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No XIV.

CONSIDERATIONS upon the Choice of a SPEAKER of the House of Commons in the approaching Session. Printed in the Year

1698. *

EVERY man who has at any time sat in the house of commons, must be sensible, that the Choice of a Speaker is a matter of the greatest importance with relation to the freedom of that house and if liberty be there destroyed in the root, it cannot survive in the branches. For this reason, as is well observed in the king's Declaration, when prince of Orange, the evil counsellors of the late reign thought the surest method to inslave us was, by undermining the Liberty of Parliaments: And one step which such evil counsellors have always made in that execrable attempt, has been by Places, Bribes and Pensions, to take off the Speaker, well knowing that the freedom of that house depends in a great measure upon their Speaker, as our laws and rights depend upon that house. —A man may easily foresee, that whenever slavery shall be intirely fixed in England, as it is among almost all our neighbours, it must be done by a corrupted parliament establishing a Standing Army: by which means this kingdom will feel the effects of tyranny from that place which ought to be the source of liberty.-Upon this foundation my lord Burleigh grounded his maxim, That England can never be thoroughly ruined but by a parliament.' And I am sure a parliament can never be more thoroughly fitted to ruin England, than when by the influence of many members bribed by places of profit, and pensions, a Speaker shall in some future reign be put into the chair, to whom those that are his friends can allow no other character than confidence and dexterity; and that character, those who shall then oppose him, will not deny to him.-Such a one may be granted to be an able man; but those abilities in that place the nation may justly dread.

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Can it with any colour of reason or prudence be said, That there is no danger, let the disposition and obligations of the Speaker be what they will he is but a single man; and besides does not determine questions?' It is true, the ablest general alone, and without troops, is insignificant but when regulated and well paid forces have a bold and skilful leader at their head, they must conquer; especially if those they encounter be an undisciplined militia just brought out of their several counties.— Mankind can judge of few things otherwise than by outward appearances, which are often deceitful. This is the cause, and may be also an excuse, if former parliaments were disappointed in their Speaker, whose frailty, after he

* State Tracts in the reign of William 3, vol. ii. p. 651.

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was chosen, may have been overcome by the gifts and prevailing courtship of the ministers of state. But surely the majority of a house of commons will never chuse one to be their Speaker, whom they find, if the expression may be pardoned, already debauched, and once rejected on the like occasion.-This as it will be the first step, so is it of the highest consequence; for an error here, like one in war, can never be retrieved And undoubtedly it will be thought a very ill omen of what may be expected from this house of commons, if they should so unfortunately stumble at the threshold. It has been criminal formerly in a Speaker of the house of commons to go to court: but the duty of the office of a lord of the treasury must bring him there, and under the greatest temptation of compliance to every thing that is demanded. Nor will the ill effect this may have upon the liberty of parliaments stop here; for it is most certain that such things as are either allowed or connived at under the reigns of good princes, will be made precedents under the bad.

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Freedom of speech, and other essential orders of the house may probably be endangered by one who has declared he knows no order but the majority and if he ventured to speak so plainly, whilst we may presume he was aiming at that honour which some would confer upon him, how will he tyrannize with a majority that he will either find or bring into the interest of the court, when he is possessed of the Speaker's chair.-There are some public trusts, that in their nature are inconsistent with one another, and ought never to be joined in the same person, being designed to be a check upon each other: and a good man can neither with decency nor honesty unite such different trusts in himself. But neither decency nor honesty will bound the ambition of some men.

Suppose there has been the greatest misapplication of the public revenues at a time when the kingdom is under the extremest necessity; is it probable that a Speaker will be impartial, or any way assistant to the house in an inquiry after such mismanagement, who was a lord of the treasury during the time of it?-Suppose a gentleman was 16,000 7. debtor to the crown upon the Revolution, and in a particular clause of the Act of Indemnity procured from the court a release of that debt; can it be expected, that in enquiries how vast sums have been embezzled since that tine, the grand inquest of the nation will be able to make any progress with such a foreman?-Suppose there is a debt growing every day upon the nation by seamen not discharged, while the money given for so

men should be induced to believe that kingship itself is insupportable, and others that parliaments are a burden.-It is this distinction must preserve the honour of our ancient constitution of government, till it may flourish under the influence of a parliament, in which none or few who have gainful offices shall be members of the house of commons. But a bill to that purpose is not to be expected, when a great officer is Speaker.

