies, they must moderate necessity by prudence, and act by deputies whose interest is the same with their own, and whose property is so intermingled with theirs, and so engaged upon the same bottom, that principals and deputies must stand and fall together. When the deputies thus act for their own interest, by acting for the interest of their principals; when they can make no law but what they themselves, and their posterity, must be subject to; when they can give no money, but what they must pay their share of; when they can do no mischief, but what must fall upon their own heads in common with their countrymen; their principals may then expect good laws, little mischief, and much frugality.
Here therefore lies the great point of necessity and care in forming the constitution, that the persons entrusted and representing, shall either never have an interest detached from the persons entrusting and represented, or never the means to pursue it. Now to compass this great point effectually, no other way is left but one of these two, or rather both, namely, to make the deputies so numerous, that there may be no possibility of corrupting the majority; or, by changing them so often, that there is no sufficient time to corrupt them, and to carry the ends of that corruption. The people may be very sure, that the major part of their deputies being honest will keep the rest so; and that they will all be honest, when they have no temptations to be knaves.
The glorious Prospect of better Times, which are fast approaching.
From
The Critic Philosopher.
He hath shewed strength with his arm: he hath
SCATTERED
the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath
PUT DOWN
the mighty from their seats, and
EXALTED
them of
LOW
degree. He hath
FILLED
the
HUNGRY
with good things, and the
RICH
he hath sent
EMPTY AWAY.
Luke i. ver. 51.
THE Gothic pride of absurd prejudices, cemented by the ignorance and weakness of our forefathers, must fall to the ground; and on its ruin must be raised the immortal temple of
reason,
of liberty, of justice! At the sight of this glorious fabric, despotism will shudder, tyranny shall be struck dumb; irritated pride must murmur; unmasked avidity shall be confounded; and philosophy, smiling at her great work, will secretly applaud herself for the trophy thus erected to her honour. The RIGHTS OF MAN, engraved by nature upon his heart, in indelible characters, restored to their original perfection: that primitive equality on which all were formed, must take place of artificial inequality effected by self-created nobility, be placed on a proper footing, and change its nature, objects, and pretensions; the clergy must be reformed and brought back to that simple, evangelical modesty, that most beautiful ornament, which a proud and worldy spirit has long disfigured.
The rich must be convinced, that while they live sumptuously, and while the POOR are fed with a few of the
scanty crumbs
which fall from their table, they act quite contrary to the tenor of that gospel, which they say they believe. It is not in nature or reason, that one man should destroy twenty thousand a year, and another sh
uld be left without the common necessaries of life: —No, every creature which nature hath formed with a mouth and digestive powers, has an equal right to participate of her blessings.
To conclude, we trust that the glorious fabric of freedom, reared up, as it were, by the hand of Onipotence, will soon appear. A fabric that will stand fir
and un
haken, as being fenced round with barriers, which will mock the dark designs of treachery, and bid defiance to the impotent efforts of despotism and corruption.
Mr. Burke's tyrannical system of politics, and confined ideas of liberty, published in his late pamphlet, must fall to the ground; and every scheme, or plan, made use of to oppress the human race, must be destroyed. Wealth and property must be wrested from the hands of rapacity and indolence, and divided amongst mankind at large, in proportion as they merit it. Then will those of useful invigorated industry shine as useful members of the community. 'Tis true, nations like individuals seem subject to infatuation, and while they are under its influence, they submit to treatment which would shock them, if they were in their proper senses. Men can assign no other reason for bearing oppression, than that they bore it before.—The world is grown old in error, I grant, but it should not on that account preclude reform. Notwithstanding its great age, society is hardly yet got beyond its first elements! Legislators have hitherto only drawn lines or boundaries to confine mankind, instead of tracing plans to make them happy. In all their general institutions, they seem to have been ignorant that man is a being formed for love and friendship: they have rather considered him as in a state of perpetual warfare with his fellow-creatures. Hence it is, that the systems of all governments, and the spirit of their laws, have been directed rather to separate than to unite the different members of society; by granting peculiar privileges to some; by restraining others; by rendering the meltitude passive, and giving activity and power only to a few; by occasioning superabundance in palaces, and famine in the peasant's cot; by counteracting, in short, the designs of God and nature, in the impartial diffusion of their blessings.
Laws, founded upon such unnatural principles, have kept the whole machine of society in a state of perpetual discord and distraction. They have hindered the rich from becoming humane, by giving a sanction to their insolent luxuries. They have robbed the poor of every right, even of permission to utter their complaints: they have chained down genius; clipped the wings of thought; and chilled, with freezing pressure the warm sallies of sensibility: —By treating man as a ferocious animal, those laws have made him so in reality. They made him jealous of his fellow-creatures: they erected a wall of prejudice and division between one people and another: their voice, like that of
demons;
crying out to the inhabitants of every country,
be guarded against strangers and foreigners, and look upon them as your natural enemies.
—By these means, a sort of constant hostility has been kept up in the universe, man being at war with man, nation with nation, and empire with empire!
We have a book, which we call our guide to eternal happiness; it teacheth us, that all the human race descended from one man, and that we are all brethren; yet we are, by our own laws, daily enacting a specific distinction, and giving one part of us a statute authority to commit rapine and plunder the other. We believe that a divine prophet came down, exerted himself, and died for the redemption of all nations from misery and punishment; and while we sacrifice to him for this unparalelled love, we overwhelm one another with the very evils, which he, by his examples and sufferings, taught us to avoid.
THE ADVANTAGES OF FREEDOM OF SPEECH.
From
THE CANDID PHILOSOPHER.
EVERY one will allow, that freedom of thought ought not, and cannot be restrained, however freedom of speech may be so. The judge observed very justly to a satirical author, that the law forbade him to call him rogue. "I know it, my lord," replied as justly the arch wag; "but the law does not forbid my
thinking
your lordship one."
Since, then, freedom of thought cannot be taken from a man, and is confessedly useful, let us briefly consider the advantages of Freedom of Speech.
And here a most excellent author occurs to me, and I shall give his sentiments on the subject, as nearly as I can remember, they being perfectly agreeable to my own:—
The passions are not to be extinguished but with life: To forbid, therefore, people to speak, is to forbid them to feel.—The more men express of their hate and resentment, perhaps the less they retain; and sometimes they vent the whole that way; but these passions, where they are smothered, will be apt to fester, to grow venomous, and to discharge themselves by a more dangerous organ than the mouth; even by an armed and vindictive hard. Less dangerous is a railing mouth than an heart filled with bitterness and curses; and more terrible to a prince ought to be the secret execrations of his people than their open revilings, or than even the assaults of his enemies. In truth, where no liberty is allowed to speak of governors, besides that of praising them, their praises will be little regarded. Their tenderness and aversion to have their conduct examined will be
to prompt people to think their conduct guilty or
; to suspect their management and designs to be worse tha
perhaps they are; and to become turbulent and seditious, rather than be forced to be silent,
THE MARSEILLES MARCH, OR HYMN.
YE sons of France! awake to glory,
Hark! hark! what myriads bid you rise!
Your children, wives, and grandsires hoary,
Behold their tears, and hear their cries.
Shall hateful tyrants, mischief breeding,
With hireling hosts a ruffian band,
Affright and desolate the land,
While peace and liberty lie bleeding!
To arms, to arms, ye brave,
Th' avenging sword unsheath;
March on, march on, all hearts resolv'd
On victory or death.
Now, now the dang'rous storm is rolling,
Which treach'rous kings, confed'rate, raise:
The dogs of war, let loose, are howling,
And so! our fields and cities blaze.
And shall we basely view the ruin,
Wh
le lawless force, with guilty stride,
Spread desolation far and wide,
With crimes and blood his hands embruing?
To arms, to arms, ye brave, &c.
With luxury and pride surrounded,
The vile insatiate despots dare,
Their thirst of power and gold unbounded,
To mete and vend the light and air.
Like beasts of burthen would they load us,
Like Gods would bid their slaves adore;
But man is man, and who is more?
Then shall they longer lash and goad us?
To arms, to arms, ye brave, &c.
O Liberty! can man resign thee,
Once having felt thy gen'rous flame!
Can dungeons, bolts and bars confine thee,
Or whips thy noble spirit tame!
Too long the world has wept bewailing,
That falsehood's dagger tyrants wield;
But Freedom is our sword and shield,
And all their arts are unavailing.
To arms, to arms, ye brave, &c.
Translation of an Extract from a late Publication, intituled, Les Ruines, by M. De Volney, Member of the late Constitutive National Assembly of France, and author of "Travels in Syria and Egypt."
[This book is supposed to be written on the Ruins of Palmyra, where a Spectre, or Genius, appears to the Author, and after taking him up into the Heavens, shews him below, our Hemisphere: accounts for past, and foretels many future Revolutions; after which the work thus proceeds:]
SCARCE had the genius finished these words, before an immense noise was heard towards the west, when that way directing my attention, I perceived within the extremity of the Mediterranean, within the domains of one of the nations of Europe, a prodigious movement, such as when, in the bosom of a vast city, a violent sedition breaking out in all its parts, one sees an innumerable people agitated and rushing like torrents into the streets and public places. And my ears, struck with shouts which rent the skie
, distinguished at intervals these phrases.
"What is then this prodigy? What is this cruel and mysterious scourge? We are a numerous nation, yet we want hands! We have an excellent soil, and we want necessaries! We are active, laborious, and we live in indigence! We pay enormous taxes, and yet we are told they are not sufficient! We are at peace abroad, and neither our persons nor our property are in safety at home! What is then the concealed enemy which devours us?"
And certain voices, issuing from the bosom of the multitude, answered, "Erect a distinct standard, around which let all those assemble who, by useful labours, support and nourish society; and you will then discover the enemy which consumes you."
And the standard being raised, the nation was all at once divided into two bodies, unequal, and of an aspect in all respects different from each other: the one innumerable and comparatively almost total, presented in the general poverty of their apparel, and in the meagre tanned air of their countenance, appearances of misery and labour; the small group, an inconsiderable fraction, presented in all the splendour of clothes, bedaubed with gold and silver, and in the plumpness of their faces, symptoms of leisure and abundance. And, considering these men more attentively, I perceived that the great body was composed of labourers, of ar
izans, of shopkeepers, of all the professions useful to society; and that in the small group there were only priests of the higher orders, financiers, nobles, great officers of armies: in a word, nothing but the civil, military, and religious agents of government.
After these two bodies had, in the presence of each other, face to face, considered one another with astonishment, I saw indignation and rage spring up on the one hand, and a kind of fear and dismay on the other; when the great body said to the small one —.
"Why have you separated from us? Are you not then o
number?"
"N
," answered the small group, "ye are but the people, we are a different kind of beings; we are of a distinguished class; who have our laws, our customs, our rights pecular to ourselves."
People.
And what business do you follow in our society?
Distinguished Class.
None;—we are not made to work.
People.
How then have you acquired your riches?
Distinguished Class.
By taking
e trouble to govern you.
People.
Really! Let us see what it is you call government? We toil and sweat, and you enjoy; we produce, and you dissipate:—Distinguished Class, who are not the people, form a separate nation, if you please, and take the trouble to govern yourselves.
Whereupon the small group, deliberating on the new case, a few of the most enlightened of them said—"Let us join ourselves again to the people, and share with them their burdens and their occupations, for they are men as well as ourselves;" but the rest said, "No, it would be a shame, it would be infamous to confound ourselves with the vulgar; they are made to serve us; we are men of a different race."
And the
Civil Governors
said, "This people is mild, and naturally servile, let us speak to them of the king and of the law, and they will presently re-enter into their duty. People! The king wills it, the sovereign ordains it."
People.
The king can only will the good of the people; the sovereign can only ordain according to the law.
Civil Governors.
The law enacts that ye be submissive.
People.
The law is the general will, and we
will
a new order.
Civil Governors.
You will be a rebellious people.
People.
Nations cannot revolt; tyrants are the only rebels.
Civil Governors.
The king is with us, and he commands you to submit.
People.
The kingly office originates in the people who elect one of themselves to execute it for the general good; kings, therefore, are essentially indivisible from their nations. The king of our's then cannot be with you; you only possess his phantom.
And the
Military Governors
stepping forward said. "The people are timid, let us menace them; they only obey force. Soldiers, chastise this insolent rabble!
People.
Soldiers! you are of our own blood; Will you strike your brothers? If the people perish, who will maintain the army?
And the soldiers, grounding their arms, said to their chiefs, we are also the people, we are the enemies of—
Whereupon, the
Ecclesiastical Governors
said— "There is now but one resource left; the people are superstitious; we must frighten them with the names of God and of religion.
Our dearly beloved brethren, our children—God has appointed us to govern you.
People.
Produce to us your heavenly powers.
Priests.
You must have faith: reason will lead you astray.
People.
Do you govern then without reason?
Priests.
God ordains peace. Religion pr
scribes obedience.
People.
Peace pre-supposes justice. Obedience has a right to know the law it bows to.
Priests.
Man is only born into this world to suffer.
People.
Do you then set us the example.
Priests.
Will you live without Gods, and without kings?
People.
We will live without tyrants, without impostors.
Priests.
Meditators, interceders are necessary to you.
People.
Meditators between us and God, between us and kings! Courtiers and priests, your services cost us too dear: we will henceforward treat for ourselves immediately with the principals.
And hereupon the small group said,
"We are undone: the multitude are enlightened.
And the people answered, You are saved; for inasmuch as we are enlightened, we will not abuse our power; we wish for nothing beyond our rights. We have resentments, but we forget them: We were slaves, we might command, and retort upon you your own principles: we will only be free: we are so!
This dialogue between the people, and the idle classes, is the analysis of all society. All the vices▪ all the political disorders, are deducible from this source; Men who do nothing, and who devour the substance of others; men who arrogate to themselves particular rights, exclusive privileges of riches and idleness; such men are the source and definition of all the abuses which exist among all nations. Compare the Mamloucks of Egypt, the nobles of Europe, the Nairs of India, the Emirs of Arabia, the Patricians of Rome, the Christian Priests, the Imans, the Bramins, the Bonzes, the Lamas, &c. you will always find the same results,
Idle men living at the expence of those who work.
ON THE MINISTRY OR CLERGY: BY THE AUTHOR OF A PLEA FOR A COMMONWEALTH.
IT being the method of Heaven, for
judgment to begin at the house of God.
I shall first speak to the reformation of the public ministry or national clergy, so far as they seem prompted by their interest to run counter to that of a commonwealth; and though I know (notwithstanding the complexion of their coat, which seems, or at least ought to promise greater moderation) it is no less dangerous to meddle, or in the least exasperate this generation of men, than to puddle in a hornets nest, or encounter a bear robbed of her whelps: yet my conscience bearing me witness, I have neither malice to their persons, nor envy their preferments: I shall not forbear to give in my testimony against the corrupt interest and principles wherewith they are leavened: where by the way, I must profess myself unsatisfied of what ground or foundation may (since the Jewish priesthood was abolished) be found in scripture, for that distinction between the laity and clergy, which custom hath introduced into most Christian commonwealths: my zeal and charity being apt to prompt me to a like wish with that of Moses,
That all the Lords people were prophets:
or rather, to think all the Lord's people are holy, and to be accounted a royal priesthood to God, Nor can I persuade myself learning is so necessary a qualification for teaching the gospel, as some would make us believe, having observed our Saviour altogether rejected the wisdom of man, and made not use
the learned scribes, or doctors of the law, but simple and illiterate fishermen, to be the first heralds of peace unto the world, to proclaim goodwill to the children of men, to be the first evangelists, and messengers of the glad tidings of salvation: and indeed the introduction of learned rabbies into the church of Christ, and blending divinity with the learning of the gentiles, seems to run counter to the whole design of the gospel, which is by the
foolishness of preaching, to confound the wisdom of the world.
Certainly the sword of God's spirit will be able to do its work, though not managed by the skilful hand of an artist, or master of fence, that hath been brought up in the polemicks and digladiations of human literature, vain philosophy, or sophistry of the schools,
Nor do I find that the apostles, and those sent forth by Christ, to be the Catholic Bishops of the whole earth, and to teach all nations, did assume unto themselves any distinction of garb, colour, or habits, from the
est of Christ's flock; and I have read of some that were censured in the primitive times, or first centuries, for wearing large black cloaks; for what is this but to bring back those jewish types and shadows, to cloud and obscure the brightness of the Gospel's dispensation, that were long since dispelled and abrogated by the rising of the Sun of righteousness upon the world? For as one who hath lately well observed, What is the canonical girdle, and formality of doctors wearing boots, but as types and allusions to those places, of having their loins, girt, and their feet shod with the preparation of the gospel, &c?
Nor do I read that they who were called to the ministry, did look upon that as a writ of case, or sufficient warrant to quit their other particular callings, trades, and vocations; but that Paul wrought with his hands, that he might not become burdensome; and it is generally presumed our Saviour wrought at his father's trade; not that I would not have those that minister in spiritual things, reap of other's carnal; but that it seems more according to the rule and president of the gospel, that they should be content with what voluntary contribution, God shall move the people's hearts unto, than by force and rigour of law exact a maintenance.
And when I find the apostle saluting the church in Caesar's family, I am prompted to wish, that all our houses were chapels unto the Lord, and that our families (like that of Caesar's) contained a church within them. I am sure it is no new observation, that the greatest heat and zeal of religion hath been always found in conventicles and private meetings; which suggests unto my thoughts, no small ground of suspicion, that our parochial churches, bells, together with the whole order, pomp, method, and formality of our national clergy, and public worship, stands upon no other foundation than that of human invention, which by the stream of corrupt times, have been carried beyond the pattern and president of the primitive ages, and become very unlike and dissonant to the examplar Christ and his apostles left us.
Nor am I satisfied, if the generality of men are uncapable of receiving the truth and power of godliness, whether the endeavours of giving all men a tincture of religion, and forcing them into the garb and livery of an outward profession, which is the great design of, and plea for a national clergy be more acceptable unto God than morality. I know under the law, God had a peculiar people, that were picked and culled (as it were) from the dross and rubbish of the rest of mankind, that were to be built up in an outward profession, and national way of public worship, adorned with many ceremonies, together with much pomp, and outward splendour, but whether religion be not now under the gospel, a more inward, refined, spiritual and less visible thing. I humbly submit to serious consideration. And if I am herein mistaken (for I pretend not to infallibility) I should be thankful to any, God shall be pleased to make use of as instruments to better inform me; for I would willingly see and know my errors.
But if it be here objected, that the primitive times were times of persecution, in which the church was (as it were) under hatches, and christianity in its infancy, and the professors thereof forced to hide themselves in holes of the rocks, and caves of the earth; but now, having gained ground upon the world, and being in better plight, and since it is come up out of Egypt from the house of bondage, from under the pressures, persecutions, afflictions, and burdens of the heathenish task-masters, under which it formerly groaned, ought according to the example of the Israelites, be adorned with the spoils of the heathen, &c.
I answer, that as the kingdom of God comes not with observation, so it consists not in any outward pomp and splendour. Its said,
the king's daughter
(or spouse of Christ)
is all glorious within;
and by how much the more ground christianity hath gained upon the world, by so much the less need doth it now stand of the wisdom and learning of men to commend and propagate it, than when it was to encounter with so great opposition, and such potent antagonists, as under the heathen emperors it met withal. And if the truth did then under all those disadvantages not only make good its ground but so much gained upon the world, when it had few other champions than poor fishermen, and illiterate mechanics, how much less need it now fear brow-beating, when the power of God hath subdued so many nations to the knowledge and obedience of his truth, and hath made princes of the earth bow unto the scepter of his Son?
Whether the nation is yet willing to part with their calves they have so long worshipped, I know not, but I am sure it hath pleased God to give them a great discovery of the corruption, pride, ambition and flattery of this sort of men; how willing they could be to reap their own profit, though sown in, and springing from the ruin of the nation's liberty and felicity; how willingly they could sell their brethren slaves into the hands of tyranny and oppression, to purchase to themselves dominion and lordship.
THE DESIRE OF GLORY NATURALLY GENERATED IN REPUBLICS.
FROM THE PERSIAN LETTERS
THE sanctuary of honour, reputation, and virtue; seems to be placed in republics, and in those states where a man may with safety pronounce the word, country. At
Rome, Athens,
and
Sparta,
honour was the only reward for the most signal services. A crown of oak-leaves, or laurel, a statue, an inscription, was an immence return for a battle won, or a city taken.
There, a man that had performed a noble action, thought himself sufficiently recompenced in the action itself. He could not see one of his countrymen, without feeling the inward satisfaction of knowing himself his benefactor; he reckoned the
ber of his services by that of his fellow citizens. Any man is capable of doing a piece of service to another man; but it is somewhat divine to contribute to the happiness of a whole society.
The manly Spirit produced in France, by their new System of Equality.
From Dr. Moore's Journal.
IT was natural to think that the introduction of the term
egalite
would, produce an universal insolence among the lower classes of people in France, towards their superiors: but I confess I have not hitherto remarked any disagreeable instances of this nature. No person, indeed, of whatever rank, is allowed to dress his footmen in livery, but every one is allowed to have as many footmen as he pleases; and when L. L—'s carriage was driving, a day or two since, in at the gates of the Louvre, it was stopped by the centinel, who had observed that the hammer-cloth had fringes of a different colour; and informed his lordship, that such a kind of distinction was no where permitted in France▪ being contrary to that
egalite,
which every Frenchman had sworn to. The coachman had been ordered never to use any but a plain cloth: but having a fringed one in his possession, of which he was very vain, he had ventured to adorn his coach-box with it, on this unfortunate day. As the poor fellow was taking it off with a very mortified air, the valet de-place reproached him for having put it on; which the sentinel over hearing, said angrily to the coachman,
ll sied bien
à
un gueux comone toi d'etre aristocrate.
(It well becomes a beggar like you to give yourself the airs of an aristocrate.)
A few days since, I saw a man dressed in the uniform of a general officer▪ come up to a poor fellow, who with a pike in his hand, stood centinel at a gate, and addressing him by the name of "Citoyen Soldat," asked him the way to a particular street.
The pikemen were formerly considered as of a rank inferior to the national guards, who are armed with muskets; but of late they are put on a footing, and do duty together; but still it might have been expected, that this gentleman's rank in the army would have commanded the strongest marks of respect from a common soldier, if his laced coat failed to produce them in a poor fellow almost in rags.
"Tenez, mon camarade," said the pikeman;
you will first turn to the right, and then walk straight on until, &c.
The officer having heard the directions, returned thanks to the Citoyen Soldat, and moving his hat, walked away.
An extract from the Examination of James Harrington, wh
n confined in the Tower, by the Earl of Lauderdale,
&c.
MY Lord, in the preamble, you charge me with being eminent in principles, contrary to the king's government, and the laws of this nation. Some, my lord▪ have aggravated this, saying▪ that
I, being a private man, have been so mad as to meddle with politics: what had a private man to do with government?
My Lord, there is not any public person, not any magistrate, that has written in the politics worth a button. All that have been excellent in this way, have been private men, my lord▪ as myself. There is
Plat
there is
Aristotle,
there is
Livi,
there is
Machiavel.
My Lord, I can sum up
Aristotle's politics
in a very few words; he says there is the
barbarous
monarchy, (such a one where the people have no voices in making the laws): he says there is the heroic monarchy (such a one where the people have their votes in making the laws); and then he says there is the democracy; and affirms, that a man CANNOT be said to have liberty, but in a democracy only.
My Lord Lauderdale, who thus far had been very attentive, at this shewed some impatience.
I SAY
Aristotle
says so: I have not said so much. And under what prince was it? Was it not under
Alexander
the greatest prince then in the world? I beseech you, my lord, did
Alexander
hang up
Aristotle,
did he molest him?
Livi
for a commonwealth is one of the fullest authors: did not he write under
Agustus Coesar?
did
Coesar
hang up
Livi
did he molest him?
Machiavel,
what a commonwealth's man was he? but he wrote under the
Medici,
when they were princes in
Florence,
did they hang up
Malchiavel,
or did they molest him? I have done no otherwise than as the greatest politicians, the king will do no otherwise than as the greatest princes. But, my Lord, these authors had not that to say for themselves that I have; I did not write under a prince, I wrote under a usurper,
Oliver.
He having started up into the throne, his officers (as pretending to be for a commonwealth) kept a murmuring, at which he told them, that he knew not what they meant, nor themselves: but let any of them shew him what they meant, by a commonwealth (or that there was any such thing) they should see that he sought not himself, but to make good the cause. Upon this some sober men came to me, and told me, if any man in
England
could shew what a commonwealth was, it was myself. Upon this persuasion I wrote, and after I had written,
Oliver
never answered his officers as he had done before, therefore I wrote not against the king's government. And for the law, if the law could have punished me,
Oliver
had done it; therefore my writing was not obnoxious to the law. After
Oliver,
the Parliament said that they were a commonwealth, I said they were not, and proved it; insomuch that the Parliament accounted me a cavalier and one that had no other design in my writing, than to bring in the King, and now the King, first of any man, makes me a roundhead.
These things are out of doors; if you be no plotter, the King does not reflect upon your writings.
Notwithstanding the apparent innocence of our author, he was still detained a close prisoner many months.
A SONG.
Sung by Mr. Meredith at Liverpool, on the Anniversary of the French Revolution.
O'ER the vine-cover'd hills and gay regions of France.
See the day-star of Liberty rise;
O'er the clouds of detraction unweared advance,
And hold its new course thro' the skies.
An effulgence so mild, with a lustre so bright,
All Europe with wonder surveys;
And from deserts of darkness; and dungeons of night,
Contends for a share of the blaze.
Let Burke, like a bat, from its splendour retire,
A splendour too strong for his eyes;
Let pedants, and fools, his effusions admire,
Intrapt in his cobwebs like flies.
Shall phrenzy and sophistry hope to prevail,
Where reason opposes her weight;
When the welfare of millions is hung on the scale,
And the balance yet trembles with fate?
Ah! who, midst the horrors of night would abide
That can taste the pure breezes of morn,
Or who that has drunk of the chrystaline tide,
To the feculent flood would return?
When the bosom of beauty the throbbing heart meets,
Ah, who can the transport decline?
Or who that has tasted of liberty's sweets,
The prize but with life would resign?
—But 'tis over—high Heav'n the decision approves,
Oppression has struggled in vain;
To the hell she has form'd superstition removes,
And tyranny bites his own chain.
In the records of time a new aera unfolds,
All nature exalts in its birth —
His creation benign, the Creator beholds,
And gives a new charter to earth.
O catch its high import, ye winds as ye blow,
O bear it ye waves as ye roll!
From regions that feel the sun's vertical glow,
To the farthest extremes of the pole.
Equal rights—equal laws—to the nations around,
Peace and friendship its precepts impart,
And wherever the footsteps of man shall be found,
May he bind the decree on his heart.
REASONS OF MONARCHY.
[From HARRINGTON's OCEANA]
I HAVE often thought it strange, that among all the governments, either past or present, the
monarchial
should so far in extent and number exceed the
popular,
as that they could never yet come into comparison. I could never be persuaded but it was more happy for a people to be disposed of by a number of persons jointly interested and concerned with them, than to be numbered as the herd and inheritance of one, to whose lust and madness they were absolutely subject; and that any man of the weakest reason and generosity, would not rather chuse for his habitation that spot of earth, where there was access to honour by virtue▪ and no worth could be excluded, rather than that where all advancement should proceed from the will of one scarcely hearing or seeing with his own organs, and gained for the most part by means lewd and indirect: and all this in the end to amount to nothing else but a more splendid and dangerous slavery.
He knows nothing, that knows not how superstitiously, the generality of mankind is given to retain traditions, and how pertinacious they are in the maintenance of their first prejudices, insomuch that a discovery or more refined reason is as insupportable to them, as the sun is to an eye, newly brought out of darkness. Hence opinionativeness (which is commonly proportioned to their ignorance) and a generous obstinacy, sometimes to death and ruin. So that it is no wonder if we see many gentlemen, whose education enabled them only to use their senses and first thoughts, so dazzled with the splendour of a court, prepossessed with the affection of a prince, or bewitched with some subdalous favour, that they chose rather any hazard than the enchantment should be dissolved. Others, perhaps a degree above these, yet in respect of some title stuck upon the family (which has been as fortunate a mystery of king-craft as any other) or in reverence to some glorious former atchievments [minding not that in all these cases
the people are the only effective means,
and the king only imaginary] think they should degenerate from bravery in bringing on a change. Others are withheld by sloth and timorousness, either not daring, or unwilling to be happy; some looking no further than their private welfare, indifferent at the multiplication of public evils; others [and these the worst of all] out of a pravity of nature sacrificing to their ambition and avarice, and in order to that following any power, concurring with any machinations, and supporting their authors; while princes themselves [trained up in these arts, or receiving them by tradition] know how to wind all their humours to their own advantage, now foisting the divinity of their titles into pulpits, now amusing the people with pomp and shows, now diverting their hot spirits to some unprofitable foriegn war [making way to their accursed ends of revenge or glory, with the effusion of that blood which should be as dear to them as their own] now stroking the people with some feeble but inforced law, for which notwithstanding they will be paid [and it is observed the most notorious tyrants have taken this course] now giving up the eminentest of of their ministers, [which they part with as indifferently as their robes] to the rage and fury of the people: so that they are commanded and condemned by the same mouth, and the credulous and ignorant, believing their king divinely set over them, sit still, and by degrees grow into quiet and admiration, especially if lulled asleep with some small continuance of peace (be it ever so injust, unsound, or dangerous) as if the body politic could not languish of an internal disease, though its complexion be fresh and cheerful, Those are the reason which (if I conceive aright) have stupified the less knowing part of mankind.
THE FREE NOTIONS OF THE ENGLISH.
FROM THE PERSIAN LETTERS.
ALL the nations of Europe are not under equal subjection to their princes: for instance, the impatient humour of the
English
seldom gives the king leisure to extend or strengthen his authority: Submission and obedience are virtues they very little value themselves upon. They, hold very extraordinary opinions about this article. According to them there is but one tie that has any effect upon men, which is that of gratitude: a husband, a wife, a father, a son, are bound to each other by nothing, but either the love they bear to each other, or mutual services and benefits; and these various motives of acknowledgement, are the origin of all kingdoms, and all societies.
But if a prince, instead of endeavouring to make his subjects happy, studies only how to oppress and destroy them, the foundation of obedience ceases; nothing ties, nothing obliges them to him, and they return to their natural liberty. They maintain that no unlimited power can be lawful, because it could never have a lawful beginning. For we cannot, say they, give to another more power over us than we have over ourselves: Now we have not an unlimited power over ourselves; for instance, we cannot touch our own lives; no man upon earth therefore, conclude they, can have such a power.
High treason, according to them, is nothing but a crime committed by the weaker against the stronger, by disobeying him, let him disobey him in what way he will. And accordingly the people of
England,
happening to prove the stronger in a contention with one of their kings, declared it to be high treason in a prince to make war upon his subjects. They have very good reason, therefore to say, that the precept in their Alcoran, which enjoins obedience to the powers, is not very hard to follow, since they cannot help following it if they would; in as much as it is not to the most virtuous that they are bound to submit, but to the strongest.
The
English
tell you, that one of their kings having overcome and taken a prince that rebelled against him, and disputed the crown with him, and upbraiding him with his treachery and perfidiousness:—It has been decided but a moment, answered the unfortunate prince, which of us two is the traitor.
ON LOYALTY. FROM CATO'S LETTERS.
NO good prince will pretend that there is any loyalty due to him further, than he himself is loyal to the law, and observant of his people, the makers of kings and of laws. If any man misled by sound and delusion, doubt this, let him consider what is the design of magistracy, and what the duty of magistrates; and if he has reason in him, he will find that his duty is only due to those who perform theirs. That protection and allegiance are reciprocal; that every man has a right to defend what no man has a right to take: That the divine right of kings, if they had it, can only warrant them in doing actions that are divine, and cannot protect them in cruelty, depredation and oppression: That a divine right to act wickedly, is a contradiction and blasphemy, as it is
Maledictio Supremi Numinis,
a reproach upon the Deity, as if he gave any man a commission to be a devil: That a king in comparison with the universe, is not so much as a mayor of a town in comparison of a kingdom; and that, were Mr. Mayor, called
king,
it would give him no new right; or, if a king were only called Mr. Mayor, it would not lesson nor abrogate his old jurisdiction: That they are both civil officers, and that an offence in the lesser is more pardonable than an offence in the greater. That the doctrines of unbroken hereditary right, and blind obedience, are the flights and forgeries of flatterers, who belie Heaven, and abuse men, to make their own court to power, and that not one of them will stand the trial himself; in fine, that government, honest and legal government, is
imperium legum non hominum,
the authority of law, and not of lust.
These are the principles upon which our government stands, the principles upon which every free government must stand: and that we
Britons,
dare tell such truths, and publish such principles is a glorious proof of our civil and religious freedom: They are truths which
every Briton
ought to know, even children and servants; They are eternal truths, that will remain for ever, though in too many countries they are dangerous or useless or little known.
Before I have done, I would take notice of another mistake very common, concerning loyalty: It is indeed a trick more than a mistake; I mean of those who would assert or rather create a sort of LOYALTY TO MINISTERS, and make every thing which they do not like, an offence against their master.
FROM SWIFT's WORKS. AN UNPLEASANT LESSON FOR THE PIGS' BETTERS.
I HAD the curiosity to enquire, in a particular manner, by what method great numbers had procured to themselves high titles of honour, and prodigious estates; and I confined my enquiry to a very modern period. However, without granting upon present times, because I would be sure to give no offence, even to foreigners (for I hope the reader need not be told, that I do not in the least intend my own country, in what I say upon this occasion) and a great number of persons were called up, and, upon a very slight examination, discovered such a scene of infamy, that I cannot reflect upon it without some seriousness. Perjury, oppression, subbrnation, fraud, pandarism, and the like
infirmities,
were amongst the most excuseable arts they had to maintain, and for these I gave, as it was reasonable great allowance. But, when some confessed they owed their greatness and wealth to sodomy, or incest; others, to the prostituting of their own wives and daughters; others to the betraying of their country, or their prince; some to poisoning, more to the perverting of justice, in order to destroy the innocent: I hope I may be pardoned, if these discoveries inclined me a little to abate of that profound veneration which I am naturally apt to pay to persons of HIGH rank, who ought to be treated with the
utmost
respect, due to their sublime dignity, by
us
their
inferiors.
LESSONS FOR THE MONOPOLIZERS OF LAND.
Lesson I.
Lev.
Chap. xxv.—And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years.
Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound
on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye
make the trumpet sound throughout all your land.
And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and
proclaim liberty throughout all the land, unto all the inkabitants thereof:
It shall be a
Jubilee
unto you:
And ye shall return every man unto his possession,
and ye shall return every man unto his family. A
Jubilee
shall that fiftieth yeer be unto you: You shall not sow, nor reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of thy vine undressed. For it is the
Jubilee;
it shall be holy unto you: Ye shall eat the encrease thereof out of the field.
In the year of the Jubilee, ye shall return every man unto his possession.
The land
shall not
be sold
for ever:
For the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me. And
in all the land of your possession ye shall grant a redemption for the land.
If thy brother be waxen poor, and hath sold away some of his possession, and if any of his kin come to redeem it, then shall he redeem that which his brother sold. And if the man have none to redeem it; and himself be able to redeem it; then let him count the years of the sale thereof, and restore the overplus unto the man to whom he sold it;
that he may return unto his possession.
But if he be not able to restore it to him, then that which is sold shall remain in the hand of him that bought, until the year of
jubilee;
and
in the jubilee it shall go out, and he shall return unto his possession.
Lesson II.
Isaiah,
v. 8.—Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth.
ON EQUALITY.
From Puffendorf's Whole Duty of Man, according to the Law of Nature.
MAN is a creature not only most solicitous for the preservation of himself, but has of himself so nice an estimation and value, that to diminish any thing thereof does frequently move in him as great indignation as if a mischief were done to his body or estate. Nay, there seems to him to be somewhat of dignity in the appellation of MAN: so that the last and most efficacious argument to curb the arrogance of insulting men, is
sually—I am not a dog, but a man as well as yourself. Since then human nature is the same in us all, and since no man will or can cheerfully join in society with any, by whom he is not at least to be esteemed equal as a man, and as a partaker of the same common nature. It follows that, among those duties which men owe to each other, this obtains the second place, That every man esteem and treat another, as naturally equal to himself, or as one who is a man as well as he:
Now this equality of mankind does not alone consist in this, that men of ripe age have almost the same strength, or if one be weaker, he may be able to kill the stronger, either by treachery, or dexterity, or by being better furnished with weapons: but in this, that though nature may have accomplished one man beyond another, with various endowments of body and mind: yet nevertheless he is obliged to an observation of the precepts of the law-natural towards the meaner person, after the same manner as he himself expects the same
on others; and has not therefore any greater liberty given him to insult upon his fellows. As, on the other side, the niggardliness of nature or fortune cannot of themselves set any man so low as that he shall be in a worse condition, as to the enjoyment of common right, than others. But what one man may: rightfully demand or expect from as another, the same is due to others also (circumstancies being alike) from him; and whatsoever one shall deem reasonable to be done by others, the like it is most just he practise himself; For the obligation of maintaining sociality among mankind, equally binds every man; neither may one man more than another violate the law of nature, in any part. Not but that there are other popular reasons which illustrate this equality; to wit, That we are all descended of the same stock; that we are all born, nourished, and die after the same manner; and, that God has not given any of us a certain assurance, that our happy condition in this world shall not at one time or other be changed. Besides, the precepts of the Christian religion tell us, that God favours not man for his nobility, power, or wealth, but for sincere piety, which may as well be found in a mean and humble man, as in those of high degree.
Now from this equality it follows, That he who would use the assistance of others in promoting his own advantage, ought to be as free and ready to use his power and abilities for their service, when they want his help and assistance on like occasions. For he who requires that other men should do him kindnesses, and expects himself to be free from doing the like, must be of opinion, that those other men are below himself and not his equals. Hence as those persons are the best members of a community, who, without any difficulty, allow the same things to their neighbours that themselves require of him; so those are altogether incapable of society, who setting a high rate on themselves, in regard to others, will take upon them to act any thing towards their neighbour, and expect greater deference and more respect than the rest of mankind; and in their insolent manner demanding a greater portion unto themselves of those things, to which, all men having a common right, they can in reason claim no larger share than other men: Whence this also is an univerfal duty of the lawnatural, That no man, who has not a peculiar right ought to arrogate more to himself than he is ready to allow to his fellows, but that he permit other men to enjoy equal privileges with himself.
