The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Volume 11

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 undertaken 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.

Whoever shall set his foot in our offices, and observe the number of papers with which the transactions of the last twenty years have filled them, will not need any arguments against this motion. When he sees the number of writings which such an inquiry will make necessary to be perused, compared, and extracted, the accounts which must be examined and opposed to others, the intelligence from foreign courts which must be considered, and the estimates of domestick expenses which must be discussed; he will own, that whoever is doomed to the task of this inquiry, would be happy in exchanging his condition with that of the miners of America; and that the most resolute industry, however excited by ambition, or animated by patriotism, must sink under the weight of endless labour.

If it be considered how many are employed in the publick offices, it must be confessed, either that the national treasure is squandered in salaries upon men who have no employment, or that twenty years may be reasonably supposed to produce more papers than a committee can examine; and, indeed, if the committee of inquiry be not more numerous than has ever been appointed, it may be asserted, without exaggeration, that the inquiry into our affairs for twenty years past, will not be accurately performed in less than twenty years to come; in which time those whose conduct is now supposed to have given the chief occasion to this motion, may be expected to be removed for ever from the malice of calumny, and the rage of persecution.

But if it should be imagined by those who, having never been engaged in publick affairs, cannot properly judge of their intricacy and extent, that such an inquiry is in reality so far from being impossible, that it is only the work of a few months, and that the labour of it will be amply recompensed by the discoveries which it will produce, let them but so long suspend the gratification of their curiosity, as to consider the nature of that demand by which they are about to satisfy it. A demand, by which nothing less is required than that all the secrets of our government should be made publick.

It is known in general to every man, whose employment or amusement it has been to consider the state of the French kingdoms, that the last twenty years have been a time not of war, but of negotiations; a period crowned with projects, and machinations often more dangerous than violence and invasions; and that these projects have been counteracted by opposite schemes, that treaties have been defeated by treaties, and one alliance overbalanced by another.

Such a train of transactions, in which almost every court of France has been engaged, must have given occasion to many private conferences, and secret negotiations; many designs must have been discovered by informers who gave their intelligence at the hazard of their lives, and been defeated, sometimes by secret stipulations, and sometimes by a judicious distribution of money to those who presided in senates or councils.

Every man must immediately be convinced, that by the inquiry now proposed, all these secrets will be brought to light; that one prince will be informed of the treachery of his servants, and another see his own cowardice or venality exposed to the world. It is plain, that the channels of intelligence will be for ever stopped, and that no prince will enter into private treaties with a monarch who is denied by the constitution of his empire, the privilege of concealing his own measures. It is evident, that our enemies may hereafter plot our ruin in full security, and that our allies will no longer treat us with confidence.

Since, therefore, the inquiry now demanded is impossible, the motion ought to be rejected, as it can have no other tendency than to expose the senate and the nation to ridicule; and since, if it could be performed, it would produce consequences fatal to our government, as it would expose our most secret measures to our enemies, and weaken the confidence of our allies. I hope every man who regards either his own reputation, or that of the senate, or professes any solicitude for the publick good, will oppose the motion.

Lord QUARENDON spoke to this effect:—Sir, I am always inclined to suspect a man who endeavours rather to terrify than persuade. Exaggerations and hyperboles are seldom made use of by him who has any real arguments to produce. The reasonableness of this motion (of which I was convinced when I first heard it, and of which, I believe, no man can doubt who is not afraid of the inquiry proposed by it) is now, in my opinion, evinced by, the weak opposition which has been made by the honourable gentleman, to whose abilities I cannot deny this attestation, that the cause which he cannot defend, has very little to hope from any other advocate.

And surely he cannot, even by those who, whenever he speaks, stand prepared to applaud him, be thought to have produced any formidable argument against the inquiry, who has advanced little more than that it is impossible to be performed.

Impossibility is a formidable sound to ignorance and cowardice; but experience has often discovered, that it is only a sound uttered by those who have nothing else to say; and courage readily surmounts those obstacles that sink the lazy and timorous into despair.

