TRANSLATION, A Letter from M. de Voltaire to the Marquis de Vilette, Your prudent hero, quite unus'd to arms, YOUR OUR friendship, Sir, for M. de la Harpe has prevented your compofing for the academy; but you have compofed for the public, for your own glory, and for my fatisfaction. You have laid me under two great obligations; that of having publickly teftified the friendship, with which you honour me; and that of having made me país a delicious hour in reading your book. May you be as happy as you are eloquent! May you defpife and fly that fame public, for which you have wrote. M. de la Harpe will foon pay you another. vifit; he has paffed a twelvemonth with me. Were his fortune equal to his capacity and his fpirit, he would be richer than the late Montmartel; and it would give him much greater pleasure to obtain the prize of the academy, than a penfion from the king. He and his wife play their parts to perfection; as does alfo Mr. de Chabanon. Our little theatre has been of more consequence than that of the Fauxbourg St. Germain. We wanted your company above all things: you must be an excellent actor; for, without laughing yourfelf, you tell all your ftories in fuch a manner, as to make your readers die with laughing. Preferve your friendship for an old man, who will derive from that fource his greatest confolation, and who, to the last moment of his life, will be attached to you with the utmost fincerity. Ferney, October 4th, 1767. For For the POLITICAL REGISTER. An Addrefs to the Freeholders and Freemen of that principal Part of Great-Britain called England. T has of late been the practice of certain by-ftanders to addrefs, upon the approach of a general election, fome occafional advice to the electors of members of parliament. A practice by no means owing to the filly conceit, that these electors needed to be informed, that our liberties would depend upon their right choice of proxies; for this is an obvious truth, which every Englishman knows, and, in fome degree, has experienced to his coft !-We would rather imagine, that it had been owing to an opinion-That electors, inftead of ufing their own judgment upon fuch occafions, had meanly bended to the direction of fome great man, the fecret agent and tool of an all corrupting minifter!-or, what is worse, had scandaloufly fold their voices to fome high-bidding knave, or vain feather-feeking fool either of them furely a most unwarrantable practice, especially in a matter of fuch infinite confequence, and requiring, without doubt, some friendly admonition. That both the one and the other has in fact been the cafe, is one of those truths, which are so generally acknowledged, that they feem to be difregarded: but the difregard, certainly, of fuch a truth must be deemed ominous, and forebodes the fpeedy extinction of liberty, and along with it the downfall and deftruction of the state. It is with pleasure, however, we observe, at this junЯure, that the spirit of advising is as prevalent as ever.—For who would advife when there were no hopes of amending? and if in the worst of times, the public weal be not despaired of; this is not only matter of pleasure, but even a kind of patriotic triumph. That fome fparks of a free fpirit do indeed fubfift, tho' fecretly, and where one would least expect to find them, may, I think, be inferred from the promptness of thofe commotions which have latterly happened; particularly that upon the artificial fcarcity and high price of provifions.-Hunger, it is true, is a very strong fenfation, and is able to excite us to vigour and activity, when perhaps no other feeling would fufficiently aroufe us.-Yet can it be fupposed that a rational people, who fo eafily took fire on the temporary want of a little bread, would tamely and paffively repofe themselves, under an everlasting famine of liberty. Corruption Corruption is the cancerous evil which has been long preying upon the vitals of the conftitution.-An evil of fo malignant a nature, that even the royal touch, inftead of curing, has but ferved, on the contrary, to aggravate and inflame it. It resembles exactly those dangerous maladies, which point their attacks against the nervous fyftem; as if conscious that, were the spirits destroyed, the carcafe must foon fall an eafy prey. A like fate attends the cause of liberty :-For, deftroy but the fpirit, and its charters, recognitions and laws, remain a dead letter, or rather as a withered limb, fit only for amputation. And to a people, who have loft the true fpirit of liberty, the abrogation of Magna Charta might be effected without much alarm; perhaps with lefs than was the odious Jew bill enacted; because against this, the church co-operated with the prejudices of the vulgar. The orthodox commentator on our laws, in his chapterof the parliament-has indeed ventured to fuggeft-that it might not be amifs, if the members elected were bound to take the oath against bribery, as well as the electors--might not be amifs, is a very tender way of urging a defideratum, effentially neceffary to the preservation of liberty, and which actually flows from the very spirit of the conftitution.