第60章 Letter XIV(5)

Whilst the peers maintain this character,they will be able to discharge this duty;but they would cease to be so,if it was possible they should ever become the tools of faction,or the vassals of a minister.In mediations of this kind,different from those that are more commonly called such,mediators mingle in the contest,are parties concerned,and can by that alone expect to mediate with effect,whether they be considered as bodies of men,or individuals.

When the commons are assisted by the peers in their reasonable endeavours to promote or restore frugality,to secure liberty,and to correct all sorts of maladministration;the peers will have,both collectively and separately,a credit with the people,as well as with the representatives of the people;by which they may contribute to check the latter,whenever an House of Commons shall grow unreasonable,factious,or seditious.But if the peers of the realm neglect,or oppose the commons in their just attempts,and forfeit by consequence the character of impartiality,and even the air of independency,the peers will then add little strength to the crown,whenever the evil day comes,and have as little power to prevent it from coming.There was a time,our fathers saw it,when an House of Commons destroyed,instead of supporting,the constitution,and introduced tyranny,under pretence of excluding slavery.

I think it might be shown,from the anecdotes of that age,that this could not have happened,if the court had not been so long and so partially abetted by the greatest part of the nobility and clergy,both in the House of Lords and out of it.An universal and timely concurrence with the spirit of the Commons,which was pious in the true sense of the word at first,would have had,I presume,the full effect that every honest man proposed in a parliamentary reformation of the state;and those fatal opportunities,that were afterwards given to the republican,Presbyterian and independent factions,would have been avoided.But they who could have trimmed (for there is a wise and honest,as well as a silly and corrupt trimming)or have mediated with success,lost the power of doing either;some by abetting the crown so long,for fear of the Commons,and others by concurring with the Commons so far,for fear of the crown,that the people in general had no confidence in the former,and that the latter were afraid to trust their prince after all they had done against him.If any men had trusted to the plausible professions of the court at that time,and the court had subdued the opposite party,we may judge,without any breach of charity,that these men would have found themselves deceived.Just so,if any men who meant the reformation,not the destruction of the state,believed in the canting reformers of that age,such men were no doubt egregiously deceived.But I confess myself of opinion,and surely upon no improbable grounds,that there were few,or no such men.The good intentions of the court were distrusted even by those who took arms for the King;and the ill intentions of many of the leaders on the other side were suspected,no doubt by many who took arms for the Parliament.But two of the three estates being ripe for the rashest enterprises,and the third being in no condition to mediate,the extremes clashed,without any power sufficient to interpose;and when the sword was drawn,the sword could alone decide.

I conclude therefore,from these two examples,that as there cannot be a greater error in politics than that of a nobility,who assist a prince to take away the liberties and privileges of the commons,which was the case in Castile,so the surest way of preventing that terrible dilemma,wherein men are obliged to choose either submission to tyrannical government,or concurrence with an enraged and no longer governable people,which hath been the case in Castile and Britain both,is for the nobility,and the principal men amongst the commons,to engage so early in the cause of liberty,that the former may be always in condition to mediate with effect,and the latter have always power to allay the intemperate heat of their own body.

I am,sir,etc.