第23章 Letter VII(2)

But this was not the state of the English nation,at the time we speak of.We were not yet corrupted,nor even quite ripe for corruption.Parties there were;and the contests of these parties gave occasion to the rise and growth of factions;some of which ran into the most seditious practices against the government,and others into the vilest submission to it.But still a spirit of liberty remained in many,uncorrupted and un-extinguished,and such as worked our national deliverance in the days of distress,that soon followed.We were freemen then,in the proper sense and full extent of the words;because not only the laws,which asserted our common rights,were maintained and improved,but private independency,which can alone support public liberty under such a government as ours,was itself supported by some of that ancient economy and simplicity of manners,that were growing,but not grown,out of fashion.Such a people,as we then were,could neither be bought,nor driven;and I think King Charles could not have divided and led them,if he had wanted any of the qualities he possessed,or had held another conduct than he held.Far from being proud,haughty,or brutal,'he had not a grain of pride,or vanity,in his whole composition';but was the most affable,best-bred man alive.He treated his subjects like noblemen,like gentlemen,like freemen,not like vassals,or boors.Whatever notion he had of his hereditary right,he owned his obligation for the crown he wore to his people,as much as he would have been bound to do,in reason,in justice,in honour,and in prudence,if he had stood at the greatest distance from it,in the course of lineal succession,and had been called to it from the low state in which he was before,by the free gift and choice of the nation.His professions were plausible,and his whole behaviour engaging;so that he won upon the hearts,even whilst he lost the good opinion of his subjects,and often balanced their judgment of things,by their personal inclination.These qualities and this part of his conduct went a great way to give him credit with his people,and an hold on their affections.But this was not all.He observed their temper,and he complied with it.He yielded to them in points,from which he had determined,and declared too,that he would never depart.To know when to yield in government,is at least as necessary,as to know when to lose in trade;and he who cannot do the first,is so little likely to govern a kingdom well,that it is more than probable he would govern a shop ill.King Charles gave up to the murmurs of his people,not one or two such ministers as may be found almost behind every desk,those awkward pageants of courts,those wooden images,which princes gild and then worship;but several great and able men,nay,whole cabals of such,who had merit with him,though they had none with the nation.He started often out of the true interest of his people,but the voice of his people almost as often reclaimed him.He made the first Dutch war,but he made the Triple Alliance too.He engaged with France in the war of 1672,but he made a separate peace with Holland.True it is,indeed,that neither the representations of his parliament,nor the desires of his people,could prevail on him to go farther,and to enter in earnest into the war against France.But the confidence between him and his parliament was so broken at that time,that they would not trust him,nor he them.At this I am not surprised,and for that very reason,Iconfess,I have always been so at the strong and repeated instances made to force him into that war;since it cannot surely be better policy to drive a prince into a war,which he has no inclination to make,than it would be to be drawn by him into a war,if he had no ability to conduct it.In home affairs,besides his frequent concessions,whenever the nation took umbrage at his proceedings,he passed the Test and Habeas Corpus bills,and many others for the public benefit:and I scarce remember any popular act,which stopped at the throne in his time,except that about the militia,which he apprehended to be a dangerous encroachment on his prerogative,and another in favour of the Dissenters,which was contrived,meanly enough,to be stolen off the table in the House of Lords.