: ^/ •*v » : .^ •'SIR' /°-v : . 1 fp^ v^R* ^°* • 11 « • • *. &' • V < A Complete Course in the Study of English. Spelling, Language, Grammar, Composition, Literature. Reed's Word Lessons-A Complete Speller. Reed's Introductory Language Work. Reed & Kellogg'S Graded Lessons in English. Reed & Kellogg'S Higher Lessons in English. Reed & Kellogg'S One-Book Course in English. Kellogg'S Text-Book on Rhetoric. Kellogg'S Text-Book on English Literatur ,,. In the preparation of this series the authors have had one object clearly in view — to so develop the study of the English language as to present a complete, progressive course, from the Spelling-Book to the study of English Literature. The troublesome contradictions which arise in using books arranged by different authors on these subjects, and which require much time for explanation in the school- room, will be avoided by the use of the above "Complete Course Teachers are earnestly invited to examine these books. MAYNARD, MERRILL & Co., Publishers, 43, 45 and 47 East Tenth St., New York. Copyright, 1893. By MAYNARD, MERRILL & CO. A Bkief Biogkaphy of Bukke. Edmund Burke was born of Irish parents, in Dublin, 1729, or, according to E.J. Payne, one of his editors, Jan. 1, 1730, O.S. ; was one of fifteen children ; father, a solicitor in good practice ; mother, a Miss Nagle before marriage, a Roman Catholic ; her daughters brought up in that faith, but Edmund and his brothers were bred in their father's religion ; a pupil in 1741 at Balitore, 30 miles from Dublin, of the Quaker, Abraham Shackleton ; hon- ored and loved this teacher and his son ; an omniverous reader, passionately fond of Virgil especially ; took his bachelor's degree at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1748; a contemporary there of Goldsmith ; went to London, 1750 ; supported there by his father for six years, during which time he was studying law ; thought that law "does more to quicken and invigorate the understanding than all the other kinds of learning put together, but it is not apt to open and to liberalize the mind exactly in the same proportion ;" a member of Macklin's debating society, 1754 ; gave up all notion of law as a profession and adopted literature. Married, in 1756 probably, a Miss Nugent, a Catholic, though conforming afterwards to her husband's religion. Birrell says, • * Burke's wife was also the offspring of a ' mixed marriage,' only in her case it was the father who was a Catholic; consequently, Mr. and Mrs. Burke were of the same way of thinking, but each had a parent of the other way ;" Vindication of Natural Society {in imitation and in ridicule of Bolingbroke's attack upon Christian- ity), and A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas on the Sublime and Beautiful, 1756 ; allowed £200 a year by his father, 1756 ; editor, 1758-1788, at £100 a year, of the Annual Register, a summary of the great events of the world ; Account of European Settlements in America, and Abridgment of English History, 1757 ; secretary of the Chief Secretary of Ireland, Wm. Gerard Hamilton, 1761-63 ; Hamilton got Burke a pension of £300 3 4 A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF BURKE. a year from the Irish treasury; and then, supposing he owned him, H. sought to hold Burke exclusively in his service. Burke threw up the pension, and then denounced H. as an infamous scoundrel. After sowing the seeds of war with the Colonies, Grenville's ministry was dismissed, 1765 ; Lord Rockingham came into power, with Burke as his private secretary ; Rockingham's ministry in office one year and twenty days ; Burke's intellectual superi- ority acknowledged by all the members of Rockingham's cabinet and party ; Burke, M. P. for Wendover, 1765 ; maiden speech in House of Commons, Jan. 27, 1766, complimented by Pitt ; spoke on the complaints of the American Colonies a little later ; bought a house and an estate of 600 (Birrell says 1600) acres in Bucking- hamshire, 24 miles from London, for £22,000, 1768 or 1769 ; £14,000 remained on mortgage till Mrs. B. sold the estate in 1812 ; always desperately in debt, though Dr. Brocklesburg gave him £1000, Reynolds £4000, Garrick lent him £1000, and his obligations to Lord Rockingham, amounting to £30,000, were canceled at Lord R.'s death, in 1782 ; Observations on the Present State of the Nation, 1769 ; a tireless pamphleteer ; pamphlet on Present Discontents; 1770 ; denied that he was the author or that he knew the author of the Letters of Junius. Burke on the American side in our Revolutionary struggle ; his " attitude in this great contest is that part of his history about the majestic and noble wisdom of which there can be least dis- pute ;" in France, 1773, and saw the dauphiness, Marie Antoinette, " decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in ;" Speech on Relief of Protestant Dissenters, 1773 ; M. P. for Bristol, 1774-80 ; Speech on American Taxation, April 19, 1774, on Conciliation with the Colonies, March 22, 1775, and the Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol, 1777, " compose the most perfect manual in our literature, or in any literature, for one who ap- proaches the study of public affairs ;" Address to the King, 1777 ; Two Letters to Gentlemen in Bristol, 1778 ; Speech on Economic Reform, 1780 ; M. P. for Malton, 1780 ; made paymaster of the forces, with a salary of £4000, 1780. Member of the famous Literary Club founded by Reynolds in 1764 ; fellow-members were Johnson, Reynolds, Goldsmith, Dr. Burney, Fox, Gibbon, Sheridan, Adam Smith, Langton, Wind- A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF BURKE. liarn, Garrick, Beauclerk, and others. Johnson the autocrat, but Burke the most learned and able ; club met at Turk's Head, Gerard street, Monday evenings ; Burke munificently generous and hospitable ; used his great influence in behalf of the poor and modest Crabbe, and was sympathetic with all sorts and conditions of men struggling for a living ; Speech on Fox's East India Bill, 1783 ; Speech on Nabob of Arcofs Debts, 1785 ; the great "man- ager " in the Impeachment of Warren Hastings, begun February, 1788, and ending April, 1795, the opening scene of which is so graphically pictured by Macaulay ; the case before the House of Lords 148 days, Burke speaking 14; " Hasting's acquitted, but tyranny, deceit, and injustice condemned ;" Reflections on the French Revolution, 1790 ; breaks off with his best of friends, Fox, 1790 ; Appeal from the New to the Old Wliigs, Letter to a Mem- ber of the National Assembly, and Thoughts on French Affairs, 1-791 ; Observations on Conduct of the Ministry and Remarks on Policy of Allies, 1793 ; death of his only son, Richard, August, 1794, put an end to the project for making Burke Lord Beacons- field ; Report on the Lords' Journals, 1794 ; retired from Parlia- ment, 1794 ; Thoughts and Details on Scarcity, 1795 ; Letter to a Noble Lord audi Letters on Regicide Peace, 1795 ; death, July, 1797, in the 68th year of his age. General Remarks on Present Discontents. Present Discontents seems to have been written as a letter and addressed to a retired member of Parliament, a Mr. White. It was then recast as a pamphlet and submitted for criticism to the chiefs of the Rockingham faction of the Whig party — the faction to which Mr. Burke belonged. But * ' every line of the work is unmistakably from the pen of Burke." It is not, perhaps, Burke's most characteristic production. It was written before he came fully to his mastery of his great powers. It is not a speech. The topic did not stimulate his imagination to its utmost, make heavy drafts upon his exhaust- less stores of learning, or call for his wonted copious, exuberant, and splendid diction and resplendent rhetoric. Says E. J. Payne, the editor of his " Select Works " for the Clarendon Press Series, " The Present Discontents is a political pamphlet of the old school. The style is mainly pedestrian, relieved by some touches of humor, and by a few passages of a descriptive character. It contains much solid reasoning, but no rhetoric except that of facts or alleged facts. Great attention has been paid to style and finish, though no superfluities have been admitted, and there is a certain affectation of plainness intended to sustain the author's assumed character of a private citizen. The facts are admirably marshaled, and it is clear that long meditation in the author's mind has given the principal arguments a well-rounded form. . . . The pamphlet itself seems to have been commenced shortly after the unusually early prorogation of Parliament in May, 1769, when the turbulence of the freeholders of Middlesex was extend- ing to the country at large." Mr. John Morley says, "The king [George III.] intended to reassert the old right of choosing his own ministers. George II. had made strenuous but futile endeavors to the same end. His son, the father of George III., Frederick, Prince of Wales, was equally bent on throwing off the yoke of the great Whig combina- 7 8 GENERAL REMARKS ON PRESENT DISCONTENTS. tions and making his own cabinets. George III. was only con- tinuing the purpose of his father and his grandfather." Contrasting Burke's pamphlet with Swift's tract On the Conduct of the Allies, 1711, of which Morley says, "There is not a sen- tence in it which does not belong exclusively to the matter in hand, not a line of that general wisdom which is for all time," Mr. Morley adds, " In the Present Discontents the method is just the opposite of this. The details are slurred, and they are not literal. Burke describes with excess of elaboration how the new system is a system of double cabinets — one put forward with nominal powers in Parliament; the other concealed behind the throne, and secretly dictating the policy." There is no single speech of Burke which can convey a satis- factory idea of his powers of mind. To do him justice, it would be necessary to quote all his works : the only specimen of Burke is, all he wrote. — Hazlitt. Burke will always be read with delight and edification, because in the midst of discussions on the local and the accidental, he scatters apophthegms that take us into the regions of lasting wisdom. Burke is among the greatest of those who have wrought marvels in the prose of our English tongue. — John Morley. "As an eloquent and philosophic political character, Burke stands alone. His intellect was at once exact, minute, and com- prehensive, and his imagination rich and vigorous. As to his style, he is remarkable for the copiousness and freedom of his diction, the splendor and great variety of his imagery, his aston- ishing command of general truths, and the ease with which he seems to wield those fine weapons of language, which most writers are able to manage only by the most anxious care." Thoughts on the Cause»of the Pbesent Discontents. INTRODUCTION. 1.* Discontent in General. — It is an undertaking of some degree of delicacy to examine into the cause of public disor- ders. If a man happens not to succeed in such an inquiry, he will be thought weak and visionary ; if he touches the true grievance, there is a danger that he may come near to persons 5 of weight and consequence, who will rather be exasperated at the discovery of their errors than thankful for the occasion of correcting them. If he should be obliged to blame the favor- ites of the people, he will be considered as the tool of power ; if he censures those in power, he will be looked on as an in- 10 strument of faction. But in all exertions of duty something is to be hazarded. In cases of tumult and disorder, our law has invested every man, in some sort, with the authority of a magistrate. When the affairs of the nation are distracted, private people 15 are, by the spirit of that law, justified in stepping a little out 13. May be summoned by the officer to assist him . 15. Burke, though an M.P., writes as a private citizen. * The framework, consisting of chief points, divisions, and subdivisions, marked with Roman and Arabic notation and with letters, is the work of the editor, though the material for it, including even the wording, is in the speech itself. We place the pamphlet in this setting in order to aid the pupil. 9 10 CAUSE OE THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. of their ordinary sphere. They enjoy a privilege of somewhat more dignity and effect than that of idle lamentation over the calamities of their country. They may look into them narrow- ly ; they may reason upon them liberally ; and, if they should 5 be so fortunate as to discover the true source of the mischief and to suggest any probable method of removing it, though they may displease the rulers for the day, they are certainly of service to the cause of government. Government is deeply interested in everything which, even through the medium of 10 some temporary uneasiness, may tend finally to compose the minds of the subject and to conciliate their affections. I have nothing to do here with the abstract value of the voice of» the people. But as long as reputation, the most precious possession of every individual, and as long as opinion, J 5 the great support of the state, depend entirely upon that voice, it can never be considered as a thing of little consequence either to individuals or to government. Nations are not pri- marily ruled by laws; less by violence. "Whatever original energy may be supposed either in force or regulation, the 20 operation of both is, in truth, merely instrumental. Nations are governed by the same methods and on the same principles by which an individual without authority is often able to gov- ern those who are his equals or his superiors — by a knowledge of their temper and by a judicious management of it : I mean 25 when public affairs are steadily and quietly conducted ; not when government is nothing but a continued scuffle between the magistrate and the multitude, in which sometimes the one and sometimes the other is uppermost, in which they alter- nately yield and prevail in a series of contemptible victories 3° and scandalous submissions. The temper of the people amongst whom he presides ought therefore to be the first study of a statesman. And the knowledge of this temper it is by no means impossible for him to attain, if he has not an inter- est in being ignorant of what it is his duty to learn. . . . 