The History of England from the Accession of James II, Vol. 4

T >> Thomas Babington Macaulay >> The History of England from the Accession of James II, Vol. 4

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62

Of the transactions which terminated in Bohun's dismission, and
which produced the first parliamentary struggle for the liberty
of unlicensed printing, we have accounts written by Bohun himself
and by others; but there are strong reasons for believing that in
none of those accounts is the whole truth to be found. It may
perhaps not be impossible, even at this distance of time, to put
together dispersed fragments of evidence in such a manner as to
produce an authentic narrative which would have astonished the
unfortunate licenser himself.

There was then about town a man of good family, of some reading,
and of some small literary talent, named Charles Blount.383 In
politics he belonged to the extreme section of the Whig party. In
the days of the Exclusion Bill he had been one of Shaftesbury's
brisk boys, and had, under the signature of Junius Brutus,
magnified the virtues and public services of Titus Oates, and
exhorted the Protestants to take signal vengeance on the Papists
for the fire of London and for the murder of Godfrey.384 As to
the theological questions which were in issue between Protestants
and Papists, Blount was perfectly impartial. He was an infidel,
and the head of a small school of infidels who were troubled with
a morbid desire to make converts. He translated from the Latin
translation part of the Life of Apollonius of Tyana, and appended
to it notes of which the flippant profaneness called forth the
severe censure of an unbeliever of a very different order, the
illustrious Bayle.385 Blount also attacked Christianity in
several original treatises, or rather in several treatises
purporting to be original; for he was the most audacious of
literary thieves, and transcribed, without acknowledgment, whole
pages from authors who had preceded him. His delight was to worry
the priests by asking them how light existed before the sun was
made, how Paradise could be bounded by Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel and
Euphrates, how serpents moved before they were condemned to
crawl, and where Eve found thread to stitch her figleaves. To his
speculations on these subjects he gave the lofty name of the
Oracles of Reason; and indeed whatever he said or wrote was
considered as oracular by his disciples. Of those disciples the
most noted was a bad writer named Gildon, who lived to pester
another generation with doggrel and slander, and whose memory is
still preserved, not by his own voluminous works, but by two or
three lines in which his stupidity and venality have been
contemptuously mentioned by Pope.386

Little as either the intellectual or the moral character of
Blount may seem to deserve respect, it is in a great measure to
him that we must attribute the emancipation of the English press.
Between him and the licensers there was a feud of long standing.
Before the Revolution one of his heterodox treatises had been
grievously mutilated by Lestrange, and at last suppressed by
orders from Lestrange's superior the Bishop of London.387 Bohun
was a scarcely less severe critic than Lestrange. Blount
therefore began to make war on the censorship and the censor. The
hostilities were commenced by a tract which came forth without
any license, and which is entitled A Just Vindication of Learning
and of the Liberty of the Press, by Philopatris.388 Whoever reads
this piece, and is not aware that Blount was one of the most
unscrupulous plagiaries that ever lived, will be surprised to
find, mingled with the poor thoughts and poor words of a
thirdrate pamphleteer, passages so elevated in sentiment and
style that they would be worthy of the greatest name in letters.
The truth is that the just Vindication consists chiefly of
garbled extracts from the Areopagitica of Milton. That noble
discourse had been neglected by the generation to which it was
addressed, had sunk into oblivion, and was at the mercy of every
pilferer. The literary workmanship of Blount resembled the
architectural workmanship of those barbarians who used the
Coliseum and the Theatre of Pompey as quarries, who built hovels
out of Ionian friezes and propped cowhouses on pillars of
lazulite. Blount concluded, as Milton had done, by recommending
that any book might be printed without a license, provided that
the name of the author or publisher were registered.389 The Just
Vindication was well received. The blow was speedily followed up.
There still remained in the Areopagitica many fine passages which
Blount had not used in his first pamphlet. Out of these passages
he constructed a second pamphlet entitled Reasons for the Liberty
of Unlicensed Printing.390 To these Reasons he appended a
postscript entitled A Just and True Character of Edmund Bohun.
This character was written with extreme bitterness. Passages were
quoted from the licenser's writings to prove that he held the
doctrines of passive obedience and nonresistance. He was accused
of using his power systematically for the purpose of favouring
the enemies and silencing the friends of the Sovereigns whose
bread he ate; and it was asserted that he was the friend and the
pupil of his predecessor Sir Roger.

