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

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




Now, Sir, I trust I have shown, first on that narrow ground which the
honorable gentleman measured, that you are like to lose nothing by
complying with the motion, except what you have lost already. I have
shown afterwards, that in time of peace you flourished in commerce, and,
when war required it, had sufficient aid from the colonies, while you
pursued your ancient policy; that you threw everything into confusion,
when you made the Stamp Act; and that you restored everything to peace
and order, when you repealed it. I have shown that the revival of the
system of taxation has produced the very worst effects; and that the
partial repeal has produced, not partial good, but universal evil. Let
these considerations, founded on facts, not one of which can be denied,
bring us back to our reason by the road of our experience.

I cannot, as I have said, answer for mixed measures: but surely this
mixture of lenity would give the whole a better chance of success. When
you once regain confidence, the way will be clear before you. Then you
may enforce the Act of Navigation, when it ought to be enforced. You
will yourselves open it, where it ought still further to be opened.
Proceed in what you do, whatever you do, from policy, and not from
rancor. Let us act like men, let us act like statesmen. Let us hold some
sort of consistent conduct. It is agreed that a revenue is not to be had
in America. If we lose the profit, let us get rid of the odium.

On this business of America, I confess I am serious, even to sadness. I
have had but one opinion concerning it, since I sat, and before I sat in
Parliament. The noble lord[15] will, as usual, probably, attribute the
part taken by me and my friends in this business to a desire of getting
his places. Let him enjoy this happy and original idea. If I deprived
him of it, I should take away most of his wit, and all his argument. But
I had rather bear the brunt of all his wit, and indeed blows much
heavier, than stand answerable to God for embracing a system that tends
to the destruction of some of the very best and fairest of His works.
But I know the map of England as well as the noble lord, or as any other
person; and I know that the way I take is not the road to preferment. My
excellent and honorable friend under me on the floor[16] has trod that
road with great toil for upwards of twenty years together. He is not yet
arrived at the noble lord's destination. However, the tracks of my
worthy friend are those I have ever wished to follow; because I know
they lead to honor. Long may we tread the same road together, whoever
may accompany us, or whoever may laugh at us on our journey! I honestly
and solemnly declare, I have in all seasons adhered to the system of
1766 for no other reason than, that I think it laid deep in your truest
interests,--and that, by limiting the exercise, it fixes on the firmest
foundations a real, consistent, well-grounded authority in Parliament.
Until you come back to that system, there will be no peace for England.


FOOTNOTES:

[1] Charles Wolfran Cornwall, Esq., lately appointed one of the Lords of
the Treasury.

[2] Lord North, then Chancellor of the Exchequer.

[3] Lord Hillsborough's Circular Letter to the Governors of the
Colonies, concerning the repeal of some of the duties laid in the Act of
1767.

[4] A material point is omitted by Mr. Burke in this speech, viz. _the
manner in which the continent received this royal assurance_. The
assembly of Virginia, in their address in answer to Lord Botetourt's
speech, express themselves thus:--"We will not suffer our present hopes,
arising from the pleasing prospect your Lordship hath so kindly opened
and displayed to us, to be lashed by the bitter reflection that any
_future_ administration will entertain a wish to depart from that _plan_
which affords the surest and most permanent foundation of public
tranquillity and happiness. No, my Lord, we are sure _our most gracious
sovereign_, under whatever changes may happen in his confidential
servants, will remain immutable in the ways of truth and justice, and
that he is _incapable of deceiving his faithful subjects_; and we esteem
your Lordship's information not only as warranted, but even sanctified
_by the royal word_."

[5] Lord North.

[6] Mr. Dowdeswell.

[7] General Conway.

[8] General Conway.

[9] General Conway.

[10] General Conway.

[11] Supposed to allude to the Right Honorable Lord North, and George
Cooke, Esq., who were made joint paymasters in the summer of 1766, on
the removal of the Rockingham administration.

[12] Resolutions in May, 1770.

[13] Mr. Fuller.

[14] Lord Carmarthen.

[15] Lord North.

