Ministers become a sort of miniature kings in their turn. Though they have the greatest opportunity of observing the impotence and unmeaningness of the character, they envy it. It is their trade perpetually to extol the dignity and importance of the master they serve; and men cannot long and anxiously endeavour to convince others of tlie truth of any proposition, • Paine's Letter to the Republican.
OF COURTS AND MINISTERS. 19 •without becoming half convinced of it tlieinselves. They feel themselves dependent for all that tliey most ardently desire, upon this man's arbitrary will; but a sense of inferiority, is perhaps the never failing parent of emulation or envy. They assimilate themselves therefore, of choice, to a man, to whose circumstances their own are considerably similar.
In reality the requisites, Avithout which monarchical govern- ment cannot be preserved in existence, are by no means suffici- ently supplied by the mere intervention of ministers. There must be the ministers of ministers, and a long bead-roll of subordina- tion, descending by tedious and complicated steps. Each of these, lives on the smile of the minister, as he lives on the smile of the sovereign. Each of these has his petty interests to manage, and his empire to employ mider the guise of servility. Each imitates the vices of his superior, and exacts from others the adulation he is obliged to pay.
It has already appeared that a king is necessarily, and almost unavoidably a despot in his heart.* He has been used to hear those things only which were adapted to give him pleasure j and it is with a grating and uneasy sensation, that he listens to com- munications of a different sort. He has been used to unhesitating compliance; and it is with difficulty he can digest expostulation and opposition. Of consequence the honest and virtuous cha- racter, whose principles are clear and unshaken, is least qualified for his service; he must either explain away the severity of his principles, or he must give place to a more crafty and temporising politician. The temporising politician expects the same pliability in others that he exhibits in himself; and the fault which he can least forgive, is an ill-timed and inauspicious scrupulosity.
Expecting tliis compliance from all the coadjutors and instru- ments of his designs, he soon comes to set it up, as a standard, by which to judge of tlie merit of other men. He is deaf to every recommendation, but that of a fitness for the secret service of government, or a tendency to promote his interest, and extend the sphere of his influence. The worst man, with this argument in his favour, will seem worthy of encouragement; the best man, who has no advocate but virtue to plead for him, will be treated with superciliousness and neglect. The genuine criterion of human desert can scarcely indeed be superseded and reversed. Bat it will appear to be reversed, and appearance will produce many of the effects of reality. To obtain honour, it will be thought necessary to pay a servile court to administration, to bear, with unaltered patience, their contumely and scorn, to flatter their vices, and render ourselves useful to their private gratification. To obtain honour it Avill be thought necessary, by assiduity and intrigue, to make ourselves a party, to procure the recommendation of lords, and the good word of women of plea- sure, and clerks in office. To obtain honour it will be thought neces- • p. II c 2 20 OF COURTS AND MINISTERS.
sary to merit disgrace. The wliole scene consists in hollowness, duplicity, and falsehood. The minister speaks fair to the man he despises, and the slave pretends a generous attachment, while he tliinks of nothing but his personal interest. That these principles are interspersed under the worst governments, with occasional deviations into better, it would be folly to deny; that they do not form the great prevailing features, wherever a court and a monarch are to be found, it would be madness to assert.
There is one feature above all others, which has never escaped the most superficial delineator of the manners of a court; I mean, the profound dissimulation which is there cultivated. The min- ister has, in the first place, to deceive the sovereign, continually to pretend to feel whatever his master feels, to ingratiate himself by an uniform insincerity, and to make a show of the most unre- served affection and attachment. His next duty, is to cheat his dependents and the candidates for office; to keep them in a per- petual fever of desire and expectation. Recollect the scene of a ministerial levee. To judge by the external appearance, we should suppose this to be the chosen seat of disinterested kindness. All that is erect and decisive in man, is shamelessly snTrendered. No professions of submission can be so base, no forms of adula- tion so extravagant, but that they are eagerly practised by these voluntary prostitutes. Yet it is notorious that, in this scene above all others, hatred has fixed its dAvelling; jealousy rankles in every breast; and the most of its personages would rejoice in the opportunity of ruining each other for ever. Here it is that promises, protestations, and oaths, are so wantonly multiplied, as almost to have lost their meaning. There is scarcely a man so weak, as, when he has received a court promise, not to tremble, lest it should be found as false and unsubstantial by him, as it has proved to so many others.
