Complete Works of Edmund Burke

by Edmund Burke

  Huts and land to be appropriated.31. And be it enacted, that the master of every plantation shall provide the materials of a good and substantial hut for each married field negro; and if his plantation shall exceed —— acres, he shall allot to the same a portion of land not less than —— : and the said hut and land shall remain and stand annexed to the said negro, for his natural life, or during his bondage; but the same shall not be alienated without the consent of the owners.

  Property of negroes secured.32. And be it enacted, that it shall not be lawful for the owner of any negro, by himself or any other, to take from him any land, house, cattle, goods, or money, acquired by the said negro, whether by purchase, donation, or testament, whether the same has been derived from the owner of the said negro, or any other.

  33. And be it enacted, that, if the said negro shall die possessed of any lands, goods, or chattels, and dies without leaving a wife or issue, it shall be lawful for the said negro to devise or bequeath the same by his last will; but in case the said negro shall die intestate, and leave a wife and children, the same shall be distributed amongst them, according to the usage under the statute, commonly called the Statute of Distributions; but if the said negro shall die intestate without wife or children, then, and in that case, his estate shall go to the fund provided for the better execution of this act.

  34. And be it enacted, that no negro, who is married, and hath resided upon any plantation for twelve months, shall be sold, either privately or by the decree of any court, but along with the plantation on which he hath resided, unless he should himself request to be separated therefrom.

  Of the punishment of negroes.35. And be it enacted, that no blows or stripes exceeding thirteen, shall be inflicted for one offence upon any negro, without the order of one of his Majesty’s justices of peace.

  Of the same.36. And it is enacted, that it shall be lawful for the protector of negroes, as often as on complaint and hearing he shall be of opinion that any negro hath been cruelly and inhumanly treated, or when it shall be made to appear to him that an overseer hath any particular malice, to order, at the desire of the suffering party, the said negro to be sold to another master.

  37. And be it enacted, that, in all cases of injury to member or life, the offences against a negro shall be deemed and taken to all intents and purposes as if the same were perpetrated against any of his Majesty’s subjects; and the protector of negroes, on complaint, or if he shall receive credible information thereof, shall cause an indictment to be presented for the same; and in case of suspicion of any murder of a negro, an inquest by the coroner, or officer acting as such, shall, if practicable, be held into the same.

  Of the manumission of negroes.38. And in order to a gradual manumission of slaves, as they shall seem fitted to fill the offices of freemen, be it enacted, that every negro slave, being thirty years of ago and upwards, and who has had three children born to him in lawful matrimony, and who hath received a certificate from the minister of his district, or any other Christian teacher, of his regularity in the duties of religion, and of his orderly and good behavior, may purchase, at rates to be fixed by two justices of peace, the freedom of himself, or his wife or children, or of any of them separately, valuing the wife and children, if purchased into liberty by the father of the family, at half only of their marketable values: provided that the said father shall bind himself in a penalty of —— for the good behavior of his children.

  Of the same.39. And be it enacted, that it shall be lawful for the protector of negroes to purchase the freedom of any negro who shall appear to him to excel in any mechanical art, or other knowledge or practice deemed liberal, and the value shall be settled by a jury.

  Free negroes how to be punished.40. And be it enacted, that the protector of negroes shall be and is authorized and required to act as a magistrate for the coercion of all idle, disobedient, or disorderly free negroes, and he shall by office prosecute them for the offences of idleness, drunkenness, quarrelling, gaming, or vagrancy, in the supreme court, or cause them to be prosecuted before one justice of peace, as the case may require.

  Of the same.41. And be it enacted, that, if any free negro hath been twice convicted for any of the said misdemeanors, and is judged by the said protector of negroes, calling to his assistance two justices of the peace, to be incorrigibly idle, dissolute, and vicious, it shall be lawful, by the order of the said protector and two justices of peace, to sell the said free negro into slavery: the purchase-money to be paid to the person so remanded into servitude, or kept in hand by the protector and governor for the benefit of his family.

  Governor to receive and transmit annual reports.42. And be it enacted, that the governor in each colony shall be assistant to the execution of this act, and shall receive the reports of the protector, and such other accounts as he shall judge material, relative thereto, and shall transmit the same annually to one of his Majesty’s principal secretaries of state.

  A LETTER TO THE CHAIRMAN OF THE BUCKINGHAMSHIRE MEETING, HELD AT AYLESBURY, APRIL 13, 1780, ON THE SUBJECT OF PARLIAMENTARY REFORM.

  NOTE.

  The meeting of the freeholders of the County of Buckingham, which occasioned the following Letter, was called for the purpose of taking into consideration a petition to Parliament for shortening the duration of Parliaments, and for a more equal representation of the people in the House of Commons.

  LETTER

  Sir, — Having heard yesterday, by mere accident, that there is an intention of laying before the county meeting new matter, which is not contained in our petition, and the consideration of which had been deferred to a fitter time by a majority of our committee in London, permit me to take this method of submitting to you my reasons for thinking, with our committee, that nothing ought to be hastily deter mined upon the subject.

