Part 30

It is in some such hopes that I have written these pages; and if they have any such effect, I shall think myself fortunate in having by chance hit on something useful, when I was only trying to amuse myself during the tedious hours of bad health and confinement. No person is more sensible of the many imperfections of this performance than myself. But, as I have no motive for the publication but the hopes of doing some good, I trust that I shall obtain a favourable acceptance of my endeavours from an intelligent, a candid, and a good-natured public. I must entreat that it be remembered that these sheets are not the work of an author determined to write a book. They were for the most part notes, which I took from books I had borrowed, that I might occasionally have recourse to them when occupied with Free Masonry, the first object of my curiosity. My curiosity was diverted to many other things as I went along, and when the Illuminati came in my way, I regretted the time I had thrown away on Free Masonry.--But, observing their connection, I thought that I perceived the progress of one and the same design. This made me eager to find out any remains of Weishaupt's Association. I was not surprized when I saw marks of its interference in the French Revolution.--In hunting for clearer proofs I found out the German Union--and, in fine, the whole appeared to be one great and wicked project, fermenting and working over all Europe.--Some highly respected friends encouraged me in the hope of doing some service by laying my informations before the public, and said that no time should be lost.--I therefore set about collecting my scattered facts.--I undertook this task at a time when my official duty pressed hard on me, and bad health made me very unfit for study.--The effects of this must appear in many faults, which I see, without being able at present to amend them. I owe this apology to the public, and I trust that my good intentions will procure it acceptance[28].

[28] While the sheet commencing p. 341 was printing off, I got a sight of a work published in Paris last year entitled _La Conjuration d'Orleans_. It confirms all that I have said respecting the use made of the Free Mason Lodges.--It gives a particular account of the formation of the Jacobin Club, by the Club Breton. This last appears to have been the Association formed with the assistance of the German deputies. The Jacobin Club had several committees, similar to those of the National Assembly. Among others, it had a Committee of Enquiry and Correspondence, whose business it was to gain partizans, to discover enemies, to decide on the merits of the Brethren, and to form similar Clubs in other places.

The author of the above-mentioned work writes as follows, (vol. iii. p. 19.) We may judge of what the D. of Orleans could do in other places, by what he did during his stay in England. During his stay in London, he gained over to his interest Lord Stanhope and Dr. Price, two of the most respectable members of the _Revolution Society_. This Society had no other object (it said) but to support the Revolution, which had driven James II. from the throne of his ancestors.

Orleans made of this association a true Jacobin Club.--It entered into correspondence with the Committee of Enquiry of our Commune, with the same Committee of our Jacobin Club, and at last with our National Assembly. It even sent to the Assembly an ostensible letter, in which we may see the following passages:

"The Society congratulate the National Assembly of France on the Revolution which has taken place in that country. It cannot but earnestly wish for the happy conclusion of so important a Revolution, and, at the same time, express the extreme satisfaction which it feels in reflecting on the glorious example which France has given to the world." (The Reader will remark, that in this example are contained all the horrors which had been exhibited in France before the month of March 1790; and that before this time, the conduct of the Duke of Orleans on the 5th and 6th of October 1789, with all the shocking atrocities of those days, were fully known in England.)

"The Society resolves unanimously to invite all the people of England to establish Societies through the kingdom, to support the principles of the Revolution, to form correspondence between themselves, and by these means to establish a great concerted Union of all the true Friends of Liberty."

Accordingly (says the French author) this was executed, and Jacobin Clubs were established in several cities of England, Scotland, and Ireland.

Nothing would give me more sincere pleasure than to see the whole proved to be a mistake;--to be convinced that there is no such plot, and that we run no risk of the contagion; but that Britain will continue, by the abiding prevalence of honour, of virtue, and of true religion, to exhibit the fairest specimen of civil government that ever was seen on earth, and a national character and conduct not unworthy of the inestimable blessings that we enjoy. Our excellent Sovereign, at his accession to the throne, declared to his Parliament that HE GLORIED IN HAVING BEEN BORN A BRITON.--Would to God that all and each of his subjects had entertained the same lofty notions of this good fortune! Then would they have laboured, as he has done for near forty years, to support the honour of the British name by setting as bright an example of domestic and of public virtue.--Then would Britons have been indeed the boast of humanity--then we should have viewed these wicked plots of our neighbours with a smile of contempt, and of sincere pity--and there would have been no need of this imperfect but well-meant performance.