35 2. The Present Discontents. — Nobody, I believe, will con- 13. What does Cassio in Othello say of reputation ? CAUSE OP THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 11 sider it merely as the language of spleen or disappointment, if I say that there is something particularly alarming in the present conjuncture. There is hardly a man in or out of power who holds any other language. That government is at once dreaded and contemned ; that the laws are despoiled of 5 all their respected and salutary terrors ; that their inaction is a subject of ridicule and their exertion of abhorrence ; that rank and office and title and all the solemn plausibilities of the world have lost their reverence and effect ; that our foreign politics are as much deranged as our domestic economy ; that 10 our dependencies are slackened in their affection and loos- ened from their obedience ; that we know neither how to yield nor how to enforce ; that hardly anything above or below, abroad or at home, is sound and entire ; but that disconnection and confusion, in offices, in parties, in families, in Parliament, 15 in the nation, prevail beyond the disorders of any former time ;— these are facts universally admitted and lamented. This state of things is the more extraordinary, because the great parties which formerly divided and agitated the kingdom are known to be in a manner entirely dissolved. No great 20 external calamity has visited the nation, no pestilence or famine. We do not labor at present under any scheme of taxation new or oppressive in the quantity or in the mode. Nor are we engaged in unsuccessful war, in which our mis- fortunes might easily pervert our judgment, and our minds, 25 sore from the loss of national glory, might feel every blow of fortune as a crime in government. * Through two pages Burke gives the views of the ministry respecting the cause of these discontents — the wicked industry of libelers of the government, the intrigues of disappointed poli- 30 ticians, and the perverse disposition of the people. Then follows a page in eloquent 3. Defense of the People. — 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 35 * We are obliged to cut down the pamphlet somewhat. When the omis- sion is of any length, we shall, as here, give in our own words the gist of the omitted pages, _ 12 CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. this. But I do say that in all disputes between them and their riders 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 5 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 far otherwise. They cer- io tainly may act ill by design as well as by mistake. ' ' Les revo- lutions qui arrivent dans les grands etats ne sont point un effet du hazard, ni du caprice des peuples. . . . Pour la populace, ce rtest jamais par envie d'attaquer qiCelle se soideve, mais par impatience de souffrir.' 1 These are the words of a 15 great man — of a minister of state and a zealous asserter 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 revolu- tions is equally true of all great disturbances. If this pre- 20 sumption 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 administra- tion than to reform a people. Through three or four pages Burke argues that the people can- 25 not be said to endure no grievance because those of which they complain are not of the old fashion — Ship Money, Forest Laws, designs against Parliament. Tyranny alters its guise. Then fol- lows his first great topic — I. THE GREAT CAUSE OF THE DISCONTENTS IS THE SYSTEM OF THE DOUBLE CABINET RECENTLY IN- *~ TEODUCED. 1. An Outline of the Double Cabinet System. — At the 3° Kevolution, the crown, deprived, for the ends of the Kevolu- 10. " The revolutions that come to pass in great states are not the result of chance nor of popular caprice. ... As for the populace, it is never from a passion for attack that it rebels, but from impatience of suffering" (Mor- ley's rendering). 15. Sully, practically Henry IV. 's minister of finance during the greater part of his reign, CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 13 tion itself, of many prerogatives, was found too weak to strug- gle against all the difficulties which pressed so new and un- settled 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 establish- 5 ment. Such men were able to draw in a greater number to a concurrence in the common defense. This connection, neces- sary at first, continued long after convenient ; and, properly conducted, might indeed in all situations be a useful instru- ment of government. At the same time, through the inter- 10 vention 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 in- 15 cumbrances. The powerful managers for government were not sufficiently submissive to the pleasure of the possessors of im- mediate 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 coun- 20 try 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 ap- pearance between the court and the leaders of parties, became in many cases an accession rather to the popular than to the 25 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 30 3. There is good usage for this form of expression, and equally good for that seen in such a new. etc. 3. In the reign of William and Mary, the ministry, or cabinet, as here de- scribed, came into existence. The mode of its appointment and the tenure of its office are essentially the same now as then. It is made up of the leaders of the party in power in the House of Commons, and holds office as long as it can command a majority in this House. When it fails of this, the sovereign sends for the chief of the opposing party and asks him to form a cabinet. This in its tux*n is the executive branch of the government till the majority deserts it. 27. Mortmain. Possession of lands or tenements in hands that cannot alienate. 14 CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 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 5 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 impor- tance, and to secure to the court the unlimited and uncon- trolled use of its oam vast influence, under the sole direction of 10 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. Gov- ernment might then be carried on without any concurrence 15 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 Bruns- 20 wick. 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 25 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 30 the most eligible, that idea was soon abandoned. The instru- mental 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. 20. Who was the first of this House on the English throne ? Trace the con- nection between this House and that of the Stuarts. 23. The Earl of Bute. 27. Though etymologically suggesting two, whether may, as here, be used, with three things, or with more: it often is used with one only. CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 15 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 ad- 5 ministration were to be formed : one which should be in the real secret and confidence, the other merely ostensible, to per- form 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 10 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 15 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, 20 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 con- nections and dependencies among subjects were to be entirely 25 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 30 importance was to be their very title to delegated power. Members of Parliament were to be hardened into an insensibil- ity to pride as well as to duty. Those high and haughty senti- ments, which are the great support of independence, were to be let down gradually. Points of honor and precedence were 35 no more to be regarded in parliamentary decorum than in a Turkish army. It was to be avowed, as a constitutional 16 CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 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 5 on as if perfectly unconcerned, while a cabal of the closet and back-stairs was substituted in the place of a national adminis- tration. With such a degree of acquiescence, any measure of any court might well be deemed thoroughly secure. The capital 10 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 15 be held : so that no person looking towards another, and all looking towards the court, it was impossible but that the mo- tive 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 in- 20 stitutions whatever. Through some nine pages Burke speaks (1) of the advantages which the king possessed over his predecessors in facilitating the introduction of the Double Cabinet System ; (2) of the plan to de- stroy everything not deriving its nourishment from the court — 25 the Whig party and Mr. Pitt and its other leaders ; (3) of the tyranny which the Cabal favoring the new scheme of govern- ment claimed that gentlemen and even the king endured at the hands of the old ministry ; (4) of the growth of an aristocratic power prejudicial to the rights of the crown and the balance of 30 the constitution, and calling for a check. 2. The Details of the Double Cabinet System. — It must be remembered that since the Kevolution, until the period we are speaking of, the influence of the crown had been always employed in supporting the ministers of state and in carry- 35 ing on the public business according to their opinions. But the party now in question is formed upon a very different idea. It is to intercept the favor, protection, and confidence of the crown in the passage to its ministers ; it is to come between them and their importance in Parliament ; it is to separate CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 17 them from all their natural and acquired dependencies ; it is intended as the control, not the support, of administration. The machinery of this system is perplexed in its movements and false in its principle. It is formed on a supposition that the king is something external to his government ; and that 5 he may be honored and aggrandized even by its debility and disgrace. The plan proceeds expressly on the idea of enfeeb- ling the regular executory power. It proceeds on the idea of weakening the state in order to strengthen the court. The scheme depending entirely on distrust, on disconnection, on 10 mutability by principle, on systematic weakness in every par- ticular member, it is impossible that the total result should be substantial strength of any kind. As a foundation of their scheme, the Cabal have established a sort of Rota in the court. All sorts of parties, by this 15 means, have been brought into administration, from whence few have had the good fortune to escape without disgrace, none at all without considerable losses. In the beginning of each arrangement no professions of confidence and support are wanting to induce the leading men to engage. But while the 20 Ministers of the day appear in all the pomp and pride of power, while they have all their canvas spread out to the wind, and every sail filled with the fair and prosperous gale of royal favor, in a short time they find, they know not how, a current which sets directly against them, which prevents all progress, 25 and even drives them backwards. They grow ashamed and mortified in a situation which, by its vicinity to power, only serves to remind them the more strongly of their insignificance. They are obliged either to execute the orders of their inferiors or to see themselves opposed by the natural instruments of their 30 office. With the loss of their dignity they lose their temper. 14. A Hebrew word. Names a junto or association of men. The initials of the names of the five mischievous advisers of Charles II. — Clifford, Ar- lington, Buckingham, Ashley, and Lauderdale — compose the word. That fact.brought the word into prominence. 15. Rota. A club established by J. Harrington in 1659 — originally the name of an ecclesiastical court at Rome. 15. " Every statesman of the day, except Lord Temple," was lured into office. 