I cannot help thinking, sir, that if there had been any truth in my grandfather"s story, some Scottish member would, on the late occasion, have informed the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that, in virtue of this Treaty, it was no sufficient reason for innovating upon the private rights of Scotsmen in a most tender and delicate point, merely that the Right Honourable Gentleman saw no reason why the same law should not be current through the whole of his Majesty"s dominions; and that, on the contrary, it was inc.u.mbent upon him to go a step further, and to show that the alteration proposed _was_ for the EVIDENT UTILITY _of the subjects within Scotland_,--a proposition disavowed by the Right Honourable Gentleman"s candid admission, as well as by that of the Prime Minister, and contradicted in every circ.u.mstance by the actual state of the case.
Methinks, sir, our "Chosen Five and Forty," supposing they had bound themselves to Ministers by such oaths of silence and obedience as are taken by Carthusian friars, must have had free-will and speech to express their sentiments, had they been possessed of so irrefragable an argument in such a case of extremity. The sight of a father"s life in danger is said to have restored the power of language to the dumb; and truly, the necessary defence of the rights of our native country is not, or at least ought not to be, a less animating motive. Lord Lauderdale almost alone interfered, and procured, to his infinite honour, a delay of six months in the extension of this act,--a sort of reprieve from the southern _jougs_,--by which we may have some chance of profiting, if, during the interval, we can show ourselves true Scotsmen, by some better proof than merely by being "wise behind the hand."
In the first place, sir, I would have this old Treaty searched for, and should it be found to be still existing, I think it decides the question. For, how can it be possible that it should be for the "evident utility" of Scotland to alter her laws of private right, to the total subversion of a system under which she is admitted to have flourished for a century, and which has never within North Britain been attended with the inconveniences charged against it in the sister country, where, by the way, it never existed? Even if the old parchment should be voted obsolete, there would be some satisfaction in having it looked out and preserved--not in the Register-Office, or Advocates" Library, where it might awaken painful recollections--but in the Museum of the Antiquaries, where, with the Solemn League and Covenant, the Letter of the Scottish n.o.bles to the Pope on the independence of their country, and other antiquated doc.u.ments, once held in reverence, it might silently contract dust, yet remain to bear witness that such things had been.
I earnestly hope, however, that an international league of such importance may still be found obligatory on both the _high_ and the _low_ contracting parties; on that which has the power, and apparently the will, to break it, as well as on the weaker nation, who cannot, without incurring still worse, and more miserable consequences, oppose aggression, otherwise than by invoking the faith of treaties, and the national honour of Old England.
In the second place, all ranks and bodies of men in North Britain (for all are concerned, the poor as well as the rich) should express by pet.i.tion their sense of the injustice which is offered to the country, and the distress which will probably be the necessary consequence.
Without the power of issuing their own notes the Banks cannot supply the manufacturer with that credit which enables him to pay his workmen, and wait his return; or accommodate the farmer with that fund which makes it easy for him to discharge his rent, and give wages to his labourers, while in the act of performing expensive operations which are to treble or quadruple the produce of his farm. The trustees on the high-roads and other public works, so ready to stake their personal credit for carrying on public improvements, will no longer possess the power of raising funds by doing so. The whole existing state of credit is to be altered from top to bottom, and Ministers are silent on any remedy which such a state of things would imperiously require.
These are subjects worth struggling for, and rather of more importance than generally come before County Meetings. The English legislature seems inclined to stultify our Law Authorities in their department; but let us at least try if they will listen to the united voice of a Nation in matters which so intimately concern its welfare, that almost every man must have formed a judgment on the subject, from something like personal experience. For my part, I cannot doubt the result.
Times are undoubtedly different from those of Queen Anne, when, Dean Swift having in a political pamphlet pa.s.sed some sarcasms on the Scottish nation, as a poor and fierce people, the Scythians of Britain,--the Scottish peers, headed by the Duke of Argyll, went in a body to the ministers, and compelled them to disown the sentiments which had been expressed by their partisan, and offer a reward of three hundred pounds for the author of the libel, well known to be the best advocate and most intimate friend of the existing administration.
They demanded also that the printer and publisher should be prosecuted before the House of Peers; and Harley, however unwillingly, was obliged to yield to their demand.
