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BURKE
THOUGHTS ON THE CAUSE
OF THE
PRESENT DISCONTENTS
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EDMUND BURKE
THOUGHTS ON THE CAUSE
OF THE
PRESENT DISCONTENTS
Edited by
\V. MURISON, iM.A.
SENIOR ENGLISH MASTER, ABERDEEN (.RAMMAR >CHOOL
Cambridge :
at the University Press
Cambridge :
PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A.
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
V"
1
1036451
PREFACE
HT^HIS edition attempts to supply the higher forms in
A- schools with the necessary equipment for a proper
appreciation of The Present Discontents. The introduction
and notes deal, to a large extent, with historical and
political matters; many things that Burke could omit and
still be intelligible to his contemporaries, we must seek
to bear in mind in order to understand the true bearing
of the pamphlet. The language, too, requires a certain
amount of explanation. Burke is at times abstruse ; and
in the hundred and fifty years since The Present Discon
tents was written, several words have changed in meaning.
No one, however, will regret time and trouble spent on
The Present Discontents. For, as Lccky has said, " There
is no political figure of the eighteenth century which
retains so enduring an interest, or which repays so amply
a careful study, as Kdmund Burke."
Those who desire further information will find help in
the following selection of authorities : Motley s Edmund
liitrkc: A Jhstorical Study, and Jiurkc (" English Men
of Letters ") ; MacCunn s Political Philosophy of Burke
vi PREFACE
Prior s Life of Burke ; May s Constitutional History ;
Lecky s History of England in the Eighteenth Century ;
vol. vi of Cambridge Modern History ; McCarthy s Four
Georges ; Green s Short History ; the Histories of Stan
hope, Massey, Bright, and Hunt ; Biographies of Burke s
contemporaries or their lives in Dictionary of National
Biography, Encyclopaedia Britannica, and Chambers^
Encyclopaedia ; Payne s Burke : Select Works Walpole s
Memoirs and Letters ; Annual Register ; Letters ofjunius ;
Macaulay s Essays ( Chatha??i, Clive, Hastings).
Thanks are due to the Keeper of the Department of
Printed Books, British Museum, for information regarding
early editions.
W. M.
July, 1913-
COXTKXTS
PACKS
I.vikl>rcT10N ix xxxii
I. Li IK OK lil RKK .... ix Xlii
II. I mi. ic AFFAIRS .... xiii xviii
III. 7 /ie- Prt-srnt Discontents . . xviii xxvii
Ari KNDix . . . . . xxvii \xxii
CllkoM)i.o(;icAl. TAHI.F. .... xxxiii xxxviii
77; f 1 restnt Itistontents . . . . I 103
ANALYSE <K AKIICMKNI ... 104
SfMMAkY <>F PAMl III.KT . . . 105 112
NOTKS i 13 160
INDKX \(>\ 163
INTRODUCTION
I. LIFE OF BURKE
KiiMCN!) HUKKK was born in Dublin. The date of his
birth is uncertain: January 12, 1729, appears to be best
authenticated. His father, an attorney, was Protestant, his
mother Catholic ; a combination which is regarded as en
abling us to understand Burke s religious toleration. At the
age of twelve Edmund went to the village of Ballitore, where
Adam Shackleton, a Quaker from Yorkshire, had a famous
school. Shacklcton s goodness and integrity impressed
Burke very deeply. Two years later he entered Trinity
College, Dublin, where he remained till he graduated B.A.
in 1748, diligent in his studies but desultory in his manner
of studying. He tells us that from 1744 to 1746 he was
tinder the influence, first of the furor niiithcniaticus, then of
\hz furor logicus, next of the furor historian;, and finally of
the furor poeticus. In Classics, Cicero was his favourite ;
his model both for life and for literature.
Early in 1750 he came to England to keep his terms at
the Middle Temple. But, though his writings and speeches
show that he had more than a tincture of law, legal studies
did not attract him. (iiving up the thought of qualifying
as a barrister, he turned to literature. In 1756 he married
Dr Nugent s daughter, a Catholic lady, who however con
formed. In the same year Burke published A Vindication
oj Natural Society, in ridicule as well as in imitation of
X INTRODUCTION
Bolingbroke, and The Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime
and Beautiful. On his suggestion, Dodsley produced, in
1759, the first issue of the Annual Register, which Burke
wrote. To the successive issues, till about 1788, he con
tributed the survey of events. Among his acquaintances at
this time was W. G. Hamilton "Single-speech" Hamilton
to whom he became a sort of private secretary. When
Hamilton was appointed Secretary for Ireland in 1761, he
took Burke to Dublin, and obtained for him a pension of
^300 on the Irish Treasury. Burke soon threw up the
pension, as he refused to give all his time to Hamilton s
service.