The same e quality also shews what every man's behaviour ought to be, when his business is to distribute justice among others; to wit, that he treat them as equals, and indulge not that, unless the merits of the cause require it, to one, which he dentes to another: For, if he do otherwise, he who is discountenanced is, at the same time, affronted and wronged, and loses somewhat of the dignity which nature bestowed upon him. Whence it follows, that things which are in common, are of right to be divided by equal parts among those who are equal: Where the thing will not admit of division, they who are equally concerned, are to use it indifferently; and, if the quantity of the thing will bear it, as much as each party shall think fit; But if this cannot be allowed, then it is to be used after a stated manner, and proportioned to the number of the claimants; because it is not possible to find out any other way of observing equality. But if it be a thing of that nature as not to be capable of being divided, nor of being possessed in common, then it must be used by turns; and if this yet will not answer the point, and it is not possible the rest should be satisfied by an equivalent. the best way must be, to determine possession by lot; for in such cases, no fitter method can be thought on, to remove all opinion of partiality and contempt of any party, without debasing the person whom fortune does not favour,
ON THE ABSURDITY OF UNALTERABLE ESTABLISHMENTS. FROM PRIESTLY ON GOVERNMENT.
HIGHLY as we think of the wisdom of our ancestors, we justly think ourselves, of the present-age, wiser, and, if we be not blinded by the prejudice of education, must see, that we can, in many respects, improve upon the institutions they have transmitted to us. Let us not doubt, but that every generation in posterity will be as much superior to us in political, and in all kinds of knowledge, and that they will be able to improve upon the best civil institutions that we can prescribe for them. Instead then of adding to the difficulties which we ourselves find, in making the improvements we wish to introduce, let us make this great and desireable work easier to them than it has been to us.
However, such is the progress of knowledge, and the enlargement of the human mind, that, in future time, notwithstanding all obstructions thrown in the way of human genius, men of great and exalted views will undoubtedly arise, who will see through, and detest our narrow politics; when the ill-advisers, and ill-advised authous of these illiberal and contracted schemes, will be remembered with infamy and execration: When notwithstanding their talents as statesmen or writers, and though they may have pursued the same mind enslaving schemes by more artful and less sanguinary methods, they will be ranked among the Bonners and Gardeners of past ages; they must have been worse than Bonners and Gardeners, who could pursue the same ends by the same means, in this more humane and more enlightened age.
England hath hitherto taken the lead, in almost every thing, great and good, and her citizens stand foremost in the annals of fame, as having shaken off the fetters which hung upon the human mind, and called it forth to the exertion of its noblest powers. And her constitution has been so far from receiving any injury from the efforts of these her free-born enterprising sons, that she is in part, indebted to them for the unrivalled reputation she now enjoys, of having the best system of policy in Europe. After weathering so many real storms, let us not quit the helm at the apprehension of imaginary dangers, but steadily hold on in what, I trust, is the most glorious course that a government can be in. Let all the friends of liberty and human nature join to free the minds of men from the shackles of narrow and impolitic laws. Let us be free ourselves, and leave the blessings of freedom to our posterity.
In short, it seems to have been the intention of Divine Providence, that mankind should be, as far as possible, self-taught; that we should attain to every thing excellent and useful, as the result of our own experience and observation; that our judgment should be formed by the appearances which, are presented to them, and our hearts instructed by their own feelings. But by the unnatural system of rigid, unalterable establishments, we put it out of our power to instruct ourselves, or to derive any advantage from the lights we acquire from experience and observation; and thereby, as far as in our power, we counteract the kind intentions of the Deity in the constitution of the world, and in providing for a state of constant, though slow improvement in every thing.
In spite of all the fetters we can lay upon the human mind, notwithstanding all possible discouragements in the way of free enquiry, knowledge of all kinds will encrease. The wisdom of one generation will be folly in the next. And that, though we have seen this verified in the history of near two thousand years, we persist in the absurd maxim of making a preceding generation dictate to a succeeding one, which is the same thing as making the foolish instruct the wise; for what is a lower degree of wisdom but comparatively folly?
Were any more laws restraining the liberty of the press in force, it is impossible to say how far they might be construed to extend. Those already in being are more than are requisite, and inconsistent with the interests of truth. Were they to extend further, every author would lie at the mercy of the ministers of state, who might condemn, indiscriminately, upon some pretence or other, every work that gave them umbrage; under such circumstances; might fall some of the greatest and noblest productions of the human mind, if such works could be produced in those circumstances. For, if men of genius knew they could not publish the discoveries they made, they would not give free scope to their faculties, in making and pursuing those discoveries. It is the thought of publication, and the prospect of fame, which is generally the great incentive to men of genius to exert their faculties, in attempting the untrodden paths of speculation. In those unhappy circumstances, writers would entertain a dread of every new subject. No man could safely indulge himself in any thing bold, enterprising, and out of the vulgar road; and in all publications we should see a timidity incompatable with the spirit of discovery. If any towering genius should arise in those unfavourable circumstances, a Newton in the natural world; or a Locke, a Hutchinson, a Clarke, or a Harley in the moral, the only effectual method to prevent their defusing a spirit of enterprize or innovation, which is natural to such great souls, could be no other than that which Tarquin so significantly expressed, by taking off the heads of all those poppies which overlooked the rest. Such men could not but be dangerous, and give umbrage in a country, where it was the maxim of the government, that every thing of importance should for ever remain unalterably fixed.
GENERAL POLITICAL APHORISMS OR MAXIMS. FROM HARRINGTON'S WORKS.
TO leave ourselves and posterity to a farther purchase in blood and sweat of that which we may presently possess, enjoy, and hereafter bequeath to posterity in peace and glory, is inhuman and impious.
As certainly and suddenly as a good state of health dispels the peevishness and peril of sickness, does a good state of government the animosity and danger of parties.
The frame of a commonwealth, having been first proposed and considered, expedients (in case such should be found necessary for the safe effectual, and perfect introduction of the same) may with some aim be applied and fitted; as to a house, when the model is resolved upon, we fit scaffolds in building. But first to resolve upon expedients, and then to fit to them the frame of a commonwealth, is as if one should set up props, and then build a house to lean upon them.
While the civil and religious parts of a commonwealth are in forming, there is a necessity that she should be supported by an army; but when the military and provincial parts are rightly formed, she can have no farther use of any other army. Wherefore at this point, and not till then, her armies are by the practice of commonwealths, upon slighter occasions, to have half pay for life, and to be disbanded.
Where there is a standing army, and not a formed government, there the army of necessity will have dictatorian power.
Where an army subsists upon the pay or riches of a single person, or of a nobility, that army is always monarchical. Where an army subsists not by the riches of a single person, nor of a nobility, that army is always popular.
The reason why the nations that have commonwealths use them so well, and cherish them so much, and yet that so few nations have commonwealths, is, that in using a commonwealth it is not necessary it should be understood; but in making a commonwealth, that it be understood is of absolute necessity.
It shall be as soon found when and where the soul of a man was in the body of a beast, as when or where the soul or freedom natural to democracy, was in any other form than that only of a senate, and an assembly of the people.
As the soul of man can never be in the body of a beast, unless God make a new creation; so neither the soul or freedom, natural to democracy, in any other form whatsoever than that only of a senate and a popular assembly.
To the making of a well ordered commonwealth, there goes little more of pains or charge, or work without doors, than the establishment of an equal or apt division of the territory, and the proposing of such election to the divisions so made, as from an equal foundation may raise equal superstructures; the rest being but paper work, is as soon done as said or voted.
The highest earthly felicity that a people can ask or God can give, is an equal and well ordered commonwealth. Such a one among the
Israelites
was the reign of GOD; and such a one (for the same reason) may be among
Christians
the reign of CHRIST, though not every one in the
Christian
commonwealth should be any more a
Christian
indeed, than every one in the
Israelitish
commonwealth was an
Israelite
indeed.
ADDRESS AND DECLARATION OF THE
FRIENDS of Universal PEACE and LIBERTY' Held at the Thatched House Tavern, St. James's-street, August
20, 1791.
Friends and Fellow Citizens.
AT a moment like the present, when wilful misrepresentations are industriously spread by the partizans of arbitrary power, and the advocates of passive obedience and Court-Government; we think it incumbent upon us to declare to the world our principles, and the motives of our conduct.
We rejoice at the glorious event of the
French Revolution.
If it be asked—What is the French Revolution to us?
We answer—
It is much.
Much to us as men: Much to us as Englishmen.
As men, we rejoice in the freedom of twenty-five millions of our fellow men. We rejoice in the prospect, which such a magnificent example opens to the world. We congratulate the French nation for having laid the axe to the root of tyranny, and for erecting Government on the sacred HEREDITARY Rights of MAN.—Rights which appertain to ALL, and not to any one more than to another.—We know of no human authority, superior to that of a whole nation; and we profess and proclaim it as our principle, that every nation has at all times, an inherent, indefeasible right to constitute and establish such Government for itself as best accords with its disposition, interest and happiness.
As Englishmen, we also rejoice, because we are
immediately
interested in the French Revolution.
Without enquiring into the justice, on either side of the reproachful charges of intrigue and ambition, which the English and French courts have constantly made on each other, we confine ourselves to this observation;—That if the Court of France only was in fault, and the numerous wars which have distressed both countries are chargeable to her alone, that Court now exists no longer; and the cause and the consequence must now cease together. The French therefore, by the Revolution they have made, have conquered for us as well as for themselves; if it be true, that their Court only was in fault and ours never.
On this state of the case, the French Revolution concerns us
immediately.
We are oppressed with a heavy National debt, a burthen of taxes, and an expensive administration of Government; beyond those of any people in the world. We have also a very numerous poor; and we hold, that the moral obligation of providing for old age, helpless infancy and poverty, is far superior to that of supplying the invented wants of courtly extravagance, ambition and intrigue.
We believe there is no instance to be produced, but in England, of
seven
millions of inhabitants, which make but little more than
one
million of families, paying yearly SEVENTEEN MILLIONS of taxes.
As it has always been held out by all administrations, that the restless ambition of the Court of France rendered this expence necessary to us for our own defence; we consequently rejoice as men deeply interested in the French Revolution; for that Court as we have already said exists no longer and consequently the same enormous expences need not continue to us.
Thus rejoicing, as we sincerely do, both as men and Englishmen, as lovers of universal peace and freedom, and as friends to our national prosperity and a reduction of our public expences; we cannot but express our astonishment, that any part, or any members of our own government, should reprobate the extinction of that very power in France or wish to see it restored, to whose influence they formerly attributed (whilst they appeared to lament) the enormous increase of our own burthens and taxes. What then, Are they sorry that the pretence for new oppressive taxes, and the occasion for continuing many old taxes, will be at an end? —If so, and if it is the policy of Courts and Court Government to prefer enemies to friends, and a system of war to that of peace, as affording more pretences for Places, Offices, Pensions, Revenue and Taxation, it is high time for the people of every nation to look with circumspection to their own interest.
Those who pay the expence, and, not those who
participate
in the emoluments arising from it, are the persons immediately interested in enquiries of this kind. We are a part of that National body, on whom this annual expence of seventeen millions falls; and we consider the present opportunity of the French Revolution, as a most happy one for lessening the enormous load, under which this nation groans. If this be not done, we shall then have reason to conclude, that the cry of intrigue and ambition against
other
Courts is no more than the common cant of
all
Courts.
We think it also necessary to express our astonishment, that a Government desirous of being called FREE, should prefer connections with the most despotic and arbitrary powers in Europe.— We know of none more deserving this description than those of Turkey and Prussia, and the whole combination of German despots.—Separated as we happily are by nature from the tumults of the continent we reprobate all systems and intrigues which sacrifice (and that too at a great expence) the blessings of our natural situation.—Such systems cannot have a national origin.
If we are asked, What Government is?—We hold it to be nothing more than
a National Association
end we hold that to be the best, which secures to every man his rights, and promotes the greatest quantity of happiness with the
least expence.
We live to improve, or we live in vain; and therefore we admit of no maxims of government or policy, on the mere score of antiquity, or other men's authority, the
Old Whigs or the New.
We will exercise the reason with which we are endowed, or we possess it unworthily. As reason is given at all times, it is for the purpose of being used at all times.
Among the blessings which the French Revolution has produced to that nation, we enumerate the abolition of the feudal system of injustice and tyranny, on the 4th of August, 1789. Beneath the feudal system all Europe has long groaned, and from it England is not yet free. Game laws, borough-tenures and tyrannical monopolies of numerous kinds still remain amongst us: but rejoicing as we sincerely do, in the freedom of others, till we shall happily accomplish our own, we intended to commemorate this prelude to the universal extirpation of the feudal system, by meeting on the anniversary of that day, (the 4th. of August) at the Crown and Anchor. From this meeting we were prevented by the interference of certain
unnamed
and
sculking
persons with the Master of the Tavern, who informed us that on
their
representations he could not receive us.—Let those who live by, or countenance feudal oppressions, take the reproach of this ineffectual meanness and cowardice to themselves. They connot stifle the public declaration of our honest, open, and avowed opinions.
These are our principles, and these our sentiments. They embrace the interest and happiness of the great body of the nation of which we are a part. As to riots and tumults, let those answer for them, who by wilful misrepresentations endeavour to excite and promote them; or, who feek to
stun
the sense of the nation, and lose the great cause of public good, in the outrages of a misinformed mob. We take our ground on principles that require no such riotous aid. We have nothing to apprehend from the poor; for we are pleading their cause. And we fear not proud oppression; for we have truth on our side.
We say, and we repeat it; that the French Revolution opens to the world an opportunity, in which all good citizens must rejoice: that of promoting the general happiness of man. And that
, moreover, offers to this country in particular an opportunity of reducing our enormous taxes.
These are our objects, and we will pursue them.
JOHN HORNE TOOKE, Chairman,
LESSONS FOR STATESMEN.
Lesson I.—FROM-COMMERCE, IN THE ENCYCLOPADIA BRITANNICA.
THE augmentation of riches, in a country, either not capable of improvement as to the soil, or where precautions have not been taken for facilitating a multiplication of inhabitants, by the importation of subsistence, will be productive of the most calamitous circumstances.
On one side, this wealth will effectually diminish the mass of food before produced; and on the other, will encrease the number of useless consumers. —The first of these circumstances will raise the demand for food; and the second will diminish the number of useful free hands, and consequently raise the price of manufactures; here are shortly the outlines of this progress.
The more rich and luxurious a people are, the more delicate they become in their manner of living, if they fed on bread formerly, they will now feed on meat; if they fed on meat, they will now feed on fowl. The same ground which feeds an hundred with bread, and a proportionable quantity of animal food, will not maintain an equal number of delicate livers. Food must then become more scarce; demand for it rises: the rich are always the strongest in the market; they consume the food, and the poor are forced to starve. Here the wide door to modern distress opens; to wit, a hurtful competition for subsistence. Farther when a people become rich, they think less of occonomy; a number of useless servants are hired, to become an additional dead weight on consumption; and when their starving countrymen cannot supply the extravagance of the rich so cheaply as other nations, they either import instruments of foreign luxury, or seek to enjoy them out of their own country.
Lesson II.—FROM THE SAME.
ASET of industrious and frugal people were assembled in a country (Holland) by nature subject to many inconveniencies, the removing of which necessarily employed abundance of hands. Their situation upon the continent, the power of their former masters, and the ambition of their neighbours, obliged them to keep great bodies of troops. These two articles, added to the numbers of the community, without either enriching the state by their labour exported, or producing food for themselves or countrymen.
The scheme of a commonwealth was calculated, to draw together the industrious; but it has been still more useful in subsisting them; the republican form of government being there greatly subdivided, vests authority sufficient in every part of it, to make suitable provision for their own subsistence; and the tie which unites them, regards only matters of public concern. Had the whole been governed by one sovereign, or by one council, this important matter never could have been effectuated.
It would be impossible for the most able minister that ever lived, to provide nourishment for a country so extensive as France, or even as England, supposing those as fully peopled as Holland is: even though it should be admitted, that a sufficient quantity of food might be found in other countries for their subsistence. The enterprize would be too great, abuses would multiply; the consequence would be, that the inhabitants would die for want. But in Holland the case is different; every little town takes care of its own inhabitants; and this care being the object of application and profit to so many persons, is accomplished with success.
Lesson III.
—From Lady Montague's Letters.
IT is impossible not to observe the difference between the free towns, and those under the government of absolute princes, as all the little sovereigns of Germany are. In the first there appears an air of commerce and plenty: The streets are well built, and full of people neatly and plainly dressed. The shops are loaded with merchandize, and the commonality are clean and chearful. In the other you see a fort of shabby finery, a number of dirty people of quality tawdred out: narrow nasty streets out of repair, wretchedly thin of inhabitants, and above half of the common sort asking alms. I cannot help fancying one under the figure of a clean Dutch Citizen's wife; and the other like a poor town lady of pleasure, painted and ribboned out in her head dress, with tarnished silver-laced shoes, a ragged under-petticoat, a miserable mixture of vice and poverty.
We take care to make such short stages every day, that I rather fancy myself upon parties of pleasure, than upon the road; and sure nothing can be more agreeable than travelling in Holland. The whole country appears a large garden, the roads are all paved▪ shaded on each side with rows of trees, and bordered with large canals, full of boats passing and repassing. Every twenty paces gives you the prospect of some villa, and every four hours that of a large town, so surprisingly neat, I am sure you would be charmed with them.
My arrival at Rotterdam▪ presented me a new scene of pleasure. All the streets are paved with broad stones, and before many of the meanest artificer's doors, are placed seats of various coloured marbles, so neatly kept, that I assure you, I walked almost all over the town yesterday, incognito, in my slippers, without one spot of dirt; and you may see the Dutch maids washing the pavement of the street with more application than ours do our bed-chambers. The town seems so full of people, with such busy faces, and all in motion, that I can hardly fancy it is not some celebrated fair; but I see it every day the same. It is certain no town can be more advantageously situated for commerce. Here are seven large canals, on which the merchants' ships come up to the very doors of their houses. The shops and warehouses are of a very surprizing neatness and magnificence, filled with an incredible quantity of fine merchandize, and so much cheaper than what we see in England, that I have much ado to persuade myself I am still so near it. Here is neither dirt nor beggary to be seen. One is not shocked with those loathsome cripples, so common in London, nor teazed with the importunity of idle fellows and wenches, that chuse to be nasty and lazy. The common servants and little shop-women here, are more nicely clean, than most of our ladies; and the great variety of neat dresses (every woman dressing her head after her own fashion) is an additional pleasure in seeing the towns.
ACCOUNT OF THE GOVERNMENT OF GENEVA BY D'ALEMBERT.
IT is very remarkable, that a city, which contains scarce 24000 inhabitants, and whose scattered territory consists not of thirty villages, should be a sovereign state, and one of the most flourishing cities of Europe; enriched by her liberty and her commerce, she frequently beholds every thing around her in flames, without having any share in the calamity. The events which disturb the rest of Europe, afford her only an amnsing spectacle, which she observes without taking any part in them. Attached to France, by treaties and by commerce, to England by commerce and religion, she is too prudent to interest herself in the wars that embroil these two powerful nations; she pronounces with impartiality upon the justice of their contests, and judges all the sovereigns of Europe, without flattering, injuring, or fearing them.
The city is well fortified, particularly on the side of that prince from whom it has most to fear, the King of Sardinia. On the side of France it is almost open and defenceless; but discipline is kept up as in a military place, the arsenals and magazines well furnished, every citizen is a soldier, as in Switzerland, and ancient Rome; the Genevois are allowed to go into foreign service, but the republic does not furnish any state with regular bodies of men, nor does it suffer an inrolment within its own territories.
Though the individuals are rich, the government is poor, from that aversion which the people shew to new taxes, how little burdensome soever. The revenues of the state do not amount to 500,000 livres of French money; and yet, by the admirable oeconomy with which they are managed. they are sufficient, and even afford a surplus for extraordinary emergencies.
Hereditary dignity is unknown at Geneva; the sons of the first magistrate are lost in the crowd, till their own merit distinguishes them; nobility and riches confer neither rank nor privilege, nor give any facility of advancement to the offices of the state. All solicitation for places is strictly prohibited; —Public employments are so little lucrative, that they afford no temptations for the avaricious; they are objects only to nobler minds, by the consideration and respect they procure.
Few disputes come to a legal trial; they are generally adjusted by common friends, by the advocates themselves and by the judges.
Their sumptuary laws forbid the use of jewels and embroidery, limit the expence of funerals, and oblige all the citizens to walk on foot in the streets, carriages being allowed only in the country.— These laws, which are regarded in France as too severe, nay, almost barbarous and inhuman, by no means abridge the real conveniences of life, which are always to be obtained at little expence; they retrench only the pageantry of it, which contributes not to happiness, and often produces ruin, without any advantage.
There is, perhaps, no where so many happy marriages: Geneva has, in this respect, the start of our manners at least two centuries.—The restraints upon luxury remove the fear of a multitude of children; and, by this means, luxury is not as in France, one of the greatest obstacles to population.
Geneva has an university, which they call an academy, where youth are educated without expence: The professors are eligible to offices of state—Many of them have become magistrates, and this privilege contributes much to keep up the emulation and same of the academy.
Their public library is a well chosen collection of books, consisting of twenty-six thousand volumes, and a great number of manuscripts. The books are lent to all the citizens, every one reads, and informs himself: and by this means, the people of Geneva are better instructed than any where else. They find none of those inconveniencies which we suppose would follow the same indulgence among us; perhaps the Genevois and our politicians may be both in the right.
All the sciences, and most of the arts, have been cultivated with so much success at Geneva, that it is surprizing to see the list of learned men and artists of every kind, which this city has produced within the last two ages—It has even had the good fortune sometimes to be the residence of celebrated strangers, whom its agreable situation, and the liberty it enjoys, have invited to retire thither. M. de Voltaire, who has resided there for the last seven years, finds, among these republicans, the same marks of esteem and consideration which he has received from so many monarchs.
The eccle
astical constitution of Geneva is pure Presbyterianism; no bishops nor canons;—Not that they disapprove of episcopacy, but as they have no faith in the divine right of bishops, they think Pastors, not quite so rich and important as bishops, agree better with a small republic.
The ministers are either pastors, like our parish priests, or postulans as our priests without benefice. The revenue of the pastors does not amount to above 1200 livres, without any casual profits: The state makes this allowance.—The church has nothing.
The speech of Charles Turner, Esq. Member of Parliament for the City of York, to the Electors of Westminster, from the Hustings in Westminster Hall, on Thursday the 6th of April,
1780,
I FEEL a satisfaction in addressing so numerous and respectable a body of my countrymen, that cannot be animated by a slavish mind. I have ever opposed the torrent of corruption, and the inroads of arbitrary power; and though I have been unsuccessful, yet with your assistance, I will fight and conquer. Corruption and tyranny can never stand against the virtuous efforts of a free people: be firm, be resolute and unanimous; assert your birth-right. Annual Parliaments, and an equal representation, are privileges inherent in the constitution; but if you do not think yourselves free with obtaining that object,
you have a right to infist on what government you please.
Laws were made for the governed, not the governor; and all government originates with the people. If you chuse to be slaves, you may submit to an unlimited monarchy, or an oppressive aristocracy; if you wish to be free, you have a right to insist on a democracy, or
you have a right to form a republic.
Don't tell me of the power of Parliament, or the power of the Crown; all power originates with yourselves, and if the Crown or the Parliament abuse that power you have invested them with, you have a right to re-assume it; you are the lords of the creation, not the slaves of power: you are the masters, and we are only your servants, delegated and employed by you to do your business; and till you pay your servants, as was anciently the custom, they will never act to your advantage; if you do not pay them, the Crown will, and then they become the servants of the Crown, and no longer the servants of the people. An honest man can have no interest but that of his country in coming to parliament; and if he sacrifices his ease and retirement to the duty of a senator, his expences at least ought to be reimbursed by his country. You now pay your members with a vengeance, for enslaving you, and picking your pockets: but if you would once pay them yourselves, you would no longer complain of oppression: Act with spirit and resolution; insist upon your privileges, and I will meet you at Runny Mead. I love the poor, I divide my fortune with them, and I will die with them; the poor man's labour is the rich man's wealth; and without your toil, a kingdom would be worth nothing. While I am free, you never shall be slaves.
God bless the People!
Observations of Charles Turner, Esq. Member of Parliament for the City of York, in the Debate in the House of Commons, April
13, 1780.
on the Bill for preventing Revenue Officers from voting at Elections.
HE contended, that the House was bound to pass the Bill; that they must do it, the people of England had petitioned for it, and who would gainsay the people of England? They would have their way, they had a right to it, for the constitution of this country was a republic. He repeated it, he said, in the face of all the Crown lawyers, and let them make the most of it, a republic, and one of the finest in the world! He had held this language to the people in Westminster Hall, and he would hold it every where. Where the Monarch was limited by the same laws which governed the subject, it certainly was a republic, and nothing else.
A LESSON FOR VENAL PARLIAMENTS:
The
Speech
that was spoken by
OLIVER CROMWELL'
when he dissolved the Long Parliament.
IT is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonoured by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice: Ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government: Ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would, like
Esau,
sell your country for a mess of pottage; and, like
Judas,
betray your GOD for a few pieces of money. Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess? Ye have no more religion than my horse: Gold is your God. Which of you have not bartered your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the commonwealth? Ye sordid prostitutes! have ye not defiled this sacred place, and turned the Lord's temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation. You were deputed here by the people to get grievances redressed, are not yourselves become the greatest grievance? Your country therefore calls upon me to cleanse this Augean stable, by putting a final period to your iniquitous proceedings in this House, and which, by God's help, and the strength he has given me, I am now come to do. I command ye, therefore, upon the peril of your lives, to depart immediately out of this place. Go, get ye out, make haste, ye venal slaves, be gone! So take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors.
THE INHABITANTS OF HELL.
From a Pamphlet, entitled "The Rights of the Devil."
THESE (that is the priests) are the most numerous of all Lucifer's subjects, except the military, for next to the clergy, the military are the most devoted, which may be seen by the ardor they discover on all occasions in the service of their grand master and monarch, Lucifer. Nothing diminishes the zeal of soldiers, no hardships or calamities can intimidate them from the pursuit of their master's interest. Captivity, prisons, fetters, chains, slavery, or death, give no check to their activity; but havock and devastation are the works of their hands. See how these heroes leave every thing near and dear behind them. Their trades are nothing in comparison to the intrinsic acquisitions of the soldier, who sacrifices every thing to the pleasure of murdering his fellow-creatures. How many of these English
Sans Culottes
have left twenty-five, and even thirty shillings per week, within these six months past, to gain in return sixpence a day, to be food for gun-powder, and to distinguish themselves as the best friends and warmest advocates for Satan's kingdom. Mark! what disinterestedness! Surely Lucifer has some right to such property as this! Only examine their fa
es and their figures, both will declare to you whom they serve, and whose they are. Their pole complexions, their tawny countenances, their tanned hides; in short, the whole of their meagre bodies have more the appearance of carcases or skeletons, than of human figures. Their bodies, I say, loaded with wounds, exhausted by labours which they have undergone, with distempers which consume them, with vermin which gnaw them while alive, with hunger which devours them, with excessive heat, and rigorous cold, which they experience and endure with courage and delight, for a poor and wretched stipend, plainly shew that the most powerful and predominant of all their passions, is their desire for the infernal regions. And this is further confirmed by the ardent exclamations with which they conclude every sentence they pronounce; such as, The Devil take me! The Devil seize me! The Devil choak me! The Devil fly away with me! &c. &c. Which ejaculations certainly express their earnest wish to go to Lucifer's kingdom. The Devil will never deny his right to such property as they are.
I had like to have omitted informing you, that the military are accompanied with their officers, even in Hell: and why not? They are fond of leading the dance with them on Earth, and surely ought to partake of their pleasures in Hell. They are led by their officers by thousands every day, with colours flying, music playing, and drums beating, amidst the acclamations of all who see them, on their journey to Pluto's regions. There is no exception of persons in the military, they go unanimously, hand in hand. There you see them travelling in social union, with wonderful contrast, generalissimo and private, general and drummer, duke and corporal, prince and serjeant, kings and serjeant-majors, emperors and adjutants, in most parts of Europe, vieing with each other in their various tactical knowledge, to discover who has the greatest ability, in getting tenants in the greatest numbers, to occupy Beelzebub's kingdom. Witness the scenes now exhibiting on the other side the water, what bravery is displayed by the English, Dutch, Prussians, Austrians, Hessians, Hanoverians, &c. of all ranks and degrees, from the prince to the private, in order to transport themselves to the infernal regions; and none can be more deserving than those who take up the sword in defence of their common master, for the express purpose of peopling his kingdom. Go on, then, ye veterans! hide your trusty blades in the bowels of your b
ethren! your laurels will cleave to your brows in never fading and glowing colours: and Satan shall crown you with everlasting honours!
Ignorance the Foundation of unequal Governments, and fostered by them designedly.
[From "Barlow's Advice to priviledged Orders."
UNEQUAL Governments are necessarily founded on ignorance, and they must be supported by ignorance; to deviate from their principle, would be voluntary suicide. The great object of their policy is to perpetuate that undisturbed ignorance of the people, which is the companion of poverty, the parent of crimes, and the pillar of the state.
In England, the people at large are as perfectly ignorant of the acts of Parliament, after they are made, as they possibly can be before. They are printed by one man only, who is called the king's printer—in the old German character, which few men can read—and sold at a price that few can afford to pay. But, lest some scraps or comments upon them should come to the people, through the medium of public news-papers, every such paper is stamped with a heavy duty: and an act of parliament is made, to prevent men from lending their papers to each other; so that, not one person in a hundred sees a news-paper once in a year. If a man at the bottom of Yorkshire discovers, by instinct, that a law is made which is interesting for him to know, he has only to make a journey to London, find out the king's printer, pay a penny a page for the law, and learn the German alphabet. He is then prepared to spell out his duty.
As to the general system of the laws of the land, on which all property depends, no man in the kingdom knows them, and no man pretends to know them. They are a fathomless abyss, that exceeds all human faculties to sound. They are studied, not to be understood, but to be disputed; not to give information, but to breed confusion. The man whose property is depending on a suit at law, dares not to look into the gulph that separates him from the wished-for decision; he has no confidence in himself, nor in reason, nor in justice; he mounts on the back of a lawyer, like one of Mr.
urke's heroes of chivalry, between the wings of a gr
ffin, and trusts the pilotage to a man, who is superior to himself only in the confidence which results from having nothing at stake.
On the Injustice of taking Fees from Persons acquitted in Courts of Justice.
[From "The Candid Philosopher."]
A MAN suspected of a felonious action, is taken up, sent to goal, used there in a barbarous manner, yet when brought to his trial is found perfectly innocent. A man of common sense, upractised in the
wisdom
of our laws, would naturally imagine he would be now discharged. But no such thing; he must be remanded to prison to undergo the same harsh treatment he received before his trial, unless he pays the
fees
that are demanded of him.— They are the poorest people on whom suspicions generally fall, and who, so far from being able to pay goaler's fees, could scarcely maintain themselves in prison before the proof of their innocence appeared. How cruel, therefore, after punishing an innocent person with imprisonment, making him lose his business and his character, to
rob him of his property,
under the name of
paying
fees!—O shame! shame! shame!
Whether the Balance of Dominion in Land be the natural Cause of Empire?
[From Harrington's Oceana.]
IF a man having one hundred pounds a year may keep one servant, or have one man at his command, then having one hundred times so much, he may keep one hundred servants; and this multiplied by a thousand, he may have one hundred thousand men at his command. Now, that the single person, or nobility of any country in
Europe,
that had but half so many men at command, would be king or prince, is that which I think no man will doubt. But no
money
no
Switzers,
as the
French
speak: if the money be flown, so are the men also. Though riches in general have wings, and be apt to bate, yet those in land are the most hooded and tied to the perch, whereas those in money have the least hold, and are the swiftest in flight. A bank, where the money takes not wing, but to come home seized, or like a coy duck, may well be great; but the treasure of the
Indies
going out, and not upon returns, makes no bank. Whence a bank never paid an army; or paying an army soon became no bank. But where a prince or nobility has an estate in land, the revenue whereof will defray this charge, there their men are planted, have toes that are roots, and arms that bring forth what fruit you please.
Thus a single person is made, or a nobility makes a king, not with difficulty or any great prudence, but with ease, the rest coming home, as the
ox that not only knows his master's crib,
but must starve or repair to it. Nor for the same reason is government acquired with more ease than it is preserved; that is, if the foundation of property be in land. but if in morey,
lightly come, lightly go.
The reason why a single person, or the nobility that has one hundred thousand men, or half so many at command, will have the government, is, that the estate in land, whereby they are able to maintain so many, in any
European
territory, must overbalance the rest that remains to the people, at least three parts in four, by which means they are no more able to dispute the government with him or them, than your servant is with you. Now, for the same reason, if the people hold three parts in four of the territory, it is plain there can neither be any single person nor nobility able to dispute the government with them; in this case, therefore, except force be interposed, they govern themselves. So by this computation of the balance of property, or dominion in land, you have according to the threefold foundation of property, the root or generation of the threefold kind of government or empire.
If one man be sole landlord of a territory, or overbalance the whole people, three parts in four, or thereabouts, he is Grand Seignior; for so the Turk, not from his empire, but his property, is called; and the empire in this case, is absolute monarchy.
If the few, or a nobility, or a nobility with a clergy, be landlords to such a proportion as overbalances the people in the like manner, they may make whom they please king; or, if they be not pleased with their king, down with him, and set up whom they like better; a HENRY the Fourth, or the Seventh, a GUISE, a MONTFORT, a NEVIL, or a PORTER, should they find that best for their own ends and purposes: For, as not the balance of the king, but that of the nobility, in this case, is the cause of the government, so not the estate or the riches of the prince or captain, but his virtue or ability, or fitness for the ends of the nobility, acquires that command or office. This for aristocracy or mixed monarchy. But if the whole people be landlords, or hold the land so divided among them, that no one man or number of men within the compass of the few, or aristocracy overbalance them, it is a commonwealth. Such is the branch in the root, or the balance of property naturally producing empire; which not confuted, no man shall be able to batter my superstructures, and which confuted I lay down my arms; till then, if the cause necessarily precede the effect, property must have a being before empire; or, beginning with it, must be still first in order.
Property comes to have a being before empire or government two ways, either by a natural or violent revolution. Natural revolution happens from within, or by commerce, as when a government erected upon one balance, that for example of a nobility or a clergy, through the decay of their estates comes to alter to another balance; which alteration in the root of property leaves all to confusion, or produces a new branch of government, according to the kind or nature of the root. Violent revolution happens from without, or by arms, as when upon conquest there follows confiscation. Confiscation again is of three kinds; when the captain taking all to himself, plants his army, by way of military colonies, benefices, or timars, which was the policy of MAHOMET; or when the captain has some sharers, or a nobility that divides with him which was the policy introduced by the
Goths
and
Vandals;
or when the captain divides the inheritance by lots, or otherwise, to the whole people; which policy was instituted by GOD or MOSES in the commonwealth of Israel. This triple distribution, which from natural or violent revolution returns as to the generation of empire to the same thing, that is to the nature of the balance already stated and demonstrated.
ABRIDGMENT OF ROMAN HISTORY.
ROMULUS and REMUS being sent by their grandfather Numetor, from Alba, at the head of a colony, to seek a new settlement, quarrelled about the choice of a spot where they should fix, and build them a city: Romulus chusing mount Palatine, and Remus mount Aventine. Remus is said to have lost his life in this dispute. The city was therefore built on mount Palatine, and, in compliment to its founder, called Rome. As Romulus had not taken upon him the chief command of the colony for any longer time than while the city was building, he, as soon as the work was finished, submitted the form of its future government to the choice of the people, and, calling the citizens together, harangued them in words to this effect:
"If all the strength of cities lay in the height of their ramparts, or the depth of their ditches, we should have great reason to be in fear for that which we have now built. Are there in reality any walls too high to be scaled by a valiant enemy? And of what use are ramparts in intestine divisions? They may serve for a defence against sudden incursions from abroad; but it is by courage and prudence chiefly, that the invasions of foreign enemies are repelled: and by unanimity, sobriety, and justice, that domestic seditions are prevented. Cities fortified by the strongest bulwarks have been seen to yield to force from without, or to tumults from within. An exact military discipline, and a steady observance of civil policy, are the surest barriers against these evils. But there is still another point of great importance to be considered: the prosperity of some rising colonies, and the speedy ruin of others, have in a great measure been owing to their form of government. Was there but one manner of ruling states and cities that could make them happy, the choice would not be difficult. But I have learnt, that of the various forms of government among the Greeks and Barbarians, there are three which are highly extolled by those who have experienced them; and yet, that no one of these is in all respects perfect, but each of them has some innate and incurable defect. Chuse ye, then, in what manner this city shall be governed. Shall it be by one man? Shall it be by a select number of the wisest among us? or shall the legislative power be in the people? As for me, I shall submit to any form of adminstration you shall please to establish. As I think myself not unworthy to command, so neither am I unwilling to obey. Your having chosen me to be the leader of this colony, and your calling the city after my name, are honours sufficient te content me; honours, of which, living or dead, I can never be deprived."
