North are now contriving to expel all the English. We may then curse the hour in which it was determined, that expulsion and exclusion are the same. For who can guess what may be done when the Scots have the whole House to themselves?

Thus, agreeable to custom and reason, notwithstanding all objections, real or imaginary; thus consistent with the practice of former times, and thus consequential to the original principles of government, is that decision by which so much violence of discontent has been excited, which has been so dolorously bewailed, and so outrageously resented.

Let us, however, not be seduced to put too much confidence in justice or in truth; they have often been found inactive in their own defence, and give more confidence than help to their friends and their advocates. It may perhaps be prudent to make one momentary concession to falsehood, by supposing the vote in Mr. Lutterel's favour to be wrong.

All wrong ought to be rectified. If Mr. Wilkes is deprived of a lawful seat, both he and his electors have reason to complain: but it will not be easily found, why, among the innumerable wrongs of which a great part of mankind are hourly complaining, the whole care of the public should be transferred to Mr. Wilkes and the freeholders of Middlesex, who might all sink into nonexistence, without any other effect, than that there would be room made for a new rabble, and a new retailer of sedition and obscenity. The cause of our country would suffer Little; the rabble, whencesoever they come, will be always patriots, and always supporters of the Bill of Rights.

injustice suffered, or supposed to be suffered, by any private man, or single community, was local and temporary, it neither spread far, nor lasted long.

The nation looked on with little care, because there did not seem to be much danger. The consequence of small irregularities was not felt, and we had not yet learned to be terrified by very distant enemies.

But quiet and security are now at an end.Our vigilance is quickened, and our comprehen sion is enlarged. We not only see events in their causes, but before their causes; we hear the thunder while the sky is clear, and see the mine sprung before it is dug. Political wisdom has, by the force of English genius, been improved at last not only to political intuition, but to political prescience.

But it cannot, I am afraid, be said, that as we are grown wise, we are made happy. It is said of those who have the wonderful power called second sight, that they seldom see any thing but evil: political second sight has the same effect; we hear of nothing but of an alarming crisis, of violated rights, and expiring liberties. The morning rises upon new wrongs, and the dreamer passes the night in imaginary shackles.

The sphere of anxiety is now enlarged; he that hitherto cared only for himself, now cares for the public; for he has learned that the happiness of individuals is comprised in the prosperity of the whole, and that his country never suffers, but he suffers with it, however it hap pens that he feels no pain.

Fired with this fever of epidemic patriotism, the tailor slips his thimble, the draper drops his yard, and the blacksmith lays down his hammer; they meet at an honest alehouse, consider the state of the nation, read or hear the last petition, lament the miseries of the time, are alarmed at the dreadful crisis, and subscribe to the sup port of the Bill of Rights.

The House of Commons decides the disputes arising from elections. Was it ever supposed, that in all cases their decisions were right? Every man whose lawful election is defeated, is equally wronged with Mr. Wilkes, and his constituents feel their disappointment with no less It sometimes indeed happens, that an intruder anguish than the freeholders of Middlesex.- of more benevolence than prudence attempts to These decisions have often been apparently par- disperse their cloud of dejection, and ease their tial, and sometimes tyrannically oppressive. A hearts by seasonable consolation. He tells them, majority has been given to a favourite candidate, that though the government cannot be too diliby expunging votes which had always been al- gently watched, it may be too hastily accused; lowed, and which therefore had the authority by and that, though private judgment is every man's which all votes are given, that of custom unin-right, yet we cannot judge of what we do not terrupted. When the Commons determine who know; that we feel at present no evils which shall be constituents, they may, with some pro-government can alleviate, and that the public priety, be said to make law, because those determinations have hitherto, for the sake of quiet, been adopted by succeeding parliaments. A vote, therefore, of the House, when it operates as a law, is to individuals a law only temporary, but to communities perpetual.

