Complete Works of Samuel Johnson

by Samuel Johnson

  That trusts of the highest importance have been long abused, that the servants of the people, having long thought themselves out of the reach of justice, and above examination, have very ill discharged the offices in which they have been engaged, that the publick advantage has been wholly disregarded, that treaties have been concluded without any regard to the interest of Britain, and that our foreign and domestick affairs have been managed with equal ignorance, negligence, or wickedness, the present state of Europe, and the calamities of this country, will sufficiently inform us.

  If we survey the condition of foreign nations, we shall find, that the power and dominions of the family of Bourbon, a family which has never had any other designs than the extirpation of true religion, and the universal slavery of mankind, have been daily increased. We shall find that they have increased by the declension of the house of Austria, which treaties and our interest engage us to support.

  But had their acquisitions been made only by the force of arms, had they grown stronger only by victories, and more wealthy only by plunder, our ministers might, with some appearance of reason, have imputed their success to accident, and informed us, that we gained, in the mean time, a sufficient counterbalance to those advantages, by an uninterrupted commerce, and by the felicity of peace; peace, which, in every nation, has been found to produce affluence, and of which the wisest men have thought that it could scarcely be too dearly purchased.

  But peace has, in this nation, by the wonderful artifices of our ministers, been the parent of poverty and misery; we have been so far from finding our commerce extended by it, that we have enjoyed it only by a contemptible patience of the most open depredations, by a long connivance at piracy, and by a continued submission to insults, which no other nation would have borne.

  We have been so far from seeing any part of our taxes remitted, that we have been loaded with more rigorous exactions to support the expenses of peace, than were found necessary to defray the charges of a war against those, whose opulence and power had incited them to aspire to the dominion of the world.

  How these taxes have been employed, and why our trade has been neglected, why our allies have been betrayed, and why the ancient enemies of our country have been suffered to grow powerful by our connivances, it is now time to examine; and therefore I move, that a committee be appointed to inquire into the conduct of affairs at home and abroad during the last twenty years.

  Sir John ST. AUBIN then spoke as follows: — Sir, I rise up to second this motion; and, as the noble lord has opened it in so full and proper a manner, and as I do not doubt but that other gentlemen are ready to support it, more practised in speaking, of greater abilities and authority than myself, I am the less anxious about the injury it may receive from the part I bear in it. I think the proposition is so evident, that it wants no enforcement; it comes to you from the voice of the nation, which, thank God, has at last found admittance within these walls.

  Innocence is of so delicate a nature, that it cannot bear suspicion, and therefore will desire inquiry; because it will always be justified by it. Guilt, from its own consciousness, will use subterfuges, and fly to concealment; and the more righteous and authoritative the inquiry, the more it will be avoided; because the greater will be the dread of punishment.

  In private life, I am contented with men’s virtues only, without seeking for opportunities of blame. In a publick character, when national grievances cry aloud for inquiry and justice, it is our duty to pursue all the footsteps of guilt; and the loud, the pathetick appeal of my constituents, is more forcibly persuasive than any motive of private tenderness. This appeal is not the clamour of faction, artfully raised to disturb the operation of government, violent for a while, and soon to be appeased. It is the complaint of long and patient sufferings, a complaint not to be silenced; and which all endeavours to suppress it, would only make more importunate and clamorous. It is the solemn appeal of the whole people, of the united body of our constituents, in this time of national calamity, earnestly beseeching you, in a legal parliamentary way, to redress their grievances, to revive your ancient right of inquiry, to explore the most remote and hidden sources of iniquity, to detect the bold authors of their distress, that they may be made examples of national justice.

  It is to you they appeal, the true, the genuine representatives of the people. Not like former parliaments, an instrument of state, the property of a minister, purchased by the missionaries of corruption, who have been dispersed through the kingdom, and furnished with the publick money to invade all natural interest, by poisoning the morals of the people. Upon this rotten foundation has been erected a towering fabrick of corruption: a most dangerous conspiracy has been carried on against the very essence of our constitution, a formidable system of ministerial power has been formed, fallaciously assuming, under constitutional appearances, the name of legal government.

  In this system we have seen the several offices of administration meanly resolving themselves under the direction and control of one man: while this scheme was pursued, the nation has been ingloriously patient of foreign indignities; our trade has been most shamefully neglected, or basely betrayed; a war with an impotent enemy, most amply provided for, unsuccessfully carried on; the faith of treaties broke; our natural allies deserted, and weakened even by that power, which we now dread for want of their assistance.