Romulus was chosen king; and Rome was governed by kings for upwards of 240 years, till the expulsion of Tarquin the Second, which was occasioned by his son Sextus ravishing Lucretia, the wife of Collatinus, a noble Roman. Lucretia, upon receiving this injury, sent for her husband, who was then in the camp at Ardea with Tarquin, and for several of his friends, and having informed them of the outrage she had received, and engaged them to revenge it, stabbed herself to the heart, and died before them. The Romans had long groaned under the tyranny and cruelty of the Tarquins, and were therefore glad to lay hold on so flagrant and outrageous an insult, to shake off their yoke. The famous Junius Brutus, who for some reasons had masked himself, and concealed great talents, under the appearance of idiotism, suddenly threw off his disguise, and, going near to the dying lady, drew the poignard out of her bosom, and shewing it all bloody to the assembly, to their great astonishment thus addressed them:
"Yes, noble lady, I swear by this blood, which was once so pure, and which nothing but royal villainy could have polluted, that I will pursue Lucius Tarquinius the Proud, his wicked wife, and their children, with fire and sword, nor will I ever suffer any of that family, or of any other whatever, to be king in Rome: Ye Gods, I call you to witness this my oath!—There, Romans, turn your eyes to that sad spectacle—the daughter of Lucretius, Collatinus's wife—she died by her own hand. See there a noble lady, whom the lust of a Tarquin reduced to the necessity of being her own executioner, to attest her innocence. Hospitably entertained by her as a kinsman of her husband's, Sextus, the perfidious guest, became her brutal ravisher. The chaste, the generous Lucretia could not survive the insult. Glorious woman! But once only treated as a slave, she thought life no longer to be endured. Lucretia, a woman, disdained a life that depended upon a tyrant's will; and shall we, shall men, with such an example before our eyes, and after five-and-twenty years of ignominous servitude, shall we, through a fear of dying, defer one single instant to assert our liberty? No, Romans, now is the time; the favourable moment we have so long waited for is come. Tarquin is not at Rome. The patricians are at the head of the enterprize. The city is abundantly provided with men, arms, and all things necessary. There is nothing wanting to secure the success, if our own courage does not fail us. And shall those warriors, who have ever been so brave, when foreign enemies were to be subdued, or when conquests were to be made to gratify the ambition and avarice of Tarquin, be then only cowards, when they are to deliver themselves from slavery? Some of you, perhaps, are intimidated by the army which Tarquin now commands. The soldiers, you imagine will take the part of their general: Banish so groundless a fear. The love of liberty is natural to all men. Your fellow citizens in the camp feel the weight of oppression, with as quick a sense, as you that are in Rome. They will as eagerly seize the occasion of throwing of the yoke. But, let us grant there may be some among them who through baseness of spirit, or a bad education, will be disposed to favour the tyrant. The number of these can be but small, and we have means sufficient in our hands to reduce them to reason. They left us hostages more dear to them than life. Their wives, their children, their fathers, their mothers are in the city. Courage, Romans, the gods are for us! those Gods, whose temples and altars the impious Tarquin has profaned by sacrifices and libations made with polluted hands, polluted with blood, and with numberless unexpiated crimes committed against his subjects. Ye Gods, who protected our forefathers! ye Genii, who watch for the preservation and glory of Rome! do you inspire us with courage and unanimity in this glorious cause, and we will, to our last breath, defend your worship from all profanation."
[To be continued in following Numbers.]
Eccl. iv. 1, 2, 3.
So I returned, and considered all the Oppressions that are done under the Sun: and behold the
TEARS
of such as were
OPPRESSED,
and they had
NO COMFORTER;
and on the side of their Oppressors there was
POWER,
but they had no Comforter. Wherefore, I praised the dead which are already dead, more than the living which are yet alive. Yea, better is he than both they, which hath not yet been, who hath not seen the
EVIL WORK
that is done under the Sun.
THE following extract, from a very interesting work, lately published, intitled
"Travels in the Western Hebrides, by the Rev. John Lane Buchanan,"
will shew some few of the hardships suffered by our brethren in one part of this
free
and
happy
nation. It may be proper to premise, that the Islands here spoken of are not those which lie next to the coast of Scotland, but the Western
Abudae,
a long chain of Islands, about seventy miles farther west in the Atlantic Ocean. It may be also proper to mention, that altho' the author has adopted the title of
Travels,
this work is the result of observation made by him, during his residence in these Islands, in quality of Missionary Minister from the Church of Scotland. from 1782 to 1790.
There are in these Islands an unfortunate and numerous class of men, known under the name of
Scallags.
The Scallag, whether male or female, is a poor being. who, for mere subsistence, becomes a predial slave to another, whether a subtenant, a tacksman
By Tacksmen are meant farmers, to whom extensive tracts of lands are let, and who let them out in small parcels to the poor people, over whom they exercise the most cruel tyranny and oppression As sew of the proprietors resides themselves on the islands, these
acks
en, who are generally relations of the LAIRDS, may
e considered the highest class of the people.
, or a laird. The Scallag builds his own hut, with sods and boughs of trees, and if he is sent from one part of the country to another, he moves off his sticks; and, by means of these, forms a new hut in another place. He is, however, in most places, encouraged by the possession of the walls of a former but, which he covers in the best way be can with his old sticks, stubble, and fern. Five days in the week he works for his master; the sixth is allowed to himself, for the cultivation of some scrap of land, on the edge of some moss or moor; on which he raises a little kail or colewort, barley and potatoes. These articles boiled up in one mash, and often without salt, are his only food; except in those seasons and days when he can catch some fish, which he is also obliged not unfrequently to eat without bread or salt. The only bread he tastes is a cake, made of the flower of barley. He is allowed coarse shoes, with tartan hose, and a coarse coat, with a blanket or two for cloathing. It may occur to an English reader, that, as the Scallag works only five days out of seven for his master, he has two to provide for himself. But it is to be recollected, that throughout the whole of Scotland, and all its appendages, Sunday, or the sabbath as it is called, is celebrated by a total cessation from all labour, and all amusements, as well as by religious exercises.
The tacksmen and subtenants, formerly on an equal footing, or nearly so, were wont to plead their cause on equal terms before a common chief. At present they are obliged to be much more submissive to their tacksman than ever they were in former times to their lairds or lords. Formerly they were a free, animated, and bold people, commanding respect for their undanted courage, and repelling injuries from whatever quarter they came, both by words and actions. But now they must approach even the tacksmen, with cringing humility, heartless and discouraged, with tattered rags, hungry bellies and downcast looks, carrying their own implements of husban try for ten or twelve miles backward and forward, over hills and mountains, to do the work of the tacksmen; and must either sit we
in their cloaths all night in a dirty kitchen, or sleep in dirty cloaths, particularly in Luskintire in Harris, exposed to be trampled on by swine, where the kitchen is commonly the stye. Formerly a Highlander would have drawn his dirk against even a laird, if he had subjected him to the indignity of a blow; at present any tyrannical tacksman may strike a Scallag, or even a subtenant, with perfect impunity. What degree of spirit and virtue is to be expected, from a people so humbled, so enstaved? What degree of courage, or even inclinatition to repel an invading enemy?
If we have not money
(some of these tacksmen have been known to say,)
we have men enough: let us wear them well while they are in our power.
In short they treat them like beasts of burthen; and in all respects like slaves attached to the soil, as they cannot obtain new habitations, on account of combinations among the tacksmen, and are entirely at the mercy of the laird or tacksman.
The master or his overseer, often on the most frivolous pretences, abandons himself to bursts of passion, and with hands, feet and rods, breaks the bones of men and women too. This is not an exaggerated picture. The broken ribs of one young maid, named Macklellan, from the village of Cluar, attest the fact, which was committed by a tacksman, assuming the title of DOCTOR. This same
doctor
almost took the life of another innocent maid from Shilebost; though she gave no other offence, than that of tarrying a little longer than he wished, at her mistresses desire, to finish something she had in hand.
Better to trust a whole People with the power of doing Wrong, than one only.
(From Dodsley's Poems.)
YET vainly would despotic will conclude,
That force may sway the erring multitude.
Justice 'tis own'd, should ever guide the free,
But pow'r of wrong, In all, is liberty;
And for whatever purposes restrain'd,
A nation is enslav'd that may be chain'd;
Heaven gives to all a liberty of choice,
A people's good requires a people's voice:
Man's surest guide where different views agree,
From private hate and privaet int'rest free.
Fatal their change from such who rashly fly,
To the hard grasp of guiding tyranny!
Soon shall they find, when will is arm'd with might,
Injustice wield the sword, though drawn for right.
Lines addressed to the Grand Conspirators
AGAINST HUMAN LIBERTY.
Written (previous to the 2d. Campaign)
By
W. D. GRANT.
DELUDED ravagers! enslavers of Mankind,
All your ambitious dreams too late (tho' soon) you'll find,
Must end in freedom's triumph—slavery dismay—
No more shall despotism darken reason's day!
Ah! son's of regal folly and inflated pride
Lay all your butchering, murdering schemes aside
Let not your hands again in human blood be dy'd!
Kindness—not cruelty—implies parental care:
If ye are fathers—let
actions
shew ye are!
Not see, inhumanly, your
children
wounded! slain!
Grief and toil their portion, while your's is all the gain.
Sunk in sensual pleasure, you leave them nought but pain.
A GOVERNMENT OF CITIZENS IS INVULNERABLE. FROM HARRINCTON'S OCEANA.
ALL government, as implied by what has been already shewn, is of these three kinds:
A government of servants: A government of subjects; or A government of citizens.
The first is absolute monarchy, as that of
Turkey:
The second aristocratical monarchy, as that of
France:
The third a commonwealth, as those of
Israel,
of
Rome,
of
Holland.
Now to follow MACHIAVEL (in part) of these, the government of servants is the harder to be conquered, and the easier to be held: The government of subjects is the easter to be conquered and the harder to be held. To which I shall presume to add, that the government of citizens is both the hardest to be conquered, and the hardest to be held.
My author's reasons, why a government of servants is the hardest to be conquered, come to this, that they are under perpetual discipline and command, void of such interests and factions as have hands or power to hold upon advantages or innovation; whence he that invades the
Turk
must trust to his own strength, and not rely upon disorders in the government, or forces which he shall be sure enough to find united.
His reasons why this government, being once broken, is easily held, are, that the armies once past hope of rallying, there being no such thing as families hanging together, or nobility to stir up their dependants to further reluctancy for the present, or to preserve themselves by complacence with the conquerors, for future discontents or advantages, he that has won the garland has no more to do but to extinguish the royal line, and wear it ever after in security. For the people having been always slaves, are such whose condition he may better, in which case they are gainers by their conqueror, but can never make a worse, and therefore they lose nothing by him. Hence ALEXANDER having conquered the
Persian
empire, he and his captains after him could hold it without the least dispute, except it arose among themselves. Hence MAHOMET the second having taken
Constantinople,
and put
Palaeologus
the
Greek
emperor (whose government was of like nature with the
Persian
) together with his whole family, to the sword, the
Turk
has held that empire without reluctancy.
On the other side, the reasons why a government of subjects is easier conquered, are these: That it is supported by a nobility so antient, so powerful, and of such hold and influence upon the people, that the king without danger, if not ruin to himself or the throne (an example whereof was given in HENRY the seventh of
England,
) can neither invade their privileges, nor level their estates; which remaining, they have power upon every discontent to call in an enemy, as ROBERT Count of
Artois
did the
English,
and the Duke of
Guise
the
Spaniard,
into
France.
The reasons why a government of subjects being so easily conquered, is nevertheless harder to be held, are these: that the nobility being soon out of countenance in such a case, and repenting themselves of such a bargain, have the same means in their hands, whereby they brought in the enemy, to drive him out, as those of
France
did both the
English
and the
Spaniards.
For the government of citizens, as it is of two kinds, an equal or an unequal commonwealth, the reason why it is the hardest to be conquered, are also of two kinds; as first, the reasons why a government of citizens, where the commonwealth is equal, is hardest to be conquered, are, that the invader of such a society must not only trust to his own strength, insomuch as the commonwealth being equal, he must needs find them united, but in regard, that such citizens being all soldiers or trained up to their arms, which they use
not
for the defence of
slavery,
but of LIBERTY (A CONDITION NOT IN THIS WORLD TO BE BETTERED); they have more especially upon this occasion, the highest soul of courage, and (if their territory be of any extent) the vastest body of a well disciplined militia that is possible in nature: wherefore AN EXAMPLE OF SUCH A ONE OVERCOME BY THE ARMS OF A MONARCH, IS NOT TO BE FOUND IN THE WORLD. And if some small city of this frame has happened to be vanquished by a potent commonwealth,
this is her prerogative, her towers are her funeral pile, and she expires in her own flame, leaving nothing to the conqueror but her ashes, as
Saguntum
overwhelmed by
Carthage,
and
Numantia
by
Rome.
A DESCRIPTION OF PRINCE LUCIFER's SUBJECTS. (From a Pamphlet entitled: The Rights of the Devil.)
ALL those men whatever description or whatever country they may belong to, in whom the Devil
as right and property, and over whom he extends his influence, are like wolves, easily distinguished from the sheep, to which he lays claim: because there is a particular mark whereby you may know those ravenous beasts. Moreover, you will always see them exceedingly active in their monarch Lucifer's service; they are invested with full power to oppress and torture human nature, for the sake of plundering them. Their iron hearts are dead to the feelings of humanity; they regard not the cries of the fatherless, neither does the cause of the widow come near them. Cast an eye to the cruelties daily committed in the sl
ve trade; reflect for a moment on the many thousands of wretched Africans, who are tortared out of existence yearly, in order to exact from their labour, to which in justice they have not the least claim. Some in the various modes of obtaining them; others suffocated in the floating bastiles, by the stench and corrupted air, which they breathe in the hold, while being conveyed to the land of slavery and death, in the West Indies; and those who survive the shocking treatment they experience while on board, or are not swept away by disease, have only a worse fate awaiting them; worked without intermission, and flogged without commiseration, they are hurried to their eternal home, by those savage monsters who have the charge of them. Thus are these innocent beings murdered by the agents and servants of the devil, whom they adore and serve, and whose right and property they are.
Is not the influence of Satan very visible in some other illustrious characters, the avowed enemies of the human race, who claim and lay hold upon the tenth of the product of the earth, which have been increased by improvement, and produced by the sweating brows of other men? Can there be any justice in such plundering as this? or rather, is not that man a better character who only stops you in the highway once in your life, and exacts from you your purse? You will certainly answer these questions in the affirmitive, and declare that we are completely humbugged by the priesthood. Hence arises the necessity of priestcraft to blind the eyes of the people, and render them totally ignorant and unaquainted in this important fact, that a priesthood is, and always has been a curse to all nations of the earth. Ignorance in the multitude is the chief support and only nutriment by which the v
mity and pride of the clergy is fed. As tythe pigs fill their filthy sties and black waist-coasts of corruption. Ah! deluded swinish multitude, typified by the tythe pig; highly emblematical of your wallowing in the mire of church and state, while the idle and dissipated beings who oppress you, are rolling in luxury and debauchery, at the expence of your delusion. How long you will you not call to Belzebub to remove from you your tormentors, and take them, as his right, to his eternal kingdom?
There is another class of men, in whom Lucifer has great right, and are thus described by Lord Chatham: "There is," says he,
a set of men in London, who are known to live in riot and luxury, upon the plunder of the ignorant, the innocent and the helpless; upon that part of the community which stands in most need of, and best deserves the care and protection of the legislature. To me, my lords, whether they be miserable jobbers of Change-alley, or the lofty Asiatic plunderers of Leadenhall street, they are all equally detestable. I care but little whether a man walks on foot, or is drawn by six or eight horses; if his luxury be supported by the plunder of his country, I despise and abhor him. My lords, while I had the honour of serving his majesty, I never ventured to look at the
Treasury,
but from a distance, it is a business I am unfit for, and to which I never could have submitted. The little I know of it, has not served to raise my opinion of what is vulgarly called the monied interest, I mean that
blood-sucker
that
muckworm,
which calls itself the friend of government, which pretends to serve this or that administration, and may be purchased on the same terms by any administration. Under this description I include the whole race of commissioners, jobbers, contractors, clothiers, and remitters.
To these may be added, all placemen (in general) pensioners, gapers, and expectants, collectors of excise and customs, proprietors of ministerial newspapers, humane press-gangs, &c. &c. all come under one class or domination of Lucifer's loyal, and loving subjects, who devote their whole lives to the service of their master.
To enumerate all the various characters in the different parts of the world, over whom the devil exercises a special right and influence, would require an age. Yet you may observe. that I have pointed out to you, some of the most conspicuous persons who are the destined inhabitants of Lucifer's kingdom, from the regal oppressor to the meanest peasant.
What mean ye, that ye beat my people to pieces, and
GRIND
the faces of the poor? saith the Lord God of Hosts.
Isaiah iii. 15—
Therefore my people are gone into captivity,
BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO KNOWLEDGE;
and their honourable men are famished, and their multitude
(i. e. swinish multitude)
dried up with thirst. Therefore
HELL
hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure, and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it.
Isaith v. 13.
For the leaders of this people
CAUSE
them to err: and
THEY
that are led of them
ARE
destroyed,
Isaiah ix. 16. Thus you see the people are destroyed, because they rid not the earth of such hypocritical leaders, or governors, tyrants, or false teachers, and chuse from among themselves men to rule over them. Wo
unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed: To turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the
RIGHT
from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may ro
the fatherless!
Isaiah, x. 1. 2. Hence, it appears, that to take away the rights of the people is a sin, but to refuse to restore them when demanded is still worse;
therefore
HELL
hath enlarged herself to receive them.
WHO WOULD NOT BE A SOLDIER?!!!
BY VOLAIRE.
—YOU must drink the King of BULGARIA'S health, said the soldiers; he is the best of kings. Most willingly, replied Candide, and drank. Now you are a brave fellow, said they, you are become his support, his defender, one of the heroes of Bulgaria; your fortune is made, your fameeternal. They then put handcuffs on his wrists, conducted him to the regiment. There they made him turn to the right, wheel to the left, shoulder his musket, rest upon his arms, present, fire, march and counter-march; in return for which the drill serjeant gave him some thirty strokes with the cane, The next day he performed his exercise better, and received only twenty. On the morrow they gave him but ten, and all his comrades regarded him as a prodigy of genius.
The astonished Candide could not conceive by what enchantment he had become a hero. One pleasant morning in spring, when the birds were singing, and the trees beginning to bloom, he thought proper to take a walk. Proceeding in a right line, and supposing it was the privilege of the human species, like other animals, to make use of their legs, he had not gone above two leagues, before six other heroes, each of six feet high, overtook him, bound him, and threw him into a dungeon. He was juridically asked, whether he preferred being thirty-six times flogged through the regiment, or to suffer twelve balls to pass through his brains? In vain did he assert the freedom of the will, and affirm, that he preferred neither the one nor the other: chuse he must, and, in virtue of that gift of God, which is called Liberty, he concluded in favour of flogging. He was twice brought to the halbards, where he each time received five hundred lashes, which slayed him from the hips to the nape of the neck, and laid the muscles and nerves all bare. As they were proceeding to the third course, CANDIDE, unable to endure more, requested for God's sake, they would have the goodness to blow out his brains. His petition was favourably received; but, as he was kneeling blindfold, the King of the Bulgarians happened to come to the parade, and enquired concerning his crime. As this king was a man of great genius, he comprehended from the story they told him, that CANDIDE was a young metaphysician, ignorant of the world, and he granted his pardon; which clemency has been and will be recorded in every newspaper, every history, and every age. A skilful surgeon iu three weeks cured CANDIDE by use of the emollients which DIOSCO
IDES prescribes. The skin again began to cover his back, and he was able to march, when the King of the Bulgarians gave battle to the King of the Abarians.
Nothing could be so charming, so dazzling, so well disciplined, so well appointed as the two armies. The trumpets, drums, hautboys, fifes, and cannon formed a concert of such harmony as Hell itself never equalled. To begin, the artillery laid low about six thousand men on each side. The musquetry next dispatched between nine and ten thousand knaves, who infested the surface of this best of possible worlds; and the bavonet in its turn, was the adequate cause of the death of as many more. The whole amount was at least thirty thousand souls. CANDIDE, who trembled like a philosopher, hid himself as well as he could during this heroic butchery. At length, while the two kings ordered
Te deum
to be sung in their two camps, he thought proper to depart and reason elsewhere on causes and effects. He passed over mountains of the dying and the dead. The first village he came to belonged to the Aba
ians; it was reeking with smoke, having been burnt by the Bulgarians, according to the laws of nations. Here stood old men maimed by the enemy. gazing on their murdered
ives with their dead children extended on their bleeding bosoms. There lay virgins with their wombs ripped open, after having appeased the natural appetites of certain heroes, giving up the ghost. Others half ro
ed, called aloud for one to come and dispatch them entirely. Here the brains of men were scattered, here their arms, here their legs and here their mangled trunks. CANDIDE fled with all his might to another village, that belo
ed to the Bulgarians, which the heroes of Abaria had treated in much the same manner. At length. marching over limbs still trembling, hearts still p
lpitating, and fires yet unextinguished, he luckily escaped from the theatre of war and glory.
From the Candid Philosopher, printed in the year
1778. ON THE PROCRESS OF LIBETRY IN FRANCE.
HOWEVER the present age may have receded from genuine piety, it has certainly m
de the most rapid advances in a freedom and liberality of sentiment, which do honour to human nature. The French nation has particularly distinguished itself in this respect. Its writers display a vigour of thought they have till now been almost strangers to. They plead the cause of human nature, and assert man's natural
ights, with an energy and warmth that seem to indicate the speedy downfal of that vast fabric of superstition and error, that has hitherto so greatly obstructed the progress of free enquiry, and chilled even the emotions of humanity. What writer of any nation can express himself with greater zeal for the sovereignty of the laws, against the blind will of the monarch, the tyranny of ministers, or the clamour of a mob, than to lay this down as a just maxim? "Le glaire redoubtable de la justice n'a point ete deposed
ns les mains des magistrats, pour venger des haines parti
ul
eres, ni meme pour suivre les monvemens de I indignation publique.
e
t a LA LOI SEULE appartient de marquer les victimes; et si les clameurs d'une multitude aveugle et passionn
e pouvoint decider les juges a prononcer one Peine capitale, I innocence pren
oit la place du crime. et il n'y auroit plus de surete pour le citoyen." These are just and excellent sentiments; but they are not peculiar to this writer. The greater part of his countrymen now think with the same freedom, and speak with the same force. This liberal spirit has a greater tendency to exalt the French nation than all the military operations of their much boasted Lewis XIV. whose glories sunk, and whose victories impoverished, the kingdom he sought to strengthen and enrich. However, as Englishmen, we may lament the dawing splendor of the French monarchy, enlighte'ed by the Sun of science; yet, as citizens of the universe, we must rejoice at the great and glorious effects produced by the genius of liberty, that can turn Siberia's deserts into Albion's fertile plains; unlock the sources of plenty and bliss, and change brutes and slaves into men and heroes!
ON A LIFE OF LABOUR.
FROM THE SAME.
WE read in many authors great encomiums on a life of
labour,
and of the superior blessings of peasants and hard working men, whose temperate and abstemious lives not only make them enjoy an uninterrupted state of health, but throw a crimson on their cheeks, and give a vigour to their bodies, the sons of wealth and affluence, they tell us, may in vain sigh for. This sounds well; but I own I am doubtful of the fact.
If I compare the working part of mankind, who
e hard and work hard. with those who eat and drink of the good "things of the earth," I think I can discern better complexions. choicer animal sp
ri
s, and stronger bodies in the latter than in the former. Incessant labour, and coarse and scanty food, have certainly a tendency to weaken the bodies of mankind, and wear them out before their time
And this we
is the ease, What becomes t
n of the fine spun theories of visionary authors. who so greatly extol a laborious life?—Why, they are destroyed, like other cobweb systems, that will not bear
handling.
The personal Virtues of a Monarch are unable to secure him from contempt, if he will be led blindfold by wicked Ministers.
FROM THE SAME.
A MONARCH who will suffer himself to be directed by vicious favourites and ministers, though virtuous in himself, is, in fact, the author of their vices, and all the unhappy consequences that result from them. A monarch who is the father of his people, should not be the dupe of a favourite. A monarch who should see and judge for himself, should not take things upon trust. If a nation, from the height of splendour and glory, should be brought by the ignorance or treachery of incapable or wicked ministers, to a state of misery and contempt, despised abroad, and at home unhappy—it is but poor consolation to reflect, that the king has many personal virtues. Was this imaginary description to become a real picture of a nation, and its virtuous monarch, I would cry out wiih Marcus, in the Tragedy of Cato,
"Curse on his virtues—they've undone his country."
MODERN MOTIVES FOR WAR.
(From Barlow's advice to the Privileged Orders.)
ONE general character will apply to much the greater part of the wars of modern times,— they are
political,
and not vindictive. This alone is sufficient to account for their real origin. They are wars of agreement, rather than of dissention; and the conquest is taxes. and not territory. To carry on this business. it is necessary not only to keep up the military spirit of the noblesse by titles and pensions, and to keep in pay a vast number of troops, who know no other God but their king, who lose all ideas of themselves, in contemplating their officers, and who forget the duties of a m
n, to practise those of a soldier.—this is but half the operation; an essential part of the military system is to disarm the people, to hold all the functions of war, as well the arm that executes, as the will that declares it, equally above their reach. This part of the system has a douhle effect, it palsies the hand and brutalizes the mind; an habitual disuse of physical forces totally destroys the moral; and men lose at once the power of protecting themselves, and of discerning the cause of their oppression,
ON THE GOVERNMENT OF HELL.
(From a Pamphlet entitled: The Rights of the Devil.)
WE have a long time disputed, and are not yet agreed in this point, what is the best and most advantageous form of government for any nation, and for the people whereof it consists. Some are for a democracy, others for aristocracy, and others for monarchy. Although each of these opinions has its favourites, and is supported by very solid reasons; it nevertheless appears certain, that monarchy prevails over the other two, because the four great empires which succeeded one another in the world, and existed near two thousand years, all adopted and followed a monarchial form of government. And it appears to be an indisputable fact, that this is the government of the infernal empire (viz) an absolute monarchy. It is undoubtedly the best form of government for the monarch, whatever it may be for the subjects, because the Devil assumes the power of the whole mass of beings collectively, and consequently can make what aggrandizement he pleases at the expence of his vassals, and they dare not grunt their disapprobation. Thus, you see the Devil has a right and property in his subjects, as he, like earthly monarchs, can rob and plunder them at his pleasure, and is accountable to no one for his deeds; for it is an established maxim, "That kings can do no wrong." Therefore, Lucifer, as King of Hell, cannot act amiss. But you are ready to ask, from whence did the Devil derive these inestimable rights and privileges? Did the people, his subjects, give up their rights? No: he acquired them by assumption; and by God's permission, he has possessed those valuable rights through a series of ages, and will continue to enjoy them for ages to come, as their is no heir apparent to lucceed him. Is not those
Rights of the Devil
with respect to the length of time he enjoys them far superior to the
Rights of earthly Kings?
certainly they are, as history furnishes us with documents to prove that he has exercised those rights through a succession of ages, already near six thousand years; and will undoubtedly enjoy them as many more. The infernal monarchy, according to history, appears to have been original; for I do not recollect reading of any other previous to the establishment of a monarchical government in Hell by the puissant Lucifer. Why, thou fool, say some of you, how shouldst thou hear of its having a precedent, since its originality is unquestionable, and all other
absolute
monarchies are but eminations from that primary authority, having their existence from that very source. Hell is the fountain head, and all terrestrial monarchies, I say, are but corrupted waters in comparison with the fountain which supplies them, notwithstanding no labour has been lost on the part of the monarchs in all ages and kingdoms, to render their governments pure like their original. Yet Hell is the most peaceable, and justice therein the best administered of any other kingdom I have ever heard of. No wars! no riots! no tumults or insurrections! no traiterous correspondence! no sediton or attempt to alienate the affections of Lucifer's subjects from his person! no attempt to vilify and bring into contempt the constitution of the empire! But, on the contrary, the virtues most prevalent are, unity, peace and concord, throughout the whole of Lucifer's dominions. In Hell, the public tranquility is never disturbed in any state or apartment. There you will hear of no such odious names, as Paine, or Priestley, to alarm or terrify you, by their endeavours to subvert the government or the country. There will be no Birmingham Roberspieres to affright, or disturb "the loyal Job Not," when he lays down his head on the lap of his mother, of whom poor Job has such dreadful apprehensions.
Go on, thou
loyal true blue,
and pursue thy journey, and fear not for thou mayest assuredly depend upon a welcome reception by King Lucifer, but more especially if thou art accompanied by thy confort Betty Martin, no questions will then be asked, the mark in your foreheads will testify whose subjects you are. Hail! happy Job and Betty! Two faithful pot companions; greet the brethren of the household with an unholy kiss, when you enter those happy realms, where loyalty and unanimity ever dwells. Who can avoid contemplating the happiness of Job, when undisturbed by his enemies? There is no such thing as a Jacobin in Hell; and the names of Paine, Priestley, and in short all the names of modern reformers, are detestable there as well as here: no projects of reform are recognized there; in fact, thereis no necessity, the constitution being in its primitive purity, which is rendered manifest by the desire of anti-republicans and others shew in their emigration thither. What has been left undone by the celebrated Job Nott, the more effectually to secure to himself a place at the helm of affairs in Satan's kingdom? Has not every thing in his power been done, to obtain the favour of his master Lucifer? Certainly Job has been a very zealous friend in his master's service, which was very conspicuous in his conduct in the Birmingham riots; and he is entitled to patronage and promotion in the court of Lucifer, in whom the sole right of conferring places, honours, pensions, and emoluments is invested, Job's literary productions have also contributed very much to the population of the infernal regions; which will undoubtedly prejudice the inhabitants greatly in his favour. Methinks, I hear some of you say that I am jealous of the honour about to be done to Job: no, no; far be it from me to envy any man; for I declare to Job and all the world, that neither envy, hatred, malice or uncharitableness shall ever find place within me.
The Impossibility of commencing Tyrant over an armed Nation convinced of the universal Equality of Mankind.
(From Barlow's Advice to the Privileged Orders)
ONLY admit this original, un
lt
rable truth,
that all men are qual in their rights,
and the foundation of every thing is laid: to build the superstructures requires no effort but that of natural deduction. The first necessary deduction will be, that the people will form an equal representative government; in which it will be impossible for
orders
or
privileges
to exist for a moment; and consequently the first materials for standing armies will be converted into peaceable members of the state. Another deduction follows, that the people will be universally armed: they will assume those weapons for security, which the art of war has invented for destruction. You will then have removed the
necessity
of a standing army, by the organization of the legislature, and the
possibility
of it, by the ararangement of the militia; for it is saimpossible for an armed soldiery to exist in an armed nation, as for a nobility to exist under as equal government.
It is curious to remark how ill we reason on human nature, from being accustomed to view it under the disguise which the unequal governments of the world have always imposed upon it, During the American was, and especially towards its close, General Washington might be said to possess the hearts of all the Americans. His recommendation was law, and he was able to command the whole power of that people for any purpose of defence. The philosophers of Europe considered this as a dangerous crisis to the cause of freedom. They
knew,
from the example of Caesar, and Silla, and Marius, and Alcibiades, and Pericles, and Cromwell, that Washington would never lay down his arms, till he had given his country a master. But after he did lay them down, then came the miracle —his virtue was more than human; and it is by this miracle of virtue in him, that the Americans are supposed to enjoy their liberty at this day.
I believe the virtue of that great man to be equal to the highest human virtue that has ever yet been known; but to an American eye no extraordinary portion of it could appear in that transaction. It would have been impossible for the General or the anny, to have continued in the field after the enemy left it; for the soldiers were all
citizens!
and if it had been otherwise. their numbers were not the hundreth part of the citizens at large, who were all
soldiers.
To say that he was wise in discerning the impossibility of success, in an attempt to imitate the great heroes abovementioned, is to give him only the same merit for sagacity which is common to every other person who knows the country, or has well considered the effects of equal liberty.
ON THE POMPOUS TITLES GIVEN TO THE DIGNIFIED CLERGY.
(From the Candid Philosopher)
THE pompous titles given to the haughty successors of humble fishermen, have often amazed me. Some of them appear to me either to border on the very confines of blasphemy, or to have no meaning in them. I would fain know how any man alive can, with propriety, be called a RIGHT REVEREND FATHER IN GOD? What is the meaning of this great title? How can any man. formed of dust and ashes, full of frailty, and full of sin, be said to be RIGHT REVEREND? And how is he a
Father
in GOD? Equivocation may explain away these words, but common sense must determine they are impious and absurd.—As to the terms, your
Grace,
your Lordship, your
Reverence,
&c. &c. they favour too much of vanity and laical pride, to become the humility of the disciples of CHRIST, and teachers of his gospel. I cannot find any such titles were ever given to our SAVIOUR or his apostles; yet, without intending any affront to the pious Pastors of the established Church, I really think the apostles were as holy, wise and virtuous, as any of the Primates, Archbishops, Prebendaties, Rectors, Vicars, &c. &c. &c. &c. &c. of the present age.
ON THE VENALITY OF VOTERS, BOTH IN AND OUT OF PARLIAMENT.
(From the Adventures of Gabriel Outcast.)
THOUGH our prudent ancestors found it necessary to curb the influence of the crown, by enacting a law, that none of its officers should interfere in elections, yet matters are come to such a pass. that administration found it necessary to have as many voices in the house, as they could acquire; for this purpose no money was spared, and every measure pursued that would defe
t and evade the standing laws against bribery and corruption. The misfortune seemed to be this: in the reign of King William, venality in parliament was unknown, every man voted as his judgment and conscience directed him, and the minister could carry no measures of his own, unless they tended to the general good.
This did not agree with King William, who was an arbitrary prince, and of course, found his situation so uneasy. that he was once on the eve of returning to Holland in disgust, and would undoubtedly have done it, had not his ministers contrived to carry his favourite points, by bribing the Parliament of those times. Thus did that venality, to which the enormous debt of this nation is in a great measure owing, descend from the crown to the people; for in those days it was found difficult to find representatives; and the electors were obliged to court gentlemen to serve them. But when the members found they were to be rewarded for their votes. men were so eager to get into parliament, that they courted the electors, who, in their turn, expected o
be paid for their suffrages, of course, the members of the lower house, in a few years, could not obtain a sear but at a great expence, and to reimburse themselves, made terms with the minister; and such was the degeneracy of the times, that men would not vete, even according to their consciences, without a bribe. This corruption spreading from the lower house to the upper, has occasioned all the cala
ties under which this country labours; and whereas venality near a century ago descended, as I observed, from the crown to the people, it now rises from the people to the crowm.
Note.—
At the end of the
Second Part
will be given a
Table of Contents
to the Volume.
The remaining Part of the Work will be published as the former, neemely, in Weekly Penny Numbers.
END OF THE FIRST PART.
PART SECOND, OF
PIGS' MEAT;
OR, Lessons for the Swinish Multitude. PUBLISHED IN WEEKLY PENNY NUMBERS.
Defects in the English Constitution, as to Representation. From the
Complaints of the Poor People of England.
By
G. Dyer. B. A.
IN England few poor men have any share in making the laws. Some may probably think, and certain politicians assert, that poor men have neither the power, nor the right, to make laws. What is this, but to assert, that the poor man's portion in England is s
wery. I do not say, that the poor people of England are slaves. But this I say, that all freemen make their own laws; and I do but speak after our best political writers. Will gentlemen tell me, why poor men are to be slaves? However, while I consider every man's right to make laws, as his most sacred property, and the exercise of that right as essential to liberty, whoever cannot exercise that right, be he ever so rich, I must at least consider as poor; in the worst sense poor. My complaints, therefore, do not confine themselves to paupers, commonly so called. Many poor men live in England, who are possessed of thousands!
There are two ways of making laws, viz. in our own persons, or by representatives. If a country be large and populous, all the people cannot assemble and consult together for the purpose of making laws: but if they authorize persons, acquainted with their wants, and interested in their happiness, to represent them, every good end may be answered. The only danger is, lest these persons should not express the public mind. Never will they express it, unless they represent the public.—This is the case in England: the government of which it is usual to call a limited monarchy, in reference to the person of the prince. But in reference to the people, so great a part of whom have no share in representation, it might be called, notwithstanding what we say of the house of commons, a mixt aristocracy, as Poland has been called.
The king, the house of peers, and the house of commons, compose what are called the three branches of the constitution—the king in his own person, the nobles in their own persons. What is a house of commons? It is supposed to represent the people: but some say, it is a fiction; that is, that it does not exist, but that it is only supposed to exist. When men inquire into facts, what are called theories frequently vanish. We talk of a house of commons, of a house of representatives; it is the glory of Britons! and foreigners laugh at us. They ask us, Where is this house? I leave others to answer this question.
If this house of commons were indeed something more than a fiction, I should myself retract a little of my wonted admiration. A house of commons, fairly and equally representing all the people of England, never did exist. But if it were not a mere fiction, if it were a reality, I should still be obliged to yield something to the following remark, viz. that a house of commons supposes some superior house, of nobles, or some such name. But where any order of men exists, of separate claims and of separate interests from the people, and whose separate characters give them a kind of sacred superiority over the people, liberty may perhaps be endangered. It has been asserted, whether justly I do not determine, that such a house as that of a house of commons exists in no free state.
I shall here make a sew remarks on nobility. I will repeat what an ancient writer says: "In no state," says he, "are the nobles favourable to the people: equals are favourable to equals." And elsewhere he observes, in every part of the earth, the government of the nobles is inconsistent with that of the people: and he gives his reasons for the oppsition of the two orders. A French writer, perhaps, had his eye on these passages, when he said, the English nobility baried themselves with Charles I. under the ruins of the throne. He adds, "they think it an honour to obey a king, but consider it as the lowest infamy to snare the power with the people.
It might be easily shewn, that a patent nobility made no part of the old English government, or of the other governments of Europe. Xenophon and Montesquieu were friends, the one to aristocracy, the other to monarchy, yet nobody ever more exposed them. It is of a government, where an hereditary patent nobility is said to balance the two extremes of monarchy and democracy, that Blackstone observes, "It creates and preserves that gradual scale of dignity, which proceeds from the beggar to the prince, rising like a pyramid from a broad foundation, and diminishing to a point as it rises. It is this ascending and contracting proportion, that adds stability to any government; for when the departure is sudden from one extreme to another, we may pronounce that state to be precarious." This is beautiful, flattering also to national vanity, but it is theoretical. The ascending and contracting proportion is seen among most of the American states, in a house of representatives chosen by the people, in a senate appointed by the representatives, and in a president, or governor, appointed mediately or immediately by the people: yet the Americans have no nobles. The system of aristocracy, they think, tends to weakness. It dissolves, they say, the ties of families by the law of primogeniture; exhausts the public money in places for the younger branches of noble families; keeps the orders of society in a kind of dwarsish state, by perpetuating the maxims of a barbarous age; weakens the legislature by advancing men to legislation, whose private regards absorb public spirit, and who are irresponsible to the nation; and, by dividing man from man, enfeebles the order of human beings. Who can tell where the tide of contingencies will flow? France, in whose political fabric nobility did indeed seem to form the great Corinthian capital, saw it necessary to remove it, to raise a government of justice.
