THOUGHTS

ON THE

CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS.

Hoc vero occultum, intestinum, domesticum malum, non modo non exsistit, verum etiam opprimit, antequam perspicere atque explorare potueris.

Cic.

1770.

THOUGHTS.

It is an undertaking of some degree of delicacy to examine into the cause of public disorders. If a man happens not to succeed in such an inquiry, he will be thought weak and visionary; if he touches the true grievance, there is a danger that he may come near to persons of weight and consequence, who will rather be exasperated at the discovery of their errors, than thankful for the occasion of correcting them. If he should be obliged to blame the favorites of the people, he will be considered as the tool of power; if he censures those in power, he will be looked on as an instrument of faction. But in all exertions of duty something is to be hazarded. In cases of tumult and disorder, our law has invested every man, in some sort, with the authority of a magistrate. When the affairs of the nation are distracted, private people are, by the spirit of that law, justified in stepping a little out of their ordinary sphere. They enjoy a privilege, of somewhat more dignity and effect, than that of idle lamentation over the calamities of their country. They may look into them narrowly; they may reason upon them liberally; and if they should be so fortunate as to discover the true source of the mischief, and to suggest any probable method of removing it, though they may displease the rulers for the day, they are certainly of service to the cause of government. Government is deeply interested in every thing which, even through the medium of some temporary uneasiness, may tend finally to compose the minds of the subject, and to conciliate their affections. I have nothing to do here with the abstract value of the voice of the people. But as long as reputation, the most precious, possession of every individual, and as long as opinion, the great

US IT gvernments.

— of the state, depend entirely upon that voice, it can nsidered as a thing of little consequence either to Nations are not primarily ress violence. Whatever original energy yamosed arther in force or regulation, the operation. Tri merely instrumental. Nations are govte que defods and on the same principles, by ct authority is often able to govern mais r his superiors; by a knowledge of THAT BITE ARIA adeous management of it; I mean,Pris sadly and quietly conducted; and swing but a continued scuffle between

escut mai be multitude: in which sometimes the mes the other is uppermost; in which they Hi mi pare in a series of contemptible vicEN SINÒLICS SUCCESSIVES. The temper of the peounong VII be presides ought therefore to be the first ISLISTLI And the knowledge of this temper it ma's inpossible de him to attain, if he has not an eng gart 2 what it is his duty to learn. La 2012 we Eve in, to murmur at the ww fxrer, to lament the past, to conceive tores of the future, are the common dispositions Is Nz à mankind; indeed the necessary effects A IN PLAY and levity of the vulgar. Such complaints ang Pumps, lav ex sued in all times; yet as all times have ver se za political sagacity manifests itself, in e's not so og da. complaint which only characterizes the human nature, from those which are No tratatis, AC de varocular distemperature of our own air and

Van 7 deve, will consider it merely as the language viar a datgentment, if I say, that there is somePasarming in the present conjuncture. There

na, 2, 22, or out of power, who holds any other lan

government is at once dreaded and contemned; show the awardspeed of all their respected and salutary

terrors; that their inaction is a subject of ridicule, and their exertion of abhorrence; that rank, and office, and title, and all the solemn plausibilities of the world, have lost their reverence and effect; that our foreign politics are as much deranged as our domestic economy; that our dependencies are slackened in their affection, and loosened from their obedience; that we know neither how to yield nor how to enforce; that hardly any thing above or below, abroad or at home, is sound and entire; but that disconnection and confusion, in offices, in parties, in families, in parliament, in the nation, prevail beyond the disorders of any former time; these are facts universally admitted and lamented.

This state of things is the more extraordinary, because the great parties which formerly divided and agitated the kingdom are known to be in a manner entirely dissolved. No great external calamity has visited the nation; no pestilence or famine. We do not labor at present under any scheme of taxation, new or oppressive, in the quantity or in the mode. Nor are we engaged in unsuccessful war; in which, our misfortunes might easily pervert our judgment; and our minds, sore from the loss of national glory, might feel every blow of fortune as a crime in government.

It is impossible that the cause of this strange distemper should not sometimes become a subject of discourse. It is a compliment due, and which I willingly pay, to those who administer our affairs, to take notice in the first place of their speculation. Our ministers are of opinion, that the increase of our trade and manufactures, that our growth by colonization, and by conquest, have concurred to accumulate immense wealth in the hands of some individuals; and this again being dispersed among the people, has rendered them universally proud, ferocious, and ungovernable: that the insolence of some from their enormous wealth, and the boldness of others from a guilty poverty, have rendered them capable of the most atrocious attempts; so that they have trampled upon all subordination, and violently borne down the unarmed laws of a free government; barriers too feeble