Complete Works of Edmund Burke

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by Edmund Burke


  LETTER VII. TENURE OF OFFICE.

  Saturday, November 18, 1775.

  MR. MILLER,

  THE Duke of Grafton has been removed from the Office of Privy Seal. The mere removal of a Minister is a matter of little moment to the people. But the cause of his removal may be of the highest importance; as it is frequently the surest and strongest indication of the system of politics which predominates at Court.

  The offence given by the Duke of Grafton is known to all the world. A person of the highest rank in the kingdom, in an office of the highest rank in the State, very lately first Minister of State, in great personal favour with his Majesty, closely connected by the strongest ties of affinity, inclination, and interest with a leading part of the administration, and a constant and powerful supporter of their measures. — This man, finding the British empire in America lost by the measures he had implicitly supported, at last presumes to desire some little information in this perilous state of our affairs. He is immediately dismissed from his employment, with every possible mark of displeasure and disgrace.

  The favourers of Administration are now acquainted with the terms upon which they are to support government. A great deal of the support not only of well-wishers within doors but even of the Members of both Houses of Parliament, must be implicit. Many matters of detail undoubtedly cannot, some matters certainly ought not, to be communicated. The advantage of having men of great rank and interest in their country, in high station, is this, and perhaps this only: we suppose they have a spirit proportioned to their station; that they look for something else in office besides the salary; that they are entitled to information and explanation; that they at least are depositaries of the real secret. On this presumption, the support of such great persons becomes a pledge to the public, that the steps taken by the directing part of Ministry, are taken upon proper ground. When the people at large have reason to believe this to be the case, they are apt patiently to acquiesce in the ruling wisdom. Their confidence subsists unshaken, even among difficulties which embarass their affairs, and doubts that perplex their understanding.

  It has been now, for the first time, thought proper to remove the veil that was drawn between the people and the government. We are now informed, that the support of the greatest men in the kingdom, and in the highest offices, is to be as blind and uninformed as that of Custom-House Officer, who by order of the Treasury votes at an election for a Nabob.

  Ignorant credulity, passive submission, blind obedience, are the virtues which politicians have hitherto required, and sometimes found — in the mob. Until our happy days, these laudable dispositions have not been thought qualifications for the highest offices in a great empire. At present it is not enough to impose upon the people. The purpose for which one half of the Ministry subsists, is to impose upon the other half. By this happy invention it is, that a Ministry, composed of jarring principles and adverse opinions, is to be rendered unanimous.

  A sort of frauds I admit have been often practised in matters of state. The public danger has been often represented much beyond the reality, in order that the fullest preparations might be made against it; because superfluous comprehends necessary exertion; and it is better to be a good deal beyond, than the least degree short of security. But this is the first time that real difficulties were concealed, in order that weak arrangements should be justified; or that feeble arrangements were avowedly chosen, in order to hide a danger of the first magnitude. In former times, whatever little artifices were used, were external. Till now, systematical, internal delusion, and mutual impositions of Ministers, have not been openly professed as maxims of government.

  The House of Lords presented the other day a scene as instructive as it was singular. An altercation had arisen on the state of the navy. It was thought extraordinary last year, when the reduction of America by force was resolved on, that the naval establishment should be reduced from 20,000 to 18,000 seamen. It was then thought something unaccountable, that operations of violence should be commenced by a reduction of strength. At that time, however, the first Lord of the Admiralty, in the first assembly of the nation, solemnly declared, that that he knew the establishment, as then voted at 18,000 men, to be sufficient for all its purposes. This year, the same person, in the same office, in the same assembly, has declared, that he last year knew it to be not sufficient.

  The species of courage and magnanimity which supports a man in such a declaration, excited no surprise. The character of that truly noble person is perfectly and universally understood. It was the reason he assigned for the last year’s imposition, that struck every man who heard it. He was obliged (he said) to make that representation to the House, because if he had laid open the real extent and necessities of the service in which the naval power was to be employed, he

  “should not have been supported by Lords in high office.”

