第14章 Letter IV(4)

The violent and sanguinary prosecution of the Popish Plot was intended,no doubt,to make the success of the exclusion more secure,by raising the passions of men so high,that no expedient but an absolute and immediate exclusion,in the terms of the bill,should be thought sufficient.I cannot help saying on this occasion,that I wish this laudable and just design had not been pursued,by wading through the blood of so many men:enemies to our religion and liberty,indeed;but convicted,for the most part on evidence,which could hardly have passed at any other time.I wish we had done nothing which might be interpreted to the disrepute of our own religion,whilst we attempted to proscribe theirs.In fine,I wish,for the honour of my country,that the prosecution on account of this plot,and much more on account of another,which was set up as a kind of retaliation for this,and which caused some of the noblest,as well as some of the meanest blood in the nation to be spilt,could be erased out of the records of history.But there is still a farther reason to wish that greater temper had been joined,at this time,to the same zeal for religion and liberty.Men were made to believe that the King,who had yielded on so many other occasions,would yield on this;that he,who had given up so many ministers,would give up his brother at last;and that if the Parliament would accept nothing less than the exclusion in their own way,it would be extorted from him.Now in this they were fatally deceived:and I must continue to suspect,till I meet with better reasons than I have yet found to the contrary,that they were so deceived by the intrigues of two very opposite cabals;by the Duke of York's,who were averse to all exclusions,whether absolute,or limited,but most to the last;and by the Duke of Monmouth's,who could not find their account in any but an absolute exclusion;nor in this neither,unless the bill passed without any mention of the Duke's daughters,as next in succession:to which,as bishop Burnet tells us,the Prince of Orange was willing to comply,on the faith of assurances he had received from hence;a fact,which the bishop might know,and we may therefore take on his word,as extraordinary as it seems.

I would only observe that King William,then Prince of Orange,could have no reason for consenting that his wife's pretensions to the crown should not be confirmed by an act which excluded her father,except one;and that was the necessity,real,or apparent,of uniting different private interests in the public measure of excluding the Duke of York.Now,if this was his reason,the same reason proves,what shall be farther confirmed in the next letter,that a spirit of faction ran through the proceedings of those who promoted the bill of exclusion:and when faction was opposed to faction,there is no room to wonder,if that of the court prevailed.The King,who had not used to show firmness on other occasions,was firm on this:and the consequence of pushing the exclusion in this manner,was giving him an opportunity of breaking the Country party;of dividing the nation into Whig and Tory:

of governing himself without Parliaments;and of leaving the throne open to his brother,not only without our limitations or conditions,but with a more absolute power established,than any prince of his family had enjoyed.

As soon as the court had got,by management,a plausible pretence of objecting a spirit of faction to those in the opposition,the strength of the opposition was broken,because the national union was dissolved.A Country party must be authorized by the voice of the country.It must be formed on principles of common interest.It cannot be united and maintained on the particular prejudices,any more than it can,or ought to be,directed to the particular interests of any set of men whatsoever.A party,thus constituted,is improperly called party.It is the nation,speaking and acting in the discourse and conduct of particular men.It will prevail in all struggles sooner or later,as long as our constitution subsists;and nothing is more easy to demonstrate than this,that whenever such a party finds it difficult to prevail,our constitution is in danger;and when they find it impossible,our constitution must in fact be altered.On the other hand,whenever the prejudices and interests of particular sets of men prevail,the essence of a Country party is annihilated,and the very appearance of it will soon be lost.Every man will resort in this case to that standard,under which he hath been marshalled in former divisions;to which his inclinations lead him;or which,though he does not entirely approve,vet disapproves the least.

Such a dissolution of a Country party was brought about at the period to which we are now come in our deduction of parties,by the passions,the public pique,and private interest of particular men,and by the wily intrigues of the court.The dissolution of this party,and the new division of the nation into Whig and Tory,brought us into extreme danger.This extreme danger reunited the nation again,and a coalition of parties saved the whole.Such an experience might have showed them,that how opposite soever their professions were,yet they really differed more on negative than on positive principles;that they saw one another in a false light,for the most part,and fought with phantoms,conjured up to maintain their divisions,rather than with real beings.Experience had not this happy effect soon.The swell of the sea continued long after the storm was over;and we have seen these parties kick and cuff like drunken men,when they were both of the same side.--Let us hope that this scene of tragical folly is over,to the disappointment of those who are conscious of past iniquity,or who meditate future mischief.

There are no others who wish and endeavour to prolong it.

I am,sir,etc.