第81章 Letter XIX(6)

But if we should apprehend the effects of these doctrines as little as we esteem the doctors who preach them,yet still the alarm is given by them,and it would be stupidity,or somewhat much worse than stupidity,not to take it.We despise the drummers and trumpeters of an enemy's army (for Iresume the allusion that I applied in the first of these discourses)but when we hear the noise of their drums and trumpets,we take the alarm,and conclude the enemy is near.The friends of our constitution therefore are in the right to join issue upon this point with the enemies of it,and to fix upon this principal and real distinction and difference,the present division of parties;since parties we must have;and since those which subsisted formerly are quite extinguished,notwithstanding all the wicked endeavours of some men,who can have no merit but party-merit,nor safety but in faction,to revive them.

If there was merit,and surely there was great merit,in opposing the assertors of prerogative formerly,when it rose so high as to endanger our liberty;there is great merit in opposing the assertors of corruption now,and in exposing the means by which this expedient may be improved to the ruin of our constitution,and therefore of our liberty.Nay,the merit is greater in some respects,if corruption be in itself,in its own nature,and in the present circumstances of the nation,and dispositions of the people,more dangerous than prerogative ever was;and if the means of establishing a government of arbitrary will,by corruption,be more likely to prove effectual than those of doing it by prerogative ever were.That it should ever become harder to save our country from the effects of corruption,than it was to defeat the efforts of prerogative,God forbid.On the whole matter,a dissertation upon parties could not wind itself up more properly,we think,than by showing that the British constitution of government deserves,above all others,the constant attention,and care to maintain it,of the people who are so happy as to live under it;that it may be weakened for want of attention,which is a degree of danger;but that it cannot be destroyed,unless the peers and the commons,that is,the whole body of the people,unite to destroy it,which is a degree of madness,and such a monstrous iniquity,as nothing but confirmed and universal corruption can produce;that since the time,when all our dangers from prerogative ceased,new dangers to this constitution,more silent and less observed,are arisen;and,finally,that as nothing can be more ridiculous than to preserve the nominal division of Whig and Tory parties,which subsisted before the Revolution,when the difference of principles,that could alone make the distinction real,exists no longer;so nothing can be more reasonable than to admit the nominal division of constitutionists and anti-constitutionists,or of a Court and a Country party,at this time,when an avowed difference of principles makes this distinction real.That this distinction is real cannot be denied,as long as there are men amongst us,who argue for,and who promote even a corrupt dependency of the members of the two houses of Parliament on the crown;and others who maintain that such a dependency of the members takes away the constitutional independency of the two houses,and that this independency lost,our constitution is a dead letter,and we shall be only in a worse condition by preserving the forms of it.

To reduce therefore our present parties to this single division,our present disputes to this single contest,and to fix our principal attention on this object of danger,too long and too much neglected,hath been and is the sole design of these discourses.The design may have been insufficiently executed,but it is honest;but it is of the last importance;and whatever the enemies of our constitution,who call themselves the friends of the government,may say,to amuse and impose on the weak,ignorant,and trifling part of mankind,the importance of it will be felt every day,and every hour,more and more,till it be felt by every man in Britain.Let us hope,and endeavour by all possible means,that it may not be felt too late;and to encourage the constitutionists,or Country party,in this attempt,let us consider from whom an opposition to it is to be expected.--Shall it be expected then from those,who have passed under the denomination of Tories?Certainly not.They feel as much as any men in Britain,the preference that ought to be given to that system of government which was established by the Revolution,and in which they took so great a share,and show themselves as ready to render that great work,which was left and still continues imperfect,complete.--Shall this opposition be expected from the Dissenters?It cannot be.Shall they,who pretend to greater purity than others,become the advocates of corruption?

Shall they contribute their endeavours to undermine the best constitution of government they can hope to enjoy,unless they hope to rise on the ruins of it,and to form another on their own model?As religious sects,they deserve indulgence,and they have it;but they are too wise not to see that,as a faction in the state,they would deserve none.--In fine,shall this opposition be expected from those who have been called Whigs?That too is impossible.