Had the Spanish government immediately yielded, unconditionally, all that was required, we might have been satisfied; but what would Europe have judged of their submission? that they shrunk before us, as a conquered people, who, having lately yielded to our arms, were now compelled to sacrifice to our pride. The honour of the publick is, indeed, of high importance; but we must remember, that we have had to transact with a mighty king and a powerful nation, who have unluckily been taught to think, that they have honour to keep or lose, as well as ourselves.
When the admiralty were told, in June, of the warning given to Hunt, they were, I suppose, informed that Hunt had first provoked it by warning away the Spaniards, and naturally considered one act of insolence as balanced by another, without expecting that more would be done on either side. Of representations and remonstrances there would be no end, if they were to be made whenever small commanders are uncivil to each other; nor could peace ever be enjoyed, if, upon such transient provocations, it be imagined necessary to prepare for war. We might then, it is said, have increased our force with more leisure and less inconvenience; but this is to judge only by the event. We omitted to disturb the publick, because we did not suppose that an armament would be necessary.
Some months afterwards, as has been told, Buccarelli, the governour of Buenos Ayres, sent against the settlement of port Egmont a force which ensured the conquest. The Spanish commander required the English captains to depart, but they, thinking that resistance necessary, which they knew to be useless, gave the Spaniards the right of prescribing terms of capitulation. The Spaniards imposed no new condition, except that the sloop should not sail under twenty days; and of this they secured the performance by taking off the rudder.
To an inhabitant of the land there appears nothing in all this unreasonable or offensive. If the English intended to keep their stipulation, how were they injured by the detention of the rudder? If the rudder be to a ship, what his tail is in fables to a fox, the part in which honour is placed, and of which the violation is never to be endured, I am sorry that the Favourite suffered an indignity, but cannot yet think it a cause for which nations should slaughter one another.
When Buccarelli’s invasion was known, and the dignity of the crown infringed, we demanded reparation and prepared for war, and we gained equal respect by the moderation of our terms, and the spirit of our exertion. The Spanish minister immediately denied that Buccarelli had received any particular orders to seize port Egmont, nor pretended that he was justified, otherwise than by the general instructions by which the American governours are required to exclude the subjects of other powers.
To have inquired whether our settlement at port Egmont was any violation of the Spanish rights, had been to enter upon a discussion, which the pertinacity of political disputants might have continued without end. We, therefore, called for restitution, not as a confession of right, but as a reparation of honour, which required that we should be restored to our former state upon the island, and that the king of Spain should disavow the action of his governour.
In return to this demand, the Spaniards expected from us a disavowal of the menaces, with which they had been first insulted by Hunt; and if the claim to the island be supposed doubtful, they certainly expected it with equal reason. This, however, was refused, and our superiority of strength gave validity to our arguments.
But we are told, that the disavowal of the king of Spain is temporary and fallacious; that Buccarelli’s armament had all the appearance of regular forces and a concerted expedition; and that he is not treated at home as a man guilty of piracy, or as disobedient to the orders of his master.
That the expedition was well planned, and the forces properly supplied, affords no proof of communication between the governour and his court. Those who are intrusted with the care of kingdoms in another hemisphere, must always be trusted with power to defend them.
As little can be inferred from his reception at the Spanish court. He is not punished, indeed; for what has he done that deserves punishment? He was sent into America to govern and defend the dominions of Spain. He thought the English were encroaching, and drove them away. No Spaniard thinks that he has exceeded his duty, nor does the king of Spain charge him with excess. The boundaries of dominion, in that part of the world, have not yet been settled; and he mistook, if a mistake there was, like a zealous subject, in his master’s favour.
But all this inquiry is superfluous. Considered as a reparation of honour, the disavowal of the king of Spain, made in the sight of all Europe, is of equal value, whether true or false. There is, indeed, no reason to question its veracity; they, however, who do not believe it, must allow the weight of that influence, by which a great prince is reduced to disown his own commission.
But the general orders, upon which the governour is acknowledged to have acted, are neither disavowed nor explained. Why the Spaniards should disavow the defence of their own territories, the warmest disputant will find it difficult to tell; and, if by an explanation is meant an accurate delineation of the southern empire, and the limitation of their claims beyond the line, it cannot be imputed to any very culpable remissness, that what has been denied for two centuries to the European powers, was not obtained in a hasty wrangle about a petty settlement.
The ministry were too well acquainted with negotiation to fill their heads with such idle expectations. The question of right was inexplicable and endless. They left it, as it stood. To be restored to actual possession was easily practicable. This restoration they required and obtained.
But they should, say their opponents, have insisted upon more; they should have exacted not only, reparation of our honour, but repayment of our expense. Nor are they all satisfied with the recovery of the costs and damages of the present contest; they are for taking this opportunity of calling in old debts, and reviving our right to the ransome of Manilla.
