Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin Volume II Part 7

But it did not arrive at its meridian alt.i.tude till Charles I. began to wield the sceptre. As he had formed a design to lay aside parliaments and subvert the popular part of the const.i.tution, he very well knew that the form of government could not be altered without laying a restraint on freedom of speech and the liberty of the press: therefore he issued his royal mandate, under the great seal of England, whereby he commanded his subjects, under pain of his displeasure, not to prescribe to him any time for parliaments. Lord Clarendon, upon this occasion, is pleased to write, "That all men took themselves to be prohibited, under the penalty of censure (the censure of the Star Chamber), which few men cared to incur, so much as to speak of parliaments, or so much as to mention that parliaments were again to be called."

The king's ministers, to let the nation see they were absolutely determined to suppress all freedom of speech, caused a prosecution to be carried on by the attorney general against three members of the House of Commons, for words spoken in that house, Anno 1628. The members pleaded to the information, that expressions in parliament ought only to be examined and punished there. This notwithstanding, _they were all three condemned as disturbers of the state_; one of these gentlemen, Sir John Eliot, was fined two thousand pounds, and sentenced to lie in prison till it was paid. His lady was denied admittance to him, even during his sickness; consequently, his punishment comprehended an additional sentence of divorce. This patriot, having endured many years imprisonment, sunk under the oppression, and died in prison: this was such a wound to the authority and rights of Parliament that, even after the restoration, the judgment was revered by Parliament.

That Englishmen of all ranks might be effectually intimidated from publis.h.i.+ng their thoughts on any subject, except on the side of the court, his majesty's ministers caused an information, for several libels, to be exhibited in the Star Chamber against Messrs. _Prynn_, _Burton_, and _Bastwick_. They were each of them fined five thousand pounds, and adjudged to lose their ears on the pillory, to be branded on the cheeks with hot irons, and to suffer perpetual imprisonment! Thus these three gentlemen, each of worth and quality in their several professions, viz., divinity, law, and physic, were, for no other offence than writing on controverted points of church government, exposed on public scaffolds, and stigmatized and mutilated as common signal rogues or the most ordinary malefactors.

Such corporeal punishments, inflicted with all the circ.u.mstances of cruelty and infamy, bound down all other gentlemen under a servile fear of like treatment; so that, for several years, no one durst publicly speak or write in defence of the liberties of the people; which the king's ministers, his privy council, and his judges, had trampled under their feet. The spirit of the administration looked hideous and dreadful; the hate and resentment which the people conceived against it, for a long time lay smothered in their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, where those pa.s.sions festered and grew venomous, and at last discharged themselves by an armed and vindictive hand.

King Charles II. aimed at the subversion of the government, but concealed his designs under a deep hypocrisy: a method which his predecessor, in the beginning of his reign, scorned to make use of. The father, who affected a high and rigid gravity, discountenanced all barefaced immorality. The son, of a gay, luxurious disposition, openly encouraged it: thus their inclinations being different, the restraint laid on some authors, and the encouragement given to others, were managed after a different manner.

In this reign a licenser was appointed for the stage and the press; no plays were encouraged but what had a tendency to debase the minds of the people. The original design of comedy was perverted; it appeared in all the shocking circ.u.mstances of immodest _double entendre_, obscure description, and lewd representation. Religion was sneered out of countenance, and public spirit ridiculed as an awkward oldfas.h.i.+oned virtue; the fine gentleman of the comedy, though embroidered over with wit, was a consummate debauchee; and a fine lady, though set off with a brilliant imagination, was an impudent coquette. Satire, which in the hands of _Horace_, _Juvenal_, and _Boileau_, was pointed with a generous resentment against vice, now became the declared foe of virtue and innocence. As the city of London, in all ages, as well as the time we are now speaking of, was remarkable for its opposition to arbitrary power, the poets levelled all their artillery against the metropolis, in order to bring the citizens into contempt: an alderman was never introduced on the theatre but under the complicated character of a sneaking, canting hypocrite, a miser, and a cuckold; while the court-wits, with impunity, libelled the most valuable part of the nation. Other writers, of a different stamp, with great learning and gravity, endeavoured to prove to the English people that slavery was _jure divino_.[5] Thus the stage and the press, under the direction of a licenser, became battering engines against religion, virtue, and liberty. Those who had courage enough to write in their defence, were stigmatized as schismatics, and punished as disturbers of the government.

[5] By divine right.

But when the embargo on wit was taken off, _Sir Richard Steel_ and _Mr.

Addison_ soon rescued the stage from the load of impurity it laboured under with an inimitable address, they strongly recommended to our imitation the most amiable, rational manly characters; and this with so much success that I cannot suppose there is any reader to-day conversant in the writings of those gentlemen, that can taste with any tolerable relish the comedies of the once admired _Shadwell_. Vice was obliged to retire and give place to virtue: this will always be the consequence when truth has fair play: falsehood only dreads the attack, and cries out for auxiliaries: the truth never fears the encounter: she scorns the aid of the secular arm, and triumphs by her natural strength.