At length, by the constant practice of dissimulation, the true courtier comes to be unable to distinguish, among his own senti- ments, the pretended from the real. He arrives at such profi- ciency in his art, as to have neither passions nor attachments. Personal kindness, and all consideration for the merit of others, are swallowed up in a narrow and sordid ambition; not that generous ambition for the esteem of mankind, which reflects a sort of splendour upon vice itself, but an ambition of selfish gratification and illiberal intrigue. Such a man has bid a long farewell to every moral restraint, and thinks his purposes cheaply promoted by the sacrifice of honour, sincerity, and justice. His chief study and greatest boast are to be impenetrable; that no man shall be able to discover what he designs; that, though you discourse with him for ever, he shall constantly elude your de- tection. Consummate in his art, he will often practice it without excuse or necessity. Thus history records her instances of the profuse kindness and endearment, with which monarchs have treated those they had already resolved to destroy. A gratuitoTis pride seems to have been placed, in exhibiting the last refinement OF COURTS AND MINISTERS. 21 of profligacy and deceit. Ministers of this character are the mortal enemies of virtue in others. A cabal of such courtiers is in the utmost degree deadly. They destroy by secret ways, that give no warning, and leave no trace. If they have to do with a blunt, just man who knows no disguise, or a generous spirit that scorns to practise dissimulation and artifice, they mark him their certain victim. No good or liberal character can escape their machinations; and the immorality of the coiu-t, which throws into shade all other wickedness, spreads its contagion through the land, and emasculates the sentiments of the most populous nation..
A fundamental disadvantage in monarchical government, is, that it renders things of the most essential importance, subject, through successive gradations, to the caprice of individuals. The suffrage of a body of electors, will always bear a resemblance, more or less remote, to the public sentiment. The suffrage of an individual will depend upon caprice, personal convenience, or pecuniary corruption. If the king be himself inaccessible to injustice, if the minister disdain a bribe, yet the fundamental evil remains, that kings and ministers, fallible themselves, must, upon a thousand occasions, depend upon the recommendation of others^ Who will answer for these, through all their classes, ofticers of state, and deputies of office, humble friends, and officious valets, wives and daughters, concubines and confessors?
It is supposed by many, that the existence of permanent here- ditary distinction, is necessary to the maintenance of order, among beings so imperfect as the human species. But it is allowed by all, tliat permanent hereditary distinction is a fiction of policy, not an ordinance of immutable truth. Wherever it exists, the human mind, so far as relates to political society, is prevented from settling upon its ti-ue foundation. There is a con- stant struggle, between the genuine sentiments of the understand- ing, which tell us that all this is an imposition, and the imperi- ous voice of government, which bids us reverence and obey. In this unequal contest, alarm and apprehension will perpetually haunt the minds of those who exercise usurped power. In this artificial state of man, powerful engines must be employed to pre- vent him from rising to his true level. It is the business of the governors to persuade the governed, that it is their interest to be slaves. They have no other means by which to create this ficti- tious interest, but those which they derive from the perverted understandings, and burdened property of the public, to be returned in titles, ribbands, and bribes. Hence that system of imiversal corruption, without which monarchy could not exist.