_Postscript._

Although I saw no reason to doubt of the validity of the proofs which I have offered in the preceding pages, of a conspiracy against the dearest interests of every nation of Europe, nor of the importance of the information to my own countrymen, it gives me great satisfaction to learn that it has been received with favour and indulgence. This I may conclude from the impression's being exhausted in a few days, and because the publisher informs me that another edition is wanted immediately. I could have wished that this were deferred for some time, that I might have availed myself of the observations of others, and be enabled to correct the mistakes into which I have been led by my scanty knowledge of the German language, and the mistakes of the writers from whom I derived all my informations. I should, in that case, have attempted to make the work more worthy of the public eye, by correcting many imperfections, which the continual distraction of bad health, and my haste to bring it before the public, have occasioned. I should have made the disposition more natural and perspicuous, and have lopped off some redundances and repetitions. But the printer tells me, that this would greatly retard the publication, by changing the series of the pages. At any rate, I am not at present in a condition to engage in any work that requires dispatch. I must yield therefore to those reasons, and content myself with such corrections as can be made immediately.

I have found, after minute enquiry, that I was mistaken as to the expression of an eminent follower of Dr. Priestley, mentioned before. The person alluded to disclaims all sanguinary proceedings, and my information arose from a very erroneous account which was circulated of the conversation. But I still think the caution equally necessary, which I recommended to the hearers of the frequent and violent declamations made by those alluded to, against all religious establishments.

Except the anecdote of Diderot's library, I do not recollect another assertion in the book, for which I have not the authority of printed evidence. This story was told me by so many persons of credit, who were on the spot at the time, that I have no doubt of its truth.

I also find that I was mistaken in my conjecture that Mr. _Le Franc_ communicated his suspicions of the horrid designs of the Free Masons to Archbishop _Gobet_. It must have been to Mr. _Le Clerc de Juigne_, a most worthy prelate, whom the hatred of the Jacobins obliged to fly into Switzerland. The Catholic clergy were butchered or banished, and the Jacobins substituted in their places such as would second their views. _Gobet_ was worthy of their confidence, and the _Archbishop of Thoulouse_ (_Brienne_) himself could not have served the cause of the philosophists more effectually, had they succeeded in their attempts to get him continued Archbishop of Paris.

As the poetical picture of unqualified Liberty and Equality, and the indolent pleasures of the patriarchal life, are the charm by which the Illuminators hope to fascinate all hearts, and as they reprobate every construction of society which tolerates any permanent subordination, and particularly such as found this subordination on distinctions of ranks, and scout all privileges allowed to particular orders of men, I hope that it will not be thought foreign to the general purpose of the foregoing Work, if, I with great deference, lay before the Reader some of my reasons for asserting, without hesitation, in a former part, that the British constitution is the only one that will give permanent happiness to a great and luxurious nation, and is peculiarly calculated to give full exercise to the best propensities of cultivated minds. I am the more desirous of doing this, because it seems to me that most of the political writers on the Continent, and many of my countrymen, have not attended to important circumstances which distinguish our constitution from the States General of France and other countries. The republicans in France have, since the Revolution, employed the pains in searching their records, which ought to have been taken before the convocation of the States, and which would probably have prevented that step altogether. They have shewn that the meetings of the States, if we except that in 1614 and 1483, were uniformly occasions of mutual contests between the different Orders, in which the interests of the nation and the authority of the Crown were equally forgotten, and the kingdom was plunged into all the horrors of a rancorous civil war. Of this they give us a remarkable instance during the captivity of King John in 1355 and 1356, the horrors of which were hardly exceeded by any thing that has happened in our days. They have shewn the same dismal consequences of the assembly of the different Orders in Brabant; and still more remarkably in Sweden and Denmark, where they have frequently produced a revolution and change of government, all of which have terminated in the absolute government, either of the Crown, or of one of the contending Orders. They laugh at the simplicity of the British for expecting that the permanent fruits of our constitution, which is founded on the same jarring principles, shall be any better; and assert, that the peaceable exercise of its several powers for somewhat more than a century, (a thing never experienced by us in former times,) has proceeded from circumstances merely accidental. With much address they have selected the former disturbances, and have connected them by a sort of principle, so as to support their system, "that a States General or Parliament, consisting of a representation of the different classes of citizens, can never deliberate for the general good, but must always occupy their time in contentions about their mutual invasions of privilege, and will saddle every aid to the executive power, with some unjust and ruinous aggrandisement of the victorious Order." They have the effrontery to give the MAGNA CHARTA as an instance of an usurpation of the great feudatories, and have represented it in such a light as to make it the game of their writers and of the tribunes.--All this they have done in order to reconcile the minds of the few thinking men of the nation to the abolition of the different Orders of the State, and to their National Convention in the form of a chaotic mass of Frenchmen, one and indivisible:

