Edmond George Petty-Fitzmaurice

“ The House of Commons under its present institution has had its day, and Parliament itself is no longer considered as Omnipotent as Lord Mansfield used to call it. As knowledge has spread and the representatives have become corrupted, it has ceased to impose, and has no longer the same confidence with the people. It may still do a little good or prevent a little harm of itself, but it is the public opinion which decides, which the House of Commons must obey, as every part of Government must in this and every country of Europe where it shows itself. ”

“ When in a great office he withholds from the King and you all the use of it to Government, you will say it is a Catonical temper and mulish resolution not to depart from what he once lays down. Let no such mule be in such an office. But, my Lord, a man who can be a mule with his friend and benefactor, has neither good nature, good sense, nor honesty; and, indeed, I think him deficient in all. In the House of Commons he will ever be a tiresome incumbrance, unless the chief persons there have authority enough to set him, like other incumbrances, aside and out of the way. ”

“ Our Navy bills bearing an enormous discount; our public credit beginning to totter; our commerce day by day becoming worse; our army reduced, and in want of 30,000 men to make up its establishments; our navy, which has been made so much the boast of some men, in such a condition, that the noble Viscount, now at the head of the profession, in giving a description of it, strove to conceal its weakness by speaking low, as if he wished to keep it from going abroad into the world. ”

“ I make it my humble and earnest prayer to Almighty God, that Great Britain may not feel the evils which might result from so great a dismemberment of the Empire; and that America may be free from those calamities, which have formerly proved in the mother country how essential the Monarchy is to the enjoyment of constitutional liberty. ”

“ It is the glorious reward of doing well, of acting an honest and honourable part. By the difficulties he encountered on his accepting the reins of government, by the reduced situation in which he found the state of the nation, and by the perpetual turbulence of those who thought his elevation effected at their own expense, he has certainly earned it dearly: and with such a solid understanding, and so much goodness of heart as stamp his character, he is in no danger of losing it. ”

“ Government are of themselves obliged to come to Parliament for a new system of Police. Does it require any great degree of foresight to see that the real causes of all the outrages must very shortly point themselves out, and that the truth will bolt itself out, where there is nothing to impede it. However unenlightened we are, we have certainly got the length of knowing that Agriculture and morals are the only true foundations of Free Trade or Police. Establish these better than any country in Europe, and your situation will make you masters of everything else. ”

“ The progression of affairs in America had not yet led the thoughts of men to independence. They were obedient from habit, and from that reverence with which they considered the mother-country; but the Stamp Act having an immediate tendency to destroy the whole frame of their constitutions, by taking away from their Legislatures the only subjects of taxation which the laws of trade and navigation had left them, it was no wonder therefore if they thought of self-defence and resistance, that their habits of obedience were broken, and their reverence towards this country diminished. ”

“ The whole of economy in fact turns but upon two points, which if they be but once well established and punctually observed in any family (and they require little if any more power of mind, than to be sure to put on a clean shirt every day, or not to lay your hands upon another person's property) , leave you free to every pursuit of body or mind, and to experience every duty with ease and cheerfulness, laying the only solid foundation of domestic happiness, and ensuring public consideration and confidence to a degree that is inconceivable; for all reputation comes from home. ”

“ Nugent opened the matter with as much delicacy as he could, but shunned Sir George most excessively, whose chief complaint in the first moments of his distraction was, that William Pitt, with his unreasonable temper, would call it absence, and repeatedly asked Mr. Nugent, as a reasonable man, whether he saw any absence in it? It was the fashion to say that Mr. Pitt was violent, impetuous, romantick, a despiser of money, intrigue, and patronage, ignorant of the characters of men, and one who disregarded consequences. ”

“ Does any reflecting clergyman or friend of the Church suppose that nearly two millions of Catholics, open as they are to the practices of Foreign Powers who know well enough what a good cloak religion still affords, and how powerful an instrument it still remains, and 250,000 Dissenters with the example of America before their eyes, the only description in the kingdom capable of enthusiasm of character, situation, and connection, able both to concert and act, will long continue to pay tithes to such an immense amount, to the idle non-resident clergy of the small number which remains? ”

