第30章 Letter VIII(4)

In the first place,there was a party that concurred in making the new settlement;a party that prevailed in Parliament,and was by much the majority of the nation out of it.Were the Whigs this majority?Was this party a Whig party?No man will presume to affirm so notorious an untruth.The Whigs were far from being this majority,and King James must have died on the throne,if the Tories had not concurred to place the Prince of Orange there in his stead.Was this party a Tory party then?Certainly no.The Whigs had been zealous in the same cause,and had contributed to make it successful by their temper,as well as their zeal,by waiting the time of the Tories,or rather the maturity of the conjuncture,and by moderating their principles and their conduct in favour of that coalition,without which the Revolution could have succeeded no more than the exclusion did.We find then here neither a Whig nor a Tory party;for in coalitions of this kind,where two parties are melted as it were into one,neither of them can be said,with truth and propriety,to exist.

There was another party directly opposite to this;a certain number of men,on whom the original taint transmitted down from King James the First,remained still in the full strength of its malignity.These men adhered to those principles,in the natural sense and full extent of them,which the Tories had professed.But yet,the Tories having renounced these principles,or distinguished themselves out of any obligation to observe them,this inconsiderable faction could not be deemed the Tory party,but received the name of Jacobite with more propriety.

Two other parties there were at this time,formed on one common principle,but widely different however,by the different consequences they drew from it.The principle I mean,is that contained in the distinction of a king de jure,and a king de facto.The famous statute of Henry the Seventh authorized this distinction.The statute was designed principally,no doubt,for the advantage of the subjects,that they might be safe,whichever side prevailed,in an age when the epidemical folly of fighting for different pretenders had spilt oceans of blood on the scaffold,as well as in the field;and yet the statute was designed for the service of kings de facto too,and particularly of Henry the Seventh.The author of Hereditary Right Asserted would have us believe otherwise;and yet surely nothing can be more evident than this:

that if King Henry the Seventh's right had been as unquestionable as he supposes,and I presume to deny that it was,yet he would have been declared a king de facto only,if the intrigues of the Duchess of Burgundy,and the faction of York had succeeded;and consequently this provision for the safety of his adherents,in that possible contingency,gave strength to him,as it would have given strength to any other prince,whilst it attached his adherents to him by the apparent security it provided;for this author contends that it did not establish a real security,and advises us to suspend our judgment on the validity of this statute,till we see what the 'opinion of Parliament or the judges may be,whenever a king de jure shall dispossess a king de facto'.He refers us ad Calendas Graecas.

But there are two observations to be made to our present purpose on this statute,which seem to me natural and plain.First,it confounds in effect the very distinction it seems to make;since it secures alike,and,by securing alike,authorizes alike those who adhere to the king de jure,and those who adhere to the king de facto,provided they adhere to the king in possession.

Secondly,it was contrived to hinder people,according to my lord Bacon's sense of it,'from busying themselves in prying into the King's title,and :that subjects might not trouble themselves with enquiries into the justness of the King's title or quarrel'.Now,upon the foundations of this distinction and this statute,thus understood,they who demurred on the settlement of the crown at the Revolution,might plausibly,though I think very unreasonably,resolve neither to vote,nor act themselves,against those maxims and principles which they had entertained and professed,as maxims of law,and principles of the constitution,and yet resolve to submit sincerely,and adhere faithfully to a new establishment,when it was once made.But the other of the two parties I mentioned drew from the same principle,of distinguishing between a king de facto and a king de jure,a very different conclusion.They acknowledged one king,and held their allegiance still due to another.They bound themselves by oath to preserve a settlement which they pretended themselves in conscience obliged to subvert.This was to justify perfidy,to sanctify perjury,to remove the sacred boundaries of right and wrong,and,as far as in them lay,to teach mankind to call good evil,and evil good.

Such were the three divisions into which men broke at the Revolution,in opposing the settlement then made,whilst the great body of the nation concurred in it,and Whig and Tory formed in reality but one party.The first of these divisions continued,and became a faction in the state,but made no proselytes,and is worn out by time.The principle of the second was wrong,but it could not be reputed dangerous whilst it lasted,and it seems to have been built on so narrow and slippery a foundation,that it did not continue long in force.I may be more bold in asserting this,since if we look back to the era of the Revolution,and to the times which followed,we shall find among those who voted for a regent,not a king,on the abdication of King James,some illustrious persons who served King William faithfully,who adhered inviolably to our new establishment,and who have been distinguished friends of the succession that hath now taken place.That there have been persons,who deserved to be ranked under the third head,is too notorious to be denied;but I persuade myself that this division hath consisted always of a flux body.On one hand,it is scarce possible to believe that any number of men should be so hardened,as to avow to themselves,and to one another,the acting and persisting to act on a principle so repugnant to every notion and sentiment that harbour in the breasts of social creatures.On the other,we know how the sallies and transports of party,on some occasions,can hurry even reasonable men to act on the most absurd,and honest men to act on the most unjustifiable principles,or both one and the other on no principle at all,according as the object which the prevailing passion presents to them directs.This hath been the case of many since the Revolution,and there are some of all sides,I believe,still alive,sure I am that there were some a few years ago,who know that no side is absolutely unexceptionable in this respect.

I am,sir,etc.