Blount's Character of Bohun could not be publicly sold; but it
was widely circulated. While it was passing from hand to hand,
and while the Whigs were every where exclaiming against the new
censor as a second Lestrange, he was requested to authorise the
publication of an anonymous work entitled King William and Queen
Mary Conquerors.391 He readily and indeed eagerly complied. For
in truth there was between the doctrines which he had long
professed and the doctrines which were propounded in this
treatise a coincidence so exact that many suspected him of being
the author; nor was this suspicion weakened by a passage to which
a compliment was paid to his political writings. But the real
author was that very Blount who was, at that very time, labouring
to inflame the public both against the Licensing Act and the
licenser. Blount's motives may easily be divined. His own
opinions were diametrically opposed to those which, on this
occasion, he put forward in the most offensive manner. It is
therefore impossible to doubt that his object was to ensnare and
to ruin Bohun. It was a base and wicked scheme. But it cannot be
denied that the trap was laid and baited with much skill. The
republican succeeded in personating a high Tory. The atheist
succeeded in personating a high Churchman. The pamphlet concluded
with a devout prayer that the God of light and love would open
the understanding and govern the will of Englishmen, so that they
might see the things which belonged to their peace. The censor
was in raptures. In every page he found his own thoughts
expressed more plainly than he had ever expressed them. Never
before, in his opinion, had the true claim of their Majesties to
obedience been so clearly stated. Every Jacobite who read this
admirable tract must inevitably be converted. The nonjurors would
flock to take the oaths. The nation, so long divided, would at
length be united. From these pleasing dreams Bohun was awakened
by learning, a few hours after the appearance of the discourse
which had charmed him, that the titlepage had set all London in a
flame, and that the odious words, King William and Queen Mary
Conquerors, had moved the indignation of multitudes who had never
read further. Only four days after the publication he heard that
the House of Commons had taken the matter up, that the book had
been called by some members a rascally book, and that, as the
author was unknown, the Serjeant at Arms was in search of the
licenser.392 Bohun's mind had never been strong; and he was
entirely unnerved and bewildered by the fury and suddenness of
the storm which had burst upon him. He went to the House. Most of
the members whom he met in the passages and lobbies frowned on
him. When he was put to the bar, and, after three profound
obeisances, ventured to lift his head and look round him, he
could read his doom in the angry and contemptuous looks which
were cast on him from every side. He hesitated, blundered,
contradicted himself, called the Speaker My Lord, and, by his
confused way of speaking, raised a tempest of rude laughter which
confused him still more. As soon as he had withdrawn, it was
unanimously resolved that the obnoxious treatise should be burned
in Palace Yard by the common hangman. It was also resolved,
without a division, that the King should be requested to remove
Bohun from the office of licenser. The poor man, ready to faint
with grief and fear, was conducted by the officers of the House
to a place of confinement.393

