Thoughts on the Present Discontents, and Speeches. Edmund Burke

of themselves recede in time from their most declared opinions.  This latter is generally the case.  It will not be conceivable to any one who has not seen it, what pleasure is taken by the Cabal in rendering these heads of office thoroughly contemptible and ridiculous.  And when they are become so, they have then the best chance, for being well supported.

      The members of the Court faction are fully indemnified for not holding places on the slippery heights of the kingdom, not only by the lead in all affairs, but also by the perfect security in which they enjoy less conspicuous, but very advantageous, situations.  Their places are, in express legal tenure, or in effect, all of them for life.  Whilst the first and most respectable persons in the kingdom are tossed about like tennis balls, the sport of a blind and insolent caprice, no Minister dares even to cast an oblique glance at the lowest of their body.  If an attempt be made upon one of this corps, immediately he flies to sanctuary, and pretends to the most inviolable of all promises.  No conveniency of public arrangement is available to remove any one of them from the specific situation he holds; and the slightest attempt upon one of them, by the most powerful Minister, is a certain preliminary to his own destruction.

      Conscious of their independence, they bear themselves with a lofty air to the exterior Ministers.  Like Janissaries, they derive a kind of freedom from the very condition of their servitude.  They may act just as they please; provided they are true to the great ruling principle of their institution.  It is, therefore, not at all wonderful, that people should be so desirous of adding themselves to that body, in which they may possess and reconcile satisfactions the most alluring, and seemingly the most contradictory; enjoying at once all the spirited pleasure of independence, and all the gross lucre and fat emoluments of servitude.

      Here is a sketch, though a slight one, of the constitution, laws, and policy, of this new Court corporation.  The name by which they choose to distinguish themselves, is that of King’s men, or the King’s friends, by an invidious exclusion of the rest of his Majesty’s most loyal and affectionate subjects.  The whole system, comprehending the exterior and interior Administrations, is commonly called, in the technical language of the Court, Double Cabinet; in French or English, as you choose to pronounce it.

      Whether all this be a vision of a distracted brain, or the invention of a malicious heart, or a real faction in the country, must be judged by the appearances which things have worn for eight years past.  Thus far I am certain, that there is not a single public man, in or out of office, who has not, at some time or other, borne testimony to the truth of what I have now related.  In particular, no persons have been more strong in their assertions, and louder and more indecent in their complaints, than those who compose all the exterior part of the present Administration; in whose time that faction has arrived at such a height of power, and of boldness in the use of it, as may, in the end, perhaps bring about its total destruction.

      It is true, that about four years ago, during the administration of the Marquis of Rockingham, an attempt was made to carry on Government without their concurrence.  However, this was only a transient cloud; they were hid but for a moment; and their constellation blazed out with greater brightness, and a far more vigorous influence, some time after it was blown over.  An attempt was at that time made (but without any idea of proscription) to break their corps, to discountenance their doctrines, to revive connections of a different kind, to restore the principles and policy of the Whigs, to reanimate the cause of Liberty by Ministerial countenance; and then for the first time were men seen attached in office to every principle they had maintained in opposition.  No one will doubt, that such men were abhorred and violently opposed by the Court faction, and that such a system could have but a short duration.

      It may appear somewhat affected, that in so much discourse upon this extraordinary party, I should say so little of the Earl of Bute, who is the supposed head of it.  But this was neither owing to affectation nor inadvertence.  I have carefully avoided the introduction of personal reflections of any kind.  Much the greater part of the topics which have been used to blacken this nobleman are either unjust or frivolous.  At best, they have a tendency to give the resentment of this bitter calamity a wrong direction, and to turn a public grievance into a mean personal, or a dangerous national, quarrel.  Where there is a regular scheme of operations carried on, it is the system, and not any individual person who acts in it, that is truly dangerous.  This system has not risen solely from the ambition of Lord Bute, but from the circumstances which favoured it, and from an indifference to the constitution which had been for some time growing among our gentry.  We should have been tried with it, if the Earl of Bute had never existed; and it will want neither a contriving head nor active members, when the Earl of Bute exists no longer.  It is not, therefore, to rail at Lord Bute, but firmly to embody against this Court party and its practices, which can afford us any prospect of relief in our present condition.

      Another motive induces me to put the personal consideration of Lord Bute wholly out of the question.  He communicates very little in a direct manner with the greater part of our men of business.  This has never been his custom.  It is enough for him that he surrounds them with his creatures.  Several imagine, therefore, that they have a very good excuse for doing all the work of this faction, when they have no personal connection with Lord Bute.  But whoever becomes a party to an Administration, composed of insulated individuals, without faith plighted, tie, or common principle; an Administration constitutionally impotent, because supported by no party in the nation; he who contributes to destroy the connections of men and their trust in one another, or in any sort to throw the dependence of public counsels upon private will and favour, possibly may have nothing to do with the Earl of Bute.  It matters little whether he be the friend or the enemy of that particular person.  But let him be who or what he will, he abets a faction that is driving hard to the ruin of his country.  He is sapping the foundation of its liberty, disturbing the sources of its domestic tranquillity, weakening its government over its dependencies, degrading it from all its importance in the system of Europe.

      It is this unnatural infusion of a system of Favouritism into a Government which in a great part of its constitution is popular, that has raised the present ferment in the nation.  The people, without entering deeply into its principles, could plainly perceive its effects, in much violence, in a great spirit of innovation, and a general disorder in all the functions of Government.  I keep my eye solely on this system; if I speak of those measures which have arisen from it, it will be so far only as they illustrate the general scheme.  This is the fountain of all those bitter waters of which, through a hundred different conducts, we have drunk until we are ready to burst.  The discretionary power of the Crown in the formation of Ministry, abused by bad or weak men, has given rise to a system, which, without directly violating the letter of any law, operates against the spirit of the whole constitution.

      A plan of Favouritism for our executory Government is essentially at variance with the plan of our Legislature.  One great end undoubtedly of a mixed Government like ours, composed of Monarchy, and of controls, on the part of the higher people and the lower, is that the Prince shall not be able to violate the laws.  This is useful indeed and fundamental.  But this, even at first view, is no more than a negative advantage; an armour merely defensive.  It is therefore next in order, and equal in importance, that the discretionary powers which are necessarily vested in the Monarch, whether for the execution of the laws, or for the nomination to magistracy and office, or for conducting the affairs of peace and war, or for ordering the revenue, should all be exercised upon public principles and national grounds, and not on the likings or prejudices, the intrigues or policies of a Court.  This, I said, is equal in importance to the securing a Government according to law.  The laws reach but a very little way.  Constitute Government how you please, infinitely the greater part of it must depend upon the exercise of the powers which are left at large to the prudence and uprightness of Ministers of State.  Even all the use and potency of the laws depends upon them.  Without them, your Commonwealth is no better than a scheme upon paper; and not a living, active, effective constitution.  It is possible, that through negligence, or ignorance, or design artfully conducted, Ministers may suffer one part of Government to languish, another to be perverted from its purposes: and every valuable interest of the country to fall into ruin and decay, without possibility of fixing any single act on which a criminal prosecution can be justly grounded.  The due arrangement