In the celebrated case of Porteous, the English legislature saw themselves compelled to desist from vindictive measures, on account of a gross offence committed in the metropolis of Scotland. In that of the Roman Catholic bill they yielded to the voice of the Scottish people, or rather of the Scottish mob, and declared the proposed alteration of the law should not extend to North Britain. The cases were different, in point of merit, though the Scots were successful in both. In the one, a boon of clemency was extorted; in the other, concession was an act of decided weakness. But ought the present administration of Great Britain to show less deference to our temperate and general remonstrance on a matter concerning ourselves only, than their predecessors did to the pa.s.sions, and even the ill-founded and unjust prejudices, of our ancestors?
Times, indeed, have changed since those days, and circ.u.mstances also.
We are no longer a poor, that is, so _very poor_ a country and people; and as we have increased in wealth, we have become somewhat poorer in spirit, and more loath to incur displeasure by contests upon mere etiquette, or national prejudice. But we have some grounds to plead for favour with England. We have borne our pecuniary impositions during a long war, with a patience the more exemplary, as they lay heavier on us from our comparative want of means--our blood has flowed as freely as that of England or of Ireland--our lives and fortunes have become unhesitatingly devoted to the defence of the empire--our loyalty as warmly and willingly displayed towards the person of our Sovereign. We have consented with submission, if not with cheerfulness, to reductions and abolitions of public offices, required for the good of the state at large, but which must affect materially the condition, and even the respectability, of our overburthened aristocracy. We have in every respect conducted ourselves as good and faithful subjects of the general empire.
We do not boast of these things as actual merits; but they are at least duties discharged, and in an appeal to men of honour and of judgment, must ent.i.tle us to be heard with patience, and even deference, on the management of our own affairs, if we speak unanimously, lay aside party feeling, and use the voice of one leaf of the holy Trefoil,--one distinct and component part of the United Kingdoms.
Let no consideration deter us from pleading our own cause temperately but firmly, and we shall certainly receive a favourable audience. Even our acquisition of a little wealth, which might abate our courage on other occasions, should invigorate us to unanimous perseverance at the present crisis, when the very source of our national prosperity is directly, though unwittingly, struck at. Our plaids are, I trust, not yet sunk into Jewish gaberdines, to be wantonly spit upon; nor are we yet bound to "receive the insult with a patient shrug." But exertion is now demanded on other accounts than those of mere honourable punctilio. Misers themselves will struggle in defence of their property, though tolerant of all aggressions by which that is not threatened. Avarice herself, however mean-spirited, will rouse to defend the wealth she possesses, and preserve the means of gaining more. Scotland is now called upon to rally in defence of the sources of her national improvement, and the means of increasing it; upon which, as none are so much concerned in the subject, none can be such competent judges as Scotsmen themselves.
I cannot believe so generous a people as the English, so wise an administration as the present, will disregard our humble remonstrances, merely because they are made in the form of peaceful entreaty, and not _secundum perfervidum ingenium Scotorum_, with "durk and pistol at our belt." It would be a dangerous lesson to teach the empire at large, that threats can extort what is not yielded to reasonable and respectful remonstrance.
But this is not all. The principle of "uniformity of laws," if not manfully withstood, may have other blessings in store for us. Suppose, that when finished with blistering Scotland when in perfect health, England should find time and courage to withdraw the veil from the deep cancer which is gnawing her own bowels, and make an attempt to stop the fatal progress of her _poor-rates_. Some system or other must be proposed in its place--a grinding one it must be, for it is not an evil to be cured by palliatives. Suppose the English, for uniformity"s sake, insist that Scotland, which is at present free from this foul and shameful disorder, should nevertheless be included in the severe _treatment_ which the disease demands, how would the landholders of Scotland like to undergo the scalpel and cautery, merely because England requires to be scarified?
Or again;--Supposing England should take a fancy to impart to us her sanguinary criminal code, which, too cruel to be carried into effect, gives every wretch that is condemned a chance of one to twelve that he shall not be executed, and so turns the law into a lottery--would this be an agreeable boon to North Britain?