18 CAUSE OF THE PEESENT DISCONTENTS. In their turn they grow troublesome to that Cabal, which, whether it supports or opposes, equally disgraces and equally betrays them. It is soon found necessary to get rid of the heads of administration, but it is of the heads only. As there 5 always are many rotten members belonging to the best connec- tions, it is not hard to persuade several to continue in office without their leaders. By this means the party goes out much thinner than it came in, and is only reduced in strength by its temporary possession of power. Besides, if by accident or in 10 course of changes, that power should be recovered, the Junto have thrown up a retrenchment of these carcasses which may serve to cover themselves in a day of danger. They conclude, not unwisely, that such rotten members will become the first • objects of disgust and resentment to their ancient connections. 15 They contrive to form in the outward administration two parties at the least, which, whilst they are tearing one another to pieces, are both competitors for the favor and protection of the Cabal, and by their emulation contribute to throw every- thing more and more into the hands of the interior managers. 20 A minister of state will sometimes keep himself totally estranged from all his colleagues, will differ from them in their counsels, will privately traverse and publicly oppose thsir measures. He will, however, continue in his employment. Instead of suffering any mark of displeasure, he will be dis- 25 tinguished by an unbounded profusion of court rewards and caresses, because he does what is expected, and all that is expected, from men in office. He helps to keep some form of administration in being, and keeps it at the same time as weak and divided as possible. 30 However, we must take care not to be mistaken or to im- agine that such persons have any weight in their opposition. When, by them, administration is convinced of its insignifi- cancy, they are soon to be convinced of their own. They never are suffered to succeed in their opposition. They and 11. Retrenchment. Intrenchment. The figure of which this word is a part is strong, if not elegant. Burke has been accused of lack of refined taste. 16. One another. Still used, as here, with two things; may be used also with more than two. CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 19 the world .are to be satisfied that neither office, nor authority, nor property, nor ability, eloquence, counsel, skill, or union are of the least importance; but that the mere influence of the court, naked of all support and destitute of all management, is abundantly sufficient for all its own purposes. 5 When any adverse connection is to be destroyed, the Cabal seldom appear in the work themselves. They find out some person of whom the party entertains a high opinion. Such a person they endeavor to delude with various pretenses. They teach him first to distrust and then to quarrel with his 10 friends; among whom by the same arts they excite a similar diffidence of him; so that in this mutual fear and distrust he may suffer himself to be employed as the instrument in the change which is brought about. Afterwards they are sure to destroy him in his turn by setting up in his place some person 15 in whom he had himself reposed the greatest confidence, and who serves to carry off a considerable part of his adherents. When such a person has broken in this manner with his con- nections, he is soon compelled to commit some flagrant act of iniquitous personal hostility against some of them (such as an 20 attempt to strip a particular friend of his family estate), by which the Cabal hope to render the parties utterly irreconcil- able. In truth, they have so contrived matters that people have a greater hatred to the subordinate instruments than to the principal movers. „ As in destroying their enemies they make use of instruments not immediately belonging to their corps, so in advancing their own friends they pursue exactly the same method. To promote any of them to considerable rank or emolument they commonly take care that the recommendation shall pass 35 through the hands of the ostensible ministry: such a recom- mendation might, however, appear to the world as some proof of the credit of ministers and some means of increasing their 1. Note that " neither " and " nor " are here used with many terms. This is still good usage. 8. Alluding to the Duke of Grafton, one of Lord Rockingham's cabinet. Burke was Lord R.'s private secretary then. 15. This was done with the Duke of Grafton. 20 CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. strength. To prevent this, the persons so advanced are di- rected in all companies industriously to declare that they are under no obligations whatsoever to administration, that they have received their office from another quarter, that they are 5 totally free and independent. When the faction has any job of lucre to obtain or of ven- geance to perpetrate, their way is to select for the execution those very persons to whose habits, friendships, principles, and declarations such proceedings are publicly known to be iothe most adverse; at once to render the instruments the more odious, and therefore the more dependent, and to prevent the people from ever reposing a confidence in any appearance of private friendship or public principle. If the administration seem now and then, from remissness, *5 or from fear of making themselves disagreeable, to suffer any popular excesses to go unpunished, the Cabal immediately sets up some creature of theirs to raise a clamor against the min- isters as having shamefully betrayed the dignity of govern- ment. Then they compel the ministry to become active in 20 conferring rewards and honors on the persons w f ho have been the instruments of their disgrace; and, after having first vili- fied them with the higher orders for suffering the laws to sleep over the licentiousness of the populace, they drive them (in order to make amends for their former inactivity) to some 25 act of atrocious violence, which renders them completely abhorred by the people. They who remember the riots which attended the Middlesex election, the opening of the present Parliament, and the transactions relative to Saint George's Fields, will not be at a loss for an application of these 30 remarks. That this body may be enabled to compass all the ends of its institution, its members are scarcely ever to aim at the high and responsible offices of the state. They are distributed with art and judgment through all the secondary, but effi- 35 cient, departments of office, and through the households of all 17. Of theirs, of mine, etc. An idiom still in common use. CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 21 the branches of the royal family ; so as on one hand to oc- cupy all the avenues to the throne, and on the other to for- ward or frustrate the execution of any measure, according to their own interests. For with the credit and support which they are known to have, though for the greater part in places 5 which are only a genteel excuse for salary, they possess all the influence of the highest posts ; and they dictate publicly in almost everything, even with a parade of superiority. When- ever they dissent (as it often happens) from their nominal leaders, the trained part of the senate, instinctively in the 10 secret, is sure to follow them, provided the leaders, sensible of their situation, do not of themselves recede in time from their most declared opinions. This latter is generally the case. It will not be conceivable to any one who has not seen it, w r hat pleasure is taken by the Cabal in rendering these heads of 1 5 office thoroughly contemptible and ridiculous. And, when they are become so, they have then the best chance for being well supported. The members of the court faction are fully indemnified for not holding places on the slippery heights of the kingdom, not 20 only by the lead in all affairs but also by the perfect security in which they enjoy less conspicuous, but very advantageous, situations. Their places are, in express legal tenure or in effect, all of them for life. Whilst the first and most respect- able persons in the kingdom are tossed about like tennis balls, 25 the sport of a blind and insolent caprice, no minister dares even to cast an oblique glance at the lowest of their body. If an attempt be made upon one of this corps, immediately he flies to sanctuary and pretends to the most inviolable of all promises. No conveniency of public arrangement is available 30 to remove any one of them from the specific situation he holds, and the slightest attempt upon one of them, by the most powerful minister, is a certain preliminary to his own destruction. Conscious of their independence, they bear themselves with 35 24. All of theiii. An approved idiom. 22 CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. a lofty air to the exterior ministers. Like Janissaries, they derive a kind of freedom from the very condition of their servitude. They may act just as they please, provided they are true to the great ruling principle of their institution. It 5 is, therefore, not at all wonderful that people should be so desirous of adding themselves to that body, in which they may possess and reconcile satisfactions the most alluring and seemingly the most contradictor}' ; enjoying at once all the spirited pleasure of independence and all the gross lucre and 10 and fat emoluments of servitude. Here is a sketch, though a slight one, of the constitution, laws, and policy of this new court corporation. The name by which they choose to distinguish themselves is that of king's men, or the king's friends, by an invidious exclusion of the 15 rest of his majesty's most loyal and affectionate subjects. The whole system, comprehending the exterior and interior administrations, is commonly called, in the technical language of the court, Double Cabinet, — in Trench or English, as you choose to pronounce it. 20 Whether all this be a vision of a distracted brain or the in- vention of a malicious heart or a real faction in the country must be judged by the appearances which things have worn for eight years past. Thus far I am certain, that there is not a single public man, in or out of office, who has not at some 25 time or other borne testimony to the truth of what I have now related. In particular, no persons have been more strong in their assertions and louder and more indecent in their com- plaints than those who compose all the exterior part of the present administration ; in whose time that faction has ar- 30 rived at such a height of power, and of boldness in the use of it, as may in the end perhaps bring about its total destruction. Through two pages Burke speaks ( 1) of the administration of Lord Rockingham, and (2) of the Earl of Bute, the supposed head of the Cabal, 1. A privileged and powerful class of soldiers in the Turkish army, formed of converts from Christianity or of their sons. They set up and pulled down sultans. The order abolished in 1826. CAUSE OE THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 23 3. The Double Cabinet System at Variance with the Plan of the Legislature — Unconstitutional. — A plan of favoritism for our executory government is essentially at variance with the plan of our legislature. One great end un- doubtedly of a mixed government like ours, composed of 5 monarchy and of controls, on the part of the higher people and the lower, is, that the prince shall not be able to vio- late the laws. This is useful indeed and fundamental. But this, even at first view, is no more than a negative advan- tage, an armor merely defensive. It is therefore next in io order and equal in importance that the discretionary powers which are necessarily vested in the monarch, whether for the execution of the laws or for the nomination to magistracy and office or for conducting the affairs of peace and war or for ordering the revenue, should all be exercised upon public prin- 1 5 ciples and national grounds, and not on the likings or preju- dices, the intrigues or policies, of a court. This, I said, is equal in importance to the securing a government according to law. The laws reach but a very little way. Constitute government how you please, infinitely the greater part of it 20 must depend upon the exercise of the powers which are left at large to the prudence and uprightness of ministers of state. Even all the use and potency of the laws depends upon them. Without them, your commonwealth is no better than a scheme upon paper, and not a living, active, effective constitution. It 25 is possible that, through negligence or ignorance or design artfully conducted, ministers may suffer one part of govern- ment to languish, another to be perverted from its purposes, and every valuable interest of the country to fall into ruin and decay, without possibility of fixing any single act on 30 which a criminal prosecution can be justly grounded. The due arrangement of men in the active part of the state, far from being foreign to the purposes of a wise government, ought to be among its very first and clearest objects. When, therefore, the abettors of the new system tell us that between 35 18. This construction — a participle modified by the and having an object- has been criticised. But usage approves it. 24 CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. them and their opposers there is nothing but a struggle for i power and that therefore we are noways concerned in it, we must tell those who have the impudence to insult us in this manner that, of all things, we ought to be the most concerned 5 who and what sort of men they are that hold the trust of everything that is dear to us. Nothing can render this a point of indifference to the nation but what must either render us totally desperate or soothe us into the security of idiots. "We must soften into a credulity below the milkiness of infancy 10 to think all men virtuous. We must be tainted with a malig- nity truly diabolical to believe all the world to be equally wicked and corrupt. Men are in public life as in private — some good, some evil. The elevation of the one and the de- pression of the other are the first objects of all true policy. 