The executive power ought not to be lodged in that house, because it would deprive the kingdom of that which is the noblest and most useful work of their representatives, the call

a steady administration in the subordinate officers of the government.-But in a house of commons abounding with Officers, if any one of them be attacked, it alarms the whole fraternity, and they all engage to bring him off, though it be by the scandalous way of putting the question for Candles, and carrying it in the negative. This was the case of the Admiralty last parliament, and may be of the Treasury this session, if fortune prove so propitious, that one of their number be made Speaker. This point gained, the next will probably be to establish the army, and then to suspend or repeal the Triennial Act.-Nothing can equal such a Choice, unless we could suppose the the house of commons should fix upon some old Prostitute of the exploded Pensioned Par

necessary a purpose has been disposed of for keeping up an army that should have been disbanded pursuant to the determination of the last parliament upon the most mature and solemn debates; must not the house expect interruptions in bringing on that matter, difficulties in wording, and delays in putting the question, from one who in his station at court may be perhaps charged with advising the keeping up of the army, and in the last parliament was the best and most artificial advocate against disbanding it at all?-These and many other things of the highest importance to ourselves and our posterity, will fall under the consideration of the parliament in the ensuing session;ing ill ministers to account,' and the preserving it being evident that this time of peace is the most proper, if not the only season for rectifying miscarriages; the examination and punishment of which, it may be alledged, was prudent to adjourn during the war.-If a great officer be made Speaker, it is the most natural thing in the world to believe he will use the same arts to keep his office as he did to get it: And if it be considered how several members of our late parliaments got into the most advantageous places of profit, whom the court would not have seen, nor the country felt, had they not been first members, it must be granted that they were advanced not by serving the nation, but the court. Let not any man think this distinction of court and country party in the house of commons to be groundless or ill meant: for if ever a parliament was without such a dis-liament in Charles the 2's reign, who has from tinction, it was when a court was without such ministers; who, instead of serving the government, serve themselves upon it, at the expence of their master's honour, and by impoverishing their country who, instead of being qualified to render his majesty great, and the people happy, seem only to be fitted to bring the king, if it were possible, into disesteem, and to make the kingdom miserable. And whereas the honour, safety and strength of the king depend upon having no other interest than that of his people, it is his majesty's misfortune to be represented by the actions of such officers, as if his and the people's interest were not only divided, but inconsistent. If such as these are leading men in a house of commons, they give just reason to all that love England, and have upon principles of liberty freely exposed their lives and estates for the present government, to make this necessary distinction, lest some

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that time been tricking in the house in so shameful a manner, that the several periods of his life may be marked out by the bargains he has made there, when the court has come up to his price.-His corruption in that station has been as notorious as his ability to do mischief; for both were extraordinary. The Speaker's Chair may upon some accounts be convenient to such a one at this time: but I presume the house will have as little regard to his conveniency, as he has had, and will have to the liberties of his country. In a word, if it be expected that Misdemeanors be inquired into, beneficial laws made, and those which we already possess, transmitted to our posterity, it must be either prodigious folly, or an unaccountable fate, if such a man or a lord of the Treasury, be chosen Speaker of this house of

commons.

No
No XV.

CONSIDERATIONS on the Nature of Parliaments, and our present Elections. Published in the Year 1698.*

The Restoration and Revolution the Work of
the People of England.-The Corruption of
the Age.-A Free House of Commons, how
advantageous.-The Advantages of a good
House of Commons.-King Ch. II. Practices
on the Parliament.· Reformation desired
now or never.-What is our Expectation
from the Parliament.
IT is amazing that a people so zealous for
their liberties, should neglect the natural, safe,
and certain way of securing them, when they
have often had recourse to the most violent
remedies, and have run the utmost hazards to
secure their property. This is the only coun-
try in Europe that enjoys any freedom under a
king, and it mortifies any thinking man when
he considers in how many successive reigns
our constitution has been aimed at, how pre-
cariously we hold it now, and how often the
opportunities of a secure establishment have
been trifled away, when obtained by the bold-
est attempts that were made successful by an
apparent providence.

