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The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) by Edmund Burke

E >> Edmund Burke >> The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12)




I am not one of those who think that the people are never in the wrong.
They have been so, frequently and outrageously, both in other countries
and in this. But I do say, that in all disputes between them and their
rulers, the presumption is at least upon a par in favor of the people.
Experience may perhaps justify me in going further. When popular
discontents have been very prevalent, it may well be affirmed and
supported, that there has been generally something found amiss in the
constitution, or in the conduct of government. The people have no
interest in disorder. When they do wrong, it is their error, and not
their crime. But with the governing part of the state, it is for
otherwise. They certainly may act ill by design, as well as by mistake.
"_Les revolutions qui arrivent dans les grands etats ne sont point un
effect du hazard, ni du caprice des peuples. Rien ne revolte _les
grands_ d'un royaume comme _un gouvernement foible et derange_. Pour la
_populace_, ce n'est jamais par envie d'attaquer qu'elle se souleve,
mais par impatience de souffrir._"[102] These are the words of a great
man; of a minister of state; and a zealous assertor of monarchy. They
are applied to the _system of favoritism_ which was adopted by Henry the
Third of France, and to the dreadful consequences it produced. What he
says of revolutions, is equally true of all great disturbances. If this
presumption in favor of the subjects against the trustees of power be
not the more probable, I am sure it is the more comfortable speculation;
because it is more easy to change an administration, than to reform a
people.

Upon a supposition, therefore, that, in the opening of the cause, the
presumptions stand equally balanced between the parties, there seems
sufficient ground to entitle any person to a fair hearing, who attempts
some other scheme beside that easy one which is fashionable in some
fashionable companies, to account for the present discontents. It is not
to be argued that we endure no grievance, because our grievances are not
of the same sort with those under which we labored formerly; not
precisely those which we bore from the Tudors, or vindicated on the
Stuarts. A great change has taken place in the affairs of this country.
For in the silent lapse of events as material alterations have been
insensibly brought about in the policy and character of governments and
nations, as those which have been marked by the tumult of public
revolutions.

It is very rare indeed for men to be wrong in their feelings concerning
public misconduct; as rare to be right in their speculation upon the
cause of it. I have constantly observed, that the generality of people
are fifty years, at least, behindhand in their politics. There are but
very few who are capable of comparing and digesting what passes before
their eyes at different times and occasions, so as to form the whole
into a distinct system. But in books everything is settled for them,
without the exertion of any considerable diligence or sagacity. For
which reason men are wise with but little reflection, and good with
little self-denial, in the business of all times except their own. We
are very uncorrupt and tolerably enlightened judges of the transactions
of past ages; where no passions deceive, and where the whole train of
circumstances, from the trifling cause to the tragical event, is set in
an orderly series before us. Few are the partisans of departed tyranny;
and to be a Whig on the business of an hundred years ago, is very
consistent with every advantage of present servility. This retrospective
wisdom, and historical patriotism, are things of wonderful convenience,
and serve admirably to reconcile the old quarrel between speculation and
practice. Many a stern republican, after gorging himself with a full
feast of admiration of the Grecian commonwealths and of our true Saxon
constitution, and discharging all the splendid bile of his virtuous
indignation on King John and King James, sits down perfectly satisfied
to the coarsest work and homeliest job of the day he lives in. I believe
there was no professed admirer of Henry the Eighth among the instruments
of the last King James; nor in the court of Henry the Eighth was there,
I dare say, to be found a single advocate for the favorites of Richard
the Second.