15 But that form of government which, neither in its direct in- stitutions nor in their immediate tendency, has contrived to throw its affairs into the most trustworthy hands, but has left its whole executory system to be disposed of agreeably to the uncontrolled pleasure of any one man, however excellent 20 or virtuous, is a plan of policy defective not only in that member but consequentially erroneous in every part of it. In arbitrary governments, the constitution of the ministry follows the constitution of the legislature. Both the law and the magistrate are the creatures of will. It must be so. 25 Nothing, indeed, will appear more certain, on any tolerable consideration of this matter, than that every sort of govern- ment ought to have its administration correspondent to its legislature. If it should be otherwise, things must fall into a hideous disorder. The people of a free commonwealth, who 30 have taken such care that their laws should be the result of general consent, cannot be so senseless as to suffer their execu- tory system to be composed of persons on whom they have no dependence, and whom no proofs of the public love and 13. The one still refers to the more remote, the other to the nearer. 28. In our general government and in our state governments, the executive branch is not necessarily in accord with the legislative. Things here have not yet fallen into "hideous disorder." For a defense of the English sys- tem, see Bagehot, English Constitution, CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 25 confidence have recommended to those powers, upon the use of which the very being of the state depends. The popular election of magistrates, and popular disposition of rewards and honors, is one of the first advantages of a free state. Without it or something equivalent to it, perhaps the 5 people cannot long enjoy the substance of freedom, certainly none of the vivifying energy of good government. The frame of our commonwealth did not admit of such an actual elec- tion : but it provided as well, and (while the spirit of the con- stitution is preserved) better, for all the effects of it, than by 10 the method of suffrage in any democratic state whatsoever. It had always, until of late, been held the first duty of Parlia- ment to refuse to support government, until power was in the hands of persons who were acceptable to the people, or while factions predominated in the court in which the nation had 15 no confidence. Thus all the good effects of popular election were supposed to be secured to us, without the mischiefs attending on perpetual intrigue, and a distinct canvass for every particular office throughout the body of the people. This was the most noble and refined part of our constitution. 20 The people, by their representatives and grandees, were in- trusted with a deliberative power in making laws ; the king with the control of his negative. The king was intrusted with the deliberative choice and the election to office ; the people had the negative in a parliamentary refusal to support. 25 Formerly this power of control was what kept ministers in awe of parliaments and parliaments in reverence with the people. If the use of this power of control on the system and persons of administration is gone, everything is lost, Parlia- ment and all. "We may assure ourselves that if Parliament 30 will tamely see evil men take possession of all the strongholds of their country, and allow them time and means to fortify themselves, under a pretense of giving them a fair trial, and upon a hope of discovering whether they will not be reformed by power and whether their measures will not be better than 35 23. No English sovereign since Queen Anne has exercised the veto power, and she not after 1707. 26 CAUSE QF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. their morals, such a Parliament will give countenance to their measures also, whatever that Parliament may pretend, and whatever those measures may be. Every good political institution must have a preventive 5 operation as well as a remedial. It ought to have & natural tendency to exclude bad men from government, and not to trust for the safety of the state to subsequent punishment alone : punishment, which has ever been tardy and uncertain, and which, when power is suffered in bad hands, may chance 10 to fall rather on the injured than the criminal. Before men are put forward into the great trusts of the state, they ought by their conduct to have obtained such a degree of estimation in their country as may be some sort of pledge and security to the public, that they will not abuse 15 those trusts. It is no mean security for a proper use of power that a man has shown, by the general tenor of his actions, that the affection, the good opinion, the confidence of his fellow-citizens have been among the principal objects of his life ; and that he has owed none of the gradations of his 20 power or fortune to a settled contempt or occasional forfeiture of their esteem. That man who before he comes into power has no friends, or who coming into power is obliged to desert his friends, or who losing it has no friends to sympathize with him ; he who 25 has no sway among any part of the landed or commercial in- . terest, but whose whole importance has begun with his office and is sure to end with it, is a person who ought never to be suffered by a controlling Parliament to continue in any of those situations which confer the lead and direction of all our public 30 affairs, because such a man has no connection with the inter- est of the people. Those knots or cabals of men who have got together, avowedly without any public principle, in order to sell their conjunct iniquity at the higher rate, and are therefore univer- 35 sally odious, ought never to be suffered to domineer in the 32. Got. Still used to convey an idea of motion. CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 27 state, because they have no connection ivith the sentiments and opinions of the people. These are considerations which in my opinion enforce the necessity of having some better reason, In a free country and a free Parliament, for supporting the ministers of the crown, 5 than that short one, that the king has thought proper* to appoint them. There is something very courtly in this. But it is a principle pregnant with all sorts of mischief, in a con- stitution like ours, to turn the views of active men from the country to the court. Whatever be the road to power, that 10 is the road which will be trod. If the opinion of the country be of no use as a means of power or consideration, the quali- ties which usually procure that opinion will be no longer culti- vated. And whether it will be right, in a state so popular in its constitution as ours, to leave ambition without popular 15 motives and to trust all to the operation of pure virtue in the • minds of kings and ministers and public men, must be sub- mitted to the judgment and good sense of the people of Eng- land. Through three pages Burke states and answers the objection, 20 made by cunning men, that the people are divided into factions, and that if the king makes up his cabinet, or ministry, out of any one of these, he will disgust the rest ; if he chooses from all, he will disgust each. Then follows his second great topic — II. THE EFFECTS, OR CONSEQUENCES, OF THE DOUBLE CABINET SYSTEM. There is, in my opinion, a peculiar venom and malignity in 25 this political distemper beyond any that I have heard or read of. In former times the projectors of arbitrary government attacked only the liberties of their country, a design surely mischievous enough to have satisfied a mind of the most unruly ambition. But a system unfavorable to freedom may be so 30 formed as considerably to exalt the grandeur of the state ; and men may find in the pride and splendor of that prosperity some sort of consolation for the loss of their solid privileges. Indeed the increase of the power of the state has often been urged by artful men as a pretext for some abridgment of the 35 28 CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. public liberty. But the scheme of the junto under considera- tion not only strikes a palsy into every nerve of our free con- stitution but in the same degree benumbs and stupefies the ■whole executive power, rendering government in all its grand 5 operations languid, uncertain, ineffective, making ministers fearful of attempting, and incapable of executing, any useful plan of domestic arrangement or of foreign politics. It tends to produce neither the security of a free government nor the energy of a monarchy that is absolute. Accordingly, the crown io has dwindled away in proportion to the unnatural and turgid growth of this excrescence on the court. 1. Effects upon our Foreign Affairs, or Relations. — The interior ministry are sensible that war is a situation which sets in its full light the value of the hearts of a people ; and they 15 well know that the beginning of the importance of the people must be the end of theirs. For this reason they discover upon all occasions the utmost fear of everything which by possibility may lead to such an event. I do not mean that they manifest any of that pious fear which is backward to commit the safety 20 of the country to the dubious experiment of war. Such a fear, being the tender sensation of virtue, excited, as it is regulated, by reason, frequently shows itself in a seasonable boldness which keeps danger at a distance by seeming to despise it. Their fear betrays to the first glance of the eye its true cause and its real 25 object. Foreign powers, confident in the knowledge of their character, have not scrupled to violate the most solemn treaties, and, in defiance of them, to make conquests in the midst "of a general peace and in the heart of Europe. Such was the con- quest of Corsica by the professed enemies of the freedom of 3 o mankind, in defiance of those who were formerly its professed defenders. We have had just claims upon the same powers, rights which ought to have been sacred to them as well as to us, as they had their origin in our lenity and generosity towards France and Spain in the day of their great humiliation. Such 29 A word from England would have given Corsica her freedom. But in- stead, George III. in 1762 forbade his subjects to aid the Corsican rebels against Genoa. In 1768 Genoa ceded the island to France. CA.USE OE THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 29 I call the ransom of Manilla, and the demand on France for the East India prisoners. But these powers put a just con- fidence in their resource of the Double Cabinet. These de- mands (one of them at least) are hastening fast towards an acquittal by prescription. Oblivion begins to spread her cob- 5 webs over all our spirited remonstrances. Some of the most valuable branches of our trade are also on the point of perish- ing from the same cause. I do not mean those branches which bear without the hand of the vine-dresser ; I mean those which the policy of treaties had formerly secured to us ; I mean to 10 mark and distinguish the trade of Portugal, the loss of which and the power of the Cabal have one and the same era. . If, by any chance, the ministers who stand before the curtain possess or affect any spirit, it makes little or no impression. Foreign courts and ministers, who were among the first to 15 discover and to profit by this invention of the Double Cabinet, attended very little to their remonstrances. They know that those shadows of ministers have nothing to do in the ultimate disposal of things. Jealousies and animosities are sedulously nourished in the outward administration and have been even 20 considered as a causa sine qua non in its constitution : thence foreign courts have a certainty that nothing can be done by common counsel in this nation. If one of those ministers offi- cially takes up a business with spirit, it serves only the better to signalize the meanness of the rest and the discord of them 25 all. His colleagues in office are in haste to shake him off and to disclaim the whole of his proceedings. Of this nature was that astonishing transaction in which Lord Eochford, our ambassador at Paris, remonstrated against the attempt upon Corsica, in consequence of a direct authority from Lord Shel- 30 burne. This remonstrance the French minister treated with the contempt that was natural ; as he was assured, from the ambassador of his court to ours, that these orders of Lord Shelburne were not supported by the rest of the (I had like to 1. Manilla, lat. 14° 36' N. and long. 120° 52' E., the capital of the Philippine Islands, was taken, 1762, by Gen. Draper and Admiral Cornish, and the people released on promising a million sterling. 