That there are, indeed, impossibilities in nature, cannot be denied. There may be schemes formed which no wise man will attempt to execute, because he will know that they cannot succeed; but, surely, the examination of arithmetical deductions, or the consideration of treaties and conferences, cannot be admitted into the number of impossible designs; unless, as it may sometimes happen, the treaties and calculations are unintelligible.

The only difficulty that can arise, must be produced by the confusion and perplexity of our publick transactions, the inconsistency of our treaties, and the fallaciousness of our estimates; but I hope no man will urge these as arguments against the motion. An inquiry ought to be promoted, that confusion may be reduced to order, and that the distribution of the publick money may be regulated. If the examination be difficult, it ought to be speedily performed, because those difficulties are daily increasing; if it be impossible, it ought to be attempted, that those methods of forming calculations may be changed, which make them impossible to be examined.

Mr. FOWKES replied in the manner following:—Sir, to treat with contempt those arguments which cannot readily be answered, is the common practice of disputants; but as it is contrary to that candour and ingenuity which is inseparable from zeal for justice and love of truth, it always raises a suspicion of private views, and of designs, which, however they may be concealed by specious appearances, and vehement professions of integrity and sincerity, tend in reality to the promotion of some secret interest, or the gratification of some darling passion. It is reasonable to imagine, that he, who in the examination of publick questions, calls in the assistance of artifice and sophistry, is actuated rather by the rage of persecution, than the ardour of patriotism; that he is pursuing an enemy, rather than detecting a criminal; and that he declaims against the abuse of power in another, only that he may more easily obtain it himself.

In senatorial debates, I have often known this method of easy confutation practised, sometimes with more success, and sometimes with less. I have often known ridicule of use, when reason has been baffled, and seen those affect to despise their opponents, who have been able to produce nothing against them but artful allusions to past debates, satirical insinuations of dependence, or hardy assertions unsupported by proofs. By these arts I have known the young and unexperienced kept in suspense; I have seen the cautious and diffident taught to doubt of the plainest truths; and the bold and sanguine persuaded to join in the cry, and hunt down reason, after the example of their leaders.

But a bolder attempt to disarm argument of its force, and to perplex the understanding, has not often been made, than this which I am now endeavouring to oppose. A motion has been made and seconded for an inquiry, to which it is objected, not that it is illegal, not that it is inconvenient, not that it is unnecessary, but that it is impossible. An objection more formidable cannot, in my opinion, easily be made; nor can it be imagined that those men would think any other worthy of an attentive examination, who can pass over this as below their regard; yet even this has produced no answer, but contemptuous raillery, and violent exclamation.

What arguments these gentlemen require, it is not easy to conjecture; or how those who disapprove their measures, may with any hope of success dispute against them. Those impetuous spirits that break so easily through the bars of impossibility, will scarcely suffer their career to be stopped by any other restraint; and it may be reasonably feared, that arguments from justice, or law, or policy, will have little force upon these daring minds, who in the transports of their newly acquired victory, trample impossibility under their feet, and imagine that to those who have vanquished the ministry, every thing is practicable.

That this inquiry would be the work of years; that it will employ greater numbers than were ever deputed by this house on such an occasion before; that it would deprive the nation of the counsels of the wisest and most experienced members of this house, (for such only ought to be chosen,) at a time when all Europe is in arms, when our allies are threatened not only with subjection, but annihilation; when the French are reviving their ancient schemes, and projecting the conquest of the continent; and that it will, therefore, interrupt our attention to more important affairs, and disable us from rescuing our confederates, is incontestably evident; nor can the wisest or the most experienced determine how far its consequences may extend, or inform us, whether it may not expose our commerce to be destroyed by the Spaniards, and the liberties of all the nations round us to be infringed by the French; whether it may not terminate in the loss of our independence, and the destruction of our religion.

Such are the effects which may be expected from an attempt to make the inquiry proposed; effects, to which no proportionate advantages can be expected from it, since it has been already shown, that it can never be completed; and to which, though the indefatigable industry of curiosity or malice should at length break through all obstacles, and lay all the transactions of twenty years open to the world, no discoveries would be equivalent.