_Non bene junctarum discordia semina rerum, Ubi frigida puegnabant calidis, humentia siccis, Mollia cum duris, sine pondere habentia pondus._

Their reasonings would be just, and their proofs from history would be convincing, if their premises were true; if the British Parliament were really an assembly of three Orders, either personally, or by representation, deliberating apart, each having a _veto_ on the decisions of the other two. And I apprehend that most of my countrymen, who have not had occasion to canvas the subject with much attention, suppose this to be really the British Constitution: for, in the ordinary table conversations on the subject, they seldom go farther, and talk with great complacence of the balance of hostile powers, of the King as the umpire of differences, and of the peace and prosperity that results from the whole.

But I cannot help thinking that this is a misconception, almost in every circumstance. I do not know any opposite interests in the State, except the general one of the governor and the governed, the king and the subject.--If there is an umpire in our constitution, it is the house of Lords--but this is not as a representation of the persons of birth, but as a court of hereditary magistrates: the Peers do not meet to defend their own privileges as citizens, but either as the counsellors of the King, or as judges in the last resort. The privileges for which we see them sometimes contend, are not the privileges of the high-born, of the great vassals of the Crown, but the privileges of the House of Lords, of the supreme Court of Judicature, or of the King's Council. In all the nations on the Continent, the different Orders, as they are called, of the State, are corporations, bodies politic, which have jurisdiction within themselves, and rights which they can maintain at their own hand, and privileges which mark them most distinctly, and produce such a complete separation between the different Orders, that they can no more mix than oil and water. Yet the great president Montesquieu says, that the Peerage of England is a _body_ of Nobility; and he uses the term _body_ in the strict sense now mentioned, as synonymous to corporation. He has repeatedly used this term to denote the second order of Frenchmen, persons of noble birth, or ennobled, (that is, vested in the privileges and distinctions of the nobly born,) united by law, and having authority to maintain their privileges. The history of France, nay of our own country, shows us that this body may enjoy all its distinctions of nobility, and that the Great Barons may enjoy the prerogatives of their baronies, although the authority of the Crown is almost annihilated.--We have no cogent reason, therefore, for thinking that they will be constantly careful to support the authority of the Crown; and much less to believe that they will, at the same time, watch over the liberties of the people. In the election of their representatives, (for the whole body of the gentlemen must appear by representation,) we must not expect that they will select such of their own number as will take care of those two essential objects of our constitution.--Equally jealous of the authority of the Crown and of the encroachments of all those who are not gentlemen, and even fearful of the assumptions of the Great Barons, the powerful individuals of their own order, they will always choose such representatives as will defend their own rights in the first place. Such persons are by no means fit for maintaining the proper authority of the Crown, and keeping the representatives of the lower classes within proper bounds.

But this is not the nature of our House of Lords in the present day. It was so formerly in a great measure, and had the same effects as in other countries. But since the Revolution, the Peers of Great-Britain have no important privileges which relate merely or chiefly to birth. These all refer to their functions as Magistrates of the Supreme Court. The King can, at any time, place in this House any eminent person whom he thinks worthy of the office of hereditary magistrate. The Peers are noble--that is, remarkable, illustrious; but are not necessarily, nor in every instance, persons of high birth. This House therefore is not, in any sort, the representative of what is called in France the Noblesse--a particular cast of the nation;--nor is it a junction of the proprietors of the great fees of the Crown, as such;--for many, very many, of the greatest baronies are in the hands of those we call Commoners.--They sit as the King's Counsellors, or as Judges.--Therefore the members of our Upper House are not swayed by the prejudices of any class of the citizens. They are hereditary magistrates, created by the Sovereign, for his counsel, to defend his prerogatives, to hold the balance between the throne and the people. The greatest part of the Nobility (in the continental sense of the word) are not called into this House, but they may be members of the Lower House, which we call the Commons; nay the sons and the brothers of the Peers are in the same situation. The Peers therefore cannot be hostile or indifferent to the liberty, the rights, or the happiness of the Commons, without being the enemies of their own families.