"I have also admitted that an order of nobles might exist without a patent nobility. I have not said that it is necessary; or if necessary, that an hereditary nobility is. Its great use may be thought to consist in forming a kind of senate to give bias and consistency to other powers, and to produce a harmony in states; a senate has even been thought essential to a republic. France, we have been told, has left out of her political fabric the pillar of strength. "Never," says a writer, "before this time was heard of a body politic without such a council;" yet Geneva, in the infancy of the republic, was such: a more scientific writer than Mr. Burke, though he elsewhere says, that a king and people may exist without a senate, yet does, in fact, say, "there never was a good government in the world, that did not consist of the three simple species, of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy."
"Yet France has thought otherwise. She thinks, that by breaking the distinctions between man and man, she strengthens society, and makes the public force permanent by uniting it in a national assembly. I decide nothing on the truth of these sentiments: I propose these questions:—Was it not the existence of the two orders of patricians and plebeians, that promoted all the disorders of the Roman government, Were not the senatus consulta and the plebiscita frequently little else than exclusive decrees for particular interests? And while the patricians were encroaching on the plebeians, the tribunes, called to the aid of the plebeians, became in their turn factious demagogues. Amid private regards was not public liberty unknown? Was it not a senate that destroyed the liberties of Geneva?"
But to return to the House of commons. Whom, or what does a house of commons represent?—not always rational beings, men and women; but for the greater part, property; and property of a particular kind. Property, though ever so large, copyhold, leasehold, or personal, cannot be represented, but freehold estates only, possessed by men. Females, though possessed of 100,000 l, a year, either in land or money, have no representatives. Since the reign of Henry VI. none can be electors of knights of the shire, but men possessed of forty shillings a year. But how few poor men have freeholds! Some parishes consisting of several hundred persons, perhaps, have not a single freeholder. Some of the largest and most wealthy towns in England have not a single representative. I have not yet spoken of boroughs. But our theory begins to vanish!
If the reader can avoid smiling at the following facts, I shall think him fimple; if he feel no indignation, I shall think him something worse.
The borough of Midhurst in Sussex, it is well known, contains not a single house, and yet sends two members to Parliament. The right of election is in one hundred and twenty burgage-holds; the former situation of which is marked out by a stone on each side.—The borough of Old Sarum, in Wiltshire sends two members to parliament; yet there is but one or two houses standing. The members are chosen by a bailiff, and six burgesses, appointed by Lord Camelford,
the lord of the borough,
and entrusted by him with burgage-scites. The borough of Gatton and Castle-Rising have each two houses only, and two representatives each.
The tenures of Midhurst, I would observe, make no part of the town of Midhurst. They were the property of the late Lord Montague, who, at the time of the election, made a temporary assignment of a part of them, either to some of his domestics or friends, in order to have those members returned that he should nominate. The trustees of the estates of the present lord sold these burgage-holds to the earl of Egremont for 40,000 guineas, whose brothers were returned for this borough the last general election.
Hastings, in Sussex, before the
assing of Mr. Crewe's bill, was entirely at the disposal of the treasury. The number of voters was
out twenty, all of whom had places under government, or were provided for some other way. This is the borough I think, in the management of which a Mr. Collins acquired a most splendid fortune, and made ample provision for five co-heiresses, his daughters. The borough of Hastings, I think, is still in the
management
of government. These are what are called rotten boroughs.
I have already hinted that some large towns, and these abounding with manufactories, have not a single representative: and even where property is represented, it is not represented equally. The county of Middlesex, in 1693, paid 80 parts of the land tax, and in 1697, 185 of the subsidy, and sent only eight members to parliament; while Cornwall paid but eight parts of the land tax, and five only of the subsidy and yet sent forty-four. As to the rotten boroughs, of some of which I have just spoken, they represent nobody; they are private property. The persons who are chosen for them represent nobody, yet they have all the power of representatives: a use also they certainly have; they strengthen the influence of the crown; and if a man have money enough to purchase a borough, and meanness enough to obey the beck of the minister, we know the rest.—Thus it is, that persons, who were never appointed by the people, make laws......
The house of representatives amounts to between five and six hundred members; the majority of which are appointed by voters not exceeding twelve thousand; the nation consists of seven or eight million: so that the persons who do actually give a vote for members are, comparatively, a small part of the community. The Duke of Richmond, whose statement I here nearly follow, once understood political calculation; and I am persuaded, it is only what is supposed to be the danger of the experiment, that makes him fearful of the rule of practice. Mr. Paine observes, that not above one in seven is represented; this relates to representatives, actually chosen: for when all the circumstances taken into the account are considered, one writer asserts, that the walls of St. Stephen's Chapel have not been visited by six members in any parliament, elected, appointed, or delegated by their constituents; and another, that not one person in five housand is represented. But leaving these writers, I ask again, Where is our house of commons? Some call it a stubborn aristocracy. Where is our house of representatives?—Some call it a fiction. Our theory they say is gone. Be this as it may, the poor man is left to pay taxes.
AN APOLOGY FOR YOUNGER BROTHERS.
By the Author of
A Plea for a Common Wealth.
Printed in the Year
1659.
IT hath been a long received custom in this land, or at least, of as ancient date as the Norman monarchy, that notwithstanding the elder son obtains the whole inheritance, yet to bestow a generous and liberal education on the younger, in which, considering the circumstances of those times, together with the complexion of their government, I find no cause wherefore to accuse our ancestors, of either imprudence or injustice.
For first, the levelling of estates hath always (and that justly enough) been accounted altogether unsuitable to the majesty and gaudy splendor of monarchi
l government, which hath sometimes, though fals
ly been supposed, not only the most absolute and perfect form, but that which by long experience hath been found most suitable to the genius or humour of the English people, the interest of which government is rather to have large public revenues, with a vast stock of preferments, wherewith to gratify the ambition of the more ingenious part of the gentry, who have nothing to rely on save what they can purchase in the favour of their prince. Nor was antiquity herein deceived; for when the greatest part of the nation, by this means, reap their chief subsistence from the public revenues of the Commonwealth, and favour of the prince, in whose sole dispose they are, and on whom for this cause, they look upon as their common father; and indeed to whom they have greater obligations than to their own parents; there appears little probability how the pillars of such a government should be easily shaken, whose basis is founded on the interest of so great a part of the nation, to defend it with the utmost peril of their lives and blood. Nor have we more reason to accuse our ancestors of impiety or injustice, than imprudence, since heretofore so great and ample were the public revenues, that a younger son could, either in church or state, by the wings of his own industry or merits, have raised himself to as high a pitch of honour and fairer fortunes, than those of his elder brother's birth-right; so that to be the first-born was scarce a privilege, except to such as wanted worth to advance them; wherefore, while the Church and Court were open with their large train of preferments, to entertain the more ingenious of the gentry's younger sons, and monasteries to entomb those of a less mercurial genius, there was little reason for commencing this complaint; for this I am compelled by the violence of truth to confess, in defence of the ancient constitution of the laws and government of this nation, that whatever their other faults, they were not injurious to younger brethren, till after the sale of church-lands, and the abrogating those many preferments that were their former inheritance.
This was the former state of the nation, in which, if younger sons were debarred a share in their fathers inheritance, they might receive an ample compensation from the Church their mother, whose jointure was no less than two thirds of the whole land; so that they might seem rather owned as the only children of the Commonwealth, and honourably maintained at the public charge thereof, than disinherited by the unkindness of the laws. A generous education was then a sufficient portion, which is now, for want of a suitable employment, become a curse instead of a blessing, serving to no other end, than to discover, if not augment their misery; so much is the scene of things changed since Henry VIII. spoiled the church of her revenues, and by consequence these of the fairest part of their inheritance; and yet nothing of the rigour of the ancient laws are herein abated towards them. It is not my intention (God knows my heart) to speak a word in approbation of those superstitious uses to which any abbey or bishops lands were heretofore employed, but with reflection on those good and pious, to which (in the opinion of some) they might have been converted.
Nor is it the design of these discourses to retrieve ecclesiastical promotions, or demonstrate a necessity of rebuilding the things we have so lately destroyed; but rather to shew, how unsafe and injurious it would be to establish and fix a Commonwealth upon the ruins and tottering foundation of a decayed monarchy: nor do I blame the prudence of our late reformers, that unhorseing the pride of the clergy, and putting down the hierarchy, they rather sold, than reserved in a public stock, the revenues of the church, by reason it may seem more safe for a Commonwealth to keep nothing that may encourage an invasion of its liberty, or become the reward of usurpation and tyranny, only I could wish, that since the reason and circumstances of our laws are quite altered, we might not still build on old foundations, and entail the whole land on a few proprietors or elder brethren, to the exclusion and utter ruin of the greatest part of the nation, and contrary to the interest of a free state or Commonwealth. I dare not charge all our late changes and many turnings in the balance of affairs on this account, though I cannot but observe, that our times have rung more changes, been tuned to more different instruments, and ran through more several forms of government, than were from the times of the Norman Conquest known before, to which how much the discontent and poverty of our gentry may have contributed, I know not; but Solomon saith,
Oppression will make a wise man mad.
I am sure the Younger Brothers are by far the greater number; and through nature's courtesy, commonly as rich in intellectual endowments, as poor in fortunes, and being by the tyranny (as affairs now stand) of Law and Custom, debarred sharing in their parents estates, to which they conceive nature equally entitles them with their Elder Brethren;
it is no wonder if they desire to interrupt the peace and tranquillity of the Commonwealth,
since by the shakings thereof, they may probably root themselves in fairer fortunes, than from its peace and settlement, they may with reason expect; and that which arms their discontent with fit weapons for revenge, and renders them more formidable, is their generous education; for certainly, it is of very unsafe and dangerous consequence, to qualify such for great and noble undertakings, that are heirs to no other fortunes than what their valours can purchase with the ruin of the Commonwealth's peace and government. Therefore, had those that made the public revenues a prey to their ambition, also drunk up those streams of bounty, by which the schools and universities are fed and maintained, and so taken away the means as well as the encouragement of liberal education, they had better consulted the peace, though not the honour of the nation; for so long as these are open (if not better ordered), I doubt there will be vipers hatched to eat through the womb of government, by which they conceive themselves injured and debarred, both that which nature gives them title to of their parents, and the ancient constitution of the Commonwealth in public revenues, which I would not have understood as proceeding from any prejudice or ill will to the universities, which I much honour, and in which, with thankfulness I acknowledge, to have received my education, but only to discover the shortness of that policy, that taking away the preferments, should reward and crown all academic endeavours, yet never reduced the means whereby men are qualified for an expectation, and prompted to an ambition of them; and, indeed, of a like strain is most of our modern policy, not skin deep, and rather to be accounted shifts and present evasions of impendent evils, than antidotes of solid prudence, for either the obviating, or healing any disaster or malady in the body politic.
Certainly, a generous education is not proper for such as are intended for little less than slaves. It is ignorance is the mother of obedience, whereas knowledge makes men proud and factious, especially when they conceive their fortunes and e
ployments are not correspondent to the grandeur of their birth and education.
The younger son is apt to think himself sprung from as noble a stock, from the loins of as good a gentleman as his elder brother, and therefore cannot but wonder, why fortune and the law should make so great a difference between them that lay in the same womb, that are formed of the same lump; why law or custom should deny them an estate, whom nature hath given discretion to know how to manage it.
Learning ennobles and elevates the soul, causing it to despise and set light by small and base things; and therefore, where that flourishes, men are not easily taught to submit their necks to an iron yoke of slavery; which prompts the Turkish prudence to extinguish all such lights by which men gain a prospect or discovery of the thraldom and misery of their condition. It would drink more ink, and waste more time than I, or perhaps the reader, would willingly bestow, to give an account of all the mischiefs and inconveniences that proceed from the fertile womb of this single mistake, that a generous education (notwithstanding the abolition of all encouragements of learning and ingenious preferments) is a sufficient portion for a Younger Brother. Wisdom is good with an inheritance, but the wisdom of the poor man is despised. The muses without a dowry are but despicable virgins, and the unnatural, though usual divorce, that is at this day found between wit and money, renders both useless, if not pernicious to the Commonwealth. I doubt not, but should we take a view of things through the prospective of some men's observations, we should discover this in part the cause of that tranquillity and settlement, peace and prosperity, with which in former times this British Isle was crowned; as also of those many shakings and convulsions in which these latter ages have seen her cast into: and can we expect it should be otherwise? when (as Solomon hath observed)
There is not bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill, &c.
which seems to proceed from no other cause than the iniquity of our laws, pouring all the wealth into one channel, and conveying the whole land into the hands of a few Proprietors or elder Brethren.
I confess, those providence hath placed on high, on the battlements of supreme power, may, if their eyes are open, and not blinded by private interest, command a fairer prospect, and discern farther into these things, then such whom a meaner fortune hath left in the valley of a low and private condition; therefore, I shall not presume to inform those intelligences that turn about the orbs of government; only could wish, there were such a scene of things brought forth, as may give encouragement to expect a settlement, without a miracle.
To which, as things now stand, I cannot persuade myself, but that the establishing of gavel kind, would have no small tendency; for can any thing be done more suitable to a Commonwealth? or is there any thing more just and equitable, than that all the children should share in their Parents inheritances? or indeed is there not rather an absolute necessity thereof, since all the former avenues by which men had access to preferment are hedged up? is not the only door at present open to a fortune, that of the law? which is also now, together with all other professions, so overstocked with students, and thereby become so burdensome, that the Nation will no longer endure it. For are they not necessitated to devise daily new quirks and subtleties, whereby suits may be multiplied, to the confusion of estates, and oppression of the people. How much more honourable would it be to our reformation, and new established government, that there were a more equal and righteous distribution of the things of this earth, than that the greater part of the nation should be put to shift and scramble for a livelihood, or be necessitated to live on the sins of the people.
Why estates may not, for the future, descend regularly to the whole offspring that are of the same blood and family, instead of one branch thereof, I know no inconvenience in that, especially in those circumstances we are in at present, being fallen into an age so eagle-eyed and quick-sighted, as to discern spots on the sun, and discover corruption in the heavens; which the duller opticks of antiquity judged immaculate, and as altogether incorruptible: an age that dares pry into the pious frauds, and unmask the most religious deceits, which the devouter ignorance of our ancestors never beheld, but at a superstitious and reverential distance; an age, in which the art of living, or to gain and honest subsistance, is grown so subtle, so difficult and abstruse a mystery, that few are able to master it.
How many ingenious gentlemen, that are now clothed with rags and misery, might have raised themselves to fair estates, had they had a stock wherewith to set their industry on work; for can any man make brick wherewith to build themselves a fortune without any straw? How many might this have reprieved from an untimely death, who might have been useful to their country, and ornaments to the Commonwealth, had their parts and ingenuities found due encouragements? How many brave sparkling wits, that might have proved bright stars and shining lamps both in Church and Commonwealth, have been extinguished in obscurity, for want of maintenance, the oil whereby their lamps should have been fed and nourished.
Were it not far more just to restrain marriage, or at least give check, and set bounds to the lust of parents, by stinting the number of their offspring to a child or two, and sealing up the fertile womb, than thus turn that blessing of god,
increase and multiply,
into the greatest curse,
and visit the iniquity of the parents upon the children?
Or, were it not a greater act of charity, according to the example of the Heathen, to expose or drown these latter births, as we do such supernumerary dogs &c. as would otherwise over-stock our commons, than thus expose them like so many little
s
ses in arks of bulrushes to a sea of poverty and
sery, from whence they many never expect reprieve, unless some miraculous providence (like Pharo's
ghters) chance to rescue and receive them into her court and favour? Our law making no more provision for Younger Brethren than if they were to be cloathed like the lillies of the field, or like Elias, to expect their food from ravens, receiving no other comfort from the hands of men, than what they can suck from the dry breasts of an old proverb, that God will send meat wheresoever he hath provided mouths, than which nothing more true, did not the covetousness of men withhold it.
It was the custom of our gentry and nobility to clap such of their phlegmatic offspring, as nature had not made mercurial enough to ambiate either church or court preferments into some religious habit; and so keep up the splendour of their families, by pruning away such under-branches for the service of the alter, as either, through their number or folly were like to let in poverty, and thereby become a dispar
gement to the noble stock from whence they sprang, which hath prompted some to an opinion, that if in these more populous northern climates, a kind of Protestant monasteries were erected for encouragement of chastity and single life, especially among the poorer sort, it would (pardoning the solecism of the name) be more consonant to the maxims of state and true polley, than in those hotter and more barren climates, where there is so little danger of being over-stocked or burdened with people, that on the contrary they want men for the necessary defence of their territories; of which we have a pertinent instance in Spain, whose religious houses (did not their blind devotion so much triumph over their policy) had long since been buried under their own ruins; for there can no other account be given, why that wise and prudent nation labouring under so great a weight of affairs, and scarcity of men, to manage their wars, should tolerate so many hives of drones; which so long as they shall continue, may give good caution and security to its neighbouring states and princes, to lay asleep their fears and jealousies of his ever attaining that universal monarchy, at which, for so many centuries, the lips of his proud ambition have been thought to water: there being little probability that his palsey hands should grasp the universe, that hath not strength enough to hold that little part thereof he hath already fastened on; and therefore the Spanish conquests may not unfitly be compared to those of rivers upon the banks of their channels, losing as much in one place as they gain in others?
But since Providence hath been pleased in mercy to bring back our captivity, and again to cast us into the advantagious form of a Commonwealth, if gavel-kind were once established, we shall stand in need of no other devices for keeping out of poverty, than the setting industry on work according to the opportunities, plentiful occasions will administer in an equal Commonwealth. But I shall now return to the lawyers, from whom I have made so long a digression. I have read, that in the more pure and less sophisticated times of our ancestors, great estates have been passed in few words, and the conveyance proved more firm and good, than those tedious, prolix, tautological instruments, the knavery of latter ages hath introduced.
In sign that this is sooth
I bite the white wax with my tooth.
Or the like being the form of those more simple and sincere times; whereas now, through the fraud of lawyers, all things are so ambiguously penned, that none but a sphinx in their mysteries is able to understand or unriddle them.
The professors of which mystery of iniquity that live upon the sins of the people, are of late grown so numerous, that like locusts, or an Egyptian plague, they cover the face of our land, and are thriven to such vast estates, that whereas heretofore the Church and Clergy being in possession of two thirds, of the best lands throughout the realm, gave birth to the statute of Mortmain for security of the rest: we may justly fear, unless some prudent care be taken for prevention of their future purchases, lest this pack, &c. by their quirks, &c. instate themselves in our inheritances, and ingross the wealth and revenues of the whole nation unto themselves, &c.
I have heard this subtle generation were not in so fair a plight, when every term they beat upon the hoof to London, with their satchels on their backs, and at the towns end proffered their services, like waterman at the Thames side, to be retained by the country clients; and I know not whether we may ever expect a golden age, or to see good days, till the interest of this corrupt generation be laid as low as any histories can produce a precedent; which at this time must needs have the greatest countenance of justice that can be, they having been so notoriously instrumental in betraying our liberties; and selling us into the hands of tyranny, by which, together with their other iniquities, they have contracted so great an odium in the hearts and eyes of all honest men, that I Know not whether the hanging up of their gowns in Westminster Hall might not be as acceptable a trophy in the eyes of the people, as the Scotch colours.
I have often wondered, that notwithstanding the grace mischief the nation hath suffered by the lawyers
ning our laws and acts of parliaments, being known to leave flaws, and always render them so lame, they can, for their advantage, wrest them to what sense they please, and thereby make themselves the lords and absolute arbitrators both of our lives and fortunes; that for prevention of like future abuses they are not excluded the House of Commons as well as the Clergy, there being as much reason and more precedent for the one than the other, for that the Judges never had a vote in the House of Peers, but only sat upon the Wool-pack, whereas the Bishops had like privileges with the other Lords. It being very incongruous in reason that they should be the makers of our laws who are the mercenary Interpreters, lest biassed by their own interests, instead of fences to our properties, they make them snares to our lives and estates.
But it is hoped, the prudence of our Senators will make so thorough a reformation of the Laws, that as they are the birth-right and inheritance of every Englishman, and the interest of all persons to know and be intimately acquainted with them, so they shall be rendered so facil and easy, that the meanest capacity may conceive them, at least so far as he is concerned therein; that so there may be no longer any occasion of keeping up so corrupt an interest of men to make justice mercenary, who have been always found the panders of tyranny, and betrayers of our liberties; and that for the future, every man may be permitted to be his own orator and plead his own cause, or procure what friend they please to be their advocates; that right may be done gratis to every man, and the cry of the oppressed may no longer be heard in our gates;
But that judgment may run down like a stream, and righteousness like a mighty torrent in the midst of our streets.
I shall conclude with that honest desire of the inhabitants of Hull, of late presented to the Parliament;
That the laws by which this Commonwealth is to be governed may be those holy, just and righteous laws of the great and wise God, our rightful lawgiver; and where any case is unprovided for in the express terms of his word, care may be taken to determine it, with the most exact proportion that is possible thereto,
that so our laws being founded on the Scriptures, and so composed, as not only to have great affinity with, but also to border on the very suburbs of divinity, the greater reverence and authority may be conciliated to each; and it may seem the less incongruous for our civil magistrates to be
utrisque peritus,
skilful in both.
Now whatsoever hath been here spoken out of a most intensely heated zeal for public good, with reflection on the abuses of the law, and the professors thereof, I would not have misconstrued to reflect upon their persons, which I honour, and acknowledge many of them to be men of great candour and integrity, but rather of the corrupt interest of the profession, it being the design of these discourses to witness only against interests, and not to revile or asperse the persons of any whatsoever, &c.
And, indeed, to speak my mind freely, the grand error in the reformation of these times hath been its weeding out of persons, when as the blow should have been levelled against the interests, which notwithstanding the frequent change of persons, still take root, and spring up in as great vigour as before; and therefore I humbly conceive, till the ax be laid to the root of every evil and corrupt interest, we may not expect to reap any great fruit or success by our reformation, for all flesh is corruptible, and every man a lie; nor is he that marches in the rear any better able to resist the temptation, or avoid the snares of his place than he that fell before him.
They may comment on the Two following Advertisements that will for me.
IN the Norfolk Chronicle of November 2, 1793, a reward of two hundred pounds is promised by his Majesty, for discovery of the writer or publisher of the following hand-bill, which was stuck up and distributed in and about Norwich.
To all real Lovers of Liberty.
My Friends and Fellow Citizens,
s with the greatest joy I congratulate you on the Defeat of the combined Tyrants.—Be assured that Liberty and Freedom will at last prevail. Tremble O thou Oppressor of the People, that reigneth upon the Throne, and ye Ministers of State weep, for ye shall fall. Weep, O ye Conductors of this vile and wicked War, ye who grind the Face of the Poor, oppress the People, and starve the industrious Mechanic.—My friends, you are oppressed—you know it.—Revenge it. Lord Buckingham, who died the other day, had Thirty Thousand Pounds yearly, for setting his Arse in the House of Lords, and doing nothing.—Think of this, ye who work hard, and have hardly a crust to put in your Mouths, think how many Wretches it would have made happy. In short, my Friends, Liberty calls aloud, ye who will hear her Voice, may you be free and happy. He who does not, let him starve and be
damned.
Sunday, Sept. 14.
N. B. Be resolute, and you shall be happy; he who wishes well to the Cause of Liberty, let him repair to Chapel Fields at Five o'Cloek, This Afternoon, to begin a glorious Revolution.
ADVERTISEMENT VERBATIM,
From the
MORNING CHRONICLE
of Nov.
15, 1793.
FIVE THOUSAND POUNDS.
The above sum will be given as A COMPLIMENT to any LADY or Gentleman, who has interest to procure a Situation FOR LIFE under Government, for a Gentleman of an
active
disposition, between 40 and 50, of the strictest honour and integrity, who will have no objection to a
few hours attendance every day in London,
BY WAY OF AMUSEMENT. The emolement thereof must be equal to the gratuity. As the above sum is ready at a day's notice, none but principals will be treated with, and the most inviolable secresy will be observed, if required. A line for B. A. Will's Coffee-house, Cornhill, will be attended to.
NATIONAL FASTING GENERALLY INSIDIOUS AND IMPIOUS.
From
Fast-Day Sermons,
by the Rev.
J. Murray,
of Newcastle, Author of
Sermons to Asses.
Printed in the Year
1781.
ISAIAH, 58, 4, 6.
Behold, ye fast for Strife and Debate, and to smite with the fist of Wickedness.—Is not this the Fast that I have chosen? to loose the Bands of Wickedness, to undo the heavy Burdens, and to let the Oppressed go free, and that ye break every Yoke.
ACCORDING to the stile of Revelation, all unjust and arbitrary decrees are
bands of wickedness,
by whatsoever human authority they are imposed, because they are contrary to moral justice, and are oppressive to the people. And though they can never bind the consciences of men, and so have no moral influence, yet they are
cords of oppression,
that sit hard upon their bodies and their temporal interest. Laws that are unfriendly to the temporal interest, and general good of society; laws that are made to exalt a few to power and dignity, by spunging, squeezing, and oppressing all other ranks of people, though contrived trived by angels, and executed by saints, are
bands of wickedness,
which may cause people to suffer for transgressing, but can never create sin in disobeying.
When the Rulers of a Nation, to gratify their own lusts of pride and ambition, impose heavy and oppressive burdens upon the people by legislative authority,
they establish iniquity by a law,
which in the strictest sense of the words, is a
band of iniquity.
The lusts of princes and their servants, often create their own wants, and render them necessitous; they then make use of their power and influence to procure laws to oblige others to supply them, whether they are able or not; and what aggravates the evil, when the subjects know and feel that they are not able to answer the heavy demands of power, they are not allowed to be judges of their own abilities. Those that rule over others ought to be sober and temperate, and make the reasonable finances of state serve them in executing their offices. Unnecessary splendor and expence in government are inconsistent with both reason and religion, which teach us, that it is one of the great ends of laws and government to restrain unruly appetites and passions. It is sinful in princes to coin expensive offices to serve their favourites, and oppress their subjects. Nothing can be more audacious, than for men appointed to be guardians of society, with a design to make individuals easy and happy, to pretend to come before the Lord, in the most solemn manner, to ask his aid and assistance to oppress them. Such is undoubtedly the language of the ensuing Fast, and of the conduct of its authors and devisers.
The poor, in all parts of Britain, are groaning under a heavy load of taxes, devised for new purposes, and imposed by new statutes. But for what reasons? Where is the necessity? What way are they applied? Are they not intended to carry violence and desolation, fire and sword, among a people, whose only fault is, that they are endowed with principles, and a spirit which Englishmen once gloried in, and which saved this nation from poverty and arbitrary power, and will not part with what God and nature, and the laws have given them, to gratify the lusts of men who have degenerated from the noble generous temper of their ancestors, into Eastern nabobs, and Turkish bashaws. These men have thought sit to contrive war, foreign and domestic, to gratify their depraved passions, and the rich and poor throughout the nation must be oppressed to carry it on; bands of wickedness are twisted one year after another, and the nation groans in chains. All the necessaries of life are in some way or other taxed; our smoke cannot ascend to the sky, nor a ray of light peep in at our windows, without paying an heavy impost. The inside, as well as the outside of our houses, are assessed; and poor people, who cannot, without great difficulty, afford to pay five pounds for a house to lodge in through the year, must now pay five sixpences more. And for what reason? to carry on a war that originated in injustice, has been carried on with folly, and attended with disgrace and disappointment.—To shed innocent blood, and carry death and desolation across the Atlantic to destroy our brethren, to satiate the voracious lusts of a few ambitious men, who would waste the globe, and ruin Heaven itself, provided they had the management thereof. Ah, Britain! will the God of mercy, who delights in forgiving offences, hear your prayers, or regard your fastings, when you are twisting cords of oppression, instead of loosing bands of wickedness. Ah, ye Rulers of the Land, whither are ye hastening? you cannot run long when you are rushing upon the bosses of Jehovah's buckler!
When you fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness,
do you imagine that the God of Mercy will hear your prayers with acceptance, or regard your fasting, any otherwise than setting them down to the sum total of your past iniquities.
ON THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS.
By Mr.
ERSKINE,
in his Speech on the Trial of
THOMAS PAINE.
From
Gurney's
Edition of the said Trial.
EVERY man, not intending to mislead and to confound, but seeking to enlighten others with what his own reason and conscience, however erroneously, dictate to him as truth, may address himself to the universal reason of a whole nation, either upon the subject of governments in general, or upon that of our own particular country: he may analyse the principles of its constitution, point out its errors and defects, examine and publish its corruptions, warn his fellow-citizens against their ruinous consequences, and exert his whole faculties, in pointing out the most advantageous changes in establishments, which he considers to be radically defective, or sliding from their object by abuse. All this every subject of this country has a right to do, if he contemplates only what he thinks its happiness, and but seeks to change the public mind by the conviction which flows from reasonings dictated by conscience.
If, indeed, he writes what he does not think; if, contemplating the misery of others, he wickedly condemns what his own understanding approves; or, even admitting his real disgust against the government, or its corruptions; if he calumniates
living magistrates;
or holds out to individuals, that they have a right to run before the public mind in their conduct; that they may oppose by contumacy or force what private reason only disapproves; that they may disobey the law, because their judgment condemns it; or resist the public will, because they honestly wish to change it; he is then a criminal upon every principle of rational policy, as well as upon the immemorial precedents of English justice; because such a person seeks to disunite individuals from their duty to the whole, and excites to overt acts of misconduct in a part of the community, instead of endeavouring to change, by the impulse of reason, the universal ascent which, in this and in every country, constitutes the law for all.
Gentlemen, I say, in the name of Thomas Paine, and in his words as author of the Rights of Man, as written in the very volume that is charged with seeking the destruction of property,
The end of all political associations is, The preservation of the Rights of Man, which rights are Liberty, Property, and Security; that the nation is the source of all sovereignty derived from it: the right of property being secured and inviolable, no one ought to be deprived of it, except in cases of evident public necessity, legally ascertained, and on condition of a previous just indemnity.
These are undoubtedly the rights of man—the rights for which all governments are established—and the only rights Mr. Paine contends for; but which he thinks (no matter whether right or wrong) are better to be secured by a republican constitution than by the forms of the English government. He instructs me to admit, that, when government is once constituted, no individuals, without rebellion, can withdraw their obedience from it—that all attempts to excite them to it are highly criminal, for the most obvious reasons of policy and justice—that nothing short of the Will of a whole people can change or effect the rule by which a nation is to be governed —and that no private opinion, however honestly inimicable to the forms or substance of the law, can justify resistance to its authority, while it remains in force. The author of the Rights of Man not only admits the truth of all this doctrine, but he consents to be convicted, and I also consent for him, unless his Work shall be found studiously and painfully to inculcate culcate these great principles of government, which it is charged to have been written to destroy. Let me not, therefore, be suspected to be contending, that it is lawful to write a book pointing out defects in the English government, and exciting individuals to destroy its sanctions, and to refuse obedience. But, on the other hand, I do contend, that it is lawful to address the English nation on these momentous subjects, for had it not been for this unalienable right (thanks be to God and our fathers for establishing it), how should we have had this Constitution which we so loudly boast of? If, in the march of the human mind, no man could have gone before the establishments of the time he lived in, how could our establishment, by reiterated changes, have become what it is? If no man could have awakened the public mind to errors and abuses in our government, how could it have passed on from stage to stage, through reformation and revolution, so as to have arrived from barbarism to such a pitch of happiness and perfection, that the Attorney General considers it as profanation to touch it any further, or to look for any future amendment.
In this manner power has reasoned in every age— Government, in
its own estimation,
has been at all times a system of perfection; but a free press has examined and detected its errors, and the people have happily reformed them: this freedom has alone made our government what it is, and alone can preserve it; and therefore, under the banners of that freedom, today I stand up to defend Thomas Paine. But how, alas! shall this task be accomplished? How may I expect from you what human nature has not made man for the performance of? How may I address your reasons, or ask them to pause, amidst the torrent of prejudice which has hurried away the public mind on the subject you are to judge?
Was any Englishman ever so brought as a criminal before an English Court of Justice?—If I were to ask you, Gentlemen of the Jury, what is the choicest fruit that grows upon the tree of English Liberty, you would answer, SECURITY UNDER THE LAW. If I were to ask the whole people of England, the return they looked for at the hands of Government, for the burdens under which they bend to support it, I should still be answered, SECURITY UNDER THE LAW; or, in other words, an impartial administration of justice. So sacred, therefore, has the Freedom of Trial been ever held in England; so anxiously does justice guard against every possible bias in her path, that if the public mind has been locally agitated upon any subject in judgment, the forum is either changed or the trial postponed. The circulation of any paper that brings, or which can be supposed to bring, prejudice, or even well-founded knowledge, within the reach of a British tribunal, on the spur of an occasion, is not only highly criminal, but defeats itself, by leading to put of the trial which its object was to pervert. On this principle, his Lordship will permit me to remind him, that on the trial of the Dean of St. Asaph, for a libel, or rather, when he was brought to trial, the circulation of books by a society favourable to his defence, was held by the noble Lord, as Chief Justice of Chester, to be a reason for not trying the cause; although they contained no matter relative to the Dean, nor to the object of his trial; being only extracts from ancient authors of high reputation, on the general Rights of Juries to consider the innocence as well as the guilt of the accused; yet still, as the recollection of these rights was pressed forward, with a view to effect the proceedings, to guard the principle the proceedings were postponed.
Is the Defendant then to be the only exception to these admirable provisions? Is the English law to judge him, stript of the armour with which its universal justice encircles all others? Shall we, in the very act of judging him for detracting from the English government, furnish him with ample matter for just reprobation, instead of detraction? Has not his cause been prejudged through a thousand channels? Has not the work before you been daily publicly revived, and his person held up to derision and reproach? Has not the public mind been excited, by crying down the very phrase and idea of the Rights of Man? Nay, have not associations of gentlemen, I speak it with regret, because I am persuaded, from what I know of some of them, that they, amongst them at least, thought they were serving the public; yet have they not, in utter contempt and ignorance of that Constitution of which they declare themselves to be the guardians, published the grossest attacks upon the Defendant? Have they not, even while the cause has been standing here in the paper for immediate trial, published a direct protest against the very work now before you; advertising in the same paper, though under the general description of seditious papers, a reward on the conviction of any person who should dare to sell the book itself, to which their own publication was an answer?—The Attorney General has spoken of a forced circulation of this Work; but how have these prejudging papers been circulated? We all know how: they have been thrown into our carriages in every street; they have met us at every turnpike; and they lie in the areas of all our houses. To complete the triumph of prejudice, that High Tribunal, of which I have the honour to be a member (my learned friends know what I say to be true), has been drawn into this vortex of slander; and some of its members, for I do not speak of the House itself, have thrown the weight of their stations into the same scale.
By all means I maintain that this cause has been prejudged.
It may be said, that I have made no motion to put off the trial for these causes, and that courts of themselves take no cognizance of what passes elsewhere, without facts laid before them. Gentlemen, I know that I should have had equal justice from that quarter, if I had brought myself within the rule. But when should I have been better in the present aspect of things? And therefore I only remind you of all these hardships, that you may recollect that your judgment is to proceed upon that alone which meets you here, upon the evidence in the cause, and not upon suggestions destructive of every principle of justice.
Having disposed of these foreign prejudices, I hope you will as little regard some arguments that have been offered to you in court. The letter which has been so repeatedly pressed upon you, you ought to dismiss even from your recollection; I have already put it out of the question, as having been written long subsequent to the Book, and as being a libel on the King, which no part of the information charges, and which may hereafter be prosecuted as a distinct offence. I consider that letter besides, and indeed have always beard it treated, as a forgery, contrived to injure the merits of the cause, and to embarrass me personally in its defence. I have a right so to consider it, because it is unsupported by any thing similar at an earlier period. The Defendant's whole deportment, previous to the publication, has been wholly unexceptionable; he properly desired to be given up as the author of the Book, if any enquiry should take place concerning it; and he is not affected in evidence, directly or indirectly, with any illegal or suspicious conduct; not even with having uttered an indiscreet or counting expression, nor with any one matter or thing, inconsistent with the duty of the best subject in England. His opinions indeed were not adverse to our system; but I maintain that OPINION is
free,
and that CONDUCT
alone
is amenable to the law.
You are next to judge of the author's mind and intention, by the modes and extent of the circulation of his work. The First Part of the Rights of Man, Mr. Attorney General tells you, he did not prosecute, although it was in circulation through the country for a year and a half together, because it seems it circulated only amongst what he stiles the judicious part of the public, who possessed in their capacities and experience an antidote to the poison; but that with regard to the Second Part now before you, its circulation had been forced into every corner of society; had been printed and reprinted for cheapness even upon whited brown paper, and had crept into the very nurseries of children, as a wrapper for their sweetmeats.
In answer to this statement, which after all stand only upon Mr Attorney General's own assertion, unsupported by any kind of proof (no witness having proved the author's personal interference with the sale), I still maintain, that if he had the most anxiously promoted it, the question would remain exactly the same: the question would still be, whether at the time when Paine composed his work, and promoted the most extensive purchase of it, he believed or disbelieved what he had written, and whether he contemplated the happiness or the misery of the English nation, to which it is addressed; and which ever of these intentions may be evidenced to your judgments upon reading the Book itself, I confess I am utterly at a loss to comprehend how a writer can be supposed to mean something different from what he has written, by an axiety (common I belive to all authors) that his work should be generally read.
Remember, I am not asking your opinions of the
doctrines themselves,
you know them already pretty visibly since I began to address you; but I shall appeal not only to you, but to those who, without our leave, will hereafter judge without appeal of all that we are doing to day; whether, upon the matter which I hasten to lay before you, you can refuse in justice to pronounce, that from his education—from the accidents and habits of his life—from the time and occasion of the publication—from the circumstances attending it—and from every line and letter of the work itsself, and all his other writings before and
even since,
his conscience and understanding
(no matter whether erroneously or not)
were deeply and solemnly impressed with the matters contained in his Book,—that he addressed it to the reason of the nation at large, and not to the passions of individuals, and that in the issue of its influence, he contemplated only what appeared to
him (though it may not to us)
to be the interest and happiness of England, and of the whole human race. In drawing the one or the other of these conclusions, the Book stands first in order, and it shall now speak for itself.