  The reason assigned for this gross imposition, on the hereditary council of the Crown who agreed to that establishment, on the Commons who voted it, and on the nation which acquiesced in it, is in effect,

  “that if the first Lord of the Admiralty had not deceived the public, he could not have been happy enough to deceive his colleagues.”

  To seduce us into a war, it must carry the appearance of peace. Our danger must be concealed, lest we should keep out of it, or prepare against it. A civil war is in itself so desirable to Ministers, that we must run into it without either knowledge or preparation. This pious and prudent war was to please, like virtue, for its own sake; and to be recommended, even by the miseries which were to attend it. We must resolve to cut the throats of the Americans, even though our own defeat, even though famine, blockade, loss of reputation, and loss of empire, should be the inevitable consequence. These disasters were to become the pledge of our perseverance in this glorious design. When we should have suffered enough of shame, and enough of damage, in the first feeble effort, it was presumed we should grow sufficiently irritated (not with our advisers but our enemies) to continue in those hostilities which, with information, we never could have commenced; that having been brought into difficulties by ignorance, we should plunge deeper by passion; that feeling we had suffered by weak exertions, we might be reconciled to the strongest; that disgusted with the ill effects of moderate expences, we might set all on one desperate cast, in the wild imagination that with a boundless charge we might either retrieve our error, or compleat our ruin. A timid and treacherous beginning; a bold and desperate progress; a conclusion to be apprehended in the silence of horror, not to be expressed in words!

  Avowing this scheme, some of the Ministers have confessed, that they had been deceivers; most that they had been deceived. Those who are not content to be deceivers, or deceived any longer, are not any longer to be Ministers. This is now declared to be the tenure of British administration.

  One would think, that country gentlemen had too much of plain honesty, and plain sense, after so public a manifestation of imposture, delusion, and ignorance, to act their part any longer in this tragical farce. Implicit confidence in confessed imposture, seems rather too much. Justice must be done to many of the country gentlemen. Steady supporters of government, they did not mean to be abettors of a faction. When they heard Ministers confess, that the facts were mistaken and the reasonings erroneous, on which the plans of government had been formed for several years past, they thought themselves obliged to look a little more carefully about them. The public misfortunes had taught them to presume less, and to examine more. They thought they had a right, after so many promises broken, and so many expectations disappointed, to demand more explicit information.

  They observed, that the person called the Minister, on the first day of the session, was totally undecided concerning the part that he was to act. The second day they heard, or thought they heard him declare, that he would readily abandon taxation, repeal the obnoxious acts, and reduce things to the condition of 1763. A day or two after, they heard him explain himself to have meant nothing like it. The
succeeding day he explained away his explanation. One day concession was to set all to rights; the next all depended on force. Sometimes a revenue was to be the true object of the war. Sometimes an American revenue was the wildest project in the world. Sometimes the Americans aimed at independency, and nothing less could satisfy them. Sometimes it was against nature, that they should suffer all the evils of war, rather than not accept of reasonable conditions. Sometimes concessions on our part were to precede an armistice; sometimes the submission of the rebels was to precede all treaty. No two men in office agreed among themselves on the same day; no man agreed with himself for two days together. The beginning of almost all their speeches, was at irreconcileable variance with the conclusion.

  Last year a few garbled papers were laid before parliament, and a civil and military plan, such as they were. This year one part of the ministry confessing their bad information, and another their evil intentions, call for a much greater measure of confidence than ever. Instead of laying garbled, mutilated papers before the House, they produce none. The task-masters lessen the provender of their hacks, in proportion as they increase their labour.