“ The present Parliament seems to have no right to make laws which shall be binding upon future Parliaments, especially in points in which the future are alone interested, unless their wisdom and their power was so great that they could discern unbegotten events, or stop the fleeting currents of human affairs. If they want this power, how can it be supposed that future times will relinquish their own peculiar rights, and suffer themselves implicitly to obey the direction of those who had no right to restrain them, nor opportunities to judge of their situation or circumstances. ”

“ Unconnected, unsupported, he remains in office without interest or dignity, as if the income were an equivalent for all loss of reputation. Without spirit or judgment to take an advantageous moment for retiring, he submits to be insulted as long as he is paid for it. But even his abject conduct will avail him nothing. Like his great archetype, the vapour on which he rose deserts him, and now
Fluttering his pennons vain, plumb down he drops. ”

“ But I beg to recommend the question of policy to your most serious reflection. If we are to look to regain the affections of America, to reunion in any shape, or even to commerce and friendship, is it not of the last degree of consequence to retain every means possible to gratify America at a future I hope not very distant day, when the negotiation will not be carried on at a foreign capital, not under the eye, if not the control of inveterate enemies, nor under the reputed impulse of absolute necessity. ”

“ The irresolution and weakness of these times, lamented by all good and honest men, decryed by good and bad, are by all constantly compared to those of more order and steadiness, when measures and men were more solid and permanent. In this discourse their thoughts are naturally carried back to that time all remember when Sir R. Walpole and Mr. Pelham were First Lord of the Treasury, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Minister of the House of Commons, and here, if I am not deceived, the world see Mr. Fox when they look up to him. ”

“ Ils n'ont guère d'idées comparatives de grandeur, de puissance, de noblesse et d'élévation que celles qui leur sont fournies par des objets tirés de l'Angleterre; et surpris eux-mêmes de la hardiesse du pas qu'ils ont fait en s'en séparant, ils sont ramenés au respect et à la subordination vers elle, par tous leurs mouvements involontaires.
Ils ne se dissimulent pas, il est vrai, que, sans la France, ils n'auraient pas réussi à devenir indépendants; mais ils savent trop de politique pour croire de nation à nation à la vertu qu'on appelle reconnaissance. ”

“ Much as he valued America; necessary as the possession of the Colonies might be to the power and independence of Great Britain; fatal as her final separation might prove, whenever that event might take place; as a friend to liberty, as a reverer of the English Constitution, as a lover of natural and political justice, he would be much better pleased to see America for ever severed from Great Britain, than restored to her possession by force of arms or conquest. ”

“ He was not easily deceived by specious argument, and his experience had taught him a knowledge of mankind that made it difficult to impose upon him. Though he read little, he was not incapable of application, but he could not have continued it in business. His eloquence, if it deserves that name, consisted more in the strength and vehemence of his attack, and the saying boldly whatever others would have had the most management about, than in graceful and elegant language, or copious declamation. ”

“ It gave him great advantages to serve a turn, by enabling him to change like lightning from one set of principles to another, for which to do him justice, he had an extraordinary quick eye, which enabled him to judge mankind en masse, what would do and not do: by nature insolent and overbearing, at the same time so versatile that he could bend to anything. ”

“ To those indeed who think that a statesman is only another name for a superior clerk, the character of Chatham will be either incomprehensible, or merely seem that of an accomplished rhetorician. Nor are the reasons of this far to seek. His want of early education had deprived him, like Shelburne, of all opportunity of acquiring knowledge of the details of business, nor had he attempted to supply the defects of his own early training, either by himself acquiring a store of positive knowledge, or by gaining associates who could do for him what Price and Dunning were able to do for Shelburne. ”