[16] Mr. Dowdeswell




SPEECHES

AT

HIS ARRIVAL AT BRISTOL,

AND AT THE

CONCLUSION OF THE POLL.


1774 EDITOR'S ADVERTISEMENT.


We believe there is no need of an apology to the public for offering to
them any genuine speeches of Mr. Burke: the two contained in this
publication undoubtedly are so. The general approbation they met with
(as we hear) from all parties at Bristol persuades us that a good
edition of them will not be unacceptable in London; which we own to be
the inducement, and we hope is a justification, of our offering it.

We do not presume to descant on the merit of these speeches; but as it
is no less new than honorable to find a popular candidate, at a popular
election, daring to avow his dissent to certain points that have been
considered as very popular objects, and maintaining himself on the manly
confidence of his own opinion, so we must say that it does great credit
to the people of England, as it proves to the world, that, to insure
their confidence, it is not necessary to flatter them, or to affect a
subserviency to their passions or their prejudices.

It may be necessary to promise, that at the opening of the poll the
candidates were Lord Clare, Mr. Brickdale, the two last members, and Mr.
Cruger, a considerable merchant at Bristol. On the second day of the
poll, Lord Clare declined; and a considerable body of gentlemen, who had
wished that the city of Bristol should, at this critical season, be
represented by some gentleman of tried abilities and known commercial
knowledge, immediately put Mr. Burke in nomination. Some of them set off
express for London to apprise that gentleman of this event; but he was
gone to Malton, in Yorkshire. The spirit and active zeal of these
gentlemen followed him to Malton. They arrived there just after Mr.
Burke's election for that place, and invited him to Bristol.

Mr. Burke, as he tells us in his first speech, acquainted his
constituents with the honorable offer that was made him, and, with their
consent, he immediately set off for Bristol, on the Tuesday, at six in
the evening; he arrived at Bristol at half past two in the afternoon, on
Thursday, the 13th of October, being the sixth day of the poll.

He drove directly to the mayor's house, who not being at home, he
proceeded to the Guildhall, where he ascended the hustings, and having
saluted the electors, the sheriffs, and the two candidates, he reposed
himself for a few minutes, and then addressed the electors in a speech
which was received with great and universal applause and approbation.




SPEECH

AT

HIS ARRIVAL AT BRISTOL.


Gentlemen,--I am come hither to solicit in person that favor which my
friends have hitherto endeavored to procure for me, by the most
obliging, and to me the most honorable exertions.

I have so high an opinion of the great trust which you have to confer on
this occasion, and, by long experience, so just a diffidence in my
abilities to fill it in a manner adequate even to my own ideas, that I
should never have ventured of myself to intrude into that awful
situation. But since I am called upon by the desire of several
respectable fellow subjects, as I have done at other times, I give up my
fears to their wishes. Whatever my other deficiencies may be, I do not
know what it is to be wanting to my friends.

I am not fond of attempting to raise public expectations by great
promises. At this time, there is much cause to consider, and very little
to presume. We seem to be approaching to a great crisis in our affairs,
which calls for the whole wisdom of the wisest among us, without being
able to assure ourselves that any wisdom can preserve us from many and
great inconveniences. You know I speak of our unhappy contest with
America. I confess, it is a matter on which I look down as from a
precipice. It is difficult in itself, and it is rendered more intricate
by a great variety of plans of conduct. I do not mean to enter into
them. I will not suspect a want of good intention in framing them. But
however pure the intentions of their authors may have been, we all know
that the event has been unfortunate. The means of recovering our affairs
are not obvious. So many great questions of commerce, of finance, of
constitution, and of policy are involved in this American deliberation,
that I dare engage for nothing, but that I shall give it, without any
predilection to former opinions, or any sinister bias whatsoever, the
most honest and impartial consideration of which I am capable. The
public has a full right to it; and this great city, a main pillar in the
commercial interest of Great Britain, must totter on its base by the
slightest mistake with regard to our American measures.