Once more;--What if the English ministers should feel disposed to extend to us their equitable system of process respecting civil debt, which divides the advantages so admirably betwixt debtor and creditor--_That_ equal dispensation of justice, which provides that an imprisoned debtor, if a rogue, may remain in undisturbed possession of a great landed estate, and enjoy in a jail all the luxuries of Sardanapalus, while the wretch to whom he owes money is starving; and that, to balance the matter, a creditor, if cruel, may detain a debtor in prison for a lifetime, and make, as the established phrase goes, _dice of his bones_--would this admirable reciprocity of privilege, indulged alternately to knave and tyrant, please Saunders better than his own humane action of Cessio, and his equitable process of Adjudication?
I will not insist further on such topics, for I daresay that these apparent enormities in principle are, in England where they have operation, modified and corrected in practice by circ.u.mstances unknown to me; so that, in pa.s.sing judgment on them, I may myself fall into the error I deprecate, of judging of foreign laws without being aware of all the premisses. Neither do I mean that we should struggle with illiberality against any improvements which can be borrowed from English principle. I would only desire that such ameliorations were adopted, not merely because they are English, but because they are suited to be a.s.similated with the laws of Scotland, and lead, in short, _to her evident utility_; and this on the principle, that in transplanting a tree, little attention need be paid to the character of the climate and soil from which it is brought, although the greatest care must be taken that those of the situation to which it is transplanted are fitted to receive it. It would be no reason for planting mulberry-trees in Scotland, that they luxuriate in the south of England. There is sense in the old proverb, "Ilk land has its ain lauch."
In the present case, it is impossible to believe the extension of these restrictions to Scotland can be for the _evident utility_ of the country, which has prospered so long and so uniformly under directly the contrary system.
It is very probable I may be deemed illiberal in all this reasoning; but if to look for information to practical results, rather than to theoretical principles, and to argue from the effect of the experience of a century, rather than the deductions of a modern hypothesis, be illiberal, I must sit down content with a censure, which will include wiser men than I. The philosophical tailors of Laputa, who wrought by mathematical calculation, had, no doubt, a supreme contempt for those humble fashioners who went to work by measuring the person of their customer; but Gulliver tells us, that the worst clothes he ever wore, were constructed upon abstract principles; and truly, I think, we have seen some laws, and may see more, not much better adapted to existing circ.u.mstances, than the Captain"s philosophical uniform to his actual person.
It is true, that every wise statesman keeps sound and general political principles in his eye, as the pilot looks upon his compa.s.s to discover his true course. But this true course cannot always be followed out straight and diametrically; it must be altered from time to time, nay sometimes apparently abandoned, on account of shoals, breakers, and headlands, not to mention contrary winds. The same obstacles occur to the course of the statesman. The point at which he aims may be important, the principle on which he steers may be just; yet the obstacles arising from rooted prejudices, from intemperate pa.s.sions, from ancient practices, from a different character of people, from varieties in climate and soil, may cause a direct movement upon his ultimate object to be attended with distress to individuals, and loss to the community, which no good man would wish to occasion, and with dangers which no wise man would voluntarily choose to encounter.
Although I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been rather precipitate in the decided opinion which he is represented to have expressed on this occasion, I am far from entertaining the slightest disrespect for the right honourable gentleman. "I hear as good exclamation upon him as on any man in Messina, and though I am but a poor man, I am glad to hear it." But a decided attachment to abstract principle, and to a spirit of generalising, is--like a rash rider on a headstrong horse--very apt to run foul of local obstacles, which might have been avoided by a more deliberate career, where the nature of the ground had been previously considered.
I make allowance for the temptation natural to an ingenious and active mind. There is a natural pride in following out an universal and levelling principle. It seems to augur genius, force of conception, and steadiness of purpose; qualities which every legislator is desirous of being thought to possess. On the other hand, the study of local advantages and impediments demands labour and inquiry, and is rewarded after all only with the cold and parsimonious praise due to humble industry. It is no less true, however, that measures which go straight and direct to a great general object, without noticing intervening impediments, must often resemble the fierce progress of the thunderbolt or the cannon-ball, those dreadful agents, which, in rushing right to their point, care not what ruin they make by the way.
The sounder and more moderate policy, accommodating its measures to exterior circ.u.mstances, rather resembles the judicious course of a well-conducted highway, which, turning aside frequently from its direct course,
"Winds round the corn-field and the hill of vines,"
and becomes devious, that it may respect property and avoid obstacles; thus escaping even temporary evils, and serving the public no less in its more circuitous, than it would have done in its direct course.