But scarcely was he in his prison when a large body of members
clamorously demanded a more important victim. Burnet had, shortly
after he became Bishop of Salisbury, addressed to the clergy of
his diocese a Pastoral Letter, exhorting them to take the oaths.
In one paragraph of this letter he had held language bearing some
resemblance to that of the pamphlet which had just been sentenced
to the flames. There were indeed distinctions which a judicious
and impartial tribunal would not have failed to notice. But the
tribunal before which Burnet was arraigned was neither judicious
nor impartial. His faults had made him many enemies, and his
virtues many more. The discontented Whigs complained that he
leaned towards the Court, the High Churchmen that he leaned
towards the Dissenters; nor can it be supposed that a man of so
much boldness and so little tact, a man so indiscreetly frank and
so restlessly active, had passed through life without crossing
the schemes and wounding the feelings of some whose opinions
agreed with his. He was regarded with peculiar malevolence by
Howe. Howe had never, even while he was in office, been in the
habit of restraining his bitter and petulant tongue; and he had
recently been turned out of office in a way which had made him
ungovernably ferocious. The history of his dismission is not
accurately known, but it was certainly accompanied by some
circumstances which had cruelly galled his temper. If rumour
could be trusted, he had fancied that Mary was in love with him,
and had availed himself of an opportunity which offered itself
while he was in attendance on her as Vice Chamberlain to make
some advances which had justly moved her indignation. Soon after
he was discarded, he was prosecuted for having, in a fit of
passion, beaten one of his servants savagely within the verge of
the palace. He had pleaded guilty, and had been pardoned; but
from this time he showed, on every occasion, the most rancorous
personal hatred of his royal mistress, of her husband, and of all
who were favoured by either. It was known that the Queen
frequently consulted Burnet; and Howe was possessed with the
belief that her severity was to be imputed to Burnet's
influence.394 Now was the time to be revenged. In a long and
elaborate speech the spiteful Whig--for such he still affected to
be--represented Burnet as a Tory of the worst class. "There
should be a law," he said, "making it penal for the clergy to
introduce politics into their discourses. Formerly they sought to
enslave us by crying up the divine and indefeasible right of the
hereditary prince. Now they try to arrive at the same result by
telling us that we are a conquered people." It was moved that the
Bishop should be impeached. To this motion there was an
unanswerable objection, which the Speaker pointed out. The
Pastoral Letter had been written in 1689, and was therefore
covered by the Act of Grace which had been passed in 1690. Yet a
member was not ashamed to say, "No matter: impeach him; and force
him to plead the Act." Few, however, were disposed to take a
course so unworthy of a House of Commons. Some wag cried out,
"Burn it; burn it;" and this bad pun ran along the benches, and
was received with shouts of laughter. It was moved that the
Pastoral Letter should be burned by the common hangman. A long
and vehement debate followed. For Burnet was a man warmly loved
as well as warmly hated. The great majority of the Whigs stood
firmly by him; and his goodnature and generosity had made him
friends even among the Tories. The contest lasted two days.
Montague and Finch, men of widely different opinions, appear to
have been foremost among the Bishop's champions. An attempt to
get rid of the subject by moving the previous question failed. At
length the main question was put; and the Pastoral Letter was
condemned to the flames by a small majority in a full house. The
Ayes were a hundred and sixty-two; the Noes a hundred and fifty-
five.395 The general opinion, at least of the capital, seems to
have been that Burnet was cruelly treated.396

He was not naturally a man of fine feelings; and the life which
he had led had not tended to make them finer. He had been during
many years a mark for theological and political animosity. Grave
doctors had anathematized him; ribald poets had lampooned him;
princes and ministers had laid snares for his life; he had been
long a wanderer and an exile, in constant peril of being
kidnapped, struck in the boots, hanged and quartered. Yet none of
these things had ever seemed to move him. His selfconceit had
been proof against ridicule, and his dauntless temper against
danger. But on this occasion his fortitude seems to have failed
him. To be stigmatized by the popular branch of the legislature
as a teacher of doctrines so servile that they disgusted even
Tories, to be joined in one sentence of condemnation with the
editor of Filmer, was too much. How deeply Burnet was wounded
appeared many years later, when, after his death, his History of
his Life and Times was given to the world. In that work he is
ordinarily garrulous even to minuteness about all that concerns
himself, and sometimes relates with amusing ingenuousness his own
mistakes and the censures which those mistakes brought upon him.
But about the ignominious judgment passed by the House of Commons
on his Pastoral Letter he has preserved a most significant
silence.397

The plot which ruined Bohun, though it did no honour to those who
contrived it, produced important and salutary effects. Before the
conduct of the unlucky licenser had been brought under the
consideration of Parliament, the Commons had resolved, without
any division, and, as far as appears, without any discussion,
that the Act which subjected literature to a censorship should be
continued. But the question had now assumed a new aspect; and the
continuation of the Act was no longer regarded as a matter of
course. A feeling in favour of the liberty of the press, a
feeling not yet, it is true, of wide extent or formidable
intensity, began to show itself. The existing system, it was
said, was prejudicial both to commerce and to learning. Could it
be expected that any capitalist would advance the funds necessary
for a great literary undertaking, or that any scholar would
expend years of toil and research on such an undertaking, while
it was possible that, at the last moment, the caprice, the
malice, the folly of one man might frustrate the whole design?
And was it certain that the law which so grievously restricted
both the freedom of trade and the freedom of thought had really
added to the security of the State? Had not recent experience
proved that the licenser might himself be an enemy of their
Majesties, or, worse still, an absurd and perverse friend; that
he might suppress a book of which it would be for their interest
that every house in the country should have a copy, and that he
might readily give his sanction to a libel which tended to make
them hateful to their people, and which deserved to be torn and
burned by the hand of Ketch? Had the government gained much by
establishing a literary police which prevented Englishmen from
having the History of the Bloody Circuit, and allowed them, by
way of compensation, to read tracts which represented King
William and Queen Mary as conquerors?

