The Freeholders of past times knew that their rights were most likely to repose in safety, under the shade of rank and property. Adventurers had no estimation among them; there was no room for them—no place for them to appear in.—Think of this, and ask if your Fathers, could they rise from their tombs, would not have stared, with no small degree of wonder, upon the Person who now solicits the Suffrages of the County of Westmoreland. What are his Rents—Where are his comings in? He is engaged in an undertaking of great expence—how is that expence supplied? From his own purse? Impossible! Where are the golden sinews which this Champion of Independence depends upon? If they be furnished by those who have no natural connection with the County, are we simple enough to believe that they dip their hands into their pockets out of pure good-will to us? May they not rather justly be suspected of a wish to embroil us for some sinister purpose? At all events, it might be some satisfaction would they shew themselves, so that, if we are to have a Subscription-candidate, we may know what sort of Persons he is indebted to, and at least be able to guess what they will require of him.
The principles that have been laid down, and the facts which have been adverted to, might seem to render it superfluous to retrace the public conduct of Mr. Brougham, and to enquire whether, in Parliament or at the London Tavern, in Palace Yard or elsewhere, those acts and courses, to which he himself refers as his only recommendation, do not still more unfit him for the trust which he covets. But Persons fond of novelty make light of deficiencies which would have admitted of no compensation in the judgment of our Ancestors; and the Candidate, being in no respect remarkable for deference to public opinion, is willing to avail himself of new-fangled expectations. Hence it becomes necessary to consider what would be the political value of the Freeholds of Westmoreland, if the system of Annual Parliaments and Universal Suffrage (countenanced by Mr. Brougham) should be acted upon. But, as there has been much saying and unsaying on this subject, let us review the case.
In the House of Commons, on the 17th of February, 1817, Lord Cochrane affirmed, that, on a certain day which he named, Mr. Brougham, at a dinner given at the London Tavern, to the Friends of Parliamentary Reform, used the following words, or words to the same effect:—'As often as we have required that Parliaments should be chosen yearly, and that the elective Franchise should be extended to all who pay taxes, we have been desired to wait, for the enemy was at the gate, and ready to avail himself of the discords attending our political contests, in order to undermine our national independence. This argument is gone, and our Adversaries must now look for another. He had mentioned the two radical doctrines of yearly election, and the Franchise enjoyed by all paying taxes; but it would be superfluous to reason in favour of them here, where all are agreed on the subject.'
When this, and other passages of like import, were produced by Lord C. in a paper declared to be in Mr. Brougham's handwriting, and to be a report made by himself of the speech then and there delivered, did Mr. Brougham deny that the handwriting was his, and that those words had fallen from his pen, as the best image that his own memory could furnish of what he had uttered? No—he gave vent only to a vague complaint of groundless aspersions; and accused certain persons of rashness and imprudence, and of not waiting only for a few days longer, when they would have had a full and fair opportunity of hearing his sentiments on this momentous subject. He then acknowledged that some observations had fallen from him similar to what had been read by the Noble Lord; and added, that he then said, or at least meant to be understood as saying, (he takes no notice of what he wrote or meant to be understood as writing,) what he still maintained—'that the power of election should he limited to those who paid direct taxes;' in other and more faithful words, should be extended to all persons in that condition. Mr. B. proceeded manfully to scout the notion, that the mere production of a speech delivered by him at a Tavern would make him swerve from the line of his duty, from the childish desire of keeping up an appearance of consistency!
What then is the amount? On the 23d of June, 1814, (it cannot be unfair to state as a fact, that a vacancy in the Representation of Westminster was at that time looked for,) Mr. B. either was, or wished to be, accounted an Advocate of Annual Parliaments and Suffrage to be enjoyed by all paying taxes; and on the 17th of February, 1817, when Mr. B. in another place is reminded of these, his avowed opinions, he is utterly mute upon the subject of Annual Parliaments, on the expediency of which he had before harangued at length, and confines himself to announce, as the sum of his then opinion, that suffrage should be co-extensive with direct taxation! The question had two faces, and Mr. B. chooses only to look at one. Hard pressed as he was, we cannot grant him this indulgence. He has, indeed, denounced, on other occasions, the combined doctrines of Annual Parliaments and Universal Suffrage as chimerical and absurd; though how near he came to the point of recommending both, at the London Tavern, he is any thing but explicit; (in fact both, as Lord C. shewed, were virtually recommended by him.) But what does he think of Annual Parliaments, in conjunction with his rectified opinion of Suffrage, co-extensive with direct taxation? Here he leaves us wholly in the dark; but if the turbulent workings of Mr. Brougham's mind, and his fondness for contentious exhibition, manifested on all possible occasions, may be admitted as positive evidence, to corroborate the negative which his silence on this point implies, we are justified in believing that his passions were on that side, whatever might be the bent of his cooler judgment. But this is of little import.
