Britain's Happiness, and the Proper Improvement

                            of it



                           (1759)







                     Britain's Happiness, 

                            and 

                  the proper improvement of it, 

                       represented in a 

                          sermon, 

                          preach'd 

                at Newington-Green, Middlesex, 

                      on Nov. 29. 1759. 

                 Being the Day appointed for a 

                    General Thanksgiving.



                        Psal. cxlvii. 20. 

    He hath not dealt so with any nation: And as for his judgments, 

           they have not known them. Praise ye the Lord.



This psalm contains a warm exhortation, addressed to the Jewish people, to 

praise God for the blessings and benefits which he had conferred upon them.



Praise the Lord, for it is good to sing praises unto our God, and praise is 

comely.



Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem. Praise thy God, O Zion. For he hath 

strengthened the bars of thy gates.



He hath blessed thy children within thee. He maketh peace in thy borders and 

filleth thee with the finest of the wheat. He sheweth his word unto Jacob, 

his statutes and his judgments unto Israel. He hath not dealt so with any 

nation: and as for his judgments, they have not known them. Praise ye the 

Lord.



The whole of this passage is applicable, with great propriety, to this 

Kingdom on the present occasion. We have like reasons for joy and 

thanksgiving, and may now take up these words and say: Praise thy God, Oh 

Britain! For he hath strengthened the bars of thy gates. He hath blessed thy 

children within thee. He maketh peace in thy borders and filleth thee with 

the finest of the wheat. He hath shewed his word unto thee, his statutes and 

his judgments. He hath not dealt so with any nation, and as for his 

judgments they have not known them. Praise ye the Lord.



My present design is (I) to shew you how happily we are distinguished as a 

nation, and (II) what effects the consideration of our peculiar happiness 

ought to have upon us.



In speaking on the former of these heads, the circumstance I shall first 

mention is our situation as an island, by which our internal peace and 

tranquillity are secured.



Nothing can be more affecting than to think of the dismal state of many of 

the countries about us, where the noise and tumults of war fill every ear, 

where powerful armies march in dreadful pomp spreading devastation around 

them, and numberless innocent persons are driven from their houses and 

families and all that is dear to them. In those countries garments are 

continually rolled in blood, and none can enjoy any thing in comfort or 

security. They live in perpetual terror. They plant vineyards without 

knowing who shall eat the fruit thereof. They carry seed into the field, 

without knowing who shall gather in the harvest, and their wives and their 

children and themselves often fall a prey to relentless insult and cruelty.



But we are exempted from all these miseries. We can sit every man under his 

own vine and under his fig-tree, and no one maketh us afraid. As long as we 

agree among ourselves, it is scarcely possible that we should become the 

seat of war. The ocean is our wall of defense, which guards us on all 

sides, and cuts off our communication with the neighbouring nations, so that 

no hostile feet or destroying armies can easily alarm our borders. We live 

in the quiet and full possession of all our properties and blessings, 

without being in any danger from the inroads of enemies or the depredations 

of lawless savages. We hear indeed of the dreadful calamities and 

desolations of war, but we only hear of them. We neither feel nor see them. 

And so little is the difference between the state of most of us now, and 

what it was before the commencement of war, that, was it not for the 

accounts we read and the reports conveyed to us, we should scarcely know 

that we are engaged in war. 



How great a privilege is this? How distinguishingly happy are we to possess 

thus, among contending nations and in the midst of desolation and 

bloodshed, tranquillity and security and almost all the enjoyments and 

sweets of peace? 



Secondly. Another part of our peculiar happiness, as a nation, is the 

plenty and opulence we enjoy. God has given us the appointed weeks of 

harvest. He has satisfied our poor with bread, and crowned our seasons with 

his goodness. We want nothing that can contribute to make us easy and happy. 

All the conveniences and even the elegancies of life are poured upon us in 

the greatest profusion. Such plenty have we, that we help to feed and cloath 

other nations. Such is our opulence, that there is not a kingdom upon earth 

which can in this respect be compared with us. Notwithstanding all the 

drains of war, we feel no very sensible scarcity of any kind. Our wealth 

increases continually; and it may be questioned whether any nation ever 

raised, with so much ease, such large expences as have been laid out by this 

nation in the present war. Our commerce is extended from one end of the 

earth to the other. Our naval force is unrivaled. Our enemies dare not shew 

themselves before our fleets; and we are acknowledged by all the world as 

the sovereigns of the sea.



But there is a still higher instance of our distinguished happiness to be 

mentioned; I mean the LIBERTY we are blessed with. There is no country where 

this is enjoyed in such extent and perfection. The greatest part of the rest 

of mankind are slaves. They are subject to arbitrary and insolent masters, 

who say to them bow down before us that we may go over you, and who have 

their properties and lives entirely at their mercy. How melancholy a 

situation must this be; and how disgraceful to human nature is it, that men 

should be capable of enduring such encroachments on their natural rights; or 

that, in so many countries, such slavish forms of government should take 

place, human beings descend, by hereditary right, like beasts, from one 

tyrant to another, and the will of, perhaps, the most silly and contemptible 

creature in a nation, be established as its supreme guide and law?



But our case is totally different. While other nations groan under slavery, 

we rejoyce in the possession of liberty and independency. Our rights and 

properties are, in general, secured to us beyond the possibility of 

violation. Every man among us can enjoy the fruits of his industry without 

restraint or disturbance. We can have no burdens laid upon us without our 

own consent, and the laws by which we are governed are not such as a 

senseless tyrant may please to appoint, but such as we ourselves by our 

representatives concur in making. The meanest of our fellow-subjects cannot 

have the least injury done him without being able to find redress. No life 

can be taken away, or any punishment inflicted on any one, without a fair 

and equitable trial. The King himself has not power to touch the person, to 

seize any part of the property, or to make the smallest infringement on the 

liberty, of any one man in his dominions.



But our religious liberty is the crown of all our national advantages. 

There are other nations who enjoy civil liberty as well as we, tho' perhaps 

not so completely. But with respect to religious liberty we are almost 

singular and unparalleled.



In other countries not only the lives and fortune, but the souls and 

consciences of men are subject to the absolute will of their governors. In 

those countries a person dare not speak his mind about religious matters, or 

avow any opinions different from those commonly received, without exposing 

himself to the greatest dangers. Nothing, surely, can be more dismal than 

for men to have their minds thus shackled, to be obliged to receive without 

examination the decisions of ignorant pretenders to spiritual authority, or 

to be deprived of a liberty which is the very last thing a wise man would 

consent to part with, I mean, that of worshiping God according to his 

conscience, and of professing those principles of religion, which he thinks, 

come nearest to the simplicity of me Gospel.



If it is a disgrace to human nature, as I have observed before, that men 

should be capable of enduring civil slavery, how much more ignominious and 

dastardly is it to suffer themselves to be inslaved in religious matters, 

or to follow blindly the direction of earthly masters in things that concern 

their everlasting salvation?



But we, Brethren, are unspeakably happier. We see the shameful folly of 

this. The principles of liberty have been thoroughly explained and are now 

generally understood and embraced among us. We well know that Christ is the 

only law-giver of Christians, that mere can be no such thing as human 

authority in religious matters, and that the office of the magistrate is not 

to interpose in any religious differences, but to keep the peace, to secure 

the civil rights of men, and to protect and encourage all good subjects of 

all sects and persuasions. In mis nation every one may judge for himself, 

and act agreeably to his judgment, without molestation or fear. A free and 

publick discussion is allowed of all points, even such as in other nations 

it would be imprisonment or death to discover any doubts about. All sects 

enjoy the benefit of toleration, and may worship God in whatever way they 

think most acceptable to him; and nothing exposes any person to civil 

penalties or censures, but overt acts inconsistent with the peace and 

security of society. The researches of learned men among us have been pushed 

farther than ever they were in any nation. An absolute and unbounded scope 

is given to enquiries of all kinds; and the consequence of this has been, 

that the greatest improvements have been made in all the sciences, and that 

we are now become the Fountain-head of knowledge, and the Instructors of the 

world.



Religious knowledge, I think, in particular owes more to us that [than?] to 

all the world besides. It would be wonderful indeed if it did not, 

considering our distinctions in other respects. Christianity has been 

cleared among us of a great deal of that shocking rubbish, which has been 

thrown upon it by Popery. And, perhaps, there never was a time, since that 

of the Apostles, in which the nature and design of the Gospel were so well 

understood, and its evidences and excellency so well explained, as in the 

present age and kingdom.



Blessed are our eyes, for they see, while those of others are shut. Blessed 

are our minds, for they are free, while those of others are fettered and 

enslaved. Here light and knowledge prevail, and from hence the arts and 

sciences diffuse their influence, and are propagated to the nations around 

us. In this Island peace and liberty have fixed their abode, and from hence 

superstition, persecution, and slavery are fled, while in other nations they 

still remain to confound and terrify and oppress the souls of men.



How is it possible to reflect on these things without joy and exultation? 

How happy is it for us that our lot has been cast in such a land? A land 

favoured with so many invaluable privileges and advantages. A land where, 

peace, plenty, knowledge and liberty abound and flourish. A land which has 

the best constitution of government, the best laws, the best king and the 

best religion in the world.



To this account of our happiness I shall add once more, that we have among 

us many persons of characters eminent for virtue and piety founded upon 

rational principles. I wish however I had more to say on this head. It must 

be acknowledged that our improvements in goodness have by no means been 

proportionable to those which we have made in other respects. But tho' this 

is true; yet, without doubt, there are in this kingdom many truly worthy and 

good men; and were they to be collected together from the different 

persuasions of Christians among us, they would, whatever they might be in 

comparison with the rest of the nation, appear, I imagine, a great 

multitude. These are, indeed, the flowers of the nation. They are the cause 

of all its happiness and its chief glory. Were these taken away, its whole 

beauty would be destroyed, its prosperity would be blasted, and immediate 

ruin would overtake it. That we have then any considerable number of these 

in the nation must be matter of great consolation to us, and it ought to be 

our whole study and business to add to this number by at least adding 

ourselves to it.



To say no more here. One branch of virtue at least there is which shines 

with peculiar lustre among us. Our charities exceed all that ever was known 

in any kingdom. And tho' there is among us a prodigious rabble of loose and 

irreligious persons, yet I cannot but hope and presume, that there is not a 

spot on earth of equal size which has an equal number of good persons in it, 

or where there are so many who understand so well what true religion is, and 

who so uniformly and steddily practise it.



What I have hitherto said, contains chiefly an account of such particulars 

of our happiness as constitute what seems to be our permanent and settled 

state as a nation, and what has been its state for a course of many years.



But there are some particulars to be added which relate peculiarly to the 

present time, and which, on this occasion, it would be inexcusable not to 

remember. During the course of this year, this happy and memorable year, 

you all know what occasions of joy we have met with, and what additions have 

been made to our glory.



The tumults of party seem to be laid asleep among us; and God grant they 

may never wake more. Scarcely one murmur is there to be heard any where. Our 

counsels have been wise, our measures vigorous and our enterprizes 

successful. Our Navy and our Army have gained the highest honour by their 

unanimity and bravery. Our enemies have been taught to fear and to feel our 

superiority. They have fled before us every where. They have been conquered 

by sea and by land, and in all the quarters of the world. Their towns, 

their ships and their fortresses have been delivered up into our hands; and 

we now appear among the nations great, rich, prosperous and formidable, 

whilst they appear mean and wretched, and are impoverished, distracted and 

confounded. With the utmost propriety, therefore, may we on this joyful day 

adopt the words of my text, and say: Surely God hath not dealt so with any 

nation.



One circumstance, indeed, there is, relating to our late successes and 

victories, which cannot but deeply affect our minds. They have cost us some 

of the best blood that was ever shed. When we think of those brave men who 

have sacrificed their lives in our defence, all the springs of grateful 

anguish must be opened within us, and it becomes almost impossible to avoid 

mingling tears with the joy of this day. But, my Brethren and Countrymen, 

amidst the concern we must feel on this account, let us remember how 

gloriously they have fallen, and that they are more the objects of envy than 

lamentation. Their example, we may expect, will kindle courage in others, 

and their spirit be transfused into thousands who will emulate their virtues 

and aspire to their glory. There ought not indeed to be one person in this 

nation, whose heart does not glow with this emulation, and who does not 

earnestly wish, that he could die the same death, and that his latter end 

might be like theirs. How much better is it to expire thus in a blaze of 

glory earned by virtue, and to go down to the grave followed by the 

acclamations and the tears of a nation, than to drag a worthless life 

beneath universal contempt and infamy?



Having now represented to you our happiness as a nation, it is proper that 

I should next endeavour to shew you what improvement we ought to make of it, 

or what effects the consideration of it should have upon us.



In the first place, it must be very obvious that we ought to be thankful 

for our happiness. We ought to have a deep sense of it upon our hearts, and 

to praise God for assigning us our passage thro' life in such a country, and 

blessing it with so many mercies and advantages.



'Tis to God we owe all that makes us happy. 'Tis he that bringeth down one 

nation, and that exalteth another. 'Tis from him that all the distinctions 

among the communities, as well as the individuals of mankind, are derived. 

All events are subject to his superintendency, and he doeth whatsoever he 

pleaseth in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. We 

ought therefore, in all circumstances, to acknowledge and adore his hand. We 

ought to ascribe all our successes to his goodness, and, with grateful 

hearts, to direct our regards to his providence, and to fix our dependence 

upon his favour, as the original sources of all prosperity and bliss. So 

distinguishing and invaluable are our national privileges, that it is not 

possible for us to be thankful enough for them; and miserably base and 

disingenuous would it be in us to discover in such happy circumstances no 

thankful emotions, or, amidst such a profusion of blessings, to forget and 

neglect the supreme Author of all blessings. There are, I believe, many 

among us who are capable of this detestable impiety and profaneness; and it 

cannot but give every good man great pain to think of their characters; or 

to observe that inattention to providence, and that readiness to ascribe all 

our advantages to our own merit, without any thought of the Deity, which 

prevail among us. It is with the greatest pleasure that I can observe to you 

here, that we have had a better example set us from the throne, which has 

been since followed in both houses of Parliament. May the influence of so 

noble an example extend itself every where, and be communicated to every 

heart in the nation. There are indeed, in the successes we have lately met 

with, so many appearances of a providential disposal of things in our 

favour, as one would think sufficient to kindle devotion in the coldest 

breast, and to extort acknowledgement and praise from the most blind and 

atheistical. In all events we ought to look higher than second causes, but 

in cases, where the fate of nations is concerned, to ascribe events (of so 

striking a kind especially as those we this day celebrate) to human agency 

merely, would show an insensibility and ignorance of the most shocking 

nature. Let us study carefully to avoid such guilt; and, while we honour and 

admire the instruments of our happiness, let us remember that they are no 

more than the instruments of it, and that our thoughts ought always to be 

directed primarily and chiefly to that Almighty Being who is the cause of 

all causes, the ruler of all events, and the giver of every good and perfect 

gift.



The antient heathens thought they did the greatest honour to their Heroes 

and Warriors, when they represented them as favoured of heaven, and indebted 

to superior power for their successes.



The Psalmist, after mentioning in my text the peculiar happiness of the 

Jewish nation, adds immediately, Praise ye the Lord. No exhortation could be 

more properly added. We have as much reason to praise the Lord as the Jews 

had. We seem to be, as they were, his peculiar and favourite people; and 

nothing can be more fit than that, with joy and triumph, we should magnify 

his holy name.



Secondly, the peculiar happiness we enjoy ought to lead us to the general 

practise of virtue and religion. This, above all things, ought to be the 

effect of God's goodness to us. The unspeakable riches of his forbearance 

and love should engage us to amend our evil ways, and to fear and obey him. 

We shall shew the most shameful perverseness, if we convert the benefits he 

heaps upon us into instruments of rebellion against him, or make the plenty 

and the liberty with which he distinguishes us, the occasions of luxury and 

licentiousness.



We are now, God be praised, a great, a free and powerful people. As far as 

we have among us any principles of true ingenuity, the consideration of 

this will make us ambitious to shew ourselves worthy of our advantages by 

our integrity, humanity, and piety. The continuance of our happiness depends 

entirely on the practise of righteousness among us. It is this alone that 

exalteth a nation, and that can maintain its dignity and superiority. If our 

remarkable successes produce no other effect than to increase irreligion 

among us, or to make us more proud and wanton, and mad after pleasure; then 

may we well fear, that our glory will be soon laid in the dust, and our 

enemies, now under our feet, raised up to humble and chastise us. Let then 

every one of us labour to the greatest extent of his power to practise 

virtue himself, and to promote it in others. Thus shall we be the means of 

strengthening in the best manner the foundations of our public happiness, 

and do the greatest service to our country. Nothing need give us the least 

pain about this kingdom, except the vice and irreligion which prevail in it. 

Every vicious man is a canker at the root of our happiness, and a curse to 

his country. Sin, without doubt, is the worst enemy a nation can have; and 

our sins are peculiarly aggravated by being committed in a land blest with 

such light as ours enjoys. But, yet, we find that heaven smiles upon us, and 

that we are happy beyond example. What then should we be, and how should we 

be favoured, did publick virtue prevail among us in proportion to our 

successes and advantages?



Thirdly, a sense of our peculiar happiness ought to engage us to endeavour 

to establish and improve it. After advancing so far, it will be inexcusable 

to stop short, or to neglect doing our utmost to push things to that point 

of perfection which we have brought so nearly within our reach. Our glory is 

great. How ambitious should we be to place it above all danger, and to wipe 

off from it every stain? Is it not too sadly notorious, and has it not been 

often lamented by the wisest and best men amongst us, that, in our 

constitution, both civil and ecclesiastical, there are many particulars, 

which greatly want amendment, and some of which are inconsistent with that 

liberty, which is the chief subject of our boast and triumph, and really a 

scandal to a great and wise people?



It would be very easy to give a particular recital of these, and to mention 

many alterations and amendments, which would make us greater and happier. 

What an addition, for instance, to our strength and riches would be produced 

by encouraging foreign Protestants to settle among us? What a dreadful load 

of prevarication and perjury, which overwhelms the integrity, and destroys 

the souls of multitudes about us, might be taken off by abolishing all 

useless tests and lessening the number of oaths? At the time that our 

present religious establishment was made, the nation was but just emerging 

from Popery. Is it possible then, that it should be entirely agreeable to 

the purity of the Christian doctrine and worship, or that it should want no 

review in order to secure its safety, and adapt it to a more improved and 

enlightened age?



But I will not enlarge here, lest I should offend any worthy men, and 

deviate into what would be inconsistent with the design of this day.



Were those alterations and amendments made effectually but willingly, which 

almost every body now sees to be necessary, and which, as generous 

sentiments spread, are daily growing more and more necessary; and were we 

likewise heartily to love one another amidst our religious differences, and 

to study above all things to imbibe the spirit and to obey the precepts of 

our holy religion, nothing would be wanting to raise us to the highest pitch 

of grandeur and prosperity, and to make us the pride and wonder of the 

earth.



In the mean time, however, it is, I think, our duty, as private men, to do 

what we can towards removing those offences which dishonour our country, by 

declaring our sentiments about them, on all proper occasions, with modesty 

and humility; by never complying in any instance contrary to our 

sentiments; and giving as far as possible, a publick testimony in favour of 

universal liberty and the simplicity of the Gospel. As long as wise men will 

not do this, or indulge timidity and indolence, it is certain, that 

corruptions must continue, and that no alterations or improvements can ever 

be expected. Had the primitive Christians, or the first reformers, acted 

thus, neither Christianity nor the reformation would ever have taken in the 

world.



Fourthly, the consideration of our unparalleled happiness should engage us 

to do every thing in our power, to preserve and defend it against all 

dangerous attacks. Who would not exert himself to the utmost in such a 

cause? Who would not sooner sacrifice every thing in the world than part 

with so much bliss? What shame ought to confound that man who, in such a 

country, can entertain one factious thought, or discover the least 

reluctance in contributing his part towards its support?



How do I wish that, on this occasion, I had a voice which could reach and 

penetrate the hearts of all my countrymen, that I might make them more 

deeply sensible of their unspeakable happiness, and convince them 

effectually that there never was a people, who had so much reason to shew 

themselves valiant; that I might inspire them with the most ardent gratitude 

to the Author of all good for their blessings, and engage them to pray 

continually for the peace of our Jerusalem, to forget private interest and 

party prejudices in zeal for virtue and their country, and to concur, as one 

man, in striving to exalt this nation to the highest, and to make it an 

example of all that is great and excellent!



We are engaged in a most important and decisive war. Upon the issue of it 

depends, in a great measure, all that is valuable to us, and the state of 

Europe, perhaps, for many ages to come. Let us, joyfully, give every aid 

possible towards making it successful, and towards humbling that cruel and 

faithless nation, which has so long been the plague of Europe, and in whose 

weakness our only security lies: Remembring that we have every thing to 

fight for, they nothing except their breaden God and their chains; and that 

the consequence of our being conquered by them would be our sinking into the 

lowest infamy, our becoming, what they are, ignoble and miserable slaves, 

and the prevalency once more among us of that religion which would crush all 

our liberties and privileges, which would teach us to cut one another's 

throats in order to do God service, and which is the shame and the scourge 

of mankind. Oh! frightful prospect! Can any British heart bear to view it 

with patience?



But, thanks be to God, there seems at present no danger of any such event. 

We are the bulwark of the Protestant interest in the world, and this is an 

interest which, we may hope, God will not forsake. We have been hitherto 

wonderfully prospered; and we have shewn our enemies what they may expect, 

if they go on to contend with us. This year will always shine among the 

brightest in our Annals. Never, never was Britain so glorious.



But, let us not be too much elated. The struggle is not yet over, and the 

issues of war are still uncertain. 'Tis possible that we may lose the 

advantages we have gained, and our joy and triumph be suddenly changed to 

misery and despair. Let us then rejoyce with trembling, and suppress 

carefully in ourselves all vain confidence, placing our chief trust in God, 

and discovering, in all events, that regard to the common welfare of mankind 

and those equitable, reasonable, and pious dispositions, which are the best 

proofs of true magnanimity, and the best means of securing the continuance 

of the divine protection.



Lastly, the account, which has been given of the happy state of this 

nation, may lead our thoughts to that time when the whole world shall enjoy 

the like happiness. The scriptures, I think, give us abundant reason to 

expect such a time; a time when Popish darkness and oppression shall be 

exceeded by universal peace and liberty, and nation no more lift up a sword 

against nation; when the everlasting Gospel in its native purity shall 

prevail thro' the whole earth, and the kingdoms of this world become the 

kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ.



The invention of printing followed by the reformation and the revival of 

Literature; the free communication which has been opened between the 

different parts of the world, and the late amazing improvements in 

knowledge of every kind, have remarkably prepared the way for this joyful 

period. The world is now advanced far beyond its infancy. There are many 

indications of an approaching general amendment in human affairs. The season 

fixed by prophecy for the destruction of the man of sin cannot be far 

distant, and the glorious light of the latter days seems to be now dawning 

upon mankind from this happy Island.



Nothing can be more pleasing than to indulge such views and hopes; and it 

should be a great encouragement to those who have espoused the principles 

of liberty, and who stand up against anti-christian usurpations and 

corruptions, to consider, that it is by such principles this period is 

likely to be introduced, and that, in the end, they must prevail over all 

opposition. This should engage them to adhere steddily to them under all 

difficulties, and to strive, by all the methods consistent with true wisdom 

and benevolence, to diffuse and propagate them, thro' the world. There have 

been many in this nation who have nobly distinguished themselves in this 

work, and may their names be had in everlasting remembrance and honour.





____________



                        Two Tracts



                          (1778)







                        Two Tracts 

                             on 

                        Civil Liberty, 

                   the War with America, 

                            and 

                 The Debts and Finances of 

                        the Kingdom: 

                            with 

                 A General Introduction and 

                        Supplement.







                 General Introduction



The first of the following tracts was published in the beginning of the year 

1776 and the second in the beginning of last year.



The principal design of the first part of the second tract was ... to remove 

the misapprehensions of my sentiments on civil liberty and government into 

which some had fallen. It gives me concern to find that it has not answered 

that end in the degree I wished. I am still charged with maintaining 

opinions which tend to subvert all civil authority. I paid little regard to 

this charge while it was confined to the advocates for the principles which 

have produced the present war; but as it seems lately to have been given the 

public from the authority of a writer of the first character, it is 

impossible I should not be impressed by it; and I find myself under a 

necessity of taking farther notice of it.



There are two accounts, directly opposite to one another, which have been 

given of the origin of civil government. One of them is that 'civil 

government is an expedient contrived by human prudence for gaining security 

against oppression, and that, consequently, the power of civil governors is 

a delegation or trust from the people for accomplishing this end'.



The other account is that 'civil government is an ordinance of the Deity, by 

which the body of mankind are given up to the will of a few, and, 

consequently, that it is a trust from the Deity, in the exercise of which 

civil governors are accountable only to him'.



The question 'which of these accounts we ought to receive' is important in 

the highest degree. There is no question which more deeply affects the 

happiness and dignity of man as a citizen of this world. If the former 

account is right, the people (that is, the body of independent agents in 

every community) are their own legislators. All civil authority is properly 

their authority. Civil governors are only public servants, and their power, 

being delegated, is by its nature limited. On the contrary, if the latter 

account is right the people have nothing to do with their own government. 

They are placed by their Maker in the situation of cattle on an estate, 

which the owner may dispose of as he pleases. Civil governors are a body of 

masters, constituted such by inherent rights, and their power is a 

commission from Heaven, unbounded in its extent and never to be resisted.



I have espoused, with some zeal, the first of these accounts; and in the 

following tracts endeavoured to explain and defend it. And this is all I 

have done to give countenance to the charge I have mentioned. Even the 

masterly writer who, after a croud of writers infinitely his inferiors, 

seems to have taken up this accusation against me, often expresses himself 

as if he had adopted the same idea of government. Such indeed is my opinion 

of his good sense, and such has been the zeal which he has discovered for 

the rights of mankind, that I think it scarcely possible his ideas and mine 

on this subject should be very different. His language, however, sometimes 

puzzles me, and particularly when he intimates that government is an 

institution of divine authority; when he scouts all discussions of the 

nature of civil liberty, the foundation of civil rights, and the principles 

of a free government; and when he asserts the competence of our legislature 

to revive the High-Commission Court and Star-Chamber, and its boundless 

authority not only over the people of Britain, but over distant communities 

who have no voice in it.



But whatever may be Mr. Burke's sentiments on this subject, he cannot 

possibly think of the former account of government that 'it is a speculation 

which destroys all authority'. Both accounts establish an authority. The 

difference is that one derives it from the people and makes it a limited 

authority; and the other derives it from heaven and makes it unlimited. I 

have repeatedly declared my admiration of such a constitution of government 

as our own would be, were the House of Commons a fair representation of the 

kingdom and under no undue influence. The sum of all I have meant to 

maintain is, 'that legitimate government as opposed to oppression and 

tyranny, consists in the dominion of equal laws made with common concent or 

of men over themselves and not in the dominion of communities over 

communities, or of any men over other men'. How then can it be pretended, 

that I have aimed at destroying all authority? Does our own constitution 

destroy all authority? Is the authority of equal laws made with common 

consent no authority? Must there be no government in a state that governs 

itself? Or, must an institution, contrived by the united counsels of the 

members of a community for restraining licentiousness and gaining security 

against injury and violence, encourage licentiousness and give to every one 

a power to commit what outrages he pleases?



The Archbishop of York [William Markham] (in a sermon preached before the 

Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts, 21 Feb. 1777) has taken 

notice of some loose opinions, as he calls them, which have been lately 

current on civil liberty; some who mean delinquency having given accounts of 

it 'by which every man's humour is made to be the rule of his obedience, all 

the bad passions are let loose, and those dear interests abandoned to 

outrage for the protection of which we trust in law'. It is not difficult to 

guess at one of the delinquents intended in these words. In opposition to 

the horrid sentiments of liberty which they describe, but which in reality 

no man in his senses ever entertained, the Archbishop defines it to be 

simply the supremacy of law, or government by law, without adding to 'law' 

as I had done, the words 'equal and made with common consent'; and without 

opposing a government by law to a government by men, as others had done. 

According to him, therefore, the supremacy of law must be liberty, whatever 

the law is, or whoever makes it. In despotic countries government by law is 

the same with government by the will of one man, which Hooker has called 

'the misery of all men'; but, according to this definition, it is liberty. 

In England formerly the law consigned to the flames all who denied certain 

established points of faith. Even now, it subjects to fines, imprisonment 

and banishment all teachers of religion who have not subscribed the 

doctrinal articles of the church of England; and the good Archbishop, not 

thinking the law in this case sufficiently rigorous, has proposed putting 

Protestant Dissenters under the same restraints with the Papists. And should 

mis be done, if done by law, it will be the establishment of liberty.



The truth is that a government by law, is or is not liberty, just as the 

laws are just or unjust; and as the body of the people do or do not 

participate in the power of making them. The learned prelate seems to have 

thought otherwise, and therefore has given a definition of liberty which 

might as well have been given of slavery.



At the conclusion of his sermon, the Archbishop adds words which he calls 

comfortable, addressed to those who had been 'patient in tribulation', and 

intimating that they might 'rejoice in hope', 'a ray of brightness then 

appearing after a prospect which had been long dark'. And in an account 

which follows the sermon, from one of the missionaries in the province of 

New-York, it is said that, 'the rebellion would undoubtedly be crushed, and 

that then will be the time for taking steps for the increase of the church 

in America, by granting it an episcopate'. In conformity to the sentiments 

of this missionary the Archbishop also expresses his hope, that the 

opportunity which such an event will give for establishing episcopacy among 

the colonists, will not be lost; and advises that measures should be thought 

of for that purpose, and for thereby rescuing the church from the 

persecution it has long suffered in America.



This is a subject so important, and it has been so much misrepresented, that 

I cannot help going out of my way to give a brief account of it.



It does not appear that the lay members themselves of the church in America 

have ever wished for bishops. On the contrary, the assembly of Virginia (the 

first episcopal colony) some years ago returned thanks to two clergymen in 

that colony who had protested against a resolution of me other clergy to 

petition for bishops. The church here cannot have a right to impose bishops 

on the church in another country; and, therefore, while churchmen in America 

are averse to bishops, it must be persecution to send bishops among them. 

The Presbyterians and other religious sects there are willing, from a sense 

of the reasonableness of toleration, to admit bishops whenever the body of 

episcopalian laity shall desire them, provided security is given that they 

shall be officers merely spiritual, possessed of no other power, than those 

which are necessary to the full exercise of that mode of religious worship. 

It is not bishops, as spiritual officers, they have opposed; but bishops on 

a state-establishment; bishops with civil powers; bishops at the head of 

ecclesiastical courts, maintained by taxing other sects, and possessed of a 

pre-eminence which would be incompatible with the equality which has long 

subsisted among all religious sects in America. In this last respect, the 

colonies have hitherto enjoyed a happiness which is unparalleled, but which 

the introduction of such bishops as would be sent from hence would destroy. 

In Pensilvania (one of the happiest countries under heaven before we carried 

into it desolation and carnage) all sects of Christians have been always 

perfectly on a level, the legislature taking no part with any one sect 

against others, but protecting all equally as far as they are peaceable. The 

state of the colonies north of Pensilvania is much the same; and, in the 

province of Massachusett's Bay in particular, civil authority interposes no 

farther in religion than by imposing a tax for supporting public worship, 

leaving to all the power of applying the tax to the support of that mode of 

public worship which they like best. This tax the episcopalians were, at one 

time, obliged to pay in common with others; but so far did the province 

carry its indulgence to them, that an act was passed on purpose to excuse 

them. With this let the state of Protestant Dissenters in this country be 

compared. Not only are they obliged to pay tithes for the support of the 

established church, but their worship is not even tolerated unless their 

ministers will subscribe the articles of the church. In consequence of 

having long scrupled this subscription, they have lost all legal right to 

protection, and are exposed to the cruellest penalties. Uneasy in such a 

situation, they not long ago applied twice to Parliament for the repeal of 

the penal laws against them. Bills for that purpose were brought into me 

House of Commons, and passed that House. But, in the House of Lords, they 

were rejected in consequence of the opposition of the Bishops.[a] There are 

few I reverence so much as some on the sacred bench, but such conduct (and 

may I not add the alacrity with which most of them support the present 

measures?) must leave an indelible stain upon them, and will probably 

exclude them for ever from America.



On this occasion, I cannot help thinking with concern of the learned 

prelate's feelings. After a prospect long dark, he had discovered a ray of 

brightness shewing him America reduced, and the church triumphant. But 

lately, that ray of brightness has vanished, and defeat has taken place of 

victory and conquest. And what do we now see? What a different prospect, 

mortifying to the learned prelate, presents itself? A great people likely to 

be formed in spite of all our efforts into free communities under 

governments which have no religious tests and establishments?[1] A new aera 

in future annals, and a new opening in human affairs beginning, among the 

descendants of Englishmen, in a new world; A rising empire, extended over an 

immense continent, without bishops, without nobles, and without kings.



O the depth of the riches of the wisdom of God! How unsearchable are his 

judgments!



------------



1. I am sorry to mention one exception to the fact here intimated. The new 

constitution for Pennsylvania (in other respects wise and liberal) is 

dishonoured by a religious test. It requires an acknowledgement of the 

divine inspiration of the Old and the New Testament, as a condition of being 

admitted to a seat in the House of Representatives; directing however, at 

the same time, that no other religious test shall for ever hereafter be 

required of any civil officer. This has been, probably, an accommodation to 

the prejudices of some of the narrower sects in the province, to which the 

more liberal part have for the present thought fit to yield; and, therefore, 

it may be expected that it will not be of long continuance.



Religious tests and subscriptions in general, and all establishments of 

particular systems of faith, with civil emoluments annexed, do inconceivable 

mischief, by turning religion into a trade, by engendering strife and 

persecution, by forming hypocrites, by obstructing the progress of truth, 

and fettering and perverting the human mind; nor will the world ever grow 

much wiser, or better, or happier, till, by the abolition of them, truth can 

gain fair play, and reason free scope for exertion.





____________



          Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty



                           (1776)







                        Observations 

                      on the Nature of 

          Civil Liberty, the Principles of Government, 

                  and the Justice and Policy 

                  of the War with America.



                  Preface to the Fifth Edition



The favourable reception which the following Tract has met with makes me 

abundant amends for the abuse it has brought upon me. I should be ill 

employed were I to take much notice of this abuse: but there is one 

circumstance attending it which I cannot help just mentioning. The 

principles on which I have argued form the foundation of every state as far 

as it is free, and are the same with those taught by Mr. Locke and all the 

writers on civil liberty who have been hitherto most admired in this 

country. But I find with concern that our governors chuse to decline trying 

by them their present measures. For, in a pamphlet[b] which has been 

circulated by government with great industry, these principles are 

pronounced to be 'unnatural and wild, incompatible with practice, and the 

offspring of the distempered imagination of a man who is biassed by party, 

and who writes to deceive'. I must take this opportunity to add that I love 

quiet too well to think of entering into a controversy with any writers, 

particularly nameless ones. Conscious of good intentions and unconnected 

with any party, I have endeavoured to plead the cause of general liberty and 

justice. And happy in knowing this, I shall, in silence, commit myself to 

that candour of the public of which I have had so much experience.



March 12th. 1776.







Our colonies in North America appear to be now determined to risk and suffer 

every thing under the persuasion that Great Britain is attempting to rob 

them of that liberty to which every member of society, and all civil 

communities, have a natural and unalienable title. The question, therefore, 

whether this is a right persuasion, is highly interesting and deserves the 

careful attention of every Englishman who values liberty and wishes to avoid 

staining himself with the guilt of invading it. But it is impossible to 

judge properly of this question without just ideas of liberty in general, 

and of the nature, limits, and principles of civil liberty in particular. 

The following observations on this subject appear to me of some importance, 

and I cannot make myself easy without offering them to the public at the 

present period, big with events of the last consequence to this kingdom. I 

do this with reluctance and pain urged by strong feelings, but at the same 

time checked by the consciousness that I am likely to deliver sentiments not 

favourable to the present measures of that government under which I live and 

to which I am a constant and zealous well-wisher. Such, however, are my 

present sentiments and views, that this is a consideration of inferior 

moment with me, and, as I hope never to go beyond the bounds of decent 

discussion and expostulation, I flatter myself, that I shall be able to 

avoid giving any person reason for offence.



The observations with which I shall begin are of a more general and abstract 

nature; but being necessary to introduce what I have principally in view, I 

hope they will be patiently read and considered.



                           Sect. I 

               Of the Nature of Liberty in General



In order to obtain a more distinct view of the nature of liberty as such it 

will be useful to consider it under the four following general divisions.



First, physical liberty; secondly, moral liberty; thirdly, religious 

liberty; and fourthly, civil liberty. These heads comprehend under them all 

the different kinds of liberty. And I have placed civil liberty last because 

I mean to apply to it all I shall say of the other kinds of liberty.



By physical liberty I mean that principle of spontaneity, or 

self-determination, which constitutes us agents, or which gives us a command 

over our actions, rendering them properly ours, and not effects of the 

operation of any foreign cause. Moral liberty is the power of following, in 

all circumstances, our sense of right and wrong, or of acting in conformity 

to our reflecting and moral principles, without being controuled by any 

contrary principles. Religious liberty signifies the power of exercising, 

without molestation, that mode of religion which we think best, or of making 

the decisions of our own consciences respecting religious truth, the rule of 

our conduct, and not any of the decisions of our fellow-men. In like manner 

civil liberty is the power of a civil society or state to govern itself by 

its own discretion or by laws of its own making, without being subject to 

the impositions of any power in appointing and directing which the 

collective body of the people have no concern and over which they have no 

controul.



It should be observed that, according to these definitions of the different 

kinds of liberty, there is one general idea that runs through them all; I 

mean the idea of self-direction, or self-government. Did our volitions 

originate not with ourselves, but with some cause over which we have no 

power; or were we under a necessity of always following some will different 

from our own, we should want physical liberty.



In like manner, he whose perceptions of moral obligation are controuled by 

his passions has lost his moral liberty, and the most common language 

applied to him is that he wants self-government.



He likewise who, in religion, cannot govern himself by his convictions of 

religious duty, but is obliged to receive formularies of faith, and to 

practise modes of worship imposed upon him by others, wants religious 

liberty. And the community also that is governed, not by itself, but by some 

will independent of it, wants civil liberty.



In all these cases there is a force which stands opposed to the agent's own 

will, and which, as far as it operates, produces servitude. In the first 

case, this force is incompatible with the very idea of voluntary motion; and 

the subject of it is a mere passive instrument which never acts, but is 

always acted upon. In the second case, this force is the influence of 

passion getting the better of reason, or the brute overpowering and 

conquering the will of the man. In the third case, it is human authority in 

religion requiring conformity to particular modes of faith and worship, and 

superseding private judgment. And in the last case, it is any will distinct 

from that of the majority of a community which claims a power in making laws 

for it and disposing of its property.



This it is, I think, that marks the limit between liberty and slavery. As 

far as, in any instance, the operation of any cause comes in to restrain the 

power of self-government, so far slavery is introduced. Nor do I think that 

a preciser idea than this of liberty and slavery can be formed.



I cannot help wishing I could here fix my reader's attention, and engage him 

to consider carefully the dignity of that blessing to which we give the name 

of liberty, according to the representation now made of it. There is not a 

word in the whole compass of language which expresses so much of what is 

important and excellent. It is, in every view of it, a blessing truly sacred 

and invaluable. Without physical liberty, man would be a machine acted upon 

by mechanical springs, having no principle of motion in himself, or command 

over events; and, therefore, incapable of all merit and demerit. Without 

moral liberty, he is a wicked and detestable being, subject to the tyranny 

of base lusts, and the sport of every vile appetite. And without religious 

and civil liberty, he is a poor and abject animal, without rights, without 

property, and without a conscience, bending his neck to the yoke, and 

crouching to the will of every silly creature who has the insolence to 

pretend to authority over him. Nothing, therefore, can be of much 

consequence to us as liberty. It is the foundation of all honour, and the 

chief privilege and glory of our natures.



In fixing our idea on the subject of liberty, it is of particular use to 

take such an enlarged view of it as I have now given. But the immediate 

object of the present enquiry being civil liberty, I will confine to it all 

the subsequent observations.



                           Sect. II 

         Of Civil liberty and the Principles of Government



From what has been said it is obvious that all civil government, as far as 

it can be denominated free, is the creature of the people. It originates 

with them. It is conducted under their direction, and has in view nothing 

but their happiness. All its different forms are no more than so many 

different modes in which they chuse to direct their affairs, and to secure 

the quiet enjoyment of their rights. In every free state every man is his 

own Legislator. All taxes are free-gifts for public services. All laws are 

particular provisions or regulations established by common consent for 

gaining protection and safety. And all magistrates are trustees or deputies 

for carrying these regulations into execution.



Liberty, therefore, is too imperfectly denned when it is said to be 'a 

government by laws, and not by men'. If the laws are made by one man, or a 

junto of men in a state, and not by common consent, a government by them 

does not differ from slavery. In this case it would be a contradiction in 

terms to say that the state governs itself.



From hence it is obvious that civil liberty, in its most perfect degree, can 

be enjoyed only in small states where every independent agent is capable of 

giving his suffrage in person, and of being chosen into public offices. When 

a state becomes so numerous, or when the different parts of it are removed 

to such distances from one another as to render this impracticable, a 

diminution of liberty necessarily arises. There are, however, in these 

circumstances, methods by which such near approaches may be made to perfect 

liberty as shall answer all the purposes of government, and at the same time 

secure every right of human nature.



Tho' all the members of a state should not be capable of giving their 

suffrages on public measures, individually and personally, they may do this 

by the appointment of substitutes or representatives. They may entrust the 

powers of legislation, subject to such restrictions as they shall think 

necessary, with any number of delegates; and whatever can be done by such 

delegates within the limits of their trust, may be considered as done by the 

united voice and counsel of the community. In this method a free government 

may be established in the largest state, and it is conceivable that by 

regulations of this kind any number of states might be subjected to a scheme 

of government that would exclude the desolations of war, and produce 

universal peace and order.



Let us think here of what may be practicable in this way with respect to 

Europe in particular. While it continues divided, as it is at present, into 

a great number of independent kingdoms whose interests are continually 

clashing, it is impossible but that disputes will often arise which must end 

in war and carnage. It would be no remedy to this evil to make one of these 

states supreme over the rest, and to give it an absolute plenitude of power 

to superintend and controul them. This would be to subject all the states to 

the arbitrary discretion of one, and to establish an ignominious slavery not 

possible to be long endured. It would, therefore, be a remedy worse than the 

disease; nor is it possible it should be approved by any mind that has not 

lost every idea of civil liberty. On the contrary, let every state, with 

respect to all its internal concerns, be continued independent of all the 

rest, and let a general confederacy be formed by the appointment of a senate 

consisting of representatives from all the different states. Let this senate 

possess the power of managing all the common concerns of the united states, 

and of judging and deciding between them, as a common arbiter or umpire, in 

all disputes; having, at the same time, under its direction the common force 

of the states to support its decisions. In these circumstances, each 

separate state would be secure against the interference of sovereign power 

in its private concerns, and, therefore, would possess liberty, and at the 

same time it would be secure against all oppression and insult from every 

neighbouring state. Thus might the scattered force and abilities of a whole 

continent be gathered into one point, all litigations settled as they rose, 

universal peace preserved, and nation prevented from any more lifting up a 

sword against nation.



I have observed that tho' in a great state all the individuals that compose 

it cannot be admitted to an immediate participation in the powers of 

legislation and government, yet they may participate in these powers by a 

delegation of them to a body of representatives. In this case it is evident 

that the state will be still free or self-governed, and that it will be more 

or less so in proportion as it is more or less fairly and adequately 

represented. If the persons to whom the trust of government is committed 

hold their places for short terms, if they are chosen by the unbiassed 

voices of a majority of the state, and subject to their instructions, 

liberty will be enjoyed in its highest degree. But if they are chosen for 

long terms by a part only of the state, and if during that term they are 

subject to no controul from their constituents, the very idea of liberty 

will be lost and the power of chusing representatives becomes nothing but a 

power, lodged in a few, to chuse at certain periods a body of masters for 

themselves and for the rest of the community. And if a state is so sunk that 

the majority of its representatives are elected by a handful of the 

meanest[2] persons in it, whose votes are always paid for, and if also there 

is a higher will on which even these mock representatives themselves depend, 

and that directs their voices: in these circumstances, it will be an abuse 

of language to say that the state possesses liberty. Private men, indeed, 

might be allowed the exercise of liberty, as they might also under the most 

despotic government; but it would be an indulgence or connivance derived 

from the spirit of the rimes, or from an accidental mildness in the 

administration. And, rather than be governed in such a manner, it would 

perhaps be better to be governed by the will of one man without any 

representation, for a representation so degenerated could answer no other 

end than to mislead and deceive, by disguising slavery, and keeping up a 

form of liberty when the reality was lost.



Within the limits now mentioned, liberty may be enjoyed in every possible 

degree, from that which is complete and perfect, to that which is merely 

nominal; according as the people have more or less of a share in government, 

and of a controuling power over the persons by whom it is administered.



In general, to be free is to be guided by one's own will; and to be guided 

by the will of another is the characteristic of servitude. This is 

particularly applicable to political liberty. That state, I have observed, 

is free which is guided by its own will, or (which comes to the same) by the 

will of an assembly of representatives appointed by itself and accountable 

to itself. And every state that is not so governed, or in which a body of 

men representing the people make not an essential part of the legislature, 

is in slavery. In order to form the most perfect constitution of government, 

there may be the best reasons for joining to such a body of representatives 

an hereditary council, consisting of men of the first rank in the state, 

with a supreme executive magistrate as the head of all. This will form 

useful checks in a legislature, and contribute to give it vigour, union, and 

dispatch, without infringing liberty; for, as long as that part of a 

government which represents the people is a fair representation, and also 

has a negative on all public measures, together with the sole power of 

imposing taxes and originating supplies, the essentials of liberty will be 

preserved. We make it our boast in this country that this is our own 

constitution. I will not say with how much reason.