But, to resume the description of the reign of Charles II., the doctrine of servitude was chiefly managed by _Sir Roger Lestrange_. He had great advantages in the argument, being licenser for the press, and might have carried all before him without contradiction, if writings on the other side of the question had not been printed by stealth. The authors, whenever found, were prosecuted as seditious libellers; on all these occasions the king's counsel, particularly _Sawyer_ and _Finch_, appeared most obsequious to accomplish the ends of the court.

During this _blessed_ management, the king had entered into a secret league with France to render himself absolute and enslave his subjects.

This fact was discovered to the world by Dr. _Jonathan Swift_, to whom _Sir William Temple_ had intrusted the publication of his works.

_Sidney_, the sworn foe of tyranny, was a gentleman of n.o.ble family, of sublime understanding and exalted courage. The ministry were resolved to remove so great an obstacle out of the way of their designs. He was prosecuted for high treason. The overt act charged in the indictment was a libel found in his private study. Mr. Finch, the king's own solicitor-general, urged with great vehemence to this effect, "that the _imagining_ the death of the king is _treason_, even while that imagination remains concealed in the mind, though the law cannot punish such secret treasonable thoughts till it arrives at the knowledge of them by some overt act. That the matter of the libel composed by Sidney was an _imagining how to compa.s.s the death of King Charles II._; and the writing of it was an overt act of treason, for that to write was to act. (_Scribere est agere._)" It seems that the king's counsel in this reign had not received the same directions as Queen Elizabeth had given hers; she told them they were to look upon themselves as not retained so much (_pro domina regina_, as _pro domina veritate_) for the power of the queen as for the power of truth.

Mr. Sidney made a strong and legal defence. He insisted that all the words in the book contained no more than general speculations on the principles of government, free for any man to write down; especially since the same are written in the parliament rolls and in the statute laws.

He argued on the injustice of applying by innuendoes, general a.s.sertions concerning principles of government, as overt acts to prove the writer was compa.s.sing the death of the king; for then no man could write of things done even by our ancestors, in defence of the const.i.tution and freedom of England, without exposing himself to capital danger.

He denied that _scribere est agere_, but allowed that writing and publis.h.i.+ng is to act (_Scribere et publicare est agere_), and therefore he urged that, as his book had never been published nor imparted to any person, it could not be an overt act, within the statutes of treasons, even admitting that it contained treasonable positions; that, on the contrary, it was a _covert fact_, locked up in his private study, as much concealed from the knowledge of any man as if it were locked up in the author's mind. This was the substance of Mr. Sidney's defence: but neither law, nor reason, nor eloquence, nor innocence ever availed where _Jefferies_ sat as judge. Without troubling himself with any part of the defence, he declared in a rage, that Sidney's _known principles_ were a _sufficient_ proof of his intention to compa.s.s the death of the king.

A packed jury therefore found him guilty of high treason: great applications were made for his pardon. He was executed as a traitor.

This case is a pregnant instance of the danger that attends a law for punis.h.i.+ng words, and of the little security the most valuable men have for their lives, in that society where a judge, by remote inferences and distant innuendoes, may construe the most innocent expressions into capital crimes. _Sidney_, the British _Brutus_, the warm, the steady friend of _liberty_; who, from an intrinsic love to mankind, left them that invaluable legacy, his immortal discourses on government, was for these very discourses murdered by the hands of lawless power. * * * *

Upon the whole, to suppress inquiries into the administration is good policy in an arbitrary government; but a free const.i.tution and freedom of speech have such reciprocal dependance on each other, that they cannot subsist without consisting together.

The following extracts of a letter, signed Columella, and addressed to the editors of the British Repository for select Papers on Agriculture, Arts, and Manufactures (see vol. i.), will prepare those who read it for the following paper:

"GENTLEMEN,--There is now publis.h.i.+ng in France a periodical work, called Ephemeridis du Citoyen,[6] in which several points, interesting to those concerned in agriculture, are from time to time discussed by some able hands. In looking over one of the volumes of this work a few days ago, I found a little piece written by one of our countrymen, and which our vigilant neighbours had taken from the London Chronicle in 1766. The author is a gentleman well known to every man of letters in Europe, and perhaps there is none in this age to whom mankind in general are more indebted.

[6] Citizen's Journal.

"That this piece may not be lost to our own country, I beg you will give it a place in your Repository: it was written in favour of the farmers, when they suffered so much abuse in our public papers, and were also plundered by the mob in many places."

_To Messieurs the Public._

ON THE PRICE OF CORN, AND THE MANAGEMENT OF THE POOR.

I am one of that cla.s.s of people that feeds you all, and at present abused by you all; in short, I am a _farmer_.

By your newspapers we are told that G.o.d had sent a very short harvest to some other countries of Europe. I thought this might be in favour of Old England, and that now we should get a good price for our grain, which would bring millions among us, and make us flow in money: that, to be sure, is scarce enough.

But the wisdom of government forbade the exportation.

Well, says I, then we must be content with the market price at home.

No, say my lords the mob, you sha'n't have that. Bring your corn to market if you dare; we'll sell it for you for less money, or take it for nothing.

Being thus attacked by both ends _of the const.i.tution_, the head and tail _of government_, what am I to do?