Rockingham was appointed Prime Minister in 1765 and
made Burke his private secretary. A little later Burke
entered Parliament as member for Wendover, and speedily
distinguished himself by two speeches on the American
question, receiving compliments from Pitt and showing the
best judges that a great orator had arisen. This ministry
lasted only a year, and Burke ceased to be private secretary ;
but he continued among the foremost statesmen of the time,
indispensable to his party and a terror to his opponents for
his readiness and skill in debate. His high qualities as man
and politician were manifest also in his writings : Observa
tions on the Present State of the Nation (1769) and Thoughts
on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770).
In 1771 he became agent for New York province; and
he strenuously opposed the arbitrary proceedings of the
House of Commons on the question of the publication of
debates. About this time, he was frequently accused, par
ticularly in 1772, of being the author of the Letters of Junius.
A visit to Paris in 1773 gave him an insight into French
affairs and an aversion to French democracy that bore re
markable fruit some twenty years later. Next year came
the famous Speech on American Taxation, and Bristol, the
second city in England, did honour to itself by offering
Burke a seat in Parliament. The succeeding years were
full of work, and rendered notable by the great Speech
LIFE OF HURKE xi
on Conciliation with America (1775), and Letter to the
Sheriffs (1777). He also spoke on the employment of
Indians to fight against the Colonists, on relaxing the re
strictions on Irish trade, and on alleviating the Catholic
penal laws (1778). On account of his Catholic sympathies
he was obnoxious to the rioters who followed Lord George
Gordon in 1780. His views on trade and toleration dis
pleased the Bristol electors, who discarded him. Next year
he was chosen member for Malton.
Burke spoke earnestly for economical reform in regard
to sinecures and pensions. Nor did he preach without
practising; for in 1782 when he was appointed, in Rocking-
hain s administration, Paymaster of the Forces, the monstrous
perquisites of that office were abolished and the salary was
fixed at ^4000. Next year he held the same post under
Portland, and was also busy with the affairs of the Kast
India Company. Many a statesman has been chosen Lord
Rector of a Scottish University, and Burke held that office
at Glasgow in 1784 and 1785. In the latter year he visited
various parts of Scotland. After Warren Hastings returned
home, Burke began to move for his impeachment, and in
1788 he opened the trial with a masterpiece of oratory.
When the French Revolution broke out, Burke in con
tradistinction to I itt, who stood neutral, and to Fox, who
openly blessed the outbreak vehemently denounced the
Revolutionists and all their ways. In 17/0 and 1777 he
thought that rebellions were not so much caused by peoples
as provoked by governments, in 1775 he declared he could
not draw up an indictment against a whole people. Now
none so fierce as he in assailing the French nation. Had
he then turned his back on his old views? Burke was the
champion of liberty and order. In his earlier years he felt
himself bound to oppose the king and his supporters when
they injured freedom : in his later years when democracy
seemed to be destroying all order and consequently liberty,
he attacked democracy. He might have used Goldsmith s
words ( The Traveller, 365 .ty.)
xil INTRODUCTION
" And thou, fair Freedom, taught alike to feel
The rabble s rage, and tyrant s angry steel."
"Burke," it has been said, "changed his front, but never
changed his ground." By his speeches and writings
Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), Appeal from
the New to the Old Whigs (1792), Letters on a Regicide
Peace (1796) he did more than any other single man to
consolidate European resistance to the French Republic.
He quarrelled also with his old Whig friends and became
the idol of his old enemies. A great defender of party and
an advocate of, as a rule, surrendering private judgment to
party opinion, he believed that a higher call than party had
come to him and that he was justified in leaving his party,
even in breaking it to pieces.
In 1794 Burke retired from Parliament and received
a pension from the Crown. This the Duke of Bedford
attacked as inconsistent in an, economical reformer, and
was deservedly crushed by the Letter to a Noble Lord.