As the Restoration of king Charles 2, so the last Revolution was the work of the people of England; nothing could have brought it about in so miraculous a manner, but the weight of the whole nation in opposition to the conspirators against our constitution. And if the succeeding parliaments (which are called the Representatives of the Nation) have not established by proper laws those liberties, and that government for which the people drew their swords, it must be concluded, those assemblies did not truly represent that people.-Whether they have done so ought well to be considered; and if they have not, to find where the fault lay, were a useful discovery: and it is highly necessary that the boroughs of England should be well apprised of the present circumstances of affairs, and of the sentiments of mankind at this time; that by a proper and discreet choice they may secure at once the happiness of their country, and their own reputation, which are both in danger. The opinion of the universal corruption of this age cannot be concealed; it is made evident by those that elect, by those that are elected; buying elections, and selling of votes, are consequences. And if this should appear to be the present case, such a house of commons cannot pass for a representative of the people, but a representative of a few dissolute, mercenary persons, possest of voices in the boroughs of England. The consequences of such thoughts they will do well to consider: which must induce al!

*State Tracts in the Reign of William 3, vol. ii. p. 645.

true Englishmen (at a proper time) to seck other methods of being better represented.

When I speak of a natural, safe and certain way of preserving the liberties of England, I mean the securing a free unengaged house of commons, consisting of the rich, honest and able men of the kingdom. When the balance of the government went out of the hands of

the nobility and the churchmen, if a sufficient provision had been made for this, how happy had we been, and what mischiefs and dangers had been prevented to this nation? From Henry the 7th to this time, our annals had contained the names of princes on the throne fit to have been the predecessors to our glorious king: but true it is, he must have lost his title of Deliverer, as we had saved the price of our redemption; for our constitution would have preserved us from those dangers and violences from which he came to free us, and we had not had a whole generation conspiring for a hundred years together (though in diferent ways) against our established government, when sworn to support it. If our new barrier had been well fortified, and if our representative of the people had been contrived to answer indeed to the name, all our kings had been queen Elizabeths. But our elections in inconsiderable boroughs, and our members being qualified to serve two masters, were such mistakes in our fundamentals, that as they have produced our past misfortunes, they must produce the like under bad princes, or evil project ing ministers.

A house of commons chosen truly by the people, incapable of pension and place; and the king and kingdom had been incapable of misfortune: they had been out of the reach of all human power, and, with due submission, above fate; since such a government would have made us the proper objects of divine protection, and not only have secured our greatness and glory, but our religion and morals too, which I fear are all going together.—Ia such circumstances we should have had no cause to fear the Scottish cunning of James 1. No king of Scotland could have made a Scots parliament of such an English assembly. Such a monster as Buckingham, and upon so monstrous a foot of favor, could never have grown to such an exorbitant size under such a constitution: he had soon been prevented in the apparent prostitution of our wealth, in his apparent neglect of the honour and interest of the kingdom, in his apparent and treacherous dealings with the French, and the public enemies: his iniquities had never been screened by a party; in a word, he had not fallen a victim to a private hand.