2. The garrison of Pondicherry, taken by Clive. 30 CAUSE OF THE PKESENT DISCONTENTS. have said British) administration. Lord Eochford, a man of spirit, could not endure this situation. The consequences were, however, curious. He returns from Paris and comes home full of anger. Lord Shelburne, who gave the orders, 5 is obliged to give up the seals. Lord Eochford, who obeyed these orders, receives them. He goes, however, into another department of the same office that he might not be obliged officially to acquiesce, in one situation, under what he had officially remonstrated against, in another. At Paris, the 10 Duke of Choiseul considered this office arrangement as a com- pliment to him : here it was spoken of as an attention to the delicacy of Lord Eochford. But, whether the compliment was to one or both, to this nation it was the same. By this transaction the condition of our court lay exposed in all its 15 nakedness. Our office correspondence has lost all pretense to authenticity ; British policy is brought into derision in those nations that a while ago trembled at the power of our arms, whilst they looked up with confidence to the equity, firmness, and candor which shone in all our negotiations. I represent 20 this matter exactly in the light in which it has been universally received. 2. Effects upon our Colonies. — Such has been the aspect of our foreign politics under the influence of a double cabinet. "With such an arrangement at court, it is impossible it should 35 have been otherwise. Nor is it possible that this scheme should have a better effect upon the government of our depend- encies, the first, the dearest, and most delicate objects of the interior policy of this empire. The colonies know that ad- ministration is separated from the court, divided within itself, 30 and detested by the nation. The double cabinet has, in both the parts of it, shown the most malignant dispositions towards them, without being able to do them the smallest mischief. They are convinced, by sufficient experience, that no plan, either of lenity or rigor, can be pursued with uniformity and 35 perseverance. Therefore they turn their eyes entirely from 10. Consider. May still be used for deem, regard^ as here. CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 31 Great Britain, where they have neither dependence on friend- . ship nor apprehension from enmity. They look to themselves and their own arrangements. They grow every day into alienation from this country ; and, whilst they are becoming disconnected with our government, we have not the consola- 5 tion to find that they are even friendly in their new inde- pendence. Nothing can equal the futility, the weakness, the rashness, the timidity, the perpetual contradiction in the management of our affairs in that part of the world. A vol- ume might be written on this melancholy subject, but it were 10 better to leave it entirely to the reflections of the reader him- self than not to treat it in the extent it deserves. 3. Effects upon our Domestic Economy, or the Temper of the People. — In what manner our domestic economy is af- fected by this system, it is needless to explain. It is the per- 15 petual subject of their own complaints. The. court party resolve the whole into faction. Having said something before upon this subject, I shall only observe here that, when they give this account of the prevalence of faction, they present no very favorable aspect of the confi- 20 dence of the people in their own government. They may be assured that, however they amuse themselves with a variety of projects for substituting .something else in the place of that great and only foundation of government, the confidence of the people, every attempt will but make their condition worse. 25 When men imagine that their food is only a cover for poison, and when they neither love nor trust the hand that serves it, it is not the name of the roast beef of Old England that will per- suade them to sit down to the table that is spread for them. When the people conceive that laws and tribunals and even 30 popular assemblies are perverted from the ends of their insti- tution, they find in those names of degenerated establishments only new motives to discontent. Those bodies which, when full of life and beauty, lay in their arms and were their joy and comfort, when dead and putrid become but the more 35 loathsome from remembrance of former endearments. A sul- len gloom and furious disorder prevail by fits : the nation loses 32 CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. •its relish for peace and prosperity, as it did in that season of fullness which opened our troubles in the time of Charles the First. A species of men to whom a state of order would be- come a sentence of obscurity are nourished into a dangerous 5 magnitude by the heat of intestine disturbances ; and it is no wonder that, by a sort of sinister piety, they cherish, in their turn, the disorders which are the parents of all their conse- quence. Superficial observers consider such persons as the cause of the public uneasiness, when, in truth, they are nothing io more than the effect of it. Good men look upon this distracted scene with sorrow and indignation. Their hands are tied be- hind them. They are despoiled of all the power which might enable them to reconcile the strength of government with the rights of the people. They stand in a most distressing alter- 15 native. But in the election among evils they hope better things from temporary confusion than from established servi- tude. In the mean time, the voice of law is not to be heard. Fierce licentiousness begets violent restraints. The military arm is the sole reliance ; and then, call your constitution what 20 you please, it is the sword that governs. The civil power, like every other that calls in the aid of an ally stronger than itself, perishes by the assistance it receives. But the contrivers of this scheme of government will not trust solely to the military power, because they are cunning men. Their restless and 25 crooked spirit drives them to rake in the dirt of every kind of expedient. Unable to rule the multitude, they endeavor to raise divisions amongst them. One mob is hired to destroy another ; a procedure which at once encourages the boldness of the populace and justly increases their discontent. Men 30 become pensioners of state on account of their abilities in the array of riot and the discipline of confusion. Government is put under the disgraceful necessity of protecting from the severity of the laws that very licentiousness which the laws had been before violated to repress. Everything partakes of 35 the original disorder. Anarchy predominates without free- 3. With whom the civil war began in 1642, and who lost his head in 1649. CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 33 dom, and servitude without submission or subordination. These are the consequences, inevitable to our public peace, from the scheme of rendering the executory government at once odious and feeble ; of freeing administration from the constitutional and salutary control of Parliament, and invent- 5 ing for it a new control, unknown to the constitution, an interior cabinet, which brings the whole body of government into confusion and contempt. 4. Effects upon the King. — After having stated, as shortly as I am able, the effects of this system on our foreign affairs, 10 on the policy of our government with regard to our depend- encies, and on the interior economy of the commonwealth, there remains only, in this part of my design, to say something of the grand principle which first recommended this system at court. The pretense was to prevent the king from, being en- 15 slaved by a faction and made a prisoner in his closet. This scheme might have been expected to answer at least its own end, and to indemnify the king, in his personal capacity, for all the confusion into which it has thrown his government. But has it in reality answered this purpose ? I am sure, if it 20 had, every affectionate subject would have one motive for en- during with patience all the evils which attend it. In order to come at the truth in this matter, it may not be amiss to consider it somewhat in detail. I speak here of the king and not of the crown, the interests of which we have 25 already touched. Independent of that greatness which a king possesses merely by being a representative of the national dig- nity, the things in which he may have an individual interest seem to be these : wealth accumulated ; wealth spent in mag- nificence, pleasure, or beneficence ; personal respect and atten- 30 tion ; and, above all, private ease and repose of mind. These compose the inventory of prosperous circumstances, whether they regard a prince or a subject ; their enjoyments differing only in the scale upon which they are formed. (a) Beggared his Exchequer. — Suppose then we were to 35 •9. Shortly. Still used for briefly in England, but not on this side of the water. 34 CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. ask whether the king has been richer than his predecessors in& accumulated wealth, since the establishment of the plan of favoritism ? I believe it will be found that the picture of royal indigence which our court has presented until this year 5 has been truly humiliating. ISTor has it been relieved from this unseemly distress but by means which have hazarded the affection of the people and shaken their confidence in Parlia- ment. If the public treasures had been exhausted in magnifi- cence and splendor, this distress would have been accounted ro for and in some measure justified. Nothing would be more unworthy of this nation than with a mean and mechanical rule to mete out the splendor of the crown. Indeed I have found very fe w persons disposed to so ungenerous a procedure. But the generality of people, it must be confessed, do feel a 1 5 good deal mortified when they compare the wants of the court with its expenses. They do not behold the cause of this distress in any part of the apparatus of royal magnificence. In all this, they see nothing but the operations of parsimony, attended with all the consequences of profusion. Nothing ex- sopended, nothing saved. Their wonder is increased by their knowledge that, besides the revenue settled on his majesty's civil list to the amount of £800,000 a year, he has a farther aid, from a large pension list, near £90,000 a year, in Ireland ; from the produce of the Duchy of Lancaster (which we are told 25 has been greatly improved) ; from the revenue of the Duchy of Cornwall ; from the American quit-rents ; from the four and a half per cent duty in the Leeward Islands, this last worth to be sure considerably more than £40,000 a year. The whole is certainly not much short of a million annually. 30 (6) Tarnished his Splendor. — These are revenues within the knowledge and cognizance of our national councils. We have no direct right to examine into the receipts from his majesty's German dominions and the bishopric of Osnaburg. 13. We may use this form or say such an ungenerous. Usage sanctions both forms. 