  Our petition arose naturally from distresses which we felt; and the requests which we made were in effect nothing more than that such things should be done in Parliament as it was evidently the duty of Parliament to do. But the affair which will be proposed to you by a person of rank and ability is an alteration in the constitution of Parliament itself. It is impossible for you to have a subject before you of more importance, and that requires a more cool and more mature consideration, both on its own account, and for the credit of our sobriety of mind, who are to resolve upon it.

  The county will in some way or other be called upon to declare it your opinion, that the House of Commons is not sufficiently numerous, and that the elections are not sufficiently frequent, — that an hundred new knights of the shire ought to be added, and that we are to have a new election once in three years for certain, and as much oftener as the king pleases. Such will be the state of things, if the proposition made shall take effect.

  All this may be proper. But, as an honest man, I cannot possibly give my rote for it, until I have considered it more fully. I will not deny that our Constitution may have faults, and that those faults, when found, ought to be corrected; but, on the whole, that Constitution has been our own pride, and an object of admiration to all other nations. It is not everything which appears at first view to be faulty, in such a complicated plan, that is to be determined to be so in reality. To enable us to correct the Constitution, the whole Constitution must be viewed together; and it must be compared with the actual state of the people, and the circumstances of the time. For that which taken singly and by itself may appear to be wrong, when considered with relation to other things, may be perfectly right, — or at least such as ought to be patiently endured, as the means of preventing something that is worse. So far with regard to what at first view may appear a distemper in the Constitution. As to the remedy of that distemper an equal caution ought to be used; because this latter consideration is not single and separate, no more than the former. There are many things in reformation which would be proper to be done, if other things can be done along with them, but which, if they cannot be so accompanied, ought not to be done at all. I therefore wish, when any new ma
tter of this deep nature is proposed to me, to have the whole scheme distinctly in my view, and full time to consider of it. Please God, I will walk with caution, whenever I am not able clearly to see my way before me.

  I am now growing old. I have from my very early youth been conversant in reading and thinking upon the subject of our laws and Constitution, as well as upon those of other times and other countries; I have been for fifteen years a very laborious member of Parliament, and in that time have had great opportunities of seeing with my own eyes the working of the machine of our government, and remarking where it went smoothly and did its business, and where it checked in its movements, or where it damaged its work; I have also had and used the opportunities of conversing with men of the greatest wisdom and fullest experience in those matters; and I do declare to you most solemnly and most truly, that, on the result of all this reading, thinking, experience, and communication, I am not able to come to an immediate resolution in favor of a change of the groundwork of our Constitution, and in particular, that, in the present state of the country, in the present state of our representation, in the present state of our rights and modes of electing, in the present state of the several prevalent interests, in the present state of the affairs and manners of this country, the addition of an hundred knights of the shire, and hurrying election on election, will be things advantageous to liberty or good government.

  This is the present condition of my mind; and this is my apology for not going as fast as others may choose to go in this business. I do not by any means reject the propositions; much less do I condemn the gentlemen who, with equal good intentions, with much better abilities, and with infinitely greater personal weight and consideration than mine, are of opinion that this matter ought to be decided upon instantly.

  I most heartily wish that the deliberate sense of the kingdom on this great subject should be known. When it is known, it must be prevalent. It would be dreadful indeed, if there was any power in the nation capable of resisting its unanimous desire, or even the desire of any very great and decided majority of the people. The people may be deceived in their choice of an object; but I can scarcely conceive any choice they can make to be so very mischievous as the existence of any human force capable of resisting it. It will certainly be the duty of every man, in the situation to which God has called him, to give his best opinion and advice upon the matter: it will not be his duty, let him think what he will, to use any violent or any fraudulent means of counteracting the general wish, or even of employing the legal and constructive organ of expressing the people’s sense against the sense which they do actually entertain.

  In order that the real sense of the people should be known upon so great an affair as this, it is of absolute necessity that timely notice should be given, — that the matter should be prepared in open committees, from a choice into which no class or description of men is to be excluded, — and the subsequent county meetings should be as full and as well attended as possible. Without these precautions, the true sense of the people will ever be uncertain. Sure I am, that no precipitate resolution on a great change in the fundamental constitution of any country can ever be called the real sense of the people.

  I trust it will not be taken amiss, if, as an inhabitant and freeholder of this county, (one, indeed, among the most inconsiderable,) I assert my right of dissenting (as I do dissent fully and directly) from any resolution whatsoever on the subject of an alteration in the representation and election of the kingdom at this time. By preserving this light, and exercising it with temper and moderation, I trust I cannot offend the noble proposer, for whom no man professes or feels more respect and regard than I do. A want of concurrence in everything which can be proposed will in no sort weaken the energy or distract the efforts of men of upright intentions upon those points in which they are agreed. Assemblies that are met, and with a resolution to be all of a mind, are assemblies that can have no opinion at all of their own. The first proposer of any measure must be their master. I do not know that an amicable variety of sentiment, conducted with mutual good-will, has any sort of resemblance to discord, or that it can give any advantage whatsoever to the enemies of our common cause. On the contrary, a forced and fictitious agreement (which every universal agreement must be) is not becoming the cause of freedom. If, however, any evil should arise from it, (which I confess I do not foresee,) I am happy that those who have brought forward new and arduous matter, when very great doubts and some diversity of opinion must be foreknown, are of authority and weight enough to stand against the consequences.