Introduce suffrage co-extensive with direct taxation, and Annual Parliaments must unavoidably follow. The clumsy simplicity of the one arrangement would, in the eyes of its Admirers, match strikingly with the palpable expediency of the other. Such a union is equally suitable to an age of gross barbarism and an age of false philosophy. It is amusing to hear this plan of suffrage for all who pay direct taxes recommended as consonant to the genius and spirit of the British Constitution, when, in fact, though sufficiently rash and hazardous, it is no better than a timid plagiarism from the doctrine of the Rights of Man. Upon the model of that system, it begins with flagrant injustice to chartered rights; for if it were adopted, the elective Franchises that now exist would be depreciated accordingly; an invidious process for those who would lose by the alteration; and still more invidious for those to whom the privilege would not be suffered to descend. Alas! I am trifling with the subject! If the spirit of a People, composed as that of England now is, were once put into a ferment, by organizing a democracy on this scheme, and to this extent, with a Press as free and licentious as our's has long been, what a flimsy barrier would remain to check the impetus of the excluded! When, in thousands, they bore down upon the newly constituted House of Assembly, demanding to be placed upon a level with their fellow-subjects, it would avail little to send a Peace-officer to enquire—where are your vouchers? Shew us that the Tax-gatherer has been among you! As soon as the petty Artizans, Shop-keepers, and Pot-house Keepers, of our over-grown Manufacturing Towns and our enormous Cities, had each and all been invested with the right of voting, the infection would spread like a plague.—Our neighbours on the Continent tried this plan of direct taxation; and, in the beginning of the third year of their Reform, Universal Suffrage, which had long ruled in spirit, lorded it in form also, from the Pyrenees to the Rhine, and from the Straits of Calais to the Shores of the Mediterranean. Down went the throne of France! and, if we should take the same guide, the Throne of England must submit a second time to a like destiny. Most of us would deem this a considerable evil—the greatest political evil that could befal the Land! Not so, however, our new Candidate! unless his opinion, if, indeed, he ever held what may be called an opinion upon any thing, has undergone important changes since the time when he expressed himself in the following words:—'When trade and the arts of civilized life have been carried to a certain length, war is the greatest calamity that can befal a community. Any state in modern Europe would be so completely ruined by the contests which Athens and Carthage easily supported, that it would be a matter of total indifference, whether the war was a series of victories or disasters. The return of Peace to France or England, after half so long a contest as either the Peloponnesian or the Punic wars, would be cheaply purchased by any conquest or revolution, any change of dynasty or overthrow of Government.'—See vol. i. p. 13, of Colonial Policy, by H. Brougham.
The above was given to the world when we were at war with Bonaparte; and that part of the English nation, who might read the book or hear of this author's doctrines, was plainly told, that, in his estimation, our Constitutional liberties were not worthy of being defended at the cost of a 14 years' war! But the unsuspecting, humane, and hope-cherishing adherents of the new Candidate will tell you, this does not prove that Mr. B. sets a small price on the Constitution and Laws of England; it only shews his tender-heartedness, and his extreme aversion to the horrors and devastation of war.—Hear then Mr. B. on these points also. Let his serious Friends take from his pen this pleasant description, which proves at least that he can be jocular upon a subject that makes most men grave; although they may not think twice seven years' war so great a calamity as any conquest or Revolution, any change of dynasty or overthrow of Government.—'A species of pecuniary commutation,' he tells us, 'has been contrived, by which the operations of war are rendered very harmless; they are performed by some hundreds of sailors fighting harmlessly on the barren plains of the ocean, and some thousands of soldiers carrying on a scientific, and regular, and quiet system of warfare, in countries set apart for the purpose, and resorted to as the arena where the disputes of nations may be determined. The prudent policy had been adopted of purchasing defeat at a distance rather than victory at home; in this manner we paid our allies for being vanquished; a few useless millions, and a few more useless lives were sacrificed; and the result was, that we were amply rewarded by safety, increased resources, and real addition of power.' (Edinburgh Review, No. II., and ascertained to be the writing of Mr. Brougham, by his having incorporated it in his Colonial Policy.)