Of such liberty as I have now described, it is impossible there should be an 

excess. Government is an institution for the benefit of the people governed, 

which they have the power to model as they please; and to say that they can 

have too much of this power, is to say that there ought to be a power in the 

state superior to that which gives it being, and from which all jurisdiction 

in it is derived. Licentiousness, which has been commonly mentioned, as an 

extreme of liberty, is indeed its opposite. It is government by the will of 

rapacious individuals in opposition to the will of the community made known 

and declared in the laws. A free state, at the same time that it is free 

itself, makes all its members free by excluding licentiousness, and guarding 

their persons and property and good name against insult. It is the end of 

all just government, at the same time that it secures the liberty of the 

public against foreign injury, to secure the liberty of the individual 

against private injury. I do not, therefore, think it strictly just to say 

that it belongs to the nature of government to entrench on private liberty. 

It ought never to do this, except as far as the exercise of private liberty 

encroaches on the liberties of others. That is, it is licentiousness it 

restrains and liberty itself only when used to destroy liberty.



It appears from hence that licentiousness and despotism are more nearly 

allied than is commonly imagined. They are both alike inconsistent with 

liberty and the true end of government; nor is there any other difference 

between them than that the one is the licentiousness of great men, and the 

other the licentiousness of little men; or that, by the one, the persons and 

property of a people are subject to outrage and invasion from a king or a 

lawless body of grandees; and that, by the other, they are subject to the 

like outrage from a lawless mob. In avoiding one of these evils, mankind 

have often run into the other. But all well constituted governments guard 

equally against both. Indeed of the two, the last is, on several accounts, 

the least to be dreaded and has done the least mischief. It may be truly 

said that if licentiousness has destroyed its thousands, despotism has 

destroyed its millions. The former, having little power and no system to 

support it, necessarily finds its own remedy; and a people soon get out of 

the tumult and anarchy attending it. But a despotism, wearing the form of 

government and being armed with its force, is an evil not to be conquered 

without dreadful struggles. It goes on from age to age, debasing the human 

faculties, levelling all distinctions, and preying on the rights and 

blessings of society. It deserves to be added that in a state disturbed by 

licentiousness, there is an animation which is favourable to the human mind 

and which puts it upon exerting its powers; but in a state habituated to a 

despotism, all is still and torpid. A dark and savage tyranny stifles every 

effort of genius, and the mind loses all its spirit and dignity. 



Before I proceed to what I have farther in view, I will observe that the 

account now given of the principles of public liberty and the nature of an 

equal and free government shews what judgment we should form of that 

omnipotence, which, it has been said, must belong to every government as 

such. Great stress has been laid on this, but most unreasonably. Government, 

as has been before observed, is, in the very nature of it, a trust, and all 

its powers a delegation for gaining particular ends. This trust may be 

misapplied and abused. It may be employed to defeat the very ends for which 

it was instituted, and to subvert the very rights which it ought to protect. 

A parliament, for instance, consisting of a body of representatives, chosen 

for a limited period to make laws and to grant money for public services, 

would forfeit its authority by making itself perpetual, or even prolonging 

its own duration; by nominating its own members; by accepting bribes; or 

subjecting itself to any kind of foreign influence. This would convert a 

parliament into a conclave or junto of self-created tools; and a state that 

has lost its regard to its own rights, so far as to submit to such a breach 

of trust in its rulers, is enslaved. Nothing, therefore, can be more absurd 

than the doctrine which some have taught with respect to the omnipotence of 

parliaments. They possess no power beyond the limits of the trust for the 

execution of which they were formed. If they contradict this trust, they 

betray their constituents and dissolve themselves. All delegated power must 

be subordinate and limited. If omnipotence can, with any sense, be ascribed 

to a legislature, it must be lodged where all legislative authority 

originates; that is, in the people. For their sakes government is 

instituted, and theirs is the only real omnipotence. 



I am sensible that all I have been saying would be very absurd, were the 

opinions just which some have maintained concerning the origin of 

government. According to these opinions, government is not the creature of 

the people, or the result of a convention between them and their rulers; but 

there are certain men who possess in themselves, independently of the will 

of the people, a right of governing them, which they derive from the Deity. 

This doctrine has been abundantly refuted by many excellent writers. It is a 

doctrine which avowedly subverts civil liberty and which represents mankind 

as a body of vassals, formed to descend like cattle from one set of owners 

to another, who have an absolute dominion over them. It is a wonder that 

those who view their species in a light so humiliating should ever be able 

to think of themselves without regret and shame. The intention of these 

observations is not to oppose such sentiments, but, taking for granted the 

reasonableness of civil liberty, to shew wherein it consists, and what 

distinguishes it from its contrary. And, in considering this subject, as it 

has been now treated, it is unavoidable to reflect on the excellency of a 

free government and its tendency to exalt the nature of man. Every member of 

a free state, having his property secure and knowing himself his own 

governor, possesses a consciousness of dignity in himself and feels 

incitements to emulation and improvement to which the miserable slaves of 

arbitrary power must be utter strangers. In such a state all the springs of 

action have room to operate and the mind is stimulated to the noblest 

exertions. But to be obliged from our birth to look up to a creature no 

better than ourselves as the master of our fortunes, and to receive his will 

as our law -- what can be more humiliating? What elevated ideas can enter a 

mind in such a situation? Agreeably to this remark, the subjects of free 

states have, in all ages, been most distinguished for genius and knowledge. 

Liberty is the soil where the arts and sciences have flourished and the more 

free a state has been, the more have the powers of the human mind been drawn 

forth into action, and the greater number of brave men has it produced. With 

what lustre do the antient free states of Greece shine in the annals of the 

world? How different is that country now, under the great Turk? The 

difference between a country inhabited by men and by brutes, is not greater. 



These are reflexions which should be constantly present to every mind in 

this country. As moral liberty is the prime blessing of man in his private 

capacity, so is civil liberty in his public capacity. There is nothing that 

requires more to be watched than power. There is nothing that ought to be 

opposed with a more determined resolution than its encroachments. Sleep in a 

state, as Montesquieu says, is always followed by slavery.



The people of this kingdom were once warmed by such sentiments as these. 

Many a sycophant of power have they sacrificed. Often have they fought and 

bled in the cause of liberty. But that time seems to be going. The fair 

inheritance of liberty left us by our ancestors, many of us are willing to 

resign. An abandoned venality, the inseparable companion of dissipation and 

extravagance, has poisoned the springs of public virtue among us; and should 

any events ever arise that should render the same opposition necessary that 

took place in the times of King Charles the First and James the Second, I am 

afraid all that is valuable to us would be lost. The terror of the standing 

army, the danger of the public funds, and the all-corrupting influence of 

the treasury, would deaden all zeal and produce general acquiescence and 

servility.



                          Sect. III 

           Of the Authority of One Country over Another



From the nature and principles of civil liberty, as they have been now 

explained, it is an immediate and necessary inference that no one community 

can have any power over the property or legislation of another community 

which is not incorporated with it by a just and adequate representation. 

Then only, it has been shewn, is a state free when it is governed by its own 

will. But a country that is subject to the legislature of another country in 

which it has no voice, and over which it has no controul, cannot be said to 

be governed by its own will. Such a country, therefore, is in a state of 

slavery. And it deserves to be particularly considered that such a slavery 

is worse, on several accounts, than any slavery of private men to one 

another, or of kingdoms to despots within themselves. Between one state and 

another there is none of that fellow-feeling that takes place between 

persons in private life. Being detached bodies that never see one another, 

and residing perhaps in different quarters of the globe, the state that 

governs cannot be a witness to the sufferings occasioned by its oppressions; 

or a competent judge of the circumstances and abilities of the people who 

are governed. They must also have in a great degree separate interests; and 

the more the one is loaded the more the other may be eased. The infamy 

likewise of oppression, being in such circumstances shared among a 

multitude, is not likely to be much felt or regarded. On all these accounts 

there is, in the case of one country subjugated to another, little or 

nothing to check rapacity; and the most flagrant injustice and cruelty may 

be practised without remorse or pity. I will add that it is particularly 

difficult to shake off a tyranny of this kind. A single despot, if a people 

are unanimous and resolute, may be soon subdued. But a despotic state is not 

easily subdued, and a people subject to it cannot emancipate themselves 

without entering into a dreadful and, perhaps, very unequal contest.



I cannot help observing farther, that the slavery of a people to internal 

despots may be qualified and limited; but I don't see what can limit the 

authority of one state over another. The exercise of power in this case can 

have no other measure than discretion, and, therefore, must be indefinite 

and absolute.



Once more, it should be considered that the government of one country by 

another can only be opposed by a military force, and, without such a support 

must be destitute of all weight and efficiency.



This will be best explained by putting the following case. There is, let us 

suppose, in a province subject to the sovereignty of a distant state, a 

subordinate legislature consisting of an assembly chosen by the people; a 

council chosen by that assembly; and a governor appointed by the sovereign 

state, and paid by the province. There are, likewise, judges and other 

officers, appointed and paid in the same manner, for administering justice 

agreeably to the laws by the verdicts of juries fairly chosen.



This forms a constitution seemingly free, by giving the people a share in 

their own government and some check on their rulers. But, while there is a 

higher legislative power to the controul of which such a constitution is 

subject, it does not itself possess liberty, and therefore cannot be of any 

use as a security to liberty; nor is it possible that it should be of long 

duration. Laws offensive to the province will be enacted by the sovereign 

state. The legislature of the province will remonstrate against them. The 

magistrates will not execute them. Juries will not convict upon them, and, 

consequently, like the Pope's bulls which once governed Europe, they will 

become nothing but forms and empty sounds to which no regard will be shewn. 

In order to remedy this evil and to give efficiency to its government, the 

supreme state will naturally be led to withdraw the governor, the council, 

and the judges from the controul of the province by making them entirely 

dependent on itself for their pay and continuance in office, as well as for 

their appointment. It will also alter the mode of chusing juries on purpose 

to bring them more under its influence. And in some cases, under the 

pretence of the impossibility of gaining an impartial trial where government 

is resisted, it will perhaps ordain that offenders shall be removed from the 

province to be tried within its own territories. And it may even go so far 

in this kind of policy as to endeavour to prevent the effects of discontents 

by forbidding all meetings and associations of the people except at such 

times, and for such particular purposes, as shall be permitted them.



Thus will such a province be exactly in the same state that Britain would be 

in were our first executive magistrate, our House of Lords, and our judges, 

nothing but the instruments of a sovereign democratical power; were our 

juries nominated by that power; or were we liable to be transported to a 

distant country to be tried for offences committed here; and restrained from 

calling any meetings, consulting about any grievances, or associating for 

any purposes, except when leave should be given us by a Lord Lieutenant or 

Viceroy.



It is certain that this is a state of oppression which no country could 

endure, and to which it would be vain to expect, that any people should 

submit an hour without an armed force to compel them.



The late transactions in Massachusett's Bay are a perfect exemplification of 

what I have now said. The government of Great Britain in that province has 

gone on exactly in the train I have described; till at last it became 

necessary to station troops there not amenable to the civil power; and all 

terminated in a government by the sword. And such, if a people are not sunk 

below the character of men, will be the issue of all government in similar 

circumstances.



It may be asked, 'Are there not causes by which one state may acquire a 

rightful authority over another, though not consolidated by an adequate 

representation?' I answer that there are no such causes. All the causes to 

which such an effect can be ascribed are conquest, compact, or obligations 

conferred.



Much has been said of the right of conquest; and history contains little 

more than accounts of kingdoms reduced by it under the dominion of other 

kingdoms, and of the havock it has made among mankind. But the authority 

derived from hence, being founded on violence, is never rightful. The Roman 

Republic was nothing but a faction against the general liberties of the 

world; and had no more right to give law to the provinces subject to it than 

thieves have to the property they seize, or to the houses into which they 

break. Even in the case of a just war undertaken by one people to defend 

itself against the oppressions of another people, conquest gives only a 

right to an indemnification for the injury which occasioned the war and a 

reasonable security against future injury.



Neither can any state acquire such an authority over other states in virtue 

of any compacts or cessions. This is a case in which compacts are not 

binding. Civil liberty is, in this respect, on the same footing with 

religious liberty. As no people can lawfully surrender their religious 

liberty by giving up their right of judging for themselves in religion, or 

by allowing any human beings to prescribe to them what faith they shall 

embrace, or what mode of worship they shall practise, so neither can any 

civil societies lawfully surrender their civil liberty by giving up to any 

extraneous jurisdiction their power of legislating for themselves and 

disposing their property. Such a cession, being inconsistent with the 

unalienable rights of human nature, would either not bind at all, or bind 

only the individuals who made it. This is a blessing which no one generation 

of men can give up for another, and which, when lost, a people have always a 

right to resume. Had our ancestors in this country been so mad as to have 

subjected themselves to any foreign community, we could not have been under 

any obligation to continue in such a state. And all the nations now in the 

world who, in consequence of the tameness and folly of their predecessors, 

are subject to arbitrary power have a right to emancipate themselves as soon 

as they can.



If neither conquest nor compact can give such an authority, much less can 

any favours received or any services performed by one state for another. Let 

the favour received be what it will, liberty is too dear a price for it. A 

state that has been obliged is not, therefore, bound to be enslaved. It 

ought, if possible, to make an adequate return for the services done to it, 

but to suppose that it ought to give up the power of governing itself and 

the disposal of its property, would be to suppose, that, in order to show 

its gratitude, it ought to part with the power of ever afterwards exercising 

gratitude. How much has been done by this kingdom for Hanover? But no one 

will say that on this account we have a right to make the laws of Hanover; 

or even to draw a single penny from it without its own consent.



After what has been said, it will, I am afraid, be trifling to apply the 

preceding arguments to the case of different communities which are 

considered as different parts of the same empire. But there are reasons 

which render it necessary for me to be explicit in making the application.



What I mean here is just to point out the difference of situation between 

communities forming an empire; and particular bodies or classes of men 

forming different parts of a kingdom. Different communities forming an 

empire have no connexions which produce a necessary reciprocation of 

interests between them. They inhabit different districts and are governed by 

different legislatures. On the contrary, the different classes of men within 

a kingdom are all placed on the same ground. Their concerns and interests 

are the same, and what is done to one pan must affect all. These are 

situations totally different and a constitution of government that may be 

consistent with liberty in one of them may be entirely inconsistent with it 

in the other. It is, however, certain that, even in the last of these 

situations, no one part ought to govern the rest. In order to a fair and 

equal government, there ought to be a fair and equal representation of all 

that are governed; and as far as this is wanting in any government, it 

deviates from the principles of liberty, and becomes unjust and oppressive. 

But in the circumstances of different communities, all this holds with 

unspeakably more force. The government of a part in this case becomes 

complete tyranny, and subjection to it becomes complete slavery.



But ought there not, it is asked, to exist somewhere in an empire a supreme 

legislative authority over the whole, or a power to controul and bind all 

the different states of which it consists? This enquiry has been already 

answered. The truth is, that such a supreme controuling power ought to exist 

nowhere except in such a senate or body of delegates as that described in 

page 25; and that the authority or supremacy of even this senate ought to be 

limited to the common concerns of the Empire. I think I have proved that the 

fundamental principles of liberty necessarily require this.



In a word, an empire is a collection of states or communities united by some 

common bond or tye. If these states have each of them free constitutions of 

government, and, with respect to taxation and internal legislation, are 

independent of the other states, but united by compacts, or alliances, or 

subjection to a great council, representing the whole, or to one monarch 

entrusted with the supreme executive power; in these circumstances the 

empire will be an empire of freemen. If, on the contrary, like the different 

provinces subject to the Grand Seignior, none of the states possess any 

independent legislative authority, but are all subject to an absolute 

monarch whose will is their law, then is the empire an empire of slaves. If 

one of the states is free, but governs by its will all the other states; 

then is the empire, like that of the Romans in the times of the Republic, an 

empire consisting of one state free, and the rest in slavery. Nor does it 

make any more difference in this case that the governing state is itself 

free than it does in the case of a kingdom subject to a despot that this 

despot is himself free. I have before observed that this only makes the 

slavery worse. There is, in the one case, a chance that in the quick 

succession of despots a good one will sometimes arise. But bodies of men 

continue the same and have generally proved the most unrelenting of all 

tyrants.



A great writer before[3] quoted, observes of the Roman Empire, that while 

liberty was at the center, tyranny prevailed in the distant provinces; that 

such as were free under it were extremely so, while those who were slaves 

groaned under the extremity of slavery; and that the same events that 

destroyed the liberty of the former, gave liberty to the latter.



The liberty of the Romans, therefore, was only an additional calamity to the 

provinces governed by them; and though it might have been said of the 

citizens of Rome, that they were the 'freest members of any civil society in 

the known world', yet of the subjects of Rome, it must have been said that 

they were the completest slaves in the known world. How remarkable is it 

that this very people, once the freest of mankind, but at the same time the 

most proud and tyrannical, should become at last the most contemptible and 

abject slaves that ever existed?



                           Part II



In the foregoing disquisitions, I have, from one leading principle, deduced 

a number of consequences that seem to me incapable of being disputed. I have 

meant that they should be applied to the great question between this kingdom 

and the colonies which has occasioned the present war with them.



It is impossible but my readers must have been all along making this 

application; and if they still think that the claims of this kingdom are 

reconcileable to the principles of true liberty and legitimate government, I 

am afraid, that nothing I shall farther say will have any effect on their 

judgments. I wish, however, they would have the patience and candour to go 

with me and grant me a hearing some time longer.



Though clearly decided in my own judgment on this subject, I am inclined to 

make great allowances for the different judgments of others. We have been so 

used to speak of the colonies as our colonies, and to think of them as in a 

state of subordination to us, and as holding their existence in America only 

for our use, that it is no wonder the prejudices of many are alarmed when 

they find a different doctrine maintained. The meanest person among us is 

disposed to look upon himself as having a body of subjects in America, and 

to be offended at the denial of his right to make laws for them, though 

perhaps he does not know what colour they are of, or what language they 

talk. Such are the natural prejudices of this country. But the time is 

coming, I hope, when the unreasonableness of them will be seen, and more 

just sentiments prevail.



Before I proceed, I beg it may be attended to that I have chosen to try this 

question by the general principles of civil liberty; and not by the practice 

of former times; or by the charters granted the colonies. The arguments for 

them, drawn from these last topics, appear to me greatly to outweigh the 

arguments against them. But I wish to have this question brought to a higher 

test and surer issue. The question with all liberal enquirers ought to be, 

not what jurisdiction over them precedents, statutes and charters give, but 

what reason and equity, and the rights of humanity give. This is, in truth, 

a question which no kingdom has ever before had occasion to agitate. The 

case of a free country branching itself out in the manner Britain has done, 

and sending to a distant world colonies which have there, from small 

beginnings and under free legislatures of their own, increased and formed a 

body of powerful states, likely soon to become superior to the parent state. 

This is a case which is new in the history of mankind, and it is extremely 

improper to judge of it by the rules of any narrow and partial policy, or to 

consider it on any other ground than the general one of reason and justice. 

Those who will be candid enough to judge on this ground, and who can divest 

themselves of national prejudices, will not, I fancy, remain long 

unsatisfied. But alas! matters are gone too far. The dispute probably must 

be settled another way, and the sword alone, I am afraid, is now to 

determine what the rights of Britain and America are. Shocking situation! 

Detested be the measures which have brought us into it: and, if we are 

endeavouring to enforce injustice, cursed will be the war. A retreat, 

however, is not yet impracticable. The duty we owe our gracious sovereign 

obliges us to rely on his disposition to stay the sword, and to promote the 

happiness of all the different parts of the empire at the head of which he 

is placed. With some hopes, therefore, that it may not be too late to reason 

on this subject, I will, in the following sections, enquire what the war 

with America is in the following respects.



     1. In respect of Justice.



     2. The principles of the constitution.



     3. In respect of policy and humanity.



     4. The Honour of the Kingdom.



     And, lastly, the probability of succeeding in it.



                           Sect. I 

              Of the Justice of the War with America



The enquiry, whether the war with the colonies is a just war, will be best 

determined by stating the power over them, which it is the end of the war to 

maintain: and this cannot be better done, than in the words of an act of 

parliament, made on purpose to define it. That act, it is well known, 

declares, 'That this kingdom has power, and of right ought to have power to 

make laws and statutes to bind the colonies, and people of America, in all 

cases whatever'.[c] Dreadful power indeed! I defy anyone to express slavery 

in stronger language. It is the same with declaring 'that we have a right to 

do with them what we please'. I will not waste my time by applying to such a 

claim any of the preceding arguments. If my reader does not feel more in 

this case, than words can express, all reasoning must be vain.



But, probably, most persons will be for using milder language; and for 

saying no more than that the united legislatures of England and Scotland 

have of right power to tax the colonies, and a supremacy of legislature over 

America. But this comes to the same. If it means anything, it means that the 

property and the legislations of the colonies are subject to the absolute 

discretion of Great Britain, and ought of right to be so. The nature of the 

thing admits of no limitation. The colonies can never be admitted to be 

judges how far the authority over them in these cases shall extend. This 

would be to destroy it entirely. If any part of their property is subject to 

our discretion, the whole must be so. If we have a right to interfere at all 

in their internal legislations, we have a right to interfere as far as we 

think proper. It is self-evident that this leaves them nothing they can call 

their own. And what is it that can give to any people such a supremacy over 

other people? I have already examined the principal answers which have been 

given to this enquiry. But it will not be amiss in this place to go over 

some of them again.



It has been urged, that such a right must be lodged somewhere, 'in order to 

preserve the unity of the British Empire'.



Pleas of this sort have, in all ages, been used to justify tyranny. They 

have in religion given rise to numberless oppressive claims and slavish 

hierarchies. And in the Romish communion, particularly, it is well known 

that the Pope claims the tide and powers of the supreme head on earth of the 

Christian church in order to preserve its unity. With respect to the British 

Empire nothing can be more preposterous than to endeavour to maintain its 

unity by setting up such a claim. This is a method of establishing unity 

which, like the similar method in religion, can produce nothing but discord 

and mischief. The truth is that a common relation to one supreme executive 

head, an exchange of kind offices, types of interest and affection, and 

compacts, are sufficient to give the British Empire all the unity that is 

necessary. But if not -- if in order to preserve its unity, one half of it 

must be entrusted to the other half, let it, in the name of God, want unity.



Much has been said of 'the superiority of the British state'. But what gives 

us our superiority? Is it our wealth? This never confers real dignity. On 

the contrary its effect is always to debase, intoxicate, and corrupt. Is it 

the number of our people? The colonies will soon be equal to us in number. 

Is it our knowledge and virtue? They are probably equally knowing and more 

virtuous. There are names among them that will not stoop to any names among 

the philosophers and politicians of this island.



But we are the parent state. These are the magic words which have fascinated 

and misled us. The English came from Germany. Does that give the German 

states a right to tax us? Children, having no property and being incapable 

of guiding themselves, the author of nature has committed the care of them 

to their parents, and subjected them to their absolute authority. But there 

is a period when having acquired property and a capacity of judging for 

themselves, they become independent agents; and when, for this reason, the 

authority of their parents ceases, and becomes nothing but the respect and 

influence due to benefactors. Supposing, therefore, that the order of nature 

in establishing the relation between parents and children ought to have been 

the rule of our conduct to the colonies, we should have been gradually 

relaxing our authority as they grew up. But, like mad parents, we have done 

the contrary; and, at the very time when our authority should have been most 

relaxed, we have carried it to the greatest extent and exercised it with the 

greatest rigour. No wonder then that they have turned upon us, and obliged 

us to remember that they are not children.



'But we have', it is said, 'protected them and run deeply in debt on their 

account.' The full answer to this has been already given, Will any one say 

that all we have done for them has not been more on our own account than on 

theirs? But suppose the contrary. Have they done nothing for us? Have they 

made no compensation for the protection they have received? Have they not 

helped us to pay our taxes, to support our poor, and to bear the burthen of 

our debts, by taking from us, at our own price, all the commodities with 

which we can supply them? Have they not, for our advantage, submitted to 

many restraints in acquiring property? Must they likewise resign to us the 

disposal of that property? Has not their exclusive trade with us been for 

many years one of the chief sources of our wealth and power? In all our wars 

have they not fought by our side, and contributed much to our success? In 

the last war, particularly, it is well known that they ran themselves deeply 

in debt; and that the Parliament thought it necessary to grant them 

considerable sums annually as compensations for going beyond their abilities 

in assisting us. And in this course would they have continued for many 

future years; perhaps, for ever. In short, were an accurate account stated, 

it is by no means certain which side would appear to be most indebted. When 

asked as freemen they have hitherto seldom discovered any reluctance in 

giving. But, in obedience to a demand and with the bayonet at their breasts, 

they will give us nothing but blood.



It is farther said, 'that the land on which they settled was ours'. But how 

came it to be ours? If sailing along a coast can give a right to a country, 

then might the people of Japan become, as soon as they please, the 

proprietors of Britain. Nothing can be more chimerical than property founded 

on such a reason. If the land on which the colonies first settled had any 

proprietors, they were the natives. The greatest part of it they bought of 

the natives. They have since cleared and cultivated it; and, without any 

help from us, converted a wilderness into fruitful and pleasant fields. It 

is, therefore, now on a double account their property, and no power on earth 

can have any right to disturb them in the possession of it, or to take from 

them, without their consent, any part of its produce.



But let it be granted that the land was ours. Did they not settle upon it 

under the faith of charters which promised them the enjoyment of all the 

rights of Englishmen, and allowed them to tax themselves, and to be governed 

by legislatures of their own, similar to ours? These charters were given 

them by an authority which at the time was thought competent; and they have 

been rendered sacred by an acquiescence on our part for near a century. Can 

it then be wondered at that the colonies should revolt when they found their 

charters violated, and an attempt made to force innovations upon them by 

famine and the sword? But I lay no stress on charters. They derive their 

rights from a higher source. It is inconsistent with common sense to imagine 

that any people would ever think of settling in a distant country, on any 

such condition, as that the people from whom they withdrew, should for ever 

be masters of their property, and have power to subject them to any modes of 

government they pleased. And had there been express stipulations to this 

purpose in all the charters of the colonies, they would, in my opinion, be 

no more bound by them, than if it had been stipulated with them, that they 

should go naked, or expose themselves to the incursions of wolves and 

tigers.



The defective state of the representation of this kingdom has been farther 

pleaded to prove our right to tax America. We submit to a parliament that 

does not represent us, and therefore they ought. How strange an argument is 

this? It is saying we want liberty, and, therefore, they ought to want it. 

Suppose it true, that they are indeed contending for a better constitution 

of government, and more liberty than we enjoy: ought this to make us angry? 

Who is there that does not see the danger to which this country is exposed? 

Is it generous, because we are in a sink, to endeavour to draw them into it? 

Ought we not rather to wish earnestly that there may at least be one free 

country left upon earth to which we may fly, when venality, luxury, and vice 

have completed the ruin of liberty here?



It is, however, by no means true that America has no more right to be 

exempted from taxation by the British Parliament, than Britain itself. Here, 

all freeholders and burgesses in boroughs are represented. There, not one 

freeholder or any other person is represented. Here the aids granted by the 

represented part of the kingdom must be proportionably paid by themselves; 

and the laws they make for others, they at the same time make for 

themselves. There, the aids they would grant would not be paid, but 

received, by themselves; and the laws they made would be made for others 

only. In short, the relation of one country to another country, whose 

representatives have the power of taxing it (and of appropriating the money 

raised by the taxes) is much the same with the relation of a country to a 

single despot, or a body of despots within itself, invested with the like 

power. In both cases, the people taxed and those who tax have separate 

interests, nor can there be any thing to check oppression, besides either 

the abilities of the people taxed, or the humanity of the taxers. But indeed 

I can never hope to convince that person of any thing, who does not see an 

essential difference between the two cases now mentioned; or between the 

circumstances of individuals, and classes of men, making parts of a 

community imperfectly represented in the legislature that governs it; and 

the circumstances of a whole community, in a distant world, not at all 

represented.



But enough has been said by others on this point; nor is it possible for me 

to throw any new light upon it. To finish, therefore, what I meant to offer 

under this head, I must beg that the following considerations may be 

particularly attended to.



The question now between us and the colonies is whether in respect of 

taxation and internal legislation, they are bound to be subject to the 

jurisdiction of this kingdom: or, in other words, whether the British 

Parliament has or has not of right a power to dispose of their property, and 

to model as it pleases their governments? To this supremacy over them, we 

say, we are entitled; and in order to maintain it, we have begun the present 

war. Let me here enquire,



First, whether, if we have now this supremacy, we shall not be equally 

entitled to it in any future time? They are now but little short of half our 

number. To this number they have grown from a small body of original 

settlers by a very rapid increase. The probability is that they will go on 

to increase, and that, in 50 or 60 years, they will be double our number and 

form a mighty empire, consisting of a variety of states, all equal or 

superior to ourselves in all the arts and accomplishments which give dignity 

and happiness to human life. In that period, will they be still bound to 

acknowledge that supremacy over them which we now claim? Can there be any 

person who will assert this, or whose mind does not revolt at the idea of a 

vast continent holding all that is valuable to it at the discretion of a 

handful of people on the other side of the Atlantic? But if, at that period, 

this would be unreasonable; what makes it otherwise now? Draw the line if 

you can. But there is a still greater difficulty.



Britain is now, I will suppose, the seat of liberty and virtue; and its 

legislature consists of a body of able and independent men who govern with 

wisdom and justice. The time may come when all will be reversed: when its 

excellent constitution of government will be subverted: when, pressed by 

debts and taxes, it will be greedy to draw to itself an increase of revenue 

from every distant province, in order to ease its own burdens. When the 

influence of the crown, strengthened by luxury and an universal profligacy 

of manners, will have tainted every heart, broken down every fence of 

liberty, and rendered us a nation of tame and contented vassals: when a 

general election will be nothing but a general auction of boroughs; and when 

the Parliament, the Grand Council of the nation and once the faithful 

guardian of the state and a terror to evil ministers, will be degenerated 

into a body of sycophants, dependent and venal, always ready to confirm any 

measures, and little more than a public court for registering royal edicts. 

Such, it is possible, may, some time or other, be the state of Great 

Britain. What will, at that period, be the duty of the colonies? Will they 

be still bound to unconditional submission? Must they always continue an 

appendage to our government and follow it implicitly through every change 

that can happen to it? Wretched condition, indeed, of millions of freemen as 

good as ourselves. Will you say that we now govern equitably, and that there 

is no danger of any such revolution? Would to God this were true. But will 

you not always say the same? Who shall judge whether we govern equitably or 

not? Can you give the colonies any security that such a period will never 

come? Once more, if we have indeed that power which we claim over the 

legislations, and internal rights of the Colonies, may we not, whenever we 

please, subject them to the arbitrary power of the crown? I do not mean that 

this would be a disadvantageous change, for I have before observed that if a 

people are to be subject to an external power over which they have no 

command, it is better that power should be lodged in the hands of one man 

than of a multitude. But many persons think otherwise and such ought to 

consider that, if this would be a calamity, the condition of the Colonies 

must be deplorable. 'A government by King, Lords, and Commons, (it has been 

said) is the perfection of government', and so it is when the Commons are a 

just representation of the people and when also it is not extended to any 

distant people or communities not represented. But if this is the best, a 

government by a king only must be the worst, and every claim implying a 

right to establish such a government among any people must be unjust and 

cruel. It is self-evident that by claiming a right to alter the 

constitutions of the Colonies, according to our discretion, we claim this 

power. And it is a power that we have thought fit to exercise in one of our 

Colonies and that we have attempted to exercise in another. Canada, 

according to the late extension of its limits, is a country almost as large 

as half Europe, and it may possibly come in time to be filled with British 

subjects. The Quebec Act[d] makes the king of Great Britain a despot over 

all that country. In the province of Massachuset's Bay the same thing had 

been attempted and begun.



The act for better regulating their government,[e] passed at the same time 

with the Quebec Act, gives the king the right of appointing, and removing at 

his pleasure, the members of one part of the legislature; alters the mode of 

chusing juries, on purpose to bring it more under the influence of the king; 

and takes away from the province the power of calling any meetings of the 

people without the king's consent. The judges, likewise, have been made 

dependent on the king for their nomination and pay and continuance in 

office. If all this is no more than we have a right to do, may we not go on 

to abolish the house of representatives, to destroy all trials by juries, 

and to give up the province absolutely and totally to the will of the king? 

May we not even establish Popery in the province, as has been lately done in 

Canada, leaving the support of Protestantism to the king's discretion? Can 

there be any Englishmen who, were it his own case, would not sooner lose his 

heart's blood than yield to claims so pregnant with evils and destructive to 

every thing that can distinguish a freeman from a slave?



I will take this opportunity to add that what I have now said suggests a 

consideration that demonstrates on how different a footing the Colonies are 

with respect to our government from particular bodies of men within the 

kingdom who happen not to be represented. Here, it is impossible that the 

represented part should subject the unrepresented part to arbitrary power 

without including themselves. But in the Colonies it is not impossible. We 

know that it has been done.



                           Sect. II 

  Whether the War with America is Justified by the Principles of the

                         Constitution



I have proposed, in the next place, to examine the war with the Colonies by 

the principles of the constitution. I know that it is common to say that we 

are now maintaining the constitution in America. If this means that we are 

endeavouring to establish our own constitution of government there, it is by 

no means true, nor, were it true, would it be right. They have chartered 

governments of their own, with which they are pleased and which, if any 

power on earth may change without their consent, that power may likewise, if 

it thinks proper, deliver them over to the Grand Seignior. Suppose the 

colonies of France had, by compacts, enjoyed for many years free governments 

open to all the world, under which they had grown and flourished; what 

should we think of that kingdom, were it to attempt to destroy their 

governments and to force upon them its own mode of government? Should we not 

applaud any zeal they discovered in repelling such an injury? But the truth 

is, in the present instance, that we are not maintaining but violating our 

own constitution in America. The essence of our constitution consists in its 

independency. There is in this case no difference between subjection and 

annihilation. Did, therefore, the Colonies possess governments perfectly the 

same with ours, the attempt to subject them to ours would be an attempt to 

ruin them. A free government loses its nature from the moment it becomes 

liable to be commanded or altered by any superior power.



But I intended here principally to make the following observation. The 

fundamental principle of our government is, 'the right of a people to give 

and grant their own money'. It is of no consequence, in this case, whether 

we enjoy this right in a proper manner or not. Most certainly we do not. It 

is, however, the principle on which our government, as a free government, is 

founded. The spirit of the constitution gives it us and, however imperfectly 

enjoyed, we glory in it as our first and greatest blessing. It was an 

attempt to encroach upon this right, in a trifling instance, that produced 

the civil war in the reign of Charles the First. Ought not our brethren in 

America to enjoy this right as well as ourselves? Do the principles of the 

constitution give it us, but deny it to them? Or can we, with any decency, 

pretend that when we give to the king their money, we give them our own? 

What difference does it make that in the time of Charles the First the 

attempt to take away this right was made by one man; but that, in the case 

of America it is made by a body of men?



In a word, this is a war undertaken not only against the principles of our 

own constitution, but on purpose to destroy other similar constitutions in 

America, and to substitute in their room a military force. It is, therefore, 

a gross and flagrant violation of the constitution.



                          Sect. III 

              Of the Policy of the War with America



In writing the present section, I enter upon a subject of the last 

importance, on which much has been said by other writers with great force, 

and in the ablest manner. But I am not willing to omit any topic which I 

think of great consequence, merely because it has already been discussed. 

And, with respect to this in particular, it will, I believe, be found that 

some of the observations on which I shall insist have not been sufficiently 

attended to. 



The object of this war has been often enough declared to be 'maintaining 

the supremacy of this country over the colonies'. I have already enquired 

how far reason and justice, the principles of liberty, and the rights of 

humanity, entitle us to this supremacy. Setting aside, therefore, now all 

considerations of this kind, I would observe that this supremacy is to be 

maintained either merely for its own sake or for the sake of some public 

interest connected with it and dependent upon it. If for its own sake, the 

only object of the war is the extension of dominion, and its only motive is 

the lust of power. All government, even within a state, becomes tyrannical 

as far as it is a needless and wanton exercise of power, or is carried 

farther than is absolutely necessary to preserve the peace and to secure the 

safety of the state. This is what an excellent writer [Jonathan Shipley] 

calls 'governing too much'[f] and its effect must always be, weakening 

government by rendering it contemptible and odious. Nothing can be of more 

importance in governing distant provinces and adjusting the clashing 

interests of different societies than attention to this remark. In these 

circumstances it is particularly necessary to make a sparing use of power 

in order to preserve power. Happy would it have been for Great Britain, had 

this been remembered by those who have lately conducted its affairs. But our 

policy has been of another kind. At the period when our authority should 

have been most concealed, it has been brought most in view and by a 

progression of violent measures, every one of which has increased distress, 

we have given the world reason to conclude that we are acquainted with no 

other method of governing than by force. What a shocking mistake! If our 

object is power we should have known better how to use it, and our rulers 

should have considered that freemen will always revolt at the sight of a 

naked sword, and that the complicated affairs of a great kingdom, holding in 

subordination to it a multitude of distant communities, all jealous of their 

rights and warmed with spirits as high as our own, require not only the most 

skilful but the most cautious and tender management. The consequences of a 

different management we are now feeling. We see ourselves driven among rocks 

and in danger of being lost.



The following reasons make it too probable that the present contest with 

America is a contest for power only, abstracted from all the advantages 

connected with it.



First, there is a love of power inherent in human nature, and it cannot be 

uncharitable to suppose that the nation in general, and the cabinet in 

particular, are too likely to be influenced by it. What can be more 

flattering than to look across the Atlantic, and to see in the boundless 

continent of America increasing millions whom we have a right to order as we 

please, who hold their property at our disposal, and who have no other law 

than our will? With what complacency have we been used to talk of them as 

our subjects? Is it not the interruption they now give to this pleasure, is 

it not the opposition they make to our pride, and not any injury they have 

done us, that is the secret spring of our present animosity against them? I 

wish all in this kingdom would examine themselves carefully on this point. 

Perhaps they might find that they have not known what spirit they are of. 

Perhaps they would become sensible that it was a spirit of domination more 

than a regard to the true interest of this country that lately led so many 

of them, with such savage folly, to address the throne for the slaughter of 

their brethren in America if they will not submit to them and to make offers 

of their lives and fortunes for that purpose. Indeed, I am persuaded that, 

were pride and the lust of dominion exterminated from every heart among us 

and the humility of Christians infused in their room, this quarrel would be 

soon ended.



Secondly, another reason for believing that this is a contest for power 

only is that our ministers have frequently declared that their object is not 

to draw a revenue from America, and that many of those who are warmest for 

continuing it represent the American trade as of no great consequence.



But what deserves particular consideration here is that this is a contest 

from which no advantages can possibly be derived. Not a revenue, for the 

provinces of America, when desolated, will afford no revenue, or, if they 

should, the expence of subduing them and keeping them in subjection will 

much exceed that revenue. Not any of the advantages of trade, for it is a 

folly, next to insanity, to think trade can be promoted by impoverishing our 

customers and fixing in their minds an everlasting abhorrence of us. It 

remains, therefore, that this war can have no other object than the 

extension of power. Miserable reflection! To sheath our swords in the bowels 

of our brethren and spread misery and ruin among a happy people for no other 

end than to oblige them to acknowledge our supremacy. How horrid! This is 

the cursed ambition that led a Caesar and an Alexander, and many other mad 

conquerors, to attack peaceful communities and to lay waste the earth.



But a worse principle than even this influences some among us. Pride and 

the love of dominion are principles hateful enough, but blind resentment and 

the desire of revenge are infernal principles. And these, I am afraid, have 

no small share at present in guiding our public conduct. One cannot help 

indeed being astonished at the virulence with which some speak on the 

present occasion against the Colonies. For what have they done? Have they 

crossed the ocean and invaded us? Have they attempted to take from us the 

fruits of our labour and to overturn that form of government which we hold 

so sacred? This cannot be pretended. On the contrary, this is what we have 

done to them. We have transported ourselves to their peaceful retreats and 

employed our fleets and armies to stop up their ports, to destroy their 

commerce, to seize their effects, and to bum their towns. Would we but let 

them alone and suffer them to enjoy in security their property and 

governments, instead of disturbing us they would thank and bless us. And yet 

it is we who imagine ourselves ill-used. The truth is, we expected to find 

them a cowardly rabble who would lie quietly at our feet and they have 

disappointed us. They have risen in their own defence and repelled force by 

force. They deny the plenitude of our power over them and insist upon being 

treated as free communities. It is this that has provoked us and kindled our 

governors into rage.



I hope I shall not here be understood to intimate that all who promote this 

war are actuated by these principles. Some, I doubt not, are influenced by 

no other principle than a regard to what they think the just authority of 

this country over its colonies and to the unity and indivisibility of the 

British Empire. I wish such could be engaged to enter thoroughly into the 

enquiry which has been the subject of the first pan of this pamphlet and to 

consider particularly how different a thing maintaining the authority of 

government within a state is from maintaining the authority of one people 

over another already happy in the enjoyment of a government of their own. I 

wish farther they would consider that the desire of maintaining authority is 

warrantable only as far as it is the means of promoting some end and doing 

some good, and that, before we resolve to spread famine and fire through a 

country in order to make it acknowledge our authority, we ought to be 

assured that great advantages will arise not only to ourselves, but to the 

country we wish to conquer. That from the present contest no advantage to 

ourselves can arise has been already shewn, and will presently be shewn more 

at large. That no advantage to the Colonies can arise from it need not, I 

hope, be shewn. It has however been asserted that even their good is 

intended by this war. Many of us are persuaded that they will be much 

happier under our government than under any government of their own, and 

that their liberties will be safer when held for them by us than when 

trusted in their own hands. How kind is it thus to take upon us the trouble 

of judging for them what is most. for their happiness? Nothing can be kinder 

except the resolution we have formed to exterminate them if they will not 

submit to our judgment. What strange language have I sometimes heard? By an 

armed force we are now endeavouring to destroy the laws and governments of 

America, and yet I have heard it said that we are endeavouring to support 

law and government there. We are insisting upon our right to levy 

contributions upon them and to maintain this right we are bringing upon them 

all the miseries a people can endure, and yet it is asserted that we mean 

nothing but their security and happiness.



But I have wandered a little from the point I intended principally to 

insist upon in this section, which is, 'the folly, in respect of policy, of 

the measures which have brought on this contest, and its pernicious and 

fatal tendency'.



The following observations will, I believe, abundantly prove this.



First, there are points which are likely always to suffer by discussion. Of 

this kind are most points of authority and prerogative and the best policy 

is to avoid, as much as possible, giving any occasion for calling them in 

question.



The Colonies were at the beginning of this reign in the habit of 

acknowledging our authority and of allowing us as much power over them as 

our interest required and more, in some instances, than we could reasonably 

claim. This habit they would have retained, and had we, instead of imposing 

new burdens upon them and increasing their restraints, studied to promote 

their commerce and to grant them new indulgences, they would have been 

always growing more attached to us. Luxury and, together with it, their 

dependence upon us, and our influence in their assemblies, would have 

increased till in time perhaps they would have become as corrupt as 

ourselves; and we might have succeeded to our wishes in establishing our 

authority over them. But, happily for them, we have chosen a different 

course. By exertions of authority which have alarmed them they have been put 

upon examining into the grounds of all our claims and forced to give up 

their luxuries and to seek all their resources within themselves. And the 

issue is likely to prove the loss of all our authority over them and of all 

the advantages connected with it. So little do men in power sometimes know 

how to preserve power and so remarkably does the desire of extending 

dominion sometimes destroy it. Mankind are naturally disposed to continue in 

subjection to that mode of government, be it what it will, under which they 

have been born and educated. Nothing rouses them into resistance but gross 

abuse or some particular oppressions out of the road to which they have been 

used. And he who will examine the history of the world will find there has 

generally been more reason for complaining that they have been too patient 

than that they have been turbulent and rebellious.



Our governors, ever since I can remember, have been jealous that the 

Colonies, some time or other, would throw off their dependence. This 

jealousy was not founded on any of their acts or declarations. They have 

always, while at peace with us, disclaimed any such design, and they have 

continued to disclaim it since they have been at war with us. I have reason, 

indeed, to believe that independency is, even at this moment, generally 

dreaded among them as a calamity to which they are in danger of being driven 

in order to avoid a greater. The jealousy, I have mentioned, was, however, 

natural and betrayed a secret opinion that the subjection in which they were 

held was more than we could expect them always to endure. In such 

circumstances, all possible care should have been taken to give them no 

reason for discontent and to preserve them in subjection by keeping in that 

line of conduct to which custom had reconciled them, or, at least, never 

deviating from it except with great caution, and, particularly, by avoiding 

all direct attacks on their property and legislations. Had we done this, the 

different interests of so many states scattered over a vast continent, 

joined to our own prudence and moderation, would have enabled us to maintain 

them in dependence for ages to come. But instead of this, how have we acted? 

It is in truth too evident that our whole conduct, instead of being directed 

by that sound policy and foresight which in such circumstances were 

absolutely necessary, has been nothing (to say the best of it) but a series 

of the blindest rigour followed by retraction, of violence followed by 

concession, of mistake, weakness and inconsistency. A recital of a few facts 

within every body's recollection, will fully prove this.



In the 6th of George the Second, an act was passed for imposing certain 

duties on all foreign spirits, molasses and sugars imported into the 

plantations.[g] In this act the duties imposed are said to be given and 

granted by the Parliament to the King, and this is the first American act in 

which these words have been used. But notwithstanding this, as the act had 

the appearance of being only a regulation of trade, the Colonies submitted 

to it and a small direct revenue was drawn by it from them. In the 4th of 

the present reign, many alterations were made in this act, with the declared 

purpose of making provision for raising a revenue in America.[h] This 

alarmed the Colonies and produced discontents and remonstrances which might 

have convinced our rulers this was tender ground on which it became them to 

tread very gently. There is, however, no reason to doubt but in time they 

would have sunk into a quiet submission to this revenue act as being at 

worst only the exercise of a power which then they seem not to have thought 

much of contesting, I mean, the power of taxing them externally. But before 

they had time to cool, a worse provocation was given them and the Stamp 

Act[i] was passed. This being an attempt to tax them internally, and a 

direct attack on their property by a power which would not suffer itself to 

be questioned, which eased itself by loading them, and to which it was 

impossible to fix any bounds, they were thrown at once, from one end of the 

continent to the other, into resistance and rage. Government, dreading the 

consequences, gave way and the Parliament (upon a change of ministry) 

repealed the Stamp Act without requiring from them any recognition of its 

authority, or doing any more to preserve its dignity than asserting, by the 

declaratory law, that it was possessed of full power and authority to make 

laws to bind them in all cases whatever. Upon this, peace was restored, 

and, had no farther attempts of the same kind been made, they would 

undoubtedly have suffered us (as the people of Ireland have done) to enjoy 

quietly our declaratory law. They would have recovered their former habits 

of subjection, and our connexion with them might have continued an 

increasing source of our wealth and glory. But the spirit of despotism and 

avarice, always blind and restless, soon broke forth again. The scheme for 

drawing a revenue from America, by parliamentary taxation, was resumed and 

in a little more than a year after the repeal of the Stamp Act, when all was 

peace, a third act was passed, imposing duties payable in America on tea, 

paper, glass, painters' colours, etc.[j] This, as might have been expected, 

revived all the former heats and the Empire was a second time threatened 

with the most dangerous commotions. Government receded again and the 

Parliament (under another change of ministry) repealed all the obnoxious 

duties except that upon tea. This exception was made in order to maintain a 

shew of dignity. But it was, in reality, sacrificing safety to pride and 

leaving a splinter in the wound to produce a gangrene. For some time, 

however, this relaxation answered its intended purposes. Our commercial 

intercourse with the Colonies was again recovered and they avoided nothing 

but that tea which we had excepted in our repeal. In this state would things 

have remained, and even tea would perhaps in time have been gradually 

admitted, had not the evil genius of Britain stepped forth once more to 

embroil the Empire.