Thus much, however, I think it not amiss to lay before you,--that I am
not, I hope, apt to take up or lay down my opinions lightly. I have
held, and ever shall maintain, to the best of my power, unimpaired and
undiminished, the just, wise, and necessary constitutional superiority
of Great Britain. This is necessary for America as well as for us. I
never mean to depart from it. Whatever may be lost by it, I avow it. The
forfeiture even of your favor, if by such a declaration I could forfeit
it, though the first object of my ambition, never will make me disguise
my sentiments on this subject.

But--I have ever had a clear opinion, and have ever held a constant
correspondent conduct, that this superiority is consistent with all the
liberties a sober and spirited American ought to desire. I never mean to
put any colonist, or any human creature, in a situation not becoming a
free man. To reconcile British superiority with American liberty shall
be my great object, as far as my little faculties extend. I am far from
thinking that both, even yet, may not be preserved.

When I first devoted myself to the public service, I considered how I
should render myself fit for it; and this I did by endeavoring to
discover what it was that gave this country the rank it holds in the
world. I found that our prosperity and dignity arose principally, if not
solely, from two sources: our Constitution, and commerce. Both these I
have spared no study to understand, and no endeavor to support.

The distinguishing part of our Constitution is its liberty. To preserve
that liberty inviolate seems the particular duty and proper trust of a
member of the House of Commons. But the liberty, the only liberty, I
mean is a liberty connected with order: that not only exists along with
order and virtue, but which cannot exist at all without them. It inheres
in good and steady government, as in its substance and vital principle.

The other source of our power is commerce, of which you are so large a
part, and which cannot exist, no more than your liberty, without a
connection with many virtues. It has ever been a very particular and a
very favorite object of my study, in its principles, and in its details.
I think many here are acquainted with the truth of what I say. This I
know,--that I have ever had my house open, and my poor services ready,
for traders and manufacturers of every denomination. My favorite
ambition is, to have those services acknowledged. I now appear before
you to make trial, whether my earnest endeavors have been so wholly
oppressed by the weakness of my abilities as to be rendered
insignificant in the eyes of a great trading city; or whether you choose
to give a weight to humble abilities, for the sake of the honest
exertions with which they are accompanied. This is my trial to-day. My
industry is not on trial. Of my industry I am sure, as far as my
constitution of mind and body admitted.

When I was invited by many respectable merchants, freeholders, and
freemen of this city to offer them my services, I had just received the
honor of an election at another place, at a very great distance from
this. I immediately opened the matter to those of my worthy constituents
who were with me, and they unanimously advised me not to decline it.
They told me that they had elected me with a view to the public service;
and as great questions relative to our commerce and colonies were
imminent that in such matters I might derive authority and support from
the representation of this great commercial city: they desired me,
therefore, to set off without delay, very well persuaded that I never
could forget my obligations to them or to my friends, for the choice
they had made of me. From that time to this instant I have not slept;
and if I should have the honor of being freely chosen by you, I hope I
shall be as far from slumbering or sleeping, when your service requires
me to be awake, as I have been in coming to offer myself a candidate for
your favor.




SPEECH

TO THE

ELECTORS OF BRISTOL,

ON HIS BEING DECLARED BY THE SHERIFFS DULY ELECTED ONE OF THE
REPRESENTATIVES IN PARLIAMENT FOR THAT CITY,

ON THURSDAY, THE 3D OF NOVEMBER, 1774.


Gentlemen,--I cannot avoid sympathizing strongly with the feelings of
the gentleman who has received the same honor that you have conferred on
me. If he, who was bred and passed his whole life amongst you,--if he,
who, through the easy gradations of acquaintance, friendship, and
esteem, has obtained the honor which seems of itself, naturally and
almost insensibly, to meet with those who, by the even tenor of pleasing
manners and social virtues, slide into the love and confidence of their
fellow-citizens,--if he cannot speak but with great emotion on this
subject, surrounded as he is on all sides with his old friends,--you
will have the goodness to excuse me, if my real, unaffected
embarrassment prevents me from expressing my gratitude to you as I
ought.

I was brought hither under the disadvantage of being unknown, even by
sight, to any of you. No previous canvass was made for me. I was put in
nomination after the poll was opened. I did not appear until it was far
advanced. If, under all these accumulated disadvantages, your good
opinion has carried me to this happy point of success, you will pardon
me, if I can only say to you collectively, as I said to you
individually, simply and plainly, I thank you,--I am obliged to you,--I
am not insensible of your kindness.