Yet though all this has been done, and though at every new parliament much of this is expected to be done again, it has never produced in any former time such an alarming crisis. We have found by experience, that though a squire has given ale and venison in vain, and a borough has been compelled to see its dearest interest in the hands of him whom it did not trust, yet the general state of the nation has continued the same. The sun has risen, and the corn has grown, and whatever talk has been of the danger of property, yet he that ploughed the field commonly reaped it, and he that built a house was master of the door: the vexation excited by

business is committed to men who have as much right to confidence as their adversaries; that the freeholders of Middlesex, if they could not choose Mr. Wilkes, might have chosen any other man, and that he trusts we have within the realm five hundred as good as he; that even if this which has happened to Middlesex had happened to every other county, that one man should be made incapable of being elected, it could produce no great change in the parliament, nor much contract the power of election; that what has been done is probably right, and that if it be wrong, it is of little consequence, since a like case cannot easily occur; that expulsions are very rare, and if they should, by unbounded insolence of faction, become more frequent, the electors may easily provide a second choice.

All this he may say, but not half of this will be heard; his opponents will stun him and themselves with a confused sound of pensions

and places, venality and corruption, oppression and invasion, slavery and ruin.

Outeries like these, uttered by malignity, and echoed by folly; general accusations of indeterminate wickedness; and obscure hints of impossible designs, dispersed among those that do not know their meaning, by those that know them to be false, have disposed part of the nation, though but a small part, to pester the court with ridiculous petitions.

The progress of a petition is well known. An ejected placeman goes down to his county or his borough, tells his friends of his inability to serve them, and his constituents of the corruption of the government. His friends readily understand that he who can get nothing, will have nothing to give. They agree to proclaim a meeting; meat and drink are plentifully provided; a crowd is easily brought together, and those who think that they know the reason of their meeting, undertake to tell those who know Ale and clamour unite their powers, the crowd, condensed and heated, begins to ferment with the leaven of sedition. All see a thousand evils, though they cannot show them, and grow impatient for a remedy, though they know not what.

it not.

A speech is then made by the Cicero of the day; he says much and suppresses more, and credit is equally given to what he tells, and what he conceals. The petition is read and universally approved. Those who are sober enough to write, add their names, and the rest would sign it if they could.

Every man goes home and tells his neighbour of the glories of the day; how he was consulted and what he advised; how he was invited into the great room, where his lordship called him by his name; how he was caressed by Sir Francis, Sir Joseph, or Sir George; how he eat turtle and venison, and drank unanimity to the three brothers.

The poor loiterer, whose shop had confined him, or whose wife had locked him up, hears the tale of luxury with envy, and at last inquires what was their petition. Of the petition nothing is remembered by the narrator, but that it spoke much of fears and apprehensions, and something very alarming, and that he is sure it is against the government; the other is convinced that it must be right, and wishes he had been there, for he loves wine and venison, and is resolved as long as he lives to be against the government.

You who are here, says he, complaining of venality, are yourselves the agents of those who, having estimated themselves at too high a price, are only angry that they are not bought. You are appealing from the parliament to the rabble, and inviting those who scarcely, in the most common affairs, distinguish right from wrong, to judge of a question complicated with law writ ten and unwritten, with the general principles of government, and the particular customs of the House of Commons; you are showing them a grievance, so distant that they cannot see it, and so light that they cannot feel it; for how, but by unnecessary intelligence and artificial provocation, should the farmers and shopkeepers of Yorkshire and Cumberland know or care how Middlesex is represented? instead of wandering thus round the county to exasperate the rage of party, and darken the suspicions of ignorance, it is the duty of men like you, who have leisure for inquiry, to lead back the people to their honest labour; to tell them, that submission is the duty of the ignorant, and content the virtue of the poor; that they have no skill in the art of government, nor any interest in the dissensions of the great; and when you meet with any, as some there are, whose understandings are capable of conviction, it will become you to allay this foaming ebullition, by showing them that they have as much happiness as the condition of life will easily receive, and that a government, of which an erroneous or unjust representation of Middlesex is the greatest crime that interest can discover, or malice can upbraid, is government approaching nearer to perfection, than any that experience has known, or history related.

The drudges of sedition wish to change their ground, they hear him with sullen silence, feel conviction without repentance, and are con founded but not abashed; they go forward to another door, and find a kinder reception from a man enraged against the government, because he has just been paying the tax upon his windows.