The East India Company having fallen under difficulties, partly in 

consequence of the loss of the American market for tea, a scheme was formed 

for assisting them by an attempt to recover that market. With this view an 

act was passed to enable them to export their tea to America free of all 

duties here, and subject only to 3d per pound duty payable in America. It 

was to be offered at a low price and it was expected the consequence would 

prove that the Colonies would be tempted to buy it, a precedent gained for 

taxing them, and at the same time the company relieved. Ships were, 

therefore, fitted out and large cargoes sent. The snare was too gross to 

escape the notice of the Colonies. They saw it and spurned at it. They 

refused to admit the tea and at Boston some persons in disguise threw it 

into the sea. Had our governors in this case satisfied themselves with 

requiring a compensation from the province for the damage done, there is no 

doubt but it would have been granted. Or had they proceeded no farther in 

the infliction of punishment than stopping up the port and destroying the 

trade of Boston till compensation was made, the province might possibly have 

submitted and a sufficient saving would have been gained for the honour of 

the nation. But having hitherto proceeded without wisdom they observed now 

no bounds in their resentment. To the Boston Port Bill[k] was added a 

bill[l] which destroyed the chartered government of the province, a bill[m] 

which withdrew from the jurisdiction of the province persons who in 

particular cases should commit murder, and the Quebec Bill. At the same time 

a strong body of troops was stationed at Boston to enforce obedience to 

their bills.



All who knew any thing of the temper of the Colonies saw that the effect of 

this sudden accumulation of vengeance would probably be not intimidating but 

exasperating them and driving them into a general revolt. But our ministers 

had different apprehensions. They believed that the malecontents in the 

Colony of Massachusett's were a small party, headed by a few factious men, 

that the majority of the people would take the side of government as soon as 

they saw a force among them capable of supporting them, that, at worst, the 

Colonies in general would never make a common cause with this province, and 

that the issue would prove, in a few months, order, tranquility and 

submission. Every one of these apprehensions was falsified by the events 

that followed.



When the bills I have mentioned came to be carried into execution, the 

whole province was thrown into confusion. Their courts of justice were shut 

up, and all government was dissolved. The commander in chief found it 

necessary to fortify himself in Boston, and the other Colonies immediately 

resolved to make a common cause with this Colony.



Disappointed by these consequences, our ministers took fright. Once more 

they made an effort to retreat, but indeed the most ungracious one that can 

well be imagined. A proposal was sent to the Colonies called Conciliatory, 

and the substance of which was, that if any of them would raise such sums as 

should be demanded of them by taxing themselves, the Parliament would 

forbear to tax them. It will be scarcely believed, hereafter, that such a 

proposal would be thought conciliatory. It was only telling them, 'If you 

will tax yourselves by our order, we will save ourselves the trouble of 

taxing you.' They received the proposal as an insult, and rejected it with 

disdain.



At the time this concession was transmitted to America, open hostilities 

were not begun. In the sword our ministers thought they had still a resource 

which would immediately settle all disputes. They considered the people of 

New-England as nothing but a mob, who would be soon routed and forced into 

obedience. It was even believed that a few thousands of our army might march 

through all America, and make all quiet wherever they went. Under this 

conviction our ministers did not dread urging the Province of 

Massachusett's Bay into rebellion, by ordering the army to seize their 

stores and to take up some of their leading men. The attempt was made. The 

people fled immediately to arms and repelled the attack. A considerable part 

of the flower of the British army has been destroyed. Some of our best 

generals and the bravest of our troops are now disgracefully and miserably 

imprisoned at Boston. A horrid civil war is commenced and the Empire is 

distracted and convulsed.



Can it be possible to think with patience of the policy that has brought us 

into these circumstances? Did ever Heaven punish the vices of a people more 

severely by darkening their counsels? How great would be our happiness could 

we now recall former times and return to the policy of the last reign? But 

those times are gone. I will, however, beg leave for a few moments to look 

back to them and to compare the ground we have left with that on which we 

find ourselves. This must be done with deep regret, but it forms a 

necessary part of my present design.



In those times our Colonies, foregoing every advantage which they might 

derive from trading with foreign nations, consented to send only to us 

whatever it was for our interest to receive from them and to receive only 

from us whatever it was for our interest to send to them. They gave up the 

power of making sumptuary laws and exposed themselves to all the evils of an 

increasing and wasteful luxury, because we were benefited by vending among 

them the materials of it. The iron with which providence had blessed their 

country, they were required by laws, in which they acquiesced, to transport 

hither that our people might be maintained by working it for them into 

nails, ploughs, axes, etc. And, in several instances, even one Colony was 

not allowed to supply any neighbouring Colonies with commodities which could 

be conveyed to them from hence. But they yielded much farther. They 

consented that we should have the appointment of one branch of their 

legislature. By recognizing as their King, a King resident among us and 

under our influence, they gave us a negative on all their laws. By allowing 

an appeal to us in their civil disputes, they gave us likewise the ultimate 

determination of all civil causes among them. In short, they allowed us 

every power we could desire, except that of taxing them, and interfering in 

their internal legislations. And they had admitted precedents which, even in 

these instances, gave us no inconsiderable authority over them. By 

purchasing our goods they paid our taxes, and by allowing us to regulate 

their trade in any manner we thought most for our advantage they enriched 

our merchants and helped us to bear our growing burdens. They fought our 

battles with us. They gloried in their relation to us. All their gains 

centered among us and they always spoke of this country and looked to it as 

their home.



Such was the state of things. What is it now?



Not contented with a degree of power sufficient to satisfy any reasonable 

ambition, we have attempted to extend it. Not contented with drawing from 

them a large revenue indirectly, we have endeavoured to procure one 

directly by an authoritative seizure, and in order to gain a pepper-corn in 

this way have chosen to hazard millions, acquired by the peaceable 

intercourse of trade. Vile policy! What a scourge is government so 

conducted? Had we never deserted our old ground, had we nourished and 

favoured America with a view to commerce instead of considering it as a 

country to be governed, had we, like a liberal and wise people, rejoiced to 

see a multitude of free states branched forth from ourselves, all enjoying 

independent legislatures similar to our own, had we aimed at binding them to 

us only by the tyes of affection and interest, and contented ourselves with 

a moderate power rendered durable by being lenient and friendly, an umpire 

in their differences, an aid to them in improving their own free 

governments, and their common bulwark against the assaults of foreign 

enemies, had this, I say, been our policy and temper, there is nothing so 

great or happy that we might not have expected. With their increase our 

strength would have increased. A growing surplus in the revenue might have 

been gained which, invariably applied to the gradual discharge of the 

national debt, would have delivered us from the ruin with which it threatens 

us. The liberty of America might have preserved our liberty, and, under the 

direction of a patriot king or wise minister, proved the means of restoring 

to us our almost lost constitution. Perhaps, in time, we might also have 

been brought to see the necessity of carefully watching and restricting our 

paper-credit. And thus we might have regained safety and, in union with our 

Colonies, have been more than a match for every enemy and risen to a 

situation of honour and dignity never before known amongst mankind. But I am 

forgetting myself. Our Colonies are likely to be lost for ever. Their love 

is turned into hatred and their respect for our government into resentment 

and abhorrence. We shall see more distinctly what a calamity this is, and 

the observations I have now made will be confirmed by attending to the 

following facts.



Our American Colonies, particularly the northern ones, have been for some 

time in the happiest state of society or in that middle state of 

civilization, between its first rude and its last refined and corrupt state. 

Old countries consist, generally, of three classes of people, a gentry; a 

yeomanry; and a peasantry. The Colonies consist only of a body of 

yeomanry[4] supported by agriculture, and all independent and nearly upon a 

level; in consequence of which, joined to a boundless extent of country, the 

means of subsistence are procured without difficulty and the temptations to 

wickedness are so inconsiderable that executions are seldom known among 

them. From hence arises an encouragement to population so great that in some 

of the colonies they double their own number in fifteen years, in others in 

eighteen years, and in all, taken one with another, in twenty-five years. 

Such an increase was, I believe, never before known. It demonstrates that 

they must live at their ease and be free from those cares, oppressions, and 

diseases which depopulate and ravage luxurious states.



With the population of the Colonies has increased their trade; but much 

faster, on account of the gradual introduction of luxury among them. In 1723 

the exports to Pensylvania were £16,000. In 1742 they were £75,295. In 1757 

they were increased to £268,426, and in 1773 to half a million. 



The exports to all the Colonies in 1744 were £640,114. In 1758 they were 

increased to £1,832,948 and in 1773 to three millions. And the probability 

is that, had it not been for the discontents among the Colonies since the 

year 1764, our trade with them would have been this year double to what it 

was in 1773, and that in a few years more, it would not have been possible 

for the whole kingdom, though consisting only of manufacturers, to supply 

the American demand.



This trade, it should be considered, was not only thus an increasing trade, 

but it was a trade in which we had no rivals, a trade certain, constant, and 

uninterrupted, and which, by the shipping employed in it, and the naval 

stores supplied by it, contributed greatly to the support of that navy which 

is our chief national strength. Viewed in these lights it was an object 

unspeakably important. But it will appear still more so if we view it in its 

connexions and dependencies. It is well known that our trade with Africa and 

the West-Indies cannot easily subsist without it. And, upon the whole, it is 

undeniable that it has been one of the main springs of our opulence and 

splendour and that we have, in a great measure, been indebted to it for our 

ability to bear a debt so much heavier than that which, fifty years ago, the 

wisest men thought would necessarily sink us.



This inestimable prize and all the advantages connected with America, we 

are now throwing away. Experience alone can shew what calamities must 

follow. It will indeed be astonishing if this kingdom can bear such a loss 

without dreadful consequences. These consequences have been amply 

represented by others and it is needless to enter into any account of them. 

At the time we shall be feeling them: the Empire dismembered, the blood of 

thousands shed in an unrighteous quarrel, our strength exhausted, our 

merchants breaking, our manufacturers starving, our debts increasing, the 

revenues sinking, the funds tottering, and all the miseries of a public 

bankruptcy impending. At such a crisis should our natural enemies, eager for 

our ruin, seize the opportunity. The apprehension is too distressing. Let us 

view this subject in another light. 



On this occasion, particular attention should be given to the present 

singular situation of this kingdom. This is a circumstance of the utmost 

importance and, as I am afraid it is not much considered, I will beg leave 

to give a distinct account of it.



At the Revolution, the specie of the kingdom amounted, according to 

Davenant's account, to eighteen millions and a half. From the accession to 

the year 1772 there were coined at the mint near 29 millions of gold; and in 

ten years only of this time or from January 1759 to January 1769 there were 

coined eight millions and a half. But it has appeared lately that the gold 

specie now left in the kingdom is no more than about twelve millions and a 

half. Not so much as half a million of silver specie has been coined these 

sixty years, and it cannot be supposed that the quantity of it now in 

circulation exceeds two or three millions. The whole specie of the kingdom, 

therefore, is probably at this time about fifteen millions. Of this some 

millions must be hoarded at the Bank. Our circulating specie, therefore, 

appears to be decreased. But our wealth, or the quantity of money in the 

kingdom, is greatly increased. This is paper to a vast amount, issued in 

almost every comer of the kingdom, and, particularly, by the Bank of 

England. While this paper maintains its credit it answers all the purposes 

of specie, and is in all respects the same with money.



Specie represents some real value in goods or commodities. On the contrary, 

paper represents immediately nothing but specie. It is a promise or 

obligation which the emitter brings himself under to pay a given sum in 

coin, and it owes its currency to the credit of the emitter, or to an 

opinion that he is able to make good his engagement, and that the sum 

specified may be received upon being demanded. Paper, therefore, represents 

coin, and coin represents real value. That is, the one is a sign of wealth. 

The other is the sign of that sign. But farther, coin is an universal sign 

of wealth, and will procure it every where. It will bear any alarm, and 

stand any shock. On the contrary, paper, owing its currency to opinion, has 

only a local and imaginary value. It can stand no shock. It is destroyed by 

the approach of danger or even the suspicion of danger.



In short, coin is the basis of our paper credit, and were it either all 

destroyed, or were only the quantity of it reduced beyond a certain limit, 

the paper circulation of the kingdom would sink at once. But, were our paper 

destroyed, the coin would not only remain but rise in value in proportion to 

the quantity of paper destroyed.



From this account it follows that as far as, in any circumstances, specie 

is not to be procured in exchange for paper, it represents nothing, and is 

worth nothing. The specie of this kingdom is inconsiderable compared with 

the amount of the paper circulating in it. This is generally believed and, 

therefore, it is natural to enquire how its currency is supported. The 

answer is easy. It is supported in the same manner with all other bubbles. 

Were all to demand specie in exchange for their notes payment could not be 

made, but at the same time that this is known every one trusts that no alarm 

producing such a demand will happen, while he holds the paper he is 

possessed of, and that if it should happen, he will stand a chance for being 

first paid, and this makes him easy. But let any events happen which 

threaten danger and every one will become diffident. A run will take place 

and a bankruptcy follow.



This is an account of what has often happened in private credit. And it is 

also an account of what will (if no change of measures takes place) happen 

some time or other in public credit. The description I have given of our 

paper-circulation implies that nothing can be more delicate or hazardous. 

It is an immense fabrick with its head in the clouds that is continually 

trembling with every adverse blast and every fluctuation of trade and which, 

like the baseless fabrick of a vision, may in a moment vanish, and leave no 

wreck behind. The destruction of a few books at the Bank, an improvement in 

the art of forgery, the landing of a body of French troops on our coasts, 

insurrections threatening a revolution in government, or any events that 

should produce a general panic, however groundless, would at once annihilate 

it and leave us without any other medium of traffic than a quantity of 

specie not much more than the money now drawn from the public by the taxes. 

It would, therefore, become impossible to pay the taxes. The revenue would 

fail. Near a hundred and forty millions of property would be destroyed. The 

whole frame of government would fall to pieces, and a state of nature would 

take place. What a dreadful situation? It has never had a parallel among 

mankind, except at one time in France after the establishment of the Royal 

Mississippi Bank. In 1720 this bank broke and, after involving for some time 

the whole kingdom in a golden dream, spread through it in one day desolation 

and ruin. The distress attending such an event in this free country would be 

greater than it was in France. Happily for that kingdom they have shot this 

gulph. Paper-credit has never since recovered itself there and their 

circulating cash consists now all of solid coin amounting, according to the 

lowest account, to no less a sum than 1500 millions of livres, or near 67 

millions of pounds sterling. This gives them unspeakable advantages and, 

joined to that quick reduction of their debts which is inseparable from 

their nature, places them on a ground of safety which we have reason to 

admire and envy.



These are subjects on which I should have chosen to be silent, did I not 

think it necessary that this country should be apprized and warned of the 

danger which threatens it. This danger is created chiefly by the national 

debt. High taxes are necessary to support a great public debt and a large 

supply of cash is necessary to support high taxes. This cash we owe to our 

paper and, in proportion to our paper, must be the productiveness of our 

taxes. King William's wars drained the kingdom of its specie. This sunk the 

revenue and distressed government. In 1694 the Bank was established and the 

kingdom was provided with a substitute for specie. The taxes became again 

productive. The revenue rose and government was relieved. Ever since that 

period our paper and taxes have been increasing together and supporting one 

another; and one reason, undoubtedly, of the late increase in the 

productiveness of our taxes has been the increase of our paper.



Was there no public debt, there would be no occasion for half the present 

taxes. Our paper circulation might be reduced. The balance of trade would 

turn in our favour. Specie would flow in upon us. The quantity of property 

destroyed by a failure of paper-credit (should it in such circumstances 

happen) would be 140 millions less, and, therefore, the shock attending it 

would be tolerable. But in the present state of things whenever any calamity 

or panic shall produce such a failure, the shock attending it will be 

intolerable. May heaven soon raise up for us some great statesman who shall 

see these things and enter into effectual measures, if not now too late, for 

extricating and preserving us.



Public banks are, undoubtedly, attended with great conveniencies. But they 

also do great harm, and, if their emissions are not restrained and 

conducted with great wisdom, they may prove the most pernicious of all 

institutions, not only by substituting fictitious for real wealth, by 

increasing luxury, by raising the prices of provisions, by concealing an 

unfavourable balance of trade, and by rendering a kingdom incapable of 

bearing any internal tumults or external attacks without the danger of a 

dreadful convulsion, but, particularly, by becoming instruments in the hands 

of ministers of state to increase their influence, to lessen their 

dependence on the people, and to keep up a delusive shew of public 

prosperity, when perhaps ruin may be near. There is, in truth, nothing that 

a government may not do with such a mine at its command as a public bank 

while it can maintain its credit, nor, therefore, is there any thing more 

likely to be improperly and dangerously used. But to return to what may be 

more applicable to our own state at present.



Among the causes that may produce a failure of paper-credit there are two 

which the present quarrel with America calls upon us particularly to 

consider. The first is 'an unfavourable balance of trade'. This, in 

proportion to the degree in which it takes place, must turn the course of 

foreign exchange against us, raise the price of bullion, and carry off our 

specie. The danger to which this would expose us is obvious, and it has been 

much increased by the new coinage of the gold specie which begun in 1773. 

Before this coinage, the greatest part of our gold coin being light, but the 

same in currency as if it had been heavy, always remained in the kingdom. 

But, being now nearly of full weight, whenever a wrong balance of foreign 

trade alters the course of exchange, and gold in coin becomes of less value 

than in bullion, there is reason to fear that it will be melted down in such 

great quantities and exported so fast as in a little time to leave none 

behind. The consequence of which must prove that the whole superstructure of 

paper-credit, now supported by it, will break down. The only remedy, in such 

circumstances, is an increase of coinage at the mint. But this will operate 

too slowly, and, by raising the price of bullion, will only increase the 

evil. It is the Bank that at such a time must be the immediate sufferer, for 

it is from thence that those who want coin for any purpose will always draw 

it.



For many years before 1773 the price of gold in bullion had been from 2 or 

3 or 4 per cent higher than in coin. This was a temptation to melt down and 

export the coin which could not be resisted. Hence arose a demand for it on 

the Bank, and, consequently, the necessity of purchasing bullion at a loss 

for a new coinage. But the more coin the Bank procured in this way, the 

lower its price became in comparison with that of bullion, and the faster it 

vanished, and, consequently, the more necessary it became to coin again, and 

the greater loss fell upon the Bank. Had things continued much longer in 

this train, the consequences might have proved very serious. I am by no 

means sufficiently informed to be able to assign the causes which have 

produced the change that happened in 1772. But, without doubt, the state of 

things that took place before that year must be expected to return. The 

fluctuations of trade, in its best state, render this unavoidable. But the 

contest with our Colonies has a tendency to bring it on soon and to increase 

unspeakably the distress attending it. All know that the balance of trade 

with them is greatly in our favour, and that this balance is paid partly by 

direct remittances of bullion and partly by circuitous remittances through 

Spain, Portugal, Italy, etc. which diminish the balance against us with 

these countries. During the last year they have been employed in paying 

their debts without adding to them, and their exportations and remittances 

for that purpose have contributed to render the general balance of trade 

more favourable to us, and also (in conjunction with the late operations of 

the Bank) to keep up our funds. These remittances are now ceased and a few 

years will determine, if this contest goes on, how far we can sustain such a 

loss without suffering the consequences I have described.



The second event, ruinous to our paper circulation, which may arise from 

our rupture with America, is a deficiency in the revenue. As a failure of 

our paper would destroy the revenue, so a failure of the revenue, or any 

considerable diminution of it, would destroy our paper. The Bank is the 

support of our paper and the support of the Bank is the credit of 

government. Its principal securities are a capital of eleven millions lent 

to government and money continually advanced to a vast amount on the 

land-tax and malt-tax, sinking fund, exchequer bills, navy bills, etc. 

Should, therefore, deficiencies in the revenue bring government under any 

difficulties, all these securities would lose their value, and the Bank and 

Government, and all private and public credit, would fail together. Let any 

one here imagine what would probably follow were it but suspected by the 

public in general that the taxes were so fallen as not to produce enough to 

pay the interest of the public debts, besides bearing the ordinary expences 

of the nation, and that, in order to supply the deficiency and to hide the 

calamity, it had been necessary in any one year to anticipate the taxes and 

to borrow of the Bank. In such circumstances I can scarcely doubt but an 

alarm would spread of the most dangerous tendency. The next foreign war, 

should it prove half as expensive as the last, will probably occasion such 

a deficiency and bring our affairs to that crisis towards which they have 

been long tending. But the war with America has a greater tendency to do 

this, and the reason is that it affects our resources more and is attended 

more with the danger of internal disturbances. 



Some have made the proportion of our trade depending on North America to be 

near one half. A moderate computation makes it a third. Let it, however, be 

supposed to be only a fourth. I will venture to say this is a proportion of 

our foreign trade the loss of which, when it comes to be felt, will be found 

insupportable. In the article of tobacco alone it will cause a deduction 

from the customs of at least £300,000 per ann., including the duties paid on 

foreign commodities purchased by the exportation of tobacco. Let the whole 

deduction from the revenue be supposed to be only half a million. This 

alone is more than the kingdom can at present bear, without having recourse 

to lotteries and the land-tax at 4 shillings in order to defray the common 

and necessary expences of peace. But to this must be added a deduction from 

the produce of the excises in consequence of the increase of the poor, of 

the difficulties of our merchants and manufacturers, of less national 

wealth, and a retrenchment of luxury. There is no possibility of knowing to 

what these deductions may amount. When the evils producing them begin, they 

will proceed rapidly and they may end in a general wreck before we are aware 

of any danger.



In order to give a clearer view of the subject, I will in an Appendix, 

state particularly the national expenditure and income for eleven years, 

from 1764 to 1774. From that account it will appear that the money drawn 

every year from the public by the taxes does not fall greatly short of a sum 

equal to the whole specie of the kingdom, and that, notwithstanding the late 

increase in the productiveness of the taxes, the whole surplus of the 

national income has not exceeded £338,759 per ann. This is a surplus so 

inconsiderable as to be scarcely sufficient to guard against the 

deficiencies arising from the common fluctuations of foreign trade and of 

home consumption. It is nothing when considered as the only fund we have for 

paying off a debt near 140 millions. Had we continued in a state of profound 

peace, it could not have admitted of any diminution. What then must follow, 

when one of the most profitable branches of our trade is destroyed, when a 

third of the Empire is lost, when an addition of many millions is made to 

the public debt, and when, at the same time perhaps some millions are taken 

away from the revenue? I shudder at this prospect. A kingdom on an edge so 

perilous should think of nothing but a retreat.



                          Sect. IV 

   Of the Honour of the Nation as affected by the War with America



One of the pleas for continuing the contest with America is, 'that our 

honour is engaged, and that we cannot now recede without the most 

humiliating concessions'.



With respect to this it is proper to observe that a distinction should be 

made between the nation and its rulers. It is melancholy that there should 

be ever any reason for making such a distinction. A government is, or ought 

to be, nothing but an institution for collecting and carrying into execution 

the will of the people. But so far is this from being in general the fact 

that the measures of government and the sense of the people are sometimes in 

direct opposition to one another; nor does it often happen that any certain 

conclusion can be drawn from the one to the other. I will not pretend to 

determine whether, in the present instance, the dishonour attending a 

retreat would belong to the nation at large or only to the persons in power 

who guide its affairs. Be this as it will, no good argument can be drawn 

from it against receding. The disgrace which may be implied in making 

concessions is nothing to that of being the aggressors in an unrighteous 

quarrel, and dignity, in such circumstances, consists in retracting freely 

and speedily. For (to adopt, on this occasion, words which I have heard 

applied to this very purpose, in a great assembly, by a peer to whom this 

kingdom has often looked as its deliverer, and whose ill state of health at 

this awful moment of public danger every friend to Britain must deplore) to 

adopt, I say, the words of this great man, 'Rectitude is dignity, oppression 

only is meanness, and justice, honour.' 



I will add that prudence, no less than true honour, requires us to retract. 

For the time may come when, if it is not done voluntarily, we may be obliged 

to do it and find ourselves under a necessity of granting that to our 

distresses which we now deny to equity and humanity and the prayers of 

America. The possibility of this appears plainly from the preceding pages; 

and should it happen, it will bring upon us disgrace indeed, disgrace 

greater than the worst rancour can wish to see accumulated on a kingdom 

already too much dishonoured. Let the reader think here what we are doing. A 

nation, once the protector of liberty in distant countries and the scourge 

of tyranny, exchanged into an enemy to liberty, engaged in endeavouring to 

reduce to servitude its own brethren. A great and enlightened nation, not 

content with a controuling power over millions of people which gave it every 

reasonable advantage, insisting upon such a supremacy over them as would 

leave them nothing they could call their own, and carrying desolation and 

death among them for disputing it. What can be more ignominious? How have we 

felt for the brave Corsicans in their struggle with the Genoese, and 

afterwards with the French government? Did Genoa or France want more than an 

absolute command over their property and legislations or the power of 

binding them in all cases whatsoever? The Genoese, finding it difficult to 

keep them in subjection, ceded them to the French. All such cessions of one 

people by another are disgraceful to human nature. But if our claims are 

just, may not we also, if we please, cede the Colonies to France? There is, 

in truth, no other difference between these two cases than that the 

Corsicans were not descended from the people who governed them but that the 

Americans are.



There are some who seem to be sensible that the authority of one country 

over another cannot be distinguished from the servitude of one country to 

another, and that unless different communities, as well as different parts 

of the same community, are united by an equal representation, all such 

authority is inconsistent with the principles of civil liberty. But they 

except the case of the Colonies and Great Britain because the Colonies are 

communities which have branched forth from, and which therefore, as they 

think, belong to Britain. Had the colonies been communities of foreigners, 

over whom we wanted to acquire dominion or even to extend a dominion before 

acquired, they are ready to admit that their resistance would have been 

just. In my opinion this is the same with saying that the Colonies ought to 

be worse off than the rest of mankind because they are our own brethren.



Again, the United Provinces of Holland were once subject to the Spanish 

monarchy; but, provoked by a violation of their charters, by levies of money 

without their consent, by the introduction of Spanish troops among them, by 

innovations in their antient modes of government, and the rejection of their 

petitions they were driven to that resistance which we and all the world 

have ever since admired, and which has given birth to one of the greatest 

and happiest republics that ever existed. Let any one read also the history 

of the war which the Athenians, from a thirst of empire, made on the 

Syracusans in Sicily, a people derived from the same origin with them, and 

let him, if he can, avoid rejoicing in the defeat of the Athenians.



Let him, likewise, read the account of the social war among the Romans. The 

allied states of Italy had fought the battles of Rome, and contributed by 

their valour and treasure to its conquests and grandeur. They claimed, 

therefore, the rights of Roman citizens, and a share with them in 

legislation. The Romans, disdaining to make those their fellow-citizens whom 

they had always looked upon as their subjects, would not comply and a war 

followed, the most horrible in the annals of mankind, which ended in the 

ruin of the Roman Republic. The feelings of every Briton in this case must 

force him to approve the conduct of the Allies and to condemn the proud and 

ungrateful Romans.



But not only is the present contest with America thus disgraceful to us, 

because inconsistent with our own feelings in similar cases, but also 

because condemned by our own practice in former times. The Colonies are 

persuaded that they are fighting for liberty. We see them sacrificing to 

this persuasion every private advantage. If mistaken, and though guilty of 

irregularities, they should be pardoned by a people whose ancestors have 

given them so many examples of similar conduct, England should venerate the 

attachment to liberty amidst all its excesses, and, instead of indignation 

or scorn, it would be most becoming them, in the present instance, to 

declare their applause and to say to the Colonies, 'We excuse your mistakes. 

We admire your spirit. It is the spirit that has more than once saved 

ourselves. We aspire to no dominion over you. We understand the rights of 

men too well to think of taking from you the inestimable privilege of 

governing yourselves, and, instead of employing our power for any such 

purpose, we offer it to you as a friendly and guardian power to be a 

mediator in your quarrels, a protection against your enemies, and an aid to 

you in establishing a plan of liberty that shall make you great and happy. 

In return, we ask nothing but your gratitude and your commerce.'



This would be a language worthy of a brave and enlightened nation. But alas! 

it often happens in the political world as it does in religion, that the 

people who cry out most vehemently for liberty to themselves are the most 

unwilling to grant it to others.



But farther, this war is disgraceful on account of the persuasion which led 

to it and under which it has been undertaken. The general cry was last 

winter that the people of New-England were a body of cowards who would at 

once be reduced to submission by a hostile look from our troops. In this 

light were they held up to public derision in both Houses of Parliament, and 

it was this persuasion that, probably, induced a Nobleman of the first 

weight in the state to recommend at the passing of the Boston Port Bill, 

coercive measures, hinting, at the same time, that the appearance of 

hostilities would be sufficient, and that all would soon be over, sine 

clade. Indeed no one can doubt but that had it been believed some time ago 

that the people of America were brave, more care would have been taken not 

to provoke them.



Again, the manner in which this war has been hitherto conducted renders it 

still more disgraceful. English valour being thought insufficient to subdue 

the Colonies, the laws and religion of France were established in Canada on 

purpose to obtain the power of bringing upon them from thence an army of 

French Papists. The wild Indians and their own slaves have been instigated 

to attack them, and attempts have been made to gain the assistance of a 

large body of Russians. With like views, German troops have been hired and 

the defence of our forts and garrisons trusted in their hands.



These are measures which need no comment. The last of them, in particular, 

having been carried into execution without the consent of parliament, 

threatens us with imminent danger and shews that we are in the way to lose 

even the forms of the constitution. If, indeed, our ministers can at any 

time, without leave, not only send away the national troops, but introduce 

foreign troops in their room, we lie entirely at mercy and we have 

everything to dread.



                           Sect. V 

      Of the Probability of Succeeding in the War with America



Let us next consider how far there is a probability of succeeding in the 

present war.



Our own people, being unwilling to enlist, and the attempts to procure 

armies of Russians, Indians, and Canadians having miscarried, the utmost 

force we can employ, including foreigners, does not exceed, if I am rightly 

informed, 40,000 effective men. This is the force that is to conquer half a 

million at least, of determined men fighting on their own ground, within 

sight of their houses and families, and for that sacred blessing of liberty, 

without which man is a beast and government a curse. All history proves that 

in such a situation, a handful is a match for millions.



In the Netherlands a few states, thus circumstanced, withstood, for a long 

course of years the whole force of the Spanish monarchy when at its zenith; 

and at last humbled its pride and emancipated themselves from its tyranny. 

The citizens of Syracuse also, thus circumstanced, withstood the whole power 

of the Athenians and almost ruined them. The same happened in the contest 

between the house of Austria, and the cantons of Switzerland. There is in 

this case an infinite difference between attacking and being attacked, 

between fighting to destroy and fighting to preserve or acquire liberty. 

Were we, therefore, capable of employing a land force against America equal 

to its own there would be little probability of success. But to think of 

conquering that whole continent with 30,000 or 40,000 men to be transported 

across the Atlantic and fed from hence and incapable of being recruited 

after any defeat. This is indeed a folly so great that language does not 

afford a name for it.



With respect to our naval force, could it sail at land as it does at sea, 

much might be done with it, but as that is impossible, little or nothing can 

be done with it which will not hurt ourselves more than the colonists. Such 

of their maritime towns as they cannot guard against our fleets and have not 

been already destroyed, they are determined either to give up to our 

resentment or destroy themselves. The consequence of which will be that 

these towns will be rebuilt in safer situations, and that we shall lose some 

of the principal pledges by which we have hitherto held them in subjection. 

As to their trade, having all the necessaries and chief conveniencies of 

life within themselves they have no dependence upon it, and the loss of it 

will do them unspeakable good, by preserving them from the evils of luxury 

and the temptations of wealth and keeping them in that state of virtuous 

simplicity which is the greatest happiness. I know that I am now speaking 

the sense of some of the wisest men in America. It has long been their wish 

that Britain would shut up all their ports. They will rejoice, particularly, 

in the last restraining act.[n] It might have happened that the people would 

have grown weary of their agreements not to export or import. But this act 

will oblige them to keep these agreements and confirm their unanimity and 

zeal. It will also furnish them with a reason for confiscating the estates 

of all the friends of our government among them and for employing their 

sailors, who would have been otherwise idle, in making reprisals on British 

property. Their ships, before useless, and consisting of many hundreds, will 

be turned into ships of war and that attention, which they have hitherto 

confined to trade, will be employed in fitting out a naval force for their 

own defence and thus the way will be prepared for their becoming, much 

sooner than they would otherwise have been, a great maritime power. This act 

of parliament, therefore, crowns the folly of all our late measures. None 

who know me can believe me to be disposed to superstition. Perhaps, however, 

I am not in the present instance free from this weakness. I fancy I see in 

these measures something that cannot be accounted for merely by human 

ignorance. I am inclined to think that the hand of Providence is in them 

working to bring about some great ends. But this leads me to one 

consideration more which I cannot help offering to the public and which 

appears to me in the highest degree important.



In this hour of tremendous danger it would become us to turn our thoughts to 

Heaven. This is what our brethren in the Colonies are doing. From one end of 

North-America to the other they are fasting and praying. But what are we 

doing? We are ridiculing them as fanatics, and scoffing at religion, We are 

running wild after pleasure and forgetting every thing serious and decent at 

masquerades. We are trafficking for boroughs, perjuring ourselves at 

elections, and selling ourselves for places. Which side then is Providence 

likely to favour?



In America we see a number of rising states in the vigour of youth, inspired 

by the noblest of all passions, the passion for being free, and animated by 

piety. Here we see an old state, great indeed, but inflated and irreligious, 

enervated by luxury, encumbered with debts, and hanging by a thread. Can any 

one look without pain to the issue? May we not expect calamities that shall 

recover to reflection (perhaps to devotion) our libertines and atheists?



Is our cause such as gives us reason to ask God to bless it? Can we in the 

face of Heaven declare, 'that we are not the aggressors in this war; and 

that we mean by it, not to acquire or even preserve dominion for its own 

sake, not conquest, or empire, or the gratification of resentment, but 

solely to deliver ourselves from oppression, to gain reparation for injury; 

and to defend ourselves against men who would plunder or kill us?' Remember, 

reader, whoever thou an, that there are no other just causes of war and that 

blood spilled with any other views must some time or other be accounted for. 

But not to expose myself by saying more in this way, I will now beg leave to 

recapitulate some of the arguments I have used and to deliver the feelings 

of my heart in a brief but earnest address to my countrymen.



I am hearing it continually urged, 'Are they not our subjects?' The plain 

answer is that they are not your subjects. The people of America are no more 

the subjects of the people of Britain than the people of Yorkshire are the 

subjects of the people of Middlesex. They are your fellow-subjects.



'But we are taxed, and why should they not be taxed?' You are taxed by 

yourselves. They insist on the same privilege. They are taxed to support 

their own governments and they help also to pay your taxes by purchasing 

your manufactures and giving you a monopoly of their trade. Must they 

maintain two governments? Must they submit to be triple taxed? Has your 

moderation in taxing yourselves been such as encourages them to trust you 

with the power of taxing them?



'But they will not obey the Parliament and the laws.' Say rather, they will 

not obey your parliament and your laws. Their reason is, they have no voice 

in your parliament. They have no share in making your laws.[5] 'Neither have 

most of us.' Then you so far want liberty and your language is, 'We are not 

free, 'Why should they be free?' But many of you have a voice in parliament. 

None of them have. All your freehold land is represented. But not a foot of 

their land is represented. At worst, therefore, you are only enslaved 

partially. Were they to submit they would be enslaved totally. They are 

governed by parliaments chosen by themselves and by legislatures similar to 

yours. Why will you disturb them in the enjoyment of a blessing so 

invaluable? Is it reasonable to insist that your discretion alone shall be 

their law, that they shall have no constitutions of government, except such 

as you shall be pleased to give them, and no property except such as your 

parliament shall be pleased to leave them? -- What is your parliament? Is 

there not a growing intercourse between it and the court? Does it awe 

ministers of state as it once did? Instead of contending for a controuling 

power over the government of America, should you not think more of watching 

and reforming your own? Suppose the worst. Suppose, in opposition to all 

their own declarations that the colonists are now aiming at independence. 

'If they can subsist without you', is it to be wondered at? Did there ever 

exist a community, or even an individual, that would not do the same? 'If 

they cannot subsist without you', let them alone. They will soon come back. 

'If you cannot subsist without them', reclaim them by kindness; engage them 

by moderation and equity. It is madness to resolve to butcher them. This 

will make them detest and avoid you for ever. Freemen are not to be governed 

by force, or dragooned into compliance. If capable of bearing to be so ill 

treated, it is a disgrace to be connected with them.



'If they can subsist without you and also you without them', the attempt to 

subjugate them by confiscating their effects, burning their towns, and 

ravaging their territories, is a wanton exertion of cruel ambition which, 

however common it has been among mankind, deserves to be called by harder 

names than I chuse to apply to it. Suppose such an attempt was to be 

succeeded. Would it not be a fatal preparation for subduing yourselves? 

Would not the disposal of American places and the distribution of an 

American revenue render that influence of the crown irresistible which has 

already stabbed your liberties?



Turn your eyes to India. There more has been done than is now attempted in 

America. There Englishmen, actuated by the love of plunder and the spirit of 

conquest, have depopulated whole kingdoms and ruined millions of innocent 

people by the most infamous oppression and rapacity. The justice of the 

nation has slept over these enormities. Will the justice of heaven sleep? 

Are we not now execrated on both sides of the globe?



With respect to the Colonists, it would be folly to pretend they are 

faultless. They were running fast into our vices. But this quarrel gives 

them a salutary check and it may be permitted on purpose to favour them, and 

in them the rest of mankind; by making way for establishing, in an extensive 

country possessed of every advantage, a plan of government and a growing 

power that will astonish the world and under which every subject of human 

enquiry shall be open to free discussion, and the friends of liberty in 

every quarter of the globe find a safe retreat from civil and spiritual 

tyranny. I hope, therefore, our brethren in America will forgive their 

oppressors. It is certain they know not what they are doing.



                         Conclusion



Having said so much of the war with America, and particularly of the danger 

with which it threatens us, it may be expected that I should propose some 

method of escaping from this danger, and of restoring this once happy Empire 

to a state of peace and security. Various plans of pacification have been 

proposed and some of them by persons so distinguished by their rank and 

merit as to be above my applause. But till there is more of a disposition to 

attend to such plans they cannot, I am afraid, be of any great service. And 

there is too much reason to apprehend that nothing but calamity will bring 

us to repentance and wisdom. In order, however, to complete my design in 

these observations, I will take the liberty to lay before the public the 

following sketch of one of the plans just referred to, as it was opened 

before the holidays to the house of Lords by the Earl of Shelburne, who 

while he held the seals of the Southern Department, with the business of the 

colonies annexed, possessed their confidence, without ever compromising the 

authority of this country, a confidence which discovered itself by peace 

among themselves, and duty and submission to the mother-country. I hope I 

shall not take an unwarranted liberty if, on this occasion, I use his 

Lordship's own words as nearly as I have been able to collect them.[o]



     Meet the Colonies on their own ground, in the last petition from

     Congress to the king. The surest as well as the most dignified

     mode of proceeding for this country -- Suspend all hostilities.

     Repeal the acts which immediately distress America, namely, the

     last restraining act, the charter act, the act for the more impartial

     administration of justice, and the Quebec act. All the other acts

     (the custom house act, the post office act, etc.) leave to a

     temperate revisal. There will be found much matter which both

     countries may wish repealed. Some which can never be given up,

     the principle being that regulation of trade for the common good

     of the Empire, which forms our palladium. Other matter which is

     fair subject of mutual accommodation. Prescribe[p] me most

     explicit acknowledgement of your right of regulating commerce in

     its most extensive sense if the petition and other public acts of the

     Colonies have not already by their declaration and

     acknowledgements left it upon a sufficiently secure foundation.

     Besides the power of regulating the general commerce of the

     Empire, something further might be expected, provided a due and

     tender regard were had to the means and abilities of the several

     provinces, as well as to those fundamental, unalienable rights of

     Englishmen, which no father can surrender on the part of his son,

     no representative on the part of his elector, no generation on the

     part of the succeeding one: the right of judging not only of the

     mode of raising, but the quantum, and the appropriation of such

     aids as they shall grant. To be more explicit, the debt of England,

     without entering into invidious distinctions how it came to be

     contracted, might be acknowledged, the debt of every individual

     part of the whole Empire, Asia, as well as America, included.

     Provided, that full security were held forth to them that such free

     aids, together with the Sinking Fund (Great Britain contributing

     her superior share), should not be left as the privy purse of the

     minister, but be unalienably appropriated to the original intention

     of that fund, the discharge of the debt, and that by an honest

     application of the whole fund, the taxes might in time be lessened,

     and the price of our manufactures consequently reduced, so that

     every contributory part might feel the returning benefit -- always

     supposing the laws of trade duly observed and enforced. The

     time was, I am confident, and perhaps is, when these points might

     be obtained upon me easy, the constitutional, and, therefore, the

     indispensible terms of an exemption from parliamentary taxation,

     and an admission of the sacredness of their charters instead of

     sacrificing their good humour, their affection, their effectual aids,

     and the act of Navigation itself (which you are now in the direct

     road to do) for a commercial quit-rent, or a barren metaphysical

     chimaera. How long these ends may continue attainable, no man

     can tell. But if no words are to be relied on except such as make

     against the Colonies, if nothing is acceptable, except what is

     attainable by force, it only remains to apply, what has been so

     often remarked of unhappy periods, Quos deus vult, etc. 



These are sentiments and proposals of the last importance and I am very 

happy in being able to give them to the public from so respectable an 

authority as that of the distinguished peer I have mentioned, to whom, I 

know, this kingdom, as well as America, is much indebted for his zeal to 

promote those grand public points on which the preservation of liberty among 

us depends, and for the firm opposition, which, jointly with many others 

(noblemen and commoners of the first character and abilities) he has made to 

the present measures.



Had such a plan as that now proposed been adopted a few months ago, I have 

little doubt that a pacification would have taken place on terms highly 

advantageous to this kingdom. In particular, it is probable that the 

Colonies would have consented to grant an annual supply, which, increased by 

a saving of the money now spent in maintaining troops among them and by 

contributions which might have been gained from other parts of the Empire, 

would have formed a fund considerable enough, if unalienably applied, to 

redeem the public debt; in consequence of which, agreeably to Lord 

Shelburne's ideas, some of our worst taxes might be taken off, and the 

Colonies would receive our manufactures cheaper, our paper-currency might be 

restrained, our whole force would be free to meet at any time foreign 

danger, the influence of the Crown would be reduced, our Parliament would 

become less dependent, and the kingdom might, perhaps, be restored to a 

situation of permanent safety and prosperity.



To conclude. An important revolution in the affairs of this kingdom seems to 

be approaching. If ruin is not to be our lot, all that has been lately done 

must be undone and new measures adopted. At that period, an opportunity 

(never perhaps to be recovered, if lost) will offer itself for serving 

essentially this country, as well as America, by putting the national debt 

into a fixed course of payment, by subjecting to new regulations the 

administration of the finances, and by establishing measures for 

exterminating corruption and restoring the constitution. For my own part, if 

this is not to be the consequence of any future changes in the ministry, and 

the system of corruption, lately so much improved, is to go on, I think it 

totally indifferent to the kingdom who are in, or who are out of power.



The following fact is of so much importance that I cannot satisfy myself 

without laying it before the public. In a Committee of the American 

Congress, in June 1775, a declaration was drawn up containing an offer to 

Great Britain, 'that the Colonies would not only continue to grant 

extraordinary aids in time of war, but also, if allowed a free commerce, pay 

into the Sinking-Fund such a sum annually for one hundred years, as should 

be more than sufficient in that time, if faithfully applied, to extinguish 

all the present debts of Britain. Or, provided this was not accepted, that, 

to remove the groundless jealousy of Britain that the Colonies aimed at 

Independence and an abolition of the Navigation Act, which, in truth, they 

had never intended, and also, to avoid all future disputes about the right 

of making that and other acts for regulating their commerce for the general 

benefit, they would enter into a covenant with Britain that she should fully 

possess and exercise that right for one hundred years to come'.



At the end of the preceding tract I have had the honour of laying before the 

public the Earl of Shelburne's plan of pacification with the Colonies. In 

that plan it is particularly proposed that the Colonies should grant an 

annual supply to be carried to the Sinking Fund and unalienably appropriated 

to the discharge of the public debt. It must give this excellent peer great 

pleasure to learn, from this resolution, that even this part of his plan, as 

well as all the other parts, would, most probably, have been accepted by the 

Colonies. For though the resolution only offers the alternative of either a 

free trade with extraordinary aids and an annual supply, or an exclusive 

trade confirmed and extended, yet there can be little reason to doubt but 

that to avoid the calamities of the present contest, both would have been 

consented to, particularly, if, on our part, such a revisal of the laws of 

trade had been offered as was proposed in Lord Shelburne's plan.



The preceding resolution was, I have said, drawn up in a Committee of the 

Congress. But it was not entered in their minutes, a severe act of 

Parliament happening to arrive at that time,[q] which determined them not to 

give the sum proposed in it.