This is all that I am able to say for the inestimable favor you have
conferred upon me. But I cannot be satisfied without saying a little
more in defence of the right you have to confer such a favor. The person
that appeared here as counsel for the candidate who so long and so
earnestly solicited your votes thinks proper to deny that a very great
part of you have any votes to give. He fixes a standard period of time
in his own imagination, (not what the law defines, but merely what the
convenience of his client suggests,) by which he would cut off at one
stroke all those freedoms which are the dearest privileges of your
corporation,--which the Common Law authorizes,--which your magistrates
are compelled to grant,--which come duly authenticated into this
court,--and are saved in the clearest words, and with the most religious
care and tenderness, in that very act of Parliament which was made to
regulate the elections by freemen, and to prevent all possible abuses in
making them.

I do not intend to argue the matter here. My learned counsel has
supported your cause with his usual ability; the worthy sheriffs have
acted with their usual equity; and I have no doubt that the same equity
which dictates the return will guide the final determination. I had the
honor, in conjunction with many far wiser men, to contribute a very
small assistance, but, however, some assistance, to the forming the
judicature which is to try such questions. It would be unnatural in me
to doubt the justice of that court, in the trial of my own cause, to
which I have been so active to give jurisdiction over every other.

I assure the worthy freemen, and this corporation, that, if the
gentleman perseveres in the intentions which his present warmth dictates
to him, I will attend their cause with diligence, and I hope with
effect. For, if I know anything of myself, it is not my own interest in
it, but my full conviction, that induces me to tell you, _I think there
is not a shadow of doubt in the case_.

I do not imagine that you find me rash in declaring myself, or very
forward in troubling you. From the beginning to the end of the election,
I have kept silence in all matters of discussion. I have never asked a
question of a voter on the other side, or supported a doubtful vote on
my own. I respected the abilities of my managers; I relied on the candor
of the court. I think the worthy sheriffs will bear me witness that I
have never once made an attempt to impose upon their reason, to surprise
their justice, or to ruffle their temper. I stood on the hustings
(except when I gave my thanks to those who favored me with their votes)
less like a candidate than an unconcerned spectator of a public
proceeding. But here the face of things is altered. Here is an attempt
for a general _massacre_ of suffrages,--an attempt, by a promiscuous
carnage of _friends_ and _foes_, to exterminate above two thousand
votes, including _seven hundred polled for the gentleman himself who now
complains_, and who would destroy the friends whom he has obtained, only
because he cannot obtain as many of them as he wishes.

How he will be permitted, in another place, to stultify and disable
himself, and to plead against his own acts, is another question. The law
will decide it. I shall only speak of it as it concerns the propriety of
public conduct in this city. I do not pretend to lay down rules of
decorum for other gentlemen. They are best judges of the mode of
proceeding that will recommend them to the favor of their
fellow-citizens. But I confess I should look rather awkward, if I had
been _the very first to produce the new copies of freedom_,--if I had
persisted in producing them to the last,--if I had ransacked, with the
most unremitting industry and the most penetrating research, the
remotest corners of the kingdom to discover them,--if I were then, all
at once, to turn short, and declare that I had been sporting all this
while with the right of election, and that I had been drawing out a
poll, upon no sort of rational grounds, which disturbed the peace of my
fellow-citizens for a month together;--I really, for my part, should
appear awkward under such circumstances.

It would be still more awkward in me, if I were gravely to look the
sheriffs in the face, and to tell them they were not to determine my
cause on my own principles, nor to make the return upon those votes upon
which I had rested my election. Such would be my appearance to the court
and magistrates.