It has sometimes been supposed that corruption is particularly incident to a mixed government. "In such a government the people possess a portion of freedom; privilege finds its place as well as prerogative; a certain sturdiness of manner, and con- sciousness of independence, are the natives of these countries. The country-gentleman will not abjme the dictates of his judg- ment without a valuable consideration. There is here more than 22 OF COURTS AKD MINISTERS.
one road to success; popular favour is as sure a means of advancement as courtly patronage. In despotic countries the people may be driven like sheep; however unfortunate is their condition, they knoAv no other, and they submit to it as an inevit- able calamity. Their characteristic feature is a torpid dulness, in ■which all the energies of man are forgotten. But, in a coimtry calling itself free, the minds of the inhabitants are in a perturbed and restless state, and extraordinary means must be employed to calm their vehemence." It has sometimes happened, to men whose hearts have been pervaded with the love of virtue, of which pecuniary prostitution is the most odious corruption, to prefer, while they have contemplated this picture, an acknow- ledged despotism, to a state of specious and imperfect liberty.
But the picture is not accurate. As much of it as relates to a mixed government, mast be acknowledged to be true. But the features of despotism are too favourably touched. Whether privi- lege be conceded by the forms of the constitution or no, a whole nation cannot be kept ignorant of its force. No people were ever yet so sunk in stupidity, as to imagine one man, because he bore the appellation of a king, literally equal to a million. In a whole nation, as monarchical nations at least must be expected to be constituted, there will be nobility and yeomanry, rich and poor. There will be persons who, by their situation, their wealth, or their talents, form a middle rank between the monarch and the vulgar, and who, by their confederacies and their intrigues, can hold the throne in awe. These men must be bought or defied. There is no disposition that clings so close to despotism, as inces- sant terror and alarm. What else gave biitli to the armies of spies, and the numerous state prisons under the old government of France? The eye of the tjTant is never closed. How numer- ous are the precautions and jealousies that these terrors dictate? No man can go out, or come into the country, but he is watched.
The press must issue no productions that have not the imprimatur of government. All coffee-houses, and places of public resort, are objects of attention. Twenty people cannot be collected together, unless for the purposes of superstition, but it is im- mediately suspected that they maybe confering about their rights. Is it to be supposed, that, where the means of jealousy are employed, the means of corruption will be forgotten? Were it so indeed, the case would not be much improved. No picture can be more disgustful, no state of mankind more depressing, than that, in which a whole nation is held in obedience, by the mere operation of fear, in which all that is most eminent among them, and that should give example to the rest, is prevented, under the severest penalties, from expressing its real sentiments, and, by necessary consequence, from forming any sentiments that are worthy to be expressed. But, in reality, fear was never the only instrument employed for these purposes. No tyrant was ever so unsocial, as to have no confederates in his guilt. This monstrous edifice will always be found supported by all the various instru- t OF SUBJECTS. 23 ments for perverting the human character, severity, menaces, blandishments, professions, and bribes. To this it is, in a great degree, owing, that monarchy is so costly an establishment. It is the business of the despot to distribute his lottery of seduction into as many prizes as possible. Among the consequences of a pecuniary polity these are to be reckoned the foremost, that every man is supposed to have his price, and that, the corrruption being managed in an underhand manner, many a man, who appears a patriot, may be really an hireling; by which means virtue itself is brought into discredit, is either regarded as mere folly and ro- mance, or observed with doubt and suspicion, as the cloak of vices, which are only the more humiliating the more they are concealed.
CHAP. VI.
OF SUBJECTS.
Monarchy founded in imposture. — Ki7igs not entitled to superiority — inadequate to the functions they possess. — Means by which the im- posture is maintained — 1, splendour — 2, exaggeration. — This im- posture generates — 1, indifference to merit — 2, indifference to truth — 3, artificial desires — 4, pusillanimity. — Moral incredulity of mo- narchical coujitries. — Injustice of luxury — of the inoi-dhmte admira- tion of wealth.
Let us proceed to consider the moral effects, which the institu- tion of monarchical government is calculated to produce, upon the inhabitants of the countries in which it flourishes. And here it must be laid down as a first principle, that monarchy is founded in imposture. It is false, that kings are entitled to the eminence they obtain. They possess no intrinsic superiority over their sub- jects. The line of distinction that is drawn, is the offspring of pretence, an indirect means employed for effecting certain pur- poses, and not the language of truth. It tramples upon the genuine nature of things, and depends for its support upon this argument, "that, were it not for impositions of a similar nature, mankind would be miserable."
