THOUGHTS ON THE CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS. T is an undertaking of fome degree of delicacy IT to examine into the caufe of publick diforders. If a man happens not to fucceed in fuch an inquiry, he will be thought weak and vifionary; if he touches the true grievance, there is a danger that he may come near to perfons of weight and confequence, who will rather be exasperated at the discovery of their errours, than thankful for the occafion of correcting them. If he fhould be obliged to blame the favourites of the people, he will be confidered as the tool of power; if he cenfures those in power, he will be looked on as an inftrument of faction. But in all exertions of duty fomething is to be hazarded. In cafes of tumult and diforder, our law has invested every man, in fome fort, with the authority of a magiftrate. When the affairs of the nation are diftracted, private people are, by the fpirit of that law, juftified f in in ftepping a little out of their ordinary sphere. They enjoy a privilege, of fomewhat more dignity and effect, than that of idle lamentation over the calamities of their country. vernment. They may look into them narrowly; they may reafon upon them liberally; and if they should be fo fortunate as to discover the true fource of the mifchief, and to fuggeft any probable method of removing it though they may difplease the rulers for the day, they are certainly of fervice to the cause of goGovernment is deeply interefted in every thing which, even through the medium of fome temporary uneafinefs, may tend finally to compose the minds of the subject, and to conciliate their affections. I have nothing to do here with the abstract value of the voice of the people. But as long as reputation, the most precious poffeffion of every individual, and as long as opinion, the great fupport of the ftate, depend entirely upon that voice, it can never be confidered as a thing of little confequence either to individuals or to goNations are not primarily ruled by laws; lefs by violence. Whatever original energy may be supposed either in force or regulation, the operation of both is, in truth, merely inftrumental. Nations are governed by the fame methods, and on the same principles, by which an individual without authority is often able to govern thofe who are his equals or his fuperiours; by a know vernment. ledge ledge of their temper, and by a judicious management of it; I mean, when publick affairs are fteadily and quietly conducted; and when government is nothing but a continued fcuffle between the magiftrate and the multitude; in which fometimes the one and fometimes the other is uppermoft; in which they alternately yield and prevail, in a series of contemptible victories, and fcandalous fubmiffions. The temper of the people amongst whom he prefides ought therefore to be the firft ftudy of a statesman. And the knowledge of this temper it is by no means impoffible for him to attain, if he has not an intereft in being ignorant of what it is his duty to learn. To complain of the age we live in, to murmur at the prefent poffeffors of power, to lament the past, to conceive extravagant hopes of the future, are the common difpofitions of the greatest part of mankind; indeed the neceffary effects of the ig norance and levity of the vulgar. Such com, plaints and humours have exifted in all times; yet as all times have not been alike, true political fagacity manifefts itself, in diftinguishing that complaint which only characterizes the general infirmity of human nature, from thofe which are symp toms of the particular diftemperature of our own air and feafon. Nobody, I believe, will confider it merely as the language of fpleen or difappointment, if I fay, 9 that that there is something particularly alarming in the prefent conjuncture. There is hardly a man in or out of power who holds any other language. That government is at once dreaded and contemned; that the laws are defpoiled of all their refpected and falutary terrours; that their inaction is a fubject of ridicule, and their exertion of abhorrence; that rank, and office, and title, and all the folemn plausibilities of the world, have loft their reverence and effect; that our foreign poliliticks are as much deranged as our domeftick œconomy; that our dependencies are flackened in their affection, and loofened from their obedience; that we know neither how to yield nor how to enforce; that hardly any thing above or below, abroad or at home, is found and entire; but that difconnexion and confufion, in offices, in parties, in families, in parliament, in the nation, prevail beyond the diforders of any former time; thefe are facts univerfally admitted and lamented. This ftate of things is the more extraordinary, because the great parties which formerly divided and agitated the kingdom are known to be in a manner entirely diffolved. No great external calamity has visited the nation; no peftilence or famine. We do not labour at prefent under any fcheme of taxation new or oppreffive in the quantity or in the mode. Nor are we engaged in unfuccefsful war; in which, our misfortunes might |