Under such a government his pious son had pursued the like measures in vain his French wife, his scandalous favourites, his unlaudable bishops, his own insolent and unconstant temper could never have brought him to the block all the blood shed to no purpose in those wars had been saved; he could never have lost his life, nor his kingdoms, he would only have lost his title of Martyr.-Under so just a balance of power, as the sons would have avoided the ill consequences of their father's fate, so would they probably have avoided all the French infection which they received in body and mind: they had not received (sons of the Protestant Martyr) the French religion, and above all contagions a French inclination, the most fatal poison that could enter the blood of an English king. Such a government would soon have discovered the Protestant mask Charles 2 only pulled off at his death: such parliamentary constitution would not have suffered the avowed and open apostacy of the next heir; the Bill of Exclusion had then past, and had prevented the setting up and pulling down the late king with such hazard and expence to the nation. Such an establishment would have prevented the late damnable invented project of corrupting parliaments (which I must mention in this place, because it began at this time) that cursed project, which defeats all our hopes, which poisons us in our mother's milk, which murders us by the hands of our parents, which infects the only cordial that can preserve our being, which makes us accessory to our own fate, betrayed by those we choose to represent us, made slaves by our protectors, and given up by those elected to defend our liberties (but of this, and the terrible consequences I shall take farther notice.) Such a constitution would have prevented that inundation of profaneness, lewdness and immorality, introduced by Charles 2, and his atheistical wits, to fit the nation for the intended yoke of popery and slavery. To that end was all learning and virtue exploded in his reign; scorn of religion, contempt of a public spirit, derision of letters, and a pretending wit above rule, learning or scruples, being the sure and only recommendations to his favor, and public employments. No government but must leave mankind, as the Deity does his creatures, in a state of free-will, and therefore in an exercise perhaps of private vices, or concealed villanies: but in such a true English establishment we had never seen a rampant French whore openly governing our councils; we had not seen an English king (well understanding sea-faring matters) an open instructor to his brother of France in the mysteries of navigation, building and trade.

And to evince, as I go along, the interest of king and people equally to subsist in a steady, good, and incorruptible administration, the elder brother had never died an unnatural death in such a well regulated Protestant state, as would not have admitted of a bigotted, headstrong, popish successor. But let us leave

this artful king, tricked in his tricks, outwitted by such a brother, plotted against by his son, unpitied by his subjects, though making way for such a successor, abandoned at last by his bishops, and with nothing to save him from a future account, but extreme unction from the priests of the whore of Babylon.--And now to the last, and in my opinion the best of the wicked reigns; for the project of a Standing Army under a popish king, did but hasten our Deliverance, as did the expedient of an heir under a belly of clouts. The son must really be got, and the army must be Protestant, I do not say really so, for the name will do. But I shall say less of the living prince, because of his misfortunes. He lives, and without a crown, which is punishment great enough for follies having the excuse of conscience, and mistake. Yet I can hardly contain when I remember he is the cause that all mankind have been getting our wealth, while our own recompence is, that we have got rid of himself. However I forgive him all the rest, but having left behind that worst of evils, a pretence to a Protestant army in a good reign, and in times of peace and I will only lay to the charge of his brother of blessed memory, all the mischiefs arising from corrupt parliaments.

Now to this great point, and our most pressing danger, and the present and future remedies of them. I have hitherto been shewing what violences, what infamies, what follies, an uncorrupted parliamentary constitution would have prevented; which evinces sufficiently what we have to expect in future times, if a secure settlement be not obtained under a good king against the notorious increase of corruption in our age. It is now come to such a height, that it may almost be said, a wise prince must comply with it: for as in a weak and low condition, the physician must not apply the proper remedies till the patient has strength to bear it; so in our low and corrupted state, when patriots must be hired to serve their country, when Whigs go resty without pension or place, and begin with untimely barking against the government in war, to conclude with prostitute bawling for it after a peace; I say, when this is our case, when effectual laws have recovered our constitution, it must be confest, our princes have an excuse for practising the base arts of corruption, especially in times of eminent danger, which allow of no delays. This makes it plain that among men, lawyers must not only seek for coercive honesty; and legislators remembering that most necessary part of the most perfect prayer, Lead us not into Temptation, should have that principally in view for king and people, that neither be led into it. No emperor but envies the least bird upon the wing; but since flying is impossible, the great vicegerents of God upon Earth are content to walk upon two legs with common porters; and either kings must drop from Heaven, and then let them be Jure Divino, or mankind must be slaves, unless they provide such happy and irresistible laws as may restrain