15. We may say a good deal, a good many, or a great deal, a great many. 33. Bishopric, etc. "Bestowed by the king upon his son, a new-born child, before he was christened." CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 35 This is unquestionably true. But that which is not within the province of Parliament is yet within the sphere of every man's own reflection. If a foreign prince resided amongst us, the state of his revenues could not fail of becoming the subject of our speculation. Filled with an anxious concern for what- 5 ever regards the welfare of our sovereign, it is impossible, in considering the miserable circumstances into which he has been brought, that this obvious topic should be entirely passed over. There is an opinion universal that these revenues pro- duce something not inconsiderable, clear of all charges and 10 establishments. This produce the people do not believe to be hoarded nor perceive to be spent. It is accounted for in the only manner it can, by supposing that it is drawn away for the support of that court faction, which, whilst it distresses the nation, impoverishes the prince in every one of his re- 15 sources. I once more caution the reader that I do not urge this consideration concerning the foreign revenue as if I sup- posed we had a direct right to examine into the expenditure of any part of it, but solely for the purpose of showing how little this system of favoritism has been advantageous to the 20 monarch himself ; which, without magnificence, has sunk him into a state of unnatural poverty, at the same time that he possessed every means of affluence, from ample revenues both in this country and in other parts of his dominions. (c) Sunk his Dignity. — Has this system provided better 25 for the treatment becoming his high and sacred character, and secured the king from those disgusts attached to the necessity of employing men who are not personally agreeable ? This is a topic upon which for many reasons I could wish to be silent, but the pretense of securing against such causes of uneasiness 30 is the corner-stone of the court party. It has however so happened that, if I were to fix upon any one point in w r hich this system has been more particularly and shamefully blam- able, the effects which it has produced would justify me in choosing for that point its tendency to degrade the personal 35 dignity of the sovereign and to expose him to a thousand contradictions and mortifications. It is but too evident in 36 CAtfSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. what manner these projectors of royal greatness have ful- filled all their magnificent promises. Without recapitulating all the circumstances of the reign, every one of which is more or less a melancholy proof of the truth of what I have ad- 5 vanced, let us consider the language of the court but a few years ago concerning most of the persons now in the external Administration ; let me ask whether any enemy to the per- sonal feelings of the sovereign could possibly contrive a keener instrument of mortification and degradation of all dignity ro than almost every part and member of the present arrange- ment ? Nor, in the whole course of our history, has any com- pliance with the will of the people ever been known to extort from any prince a greater contradiction to all his own declared affections and dislikes than that which is now adopted in direct 15 opposition to everything the people approve and desire. (d) Galled his Feelings. — An opinion prevails that great- ness has been more than once advised to submit to certain condescensions towards individuals which have been denied to the entreaties of a nation. For the meanest and most de- 20 pendent instrument of this system knows that there are hours when its existence may depend upon his adherence to it, and he takes his advantage accordingly. Indeed it is a law of nature that whoever is necessary to what we have made our object, is sure, in some way or in some time or other, to be- 25 come our master. All this however is submitted to in order to avoid that monstrous evil of governing in concurrence with the opinion of the people. For it seems to be laid down as a maxim that a king has some sort of interest in giving uneasi- ness to his subjects ; that all who are pleasing to them are to 30 be of course disagreeable to him ; that, as soon as the persons who are odious at court are known to be odious to the people, it is snatched at as a lucky occasion of showering down upon them all kinds of emoluments and honors. None are considered as well-wishers to the crown but those who 33. None. May be used in the singular, or, as here, in the plural. CAUSE OE THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 3? advised to some unpopular course of action ; none capable of serving it but those who are obliged to call at every instant upon all its power for the safety of their lives. None are supposed to be fit priests in the temple of government but the persons who are compelled to fly into it for sanctuary. Such 5 is the effect of this refined project ; such is ever the result of all the contrivances which are used to free men from the servitude of their reason and from the necessity of ordering their affairs according to their evident interests. These con- trivances oblige them to run into a real and ruinous servitude 10 in order to avoid a supposed restraint that might be attended with advantage. (e) Disturbed his Peace. — If therefore this system has so ill answered its own grand pretense of saving the king from the necessity of employing persons disagreeable to him, has it 15 given more peace and tranquillity to his majesty's private hours ? No, most certainly. The father of his people cannot possibly enjoy repose while his family is in such a state of dis- traction. Then what has the crown or the king profited by all this fine- wrought scheme ? Is he more rich, or more splen- 20 did, or more powerful, or more at his ease, by so many labors and contrivances ? Have they not beggared his exchequer, tarnished the splendor of his court, sunk his dignity, galled his feelings, discomposed the whole order and happiness of his private life ? 25 It will be very hard, I believe, to state in what respect the king has profited by that faction which presumptuously choose to call themselves his friends. If particular men had grown into an attachment by the dis- tinguished honor of the society of their sovereign, and, by 30 being the partakers of his amusements, came sometimes to prefer, the gratification of his personal inclinations to the sup- port of his high character, the thing would be very natural, and it would be excusable enough. But the pleasant part of the story is that these king's friends have no more ground 35 for usurping such a title than a resident freeholder in Cumber- 38 CAtfSE OE THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. land or in Cornwall. They are only known to their sover- eign by kissing his hand for the offices, pensions, and grants into which they have deceived his benignity. May no storm ever come which will put the firmness of their attachment to 5 the proof, and which, in the midst of confusions and terrors and sufferings, may demonstrate the eternal difference between a true and severe friend to the monarchy and a slippery syco- phant of the court. 5. Effects upon Parliament. — So far I have considered the io effect of the court system chiefly as it operates upon the executive government, on the temper of the people, and on the happiness of the sovereign. It remains that we should consider, with a little attention, its operation upon Parliament. Parliament was indeed the great object of all these politics, 15 the end at which they aimed, as well as the instrument by which they were to operate. But, before Parliament could be made subservient to a system by which it was to be degraded from the dignity of a national council into a mere member of the court, it must be greatly changed from its original char- 20 acter. Nature and Character of the House of Commons. — In speaking of this body, I have my eye chiefly on the House of Commons. I hope I shall be indulged in a few observations on the nature and character of that assembly, not with regard 25 to its legal form and power but to its spirit and to the pur- poses it is meant to answer in the constitution. The House of Commons was supposed originally to be no part of the standing government of this country. It was considered as a control issuing immediately from the people, 30 and speedily to be resolved into the mass from whence it arose. In this respect it was in the higher part of government what juries are in the lower. The capactty of a magistrate being transitory and that of a citizen permanent, the latter capacity it was hoped would of course preponderate in all discussions, 35 not only between the people and the standing authority of the 8. Sycophant. Etymological ly, a fig-blabber, or informer; then a flatterer. CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 39 crown but between the people and the fleeting authority of the House of Commons itself. It was hoped that, being of a middle nature between subject and government, they would feel with a more tender and a nearer interest everything that concerned the people than the other remoter and more per- 5 manent parts of legislature. Whatever alterations time and the necessary accommoda- tion of business may have introduced, this character can never be sustained, unless the House of Commons shall be made to bear some stamp of the actual disposition of the people at 10 large. It would (among public misfortunes) be an evil more natural and tolerable that the House of Commons should be infected with every epidemical frenzy of the people, as this would indicate some consanguinity, some sympathy of nature with their constituents, than that they should in all cases be 15 wholly untouched by the opinions and feelings of the people out of doors. By this want of sympathy they would cease to be a House of Commons. For it is not the derivation of the power of tliat House from the people which makes it in a dis- tinct sense their representative. The king is the representa- 20 tive of the people, so are the lords, so are the judges. They all are trustees for the people, as well as the commons, because no power is given for the sole sake of the holder ; and, although government certainly is an institution of divine authority, yet its forms and the persons who administer it all originate from 25 the people. A popular origin cannot therefore be the characteristical distinction of a popular representative. This belongs equally to all parts of government and in all forms. The virtue, spirit, and essence of a House of Commons consist in its being 30 the express image of the feelings of the nation. It was not instituted to be a control upon the people, as of late it has been taught by a doctrine of the most pernicious tendency. It was designed as a control for the people. Other institutions have been formed for the purpose of checking popular excesses ; 35 and they are, I apprehend, fully adequate to their object. If not, they ought to be made so. The House of Commons, as it 40 CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. was never intended for the support of peace and subordination, is miserably appointed for that service, having no stronger weapon than its mace and no better officer than its sergeant- at-arms which it can command of its own proper authority. 5 A vigilant and jealous eye over executory and judicial magis- tracy, an anxious care of public money, an openness, approach- ing towards facility, to public complaint, — these seem to be the true characteristics of a House of Commons. But an addressing House of Commons, and a petitioning nation ; a 10 House of Commons full of confidence, when the nation is plunged in despair ; in the utmost harmony with ministers, whom the people regard with the utmost abhorrence ; who vote thanks, when the public opinion calls upon them for impeachments ; who are eager to grant, when the general 15 voice demands account ; who, in all disputes between the people and administration, presume against the people ; who punish their disorders, but refuse even to inquire into the pro- vocations to them ; — this is an unnatural, a monstrous state of things in this constitution. Such an assembly may be a 20 great, wise, awful senate, but it is not, to any popular purpose, a House of Commons. This change from an immediate state of procuration and delegation to a course of acting as from original power is the way in which all the popular magistracies in the world have been perverted from their purposes. It is 25 indeed their greatest and sometimes their incurable corrup- tion. For there is a material distinction between that corrup- tion by which particular points are carried against reason (this is a thing which cannot be prevented by human wisdom and is of less consequence) and the corruption of the principle itself. 30 For then the evil is not accidental but settled. The distemper becomes the natural habit. For my part, I shall be compelled to conclude the principle of Parliament to be totally corrupted, and therefore its ends entirely defeated, when I see two symptoms : first, a rule of 35 indiscriminate support to all ministers, because this destroys the very end of Parliament as a control and is a general pre- vious sanction to misgovernment ; and secondly, the setting CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 41 up any claims adverse to the right of free election, for this tends to subvert the legal authority by which the House of Commons sits. I know that, since the Kevolution, along with many danger- ous many useful powers of government have been weakened. 5 It is absolutely necessary to have frequent recourse to the legislature. Parliaments must therefore sit every year and for great part of the year. The dreadful disorders of frequent elections have also necessitated a septennial instead of a tri- ennial duration. These circumstances, I mean the constant 10 habit of authority and the unfrequency of elections, have tended very much to draw the House of Commons towards the character of a standing senate. It is a disorder which has arisen from the cure of greater disorders ; it has arisen from the extreme difficulty of reconciling liberty under a monarchi- 15 cal government with external strength and with internal tranquillity. It is very clear that we cannot free ourselves entirely from this great inconvenience ; but I would not increase an evil because I was not able to remove it ; and because it was not 20 in my power to keep the House of Commons religiously true to its first principles, I would not argue for carrying it to a total oblivion of them. This has been the great scheme of power in our time. They who will riot conform their conduct to the public good and cannot support it by the prerogative of the 25 crown have adopted a new plan. They have totally aban- doned the shattered and old-fashioned fortress of prerogative, and made a lodgment in the stronghold of Parliament itself. If they have any evil design to which there is no ordinary legal power commensurate, they bring it into Parliament. In Par- 30 liament the whole is executed from the beginning to the end. In Parliament the power of obtaining their object is absolute, and the safety in the proceeding perfect — no rules to confine, no after reckonings to terrify. Parliament cannot with any great propriety punish others for things in which they them- 35 26. They. The Cabal— the interior cabinet. 