Nor is our House of Commons at all similar to the _Third Estate_ of any of the neighbouring kingdoms. They are not the representatives of the ignobly born, or of any class of citizens. The members are the proper representatives of the _whole nation_, and consist of persons of every class, persons of the highest birth, persons of great fortune, persons of education, of knowledge, of talents.

Thus the causes of dissension which refer to the distinctive rights or prerogatives of the different classes of citizens are removed, because in each House there are many individuals selected from all the classes.

A Peer, having attained the highest honours of the state, must be an enemy to every revolution. Revolution must certainly degrade him, whether it places an absolute monarch, or a democratic junto, on the throne.

The Sovereign naturally looks for the support of the Upper House, and in every measure agreeable to the constitution, and to the public weal, exerts his influence on the House of Commons. Here the character of the monarch and his choice of ministers must appear, as in any other constitution; but with much less chance of danger to political liberty.--The great engine of monarchy in Europe, has been the jarring privileges of the different Orders; and the Sovereign, by siding with one of them, obtained accessions of prerogative and power.--It was thus that, under the House of Tudor, our constitution advanced with hasty strides to absolute monarchy; and would have attained it, had James the First been as able as he was willing to secure what he firmly believed to be the divine rights of his Crown.

I do not recollect hearing the lower ranks of the State venting much of their discontents against the Peers, and they seem to perceive pretty clearly the advantages arising from their prerogatives. They seem to look up to them as the first who will protect them against the agents of sovereignty. They know that a man may rise from the lowest station to the peerage, and that in that exaltation he remains connected with themselves by the dearest ties; and the House of Commons take no offence at the creation of new Peers, because their privileges as a Court, and their private rights, are not affected by it. Accordingly, the House has always opposed every project of limiting the King's prerogative in this respect.

How unlike is all this to the constitution consisting of the pure representatives of the Privileged Orders of the Continental States. The self-conceited constitutionalists of France saw something in the British Parliament which did not fall in with their own _hasty_ notions, and prided themselves in not copying from us. This would have indicated great poverty of invention in a nation accustomed to consider itself as the teacher of mankind. The most sensible of them, however, wished to have a constitution which they called an _improvement_ of ours: and this was the simple plan of a _representation_ of the two or three Orders of the State. Their Upper House should contain the representatives of 100,000 noblesse. The Princes of the Blood and Great Barons should sit in it of their own right, and the rest by deputies. The Lower House, or _Tiers Etat_, should consist of deputies from those ignobly born; such as merchants, persons in the lower offices of the law, artisans, peasants, and a small number of freeholders. Surely it needs no deep reflection to teach us what sort of deliberations would occupy such a house. It would be a most useful occupation however, to peruse the history of France, and of other nations, and see what _really did occupy_ the Tiers Etat thus constructed, and what were their proceedings, their decisions, and the steps which they took to make them effectual. I have no doubt but that this study would cure most of our advocates for general eligibility, and for general suffrage. I have lately read Velley and Villaret's History of France, (by the bye, the Abbé Barruel has shewn that the Club d'Holbach managed the publication of this History after the first eight or ten volumes, and slipped into it many things suited to their impious project,) and the accounts of the troublesome reigns of John, and Charles his successor, by authors who wrote long before the Revolution; and they filled me with horror. The only instance that I met with of any thing like moderation in the claims and disputes of the different Orders of their States General, and of patriotism, or regard for the general interests of the State, is in their meetings during the minority of Charles VIII.

With respect to the limitations of the eligibility into the House of Commons, I think that there can be no doubt that those should be excluded whose habits of needy and laborious life have precluded them from all opportunities of acquiring some general views of political relations. Such persons are totally unfit for deliberations, where general or comprehensive views only are to be the subjects of discussion; they can have no conceptions of the subject, and therefore no steady notions or opinions, but must change them after every speaker, and must become the dupes of every demagogue.