2. In Great Britain, consisting of near six millions of inhabitants, 5,723 

persons, most of them the lowest of the people, elect one half of the House 

of Commons, and 364 chuse a ninth part. This may be seen distinctly made out 

in [James Burgh], Political Disquisitions, [3 vols., London, 1774-5] vol. 1, 

Bk. 2, ch. 4, [pp. 39-54] a work of important and useful instruction. 

[Burgh's claim, repeated by Price, that 254 members were chosen by 5,723 

votes, was misleading. What Burgh did was to compute for each constituency a 

bare majority of those entitled to vote. Then he added these numbers for 254 

constituencies to give, not the number of those who had actually voted for 

sitting members at any one election, but the lowest number that could 

conceivably have secured their election. Price's use of these figures is 

misleading in another respect. What Burgh's computation established was not 

that half the members of the House of Commons, but half the greatest number 

known to have been present at a debate at any one time, could have been 

elected by 5,723 votes. At this time there were 558 members of the Commons; 

the greatest number known to have been present at any one time at a debate 

was 502, and that in 1741. Price's assertion that a ninth part of the 

members for Great Britain were chosen by 364 votes is also inaccurate. What 

Burgh claimed was that a ninth part of the members for England were chosen 

by 364 votes.] 



3. Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws, vol. I, bk II, ch. xix. [The English 

translation of De I'esprit des lois by Thomas Nugent was published under the 

title The Spirit of the Laws in London in 1750].



4. Except the negroes in the southern Colonies, who probably will now either 

soon become extinct, or have their condition changed into that of freemen. 

It is not the fault of the Colonies that they have among them so many of 

these unhappy people. They have made laws to prohibit the importation of 

them, but these laws have always had a negative put upon them here because 

of their tendency to hurt our Negro trade.



5. 'I have no other notion of slavery, but being bound by a law to which I 

do not consent.' See the case of Ireland's being bound by acts of Parliament 

in England, stated by William Molyneux,... [William Molyneux, The Case of 

Ireland's being bound by Acts of Parliament in England, Stated (Dublin, 

1698; London, 1770)]. In arguing against the authority of Communities, and 

all people not incorporated, over one another; I have confined my views to 

taxation and internal legislation. Mr. Molyneux carried his views much 

farther, and denied the right of England to make any laws, even to regulate 

the trade of Ireland.





____________



                   Additional Observations



                           (1777)







                Additional Observations on the 

           Nature and Value of Civil Liberty, and the 

                      War with America







                           Sect. I 

  Of the Nature of Civil Liberty, and the Essentials of a Free

                         Government



With respect to Liberty in general there are two questions to be 

considered: 



First, what it is? and secondly, how far it is of value? There is no 

difficulty in answering the first of these questions. To be free, is 'to be 

able to act or forbear acting, as we think best' or 'to be masters of our 

own resolutions and conduct'. It may be pretended that it is not desirable 

to be thus free, but, without doubt, this it is to be free, and this is what 

all mean when they say of themselves or others that they are free.



I have observed that all the different kinds of liberty run up into the 

general idea of self-government. The liberty of men as agents is that power 

of self-determination which all agents, as such, possess. Their liberty as 

moral agents is their power of self-government in their moral conduct. Their 

liberty as religious agents is their power of self-government in religion. 

And their liberty as members of communities associated for the purposes of 

civil government is their power of self-government in all their civil 

concerns. It is liberty in the last of these views of it that is the subject 

of my present enquiry, and it may, in other words, be defined to be 'the 

power of a state to govern itself by its own will'. In order, therefore, to 

determine whether a state is free, no more is necessary than to determine 

whether there is any will, different from its own, to which it is subject.



When we speak of a state, we mean the whole state and not any part of it, 

and the will of the state, therefore, is the will of the whole. There are 

two ways in which this will may be expressed. First, by the suffrages of all 

the members given in person. Or secondly, by the suffrages of a body of 

representatives, in appointing whom all the members have voices. A state 

governed by its own will in the first of these ways enjoys the most complete 

and perfect liberty, but such a government being impracticable, except in 

very small states, it is necessary that civil communities in general should 

satisfy themselves with that degree of liberty which can be obtained in the 

last of these ways, and liberty so obtained may be sufficiently ample and at 

the same time is capable of being extended to the largest states.



But here, before I proceed, I must desire, that an observation may be 

attended to which appears to me of considerable consequence. A distinction 

should be made between the liberty of a state, and its not suffering 

oppression, or between a free government and a government under which 

freedom is enjoyed. Under the most despotic government liberty may happen to 

be enjoyed. But being derived from a will over which the state has no 

controul, and not from its own will, or from an accidental mildness in the 

administration, and not from a constitution of government, it is nothing but 

an indulgence of a precarious nature and of little importance. Individuals 

in private life, while held under the power of masters, cannot be 

denominated free however equitably and kindly they may be treated. This is 

strictly true of communities as well as of individuals. Civil liberty (it 

should be remembered) must be enjoyed as a right derived from the Author of 

nature only or it cannot be the blessing which merits this name. If there is 

any human power which is considered as giving it, on which it depends, and 

which can invade or recall it at pleasure, it changes its nature and becomes 

a species of slavery.



But to return, the force superseding self-government in a state, or the 

power destroying its liberty, is of two kinds. It may be either a power 

without itself, or a power within itself. The former constitutes what may be 

properly called external, and the latter internal slavery. Were there any 

distant state which had acquired a sovereignty over this country and 

exercised the power of making its laws and disposing its property, we should 

be in the first kind of slavery; and, if not totally depraved by a habit of 

subjection to such a power, we should think ourselves in a miserable 

condition; and an advocate for such a power would be considered as insulting 

us, who should attempt to reconcile us to it by telling us, that we were one 

community with that distant state, though destitute of a single voice in its 

legislature, and, on this ground, should maintain that all resistance to it 

was no less criminal than any resistance within a state to the authority of 

that state. In short, every state not incorporated with another by an equal 

representation, and yet subject to its dominion, is enslaved in this sense. 

Such was the slavery of the provinces subject to antient Rome, and such is 

the slavery of every community, as far as any other community is master of 

it, or as far as, in respect of taxation and internal legislation, it is not 

independent of every other community. Nor does it make any difference to 

such a community that it enjoys within itself a free constitution of 

government, if that constitution is itself liable to be altered, suspended 

or over-ruled at the discretion of the state which possesses the sovereignty 

over it.



But the slavery most prevalent in the world has been internal slavery. In 

order better to explain this, it is proper to observe that all civil 

government being either the government of a whole by itself, or of a whole 

by a power extraneous to it, or of a whole by a part; the first alone is 

liberty, and the two last are tyranny, producing the two sorts of slavery 

which I have mentioned. Internal slavery, therefore, takes place wherever a 

whole community is governed by a part, and this, perhaps, is the most 

concise and comprehensive account that can be given of it. The part that 

governs may be either a single man, as in absolute monarchies; or, a body of 

grandees, as in aristocracies. In both these cases the powers of government 

are commonly held for life without delegation, and descend from father to 

son; and the people governed are in the same situation with cattle upon an 

estate, which descends by inheritance from one owner to another. But 

farther, a community may be governed by a body of delegates and yet be 

enslaved. Though government by representation alone is free, unless when 

carried on by the personal suffrages of all the members of a state, yet all 

such government is by no means free. In order to render it so, the following 

requisites are necessary.



First, the representation must be complete. No state, a part of which only 

is represented in the Legislature that governs it, is self-governed. Had 

Scotland no representatives in the Parliament of Britain, it would not be 

free, nor would it be proper to call Britain free, though England, its other 

part, were adequately represented. The like is true, in general, of every 

country subject to a legislature in which some of its parts, or some classes 

of men in it, are represented and others not.



Secondly, the representatives of a free state must be freely chosen. If 

this is not the case, they are not at all representatives; and government by 

them degenerates into government by a junto of men in the community who 

happen to have power or wealth enough to command or purchase their offices.



Thirdly, after being freely chosen they must be themselves free. If there 

is any higher will which directs their resolutions, and on which they are 

dependent, they become the instruments of that will; and it is that will 

alone that in reality governs the state.



Fourthly, they must be chosen for short terms and, in all their acts, be 

accountable to their constituents. Without this a people will have no 

controul over their representatives and, in chusing them, they will give up 

entirely their liberty and only enjoy the poor privilege of naming, at 

certain intervals, a set of men whom they are to serve, and who are to 

dispose, at their discretion, of their property and lives.



The causes of internal slavery now mentioned prevail, some of them more and 

others less, in different communities. With respect, in particular, to a 

government by representation, it is evident that it deviates more or less 

from liberty in proportion as the representation is more or less imperfect. 

And, if imperfect in every one of the instances I have recited, that is, if 

inadequate and partial, subject to no controul from the people, corruptly 

chosen for long terms, and, after being chosen, venal and dependent — in 

these circumstances a representation becomes an imposition and a nusance and 

government by it is as inconsistent with true liberty as the most arbitrary 

and despotic government.



I have been so much misunderstood on this subject that it is necessary I 

should particularly observe here that my intention in this account has been 

merely to shew what is requisite to constitute a state or a government free, 

and not at all to define the best form of government. These are two very 

different points. The first is attended with few difficulties. A free state 

is a state self-governed in the manner I have described. But it may be free 

and yet not enjoy the best constitution of government. Liberty, though the 

most essential requisite in government, is not the only one. Wisdom, union, 

dispatch, secrecy, and vigour are likewise requisite, and that is the best 

form of government which best unites all these qualities or which, to an 

equal and perfect liberty adds the greatest wisdom in deliberating and 

resolving, and the greatest union, force and expedition in executing.



In short, my whole meaning is that the will of the community alone ought to 

govern, but that there are different methods of obtaining and executing 

this will, of which those are the best which collect into it most of the 

knowledge and experience of the community, and at the same time carry it 

into execution with most dispatch and vigour.



It has been the employment of the wisest men in all ages to contrive plans 

for this purpose, and the happiness of society depends so much on civil 

government, that it is not possible the human understanding should be 

better employed.



I have said in the Observations on civil liberty, that 'in a free state 

every man is his own legislator'. I have been happy in since finding the 

same assertion in Montesquieu, and also in Mr. Justice Blackstone's 

Commentaries.[6] It expresses the fundamental principle of our constitution; 

and the meaning of it is plainly that every independent agent in a free 

state ought to have a share in the government of it, either by himself 

personally, or by a body of representatives in chusing whom he has a free 

vote, and therefore all the concern and weight which are possible and 

consistent with the equal rights of every other member of the state. But 

though the meaning of this assertion is so obvious, and the truth of it 

undeniable, it has been much exclaimed against, and occasioned no small part 

of the opposition which has been made to the principles advanced in the 

Observations on civil liberty. One even of the most candid as well as the 

ablest of my opponents (whose difference of opinion from me I sincerely 

lament) has intimated that it implies that, in a free state thieves and 

pick-pockets have a right to make laws for themselves.[7] The public will 

not, I hope, wonder that I chuse to take little notice of such objections.



It has been said that the liberty for which I have pleaded, is 'a right or 

power in every one to act as he likes without any restraint'. However 

unfairly this representation has been given of my account of liberty, I am 

ready to adopt it, provided it is understood with a few limitations. Moral 

liberty, in particular, cannot be better defined than by calling it 'a power 

in every one to do as he likes'. My opponents in general seem to be greatly 

puzzled with this, and I am afraid it will signify little to attempt 

explaining it to them by saying that every man's will, if perfectly free 

from restraint, would carry him invariably to rectitude and virtue and that 

no one who acts wickedly acts as he likes, but is conscious of a tyranny 

within him overpowering his judgment and carrying him into a conduct for 

which he condemns and hates himself. The things that he would he does not, 

and the things that he would not, those he does. He is, therefore, a slave 

in the properest sense.



Religious liberty, likewise, is a power of acting as we like in religion, 

or of professing and practising that mode of religious worship which we 

think most acceptable to the Deity. But here the limitation to which I have 

referred must be attended to. All have the same unalienable right to this 

liberty, and, consequently, no one has a right to such a use of it as shall 

take it from others. Within this limit, or as far as he does not encroach on 

the equal liberty of others, everyone has a right to do as he pleases in 

religion. That the right to religious liberty goes as far as this every one 

must allow who is not a friend to persecution; and that it cannot go farther 

is self-evident; for if it did, there would be a contradiction in the nature 

of things, and it would be true that every one had a right to enjoy what 

every one had a right to destroy. If, therefore, the religious faith of any 

person leads him to hurt another because he professes a different faith, or 

if it carries him, in any instances, to intolerance, liberty itself requires 

he should be restrained and that, in such instances, he should lose his 

liberty.



All this is equally applicable to the liberty of man in his civil capacity; 

and it is a maxim true universally, 'that as far as any one does not molest 

others, others ought not to molest him'. All have a right to the free and 

undisturbed possession of their good names, properties and lives, and it is 

the right all have to this that gives the right to establish civil 

government, which is or ought to be nothing but an institution (by laws and 

provisions made with common consent) for guarding this right against 

invasion, for giving to every one, in temporals and spirituals, the power of 

commanding his own conduct, or of acting as he pleases and going where he 

will, provided he does not run foul of others. Just government, therefore, 

does not infringe liberty, but establishes it. It does not take away the 

rights of mankind but protect and confirm them. I will add that it does not 

even create any new subordinations of particular men to one another, but 

only gives security in those several stations, whether of authority and 

preeminence, or of subordination and dependence, which nature has 

established and which must have arisen among mankind whether civil 

government had been instituted or not. But this goes beyond my purpose in 

this place and more will be said of it presently.



To sum up the whole, our ideas of civil liberty will be rendered more 

distinct by considering it under the three following views: the liberty of 

the citizen, the liberty of the government, and the liberty of the 

community. A citizen is free when the power of commanding his own conduct 

and the quiet possession of his life, person, property and good name are 

secured to him by being his own legislator in the sense explained in page 

80. A government is free when constituted in such a manner as to give this 

security. And the freedom of the community or nation is the same among 

nations that the freedom of a citizen is among his fellow-citizens. It is 

not, therefore, as observed on page 77, the mere possession of liberty that 

denominates a citizen or a community free, but that security for the 

possession of it which arises from such a free government as I have 

described, and which takes place, when there exists no power that can take 

it away.



It is in the same sense that the mere performance of virtuous actions is 

not what denominates an agent virtuous, but the temper and habits from 

whence they spring, or that inward constitution, and right balance of the 

affections, which secure the practice of virtue, produce stability of 

conduct, and constitute a character.



I cannot imagine how it can be disputed whether this is a just account of 

the nature of liberty. It has been already given more briefly in the 

Observations on civil liberty and it is with reluctance I have repeated so 

much of what has been there said. But the wrong apprehensions which have 

been entertained of my sentiments have rendered this necessary. And, for the 

same reason, I am obliged to go on to the subject of the next section.



                           Sect. II Of the Value of Liberty, and the 

Excellence of a Free Government



Having drawn in the preceding section what liberty is, the next question to 

be considered is, how far it is valuable.



Nothing need be said to shew the value of the three kinds of liberty which 

I have distinguished under the names of physical, moral, and religious 

liberty. They are, without doubt, the foundation of all the happiness and 

dignity of men as reasonable and moral agents and the subjects of the Deity. 

It is, in like manner, true of civil liberty that it is the foundation of 

the whole happiness and dignity of men as members of civil society and the 

subjects of civil government.



First, it is civil liberty, or such free government as I have described, 

that alone can give just security against oppression. One government is 

better than another in proportion as it gives more of this security. It is, 

on this account, that the supreme government of the Deity is perfect. There 

is not a possibility of being oppressed or aggrieved by it. Subjection to it 

is the same with complete freedom.



Were there any men on whose superior wisdom and goodness we might absolutely 

depend, they could not possess too much power and the love of liberty itself 

would engage us to fly to them and to put ourselves under their direction. 

But such are the principles that govern human nature, such the weakness and 

folly of men, such their love of domination, selfishness, and depravity, 

that none of them can be raised to an elevation above others without the 

utmost danger. The constant experience of the world has verified this and 

proved that nothing intoxicates the human mind so much as power, and that 

men, when they have got possession of it, have seldom failed to employ it 

in grinding their fellow-men and gratifying the vilest passions. In the 

establishment, therefore, of civil government it would be preposterous to 

rely on the discretion of any men. If a people would obtain security against 

oppression, they must seek it in themselves and never part with the powers 

of government out of their own hands. It is there only they can be safe. A 

people will never oppress themselves or invade their own rights. But if they 

trust the arbitrary will of any body or succession of men, they trust 

enemies and it may be depended on that the worst evils will follow.



It follows from hence that a free government is the only government which 

is consistent with the ends of government. Men combine into communities and 

institute government to obtain the peaceable enjoyment of their rights and 

to defend themselves against injustice and violence; and when they endeavour 

to secure these ends by such a free government as I have described, improved 

by such arrangements as may have a tendency to preserve it from confusion 

and to concentrate in it as much as possible of the wisdom and force of the 

community, in this case, it is a most rational and important institution. 

But when the contrary is done and the benefits of government are sought by 

establishing a government of men, and not of laws made with common consent, 

it becomes a most absurd institution. It is seeking a remedy for oppression 

in one quarter by establishing it in another, and avoiding the outrages of 

little plunderers by constituting a set of great plunderers. It is, in 

short, the folly of giving up liberty in order to maintain liberty, and, in 

the very act of endeavouring to secure the most valuable rights, to arm a 

body of enemies with power to destroy them.



I can easily believe that mankind in the first and rude state of society 

might act thus irrationally. Absolute governments, being the simplest forms 

of government, might be the first that were established. A people having 

experienced the happy effects of the wisdom or the valour of particular 

men, might be led to trust them with unlimited power as their rulers and 

legislators. But they would soon find reason to repent. And the time, I 

hope, may come when mankind in general, taught by long and dear experience, 

and weary of the abuses of power under slavish governments, will learn to 

detest them, and never to give up that self-government which, whether we 

consider men in their private or collective capacities, is the first of all 

the blessings they can possess.



Again, free governments are the only governments which give scope to the 

exertion of the powers of men and are favourable to their improvement. The 

members of free states, knowing their rights to be secure and that they 

shall enjoy without molestation the fruits of every acquisition they can 

make, are encouraged and incited to industry. Being at liberty to push their 

researches as far as they can into all subjects, and to guide themselves by 

their own judgments in all their religious and civil concerns, while they 

allow others to do the same, error and superstition must lose ground. 

Conscious of being their own governors, bound to obey no laws except such as 

they have given their consent to, and subject to no controul from the 

arbitrary will of any of their fellow-citizens, they possess an elevation 

and force of mind which must make them great and happy. How different is the 

situation of the vassals of despotic power? Like cattle inured to the yoke, 

they are driven on in one track, afraid of speaking or even thinking on the 

most interesting points, looking up continually to a poor creature who is 

their master, their powers fettered, and some of the noblest springs of 

action in human nature rendered useless within them. There is nothing indeed 

more humiliating than that debasement of mankind which takes place in such 

situations.



It has been observed of free governments that they are often torn by 

violent contests which render them dreadful scenes of distress and anarchy. 

But it ought to be considered that this has not been owing to the nature of 

such governments, but to their having been ill-modelled and wanting those 

arrangements and supplemental checks which are necessary to constitute a 

wise form of government. There is no reason to doubt but that free 

governments may be so contrived as to exclude the greatest part of the 

struggles and tumults which have arisen in free states, and, as far as they 

cannot be excluded, they will do more good than harm. They will occasion 

the display of powers and produce exertions which can never be seen in the 

still scenes of life. They are the active efforts of health and vigour and 

always tend to preserve and purify. Whereas, on the contrary, the quiet 

which prevails under slavish governments and which may seem to be a 

recommendation of them, proceeds from an ignominious tameness, and 

stagnation of the human faculties. It is the same with the stillness of 

midnight, or the silence and torpor of death.



Further, free governments are the only governments which are consistent 

with the natural equality of mankind. This is a principle which, in my 

opinion, has been assumed with the greatest reason by some of the best 

writers on government. But the meaning of it is not that all the 

subordinations in human life owe their existence to the institution of civil 

government. The superiorities and distinctions arising from the relation of 

parents to their children, from the differences in the personal qualities 

and abilities of men, and from servitudes founded on voluntary compacts, 

must have existed in a state of nature and would now take place were all men 

so virtuous as to leave no occasion for civil government. - The maxim, 

therefore, 'that all men are naturally equal' refers to their state when 

grown up to maturity and become independent agents, capable of acquiring 

property, and of directing their own conduct. And the sense of it is that no 

one of them is constituted by the author of nature the vassal or subject of 

another, or has any right to give law to him, or, without his consent, to 

take away any part of his property, or to abridge him of his liberty. In a 

state of nature one man may have received benefits from another, and this 

would lay the person obliged under an obligation of gratitude, but it would 

not make his benefactor his master, or give him a right to judge for him 

what grateful returns he ought to make and to extort them from him. In a 

state of nature, also, one man may possess more strength, or more knowledge, 

or more property than another, and this would give him weight and influence, 

but it would not give him any degree of authority. There would not be one 

human being who would be bound to obey him. A person, likewise in a state of 

nature, might let out his labour or give up to another, on certain 

stipulated terms, the direction of his conduct, and this would so far bring 

him into that station of a servant, but being done by himself, and on such 

terms only as he chuses to consent to, it is an instance of his liberty, and 

he will always have it in his power to quit the service he has chosen or to 

enter into another.



This equality or independence of men is one of their essential rights. It 

is the same with that equality or independence which now actually takes 

place among the different states or kingdoms of the world with respect to 

one another. Mankind came with this right from the hands of their maker. But 

all governments which are not free are totally inconsistent with it. They 

imply that there are some of mankind who are born with an inherent right of 

dominion, and that the rest are born under an obligation to subjection, and 

that civil government, instead of being founded on any compact, is nothing 

but the exercise of this right. Some such sentiments seem to be now reviving 

in this country and even to be growing fashionable. Most of the writers 

against Observations on civil liberty argue on the supposition of a right in 

the few to govern the many, independently of their own choice. Some of these 

writers have gone so far as to assert, in plain language, that civil 

governors derive their power immediately from the Deity, and are his agents 

or representatives, accountable to him only. And one courtly writer, in 

particular, has honoured them with the appellation of our political gods. 

Probably, this is the idea of civil governors entertained by the author 

[i.e. John Lind] of the Remarks on the Acts of the Thirteenth Parliament of 

Great Britain; for it is not easy to imagine on what other ground he can 

assert, that property and civil rights are derived from civil governors and 

their gifts to mankind.



If these sentiments are just, civil governors are indeed an awful order of 

beings, and it becomes us to enquire with anxiety who they are and how we 

may distinguish them from the rest of mankind. Shall we take for such all, 

whether men or women, whom we find in actual possession of civil power, 

whatever may be their characters or however they may have acquired their 

power? This is too extravagant to be asserted. It would legalize the 

American Congress. There must be some pretenders among civil governors, and 

it is necessary we should know how to discover them. It is incredible that 

the Deity should not have made this easy to us by some particular marks and 

distinctions which point out to our notice his real viceregents, just as he 

has pointed out man, by his figure and superior powers, to be the governor 

of the lower creatures. In particular, these persons must be possessed of 

wisdom and goodness superior to those of the rest of mankind for, without 

this, a grant of the powers they are supposed to possess would be nothing 

but a grant of power to injure and oppress, without remedy and without 

bounds. But this is a test by which they cannot be tryed. It would leave but 

few of them in possession of the places they hold and the rights they claim. 

It is not in the high ranks of life, or among the great and mighty, that we 

are to seek wisdom and goodness. These love the shade and fly from 

observation. They are to be found chiefly in the middle ranks of life and 

among the contemplative and philosophical who decline public employments and 

look down with pity on the scramble for power among mankind and the 

restlessness and misery of ambition. It is proper to add that it has never 

been hitherto understood that any superiority in intellectual and moral 

qualifications lays the foundation of a claim to dominion.



It is not then, by their superior endowments that the Deity intended to 

point out to us the few whom he has destined to command the many. But in 

what other manner could they be distinguished? Must we embrace Sir Robert 

Filmer's Patriarchal scheme? One would have thought, that Mr. Locke has said 

more than enough to expose this stupid scheme. One of my opponents, however, 

has adopted it, and the necessary inference from it is that, as there is 

but now one lineal descendant from Adam's eldest son, there can be but one 

rightful monarch of the world. But I will not abuse my reader's patience by 

saying more on this subject. I am sorry that in this country there should be 

any occasion for taking notice of principles so absurd and at the same time 

so pernicious. I say pernicious for they imply, that King James the Second 

was deposed at the Revolution unlawfully and impiously, that the present 

King is an usurper, and that the present government, being derived from 

rebellion and treason, has no right to our allegiance.



Without all doubt, it is the choice of the people that makes civil 

governors. The people are the spring of all civil power and they have a 

right to modify it as they please.



Mankind being naturally equal according to the foregoing explanation, civil 

government, in its genuine intention, is an institution for maintaining 

that equality by defending it against the encroachments of violence and 

tyranny. All the subordinations and distinctions in society previous to its 

establishment, it leaves as it found them, only confirming and protecting 

them. It makes no man master of another. It elevates no person above his 

fellow citizens. On the contrary, it levels all by fixing all in a state of 

subjection to one common authority. The authority of the laws. The will of 

the community. Taxes are given, not imposed. Laws are regulations of common 

choice, not injunctions of superior power. The authority of magistrates is 

the authority of the state, and their salaries are wages paid by the state 

for executing its will and doing its business. They do not govern the state. 

It is the state governs them, and had they just ideas of their own stations 

they would consider themselves as no less properly servants of the public 

than the labourers who work upon its roads or the soldiers who fight its 

battles. A king, in particular, is only the first executive officer, the 

creature of the law, and as much accountable and subject to the law as the 

meanest peasant. And were kings properly attentive to their duty, and as 

anxious as they should be about performing it, they could not easily avoid 

sinking under the weight of their charge.



The account now given is, I am fully persuaded, in every particular, a true 

account of what civil government ought to be, and it teaches us plainly the 

great importance and excellence of free government. It is this only that 

answers the description I have given of government, that secures against 

oppression, that gives room for that elevation of spirit and that exertion 

of the human powers which is necessary to human improvement, or that is 

consistent with the ends of government, with the rights of mankind, and 

their natural equality and independence. Free government, therefore, only, 

is just and legitimate government.



It follows farther from the preceding account that no people can lawfully 

surrender or cede their liberty. This must appear to anyone who will 

consider that when a people make such a cession and the extensive powers of 

government are trusted to the discretion of any man or body of men, they 

part with the powers of life and death and give themselves up a prey to 

oppression, that they make themselves the instruments of any injustice in 

which their rulers may chuse to employ them, by arming them against 

neighbouring states, and also, that they do this not only for themselves, 

but for their posterity. I will add that if such a cession has been made, or 

if through any causes a people have lost their liberty, they must have a 

right to emancipate themselves as soon as they can. In attempting this, 

indeed, they ought to consider the sufferings which may attend the struggle, 

and the evils which may arise from a defeat.



But at the same time it will be proper to consider that the sufferings 

attending such a struggle must be temporary, whereas the evils to be avoided 

are permanent, and that liberty is a blessing so inestimable, 'that whenever 

there appears any probability of covering it, a people should be willing to 

run many hazards, and even not to repine at the greatest expence of blood or 

treasure'.



I am very sensible that civil government, as it actually exists in the 

world, by no means answers to the account I have given of it. Instead of 

being an institution for guarding the weak against the strong, we find an 

institution which makes the strong yet stronger and gives them a 

systematical power of oppressing. Instead of promoting virtue and 

restraining vice, encouraging free enquiry, establishing liberty, and 

protecting alike all peaceable persons in the enjoyment of their civil and 

religious rights, we see a savage despotism, under its name, laying waste 

the earth, unreasonably elevating some and depressing others, discouraging 

improvement, and trampling upon every human right. That force of states 

which ought to be applied only to their own defence, we see continually 

applied to the purpose of attack and used to extend dominion by conquering 

neighbouring communities. Civil governors consider not themselves as 

servants but as masters. Their stations they think they hold in their own 

right. The people they reckon their property and their possessions a common 

stock from which they have a right to take what they will, and of which no 

more belongs to any individual than they are pleased to leave him.



What a miserable perversion is this of a most important institution? What a 

grievance is government so degenerated? But this perversion furnishes no 

just argument against the truth of the account I have given. Similar 

degeneracies have prevailed in other instances of no less importance.



Reason in man, like the will of the community in the political world, was 

intended to give law to his whole conduct, and to be the supreme 

controuling power within him. The passions are subordinate powers, or an 

executive force under the direction of reason, kindly given to be, as it 

were, wind and tide to the vessel of life in its course through this world 

to future honour and felicity. How different from this is the actual state 

of man? Those powers which were destined to govern are made to serve, and 

those powers which were destined to serve are allowed to govern. Passion 

guides human life and most men make no other use of their reason than to 

justify whatever their interest or their inclinations determine them to do.



Religion likewise (the perfection of reason) is, in its true nature, the 

inspirer of humanity and joy and the spring of all that can be great and 

worthy in a character, and were we to see its genuine effects among mankind, 

we should see nothing but peace and hope and justice and kindness, founded 

on that regard to God and to his will which is the noblest principle of 

action. But how different an aspect does religion actually wear? What is it, 

too generally, in the practice of mankind, but a gloomy and cruel 

superstition, rendering them severe and sour, teaching them to compound for 

wickedness by punctuality in religious forms, and prompting them to harrass, 

persecute and exterminate one another?



The same perversion has taken place still more remarkably in Christianity; 

the perfection of religion. Jesus Christ has established among Christians an 

absolute equality. He has declared that they have but one master, even 

himself, and that they are all brethren, and, therefore, has commanded them 

not to be called masters and, instead of assuming authority over one 

another, to be ready to wash one another's feet.



The princes of the Gentiles, he says, exercise lordship over them and are 

flattered with high titles; but he has ordained that it shall not be so 

amongst his followers, and that if any one of them would be chief, he must 

be the servant of all. The clergy in his church are, by his appointment, no 

more than a body of men, chosen by the different societies of Christians, to 

conduct their worship and to promote their spiritual improvement without any 

other powers than those of persuasion and instruction. It is expressly 

directed that they shall not make themselves Lords of God's heritage, or 

exercise dominion over the faith of Christians, but be helpers of their joy. 

Who can, without astonishment, compare these appointments of Christianity 

with the events which have happened in the Christian church? That religion 

which thus inculcates humility and forbids all domination, and the end of 

which was to produce peace on earth, and good will among men, has been 

turned into an occasion of animosities the most dreadful and of ambition the 

most destructive. Notwithstanding its mildness and benignity and the 

tendency it has to extinguish in the human breast pride and malevolence, it 

has been the means of arming the spirits of men with unrelenting fury 

against one another. Instead of peace, it has brought a sword, and its 

professors, instead of washing one another's feet, have endeavoured to tread 

on one another's necks. The ministers, in particular, of Christianity, 

became, soon after its establishment, an independent body of spiritual 

rulers, nominating one another in perpetual succession, claiming, by divine 

right, the highest powers and forming a hierarchy which by degrees produced 

a despotism more extravagant than any that ever before existed on this 

earth.



A considerate person must find difficulties in enquiring into the causes 

and reasons of that depravity of human nature which has produced these evils 

and rendered the best institutions liable to be so corrupted. This enquiry 

is much the same with the enquiry into the origin of moral evil which has in 

all ages puzzled human wisdom. I have at present nothing to do with it. It 

is enough for my purpose in these observations that the facts I have 

mentioned prove undeniably that the state of civil government in the world 

affords no reason for concluding that I have not given a just account of its 

true nature and origin.



I have shewn at the beginning of this section that it is free government 

alone that can preserve from oppression, give security to the rights of a 

people, and answer the ends of government. It is necessary I should here 

observe that I would not be understood to mean that there can be no kind or 

degree of security for the rights of a people under any government which 

cannot be denominated free. Even under an absolute monarchy or an 

aristocracy there may be laws and customs which, having gained sacredness by 

time, may restrain oppression and afford some important securities. Under 

government by representation there must be still greater checks on 

oppression provided the representation, though partial, is uncorrupt and 

also frequently changed. In these circumstances there may be so much of a 

common interest between the body of representatives and the people, and they 

may stand so much on one ground, that there will be no temptations to 

oppression. The taxes which the representative body impose they will be 

obliged themselves to pay, and the laws they make, they will make with the 

prospect of soon returning to the situation of those for whom they make 

them, and of being themselves governed by them.



It seems particularly worth notice here that as far as there are any such 

checks under any government they are the consequence of its partaking so far 

of liberty, and that the security attending them is more or less in 

proportion as a government partakes more or less of liberty. If, under an 

absolute government, fundamental laws and long established institutions give 

security in any instances, it is because they are held so sacred that a 

despot is afraid to violate them, or, in other words, because a people, not 

being completely subdued, have still some controul over the government. The 

like is more evidently true under mixed governments of which a house of 

representatives, fairly chosen and freely deliberating and resolving, forms 

a part, and it is one of the highest recommendations of such governments 

that, even when the representation is most imperfect, they have a tendency 

to give more security than any other governments. Under other governments it 

is the fear of exciting insurrections by contradicting established maxims 

that restrains oppression. But, as, in general, a people will bear much, and 

are seldom driven to resistance till grievances become intolerable, their 

rulers can venture far without danger, and, therefore, under such 

governments are very imperfectly restrained. On the contrary, if there is an 

honest representation, vested with powers like to those of our House of 

Commons, the redress of grievances, as soon as they appear, will be always 

easily attainable, and the rulers of a state will be under a necessity of 

regarding the first beginnings of discontent. Such, and greater than can be 

easily described, are the advantages of even an imperfect representation in 

a government.



How great then must be the blessing of a complete representation?[8] It is 

this only gives full security and that can properly denominate a people 

free.



It deserves to be added here, that as there can be no private character so 

abandoned as to want all virtue, so there can be no government so slavish 

as to exclude every restraint upon oppression. The most slavish and, 

therefore, the worst governments are those under which there is nothing to 

set bounds to oppression besides the discretion and humanity of those who 

govern. Of this kind are the following governments.



First, all governments purely despotic. These may be either monarchical or 

aristocratical. The latter are the worst, agreeably to a common 

observation, that it is better to have one master than many. The appetites 

of a single despot may be easily satiated, but this may be impossible where 

there is a multitude.



Secondly, all provincial governments. The history of mankind proves these 

to be the worst of all governments and that no oppression is equal to that 

which one people are capable of practising towards another ... Bodies of men 

do not feel for one another as individuals do. The odium of a cruel action, 

when shared among many, is not regarded. The master of slaves working on a 

plantation, though he may keep them down to prevent their becoming strong 

enough to emancipate themselves, yet is led by interest, as well as 

humanity, to govern them with such moderations as to preserve their use. But 

these causes will produce more of this good effect when the slaves are under 

the eye of their proprietor and form a part of his family than when they are 

settled on a distant plantation where he can know little of them and is 

obliged to trust them to the management of rapacious servants.



It is particularly observable here that free governments, though happier in 

themselves, are more oppressive to their provinces than despotic 

governments. Or, in other words, that the subjects of free states are worse 

slaves than the objects of slaves not free. This is one of the observations 

which Mr. Hume represents as an universal axiom in politicks.[9] 'Though', 

says he, 'free governments have been commonly the most happy for those who 

partake of their freedom, yet are they the most oppressive and ruinous to 

their provinces, and this observation may be fixed as an universal axiom in 

politics. What cruel tyrants were the Romans over the world during the time 

of their commonwealth? After the dissolution of the commonwealth the Roman 

yoke became easier upon the provinces, as Tacitus informs us, and it may be 

observed, that many of the worst Emperors (Domitian, for instance) were 

very careful to prevent all oppression of the provinces. The oppression and 

tyranny of the Carthaginians over their future states in Africa went so far 

as we learn from Polybius ... that not content with exacting the half of all 

the produce of the ground, which of itself was a very high rent, they also 

loaded them with many other taxes. If we pass from antient to modem times we 

shall always find the observation to hold. The provinces of absolute 

monarchies are always better treated than those of free states.'



Thirdly, among the worst sorts of governments I reckon all governments by a 

corrupt representation. There is no instance in which the trite observation 

is more true than in this, 'that the best things when corrupted become the 

worst'. A corrupt representation is so far from being any defence against 

oppression that it is a support to it. Long established customs, in this 

case, afford no security because, under the sanction of such a 

representation, they may be easily undermined or counteracted, nor is there 

any injury to a people which, with the help of such an instrument, may not 

be committed with safety. It is not, however, every degree of corruption 

that will destroy the use of a representation and turn it into an evil so 

dreadful. In order to this, corruption must pass a certain limit. But every 

degree of it tends to this, saps the foundation of liberty and poisons the 

fountain of legislation. And when it gets to its last stage and has 

proceeded its utmost length, when, in particular, the means by which 

candidates get themselves chosen are such as admit the worst, but exclude 

the best men, a House of Representatives becomes little better than a sink 

into which is collected all that is most worthless and vile in a kingdom. 

There cannot be a greater calamity than such a government. It is impossible 

there should be a condition more wretched than that of a nation, once free, 

so degenerated.



                         Conclusion



It is time to dismiss this subject. But I cannot take a final leave of it, 

(and probably of all subjects of this kind) without adding the following 

reflections on our own state in this kingdom.



It is well known, that Montesquieu has paid the highest compliment to this 

country by describing its constitution of government in giving an account 

of a perfect government, and by drawing the character of its inhabitants, in 

giving an account of the manners and characters of a free people. 'All (he 

says) having, in free states, a share in government, and the laws not being 

made more for some than others they consider themselves as monarchs, and are 

more properly confederates than fellow-subjects. No one citizen being 

subject to another, each sets a greater value on his liberty than on the 

glory of any of his fellow-citizens. Being independent, they are proud for 

the pride of kings is founded on their independence. They are in a constant 

ferment and believe themselves in danger, even in those moments when they 

are most safe. They reason, but it is indifferent whether they reason well 

or ill. It is sufficient that they do reason. Hence springs that liberty 

which is their security. This state, however, will lose its liberty. It will 

perish, when the legislative power shall become more corrupt than the 

executive.'[10]



Such is the account which this great writer gave, many years ago, of the 

British constitution and people. We may learn from it that we have nothing 

to fear from that disposition to examine every public measure, to censure 

ministers of state, and to be restless and clamorous which has hitherto 

characterized us. On the contrary, we shall have every thing to fear when 

this disposition is lost. As soon as a people grow secure and cease to be 

quick in taking alarms they are undone. A free constitution of government 

cannot be preserved without an earnest and unremitting jealousy. Our 

constitution, in particular, is so excellent, that it is the properest 

object of such jealousy. For my own part, I admire so much the general frame 

and principles of it that I could be almost satisfied with that 

representation of the kingdom which forms the most important part of it, had 

I no other objection to this representation than its inadequateness. Did it 

consist of a body of men, fairly elected for a short term, by a number of 

independent persons, of all orders in every part of the kingdom, equal to 

the number of the present voters and were it, after being elected, under no 

undue influence, it would be a security of such importance that I should be 

less disposed to complain of the injustice done by its own inadequateness, 

to the greatest part of the kingdom by depriving them of one of their 

natural and unalienable rights. To such a body of representatives we might 

commit, with confidence, the guardianship of our rights knowing that, having 

one interest with the rest of the state, they could not violate them or that 

if they ever did, a little time would bring the power of gaining redress 

without tumult or violence. Happy the people so blessed. If wise, they will 

endeavour, by every possible method, to preserve the purity of their 

representation and, should it have degenerated, they will lose no time in 

effecting a reformation of it. But if, unhappily, infection should have 

pervaded the whole mass of the state and there should be no room to hope for 

any reformation, it will be still some consolation to reflect, that slavery, 

in all its rigour, will not immediately follow. Between the time in which 

the securities of liberty are undermined and its final subversion there is 

commonly a flattering interval during which the enjoyment of liberty may be 

continued in consequence of fundamental laws and rooted habits which cannot 

be at once exterminated. And this interval is longer or shorter according as 

the progress of corruption is more or less rapid and men in power more or 

less attentive to improve favourable opportunities. The government of this 

country, in particular, is so well balanced, and the institutions of our 

common law are so admirable and have taken such deep root, that we can bear 

much decay before our liberties fall. Fall, however, they must, if our 

public affairs do not soon take a new turn. That very evil which, according 

to the great writer I have quoted, is to produce our ruin, we see working 

every where and increasing every day. The following facts, among many 

others, shew too plainly whither we are tending and how far we are advanced. 



First, it seems to me that a general indifference is gaining ground fast 

among us. This is the necessary effect of increasing luxury and dissipation, 

but there is another cause of it which I think of with particular regret. In 

consequence of having been often duped by false patriots and found that the 

leaders of opposition, when they get into places, forget all their former 

declarations, the nation has been led to a conviction that all patriotism is 

an imposture and all opposition to the measures of government nothing but a 

struggle for power and its emoluments. The honest and independent part of 

the nation entertain at present most of this conviction and, therefore, 

having few public men to whom they can look with confidence, they give up 

all zeal, and sink into inactivity and despondence.



Secondly, at the Revolution, the House of Commons acquired its just weight 

in the constitution. And, for some years afterwards, it was often giving 

much trouble to men in power. Of late, it is well known that means have been 

tryed and a system adopted for quieting it. I will not say with what 

success. But I must say that the men whose policy this has been have struck 

at the very heart of public liberty and are the worst traitors this kingdom 

ever saw. 'If ever (says Judge Blackstone) it should happen, that the 

independency of any one of the three branches of our legislature should be 

lost, or that it should become subservient to the views of either of the 

other two, there would soon be an end of our constitution. The legislature 

would be changed from that which was originally set up by the general 

consent and fundamental act of the society, and such a change, however 

effected, is according to Mr. Locke (who perhaps carries his theory too far) 

at once an entire dissolution of the bonds of government, and the people are 

thereby reduced to a state of anarchy, with liberty to constitute themselves 

a new legislative power.'[11]



Thirdly, soon after the Revolution, bills for triennial parliaments passed 

both Houses, in opposition to the court. At the Accession, septennial 

parliaments were established. Since this last period many attempts have been 

made by the friends of the constitution to restore triennial parliaments 

and, formerly, it was not without difficulty that the ministry were able to 

defeat these attempts. The division in the House of Commons in 1735 on a 

bill for this purpose was 247 to 184. I need not say that now all such 

attempts drop of themselves. So much are the sentiments of our 

representatives changed in this instance that the motion for such a bill, 

annually made by a worthy member of the House of Commons [John Sawbridge], 

can scarcely produce a serious debate, or gain the least attention. For 

several years, at the beginning of the last reign, the House of Commons 

constantly passed pension and place bills which were as constantly rejected 

by the House of Lords. At present, no one is so romantic as ever to think of 

introducing any such bills into the House of Commons.



Fourthly, standing armies have in all ages been destructive to the 

liberties of the states into which they have been admitted. Montesquieu 

observes that the preservation of liberty in England requires that it should 

have no land forces. Dr. Ferguson calls the establishment of standing armies 

'a fatal refinement in the present state of civil government.' Mr. Hume 

pronounces 'our standing army a moral distemper in the British constitution, 

of which it must inevitably perish.' Formerly the nation was apprehensive of 

this danger and the standing army was a constant subject of warm debate in 

both Houses of Parliament. The principal reason then assigned for continuing 

it was the security of the House of Hanover against the friends of the 

Pretender. This is a reason which now exists no more, the House of Hanover 

being so well established as not to want any such security. The standing 

army also is now more numerous and formidable than ever, and yet all 

opposition to it is lost and it is become in a manner a part of the 

constitution.



Fifthly, for many years after the accession the national debt was thought 

an evil so alarming that the reduction of it was recommended every year from 

the throne to the attention of Parliament as an object of the last 

importance. The fund appropriated to this purpose was called the only hope 

of the kingdom and when the practice of alienating it begun, it was reckoned 

a kind of sacrilege and zealously opposed in the House of Commons and 

protested against in the House of Lords. But now, though the debt is almost 

tripled, we sit under it with perfect indifference and the sacred fund which 

repeated laws had ordered to be applied to no other purposes than the 

redemption of it, is always alienated of course and become a constant part 

of the current supplies and much more an encouragement to dissipation than a 

preservative from bankruptcy.



Sixthly, nothing is more the duty of the representatives of a nation than 

to keep a strict eye over the expenditure of the money granted for public 

services. In the reign of King William the House of Commons passed almost 

every year bills for appointing commissioners for taking, stating and 

examining the public accounts and, particularly, the army and navy debts and 

contracts. In the reign of Queen Ann such bills became less frequent. But 

since the Accession, only two motions have been made for such bills, one in 

1715, and the other in 1741, and both were rejected.



Seventhly, I hope I may add that there was a time when the kingdom could 

not have been brought to acquiesce in what was done in the case of the 

Middlesex election. This is a precedent which, by giving the House of 

Commons the power of excluding its members at discretion and of introducing 

others in their room on a minority of votes, has a tendency to make it a 

self-created House and to destroy entirely the right of representation. And 

a few more such precedents would completely overthrow the constitution.



Lastly, I cannot help mentioning here the addition which has been lately 

made to the power of the Crown by throwing into its hands the East-India 

Company. Nothing more unfavourable to the security of public liberty has 

been done since the Revolution. And should our statesmen, thus strengthened 

by the patronage of the East, be farther strengthened by the conquest and 

patronage of the West, they will indeed have no small reason for triumph and 

there will be little left to protect us against the encroachments and 

usurpations of power. Rome sunk into slavery in consequence of enlarging its 

territories and becoming the center of the wealth of conquered provinces, 

and the seat of universal empire. It seems the appointment of Providence 

that free states, when, not contented with self-government and prompted by 

the love of dominion, they make themselves masters of other states shall 

lose liberty at the same time that they take it away and, by subduing, be 

themselves subdued. Distant and dependent provinces can be governed only by 

a military force. And a military force which governs abroad will soon govern 

at home. The Romans were so sensible of this that they made it treason for 

any of their generals to march their armies over the Rubicon into Italy. 

Caesar, therefore, when he came to this river, hesitated; but he passed it, 

and enslaved his country.