No complaisance to our court, or to our age, can make me believe nature
to be so changed, but that public liberty will be among us as among our
ancestors, obnoxious to some person or other; and that opportunities
will be furnished for attempting, at least, some alteration to the
prejudice of our constitution. These attempts will naturally vary in
their mode according to times and circumstances. For ambition, though it
has ever the same general views, has not at all times the same means,
nor the same particular objects. A great deal of the furniture of
ancient tyranny is worn to rags; the rest is entirely out of fashion.
Besides, there are few statesmen so very clumsy and awkward in their
business, as to fall into the identical snare which has proved fatal to
their predecessors. When an arbitrary imposition is attempted upon the
subject, undoubtedly it will not bear on its forehead the name of
_Ship-money_. There is no danger that an extension of the _Forest laws_
should be the chosen mode of oppression in this age. And when we hear
any instance of ministerial rapacity, to the prejudice of the rights of
private life, it will certainly not be the exaction of two hundred
pullets, from a woman of fashion, for leave to lie with her own
husband.[103]

Every age has its own manners, and its politics dependent upon them;
and the same attempts will not be made against a constitution fully
formed and matured, that were used to destroy it in the cradle, or to
resist its growth during its infancy.

Against the being of Parliament, I am satisfied, no designs have ever
been entertained since the revolution. Every one must perceive, that it
is strongly the interest of the court, to have some second cause
interposed between the ministers and the people. The gentlemen of the
House of Commons have an interest equally strong in sustaining the part
of that intermediate cause. However they may hire out the _usufruct_ of
their voices, they never will part with the _fee and inheritance_.
Accordingly those who have been of the most known devotion to the will
and pleasure of a court have, at the same time, been most forward in
asserting a high authority in the House of Commons. When they knew who
were to use that authority, and how it was to be employed, they thought
it never could be carried too far. It must be always the wish of an
unconstitutional statesman, that a House of Commons, who are entirely
dependent upon him, should have every right of the people entirely
dependent upon their pleasure. It was soon discovered, that the forms of
a free, and the ends of an arbitrary government, were things not
altogether incompatible.

The power of the crown, almost dead and rotten as Prerogative, has grown
up anew, with much more strength, and far less odium, under the name of
Influence. An influence, which operated without noise and without
violence; an influence, which converted the very antagonist into the
instrument of power; which contained in itself a perpetual principle of
growth and renovation; and which the distresses and the prosperity of
the country equally tended to augment, was an admirable substitute for a
prerogative, that, being only the offspring of antiquated prejudices,
had moulded in its original stamina irresistible principles of decay and
dissolution. The ignorance of the people is a bottom but for a temporary
system; the interest of active men in the state is a foundation
perpetual and infallible. However, some circumstances, arising, it must
be confessed, in a great degree from accident, prevented the effects of
this influence for a long time from breaking out in a manner capable of
exciting any serious apprehensions. Although government was strong and
flourished exceedingly, the _court_ had drawn far less advantage than
one would imagine from this great source of power.

At the revolution, the crown, deprived, for the ends of the revolution
itself, of many prerogatives, was found too weak to struggle against all
the difficulties which pressed so new and unsettled a government. The
court was obliged therefore to delegate a part of its powers to men of
such interest as could support, and of such fidelity as would adhere to,
its establishment. Such men were able to draw in a greater number to a
concurrence in the common defence. This connection, necessary at first,
continued long after convenient; and properly conducted might indeed, in
all situations, be an useful instrument of government. At the same time,
through the intervention of men of popular weight and character, the
people possessed a security for their just proportion of importance in
the state. But as the title to the crown grew stronger by long
possession, and by the constant increase of its influence, these helps
have of late seemed to certain persons no better than incumbrances. The
powerful managers for government were not sufficiently submissive to the
pleasure of the possessors of immediate and personal favor, sometimes
from a confidence in their own strength, natural and acquired; sometimes
from a fear of offending their friends, and weakening that lead in the
country which gave them a consideration independent of the court. Men
acted as if the court could receive, as well as confer, an obligation.
The influence of government, thus divided in appearance between the
court and the leaders of parties, became in many cases an accession
rather to the popular than to the royal scale; and some part of that
influence, which would otherwise have been possessed as in a sort of
mortmain and unalienable domain, returned again to the great ocean from
whence it arose, and circulated among the people. This method,
therefore, of governing by men of great natural interest or great
acquired consideration was viewed in a very invidious light by the true
lovers of absolute monarchy. It is the nature of despotism to abhor
power held by any means but its own momentary pleasure; and to
annihilate all intermediate situations between boundless strength on its
own part, and total debility on the part of the people.

