And here it may be worth inquiring, what are the true characteristics of a faction; or how it is to be diftinguished from that great body of the people, who are friends to the conftitution? The heads of a faction are usually a fet of upstarts, or men ruined in their fortunes, whom fome great change in a government did at first out of their obfcurity produce upon the ftage. They affociate themfelves with those who diflike the old establishment, religious and civil. They are full of new schemes in politics and divinity; they have an incurable hatred against the old nobility, and ftrengthen their party by dependents raised from the loweft of the people. They have feveral ways of working themfelves into power; but they are fure to be called, when a corrupt adminiftration wants to be fupported against thofe who are endeavouring at a reformation; and they firmly observe that celebrated maxim of preferving power by the fame arts by which it is attained. They act with the fpirit of those who believe their time is but fhort; and their first care is to heap up immenfe riches at the public expenfe; in which they have two ends befides that common one of infatiable avarice, which are to make themfelves neceffary, and to keep the commonwealth in dependence. Thus they hope to compass their defign, which is, instead of fitting their principles to the conflitution, to alter and adjust the conftitution to their own pernicious principles.

It is eafy determining by this teft, to which fide the name of faction moft properly belongs. But however, I will give them any fyftem of law or regal government, from William the Conqueror to this prefent time, to try whether they can tally it with their late models; excepting only that of Cromwell, whom perhaps they will reckon for a monarch.

If the prefent miniftry, and fo great a majority in the parliament and kingdom, be only a faction, it must appear by fome actions, which anfwer the idea we ufually conceive from that word. Have they abufed the prerogative of the prince, or invaded the rights and liberties of the fubject ? Have they offered at any dangerous innovations in church or ftate? Have they broached any doctrine of herefy, rebellion, or tyranny? Have any of them treated their fove

295 reign with infolence, ingroffed and fold all her favours, or deceived her by bafe, grofs mifreprefentations of her moft faithful fervants? Thefe are the arts of a faction; and whoever hath practised them, they and their followers must take up with the name.

It is ufually reckoned a Whig principle to appeal to the people; but that is only when they have been fo wife as to poifon their understandings beforehand. Will they now itand to this appeal, and be determined by their vox populi, to which fide their title of faction belongs? And that the people are now left to the natural freedom of their underftanding and choice, I believe our adverfaries will hardly deny. They will now refufe this appeal, and it is reafon able they should; and I will further add, that if our people refembled the old Grecians, there might be danger in fuch a trial. A pragmatical orator told a great man at Athens, that whenever the people were in their rage, they would certainly tear him to pieces; yes, fays the other, and they will do the fame to you whenever they are in their wits. But God be thanked, our populace is more merciful in their nature, and at prefent under better direction; and the orators among us have attempted to confound both prerogative and law in their fovereign's prefence, and before the highest court of judicature, without any hazard to their perfons.

N° 32. Thursday, March 15. 1710.

Non eft ea medicina, cum fane parti corporis fcalpellum adhibetur, atque integra; carnificina eft ifta, et crudelitas. Hi medentur reipublicæ, qui exfecant peftem aliquam, tanquam ftrumam civitatis.

I

AM diverted from the general fubject of my difcourfes,

to reflect upon an event of a very extraordinary and furprising nature. A great minifter, in high confidence with the Queen, under whofe management the weight of affairs at prefent is in a great measure fuppofed to lie,

B b 2

fitting

fitting in council, in a royal palace, with a dozen of the chief officers of the ftate, is stabbed at the very board, in the execution of his office, by the hand of a French Papist, then under examination for high treafon; the affaffin redoubles his blow to make fure work; and concluding the Chancellor was dispatched †, goes on with the fame rage to murder a principal Secretary of State : and that whole noble affembly are forced to rife and draw their fwords in their own defence, as if a wild beast had been let loofe among them.

This fact hath fome circumftances of aggravation not to be parallelled by any of the like kind we meet with in hiftory. Cæfar's murder being performed in the fenate comes nearest to the cafe; but that was an affair concerted by great numbers of the chief fenators, who were likewife the actors in it; and not the work of a vile fingle ruffian. Harry the Third of France was ftabbed by an enthufiaftic friar, whom he fuffered to approach his perfon, while those who attended him stood at fome diftance. His fucceffor met the fame fate in a coach, where neither he nor his nobles in fuch a confinement were able to defend themselves. In our own country we have, I think, but one inftance of this fort, which has made any noise; I mean that of Felton about fourfcore years ago; but he took the opportunity to ftab the Duke of Buckingham in puffing through a dark lobby from one room to another. The blow was neither feen nor heard, and the murderer might have escaped, if his own concern and horror, as it is ufual in fuch cafes, had not betrayed him. Befides, the act of Felton will admit of fome extenuation from the

The Abbot de Bourlie, who having quitted his native country, folicited to be employed against it in feveral courts of Europe, and affumed the title of Marquis de Guifcard. He at length obtained a commiffion from Q Anne, and imbarked in an expedition againft France, which mifcarried; and his expectations being dif appointed by the new miniftry, he endeavoured to make his peace at home by acting here as a fpy, and commenced a treasonable. correfpondence: his letters were intercepted, and produced to him by Mr Harley, at his examination. Hawkef..