  Gentlemen call for the advices from America. They are refused. They demand the state of their troops in that quarter. It is denied them. The general outline of the ministerial plan is solicited. It is dangerous to divulge it. It is asked, whether they have any plan at all? Still no satisfaction. The public know nothing, except declarations of innocence, and acts of indemnity; Hanoverians brought in contrary to law, and Russian Auxiliaries never to be brought at all; troops that cannot be raised, and treaties that are never to be executed; powerful fleets and vast armies, of which there is nothing certain but the ruinous expence.

  Such was the language and situation of the Ministers, and such the view of affairs, even previous to the late changes. Every thing called on country gentlemen to begin to think for themselves. But there is a further demand on their attention. American affairs are now taken out of the hands of Lord North. That noble Lord’s Dartmouth, is removed, in order to mark, in the most distinct and public manner, the total cessation of Lord North’s influence and direction in the American department.

  A new Secretary of State for the Colonies, Lord George Germaine, takes the lead in American business. At present, therefore, Lord North’s declarations, retractations, modifications, explanations, and reservations, are wholly out of the question. His Lordship is now to fall back, and, at best, to act only a secondary part. Those who supported administration, as declaring a personal confidence in Lord North, have that ground of confidence taken from under them. If from a sort of hereditary party regard the Tories felt a respect for Lord North’s family, I fear, whatever Lord George himself may do to please them, his family does not afford him that recommendation. What then is to be the foundation of implicit trust in the new Minister? All we know is, that he has always shewn a very rooted hostile disposition to America. His Parliamentary prop is Mr. Wedderburne; his private counsellor is Governor Hutchinson. This triumvirate composes the new American cabinet. Some country gentlemen may think it right to support these Ministers with as blind a confidence as that with which they supported Lord North and Lord Dartmouth, until the middle of last week. These new Ministers have been the under workmen of the late Premier. How they came to assume the lead and direction, is a matter of curious, rather than important speculation. But I see no reason for presuming, that those who have helped to cause these distractions, while they were in a subordinate capacity, will re-establish our affairs in a superior situation.

  These affairs and times will sift and search the principles of men. Former majorities were very mixed bodies. Many good and quiet men supported Ministers from hatred of bustle and contention; from a suspicion that opposition was at bottom as interested as administration. At length measures speak a language not to be misunderstood. They speak no longer in arguments and conjectures, but in effects. Our American empire is lost; and we know in whose hands that calamity has happened. The Ministers are caught with the Mainer, as the Lawyers say. No majority can hide the principals or the abettors.

  The true country gentleman will now be distinguished from the courtier in masquerade. The characteristic of a true country gentleman, is his care of the property of his constituents. He will not think that railing at rebellion is a reason for taxing his country, without any account of the past use of his supplies, or any security for their future proper and effectual employment. To tell him that the Americans are defective in their duty, will not be a reason for him to neglect his own, or to suffer Ministers to neglect theirs. He will never believe, that the way of suppressing or quieting rebellion in America, consists in encouraging deceit, negligence, or mismanagement at home. At a time like this, a true English country gentleman will distinguish himself by a constitutional suspicion, and a constant desire of account and information. On the contrary, the courtier in masquerade, like those that compound felony in the news-papers, and advertise for stolen goods, offers his money, and assures that

  “no questions will be asked.”

  It is true that this latter description of country gentlemen, not at all troubled with an impertinent, incommodious solicitude, and teizing curiosity, have received, bountifully and of free grace (for they called for none) some satisfaction from the Ministers for all the money they have voted. They were told, with due solemnity, with much pomp, and true oracular gravity, in both Houses of Parliament,

  “That there is something in the nature and complexion of this country, which disposes it to be disgraced and beaten in the beginning of a war; that it has been always so; and that as we have begun the American war in our natural and habitual manner, we shall, as formerly, rise from contempt to honour, and from defeat to glory.”