To get rid of all this intermediate and independent importance, and _to
secure to the court the unlimited and uncontrolled use of its own vast
influence, under the sole direction of its own private favor_, has for
some years past been the great object of policy. If this were
compassed, the influence of the crown must of course produce all the
effects which the most sanguine partisans of the court could possibly
desire. Government might then be carried on without any concurrence on
the part of the people; without any attention to the dignity of the
greater, or to the affections of the lower sorts. A new project was
therefore devised by a certain set of intriguing men, totally different
from the system of administration which had prevailed since the
accession of the House of Brunswick. This project, I have heard, was
first conceived by some persons in the court of Frederick Prince of
Wales.

The earliest attempt in the execution of this design was to set up for
minister, a person, in rank indeed respectable, and very ample in
fortune; but who, to the moment of this vast and sudden elevation, was
little known or considered in the kingdom. To him the whole nation was
to yield an immediate and implicit submission. But whether it was from
want of firmness to bear up against the first opposition; or that things
were not yet fully ripened, or that this method was not found the most
eligible; that idea was soon abandoned. The instrumental part of the
project was a little altered, to accommodate it to the time and to bring
things more gradually and more surely to the one great end proposed.

The first part of the reformed plan was to draw _a line which should
separate the court from the ministry_. Hitherto these names had been
looked upon as synonymous; but for the future, court and administration
were to be considered as things totally distinct. By this operation, two
systems of administration were to be formed; one which should be in the
real secret and confidence; the other merely ostensible to perform the
official and executory duties of government. The latter were alone to be
responsible; whilst the real advisers, who enjoyed all the power, were
effectually removed from all the danger.

Secondly, _A party under these leaders was to be formed in favor of the
court against the ministry_: this party was to have a large share in the
emoluments of government, and to hold it totally separate from, and
independent of, ostensible administration.

The third point, and that on which the success of the whole scheme
ultimately depended, was _to bring Parliament to an acquiescence in this
project_. Parliament was therefore to be taught by degrees a total
indifference to the persons, rank, influence, abilities, connections,
and character of the ministers of the crown. By means of a discipline,
on which I shall say more hereafter, that body was to be habituated to
the most opposite interests, and the most discordant politics. All
connections and dependencies among subjects were to be entirely
dissolved. As, hitherto, business had gone through the hands of leaders
of Whigs or Tories, men of talents to conciliate the people, and to
engage their confidence; now the method was to be altered: and the lead
was to be given to men of no sort of consideration or credit in the
country. This want of natural importance was to be their very title to
delegated power. Members of Parliament were to be hardened into an
insensibility to pride as well as to duty. Those high and haughty
sentiments, which are the great support of independence, were to be let
down gradually. Points of honor and precedence were no more to be
regarded in Parliamentary decorum than in a Turkish army. It was to be
avowed, as a constitutional maxim, that the king might appoint one of
his footmen, or one of your footmen for minister; and that he ought to
be, and that he would be, as well followed as the first name for rank or
wisdom in the nation. Thus Parliament was to look on as if perfectly
unconcerned, while a cabal of the closet and back-stairs was substituted
in the place of a national administration.

With such a degree of acquiescence, any measure of any court might well
be deemed thoroughly secure. The capital objects, and by much the most
flattering characteristics of arbitrary power, would be obtained.
Everything would be drawn from its holdings in the country to the
personal favor and inclination of the prince. This favor would be the
sole introduction to power, and the only tenure by which it was to be
held; so that no person looking towards another, and all looking towards
the court, it was impossible but that the motive which solely influenced
every man's hopes must come in time to govern every man's conduct; till
at last the servility became universal, in spite of the dead letter of
any laws or institutions whatsoever.