That a petition for a dissolution of the parlia ment will at all times have its favourers, may be easily imagined. The people indeed do not expect that one House of Commons will be much honester or much wiser than another: they do not suppose that the taxes will be lightened; or, though they have been so often taught to hope it, that soap and candles will be cheaper: they expect no redress of grievances, for of no grievances but taxes do they complain; they wish The petition is then handed from town to not the extension of liberty, for they do not feel town, and from house to house, and wherever it any restraint; about the security of privilege or comes the inhabitants flock together, that they property they are totally careless, for they see may see that which must be sent to the king.no property invaded, nor know, till they are told, Names are easily collected. One man signs be- that any privilege has suffered violation. cause he hates the papists, another because he has vowed destruction to the turnpikes; one because it will vex the parson, another because he owes his landlord nothing; one because he is rich, another because he is poor; one to show that he is not afraid, and another to show that he can write,

The passage, however, is not always smooth. Those who collect contributions to sedition, sometimes apply to a man of higher rank and more enlightened mind, who, instead of lending them his name, calmly reproves them for being seducers of the people,

Least of all do they expect, that any future parliament will lessen its own powers, or communicate to the people that authority which it has once obtained.

Yet a new parliament is sufficiently desirable. The year of election is a year of jollity; and what is still more delightful, a year of equality. The glutton now eats the delicacies for which he longed when he could not purchase them, and the drunkard has the pleasure of wine without the cost. The drone lives a while without work, and the shopkeeper, in the flow of money, raises his price. The mechanic that trembled at the

A few weeks will now show whether the government can be shaken by empty noise, and whether the faction which depends upon its influence, has not deceived alike the public and itself. That it should have continued till now is sufficiently shameful. None can, indeed, wonder that it has been supported by the sectaries, the natural fomenters of sedition and confede rates of the rabble, of whose religion little now The whole conduct of this despicable faction remains but hatred of establishments, and who is distinguished by plebeian grossness, and sa- are angry to find separation now only tolerated, vage indecency. To misrepresent the actions which was once rewarded: but every honest and the principles of their enemies is common to man must lament, that it has been regarded all parties; but the insolence of invective, and with frigid neutrality by the tories, who, being brutality of reproach, which have lately pre-long accustomed to signalize their principles by vailed, are peculiar to this.

THOUGHTS ON THE LATE TRANSAC- pied, yet they still continued their hopes and TIONS RESPECTING FALKLAND'S their labours. They were the second nation ISLANDS. 177 1.

To proportion the eagerness of contest to its importance, seems too hard a task for human wisdom. The pride of wit has kept ages busy in the discussion of useless questions, and the pride of power has destroyed armies to gain or to keep unprofitable possessions.

Not many years have passed since the cruelties of war were filling the world with terror and with sorrow; rage was at last appeased, or strength exhausted, and to the harassed nations peace was restored with all its pleasures and its benefits. Of this state all felt the happiness, and all implored the continuance; but what continuance of happiness can be expected, when the whole system of European empire can be in danger of a new concussion, by a contention for a few spots of earth, which, in the deserts of the ocean, had almost escaped human notice, and which, if they had not happened to make a seamark, had perhaps never had a name?

that dared the extent of the Pacific Ocean, and the second circumnavigators of the globe.

By the war between Elizabeth and Philip, the wealth of America became lawful prize, and those who were less afraid of danger than of poverty, supposed that riches might easily be obtained by plundering the Spaniards. Nothing is difficult when gain and honour unite their influence; the spirit and vigour of these expeditions enlarged our views of the new world, and made us first acquainted with its remoter coasts.

In the fatal voyage of Cavendish, (1592,) Captain Davies, who, being sent out as his associate, was afterwards parted from him or deserted him, as he was driven by violence of weather about the straits of Magellan, is supposed to have been the first who saw the lands now called Falkland's Islands, but his distress permitted him not to make any observation, and he left them as he found them, without a name.