The new Candidate challenges the strictest scrutiny into his public life, so that had we gone much farther than the above retrospect, we should only have been fulfilling his own wishes. Personal enmity towards the Subject, the Writer has none; being, in all that concerns the feelings of private life, friendly to Mr. Brougham, rather than otherwise. That his talents and habits of application entitle him to no common respect, must be universally acknowledged; but talents in themselves merely are, in the eyes of the judicious, no recommendation. If a sword be sharp, it is of the more importance to ask—What use it is likely to be put to? In government, if we can keep clear of mischief, good will come of itself. Fitness is the thing to be sought; and unfitness is much less frequently caused by general incapacity than by absence of that kind of capacity which the charge demands. Talent is apt to generate presumption and self-confidence; and no qualities are so necessary, in a Legislator, as the opposites of these—which, if they do not imply the existence of sagacity, are the best substitutes for it—whether they produce, in the general disposition of the mind, an humble reliance on the wisdom of our Forefathers, and a sedate yielding to the pressure of existing things; or carry the thoughts still higher, to religious trust in a superintending Providence, by whose permission laws are ordered and customs established, for other purposes than to be perpetually found fault with.
These suggestions are recommended to the consideration of our new Aspirant, and of all those public men whose judgments are perverted, and tempers soured, by long struggling in the ranks of opposition, and incessant bustling among the professors of Reform. I shall not recall to notice further particulars, because time, by softening asperities or removing them out of sight, is a friend to benevolence. Although a rigorous investigation has been invited, it is well that there is no need to run through the rash assertions, the groundless accusations, and the virulent invectives that disfigure the speeches of this never-silent Member. All these things, offensive to moderate men, are too much to the taste of many of Mr. Brougham's partizans in Westmoreland. But I call upon those who relish these deviations from fair and honourable dealing—upon those also of his adherents who are inwardly ashamed of their Champion, on this account—and upon all the Freeholders concerned in the general question, to review what has been laid before them. Having done this, they cannot but admit that Mr. Brougham's independence is a dark dependence, which no one understands—and, that if a jewel has been lost in Westmoreland, his are not the eyes by which it is to be found again. If the dignity of Knight of the Shire is to be conferred, he cannot be pronounced a fit person to receive it. For whether, my Brother Freeholders, you look at the humbleness of his situation amongst Country Gentlemen; or at his amphibious habits, in the two elements of Law and Authorship, and the odd vagaries he has played in both; or whether he be tried by the daring opinions which, by his own acknowledgment, he has maintained in Parliament, and at public meetings, on the subject of the elective Franchise; we meet with concurring proofs that HE IS ALTOGETHER UNFIT TO REPRESENT THIS, OR ANY OTHER COUNTY!
If, notwithstanding the truth of this inference, Mr. Brougham's talents, information, and activity make it desirable that he should have a place in the House of Commons, why cannot they who are of this opinion be content, since he is already there? What service he is capable of rendering may be as effectually performed, should he never aspire beyond re-election to one of those seats which he now fills. The good, if any is to be looked for, may then be obtained with much less risk of evil. While he continues a Member for a close Borough, his dangerous opinions are left mainly to the support of his own character, and the arguments which his ingenuity can adduce to recommend them; but should they derive that degree of sanction from the Freeholders of a County, which success in his present undertaking would imply, they might become truly formidable!—Let every one, then, who cannot accompany Mr. B. in his bold theories, and does not go the length of admiring the composition of his political life, be cautious how he betakes himself to such help, in order to reduce, within what he may deem due bounds, the influence of a Family prominent in the civil service of the County from the earliest times. It is apparent, if the Writer has not employed his pen in vain, that against this influence there is no just ground of complaint. They who think with him will continue to uphold it, as long as the Family proves that it understands its own interest and honour by a judicious attention to our's. And should it forfeit our respect by misconduct, in the unavoidable decline of its political importance which would ensue, we should not envy that House its splendid possessions or its manifold privileges; knowing that some Families must be permanently great and opulent, or there would be no security for the possessions of the middle ranks, or of the humble Proprietor. But, looking at the present constitution and measure of this influence, you cannot but perceive, Gentlemen, that, if there were indeed any thing in it that could justly be complained of, our duty might still be to bear with the local evil, as correcting an opposite extreme in some other quarter of the Island;—as a counterpoise of some weight elsewhere pressing injuriously upon the springs of social order. How deplorable would be the ignorance, how pitiful the pride, that could prevent us from submitting to a partial evil for the sake of a general good! In fine, if a comprehensive survey enjoined no such sacrifice, and even if all that the unthinking, the malevolent, and the desperate, all that the deceivers and the deceived, have conjointly urged at this time against the House of Lowther, were literally true, you would be cautious how you sought a remedy for aristocratic oppression, by throwing yourselves into the arms of a flaming democracy!