The Manilla ransome has, I think, been most mentioned by the inferiour bellowers of sedition. Those who lead the faction know that it cannot be remembered much to their advantage. The followers of lord Rockingham remember, that his ministry began and ended without obtaining it; the adherents to Grenville would be told, that he could never be taught to understand our claim. The law of nations made little of his knowledge. Let him not, however, be depreciated in his grave. If he was sometimes wrong, he was often right.
Of reimbursement the talk has been more confident, though not more reasonable. The expenses of war have been often desired, have been sometimes required, but were never paid; or never, but when resistance was hopeless, and there remained no choice between submission and destruction.
Of our late equipments, I know not from whom the charge can be very properly expected. The king of Spain disavows the violence which provoked us to arm, and for the mischiefs, which he did not do, why should he pay? Buccarelli, though he had learned all the arts of an East Indian governour, could hardly have collected, at Buenos Ayres, a sum sufficient to satisfy our demands. If he be honest, he is hardly rich; and if he be disposed to rob, he has the misfortune of being placed, where robbers have been before him.
The king of Spain, indeed, delayed to comply with our proposals, and our armament was made necessary by unsatisfactory answers and dilatory debates. The delay certainly increased our expenses, and, it is not unlikely, that the increase of our expenses put an end to the delay.
But this is the inevitable process of human affairs. Negotiation requires time, What is not apparent to intuition must be found by inquiry. Claims that have remained doubtful for ages cannot be settled in a day. Reciprocal complaints are not easily adjusted, but by reciprocal compliance. The Spaniards, thinking themselves entitled to the island, and injured by captain Hunt, in their turn demanded satisfaction, which was refused; and where is the wonder, if their concessions were delayed! They may tell us, that an independent nation is to be influenced not by command, but by persuasion; that, if we expect our proposals to be received without deliberation, we assume that sovereignty which
they do not grant us; and that if we arm, while they are deliberating, we must indulge our martial ardour at our own charge.
The English ministry asked all that was reasonable, and enforced all that they asked. Our national honour is advanced, and our interest, if any interest we have, is sufficiently secured. There can be none amongst us, to whom this transaction does not seem happily concluded, but those who, having fixed their hopes on publick calamities, sat, like vultures, waiting for a day of carnage. Having worn out all the arts of domestick sedition, having wearied violence, and exhausted falsehood, they yet flattered themselves with some assistance from the pride or malice of Spain; and when they could no longer make the people complain of grievances, which they did not feel, they had the comfort yet of knowing, that real evils were possible, and their resolution is well known of charging all evil on their governours.
The reconciliation was, therefore, considered as the loss of their last anchor; and received not only with the fretfulness of disappointment, but the rage of desperation. When they found that all were happy, in spite of their machinations, and the soft effulgence of peace shone out upon the nation, they felt no motion but that of sullen envy; they could not, like Milton’s prince of hell, abstract themselves a moment from their evil; as they have not the wit of Satan, they have not his virtue; they tried, once again, what could be done by sophistry without art, and confidence without credit. They represented their sovereign as dishonoured, and their country as betrayed, or, in their fiercer paroxysms of fury, reviled their sovereign as betraying it.
Their pretences I have here endeavoured to expose, by showing, that more than has been yielded, was not to be expected, that more, perhaps, was not to be desired, and that, if all had been refused, there had scarcely been an adequate reason for a war.
There was, perhaps, never much danger of war, or of refusal, but what danger there was, proceeded from the faction. Foreign nations, unacquainted with the insolence of common councils, and unaccustomed to the howl of plebeian patriotism, when they heard of rabbles and riots, of petitions and remonstrances, of discontent in Surrey, Derbyshire, and Yorkshire; when they saw the chain of subordination broken, and the legislature threatened and defied, naturally imagined, that such a government had little leisure for Falkland’s island; they supposed that the English, when they returned ejected from port Egmont, would find Wilkes invested with the protectorate, or see the mayor of London, what the French have formerly seen their mayors of the palace, the commander of the army, and tutor of the king; that they would be called to tell their tale before the common council; and that the world was to expect war or peace from a vote of the subscribers to the bill of rights.
But our enemies have now lost their hopes, and our friends, I hope, are recovered from their fears. To fancy that our government can be subverted by the rabble, whom its lenity has pampered into impudence, is to fear that a city may be drowned by the overflowing of its kennels. The distemper which cowardice or malice thought either decay of the vitals, or resolution of the nerves, appears, at last, to have been nothing more than a political phtheiriasis, a disease too loathsome for a plainer name, but the effect of negligence rather than of weakness, and of which the shame is greater than the danger.
Among the disturbers of our quiet are some animals of greater bulk, whom their power of roaring persuaded us to think formidable; but we now perceive that sound and force do not always go together. The noise of a savage proves nothing but his hunger.
After all our broils, foreign and domestick, we may, at last, hope to remain awhile in quiet, amused with the view of our own success. We have gained political strength, by the increase of our reputation; we have gained real strength, by the reparation of our navy; we have shown Europe, that ten years of war have not yet exhausted us; and we have enforced our settlement on an island on which, twenty years ago, we durst not venture to look.