  It is not the bare removal from office that will satisfy the nation, especially if such removal is dignified with the highest marks of royal favour. This only gives mankind a reasonable fear that his majesty has rather condescended to the importunities, than adopted the opinion of his people. It is, indeed, a most gracious condescension, a very high instance of his majesty’s just intentions to remove any of his servants upon national suspicion; but it will give his majesty a most unfavourable opinion of his people, if he is not satisfied that this suspicion was just. It is the unfortunate situation of arbitrary kings, that they know the sentiments of their people only from whisperers in their closet. Our monarchy has securer establishments. Our sovereign is always sure of knowing the true sense of his people, because he may see it through the proper, the constitutional medium: but then this medium must be pure, it must transmit every object in its real form and its natural colours. This is all that is now contended for. You are called to the exercise of your just right of inquiry, that his majesty may see what reason there is for this general inquietude.

  This motion is of a general nature; whom it may more particularly affect, I shall not determine. But there is a great person, lately at the head of the administration, who stands foremost, the principal object of national suspicion. He surely will not decline this inquiry, it is his own proposition; he has frequently, in the name of the whole administration, thrown down his gauntlet here; has desired your inquiries, and has rested his fate on your justice. The nation accepts the challenge, they join issue with him, they are now desirous to bring this great cause in judgment before you.

  It must be imputed to the long intermission of this right of inquiry, that the people have now this cause of complaint; had the administration of this great person been submitted to the constitutional controls, had his conduct undergone strict and frequent inquiries, he had parts and abilities to have done great honour and service to this country. But the will, uncontrouled, for ever must and will produce security and wantonness; nor can moderation and despotick power subsist long together.

  In vain do we admire the outlines of our constitution, in vain do we boast of those wise and salutary restraints, which our ancestors, at the expense of their blood and treasure, have wisely imposed upon monarchy itself, if it is to be a constitution in theory only, if this evasive doctrine is to be admitted, that a fellow-subject of our own, perhaps of the lowest rank among us, may be delegated by the crown to exercise the administration of government, with absolute, uncontroulable dominion over us; which must be the case, if ministerial conduct is not liable to parliamentary inquiries.

  If I did not think this
motion agreeable to the rules and proceedings of the senate; if I thought it was meant to introduce any procedure which was not strictly consonant to the laws and constitution of my country, I do most solemnly protest I would be against, it. But as I apprehend it to arise from the nature and spirit of our constitution, as it will defend the innocent, and can be detrimental only to the guilty, I do most heartily second the motion.

  The hon. Henry PELHAM opposed the motion to the following effect: — Sir, if it was not daily to be observed, how much the minds of the wisest and most moderate men are elated with success, and how often those, who have been able to surmount the strongest obstacles with unwearied diligence, and to preserve their fortitude unshaken amidst hourly disappointments, have been betrayed by slight advantages into indecent exultations, unreasonable confidence, and chimerical hopes; had I not long remarked the infatuation of prosperity, and the pride of triumph, I should not have heard the motion which has been now made without, astonishment.

  It has been long the business or the amusement of the gentlemen, who, having for some time conferred upon themselves the venerable titles of patriots, advocates for the people, and defenders of the constitution, have at length persuaded part of the nation to dignify them with the same appellation, to display in the most pathetick language, and aggravate with the most hyperbolical exaggerations, the wantonness with which the late ministry exercised their power, the exorbitance of their demands, and the violence of their measures. They have indulged their imaginations, which have always been sufficiently fruitful in satire and invective, by representing them as men in whom all regard to decency or reputation was extinguished, men who no longer submitted to wear the mask of hypocrisy, or thought the esteem of mankind worth their care; who had ceased to profess any regard to the welfare of their country, or any desire of advancing the publick happiness; and who no longer desired any other effects of their power, than the security of themselves and the conquest of their opponents.

  Such, sir, has been the character of the ministry, which, by the incessant endeavours of these disinterested patriots, has been carried to the remotest corners of the empire, and disseminated through all the degrees of the people. Every man, whom they could enlist among their pupils, whom they could persuade to see with their eyes, rather than his own, and who was not so stubborn as to require proofs of their assertions, and reasons of their conduct; every man who, having no sentiments of his own, hoped to become important by echoing those of his instructors, was taught to think and to say, that the court was filled with open corruption; that the greatest and the wisest men of the kingdom set themselves publickly to sale, and held an open traffick for votes and places; that whoever engaged in the party of the minister, declared himself ready to support his cause against truth, and reason, and conviction, and was no longer under the restraint of shame or virtue.

  These assertions, hardy as they were, they endeavoured to support by instances of measures, which they described as having no other tendency, than to advance the court to absolute authority, to enslave the nation, or to betray it: and more happily would they have propagated their system, and much sooner would they have obtained a general declaration of the people in their favour, had they been able to have produced a motion like this.