the love of power, as well in kings as statesmen. I will only desire the example may be given me, of the best of kings succeeding a bad one, who ever made it his choice to give up any authority or acquisition, though obtained by his predecessor by means he would not have practised himself. Since then the evils of bad princes are permanent, and the good establishments of just ones often overthrown by those that are arbitrary, what methods for the good of mankind and society, but to find chains strong enough to bind a tyrant, which can only be made here in England, when a good king with upright ministers beats the anvil, and uncorrupted parliaments find fire and materials? -The highest compliment I can make this king, is to say, This is the time for so glorious a work, and we have great reason to expect his utmost assistance: for in truth, deliverance and reformation are his very title. There is this unanswerable argument to prove it must be now or never some infections inust be checkt in time, or remedies will come too late; and I am sure we must flux now, or never expect to see a sound nose on the face of the government. Such a precarious peace as we have obtained, is hardly a blessing: but because it sets parliaments at liberty to settle our shattered state, let no time be lost then, when we are so unsecure of its lasting. But as I would willingly give some hints that may be serviceable at all times in the great cause of liberty, so I shall take notice, and that only from observations of the last reigns, what are the most dangerous symptoms threatening a people with loss of liberty: and when most of those circumstances concur at once (any one of which does threaten ruin) then I need not say a government is most in danger, and that the speediest and strongest antidotes should be provided against the influence of so many malignant constellations joined together.

and to whom must nature and education incline him? It may bappen, as in this case, that the unforced constitution of one country allowed a greater power, and greater prerogatives than were consistent with the laws of the other. How shall the spirit of a prince brook the refusal of that in one place, which he was used to the submission to elsewhere? How can he easily change a bent created perhaps by nature, and confirmed by custom? In one country required to head armies, in another obliged to encourage fleets: in one country troops are the support of men's property, in the other they must prove the ruin of their liberties; this distinction princes cannot easily make. Religion too, the great guide of men's actions, or at least their pretence, differs almost in all countries, even where it agrees in name: and we know by bloody experience, how little the Protestant religion of the Scots did agree with our episcopacy. Innumerable are the mischiefs arising from such a circumstance; but I confine myself only to what were the apparent dangers in the case before us.

Another dangerous symptom appearing in the reign of Charles 1, was this, That all his arbitrary designs were carried on, and disguised under the mask of the most precise piety. Such impious projects as arose from insolence and pride, that were carried on by breach of faith, that tended to the effusion of the best blood in the nation, were always transacted in forms, with fasting and prayers. As his Ship-money was maintained by his judges, so were all his other expedients to inslave the nation preached for by his church, and laboured for by his bishops.-Another threatening circumstance was, the advantage with which Charles 2 came to the throne. The nation was then intoxicated with joy; and he made as ill use of that opportunity, as Noah's daughters did of their father's drunkenTo begin then with what the reign of king ness; as they went in to him, so he got into his James the first will afford us: the most dan- people, and with all sly arts and corruption begerous circumstance that could attend a nation, gan the fatal (well-improved) project of bribing was a reasonable obligation to set upon the Parliaments. And that none might have a throne a prince born and bred up in another scruple of conscience against this highest of country, who must retain a foreign heart, who crimes, betraying their country, religion in his must be partial to the people, to the customs time was the jest of his favourites: but for himof his native land; who must therefore be un- self, he had a different one ready for every naacquainted with the men, manners, privileges, tion and sort of people he had to do with; a and laws of those territories he is newly Papist in France, a Presbyterian in Scotland, a come to govern. This partiality is natural, Churchman in England, a Quaker with Penn, and for that reason justifiable; and there- an Atheist with Halifax. A most dexterous fore as it seldom happens but that princes practice this in all princes that pursue it, transplant themselves to a richer soil (as who thus easily impose on good people willing was the case of king James) so the wealth to be deceived.-Another certain warning of of the more opulent nation must always ensuing mischief (the very porpoise before the be prostituted to raise and supply the favo- storm) is a standing army; which though it rites of the poorer; and it is all can be ex- proved unsuccessful in king James's time, yet it pected, that they be not raised by hasty and immediately preceded his intentions of subvertunmerited favors: besides, it is almost imposing all our laws, human and divine. He thought sible but the interests of the two nations or his project as infallible as his Pope, when so people must interfere, if he retains the jurisdic-many of his troops were Papists and foreigners; tion of both, as this Scotch prince did. How perplext must the best of kings be in his divided thoughts and inclinations? And where,

being secure too of ships from abroad to transport more strangers when wanted. But all this was spoiled with one word, Popery.

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