Burke died July 9, 1797.
Among the outstanding features of his writings and
speeches are the power of repeating an idea in varying
phraseology, the wealth of figurative language, the abun
dance of apt allusions and quotations. As a controversialist,
he seeks to overwhelm his opponent with ridicule, using
irony, sarcasm, invective ; often, it must be said, trans
gressing the bounds of good taste. Speakers, in order to be
intelligible to their audiences hearing the words only once,
must employ plainer and more familiar diction than writers
need to do. A writer as well as a speaker, Burke does not
always observe this rule : in his writings he uses the devices
of the speaker, in his speeches he pours forth unfamiliar
and abstruse words and allusions. And however powerful
in argument, profound in wisdom, glowing in rhetoric, the
speech might be, this unfamiliarity of language, helped
by his unattractive if not ungainly delivery, spoiled the
spoken effect of orations, which afterwards when read filled,
as they continue to fill, the reader with almost boundless
LIFE OF BURKE xill
admiration. In 1785, after one of his greatest speeches
that on the Nabob of Arcot s debts Pitt consulted Grenville
whether it should be answered ; and their decision was not
to reply, since the speech had made no impression. In
truth, at times, when Burke went on speaking, the House
emptied; and he was known as the "dinner bell 1 ." And
yet, as Lord Morley has said (Burke, in u English Men of
Letters," pp. 2, 3),
"Opinion is slowly, but without reaction, settling down
to the verdict that Burke is one of the abiding names in our
history.. .because he added to the permanent considerations
of wise political thought, and to the maxims of wise practice
in great affairs, and because he imprints himself upon us
with a magnificence and elevation of expression that places
him among the highest masters of literature, in one of its
highest and most commanding senses.. .We feel no emotion
of revolt when Mackintosh speaks of Shakspere and Burke
in the same breath, as being both of them above mere talent.
And we do not dissent when Macaulay, after reading Burke s
works over again, exclaims, k How admirable ! The greatest
man since Milton ! "
II. Pl BLIC AFFAIRS, 1760-1770
The accession of (ieorge III opened a new era. The
subordination of the monarchy to ministers was to cease :
the king was to rule as well as reign. C.eorge had been
brought up under the influence of his mother. He had
learrnt to consider his grandfather s submission to the Whigs
a disgrace for a sovereign, "(ieorge, be king," had been
the never-ceasing burden of his mother s injunctions, while
Bolingbj:okeW//tVf of a Patriot M ^ .: ^LL"kJJL>LLh c _g e _ pl5: > s
good but according to his own will had been held up as his
1 See " Appendix to Introduction A."
XIV INTRODUCTION
model. lie, therefore, began his reign with the definite aim
of restoring the royal prerogative that was once more "a
fashionable word," said Horace Walpole of regaining the
choice of ministers, of destroying party government, of de
molishing the Whig oligarchy.
The new monarch ascended the throne with advantages
never possessed by his grandfather or his great-grand
father. He was young; he was affable; he could "glory
in the name of Briton"; and he was not closely tied to
Hanover and Hanoverian ways. Jacobitism was dead ; and
the Tories, long excluded from royal favour, gathered round
the young king, ready to transfer their monarchical principles
to the House of Hanover, whose representative was now a
stouTTThurchman and a strong believer in royal prerogative.
And so his band of " King s Friends " included many who
honestly supported him from pure loyalty as well as those
bought by pensions and titles. For George employed the
royal wealth and patronage to secure parliamentary support.
The Whigs, too, were divided. Even in the ministry in 1760,
the Newcastle section and the Pitt section were estranged.
Newcastle s strength lay in patronage, which the king had
determined to exercise himself: Pitt s strength lay in his
popularity, especially for his successful war policy ; and the
king meant the war to cease.