Gentlemen, the whole of it is in evidence before you, the particular parts arraigned having only been read by my consent, upon the presumption that on retiring from the court, you would caresully compare them with the context, and all the parts with the whole viewed together. You cannot indeed do justice without it. The most common letter, even in the ordinary course of business, cannot be read in a cause to prove an obligation for twenty shillings without the whole being read, that the writer's meaning may be seen without deception. But in a criminal charge of only four pages and a half, out of a work containing nearly two hundred, you cannot, with even the appearance of common justice, pronounce a judgment without the most deliberate and cautious comparison. I observe, that the noble and learned Judge confirms me in this observation. But if any given part of a work be legally explanatory, of every other part of it, the preface, a
fortiori,
is the most material; because the preface is the author's own key to his writing: it is there that he takes the reader by the hand, and introduces him to his subject: it is there that the spirit and intention of the whole is laid before him by way of prologue. A preface is meant by the author as a clue to ignorant or careless readers: the author says by it, to every man who chooses to begin where he ought—look at my plan—attend to my distinctions—mark the purpose and limitations of the matter I lay before you.
(To be continued.)
THE NEW CONSTITUTION OF FRANCE,
As accepted by the Nation on the
10th
of August,
1793.
DECLARATION OF RIGHTS.
THE French people, convinced that forgetfulness of, and contempt for, the natural rights of man, are the only causes of the crimes and misfortunes of the world, have resoved to expose, in a Declaration, their sacred and inclienable right, in order that all Citizens, being always able to compare the acts of the government with the end of every social institution, may never suffer themselves to be oppressed and degraded by tyranny; and that the people may always have before their eyes the basis of their liberty and happiness; the magistrates the rule of their duty; and legislators the object of their mission—
They acknowledge therefore and proclaim, in the presence of the Surreme Being
, the following Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens:—
ARTICLE I. The end of society is common happiness. Government is instituted to secure to man the enjoyment of his natural and imprescriptible rights.
II. These rights are Equality, Liberty, Safety, and Property.
III. All men are equal by nature, and before the law.
IV. The Law is the free and solemn expression of the general will. It ought to be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes. It cannot order but what is just and useful to Society. It cannot forbid but what is hurtful.
V. All Citizens are equally admissible to public employments. Free people know no other motives of preserence in their elections, than virtue and talents.
VI. Liberty is that power which belongs to a man, of doing every thing that does not hurt the rights of another: Its principle is nature: Its rule justice: Its protection the law: And its moral limits are detined by this maxim, "Do not to another what you would not wish done to yourself."
VII. The rights of manifesting one's thoughts and opinions, either by the press, or in any other manner; the right of assembling peaceably, and the free exercise of religious worship cannot be forbidden. The necessity of announcing these rights, supposes either the presence, or the recent remembrance of despotism.
VIII. Whatever is not forbidden by the law cannot be prevented. No one can be forced to do that, which it does not order.
IX. Safety consists in the protection granted by the Society to each Citizen for the preservation of his person, his rights, and his property.
X. The Law avenges public and individual liberty of the abuses committed against them by power.
XI. No person can be accused, arrested or confined, but in cases determined by the law, and according to the forms which it prescribes. Every Citizen summoned or seized by the authority of the law, ought immediately to obey; he renders himself culpable by resistance.
XII. Every act exercised against a man to which the cases in the law do not apply, and in which its forms are not observed, is arbitrary and tyrannical. Respect for the law forbids him to submit to such acts; and if attempts are made to execute them by violence, he has a right to repel force by force.
XIII. Those who shall solicit, dispatch, sign, execute, or cause to be executed, arbitrary acts, are culpable, and ought to be punished.
XIV. Every man being supposed innocent until he has been declared guilty, if it is judged indispensible to arrest him, all severity not necessary to secute his person ought to be strictly represied by the law.
XV. No one ought to be tried and punished until he has been legally summoned, and in virtue of a law published previous to the commistion of the crime, A law which should punish crimes committed before it
isted would be tyrannical. The re-troactive effect given to a law would be a crime.
XVI. The law ought not to decree any punishments but such as are strictly and evidently necessary — punishment ought to be proportioned to the crime, and a
ul to society.
XVII. The right of property is that right which belongs to every Citizen to enjoy and dispose of according to his pleasure, his property, revenues, labour and industry.
XVIII. No kind of labour, culture, or commerce, can be forbidden to the industrious Citizen.
XIX. Every man may engage his services and his time, but he cannot sell himself—his person is not alienable property. The law does not acknowledge servitude—there can exist only an engagement of care and gratitude between the man who labours, and the man who employs him.
XX. No one can be deprived of the smallest portion of his property, without his consent, except when the public necessity, legally ascertained, evidently require it, and on condition of a just and previous indemnification.
XXI. No contribution can be established, but for general utility, and to relieve the public wants. Every Citizen has a right to concur in the establishment of contributions, to watch over the use made of them, and to call for a statement of expenditure.
XXII. Public aids are a sacred debt. The Society is obliged to provide for the subsistence of the unfortunate, either by procuring them work, or by securing the means of existence to those who are unable to labour.
XXIII. Instruction is the want of all, and the Society ought to favour, with all its power, the progress of public reason; and to place instruction within the reach of every Citizen.
XXIV. The social guarantee consists in the actions of all, to secure to each the enjoyment and preservation of his rights. This guarantee rests on the National Sovereignty.
XXV. The social guarantee cannot exist, if the limits of public functions are not clearly determined by the law, and if the responsibility of all public functionaties is not secured.
XXVI. The Sovereignty resides in the people: it is one and indivisible, imprescriptible and inalienable.
XXVII. No proportion of the people can exercise the power of the whole: but each Section of the Sovereign assembled ought to enjoy the right of expressing its will in perfect liberty. Every individual who arrogates to himself the Sovereignty, or who usurps the exercise of it, ought to be put to death by free men.
XXVIII. A people have always the right of revising, amending, and changing their Constitution. One generation cannot subject to its law future generations.
XXIX. Every Citizen has an equal right of concurring in the formation of the law, and in the nomination of his mandatories or agents.
XXX. Public functions cannot be considered as distinctions or rewards, but as duties.
XXXI. Crimes committed by the mandatories of the people and their agents, ought never to remain unpunished. No one has a right to pretend to be more inviolable than other Citizens.
XXXII. The right of presenting petitions to the depositories of public authority belongs to every individual. The exercise of this right cannot, in any case, be forbidden, suspended, or limited.
XXXIII. Resistance to oppression is the consequence of the other rights of man.
XXXIV. Oppression is exercised against the social body, when even one of its members is oppressed. Oppression is exercised against each member, when the social body is oppressed.
XXXV. When the government violates the rights of the people, insurrection becomes to the people, and to every portion of the people, the most sacred, and the most indispensible of duties.
(To be continued.)
ENGLISH INJUSTICE TO THE FRENCH.
WHEN exulting we tell how our fathers of yore,
Their wrongs and oppressions were wont to redress,
How firmly they waded through rivers of gore,
And fore'd from proud despots those rights we possess;
When we boast of our own revolution and laws,
Yet reprobate men, who have spurn'd base controul,
We may shew an acquaintance with Liberty's cause,
But we strongly evince a contraction of soul.
We deem ourselves lodg'd under Liberty's tree,
Where the whole human race might with comfort recline;
We boast of the blessing—and, Britons, shall we
At the joyous approach of our neighbours repine?
Forbid it—ye offspring of men who were tried,
Of men, who unshackled both body and mind;
Forbid it—and learn, ere ye dare to deride,
That the cause of the French is the cause of mankind.
How can WE, if our sires be entitled to praise,
For boldly resisting unauthoriz'd sway,
How can we with aversion on Liberty gaze?
How can we be offended if tyrants decay?
Has Jehovah selected a new-chosen race,
And on them, and them only, his freedom bestow'd?
If not—how can Gallic resistance be base,
And the fate of a James shew the finger of God?
When the orbs of the sightless receive the bright Day,
Shall those who have vision presume to complain?
Shall men sav'd from shipwreck with anguish survey
Their fellows preserv'd from the merciless main?
How degrading the thought!—yet the sons of this Isle,
Who deem themselves nurtur'd at Liberty's board.
Evince a malignity equally vile,
In wishing thy shackles, O Gallia! restor'd.
When the will of a driv'ler held millions in chains,
Did we pity them?—no—we despis'd them as slaves;
And now not a trace of debasement remains,
We brand the brave people as maniacs and knaves!
Thus servile or free, we the French have revil'd,
Our own half-form'd system we proudly commend;
We boast our wise laws—though our code is defil'd
With statutes, that tyrants would blush to defend.
O spurn the mean prejudice, Britons, and say,
If our fathers are right, how can Frenchmen be wrong?
The will of oppressors both scorn'd to obey,
And asserted those rights that to mortals belong,
Yet the struggles of these are to infamy hurl'd,
While the actions of those we with triumph rehearse;
But the bright orb of reason now peeps on the World,
And the thick clouds of prejudice soon shall disperse:
Yes! soon shall these truths far and wide be convey'd,
'Spite of Pindar's poor prattle, and Burke's raving din,
That the thrones of true kings by the PEOPLE are made,
And when kings become tyrants—submission is sin!
That the power of oppressors can ne'er be of Heaven,
A Being all-just—cannot justice despise:
A Being all-just—EQUAL RIGHTS must have given;
And who robs man of these must offend the All-wise.
[ROMAN HISTORY,
continued from Page
122.]
AFTER the expulsion of the Tarquins, Rome was governed by two consuls, who held their office during the space of a year, at the conclusion of which new ones were chosen, by the senate and people. After some time, the people found themselves very much oppressed by the patricians; who engrossed the whole power of the state, and, by various extortions, such as lending them money at exorbitant interest, and the like, had got possession of all their lands, and often seized their persons, imprisoned, or used them as slaves, (the laws permitting it in the case of the non-payment of their debts) in a barbarous manner. Unable to bear this cruel treatment, a number of them, at the instigation of Sisinnius Bellutus, and another Junius Brutus, took an opportunity, when the state had great need of their assistance, to desert their generals, and retired to a hill three miles from Rome. In this exigence, a deputation was sent to them from the senate, persuading them with many fair promises, to return. At the head of this deputation were T. Lartius, Menenius Agripah, and M. Valerius, all three in great esteem, and of whom two had governed the republic, and commanded her armies in quality of dictator. When they were introduced to the camp of the male-contents, and had given an account of their commission, Junius Brutus, perceiving his comrades continued in profound silence, and that none of them attempted to make himself an advocate in the cause, stepped forward, and thus addressed them:
"One would imagine, fellow-soldiers, by this deep silence, that you are still awed by that servile sear in which the patricians and your creditors have kept you so long. Every man consults the eyes of the rest, to discover whether there be more resolution in others than he finds in himself; and not one of you has the courage to speak in public that which is the constant subject of your private conversation. Do you not know that you are free? This camp, these arms, do they not convince you that you are no longer under tyrants? And if you could still doubt it, would not this step which the senate has taken be sufficient to satisfy you? Those patricians, so haughty and imperious, now send to court us; they no longer make use of proud commands, or cruel threats, they invite us as their fellow-citizens to return into our common city; nay, some of our sovereigns, you see, are so gracious as to come to our very camp, to offer us a general pardon. Whence then can proceed this obstinate silence, after such singular condescensions? If you doubt the sincerity of their promises; if you fear, that under the veil of a few fine words, they conceal your former chains, why do ye not speak? Declare your thoughts freely. Or, if you dare not open your mouths, at least hear a Roman, who has courage enough to fear nothing but the not speaking the truth. [Then turning to Valerius] You invite us to return to Rome, but you do not tell us upon what conditions: Can plebeians, poor, yet free, think of being united with patricians, so rich, and so ambitious? And even though we should agree to the conditions you have to offer, what security will the patricians give us for the performance; those haughty patricians, who make it a merit among themselves to have deceived the people? You talk to us of nothing but pardon and forgiveness, as if we were your subjects, and subjects in rebellion; but that is the point to be discussed. Is it the people or the senate who are in fault? Which of the two orders was it, that first violated the laws of society, which ought to reign among the members of the same republie? This is the question. In order to judge of this, without prejudice, give me leave barely to relate a certain number of facts, for the truth of which I will appeal to no other but yourselt and your colleague. Our state was founded by kings, and never was the Roman people more free, and more happy, than under their government. Tarqu
n himself, the last of those princes; Tarquin, so
ots to the senate and the nobility, savoured our interests as much as he opposed yours. Nevertheless, to avenge your wrongs, we drove that prince from Rome; we took arms against a sovereign who defended himself only with the prayers he made to leave your interests, and to return to his obedience. We afterwards cut to pieces the armies of Veil and Tarquinii, which endeavoured to restore him to the throne. The formidable power of Porsenna, the famine we underwent during a long siege, the fierce assaults, the continual battles; were all these, or, in short, was any thing capable of shaking the faith which we had given you? Thirty Latine cities united to restore the Tarquines. What would you have done then, if we had abandoned you, and joined your enemies? What rewards might we not have obtained of Tarquin, while the senate and nobles would have been the victims of his resentment? Who was it that dispersed this dangerous combination? To whom are you obliged for the defeat of the Latines? Is it not to this people? Is it not to them that you owe that very power which you have since turned against them? What recompence have we had for the assistance we lent you? Is the condition of the Roman people one jot the better? Have you associated them in your offices and dignities? Have our poor citizens found so much as the smallest relief in their necessities? On the contrary, have not our bravest soldiers, oppressed with the weight of usury, been groaning in the chains of their merciless creditors? What has come of all those vain promises of abolishing, in time of peace, the debts which the great had forced us to contract? Scarce was the war finished, but you alike forgot our services, and your oaths. With what designs then do you come hither? Why do you try to reduce this people by the enchantment of your words? Are there any oaths so solemn as to bind your faith? And, after all, what would you get by an union brought about by artifice, kept up with mutual distrust, and which, at last, must end in a civil war? Let us, on both sides, avoid such heavy misfortunes, let us not lose the happiness of our separation; suffer us to depart from a country where we are loaded with chains, like so many slaves, and where, being reduced to be only farmers of our own inheritances, we are forced to cultivate them for the profit of our tyrants. So long as we have our swords in our hands, we shall be able to open ourselves a way into more fortunate climates; and, wherever the Gods shall grant us to live in liberty, there shall we sind our country."
By this, and frequent struggles of this sort, which the people had made before, they at length attained the establishment of the tribuneship, which consisted of two officers annually chosen out of the order of the plebeians, with authority to prevent the injustices that might be done to the people, and to defend their interests both public and private. Rome, by this establishment, made a great advance towards a new change in the form of her government. It had passed before from the monarchic state, to a state of aristocracy; for upon the expulsion of Tarquin, the whole authority did really and in fact devolve upon the senate and the great: But now, by the creation of the tribunes, a democracy began to take place, and the people, by insensible degtees, and under different pretences, got possession of the much greater share in the government. A famine which raged at Rome, soon after the establishment of this office, occasions great complaints amongst the people; and a large supply of corn being procured from Sicily, by the patricians, Coriolanus, a young senator, who had done great services to the state as a general, is for taking advantage of the people's distress, to get the tribuneship abolished, which he proposes in the senate. The tribunes and the people, enraged at this, determined to prosecute Coriolanus, and after much altercation, desire to be heard by the senate, in
lation to their charge against him; where Decius, one of the tribunes, makes the following speech:
"You know, Conscript Fathers, that having by our assistance, expelled Tarquin, and abolished the regal power, you established in the republic the form of government which is now observed in it, and of which we do not complain. But, neither can you be ignorant, that, in all the differences which any poor plebeian had afterwards with wealthy patricians, those plebeians constantly lost their causes, their adversaries being their judges, and all the tribunals being filled with patricians only. This abuse was what made Valerius Poplicola, that wise consul and excellent citizen, establish the law which granted an appeal to the people, from the decrees of the senate, and the judgments of the consuls.
"Such is the law called Valeria, which has always been looked upon as the basis and foundation of the public liberty. It is to this law that we now fly for redress, if you refuse us the justice we demand upon a man, black with the greatest crime that it is possible to commit in a republic. It is not a single plebeian complaining, it is the whole body of the Roman people demanding the coudemnation of a tyrant, who would have destroyed his fellow citizens by famine, has violated our magistracy, and forcibly repulsed our officers, and the aediles of the commonwealth. Coriolanus is the man we accuse of having proposed the abolition of the tribuneship, a magistracy made sacred by the most solemn oaths. What need is there of a
senatus consulium
to prosecute a criminal like this? Does not every man know, that those particular decrees of the senate, are requisite only in unforeseen and extraordinary affairs, and for which the laws have as yet made no provision? But, in the present case, where the law is so direct, where it expressly devotes to the infernal gods those who infringe it, is it not to become an accomplice in the crime to hesitate in the least? Are you not apprehensive, that these affected delays, this obstruction you throw in the way of our proceedings against this criminal, by the pretended necessity of a previous decree of the senate, will make the people inclined to believe that Coriolanus only spoke the sentiments of you all?
"I know that several among you complain it was merely by violence we extorted your consent for the abolition of the debts, and the establishment of the tribuneship. I will even suppose that, in the high degree of power to which you had raised yourselves, after the expulsion of Tarquin, it was neither convenient nor honorable for you to yield up part of it in favour of the people; but you have done it, and the whole senate is bound by the most solemn oaths never to undo it. After the establishment of those sacred laws, which render the persons of the tribunes inviolable, will ye
, in compliance with the first ambitious man that arises, attempt to revoke what makes the peace and security of the state? Certainly you never will; and I dare answer for you, so long as I behold in this assembly those venerable magistrates who had so great a share in the treaty upon the
mons sacer.
Ought you to suffer a matter like this to be so much as brought into deliberation? Coriolanus is the first who, by his seditious advice, has endeavoured to break those sacred bands, which, strengthened by the laws, unite the several orders of the state. It is he alone who is for destroying the tribunitian power, the people's assylum the bulwark of our liberty, and the pledge of our re-union. In order to force the people's consent, in order to perpetrate one crime, he attempted another much greater. He dares, even in a holy place, and in the midst of the senate, propose to let the people die of hunger. Cruel and unthinking man, at the same time! Did he not consider, that this people whom he meant to exterminate with so much inhumanity, and who are more numerous and powerful than he could wish, being reduced to despair, would have broken into the houses, forced open those granaries, and those cellars which conceal so much wealth, and would rather have fallen under the power of the patricians, or have totally rooted out that whole order?—Could he imagine, that an enraged populace would have hearkened to any law, but what was dictated by necessity and resentment?
"For, that you may not be unacquainted with the truth, we would not have perished by a famine brought upon us by our enemies: but, having called to witness the gods, revengers of injustice, we would have filled Rome with blood and slaughter. Such had been the fatal consequences of the counsels of that perfidious citizen, if some senators, who had more love for their country, had not hindered them from taking effect. It is to you, Conscript Fathets, that we address our just complaints. It is to your aid, and to the wisdom of your decrees, that we have recourse, to oblige this public enemy to appear before the whole Roman people, and answer for his pernicious counsels. It is there, Coriolanus, that thou must defend thy former sentiments, if thou darest so to do, or excuse them from proceeding from want of thought. Take my advice; leave thy haughty and tyrannical maxims; make thyself less; become like us; nay, put on a habit of mourning, so suitable to thy present fortune. Implore the pity of thy fellow-citizens, and perhaps thou mayest obtain their favour, and the forgiveness of thy fault."
Co
iolanus was given up to be tried by the tribunes of the people; by whom he was condemned to perpetual banishment.
(To be continued.)
[
Continuation of Mr.
ERSKINE'S Defence of PAINE,
and of
The Liberty of the Press,
from page
175.]
LET then the calumniators of Thomas Paine now attend to his Preface, where, to leave no excuse for ignorance or misrepresentation, he expresses himself thus:
I have differed from some professional gentlemen on the subject of prosecutions, and I since find they are falling into my opinion, which I will here state as fully, but as concisely as I can.
I will first put a case with respect to any law, and then compare |it with a government, or with what in England is, or has been, called a Constitution.
It would be an act of despotism, or what in England is called arbitrary power to make a law to prohibit investigating the principles, good or bad, on which such a law, or any other, is founded.
If a law be bad, it is one thing to oppose the practice of it, but it is quite a different thing to expose its errors, to reason on its defects, and to shew cause why it should be repealed, or why another ought to be substituted in its place. I have always held it an opinion (making it also my practice), that it is better to obey a bad law, making use at the same time of every argument to shew its errors, and procure its repeal, than forcibly to violate it; because the precedent of breaking a bad law might weaken the force, and lead to a discretionary violation, of those which are good.
The case is the same with principles and forms of government, or to what are called constitutions and the parts of which they are composed.
It is for the good of nations, and not for the emolument or aggrandisement of particular individuals, that government ought to be established, and that mankind are at the expence of supporting it. The defects of every government and constitution, both as to principle and form, must, on a parity of reasoning, be as, open to discussion as the defects of a law; and it is a duty which every man owes to society to point them out. When those defects, and the means of remedying them are generally seen by a nation, that nation will reform its government or its constitution in the one case, as the government repealed or reformed the law in the other.
Gentlemen, you must undoubtedly wish to deal with every man who comes before you in judgment, as you would be dealt by yourselves; and surely you will not lay it down as a law to be binding hereafter even upon yourselves, that if you should publish any opinion concerning the existing abuses in your country's government, and point out to the whole public the means of amendment, you are to be acquitted or convicted as any twelve men may happen to agree with you in your opinions. Yet this is precisely what you are asked to do to another; it is precisely the case before you. Mr. Paine expressly says, I obey a law until it is repealed; obedience is not only my principle but my practice, since my disobedience of a law from thinking it bad, might apply to justify another man in the disobedience of a good one; and thus individuals would give the rule for themselves, and not society, for all.
Gentlemen, you will presently see that the same principle pervades the rest of the work; and I am the more anxious to call your attention to it, however repetition may tire you, because it unfolds the whole principle of my argument: for, if you find a sentence in the whole book that invests any individual, or any number of individuals, or any community short of the whole nation, with a power of changing any part of the law or constitution I abandon the cause—YES, I freely abandon it, because I will not affront the majesty of a court of justice, by maintaining propositions which, even upon the surface of them, are false.—Mr. Paine, page 162— 186, goes on thus:
When a nation changes its opinion and habits of thinking, it is no longer to be governed as before; but it would not only be wrong, but bad policy, to attempt by force what ought to be accomplished by reason. Rebellion consists in forcibly opposing the general will of a nation, whether by a party or by a government. There ought, therefore, to be, in every nation, a method of occasionally ascertaining the state of public opinion with respect to government.
There is therefore, no power but the voluntary Will of the People that has a right to act in any matter respecting a general Reform; and, by the same right that two persons can confer on such a subject, a thousand may. The object in all such preliminary proceedings is, to find out what the general sense of a nation is, and to be governed by it. If it prefer a bad or defective government to a reform, or chuse to pay ten times more taxes than there is occasion for, it has a right so to do; and, so long as the majority do not impose conditions on the minority different to what they impose on themselves, though there may be much error, there is no injustice; neither will the error continue long. Reason and discussion will soon bring things right, however wrong they may begin. By such a process no tumult is to be apprehended. The poor, in all countries, are naturally both peaceable and grateful in all reforms in which their interest and happiness are included. It is only by neglecting and rejecting them that they become tumultuous.
Gentlenen, these are the sentiments of the Author of the Rights of Man; and, whatever his opinions may be of the defects in our government, it can never change our sentiments concerning it, if our sentiments are just; and a writing can never be seditious in the sense of the English law, which states that the government leans on the universal will for its support.
Gentlemen, this universal will is the best and securest title which his Majesty and his family have to the throne of these Kingdoms; and in proportion to the wisdom of our institutions, the title must in common sense become the stronger: so little idea indeed, have I of any other, that in my place in parliament, not a week ago, I considered it as the best way of expressing my attachment to the constitution, as established at the Revolution, to declare (I believe in the presence of the Heir Apparent of the Crown, for whom I have the greatest personal zeal) that his Majesty reigned in England, by choice and consent, as the magistrate of the English people; not indeed a consent and choice by personal election, like a King of Poland, the worst of all possible constitutions; but by the election of a family for great national objects; in defiance of that hereditary right, which only becomes tyranny, in the sense of Mr. Paine, when it claims to inherit a nation, instead of governing by their consent, and continuing for its benefit.
Gentlemen, this sentiment has the advantage of Mr. Burke's high authority, he says with great truth, in a letter to his constituents,
Too little dependance cannot be had at this time of day on names and prejudices: the eyes of mankind are opened; and communities must be held together by a visible and solid interest.
I believe, Gentlemen of the Jury, that the Prince of Wales will always render this title dear to the people. The Attorney General can only tell you what he believes of him; I can tell you what I know, and what I am bound to declare, since this Prince may be traduced and calumniated in every part of the Kingdom, without its coming into question, till brought in to load a defence with matter collateral to the charge. I therefore assert what the Attorney General can only hope, that, whenever that Prince shall ever come to the throne of this Country (which I hope, but by the course of nature, will never happen), he will make the Constitution of Great Britain the foundation of all his conduct.
Having now, Gentlemen, established the Author's general intention by his own introduction, which is the best and fairest exposition, let us next look at the occasion which gave it birth.
(To be continued.)
—To shew
The very Age and Body of the Time its Form
And Pressure.—
Glorious News for Church and —. Rioters!
The Church is not in danger—it is only to be sold!!!
Morning Chronicle, Nov. 20, 1793.
NEXT PRESENTATION TO A VALUABLE LIVING, ESSEX.
By Messrs. SKINNER and DYKE,
On Thursday, the 5th of December, at twelve o'clock, at Garraway's Coffee-house, 'Change-alley, Cornhill,
THE NEXT PRESENTATION to the valuable consolidated RECTORIES of SOUTH and WEST HANNINGFIELD, situate in a delightful, healthy, and sporting part of the county of Essex, a short distance from Chelmsford, and only 30 miles from London, of the annual value of
Three hundred and seventy-six pounds, seventeen shillings and six-pence
per annum, arising from the great and small tythes, which if taken in kind, would produce considerably more, with a good parsonage-house, and fifty acres of glebe land. The present Incumbent is upwards of 80 years of age!!!
Particulars may be had, fourteen days preceding the sale, at the Black Boy, Chelmsford; George, Witham; White Hart, Colchester; Mr. Jackson, Printer, Oxford; at the place of sale; and of Messrs, Skinner and Dyke, Aldersgate-street.
Morning Chronicle, No. 27, 1793.
CORNWALL.
To be SOLD, the next Presentation to a LIVING, of the annual value of 500l. and upwards, and the present Incumbent 91 years of age!!!
For further particulars apply to Messrs. Graham, Lincoln's Inn.
THE DISTRESSES OF THE POOR, Exemplified in the LIFE OF A PRIVATE SOLDIER.
From the
Citizen of the World.
By Dr.
Goldsmith.
THE misfortunes of the great, my friend, are held up to engage our attention, are enlarged upon in tones of declamation, and the world is called upon to gaze at the noble sufferers; they have at once the comfort of admiration and pity.
Yet where is the magnanimity of bearing misfortunes, when the whole world is looking on? Men in such
hances can act bravely even from motives of vanity. He only who, in the vale of obscurity, can
ave a svertity, who, without friends to encourage, as quaintances to pity, or even without hope to alleviate his distresses, can behave with tranquility and indiference, is truly great; whether peasant or courtier, be deserves admiration, and should be held up for our imitation and respect.
The miseries of the poor are, however, entirely disregarded, though some undergo more real hardships in one day than the great in their whole lives. It is indeed inconceivable what difficulties the meanest English sailor or soldier endures without murmuring or regret. Every day to him is a day of misery, and yet he bears his hard fate without repining.
With what indignation do I hear the heroes of tragedy complain of misfortunes and hardships, whose greatest calamity is founded in arrogance and pride. Their severest distresses are pleasures, compared to what many of the adventuring poor every day sustain, without murmuring. These may eat, drink and sleep, have slaves to attend them, and are sure of sustenence for life, while many of their fellow-creatures are obliged to wander, without a friend to comfort or to assist them, find enmity in every law, and are too poor to obtain even justice.
I have been led into these reflections, from accidentally meeting some days ago, a poor fellow begging at one of the outlets of the town, with a wooden leg. I was curious to learn what had reduced him to his present situation; and after giving him what I thought proper, desired to know the history of his life and misfortunes, and the manner in which he was reduced to his present distress. The disabled soldier, for such he was, with an intrepidity truly British, leaning on his crutch, put himself into an attitude to comply with my request, and gave me his history as follows:
'As for misfortunes, Sir, I can't pretend to have gone through more than others. Except the loss of my limb, and my being obliged to beg, I don't know any reason, thank heaven, that I have to complain: there are some that have lose both legs and an eye; but, thank heaven, it is not quite so bad with me.
'My father was a labourer in the country, and died when I was five years old; so I was put upon the parish. As he had been a wandering sort of a man, the parishioners were not able to tell to what parish I belonged, or where I was born; so they sent me to another parish, and that parish sent me to a third; till at h
it was thought I be longed to no parish at all. At length, however, they sixed me. I had some disposition to be a scholar, and had actually learned my letters; but the master of the workhouse put me to business, as soon as I was able to handle a mallet.
'Here I lived an easy kind of a life for five years. I only wrought ten hours in the day, and had my meat and drink provided for my labour. It is true, I was not suffered to stir far from the house, for fear I should run away; but what of that, I had the liberty of the whole house, and the yard before the door, and that was enough for me.
'I was next bound out to a farmer, where I was up both early and late, but I eat and drank well, and liked my business well enough, till he died. Being then obliged to provide for myself, I was resolved to go and seek my fortune. Thus I lived and went from town to town, working when I could get employment, and starving when I could get none, and might have lived so still; but happening one day to go through a field belonging to a magistrate, I spy'd a hare crossing the path just before me. I believe the devil put it in my head to fling my stick at it: well, what will you have on't? I kill'd the hare, and was bringing it away in triumph, when the justice himself; met me: he called me a villain, and collering me, desired I would give an account of myself. I began immediately to give a full account of all that I knew of my breed, seed and generation: but though I gave a very long account, the justice said, I could give no account of myself; so I was indicted and
found guilty of being poor,
and sent to Newgate, in order to be transported to the plantations.
'People may say this and that of being in jail; but for my part, I found Newgate as agreeable a place as ever I was in, in all my life. I had my belly full to eat and drink, and did no work; but alas, this kind of life was too good to last for ever! I was taken out of prison, after five months, put on board of a ship, and sent off with two hundred more. Our passage was but indifferent, for we were all confined in the hold, and died very fast, for want of sweet air and provisions; but for my part, I did not want meat, because I had a fever all the way; providence was kind when provisions grew short, it took away my desire of eating. When we came on shore, we were sold to the Planters. I was bound for seven years; and as I was no scholar, for I had forgot my letters, I was obliged to work among the negroes; and served out my time as in duty bound to do.
'When my time was expired, I worked my passage home, and glad I was to see Old England again, because I loved my Country. O Liberty, Liberty, Liberty! that is the property of every Englishman, and I will die in it's defence: I was afraid, however, that I should be indicted for a vagabond once more, so did not much care to go into the country, but kept about town, and did little jobs when I get them. I was very happy in this manner for some time, till one evening, coming home from work, two men knocked me down, and then defired me to stand still. They belonged to a press gang; I was carried before the justice, and as I could give no account count of my self (that was the thing that always hobbled me), I had my choice left, whether to go on board a man of war, or list for a soldier; I chose to be a soldier, and in this part of a gentleman I served two campaigns, was at the battles in Flanders, and received but one wound through the breast, which is troublesome to this day.
'When the peace came on, I was discharged; and as I could not work, because my wound was sometimes painful, I listed for a landsman in the East India Company's service. I here fought the French in six pitched battles; and verily believe, that if I could read or write, our Captain would have given me promotion, and made me a corporal. But that was not my good fortune, I soon fell sick, and when I became good for nothing, got leave to return home again with forty pounds in my pocket, which I saved in the service. This was at the beginning of the present war, so I hoped to be set on shore, and to have the pleasure of spending my money; but the government wanted men, and I was pressed again before ever I could set foot on shore.
'The boatswain found me, as he said, an obstinate fellow: he swore that I understood my business perfectly well, but that I pretended sickness merely to be idle: God knows, I knew nothing of sea business! He beat me without considering what he was about. But still my forty pounds was some comfort to me under every beating; the money was my comfort, and the money I might have had to this day, but that our ship was taken by the French, and so I lost it all!
'Our crew was carried into a French prison, and many of them died, because they were not used to live in a jaiI; but for my part it was nothing to me, for I was seasoned. One night however, as I was sleeping on the bed of boards, with a warm blanket about me, (for I always loved to lie well) I was awaked by the boatswain, who had a dark lanthorn in his hand. Jack, says he to me, will you knock out the French centry's brains? I don't care, says I, striving to keep myself awake, if I lend a hand. Then follow me, says he, and I hope we shall do business. So up I got, and tied my blanket, which was all the cloaths. I had, about my middle, and went with him to fight the Frenchmen: we had no arms; but one Englishman is able to beat five French at any time; so we went down to the door; where both the centries were posted, and rushing upon them, seized their arms in a moment, and knocked them down. From thence nine of us ran together to the Quay, and seizing the first boat we met, got out of the harbour, and put to sea. We had not been here three days, before we were taken by an English privateer, who was glad of so many good hands, and we consented to run our chance. However, we had not so much luck as we expected. In three days we fell in with a French man of War of forty guns, while we had but twenty-three; so to it we went. The fight lasted for three hours, and I verily believe we should have taken the Frenchman, but unfortunately we lost almost all our men, just as we were going to get the victory. I was once more in the power of the French, and I believe it would have gone hard with me, had I been brought back to my old jail in Brest; but by good fortnue we were re-taken, and carried to England once more.
I had almost forgot to tell you, that in this last engagement I was wounded in two places; I lost four fingers of the left hand, and my leg was cut off. Had I the good fortune to have lost my leg and the use of my hand on board a king's ship, and not a privateer, I should have been entitled to cloathing and maintenance during the rest of my life, but that was not my chance; one man is born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and another a wooden ladle. However, blessed be God, I enjoy good health, and have no enemy in this world that I know of, but the French and the justice of peace.'
Thus saying, he limped off, leaving my friend and me in admiration of his intrepidity and content.
ON KINGS.
From
Godwin
's Enquiry concerning Political Justice.
MONARCHY is so unnatural an institution, that mankind have at all times strongly suspected it was unfriendly to their happiness. The power of truth upon important topies is such, that it may rather be said to be obscured than obliterated; and falshood has scarcely ever been so successful, as not to have had a ref
ess and powerful antagonist in the heart of its votaries. The man who with difficulty earns his scanty subsistence, cannot behold the ostentatious splendor of a king, without being visited by some sense of injustice. He inevitably questions in his mind the utility of an officer, whose services are hired at so enormous a price. If he confider the subject with any degree of accuracy, he is led to perceive, and that with sufficient surprise, that a king is nothing more than a common mortal, exceeded by many, and equalled by more in every requisite of strength, capacity, and virtue, He feels therefore, that nothing can be more groundless and unjust, than the supposing that one such man as this is the fittest and most competent instrument for regulating the affairs of nations.
These reflections are so unavoidable, that Kings themselves have often been aware of the danger to their imaginary happiness with which they are pregnant. They have sometimes been alarmed with the progress of thinking, and oftener regarded the ease and prosperity of their subjects as a fource of terror and apprehension. They justly consider their functions as a sort of public exhibition, the success of which depends upon the credulity of the spectators, and which good sense and courage would speedily bring to a termination. Hence the well known maxims of monarchial government, that ease is the parent of rebellion, and that it is necessary to keep the people in a state of poverty and endurance, in order to render them submissive. Hence it has been the perpetual complaint of despotism, that "the restive knaves are overrun with ease, and plenty ever is the nurse of faction
Tragedy of Jane Shore, Act III.
." Hence it has been the lesson perpetually read to monarchs: "Render your subjects prosperous, and they will speedily refuse to labour; they will become stubborn, proud, unsubmissive to the yoke, and ripe for revolt. It is impotence and misery that alone will render them supple, and prevent them from rebelling against the dictates of authority
Telemaque, Liv.
XIII.
."
(To be continued.)
ON THE REBELLION OF PRINCES.
Isaiah, 1. xxiii.
Thy Princes are rebellions, and Companions of Thieves: every one loveth Gifts, and followeth after Rewards: they judge not the Fatherless, neither doth the Cause of the Widow come before them.
From
Fast-Day Sermons,
by the Rev.
J. Murray,
of
Newcastle,
Author of
Sermons to Asses.
Printed in the Year
1781.
PRINCES may be rebellious by joining interests and partnership with thieves and dishonest persons. These are such as take what is not their own, and apply it to their own purposes. This is a coarse compliment to princes, but as it is given by an inspired Prophet it cannot be taken amiss.
It is rebellion against God and the laws, for rulers to take more than justly is due to them, or join interests with those who do.
It is also dishonest to promote or procure laws, that may make it legal to give them more than the people can afford: this comes under the notion of theft and rebellion, according to the Prophet's idea.
The Princes of Judah and Israel went partners with the Sovereign in the plunder of the Nation. They probably voted large supplies to the king, because they knew they would receive a share of the revenue, and might promote a law for encreasing the civil list in hopes of serving in his Majesty's houshold; but this was theft and rebellion against justice, and the laws of the land.
Those who obey the fundamental laws of government cannot be rebels, though it is manifest that legislators that make laws contrary to natural justice and the law of God may be guilty of rebellion.
Not executing the laws impartially is joined with rebellion, or is rather a part of it. The fatherless and the widow were either neglected or made seel all the force of penal laws when they were guilty, when those who had influence in a tribe, or could serve the ends of administration, were rescued from justice, when they had committed the most capital crimes.
This is by the Prophet accounted the very height of rebellion, and is often committed by princes and their companions.