Must I keep my corn in the barn, to feed and increase the breed of rats?

Be it so; they cannot be less thankful than those I have been used to feed.

Are we farmers the only people to be grudged the profits of our honest labour? And why? One of the late scribblers against us gives a bill of fare of the provisions at my daughter's wedding, and proclaims to all the world that we had the insolence to eat beef and pudding! Has he not read the precept in the good book, _thou shall not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn_; or does he think us less worthy of good living than our oxen?

Oh, but the manufacturers! the manufacturers! they are to be favoured, and they must have bread at a cheap rate!

Hark ye, Mr. Oaf: The farmers live splendidly, you say. And, pray, would you have them h.o.a.rd the money they get? Their fine clothes and furniture, do they make themselves or for one another, and so keep the money among them? Or do they employ these your darling manufacturers, and so scatter it again all over the nation?

The wool would produce me a better price if it were suffered to go to foreign markets; but that, Messieurs the Public, your laws will not permit. It must be kept all at home, that our _dear_ manufacturers may have it the cheaper. And then, having yourselves thus lessened our encouragement for raising sheep, you curse us for the scarcity of mutton!

I have heard my grandfather say, that the farmers submitted to the prohibition on the exportation of wool, being made to expect and believe that, when the manufacturer bought his wool cheaper, they should also have their cloth cheaper. But the deuse a bit. It has been growing dearer and dearer from that day to this. How so? Why, truly, the cloth is exported: and that keeps up the price.

Now if it be a good principle that the exportation of a commodity is to be restrained, that so our people at home may have it the cheaper, stick to that principle, and go thorough st.i.tch with it. Prohibit the exportation of your cloth, your leather and shoes, your ironware, and your manufactures of all sorts, to make them all cheaper at home. And cheap enough they will be, I will warrant you, till people leave off making them.

Some folks seem to think they ought never to be easy till England becomes another Lubberland, where it is fancied the streets are paved with penny-rolls, the houses tiled with pancakes, and chickens, ready roasted, cry, Come eat me.

I say, when you are sure you have got a good principle, stick to it and carry it through. I hear it is said, that though it was _necessary and right_ for the ministry to advise a prohibition of the exportation of corn, yet it was _contrary to law_; and also, that though it was _contrary to law_ for the mob to obstruct wagons, yet it was _necessary and right_. Just the same thing to a t.i.ttle. Now they tell me an act of indemnity ought to pa.s.s in favour of the ministry, to secure them from the consequences of having acted illegally. If so, pa.s.s another in favour of the mob. Others say, some of the mob ought to be hanged, by way of example. If so--but to say no more than I have said before, _when you are sure that you have a good principle, go through with it_.

You say poor labourers cannot afford to buy bread at a high price, unless they had higher wages. Possibly. But how shall we farmers be able to afford our labourers higher wages, if you will not allow us to get, when we might have it, a higher price for our corn?

By all that I can learn, we should at least have had a guinea a quarter more if the exportation had been allowed. And this money England would have got from foreigners.

But, it seems, we farmers must take so much less that the poor may have it so much cheaper.

This operates, then, as a tax for the maintenance of the poor. A very good thing, you will say. But I ask, why a partial tax? why laid on us farmers only? If it be a good thing, pray, Messieurs the Public, take your share of it, by indemnifying us a little out of your public treasury. In doing a good thing there is both honour and pleasure; you are welcome to your share of both.

For my own part, I am not so well satisfied of the goodness of this thing. I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion about the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor is not making them easy _in_ poverty, but leading or driving them _out_ of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and, of course, became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer. There is no country in the world where so many provisions are established for them; so many hospitals to receive them when they are sick or lame, founded and maintained by voluntary charities; so many almshouses for the aged of both s.e.xes, together with a solemn general law made by the rich to subject their estates to a heavy tax for the support of the poor. Under all these obligations, are our poor modest, humble, and thankful? And do they use their best endeavours to maintain themselves, and lighten our shoulders of this burden! On the contrary, I affirm that there is no country in the world in which the poor are more idle, dissolute, drunken, and insolent.[7] The day you pa.s.sed that act you took away from before their eyes the greatest of all inducements to industry, frugality, and sobriety, by giving them a dependance on somewhat else than a careful acc.u.mulation during youth and health, for support in age or sickness. In short, you offered a premium for the encouragement of idleness, and you should not now wonder that it has had its effect in the increase of poverty. Repeal this law, and you will soon see a change in their manners; _Saint Monday_ and _Saint Tuesday_ will soon cease to be holydays. Six _days shalt thou labour_, though one of the old commandments, long treated as out of date, will again be looked upon as a respectable precept; industry will increase, and with it plenty among the lower people; their circ.u.mstances will mend, and more will be done for their happiness by inuring them to provide for themselves, than could be done by dividing all your estates among them.

[7] England in 1766

Excuse me, Messieurs the Public, if upon this _interesting_ subject I put you to the trouble of reading a little of _my_ nonsense; I am sure I have lately read a great deal of _yours_, and therefore, from you (at least from those of you who are writers) I deserve a little indulgence.

I am yours, &c.

ARATOR.