'Among the circumstances (says Dr. Ferguson) which in the event of national 

prosperity and in the result of commercial arts, lead to the establishment 

of despotism, there is none perhaps that arrives at this termination with so 

sure an aim as the perpetual enlargement of territory. In every state the 

freedom of its members depends on the balance and adjustment of its interior 

parts, and the existence of any such freedom among mankind depends on the 

balance of nations. In the progress of conquest those who are subdued are 

said to have lost their liberties. But, from the history of mankind, to 

conquer or to be conquered has appeared in effect the same.'[12]



Many more facts of this kind might easily be enumerated, but these are 

sufficient. They shew with sad evidence how fast we have, for some rime, 

been advancing towards the greatest of all public calamities.



We may also infer from the preceding observations that there is only one 

way in which our deliverance is possible, and that is, by restoring our 

grand national security. This is the object which our great men in 

opposition ought to hold forth to the kingdom and to bind themselves by some 

decisive tests to do all they can to obtain. That patriotism must be 

spurious which does not carry its views principally to this. Without it, 

nothing is of great importance to the kingdom and even an accommodation with 

America would only preserve a limb and save from present danger, while a 

gangrene was left to consume the vitals.



But probably we are gone too far and corruption has struck its roots too 

deep to leave us much room for hope. Mr. Hume has observed that as the 

affairs of this country are not likely to take a turn favourable to the 

establishment of a perfect plan of liberty, 'an absolute monarchy is the 

easiest death, the true euthanasia of the British constitution.'[13] If this 

observation is just our constitution (should no great calamity intervene) is 

likely, in some future period, to receive a very quiet dissolution. At 

present, however, it must be acknowledged, that we enjoy a degree of 

liberty, civil and religious, which has seldom been paralleled among 

mankind. We ought to rejoice in this happiness and to be grateful to that 

benevolent disposer of all events who blesses us with it. But, at the same 

time, our hearts must bleed when we reflect that, the supports of it having 

given way, it is little more than a sufferance which we owe to the temper of 

the times, the lenity of our governors, and some awe in which the friends of 

despotism are still held, by the voice and spirit of the uncorrupted part of 

the kingdom. May these causes, if no better securities can be hoped for, 

long delay our fate.



It must not be forgotten that all I have now said is meant on the 

supposition that our affairs will proceed smoothly till, by a common and 

natural progress, we have gone the round of other nations once free, and are 

brought to their end. But it is possible this may not happen. Our 

circumstances are singular and give us reason to fear that we have before us 

a death which will not be easy or common.







6. De I'esprit des lois. Bk. XI, ch. vi; [Sir William] Blackstone, 

Commentaries on the laws of England [(Oxford, 1765-9)], I, 158. 



7. [Adam Ferguson], Remarks... on a pamphlet published by Dr. Price... 

[London, 1776].



8. He who wants to be convinced of the practicability, even in this 

country, of a complete representation should read a pamphlet lately 

published, Take your Choice [John Cartwright, The Legislative Rights of the 

Commonalty Vindicated; or, Take your Choice! (London, 1777)].



9. [Essays and Treatises (London, 1788), I, pp. 28-30.]



10. De I'esprit des lois. Bk. XIX, ch. 27.



11. Commentaries, I, p. 48.



12. An essay on the history of civil society. 6th edn. (Edinburgh, 1793), 

454-455.



13. [Essays and treatises], I, 53-54.





____________



                         A Fast Sermon



                            (1781)







                         A Discourse 

            addressed to a Congregation at Hackney, 

                     on February 21, 1781 

             Being the day appointed for a Public Fast.



                         2 Pet. I. 11 

            For so an entrance shall be ministered to you 

       abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and 

                     Saviour Jesus Christ.



                        2 Pet. III. 13. 

             Nevertheless we, according to his promise, 

       look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth 

                        righteousness.



Numberless are the calamities to which we are liable in this world. There 

are few of us who have not some share of trouble allotted us, either in our 

persons, or families, or fortunes. But, if happily exempted from troubles of 

this kind, there are troubles of a public nature which are very shocking and 

which at present throw a dark cloud over all our views and hopes. In such 

circumstances we are necessarily led to look out for consolation. It would 

be dreadful to suffer under present evils and to be under a necessity 

perhaps of looking forward to future greater evils, without any 

considerations that have a tendency to abate anxiety and mitigate pain. But 

this is not our condition. There are many springs of comfort to which in the 

worst circumstances we may have recourse, and which will help to reconcile 

us to our lot, and to give us patience and fortitude. Most of them, however, 

are of little moment compared with the two following; I mean, 'the 

consideration of the perfect government of the deity', and 'the prospect of 

a future better state'. These are the grand springs of consolation amidst 

the evils of life and wretched is the person who, either from scepticism, or 

inattention, or viciousness of character, loses the hope and satisfaction 

which they are fitted to afford. Were the course of events under no wise and 

good direction, or were the present scene of trial and tumult the whole we 

are to enjoy of existence, were the universe forlorn and fatherless, did joy 

and grief, defeat and success, prosperity and adversity, arise fortuitously, 

without any superintendency from a righteous and benevolent power; or, were 

we, after being witnesses to the scramble among the children of men, and 

making our way through this distracted world, to close our eyes for ever, 

and to sink to rise no more; were, I say, this our state, we might well lose 

all spirit and give up ourselves to bitter sorrow and despondence. But, on 

the contrary, if there is a perfect order established in nature, and 

infinite wisdom and goodness govern all things, and if also the scene will 

mend hereafter, and we are to sink in death only to rise to new heavens and 

a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness, and to have an entrance 

ministered to us into an everlasting kingdom of peace and virtue; if, I say, 

this is our true situation we have abundant reason for comfort. The lot 

appointed us is glorious. We may contemplate the course of events with 

pleasure. We may look forward with triumph, and make ourselves easy and 

happy at all times.



My present design is to endeavour to engage your attention to the second of 

these sources of consolation, or to that future better state for which we 

are destined. In doing this I shall, first, just mention some of the 

evidences of such a state; secondly, I shall make some observations on the 

nature of it as a happy community or kingdom, contrasting at the same time 

the peace and order which we have reason to expect in it with the disorders 

and troubles which take place among the kingdoms and under the corrupted 

governments of this world. After which my intention is to make an 

improvement of the whole for our relief in the present circumstances of this 

kingdom.



The evidence for a future state is such as leaves no doubt in my mind. 

However threatening the stroke of death appears, and whatever interruption 

it may possibly produce in the exercise of our powers, there is no reason 

for thinking that it will destroy us. The soul is a simple and, therefore, 

does not admit of that separation of parts which produces corruption and 

dissolution. The body is a machine by which the soul perceives and acts, and 

the destruction of the one no more infers the destruction of the other than 

the destruction of a weapon infers the destruction of the hand that uses it, 

or the destruction of a telescope the destruction of the eye that looks 

through it. If, therefore, death annihilates us, it cannot be by destroying 

our bodies but by a positive exertion of the power of the Creator to put us 

then out of being. And such an exertion being improbable, the just 

conclusion is that we shall go on to exist and, at some period subsequent to 

death, recover our active powers and become again embodied spirits. Our 

capacity of existing forever is alone a reason for believing that we are 

intended for such an existence, and this capacity we possess in a manner 

which cannot be considered without astonishment. For such are our powers 

that we are capable not only of existing, but of improving for ever. Is it 

credible that such beings were designed for nothing but this short life? Are 

they led to carry their views to an immortality which they cannot enjoy, and 

to entertain hopes which cannot be gratified? After being shewn a house not 

made with hands eternal in the heavens, and being put in the way to it, are 

they to be cut off at the threshold? Can it be imagined that the Deity 

should thus mock his reasonable offspring, or that such inconsistencies 

should be established in the constitution of nature?



But this is by no means the best evidence we have on this subject. The 

character of the Deity as the moral governor of the world affords another 

argument for a future state of irresistible force. There is, evidently in 

this life, a scheme of moral government begun, but if there is no other life 

it is left imperfect and unfinished. Virtue, though in general our present 

interest, is not followed with an adequate reward, nor is vice followed with 

an adequate punishment. That righteousness of practice which is our nearest 

resemblance to the Deity, is sometimes the object of oppression and insult, 

and that wickedness which turns men into demons and would, were it to 

prevail, turn the world into a chaos, is sometimes successful and 

prosperous. The man who devotes his life to save his country loses, by that 

very action, all possibility of any present reward; and, on the contrary, 

the man who acquires power and wealth by spoiling or betraying his country, 

secures himself against any present punishment by the enormity of his 

villainy. It is impossible that irregularities so inconsistent with our 

ideas of distributive justice should be suffered to pass without redress 

under the divine government. Since the present world is not the seat of 

adequate retribution, it must be reserved for another, and a future state 

appears to be as certain as the existence of a wise and righteous Deity. We 

may be assured that no one shall finally be a loser by his virtue, or a 

gainer by his wickedness. He who now sacrifices his life in any good cause 

shall find it again, and he who saves his life by falshood and treachery or 

any wrong means, shall lose a better life. This is our Saviour's meaning, 

when he says ... that whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and that 

whosoever will lose his life shall find it.



But this leads me to observe farther on this head that the doctrine of a 

future state is confirmed by the promise of God in the Christian revelation. 

We expect, my text says, according to his promise, new heavens and a new 

earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. This is the promise, St John says, 

which he hath promised, even eternal life, and this life is in his Son. The 

gospel has abolished death, and brought life and immortality to the 

clearest light. It not only acquaints us that there will be a resurrection 

from death through the power of Christ, but sets before us a particular 

demonstration of it from fact. Christ rose himself from the dead and thus 

has shewn to our senses the path of life, and become the first-fruits of all 

that sleep. One of the ends of his appearance among mankind was to ascertain 

to us a future state and, by discovering to us our own dignity as heirs of a 

glorious immortality, to engage us to raise our views above this world.



But it is time to hasten to the account which I have proposed to give you 

of the nature of the future state of reward as a kingdom or community into 

which we are to be hereafter admitted. This is the view which the Scriptures 

give us of it. Thus, in Rev. xxii. 24, it is said that those are blessed who 

keep the commandments of God, because they shall enter through the gates 

into the city, and in Mark x. 24, that it is hard for those who trust in 

riches to enter into the kingdom of God, and in Matth. vii. 21. that not 

every one who says to Christ, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of 

heaven, but he that doeth the will of God, and, in the passages which I have 

chosen for my text, that we look for new heavens and a new earth wherein 

dwelleth righteousness, and that an entrance is to be ministered to us 

abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour. These are 

representations which plainly lead us to consider the future heavenly state 

as a happy society or community, and reason concurs with revelation in 

leading us to this view of it.



We find ourselves so made that we necessarily seek society and cannot exist 

happily out of it. There is reason to think this must be the case with all 

intelligent creatures, for it is not to be conceived that any of them can 

want social affections or be entirely indifferent to all social connections 

and intercourse. An existence absolutely solitary must, one would think, be 

dreary and melancholy. But whatever in this respect may be true of 

intelligent creatures in general, we know that what I am observing is true 

of ourselves. The principles of our natures lead us to unite and to form 

ourselves into societies. In consequence of this we gain many pleasures and 

advantages which we could not otherwise enjoy. Some of our noblest 

affections, which would otherwise lie dormant, are drawn forth into exercise 

and the strength of a whole community is employed in the defence and 

protection of every particular member of it.



The forms of association among mankind have been very different in 

different ages and countries, and it has been at all times one of the chief 

employments of human wisdom to contrive such forms of association as should 

be most likely to produce security, peace and comfort. At first these forms 

were simple and rude. As mankind encreased they became more complicated, and 

legislation and government were gradually enlarged and improved. But with 

improvement entered also corruption and debasement. Powerful kingdoms and 

empires arose which established themselves by usurpation and conquest, and 

which were no better than detestable conspiracies against the happiness of 

the world. The regulations necessary to the support of civil society laid 

the foundation of oppression. Government degenerated into tyranny, and 

subjection to legal authority into slavery. The best institutions for the 

purpose of government are extremely imperfect, and attended with many 

dangers. But some have grown up in the world which are so absurd and so 

incompatible with the rights of mankind as to be intolerable nuisances. How 

abject and wretched is a kingdom under despotism? What a disgrace is it to 

human nature that the lives and property of millions should be subject (as 

they are in most nations) to the disposal of one man, meaner perhaps than 

the meanest of the people he governs, whose will is their law and from whom 

they are to descend like a herd of cattle, by hereditary right, to the next 

plunderer, libertine or madman that may happen to come in succession. When I 

think of such governments, I am almost ashamed that I am a man. But when I 

think of the mischiefs they occasion, I feel more painful emotions. A free 

government, as distinguished from a despotic government, is the dominion of 

men over themselves in opposition to the dominion of men over other men, or 

a government by laws made with common consent, in opposition to a government 

by will; but the power of executing laws must be lodged in the hands of men 

deputed for that purpose, and this is a power which seldom fails to be 

dreadfully perverted. All civil governors are trustees for the people 

governed, and when they abuse their trust they forfeit their authority. But 

instead of attending to this, they generally forget both the source and the 

end of their authority, and look upon the people whose servants they are, as 

their property, which they may dispose of as they please. 



Such are the evils to which human society is at present subject, and I have 

given you this account of them as a preparation for engaging your attention 

to that better state of things which will take place in the future 

everlasting kingdom of Jesus Christ. In this world there is no such thing as 

a kingdom free from tumult, or a government of perfect virtue, but we expect 

one to come. The heavens we now see are often overcast with frightful clouds 

and convulsed with storms, and the earth we now inhabit is almost every 

where the seat of violence, rapine and injustice. But we look for heavens 

which will enjoy a constant sunshine, and for an earth wherein righteousness 

and peace will take up their abode for ever.



This is a reviving prospect. Let us dwell upon it and consider,



First, that the heavens and the earth we expect are to be, as St. Peter 

speaks, new heavens and a new earth, that is, totally different in their 

nature and constitution from our present heavens and earth which, according 

to the same Apostle, are reserved for the fire of the last day. This world 

in its present state is by no means fitted to be the seat of complete 

happiness or of a perfect government, and, therefore, we have been described 

as having in view a better, that is, an heavenly country. Our citizenship, 

St. Paul says, is in heaven from whence we look for the Saviour the Lord 

Jesus Christ, who is hereafter to appear in glory to judge the world, and to 

put down all rule, authority and power, in order to establish in their room 

that kingdom of his Father for which this world is a preparation.



Secondly, from this kingdom there will be an exclusion of all the workers 

of iniquity. We are assured that, previously to the establishment of it, 

there will be a general discrimination of mankind according to their works. 

The wicked will be severed from the just and placed by themselves to suffer 

the punishment of their crimes. As tares are gathered and burnt in the fire, 

so shall it be at the end of this world. The son of man will gather out of 

his kingdom all things that offend, and them who do iniquity, and shall cast 

them into a furnace of fire to be destroyed. Then shall the righteous shine 

forth as the sun in the kingdom of their father. To the same purpose we are 

told in Rev. xxi. 8, that into the heavenly city shall be brought the glory 

and honour of the nations, and that there shall in no wise enter into it any 

thing that defileth, or that loveth and maketh a lye. But that all the 

vicious and deceitful shall be cast into that lake of fire and brimstone, 

which is the second death. This extermination of the wicked is a 

circumstance of the last importance. Were they to be admitted into the 

future kingdom of Christ, it could not be a quiet and happy kingdom.



Further, it requires your particular notice that this kingdom is called the 

kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The foundation of it was laid 

by him. The great end of his descent from heaven was to provide subjects for 

it and to obtain the power of raising mankind to life, in order to put the 

virtuous part of them into the possession of it. He has now a kingdom in 

the world over which he exercises an invisible government. The seat of it 

will hereafter be transferred to another world, where it will be established 

in its full glory. Christ will, we are told, hereafter gather his elect 

(that is, all the faithful and worthy) from the four corners of the earth. 

He will publicly declare his approbation of their charity and piety and take 

them with him, as his brethren and joint-heirs, to inherit the kingdom that 

had been prepared for them from the foundations of the world. There they 

shall live with him and be advanced to a participation of the honour and 

dignity to which he has risen. 



The Scriptures promise a more happy state of Christ's kingdom even in this 

world. They foretell a period when his church shall be cleared from the 

corruptions which have been introduced into it, when a general amendment 

shall take place in human affairs, the nations learn war no more, and the 

kingdoms of the earth become the kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ. But 

this happy state of Christ's kingdom will be succeeded by a state of it 

infinitely more happy in the heavens. There the nations of those that are 

saved will enjoy perfect felicity and nothing remain of the evil we now see.



It follows from these particulars that this kingdom will be a kingdom of 

perfect order and tranquility. No malignant passions will there produce 

confusion. Religious bigotry will not persecute. The lust of power will not 

oppress. Envy will not defame or pride and malice torment, but the joy of 

every individual will be augmented by the joy of all around him. The wicked 

will there cease from troubling, and the weary be at rest.



But there is one farther circumstance relating to this kingdom which is of 

the greatest consequence. It will be an everlasting kingdom of our Lord and 

Saviour Jesus Christ. In the Epistle to the Hebrews, ch. xii. and 28th 

verse, it is called a kingdom that cannot be moved, and in the xith chap. a 

city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. This is the 

circumstance that crowns the future happiness. It will never come to an 

end. All earthly governments have in them the seeds of decay and 

dissolution. The mightiest empires have fallen and the best formed 

societies, after enjoying liberty and prosperity for a time, have been 

ruined either by foreign violence, or the more slow operations of internal 

corruption; nor is any thing more melancholy than the reflection on the 

revolutions of this kind which have taken place among mankind. But that 

future government in the heavens, under which the virtuous are to be happy, 

will be subject to no calamitous revolutions. It will preserve for ever its 

order and dignity without the possibility of being disturbed by any tumults, 

or shaken by any convulsions. In short, I can scarcely better describe to 

you this state than in the figurative language of St. John, in the xxist and 

xxiid chapters of the Revelations. I saw new heavens and a new earth, and 

the holy city, the new Jerusalem, descending from God. And I heard a loud 

voice saying. Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell 

with them, and wipe away all tears from their eyes. They shall hunger no 

more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun smite on them any more. 

In the midst of the streets of the city shall be the tree of life, and they 

shall reign with Christ for ever and ever. What a happiness will this be! To 

get out of this polluted world and, after seeing the wickedness that abounds 

in it and passing through its trials, to become members of a quiet and 

joyful community, to join superior beings and all the worthy of the earth, 

to see and know the eternal Deity, and to dwell with him to complain and 

suffer no more, and to die no more.



But it is time to proceed to the main point I have had all along in view, 

or the use we ought to make of this subject for our comfort under the evils 

which prevail among the kingdoms of this world. Let me press you to make 

this use of what I have been saying. Withdraw your minds from temporal 

objects and amidst the devastations, the slaughters and cruelties around 

you, look forward to a better state. I pity from my heart those whose 

principles will not allow them to do this, who, believing they are made only 

to struggle and fret for a short time on this earth, can look no higher. Men 

who think thus meanly of themselves must be proportionably mean in their 

dispositions and pursuits. They must think meanly of the divine 

administration. They must want the strongest motives to noble exertions, and 

can have nothing to preserve them from despondence when they reflect on the 

present state of civil society and government. No reflection can be more 

painful to a reasonable person. The occasion for civil government is derived 

from the wickedness of mankind, and the end of it is to provide securities 

for our person, property and liberty. But it is a very insufficient security 

and often proves the cause of intolerable distresses, by arming the 

ambitious with power and enabling them to trample on their fellow-creatures. 

General experience has proved this and the history of the world is but 

little more than a recital of the oppressions and rapines of men entrusted 

with the powers of government, and the calamities occasioned by the 

endeavours of mankind to defend themselves against them. This is 

particularly exemplified in the history of our own country, the annals of 

which are full of accounts of hard struggles between liberty and tyranny.



Free governments are the only equitable governments, but how few of them are 

there in the world and what seats of contention do we often find them? This 

contention is even necessary to their existence, for all governments tend 

to despotism and will end in it if no opposition checks them. Nothing 

corrupts more than power. Nothing is more encroaching and, therefore, 

nothing requires more to be watched and restrained. The safety of a free 

people depends entirely on their maintaining a constant and suspicious 

vigilance, and as soon as they cease to be quick at taking alarms, they are 

undone. But the vigilance and jealousy necessary to the security of free 

governments have been the occasion of dreadful convulsions. They are apt to 

degenerate into faction and licentiousness, and an impatience of all 

controul; and very often exertions apparently the most ardent in favour of 

public liberty, have proved to be nothing but the turbulence of ambitious 

men and a vile struggle for places and the emoluments of power.



I make these observations to render you more sensible of the imperfection 

of all earthly governments. If they are free they are subject to intestine 

broils which keep them in a constant ferment and sometimes end in 

insurrections and civil wars. If they are slavish they may be indeed more 

quiet, but that quiet is founded on a depression of the human mind, which is 

the greatest of all calamities.



How then can it be possible to consider them without pain? What a theatre 

of confusion and tumult is this world? On one hand the lust of power 

invading the rights of mankind. On the other fierce defiance and resistance. 

In one country a haughty despot ordering a general carnage to gratify his 

avarice or pride. In another a wicked incendiary fomenting discord and 

disgracing patriotism. Here, a body of crouching slaves looking up to a king 

as a god, and bowing down that he may go over them. There a nation of 

freemen enraged by oppression, flying to arms and in the conflict giving 

their oppressors blood to drink. Here, a Caesar, at the head of his legions, 

returning from the slaughter of millions, crossing the Rubicon and 

overturning the liberties of his country. There, a Brutus, at the head of a 

band of conspirators, striking a poniard into his breast. Such are the 

spectacles which this world presents to us. These are spectacles which are 

indeed enough to make us sick of human affairs. Turn your eyes from them to 

brighter scenes, from the din of arms and the triumphs of tyranny, from the 

shouts of warriors, and the cries of plundered citizens, from the insolence 

of power, the hypocrisy of courts, and the pride of princes; transfer your 

views to the tranquility and order of Christ's everlasting kingdom. Let the 

confusion and disasters to which you are now witnesses engage you to secure 

a place there. Remember that you have before you Mount Zion and the city of 

the living God, and that you are soon to be united to the general assembly 

and church of the first-born whose names are written in heaven, to the 

spirits of just men made perfect, to an innumerable company of angels, to 

Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and God the judge of all. Oh, happy 

state! Here shelter yourselves from the storms of this world. Make this your 

retreat when assaulted by adversity or vexed by oppression. Blessed be the 

God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ for such a hope. It is enough to 

warm and elevate our minds, and to prevent us from sinking under any public 

or private calamities.



But lastly, let us on this subject take care not to forget that the 

happiness I have described will be the happiness only of virtuous men. All I 

have said has supposed this and my text plainly expresses it. For so (that 

is, by adding to faith, fortitude, prudence, temperance, patience, 

godliness, brotherly kindness and charity) an entrance shall be ministered 

to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus 

Christ, for if ye do these things ye shall never fall. The wicked are 

nuisances and pests and there can be no happiness where they are. Know ye 

not, says St. Paul, that the unrighteous cannot inherit the kingdom of God. 

Be not deceived. Neither fornicators, nor adulterers, nor thieves, nor 

covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the 

kingdom of God. Christ, by taking upon him our natures, acquired power to 

raise us from death and to gather together all the virtuous into a state of 

future existence where, with him at their head, they are to be formed into 

one joyful society, and to be exalted to the highest honours under a 

government of peace and righteousness which shall never be destroyed. This 

is the doctrine which the Scriptures teach us, but the same Scriptures teach 

us, with respect to the vicious part of mankind, that after being raised up 

from death they are to be consigned to a state of punishment, where they 

will suffer a second death, from which there will be no redemption.



What remains then but that we now resolve to avoid every evil way and devote 

all that is to come of our lives to the practice of righteousness. This must 

be your resolution if you wish to get to the kingdom of heaven. And let me, 

on the present occasion, desire you particularly to consider that in the 

practice of righteousness is included the faithful discharge of all your 

duties as members of civil society. The conversation of a Christian is not 

so in heaven as to render him indifferent to what passes on earth. He that 

expects to be a citizen of the heavenly Jerusalem ought to be the best 

citizen of this world. He who hopes for a place under a government of 

eternal peace and virtue will make the best subject to any earthly 

government under which his lot is cast. He will be the warmest friend to 

liberty and the most ready to spend his substance, or to pour out his blood 

in defence of the rights of his country. Act, fellow-christians under the 

influence of these sentiments and, while others think of nothing but making 

their way in the world, do you strive to make your way through the world, 

exhibiting always in your tempers and conduct, a zeal for virtue, and a 

conscious dignity becoming those who expect honour and glory, greater than 

this world can bestow, in the everlasting kingdom of Jesus Christ.



We have at present in this country particular reason for making these 

resolutions, and for recurring to that source of consolation which I have 

been pointing out to you. The aspect of public affairs continues darker than 

I can describe. We see this nation (lately the first upon earth) reduced to 

a state of deep humiliation. Our glory departed -- fallen from our high 

station among the powers of the world -- devastation and bloodshed extending 

themselves round us -- without colonies -- without allies -- some of the best 

branches of our trade lost -- a monstrous burden weighing us down -- and at 

war with America, with France, with Spain, with Holland, and in danger of 

being soon at war with all Europe. In these tremendous circumstances what 

can we do? Shall we exclaim against our governors? That would be unavailing 

and vain. It is not possible they should have meant to ruin the kingdom. 

Shall we accuse Providence? That would be ungrateful and impious. We are too 

corrupt to deserve the favour of Providence. Let us then accuse ourselves. 

Had we been a more virtuous people, or as really a nation of Christians as 

we are so nominally, we could not have been brought into this situation. It 

is fit that having become more irreligious than perhaps any civilized people 

that ever existed, and lost that vigilant, jealous, and enlightened spirit 

of liberty which once characterized us, it is fit, I say, that having thus 

degenerated we should be degraded. Let us then acknowledge the justice of 

Heaven in our correction and prepare to meet those sharper corrections which 

this kingdom may have still before it, remembering for our encouragement 

that better state on which I have been discoursing, and at the same time 

making it our constant business to fit ourselves for it, by discharging 

every duty of life and godliness and, particularly, by acting the part of 

faithful members of the community to which we belong. If we see our country 

threatened with calamity, let us warn it. If we see our countrymen proud and 

insensible to the rights of mankind, let us admonish them. If the demon of 

corruption is poisoning the springs of legislation and converting the 

securities of public liberty into instruments of slavery, let us point out 

to them the shocking mischief, and endeavour to recover them to a sense of 

their danger. It is true we may be able to do but little in this way. But in 

this case every little is of unspeakable consequence, and if no one would 

neglect the little in his power much might be done.



Will you on this occasion bear with me if I say that it has been my study 

to form my own conduct agreeably to this exhortation. My life has been 

hitherto spent in such endeavours as I am capable of to promote all the best 

interests of my country and of mankind. I can, in particular, reflect with 

pleasure on the part I have taken in that dispute with the colonies which 

has for some years made us the derision of Europe and to which we owe all 

our present difficulties. Convinced that our claim of a right to dispose of 

their property and to alter their governments without their consent, was an 

unjust claim, and, in general, that provincial governments are the most 

rapacious and oppressive of all governments, and that the subjection of 

countries to one another has always been and must always be the worst sort 

of slavery. Convinced, I say, of this and believing also that a war with our 

colonies, supposing it just, was in the highest degree impolitic, I could 

not avoid publishing my sentiments in a pamphlet to which few of you can be 

strangers. This pamphlet was published five years ago at the commencement of 

our present troubles. I endeavoured to explain in it the nature of civil 

liberty and legitimate government, and to set forth particularly the danger 

to which the war with America would expose us. I argued in it freely against 

the war. But I only argued. I did not enter into personal invectives or 

speak disrespectfully of any particular men, and a kingdom ceases to be free 

as soon as the members of it cease to enjoy the liberty of canvassing in 

this manner public measures.



It was not possible that I should have any indirect view in this 

publication. I was led to it by no kind of advice or sollicitation. It was 

extorted from me entirely by my judgment and feelings in opposition to my 

inclinations. So true is this and so conscious am I of having acted, in this 

instance, from pure motives that it has ever since laid the foundation of a 

comfort in my own mind which has made me perfectly insensible to all 

censures. Nor would I now for any emoluments part with the satisfaction I 

feel when I recollect my attempts, by that publication and the publications 

that followed it, to serve my country, and to propagate just notions of 

government and a zeal for that liberty on which the happiness of man 

essentially depends and without which he is a creature scarcely superior to 

a beast. I was far from having reason to expect that any thing I could write 

would influence the managers of our affairs. I must say, however, that had 

they been influenced by it this kingdom, instead of being on the brink of 

ruin, would now have been enjoying its former prosperity.



I cannot help reminding you here that I insisted strongly, in the 

publications I have mentioned, on a peculiarity in the state of this kingdom 

which made any war, but more especially such a war as that with America, 

dreadfully hazardous, and that I represented particularly the danger mere 

was that the colonies would be driven to form an alliance with France, that 

this jealous rival would seize the opportunity to ruin us, that a general 

war would be kindled, and that a catastrophe might follow in mis country 

never before known among nations. These representations when written were 

apprehensions only. A great part of them may be now read as history. When I 

say this I do not mean to boast of any sagacity. It was easy to foresee 

these consequences and mere are many distinguished and excellent persons, in 

every respect my superiors, who entertained the same apprehensions and who 

have given the same warnings. But though I am only one and one of the least 

of many who have stood forth on this occasion, yet it has happened that no 

one has fallen under a greater load of abuse. You will be sensible how 

improper an object of abuse I have been if you will consider,



First, that detesting all abuse in political as well as religious 

discussions I have myself always avoided it.



Secondly, that I have done no more than what it is in a particular manner 

the duty of a Minister of the Gospel of peace to do; I mean, endeavoured to 

prevent the carnage of war and to promote peace and righteousness.



Thirdly, what most of all justifies me is that events have proved that I 

was right in my opinion of the pernicious tendency of me measures against 

which I wrote.



Upon the whole, I must repeat to you that there is nothing in the course of 

my life that I can think of with more satisfaction man me testimony I have 

borne and the attempts I have made to serve the cause of general liberty and 

justice, and the particular interest of this country at the present period. 

A period big with events of unspeakable consequences and perhaps one of the 

most momentous in the annals of mankind.



But I have detained you too long and talked too much of myself. You are my 

friends and know me, I hope, too well to question me uprightness of my 

views. May you be blest with every comfort this world can give and with 

eternal happiness in mat country beyond the grave which is now me hope and 

will soon be the refuge of the virtuous. In that country alone I wish for 

honour and mere God of his infinite mercy grant mat we may all at last meet!





____________



       Observations on the Importance of the American

                         Revolution



                           (1785)







                        Observations 

                           on the 

                         Importance 

                 of the American Revolution 

                            and 

             The Means of making it a Benefit to 

                         the World



                       Advertisement



Having reason to hope I should be attended to in the American States and 

thinking I saw an opening there favourable to the improvement and best 

interests of mankind, I have been induced to convey thither the sentiments 

and advice contained in the following Observations. They were, therefore, 

originally intended only for America. The danger of a spurious edition has 

now obliged me to publish them in my own country.



I should be inexcusable did I not take this opportunity to express my 

gratitude to a distinguished writer (the Count de Mirabeau) for his 

translation of these Observations into French, and for the support and kind 

civility with which it has been accompanied ...



I think it necessary to add that I have expressed myself in some respects 

too strongly in the conclusion of the following Observations. By accounts 

from persons the best informed, I have lately been assured that no such 

dissentions exist among the American States as have been given out in this 

country, that the new governments are in general well settled, and the 

people happy under them, and that, in particular, a conviction is becoming 

universal of the necessity of giving more strength to that power which forms 

and which is to conduct and maintain their union.



March, 1785.







    Of the Importance of the Revolution which has Established the

                Independence of the United States



Having, from pure conviction, taken a warm part in favour of the British 

colonies (now the United States of America) during the late war and been 

exposed, in consequence of this, to much abuse and some danger, it must be 

supposed that I have been waiting for the issue with anxiety. I am thankful 

that my anxiety is removed and that I have been spared to be a witness to 

that very issue of the war which has been all along the object of my wishes. 

With heartfelt satisfaction I see the revolution in favour of universal 

liberty which has taken place in America, a revolution which opens a new 

prospect in human affairs and begins a new aera in the history of mankind, a 

revolution by which Britons themselves will be the greatest gainers, if wise 

enough to improve properly the check that has been given to the despotism of 

their ministers, and to catch the flame of virtuous liberty which has saved 

their American brethren.



The late war, in its commencement and progress, did great good by 

disseminating just sentiments of the rights of mankind and the nature of 

legitimate government, by exciting a spirit of resistance to tyranny which 

has emancipated one European country and is likely to emancipate others, and 

by occasioning the establishment in America of forms of government more 

equitable and more liberal than any that the world has yet known. But, in 

its termination, the war has done still greater good by preserving the new 

governments from that destruction in which they must have been involved, had 

Britain conquered, by providing, in a sequestrated continent possessed of 

many singular advantages, a place of refuge for opprest men in every region 

of the world, and by laying the foundation there of an empire which may be 

the seat of liberty, science and virtue, and from whence there is reason to 

hope these sacred blessings will spread till they become universal and the 

time arrives when kings and priests shall have no more power to oppress, and 

that ignominious slavery which has hitherto debased the world exterminated. 

I therefore think I see the hand of Providence in the late war working for 

the general good.



Reason, as well as tradition and revelation, lead us to expect that a more 

improved and happy state of human affairs will take place before the 

consummation of all things. The world has hitherto been gradually improving. 

Light and knowledge have been gaining ground, and human life at present, 

compared with what it once was, is much the same that a youth approaching to 

manhood is compared with an infant.



Such are the natures of things that this progress must continue. During 

particular intervals it may be interrupted, but it cannot be destroy'd. 

Every present advance prepares the way for farther advances, and a single 

experiment or discovery may sometimes give rise to so many more as suddenly 

to raise the species higher and to resemble the effects of opening a new 

sense or of the fall of a spark on a train that springs a mine. For this 

reason mankind may at last arrive at degrees of improvement which we cannot 

now even suspect to be possible. A dark age may follow an enlightened age 

but, in this case, the light, after being smothered for a time, will break 

out again with a brighter lustre. The present age of increased light, 

considered as succeeding the ages of Greece and Rome and an intermediate 

period of thick darkness, furnishes a proof of the truth of this 

observation. There are certain kinds of improvement which, when once made, 

cannot be entirely lost. During the dark ages the improvements made in the 

ages that preceded them remained so far as to be recovered immediately at 

the resurrection of letters, and to produce afterwards that more rapid 

progress in improvement which has distinguished modem times. 



There can scarcely be a more pleasing and encouraging object of reflection 

than this. An accidental observation of the effects of gravity in a garden 

has been the means of discovering the laws that govern the solar system, and 

of enabling us to look down with pity on the ignorance of the most 

enlightened times among the antients. What new dignity has been given to 

man, and what additions have been made to his powers, by the invention of 

optical glasses, printing, gun powder, etc., and by the late discoveries in 

navigation, mathematics, natural philosophy, etc.!



But among the events in modem times tending to the elevation of mankind, 

there are none probably of so much consequence as the recent one which 

occasions these observations. Perhaps I do not go too far when I say that, 

next to the introduction of Christianity among mankind, the American 

revolution may prove the most important step in the progressive course of 

improvement. It is an event which may produce a general diffusion of the 

principles of humanity, and become the means of setting free mankind from 

the shackles of superstition and tyranny, by leading them to see and know 

'that nothing is fundamental but impartial enquiry, an honest mind, and 

virtuous practice, that state policy ought not to be applied to the support 

of speculative opinions and formularies of faith'. 'That the members of a 

civil community are confederates not subjects, and their rulers, servants 

not masters. And that all legitimate government consists in the dominion of 

equal laws made with common consent, that is, in the dominion of men over 

themselves, and not in the dominion of communities over communities, or of 

any men over other men.'[14]



Happy will the world be when these truths shall be every where acknowledged 

and practised upon. Religious bigotry, that cruel demon, will be then laid 

asleep. Slavish governments and slavish hierarchies will then sink and the 

old prophecies be verified, 'that the last universal empire upon earth shall 

be the empire of reason and virtue, under which the gospel of peace (better 

understood) shall have free course and be glorified, many will run to and 

fro and knowledge be increased, the wolf dwell with the lamb and the leopard 

with the kid, and nation no more lift up a sword against nation.'



It is a conviction I cannot resist that the independence of the English 

colonies in America is one of the steps ordained by Providence to introduce 

these times and I can scarcely be deceived in this conviction if the United 

States should escape some dangers which threaten them and will take proper 

care to throw themselves open to future improvements and to make the most of 

the advantages of their present situation. Should this happen, it will be 

true of them as it was of the people of the Jews, that in them all the 

families of the earth shall be blessed. It is scarcely possible they should 

think too highly of their own consequence. Perhaps there never existed a 

people on whose wisdom and virtue more depended or to whom a station of more 

importance in the plan of Providence has been assigned. They have begun 

nobly. They have fought with success for themselves and the world, and, in 

the midst of invasion and carnage, established forms of government 

favourable in the highest degree to the rights of mankind. But they have 

much more to do, more indeed than it is possible properly to represent. In 

this address my design is only to take notice of a few great points which 

seem particularly to require their attention in order to render them 

permanently happy in themselves and useful to mankind. On these points I 

shall deliver my sentiments with freedom, conscious I mean well, but, at the 

same time, with real diffidence, conscious of my own liableness to error.



 Of the Means of Promoting Human Improvement and Happiness in the

             United States. And first, of Public Debts



It seems evident that what first requires the attention of the United States 

is the redemption of their debts and making compensation to that army which 

has carried them through the war. They have an infant credit to cherish and 

rear which, if this is not done, must perish, and with it their character 

and honour for ever. Nor is it conceivable they should meet with any great 

difficulty in doing this. They have a vast resource peculiar to themselves 

in a continent of unlocated lands possessing every advantage of soil and 

climate. The settlement of these lands will be rapid, the consequence of 

which must be a rapid increase of their value. By disposing of them to the 

army and to emigrants, the greatest part of the debts of the United States 

may probably be sunk immediately. But had they no such resource, they are 

very capable of bearing taxes sufficient for the purpose of a gradual 

redemption. Supposing their debts to amount to nine millions sterling 

carrying interest at 5½ per cent, taxes producing a revenue of a million per 

ann. would pay the interest and at the same time leave a surplus of half a 

million per ann. for a sinking fund which would discharge the principal in 

thirteen years. A surplus of a quarter of a million would do the same in 20½ 

years. After discharging the principal, the appropriated revenue being no 

longer wanted, might be abolished and the states eased of the burthen of it. 

But it would be imprudent to abolish it entirely, £100,000 per ann. reserved 

and faithfully laid out in clearing unlocated lands and other improvements, 

would in a short time increase to a treasure (or continental patrimony) 

which would defray the whole expenditure of the union, and keep the states 

free from debts and taxes for ever.



Such a reserve would (supposing it improved so as to produce a profit of 5 

per cent.) increase to a capital of three millions in 19 years, 30 millions 

in 57 years and 261 millions in 100 years. But supposing it capable of being 

improved so as to produce a profit of 10 per cent. it would increase to five 

millions in 19 years, 100 millions in 49 years, and 10,000 millions in 97 

years.



It is wonderful that no state has yet thought of taking this method to make 

itself great and rich. The smallest appropriation in a sinking fund, never 

diverted, operates in cancelling debts, just as money increases at compound 

interest and is, therefore, omnipotent. But, if diverted, it loses all its 

power. Britain affords a striking proof of this. Its sinking fund (once the 

hope of the kingdom) has, by the practice of alienating it, been rendered 

impotent and useless. Had it been inviolably applied to the purpose for 

which it was intended, there would, in the year 1775, have been a surplus in 

the revenue of more than five millions per ann. But instead of this, we were 

then encumbered with a debt of 137 millions, carrying an interest of near 42 

millions, and leaving no surplus of any consequence. This debt has been 

since increased to 280 millions, carrying an interest (including expences of 

management) of nine millions and a half. A monstrous bubble, and if no very 

strong measures are soon taken to reduce it within the limits of safety, it 

must produce a dreadful convulsion. Let the United States take warning. 

Their debts at present are moderate. A sinking fund, guarded against 

misapplication, may soon extinguish them and prove a resource in all events 

of the greatest importance.



I must not, however, forget that there is one of their debts on which no 

sinking fund can have any effect and which it is impossible for them to 

discharge, A debt, greater, perhaps, than has been ever due from any country 

and which will be deeply felt by their latest posterity. But it is a debt of 

gratitude only -- of gratitude to that General, who has been raised up by 

Providence to make them free and independent, and whose name must shine 

among the first in the future annals of the benefactors of mankind.



The measures now proposed may preserve America for ever from too great an 

accumulation of debts and, consequently of taxes -- an evil which is likely 

to be the ruin not only of Britain, but of other European states. But there 

are measures of yet greater consequence which I wish ardently to recommend 

and inculcate.



For the sake of mankind I wish to see every measure adopted that can have a 

tendency to preserve peace in America and to make it an open and fair stage 

for discussion and the seat of perfect liberty.



                          Of peace. 

                And the Means of Perpetuating it.



Civil government is an expedient for collecting the wisdom and force of a 

community or confederacy in order to preserve its peace and liberty against 

every hostile invasion, whether from within or from without. In the latter 

of these respects the United States are happily secured, but they are far 

from being equally happy in the former respect. Having now, in consequence 

of their successful resistance of the invasion of Britain, united in their 

remoteness from Europe, no external enemy to fear, they are in danger of 

fighting with one another. This is their greatest danger and providing 

securities against it is their hardest work. Should they fail in this, 

America may some time or other be turned into a scene of blood and, instead 

of being the hope and refuge of the world, may become a terror to it.



When a dispute arises among individuals in a state, an appeal is made to a 

court of law, that is, to the wisdom and justice of the state. The court 

decides. The losing party acquiesces or, if he does not, the power of the 

state forces him to submission, and thus the effects of contention are 

supprest and peace is maintained. In a way similar to this, peace may be 

maintained between any number of confederate states and I can almost imagine 

that it is not impossible but that by such means universal peace may be 

produced and all war excluded from the world. Why may we not hope to see 

this begun in America? The articles of confederation make considerable 

advances towards it. When a dispute arises between any of the states they 

order an appeal to Congress, an enquiry by Congress, a hearing, and a 

decision. But here they stop. What is most of all necessary is omitted. No 

provision is made for enforcing the decisions of Congress, and this renders 

them inefficient and futile. I am by no means qualified to point out the 

best method of removing this defect. Much must be given up for this purpose, 

nor is it easy to give up too much. Without all doubt the powers of Congress 

must be enlarged. In particular, a power must be given it to collect, on 

certain emergencies, the force of the confederacy and to employ it in 

carrying its decisions into execution. A state against which a decision is 

made will yield of course when it knows that such a force exists and that it 

allows no hope from resistance.



By this force I do not mean a standing army. God forbid that standing armies 

should ever find an establishment in America. They are every where the grand 

supports of arbitrary power and the chief causes of the depression of 

mankind. No wise people will trust their defence out of their own hands, or 

consent to hold their rights at the mercy of armed slaves. Free states ought 

to be bodies of armed citizens, well regulated and well disciplined, and 

always ready to turn out, when properly called upon, to execute the laws, to 

quell riots, and to keep the peace. Such, if I am rightly informed, are the 

citizens of America. Why then may not Congress be furnished with a power of 

calling out from the confederated states quotas of militias sufficient to 

force at once the compliance of any state which may shew an inclination to 

break the union by resisting its decisions?



I am very sensible that it will be difficult to guard such a power against 

abuse, and, perhaps, better means of answering this end are discoverable. In 

human affairs, however, the choice generally offered us is 'of two evils to 

take the least'. We chuse the restraint of civil government because a less 

evil than anarchy and, in like manner, in the present instance, the danger 

of the abuse of power and of its being employed sometimes to enforce wrong 

decisions, must be submitted to, because a less evil than the misery of 

intestine wars. Much, however, may be done to lessen this danger. Such 

regulations as those in the ninth of the Articles of Confederation will, in 

a great measure, prevent hasty and partial decisions. The rotation 

established by the fifth article will prevent that corruption of character 

which seldom fails to be produced by the long possession of power, and the 

right reserved to every state of recalling its delegates when dissatisfied 

with them, will keep them constantly responsible and cautious.



The observations now made must be extended to money transactions. Congress 

must be trusted with a power of procuring supplies for defraying the 

expences of the confederation, of contracting debts, and providing funds for 

discharging them, and this power must not be capable of being defeated by 

the opposition of any minority in the states.



In short, the credit of the United States, their strength, their 

respectableness abroad, their liberty at home, and even their existence, 

depend on the preservation of a firm political union; and such an union 

cannot be preserved without giving all possible weight and energy to the 

authority of that delegation which constitutes the union.



Would it not be proper to take periodical surveys of the different states, 

their numbers of both sexes in every stage of life, their condition, 

occupations, property, etc.? Would not such surveys, in conjunction with 

accurate registers of births, marriages and deaths at all ages, afford much 

important instruction by shewing what laws govern human mortality and what 

situations, employments, and civil institutions are most favourable to the 

health and happiness of mankind? Would they not keep constantly in view the 

progress of population in the states, and the increase or decline of their 

resources? But more especially, are they not the only means of procuring the 

necessary information for determining accurately and equitably the 

proportions of men and money to be contributed by each state for supporting 

and strengthening the confederation?



                          Of Liberty



The next point I would insist on, as an object of supreme importance, is the 

establishment of such a system of perfect liberty, religious as well as 

civil, in America as shall render it a country where truth and reason shall 

have fair play and the human powers find full scope for exerting themselves 

and for shewing how far they can carry human improvement.



The faculties of man have hitherto, in all countries, been more or less 

cramped by the interference of civil authority in matters of speculation, by 

tyrannical laws against heresy and schism, and by slavish hierarchies and 

religious establishments. It is above all things desirable that no such 

fetters on reason should be admitted into America. I observe, with 

inexpressible satisfaction, that at present they have no existence there. In 

this respect the governments of the United States are liberal to a degree 

that is unparalleled. They have the distinguished honour of being the first 

states under heaven in which forms of government have been established 

favourable to universal liberty. They have been thus distinguished in their 

infancy. What then will they be in a more advanced state, when time and 

experience, and the concurring assistance of the wise and virtuous in every 

part of the earth shall have introduced into the new governments, 

corrections and amendments which will render them still more friendly to 

liberty, and more the means of promoting human happiness and dignity? May we 

not see the dawning of brighter days on earth and a new creation rising. But 

I must check myself. I am in danger of being carried too far by the ardor of 

my hopes.



