第21章 Letter VI(4)

Another step,which the same author mentions,was indeed of the greatest consequence,and laid the axe to the root of all our liberties at once,by giving the crown such an influence over the elections of members to serve in Parliament,as could not fail to destroy that independency,by which alone the freedom of our government hath been,and can be supported.I mean the proceedings by quo warranto,and the other methods taken to force,or persuade,the corporations to surrender their old charters,and accept new ones,under such limitations and conditions as the King thought fit to innovate.These proceedings were violent,the judgments upon them arbitrary,and the other methods employed scandalous.But still it was the end,it was the consequence,that alarmed and terrified all those who had not sold themselves to the court,or who had not lost,in their zeal for party,all regard to their country,much more than the means that were employed upon this occasion.If,instead of garbling corporations by prerogative,the court could have purchased their elections by money,we may reasonably believe that the surer and more silent way would have been taken.But would the alarm have been less among all the friends of liberty?Certainly not.They would have seen that the end was the same,and have disliked those means the more,for being less liable to observation and clamour.A prince,asserting an illegal and dangerous prerogative,and applauded for doing so,and seconded in the attempt by a numerous party in the nation,carried no doubt a very terrible aspect.But still there was room to hope,the violent character of the Duke of York considered (and that hope was actually entertained by many),that the party,who abetted these usurpations of the prerogative,might be soon frightened back again from a Court to a Country interest;in which case,there was room to hope likewise,the milder character and better understanding of the King considered,that the evil might be in some degree redressed,and the consequences of it prevented.

It was reasonable for the friends of liberty to expect that men,who were injured,would complain and seek relief,on the first favourable opportunity.

But if they had been corrupted,and the practice of selling elections had been once established,I imagine that the friends of liberty would have thought the case more desperate.--It is certainly an easier task,and there is somewhat less provoking,as well as less dangerous in it,to struggle even with a great prince who stands on prerogative,than a weak,but profligate minister,if he hath the means of corruption in his power,and if the luxury and prostitution of the age have enabled him to bring it into fashion.Nothing surely could provoke men,who had the spirit of liberty in their souls,more than to figure to themselves one of these saucy creatures of fortune,whom she raises in the extravagance of her caprice,dispatching his emissaries,ecclesiastical and secular,like so many evil demons,to the north and to the south,to buy the votes of the people with the money of the people,and to choose a representative body,not of the people,but of the enemy of the people,of himself.

This was not the case at the time we are speaking of.It was prerogative,not money,which had like to have destroyed our liberties then.Government was not then carried on by undertakers,to whom so much power was farmed out for returns of so much money,and so much money entrusted for returns of so much Power.But though the case was not so desperate,yet was it bad enough in all conscience;and among all the excesses into which the Tories ran,in favour of the crown,and in hopes of fixing dominion in their own party,their zeal to support the methods of garbling corporations was,in my opinion,that which threatened public liberty the most.It hath been reproached to them by many;but if among those who reproached them,there should be some who have shared since that time in the most dangerous practice of corrupting corporations,such men must have fronts of brass,and deserve all the indignation which is due to iniquity,aggravated by impudence.The others abetted,in favour of a prerogative,supposed real by many in those days,and under the pretence at least of law,a power,which gave the crown too much influence in the elections of members of the House of Commons;but these men,if there are any such,have been concerned in a practice,for the sake of their own vile interest,which spreads like a gangrene over the whole body of a nation,and to every branch of government;and which hath never failed,in any one instance,where it hath been suffered,to become the bane of liberty.

We have now carried the two parties through that period of time,when the conduct of both was most liable to the objections made to them by their adversaries.--The Tories acted on the most abject principles of submission to the King;and,on those of hereditary right,were jealous for the succession of a prince,whose bigot rendered him unfit to rule a Protestant and a free people.--The Whigs maintained the power of Parliament to limit the succession to the crown,and avowed the principle of resistance;in which they had law,example and reason for them.But then the fury of faction was for doing that without Parliament,which could only be legally done by it:and,in order to this,the principles of resistance were extended too far;and the hottest men of the party taking the lead,they acted in an extravagant spirit of licence,rather than a sober spirit of liberty;and the madness of a few,little inferior to that of Cromwell's enthusiasts,dishonoured the whole cause for a time.My intention was not to have left them here;but to have carried these observations on so far as to justify,notwithstanding these appearances,what is said at the conclusion of my last letter,concerning the true characters of both parties.But either the abundance of matter hath deceived me,or I have wanted skill and time to abridge it;so that I must defer this part of my task,and crave your indulgence,as well as that of your readers,for my prolixity.

I am,sir,etc.