Thus it is plain, that rebellion is not a crime pecu
far to the people only, but is also sometimes to be found at the very springs of government.
Some would make us believe that kings and princes cannot be guilty of rebellion, but the scripture informs us otherwise.
As we are certain from the best authority, that even princes may rebel, the question now is, whether they ought to be punished for it like other rebels, and who can lawfully punish them? This question requires a little caution, and must be determined by scripture; and it is hoped that then no Christian will dissent from the conclusion.
Whether there is any difference between trying Kings and Princes for rebellion, and punishing them without trying them, I shall leave to the Tories and Causuists to determine. For there has been more noise concerning the trial of King Charles the First, than concerning the punishment of all the rebellious princes since the Conquest.
This Prince is the only martyr we find among the Kings of England, though many of them have suffered for their tytanny and rebellion against the laws.
The Kings in this country are considered as the source of the laws, and it is supposed that if the King could die, that all law would be at an end; for this reason the lawyers have made our kings immortal, and laid it down as a first principle, that the King cannot die.
It ought to have been seriously considered, before such a mysterious maxim had been laid down as a first principle, whether laws or Kings were first appointed by the Almighty; for if ever we find laws without Kings, it will appear manifest that they are not necessary to the being of government, but that laws may continue when there is no monarch.
It is plain, that there was law before we heard any thing of any ruler except God himself, from hence it would appear, that the existence of laws does not depend upon any human regal authority, and though that Kings should chance to die, the laws, if just, will continue immortal; if they are unjust, they ought never to exist.
ON THE NATIONAL SIN OF SUFFERING BAD GOVERNMENT.
From
A Discourse
for the Fast on April 19th,
1793.
Entitled
SINS OF THE NATION.
THE vices of nations may be divided into those which relate to their own internal proceedings, or to their relations with other states. With regard to the first, the causes for humiliation are various. Many nations are guilty of the crime of permiting oppressive laws and bad governments to remain amongst them, by which the poor are crushed, and the lives of the innocent are laid at the mercy of wicked and arbitrary men. This is a national sin of the deepest dye, as it involves in it most others. It is painful to reflect how many atrocious governments there are in the world, and how little even they who enjoy good ones, seem to understand their true nature. We are apt to speak of the
happiness
of living under a mild government, as if it were like the happiness of living under an indulgent climate; and when we thank God for it, we rank it with the blessings of the air and of the soil; whereas we ought to thank God for the
wisdom
and
virtue
of living under a good government, for a good government is the first of national duties. It is indeed a happiness, and one which demands our most grateful thanks, to be born under one which spares us the trouble and hazard of changing of it; but a people born under a good government, will probably not die under one, if they conceive of it as of an indolent and passive happiness, to be left for its preservation, to fortunate conjunctures, and the floating and variable chances of incalculable events; our second duty is to
keep
it good.
ON CIVIL LIBERTY, AND THE PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT.
By
Richard Price, D. D. F. R. S.
FROM what has been said it is obvious, that all Civil Government, as far as it can be denominated
free,
is the creature of the people. It originates with them. It is conducted under their direction; and has in view nothing but their happiness. All its different forms are no more than so many different modes in which they chuse to direct their affairs, and to secure the quiet enjoyment of their rights.—In every free state every man is his own legislator. All
taxes
are free-gifts for public services.—All
laws
are particular provisions or regulations established by COMMON CONSENT for gaining protection and safety. — And all
Magistrates
are trustees or deputies for carrying these regulations into execution.
Liberty, therefore, is too imperfectly defined when it is said to be "a Government by LAWS, and not by MEN." If the laws are made by one man, or a junto of men in a state, and not by COMMON CONSENT, a government by them does not differ from slavery. In this case it would be a contradiction in terms to say, that the state governs itself.
From hence it is obvious that
Civil Liberty,
in the most perfect degree, can be enjoyed only in small states, where every member is capable of giving his suffrage in person, and of being chosen into public offices. When a state becomes so numerous, or when the different parts of it are removed to such distances from one another, as to render this impracticable, a diminution of liberty necessarily arises. There are, however, in these circumstances, methods by which such near approaches may be made to perfect liberty as shall answer all the purposes of government, and at the same time secure every right of human nature.
Tho' all the members of a state should not be capable of giving their suffrages on public measures,
individually
and
personally,
they may do this by the appointment of
substitutes
or
representatives.
They may entrust the powers of legislation, subject to such restrictions as they shall think necessary, with any number of
delegates;
and whatever can be done by such delegates within the limits of their trust, may be considered as done by the united voice and counsel of the community.—In this method a free government may be established in the largest state; and it is conceivable, that by regulations of this kind, any number of states might be subjected to a scheme of government, that would exclude the desolations of war, and produce universal peace and order.
Let us think here of what may be practicable in this way with respect to
Europe
in particular.—While it continues divided, as it is at present, into a great number of independent kingdoms, whose interests are continually clashing, it is impossible but that disputes will often arise, which must end in war and carnage. It would be no remedy to this evil to make one of these states supreme over the rest; and to give it an absolute plenitude of power to superintend and controul them. This would be to subject all the states to the arbitrary discretion of one, and to establish an ignominious slavery, not possible to be long endured. It would, therefore, be a remedy worse than the disease; nor is it possible it should be approved by any mind that has not lost every idea of civil liberty. On the contrary.—Let every state, with respect to all its internal concerns, be continued independent of all the rest; and let a general confederacy be formed by the appointment of a SENATE, consisting of representatives from all the different states. Let this SENATE possess tbe power of managing all the
common
concerns of the united states, and of judging and deciding between them, as a common
arbiter
or
umpire,
in all disputes; having, at the same time, under its direction, the common force of the states to support its decisions. In these circumstances, each seperate state would be secure against the interference of foreign power in its private concerns, and, therefore, would possess
liberty;
and at the same time it would be secure against all oppression and insult from every neighbouring state.— Thus might the scattered force and abilities of a whole continent be gathered into one point; all litigations settled as they rose; universal peace established; and nation prevented
from any more lifting up a sword against nation.
THE NEW CONSTITUTION OF FRANCE, [
Continued from page
180.]
OF THE REPUBLIC.
1. THE French Republic is one and indivisible.
OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE PEOPLE.
2. The French People is distributed, for the exercise of its sovereignty, into Primary Assemblies of Cantons.
3. It is distributed, for administration and for justice, into Departments, Districts and Municipalities.
OF THE STATE OF CITIZENS.
4. Every man born or domiciliated in France, of the age of twenty-one years complete;
Every foreigner of the age of twenty-one years complete, who has been domiciliated in France for one year;
Lives in it by his labour; or acquires a property; or marries a French woman; or adopts a child; or maintains an age
erson; finally, every foreigner, who shall be judg
by the Legislative Body to have deserved well of humanity;
Is admitted to the exercise of the rights of a French citizen.
5. The exercise of the rights of a citizen is lost, by naturalization in a foreign country;
he acceptance of functions or favours flowing from a government not popular; by condemnation to punishments infamous or afflictive, till recapacitation.
6. The exercise of the rights of a Citizen is suspended, by the state of accusation; by a judgment of contumacy, as long as that judgment is not annulled.
OF THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE PEOPLE.
7. The sovereign people is the universality of French citizens.
8. It nominates directly, its Deputies.
9 It delegates to Electors the choice of Administrators, of Public Arbitrators, of Criminal Judges, and Judges of Appeal.
10. It deliberates on the laws.
OF THE PRIMARY ASSEMBLIES.
11. The Primary Assemblies are composed of the Citizens domiciliated for six months in each canton.
12. They are composed of 200 citizens at the least, and 600 at the most called to vote.
13. They are constituted by the nomination of a President, Secretaries and Scrutineers.
14. Their police appertains to them.
15. No person can appear in them armed.
16. The elections are made by ballot, or open vote, at the option of each voter.
17. A Primary Assembly cannot, in any case, prescribe a uniform mode of voting.
18. The Scrutineers ascertain the votes of citizens, who cannot write and choose to vote by ballot.
19. The suffrages upon laws are given by
yes
or by
no.
20. The will of a Primary Assembly is proclaimed th
?
The citizens met in Primary Assembly of—, to the number of — votes, vote for, or vote against, by a majority of
—.
OF THE NATIONAL REPRESENTATION.
21. The population is the sole basis of the National Representation.
22. There is one Deputy for every 40,000 individuals.
23. Each re-union of Primary Assemblies resulting from a population of from 39,000 to 41,000 souls, nominates directly one Deputy.
24. The nomination is made by the absolute majority of suffrages.
25. Each Assembly casts up the suffrages, and sends a Commissioner for the general casting up to the place pointed out as the most central.
26. If the first casting up does not give an absolute majority, a second vote is proceeded to, and the votes are taken for the two citizens who had the most voices.
27. In case of equality of voices, the eldest has the preference, either to be on the ballot, or elected. in case of equality of age, lot decides.
28. Every Frenchman, exercising the rights of Citizen, is eligible through the extent of the Republic.
29. Each Deputy belongs to the whole nation.
30. In case of the non-acceptance, resignation, forfeiture or death of a Deputy, he is replaced by the Primary Assemblies who nominated him.
31. A Deputy who has given in his resignation, cannot quit his post, but after the admission of his successor.
32. The French People assemble every year on the
of May for the elections.
33. It proceeds in them, whatever be the number of Citizens present having a right to vote.
34. Primary Assemblies are formed on extraordinary occasions, on the demand of a fifth of the Citizens, who have a right to vote in them.
35. The Convocation is made, in this case, by the Municipality of the ordinary place of meeting.
36. These extraordinary Assemblies do not deliberate but when one more than the half of the citizens, who have a right to vote in them, are present.
OF ELECTORAL ASSEMBLIES.
37. The Citizens met, in Primary Assemblies, nominate one Elector for every 200 Citizens; present or not, two for from 201 to 400, and three for from 401 to 600.
38. The holding of the Electoral Assemblies, and the mode of elections, are the same as in the Primary Assemblies.
OF THE LEGISLATIVE BODY.
39. The Legislative Body is one indivisible and permanent.
40. Its session is for a year.
41. It meets the 1st. of July.
42. The National Assembly cannot be constituted, if it do not consist of one more than the half of the Deputies.
43. The Deputies cannot be examined, accused, or tried at any time, for the opinions they have delivered in the Legislative Body.
44. They may, for a criminal act, be seized,
enflagrant delite;
but a warrant of arrest, or a warrant summoning to appear, cannot be granted against them unless authorised by the Legislative Body.
HOLDING OF THE SITTINGS OF THE LEGISLATIVE BODY.
45. The Sittings of the National Assembly are public.
46. The minutes of its sittings are printed.
47. It cannot deliberate, if it be not composed of 200 members at least.
48. It cannot refuse to hear its members speak in the order in which they have demanded to be heard.
49. It deliberates by the majority of the members present.
50. Fifty members have a right to require the
appeal nominal.
51. It has the right of censure on the conduct of its members in its bosom.
52. The police appertains to it in the place of its sittings, and in the external circuit which it has determined.
OF THE FUNCTIONS OF THE LEGISLATIVE BODY.
53. The Legislative Body proposes laws and passes decrees.
54. Under the general name of laws are comprehended the acts of the Legislative Body concerning the Legislation civil and criminal; the general administration of the revenues, and of the ordinary expences of the Republic; the national domains; the title, the weight, the impression, and the denomination of money; the nature, the amount, and the collection of contributions; the declaration of war; every new general distribution of the French territory; the public instruction; the public honours to the memory of great men.
55. Under the particular name of
Decrees,
are included the acts of the Legislative Body, concerning the annual establishment of the land and sea forces; the permission or the prohibition of the passage of foreign troops through the French territory; the introduction of foreign naval forces into the ports of the Republic; the measures of general safety and tranquillity; the annual and momentary distribution of public succours and works, the orders for the fabrication of money of every kind; the unforeseen and extraordinary expences; the measures local and particular to an administration, a commune, or any kind of public works; the defence of the territory; the ratification of treaties; the nomination and the removal of commanders in chief of armies; the prosecution of the responsibility of Members of the Council, and the public fu
onaries; the accusation of persons charged with plots against the general safety of the Republic; all change in the partial distribution of the French territory; National recompences.
O
THE FORMATION OF THE LAW.
56. The plans of law are preceded by a report.
57. The discussion cannot be opened, and the law cannot be provisionally resolved upon till 15 days after the report.
58. The plan is printed and sent to all the Comm
s of the Republic, under this
e:
Law proposed.
59. Forty days after the sending of the law proposed, if in more than one half of the Departments, the renth of the Primary Assemblies of each, have not objected to it, the plan is accepted and becomes
law.
60. If there be an objection, the Legislative Body convokes the Primary Assemblies.
OF THE ENTITLING OF LAWS AND DECREES.
61. Laws, decrees, judgments, and all public acts are entitled:
In the name of the French People,
the— year of the French Republic.
(To be continued.)
POPULAR ASSEMBLIES UNDERSTAND ONLY THEIR OWN INTERESTS.
From
Harrington's Oceana.
A Popular Assembly has no mean, but is either the wisest in nature, or has no brains at all. When affairs go upon no other than the public interest this having no other interest to follow, nor eyes to see withal, is the wisest council: but such ways are destructive to a prince, and they will have no nay. The congregation of
Israel,
when REHOBOAM would not hearken to their advice, deposed him: and we know what popular councils, so soon as they came to sufficient power, did in
England.
If a prince put a popular council from this ward, he does a great matter, and to little purpose; for they understand nothing else but themselves. Wherefore the Kings of
France
and of
Spain
have dissolved all such assemblies. It is true, where a prince is not strong enough to get money out of them but by their consent, they are necessary; yet then they are not purely of advice and dispatch, but share in the government, and he cannot be meddling with their purses, but they will be meddling with his laws. The Senate is of sieter use for a prince; and yet, except he has the way of TIBERIUS, but a ticklish piece, as appears by MAXIMINUS, who was destroyed by PUPIENUS and BALBINUS, captains set up against him by this order. To go to the root: These things are not otherwise in prudence or choice than by direction of the balance; where this is popular, no remedy but the prince must be advised by the people, which if the late king would have endured, the monarchy might have subsisted somewhat longer: but while the balance was Aristocratical, as during the great estates of the nobility and the clergy, we find not the people to have been great or wise counsellors. In sum, if a king governs by a popular council, or a house of commons, the throne will not stand long: if he governs by a senate, or a house of lords, let him never fear the throne, but have a care of himself: there is no third, as I have said often enough, but the Divan.
ON RELIGION.
MORNING CHRONICLE,
Nov.
29, 1793.
A Few days after the Bishop of Paris and his Vicars had set the example of renouncing their clerical character, a Cure from a village on the Banks of the Rhone, followed by some of his parishioners, with an offering of gold and silver saints, chalices, rich vestments, &c. presented himself at the Bar of the National Convention. The sight of the gold put the Convention in a very good humour, and the Cur
, a thin venerable looking man, with grey hairs, was ordered to speak. I come, said he, from the village of —, where the only good building standing (for the Chateau has been pulled down), is a very fine church; my parishioners beg you will take it to make an hospital for the sick and wounded of both parties, they being both equally our countrymen; the gold and silver, part of which we have brought you, they entreat you will devote to the service of the state, and that you will cast the bells into cannon, to drive away its foreign invaders; for myself, I am come with great pleasure to resign my letters of ordination, of induction, and every deed and title, by which I have been constituted a member of your ecclesiastical polity. Here are the papers, you may burn them, if you please, in the same fire with the genealogical trees and patents of the nobility. I desire likewise, that you will discontinue my salary. I am still able to support myself with the labour of my hands, and I beg you to believe, that I never felt sincerer joy than I now do in making this renunciation. I have longed to see this day, I see it, and am glad.
When the old man had done speaking, the applause; were immoderate. You are an honest man, said they, all at once; a brave fellow; and the President advanced to give him the fraternal embrace. The Curé did not seem greatly elated with these tokens of approbation, and thus resumed his discourse:—"Before you applaud my sentiments, it is fit you should understand them; perhaps, they may not entirely coincide with your own. I rejoice in this day, not because I wish to see religion degraded, but because I wish to see it exalted and purisied. By dissolving its alliance with the state, you have given it dignity and independence. You have done it a piece of service, which
s well-wishers would perhaps never have had courage to render it, but which is the only thing wanted to make it appear in its genuine beauty and lustre. Nobody will now say of me when I am performing the offices of my religion, it is his trade, he is paid for telling the people such and such things, he is hired to keep up an useful piece of mummery. They cannot now say this, and therefore I feel myself raised in my own esteem, and shall speak to them with a confidence and frankness, which before this I never durst venture to assume. We resign without reluctance our gold and silver images, and embroidered vestments, because we have never found that looking upon gold and silver made the heart more pure, or the affections more heavenly: we can also spare our churches, for the heart that wishes to lift itself up to GOD will never be at a loss for room to do it in; but we cannot spare oar religion, because, to tell you the truth, we never had so much occasion for it. I understand that you accuse us priests of having told the people a great many falshoods. I suspect this may have been the case, but till this day we have never been allowed to enquire whether the things which we taught them were true or not. You required us formerly to receive them all without proof, and you now would have us reject them all without discrimination; neither of these modes of conduct become philosophers, such as you would be thought to be. I am going to employ myself diligently along with my parishioners, to sift the wheat from the bran, the true from the false; if we are not successful, we shall be at least sincere.
fear, indeed, that while I wore these vestments which we have brought you, and spoke in that large gloomy building which we have given up to you, I told my poor flock a great many idle stories. I cannot but hope, however, that the errors we have fallen into have not been very material, since the village has in general been sober and good, the peasants are honest, decile, and laborious, the husbands love their wives, and the wives their husbands; they are fortunately not too rich to be compassionate, and they have constantly relieved the sick and fugitives of all parties whenever it has lain in their way. I think therefore what I have taught cannot be so very much amiss. You want to extirpate pri
sts: but will you hinder the ignorant from applying for instruction, the unhappy for comfort and hope, the unlearned from looking up to the learned? If you do not, you will have priests, by whatever name you may order them to be called; but it is certa
ly not necessary they should wear a particular dress, or be appointed by stare letters of ordination. My letters of ordination are my zeal, my charity, my ardent love for my dear children of the village, if I were more learned I would add my knowledge, but alas! we all know very little; to man every error is pardonable but want of humility. We have a public walk, with a spreading elm-tree at one end of it, and a circle of green round it, with a convenient bench. Here I shall get together the children as they are playing around me. I shall point to the vines laden with fruit, to the orchards, to the herds or cattle lowing around us, to those distant hills stretching one behind another, and they will ask me, how came all these things? I shall tell them all I know or have heard from wise men who have lived before me; they will be penetrated with love and veneration; they will kneel, I shall kneel with them; they will be at my feet, but all of us at the feet of that Good Being, whom we shall worship together, and thus they will receive within their tender minds a religion. The old men will come sometimes from having deposited under the green sod one of their companions, and place themselves by my side; they will look wishfully at the turf, and anxiously enquire—is he gone for ever? shall we soon be like him? will no morning break over the tomb?—When the wicked cease from troubling, will the good cease from doing good? We will talk of those things: I will comfort them. I will tell them of the goodness of God; I will speak to them of a life to come; I will bid them hope for a state of retribution. In a clear night, when the stars slide over our heads, they will ask what those bright bodies are, and by what rules they rise and set?—and we will converse about different forms of being, and distant worlds in the immensity of space governed by the same laws, till we feel our minds raised from what is groveling, and refined from what is sordid. You talk of Nature, this is Nature; and if you could at this moment extinguish religion in the minds of all the world, thus would it be rekindled again, and thus again excite the curiosity and interest the feelings of mankind. You have changed our holidays; you have an undoubted right, as our civil governors, so to do; it is very immaterial whether they are kept once in seven days, or once in ten; some however, you will leave us, and when they occur, I shall tell those who chuse to hear me, of the beauty and utility of virtue, of the dignity of right conduct. We shall talk of good men who have lived in the world, and of the doctrines they taught; and if any of them have been persecuted and put to death for their virtue, we shall reverence their memories the more.—I hope in all this there is no harm. There is a book out of which I have sometimes taught my people; it says we are to love those who do us hurt, and to poor oil and wine into the wounds of the stranger. It has enabled my children to bear patiently the spoiling of their goods, and to give up their own interest for the general walfare: I think it cannot be a very bad book. I wish more of it had been read in your town, perhaps you would not have had quite so many assassinations and massacres. In this book we hear of a person called JESUS; some worship him as a God; others, as I am told, say to it is wrong to do so;—some teach that he existed before the beginning of ages; others, that he was born of JOSEPH and MARY. I cannot tell whether these controversies will ever be decided; but, in the mean time, I think we cannot do otherwise than well to imitate him, for I learn that he loved the poor, and went about doing good.
Fellow-Citizens; as I travelled hither from my own Village, I saw peasants sitting amongst the smoking ruins of their cottages; rich men and women reduced to deplorable poverty; Fathers lamenting their children in the bloom and pride of youth; and I said to myself, these people cannot afford to part with their religion. But indeed you cannot take it away; if, contrary to your first declaration, you chuse to try the experiment of persecuting it, you will only make us prize it more, and love it better. Religion, true of false, is so necessary to the mind of man, that even you have already begun to make yourselves a new one. You are sowing the seeds of superstition at the moment you fancy you are destroying superstition. Let every one chufe the religion that pleases him; I and my parishioners are content with ours, it teaches us to bear without despondency whatever evils may befal us.
ON KINGS.
From
Godwin
's Enquiry concerning Political Justice.
[
Continued from page
201.]
LET us proceed to consider the moral effects which the institution of monarchical government is
tleulated to produce upon the inhabitants of the countries in which it flourishes. And here it must be laid
wn as a first principle, that monarchy is founded in imp
ture. It is false that kings are entitled to the e
nee they obtain. They possess no intrinsic superiority over their subjects. The line of distinction that is drawn is the offspring of pretence, an indirect means employed for effecting certain purposes, and not the offspring of truth. It tramples upon the genuine nature of things, and depends for its support upon this argument, "that, were it not for impositions of a similar nature, mankind would be miserable."
Secondly, it is false that kings can discharge the duties of royalty. They pretend to superintend the affairs of millions, and they are necessarily unacquainted with these affairs. The senses of kings are constructed like those of other men, they can neither see nor hear what is transacted in their absence. They pretend to administer the affairs of millions, and they possess no such supernatural powers as should enable them to act at a distance. They are nothing of what they would persuade us to believe them. The king is often ignorant of that of which half the inhabitants of his dominions are informed. His prerogatives are administered by others, and THE LOWEST CLERK IN OFFICE IS FREQUENTLY TO THIS AND THAT INDIVIDUAL MORE EFFECTUALLY THE SOVEREIGN THAN THE KING HIMSELF. He knows nothing of what is solemnly transacted in his name.
To conduct this imposture with success it is necessary to bring over to its party our eyes and our ears. Accordingly kings are always exhibited with all the splendour of ornament, attendance and equipage. They live amidst a sumptuousness of expence; and this not merely to gratify their appetites, but as a necessary instrument of policy.
The most fatal opinion that could lay hold upon the minds of their subjects is, that kings are but men.
Accordingly they are carefully withdrawn from the profaneness of vulgar inspection; and, when they are exhibited, it is with every artifice that may dazzle our sense and mislead out judgment.
The imposture does not stop with our eyes, but addresses itself to our ears. Hence the inflated stile of regal formality.
The
NAME OF KING
every where o
des it
lf upon us.
It would seem as if every thing in the country, the lands, the houses, the furniture and the inhabitants were his property. Our estates are the king's dominions. Our bodies and minds are his subjects. Our representatives are his parliament. Our courts of law are his deputies. All
gistrates throughout the realm are the king's officers. His name occupies the formost place in all statutes and decrees. He is the prosecutor of every criminal. He is "Our Sovereign Lord the King." Were it possible that he should die, "the fountain of our blood, the means by which we live," would be gone: every political function would be suspended. It is therefore one of the fundamental principles of monarchical government that "the king cannot die." Our moral principles accommodate themselves to our veracity: and accordingly the sum of our political duties (the most important of all duties) is loyalty; to be true and faithful to the king; to honour a man whom it may be we ought to despise: and to obey; that is, to acknowledge no immutable criterion of justice and injustice.
(To be continued.)
KINGS ARE
GREAT
BLESSINGS!
SOON as a Monarch mounts a throne,
His usefulness is clearly known,
As thousands can declare;
The kingly trade he undertakes,
And MANY
a little monarch makes,
The government to share.
And now in all the toils of state,
He
thinks
and
labours
—early—late;
And with an
anxious
mind!
He presses on from care to care,
The people's burthens
heavy
bear,
Upon his
gracious
mind!
He leaves the dissipated crew;
Routs, feasts, and sporting to pursue—
The Follies of the Day:
Far greater thoughts his heart engage,
Than concerts—hunting—or the stage;
As wise Duguet doth say.
The law he next surveys, and sees
That acts and deeds, and suits and fees
May not the poor oppress;
Hence judges so UPRIGHT we see,
And juries HONEST, wise, and FREE;
Their purest thoughts express.
Anon the Church his care demands,
The holy troop with gowns and bands,
He suffers none FOR HIRE!
To feed and guide the poor and blind,
To raise and cultivate the mind,
Of each he doth require.
Thus Kings are rais'd to bless a land,
And Church and State go hand in hand,
The blessing to ensure;
Upon men's backs the Junto rides;
So
soft
they sit upon their hides,
'Tis
pleasant
to endure!
ON THE HORRORS OF WAR.
By
Dr. JOHNSON.
IT is wonderful, with what coolness and indifference the greater part of mankind see war commenced. Those who hear of it at a distance, or read of it in books, but have never presented its evils to their minds, consider it as little more than a splendid game, a proclamation, an army, a battle, and a triumph. Some indeed must perish in the most successful field, but they die upon the bed of honour,
resign their lives awidst the joys of conquest, and, filled with England's glory, smile in death.
The life of a modern soldier is ill represented by heroic fiction. War has means of destruction more formidable than the cannon and the sword. Of the thousands and ten thousands who perished in our late contests with France and Spain, a very small part ever felt the stroke of an enemy; the rest languished in tents and ships, amidst damps and putrefaction, pale, torpid, spiritless, and helpless; gasping and groaning, unpitied among men, made obdurate by a long continuance of hopeless misery; and were at last whelmed in pits, or heaved into the ocean, without notice, and without remembrance. By incommodious encampments, and unwholesome stations, where courage is useless, and enterprize impracticable, fleets are silently dispeopled, and armies sluggishly melted away.
Thus is a people gradually exhausted, for the most part with little effect. The wars of civilized nations make very slow changes in the system of empire. The public perceives scarcely any alteration but an encrease of debt; and the few individuals who are benefited, are not supposed to have the clearest right to their advantages. If he who shared the danger enjoyed the profit, and after bleeding in the battle grew rich by the victory, he might shew his gains without envy. But at the conclusion of a ten years war, how are we recompenced for the death of multitudes, and the expence of millions, but by contemplating the sudden glories of paymasters and agents, contractors and commissuries, whose equipages shine like meteors, and whose palaces rise like exhalations.
These are the men who, without virtue, labour, or hazard, are growing rich as their country is impoverished; they rejoice when obstinacy or ambition add; another year to slaughter and devastation; and laugh from their desks at bravery and science, while they are adding figure to figure, and cipher to cipher, hoping for a new contract from a new armament, and computing the profits of a siege or a tempest.
[
Continuation of Mr.
ERSKINE's Defence of PAINE;
and of
The Liberty of the Press,
from page
193.]
THE Attorney General, throughout the whole course of his address to you (I knew it would be so), has avoided the most distant notice or hint of any circumstance having led to the appearance of the Author in the political world, after a silence of so many years; he has not even pronounced or even glanced at the name of Mr. Burke, but has left you to take it for granted, that the Defendant volunteered this delicate and momentous subject; and that without being led to it by the provocation of political controversy, he had seized a favourable moment to stigmatize, from mere malice, and against his own confirmed opinions, the constitution of this country.
Gentlemen, my learned friend knows too well my respect and value for him to suppose that I am charging him with a wilful suppression; I know him to be incapable of it; he knew it would come from me. He will permit me, however, to lament that it should be left for me, at this late period of the cause, to inform you, that, not only the Work before you, but the First Part, of which it is a natural continuation, were written
avowedly, and upon the face of them,
IN ANSWER TO MR. BURKE. They were written besides under circumistances which I shall hereafter explain, and in the course of which explanation I may have occasion to cite a few passages from the Works of that celebrated person. And I shall speak of him with the highest respect; for, with whatever contempt he may delight to look down upon my hamble talents, however he may disparage the principles which direct my public conduct, he shall never force me to forget the regard which this country owes to him for the Writings which he has left upon record for the illumination of our most distant posterity. After the gratitude which we owe to God for the divine gifts of reason and understanding, our next thanks are due to those, from the fountain of whose enlightened minds they are fed and fructified. But pleading, as I do, the cause of freedom of opinions, I shall not give offence by remarking, that this great Author has been thought to have changed some of his; and, if Thomas Paine had not thought so, I should not now be addressing you, because the Book, which is my subject, would never have been written. Who is right and who is wrong, in the contention of doctrines, I have repeatedly disclaimed to be the question; I can only say, that Mr. Paine may be right throughout, but that Mr. Burke cannot—Mr. Paine has been uniform in his opinions, but Mr. Burke has not—Mr. Burke can only be right in part; but, should Mr. Paine be even mistaken in the whole, still I am not removed from the principle of his defence. My defence has nothing to do with either the concealment or rectitude of his doctrines. I admit Mr. Paine to be a Republican; you shall soon see what made him one—I do not seek to shade or qualify his attack upon our constitution; I put my defence on no such matter—he undoubtedly means to declare it to be defective in its forms, and contaminated with abuses, which in his judgment, will one day or other bring on the ruin of us all: it is in vain to mince the matter; this is the scope of his Work. But still, if it contains no attack upon the King's majesty, nor upon any other
living
magistrate; if it excites to no resistance to magistracy; but, on the contrary, if it even inculeates, as it does, obedience to government, then, wherever may be its defects, the question continues as before, and ever must remain an unmixed question of THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. I therefore consider it as no breach of professional duty, nor injurious to the cause I am defending, to express my own admiration of the real principles of our constitation— a constitution which I hope never to see give way to any other—a constitution which has been productive of various benefits, and which will produce many more hereafter, if we have wisdom enough to pluck up those weeds that grow in the richest soils, and among the brightest flowers. I agree with the merchants of London, that the English government is equal to the reformation of its own abuses; and, as an inhabitant of the city, I would have signed their declaration, if I had known,
of my own knowledge,
the facts recited in its preamble. But abuses the English constitution unquestionably has which call loudly for reformation, the existence of which has been the theme of our greatest statesmen, which have too plainly formed the principles of the Defendant, and created the very conjecture which produced this Book.
Gentlemen, we all but too well remember the calamitous situation in which our country stood but a few years ago—a situation which no man can look back upon without horror, nor feel himfelf safe from relapsing into it again, while the causes remain which produced it. The event I allude to, you must know to be the American war, and the still existing causes of it, the corroption of this Government. In those days it was not thought virtue by the Patriots of England to conceal their existence from the people; but them, as now, authority condemned them as disaffected subjects, and deseated. the end
they sought by their promulgation.
Hear the opinion of Sir George Saville;—not his speculative opinion concerning the structure of car government in the abstract, but his opinion of the settled abuses which prevailed in his own time, and which continue at this moment. But first let me remind you who Sir George Saville was—I fear we s
all hardly look upon his like again—How shall I
scri
him to you?—In my own words I cannot. I was lately commended by Mr. Burke, in the House of Commons, for strongthening my own language by an appeal to Dr. Johnson. Were the honourable gentleman present at this moment, he would no doubt doubly applaud my choice in resorting to his own Works for the description of Sir George Saville:
His fortune is among the largest; a fortune, which, wholly unincumbered as it is, without one single charge from luxury, vanity, or excess, sinks under the benevolence of its dispenser. This private benevolence, expending itself into patriotism, renders his whole being the estate of the public, in which he has not reserved a
peculium
for himself of profit, diversion or relaxation. During the session, the first in, and the last out of the House of Commons; he passes from the senate to the camp; and, seldom seeing the seat of his ancestors, he is always in parliament to serve his country, or in the field to defend it.
It is impossible to ascribe to such a character any principal but patriotism, when he expresses himself as follows:
I return to you baffled and dispirited, and I am sorry that truth obliges me to add, with hardly a ray of hope of seeing any change in the miserable course of public calamities. On this melancholy d
of account, in rence
ing up to you my trust, I deliver to you your share of a country maimed and weakened;
treasure lavished and mispent; its honours faded; and its conduct the laughing-stock of Europe: our nation in a manner without allies or friends, except such as we have hired to destroy
r follow-subjects, and to ravage a country, in which we once claimed an invaluable share. I return to you some of your principal privileges impeached and mangled. And, lastly, I leave you, as I conceive, at this hour and moment fully, effectually, and absolutely, under the discretion and power of a military force, which is to act without waiting for the authority of the civil magistrates.
Some have been accused of exaggerating the public misfortunes, nay, of having endeavoured to help forward the mischief, that they might afterwards raise discontents. I am willing to hope, that neither my temper, nor my si
ation in life, will be thought naturally to urge me to promote misery, discord, or confusion, or to exult in the subversion of order, or in the ruin of property. I have no reason to contemplate with pleasure the poverty of our country, the increase of our debts, and of our taxes; or the decay of our commerce.—Trust not, however, to my report: reflect, compare, and judge for yourselves.
But, under all these disheartening circumstances, I could yet entertain a chearful hope, and undertake again the commission with alacrity, as well as zeal, if I could see any effectual steps taken to remove the original cause of the mischief.— Then would there be a hope?
But, till the purity of the constituent body, and thereby that of the representation be restored, there is NONE.
I gladly embrace this most public opportunity of delivering my sentiments, not only to all my constituents, but to those likewise not my constituents, whom yet, in the large sense, I represent, and am faithfully to serve.
I look upon restoring election and representation in some degree (for I expect no miracles) to their original purity, to be that without which all other efforts will be vain and ridiculous.
If something be not done, you may, indeed, retain the outward form of your Constitution, but not the power thereof.
(To be continued.)
ON THE AUTHORITY OF ONE COUNTRY OVER ANOTHER.
By
Dr. PRICE.
FROM the nature and principles of Civil Liberty, it is an immediate and necessary inference that no one community can have any power over the property or legislation of another community, that is not incorporated with it by a just and adequate representation.—Then only, is a state
free,
when it is governed by its own will. But a country that is subject to the legislature of another country, in which it has no voice, and over which it has no controul, cannot be said to be governed by its own will. Such a country, therefore, is in a state of slavery. And it deserves to be particularly considered, that such a slavery is worse, on several accounts, than any slavery of private men to one another, or of kingdoms to despots within themselves.—Between one state and another, there is none of that fellow-feeling that takes place between persons in private life. Being detached bodies that never see one another, and residing perhaps in different quarters of the globe, the state that governs cannot be a witness to the sufferings occasioned by its oppressions; or a competent judge of the circumstances and abilities of the people who are governed. They must also have, in a great degree, separate interests; and the more the one is loaded, the more the other may be cased. The infamy likewise of oppression, being in such circumstances shared among a multitude, is not likely to be much felt or regarded. On all these accounts there is in the cafe of one country subjugated to another, little or nothing to check rapacity; and the most flagrant injustice and cruelty may be practised without remorse or pity. I will add, that it is particularly difficult to shake off a tyranny of this kind. A single despot, if a people are unanimous and resolute, may be soon subdued. But a despotic state is not easily subdued; and a people subject to it cannot emancipate themselves without entering into a dreadful, and, perhaps, very unequal contest.
I cannot help observing farther, that the slavery of a people to external despots may be qualified and limited; but I don't see what can limit the authority of one state over another. The exercise of power in this case can have no other measure than discretion; and, therefore, must be indefinite and absolute.
Once more. It should be considered that the government of one country by another, can only be supported by a military force; and, without such a support, must be destitute of all weight and efficiency.
A LESSON FOR DARING PUBLISHERS.
The PROPRIETORS of the MORNING CHRONICLE were prosecuted, and tried the 9th of
December,
1793, for publishing in their Paper the following ADDRESS, and the Jury, after a conscientious No. XX.
Struggle of
Fifteen Hours!
returned a Verdict of NOT GUILTY. It is therefore inserted in this Publication as a Specimen of what the FREEBORN SONS OF OLD ENGLAND may no longer publish with Safety.
THE DERBY ADDRESS.
At a Meeting of the Society for Political Information, held at the Talbot Inn, in Derby, July 16th,
1792,
the following Address, declaratory of their Principles, &c. was unanimously agreed to, and ordered to be printed:
To the Friends of Free Enquiry, and the General Good.
FELLOW CITIZENS,
CLAIMING it as our indefeasible right to associate together, in a peaceable and friendly manner, for the communication of thoughts, the formation of opinions, and to promote the general happiness, we think it unnecessary to offer any apology for inviting you to join us in this manly and benevolent pursuit; the necessity of the inhabitants of every community endeavouring to procure a true knowledge of their rights, their duties, and their Interests, will not be denied, except by those who are the slaves of prejudice, or the interested in the continuation of abuses. As men who wish to aspire to the title of Freemen, we totally deny the wisdom and the humanity of the advice— to approach the defects of government with "pious awe and trembling solicitude." What better doctrine could the Pope, or the Tyrants of Europe desire? We think, therefore, that the cause of truth and justice can never be hurt by temperate and honest discussions, and that cause which will not bear such a scrutiny, must be systematically or practically bad. We are sensible that those who are not friends to the general good, have attempted to inflame the public mind with the cry of "Danger," whenever men have associated for discussing the principles of government; and we have little doubt but such conduct will be pursued in this place; we would therefore caution every honest man, who has really the welfare of the nation at heart, to avoid being led away by the prostituted clamours of those who live on the sources of corruption. We pity the fears of the timorous, and we are totally unconcerned respecting the false alarms of the venal. — We are in the pursuit of truth, in a peaceable, calm, and unbiassed manner; and whereever we recognize her features, we will embrace her as the companion of happiness, of wisdom, and of peace, This is the mode of our conduct: the reasons for it will be found in the following declaration of our opinions, to the whole of which each member gives his hearty assent.