How it should happen that any man could be tempted to venture upon such
a project of government, may at first view appear surprising. But the
fact is that opportunities very inviting to such an attempt have
offered; and the scheme itself was not destitute of some arguments, not
wholly unplausible, to recommend it. These opportunities and these
arguments, the use that has been made of both, the plan for carrying
this new scheme of government into execution, and the effects which it
has produced, are, in my opinion, worthy of our serious consideration.

His Majesty came to the throne of these kingdoms with more advantages
than any of his predecessors since the revolution. Fourth in descent,
and third in succession of his royal family, even the zealots of
hereditary right, in him, saw something to flatter their favorite
prejudices; and to justify a transfer of their attachments, without a
change in their principles. The person and cause of the Pretender were
become contemptible; his title disowned throughout Europe; his party
disbanded in England. His Majesty came, indeed, to the inheritance of a
mighty war; but, victorious in every part of the globe, peace was always
in his power, not to negotiate, but to dictate. No foreign habitudes or
attachments withdrew him from the cultivation of his power at home. His
revenue for the civil establishment, fixed (as it was then thought) at a
large, but definite sum, was ample without being invidious. His
influence, by additions from conquest, by an augmentation of debt, by an
increase of military and naval establishment, much strengthened and
extended. And coming to the throne in the prime and full vigor of youth,
as from affection there was a strong dislike, so from dread there seemed
to be a general averseness, from giving anything like offence to a
monarch, against whose resentment opposition could not look for a refuge
in any sort of reversionary hope.

These singular advantages inspired his Majesty only with a more ardent
desire to preserve unimpaired the spirit of that national freedom, to
which he owed a situation so full of glory. But to others it suggested
sentiments of a very different nature. They thought they now beheld an
opportunity (by a certain sort of statesmen never long undiscovered or
unemployed) of drawing to themselves by the aggrandizement of a court
faction, a degree of power which they could never hope to derive from
natural influence or from honorable service; and which it was impossible
they could hold with the least security, whilst the system of
administration rested upon its former bottom. In order to facilitate the
execution of their design, it was necessary to make many alterations in
political arrangement, and a signal change in the opinions, habits, and
connections of the greatest part of those who at that time acted in
public.

In the first place, they proceeded gradually, but not slowly, to destroy
everything of strength which did not derive its principal nourishment
from the immediate pleasure of the court. The greatest weight of popular
opinion and party connection were then with the Duke of Newcastle and
Mr. Pitt. Neither of these held their importance by the _new tenure_ of
the court; they were not therefore thought to be so proper as others for
the services which were required by that tenure. It happened very
favorably for the new system, that under a forced coalition there
rankled an incurable alienation and disgust between the parties which
composed the administration. Mr. Pitt was first attacked. Not satisfied
with removing him from power, they endeavored by various artifices to
ruin his character. The other party seemed rather pleased to get rid of
so oppressive a support; not perceiving, that their own fall was
prepared by his, and involved in it. Many other reasons prevented them
from daring to look their true situation in the face. To the great Whig
families it was extremely disagreeable, and seemed almost unnatural, to
oppose the administration of a prince of the House of Brunswick. Day
after day they hesitated, and doubted, and lingered, expecting that
other counsels would take place; and were slow to be persuaded, that all
which had been done by the cabal was the effect not of humor, but of
system. It was more strongly and evidently the interest of the new court
faction, to get rid of the great Whig connections, than to destroy Mr.
Pitt. The power of that gentleman was vast indeed and merited; but it
was in a great degree personal, and therefore transient. Theirs was
rooted in the country. For, with a good deal less of popularity, they
possessed a far more natural and fixed influence. Long possession of
government; vast property; obligations of favors given and received;
connection of office; ties of blood, of alliance, of friendship (things
at that time supposed of some force); the name of Whig, dear to the
majority of the people; the zeal early begun and steadily continued to
the royal family: all these together formed a body of power in the
nation, which was criminal and devoted. The great ruling principle of
the cabal, and that which animated and harmonized all their proceedings,
how various soever they may have been, was to signify to the world that
the court would proceed upon its own proper forces only; and that the
pretence of bringing any other into its service was an affront to it,
and not a support. Therefore when the chiefs were removed, in order to
go to the root, the whole party was put under a proscription, so general
and severe, as to take their hard-earned bread from the lowest officers,
in a manner which had never been known before, even in general
revolutions. But it was thought necessary effectually to destroy all
dependencies but one; and to show an example of the firmness and rigor
with which the new system was to be supported.

