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THOUGHTS

ON

THE CAUSE

OF THE PRESENT

DISCONTENTS.

IT

T is an undertaking of fome degree of delicacy to examine into the cause of public disorders. If a man happens not to fucceed in fuch an enquiry, 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 exafperated at the difcovery of their errors, than thankful for the occafion of correcting them. If he should 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 B

be

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 distracted, private people are, by the spirit of that law, juftified in stepping a little out of their ordinary fphere. They enjoy a privilege, of fomewhat more dignity and effect, than that of idle lamentation over the calamities of their country. They may look into them narrowly; they may reafon upon them liberally; and if they fhould be fo fortunate as to discover the true fource of the mifchief, and to fuggeft any probable method of removing it, though they may displease the rulers for the day, they are certainly of fervice to the cause of Government. Government is deeply interested in every thing which, even through the medium of fome temporary uneafinefs, may tend finally to compofe the minds of the fubject, 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 moft precious poffeffion of every individual, and as long as opinion, the great fupport of the State, depend entirely upon that voice, it can never be confidered as a thing of little confequence either to individuals or to Government. Nations are not primarily ruled by laws; lefs by violence. Whatever original energy may be fuppofed either in force or regulation; the operation of both is, in truth, merely inftrumental. Nations are governed

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governed by the fame methods, and on the fame principles, by which an individual without authority is often able to govern those who are his equals or his fuperiours; by a knowledge of their temper, and by a judicious management of it; I mean, when public affairs fteadily and quietly conducted; not 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. temper of the people amongst whom he prefides ought therefore to be the first study of a Statefman. 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.

The

To complain of the age we live in, to murmur at the present poffeffors of power, to lament the paft, to conceive extravagant hopes of the future, are the common difpofitions of the greatest part of mankind; indeed the neceffary effects of the ignorance and levity of the vulgar. Such complaints 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 those which are fymptoms of the particular diftemperature of our own air and

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Nobody, I believe, will confider it merely as the language of fpleen or disappointment, if I fay, that there is fomething 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 terrors; 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 politicks are as much deranged as our domestic œconomy; that our dependencies are flackened in their affection, and loofened from their obedience; that we know neither how to yield nor how to inforce; that hardly any thing above or below, abroad or at home, is found and entire; but that disconnexion and confufion, in offices, in parties, in families, in Parliament, in the nation, prevail beyond the diforders of any former time: these are facts univerfally admitted and lamented.

This state 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 scheme of taxation new or oppreffive in the quantity or in the mode. Nor are we engaged in unsuccessful war; in which, our misfortunes might eafily pervert our judgement;

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