DECLARATION.
I. That all true Government is instituted for the general good; is legalized by the general will; and all its actions are, or ought to be, directed for the general happiness and prosperity of all honest citizens.
II. That we feel too much not to believe, that deep and alarming abuses exist in the British Government, yet we are at the same time fully sensible, that our situation is comfortable, compared with that of the people of many European kingdoms; and that as the times are in some degree moderate, they ought to be free from riot and confusion.
III. Yet we think there is sufficient cause to enquire into the necessity of the payment of seventeen millions of annual taxes, exclusive of poor rates, county rates, expences of collection, &c. &c. by seven millions of people; we think that these expences may be reduced, without lessening the true dignity of the nation, or the government; and therefore wish for satisfaction in this important matter.
IV. We view with concern the frequency of Wars. — We are persuaded that th
interests of the poor can never be promoted by accession of territory when bought at the expence of labour and blood; and we must say, in the language of a celebrated author,—"We, who are only the people, but who pay for wars with our substance and our blood, will not cease to tell Kings, or Governments, that to them
lone wars are profitable: that the true and just con
are those which each makes at home, by co
ting the peasantry, by promoting agriculture and manufactories: by multiplying men, and the other productions of nature; that then it is that Kings
themselves the image of God, whose will is perpetually directed to the creation of new beings. If they continue to make us fight and kill one another, in uniform, we will continue to write and speak, until nations shall be cured of this folly."— We are certain our present heavy burthens are owing, in a great measure, to cruel and impolitic wars, and therefore we will do all on our part, as peaceable citizens, who have the good of the community at heart, to enlighten each other, and protest against them.
V. The present state of the representation of the People, calls for the particular attention of every man, who has humanity sufficient to feel for the honour and happiness of his country; to the defects and corruptions of which we are inclined to attribute unnecessary Wars, &c. &c. We think it a deplorable case when the poor must support a corruption which is calculated to oppress them; when the labourer must give his money to afford the means of preventing him having a voice in its disposal; when the lower classes may say. —"We give you our money, for which we have toiled and sweat, and which would save our families from cold and hunger; but we think it more hard that there is nobody whom we have delegated, to see that it is not improperly and wickedly sp
nt: we have none to watch over our interests; the rich only are represented."—"The form of Government since the Revolution, is in some respects, changed for the worse by the triennial and septennial acts we lost annual Parliaments: besides which, the wholesome provision for obliging Privy Counsellors to subscribe their advice with their names, and against Placemen and Pensioners sitting in Parliament, have been repealed." It is said, that the voice of the people is the constitutional controul of Parliament, but what is this
t saving, that the Representative,
naturally in
d to support wrong measures, an
that the peo
be constantly assembling to oblige them to do their duty. An equal and uncorrupt representation would, we are persuaded, save us from heavy expences, and deliver us from many oppressions, we will therefore do our duty to procure this reform, which appears to us of the u
ost importance.
VI. In short, we see with the most lively concern, an army of Placemen, Pen
ners, &c. fighting in the
of corruption and prejudice, and spreading the
agio
far and wide;—a large and highly expensive military establishment, though we have a well regulated militia; —the increase of all kinds of robberies, riots, executions, &c. though the nation pays taxes equal to the whole land rental of the kingdom, in order to have its property protected and
ured;
nd is also obliged to enter into separate associations against felonious deprelations. — A criminal code of law sanguine and inefficacious. — a civil code so volominods and mysterious as to puzzle the best understandings; by which means, justices, denies to the poor, on account of the expence attending the obtaining of it; — corporations under ministerial or party influence, swallowing up the importance and
cting against the voice of the people; — pena
icted
those who accept of office, without
in
to one vio
of their consciences a
; the voice of
ry drowned in p
tion, and the clamours of the pensioned and interested; and we view, with the most poignant sorrow, a part of the people deluded by a cry of the Constitution and Church in danger, fighting with the weapons of savages, under the banners of prejudice, against those who have their true interest at heart;—we see with equal sensibility the present outcry against reforms, and a cruel proclamation (tending to cramp the liberty of the press, and discredit the true friends of the people) receiving the support of numbers of our countrymen;—we see the continuation of oppressive game laws and destructive monopolies;—we see the education and comfort of the poor neglected, notwithsdanding the enormous weight of the poor r
;—we see burthe
multiplied— the lower classes sinking into poverty, disgrace and excesses, and the means of these shocking abuses increased for the purposes of revenue;—for the same end, Excise Laws, those badges and sources of oppression, kept up and multiplied.—And when we cast our eyes on a people just formed in a free communit
, without
ing had time to grow rich, under a Government by which justice is duly administered, the poor taught and comforted, properly protected, taxes sew and easy, and that at an expence as small as that of our pension lift—we ask ourselves—"Are we in England?—Have our forethers fought, and bled, and conquered
r liberty?—And did not they think that the fruits of their patriotism would be more abundant in pea
, plenty, and happiness?—Are we allways to stand still or go backwards?—Are our burthens to be as heavy as the mo
enslaved people?—Is the condition o
the poor never to be improved?" Great Britain must have arrived at the highest degree of national happiness and prosperity, and our situation must be too good to be mended, or the present outcry against refer us and improvements is inhuman and criminal. But we hope our condition will be speedily improved, and to obtain so desirable a good is the object of our present Association; an union founded on principles of
erevolence and humanity; disclaiming all connection with riot and disorder, but firm in our purpose, and warm in our affections for liberty.
VII. Lastly—We invite the friends of freedom throughout Great Britain to form similar Societies, and to act with unanimity and firmness, till the people be too wise to be imposed upon; and their influence in the government be commensurate with their dignity and importance,
THEN SHALL WE BE FREE AND HAPPY.
By Order of the Society, S. EYRE, Chairman.
ODE TO HUMAN KIND.
From
Dodsley's Poems.
IS there, or do the Schoolmen dream?
I, there on earth a power supreme,
The Delegate of Heaven?
To whom an uncontroll'd command,
In
ry realm, o'er seas and l
nd,
By special grace is given?
Then say what signs this God proclaim?
Dwells he amidst the diamond's slame,
A throne his hallow'
shrine?
Alas! the pomp, the arm'd array,
Want, fear,
and
impotence
betray,
Strange proofs of power divine!!!
If service due from human kind,
To men in SLOTHFUL ease r
elin'd,
Can form a sovereign's cla
m,
Had Monare
s!
e whom Heaven ordains,
Our toils unshar'
—to share our g
ins,
YE IDIOTS BLIND and LAME!
Superior virtue, wisdom, might,
Create and mark the Ruler's right,
So REASON must conclude—
Then thine it is, to whom belong,
The wise, the virtuous, and the strong,
THRICE SACRED MULTITUDE.
In thee, vast ALL! are these contain'd,
For these are those, thy parts ordain'd,
So Nature's systems roll:
The sceptre's thine, it such there be,
If none there is—then thou art FREE,
GREAT MONARCH! MIGHTY WHOLE!
Let the proud Tyrant rest his cause
On Faith, Prescription, Force, or Laws,
An host's or senate's voice,
HIS VOICE affirms thy stronger due,
Who for the many made the few,
And gave the species choice.
Unsanctif
'd by thy command,
Unown'd by thee, the scepter'd hand,
The trembling slave may bind;
But loose from Nature's moral ties,
The oath
force impos'd, belies
The un
nting mind.
THY WILL's thy rule—thy good its end;
You p
only to defend
W
ent Nature gave;
A
he
e her gif
vade,
By
de,
ctim
s
ve.
The
founds the just decree,
O
ive
,
No private
sign'
:
T
h
Nature'
vide extent,
No
A
E
o'er
meant,
To hurt the GENERAL
nd.
Avails it thee, if ONE devours,
OR LESSER spoilers share his powers,
While BOTH thy claim oppose?
Monster, who wore thy sully'd crown,
Tyrants who pull'd those monsters down,
Alike to thee were foes!
Far other shone fair Freedom's band,
Far other was the immortal stand,
When Hamp
en fought for thee:
They s
te
'd from rapine's grief thy spoils,
The fruits and prize of glorious toils,
Of arts and industry.
The foes, with fronts of brass, invade;
Thy friends afford a timid aid,
And yield up half thy right?
Ev'n LOCKE, beams forth a
mingled
ray,
Afraid to pour the flood of day,
On man's
too feeble
sight.
O! shall the
bought
and
buying
tribe,
The
slaves
who take and deal the
bribe,
A people's claims enjoy!
So India murd'rers hope to gain,
The pow'rs and virtues of the slain,
Of wretches they destroy.
Avert it Heav'n! you love the brave,
You hate the
treach rous willing
slave,
The
self-devoted
head;
Nor shall an hireling's voice convey,
That sacred prize to lawless sway,
For which a nation bled.
—To shew—
The very Age and Body of the Time its Form
And Pressure.—
For comments pray don't look;
For whatsoe'er we think
In these informing times
We
scarce
dare SHRUG OR WINK!
Sweet s
for Old English Roast Beef!!!
Don't open your mouth at me, fellow.
DUKE OF YORK's ARMY.
Head Quarters, Tourney,
Dec.
13, 1793.
HIS Royal Highness orders, that all the troops under his command pay proper respect to the
Host,
and all other religious processions. He directs, that
ll centinels carry their arms when any religious procession is passing; and demands the attention of all officer
, but particularly of those on duty, to prevent the s
est impropriety being committed on these occasions.
His Royal Highness is confident, that the troops under his command will ever bear in mind, that though we differ in some of the ceremonies of religion, we unite with our gallant allies; and it is our glory to do so, in every sentiment of devotion to our CREATOR, and attachment and loyalty to our SOVEREIGNS.
Extract of a Letter from Mons, to the Convention, dated December
12.
"We send you a list of the famous relics taken from the Rebels.—1. The HEAD of
St. Charles Borromu.
2. BLESSED STUFFS! found in the Shrine of
St. Dennis.
3. Papers to PROVE that the RELICS of
St. Vincent
are GENUINE. 4. A TOOTH of the LOWER
Jaw
of St. Vincent. 5. A
Bit
of the HEAD and the
Hair
of
St. Guignelot.
6. A PIECE of the ROBE of the HOLY
Virgin.
7. A PIECE of the FROCK of the
Infant Jesus.
8. The SKULL of
St. Sebastian.
9. The GRIDIRON of
St. Laurence.
10. A
Piece
of the TRUE
Cross.
11.
Two
Vials of the MILK of the MOST
Holy
Virgin."
The perusal of this List produced much laughter.
Monday, December
16, 1793.
A Deputation from the Commune of DIJON informed the Convention, that
various
SAINTS of BOTH
Sexes,
GOLD and SILVER, would arrive in a sew days. We gave them nothing to cat on the road, said the Orator, because we are told they can change stone to bread, and water to wine. We asked what kind of carriage they would chuse? To which they replied, That, being Saints of Burgundy, they should prefer wine casks; and in two or three days you will so receive them, with flaggons once thought sacred. (Honourable mention, and insertion in the Bulletin.)
A PANEGYRIC! A SAFE MORSEL FOR THE PIGS. FROM CATO
LETTERS.
WE have at last, by the bounteous gift of indulgent Providence, a most
King, and a
wise
and
uncorrupt
Parliament; a
et—But what shall I say, or what shall be left unsaid? I will go on.—We have a Prince, I say, who is possessed of
every
virtue which can grace and adorn a crown; a Parliament
too,
than whom England has never chosen one better disposed to do all those things, which every honest man in it wished, and called for, and yet—by the iniquity of the times, or the iniquities of particular men, we are still to expect our deliverance, though I hope we shall not expect it long.
Public corruptions and abuses have grown upon us: sees in most, if not in all offices, are immensely increased: places and employments, which ought not to be sold at all, are sold for treble values: the necessitie, of the public have made greater impositions unavoidable, and yet the public has run very much in debt; and as these-debts have been encreasing, and the people growing poor, salaries have been angmented, and pensions multiplied: I mean in the
l
st
reign, for I hope that there have been no such doing in
this.
THE NEW CONSTITUTION OF FRANCE.
[
Concluded from page
212.]
OF THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL.
62. THERE is one Executive Council composed of twenty-four members.
63. The Electoral Assembly of each Department, nominate, one Candidate. The Ligislative Body chooses the Members of the Council from the general list.
64. One half of it is renewed by each Legislature, in the last month of the session.
65. The Council is charged with the direction and superintendance of the general Administration. It cannot act, but in execution of the laws and decrees of the Legislative Body.
66. It nominates, not of its own body, the Agents in chief of the general Administration of the Republic.
67. The Legislative Body determines the number, and the functions of these Agents.
68. These Agents do not form a Council. They are separated, without any immediate correspondence between them; they exercise no personal authority.
69. The Council nominates, not of its own body, the external Agents of the Republic.
70. It negotiates treaties.
71. The Members of the Council, in case of mal
rsation, are accused by the Legislative Body.
72. The Council is responsible for the non-execution of laws and decrees, and for abuses which it does not denounce.
73. It recals and replaces the agents in its nomination.
74. It is bound to denounce them, if there be occasion, before the Judicial Authorities.
OF THE CONNECTION OF THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL WITH THE LEGISLATIVE BODY.
75. The Executive Council resides near the Legislative Body. It has admittance and a separate seat in the place of sittings.
76. It is heard as often as it has an account to give.
77. The Legislative Body calls it into the place of its sittings, in whole or in part, when it thinks fit.
OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE AND MUNICIPAL BODIES.
78. There is a Municipal Administration in each commune of the Republic; in each District an intermediate Administration; In each Department a central Administration.
79. The Municipal Officers are elected by the Assemblies of the Commune.
80. The Administrators are nominated by the Electoral Assemblies of Department and District.
81. The Municipalities and the Administrations are renewed, one half, every year.
82. The Administrators and Municipal Officers have no character of representation; they cannot, in any case, modify the acts of the Legislative Body, or suspend the execution of them.
83. The Legislative Body determines the functions of the Municipal Officers, and Administrators, the rules of their subordination, and the penalties they may incur.
84. The sittings of Municipalities and Administrations are public.
OF CIVIL JUSTICE.
85. The code of civil and criminal laws is uniform for all the Republic.
86. No infringement can be made of the right which Citizens have to cause their differences to be pronounced upon by arbitrators of their choice.
87. The decision of these arbitrators is final, if the Citizens have not reserved the right of objecting to them.
88. There are Justices of Peace, elected by the Citizens in circuits determined by the law.
89. They conciliate and judge without expence.
90. Their number and their competence are regulated by the Legislative Body.
91. There are public Arbitrators elected by the Electoral Assemblies.
92. Their number and their circuits are fixed by the Legislative Body.
93. They take cognizance of disputes which have not been finally determined by the private Arbitrators' of the Justice of Peace.
94. They deliberate in public; they give their opinions aloud; they pronounce, in the last resort, on verbal defences, or simple memorials, without
procedures,
and without expence; they assign the reasons of their decision.
95. The Justices of Peace and the Public Arbitrators are elected every year.
OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE.
96. In criminal cases, no Citizen can be tried, but on an examination received by a Jury, or decreed by the Legislative Body; the accused have Counsel chosen by themselves, or nominated officially; the process is public; the fact and the intention are declared by a jury of judgment; the punishment is applied by a criminal tribunal.
97. The Criminal Judges are elected every year by the Electoral Assemblies.
OF THE TRIBUNAL OF APPEAL.
98. There is one Tribunal of Appeal for all the Republic.
99. This Tribunal does not take cognizance of the merits of the case: It pronounces on the violation of forms, and on express contravention of the law.
100. The Members of the Tribunal are nominated every year by the Electoral Assemblies.
OF PUBLIC CONTRIBUTIONS.
101. No Citizen is exempted from the honourable obligation of contributing to the public charges.
OF THE NATIONAL TREASURY.
102. The National Treasury is the central point of the receipts and expences of the Republic.
103. It is administered by accountable agents, nominated by the Executive Council.
104. These agents are superintended by Commissioners nominated by the Legislative Body, not of its own members, and responsible for abuses which they do not denounce.
OF ACCOUNTABILITY.
105. The accounts of the Agents of the National Treasury and the Administrators of the public money are given in annually to responsible Commissioners, nominated by the Executive Council.
106. These verificators are superintended by Commissioners in the nomination of the Legislative Body, not of its own members, and responsible for errors and abuses which they do not denounce; the Legislative Body passes the accounts.
OF THE FORCES OF THE REPUBLIC.
107. The general forces of the Republic is composed of the whole people.
108. The Republic maintains in its pay, even in time of peace, an armed force, by sea and by land.
109. All the French are soldiers; they are all exercised in the use of arms.
110. There is no Generalissimo.
111. Difference of ranks, their distinctive marks and subordination, subsist only with relation to service, and during its continuance.
112. The public force employed for maintaining order and peace in the interior, does not act but on the requisition in writing, of the constituted authorities.
113. The public force employed against enemies from without, acts under the orders of the Executive Council.
114. No armed bodies can deliberate.
OF NATIONAL CONVENTIONS.
115. If in one more than the half of the Departments, the tenth of the Primary Assemblies of each, regularly formed, demand the revision of the Constitutional Act, or the change of some of its articles, the Legislative Body is bound to convoke all the Primary Assemblies of the Republic, to know if there be ground fot a National Convention.
116. The National Convention is formed in the same manner as the Legislatures, and unites in itself their powers.
117. It employs itself, with respect to the Constitution, only on the objects which were the cause of its convocation.
OF THE CORRESPONDENCE OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC WITH FOREIGN NATIONS.
118. The French people is the friend and the natural ally of every free people.
119. It does not interfere in the government of other nations. It does not suffer other nations to interfere in its own.
120. It gives an asylum to foreigners, banished from their country for the cause of liberty; it refuses it to tyrants.
121. It does not make peace with an enemy, that occupies its territory.
OF THE GUARANTEE OF RIGHTS.
122. The Constitution guarantees to all the French, equality, liberty, safety, property, the public debt, the free exercise of worship, a common instruction, public succours, the indefinite liberty of the press, the right of petition, the right of meeting in popular societies, the enjoyment of all the rights of man.
123. The French Republic honours loyalty, courage, age, silial piety, misfortune. It puts the deposit of its constitution under the guard of all the virtues.
124. The Declaration of Rights and the Con
tional Act are engraven on tables, in the
som of the Legislative Body, and in the public
COLLOT D'HERBOIS, President.
DURAND-MAILLAN
,
UCOS, Secretaries.
MEAULLE, CIL DE
ROIX, Secretaries.
COSSUJ
, P. A
V
OY, Secretaries.
CAUTIONS
Against the natural Encroachments of Power.
From CATO'S LETTERS.
PEOPLE are ruined by their ignorance of Human Nature; which ignorance leads them to credulity, and too great a confidence in particular men. They fondly imagine that he, who, possessing a great deal by their favour, owes them great gratitude, and all good offices, will therefore return their kindness: But, alas! how often are they mistaken in their favourites and trustees; who, the more they have given them, are often the more incited to take all, and to return destruction for generous usage. The common people generally think that
great
men have
great
minds, and
scorn
base actions; which judgment is so false, that the basest and worst of all actions have been done by
great
men: Perhaps they have not picked private pockets, but they have done worse; they have often disturbed, deceived, and pillaged the world: And he who is capable of the highest mischief, is capable of the meanest: He who plunders a country of a million of money, would in suitable circumstances steal a silver spoon; and a conqueror, who steals and pillages a kingdom, would, in an humbler fortune, rifle a portmanteau, or rob an orchard.
Political jealousy, therefore, in the people, is a necessary and laudable passion. But in a chief magistrate, a jealousy of his people is not so justifiable, their ambition being only to preserve themselves; whereas it is natural for Power to be striving to enlarge itself, and to be encroaching upon those who have none. The most laudable jealousy of a magistrate is to be jealous
for
his people; which will shew that be loves them, and has used them well: But to be jealous
of
them, would denote that he has evil designs against them, and has used them ill. The people's jealousy tends to preserve Liberty; and the prince's to destroy it.
Venice
is a glorious instance of the former, and so is
England;
and all nations who have lost their Liberty, are melancholy proofs of the latter.
Power is naturally active, vigilant and distrustful; which qualities in it push it upon all means and expedients to fortify itself, and upon destroying all opposition, and even all seeds of opposition, and make it restless as long as any thing stands in its way. It would do what it pleases, and have no check. Now because Liberty
chastises
and
shortens
Power, therefore Power would
extinguish
Liberty; and consequently Liberty has
too much
cause to be exceeding jealous, and
always
upon her defence. Power has
many
advantages over her; it has generally
numerous
guards,
many
creatures, and
much
treasure; besides, it has
more
craft and experience,
less
honesty and innocence: And whereas Power
can,
and for the most part
does
subsist where Liberty is not, Liberty cannot subsist without Power; so that she has, as it were, the enemy always at her gates.
Some have said, that Magistrates being accountable to none but God, ought to know no other restraint. But this reasoning is as frivolous as it is wicked; for no good man cares how many punishments and penalties lie in the way to an offence which he does not intend to commit: A man who does not intend to commit murder, is not sorry that murder is punished with death. And as to wicked men, their being accountable to God, whom they do not fear, is no security to us against their folly and malice; and to say that we ought to have no security against them, is to insult common sense, and give the lie to the first law of nature, that of self-preservation. Human reason says, that there is no obedience, no regard due to those rulers, who govern by no rule but their lust. Such men are
no
rulers; they are outlaws, who, being at defiance with God and man, are protected by no law of God, or of reason. By what precept, moral or divine, are we forbid to kill a wolf, or burn an infected ship? Is it unlawful to prevent wickedness and misery, and to resist the authors of them? Are crimes sanctified by their greatness? And is he who robs a country, and murders ten thousand,
less
a criminal than he who steals
single
guineas, and takes away
single
lives? Is there any sin in
preventing,
and
restraining,
or
resisting
the greatest sin that can be committed, that of oppressing and destroying mankind by wholesale? Sure there never were such open, such shameless, such
s
fish
impostors, as the advocates for lawless power. It is a damnable sin to oppress
them;
yet it is a damnable sin to oppose them when
they
oppress, or-gain by the oppression of others. When they are hurt themselves
ever so little,
or but
think
themselves hurt, they are the loudest
of all
men in their complaints, and the most outrageous in their behaviour: but when
others
are plundered, oppressed and butchered, complaints are
sedition;
and to seek redress is damnation. Is not
this
to be the authors of all wickedness and falsehood?
To conclude: Power, without controul, appertains to God alone; and no man ought to be trusted with what no man is equal to. In truth, there are so many passions, and inconsistencies, and so much
selfishness
belonging to human nature, that
we can scarce be too much upon our guard against each other.
The only security which we can have that men will be honest, is to make it their interest to be honest; and the best defence which we can have against their being knaves, is to make it terrible to them to be knaves. As there are many men wicked in some stations, who would be innocent in others;
the best way is to make wickedness unsafe in any station.
DEFINITION OF LOYALTY,
By Mr.
TOPLADY,
Vicar of Broad Hembury, Devon, in his
Church of England Vindicated,
page
49.
Printed in
1769.
TRUE Loyalty extends to one's
country,
as well as to the
prince:
and to oppose tyranny, is no
breach
of Loyalty, but an essential
branch
of it, Loyalty (as the very word imports) is
such an attachm
to king and people,
as is founded on the
LAWS: and an hair's breadth beyond LAW, true LOYALTY does not go. So
allegience
is obedience
ad leges,
ACCORDING TO LAW. Whenever therefore (as was eminently the case in Mr. Prynn's time) a prince over-steps
law,
Loyalty itself obliges a loyal people to say to such a prince, as the Almighty to the sea,
"Hitherto shalt thou come, and no further."
The Meaning of the Word
PENSION.
From Dr.
Johnson's Dictionary.
AN allowance made to any one without an equivalent. In England it is generally understood to mean pay given to a State-hireling for treason to his Country.
The Meaning of the Word
PENSIONER.
From the same Authority.
A Slave of State, hired by a stipend to obey his master.
In Britain's Senate he a seat obtains.
And one more Pensioner St. Stephen gains.
POPE,
BURKE's ADDRESS TO THE
"SWINISH MULTITUDE!"
Tune, "Derry down, down," &c.
YE vile SWINISH Herd, in the Sty of Taxation.
What would you be after?—disturbing the Nations?
Ghe over your grunting—Be off—To your Sty!
Nor dare to look out, if a KING passes by:
Get ye down! down! down!—Keep ye down!
Do ye know what a KING is? By
Patrick
I'll tell you;
He has Power in his Pocket, to buy you and sell you:
To make you all Soldiers, or keep you at work?
To hang you, and cure you for Ham or Salt Pork!
Get ye down! &c.
Do you think that a KING is no more than a Man?
Ye Brutish, Ye Swinish, irrational Clan?
I swear by his Office, his Right is divine,
To flog you, and feed you, and treat you like Swine!
Get you down! &c.
To be sure, I have said—but I spoke it abrupt—
That "the State is
defective
and also
corrupt.
"
Yet remember I told you with Caution to peep,
For
Swine
at a Distance WE prudently keep—
Get ye down! &c.
Now the
Church
and the
State,
to keep each other warm,
Are
married
together. And where is the Harm?
How healthy and we
lthy are Husband and Wife!
But
Swine
are excluded the conjugal Life—
Get ye down! &c.
The
State,
it is true, has grown fat upon SWINE,
And
Church's
weak Stomach on TYTHE-PIG can dine;
But neither you know, as they
roast
at the Fire,
Have a Right to find fault with the
Cooks,
or enquire.
Get ye down! &c.
"What Use do we make of your Money?"—You say;
Why the first Law of Nature:—
We take our own Pay
—
And next on our Friends a few
Pensions
bestow—
And to you we apply when our
Treasure
runs low,
Get ye down! &c.
Consider our
Boroughs,
Ye grumbling SWINE!
At Corruption and Taxes, they never repine:
If we only
Proclaim,
"YE ARE HAPPY!"—They say,
"
WE
ARE
Happy!
"—Believe and be
Happy
as they!
Get ye down! &c.
What know ye of COMMONS, of KINGS, or of LORDS,
But what the dim
Light
of TAXATION affords?
Be contented with that—and no more of your Rout:
Or a new
Proclamation
shall muzzle your Snout!
Get ye down! &c.
And now for the
SUN
—or the
LIGHT
OR THE DAY!
"IT doth not belong to a PITT?"—You will say.
I tell you be silent, and hush all your Jars:
Or he'll charge you a
rthing
a piece for the Stars
Get ye down! &c.
Here's MYSELF, and
His Dar
ness,
and
Harry Dun
:
, F
,
and
Irish,
with Fronts made of Brass—
A Cord plated Three-sold will stand a good pull,
Against SAWNEY, and PATRICK, and old
Johnny Bal!!!!
Get ye down! &c.
To conclude: Then no more about MAN and his RIGHTS,
TOM PAINE, and a Rabble of
Liberty Wights:
That you are but our "SWINE," if ye ever forget,
We'll throw you alive to the HORRIDIE PIT!
Get ye down! down! down!—Keep ye down!
[ROMAN HISTORY,
concluded from Page
189.]
M. GENUCIUS and C. Curti
s being consuls, the commons of Rome demand, that the plebeians may be admitted into the consulship; and, that the law, prohibiting patricians and plebeians from intermarrying, may be repealed. In support of this demand, Canulcius one of the tribunes of the people, thus delivered himself:—
"What an insult upon us is this! If we are not so rich as the patricians, are we not citizens of Rome, as well as they? Inhabitants of the same country? Members of the same community? The nations bordering upon Rome, and even strangers more remote; are admitted not only to marriages with us, but to what is of much greater importance, the freedom of the city. Are we, because we are commoners, to be worse treated than strangers? And when we demand that the people may be free to bestow their offices and dignities on whom they please, do we ask any thing unreasonable or new? Do we claim more than their original inherent rights? What occasion then for all this uproar, as if the universe was failing to ruin? They were just going to lay viole
hands upon me in the senate-house. What, must this empire then be unavoidably overturned: must Rome of necessity sink at once, if a plebeian, worthy of the office, should be raised to the consulship? The partricians, I am persuaded, if they could, would deprive you of the common light. It certainly offends them that you breathe, that you speak, that you have the shapes of men. Nay, to make a commoner a consul would be, say they, a most enormous thing, Numa Pompiliu
, however, without being so much as a Roman citizen, was made king of Rome. The elder Tarquin by birth not even an Italian, was, nevertheless, placed upon the throne. Servius Tullius, the son of a captive woman, (nobody knows who his father was) obtained the kingdom, as the reward of his wisdom and virtue. In those days, no man, in whom virtue shone conspicuous, was rejected or despised on account of his race or descent. And did the state prosper the worse for that? Were not these strangers the very best of our kings? And, supposing now, that a plebeian should have their talents and merit, must not he be suffered to govern us? Must we rather chuse such governors as the decemvirs? Those excellent magistrates, I think, were mostly patricians. But we find, that upon the abolition of the regal power, no commoner was chose to the consulate. And what of that? Before Numa's time there were no pontifices in Rome. Before Servius Tullus's days, there was no census, no division of the people into clases and centuries. Whoever heard of consuls before the expulsion of Tarquin the proud? Dictators, we all know, are of modern invention; and so are the offices of tribunes;
diles, questors. Within these ten years we have made decemvirs, and we have unmade them. Is nothing to be done but what has been done before? That very law forbidding marriages of patricians with plebeians, is not that a new thing? Was there any such law before the decemvirs enacted it? And a most shameful one it is in a free state! Such marriages, it seems, would taint the pure blood of the nobility! Why, if they think so, let them take care to match their sisters and daughters with men of their own sort. No plebeian will do violence to the daughter of a patrician. Those are exploits for our prime nobles. There is no need to sear that we shall force any body into a contract of marriage. But, to make an express law to prohibit marriages of patricians with plebeians, what is this, but to shew the utmost contempt of us, and to declare one part of the community to be impure and unclean? Why don't they lay their wise heads together to hinder rich folks from matching with poor? They talk to us of the confusion there will be in families, if this statute should be repealed. I wonder they do not make a law against a commoner's living near a nobleman, or going the same road that he is going, or being at the same feast, or appearing at the same market-place. They might as well pretend, that these things make confusion in families, as that inter-marriages will do it. Do not every one know, that the child will be ranked according to the quality of his father, let him be patrician or plebeian? In short, it is manifest enough, that we have nothing in view but to be treated as men and Citizens; nor can they who oppose our demand have any motive to do it; but the love of domineering. I would fain know of you, consuls and patricians, is the sovereign power in the people of Rome, or in you? I hope you will allow, that the people can, at their pleasure, either make a law, or repeal one. And will you then, as soon as any law is proposed to them, pretend to list them for the war, and hinder them from giving their suffrages, by leading them into the field? Hear me, consuls: Whether the news of the war you talk of be true, or whether it be only a false rumour, spread abroad for nothing but a colour to send the people out of the city; I declare, as a tribune, that this people, who have already so often spilt their blood in our contry's cause, are again ready to arm for its defence and its glory, if they be restored to their natural rights, and you will no longer treat us like strangers in our own country. But if you account us unworthy of your alliance by inter-marriages, if you will not suffer the entrance to the chief offices in the state to be open to all persons of merit, indifferently, but will confine your chief ingistrates to the senate alone; talk of wars as much as ever you please; paint in your ordinary discourses the league and power of our enemies ten times more dreadful than you do now; I declare that this people, whom you so much despise, and to whom you are nevertheless indebted for all your victories, shall never more enlist themselves; not a man of them shall take arms, nor a man of them shall expose his life for imperious lords, with whom he can neither share the dignities of the state, nor in private life have any alliance by marriage."
You have seen by the foregoing speeches, the progress of the struggles between the patricians and the plebeians, which continued for many years; the people always encroaching more and more upon the privileges of the patricians, till at length, all the great offices of the state became equally common to the one and to the other. The following speech, which was spoken above an hundred years after the foregoing one, may serve as an instance and a proof of that great simplicity of manners, public virtue, and noble spirit, which raised that people to that height of power and dominion, which they afterwards attained. The occasion of it was this. The Tarantines having a quarrel with the Romans, invite Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, to their assistance, who lands with his forces in Italy, and defeats the Roman army under the command of Laevinius. After this battle, Fabritius, with two other Roman senators, is sent to Tarentum to treat with Pyrrhus about the exchange of prisoners. The king, being informed of the great abilities, and great poverty of Fabritius, hinted in a private conversation with him, the unsuitableness of such poverty to such distinguished merit, and that if he would assist him to negociate with the Romans an honourable peace for the Tarentines, and go with him to Epirus, he would bestow such riches upon him, as should put him at least upon an equality with the most opulent nobles of Rome. The answer of Fabritius was to this effect:—
"As to my poverty, you have indeed Sir, been rightly informed. My whole estate consists in a house of but mean appearance, and a little spot of ground, from which, by my own labour, I draw my support. But if, by any means, you have been persunded to think that this poverty makes me less considered in my own country, or in any degree unhappy, you are extremely deceived. I have no reason to complain of fortune, she supplies me with all that nature requires; and, if I am without supersluities, I am also free from the desire of them. With these, I confess, I should be more able to succour the necessitous, the only advantage for which the wealthy are to be envied; but as my possessions are, I can still contribute something to the support of the state, and the assistance of my friends. With regard to honours, my country places me, poor as I am, upon a level with the richest: For Rome knows no qualifications for great employments but virtue and ability. She appoints me to officiate in the most august ceremonies of religion; she entrusts me with the command of her armies; she consides to my care the most important negotiations. My poverty does not leslen the weight and influence of my counsels in the senate, the Roman people honour me for that very poverty which you consider as a disgrace; they know the many opportunities I have had in war to enrich myself without incurring censure; they are convinced of my interested zeal for their prosperity; and, if I have any thing to complain of in the return they make, it is only in the excess of their applause. What value then can I set upon your gold and silver! What king can add any thing to my fortune? Always attentive to discharge the duties incumbent on me, I have a mind free from self-reproach, and I have an honest fame."
THE MARRIAGE ACT CENSURED.
From
The Citizen of the World.
By Goldsmith.
NOT far from this City lives a poor Tinker, who has educated seven sons, all at this time in arms, and fighting for their country, and what reward do you think has the tinker from the state for such important services? none in the world; his sons, when the war is over, may probably be whipt from parish to parish as vagabonds, and the old man, when past labour, may die a prisoner in some house of correction.
Such a worthy subject in China would be held in universal reverence; his services would be rewarded, if not with dignities, at least with an exemption from labour; he would take the left hand at seasts, and mandarines themselves would be proud to shew their submission. The English laws punish vice, the Chinese laws do more, they reward virtue!
Considering the little encouragements given to matrimony here, I am not surprised at the discouragements given to propagation. Would you believe it, my dear Fum Hoam, there are laws made, which even forbid the people's marrying each other. By the head of Confucius, I jest not; there are such laws in being here; and their law-givers have neither been instructed among the Hottentots, nor imbibed their principles of equity from the natives of Anamaboo.
There are laws which ordain, that no man shall marry a woman contrary to her own consent. This, though contrary to what we are taught in Asia, and though in some measure a clog upon matrimony, I have no great objection to. There are laws which ordain, that no woman shall marry against her father and mother's consent, unless arrived at an age of maturity; by which is understood those years, when woman with us are generally past child-bearing. Thi
must be a clog upon matrimony, as it is more difficult for the lover to please three than one, and much more difficult to please old people than young ones. The laws ordain, that the consenting couple shall take a long time to consider before they marry; this is a very great clog, because people love to have all rash actions done in a hurry. It is ordained that all marriages shall be proclaimed before celebration: this is a severe clog, as many are ashamed to have their marriage made public, from motives of vicious modesty, and many, afraid from views of temporal interest.
It is ordained, that there is nothing sacred in the ceremony, but that it may be dissolved to all intents and purposes by the authority of any civil magistrate. And yet opposite to this it is ordained, that the priest shall be paid a large sum of money for granting his sacred permission.
Thus you see, my friend, that matrimony here is hedged round with so many obstructions, that those who are willing to break through or surmount them, must be contented, if at last they find it a bed of thorns. The laws are not to blame, for they have deterred the people from engaging as much as they could. It is indeed become a very serious affair in England, and none but serious people are generally found willing to engage. The young, the gay, and the beautiful, who have motives of passion only to induce them, are seldom found to embark, as those inducements are taken away, and none but the old, the ugly, and the mercenary are seen to unite, who, if they have any posterity at all, will probably be an ill favoured race like themselves.
What gave rise to those laws might have been some such accidents as these. It sometimes happened, that a miser, who had spent all his youth in seraping up money, to give his daughter such a fortune as might get her a mandarine husband found his expectations disappointed at last, by her running away with his footman; this must have been a sad shock to the poor disconsolate parent, to see his poor daughter in a onehorse chaise, when he had designed her for a coach and six: what a stroke from providence!!! to see his dear money go to a beggar; all nature cried out at the profanation!!!
It sometimes happened also, that a lady, who had inherited all the titles, and all the nervous complaints of nobility, thought fit to impair her dignity, and mend her constitution, by marrying a farmer; this must have been a sad shock to her inconsolable relations, to see so fine a flower snatched from a flourishing family, and planted in a dunghill; this was an absolute inversion of the first principles of things!!!
In order, therefore, to prevent the great from being thus contaminated by vulgar alliances, the obstacles to matrimony have been so contrived, that the rich only can marry amongst the rich, and the poor, who would leave celebacy, must be content to increase their poverty with a wife. Thus have the laws fairly inverted the inducements to matrimony; nature tells us, that beauty is the proper allurement of those who are rich, and money of those who are poor; but things here are so contrived, that the rich are invited to marry by that fortune which they do not want, and the poor have no inducement, but that beauty which they do not feel.
An equal diffusion of riches through any country constitutes its happiness. Great wealth in the possession of one stagnates, and extream poverty with another keeps him in unambitious indigence; but the moderately rich are generally active; not too far removed from poverty, to fear its calamities; nor too near extreme wealth, to slacken the nerve of labour; they remain still between both, in a state of continual fluctuation. How impolitic, therefore, are those laws which promote the accumulation of wealth among the rich, more impolitic still, in attempting to encrease the depression on poverty.