Not long afterwards (1594) Sir Richard Haw. Fortune often delights to dignify what nature kins being in the same seas with the same dehas neglected, and that renown which cannot be signs, saw these Islands again, if they are inclaimed by intrinsic excellence or greatness, is deed the same islands, and, in honour of his sometimes derived from unexpected accidents. mistress, called them Hawkins' Maiden Land. The Rubicon was ennobled by the passage of This voyage was not of renown sufficient to Cesar, and the time is now come when Falk-procure a general reception to the new name; land's Islands demand their historian. for when the Dutch, who had now become strong But the writer to whom this employment shall enough not only to defend themselves, but to atbe assigned, will have few opportunities of de- tack their masters, sent (1598) Verhagen and scriptive splendour, or narrative elegance. Of Sebald de Wert into the South Seas, these other countries it is told how often they have islands which were not supposed to have been changed their government; these islands have known before, obtained the denomination of Sehitherto changed only their name. Of heroes bald's Islands, and were from that time placed to conquer, or legislators to civilize, here has in the charts; though Frezier tells us, that they been no appearance; nothing has happened to were yet considered as of doubtful existence. them but that they have been sometimes seen by wandering navigators, who passed by them in search of better habitations.

When the Spaniards, who, under the conduct of Columbus, discovered America, had taken possession of its most wealthy regions, they surprised and terrified Europe by a sudden and unexampled influx of riches. They were made at once insupportably insolent, and might perhaps have become irresistibly powerful, had not their mountainous treasures been scattered in the air with the ignorant profusion of unaccustomed opulence.

The greater part of the European potentates saw this stream of riches flowing into Spain without attempting to dip their own hands in the golden fountain. France had no naval skill or power; Portugal was extending her dominions in the east over regions formed in the gayety of nature; the Hanseatic league, being planned only for the security of traffic, had no tendency to discovery or invasion; and the commercial states of Italy growing rich by trading between Asia and Europe, and not lying upon the ocean, did not desire to seek by great hazards, at a distance, what was almost at home to be found with safety.

The English alone were animated by the success of the Spanish navigators, to try if any thing was left that might reward adventure, or incite appropriation. They sent Cabot into the north, but in the north there was no gold or silver to be found. The best regions were pre-occu

Their present English name was probably given them (1689) by Strong, whose journal, yet unprinted, may be found in the Museum. This name was adopted by Halley, and has from that time, I believe, been received into our maps.

The privateers which were put into motion by the wars of William and Anne, saw those Islands and mentioned them; but they were yet not considered as territories worth a contest. Strong affirmed that there was no wood, and Dampier suspected that they had no water.

Frezier describes their appearance with more distinctness, and mentions some ships of St. Maloes, by which they had been visited, and to which he seems willing enough to ascribe the honour of discovering islands which yet he admits to have been seen by Hawkins, and named by Sebald de Wert. He, I suppose, in honour of his countrymen, called them the Malouines, the denomination now used by the Spaniards, who seem not, till very lately, to have thought them important enough to deserve a name.

Since the publication of Anson's voyage, they have very much changed their opinion, finding a settlement in Pepy's or Falkland's Island recommended by the author as necessary to the success of our future expeditions against the coast of Chili, and as of such use and import ance, that it would produce many advantages in peace, and in war would make us masters of the South Sea.

Scarcely any degree of judgment is sufficient to restrain the imagination from magnifying that

on which it is long detained. The relater of Anson's voyage had heated his mind with its various events, had partaken the hope with which it was begun, and the vexation suffered by its various miscarriages, and then thought nothing could be of greater benefit to the nation than that which might promote the success of such another enterprise.

ways generates in those who are to defend unjust acquisitions against lawful authority; and when he comes home with riches thus acquired, he brings a mind hardened in evil, too proud for reproof, and too stupid for reflection; he offends the high by his insolence, and corrupts the low by his example.

