Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope

by Viscount Henry St. John Bolingbroke

It may be said, and it has been urged to me, that if the Chevalier was restored, the knowledge of his character would be our security; “habet fœnum in cornu;” there would be no pretence for trusting him, and by consequence it would be easy to put such restrictions on the exercise of the regal power as might hinder him from invading or sapping our religion and liberty. But this I utterly deny. Experience has shown us how ready men are to court power and profit, and who can determine how far either the Tories or the Whigs would comply, in order to secure to themselves the enjoyment of all the places in the kingdom? Suppose, however, that a majority of true Israelites should be found, whom no temptation could oblige to bow the knee to Baal; in order to preserve the Government on one hand must they not destroy it on the other? The necessary restrictions would in this case be so many and so important as to leave hardly the shadow of a monarchy if he submitted to them; and if he did not submit to them, these patriots would have no resource left but in rebellion. Thus, therefore, the affair would turn if the Pretender was restored. We might, most probably, lose our religion and liberty by the bigotry of the Prince and the corruption of the people. We should have no chance of preserving them but by an entire change of the whole frame of our Government or by another revolution. What reasonable man would voluntarily reduce himself to the necessity of making an option among such melancholy alternatives?

The best which could be hoped for, were the Chevalier on the throne, would be that a thread of favourable accidents, improved by the wisdom and virtue of Parliament, might keep off the evil day during his reign. But still the fatal cause would be established; it would be entailed upon us, and every man would be apprised that sooner or later the fatal effect must follow. Consider a little what a condition we should be in, both with respect to our foreign interest and our domestic quiet, whilst the reprieve lasted, whilst the Chevalier or his successors made no direct attack upon the constitution.

As to the first, it is true, indeed, that princes and States are friends or foes to one another according as the motives of ambition drive them. These are the first principles of union and division amongst them. The Protestant Powers of Europe have joined, in our days, to support and aggrandise the House of Austria, as they did in the days of our forefathers to defeat her designs and to reduce her power; and the most Christian King of France has more than once joined his councils, and his arms too, with the councils and arms of the most Mahometan Emperor of Constantinople. But still there is, and there must continue, as long as the influence of the Papal authority subsists in Europe, another general, permanent, and invariable division of interests. The powers of earth, like those of heaven, have two distinct motions. Each of them rolls in his own political orb, but each of them is hurried at the same time round the great vortex of his religion. If this general notion be just, apply it to the present case. Whilst a Roman Catholic holds the rudder, how can we expect to be steered in our proper course? His political interest will certainly incline him to direct our first motion right, but his mistaken religious interest will render him incapable of doing it steadily.

As to the last, our domestic quiet; even whilst the Chevalier and those of his race concealed their game, we should remain in the most unhappy state which human nature is subject to, a state of doubt and suspense. Our preservation would depend on making him the object of our eternal jealousy, who, to render himself and his people happy, ought to be that of our entire confidence.

Whilst the Pretender and his successors forbore to attack the religion and liberty of the nation, we should remain in the condition of those people who labour under a broken constitution, or who carry about them some chronical distemper. They feel a little pain at every moment; or a certain uneasiness, which is sometimes less tolerable than pain, hangs continually on them, and they languish in the constant expectation of dying perhaps in the severest torture.

But if the fear of hell should dissipate all other fears in the Pretender’s mind, and carry him, which is frequently the effect of that passion, to the most desperate undertakings; if among his successors a man bold enough to make the attempt should arise, the condition of the British nation would be still more deplorable. The attempt succeeding, we should fall into tyranny; for a change of religion could never be brought about by consent; and the same force that would be sufficient to enslave our consciences, would be sufficient for all the other purposes of arbitrary power. The attempt failing, we should fall into anarchy; for there is no medium when disputes between a prince and his people are arrived at a certain point; he must either be submitted to or deposed.

I have now laid before you even more than I intended to have said when I took my pen, and I am persuaded that if these papers ever come to your hands, they will enable you to cast up the account between party and me. Till the time of the Queen’s death it stands, I believe, even between us. The Tories distinguished me by their approbation and by the credit which I had amongst them, and I endeavoured to distinguish myself in their service, under the immediate weight of great discouragement and with the not very distant prospect of great danger. Since that time the account is not so even, and I dare appeal to any impartial person whether my side in it be that of the debtor. As to the opinion of mankind in general, and the judgment which posterity will pass on these matters, I am under no great concern. “Suum cuique decus posteritas rependit.”

A LETTER TO ALEXANDER POPE.

Dear Sir,—Since you have begun, at my request, the work which I have wished long that you would undertake, it is but reasonable that I submit to the task you impose upon me. The mere compliance with anything you desire, is a pleasure to me. On the present occasion, however, this compliance is a little interested; and that I may not assume more merit with you than I really have, I will own that in performing this act of friendship—for such you are willing to esteem it—the purity of my motive is corrupted by some regard to my private utility. In short, I suspect you to be guilty of a very friendly fraud, and to mean my service whilst you seem to mean your own.

In leading me to discourse, as you have done often, and in pressing me to write, as you do now, on certain subjects, you may propose to draw me back to those trains of thought which are, above all others, worthy to employ the human mind: and I thank you for it. They have been often interrupted by the business and dissipations of the world, but they were never so more grievously to me, nor less usefully to the public, than since royal seduction prevailed on me to abandon the quiet and leisure of the retreat I had chosen abroad, and to neglect the example of Rutilius, for I might have imitated him in this at least, who fled further from his country when he was invited home.