These are the gratifications only of honest minds; but there is a time, in which hope comes to all. From the present happiness of the publick, the patriots themselves may derive advantage. To be harmless, though by impotence, obtains some degree of kindness: no man hates a worm as he hates a viper; they were once dreaded enough to be detested, as serpents that could bite; they have now shown that they can only hiss, and may, therefore, quietly slink into holes, and change their slough, unmolested and forgotten.
THE PATRIOT
ADDRESSED TO THE ELECTORS OF GREAT BRITAIN. 1774.
They bawl for freedom in their senseless mood,
Yet still revolt when truth would set them free;
License they mean, when they cry liberty,
For who loves that must first be wise and good.
MILTON.
To improve the golden moment of opportunity, and catch the good that is within our reach, is the great art of life. Many wants are suffered, which might once have been supplied; and much time is lost in regretting the time which had been lost before.
At the end of every seven years comes the saturnalian season, when the freemen of great Britain may please themselves with the choice of their representatives. This happy day has now arrived, somewhat sooner than it could be claimed.
To select and depute those, by whom laws are to be made, and taxes to be granted, is a high dignity, and an important trust; and it is the business of every elector to consider, how this dignity may be well sustained, and this trust faithfully discharged.
It ought to be deeply impressed on the minds of all who have voices in this national deliberation, that no man can deserve a seat in parliament, who is not a patriot. No other man will protect our rights: no other man can merit our confidence.
A patriot is he whose publick conduct is regulated by one single motive, the love of his country; who, as an agent in parliament, has, for himself, neither hope nor fear, neither kindness nor resentment, but refers every thing to the common interest.
That of five hundred men, such as this degenerate age affords, a majority can be found thus virtuously abstracted, who will affirm? Yet there is no good in despondence: vigilance and activity often effect more than was expected. Let us take a patriot, where we can meet him; and, that we may not flatter ourselves by false appearances, distinguish those marks which are certain, from those which may deceive; for a man may have the external appearance of a patriot, without the constituent qualities; as false coins have often lustre, though they want weight. Some claim a place in the list of patriots, by an acrimonious and unremitting opposition to the court.
This mark is by no means infallible. Patriotism is not necessarily included in rebellion. A man may hate his king, yet not love his country. He that has been refused a reasonable, or unreasonable request, who thinks his merit underrated, and sees his influence declining, begins soon to talk of natural equality, the absurdity of “many made for one,” the original compact, the foundation of authority, and the majesty of the people. As his political melancholy increases, he tells, and, perhaps, dreams, of the advances of the prerogative, and the dangers of arbitrary power; yet his design, in all his declamation, is not to benefit his country, but to gratify his malice.
These, however, are the most honest of the opponents of government; their patriotism is a species of disease; and they feel some part of what they express. But the greater, far the greater number of those who rave and rail, and inquire and accuse, neither suspect nor fear, nor care for the publick; but hope to force their way to riches, by virulence and invective, and are vehement and clamorous, only that they may be sooner hired to be silent.
A man sometimes starts up a patriot, only by disseminating discontent, and propagating reports of secret influence, of dangerous counsels, of violated rights, and encroaching usurpation.
This practice is no certain note of patriotism. To instigate the populace with rage beyond the provocation, is to suspend publick happiness, if not to destroy it. He is no lover of his country, that unnecessarily disturbs its peace. Few errours and few faults of government, can justify an appeal to the
rabble; who ought not to judge of what they cannot understand, and whose opinions are not propagated by reason, but caught by contagion.
The fallaciousness of this note of patriotism is particularly apparent, when the clamour continues after the evil is past. They who are still filling our ears with Mr. Wilkes, and the freeholders of Middlesex, lament a grievance that is now at an end. Mr. Wilkes may be chosen, if any will choose him, and the precedent of his exclusion makes not any honest, or any decent man, think himself in clanger.
It may be doubted, whether the name of a patriot can be fairly given, as the reward of secret satire, or open outrage. To fill the newspapers with sly hints of corruption and intrigue, to circulate the Middlesex Journal, and London Pacquet, may, indeed, be zeal; but it may, likewise, be interest and malice. To offer a petition, not expected to be granted; to insult a king-with a rude remonstrance, only because there is no punishment for legal insolence, is not courage, for there is no danger; nor patriotism, for it tends to the subversion of order, and lets wickedness loose upon the land, by destroying the reverence due to sovereign authority.
It is the quality of patriotism to be jealous and watchful, to observe all secret machinations, and to see publick dangers at a distance. The true lover of his country is ready to communicate his fears, and to sound the alarm, whenever he perceives the approach of mischief. But he sounds no alarm, when there is no enemy; he never terrifies his countrymen till he is terrified himself. The patriotism, therefore, may be justly doubted of him, who professes to be disturbed by incredibilities; who tells, that the last peace was obtained by bribing the princess of Wales; that the king is grasping at arbitrary power; and, that because the French, in the new conquests, enjoy their own laws, there is a design at court of abolishing, in England, the trial by juries.
Complete Works of Samuel Johnson Page 173