27, Prerogative. The power claimed by the king. 42 CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. selves have been accomplices. Thus the control of Parliament upon the executory power is lost, because Parliament is made to partake in every considerable act of government. Impeach- ment, that great guardian of the purity of the constitution, 5 is in danger of being lost even to the idea of it. By this plan several important ends are answered to the Cabal. If the authority of Parliament supports itself, the credit of every act of government which they contrive is saved ; but, if the act be so very odious that the whole strength of 10 Parliament is insufficient to recommend it, then Parliament is itself discredited ; and this discredit increases more and more that indifference to the constitution which it is the constant aim of its enemies, by their abuse of Parliamentary powers, to render general among the people. Whenever Parliament is 15 persuaded to assume the offices of executive government, it will lose all the confidence, love, and veneration which it has ever enjoyed whilst it was supposed the corrective and control of the acting powers of the state. This would be the event, though its conduct in such a perversion of its functions should 20 be tolerably just and moderate ; but, if it should be iniquitous, violent, full of passion, and full of faction, it would be consid- ered as the most intolerable of all the modes of tyranny. For a considerable time this separation of the representatives from their constituents went on with a silent progress ; and, 25 had those who conducted the plan for their total separation been persons of temper and abilities any way equal to the mag- nitude of their design, the success would have been infallible : but by their precipitancy they have laid it open in all its naked- ness, the nation is alarmed at it, and the event may not be 30 pleasant to the contrivers of the scheme. In the last session, the corps called the king's friends made a hardy attempt, all at once, to alter the right of election itself ; to put it into the power of the House of Commons to disable any person dis- agreeable to them from sitting in Parliament, without any other 35 rule than their own pleasure ; to make incapacities, either 31. The Cabal. CATTSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 43 general for descriptions of men or particular for individuals ; and to take into their body persons who avowedly had never been chosen by the majority of legal electors nor agreeably to any known rule of law. The arguments upon which this claim was founded and com- 5 bated are not my business here. Never has a subject been more amply and more learnedly handled, nor upon one side, in my opinion, more satisfactorily ; they who are not con- vinced by what is already written would not receive conviction though one arose from the dead. 10 I too have thought on this subject ; but my purpose here is only to consider it as a part of the favorite project of govern- ment, to observe on the motives which led to it, and to trace its political consequences. The Cabal in the Case of Mr. Wilkes — Chosen for Mid- 15 dlesex. — A violent rage for the punishment of Mr. Wilkes was the pretense of the whole. This gentleman, by setting himself strongly in opposition to the court Cabal, had become at once an object of their persecution and of the popular favor. The hatred of the court party pursuing, and the countenance of the 20 people protecting, him, it very soon became not at all a question on the man but a trial of strength between the two parties. The advantage of the victory in this particular contest was the present, but not the only nor by any means the principal, ob- ject. Its operation upon the character of the House of Com- 25 mons was the great point in view. The point to be gained by the Cabal was this : that a precedent should be established, tending to show that the favor of the people was not so sure a 10. See Luke xvi. 31. 11. Subject. Altering the right of election, as in the case of Mr. Wilkes. 16. Wilkes was elected M. P. in 1757 and again in 1761 ; in No. 45 of his North Briton, he attacked the king in 1763. was arrested by "general warrant," and his papers seized; discharged, because as M. P. he was privileged from arrest; the general warrant declared unconstitutional; awarded £1000 for the seizure of his papers; the House voted No. 45 a " seditious libel, 1 ' caused it to be burned by the hangman, and expelled Wilkes; prosecuted by the Peers for republishing No. 45 and for printing an obscene poem; having previously gone to France, he was outlawed; returned in 1768, and his out- lawry was reversed; three times elected M. P. for the County of Middlesex; the House declared him incapable of a seat, and Col. Luttrell, not elected, was seated instead. Subsequent history unimportant. 44 CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. road as the favor of the court even to popular honors and popular trusts. A strenuous resistance to every appearance of lawless power, a spirit of independence carried to some de- gree of enthusiasm, an inquisitive character to discover, and 5 a bold one to display, every corruption and every error of government, — these are the qualities which recommend a man to a seat in the House of Commons in open and merely popu- lar elections. An indolent and submissive disposition, a dis- position to think charitably of all the actions of men in power ioand to live in a mutual intercourse of favors with them, an inclination rather to countenance a strong use of authority than to bear any sort of licentiousness on the part of the peo- ple, — these are unfavorable qualities in an open election for members of Parliament. 15 Through two pages Mr. Burke continues his exposition of the spirit of the Cabal. I will not believe, what no other man living believes, that Mr. "Wilkes was punished for the indecency of his publications or the impiety of his ransacked closet. If he had fallen in a 20 common slaughter of libelers and blasphemers, I could well believe that nothing more was meant than was pretended. But when I see that for years together full as impious and per- haps more dangerous writings to religion and virtue and order have not been punished nor their authors discountenanced, 25 that the most audacious libels on royal majesty have passed without notice, that the most treasonable invectives against the laws, liberties, and constitution of the country have not met • with the slightest animadversion, I must consider this as a shocking and shameless pretense. Never did an envenomed 30 scurrility against everything sacred and civil, public and pri- vate, rage through the kingdom with such a furious and un- bridled license. All this while the peace of the nation must be shaken to ruin one libeler and to tear from the populace a single favorite. 33. Mr. Wilkes, of course. CAtTSE OF THE PRESENT DISCOMTENTS. 45 Nor is it that vice merely skulks in an obscure and con- temptible impunity. Does not the public behold, with indig- nation, persons not only generally scandalous in their lives but the identical persons who, by their society, their instruction, their example, their encouragement, have drawn this man into 5 the very faults which have furnished the Cabal with a pre- tense for his persecution, loaded with every kind of favor, honor, and distinction which a court can bestow? Add but the crime of servility to every other crime, and the whole mass is immediately transmuted into virtue and becomes the just 10 subject of reward and honor. When therefore I reflect upon this method pursued by the Cabal in distributing rewards and punishments, I must conclude that Mr. Wilkes is the object of persecution, not on account of what he has done in common with others who are the objects of reward but for that in which 15 he differs from many of them ; that he is pursued for the spirited dispositions which are blended with his vices, — for his unconquerable firmness, for his resolute, indefatigable, strenu- ous resistance against oppression. In this case therefore it was not the man that was to be 20 punished, nor his faults that were to be discountenanced. Op- position to acts of power was to be marked by a kind of civil proscription. The popularity which should arise from such an opposition was to be shown unable to protect it. The quali- ties by which court is made to the people were to render every 25 fault inexpiable and every error irretrievable. The qualities by which court is made to power were to cover and to sanctify everything. He that will have a sure and honorable seat in the House of Commons must take care how he adventures to cultivate popular qualities ; otherwise he may remember the 30 old maxim, Breves et infaustos populi Romani amoves. If, therefore, a pursuit of popularity expose a man to greater dangers than a disposition to servility, the principle which is the life and soul of popular elections will perish out of the constitution. , 35 31. Fleeting and cruel are the likings of the people of Rome. Tacitus, Ann.,, lib. ii. c. 41. 46 CAUSE OP THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. Through sis pages Mr. Burke pictures the dire consequences to the House of Commons and to the rights and liberties of the people if, as in the case of Mr. Wilkes and his constituents, the right of election is denied to the people, and the assumption of 5 the House is upheld that it may unseat one chosen by the people and seat one not so chosen. The Cabal in the Matter of Paying the Crown Debts. — To complete the scheme of bringing our court to a resem- blance to the neighboring monarchies, it was necessary in io effect to destroy those appropriations of revenue which seem to limit the property, as the other laws had done the powers, of the crown. An opportunity for this purpose was taken upon an application to Parliament for payment of the debts of the civil list, which in 1769 had amounted to £513,000. Such 15 application had been made upon former occasions, but to do it in the former manner would by no means answer the pres- ent purpose. "Whenever the crown had come to the Commons to desire a supply for the discharging of debts due on the civil list, it was 20 always asked and granted with one of the three following qualifications, sometimes with all of them. Either it was stated that the revenue had been diverted from its purposes by Parliament ; or that those duties had fallen short of the sum for which they were given by Parliament, and that the in- 25 tention of the legislature had not been fulfilled ; or that the money required to discharge the civil list debt was to be raised chargeable on the civil list duties. Through nearly two pages Burke shows that on some one of these three grounds the crown debts of Queen Anne, of George I., 30 and of George II. had been paid. If this reign commenced with a greater charge than usual, there was enough and more than enough abundantly to supply all the extraordinary expense. That the civil list should have been exceeded in the two former reigns, especially in the 35 reign of George the First, was not at all surprising. His reve- nue, was but £700,000 annually, if it ever produced so much 31. That of George III. CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 47 clear. The prodigious and dangerous disaffection to the very- being of the establishment, and the cause of a Pretender then powerfully abetted from abroad produced many demands of an extraordinary nature both abroad and at home. Much management and great expenses were necessary. But the 5 throne of no prince has stood upon more unshaken founda- tions than that of his present majesty. To have exceeded the sum given for the civil list and to have incurred a debt without special authority of Parliament was, prima facie, a criminal act ; as such, ministers ought IO naturally rather to have withdrawn it from the inspection than to have exposed it to the scrutiny, of Parliament. Cer- tainly they ought of themselves officially to have come armed with every sort of argument which by explaining could excuse a matter in itself of presumptive guilt. But the terrors of the 1 5 House of Commons are no longer for ministers. On the other hand, the peculiar character of the House of Commons, as trustee of the public purse, would have led them to call with a punctilious solicitude for every public account and to have examined into them with the most rigorous accuracy. 