The liberty I mean includes in it liberty of conduct in all civil matters, 

liberty of discussion in all speculative matters, and liberty of conscience 

in all religious matters. And it is then perfect, when under no restraint 

except when used to injure any one in his person, property, or good name, 

that is, except when used to destroy itself.



In liberty of discussion, I include the liberty of examining all public 

measures and the conduct of all public men, and of writing and publishing on 

all speculative and doctrinal points.



                    Of Liberty of Discussion



It is a common opinion that there are some doctrines so sacred, and others 

of so bad a tendency, that no public discussion of them ought to be allowed. 

Were this a right opinion all the persecution that has ever been practised 

would be justified. For, if it is a part of the duty of civil magistrates to 

prevent the discussion of such doctrines, they must, in doing this, act on 

their own judgments of the nature and tendency of doctrines, and, 

consequently, they must have a right to prevent the discussion of all 

doctrines which they think to be too sacred for discussion, or too dangerous 

in their tendency, and this right they must exercise in the only way in 

which civil power is capable of exercising it, 'by inflicting penalties on 

all who oppose sacred doctrines, or who maintain pernicious opinions'. In 

Mahometan countries, therefore, civil magistrates have a right to silence 

and punish all who oppose the divine mission of Mahomet, a doctrine there 

reckoned of the most sacred nature. The like is true of the doctrines of 

substantiation, worship of the Virgin Mary, etc. in Popish countries, and of 

the doctrines of the Trinity, satisfaction, etc. in Protestant countries. In 

England itself this principle has been acted upon and produced the laws 

which subject to severe penalties all who write or speak against the supreme 

divinity of Christ, the Book of Common Prayer, and the Church Articles of 

Faith. All such laws are right if the opinion I have mentioned is right. But 

in reality, civil power has nothing to do with any such matters, and civil 

governors go miserably out of their proper province whenever they take upon 

them the care of truth or the support of any doctrinal points. They are not 

judges of truth and if they pretend to decide about it, they will decide 

wrong. This all the countries under heaven think of the application of civil 

power to doctrinal points in every country but their own. It is, indeed, 

superstition, idolatry, and nonsense, that civil power at present supports 

almost everywhere under the idea of supporting sacred truth and opposing 

dangerous error. Would not, therefore, its perfect neutrality be the 

greatest blessing? Would not the interest of truth gain unspeakably were all 

the rulers of states to aim at nothing but keeping the peace, or did they 

consider themselves as bound to take care, not of the future, but the 

present interest of men, not of their souls and their faith but of their 

persons and property, not of any ecclesiastical, but secular matters only? 

All the experience of past time proves that the consequence of allowing 

civil power to judge of the nature and tendency of doctrines must be making 

it a hindrance to the progress of truth and an enemy to the improvement of 

the world. Anaxagoras was condemned in Greece for teaching that the sun and 

stars were not Deities, but masses of corruptible matter. Accusations of a 

like kind contributed to the death of Socrates. The threats of bigots and 

the fear of persecution prevented Copernicus from publishing, during his 

whole life time, his discovery of the true system of the world. Galileo was 

obliged to renounce the doctrine of the motion of the earth, and suffered a 

year's imprisonment for having asserted it. And so lately as the year 1742, 

the best commentary on the first production of human genius (Newton's 

Principia) was not allowed to be printed at Rome because it asserted this 

doctrine, and the learned commentators were obliged to prefix to their work 

a declaration that on this point they submitted to the decisions of the 

supreme Pontiffs. Such have been and such (while men continue blind and 

ignorant) will always be the consequence of the interposition of civil 

governments in matters of speculation.



When men associate for the purpose of civil government, they do it, not to 

defend truth or to support formularies of faith and speculative opinions, 

but to defend their civil rights and to protect one another on the free 

exercise of their mental and corporeal powers. The interference, therefore, 

of civil authority in such cases is directly contrary to the end of its 

institution. The way in which it can best promote the interest and dignity 

of mankind (as far as they can be promoted by the discovery of truth) is by 

encouraging them to search for truth wherever they can find it, and by 

protecting them in doing this against the attacks of malevolence and 

bigotry. Should any attempt be made by contending sects to injure one 

another, its power will come in properly to crush the attempt and to 

maintain for all sects equal liberty by punishing every encroachment upon 

it. The conduct of a civil magistrate, on such an occasion, should be that 

of Gallio the wise Roman proconsul who, on receiving an accusation of the 

apostle Paul, would not listen to it, but drove from his presence the 

accusers who had laid violent hands upon him, after giving them the 

following admonition, If it were a matter of wrong or wicked lewdness, 

reason would require that I should bear with you. But if it be a question of 

words and names and the law, look you to it. For I will be no judge of such 

matters. How much happier would the world have been had all magistrates 

acted in this manner? Let America learn this important lesson and profit by 

the experience of past times. A dissent from established opinions and 

doctrines has indeed often miserably disturbed society and produced mischief 

and bloodshed. But it should be remembered that this has been owing to the 

establishment of the points dissented from, and the use of civil power to 

enforce the reception of them. Had civil government done its duty, left all 

free, and employed itself in procuring instead of restraining fair 

discussion, all mischief would have been avoided and mankind would have been 

raised higher than they are in knowledge and improvement.



When Christianity, that first and best of all the means of human 

improvement, was first preached it was charged with turning the world upside 

down. The leaders of Jewish and Pagan establishments were alarmed and by 

opposing the propagation of it, converted a religion of peace and love into 

an occasion of violence and slaughter and thus verified our Lord's prophecy 

that he was come not to send peace, but a sword on earth. All this was the 

effect of the misapplication of the powers of government. Instead of 

creating, they should have been employed in preventing such mischief and 

been active only in causing the Christian cause to receive a fair hearing 

and guarding the propagators of it against insult. The like observation may 

be made concerning the first reformers. What we all see would have been 

right in pagan and popish governments with respect to Christianity and the 

Reformation, would it not be now right in Christian or Protestant 

governments, were any attempts made to propagate a new religion or any 

doctrines advanced opposite to those now held sacred? Such attempts, if 

unsupported by reason and evidence, would soon come to nothing. An imposture 

cannot stand the test of fair and open examination. On the contrary, the 

cause of truth will certainly be served by it. Mahometanism would have sunk 

as soon as it rose, had no other force than that of evidence been employed 

to propagate it; and it is an unspeakable recommendation of Christianity 

that it made its way till it became the religion of the world in one of its 

most enlightened periods, by evidence only, in opposition to the strongest 

exertions of civil power. There cannot be a more striking proof that nothing 

but fair discussion is necessary to suppress error and to propagate truth. I 

am grieved, indeed, whenever I find any Christians shewing a disposition to 

call in the aid of civil power to defend their religion. Nothing can be more 

disgraceful to it. If it wants such aid it cannot be of God. Its corruption 

and debasement took place from the moment that civil power took it under its 

patronage, and this corruption and debasement increased till at last it was 

converted into a system of absurdity and superstition more gross and more 

barbarous than Paganism itself. The religion of Christ disclaims all 

connexion with the civil establishments of the world. It has suffered 

infinitely by their friendship. Instead of silencing its opponents, let them 

be encouraged to produce their strongest arguments against it. The 

experience of Britain has lately shewn that this will only cause it to be 

better understood and more firmly believed.



I would extend these observations to all points of faith, however sacred 

they may be deemed. Nothing reasonable can suffer by discussion. All 

doctrines really sacred must be clear and incapable of being opposed with 

success. If civil authority interposes it will be to support some 

misconception or abuse of them.



That immoral tendency of doctrines which has been urged as a reason against 

allowing the public discussion of them must be either avowed and direct, or 

only a consequence with which they are charged. If it is avowed and direct, 

such doctrines certainly will not spread. The principles rooted in human 

nature will resist them and the advocates of them will be soon disgraced. 

If, on the contrary, it is only a consequence with which a doctrine is 

charged, it should be considered how apt all parties are to charge the 

doctrines they oppose with bad tendencies. It is well known, that Calvinists 

and Arminians, Trinitarians and Socinians, Fatalists and Free-willers, are 

continually exclaiming against one another's opinions as dangerous and 

licentious. Even Christianity itself could not, at its first introduction, 

escape mis accusation. The professors of it were considered as atheists, 

because they opposed pagan idolatry, and their religion was on this account 

reckoned a destructive and pernicious enthusiasm. If, therefore, the rulers 

of a state are to prohibit the propagation of all doctrines in which they 

apprehend immoral tendencies, an opening will be made, as I have before 

observed, for every species of persecution. There will be no doctrine, 

however true or important, the avowal of which will not in some country or 

other be subjected to civil penalties. Undoubtedly, there are doctrines 

which have such tendencies. But the tendencies of speculative opinions have 

often very little effect on practice. The Author of nature has planted in 

the human mind principles and feelings which will operate in opposition to 

any theories that may seem to contradict them. Every sect, whatever may be 

its tenets, has some salvo for the necessity of virtue. The philosophers who 

hold that matter and motion have no existence except in our own ideas are 

capable of believing this only in their closets. The same is true of the 

philosophers who hold that nothing exists but matter and motion, and at the 

same time teach that man has no self-determining power; that an unalterable 

fate governs all things; and that no one is any thing that he can avoid 

being, or does any tiling that he can avoid doing. These philosophers when 

they come out into the world act as other men do. Common sense never fails 

to get the better of their theories, and I know that many of them are some 

of the best as well as the ablest men in me world and the warmest friends to 

me true interests of society. Though their doctrine may seem to furnish an 

apology for vice, their practice is an exhibition of virtue and a government 

which would silence them would greatly injure itself. Only overt acts of 

injustice, violence or defamation, come properly under the cognizance of 

civil power. Were a person now to go about London teaching that 'property is 

founded in grace', I should, were I a magistrate, let him alone while he did 

nothing but teach, without being under any other apprehension than that he 

would soon find a lodging in Bedlam. But were he to attempt to carry his 

doctrine into its consequences by actually stealing, under the pretence of 

his right as a saint to the property of his neighbours, I should think it my 

duty to lay hold of him as a felon, without regarding the opinion from which 

he acted.



I am persuaded that few or no inconveniencies would arise from such a 

liberty. If the magistrates will do their duty as soon as violence begins or 

any oven acts which break the peace are committed, no great harm will arise 

from their keeping themselves neutral till then. Let, however, the contrary 

be supposed. Let it be granted that civil authority will in this case often 

be too late in its exertions, the just inference will be, not that the 

liberty I plead for ought not to be allowed, but that there will be two 

evils between which an option must be made, and the least of which must be 

preferred. One is the evil just mentioned. The other includes in it every 

evil which can arise from making the rulers of states judges of the tendency 

of doctrines, subjecting freedom of enquiry to the controul of their 

ignorance and perpetuating darkness, intolerance and slavery. I need not say 

which of these evils is least.



    Of Liberty of Conscience and Civil Establishment of Religion 



In liberty of conscience I include much more than toleration. Jesus Christ 

has established a perfect equality among his followers. His command is, that 

they shall assume no jurisdiction over one another and acknowledge no master 

besides himself. It is, therefore, presumption in any of them to claim a 

right to any superiority or preeminence over their brethren. Such a claim is 

implied whenever any of them pretend to tolerate the rest. Not only all 

Christians but all men of all religions ought to be considered by a state as 

equally entitled to its protection as far as they demean themselves honestly 

and peacably. Toleration can take place only where there is a civil 

establishment of a particular mode of religion, that is, where a predominant 

sect enjoys exclusive advantages, and makes the encouragement of its own 

mode of faith and worship a part of the constitution of the state, but at 

the same time thinks fit to suffer the exercise of other modes of faith and 

worship. Thanks be to God, the new American States are at present strangers 

to such establishments. In this respect, as well as many others, they have 

shewn, in framing their constitutions a degree of wisdom and liberality 

which is above all praise.



Civil establishments of formularies of faith and worship are inconsistent 

with the rights of private judgment. They engender strife. They turn 

religion into a trade. They shoar up error. They produce hypocrisy and 

prevarication. They lay an undue byass on the human mind in its enquiries, 

and obstruct the progress of truth. Genuine religion is a concern that lies 

entirely between God and our own souls. It is incapable of receiving any aid 

from human laws. It is contaminated as soon as worldly motives and sanctions 

mix their influence with it. Statesmen should countenance it only by 

exhibiting in their own example a conscientious regard to it in those forms 

which are most agreeable to their own judgments, and by encouraging their 

fellow-citizens in doing the same. They cannot as public men give it any 

other assistance. All besides that has been called a public leading in 

religion, has done it an essential injury, and produced some of the worst 

consequences.



The Church Establishment in England is one of the mildest and best sort. But 

even here what a snare has it been to integrity? And what a check to free 

enquiry? What dispositions favourable to despotism has it fostered? What a 

turn to pride and narrowness and domination has it given the clerical 

character? What struggles has it produced in its members to accommodate 

their opinions to the subscriptions and tests which it imposes? What a 

perversion of learning has it occasioned to defend obsolete creeds and 

absurdities? What a burthen is it on the consciences of some of its best 

clergy who, in consequence of being bound down to a system they do not 

approve, and having no support except that which they derive from conforming 

to it, find themselves under the hard necessity of either prevaricating or 

starving? No one doubts but that the English clergy in general could with 

more truth declare that they do not, than that they do, given their 

unfeigned assent to all and everything contained in the Thirty-nine Articles 

and the Book of Common-Prayer; and yet, with a solemn declaration to this 

purpose, are they obliged to enter upon an office which above all offices 

requires those who exercise it to be examples of simplicity and sincerity. 

Who can help execrating the cause of such an evil?



But what I wish most to urge is the tendency of religious establishments to 

impede the improvement of the world. They are boundaries prescribed by human 

folly to human investigation, and inclosures which intercept the light and 

confine the exertions of reason. Let any one imagine to himself what effects 

similar establishments would have in philosophy, navigation, metaphysicks, 

medicine or mathematicks. Something like this took place in logick and 

philosophy while the ipse dixit of Aristotle and the nonsense of the schools 

maintained an authority like that of the creeds of churchmen. And the effect 

was a longer continuance of the world in the ignorance and barbarity of the 

dark ages. But civil establishments of religion are more pernicious. So apt 

are mankind to misrepresent the character of the Deity and connect his 

favour with particular modes of faith, that it must be expected that a 

religion so settled will be what it has hitherto been -- a gloomy and cruel 

superstition bearing the name of religion.



It has been long a subject of dispute, which is worse in its effects on 

society, such a religion or speculative atheism. For my own part, I could 

almost give the preference to the latter. Atheism is so repugnant to every 

principle of common sense that it is not possible it should ever gain much 

ground or become very prevalent. On the contrary, there is a particular 

proneness in the human mind to superstition, and nothing is more likely to 

become prevalent. Atheism leaves us to the full influence of most of our 

natural feelings and social principles and these are so strong in their 

operation that in general they are a sufficient guard to the order of 

society. But superstition counteracts these principles by holding forth men 

to one another as objects of divine hatred, and by putting them on 

harassing, silencing, imprisoning and burning one another in order to do God 

service. Atheism is a sanctuary for vice by taking away the motives to 

virtue arising from the will of God and the fear of a future judgment. But 

superstition is more a sanctuary for vice by teaching men ways of pleasing 

God without moral virtue and by leading them even to compound for wickedness 

by ritual services, by bodily penances and mortifications, by adorning 

shrines, doing pilgrimages, saying many prayers, receiving absolution from 

the priest, exterminating heretics, etc. Atheism destroys the sacredness and 

obligation of an oath. But has there not been also a religion (so called) 

which has done this, by leading its professors to a persuasion that there 

exists a power on earth which can dispense with the obligation of oaths, 

that pious frauds are right and that faith is not to be kept with heretics?



It is indeed only a rational and liberal religion, a religion founded on 

just notions of the Deity as a being who regards equally every sincere 

worshipper, and by whom all are alike favoured as far as they act up to the 

light they enjoy, a religion which consists in the imitation of the moral 

perfections of an almighty but benevolent governor of nature, who directs 

for the best all events, in confidence in the care of his providence, in 

resignation to his will, and in the faithful discharge of every duty of 

piety and morality from a regard to his authority and the apprehension of a 

future righteous retribution. It is only this religion (the inspiring 

principle of every thing fair and worthy and joyful and which in truth is 

nothing but the love of God and man and virtue warming the heart and 

directing the conduct) -- it is only this kind of religion that can bless 

the world or be an advantage to society. This is the religion that every 

enlightened friend to mankind will be zealous to promote. But it is a 

religion that the powers of the world know little of and which will always 

be best promoted by being left free and open.



I cannot help adding here that such in particular is the Christian religion. 

Christianity teaches us that there is none good but one, that is, God, that 

he willeth all men to be saved, and will punish nothing but wickedness, that 

he desires mercy and not sacrifice (benevolence rather than rituals), that 

loving him with all our hearts, and loving our neighbour as ourselves, is 

the whole of our duty, and that in every nation he that feareth him and 

worketh righteousness is accepted of him. It rests its authority on the 

power of God, not of man, refers itself entirely to the understandings of 

men, makes us the subjects of a kingdom that is not of this world, and 

requires us to elevate our minds above temporal emoluments and to look 

forwards to a state beyond the grave where a government of perfect virtue 

will be erected under that Messiah who has tasted death for every man. What 

have the powers of the world to do with such a religion? It disclaims all 

connexion with them, it made its way at first in opposition to them, and, as 

far as it is now upheld by them, it is dishonoured and vilified.



The injury which civil establishments do to Christianity may be learnt from 

the following considerations.



First, the spirit of religious establishments is opposite to the spirit of 

Christianity. It is a spirit of pride and tyranny in opposition to the 

Christian lowly spirit, a contracted and selfish spirit, in opposition to 

the Christian enlarged and benevolent spirit, the spirit of the world in 

opposition to the Christian heavenly spirit.



Secondly, religious establishments are founded on a claim of authority in 

the Christian church which overthrows Christ's authority. He has in the 

Scriptures given his followers a code of laws to which he requires them to 

adhere as their only guide. But the language of the framers of church 

establishments is 'We have authority in controversies of faith and power to 

decree rites and ceremonies. We are the deputies of Christ upon earth who 

have been commissioned by him to interpret his laws, and to rule his church. 

You must therefore follow us. The Scriptures are insufficient. Our 

interpretations you must receive as Christ's laws, our creeds as his 

doctrine, our inventions as his institutions.'



It is evident, as the excellent Hoadly has shewn, that these claims turn 

Christ out of the government of his own kingdom and place usurpers on his 

throne. They are therefore derogatory to his honour and a submission to them 

is a breach of the allegiance due to him. They have been almost fatal to 

true Christianity and attempts to enforce them by civil penalties have 

watered the Christian world with the blood of saints and martyrs.



Thirdly, the difficulty of introducing alterations into church 

establishments after they have been once formed is another objection to 

them. Hence it happens that they remain always the same amidst all changes 

of public manners and opinions and that a kingdom even of Christians may go 

on for ages in idolatrous worship after a general conviction may have taken 

place that there is but one being who is the proper object of religious 

adoration and that this one being is that one only living and true God who 

sent Christ into the world and who is his, no less than he is our God and 

father. What a sad scene of religious hypocrisy must such a discordance 

between public conviction and the public forms produce?



At this day in some European countries the absurdity and slavish-ness of 

their hierarchies are seen and acknowledged but, being incorporated with the 

state, it is scarcely possible to get rid of them.



What can be more striking than the state of England in this respect? The 

system of faith and worship established in it was formed above two hundred 

years ago, when Europe was just emerging from darkness and barbarity. The 

times have ever since been growing more enlightened, but without any effect 

on the establishment. Not a ray of the increasing light has penetrated it. 

Not one imperfection, however gross, has been removed.



The same articles of faith are subscribed. The same ritual of devotion is 

practised. There is reason to fear that the absolution of the sick, which 

forms a part of this ritual, is often resorted to as a passport to heaven 

after a wicked life and yet it is continued. Perhaps nothing more shocking 

to reason and humanity ever made a part of a religious system than the 

damning clauses in the Athanasian creed and yet the obligation of the clergy 

to declare assent to this creed, and to read it as a part of the public 

devotion, remains.



The necessary consequence of such a state of things, is, that, fourthly, 

Christianity itself is disgraced and that all religion comes to be 

considered as a state trick and a barbarous mummery. It is well known that 

in some Popish countries there are few Christians among the higher ranks of 

men, the religion of the state being in those countries mistaken for the 

religion of the Gospel. This indeed shows a criminal inattention in those 

who fall into such a mistake, for they ought to consider that Christianity 

has been grievously corrupted and that their ideas of it should be taken 

from the New Testament only. It is, however, so natural to reckon 

Christianity to be that which it is held out to be in all establishments of 

it, that it cannot but happen that such an error will take place and produce 

some of the worst consequences. There is probably a greater number of 

rational Christians (that is, of Christians upon enquiry) in England, than 

in all Popish countries. The reason is that the religious establishment here 

is Popery reformed, and that a considerable body dissent from it and are 

often inculcating the necessity of distinguishing between the Christianity 

established by law and that which is taught in the Bible. Certain it is 

that, till this distinction is made, Christianity can never recover its just 

credit and usefulness.



Such then are the effects of civil establishments of religion. May heaven 

soon put an end to them. The world will never be generally wise or virtuous 

or happy till these enemies to its peace and improvement are demolished. 

Thanks be to God they are giving way before increasing light. Let them never 

shew themselves in America. Let no such monster be known there as human 

authority in matters of religion. Let every honest and peaceable man, 

whatever is his faith, be protected there and find an effectual defence 

against the attacks of bigotry and intolerance. In the united States may 

religion flourish. They cannot be very great and happy if it does not. But 

let it be a better religion than most of those which have been hitherto 

professed in the world. Let it be a religion which enforces moral 

obligations, not a religion which relaxes and evades them. A tolerant and 

catholic religion, not a rage for proselitism. A religion of peace and 

charity, not a religion that persecutes, curses and damns. In a word, let it 

be the genuine gospel of peace, lifting above the world, wanning the heart 

with the love of God and his creatures, and sustaining the fortitude of good 

men by the assured hope of a future deliverance from death, and an infinite 

reward in the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour.



From the preceding observations it may be concluded that it is impossible I 

should not admire the following article in the declaration of rights which 

forms the foundation of the Massachusett's constitution:



     'In this state every denomination of Christians demeaning

     themselves peaceably and as good subjects of the

     commonwealth shall be equally under the protection of the law,

     and no subordination of any one sect or denomination to another

     shall ever be established by law.'



This is liberal beyond all example. I should, however, have admired it more 

had it been more liberal, and the words, all men of all religions been 

substituted for the words, every denomination of Christians.



It appears farther from the preceding observations that I cannot but dislike 

the religious tests which make a part of several of the American 

constitutions. In the Massachusett's constitution it is ordered that all who 

take seats in the House of Representatives or Senate shall declare 'their 

firm persuasion of the truth of the Christian religion'. The same is 

required by the Maryland constitution, as a condition of being admitted into 

any places of profit or trust. In Pensylvania every member of the House of 

Representatives is required to declare that he 'acknowledges the Scriptures 

of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration'. In the 

state of Delaware, that 'he believes in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ 

his only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God blessed for evermore'. All this 

is more than is required even in England where, though every person however 

debauched or atheistical is required to receive the sacrament as a 

qualification for inferior places, no other religious test is imposed on 

members of parliament than a declaration against Popery. It is an 

observation no less just than common that such tests exclude only honest 

men. The dishonest never scruple them.



Montesquieu probably was not a Christian. Newton and Locke were not 

Trinitarians and therefore not Christians according to the commonly received 

ideas of Christianity. Would the United States, for this reason, deny such 

men, were they living, all places of trust and power among them?



                         Of Education



Such is the state of things which I wish to take place in the united 

American states. In order to introduce and perpetuate it, and at the same 

time to give it the greatest effect on the improvement of the world, nothing 

is more necessary than the establishment of a wise and liberal plan of 

Education. It is impossible properly to represent the importance of this. So 

much is left by the author of nature to depend on the turn given to the mind 

in early life, and the impressions then made, that I have often thought 

there may be a secret remaining to be discovered in education which will 

cause future generations to grow up virtuous and happy and accelerate human 

improvement to a greater degree than can at present be imagined.



The end of education is to direct the powers of the mind in unfolding 

themselves and to assist them in gaining their just bent and force. And, in 

order to this, its business should be to teach how to think, rather than 

what to think, or to lead into the best way of searching for truth, rather 

than to instruct in truth itself. As for the latter, who is qualified for 

it? There are many indeed who are eager to undertake this office. All 

parties and sects think they have discovered truth and are confident that 

they alone are its advocates and friends. But the very different and 

inconsistent accounts they give of it demonstrate they are utter strangers 

to it and that it is better to teach nothing than to teach what they hold 

out for truth. The greater their confidence, the greater is the reason for 

distrusting them. We generally see the warmest zeal, where the object of it 

is the greatest nonsense.



Such observations have a particular tendency to shew that education ought to 

be an initiation into candour, rather than into systems of faith, and that 

it should form a habit of cool and patient investigation, rather than an 

attachment to any opinions.



But hitherto education has been conducted on a contrary plan. It has been a 

contraction, not an enlargement, of the intellectual faculties, an injection 

of false principles hardening them in error, not a discipline enlightening 

and improving them. Instead of opening and strengthening them, and teaching 

to think freely, it hath cramped and enslaved them, and qualified for 

thinking only in one track. Instead of instilling humility, charity, and 

liberality, and thus preparing for an easier discovery and a readier 

admission of truth, it has inflated with conceit, and stuffed the human mind 

with wretched prejudices.



The more has been learnt from such education, the more it becomes necessary 

to unlearn. The more has been taught in this way, of so much the more must 

the mind be emptied before true wisdom can enter. Such was education in the 

time of the first teachers of Christianity. By furnishing with skill in the 

arts of disputation and sophistry, and producing an attachment to 

established systems, it turned the minds of men from truth, and rendered 

them more determined to resist evidence and more capable of evading it. 

Hence it happened that this heavenly instruction, when first communicated 

was to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Greeks foolishness, and that, 

in spite of miracles themselves, the persons who rejected it with most 

disdain, and who opposed it with most violence, were those who had been 

educated in colleges and were best versed in the false learning of the 

times. And had it taught the true philosophy instead of the true religion, 

the effect would have been the same. The doctrine 'that the sun stood still, 

and that the earth moved round it', would have been reckoned no less absurd 

and incredible, than the doctrine of a crucified Messiah. And the men who 

would have treated such an instruction with most contempt would have been 

the wise and the prudent, that is, the proud sophists and learned doctors of 

the times who had studied the Ptolemaick system of the world and learnt, by 

cycles and epicycles, to account for all the motions of the heavenly bodies.



In like manner, when the improvement of logick in Mr. Locke's Essay on the 

Human Understanding was first published in Britain the persons readiest to 

attend to it and to receive it were those who had never been trained in 

colleges and whose minds, therefore, had never been perverted by an 

instruction in the jargon of the schools.



To the deep professors of the time, it appeared (like the doctrine taught in 

his book on the reasonableness of Christianity) to be a dangerous novelty 

and heresy, and the University of Oxford, in particular, condemned and 

reprobated the author. The like happened when Sir Isaac Newton's discoveries 

were first published. A romance (that is, the philosophy of Descartes) was 

in possession of the philosophical world. Education had rivetted it in the 

mind of the learned, and it was twenty-seven years before Newton's Principia 

could gain sufficient credit to bring it to a second edition. Such are the 

prejudices which have generally prevailed against new lights. Such the 

impediments which have been thrown in the way of improvement by a narrow 

plan of education. Even now the principal object of education (especially in 

divinity) is to teach established systems as certain truths, and to qualify 

for successfully defending them against opponents and thus to arm the mind 

against conviction and render it impenetrable to farther light. Indeed, were 

it offered to my option which I would have, the plain sense of a common and 

untutored man, or the deep erudition of the proud scholars and professors in 

most universities, I should eagerly prefer the former, from a persuasion 

that it would leave me at a less distance from real wisdom. An unoccupied 

and simple mind is infinitely preferable to a mind warped by systems, and 

the entire want of learning better than a learning such as most of that is 

which hitherto has been sought and admired. A learning which puffs up, while 

in reality it is nothing but profounder ignorance and more inveterate 

prejudice.



It may be worth adding here that a narrow education (should it ever happen 

not to produce the evils now mentioned) will probably produce equal evils of 

a contrary nature. I mean, that there will be danger when persons so 

educated come to see the absurdity of some of the opinions in which they 

have been educated, that they will become prejudiced against them all and, 

consequently, throw them all away and run wild into scepticism and 

infidelity. At present, in this part of the world this is a very common 

event.



I am by no means qualified to give a just account of the particular method 

in which education ought to be conducted so as to avoid these evils, that 

is, so as to render the mind free and unfettered, quick in discerning 

evidence, and prepared to follow it from whatever quarter and in whatever 

manner it may offer itself. But certain it is that the best mode of 

education is that which does this most effectually, which guards best 

against silly prejudices, which enflames most with the love of truth, which 

disposes most to ingenuity and fairness, and leaves the mind most sensible 

of its own need of farther information. Had this always been the aim of 

education, mankind would now have been further advanced. It supposes, 

however, an improved state of mankind, and when once it has taken place it 

will quicken the progress of improvement.



I have in these observations expressed a dislike of systems, but I have 

meant only to condemn that attachment to them as standards of truth which 

has been too prevalent. It may be necessary in education to make use of them 

or of books explaining them. But they should be used only as guides and 

helps to enquiry. Instruction in them should be attended with a fair 

exhibition of the evidence on both sides of every question, and care should 

be taken to induce, as far as possible, a habit of believing only on an 

overbalance of evidence, and of proportioning assent in every case to the 

degree of that overbalance, without regarding authority, antiquity, 

singularity, novelty, or any of the prejudices which too commonly influence 

assent. Nothing is so well fitted to produce this habit as the study of 

mathematics. In these sciences no one ever thinks of giving his assent to a 

proposition till he can clearly understand it and see it proved by a fair 

deduction from propositions previously understood and proved. In these 

sciences the mind is inured to close and patient attention, shewn the nature 

of just reasoning, and taught to form distinct ideas and to expect clear 

evidence in all cases before belief. They furnish, therefore, the best 

exercise for the intellectual powers and the best defence against that 

credulity and precipitation and confusion of ideas which are the common 

sources of error.



There is, however, a danger even here to be avoided. Mathematical studies 

may absorb the attention too much, and when they do they contract the mind 

by rendering it incapable of thinking at large by disqualifying it for 

judging of any evidence except mathematical and, consequently, disposing it 

to an unreasonable scepticism on all subjects which admit not of such 

evidence. There have been many instances of this narrowness in 

mathematicians.



But to return from this digression, I cannot help observing on this 

occasion, with respect to Christianity in particular, that education ought 

to lead to a habit of judging of it as it is in the code itself of 

Christianity, that the doctrines it reveals should be learnt only from a 

critical and fair enquiry into the sense of this code, and that all 

instruction in it should be a preparation for making this enquiry and a 

communication of assistance in examining into the proofs of its divine 

original, and in determining to what degree of evidence the proofs amount, 

after allowing every difficulty its just weight. This has never yet been the 

practice among Christians. The New Testament has been reckoned hitherto an 

insufficient standard of Christian Divinity and, therefore, formularies of 

human invention pretending to explain and define it (but in reality 

misrepresenting and dishonouring it) have been substituted in its room, and 

teaching these has been called teaching Christianity. And it is very 

remarkable that in the English Universities lectures in the New Testament 

are seldom or ever read, and that, through all Christendom, it is much less 

an object of attention than the systems and creeds which have been fathered 

upon it.



I will only add on this subject that it is above all things necessary, while 

instruction is conveyed, to convey with it a sense of the imbecility of the 

human mind and of its great proneness to error, and also a disposition even 

on points which seem the most clear, to listen to objections, and to 

consider nothing as involving in it our final interest but an honest heart.



Nature has so made us that an attachment must take place within us to 

opinions once formed, and it was proper that we should be so made, in order 

to prevent that levity and desultoriness of mind which must have been the 

consequence had we been ready to give up our opinions too easily and 

hastily. But this natural tendency, however wisely given us, is apt to 

exceed its proper limits and to render us unreasonably tenacious. It ought, 

therefore, like all our other natural propensities, to be carefully watched 

and guarded, and education should put us upon doing this. An observation 

before made should, in particular, be inculcated, 'that all mankind have 

hitherto been most tenacious when most in the wrong, and reckoned themselves 

most enlightened when most in the dark'. This is indeed, a very mortifying 

fact but attention to it is necessary to cure that miserable pride and 

dogmaticalness which are some of the worst enemies to improvement. Who is 

there that does not remember the time when he was entirely satisfied about 

points which deeper reflexion has shewn to be above his comprehension? Who, 

for instance, does not remember a time when he would have wondered at the 

question, 'Why does water run down hill?' What ignorant man is there who is 

not persuaded that he understands this perfectly? But every improved man 

knows it to be a question he cannot answer, and what distinguishes him in 

this instance from the less improved part of mankind is his knowing this. 

The like is true in numberless other instances. One of the best proofs of 

wisdom is a sense of our want of wisdom, and he who knows most possesses 

most of this sense.



In thinking of myself I derive some encouragement from this reflexion. I now 

see that I do not understand many points which once appeared to me very 

clear. The more I have inquired, the more sensible I have been growing of my 

own darkness, and a part of the history of my life is that which follows.



In early life I was struck with Bishop Butler's Analogy of religion natural 

and revealed to the constitution and course of nature. I reckon it happy for 

me that this book was one of the first that fell into my hands. It taught me 

the proper method of reasoning on moral and religious subjects, and 

particularly the importance of paying a due regard to the imperfection of 

human knowledge. His sermons also, I then thought, and do still think, 

excellent. Next to his works, I have always been an admirer of the writings 

of Dr. Clark[e]. And I cannot help adding, however strange it may seem, that 

I owe much to the philosophical writings of Mr. Hume, which I likewise 

studied in early life. Though an enemy to his scepticism, I have profited by 

it. By attacking, with great ability, every principle of truth and reason, 

he put me upon examining the ground upon which I stood and taught me not 

hastily to take any thing for granted. The first fruits of my reading and 

studies were laid before the public in a treatise entitled A review of the 

principal questions and difficulties in morals. This publication has been 

followed by many others on various subjects. And now, in the evening of a 

life devoted to enquiry and spent in endeavours (weak indeed and feeble) to 

serve the best interests, present and future, of mankind, I am waiting for 

the great teacher, convinced that the order of nature is perfect, that 

infinite wisdom and goodness govern all things, and that Christianity comes 

from God. But at the same time puzzled by many difficulties, anxious for 

more light, and resting with full and constant assurance only on this one 

truth; that the practice of virtue is the duty and dignity of man and, in 

all events, his wisest and safest course.



      Of the Dangers to which the American States are exposed



In the preceding observations I have aimed at pointing out the means of 

promoting the progress of improvement in the united states of America. I 

have insisted, particularly, on the importance of a just settlement of the 

Federal Union and the establishment of a well-guarded and perfect liberty in 

speculation, in government,[15] in education, and in religion. The united 

states are now setting out, and all depends on the care and foresight with 

which a plan is begun, which hereafter will require only to be strengthened 

and ripened. This is, therefore, the time for giving them advice, and mean 

advice (like the present) may suggest some useful hints. In this country 

when any improvements are proposed or any corrections are attempted of 

abuses so gross as to make our boasts of liberty ridiculous, a clamour 

immediately arises against innovation, and an alarm spreads lest the attempt 

to repair should destroy. In America no such prejudices can operate. These 

abuses have not yet gained sacredness by time. There the way is open to 

social dignity and happiness, and reason may utter her voice with confidence 

and success.



                  Of Debts and Internal Wars



I have observed in the introduction to this address that the American states 

have many dangers to shun. In what follows I shall give a brief recital of 

some of the chief of these dangers.



The danger from an endless increase of public debts has been already 

sufficiently noticed.



Particular notice has been likewise taken of the danger from internal wars. 

Again and again, I would urge the necessity of pursuing every measure and 

using every precaution which can guard against this danger. It will be 

shocking to see in the new world a repetition of all the evils which have 

hitherto laid waste the old world. War raging where peace and liberty were 

thought to have taken their abodes. The points of bayonets and the mouths of 

cannon settling disputes, instead of the collected wisdom of the 

confederation -- and perhaps one restless and ambitious state rising by 

bloody conquest above the rest, and becoming a sovereign state, claiming 

impiously (as Britain once did), 'full authority to make laws that shall 

bind its sister states in all cases whatever', and drawing to itself all 

advantages at their expence. I deprecate this calamity. I shudder when I 

consider how possible it is and hope those persons are mistaken who think 

that such are the jealousies which govern human nature, and such the 

imperfections of the best human arrangements, that it is not within the 

reach of any wisdom to discover any effectual means of preventing it without 

encroaching too much on the liberty and independence of the states. I have 

mentioned an enlargement of the powers of Congress. Others have proposed a 

consolidation of the powers of government in one parliament representing all 

the states and superseding the particular parliaments by which they are now 

separately governed. But it is obvious that this will be attended with 

greater inconveniencies and encroach more on the liberty of the states than 

the enlargement I have proposed of the powers of Congress. If such a 

parliament is not to supersede any of the other parliaments, it will be the 

same with Congress as at present constituted.



              Of an Unequal Distribution of Property



It is a trite observation 'that dominion is founded on property'. Most free 

states have manifested their sense of the truth of this observation by 

studying to find out means of preventing too great an inequality in the 

distribution of property. What tumults were occasioned at Rome, in its best 

times, by attempts to carry into execution the Agrarian law? Among the 

people of Israel, by the direction of heaven, all estates which had been 

alienated during the course of fifty years returned to their original owners 

at the end of that term. One of the circumstances that has been most 

favourable to the American states in forming their new constitutions of 

government has been the equality which subsists among them.



The happiest state of man is the middle state between the savage and the 

refined, or between the wild and the luxurious state. Such is the state of 

society in Connecticut and some others of the American provinces where the 

inhabitants consist, if I am rightly informed, of an independent and hardy 

yeomanry, all nearly on a level, trained to arms, instructed in their 

rights, cloathed in homespun, of simple manners, strangers to luxury, 

drawing plenty from the ground, and that plenty, gathered easily by the hand 

of industry and giving rise to early marriages, a numerous progeny, length 

of days, and a rapid increase -- the rich and the poor, the haughty grandee 

and the creeping sycophant, equally unknown -- protected by laws which 

(being their own will) cannot oppress, and by an equal government which, 

wanting lucrative places, cannot create corrupt canvassings and ambitious 

intrigue. O distinguished people! May you continue long thus happy, and may 

the happiness you enjoy spread over the face of the whole earth! But I am 

forgetting myself. There is danger that a state of society so happy will not 

be of long duration, that simplicity and virtue will give way to depravity, 

that equality will in time be lost, the cursed lust of domineering shew 

itself, liberty languish, and civil government gradually degenerate into an 

instrument in the hands of the few to oppress and plunder the many. Such has 

hitherto been the progress of evil in human affairs. In order to give them a 

better turn, some great men (Plato, Sir Thomas More, Mr. Wallace, etc.) have 

proposed plans which, by establishing a community of goods and annihilating 

property, would make it impossible for any one member of a state to think of 

enslaving the rest, or to consider himself as having any interest distinct 

from that of his fellow-citizens. Such theories are in speculation pleasing, 

nor perhaps are they wholly impracticable. Some approaches to them may 

hereafter be made and schemes of government may take place which shall leave 

so little, besides personal merit, to be a means of distinction as to 

exclude from society most of the causes of evil. But be this as it will, it 

is out of doubt that there is an equality in society which is essential to 

liberty and which every state that would continue virtuous and happy ought 

as far as possible to maintain. It is not in my power to describe the best 

method of doing this. I will only observe that there are three enemies to 

equality against which America ought to guard. 



First, granting hereditary honours and tides of nobility. Persons thus 

distinguished, though perhaps meaner than the meanest of their dependents, 

are apt to consider themselves as belonging to a higher order of beings, and 

made for power and government. Their birth and rank necessarily dispose them 

to be hostile to general liberty, and when they are not so, and discover a 

just zeal for the rights of mankind, it is always a triumph of good sense 

and virtue over the temptations of their situation. It is, therefore, with 

peculiar satisfaction that I have found in the Articles of Confederation an 

order that no titles of nobility shall be ever granted by the united states. 

Let there be honours to encourage merit, but let them die with the men who 

have earned them. Let them not descend to posterity to foster a spirit of 

domination and to produce a proud and tyrannical aristocracy. In a word, let 

the united states continue for ever what it is now their glory to be -- a 

confederation of states prosperous and happy, without lords, without 

bishops[16] and without kings.



Secondly, the right of primogeniture. The tendency of this to produce an 

improper inequality is very obvious. The disposition to raise a name by 

accumulating property in one branch of a family is a vanity no less unjust 

and cruel than dangerous to the interest of liberty and no wise state will 

encourage or tolerate it.



Thirdly, foreign trade is another of the enemies against which I wish to 

caution the united states. But this operates unfavourably to a state in so 

many more ways than by destroying that equality which is the basis of 

liberty that it will be proper to take more particular notice of it.



               Of Trade, Banks, and Paper Credit



Foreign trade has, in some respects, the most useful tendency. By creating 

an intercourse between distant kingdoms it extends benevolence, removes 

local prejudices, leads every man to consider himself more as a citizen of 

the world than of any particular state, and, consequently, checks the 

excesses of that love of our country[17] which has been applauded as one of 

the noblest, but which, really, is one of the most destructive principles in 

human nature. Trade also, by enabling every country to draw from other 

countries conveniencies and advantages which it cannot find within itself, 

produces among nations a sense of mutual dependence, and promotes the 

general improvement. But there is no part of mankind to which these uses of 

trade are of less consequence than the American states. They are spread over 

a great continent and make a world within themselves. The country they 

inhabit includes soils and climates of all sorts, producing not only every 

necessary, but every convenience of life. And the vast rivers and widespread 

lakes which intersect it create such an inland communication between the 

different parts as is unknown in any other region of the earth. They possess 

then within themselves the best means of the most profitable traffic, and 

the amplest scope for it. Why should they look much farther? What occasion 

have they for being anxious about pushing foreign trade, or even about 

raising a great naval force? Britain, indeed, consisting as it does of 

unarmed inhabitants, and threatened as it is by ambitious and powerful 

neighbours, cannot hope to maintain its existence long after becoming open 

to invasion by losing its naval superiority. But this is not the case with 

the American states. They have no powerful neighbours to dread. The vast 

Atlantic must be crossed before they can be attacked. They are all a well 

trained militia, and the successful resistance which, in their infancy and 

without a naval force, they have made to the invasion of the first European 

power, will probably discourage and prevent all future invasions. Thus 

singularly happy, why should they seek connexions with Europe and expose 

themselves to the danger of being involved in its quarrels? What have they 

to do with its politics? Is there any thing very important to them which 

they can draw from thence except infection? Indeed, I tremble when I think 

of the rage for trade which is likely to prevail among them. It may do them 

infinite mischief. All nations are spreading snares for them and courting 

them to a dangerous intercourse. Their best interest requires them to guard 

themselves by all proper means, and, particularly, by laying heavy duties on 

importations. But in no case will any means succeed unless aided by manners. 

In this instance, particularly, there is reason to fear that an increasing 

passion for foreign frippery will render all the best regulations 

ineffectual. And should this happen, that simplicity of character, that 

manliness of spirit, that disdain of tinsel in which true dignity consists, 

will disappear. Effeminacy, servility, and venality will enter, and liberty 

and virtue be swallowed up in the gulph of corruption. Such may be the 

course of events in the American states. Better infinitely will it be for 

them to consist of bodies of plain and honest farmers, than of opulent and 

splendid merchants. Where in these states do the purest manners prevail? 

Where do the inhabitants live most on an equality and most at their ease? Is 

it not in those inland parts where agriculture gives health and plenty, and 

trade is scarcely known? Where, on the contrary, are the inhabitants most 

selfish, luxurious, loose, and vicious, and at the same time most unhappy? 

Is it not along the sea coasts and in the great towns where trade flourishes 

and merchants abound? So striking is the effect of these different 

situations on the vigour and happiness of human life, that in the one, 

population would languish did it receive no aid from emigration, while in 

the other, it increases to a degree scarcely ever before known.



But to proceed to some observations of a different nature. The united States 

have, I think, particular reason to dread the following effects of foreign 

trade.



By increasing importation to feed luxury and gratify prodigality, it will 

carry out their coin and occasion the substitution of a delusive paper 

currency, the consequence of which will be that ideal wealth will take place 

of real, and their security come to depend on the strength and duration of a 

bubble. I am very sensible that paper credit is one of the greatest of all 

conveniencies, but this makes it likewise one of the greatest of all 

temptations. A public bank (while it can circulate its bills) facilitates 

commerce and assists the exertions of a state in proportion to its credit. 

But when it is not carefully restricted and watched, when its emissions 

exceed the coin it can command and are carried near the utmost length that 

the confidence of the public will allow, and when, in consequence of this, 

its permanence comes to depend on the permanence of public credulity, in 

these circumstances, a bank, though it may for a time (that is, while a 

balance of trade too unfavourable does not occasion a run, and no events 

arise which produce alarm) answer all the ends of a mine from which millions 

may be drawn in a minute, and, by filling a kingdom with cash, render it 

capable of sustaining any debts, and give it a kind of omnipotence. In such 

circumstances, I say, notwithstanding these temporary advantages, a public 

bank must at last prove a great calamity and a kingdom so supported, at the 

very time of its greatest exertions, will be only striving more violently to 

increase the horror of an approaching convulsion.



The united States have already verified some of these observations and felt 

in some degree the consequences to which I have alluded. They have been 

carried through the war by an emission of paper which had no solid support 

and which now has lost all value. It is indeed surprising that, being 

secured on no fund and incapable of being exchanged for coin, it should ever 

have obtained a currency, or answered any important purpose.



Unhappily for Britain, it has used the means of giving more stability to its 

paper-credit and being enabled by it to support expences greater than any 

that have been yet known, and to contract a debt which now astonishes, and 

may hereafter produce a catastrophe that will terrify the world. A longer 

duration of the late war would have brought on this catastrophe immediately. 