Secondly, it is false that kings can discharge the functions of royalty. They pretend to superintend the affairs of millions, and they are necessarily unacquainted with these affairs. The senses of kings are constructed like those of other men: they can neither see nor hear what is transacted in their absence. They pretend to administer the affairs of millions, and they possess no such supernatural powers, as should enable them to act at a dis- tance. They are nothing of what they would persuade us to believe them. The king is often ignorant of that, of which half 24 OF SUBJECTS.
tlie inhabitants of his dominions are informed. His prerogatives are administered by others, and the lowest clerk in office is fre- quently, to this and that individual, more elicctually the sovereign, than the king himself. He is wholly unacquainted with what is solemnly transacted in his name.
To conduct this imposture with success, it is necessary to bring over to its party our eyes and our ears. Accordingly kings are always exhibited, with all the splendour of ornament, attend- ance, and equipage. They live amidst a sumptuousness of ex. pence; and this, not merely to gratify their appetites, but as a necessary instrument of policy. The most tatal opinion that could lay hold upon the minds of their subjects is, that kings are but men. Accordingly, they are carefully withdrawn from the profaneness of vulgar inspection; and, when they are shown to ihe public, it is with every artihce that may dazzle our sense, and mislead our judgment.
The imposture does not stop with our eyes, but addresses itself to our ears. Hence the inflated style of regal formality. The name of the king everywhere obtrudes itself upon us. It would seem as if everything in the country, the lands, the houses, the fiu-niture, and the inhabitants, were his property. Our estates, are the king's dominions. Our bodies and minds, are his sub- jects. Our representatives, are his parliament. Our courts of Jaw, are his deputies. AH magistrates, throughout the realm, are the king's officers. His name occupies the foremost place in all statutes and decrees. He is the prosecutor of every criminal. He is " Our Sovereign Lord the King." Were it possible that "he should die, " the fountain of our blood, the means by which we live," would be gone: every political function would be suspended. It is therefore one of the fundamental principles of monarchical government, that " the king cannot die." Our moral principles accommodate themselves to our veracity: and, accordingly, the sum of our political duties (the most important of ail duties, _) is loyalty; to be true and faithful to the king; to honour a man whom, it may be, we ought to despise; and to obey; that is, to convert our shame into our pride, and to be ostentatious of the surrender of our own understandings. The morality of adults in this situation, is copied from the basest part of the morality sometim.es taught to children; and the perfection of virtue is placed, in blind compliance, and unconditional sub- mission.
What must be the effects of this machine upon the moral prin- ciples of mankind? Undoubtedly we cannot trifle with the principles of morality and truth, with impunity. However gravely the imposture may be carried on, it is impossible but that the real state of the case should be strongly suspected. Man in a state of society, if undebauched by falsehoods like these, which confound the nature of right and wrong, is not ignorant of what it is in which merit consists. He knows that one man is not superior to another, except so fai- as he is wiser or better.
OF SUBJECTS. 25 Accordingly these are the distinctions to which he aspires for himself. These are the qualities he honours and applauds in another, and which therefore the feelings of each man instigate his neighbours to acquire. But what a revolution is introduced among these original and undebauched sentiments, by the arbi- trary distinctions which monarchy engenders? We still retain in our minds the standard of merit: but it daily grows more feeble and powerless; we are persuaded to think that it is of no real use in the transactions of the world, and presently lay it aside as Utopian and visionary.
Nor is this the whole of the injurious consequences produced, by the hyperbolical pretensions of monarchy. There is a simpli- city in truth that refuses alliance wath this impudent mysticism. No man is entirely ignorant of the nature of man. He will not indeed be incredulous to a degree of energy and rectitude, that may exceed the standard of his preconceived ideas. But for one man to pretend to think and act for a nation of his fellows, is so preposterous, as to set credibility at defiance. Is he persuaded that tlie imposition is salutary? He willingly assumes the right of introducing similar falsehoods into his private affairs. He be- comes convinced, that veneration for truth, is to be classed among our errors and prejudices, and that, so far from being, as it pretends to be, in all cases salutary, it would lead, if ingeniously practised, to the desti-uction of mankind.