Bacon, the English Philosopher, compares money to manure; if gathered in heaps, says he, it does no good; on the contrary, it becomes offensive; but, being spread, though never so thinly, over the surface of the earth, it enriches the whole country. Thus the wealth a nation possesses must expatiate, or it is of no benefit to the public, it becomes rather a grievance, where matrimonial laws thus consine it to a few.
But this restraint upon matrimonial community, even considered in a physical light, is injurious. As those who rear up animals take all possible pains to cross the strain, in order to improve the breed; so in those countries where marriage is most free, the inhabitants are found every age to improve in stature and in beauty; on the contrary, where it is confined to a cast, a tribe, or an hord, as among the Gaurs, the Jews, or the Tartars, each division soon assumes a family likeness, and every tribe degenerates into peculiar deformity. From hence it may be easily inferred, that if the Mandarines here are resolved only to marry among each other, they will soon produce a posterity with Mandarine Faces: and we shall see the heir of some honourable family scaree equal to the abortion of a country farmer.
These are a few of the obstacles to marriage here, and it is certain they have in some measure answered the end; for celebacy is both frequent and fashionable. Old batchelors appear abroad without a mask, and old maids, my dear Fum Hoam, have been absolutely known to ogle. To confess in friendship, if I were an Englishman, I fancy I should be an old batchelor myself; I should never find courage to run through all the adventures prescribed by the law. I could submit to court my mistress herself upon reasonable terms, but to court her father, her mother, and a long tribe of cousins, aunts, and relations, and then stand the butt of a whole country church, I would as soon turn tail, and make love to her grandmother.
I can conceive no other reason for thus loading matrimony with so many prohibitions, unless it be that the country was thought already too populous, and this was found to be the most effectual means of thinning it. If this was the motive. I cannot but congratulate the wise projectors on the success of their scheme. Hail, O ye dim-sighted politicians, ye weeders of men! 'Tis yours to clip the wing of industry, and convert hymen to a broker. 'Tis yours to behold small objects with a microscopic eye, but to be blind to those which require an extent of vision. 'Tis yours, O ye discerners of mankind, to lay the line between society, and weaken that force by dividing, which should bind with united vigour, 'Tis yours, to introduce national real distress, in order to avoid the imaginary distresses of a few. Your actions can be justified by an hundred reasons like truth, they can be opposed but by few reasons, and those reasons are true. Farewell.
I also will shew mine opinion.
JOB xxxii. ver. 10.
THE RIGHTS OF MAN, BY QUESTION AND ANSWER.
Q. WHAT is Man?
A. An irrational, unsocial, cowardly, and covetous animal.
Q. How do you prove he is irrational?
A. His actions are as much influenced by present passions and interests as are the actions of other animals deemed irrational.
Q. How is it that he is unsocial?
A. His ridiculous pride makes him imagine himself in an infinite variety of ways superior to others of his species, and of course too noble for every company.
Q. Give some instances?
A. Some prefer themselves for being born of parents in this or that station, or in some particular country, or for being more tall, handsome, &c. and therefore refuse to associate with their supposed inferiors in these respects (excepting to serve some sinister purpose), nor will they allow those despised people equal privileges.
Q. How do you make it appear, that man is a cowardly animal?
A. Because he hunts in packs like hounds, the most cowardly of all dogs. He seldom attacks singly either his own or any other species without manifest superiority of situation or arms. When a company of them make a booty, they do not all boldly fall on to partake, each according to what his hunger or necessity requires, but sneakingly keep at a distance, till the strongest or most presumptuous think proper to allow them to partake.
Q. Do the herds or companies of other animals behave in the same timid manner to certain individuals among them?
A. By no means; they are not half so complaisant. A company of hounds or wolves will partake equally of their prey, or else they will fight for it, and wage eternal war till they gain their rights. A hungry beast will attempt again and again, whereas men have been frequently known to starve rather than help themselves to the common provisions of nature monopolized by their arrogant fellow-creatures.
Q. Do we not frequently see a striking difference in sleekness and fatness among a herd of cattle feeding together in the same pasture, owing to the presumption of some of them driving away the weaker animals from their victuals?
A. No. None of them will submit to suffer thus far by others. The most voracious and mischievous will only fill his own belly. And while he is sighting and driving off one, another will have the assurance to come in for a share, and thus, either by force or stealth, they are sure to partake pretty equally.
Q. Are not droves of hogs frequently seen passing through London of different appearance among themselves; some being hardly able to walk with fat, while others are like greyhounds for thinness?
A. No, never. Swine living together are all alike, either all fat or all lean.
Q. Are mankind living in the same neighbourhood all of the same liking too?
A. No; very far from it. Some are like to hurst with fat and saticty, while others appear like shadows, and frequently die of want, and diseases flowing from scarcity, or unwholsome diet.
Q. Did not Edmund Burke then very improperly term his starving fellow-creatures the Swinish Multitude?
A. Yes, he therein blundered most egregiously. For on very flight observation, he would find real Swine to be more noble animals, and far from being so obsequeous. They will not quietly suffer want on any account, much less by the encroachments of their fellow-creatures. If any great hog offer to thrust them from the trough, they will scream most seditiously, and will, without regard to consequence, insist on having their noses in, on one side or the other. Besides, if men were like swine, how would they be drilled into soldiers? Could an army of hogs be disciplined and marched against another army of hogs? No, they are not so fond of armour and trapping as to dance in them to their destruction. They leave such stupid bravery to the rational being called Man. They do not understand slaying each other for masters. They only know bravery in persisting in what they think tends to their own happiness, and that they will most obstinately do. Mr. Burke must think of some other name for his filly brethren, for they will never have the sense or spirit to defend their Rights and Interests like Swine. —Thus much for the cowardliness of mankind above other animals.
Q. Have men no other way of shewing their peculiar meanness, than by tamely giving up their Rights to the first usurper?
A. Yes. By insulting decrepid individuals or small numbers of their own species, when they are in company with other malicious beings like themselves. But this they never venture upon except emboldened by their numbers. No single man could ever yet venture to be insolent or witty upon another, without his own companions. As observed before, they are like hounds—they always hunt in packs.
Q. How does it appear that men are covetous animals?
A. Nay, they are so much so, that this passion seems to be the source of all their other bad qualities. Other animals only covet till their present appetite is satisfied, and then leave the world in peace to others. But man is insatiable. He is like the grave, he never saith he hath enough.
Q. Does his covetousness induce him to take things not absolutely necessary to life, from his species by force?
A. Yes: for the sake of mere superfluities to hoard up, and which are of no manner of use but to look at, he will destroy his fellow creatures in numbers to the utmost of his power.
Q. He is a vicious, dangerous, and detestable animal. Does he ever compel others of the species to toil for him, in procuring him food and raiment, and those superfluous articles which he covets?
A. Does he, aye. He was not long in the world till he reduced his fellows to slavery. He continues to do so still, and while the world lasts he will continue such injustice if the species do not acquire more spirit to resist the usurpations of each other. If there is not universal and individual spirit to resist universal and individual presumption and covetousness, a great portion of men must always be in subjection to the assuming few. For mankind are not very likely to relinquish their injustice and avarice.
Q. What pity that they are not rational! For then might this universal injustice and covetousness spur them on to invent some preventative against their common encroachments on the rights and properties of each other?
A. Certainly. A small portion of reason might suffice for that purpose.
Q. What are the specific rights of the animal called Man?
A. Though the species, by their inconsistent behaviour to each other, may raise doubts concerning their rationality, yet, by their superior form of body, and inventive powers of mind, they seem qualified to turn all nature to their advantage, and may not improperly be termed the Lords of the Creation. And the Psalmist (Psal. viii. ver. 5.) says,
God has made man but a little lower than the angels, and crowned him with glory and honour. Has made him to have dominion over the works of his hands, and has put all things under his feet: All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea.
Again, in Psal. cxv. ver. 16, it is said,
The Heaven, even the Heavens are the Lord's:
BUT THE EARTH HATH HE GIVEN TO THE CHILDREN OF MEN.
Q. If then the earth be given to the children of men, what pity it is that they cannot agree on some equitable mode of enjoying their common property, and be content to live and let live, like other creatures?
A. Nothing seems more easy than to devise such a mode, were men honest enough to be content with equality of rights and privileges.
Q. Whether such a plan may or may not be adopted, it ought to be presented to them, and then they will be left without excuse?
A. There is no more requisite to render mankind as happy as they can be on earth than simply this: That the people in every district or parish should appoint collectors to receive the rents, and divide them equally among themselves, or apply them to what public uses they may think proper.
Q. Can any tyranny or abuses flow from such a principle?
A. No, none can exist where such a principle is adhered to.
Q. Ought every one to pay rent to those collectors?
A, Every one should pay according to the full value of the premises which he occupied, whether farm, house, or apartment.
Q. How would the value of those tenements be known?
A. By letting them by public auction to the best bidder.
Q. For how long a term would the public probably let their tenements?
A. For the life of the occupier, if he so long make good his payments, that he might enjoy the fruits of any improvements he might make during his residence.
Q. But what if an occupier or tenant should not make good his payments?
A. Then the parish agents would let the premises by public auction to the best bidder, that the people might receive no damage.
Q. Who would build and repair the houses, &c.?
A. The parish agents, who would have to state the accounts of these and all other expences to the people, by whose orders alone they could act.
Q. Would such a people pay taxes as usual for support of the state, or would they supply the state immediately out of the parish rents?
A. That they might do as they chose. If they wished not to be shackled by revenue laws, or pestered by excisemen and informers, they would probably pay the state a sum of money as their quota at once, and have done with it.
Q. Would such a people build bridges, make roads, or rather public works, with their money?
A. They might if they would.
LESSONS FOR PIG EATERS.
LESSON I.—
From the General Epistle of James, Chap.
ii.
ver.
6.
DO not
rich
men
oppress
you, and draw you before the
Judgment Seats?
LESSON 2.—
From Ditto, chap.
v.
ver.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries
that shall come upon you.
Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the
hire
of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud,
crieth:
and the
cries
of them which have reaped are
entered
into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. Ye have lived in
pleasure
on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter. Ye have
condemned
and killed the
just;
and he doth not resist you.
LESSON 3.—
From Amos, chap.
ii.
ver.
6.
Thus saith the Lord; for three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they
sold
the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes; that
pant
after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turn aside the way of the meek.
LESSON 4.—
From Isaiah, chap.
iii.
ver.
12.
As for my people,
children
are the oppressors, and
women
rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee
cause
thee to err, and
destroy
the way of thy paths. The Lord standeth up to plead, and he standeth to judge the people. The Lord will enter into judgment with the Ancients of his people, and the Princes thereof: for ye have
eaten
up the vineyard: the
spoil
of the poor
is
in your houses.
What mean ye,
that ye
beat
my people to pieces, and
grind
the faces of the poor? saith the Lord of Hosts.
A Comparison between the AFRICAN SLAVES in the WEST INDIES, and the CELTIC SLAVE, or SCALLAG, in some of the HEBRIDES.
From
Travels in the Western Hebrides,
by the Rev.
JOHN LANE BUCHANAN.
[
Continued from page
125.]
1st. With regard to the respective conditions of their life in general, it is in neither case of their own chusing. The African is bereft of his freedom, and sold into slavery by fraud and violence. The Hebredian Slave is, indeed, neither trapanned into slavery by guile, nor compelled by physical compulsion; but he is drawn into it by a moral necessity equally invincible, by a train of circumstances which are beyond his power to controul, and which leave him no option, but either to serve some
master
as a Scallag, or to protract a miserable existence for some time in the forest, and near the uninhabited sea shores, where he may pick up some shell fish, to perish at last, with his wife, perhaps, and little ones, with cold and hunger.
2dly. With regard to labour. The Negro generally works only from six o'clock in the morning to six in the evening; and out of that time he has two complete hours for rest and refreshment. The Scallag is at work from four o'clock in the morning to eight, nine, and sometimes ten at night.
3dly. With regard to respite from labour. The Negro is allowed two days in the week for himself— so is the Scallag: but the precepts of
Religion
allow the Scallag only one of these days to labour for his own maintenance.
4thly. With regard to food. The Negro has a plentiful allowance of such common fare as is sufficient for his support; besides his little spot of land which he cultivates for himself on Saturday and Sunday, as well as in the evenings, after he has finished his master's work. The Scallag, when at hard labour for his master, is fed twice a day with water-gruel, or
brochan,
as it is called; or kail, or coleworts, with the addition of a barley cake or potatoes; and all this without salt. But, for his family, and for himself on Sundays, or when he is unable to work through bodily indisposition, he has no other means of subsistence than what he can raise for himself, by the labour of one day out of seven, from a scanty portion of cold and moorish soil—barley, potatoes, coleworts, and perhaps a milch cow, or a couple of ewes, for giving milk to his infants; though if often happens, that he is obliged to kill these
household gods,
as it were, to prevent his family from starving. At certain seasons he has fish in abundance, but this he is, for the most part, obliged to eat without bread, and often without salt. The Negro, if he be tolerably industrious, can afford on Saturdays and other holidays, with pepper-pot, a pig, or a turkey, and a cann of grog; nay, Negroes have been known to clear, besides many comforts for their own family, twenty, thirty, even forty pounds a year; so that there is a fair probability that a Negro may, be enabled to gain the price of his liberty. But, of relief from bondage and woe the Scallag has not a single ray of hope, on this side the grave.
5thly. With regard to lodging and cloathing. The Negro is comfortably lodged, in a warm climate. The Scallag is very poorly cloathed, and still more wretchedly lodged, in a cold one. And as the Negro is provided by his master with bedding and body clothes, so he is also furnished by him with the implements of husbandry. The Scallag, with sticks and sods, rears his own miserable hut, procures for himself a few rags, either by what little flax or wool he can raise, or by the refuse or coarser part of these furnished by his master, and provides his own working tools, as the spade, &c.
6thly. With regard to usage or treatment. The Slave is driven on to labour by stripes: so also is the Scallag; who is ever, on some occasions, formally tied up, as well as the Negro, to a stake, and scourged on the bare back. The owner of the Slave, it may be farther observed, has a strong interest in his welfare; for if he should become sick or infirm, the master must maintain him; or if he should die, the master must supply his place at a considerable expence. There is no such restraint on the peevish humours or angry passions of a Hebredian laird or tacksman. The Scallag, under infirmity, disease, and old age, is set adrift on the wide world, and begs his bread from door to door, and from island to island. Nor is it necessary in order to supply the place of a Scallag, to be at any expence: for the frequent failure of settlments affords but too many recruits to the wretched otder of Scallags.
7thly. As there is nothing so natural as the love of liberty, and an aversion to restraint and oppression, the Scallag, as well as the Negro, sometimes attempts emancipation, by fleeing to the uninhabited parts of the country: though such attemps are not so often made by the Scallags after they are enured to slavery, as when they feel themselves on the verge of sinking into that dreadful and deserted condition of existence.
The only asylum for the distressed in the Long Island is the King's Forest; where several are sheltered with their families and cattle for the summer season; where they live in caves and dens of the earth; and subsist, without fire, on milk, the roots of the earth, and shell fish. But in the winter season, cold and famine drive them back again to seek for subsistence and shelter under the same tyranny that had driven them to the forest. The Blue or other mountains afford the means of life to runaway-negroes (if they can escape the search of their masters), both summer and winter.
In the West Indies, no planter or captain of a vessel is allowed by the law of the Colonies, to kidnap, conceal, or keep any runaway slave, or by any means to detain him from his master. Here also the comparison holds between the Slave and the Scallag. There is not a takcsman who will take or retain in his service, or on his land, either the Scallag or subtenant of another master, without a written certificate from that master, that the Scallag or subtenant has a good character; and also, if he be otherwise satisfied as to the character of the poor man, that his master is willing to part with him. For as the Colonists by their laws, so the Tacksmen of the Hebrides, by their country regulations, have entered into a firm compact, that no one shall harbour the subtenant or Scallag of another, who does not produce a proof of his humble and unlimited obedience to his former master. And it is evident from reason, were it not proved by experience, that certificates are most withheld when they are most wanted. For no landlord who is known to be cruel to his people will ever give them certificates, because in that case they would all leave the tyrant, and seek for milder treatment under some less severe master.
GENERAL POLITICAL APHORISMS, OR MAXIMS.
From
HARRINGTON'S WORKS.
THE errors and sufferings of the people are from their governors.
The people cannot see but they can feel.
Where the security is no more than personal, there may be a good monarch, but can be no good commonwealth.
Where the security is in the persons, the government makes good men evil: where the security is in form, the government makes evil men good.
Assemblies legitimately elected by the people, are that only party which can govern without an army.
Not the party which cannot govern without an army, but the party which can govern without an army, is the refined party, as to this intent and purpose truly refined; that is, by popular election, according to the precept of Moses, and the rule of Scripture:
take ye wise men, and understanding, and known among your tribes, and I will make them rulers over you.
The people are deceived by names, but not by things.
Where there is a well ordered commonwealth the people are generally satisfied.
Where the people are generally dissatisfied, there is no common-wealth.
Where civil liberty is entire, it includes liberty of conscience.
Where liberty of conscience is entire it includes civil liberty.
Either liberty of conscience can have no security at all, or under popular government it must have the greatest security.
To hold that a government may be introduced by a little at once, is to wave prudence, and commit things to chance.
Government is of human prudence, and human prudence is adequate to man's nature.
Where the government is not adequate to man's nature, it can never be quiet or perfect.
A King governing now in
England
by an army, would for the same causes find the same effects with the late protector.
A king governing now in
England
by parliaments, would find the nobility of no effect at all.
A parliament, where the nobility is of no effect at all, is a mere popular council.
A mere popular council will never receive law from a king.
A mere popular council giving law to a king, becomes thereby a democracy, or equal commonwealth; or the difference is no greater than the imperfection of the form.
A commonwealth or democracy to be perfect in the form, must consist especially of such an assembly, the result whereof can go upon no interest whatsoever, but that only which is the common interest of the whole people.
An assembly consisting of a few, may go upon the interest of one man, as a king, or upon the interest of one party, as that of divines, lawyers, and the like; or the interest of themselves, and the perpetuation of their government.
The popular assembly in a commonwealth may consist of too few, but can never consist of too many.
To make principles or fundamentals, belongs not to men, to nations, nor to human laws.
To build upon such principles or fundamentals as are apparently laid by God in the inevitable necessity or law of nature, is that which truly appertains to men, to nations, and to human laws. To make any other fundamentals, and then build upon them, is to build castles in the air.
Whatever is violent, is not secure not durable; whatever is secure or durable is natural.
Government in the whole people, though the major part were disaffected, must be secure or durable, because it waves force, to found itself upon nature.
Government in a party, though all of these were well affected, must be insecure and transitory, because it waves nature, to found itself upon force.
Commonwealths, of all other governments, are more especially for the preservation, not for the destruction, of mankind.
THE BANEFUL INFLUENCE OF DEPENDENCE ON THE MIND.
From
The Citizen of the World,
by Dr. Goldsmith.
AMONG many who have enforced the duty of Giving, I am surprized there are none to inculcate the ignominy of Receiving, to shew that by every favour we accept, we in some measure forfeit our native freedom, and that in a state of continual dependence on the generosity of others in a life of gradual debasement.
Were men taught to despise the receiving obligations with the same force of reasoning and declamation that they are instructed to confer them, we might then see every person in society filling up the requisite duties of his situation with chearful industry, neither relaxed by hope, nor sullen from disappointment.
Every favour a man receives, in some measure, sinks him below his dignity, and in proportion to the value of the benefit, or the frequency of its acceptance, he gives up so much of his natural independence. He, therefore, who thrives upon the unmerited bounty of another, if he has any sensibility, suffers the worst of servitude; the shackled slave may murmur with out reproach, but the humble dependent is taxed with ingratitude upon every symptom of discontent; the one may rave round the walls of his cell, but the other lingers in all the silence of mental confinement. To encrease his distress, every new obligation but adds to the former load which kept the vigorous mind from rising; till at last, elastic no longer, it shapes itself to constraint, and puts on habitual servility.
It is thus with the feeling mind, but there are some who, born without any share of sensibility, receive favour after favour, and still cringe for more, who accept the offer of generosity with as little reluctance as the wages of merit, and even make thanks for past benefits an indirect petition for new; such, I grant, can suffer no debasement from dependence, since they were originally as vile as was possible to be; dependence degrades only the ingenuous, but leaves the sordid mind in pristine meanness. In this manner, therefore, long continued generosity is misplaced, or it is injurious; it either finds a man worthless, or it makes him so; and true it is, that the person who is contented to be often obliged, ought not to have been obliged at all.
It is perhaps one of the severest misfortunes of the great, that they are in general, obliged to live among men whose real value is lessened by dependence, and whose minds are enslaved by obligation. The humble companion may have at first accepted patronage with generous views, but soon he feels the mortifying influence of conscious inferiority, by degrees he sinks into a flatterer, and from flartery at last degenerates into STUPID VENERATION. To remedy this, the great often dismiss their old dependents, and take new. Such changes are falsely imputed to levity, falsehood, or caprice, in the patron, since they may be more justly ascribed to the client's gradual deterioration, No, my son, a life of independence is generally a life of virtue. It is that which fits the soul for every flight of humanity, freedom, and friendship. To give should be our pleasure, but to receive our shame; serenity, health and affluence attend the desire of rising by labour; misery, repentance, and disrespect, that of succeeding by extorted benevolence; the man who can thank himself alone for the happiness he enjoys, is truely so; and lovely, far more lovely the sturdy gloom of laborious indigence, than the fawning simper of thriving adulation.
ON DOING GOOD TO OUR COUNTRY.
From
SWIFT'S SERMONS.
TEXT—Gal. vi. ver. 10.
As we have therefore opportunity, les us do good unto all men.
BUT, beside this love we owe to every man in his particular capacity under the title of neighbour, there is a duty of a more large and extensive nature incumbent on us; which is, our love to our neighbour in his public capacity, as he is a member of that great body the commonwealth; and this is usually called love of the public, and is a duty to which we are more strictly obliged than even that of loving even ourselves; because therein ourselves are also contained, as well as all our neighbours, in one great body. This love of the public or of the commonwealth, or love of our country, was in ancient times properly known by the name of
virtue,
because it was the greatest of all virtues, and was supposed to contain all virtues in it: and many great examples of this virtue are left us on record, scarcely to be believed, or even conceived, in such a base, corrupted, wicked age as this we live in. In those times it was common for men to sacrifice their lives for the good of their country, although they had neither hope or belief of future rewards; whereas, in our days, very few make the least scruple of sacrificing a whole nation, as well as their own souls, for a little present gain, which often hath been known to end in their own ruin in this world, as it certainly must in that to come.
Have we not seen men, for the sake of some petty employment, give up the very natural rights and liberties of their country, and of mankind, in the ruin of which themselves must at last be involved? are not these corruptions gotten among the meanest of our people, who, for a price of money, will give their votes at a venture, for the disposal of their own lives and fortunes, without considering whether it be to those who are most likely betray or to defend them?
But, if I were to produce only one instance of a hundred wherein we fail in this duty of loving our country, it would be an endless labour; and therefore I shall not attempt it.
But here I would not be misunderstood: but the love of our country, I do not mean Loyalty to our King, for that is a duty of another nature; and a man may be very loyal, in the common sense of the word, without one grain of public good at his heart. Witness this very kingdom we live in. I verily believe, that, since the beginning of the world, no nation upon earth ever shewed (all circumstances considered) such high constant marks of loyalty in all their actions and behaviour, as we have done: and, at the same time, no people ever appeared more utterly void of what is called a public spirit. When I say the people, I mean the bulk or mass of the people, for I have nothing to do with those in power.
Therefore I shall think my time not ill spent, if I can persuade most or all of you who hear me, to shew the love you have for your country, by endeavouring, in your several stations, to do all the public good you are able. For I am certainly persuaded, that all our misfortunes arise from no other original cause than that general disregard among us to the public welfare.
I therefore undertake to shew you three things.
First, That there are few people so weak or mean, who have it not sometimes in their power to be useful to the public.
Secondly, That it is often in the power of the meanest among mankind to do mischief to the public.
And, lastly, That all wilful injuries done to the public are very great and aggravated sins in the sight of God.
First, then, there are few people so weak or mean, who have it not sometimes in their power to be useful to the public.
Solomon tells us of a poor wise man who saved a city by his counsel. It hath often happened that a private soldier, by some unexpected brave attempt, hath been instrumental in obtaining a great victory. How many obscure men have been authors of very useful inventions, whereof the world now reaps the benefit? The very example of honesty and industry in a poor tradesman will sometimes spread through a neighbourhood, when others see how successful he is, and thus so many useful members are gained, for which the whole body of the public is the better. Whoever is blessed whith a true public spirit, God will certainly put it into his way to make use of that blessing, for the end it was given him, by some mean or other: and therefore it hath been observed in most ages, that the greatest actions for the benefit of the commonwealth, have been performed by the wisdom or courage, the contrivance or industry, of particular men, and not of numbers; and that the safety of a nation hath often been owing to those hands from whence it was least expected.
THE YEAR NINETY-THREE. A SONG.
COME hither good people, come hither and hear,
The dainty fine deeds of this marvellous year,
For ever and ever each Briton so free,
In triumph shall carol the year Ninety-Three.
Derry down.
We all call to mind not a twelvemonth ago,
Our trade was increasing, our riches did flow;
Each heart was then light, fill'd with mirth and with glee,
We had not yet come to the year Ninety-Three.
Derry down.
The devil ill bearing to see us so gay,
To tame our proud spirits, soon found out a way;
In his friend Billy's ear he was ever a flea,
Crying "war Billy war," then behold Ninety-Three.
Derry down.
Each day and each hour a merchant then stops,
Only shutters are seen, they all shut up their shops,
Whole families ruined! 'twas piteous to see—
Oh what a fine year was the year Ninety-Three!!!
Derry down.
Trade's now at an end, there's no work to be found,
Brave Britons are dying with hunger around.
Or at famine's approach to the Continent flee,
And York lets their blood—that's the year Ninety-Three.
Derry down.
By sea and by land, nought but shame and defeat,
('Tis the judgment of heaven) our arms ever meet.
The like Britain never, no never, did see!
Oh shame of all shames, is the year Ninety-Three.
Derry down.
In ancient good times 'twas the Briton's proud boast,
To be loyal, yet free, King and Country his toast,
To praise or to censure then boldly dar'd he—
'Twas in ancient good times—not in year Ninety-Three.
Derry down.
Now pillory, whipping post, British bastille,
The loss of old times makes each Englishman feel:
No spirit, no thought, now dare circulate free,
For Pitt, Kenyon, Dundas, in curst Ninety-Three.
Derry down.
THE PROGRESS OF LIBERTY.
Tune—
"Britannia rule the Waves."
HARK! hark! on yonder distant shore,
The noisy din of war I hear;
The sword's unsheath'd—the cannons roar,
And Gallia's sons in arms appear,
'Tis France, 'tis France, the people cry,
Fighting for sacred Liberty.
Though num'rous armies her invade;
Of warlike slaves a barb'rous host;
Of Despots crown'd, a grand crusade,
To crush her Liberty they boast.
But France like Britain will be free,
Or bravely die for Liberty.
No more the grinding hand of Power,
The op'ning bud of Reason blights;
On eagle's wings fair Truth shall tower,
For
Man begins to know his Rights.
The iron yoke we crumbling see,
Beneath the Cap of Liberty.
Go on, great souls, no dangers fear,
Your glorious Standard high erect;
Then Freemen to it will repair,
And Providence your cause protect.
Go, plant on distant shores the Tree,
Sacred to god-like Liberty.
No dreams of conquest you inspire,
Great Nature's Cause depends on thee;
Europe will catch the sacred fire,
And bid adieu to Slavery.
Then raise your warlike banners high,
And rally under Liberty.
No longer war, of Kings the spoil,
Usurping nations shall divide;
Nor stain with blood each fruitful soil,
By Nature form'd to be allied.
But Britons hope the world to see
Unite in Peace and Liberty.
A DESCRIPTION OF GOVERNMENT, AS REALLY OR FICTITIOUSLY FREE.
By Dr.
PRICE.
I Have observed; that though, in a great state, all the individuals that compose it cannot be admitted to an immediate participation in the powers of legislation and government, yet they may participate in these powers by a delegation of them to a body of representatives.—In this case it is evident that the state will be still
free
or
self-governed;
and that it will be more or less so in proportion as it is more or less fairly and adequately represented. If the persons to whom the trust of government is committed, hold their places for short terms; if they are chosen by the unbiassed voices of a majority of the state, and subject to their instructions; Liberty will be enjoyed in its highest degree. But if they are chosen for long terms by a part only of the state; and if during that term they are subject to no controul from their constituents; the very idea of liberty will be lost, and the power of chusing representatives becomes nothing but a power, lodged in a
few,
to chuse at certain periods, a body of
masters
for themselves and for the rest of the community. And if a state is so sunk that the majority of its representatives are elected by a handful of the meanest persons in it, whose voices are always paid for; and if also, there is a higher will on which even these mock representatives themselves depend, and that directs their voices: in these circumstances, it will be an abuse of language to say that the state possesses liberty. Private men, indeed, might be allowed the exercise of liberty; as they might also under the most despotic government; but it would be an
indulgence
or
connivance
derived from the spirit of the times, or from an accidental mildness in the administration. And, rather than be governed in such a manner, it would perhaps be better to be governed by the will of one man without any representation: for a representation so degenerated could answer no other end than to mislead and deceive, by disguising slavery, and keeping up a
form
of liberty when the
reality
was lost.
THE ADVANTAGES ACCRUING TO MANKIND FROM A HABITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS OF THEIR BEING EQUAL.
From
Barlow's Advice to Privileged Orders.
IN the United States of America, the Science of Liberty is universally understood, felt, and practised, as much by the simple as the wise, the weak as the strong. The deep-rooted and inveterate habit of thinking, that
all men are equal in their Rights,
that
it is impossible to make them otherwise;
and this being their undisturbed belief, they have no conception how any man in his senses can entertain any other. This point once settled, every thing is settled. Many operations, which in Europe have been considered as incredible tales or dangerous experiments, are but the infallible consequences of this great principle. The first of these operations is
the Business of Election,
which, with that people is carried on with as much gravity as their daily labour. There is no jealousy on the occasion, nothing lucrative in office; any man in society may attain to any place in the government, and may exercise its functions. They believe that there is nothing more difficult in the management of the affairs of a nation than the affairs of a family; that it only requires more hands. They believe that it is the juggle of keeping up impositions to blind the eyes of the vulgar, that constitutes the intricacy of state. Banish the mysticism of inequality, and you banish almost all the evils attendant on human nature.
Another consequence of the habitual idea of Equality, is the
facility of changing the structure of their Government
whenever and as often as the Society shall think there is any thing in it to amend. As Mr. Burke has written no "Reflections on the Revolution" in America, the people there have never been told that they had no
right
"to frame a government for themselves;" they have therefore done much of this business, without ever affixing to it the idea of "Sacrilege," or "Usurpation," or any other term of rant to be found in that Gentleman's Vocabulary.
Within a few years, the Fifteen States have not only framed each its own State-Constitution, and Two successive Federal Constitutions; but since the settlement of the present general Government in the year 1789, three of the States, Pennsylvania, South-Carolina, and Georgia, have totally new-modeled their own. And all this is done without the least confusion; the operation being scarcely known beyond the limits of the State where it is performed. Thus they are in the habit of
"choosing their own Governors,"
of
"cashiering them for misconduct,"
of
"framing a Government for themselves,"
and all those abominable things, the mere naming of which, in Mr. Burke's opinion, has polluted the pulpit in the Old Jewry.
The
SECOND VOLUME
will be Published as the
FIRST,
namely, in
PENNY NUMBERS
Weekly.
CONTENTS Of VOLUME FIRST.
The Fable of the Bee and the Spider — Page 2
On Freedom of Speech
Cato's Letters
Page 3
On False Witness
Swift.
Page 7
On the Execution of Louis Capet
Frend.
Page 11
On Political Superstition
Barlow.
Page 13
The Effects of War on the Poor
Frend.
Page 14
A Prognostic of the French Revolution
Chesterfield.
Page 16
A Lesson for Antigallicans Page 17
On the Excellency of a Free Government, and its Tendency to exalt the Nature of Man
Dr. Price.
Page 31
A Lamentation for the Oppressed
Goldsmith.
Page 33
On the Responsibility of Kings.
Candid Philosopher.
Page 36
Roman Patriotism founded on Injustice, and the Ruin of Mankind
Ditto.
Page 38
A Description of England
Lord Lyttleton.
Page 38
A Lesson for Gentlemen Volunteers
Ditto.
Page 40
A Lesson for All Men.
Locke.
Page 41
A Song to be sung at the Commencement of the Milenium.
From Spence's Rights of Man in Prose, price
4d. Page 42
All Monarchies naturally tend to Despotism
Chesterfield.
Page 44
A Modest Plea for an Equal Commonwealth Page 44
Every Man is born with an imprescriptible Claim to a Portion of the Elements
Barlow.
Page 59
The glorious prospect of better Times, which are fast approaching
Critic Philosopher.
Page 63
The Advantages of Freedom of Speech
Candid Philosopher.
Page 66
The Marseilles March, or Hymn Page 67
Extract from
Les Ruines,
by
M. de Volney.
Page 69
Of the Ministry or Clergy Page 74
The Desire of Glory naturally generated in Republics
Lord Lyttleton.
Page 78
Examination of James Harrington in the Tower, concerning his
Oceana.
Page 79
A Song on the French Revolution Page 81
Extract from
Harrington's Works
Page 83
The free Notions of the English
Lord Lyttleton.
Page 85
An unpleasant Lesson for the Pigs' Betters
Swift.
Page 86
Lessons for Monopolizers of Land Page 88
On Equality
Puffendorf.
Page 89
On the Absurdity of unalterable Establishments
Priestly
Page 92
General Political Aphorisms, or Maxims
Harrington.
Page 96
A Song to be sung an Hundred Years hence Page 98
A Lesson for Venal Parliaments
Cromwell.
Page 100
Lessons for Statesmen,
viz.
1. From the
Encyclopedia Britannica
Page 101
2. From the Same Page 102
3. From
Lady Montague's Letters
Page 103
The Government of Geneva
D'Alembert.
Page 105
Speeches of Charles Turner, Esq. Page 108
The Inhabitants of Hell
Rights of the Devil.
Page 110
Ignorance the Foundation of unequal Governments, and fostered by them designedly
Barlow.
Page 112
On the Injustice of taking Fees from Persons acquitted in Courts of Justice Page 114
Whether the Balance of Dominion in Land be the natural Cause of Empire?
Harrington.
Page 114
* Abridgement of the Roman History Page 118
On the shameful Oppression of the Highlanders in the Western Islands of Scotland Page 122
A Government of Citizens is invulnerable
Harrington.
Page 125
A Description of Prince Lucifer's Subjects
Rights of the Devil.
Page 128
Candide, a Soldier
Voltaire.
Page 132
On the Progress of Liberty in France
Candid Philosopher.
Page 134
On a Life of Labour
Candid Philosopher.
Page 136
The personal Virtues of a Monarch are unable to secure him from Contempt, if he will be blindfolded by wicked Ministers Page 137
Modern Motives for War
Barlow.
ibid.
On the Government of Hell
Rights of the Devil.
Page 138
The impossibility of commencing Tyrant over an armed Nation convinced of the universal Equality of Mankind
Barlow.
Page 142
On the pompous Titles given to the Dignified Clergy
Candid Philosopher.
Page 143
Defects in the English Constitution, as to Representation
Dyer.
Page 145
An Apology for Younger Brothers Page 152
A Seditious Hand-Bill circulated at Norwich, and Re-published by Authority in the Norfolk Chronicle Page 163
Five Thousand Pounds offered, in the Morning Chronicle, for a Place of Amusement under Government!!! Page 164
National Fasting generally insidious and impious
Rev. I. Murray,
Page 165
† On the Liberty of the Press.
By Erskine, in his Speech on the Trial of Thomas Paine
Page 168
‡ The New Constitution of France Page 176
English Injustice to the French. A Poem Page 180
* Roman History (continued) Page 182
† Erskine's Speech (continued) Page 189
Church Livings to be Sold by Auction!!! Page 193
The Distresses of the Poor, exemplified in the Life of a Private Soldier
Goldsmith.
Page 194
§ On Kings.
From Godwin's Enquiry concerning Political Iustice.
Page 200
On the Rebellion of Princes
Murray.
Page 201
On the National Sin of suffering Bad Government Page 204
On Civil Liberty, and the Principles of Government
Dr. Price.
Page 205
‡ The New Constitution of France (continued) Page 207
Popular Assemblies understand only their own Interest
Harrington's Oceana.
Page 212
On Religion
Marning Chronicle.
Page 214
§ On Kings (continued)
Godwin.
Page 219
Kings are Great Blessings. A Poem Page 221
On the Horrors of War
Dr. Iohnson
Page 222
† Liberty of the Press (continued) Page 223
Patriotic Speech of Sir George Saville Page 226
On the Authority of one Country over another
Dr. Price.
Page 228
A Lesson for daring Publishers Page 229
The Derby Address Page 230
Ode to Human Kind Page 235
Orders of the Duke of York Page 238
Curious Letter to the Convention Page 238
A Panegyric!
Cato's Letters.
Page 239
‡ The New Constitution of France (concluded) Page 240
Cautions against the Natural Encroachments of Power
Cato's Letters.
Page 246
Definition of Loyalty
Toplady.
Page 249
Meaning of the Word Pension, &c.
Dr. Iohnson.
ibid.
Burke's Address to the Swinish Multitude. A Song Page 250
* Conclusion of the Roman History Page 252
The Marriage Act censured
Goldsmith.
Page 257
The Rights of Man, by Question and Answer Page 261
Lessons for Pig Eaters Page 267
A Comparison between the African Slaves in the West Indies, and the Celtic Slave, or Scallag, in some of the Hebrides Page 268
General Political Aphorisms, or Maxims
Harrington.
Page 272
The baneful Influence of Dependence on the Mind
Goldsmith.
Page 274
On doing Good to our Country
Swift
Page 276
The Year Ninety-Three. A Song Page 279
The Progress of Liberty. A Song Page 280
A Description of Government, as really or fictitiously free
Dr. Price.
Page 281
The Advantages accruing to Mankind from a habitual Consciousness of their being equal
Barlow.
Page 283
END OF VOL. 1.