-A tenderness this! that was equally unfeasonable and ridiculous after having afferted it "To be neceffary to the being of parliament-that elections should be free, and that therefore all undue influence upon the electors was illegal." The office of member of parliament is, in thefe times, attended not only with fome mental fatigue, and great bodily labour, but also with a burthen of ordinary and extraordinary expence, for which no provifion is made. An expence the more heavy, as it is to laft for feven whole years; which is the modern ftretch of parliaments themselves. Nevertheless, this office is folicited like a poft of fheer profit; that is to fay, with all the eagerness and importunity imaginable. Would not one from hence infer, that the honour of being a member of parliament is infinitely greater now than it was formerly? But that this is not the cafe, I think is evident for this plain reason,-" That the previous folicitation of a truft always leffens the honour of enjoying it." And if, in private affairs, fuch over-forwardness would raise a juft fufpicion of the party; how much greater fhould the jealoufy be in this public cafe, where our liberties are committed, without any pledge for their fafe cuftody; and even without a remedy, hould they be traiterously given up. In the virtuous times of our forefathers, parliaments were enly annual, and their feffion but of fhort duration. Yet fort fhort as both were, the member had his expences borne. His election too ferved as a recognition of his merit, being made by the unfolicited voices of an uncorrupted free people. Yet with all these marks of pre-eminence, the fhortness of the attendance, the maintenance of the member, and the real honour of the office, few were found willing to undertake the discharge of it. Now to what concurrence of caufes is the prefent ftrange reverse owing? I have already obferved, that this office is now-a-days folicited. But it often happens, that votes are not to be had for mere afking. Yet what is there that may not be bought? Now buying and felling are relative acts, which alternately imply and legalize each other. Hence a logic retains, that even a legislative truft, which has been bought, may be fold alfo. And hence an election, though it has coft five, or even ten thousand pounds, may yet prove in the end a good bargain, fhould the minifterial exigence of Ay's happen to be critically great for that regulates the price of this commodity in St. Stephen's market. Without this leading clue, one would be at a lofs to account for the propriety of the modern word candidate, as taken in an electioneering fenfe; which, though of common acceptation, has not yet, for our credit, been tranfplanted into penfioner Johnson's dictionary. For who was ever a candidate for pure trouble and unfruitful expence? This was anciently the cafe of a member of parliament. And, were it ever to be fo again, the term of candidate for a feat in parliament, like a bird of paffage, would then take its flight, and never be heard of more. As to the words begging, praying, and entreating for votes and intereft, thefe fufficiently explain themselves. For the votes and interest being thus confidered as a fpecies of alms, and eventually answering the fame purpose, to wit, that of relief; the propriety of adopting the phrafeology of beggars, is plain and obvious, and no lefs graceful. But there are some of thefe beggars of fo forward and sturdy a nature, that they will even prefs within doors, and exact promifes to elect them, almoft whether one will or not. This practice they ftile canvassing; which is alfo a new fangled fenle of another mifapplied word. And it is the cuf tom of that competitor, who is most successful in the collection of this vocal air, to compliment himself thereon in all the public papers. A cuftom as ridiculous, as the practice which gave rife to it is impudent and illegal.-Impudent, as it tends to deprive us of our own wills: illegal, because it vio lates lates the liberty of our choice, which the laws require to be abfolutely free. It has been afferted by fome hireling fcriblers, that the influence of a minifter on thefe worthy members goes no further than places, and the ordinary douceurs of government; which, fay they, are very properly by him difpenfed to his friends, the fupporters of his adminiftration. And fuch affertions, induftriously propagated, have been found to gain credit with those, whom it more effentially imports to know the actual truth.Let us confider the matter a little. In the memoirs of the marchionefs of Pompadour, (vol. I. pages 57, 58, 59. Eng. Tranf. 1766.) we are prefented with ⚫ a very interefting anecdote, which hitherto had flept tolerably found in a private letter. This was written, it seems, to cardinal Fleury, by an English minifter of that time. I will transcribe the loyal paragraph, wherein the curious fecret was enveloped, for the benefit of our prefent electors; that fuch of them as have eyes to fee, may read, and that fuch as have only ears to hear, may be made to understand. A "I penfion (writes the minifter) half the parliament, to keep it quiet. But as the king's money is not fufficient, and they, to whom I give none, clamour loudly for a war; it would be expedient for your Eminence to remit me three millions of French livres, in order to filence thefe barkers. Gold is a metal which here corrects all ill qualities in the blood. penfion of 2000l. a year will make the moft impetuous warriour in parliament as tame as a lamb."--Voltaire, in fome fugitive pieces of his, has not only mentioned the fame minifter's opinion as to the omnipotence of gold; but goes farther, and fays, "That minifter declared in my hearing, that it was a drug fold only at his shop." By the help of this anecdote, we are alfo enabled to comprehend the myftical meaning of a minifter's planning of a parliament, and of a minifter's conducting a boufe of commons.The former phrafe we find used by Mr. Tindal, in the octavo edition of his Hiftory of England, vol. 21ft, page 493-It runs thus: " Mr. P before his death, had fettled the and fame vol. *** plan of the new parliament." *** page 510. he fubjoins-" As to the elections, they went very much in the fame track that had been laid out by Mr. P and his plan was ftrictly executed, fo far as the government had intereft."-For an explanation of the latter phrafe we are indebted to the Political Regifter, No. IV. page 205. where we have in the margin the tranfcript of a circular letter, written by a third rate minifter, upon his elevation, with alt Ggg that |