In that age persons who were not specially interested in a public
bill very seldom petitioned Parliament against it or for it. The
only petitions therefore which were at this conjuncture presented
to the two Houses against the censorship came from booksellers,
bookbinders and printers.398 But the opinion which these classes
expressed was certainly not confined to them.

The law which was about to expire had lasted eight years. It was
renewed for only two years. It appears, from an entry in the
journals of the Commons which unfortunately is defective, that a
division took place on an amendment about the nature of which we
are left entirely in the dark. The votes were ninety-nine to
eighty. In the Lords it was proposed, according to the suggestion
offered fifty years before by Milton and stolen from him by
Blount, to exempt from the authority of the licenser every book
which bore the name of an author or publisher. This amendment was
rejected; and the bill passed, but not without a protest signed
by eleven peers who declared that they could not think it for the
public interest to subject all learning and true information to
the arbitrary will and pleasure of a mercenary and perhaps
ignorant licenser. Among those who protested were Halifax,
Shrewsbury and Mulgrave, three noblemen belonging to different
political parties, but all distinguished by their literary
attainments. It is to be lamented that the signatures of
Tillotson and Burnet, who were both present on that day, should
be wanting. Dorset was absent.399

Blount, by whose exertions and machinations the opposition to the
censorship had been raised, did not live to see that opposition
successful. Though not a very young man, he was possessed by an
insane passion for the sister of his deceased wife. Having long
laboured in vain to convince the object of his love that she
might lawfully marry him, he at last, whether from weariness of
life, or in the hope of touching her heart, inflicted on himself
a wound of which, after languishing long, he died. He has often
been mentioned as a blasphemer and selfmurderer. But the
important service which, by means doubtless most immoral and
dishonourable, he rendered to his country, has passed almost
unnoticed.400

Late in this busy and eventful session the attention of the
Houses was called to the state of Ireland. The government of that
kingdom had, during the six months which followed the surrender
of Limerick, been in an unsettled state. It was not till the
Irish troops who adhered to Sarsfield had sailed for France, and
till the Irish troops who had made their election to remain at
home had been disbanded, that William at length put forth a
proclamation solemnly announcing the termination of the civil
war. From the hostility of the aboriginal inhabitants, destitute
as they now were of chiefs, of arms and of organization, nothing
was to be apprehended beyond occasional robberies and murders.
But the war cry of the Irishry had scarcely died away when the
first faint murmurs of the Englishry began to be heard. Coningsby
was during some months at the head of the administration. He soon
made himself in the highest degree odious to the dominant caste.
He was an unprincipled man; he was insatiable of riches; and he
was in a situation in which riches were easily to be obtained by
an unprincipled man. Immense sums of money, immense quantities of
military stores had been sent over from England. Immense
confiscations were taking place in Ireland. The rapacious
governor had daily opportunities of embezzling and extorting; and
of those opportunities he availed himself without scruple or
shame. This however was not, in the estimation of the colonists,
his greatest offence. They might have pardoned his covetousness;
but they could not pardon the clemency which he showed to their
vanquished and enslaved enemies. His clemency indeed amounted
merely to this, that he loved money more than he hated Papists,
and that he was not unwilling to sell for a high price a scanty
measure of justice to some of the oppressed class. Unhappily, to
the ruling minority, sore from recent conflict and drunk with
recent victory, the subjugated majority was as a drove of cattle,
or rather as a pack of wolves. Man acknowledges in the inferior
animals no rights inconsistent with his own convenience; and as
man deals with the inferior animals the Cromwellian thought
himself at liberty to deal with the Roman Catholic. Coningsby
therefore drew on himself a greater storm of obloquy by his few
good acts than by his many bad acts. The clamour against him was
so violent that he was removed; and Sidney went over, with the
full power and dignity of Lord Lieutenant, to hold a Parliament
at Dublin.401