+ Mr Harley, then chancellor of the exchequer, afterwards Earl of Oxford.

Mr Henry St John, afterwards Lord Bolingbroke:

297 motive he is faid to have had: but this attempt of GuifCard feems to have outdone them all in every heightening circumftance, except the difference of perfons between a king and a great minifter; for I give no allowance at all to the difference of fuccefs (which, however, is yet uncertain and depending), nor think it the leaft alleviation to the crime, whatever it may be to the punishment.

I am fenfible, it is ill arguing from particulars to generals, and that we ought not to charge upon a nation the crimes of a few defperate villains it is fo unfortunate to produce; yet at the fame time it must be avowed, that the French have for thefe laft centuries been fomewhat too liberal of their daggers upon the perfons of their greatest men; fuch as the Admiral de Coligny, the Dukes of Guife father and fon, and the two kings I last mentioned. I have fometimes wondered how a people, whofe genius feems wholly turned to finging, and dancing, and prating, to vanity and impertinence; who lay fo much weight upon modes and gestures; whofe effentialities are generally fo very fuperficial; who are ufually fo ferious upon trifles, and fo trifling upon what is ferious, have been capable of committing fuch folid villanies, more fuitable to the gravity of a Spaniard, or the filence and thoughtfulness of an Italian; unless it be, that in a nation naturally fo full of themselves, and of so restless imaginations, when any of them happen to be of a morofe and gloomy conftitution, that huddle of confufed thoughts for want of evaporating usually terminates in rage or defpair. D'Avila obferves, that Jacques Clement* was a fort of buffoon, whom the rest of the friars used to make sport with; but at last giving his folly a ferious turn, it ended in enthusiasm, and qualified him for that desperate act of murdering his King.

But in the Marquis de Guifcard there feems to have been a complication of ingredients for fuch an attempt. He had committed feveral enormities in France, was extremely prodigal and vitious, of a dark melancholy complexion and cloudy countenance, fuch as in vulgar phyfiognomy is called an ill look. For the reft, his talents were

→ The monk who stabbed Henry III. of France. Hawkef.

Bb 3

very

very mean, having a fort of inferior cunning, but very fmall abilities; fo that a great man of the late ministry, by whom he was invited over, and with much difcretion raised at first step, from a profligate Popish priest to a lieutenant-general, and colonel of a regiment of horse, was at laft forced to drop him for fhame.

Had fuch an accident happened under that ministry, and to fo confiderable a member of it, they would have immediately charged it upon the whole body of thofe they are pleafed to call the faction. This would have been "ftyled a high-church principle; the clergy would have been accufed, as promoters and abettors of the fact; committees would have been fent to promife the criminal his life, provided they might have liberty to direct and dictate his confeffion; and a black lift would have been printed of all thofe who had been ever feen in the murderer's company. But the prefent men in power hate and defpife all fuch deteftable arts, which they might now turn upon their adverfaries with much more plaufibility, than ever thefe did their honourable negotiations with Greg *.

And here it may be worth obferving, how unanimous a concurrence there is between fome perfons once in great

In the beginning of the year 1708, William Greg, an under-clerk to Mr Secretary Harley, was detected in a correfpondence with Monfieur Chamillard, one of the French King's minifters; to whom he tranfmitted the proceedings of both houfes of parliament, with refpect to the augmentation of the British forces, and other papers of great importance. Greg, when he was indicted of this treafon, pleaded Guilty; which gave occafion to Mr Harley's enemies to infinuate that he was privy to Greg's practices, and had, by affurances of pardon, prevailed upon him to plead Guilty, in order to prevent the examination of witneffes. The houfe of Lords appointed a committee of feven, of whom Lord Sunderland was manager, to inquire into the affair. The committee prefented an addrefs to the Queen, in which complaint was made, that all Mr Harley's papers had been long expofed to the meanest clerks in his office; and it was requested, that more caution might be used for the future. Upon this addrefs, the execution of Greg was deferred a month: during which time he was folicited, threatened, and promifed; but still perfifting to take the whole guilt upon himself, he was at length executed, having, in a paper, which he left behind him, juftified Mr Harley in particular; which he would fcarce have thought neceflary, if no particular attempt had been made against him. Hawkef.

power