“ Our Constitution, at least as it has been administered for the last ninety years, is admirably calculated to resist grievances, but the moment that is done degenerates. I am sorry to say upon an experience of forty years, that the publick is incapable of embracing two objects at a time, or of extending their views beyond the object immediately before them. The worship of images and idols prevailing over the greatest part of the globe is proof—and for that reason they consider men more than things; which is the only thing they are good for, and in that they are repeatedly deceived. ”

“ But the real evil is, that the absence of the rich proprietors retards civilisation, the progress of manners, and many liberal improvements; for though the rich may in some respects set a bad example, yet upon the whole they soften and liberalise, excite industry, and make society by bringing men together, who polish themselves, enforce a due administration of justice, and keep down the professions, whose employment is to rob every country, and if left to themselves, naturally produce upstart manners and a total want of principle. ”

“ What can induce him to lay himself at the mercy of his mortal enemy, which he does the moment he interferes openly in France? The King of Prussia may change his mind, he may change his ministers, the temptation may be too great. What advantage can he possibly figure to himself to balance any, much more all these risks? It would be a refinement to suppose that he takes up the aristocrats as the weaker side with a view to weaken both, and get Alsace in the scramble, for he has still the King of Prussia at his back. ”

“ France had the wonderful good fortune to have three sovereigns in succession, who were exactly calculated to raise their throne and country to the utmost pitch of grandeur, while the weak and bigoted house of Stuart, in the person of four sovereigns of that name, by their thirst and love of absolute power and their incapacity, kept us occupied at home, and laid the foundation of that liberty which will yet, I hope, stand many struggles, and by this means procured us what was more worth than all the French conquests and more adapted to our national character. ”

“ But I mention this loosely and only to you, not to Dunning, for to propose anything of a measure, would be vain and ridiculous in our present state.
"Is it not almost incredible that the head of the Whigs, as he styles himself, should not be moved by resentment, rivalship, the call of his country, the conduct of his friends, particularly Sir George Savile, to be a whit more decisive than when he set out, and still there he stands obstinately stopping the free course of popular spirit, which alone can ever oppose the Court." ”

“ I wish well to what I call the new principles, and will promote them so far as a free declaration of my own sentiments in public or private will go; but politics have given long since too much way to philosophy, for me to give myself further trouble about them. I would as soon take England upon my back, as take the trouble of fighting up a second time the game to which you allude. If I plant any more, I have long determined that it shall be like the birds: the trees must depend on the nature of the soil. ”

“ These, my Lord, are some of the most obvious difficulties, which, I apprehend, cannot fail of being aggravated at this critical juncture upon the appointment of a person so young and so unknown in public business. They seem also to carry the greater weight with them at a time when so large a body of the nobility are ostentatiously combining themselves in a public avowed opposition; a measure on their part which surely makes it advisable in Government to place in the first offices at least such persons as may be free not only from real but even plausible objections. ”

“ In England the King was popular, and a man of strong will; he had surrounded himself with the statesmen whom he had chosen in order to crush faction; an active and healthy love of improvement stirred the pulse of the national life; great reforms had been carried during the last five years, and the country was prosperous. There was no risk of a Terror, either Red or White. Pitt himself denied that any danger threatened England from the contagion of French principles. "Depend upon it," he said to Burke, "that we shall go on as we are till the day of judgment." ”

“ By the late debates in Parliament and public writings, it appears that Britain desires a reconciliation with the Americans. It is a sweet word. It means much more than a mere peace, and it is heartily to be wished for. Nations make a peace whenever they are both weary of making war. But if one of them has made war upon the other unjustly, and has wantonly and unnecessarily done it great injuries, and refuses reparation ”

“ If I had the least influence, I should certainly deprecate such a measure, because I do not conceive that either Ireland or America can ever gain by the interposition of Parliament here; and it can answer no good purpose to the public, or individuals, to call upon every acting man for a creed regarding Ireland. However, if it does come on, my opinion will naturally lead me to condemn the justice and the policy of such a tax as was proposed, as inconsistent with any degree of connection, much more of dependence, of Ireland on Great Britain. ”