  Should the influence of these men increase, should they grow secure in the possession of their power, by any new methods of deluding the people, what wonderful expedients, what unheard-of methods of government may not be expected from them? What degrees of violence may they not be supposed to practise, who have flushed their new authority by a motion which was never projected since the first existence of our government, or offered by the most arbitrary minister in all the confidence of an established majority.

  It may, perhaps, be imagined by many of those who are unacquainted with senatorial affairs, as many of the members of this house may without any reproach be supposed to be, that I have made use of those arts against the patriots which they have so long practised against the court; that I have exaggerated the enormity of the motion by unjust comparisons, or rhetorical flights; and that there will be neither danger nor inconvenience in complying with it to any but those who have betrayed their trust, or neglected their duty.

  I doubt not, but many of those with whom this motion has been concerted, have approved it without seeing all its consequences; and have been betrayed into that approbation by a laudable zeal for their country, and an honest indignation against corruption and treachery, by a virtuous desire of detecting wickedness, and of securing our constitution from any future dangers or attacks.

  For the sake, therefore, of these gentlemen, whom I cannot but suppose willing to follow the dictates of their own consciences, and to act upon just motives, I shall endeavour to lay open the nature of this extraordinary motion, and doubt not but that when they find it, as it will unquestionably appear, unreasonable in itself, and dangerous to posterity, they will change their opinion for the same reasons as they embraced it, and prefer the happiness of their country to the prosperity of their party.

  Against an inquiry into the conduct of all foreign and domestick affairs for twenty years past, it is no weak argument that it is without precedent; that neither the zeal of patriotism, nor the rage of faction, ever produced such a motion in any former age. It cannot be doubted by those who have read our histories, that formerly our country has produced men equally desirous of detecting wickedness, and securing liberty, with those who are now congratulating their constituents on the success of their labours; and that faction has swelled in former times to a height, at which it may reasonably be hoped it will never arrive again, is too evident to be controverted.

  What then can we suppose was the reason, that neither indignation, nor integrity, nor resentment, ever before directed a motion like this? Was it not, because it neither will serve the purposes of honesty, nor wickedness; that it would have defeated the designs of good, and betrayed those of bad men; that it would have given patriotism an appearance of faction, rather than have vested faction with the disguise of patriotism.

  It cannot be supposed, that the sagacity of these gentlemen, however great, has enabled them to discover a method of proceeding which escaped the penetration of our ancestors, so long celebrated for the strength of their understanding, and the extent of their knowledge. For it is evident, that without any uncommon effort of the intellectual faculties, he that proposes an inquiry for a year past, might have made the same proposal with regard to a longer time; and it is therefore probable, that the limitation of the term is the effect of his knowledge, rather than of his ignorance.

  And, indeed, the absurdity of an universal inquiry for twenty years past is such, that no man, whose station has given him opportunities of being acquainted with publick business, could have proposed it, had he not been misled by the vehemence of resentment, or biassed by the secret operation of some motives different from publick good; for it is no less than a proposal for an attempt impossible to be executed, and of which the execution, if it could be effected would be detrimental to the publick.

  Were our nation, sir, like some of the inland kingdoms of the continent, or the barbarous empire of Japan, without commerce, without alliances, without taxes, and without competition with other nations; did we depend only on the product of our own soil to support us, and the strength of our own arms to defend us, without any intercourse with distant empire, or any solicitude about foreign affairs, were the same measures uniformly pursued, the government supported by the same revenues, and administered with the same views, it might not be impracticable to examine the conduct of affairs, both foreign and domestick, for twenty years; because every year would afford only a transcript of the accounts of the last.

  But how different is the state of Britain, a nation whose traffick is extended over the earth, whose revenues are every year different, or differently applied, which is daily engaging in new treaties of alliance, or forming new regulations of trade with almost every nation, however distant, which has und
ertaken the arduous and intricate employments of superintending the interests of all foreign empires, and maintaining the equipoise of the French powers, which receives ambassadors from all the neighbouring princes, and extends its regard to the limits of the world.

  In such a nation, every year produces negotiations of peace, or preparations for war, new schemes and different measures, by which expenses are sometimes increased, and sometimes retrenched. In such a nation, every thing is in a state of perpetual vicissitude; because its measures are seldom the effects of choice, but of necessity, arising from the change of conduct in other powers.

  Nor is the multiplicity and intricacy of our domestick affairs less remarkable or particular. It is too well known that our debts are great, and our taxes numerous; that our funds, appropriated to particular purposes, are at some times deficient, and at others redundant; and that therefore the money arising from the same imposts, is differently applied in different years. To assert that this fluctuation produces intricacy, may be imagined a censure of those to whose care our accounts are committed; but surely it must be owned, that our accounts are made necessarily less uniform and regular, and such as must require a longer time for a complete examination.