The peace has put it off for the present. God grant, if still possible, that 

measures may be adopted which shall put it off for ever.



                          Of Oaths



Oaths are expedients to which all states have had recourse in order to 

obtain true information and ascertain facts by securing the veracity of 

witnesses. But I know not how to relish that imprecation which always makes 

a part of an oath. Perhaps there is no such necessity for it as is commonly 

imagined. An affirmation solemnly made with laws inflicting severe penalties 

on falshood when detected, would probably answer all the ends of oaths. I 

am, therefore, disposed to wish that in the united states imprecatory oaths 

may be abolished and the same indulgence in this respect granted to all 

which is now granted to the Quakers. But I am afraid they will think this 

too dangerous an experiment, and what is of most consequence is to avoid, 

first, such a multiplicity of oaths as will render them too familiar, and, 

secondly, a slight manner of administering them. England, in this respect, 

seems to be sunk to the lowest possible degree of degeneracy. Oaths among us 

are required on so many occasions and so carelessly administered as to have 

lost almost all their use and efficacy. It has been asserted that, including 

oaths of office, oaths at elections, custom-house oaths, etc., there are 

about a million of perjuries committed in this kingdom annually. This is one 

of the most atrocious of our national iniquities and it is a wonder if we 

are not to be visited for it with some of the severest of God's judgments.



                 Of the Negro Trade and Slavery



The negro trade cannot be censured in language too severe. It is a traffic 

which, as it has been hitherto carried on, is shocking to humanity, cruel, 

wicked, and diabolical. I am happy to find that the united states are 

entering into measures for discountenancing it and for abolishing the odious 

slavery which it has introduced. Till they have done this, it will not 

appear they deserve the liberty for which they have been contending. For it 

is self-evident that if there are any men whom they have a right to hold in 

slavery, there may be others who have had a right to hold them in slavery. I 

am sensible, however, that this is a work which they cannot accomplish at 

once. The emancipation of the negroes must, I suppose, be left in some 

measure to be the effect of time and of manners. But nothing can excuse the 

united states if it is not done with as much speed, and at the same time 

with as much effect, as their particular circumstances and situation will 

allow. I rejoice that on this occasion I can recommend to them the example 

of my own country. In Britain, a negro becomes a freeman the moment he sets 

his foot on British ground.



                         Conclusion



Such is the advice which I would humbly (but earnestly) offer to the united 

states of America. Such are the means by which they may become the seats of 

liberty, science, peace, and virtue, happy within themselves, and a refuge 

to the world.



Often, while employed in writing these papers, have I wished for a warning 

voice of more power. The present moment, however auspicious to the united 

states if wisely improved, is critical and, though apparently the end of all 

their dangers, may prove the time of their greatest danger. I have, indeed, 

since finishing this address, been mortified more than I can express by 

accounts which have led me to fear that I have carried my ideas of them too 

high and deceived myself with visionary expectations. And should this be 

true, should the return of peace and the pride of independence lead them to 

security and dissipation, should they lose those virtuous and simple manners 

by which alone republics can long subsist, should false refinement, luxury, 

and irreligion spread among them, excessive jealousy distract their 

governments, and clashing interests, subject to no strong controul, break 

the federal union, the consequence will be that the fairest experiment ever 

tried in human affairs will miscarry and that a revolution which had revived 

the hopes of good men and promised an opening to better times will become a 

discouragement to all future efforts in favour of liberty and prove only an 

opening to a new scene of human degeneracy and misery.







14. These are the words of Montesquieu.



15. It was proposed to the convention for settling the Massachusett's 

constitution that one of the two houses which constitute the general court 

of that state should be a representation of persons, and the other a 

representation of property, and that the body of the people should appoint 

only the electors of their representatives. By such regulations corruption 

in the choice of representatives would be rendered less practicable, and it 

seems the best method of concentering in the legislature as much as possible 

of the virtue and ability of the state, and of making its voice always an 

expression of the will and best sense of the people. On this plan also the 

number of members constituting a legislature might be much lessened. This is 

a circumstance of particular consequence, to which the united states, in 

some future period of their increase, will find it necessary to attend. It 

has been often justly observed, that a legislative body very numerous is 

little better than a mob.



16. I do not mean by 'bishops' any officers among Christians merely 

spiritual, but lords spiritual, as distinct from lords temporal, or 

clergymen raised to pre-eminence and invested with civil honours and 

authority by a state establishment. I must add that by what is here said I 

do not mean to express a general preference of a republican constitution of 

government. There is a degree of political degeneracy which unfits for such 

a constitution. Britain, in particular, consists too much of the high and 

the low, (of scum and dregs) to admit of it. Nor will it suit America should 

it ever become equally corrupt. 



17. The love of our country is then only a noble passion when it engages us 

to promote the internal happiness of our country and to defend its rights 

and liberties against domestic and foreign invasion, maintaining at the same 

time an equal regard to the rights and liberties of other countries. But 

this has not been its most common effects. On the contrary, it has in 

general been nothing but a spirit of rivalship between different 

communities, producing contention and a thirst for conquest and dominion. 

What is his country to a Russian, a Turk, a Spaniard, etc. but a spot where 

he enjoys no right, and is disposed of by owners as if he was a beast? And 

what is his love to his country but an attachment to degradation and 

slavery? What was the love of their country among the Jews but a wretched 

partiality for themselves and a proud contempt for other nations? Among the 

Romans also what was it, however great in many of its exertions, but a 

principle holding together a band of robbers in their attempts to crush all 

liberty but their own? Christianity has wisely omitted to recommend this 

principle. Had it done this, it would have countenanced a vice among 

mankind. It has done what is infinitely better. It has recommended universal 

benevolence.





____________



              The Evidence for a Future Period of

              Improvement in the State of Mankind



                           (1787)







    The Evidence for a future period of improvement in the state of

  Mankind, with the means and duty of promoting it, represented in a

   discourse delivered on Wednesday the 25th of April, 1787, at the

 Meeting-House in the Old Jewry, London, to the Supporters of a New

        Academical Institution among Protestant Dissenters.



                        Matthew vi. 10



Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. These words, 

being a part of the Lord's prayer, must be perfectly familiar to you. It is 

evident that by the kingdom mentioned in them is meant, not that absolute 

dominion of the Deity by which he does whatever he pleases in the Armies of 

Heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, but that moral kingdom which 

consists in the voluntary obedience of reasonable beings to his laws and, 

particularly, that kingdom of the Messiah which our Saviour came to 

establish. 



The same kingdom is undoubtedly here meant with that which we are told in 

the Gospel history the apostles went about preaching every where and 

declaring to be at hand, which the Jews at the time this prayer was framed 

were impatiently expecting, and which in their religious services they were 

continually praying for in the words, May his kingdom reign. May the Messiah 

come, and deliver his people.



This kingdom is described in the prophecy of Daniel under the character of 

a kingdom which the God of heaven was to set up in the time of the fourth 

temporal kingdom upon earth (or the Roman empire) and which was to be given 

to the Son of Man, and to increase gradually till it broke in pieces all 

other kingdoms, and filled the whole earth. In the prophecy of the seventy 

weeks the very time of the commencement of this kingdom is fixed, and it 

appears evidently that the phrases, kingdom of God and kingdom of heaven, 

which the Jews used to signify the reign of their Messiah and by which it 

is expressed in the New Testament, were derived from these prophetical 

representations in Daniel.



This petition, therefore, in our Lord's prayer referred primarily to the 

introduction of the Christian religion among mankind. His disciples were 

directed by it and by the petition that follows it (thy will be done on 

earth as it is in heaven) to pray that the advent of his kingdom might be 

speedy, that the Gospel might soon be established in the world, that the 

virtue which it was fitted to inspire might take place every where, and 

mortal men be taught to regard God's will with a submission resembling that 

of the heavenly spirits. We cannot express before the Deity any desires that 

are more reasonable and important. The establishment of Christ's kingdom 

includes in it the enjoyment of the highest blessings that can be 

communicated to the world. It is a kingdom of light, and peace, and virtue. 

It is the beginning and foundation of an everlasting kingdom in the heavens. 

The subjects of it are fellow-citizens with angels and heirs of a glorious 

immortality. With the utmost ardour then might the apostles and first 

disciples pray for the coming of this kingdom, and nothing can now be a 

juster object of the prayers of Christians. For I cannot be of the opinion 

of those of our dissenting brethren who scruple using this prayer, from an 

apprehension that the words (thy kingdom come) cannot be used with propriety 

now the kingdom of Christ is come and the grace of the Gospel made known to 

men. The truth is that there is a kingdom of Christ still to come. You 

should recollect that there are two comings of Christ's kingdom mentioned in 

the Scriptures, one partial and the other universal, and that though the 

former is past, yet we may with the utmost reason pray for the latter, and 

for that better state of things upon earth which our Lord expresses, by 

doing the will of God on earth as it is done in heaven.



Hitherto, the kingdom of the Messiah has been in its infancy. The most 

glorious period of it is yet future. His religion is now confined to a few 

nations. It will hereafter extend itself over all nations. It is now 

dishonoured by much contention, superstition, and wickedness. Hereafter, it 

is to be cleared of these evils and to triumph over all false religions. 

Hitherto, it has caused the will of God to be done but very imperfectly. 

Hereafter, it will cause the will of God to be done on earth, as it is done 

in heaven. The light it has hitherto produced has been like the dawn of the 

morning. It will hereafter produce a bright day over the whole earth. In 

other words, and to use our Lord's comparison in the parable of the grain of 

mustard seed, the kingdom of heaven has hitherto resembled a small seed 

germinating under ground. A period is coming in which it will throw off all 

that encumbers it, and grow up to a tree large enough for the birds of the 

air to lodge among its branches. 



That such a state of Christianity lies before us between this and the end 

of time, or, that there is a progressive improvement in human affairs which 

will terminate in greater degrees of light and virtue and happiness than 

have been yet known appears to me highly probable and my present business 

will be to represent to you the nature, the grounds, and the uses of this 

expectation. In doing this I shall first state the evidence which makes it 

probable, after which I shall be naturally led to take notice of the means 

by which it is to be accomplished and the encouragement it gives us in our 

exertions to promote the improvement of the world and, particularly, in that 

undertaking which occasions the present service.



The evidence on which the expectation I have mentioned rests is taken, 

partly from tradition and scripture, and partly from reason and the 

necessary tendencies of things, confirmed by what we know of the past and 

see of the present state of the world.



There has been a tradition which has led Jews and Pagans (as well as 

Christians) to expect that the last ages of the world will be ages of 

improvement and happiness. This tradition is so ancient and has been so 

general that there is, I think, some regard due to it. But it is of little 

consequence compared with the declarations of scripture on this subject. 

These are clear and decisive. I have just mentioned a parable of our Lord's 

which directs our views to a future enlargement of his kingdom. To the same 

purpose is his comparison of his kingdom to a particle of leaven which 

worked gradually and insensibly in a large quantity of meal till the whole 

was leavened. St. Paul speaks in very plain language of a time when the 

fullness of the Gentiles shall come in, and all Israel be saved.



Isaiah prophesies that, in the latter days, the mountain of the Lord's 

house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and all nations 

flock into it, and the Lord shall judge among the nations, and they shall 

beat their swords into plow-shares, and their spears into pruning-hooks. 

Nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn 

war any more. The same prophet, in the eleventh and sixth chapters, 

foretells that under the reign of the Messiah the Lord would create new 

heavens and a new earth. The people of the Jews, should he all righteous, 

and inhabit their land for ever. The wolf should dwell with the lamb, and 

the leopard lie down with the kid, and the lion eat straw with the ox, and 

the earth he filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the 

sea. Daniel, in a passage already quoted, tells us that the kingdom of the 

Messiah was to break in pieces all other kingdoms, and to encrease till it 

filled the whole earth. In the seventh chapter he gives a particular account 

of a tyrannical power which was to appear after the fall of the Roman 

empire, and which, after continuing a limited time, was to be destroyed and 

to be succeeded by an universal kingdom which should never be destroyed. 

This kingdom, according to Daniel's representation, is to be the fifth and 

last universal monarchy on earth, and he describes it under the character of 

the reign of the saints; that is, of an empire of reason and liberty and 

virtue which is to follow despotism, ignorance, and wickedness. I beheld, 

says he till the beast (that is, the tyrannical power just mentioned) was 

destroyed and given to the burning flame. And then came the Son of Man in 

the clouds of heaven, and there was given him dominion and glory that all 

men and languages should serve him, and the kingdom and dominion and the 

greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, was delivered to the people 

of the saints of the Most High. In the last chapter of this prophecy we have 

the remarkable declaration that at the time of the end (till which time 

Daniel represents himself as ordered to seal his words) many should run to 

and fro, and knowledge should be increased.



St. Paul in his second epistle to the Thessalonians assures us that the day 

of judgment would not come till an apostacy had taken place in the Christian 

church, and a man of sin had appeared in it who should exalt himself above 

all that is called God, and whose coming should be after the working of 

Satan with signs and lying wonders, but whom the Lord would consume with the 

breath of his mouth and the brightness of his coming.



St. John tells us that the holy city (by which undoubtedly is meant the 

Christian church) should be trodden under foot 1260 years, at the end of 

which term he represents the kingdoms of this world as becoming the kingdoms 

of the Lord and of his Christ. The beast and the false prophet, he says, 

will be taken and cast into a lake of fire (that is, all antichristian 

corruption and oppression will be abolished), and Christ shall reign a 

thousand years, and the saints shall reign with him. That is, truth and 

righteousness shall for a long period become prevalent and mankind 

universally receive and acknowledge Christ as their Head and Lawgiver. I 

will only add our Lord's prediction in Luke xxi. 24. The Jews shall be led 

captive to all nations, and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles 

till the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. These words are very striking. 

They intimate to us a dispersion of the Jews for a certain period, the 

preservation of them through that period, and some great revolution in the 

state of the Gentiles at the end of it. It is evident that these predictions 

in the Old and New Testaments have the same events in view, nor is it 

possible with any appearance of reason to apply them to any events which 

have already happened. Certainly, the stone mentioned by Daniel which was 

cut out of the mountain without hands (that is, without the aid of human 

power) has not yet filled the whole earth. That man of sin who was to usurp 

the prerogatives of the Deity and to deceive the world with lying miracles, 

has not yet been destroyed by the brightness of our Lord's second coming. 

The knowledge of the Lord has not yet covered the earth as the waters fill 

the channels of the sea. The universal empire of reason and virtue has not 

yet been established, nor have all the people and nations been yet brought 

to serve the Son of Man. War has not yet been excluded from the world, nor 

has liberty taken place of tyranny, knowledge of ignorance, and sanctity of 

vice and corruption. To such a happy termination of human affairs in this 

world, next to the happiness of the heavenly state, the Scriptures point our 

views, and it is an argument in their favour that they do give us an 

expectation so animating amidst the variety of gloomy prospects with which 

this world, in its present state, is often presenting us, for it is an 

expectation no less credible and probable in itself than it is encouraging. 

This is what I shall now proceed to shew you.



Almost every object in nature grows up gradually from a weak and low to a 

mature and improved state of being. The condition of mankind, in 

particular, has been hitherto improving. At first they were rude and 

ignorant. In time several of the arts were discovered. Civilization and 

agriculture began and governments were established. By degrees the arts were 

improved. New ones were discovered and better forms of government were 

established, and in the present aera of the world it is evident that the 

life of man appears with greater dignity than ever, and that in consequence 

of a vast variety of successive improvements and additions produced by them 

in the sources of human enjoyment, there is the same difference between the 

state of our species now and its state at first as there is between a youth 

approaching to manhood and a child just born.



It deserves particular consideration here that it is the nature of 

improvement to increase itself. Every advance in it lifts mankind higher and 

makes them more capable of farther advances, nor are there, in this case, 

any limits beyond which knowledge and improvement cannot be carried. And for 

this reason discoveries may, for aught we know, be made in future time 

which, like the discoveries of the mechanical arts and the mathematical 

sciences in past time, may exalt the powers of men and improve their state 

to a degree which will make future generations as much superior to the 

present as the present are to the past. Let us here look back again.



At the first establishment of civil society man was an animal, naked in 

body and mind, running about in the woods or tending cattle, destitute of 

arts and laws and ideas. From this low condition he has risen to be the 

animal we now see him, to command the powers of nature, to fertilize the 

earth, to traverse the ocean, and to measure the distances and magnitudes of 

the sun and planets. His progress to this state has been irregular and 

various. Ages of improvement have been followed by ages of barbarism, and 

the several climates of the earth have felt the vicissitudes of knowledge 

and ignorance just as they have of light and darkness. Yet what has been 

lost in one place, or at one time, has been gained in another, and an age of 

darkness and barbarism has been succeeded by ages of improvement more rapid 

than any that preceded them. There was a time when no man was what whole 

countries are now. And there may come a time when every country will be what 

many are now, and when some will be advanced to a state much higher.



Nothing can direct us better in judging of the manner in which future 

improvements are likely to proceed than reflecting on the course of human 

improvement as it has hitherto taken place. I cannot illustrate what I now 

mean better than by instancing in natural philosophy.



The highest state of philosophical and astronomical knowledge was, at the 

beginning of this century, that which it had attained by the discoveries of 

Sir Isaac Newton. But it had been the work of many ages to prepare mankind 

for these, and to bring the world to a capacity of understanding and 

receiving them. To a few wise men above two thousand years ago there 

appeared some glimmerings of this philosophy, but they were disregarded and 

soon lost. A barbarous philosophy, called the Peripatetic, prevailed after 

this for a long period. The inventor of it (like the Pope in the Christian 

church) was set up as an universal master, and the most wretched jargon was 

received implicitly for true science. It is scarcely possible to describe 

the state of darkness with respect to the knowledge of nature in which the 

world was involved during this whole time. About two centuries ago a 

glimmering of light again appeared, and a more rational philosophy began to 

gain ground. The light gradually increased. One great genius rose after 

another, and one discovery produced further discoveries. A Bacon was 

followed by a Boyle, and a Boyle by a Newton. Each of these prepared the way 

for his successor, and the last (the pride and glory of this country, and a 

name with which no names of kings and princes deserve to be thought of) the 

last, I say, has struck out a glorious light. He extended on every side the 

boundaries of science, subjected light itself to dissection, and with a 

sagacity never before known among mortals unfolded the laws which govern the 

solar system. Such, however, were the prejudices in favour of former systems 

of philosophy that even his philosophy, though founded on experiment and 

demonstration, was not immediately received. For many years it encountered 

much opposition, but at last it made its way. Foreign nations came over to 

it, and it is now the philosophy of the world. A state of philosophy so 

improved could not take place soon among mankind. It was necessarily 

reserved for an advanced age of the world. What is now known of the relation 

of this earth to the sun, and of the order of the heavenly bodies, is so 

contrary to vulgar prejudices and seems to be so contradicted by the 

testimony of our senses, that had it been proposed, even to the philosophers 

of Greece and Rome, they would probably have scouted it as much as they did 

Christianity. False systems of philosophy have occasioned a more thorough 

examination of philosophical subjects, and their detection has given greater 

weight and stability to the true philosophy, for truth always shines 

brighter and stands firmer after growing out of the ruins of error, and an 

error once prevalent and afterwards detected is never likely to recover 

itself.



These observations are applicable with strict propriety to the natural 

course of improvement in religious knowledge, and, particularly, the 

knowledge of genuine Christianity and its spread among mankind. Till the 

time of our Saviour the world had been too much in its infancy to be capable 

of admitting more of the knowledge of Christianity than could be 

communicated by obscure hints, and a succession of dark preparatory 

dispensations. And even in the ages immediately following the time of our 

Saviour, it was by no means ripe for that universal prevalency of 

Christianity which we expect hereafter. The prejudices of mankind were then 

of such a nature, and the doctrines of the gospel so much out of the road of 

their ideas, that had it prevailed every where it must have prevailed in a 

very imperfect form, and an adulteration of it by the false learning and 

philosophy of the times was unavoidable. For these reasons it might be 

necessary that at first there should be only a partial propagation of it, 

and that its more general establishment should be deferred till the world 

was more improved and therefore more capable of properly understanding it, 

till sufficient time had been allowed for a full discussion of its 

doctrines, till the completion of prophecy became an argument for it so 

striking as to be irresistible, till the system of nature and the plans of 

Providence should be laid more open to our views, and there should be a 

possibility of establishing it among mankind in such purity and with such 

evidence as should leave no danger of further adulterations of it.



It appears, therefore, that the same preparation of ages which is required 

to bring about advances in philosophical knowledge is required also in 

religious knowledge. We are apt to be hasty and impatient. We should learn 

to wait till seeds have had time to grow and to produce crops. The 

government of the Deity proceeds gradually and slowly. As He does not bring 

the individuals of the human race on the stage of mature life before they 

have been duly prepared for it by passing through the instruction and 

discipline of infancy and childhood, so neither does he bring the species to 

that finished state of dignity and happiness for which it is intended 

without a similar introduction and education.



Religious improvement must be expected to keep pace with other improvements. 

There is a connexion between all the different branches of knowledge which 

render this necessary. It would be strange, indeed, if men were not likely 

to understand religion best when they understood best all other subjects, or 

if an increase of general knowledge only left us more in the dark in 

theology. This is what those of our brethren who will admit of no new 

lights in religion would have us believe. But nothing can be more 

unreasonable. The age of polite literature in antient Greece and Rome was 

likewise the age when general knowledge prevailed most, and the period of 

the revival of letters in these last ages was also the period of the 

reformation from Popery; and in like manner it must be expected, 

notwithstanding all the obstacles which the friends of old establishments 

endeavour to throw in the way, that the present period of more knowledge 

than ever yet existed in the world will produce a farther reformation.



It is observable that the Scriptures place the downfall of Antichrist 

before the commencement of the universal kingdom of the Messiah. This must 

be the order in which these events will happen. It would be absurd to 

imagine that Christianity, in its corrupt state, will ever become the 

universal religion. Previously to this it must lose that connection with 

civil power which has debased it, and which now in almost every Christian 

country turns it into a scheme of worldly emolument and policy, and supports 

error and superstition under the name of it. The absurdities fathered upon 

it must be exploded and it must be displayed to the world in its native and 

original excellence. Then only will it be fit to triumph over false 

religions and to reform and bless all nations.



The observations now made may be of use in assisting you to form just ideas 

of the progressive course of human improvement. Such has it hitherto been, 

and such the natures of things assure us it must continue to be. Like a 

river into which, as it flows, new currents are continually discharging 

themselves, it must increase till it becomes a wide-spreading stream, 

fertilizing and enriching all countries, and covering the earth as the 

waters cover the sea.



I will here point out to you briefly a few circumstances in the present 

state of the world which indicates [sic] a farther progress and are 

particularly encouraging.



First, in philosophical knowledge great advances have been lately made. New 

fields of philosophy have been opened since the time of Sir Isaac Newton. 

Our ideas of the extent and grandeur of the universe have been carried much 

farther than he carried mem, and facts in the system of nature discovered 

which could they have been intimated to him would have been pronounced by 

him impossible. Standing on his shoulders and assisted by his discoveries we 

see farther than he did. How daring then would be the man who should say 

that our successors will not see farther than we do?



This increase of natural knowledge must be accompanied with more enlarged 

views and liberal sentiments in religion, and we find that this has been 

its effect. There is, indeed, no circumstance in the present state of the 

world which promises more than the liberality in religion which is now 

prevailing. God be thanked, the burning times are gone, and a conviction of 

the reasonableness of universal toleration is spreading fast. Juster notions 

also of the origin and end of civil government are making way, and an 

experiment is now making by our brethren on the other side of the Atlantic 

of the last consequence, and to which every friend of the human race must 

wish success. There a total separation of religion from civil policy has 

taken place which will probably read a lesson to the world that will do it 

infinite service. Alliances between church and state and slavish hierarchies 

are losing credit, long experience having taught their mischief. The nature 

of religious liberty is better understood than ever. In the last century 

those who cried out the loudest for it meant only liberty for themselves 

because the advocates of truth. But there is now a conviction prevailing 

that all encroachments on the right of conscience are pernicious and 

impious, that the proper office of the civil magistrate is to maintain 

peace, not to support truth. To defend the properties of men, not to take 

care of their souls. And to protect equally all honest citizens of all 

persuasions, not to set up one religious sect above another.



Sentiments so reasonable must continue to spread. They promise an open and 

free stage for discussion and general harmony among the professors of 

Christianity. O happy time! when bigotry shall no more persecute the 

sincere enquirer, and every one shall tolerate as he would wish to be 

himself tolerated. When mankind shall love one another as brethren amidst 

their religious differences, and human authority in religion be exploded. 

When civil governors shall know their duty and employ their power for its 

proper purpose. When the sacred blessing of liberty shall meet with no 

restraint except when used to injure itself, and all shall be allowed 

without the fear of losing any rights to profess and practise that mode of 

faith and worship which they shall think most acceptable to their Maker. 

Then will come to pass the prophecy of Isaiah, (before recited to you) The 

wolf will dwell with the lamb, the leopard lie down with the kid, and the 

lion eat straw with the ox, the sucking child shall play on the hole of the 

asp, and they shall not hurt or destroy in all the earth.



I might now, would the time allow, proceed to recite many other important 

circumstances in the state of the world which are preparations for that 

revolution in favour of human happiness which is the object of this 

discourse. Such as the alleviation of the horrors of war occasioned by the 

spread of the principles of humanity, and the encouragement arising from 

hence (and also from the growing conviction of the folly as well as the 

iniquity of wars) to expect a time when nation shall no more lift up a sword 

against nation. The softened spirit of Popery, and the visible decline of 

the papal power. The extinction of the order of Jesuits, and the demolition 

of convents and monasteries. The shutting of the doors of the infernal 

inquisition, and the ceasing of acts of faith. The extended intercourse 

between the different parts of the world and the facility of the diffusion 

of knowledge created first by the invention of the art of printing, but now 

carried farther than ever by the increase of commerce and the improvements 

in the art of navigation. The establishment, at this moment going forward, 

of an equal representation of the different provinces of France, and the 

tendencies to it in some of the other countries of Europe. All these 

circumstances (and many more might be mentioned) render the present state of 

the world unspeakably different from what it was. They shew us man a milder 

animal than he was, and the world outgrowing its evils, superstition giving 

way, antichrist falling, and the Millennium hastening.



Having stated to you the evidence for the doctrine which is the subject of 

this discourse, I shall now proceed to what I next proposed when I entered 

upon it. I mean, to take notice of the means by which that happy termination 

of affairs on this globe which I have been representing is to be brought 

about. The observations I have made plainly point out to us these means and, 

therefore, I have, in some measure, anticipated myself on this subject. 

There are, however, some of these means which I must not omit to recall to 

your remembrance and to which it is necessary that, on the present occasion, 

I should more particularly direct your attention.



In general, it is obvious that this end is to be brought about by the 

operations of Providence concurring with those tendencies to improvement 

which I have observed to be inseparable from the nature of man. Often 

Providence works for this end by bringing good out of evil, and making use 

of human passions to accomplish purposes contrary to those at which they 

aimed. It would be easy to mention many instances of this. The end of 

persecutors is to prevent the spread of heterodox opinions, but, instead of 

answering this end, it generally gives such opinions a wider spread. The 

progress of Christianity has been assisted in this way, for it is a very 

just observation that the blood of the martyrs has been the seed of the 

church. The political views of princes have often, and are now remarkably 

operating in the same way. The passions of King Henry the 8th, were the 

means of introducing that period of light and reformation in this country to 

which we owe our present liberty and happiness. The writings of unbelievers 

have done service to the Christian religion by causing a stricter enquiry 

into its evidence and clearing it of the rubbish which has been thrown upon 

it and the false doctrines which have been mingled with it. And I am greatly 

mistaken if the obstinacy with which abuses so gross as to be palpable to 

all the world are retained, in the present age and even in this country, 

will not in the end prove a great public benefit by causing a more quick and 

complete overthrow of them and of the establishments that support them, and 

thus giving a better opportunity for the introduction of establishments 

favourable to truth and liberty and virtue.



Such are the secret and indirect means by which Providence often carries on 

its ends. But, in the present case, the most common means which it employs 

are the investigations and active exertions of enlightened and honest men. 

These are aimed directly at the melioration of the world and without them 

it would soon degenerate. It is the blessing of God on the disquisitions of 

reason and the labours of virtue, united to the invisible directions of his 

Providence, that must bring on the period I have in view. Inactivity and 

sleep are fatal to improvement. It is only (as the prophet Daniel speaks) by 

running to and fro, that is, by diligent enquiry, by free discussion and the 

collision of different sentiments, that knowledge can be increased, truth 

struck out, and the dignity of our species promoted. Every one of us ought 

to co-operate with his neighbours in this great work, and to contribute all 

he can to instruct and reform his fellow-creatures. His power may be little, 

but this is no reason against exerting it as far as it will go. The less his 

power is, the more anxious he should be to employ that little, and not to 

suffer any part of it to be lost. There are none who have not some degree of 

power. The rich may help by their fortunes; the great by their influence; 

the poor by their labour, and the learned by their instruction and counsel. 

And were all to contribute all they can in these different ways, much would 

be done and the world would make swift advances to a better state.



The observations I have made shew that our exertions for this purpose ought 

more especially to be directed to the following points.



First, an improvement in the state of civil government. The dispositions 

and manners of men depend more than we can well conceive on the nature of 

the government to which they are subject. There is nothing so debasing as 

despotic government. They convert the governed into beasts and the men who 

govern into demons. Free governments, on the contrary, exalt the human 

character. They give a feeling of dignity and consequence to the governed, 

and to the governors a feeling of responsibility which has a tendency to 

keep them within the bounds of their duty, and to teach them that they are 

more properly the servants of the public than its governors. Much study has 

been employed, and much pains taken, to find out the best forms of 

government. Nor is there any subject on which the human understanding can 

employ itself much more usefully. Many improvements remain to be made and it 

should be the business of wise and good men to investigate them, and to 

throw as much light as possible on a subject so interesting to human 

happiness.[18] I cannot help taking this opportunity to remove a very 

groundless suspicion with respect to myself by adding that so far am I from 

preferring a government purely republican, that I look upon our own 

constitution of government as better adapted than any other to this country, 

and in theory excellent.[19] I have said in theory, for, in consequence of 

the increase of corruption and the miserable inadequateness of our 

representation, it is chiefly the theory and form of our constitution that 

we possess, and this I reckon our first and worst and greatest grievance. We 

have been the most distinguished people under heaven. Lately our glory has 

been eclipsed. But could we, in this instance, turn the form into the 

reality (the shadow into the substance) we might recover our former rank, 

and, with the aid of strong measures for reducing our debts, rise, perhaps, 

to greater glory than ever.



But, I must hasten to what I meant next to mention as an object necessary 

to be attended to by the enlightened part of mankind, in order to improve 

the world. I mean, gaining an open field for discussion, by excluding from 

it the interposition of civil power, except to keep the peace, by separating 

religion from civil policy, and emancipating the human mind from the chains 

of church-authority and church-establishments. Till this can be effected, 

the worst impediments to improvement will remain. The period to which I have 

been carrying your views must, as I have before observed to you, be preceded 

by the downfall of all slavish and antichristian hierarchies. These let at 

present, and they will let till they are taken away. They are, by certain 

prophecy, destined to destruction. The liberality of the times has already 

loosened their foundations. The obstinacy of their adherents is increasing 

their danger, and the wise and virtuous of all descriptions should make 

themselves willing instruments in the hands of Providence to hasten their 

removal, not by any methods of violence, but by the diffusion of knowledge 

and the quiet influence of reason and conviction.



Thirdly, another great object which the friends of reformation ought to 

attend to is an improvement in the state of education. The importance of 

education has been so well represented to you by my excellent friend and 

brother, Dr. Kippis, in the discourse he delivered to you in this place last 

year, that it is needless for me to dwell much upon it. Nothing, certainly, 

can be of more importance. Seminaries of learning are the springs of society 

which, as they flow foul or pure, diffuse through successive generations 

depravity and misery, or, on the contrary, virtue and happiness. On the bent 

given to our minds as they open and expand depends their subsequent fate, 

and on the general management of education depend the honour and dignity of 

our species. This is a subject with which we are far from being sufficiently 

acquainted. I often think there may remain a secret in it to be discovered 

which will contribute more than any thing to the amendment of mankind, and 

he who should advance one step towards making this discovery would deserve 

better of the world, than all the learned scholars and professors who have 

hitherto existed.



The course of improvement, when it has once begun, is (like the motion of a 

descending body) an accelerated course. One improvement produces other 

improvements, and these others, and for this reason there may be 

improvements, apparently little, which may lead to so many more as to be, 

in their consequences, like the opening of new senses among mankind. There 

is great encouragement in this consideration. It shews us that the greatest 

good may arise from the slightest degree of real improvement which we can 

produce by our exertions, and it should, therefore, quicken our zeal in all 

such exertions. This observation is, perhaps, more applicable to the subject 

of education than any other. Improvement, in this case, must be in the 

highest degree useful. It has a particular tendency to perpetuate itself and 

may, however inconsiderable at first, increase so far as to bring about an 

universal reformation. A set of gentlemen, let us suppose, well-informed and 

of liberal sentiments, see and lament the defects and abuses in the common 

modes of education. They resolve to try the effect of a new plan. They unite 

their influence and their contributions for this purpose. They found a 

college, small perhaps in its origin and narrow in its extent, but wise in 

its regulations. The care with which it is super-intended and the excellence 

of its discipline make it an asylum in which young men are saved from the 

contagion to which they are exposed in other seminaries, and from which they 

go out, well-instructed and well-principled, to be a comfort to their 

parents, an honour to their teachers, and blessings to society.



This soon engages general attention and draws to it greater encouragement, 

in consequence of which it extends its beneficial influence through a wider 

circle. The example kindles zeal in others and gives rise to institutions 

formed on plans still more extensive and improved. One generation thus 

improved communicates improvement to the next, and that to the next, till at 

last a progress in improvement may take place rapid and irresistible which 

may issue in the happiest state of things that can exist on this earth. It 

cannot be amiss for the gentlemen to whom I am addressing myself to fancy 

themselves in the situation now described. Should it lead them to entertain 

a delusive expectation, it is a pleasing one, and they will have their 

reward. The success to which it carries their views is at least the tendency 

and the possible effect of their exertions. They have, hitherto, been 

encouraged beyond their expectations, and they have reason to look forward 

to greater encouragement. Let it appear that they are likely to improve the 

state of education, and to sow the seeds of Catholicism, virtue and rational 

piety in the kingdom, and there cannot be a doubt but they will receive all 

the support they can wish for. And who knows what a glorious service they 

may in the end perform? I feel, indeed, more and more of a hope that they 

are laying the foundation of an institution which will gather strength for a 

long period, and cause multitudes in future times to rise up and call them 

blessed.



One of the best effects which I expect from it is an extension of that 

Catholicism which I have just mentioned, and of a spirit of candour and 

benevolence. The common effect of education has hitherto been the reverse 

of this. It has taught a gloomy and sour, instead of a manly and benevolent, 

religion, a religion consisting in a blind attachment to rites and forms 

and mysteries, and not in an impartial enquiry after truth, in the love of 

God and his creatures, and the practice of all that is worthy from a regard 

to the moral government of the Deity and a future judgment. This has 

produced some of the worst consequences and, particularly, that odium 

theologicum (that rancour of ecclesiastics) which, because surpassing in 

virulence all other rancour, has been long proverbial. There is, as I have 

before observed, less of this than there used to be in the world. But too 

much of it remains, nor will it be ever totally abolished till a conviction 

becomes universal of the following truth. 'That nothing is very important 

except an honest mind, nothing fundamental except righteous practice, and a 

sincere desire to know and do the will of God.' I wish earnestly I could be, 

in any degree, the means of propagating this conviction. There is nothing by 

which any one can better serve the essential interests of society. The 

institution which occasions the present service will, I hope, do much good 

in this way. It is intended for the purpose of providing that denomination 

of Protestant Dissenters to which we belong, with a succession of able and 

useful ministers. And this is of no less importance than the existence of 

our dissent from the established church, a dissent which, in my opinion, is 

derived from the best reasons, from a dislike of the creed[20] as well as 

the ceremonies of the church -- from a regard to Christ as the only lawgiver 

in his kingdom, and the rejection of all human authority in religion -- and, 

above all, from a conviction that the only proper object of our religious 

worship is that one undivided and self-existent Being and cause of all 

causes who sent Christ into the world, and who is his God and Father, no 

less than he is our God and father. These are reasons which give the cause 

we wish to support a dignity not to be expressed, and render the 

preservation of it our duty by all the means that are consistent with the 

respect we owe to our brethren of different sentiments, and, particularly, 

by the establishment of an institution, like the present, for educating 

ministers.



But the education of ministers is far from being the only end of this 

institution. It is, (as the public has been informed in our printed reports) 

farther intended for the education of youth in general at that period of 

approach to mature life when they are most liable to seduction, and most in 

danger of taking a wrong turn.



In carrying on this undertaking the first aim of its conductors will be 

undoubtedly to attach young minds as much as possible to virtue, and at the 

same time to communicate to them such instruction as shall be best fitted 

to assist them in judging for themselves, and to engage them to unite 

liberality and humility, to piety, zeal, and learning.



The best education is that which does this most effectually; which 

impresses the heart most with the love of virtue and communicates the most 

expanded and ardent benevolence; which gives the deepest consciousness of 

the fallibility of the human understanding and preserves from that vile 

dogmatism so prevalent in the world; which makes men diffident and modest, 

attentive to evidence, capable of proportioning their assent to the degree 

of it, quick in discerning it, and determined to follow it; which, in short, 

instead of producing acute casuists, conceited pedants, or furious polemics, 

produces fair enquirers endowed with that heavenly wisdom described by St. 

James, which is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, 

full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. An 

education so conducted is the only means of gaining free scope for the 

progress of truth, of exterminating the pitiful prejudices we indulge 

against one another, and of establishing peace on earth and good will 

amongst men.



Think here of the effects of education as commonly managed. Its business is 

to teach a learning which puffs up and which must be unlearnt before reason 

can acquire its just influence. Instead of opening it contracts. Instead of 

enlightening, it darkens, and, by giving a notion of sacredness in 

disputable doctrines and stuffing the mind with prejudices, incapacitates 

for the reception of real wisdom and makes men think it their duty to 

silence, to imprison, and perhaps to kill one another in order to do God 

service. Such was the effect of education in our Saviour's time among Jews 

and Pagans. It made self-righteous Pharisees, ostentatious disputants, proud 

sophists, and cruel persecutors, zealous for the absurdities of superstition 

and idolatry, and furnished with skill to defend them and to resist 

conviction. And the consequence was that, not suspecting the necessity of 

knowing themselves fools before they could be wise, they rejected with 

disdain the instruction of the Gospel, and that the poorest and plainest men 

who had never been taught in their schools, or been perverted by the false 

learning of the times, entered into the kingdom of God before them. It is in 

this circumstance that our Lord's thanksgiving in Matth. xi. 25. is 

grounded. I thank thee, O father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou 

hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them unto 

babes. Let the conductors of this institution take care to avoid this 

error. Let it be their study to form men who shall, in Christ's sense, be 

babes rather than wise and prudent, that is, who shall possess the modesty, 

lowliness, and teachable simplicity of children, rather than the pride and 

dogmaticalness of men who, having been educated in colleges, think 

themselves wise and learned, but whose learning produces a worse 

entanglement of the understanding than common men are subject to, and is 

nothing but deeper ignorance and more inveterate prejudice. This is the 

great advantage by which I wish this institution to be distinguished, and it 

is an advantage which it must possess if your present views are carried into 

execution. It is to be formed on an open and liberal plan. Our two 

universities are fortresses created for the security and preservation of the 

church of England, and defended for that purpose by tests and subscriptions. 

Most of the seminaries also among ourselves are intended for conveying 

instruction in the particular systems of the sects that support them, and 

for making Baptists, Independents, Calvinists, and orthodox believers. The 

founders of this institution, while they neglect no proper means of making 

good scholars and enlightened philosophers, will, I doubt not, be anxious 

above all things about making good men, upright citizens, and honest and 

candid believers.



This is a design that all must approve who do not think that the truth 

having been happily found out and established in this kingdom two hundred 

years ago, nothing remains to be done but to support it and to adopt 

measures for maintaining the belief of it, and for creating an inviolable 

attachment to it. Thus did Jews and Pagans think in our Saviour's time, and, 

therefore, rejected the divine light of Christianity. Thus do Mahometans and 

Papists now think of their national establishments, and, therefore, continue 

in darkness and superstition. Is it credible that like consequences should 

not arise from like sentiments in this country? Is it not as proper in us, 

as it would be in them, to suspect our public creeds and forms? Can it be 

imagined that we have reached a degree of perfection which renders farther 

enquiry needless? I am indeed much mistaken if some very great errors do not 

still make a part of our national faith. This is at least possible, and this 

possibility is a sufficient reason for maintaining an openness to conviction 

with respect to it. Should such errors exist, and the reformed churches 

themselves want reformation, institutions for liberalizing education must do 

infinite good by being the means of detecting them. But should they not 

exist still the best consequences must follow. It will appear that our 

national code of faith and worship can stand the test of examination. It 

will gain credit and find a more honourable support than that authority of 

fallible men and that interference of secular power in religion, which have 

hitherto, almost everywhere, supported nothing but imposture, superstition 

and idolatry.



It may be objected that the liberality in education which I have 

recommended will have a tendency to set men loose from all principles. The 

observation I have just made proves this to be an unreasonable apprehension. 

The best way, certainly, of attaching men to true principles is to enable 

them to examine impartially all principles. Every truth that is necessary to 

be believed and really sacred, must be attended with the clearest evidence. 

Free enquiry can be hostile to nothing but absurdity and bigotry. It is only 

falshood and delusion which fly from discussion and chuse to skulk in the 

dark.



But I am in danger of wandering beyond the proper purpose of this 

discourse. Let me now recall briefly to your attention some of the reasons 

which should quicken your zeal in the great work you have undertaken. I have 

already taken notice of its great importance. Forming youthful and tender 

minds to virtue, and pointing their ambition to that moral excellence and 

resemblance of the Deity which alone constitute true honour and dignity; 

directing their faculties as they open, and checking in them the risings of 

criminal passions; assisting them in the acquisition of valuable knowledge, 

and teaching them habits of patience, modesty, candour, and self-government; 

guarding them against the influence of the foolish prejudices which blind 

mankind; and preparing them by judicious discipline and instruction for an 

easy admission of the light of truth, and thus contributing to the 

progressive improvement of the world, the enlargement of Christ's kingdom, 

and the arrival of a period when the will of God will be done on earth, as 

it is in heaven; -- this, brethren, this is a work of the noblest and 

highest nature. Angels can hardly be more usefully or honourably employed.



But consider next the need there is of your exertions in this instance. It 

is a narrow and ill-managed education that keeps up discord and malevolence, 

and that produces most of the evils of life. It is this that is continually 

sending out into the world coxcombs, pedants, bigots, despots, and 

libertines to debase the dignity of man, to embroil society, and to 

perpetuate ignorance, vice and slavery. The smallest degree of success in an 

attempt to correct these evils by an improvement in the state of education 

would be an ample reward for the greatest trouble and expence that could 

attend it. The inattention to this subject which has prevailed is no less 

astonishing than melancholy. When the resolution was taken to establish this 

institution, there was but one seminary for education, after passing through 

the common grammar schools, to which we, as Dissenters of the denomination 

commonly (though improperly) called Presbyterians, could look, and even this 

seminary was by the founder of it intended to form Independents and 

Calvinists. The moderation and wisdom of its trustees and tutors have indeed 

given it a liberal turn and made it very useful. It is not, however, of 

sufficient extent to answer all our views. Being situated in the country, it 

wants many advantages which can be found only near the centre of the 

kingdom. But I will not enter on a repetition of what you have so well 

observed on this subject in your reports and circular letters.



Let me, therefore, desire you, in the next place, to consider the 

obligation under which your constant use of the words of my text lays you, 

and the encouragement it gives you. To pray for a benefit without using our 

endeavours to procure it, is a mockery of the Deity and an abuse of prayer. 

We are commanded to pray for our daily bread, but he that should do this, 

while he takes no pains to get his daily bread, would be inexcuseable. We 

are, therefore, bound by our use of that part of the Lord's Prayer which I 

have taken for my text to employ all the means in our power to cause the 

kingdom of God to come, and his will to be done on earth as it is done in 

heaven. And one of the best of all the means we can employ is, I have shewn, 

the establishment of such a seminary as we have now in view.



Our use of this part of the Lord's Prayer is farther an encouragement to us 

in employing these means. A command to pray for a blessing, implies that we 

shall obtain it if we use the means. In the present instance, particularly, 

it assures us that an extension of Christ's kingdom and an amendment of the 

state of the world, are blessings which lie in some degree within our reach 

and that our exertions for this purpose shall be favoured and succeeded.



The encouragement derived from hence is greatly increased by the doctrine 

on which I have been insisting. A more prosperous state of things is to take 

place on this earth. The stone which was cut out of the mountain without 

human force is hereafter to fill the whole earth, and the kingdom of the 

Messiah to become universal. Reason and Scripture lead to this expectation. 

Remember then in your endeavours to enlighten and reform mankind that you 

are co-operating with Providence, that the hand of God has marked out your 

path, and that his favour will guide and protect you. I have been shewing 

you how much the state of the world encourages you. A spirit of enquiry is 

gone forth. A disdain of the restraints imposed by tyrants on human reason 

prevails. A tide is set in. A favourable gale has sprung up. Let us seize 

the auspicious moment, obey the call of Providence, and join our helping 

hands to those of the friends of science and virtue. Think not, however, 

that you have no difficulties to encounter. It will not be strange if an 

alarm should be taken about the danger of the church. There is a jealousy 

natural to church establishments (especially when undermined by time and the 

spread of knowledge) which may produce such an alarm. In this case it would 

be a most unreasonable alarm, for if our religious establishment can bear 

discussion and stands on good ground as its friends must believe, what harm 

can be done to it by an institution, the design of which is, not to 

inculcate the peculiarities of any sect, but to communicate such general 

instruction and to promote such a spirit of enquiry and candour as shall 

form worthy citizens for the state and useful ministers for the church? 