  I humbly lay these my sentiments before the county. They are not taken up to serve any interests of my own, or to be subservient to the interests of any man or set of men under heaven. I could wish to be able to attend our meeting, or that I had time to reason this matter more fully by letter; but I am detained here upon our business: what you have already put upon us is as much as we can do. If we are prevented from going through it with any effect, I fear it will be in part owing not more to the resistance of the enemies of our cause than to our imposing on ourselves such tasks as no human faculties, employed as we are, can be equal to. Our worthy members have shown distinguished ability and zeal in support of our petition. I am just going down to a bill brought in to frustrate a capital part of your desires. The minister is preparing to transfer the cognizance of the public accounts from those whom you and the Constitution have chosen to control them, to unknown persons, creatures of his own. For so much he annihilates Parliament.

  I have the honor, &c.

  EDMUND BURKE.

  CHARLES STREET, 12th April, 1780.

  A LETTER TO RICHARD BURKE, ESQ., ON PROTESTANT ASCENDENCY IN IRELAND. 1793.

  My dear son, — We are all again assembled in town, to finish the last, but the most laborious, of the tasks which have been imposed upon me during my Parliamentary service. We are as well as at our time of life we can expect to be. We have, indeed, some moments of anxiety about you. You are engaged in an undertaking similar in its principle to mine. You are engaged in the relief of an oppressed people. In that service you must necessarily excite the same sort of passions in those who have exercised, and who wish to continue that oppression, that I have had to struggle with in this long labor. As your father has done, you must make enemies of many of the rich, of the proud, and of the powerful. I and you began in the same way. I must confess, that, if our place was of our choice, I could wish it had been your lot to begin the career of your life with an endeavor to render some more moderate and less invidious service to the public But being engaged in a great and critical work, I have not the least hesitation about your having hitherto done your duty as becomes you. If I had not an assurance not to be shaken from the character of your mind, I should be satisfied on that point by the cry that is raised against you. If you had behaved, as they call it, discreetly, that is, faintly and treacherously, in the execution of your trust, you would have had, for a while, the good word of all sorts of men, even of many of those whose cause you had betrayed, — and whilst your favor lasted, you might have coined that false reputation into a true and solid interest to yourself. This you are well apprised of; and you do not refuse to travel that beaten road from an ignorance, but from a contempt, of the objects it leads to.

  When you choose an arduous and slippery path, God forbid that any weak feelings of my declining age, which calls for soothings and supports, and which can have none but from you, should make me wish that you should abandon what you are about, or should trifle with it! In this house we submit, though with troubled minds, to that order which has connected all great duties with toils and with perils, which has conducted the road to glory through the regions of obloquy and reproach, and which will never suffer the disparaging alliance of spurious, false, and fugitive praise with genuine and permanent reputation. We know that the Power which has settled that order, and subjected you to it by placing you in the situation you are in, is able to bring you out of it with credit and with safety. His will
be done! All must come right. You may open the way with pain and under reproach: others will pursue it with ease and with applause.

  I am sorry to find that pride and passion, and that sort of zeal for religion which never shows any wonderful heat but when it afflicts and mortifies our neighbor, will not let the ruling description perceive that the privilege for which your clients contend is very nearly as much for the benefit of those who refuse it as those who ask it. I am not to examine into the charges that are daily made on the administration of Ireland. I am not qualified to say how much in them is cold truth, and how much rhetorical exaggeration. Allowing some foundation to the complaint, it is to no purpose that these people allege that their government is a job in its administration. I am sure it is a job in its constitution; nor is it possible a scheme of polity, which, in total exclusion of the body of the community, confines (with little or no regard to their rank or condition in life) to a certain set of favored citizens the rights which formerly belonged to the whole, should not, by the operation of the same selfish and narrow principles, teach the persons who administer in that government to prefer their own particular, but well-understood, private interest to the false and ill-calculated private interest of the monopolizing company they belong to. Eminent characters, to be sure, overrule places and circumstances. I have nothing to say to that virtue which shoots up in full force by the native vigor of the seminal principle, in spite of the adverse soil and climate that it grows in. But speaking of things in their ordinary course, in a country of monopoly there can be no patriotism. There may be a party spirit, but public spirit there can be none. As to a spirit of liberty, still less can it exist, or anything like it. A liberty made up of penalties! a liberty made up of incapacities! a liberty made up of exclusion and proscription, continued for ages, of four fifths, perhaps, of the inhabitants of all ranks and fortunes In what does such liberty differ from the description of the most shocking kind of servitude?