Whether these truths were forgotten or deHad the heroes of that history even performed spised, or whether some better purpose was then and attained all that, when they first spread in agitation, the representation made in Anson's their sails, they ventured to hope, the conse-voyage had such effect upon the statesmen of quence would yet have produced very little hurt that time, that (in 1748) some sloops were fitted to the Spaniards, and very little benefit to the out for the fuller knowledge of Pepys's and English. They would have taken a few towns; Falkland's Islands, and for further discoveries Anson and his companions would have shared in the South Sea. This expedition, though perthe plunder or the ransom; and the Spaniards, haps designed to be secret, was not long confinding their southern territories accessible, cealed from Wall, the Spanish ambassador, who would for the future have guarded them better. so vehemently opposed it, and so strongly mainThat such a settlement may be of use in war, tained the right of the Spaniards to the excluno man that considers its situation will deny. sive dominion of the South Sea, that the EngBut war is not the whole business of life; it lish ministry relinquished part of their original happens but seldom, and every man, either good design, and declared that the examination of or wise, wishes that its frequency were still less. those two islands was the utmost that their orThat conduct which betrays designs of future ders should comprise. hostility, if it does not excite violence, will always generate malignity; it must for ever exclude confidence and friendship, and continue a cold and sluggish rivalry, by a sly reciprocation of indirect injuries, without the bravery of war, or the security of peace.

This concession was sufficiently liberal or sufficiently submissive; yet the Spanish court was neither gratified by our kindness, nor softened by our humility. Sir Benjamin Keene, who then resided at Madrid, was interrogated by Carvajal concerning the visit intended to Pepys's The advantage of such a settlement in time of and Falkland's Islands in terms of great jealousy peace is, I think, not easily to be proved. For and discontent; and the intended expedition what use can it have but of a station for contra- was represented, if not as a direct violation of band traders, a nursery of fraud, and a recepta- the late peace, yet as an act inconsistent with ele of theft? Narborough, about a century amicable intentions, and contrary to the profesago, was of opinion, that no advantage could be sions of mutual kindness which then passed beobtained in voyages to the South Sea, except by tween Spain and England. Keene was directed such an armament as, with a sailor's morality, to protest that nothing more than mere discovery might trade by force. It is well known that the was intended, and that no settlement was to be prohibitions of foreign commerce, are, in these established. The Spaniard readily replied, that countries, to the last degree rigorous, and that if this was a voyage of wanton curiosity, it no man, not authorized by the king of Spain, might be gratified with less trouble, for he was can trade there but by force or stealth. What-willing to communicate whatever was known; ever profit is obtained, must be gained by the violence of rapine, or dexterity of fraud.

that to go so far only to come back, was no reasonable act: and it would be a slender sacrifice Government will not, perhaps, soon arrive at to peace and friendship to omit a voyage in such purity and excellence, but that some con- which nothing was to be gained: that if we left nivance at least will be indulged to the trium- the places as we found them, the voyage was phant and successful cheat. He that brings useless; and if we took possession, it was a wealth home, is seldom interrogated by what hostile armament, nor could we expect that the means it was obtained. This, however, is one Spaniards would suppose us to visit the southern of those modes of corruption with which man-parts of America only from curiosity, after kind onght always to struggle, and they may in time hope to overcome. There is reason to expect, that, as the world is more enlightened, policy and morality will at last be reconciled, and that nations will learn not to do what they would not suffer.

the scheme proposed by the author of Anson's voyage.

When once we had disowned all purpose of settling, it is apparent that we could not defend the propriety of our expedition by arguments equivalent to Carvajal's objections. This ministry, therefore, dismissed the whole design, but no declaration was required by which our right to pursue it hereafter might be annulled.

But the silent toleration of suspected guilt is a degree of depravity far below that which openly incites and manifestly protects it. To pardon a pirate may be injurious to mankind; but how much greater is the crime of opening a port in which all pirates shall be safe! The contraband trader is not more worthy of protections: if, with Narborough, he trades by force, he is a pirate; if he trade secretly, he is only a thief. Those who honestly refuse his traffic, he hates as obstructors of his profit; and those with whom he deals he cheats, because he knows that Lord Egmont's eagerness after something new they dare not complain. He lives with a heart determined him to make inquiry after Falkland's full of that malignity which fear of detection al-Island, and he sent out Captain Byron, who, in

From this time Falkland's Island was forgotten or neglected, till the conduct of naval affairs was intrusted to the Earl of Egmont, a man whose mind was vigorous and ardent, whose knowledge was extensive, and whose designs were magnificent: but who had somewhat vitiated his judgment by too much indulgence of romantic projects and airy speculations.