We beg leave before we conclude, to make one Remark on what you say, that "our Compliance can be of no Benefit to our Sovereign, any farther than as he interests himself in the Happiness of his Subjects." We are apprehensive that the World may take this for an Insinuation, very much to our Dishonor: As if the Benefit of our Sovereign were a Motive in our Minds, against a Compliance. But as this Imputation would be extremely unjust, so we hope it was not intended by your Honor. We are however obligd in Justice to our selves and our Constituents to declare that if we had Reason to believe, that a Compliance would by any, the least Benefit to our Sovereign, it would be a very powerful Argument with us; But we are on the Contrary, fully perswaded, that a Compliance at present, would be very injurious and detrimental to his Majestys Service.
1From this point the manuscript is wholly in the handwriting of Adams. 2Massachusetts State Papers, pp. 237-240. 3Inaccurately quoted from T. Hutchinson, History of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, vol. ii., p. 317. 4See Vol. I., p. 230.
ARTICLE SIGNED "A CHATTERER."1
[Boston Gazette, August 13, 1770.]
Messieurs EDES & GILL,
"What availed the good Qualites of Galba? He who should not have employed bad Men, or at least should have restrained or punished them, incurred the same Censure as if he himself had done it!—It is the common Craft of corrupt Ministers to represent their Cause as the Cause of their Prince."
His Honor the Lieutenant Governor, in his late Reply2 to the House of Representatives, tells them, that "a Secretary of State has by Virtue of his Office free Access" to the King; & "receives the Signification of his Majesty's pleasure"; from whence he concludes that "he will give no directions but what he knows to be agreable thereto", and therefore "every order coming from a Minister of State, must be suppos'd to come immediately from the Crown"—This is reasoning plausibly enough; but before I can give my full Assent to the Conclusion, I must have good Grounds to believe this same Secretary to be a Man of Wisdom and Integrity; a Character, which however requisite, does not always belong to a Minister of State. If he is deficient in both or either of these, we can have no Assurance, that every Order coming from him is declaratory of the Pleasure of the Sovereign: His want of Wisdom may render him altogether incapable of understanding the Mind of his royal Master; or, failing in point of Integrity he may maliciously and traiterously pervert his benevolent Intentions for the Good of his Subjects. Whenever Orders are given by a Secretary of State, that are evidently calculated to injure the Publick, we are by no Means to suppose them to come immediately from the Crown, for the King can do no Wrong: Will his Honor have us believe that the King can do a weak & foolish, or a malevolent and wicked Act? If not, such Instructions are to be look'd upon as the acts of the Minister and not of the King. Ministers of state were formerly shields to the persons of Kings from such kind of imputations; but it is much to be feared, if care is not taken to prevent it, the idle whimsies of Ministers, their weakness and folly, or their daring and impudent attempts to destroy the Liberties of the People, will be attributed to a Cause which no one, to be sure at present, will chuse to mention.—I hope his Honor's reasoning, and his correspondent Conduct, does not lead to this—The House of Representatives seem to be aware of the Danger of such Doctrine, when they expressly say, "They presume not to call in question the Wisdom of their Sovereign or the rectitude of his Intentions"; at the same time that they speak with a manly Freedom, of certain Instructions that have come from Ministers of State, and even treat them with Indignity and Contempt. His Honor presumes "they would not have done this, if they had known it to be an Order from his Majesty." I believe they would not; they saw reason to think that the Mandate to rescind in June 1768, was the mere act of a weak Minister; and as his Honor does not give the least Intimation, that he either knows or believes to the Contrary, I must beg leave to say, that in my poor Opinion, the Epithet given to it by the House, is neither "coarse" nor "indecent."
We seem, Messrs. Printers, to be drawing very near the time, when some people will be hardy enough to dispute, whether we are to be governed according to the rule of the Constitution, the building of which has been the Work of Ages, or to use the words of the House, by the "breath of a Minister of State."—Instructions, form'd by a set of Ministers, calculated for certain purposes and sent over to a Governor, who to avoid their high Displeasure and the terrible Effects of it, must implicitly believe, or say he believes them, to come immediately from the King; and the House of Representatives must by no means controvert them, lest, as Bernard once impudently told them, they should be chargeable with "oppugnation against the King's authority."3
There is a sort of Impropriety, as I take it, in saying that every Order from a Minister of State comes immediately from the Crown. However, little Inaccuracies in diction are not to be regarded in a performance fraught with reason and sound argument: It is rather to be wondered at that we meet with so few Imperfections, since we are assured by his Honor that he had taken "one Day only for his Reply" to an Answer which he intimates cost a Committee of the House full Eight Days hard Labor.4 Some men are said to have intuitive knowledge; and such have nothing to do but write down pages of unanswerable reasons as fast as the Ink can flow.
It was doubtless from this opinion that "every Order from a Secretary of State comes immediately from the King," or as his Honor elsewhere more properly expresses it, is a 'Signification of his Majesty's pleasure,' that he concludes it to be his Majesty's pleasure that he should not communicate them; for such a prohibitory order is said to come from the Secretary. But the House seemed to think it impossible that our gracious King, should hold his Subjects to a blind obedience to Orders which they were not permitted to see; and therefore concluded, and as I humbly conceive very justly, that this order in a particular manner, was to be suppos'd to be an Act of the Minister and not of the King—His Honor indeed speaks of it with great Veneration; and tells them that "the restraint he is under appears to him to be founded upon wise Reasons." But from this alone, he could not with certainty conclude that the Order came immediately from the King; for it is undoubtedly his Honor's opinion, that the present set of Ministers are very wise men, tho' not so wise as his Majesty; and therefore he might take it for granted, the Order was founded on wise reasons if it had come from them only. But as in these times of Light and Liberty, every man chuses to see and judge for himself, especially in all matters which are prescribed to him as rules of faith and practice; it is pity his Honor did not condescend to communicate those wise reasons, that the House and the People without Doors, here and there "a transient Person" who may have a common share of understanding, might judge whether they appeared to them to be reasons becoming the Wisdom of a King, or only as the House somewhere express it, "the freaks of a capricious Minister of State."