Can you tell me, sir, if this _uniformity_ of civil inst.i.tutions, which calls for such sacrifices, be at all descended from, or related to, a doctrine nearly of the same nature, called Conformity in religious doctrine, very fashionable about one hundred and fifty years since, which undertook to unite the jarring creeds of the United Kingdom to one common standard, and excited a universal strife by the vain attempt, and a thousand fierce disputes, in which she
"----umpire sate, And by decision more embroiled the fray"?
Should Uniformity have the same pedigree, Malachi Malagrowther proclaims her "a hawk of a very bad nest."
The universal opinion of a whole kingdom, founded upon a century"s experience, ought not to be lightly considered as founded in ignorance and prejudice. I am something of an agriculturist; and in travelling through the country I have often had occasion to wonder that the inhabitants of particular districts had not adopted certain obvious improvements in cultivation. But, upon inquiry, I have usually found out that appearances had deceived me, and that I had not reckoned on particular local circ.u.mstances, which either prevented the execution of the system I should have theoretically recommended, or rendered some other more advantageous in the particular circ.u.mstances.
I do not therefore resist theoretical innovation in general; I only humbly desire it may not outrun the suggestions arising from the experience of ages. I would have the necessity felt and acknowledged before old inst.i.tutions are demolished--the _evident utility_ of every alteration demonstrated before it is adopted upon mere speculation. I submit our ancient system to the primary knife of the legislature, but would not willingly see our reformers employ a weapon, which, like the sword of Jack the Giant-Killer, _cuts before the point_.
It is always to be considered, that in human affairs, the very best imaginable result is seldom to be obtained, and that it is wise to content ourselves with the best which can be got. This principle speaks with a voice of thunder against violent innovation, for the sake of possible improvement, where things are already well. We ought not to desire better bread than is made of wheat. Our Scotch proverb warns us to _Let weel bide_; and all the world has heard of the untranslatable Italian epitaph upon the man, who died of taking physic to make him better, when he was already in health.--I am, Mr.
Journalist, yours,
MALACHI MALAGROWTHER.
POSTSCRIPT
Since writing these hasty thoughts, I hear it reported that we are to have an extension of our precarious reprieve, and that our six months are to be extended to six years. I would not have Scotland trust to this hollow truce. The measure ought, like all others, to be canva.s.sed on its merits, and frankly admitted or rejected; it has been stirred and ought to be decided. I request my countrymen not to be soothed into inactivity by that temporising, and, I will say, unmanly vacillation. Government is pledged to nothing by taking an open course; for if the bill, so far as applicable to Scotland, is at present absolutely laid aside, there can be no objection to their resuming it at any period, when from change of circ.u.mstances, it may be advantageous to Scotland, and when, for what I know, it may be welcomed as a boon.
But if held over our heads as a minatory measure, to take place within a certain period, what can the event be but to cripple and ultimately destroy the present system, on which a direct attack is found at present inexpedient? Can the bankers continue to conduct their profession on the same secure footing, with an abrogation of it in prospect? Must it not cease to be what it has. .h.i.therto been--a business carried on both for their own profit, and for the accommodation of the country? Instead of employing their capital in the usual channels, must they not in self-defence employ it in forming others? Will not the substantial and wealthy withdraw their funds from that species of commerce? And may not the place of these be supplied by men of daring adventure, without corresponding capital, who will take a chance of wealth or ruin in the chances of the game?
If it is the absolute and irrevocable determination that the bill is to be extended to us, the sooner the great penalty is inflicted the better; for in politics and commerce, as in all the other affairs of life, absolute and certain evil is better than uncertainty and protracted suspense.
NOTES
[Transcriber"s note: I have added the pamphlet headings, since the original page numbers are not helpful.]
I. LETTER TO A DISSENTER.
_The exclusion_--of James from the succession.
_The rebellion_--Monmouth"s.
_The Quakers_.--A hit, of course, at Penn.
_Piqueer_, "do outpost duty," "raid."
_Lords of the Articles_.--A well-known body in the older Scottish Const.i.tution, through whom only legislation could be originated, and who thus almost nullified the powers of Parliament.
_Squeaziness_ = "squeamishness," "queasiness."
_It is impossible_.--Another form of "No bishop no king."