But the easy temper and graceful manners of Sidney failed to
produce a conciliatory effect. He does not indeed appear to have
been greedy of unlawful gain. But he did not restrain with a
sufficiently firm hand the crowd of subordinate functionaries
whom Coningsby's example and protection had encouraged to plunder
the public and to sell their good offices to suitors. Nor was the
new Viceroy of a temper to bear hard on the feeble remains of the
native aristocracy. He therefore speedily became an object of
suspicion and aversion to the Anglosaxon settlers. His first act
was to send out the writs for a general election. The Roman
Catholics had been excluded from every municipal corporation; but
no law had yet deprived them of the county franchise. It is
probable however that not a single Roman Catholic freeholder
ventured to approach the hustings. The members chosen were, with
few exceptions, men animated by the spirit of Enniskillen and
Londonderry, a spirit eminently heroic in times of distress and
peril, but too often cruel and imperious in the season of
prosperity and power. They detested the civil treaty of Limerick,
and were indignant when they learned that the Lord Lieutenant
fully expected from them a parliamentary ratification of that
odious contract, a contract which gave a licence to the idolatry
of the mass, and which prevented good Protestants from ruining
their Popish neighbours by bringing civil actions for injuries
done during the war.402

On the fifth of October 1692 the Parliament met at Dublin in
Chichester House. It was very differently composed from the
assembly which had borne the same title in 1689. Scarcely one
peer, not one member of the House of Commons, who had sate at the
King's Inns, was to be seen. To the crowd of O's and Macs,
descendants of the old princes of the island, had succeeded men
whose names indicated a Saxon origin. A single O, an apostate
from the faith of his fathers, and three Macs, evidently
emigrants from Scotland, and probably Presbyterians, had seats in
the assembly.

The Parliament, thus composed, had then less than the powers of
the Assembly of Jamaica or of the Assembly of Virginia. Not
merely was the Legislature which sate at Dublin subject to the
absolute control of the Legislature which sate at Westminster:
but a law passed in the fifteenth century, during the
administration of the Lord Deputy Poynings, and called by his
name, had provided that no bill which had not been considered and
approved by the Privy Council of England should be brought into
either House in Ireland, and that every bill so considered and
approved should be either passed without amendment or
rejected.403

The session opened with a solemn recognition of the paramount
authority of the mother country. The Commons ordered their clerk
to read to them the English Act which required them to take the
Oath of Supremacy and to subscribe the Declaration against
Transubstantiation. Having heard the Act read, they immediately
proceeded to obey it. Addresses were then voted which expressed
the warmest gratitude and attachment to the King. Two members,
who had been untrue to the Protestant and English interest during
the troubles, were expelled. Supplies, liberal when compared with
the resources of a country devastated by years of predatory war,
were voted with eagerness. But the bill for confirming the Act of
Settlement was thought to be too favourable to the native gentry,
and, as it could not be amended, was with little ceremony
rejected. A committee of the whole House resolved that the
unjustifiable indulgence with which the Irish had been treated
since the battle of the Boyne was one of the chief causes of the
misery of the kingdom. A Committee of Grievances sate daily till
eleven in the evening; and the proceedings of this inquest
greatly alarmed the Castle. Many instances of gross venality and
knavery on the part of men high in office were brought to light,
and many instances also of what was then thought a criminal
lenity towards the subject nation. This Papist had been allowed
to enlist in the army; that Papist had been allowed to keep a
gun; a third had too good a horse; a fourth had been protected
against Protestants who wished to bring actions against him for
wrongs committed during the years of confusion. The Lord
Lieutenant, having obtained nearly as much money as he could
expect, determined to put an end to these unpleasant inquiries.
He knew, however, that if he quarrelled with the Parliament for
treating either peculators or Papists with severity, he should
have little support in England. He therefore looked out for a
pretext, and was fortunate enough to find one. The Commons had
passed a vote which might with some plausibility be represented
as inconsistent with the Poynings statute. Any thing which looked
like a violation of that great fundamental law was likely to
excite strong disapprobation on the other side of Saint George's
Channel. The Viceroy saw his advantage, and availed himself of
it. He went to the chamber of the Lords at Chichester House, sent
for the Commons, reprimanded theme in strong language, charged
them with undutifully and ungratefully encroaching on the rights
of the mother country, and put an end to the session.404