Again, if kings were exhibited simply as they are in them- selves to the inspection of mankind, the " salutary prejudice," as it has been called,* which teaches us to venerate them, would speedily be extinct: it has therefore been found necessary to sur- round them with luxury and expense. Thus luxury and expense are made the standard of honour, and of consequence the topics of anxiety and envy. However fatal this sentiment may be to tlie morality and happiness of mankind, it is one of those illu- sions which monarchical government is eager to cherish. In reality, the first principle of virtuous feeling, as has been else- where said,t is the love of independence. He that would be just, must, before all things, estimate the objects about him at theii" true value. But the principle in regal states has been, to think your father the wisest of men, because he is your father,:j: ojid your king the foremost of his species, because he is a king. The standard of intellectual merit, is no longer the man, but his title. To be drawn in a coach of state by eight milk-white t " The persons whom you ought to love infinitely more than me, are those to whom you are indebted for your existence." " Their conduct ought to regulate yours and be the standard of your sentiments." " The respect we owe to our father and mother is a sort of tcorship, as the phrase Jilted ■piety implies." " Ce que vous devez aimer avant moi sans attcune comparai- scn, ce sont ceux a qui rous devcic la vie." " Leur conduite doit regler la rotre et fixer votre opinion." " Le respect que nous derons a notrepere et d notre mere est un culte, cotnme Vexprime le mot pi6t6 filiale." Leqons d'antf Goutemante, Tome I.
26 OF SUBJECTS.
horses, is the highest of all human claims to our veneration. The same principle inevitably runs tlirough every order of the state, and men desire wealth under a monarchical government, for the same reason that, under other circumstances, they would have desired virtue.
Let us suppose an individual who by severe labour earns a scanty subsistence, to become, by accident or curiosity, a spec- tator of the pomp of a royal progress. Is it possible that he should not mentally apostrophise this elevated mortal, and ask, " What has made thee to differ from me?" If no such sentiment pass through his mind, it is a proof that the corrupt institutions of society have already divested him of all sense of justice. The more simple and direct is his character, the more certainly will these sentiments occur. What answer shall we return to his enquiry? That the well being of society, requires men to be treated otherwise than according to their intrinsic merit? Whether he be satisfied with this answer or no, will he not aspire to pos- sess that (which in this instance is wealth), to which the policy of mankind has annexed such high distinction? Is it not indis- pensable, that, before he believes in the rectitude of this institu- tion, his original feelings of right and wrong should be wholly reversed? If it be indispensable, then let the advocate of the monarchical system ingenuously declare, that, according to that system, the interest of society, in the first instance, requires the subversion of all principles of moral truth and justice.
With tliis view let us again recollect the maxim adopted in monarchical countries, " that the king never dies." Thus, with true oriental extravagance, we salute this imbecile mortal, " O king, live for ever!" Why do we this? Because upon his existence the existence of the state depends. In his name the courts of law are opened. If his political capacity be suspended for a moment, the centre to which all public business is linked, is destroyed. In such countries everything is uniform: the cere- mony is all, and the substance nothing. In the riots in the year 1780, the mace of the house of lords was proposed to be sent into the passages, by the terror of its appearance to quiet the con- fusion; but it was obsen-ed that, if the mace should be rudely detained by the rioters, the whole would be thro^vn into anarchy. Business would be at a stand; their insignia, and, with their insignia, their legislative and deliberative functions, would be gone. Who can expect firmness and energy in a country, where everything is made to depend, not upon justice, public interest, and reason, but upon a piece of gilded wood? What conscious dignity and virtue can there be among a people, who, if deprived of the imaginary guidance of one vulgar mortal, are taught to believe that their faculties ai-e benumbed, and all tlieir joints unstrung?