Thus for the time were pulled down, in the persons of the Whig leaders
and of Mr. Pitt (in spite of the services of the one at the accession of
the royal family, and the recent services of the other in the war), the
_two only securities for the importance of the people; power arising
from popularity; and power arising from connection_. Here and there
indeed a few individuals were left standing, who gave security for their
total estrangement from the odious principles of party connection and
personal attachment; and it must be confessed that most of them have
religiously kept their faith. Such a change could not however be made
without a mighty shock to government.

To reconcile the minds of the people to all these movements, principles
correspondent to them had been preached up with great zeal. Every one
must remember that the cabal set out with the most astonishing prudery,
both moral and political. Those, who in a few months after soused over
head and ears into the deepest and dirtiest pits of corruption, cried
out violently against the indirect practices in the electing and
managing of Parliaments, which had formerly prevailed. This marvellous
abhorrence which the court had suddenly taken to all influence, was not
only circulated in conversation through the kingdom, but pompously
announced to the public, with many other extraordinary things, in a
pamphlet[104] which had all the appearance of a manifesto preparatory to
some considerable enterprise. Throughout it was a satire, though in
terms managed and decent enough, on the politics of the former reign.
It was indeed written with no small art and address.

In this piece appeared the first dawning of the new system: there first
appeared the idea (then only in speculation) of _separating the court
from the administration_; of carrying everything from national
connection to personal regards; and of forming a regular party for that
purpose, under the name of _king's men_.

To recommend this system to the people, a perspective view of the court,
gorgeously painted, and finely illuminated from within, was exhibited to
the gaping multitude. Party was to be totally done away, with all its
evil works. Corruption was to be cast down from court, as _Ate_ was from
heaven. Power was thenceforward to be the chosen residence of public
spirit; and no one was to be supposed under any sinister influence,
except those who had the misfortune to be in disgrace at court, which
was to stand in lieu of all vices and all corruptions. A scheme of
perfection to be realized in a monarchy far beyond the visionary
republic of Plato. The whole scenery was exactly disposed to captivate
those good souls, whose credulous morality is so invaluable a treasure
to crafty politicians. Indeed there was wherewithal to charm everybody,
except those few who are not much pleased with professions of
supernatural virtue, who know of what stuff such professions are made,
for what purposes they are designed, and in what they are sure
constantly to end. Many innocent gentlemen, who had been talking prose
all their lives without knowing anything of the matter, began at last to
open their eyes upon their own merits, and to attribute their not having
been lords of the treasury and lords of trade many years before, merely
to the prevalence of party, and to the ministerial power, which had
frustrated the good intentions of the court in favor of their abilities.
Now was the time to unlock the sealed fountain of royal bounty, which
had been infamously monopolized and huckstered, and to let it flow at
large upon the whole people. The time was come, to restore royalty to
its original splendor. _Mettre le Roy hors de page_, became a sort of
watchword. And it was constantly in the mouths of all the runners of the
court, that nothing could preserve the balance of the constitution from
being overturned by the rabble, or by a faction of the nobility, but to
free the sovereign effectually from that ministerial tyranny under which
the royal dignity had been oppressed in the person of his Majesty's
grandfather.

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