20 The capital use of an account is, that the reality of the charge, the reason of incurring it, and the justice and neces- sity of discharging it should all appear antecedent to the pay- ment. No man ever pays first and calls for his account afterwards, because he would thereby let out of his hands the 25 principal, and indeed only effectual, means of compelling a full and fair one. But, in national business, there is an ad- ditional reason for a previous production of every account. It is a check, perhaps the only one, upon a corrupt and prodi- gal use of public money. An account after payment is to no 30 rational purpose an account. However, the House of Com- mons thought all these to be antiquated principles ; they were of opinion that the most parliamentary way of proceeding was to pay first what the court thought proper to demand, and to take its chance for an examination into accounts at some time 35 of greater leisure. 2. The son of James II. He invaded Great Britain in 1715. 48 CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. The nation had settled £800,000. a year on the crown, as sufficient for the purpose of its dignity, upon the estimate of its own ministers. When ministers came to Parliament and said that this allowance had not been sufficient for the purpose, 5 and that they had incurred a debt of £500,000, would it not have been natural for parliament first to have asked how and by what means their appropriated allowance came to be in- sufficient? Would it not have savored of some attention to justice to have seen in what periods of administration this io debt had been originally incurred, that they might discover and, if need were, animadvert on the persons who were found the most culpable ? To put their hands upon such articles of expenditure as they thought improper or excessive, and to secure in future against such misapplication or exceeding? 15 Accounts for any other purposes are but a matter of curiosity, and no genuine parliamentary object. All the accounts which could answer any parliamentary end were refused or post- poned by previous questions. Every idea of prevention was rejected as conveying an improper suspicion of the ministers 20 of the crown. When every leading account had been refused, many others were granted with sufficient facility. But, with great candor also, the House was informed that hardly any of them could be ready until the next session, some 25 of them perhaps not so soon. But in order firmly to establish the precedent of payment previous to account, and to form it into a settled rule of the House, the god in the machine was brought down, nothing less than the wonder-working law of Parliament. It was alleged that it is the law of Parliament, 3° when any demand comes from the crown, that the House must go immediately into the committee of supply, in which com- mittee it was allowed that the production and examination of accounts would be quite proper and regular. It was there- fore carried that they should go into the committee without 35 delay and without accounts in order to examine with great 27. Deus ex machina. An allusion to the Greek drama. CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. 49 order and regularity things that could not possibly come be- fore thern. After this stroke of orderly and parliamentary wit and humor, t hey went into the committee and very generously voted the payment. There was a circumstance in that debate too remarkable to 5 be overlooked. This debt of the civil list was all along argued upon the same footing as a debt of the state contracted upon national authority. Its payment was urged as equally press- ing upon the public faith and honor ; and, when the whole year's account was stated, in what is called The Budget, the 10 ministry valued themselves on the payment of so much public debt just as if they had discharged £500,000 Of navy or ex- chequer bills. . . . ISTor was the House at all more attentive to a provident security against future than it had been to a vindictive retro- 1 5 spect to past mismanagements. I should have thought indeed that a ministerial promise, during their own continuance in office, might have been given, though this would have been but a poor security for the public. ... To put the matter beyond all doubt, in the speech from the throne, after thank- 20 ing Parliament for the relief so liberally granted, the ministers inform the two houses that they will endeavor to confine the expenses of the civil government — within what limits, think you ? those which the law had prescribed ? Not in the least — " such limits as the honor of the crown can possibly admit." 2 5 Thus they established an arbitrary standard for that dignity which Parliament had defined and limited to a legal standard. They gave themselves, under the lax and indeterminate idea of the honor of the crown, a full loose for all manner of dis- sipation and all manner of corruption. ... 3° Five hundred thousand pounds is a serious sum. But it is nothing to the prolific principle upon which the sum was voted ; a principle that may be well called the fruitful mother of a hundred more. Neither is the damage to public credit of very great consequence, when compared with that which 35 results to public morals and to the safety of the constitution from the exhaustless mine of corruption opened by the pre- 50 CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. cedent, and to be wrought by the principle of the late pay ment of the debts of the civil list. The power of discretionary disqualification by one law of Parliament, and the necessity of paying every debt of the civil list by another law of Parlia- 5 ment, if suffered to pass unnoticed, must establish such a fund of rewards and terrors as will make Parliament the best appendage and support of arbitrary power that ever was in- vented by the wit of man. This is felt. The quarrel is begun between the representatives and the people. The court fac- 10 tion have at length committed them. In such a strait the wisest may well be perplexed, and the boldest staggered. Through six pages or more, Burke considers the inadequacy of a triennial bill and of a place bill to remedy the distempers of Parliament. Through the concluding pages of this great pamphlet, Burke is engaged in defining and defending party. But these topics, especially this last, are somewhat foreign to .the subject of the Cabal. For the sake of unity and to keep the pupil's interest to the close, it is deemed wise to bring this class* room edition of the pamphlet to an end here. A Text-Book on Rhetoric ; Supplementing the Development op the Science with Exhaustive Practice in Composition. A Course of Practical Lessons Adapted for use in High Schools and Academies, and in the Lower Classes of Colleges. BY BRAINERD KELLOGG, A.M., Professor of the English Language and Literature in the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute, and one of the authors of Reed & KeUogg's "Graded Lessons in English" and "Higher Lessons in English." In preparing this work upon Rhetoric, the author's aim has been to write a practical text-book for High Schools, Academies, and the lower classes of Colleges, based upon the science rather titan an exhaustive treatise upon the science itself. This work has grown up out of the belief that the rhetoric which the pupil needs is not that which lodges finally in the memory, but that which has worked its way down into his tongue and fingers, enabling him to speak and write the better for having studied it. The author believes that the aim of the study should be to put the pupil in posses- sion of an art, and that this can be done not by forcing the science into him through eye and ear, but by drawing it out of him, in products, through tongue and pen. Hence all explanations of principles are fol- lowed by exhaustive practice in Composition — to this everything is mack, tributary. " Kbllogg's Ehetokic is evidently the fruit of scholarship and large experience. The author has collected his own mate- rials, and disposed of them with the skill of a master; his statements are precise, lucid, and sufficiently copious. Nothing is sacrificed to show ; the book is intended for use, and the abundance of examples will constitute one of its chief merits in the eyes of the thorough teacher."— Prof. A. S. Cook, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md. "This is just the work to take the place of the much-stilted 'Sentential Analysis ' that is being waded through to little purpose by the Grammar and High School pupils of our country. This work not only teaches the discipline of analyz- ing thought, but leads the student to feel that it is his thought that is being dealt with, dissected, and unfolded, to efficient expression. 1 ' — Prof. G. S. Alboe, Prest. of State Normal School, O$hkoth* Wis. 276 pages, 12mo, attractively bound in cloth. HFF1NGHAM MAYNABU fr CO., Publishers, New Yoriu WORD LESSONS: A ^Complete Speller. Adapted for use in the Higher Primary, Intermediate, and Gram- mar Grades. Designed to teach the correct Spelling, Pronunciation, and Use of such words only as are most common in current literature, and as are most likely to be Misspelled, Mispronounced or Misused, and to awaken new interest in the study of Synonyms and of Word- Analysis. By Alonzo Reed, A.M., joint author of " Graded Lessons in English," and "Higher Lessons in English." 188 pages, 12mo. The book is a complete speller, and was made to supplement the reading lesson and otner language work. 1st. — By grouping those difficulties which it would be impossible to overcome if met only occasionally and incidentally in the reader. 2d. — By presenting devices to stimulate the pupil, not only to observe the exact form of words, but to note carefully their use and different shades of meaning. 3d. — By affording a systematic course of training in pronunciation. Word Lessons recognizes work already done in the reader, and does not attempt its repetition as do the old spellers, and other new ones now demanding attention. The author has spared no trouble in his search among the works of the best writers for their best thoughts, with which to illustrate the use of words. Great care has been taken in grading the work to the growing vocabulary of the learner. Edward S. Joynes, Professor of Belles Lettres and English Literature, S. C. College, Columbia, S. C, says: "I beg leave to express my most cordial com- mendation of the book. It meets, more perfectly than any other I have ever seen, the wants of our schools. Wherever I have opportunity, officially or otherwise, I shall take pleasure in recommending its introduction." Truman J. Backus, Pres. Packer Col- legiate Institute, Brooklyn, N.Y., says: "The book has more than met expecta- tions." C. P. Colgrove, A.B., Prin. Normal School of Upper Iowa University, Fayette, Iowa, says : " I am glad to see it. It is a move in the right direction. I have been teaching spelling from the read- ing lesson, but cannot say that I consider the method a s uccess. Nine-tenths of our students fail in orthography." W. H. Foute, Supt. of Public Instruc- tion, Houston, Tex., says: "A thorough and careful examination of the matter of your book has made me a perfect convert to your plan." EFFINGHAM MAYNARD $c CO., Publisher^ New York. ENGLISH CLASSIC SERIES, FOR asses in English Literature, Reading, Grammar, etc. EDITED BY EMINENT ENGLISH AND AMERICAN SCHOLARS, Each Volume contains a Sketch of the Author's Life, Prefatory and Explanatory Notes, etc., etc. Byron's Prophecy of Dante. (Cantos I. and II.) Milton's L' Allegro, and II Pen- seroso. Liord Bacon's Essays, Civil and Moral. (Selected.) Byron's Prisoner of Chillon. Moore's Fire Worshippers. (Lalla Rookh. Selected.) Goldsmith's Deserted Village. Scott's Marmion. (Selections from Canto VI.) Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel. (Introduction and Canto I.) Burns'sCotter'sSaturdayNight, and other Poems Crabbe's The Village. Campbell's Pleasures of Hope. (Abridgment of Part I.) Macaulay's Essay on Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Macaulay's Armada, and other Poems. Shakespeare's Merchant of Ve- nice. (Selections from Acts I., III., and IV.) Goldsmith's Traveller. Hogg's Queen's Wake, and Kil- meny. Coleridge's Ancient Mariner. Addison's Sir Roger de Cover- ley. Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Scott's Lady of the Lake. (Canto I.) Shakespeare's As You Like It, etc. (Selections.) Shakespeare's King John, and Richard II. (Selections.) Shakespeare's Henry IV., Hen- ry V., Henry VI. (Selections.) Shakespeare's Henry VIII., and Julius Caesar. (Selections.) Wordsworth's Excursion. (Bk.I.) Pope's Essay on Criticism. Spenser'sFaerieQueene. (Cantos I. and II.) Cowper's Task. (Book I.) Milton's Comus. Tennyson's Enoch Arden, The Lotus Eaters, Ulysses, and Tithonus. 31 Irving's Sketch Book. (Selec- tions.) 32 Dickens's Christmas Carol. (Condensed.) 33 Carlyle's Hero as a Prophet. 34 Macaulay's Warren Hastings. (Condensed.) 35 Goldsmith's Vicar of Wake- field. (Condensed.) 36 Tennyson's The Two Voices, and' A Dream of Fair Women. 37 Memory Quotations. 38 Cavalier Poets. 39 Dryden's Alexandei''s Feast, and MacFlecknoe. 40 Keats's The Eve of St. Agnes. 41 Irving.'s Legend of Sleepy Hol- low. 43 Lamb's Tales from Shake- speare. 43 Le Row's How to Teach Bead- ing. 44 Webster's Bunker Hill Ora- tions. 45 The Academy Orthoepist. A Manual of Pronunciation. 46 Milton's Lycidas, and Hymn on the Nativity. 47 Bryant's Thanatopsis, and other Poems. 48 Buskin's Modern Painters. 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