  I do not mean to derogate, in the smallest degree, from any one particle of this satisfactory account of our past failure, and this solid ground of our future hopes. Let the facts and inferences remain for ever unimpeached. It would be cruel to nibble at the least crum of this comfort. It is indeed the only apology that has been so much as attempted, for Ministers and their supporters. It is the simple and sole account which gentlemen have to render to their constituents at the Christmas recess, of a Land Tax entailed on posterity at four shillings in the pound; and a sinking fund, alienated for ever from its original purposes, to an eternal but inadequate provision for the interest of growing debts, and aggravated establishments.

  VALENS.

  LETTER VIII. HOUSE OF COMMONS SHUT.

  Monday, November 30.

  Mr. MILLER,

  THE gallery of the House of Commons has for about three weeks been shut against strangers, for some reason far more weighty, I must suppose, than the mere accomodation of the few members, who, in this cold season, chuse to shiver on the half deserted benches, or to huddle themselves together, and blow their fingers about the Speaker’s chair.

  I am told, the Ministers complain, that their speeches are misrepresented; and this misrepresentation is assigned to the House as a justifiable cause for an utter exclusion of their constituents. With all the deference which I bear to the opinions of those gentlemen, I must think they are somewhat mistaken in this method of preventing misrepresentation. The House cannot hinder the members from gratifying the curiosity of their friends with accounts of what passes in the debates. The sentiments and opinions of Ministers, will very naturally be the first object of that curiosity. Passion and prejudice on the one side, and the ill conception of a drowsy and oblivious acquiescence on the other, will, not unnaturally, render the accounts fallacious or erroneous. Thus a material injury may be done to the language of the clearest speakers, and to the sentiments of the most accurate, close, and systematic thinkers. A numerous auditory is therefore the only security against the weak accounts of friends, and the malignant interpretation of enemies. Most men, who would not have their sense mistaken, wish to be their own interpreters; and those who complain that malicious reports are circulated to their disadvantage, can
not object to an opportunity of clearing themselves to the world; for I always take it as granted, that the strangers, as we are called, are not more to be suspected by Ministers of an ill disposition towards them, than many of those, whom it is not yet in their power to exclude.

  This fear of misrepresentation being but a poor reason for turning a popular representative into a secret conclave, I rather suspect, that strangers are excluded, not because Ministers are misrepresented, but because they cannot be understood. I have sometimes the honour of being admitted, at a coffee house where the members take refreshment, to a conversation with some worthy gentlemen who always vote in the majority. It must be admitted in their favour, that if they are in the secret, they are perfectly worthy of the trust reposed in them; for they appear to be no more enlightened than myself, with regard to the objects which Ministers have in view, or with regard to their means of attaining any object whatever. In saying this, I would not insinuate a thing so much to their prejudice, as that their total want of information concerning the plans, arguments, and opinions of Ministers, make the least abatement in the zeal with which they support them.

  Happily the House of Lords is more accessible. What can be the cause? Is it, that this House, being the great natural council of the Crown, must of course be less in the secret of affairs, than an assembly merely popular? Or is it, that not being accountable to the people at a general election, the Lords are more indifferent than our worthy representatives, about the discovery of their sentiments? Or must we suppose, that the great Ministers there are so much more clear and determinate in their ideas, than the involved Oracles of the House of Commons, that they are not more afraid of being misunderstood by two hundred than by twenty?

  In that residence of well-bred, easy, popular manners, I had lately the happiness of hearing a noble and learned Peer, who possesses as great a share of clearness in explaining, as he does of power in guiding the public measures. From him I thought I should have received that satisfaction, which I had in vain sought in other places. I was, however, I must confess, perhaps to my shame, a little disappointed. Lord Mansfield, instead of opening new matter to us from his own abundant magazines of policy, thought proper to refer us to Doctor Tucker, whose pamphlet I had just bought for a shilling. Doctor Tucker is, it seems, the only person who has put the long agitated question of America on its proper bottom. Whatever many of us might have thought before, we dare no longer treat the projects of that worthy, political, and commercial divine, as visionary. They have received the sanction of the highest authority in the kingdom for station, wit, learning, and abilities. The great author of these projects, we are told, has hit

 

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