70 Opposition to Arbitrary Power (1763)
The Preliminary Articles of Peace [ending the Seven Years War] were such as have drawn the contempt of mankind on our wretched negotiators. All our most valuable conquests were agreed to be restored and the East India Company would have been infallibly ruined by a single article of this fallacious and baneful negotiation. No hireling of the minister has been hardy enough to dispute this; yet the minister himself has made our sovereign declare the satisfaction which he felt at the approaching reestablishment of peace upon conditions so honorable to his crown and so beneficial to his people. As to the entire approbation [approval] of parliament which is so vainly boasted of, the world knows how that was obtained. The large debt on the Civil List [of people being paid by the government], already above half a year in arrears, shows pretty clear the transactions of the winter. It is however remarkable that the minister’s speech dwells on the entire approbation given by parliament to the Preliminary Articles, which I will venture to say he must by this time be ashamed of. For he has been brought to confess the total want [lack] of that knowledge, accuracy, and precision by which such immense advantages both of trade and territory were sacrificed to our inveterate enemies. These gross blunders are indeed in some measure set right by the Definitive Treaty. Yet the most important articles relative to cession, commerce, and the [Grand Banks Cod] Fishery remain as they were with respect to the French. The proud and feeble Spaniard too does not RENOUNCE but only DESISTS from all pretensions which he may have formed to the right of fishing — where? Only about the island of NEWFOUNDLAND – till a favorable opportunity arises of insisting on it, there as well as elsewhere.
The minister cannot forbear even in the King’s Speech insulting us with a dull repetition of the word economy. I did not expect so soon to hear that word again, after it had been so lately exploded and more than once by a most numerous audience, hissed off the stage of our English theaters. It is held in derision by the voice of the people and every tongue loudly proclaims the universal contempt in which these empty professions are held by this nation. Let the public be informed of a single instance of economy, except indeed in the household. Lord Ligonier is now no longer at the head of the army, but Lord Bute in effect is. I mean that every preferment given by the crown will be found still to be obtained by his enormous influence and to be bestowed only on the creatures of the Scottish faction. The nation is still in the same deplorable state while he governs and can make the tools of his power pursue the same odious measures. Such a retreat as he intends can only mean the personal indemnity which I hope guilt will never find from an injured nation. The negotiations of the late inglorious peace and the excise will haunt him wherever he goes and the terrors of the just resentment which he must be sure to meet from a brave and insulted people and which must finally crush him, will be forever before his eyes.
In vain will such a minister preach up in the speech that spirit of concord and that obedience to the laws which is essential to good order. They have sent the spirit of discord through the land and I will prophecy that it will never be extinguished but by the extinction of their power. Is the spirit of concord to go hand in hand with the peace and excise through this nation? Is it to be expected between an insolent Exciseman and a peer, gentleman, freeholder, or farmer whose private houses are now made liable to be entered and searched at pleasure? Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, and in general all the cider counties [Somerset, Dorset, and Devon] are not surely the several counties which are alluded to in the speech. The spirit of concord has not gone forth among them but a spirit of liberty has and a noble opposition has been given to the wicked instruments of oppression. A nation as sensible as the English will see that a spirit of concord when they are oppressed means a tame submission to injury and that a spirit of liberty ought then to arise and I am sure ever will, in proportion to the weight of the grievance they feel. Every legal attempt of a contrary tendency to the spirit of concord will be deemed a justifiable resistance, warranted by the spirit of the English constitution. A despotic minister will always endeavor to dazzle his prince with high-flown ideas of the prerogative and honor of the crown which the minister will make a parade of firmly maintaining. I wish as much as any man in the kingdom to see the honor of the crown maintained in a manner truly becoming Royalty .
The Stuart line has ever been intoxicated with the slavish doctrines of the absolute, independent, unlimited power of the crown. Some of that line were so weakly advised as to endeavor to reduce them into practice. But the English nation was too spirited to suffer the least encroachment on the ancient liberties of this kingdom. The King of England is only the first magistrate of this country, but is invested by the law with the whole executive power. He is, however, responsible to his people for the due execution of the royal functions, in the choice of ministers, etc., equal with the meanest of his subjects in his particular duty. The personal character of our present amiable sovereign makes us easy and happy that so great a power is lodged in such hands. But the favorite has given too just cause for him to escape the general odium. The prerogative of the crown is to exert the constitutional powers entrusted to it in a way not of blind favor and partiality, but of wisdom and judgment. This is the spirit of our constitution. The people too have their prerogative and I hope the fine words of Dryden will be engraven on our hearts:
Freedom is the English Subject’s Prerogative.
Source: John Wilkes, Charles Churchill, and others, editors, The North Briton, from No. I to No. XLVI inclusive (London, 1769), No. XLV, 156 a-b https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.45494/page/n401/mode/2up
