第19章 Letter VI(2)

As the two parties were formed,so was their division maintained by mutual jealousies and fears;which are often sufficient to nourish themselves,when they have once taken root in the mind;and which were,at this time,watered and cultivated with all the factious industry possible.The most improbable reports,the most idle surmises,carried about in whispers,were sufficient,as I might easily show in various instances,to raise a panic terror in one party,or the other.In both,there were but too many persons on the watch,to improve and to propagate these terrors,and by a frequent repetition of such impressions to raise the alarm and hatred of parties to the highest pitch.He,who went about to allay this extravagant ferment,was called a trimmer;and he,who was in truth a common friend,was sure of being treated like a common enemy.Some,who voted for the bill of exclusion,were very far from being heartily for it;but I have seen good reasons to believe,and such there are even in our public relations,that some of those who voted against it,and declared for limitations,concurred in the end,though they differed in the means,with those who promoted the bill.And yet such men were constantly marked out as favourers of popery and enemies to their country.

Thus in the other party,men,who had no other view but that of securing their religion and liberty,and who meant nothing more than to force the court into such compliances as they judged necessary to establish this security,were stigmatized with the opprobrious names of fanatic and republican.Thus it happened in those days;and thus it happens in ours;when any man who declares against a certain person,against whom the voice of the nation hath already declared,or complains of things which are so notorious,that no man in the nation can deny them,is sure to be followed by the cry of Jacobitism,or republicanism.But there is a great difference,God be praised,between the two cases.The pre sent cry being void of pretence,is therefore without effect.It is heard in few places,and believed only in one.But to return.

When the nation was divided in this manner,the heat of the parties increased as their contest lasted,according to the usual course of things.New engagements were daily taken;new provocations and offences were daily given.Public disputes begot private pique;and private pique supported public disputes with greater rancour and obstinacy.The opposite principles advanced by the two parties,were carried higher and higher,as they grew more inflamed;and the measures they pursued,in order to get the better each of his adversary,without overmuch regard to any other consequence,became stronger and stronger,and perhaps equally dangerous.The meeting of the Parliament at Oxford had a kind of hostile appearance;and as soon as Parliaments were laid aside,which happened on the sudden and indecent dissolution of this,the appearance grew worse.No security having been obtained by parliamentary methods,against the dangers of a popish succession,it is probable that they,who looked on these dangers as nearest and greatest,began to cast about how they might secure themselves and their country against them,by methods of another kind;such as extreme necessity,and nothing but extreme necessity can authorize.

Such methods were happily pursued and attended with glorious success,a few years afterwards,when this succession had taken place;and,by taking place,had justified all that had been said against it,or foreboded of it;when the nation was ripe for resistance,and the Prince of Orange ready and able,from a multitude of fortunate,concurring circumstances,to support so great an enterprise.But the attempts,which were wise at one time,would have been desperate at the other;and the measures which produced a revolution in the reign of King James,would have produced in the reign of King Charles,a civil war of uncertain event at best:I say of uncertain event at best,because it seems to me,that whoever revolves in his thoughts the state of England and Scotland,as well as the situation of our neighbours on the continent,at that time,must be of opinion,that if the quarrel about the exclusion had broke out into a war,the best cause would have been the worst supported.

The King,more united than ever with his brother,would have prevailed.What was projected in 167o,and perhaps more than was then intended,would have been effected;and the religion and liberty of Great Britain would have been destroyed by consequence.We cannot say,and it would be presumption to pretend to guess,how far the heads of party had gone,in Scotland,or in England,into measures for employing force.Perhaps,little more had passed,in which they who became the principal sacrifices,were any way concerned,than rash discourse about dangerous,but rude,indigested schemes,started by men of wild imaginations,or desperate fortunes,and rather hearkened to than assented to;nay,possibly despised and neglected by them.But the court,who wanted a plot to confirm and increase their party,and to turn the popular tide in their favour,took the first opportunity of having one;which was soon furnished to them by the imprudent,but honest zeal of some,and by the villainy,as well as madness of others:and they prosecuted it so severely,with the help of forward sheriffs,willing juries,bold witnesses and mercenary judges,that it answered all their ends.The design of assassinating the King and the Duke,was certainly confined to a few desperate villains;but too many had heard it from them,who were both so foolish and so wicked,as not to discover them;and this reflected great prejudice,though I doubt not in many cases very unjustly,against all those who had acted upon better principles,but yet were involved in those prosecutions.