But how should I appear to the _voters_ themselves? If I had gone round
to the citizens entitled to freedom, and squeezed them by the
hand,--"Sir, I humbly beg your vote,--I shall be eternally
thankful,--may I hope for the honor of your support?--Well!--come,--we
shall see you at the Council-House."--If I were then to deliver them to
my managers, pack them into tallies, vote them off in court, and when I
heard from the bar,--"Such a one only! and such a one forever!--he's my
man!"--"Thank you, good Sir,--Hah! my worthy friend! thank you
kindly,--that's an honest fellow,--how is your good family?"--Whilst
these words were hardly out of my mouth, if I should have wheeled round
at once, and told them,--"Get you gone, you pack of worthless fellows!
you have no votes,--you are usurpers! you are intruders on the rights of
real freemen! I will have nothing to do with you! you ought never to
have been produced at this election, and the sheriffs ought not to have
admitted you to poll!"--

Gentlemen, I should make a strange figure, if my conduct had been of
this sort. I am not so old an acquaintance of yours as the worthy
gentleman. Indeed, I could not have ventured on such kind of freedoms
with you. But I am bound, and I will endeavor, to have justice done to
the rights of freemen,--even though I should at the same time be obliged
to vindicate the former[17] part of my antagonist's conduct against his
own present inclinations.

I owe myself, in all things, to _all_ the freemen of this city. My
particular friends have a demand on mo that I should not deceive their
expectations. Never was cause or man supported with more constancy, more
activity, more spirit. I have been supported with a zeal, indeed, and
heartiness in my friends, which (if their object had been at all
proportioned to their endeavors) could never be sufficiently commended.
They supported me upon the most liberal principles. They wished that the
members for Bristol should be chosen for the city, and for their country
at large, and not for themselves.

So far they are not disappointed. If I possess nothing else, I am sure I
possess the temper that is fit for your service. I know nothing of
Bristol, but by the favors I have received, and the virtues I have seen
exerted in it.

I shall ever retain, what I now feel, the most perfect and grateful
attachment to my friends,--and I have no enmities, no resentments. I
never can consider fidelity to engagements and constancy in friendships
but with the highest approbation, even when those noble qualities are
employed against my own pretensions. The gentleman who is not so
fortunate as I have been in this contest enjoys, in this respect, a
consolation full of honor both to himself and to his friends. They have
certainly left nothing undone for his service.

As for the trifling petulance which the rage of party stirs up in little
minds, though it should show itself even in this court, it has not made
the slightest impression on me. The highest flight of such clamorous
birds is winged in an inferior region of the air. We hear them, and we
look upon them, just as you, Gentlemen, when you enjoy the serene air on
your lofty rocks, look down upon the gulls that skim the mud of your
river, when it is exhausted of its tide.

I am sorry I cannot conclude without saying a word on a topic touched
upon by my worthy colleague. I wish that topic had been passed by at a
time when I have so little leisure to discuss it. But since he has
thought proper to throw it out, I owe you a clear explanation of my poor
sentiments on that subject.

He tells you that "the topic of instructions has occasioned much
altercation and uneasiness in this city"; and he expresses himself (if I
understand him rightly) in favor of the coercive authority of such
instructions.

Certainly, Gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of a
representative to live in the strictest union, the closest
correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his
constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their
opinions high respect; their business unremitted attention. It is his
duty to sacrifice his repose, his _pleasure_, _his satisfactions_, _to
theirs_,--and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their
interest to his own.

But his unbiased opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened
conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set
of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure,--no, nor
from the law and the Constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for
the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes
you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of
serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

My worthy colleague says, his will ought to be subservient to yours. If
that be all, the thing is innocent. If government were a matter of will
upon any side, yours, without question, ought to be superior. But
government and legislation are matters of reason and judgment, and not
of inclination; and what sort of reason is that in which the
determination precedes the discussion, in which one set of men
deliberate and another decide, and where those who form the conclusion
are perhaps three hundred miles distant from those who hear the
arguments?

To deliver an opinion is the right of all men; that of constituents is a
weighty and respectable opinion, which a representative ought always to
rejoice to hear, and which he ought always most seriously to consider.
But _authoritative_ instructions, _mandates_ issued, which the member is
bound blindly and implicitly to obey, to vote, and to argue for, though
contrary to the clearest conviction of his judgment and
conscience,--these are things utterly unknown to the laws of this land,
and which arise from a fundamental mistake of the whole order and tenor
of our Constitution.

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