This, however, is a consideration that will not prevent opposition. The 

enemies of reformation may be alarmed. Ignorance and intolerance may 

clamour. But their opposition cannot be successful. The liberal temper of 

the times must overpower them. Bigotry and superstition must vanish before 

increasing light. We see the clouds scattering. We live in happier times 

than our fore-fathers. The shades of night are departing. The day dawns, and 

the sun of righteousness will soon rise with healing in his wings. Let us 

keep our attention fixed on this reviving prospect. Animated by it, let us 

persevere in our exertions, knowing that, as far as we are on the side of 

liberty and virtue, we are on that side which must at last prevail.



Let us, however, at the same time take care not to forget a caution which I 

have before given and cannot too often repeat. While we proceed in our 

exertions with perseverance and zeal, let them be accompanied with 

peaceableness and dispositions perfectly charitable. Some of our 

fellow-Christians are eagerly maintaining a preeminence in the Christian 

church which Christ has prohibited, and struggling to preserve the power 

they claim as interpreters of Christ's laws and kings in his kingdom.[21] 

They either do not see the great change that is going forward, or, if they 

do see it, they have not the wisdom to suit their conduct to it, and to 

prepare for its effects. Others of our brethren continue to hold as sacred 

some of the doctrines of the dark ages. The mist, which opening day is 

dispersing, still lurks round them. Imagining the acceptance of the Deity to 

be confined within the circle of their own faith, they cannot view mankind 

with the same satisfaction that we do. They have not yet felt the chearing 

power of a religion which makes nothing essential but an honest heart, and 

they look, perhaps, with pain on your attempts to serve the cause of truth 

and piety. But though, in this respect less happy than ourselves and, as we 

think, not so well informed, they may be truly worthy and we should learn 

not to condemn them whatever sentiments with respect to us a mistaken 

Judgment may lead them to entertain.



My own experience has induced me to speak thus to you. I have been an object 

of censure for actions which I consider as some of the best in my life. But 

being conscious that I have meant well, and believing that I have not 

laboured quite in vain, the censure I have met with has made no impression 

on me. I look back with complacency and I look forward with joy in hope of a 

time when those good men who now dislike me on account of the difference of 

our religious opinions and views will be as ready to embrace me as I am to 

embrace them.



Excuse this digression. I am growing too tedious, and I have gone beyond my 

strength. I will, therefore, conclude with directing you to carry your 

thoughts to another world. The period on which I have been discoursing will 

pass while we are silent in the grave. But through the grace of God in the 

great Redeemer we shall be raised up from death and enter on a new world. 

There a brighter scene than this world can exhibit to us in its best state 

will open upon us. There a government of consummate order will be 

established and all the faithful and worthy of all religions will be 

gathered into it. There peace and love will reign in full perfection, and 

those who, by such exertions as yours, are the means of enlarging the 

kingdom of Christ and causing the will of God to be done on earth as it is 

done in heaven, will be exalted to a happiness greater than can be now 

conceived, and which will never come to an end. To this happiness, may God 

of his infinite mercy bring us, through Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour.







18. Much assistance in this enquiry may be derived from the Defence of the 

American constitutions of government, lately published by his Excellency Mr. 

Adams [John Adams, A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the 

United States of America (Philadelphia, 1787)] where an account is given of 

most of the governments that have hitherto existed, in order to prove the 

necessity of providing checks and balances in a constitution of government, 

by lodging, as is done in our own constitution, the power of legislation in 

more than one assembly and separating from one another the legislative, 

executive, and judicial powers.



19. What I here say of myself I believe to be true of the whole body of 

British subjects among Protestant Dissenters. I know not one individual 

among them who would not tremble at the thought of changing into a democracy 

our mixed form of government, or who has any other wish with respect to it 

than to restore it to purity and vigour by removing the defects in our 

representation, and establishing that independence of the three states on 

one another in which its essence consists.



20. It should be attended to that I here speak of the Presbyterian 

denomination of dissenters only. The whole body of Protestant dissenters 

consists of a great variety of different sects who have hardly one common 

principle of dissent. The majority of this very mixed and numerous body are, 

without doubt, Calvinists and Trinitarians, and therefore cannot dislike the 

creed of the church, and, at the beginning of this century, the same was 

true of even the Presbyterian dissenters. A great revolution has taken place 

in the opinion of this last class of dissenters: but it originated in the 

church itself with Sir Isaac Newton, Clarke, Hoadley, Whiston, Sykes, etc. 

and if from these dissenters the faith of the established church is in any 

danger, it must be more in danger from many of its own members. I will take 

this opportunity to add that there is a difference of opinion among 

dissenters on the subject of civil establishments of religion, some 

approving them in general and only disliking that particular form of 

religion which happens to be established in this country, while others 

object to all such establishments and think, as I do, that they encroach on 

the rights of conscience, obstruct the progress of truth, engender strife 

and animosity, and turn religion into a trade. The former sort of dissenters 

must wish to see their own religion substituted for that which is 

established, but the latter dread such a substitution and can have no other 

wish than to see all unjust preferences on account of modes of faith and 

worship abolished, and all honest and peaceable citizens equally protected 

and encouraged.



21. Never was a more important service done to the cause of religious 

liberty, than by the excellent Bishop Hoadley, in the controversy occasioned 

by a sermon in which he confuted these claims. For this sermon, (and also 

his opposition to a test law which stigmatizes a large body of the king's 

best subjects, and profanes a Christian ordinance) he was threatened with 

the vengeance of both houses of Convocation, but the power of government (in 

this case wisely applied to the restraint of clerical resentment) 

interposed and saved him. The issue is well known. He was promoted, and the 

Convocation ruined, for since that time it has never been allowed to sit to 

exercise its former powers. [On 31 March 1717, Hoadly preached a sermon, 

'The Nature of the Kingdom of Christ', in which he argued that the Gospels 

give no warrant for any visible church authority. On 3 May 1717 the Lower 

House of Convocation appointed a Committee to examine the sermon, but before 

it could send its findings to the Upper House, the King prorogued 

Convocation. Convocation did not meet again, except formally, until 1852.]





____________



             A Discourse on the Love of our Country 



                            (1789)







             A Discourse on the Love of our Country, 

         delivered on Nov. 4, 1789, at the Meeting-House 

               in the Old Jewry, to the Society for 

          Commemorating the Revolution in Great Britain.



                 Preface to the Fourth Edition



Since the former editions of the following discourse, many animadversions 

upon it have been published. Under the abuse with which some of them are 

accompanied, I have been comforted by finding myself joined to the City of 

Paris, and the National Assembly of France. I cannot think of employing my 

rime in making any replies. Knowing that it has been the labour of my life 

to promote those interests of liberty, peace, and virtue, which I reckon the 

best interests of mankind, and believing that I have not laboured quite in 

vain, I feel a satisfaction that no opposition can take from me, and shall 

submit myself in silence to the judgment of the public without taking any 

other notice of the abuse I have met with than by mentioning the following 

instance of it. 



In p. 195,1 have adopted the words of Scripture, Now lettest thou thy 

servant depart in peace and expressed my gratitude to God for having spared 

my life to see a 'diffusion of knowledge that has undermined superstition 

and error, a vast kingdom spuming at slavery, and an arbitrary monarch led 

in triumph and surrendering himself to his subjects'. These words have 

occasioned a comparison of me (by Mr. Burke in his Reflections on the 

Revolution in France) to Hugh Peters, attended with an intimation that like 

him, I may not die in peace, and he has described me, p. 99, etc. as a 

barbarian delighted with blood, profaning Scripture, and exulting in the 

riot and slaughter at Versailles on the 6th of October last year. I hope I 

shall be credited when, in answer to this horrid misrepresentation and 

menace, I assure the public that the events to which I referred in these 

words were not those of the 6th of October, but those only of the 14th of 

July and the subsequent days, when, after the conquest of the Bastile, the 

King of France sought the protection of the National Assembly and, by his 

own desire, was conducted amidst acclamations never before heard in France 

to Paris, there to shew himself to his people as the restorer of their 

liberty.



I am indeed surprised that Mr. Burke could want candour so much as to 

suppose that I have any other events in view. The letters quoted by him in 

p. 99 and 128 were dated in July 1789, and might have shewn him that he was 

injuring both me and the writer of those letters. But what candour or what 

moderation can be expected in a person so frantic with zeal for hereditary 

claims and aristocratical distinctions as to be capable of decrying popular 

rights and the aid of philosophy in forming governments, of lamenting that 

the age of chivalry is gone, and of believing that the insults offered by a 

mob to the Queen of France have extinguished for ever the glory of Europe?



                 Psalm cxxii. verses 2 and 4-9



Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem, whither the tribes go 

up, the tribes of the Lord unto the testimony of Israel. To give thanks to 

the name of the Lord, for there sit the thrones of judgment, the throne of 

the House of David. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. They shall prosper that 

love thee. Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces. For 

my brethren and companions sake I will now say peace be within thee. Because 

of the House of the Lord our God, I will seek thy good.



In these words the Psalmist expresses, in strong and beautiful language, 

his love of his country and the reasons on which he founded it; and my 

present design is to take occasion from them to explain the duty we owe to 

our country, and the nature, foundation, and proper expressions of that love 

to it which we ought to cultivate. I reckon this a subject particularly 

suitable to the services of this day, and to the anniversary of our 

deliverance at the Revolution from the dangers of Popery and arbitrary 

power, and should I, on such an occasion, be led to touch more on political 

subjects than would at any other time be proper in the pulpit, you will, I 

doubt not, excuse me.



The love of our country has in all times been a subject of warm 

commendations and it is certainly a noble passion, but, like all other 

passions, it requires regulation and direction. There are mistakes and 

prejudices by which, in this instance, we are in particular danger of being 

misled. I will briefly mention some of these to you and observe,



First, that by our country is meant, in this case, not the soil or the spot 

of earth on which we happen to have been born, not the forests and fields, 

but that community of which we are members, or that body of companions and 

friends and kindred who are associated with us under the same constitution 

of government, protected by the same laws, and bound together by the same 

civil polity.



Secondly, it is proper to observe that even in this sense of our country, 

that love of it which is our duty does not imply any conviction of the 

superior value of it to other countries, or any particular preference of its 

laws and constitution of government. Were this implied, the love of their 

country would be the duty of only a very small part of mankind, for there 

are few countries that enjoy the advantage of laws and governments which 

deserve to be preferred. To found, therefore, this duty on such a preference 

would be to found it on error and delusion. It is, however, a common 

delusion. There is the same partiality in countries to themselves that there 

is in individuals. All our attachments should be accompanied, as far as 

possible, with right opinions. We are too apt to confine wisdom and virtue 

within the circle of our own acquaintance and party. Our friends, our 

country, and, in short, every thing related to us we are disposed to 

overvalue. A wise man will guard himself against this delusion. He will 

study to think of all things as they are, and not suffer any partial 

affections to blind his understanding. In other families there may be as 

much worth as in our own. In other circles of friends there may be as much 

wisdom, and in other countries as much of all that deserves esteem, but, 

notwithstanding this, our obligation to love our own families, friends, and 

country, and to seek, in the first place, their good, will remain the same. 



Thirdly, it is proper I should desire you particularly to distinguish 

between the love of our country and that spirit of rivalship and ambition 

which has been common among nations. What has the love of their country 

hitherto been among mankind? What has it been but a love of domination, a 

desire of conquest, and a thirst for grandeur and glory, by extending 

territory and enslaving surrounding countries? What has it been but a blind 

and narrow principle, producing in every country a contempt of other 

countries, and forming men into combinations and factions against their 

common rights and liberties? This is the principle that has been too often 

cried up as a virtue of the first rank: a principle of the same kind with 

that which governs clans of Indians or tribes of Arabs, and leads them to 

plunder and massacre. As most of the evils which have taken place in private 

life, and among individuals, have been occasioned by the desire of private 

interest overcoming the public affections, so most of the evils which have 

taken place among bodies of men have been occasioned by the desire of their 

own interest overcoming the principle of universal benevolence and leading 

them to attack one another's territories, to encroach on one another's 

rights, and to endeavour to build their own advancement on the degradation 

of all within the reach of their power. What was the love of their country 

among the Jews, but a wretched partiality to themselves and a proud contempt 

of all other nations? What was the love of their country among the old 

Romans? We have heard much of it, but I cannot hesitate in saying that 

however great it appeared in some of its exertions, it was in general no 

better than a principle holding together a band of robbers in their attempts 

to crush all liberty but their own. What is now the love of his country in a 

Spaniard, a Turk, or a Russian? Can it be considered as any thing better 

than a passion for slavery, or a blind attachment to a spot where he enjoys 

no rights and is disposed of as if he was a beast?



Let us learn by such reflexions to correct and purify this passion, and to 

make it a just and rational principle of action.



It is very remarkable that the founder of our religion has not once 

mentioned this duty or given us any recommendation of it, and this has, by 

unbelievers, been made an objection to Christianity. What I have said will 

entirely remove this objection. Certain it is, that by inculcating on men an 

attachment to their country, Christianity would at the time it was 

propagated have done unspeakably more harm than good. Among the Jews it 

would have been an excitement to war and insurrections, for they were then 

in eager expectation of becoming soon (as the favourite people of Heaven) 

the lords and conquerors of the earth under the triumphant reign of the 

Messiah. Among the Romans, likewise, this principle had, as I have just 

observed, exceeded its just bounds and rendered them enemies to the peace 

and happiness of mankind. By inculcating it, therefore, Christianity would 

have confirmed both Jews and Gentiles in one of the most pernicious faults. 

Our Lord and his apostles have done better. They have recommended that 

Universal Benevolence which is an unspeakably nobler principle than any 

partial affections. They have laid such stress on loving all men, even our 

enemies, and made an ardent and extensive charity so essential a part of 

virtue, that the religion they have preached may, by way of distinction from 

all other religions, be called the Religion of Benevolence. Nothing can be 

more friendly to the general rights of mankind, and were it duly regarded 

and practised, every man would consider every other man as his brother, and 

all the animosity that now takes place among contending nations would be 

abolished. If you want any proof of this, think of our Saviour's parable of 

the good Samaritan. The Jews and Samaritans were two rival nations that 

entertained a hatred of one another the most inveterate. The design of this 

parable was to shew a Jew that even a Samaritan and consequently all men of 

all nations and religions were included in the precept, Thou shall love thy 

neighbour as thyself.



But I am digressing from what I had chiefly in view, which was, after 

noticing that love of our country which is false and spurious, to explain 

the nature and effects of that which is just and reasonable. With this view 

I must desire you to recollect that we are so constituted that our 

affections are more drawn to some among mankind than to others, in 

proportion to their degrees of nearness to us, and our power of being useful 

to them. It is obvious that this is a circumstance in the constitution of 

our natures which proves the wisdom and goodness of our Maker, for had our 

affections been determined alike to all our fellow-creatures human life 

would have been a scene of embarrassment and distraction. Our regards, 

according to the order of nature, begin with ourselves, and every man is 

charged primarily with the care of himself. Next come our families, and 

benefactors, and friends, and after them our country. We can do little for 

the interest of mankind at large. To this interest, however, all other 

interests are subordinate. The noblest principle in our nature is the regard 

to general justice and that good-will which embraces all the world. I have 

already observed this, but it cannot be too often repeated. Though our 

immediate attention must be employed in promoting our own interest and that 

of our nearest connexions, yet we must remember that a narrower interest 

ought always to give way to a more extensive interest. In pursuing 

particularly the interest of our country we ought to carry our views beyond 

it. We should love it ardently but not exclusively. We ought to seek its 

good, by all the means that our different circumstances and abilities will 

allow, but at the same time we ought to consider ourselves as citizens of 

the world, and take care to maintain a just regard to the rights of other 

countries.



The enquiry by what means (subject to this limitation) we may best promote 

the interest of our country is very important, and all that remains of this 

discourse shall be employed in answering it and in exhorting you to 

manifest your love to your country by the means I shall mention.



The chief blessings of human nature are the three following: truth, virtue, 

and liberty. These are, therefore, the blessings in the possession of which 

the interest of our country lies, and to the attainment of which our love of 

it ought to direct our endeavours. By the diffusion of knowledge it must be 

distinguished from a country of barbarians: by the practice of religious 

virtue, it must be distinguished from a country of gamblers, atheists, and 

libertines: and by the possession of liberty, it must be distinguished from 

a country of slaves. I will dwell for a few moments on each of these heads.



Our first concern as lovers of our country must be to enlighten it. Why are 

the nations of the world so patient under despotism? Why do they crouch to 

tyrants, or submit to be treated as if they were a herd of cattle? 

Enlighten them and you will elevate them. Shew them they are men and they 

will act like men. Give them just ideas of civil government and let them 

know that it is an expedient for gaining protection against injury and 

defending their rights, and it will be impossible for them to submit to 

governments which, like most of those now in the world, are usurpations on 

the rights of men and little better than contrivances for enabling the few 

to oppress the many. Convince them that the Deity is a righteous and 

benevolent as well as omnipotent being, who regards with equal eye all his 

creatures and connects his favour with nothing but an honest desire to know 

and to do his will, and that zeal for mystical doctrines which has led men 

to hate and harass one another will be exterminated. Set religion before 

them as a rational service consisting not in any rites and ceremonies, but 

in worshipping God with a pure heart and practising righteousness from the 

fear of his displeasure and the apprehension of a future righteous judgment 

and that gloomy and cruel superstition will be abolished which has hitherto 

gone under the name of religion, and to the support of which civil 

government has been perverted. Ignorance is the parent of bigotry, 

intolerance, persecution and slavery. Inform and instruct mankind, and 

these evils will be excluded. Happy is the person who, himself raised above 

vulgar errors, is conscious of having aimed at giving mankind this 

instruction. Happy is the scholar or philosopher who at the close of life 

can reflect that he has made this use of his learning and abilities, but 

happier far must he be if, at the same time, he has reason to believe he has 

been successful and actually contributed by his instructions to disseminate 

among his fellow-creatures just notions of themselves, of their rights, of 

religion, and the nature and end of civil government. Such were Milton, 

Locke, Sidney, Hoadly, etc. in this country, such were Montesquieu, Fenelon, 

Turgot, etc. in France. They sowed a seed which has since taken root and is 

now growing up to a glorious harvest. To the information they conveyed by 

their writings we owe those revolutions in which every friend to mankind is 

now exulting. What an encouragement is this to us all in our endeavours to 

enlighten the world? Every degree of illumination which we can communicate 

must do the greatest good. It helps to prepare the minds of men for the 

recovery of their rights, and hastens the overthrow of priestcraft and 

tyranny. In short, we may, in this instance, learn our duty from the 

conduct of the oppressors of the world. They know that light is hostile to 

them, and therefore they labour to keep men in the dark. With this intention 

they have appointed licensers of the press, and, in Popish countries, 

prohibited the reading of the Bible. Remove the darkness in which they 

envelope the world and their usurpations will be exposed, their power will 

be subverted, and the world emancipated.



The next great blessing of human nature which I have mentioned is virtue. 

This ought to follow knowledge and to be directed by it. Virtue without 

knowledge makes enthusiasts and knowledge without virtue makes devils, but 

both united elevates to the top of human dignity and perfection. We must, 

therefore, if we would serve our country, make both these the objects of our 

zeal. We must discourage vice in all its forms, and our endeavours to 

enlighten must have ultimately in view a reformation of manners and virtuous 

practice.



I must add here that in the practice of virtue I include the discharge of 

the public duties of religion. By neglecting these we may injure our country 

essentially. But it is melancholy to observe that it is a common neglect 

among us and in a great measure owing to a cause which is not likely to be 

soon removed: I mean, the defects (may I not say, the absurdities?) in our 

established codes of faith and worship. In foreign countries, the higher 

ranks of men, not distinguishing between the religion they see established 

and the Christian religion, are generally driven to irreligion and 

infidelity. The like evil is produced by the like cause in this country, and 

if no reformation of our established formularies can be brought about, it 

must be expected that religion will go on to lose its credit, and that 

little of it will be left except among the lower orders of people, many of 

whom, while their superiors give up all religion, are sinking into an 

enthusiasm in religion lately revived, and mistaking, as the world has 

generally done, the service acceptable to God for a system of faith souring 

the temper, and a service of forms supplanting morality.



I hope you will not mistake what I am now saying, or consider it as the 

effect of my prejudices as a Dissenter from the established church. The 

complaint I am making, is the complaint of many of the wisest and best men 

in the established church itself, who have long been urging the necessity of 

a revival of its Liturgy and Articles. These were framed above two centuries 

ago when Christendom was just emerging from the ignorance and barbarity of 

the dark ages. They remain now much the same as they were then and, 

therefore, cannot be properly adapted to the good sense and liberality of 

the present times. This imperfection, however, in our public forms of 

worship, affords no excuse to any person for neglecting public worship. All 

communities will have some religion, and it is of infinite consequence that 

they should be led to that which, by enforcing the obligations of virtue and 

putting men upon loving instead of damning one another, is most favourable 

to the interest of society.



If there is a Governor of the world who directs all events, he ought to be 

invoked and worshipped, and those who dislike that mode of worship which is 

prescribed by public authority ought (if they can find no worship out of 

the church which they approve) to set up a separate worship for themselves, 

and by doing this and giving an example of a rational and manly worship, men 

of weight, from their rank or literature, may do the greatest service to 

society and the world. They may bear a testimony against that application of 

civil power to the support of particular modes of faith which obstructs 

human improvement and perpetuates error, and they may hold out an 

instruction which will discountenance superstition, and at the same time 

recommend religion by making it appear to be (what it certainly is when 

rightly understood) the strongest incentive to all that is generous and 

worthy, and, consequently, the best friend to public order and happiness.



Liberty is the next great blessing which I have mentioned as the object of 

patriotic zeal. It is inseparable from knowledge and virtue and together 

with them completes the glory of a community. An enlightened and virtuous 

country must be a free country. It cannot suffer invasions of its rights, or 

bend to tyrants. I need not, on this occasion, take any pains to shew you 

how great a blessing liberty is. The smallest attention to the history of 

past ages and the present state of mankind, will make you sensible of its 

importance. Look round the world and you will find almost every country, 

respectable or contemptible, happy or miserable, a fruitful field or a 

frightful waste, according as it possesses or wants this blessing. Think of 

Greece, formerly the seat of arts and science and the most distinguished 

spot under heaven, but now, having lost liberty, a vile and wretched spot, a 

region of darkness, poverty, and barbarity. Such reflexions must convince 

you that if you love your country you cannot be zealous enough in promoting 

the cause of liberty in it. But it will come in my way to say more to this 

purpose presently.



The observations I have made include our whole duty to our country, for by 

endeavouring to liberalize and enlighten it, to discourage vice and to 

promote virtue in it, and to assert and support its liberties, we shall 

endeavour to do all that is necessary to make it great and happy. But it is 

proper that, on this occasion, I should be more explicit and exemplify our 

duty to our country by observing farmer that it requires us to obey its laws 

and to respect its magistrates.



Civil government (as I have before observed) is an institution of human 

prudence for guarding our persons, our property, and our good name, against 

invasion, and for securing to the members of a community that liberty to 

which all have an equal right, as far as they do not, by any overt act, use 

it to injure the liberty of others. Civil laws are regulations agreed upon 

by the community for gaining these ends, and civil magistrates are officers 

appointed by the community for executing these laws. Obedience, therefore, 

to the laws and to magistrates is a necessary expression of our regard to 

the community. Without it a community must fall into a state of anarchy that 

will destroy those rights and subvert that liberty which it is the end of 

government to protect.



I wish it was in my power to give you a just account of the importance of 

this observation. It shews the ground on which the duty of obeying civil 

governors stands, and that there are two extremes in this case which ought 

to be avoided. These extremes are adulation and servility on one hand, and a 

proud and licentious contempt on the other. The former is the extreme to 

which mankind in general have been most prone, for it has oftener happened 

that men have been too passive than too unruly, and the rebellion of Kings 

against their people has been more common and done more mischief than the 

rebellion of people against their Kings.



Adulation is always odious and when offered to men in power it corrupts 

them by giving them improper ideas of their situation, and it debases those 

who offer it by manifesting an abjectness founded on improper ideas of 

themselves. I have lately observed in this kingdom too near approaches to 

this abjectness. In our late addresses to the King on his recovery from the 

severe illness with which God has been pleased to afflict him, we have 

appeared more like a herd crawling at the feet of a master than like 

enlightened and manly citizens rejoicing with a beloved sovereign, but at 

the same time conscious that he derives all his consequence from themselves. 

But, perhaps, these servilities in the language of our late addresses should 

be pardoned as only forms of civility and expressions of an overflow of good 

nature. They have, however, a dangerous tendency. The potentates of this 

world are sufficiently apt to consider themselves as possessed of an 

inherent superiority which gives them a right to govern and makes mankind 

their own; and this infatuation is almost every where fostered in them by 

the creeping sycophants about them and the language of flattery which they 

are continually hearing.



Civil governors are properly the servants of the public and a King is no 

more than the first servant of the public, created by it, maintained by it, 

and responsible to it; and all the homage paid him is due to him on no other 

account than his relation to the public. His sacredness is the sacredness 

of the community. His authority is the authority of the community, and the 

term Majesty, which it is usual to apply to him, is by no means his own 

majesty, but the majesty of the people. For this reason, whatever he may be 

in his private capacity and though, in respect of personal qualities, not 

equal to or even far below many among ourselves -- for this reason I say 

(that is, as representing the community and its first magistrate) he is 

entitled to our reverence and obedience. The words Most Excellent Majesty 

are rightly applied to him and there is a respect which it would be criminal 

to withhold from him.



You cannot be too attentive to this observation. The improvement of the 

world depends on the attention to it: nor will mankind be ever as virtuous 

and happy as they are capable of being till the attention to it becomes 

universal and efficacious. If we forget it we shall be in danger of an 

idolatry as gross and stupid as that of the ancient heathens, who, after 

fabricating blocks of wood and stone, fell down and worshipped them. The 

disposition in mankind to this kind of idolatry is indeed a very mortifying 

subject of reflexion. In Turkey, millions of human beings adore a silly 

mortal and are ready to throw themselves at his feet and to submit their 

lives to his discretion. In Russia, the common people are only a stock on 

the lands of grandees or appendages to their estates, which, like the 

fixtures in a house, are bought and sold with the estates. In Spain, in 

Germany, and under most of the governments of the world, mankind are in a 

similar state of humiliation. Who, that has a just sense of the dignity of 

his nature, can avoid execrating such a debasement of it?



Had I been to address the King on a late occasion, I should have been 

inclined to do it in a style very different from that of most of the 

addressers, and to use some such language as the following:



     I rejoice, Sir, in your recovery. I thank God for his goodness to

     you. I honour you not only as my King, but as almost the only

     lawful King in the world, because the only one who owes his

     crown to the choice of the people. May you enjoy all possible

     happiness. May God shew you the folly of those effusions of

     adulation which you are now receiving, and guard you against

     their effects. May you be led to such a sense of the nature of your

     situation and endowed with such wisdom as shall render your

     restoration to the government of these kingdoms a blessing to it,

     and engage you to consider yourself as more properly the

     servant than the sovereign of your people.



But I must not forget the opposite extreme to that now taken notice of, that 

is, a disdainful pride derived from a consciousness of equality, or, 

perhaps, superiority in respect of all that gives true dignity to men in 

power and producing a contempt of them, and a disposition to treat them with 

rudeness and insult. It is a trite observation, that extremes generally 

beget one another. This is particularly true in the present case. Persons 

justly informed on the subject of government, when they see men dazzled by 

looking up to high stations and observe loyalty carried to a length that 

implies ignorance and servility, such persons, in such circumstances, are in 

danger of spuming at all public authority and throwing off that respectful 

demeanour to persons invested with it which the order of society requires. 

There is undoubtedly a particular deference and homage due to civil 

magistrates on account of their stations and offices; nor can that man be 

either truly wise or truly virtuous who despises governments and wantonly 

speaks evil of his rulers, or who does not, by all the means in his power, 

endeavour to strengthen their hands and to give weight to their exertions in 

the discharge of their duty. Fear God says St. Peter, Love the brotherhood. 

Honour all men. Honour the King. You must needs, says St. Paul, be subject 

to rulers, not only for wrath (that is, from the fear of suffering the 

penalties annexed to the breach of the laws) but for conscience sake. For 

rulers are ministers of God, and revengers for executing wrath on all that 

do evil.



Another expression of our love to our country is defending it against 

enemies. These enemies are of two sorts; internal and external, or domestic 

and foreign. The former are the most dangerous, and they have generally been 

the most successful. I have just observed that there is a submission due to 

the executive officers of a government which is our duty, but you must not 

forget what I have also observed that it must not be a blind and slavish 

submission. Men in power (unless better disposed than is common) are always 

endeavouring to extend their power. They hate the doctrine that it is a 

trust derived from the people and not a right vested in themselves. For this 

reason the tendency of every government is to despotism, and in this the 

best constituted governments must end, if the people are not vigilant, ready 

to take alarms, and determined to resist abuses as soon as they begin. This 

vigilance, therefore, it is our duty to maintain. Whenever it is withdrawn 

and a people cease to reason about their rights and to be awake to 

encroachments, they are in danger of being enslaved and their servants will 

soon become their masters.



I need not say how much it is our duty to defend our country against foreign 

enemies. When a country is attacked in any of its rights by another country, 

or when any attempts are made by ambitious foreign powers to injure it, a 

war in its defence becomes necessary: and, in such circumstances, to die for 

our country is meritorious and noble. These defensive wars are, in my 

opinion, the only just wars. Offensive wars are always unlawful and to seek 

the aggrandizement of our country by them, that is, by attacking other 

countries in order to extend dominion, or to gratify avarice, is wicked and 

detestable. Such, however, have been most of the wars which have taken place 

in the world, but the time is, I hope, coming when a conviction will prevail 

of the folly[22] as well as the iniquity of wars, and when the nations of the 

earth, happy under just governments, and no longer in danger from the 

passions of kings, will find out better ways of settling their disputes, and 

beat (as Isaiah prophecies) their swords into ploughshares and their spears 

into pruning-hooks.



Among the particulars included in that duty to our country by discharging 

which we should shew our love to it, I will only further mention praying for 

it and offering up thanksgivings to God for every event favourable to it. At 

the present season we are called upon to express in this way our love to our 

country. It is the business of this day and of the present service, and, 

therefore, it is necessary that I should now direct your attention to it 

particularly.



We are met to thank God for that event in this country to which the name of 

The Revolution has been given, and which, for more than a century, it has 

been usual for the friends of freedom and more especially Protestant 

Dissenters to celebrate with expressions of joy and exultation. My highly 

valued and excellent friend [Andrew Kippis], who addressed you on this 

occasion last year, has given you an interesting account of the principal 

circumstances that attended this event, and of the reasons we have for 

rejoicing in it. By a bloodless victory the fetters which despotism had long 

been preparing for us were broken, the rights of the people were asserted, a 

tyrant expelled, and a sovereign of our own choice appointed in his room. 

Security was given to our property, and our consciences were emancipated. 

The bounds of free enquiry were enlarged, the volume in which are the words 

of eternal life was laid more open to our examination, and that aera of 

light and liberty was introduced among us, by which we have been made an 

example to other kingdoms and become the instructors of the world. Had it 

not been for this deliverance, the probability is that, instead of being 

thus distinguished, we should now have been a base people, groaning under 

the infamy and misery of popery and slavery. Let us, therefore, offer 

thanksgivings to God, the author of all our blessings. Had he not been on 

our side, we should have been swallowed up quick, and the proud waters would 

have gone over our souls. But our souls are escaped, and the snare has been 

broken. Blessed then be the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.



It is well known that King James was not far from gaining his purpose, and 

that probably he would have succeeded had he been less in a hurry. But he 

wanted courage as well as prudence, and, therefore, fled and left us to 

settle quietly for ourselves that constitution of government which is now 

our boast. We have particular reason, as Protestant Dissenters, to rejoice 

on this occasion. It was at this time we were rescued from persecution, and 

obtained the liberty of worshipping God in the manner we think most 

acceptable to him. It was then our meeting-houses were opened, our worship 

was taken under the protection of the law, and the principles of toleration 

gained a triumph. We have, therefore, on this occasion, peculiar reasons for 

thanksgiving. But let us remember that we ought not to satisfy ourselves 

with thanksgivings. Our gratitude, if genuine, will be accompanied with 

endeavours to give stability to the deliverance our country has obtained, 

and to extend and improve the happiness with which the Revolution has blest 

us. Let us, in particular, take care not to forget the principles of the 

Revolution. This Society has, very properly, in its reports, held out these 

principles, as an instruction to the public. I will only take notice of the 

three following:



     First, the right to liberty of conscience in religious matters. 



     Secondly, the right to resist power when abused. And



     Thirdly, the right to chuse our own governors, to cashier them for

     misconduct, and to frame a government for ourselves.[23]



On these three principles, and more especially the last, was the Revolution 

founded. Were it not true that liberty of conscience is a sacred right, that 

power abused justifies resistance, and that civil authority is a delegation 

from the people. Were not, I say, all this true, the Revolution would have 

been not an assertion, but an invasion of rights, not a revolution, but a 

rebellion. Cherish in your breasts this conviction and act under its 

influence, detesting the odious doctrines of passive obedience, 

non-resistance, and the divine right of kings -- doctrines which, had they 

been acted upon in this country, would have left us at this time wretched 

slaves -- doctrines which imply that God made mankind to be oppressed and 

plundered, and which are no less a blasphemy against him, than an insult on 

common sense.



I would farther direct you to remember that, though the Revolution was a 

great work, it was by no means a perfect work, and that all was not then 

gained which was necessary to put the kingdom in the secure and complete 

possession of the blessings of liberty. In particular, you should recollect 

that the toleration then obtained was imperfect. It included only those who 

could declare their faith in the doctrinal articles of the church of 

England. It has, indeed, been since extended, but not sufficiently, for 

there still exist penal laws on account of religious opinions which (were 

they carried into execution) would shut up many of our places of worship, 

and silence and imprison some of the ablest and best men. The Test Laws are 

also still in force and deprive of eligibility to civil and military offices 

all who cannot conform to the established worship. It is with great pleasure 

I find that the body of Protestant Dissenters, though defeated in their 

attempts to deliver their country from this disgrace to it, have determined 

to persevere. Should they at last succeed, they will have the satisfaction, 

not only of removing from themselves a proscription they do not deserve, but 

of contributing to lessen the number of our public iniquities. For I cannot 

call by a gender name, laws which convert an ordinance appointed by our 

Saviour to commemorate his death into an instrument of oppressive policy, 

and a qualification of rakes and atheists for civil posts. I have said 

should they succeed, but perhaps I ought not to suggest a doubt about their 

success. And, indeed, when I consider that in Scotland the established 

church is defended by no such test; that in Ireland it has been abolished; 

that in a great neighbouring country it has been declared to be an 

indefeasible right of all citizens to be equally eligible to public offices; 

that in the same kingdom a professed Dissenter from the established church 

holds the first office in the state; that in the Emperor's dominions Jews 

have been lately admitted to the enjoyment of equal privileges with other 

citizens; and that in this very country, a Dissenter, though excluded from 

the power of executing the laws, yet is allowed to be employed in making 

them. When, I say, I consider such facts as these I am disposed to think it 

impossible that the enemies of the repeal of the Test Laws should not soon 

become ashamed and give up their opposition.



But the most important instance of the imperfect state in which the 

Revolution left our constitution, is the inequality of our representation. I 

think, indeed, this defect in our constitution so gross and so palpable, as 

to make it excellent chiefly in form and theory. You should remember that a 

representation in the legislature of a kingdom is the basis of 

constitutional liberty in it, and of all legitimate government, and that 

without it a government is nothing but an usurpation. When the 

representation is fair and equal, and at the same time vested with such 

powers as our House of Commons possesses, a kingdom may be said to govern 

itself, and consequently to possess true liberty. When the representation is 

partial, a kingdom possesses liberty only partially, and if extremely 

partial, it only gives a semblance of liberty; but if not only extremely 

partial but corruptly chosen, and under corrupt influence after being 

chosen, it becomes a nuisance and produces the worst of all forms of 

government: a government by corruption -- a government carried on and 

supported by spreading venality and profligacy through a kingdom. May heaven 

preserve this kingdom from a calamity so dreadful! It is the point of 

depravity to which abuses under such a government as ours naturally tend, 

and the last stage of national unhappiness. We are, at present, I hope, at a 

great distance from it. But it cannot be pretended that there are no 

advances towards it or that there is no reason for apprehension and alarm.



The inadequateness of our representation has been long a subject of 

complaint. This is, in truth, our fundamental grievance, and I do not think 

that any thing is much more our duty, as men who love their country, and are 

grateful for the Revolution, than to unite our zeal in endeavouring to get 

it redressed. At the time of the American war, associations were formed for 

this purpose in London and other parts of the kingdom, and our present 

Minister himself has since that war directed to it an effort which made him 

a favourite with many of us. But all attention to it seems now lost, and the 

probability is that this inattention will continue and that nothing will be 

done towards gaining for us this essential blessing till some great calamity 

again alarms our fears, or till some great abuse of power again provokes our 

resentment or, perhaps, till the acquisition of a pure and equal 

representation by other countries (while we are mocked with the shadow) 

kindles our shame.



Such is the conduct by which we ought to express our gratitude for the 

Revolution. We should always bear in mind the principles that justify it. We 

should contribute all we can towards supplying what is left deficient, and 

shew ourselves anxious about transmitting the blessings obtained by it to 

our posterity, unimpaired and improved. But, brethren, while we thus shew 

our patriotic zeal, let us take care not to disgrace the cause of patriotism 

by any licentiousness or immoral conduct. Oh! how earnestly do I wish that 

all who profess zeal in this cause were as distinguished by the purity of 

their morals as some of them are by their abilities,[r] and that I could 

make them sensible of the advantages they would derive from a virtuous 

character, and of the suspicions they incur and the loss of consequence they 

suffer by wanting it. Oh! that I could see in men who oppose tyranny in the 

state a disdain of the tyranny of low passions in themselves, or, at least, 

such a sense of shame and regard to public order and decency as would induce 

them to hide their irregularities and to avoid insulting the virtuous part 

of the community by an open exhibition of vice! I cannot reconcile myself to 

the idea of an immoral patriot, or to that separation of private from public 

virtue, which some think to be possible. Is it to be expected that -- but I 

must forbear. I am afraid of applications which many are too ready to make 

and for which I should be sorry to give any just occasion.



I have been explaining to you the nature and expressions of a just regard to 

our country. Give me leave to exhort you to examine your conduct by what I 

have been saying. You love your country and desire its happiness, and, 

without doubt, you have the greatest reason for loving it. It has been long 

a very distinguished and favoured country. Often has God appeared for it and 

delivered it. Let us study to shew ourselves worthy of the favour shewn us. 

Do you practise virtue yourselves, and study to promote it in others? Do you 

obey the laws of your country, and aim at doing your part towards 

maintaining and perpetuating its privileges? Do you always give your vote on 

the side of public liberty and are you ready to pour out your blood in its 

defence? Do you look up to God for the continuance of his favour to your 

country and pray for its prosperity, preserving, at the same time, a strict 

regard to the rights of other countries, and always considering yourselves 

more as citizens of the world than as members of any particular community? 

If this is your temper and conduct you are blessings to your country, and 

were all like you this world would soon be a heaven.



I am addressing myself to Christians. Let me, therefore, mention to you the 

example of our blessed Saviour. I have observed at the beginning of this 

discourse that he did not inculcate upon his hearers the love of their 

country or take any notice of it as a part of their duty. Instead of doing 

this, I observed that he taught the obligation to love all mankind and 

recommended universal benevolence as (next to the love of God) our first 

duty, and, I think, I also proved to you that this, in the circumstances of 

the world at that time, was an instance of incomparable wisdom and goodness 

in his instructions. But we must not infer from hence that he did not 

include the love of our country in the number of our duties. He has shewn 

the contrary by his example. It appears that he possessed a particular 

affection for his country, though a very wicked country. We read in Luke 

[xi]x. 42, that when, upon approaching Jerusalem, in one of his last 

journeys to it, he beheld it, he wept over it and said, Oh! that thou hadst 

known (even thou, at least in this thy day) the things that belong to thy 

peace. What a tender solicitude about his country does the lamentation over 

Jerusalem imply, which is recorded in the same gospel, chap. xiii and 34. 

Oh! Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them 

who are sent to thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, 

as a hen gathereth her brood under her wings, but ye would not.



It may not be improper farther to mention the love St. Paul expressed for 

his country when he declared that for the sake of his brethren and kinsmen 

he could even wish himself accursed from Christ (Rom. ix. 3.). The original 

words are an anathema from Christ, and his meaning is, that he could have 

been contented to suffer himself the calamities which were coming on the 

Jewish people, were it possible for him by such a sacrifice of himself to 

save them.



It is too evident that the state of this country is such as renders it an 

object of concern and anxiety. It wants (I have shewn you) the grand 

security of public liberty. Increasing luxury has multiplied abuses in it. A 

monstrous weight of debt is crippling it. Vice and venality are bringing 

down upon it God's displeasure. That spirit to which it owes its distinction 

is declining, and some late events seem to prove that it is becoming every 

day more reconcileable to encroachments on the securities of its liberties. 

It wants, therefore, your patriotic services and, for the sake of the 

distinctions it has so long enjoyed, for the sake of our brethren and 

companions and all that should be dear to a free people, we ought to do our 

utmost to save it from the dangers that threaten it, remembering that by 

acting thus we shall promote, in the best manner, our own private interest 

as well as the interest of our country, for when the community prospers the 

individuals that compose it must prosper with it. But, should that not 

happen, or should we even suffer in our secular interest by our endeavours 

to promote the interest of our country, we shall feel a satisfaction in our 

own breasts which is preferable to all this world can give, and we shall 

enjoy the transporting hope of soon becoming members of a perfect community 

in the heavens, and having an entrance ministered to us, abundantly into the 

everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.



You may reasonably expect that I should now close this address to you. But I 

cannot yet dismiss you. I must not conclude without recalling particularly 

to our recollection a consideration to which I have more than once alluded, 

and which, probably, your thoughts have been all along anticipating: a 

consideration with which my mind is impressed more than I can express. I 

mean the consideration of the favourableness of the present times to all 

exertions in the cause of public liberty.



What an eventful period is this! I am thankful that I have lived to see it, 

and I could almost say, Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, 

for mine eyes have seen thy salvation. I have lived to see a diffusion of 

knowledge which has undermined superstition and error. I have lived to see 

the rights of men better understood than ever, and nations panting for 

liberty, which seemed to have lost the idea of it. I have lived to see 

thirty millions of people, indignant and resolute, spurning at slavery, and 

demanding liberty with an irresistible voice, their king led in triumph, and 

an arbitrary monarch surrendering himself to his subjects. After sharing in 

the benefits of one Revolution, I have been spared to be a witness to two 

other Revolutions, both glorious. And now, methinks, I see the ardor for 

liberty catching and spreading, a general amendment beginning in human 

affairs, the dominion of kings changed for the dominion of laws, and the 

dominion of priests giving way to the dominion of reason and conscience.



Be encouraged, all ye friends of freedom and writers in its defence! The 

times are auspicious. Your labours have not been in vain. Behold kingdoms, 

admonished by you, starting from sleep, breaking their fetters, and claiming 

justice from their oppressors! Behold, the light you have struck out, after 

setting America free, reflected to France and there kindled into a blaze 

that lays despotism in ashes and warms and illuminates Europe!



Tremble all ye oppressors of the world! Take warning all ye supporters of 

slavish governments and slavish hierarchies! Call no more (absurdly and 

wickedly) reformation, innovation. You cannot now hold the world in 

darkness. Struggle no longer against increasing light and liberality. 

Restore to mankind their rights and consent to the correction of abuses, 

before they and you are destroyed together.



                           FINIS.







22. See a striking representation of the folly of wars, in the last sections 

of Mr. Necker's Treatise on the Administration of the Finances of France. 

There is reason to believe that the sentiments on this subject in that 

treatise are now the prevailing sentiments in the court and legislature of 

France, and, consequently, that one of the happy effects of the revolution 

in that country may be, if not our own fault, such a harmony between the two 

first kingdoms in the world, strengthened by a common participation in the 

blessings of liberty as shall not only prevent their engaging in any future 

wars with one another, but dispose them to unite in preventing wars every 

where and in making the world free and happy.



23. Mr. Burke in his Reflections on the Revolution in France [1790], denies 

several of the principles which in these pages are said to be the principles 

of the Revolution. He asserts that our Kings do not derive their right to 

the crown from the choice of their people, and that they are not responsible 

to them. And yet, with wonderful inconsistency, he indicates (p. 123) that a 

wicked king may be punished, provided it is done with dignity and he is 

under the necessity of granting that King James was justly deprived of his 

crown for misconduct. In p. 19, he mentions the legal conditions of the 

compact of sovereignty by which our kings are bound. The succession of the 

crown he calls a succession by law (p. 28) and the law, he calls an 

'emanation from the common agreement and original compact of the State', and 

the constitution also he calls the 'engagement and pact of society'. In p. 

26 he cites, as an authority against the right of the people to chuse their 

own governors, the very act for settling the crown on William and Mary which 

was an exercise of that right and the words of which are:



'The Lords and Commons do in the name of all the people submit themselves, 

their heirs and posterities for ever', etc.



This act having been passed on purpose to establish a change in the 

succession for misconduct, it cannot be supposed that it was intended to 

deprive the nation for ever of the power of making again any such change, 

whatever reasons appearing to the nation sufficient might occur. That is, it 

cannot be supposed that it was the intention of the act to subject the 

nation for ever to any tyrants that might happen to arise in the new line of 

succession. And yet this is the sense in which Mr. Burke seems to understand 

it, and he grounds upon it his assertion in p. 27, 'that so far was the 

nation from acquiring by the Revolution a right to elect our kings, that, if 

we had possessed it before, the English nation did then most solemnly 

renounce and abdicate it for themselves and their posterity for ever'. Mr. 

Burke, before he published this assertion, should have attended to a 

subsequent act which has been recommended to my notice by the truly 

patriotic Earl Stanhope [Charles Stanhope, third Earl Stanhope (1753-1816)]. 

I mean the act of the 6th of Anne, chap 7th, by which it is enacted that, 

'if any person shall by writing or printing maintain and affirm that the 

Kings or (Queens of this realm, with and by the authority of Parliament, are 

not able to make laws and statutes of sufficient validity to limit the 

Crown, and the descent, inheritance and government thereof, every such 

person shall be guilty of high treason, etc'. 





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