The Earl of Bute, the king s tutor, was put into the
cabinet; and, when in 1761 Pitt, besides resisting the con
clusion of the war with France, advocated immediate war
with Spain, since France and Spain had renewed the Family
Compact, Bute opposed him. Pitt resigned in October ; a
few months later, Newcastle, finding his plans and wishes
neglected, also resigned ; and Bute, inexperienced and in
competent, was appointed Prime Minister by the king, May
1762. Peace negotiations were rapidly pushed on ; and in
1763 the Peace of Paris formally ended the war. Hardly
had this taken place when Bute quitted office, April. The
king s plan of ruling through ministers of his own choosing
had failed ; and he must fall back on the Whig party, or
PUBLIC AFFAIRS, l/6o 1770 xv
rather parties, for the Whigs^ WJIL now m tnr ^ e divisions, j
The main division consisted of the followers of the Marquis
of Rockingham, with whom went the Dukes of Devonshire,
Portland, and Richmond, Lord John Cavendish, (ieneral
Con way, Sir (ieorge Saville, and other representatives of
the great aristocratic families. Burke was soon to be the
chief pillar of this connexion. "Indeed, Burke," wrote
Richmond in 1772, "you have more merit than any man
in keeping us together." The supporters of Rockingham
may be called the incorruptible. They were thus com
paratively powerless, because the House of Commons desired
to be bribed, (irenville led ajiother set of Whigs, Bedford
a third ; while Pitt stood aloof with his persojiaLIriejids. /
The king ^ekLQigj] .G.renvillc as likely to work best with him. [*
In the speech from the throne, the glory and the benefit
of the Peace of Paris had been eulogized ; and this eulogy
John Wilkes called false in No. 45 of the North Briton.
The kmg ordered a prosecution ; and a general warrant,
specifying no names, was issued. Wilkes was arrested ; but
the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas liberated him under
his privilege as a member of parliament. Urged on by the
king, the Commons declared No. 45 a libel ; and the Lords
attacked Wilkes for the l- .ssny on IVoman. He had retired
to Paris ; but early in 1764 a majority of the Commons got
him expelled from the House, and the Court of King s
Bench outlawed him. These proceedings made Wilkes,
personally worthless as he was, a popular hero. The at
tempt of the common hangman to burn No. 45 provoked
a riot.
But it was not merely at home that (irenville blundered. \\^-^^
He planned to raise money by taxing the American Colonists ; ,. ,
and in 1765 the Stamp Act was passed. The Colonies pro-
tested, mainly on the plea of "No taxation without repre- $/ f^{f^
sentation. Before, however, the evil consequences of the (
Act had time to develop, (irenville had fallen. The king
grew to dislike both Grenville and Bedford, who had joined
the ministry. Their folly in regard to the Regency Bill was
XVI INTRODUCTION
the climax. The King s Friends were ordered to vote against
the ministry, and the ministry collapsed. George was now
forced to accept Rockingham as Prime Minister ; and the
House of Commons, with no general election to change its
personnel, condemned all general warrants as well as agreed
to the repeal of the Stamp Act, 1766. But Rockingham
soon fell : the King s Friends again received the command
to oppose the king s ministers. The next cabinet, though
formed by Pitt, was under the nominal leadership of the
Duke of Grafton. The members of this administration were
drawn from various sections, since Pitt was an enemy of the
party system.
Pitt was created Earl of Chatham and lost his popularity.
His health gave way, and Grafton had the sole power; but
he was unable to control such men as Charles Townshend,
"> Chancellor of the Exchequer, who in 1767 renewed the
taxation of the Americans by means of import duties. This
roused the anger of the Colonists, and drew the Colonies
more and more together against Britain. Massachusetts led
the way, with its capital Boston the largest town in the
Colonies. Mobs filled the streets of Boston, shouting against
the taxes and jeering at the revenue officers. Serious riots
occurred in 1768; and in 1770 the first blood was shed in
the American quarrel.
Meanwhile the Grafton ministry had become involved in
serious troubles at home. The general election was fixed for
the beginning of 1768 the first since 1761, though there had
been five administrations differing in character, policy and
legislation, but all in turn supported for a time by the
majority in the Commons. Hence, when denouncing in
discriminate support of ministers, Burke says (p. 89),
" Parliamentary support comes and goes with office, totally
, regardless of the man, or the merit." In 1768, Wilkes,
having returned from France, was elected for Middlesex.
He appeared before the Court of King s Bench on the
matter of his outlawry, and was committed to prison. The
mob rescued him ; he again surrendered ; the mob came
PUBLIC AFFAIRS, 1760 1770
into collision with the military, when several persons were
shot. Wilkes s outlawry was reversed ; but he was sentenced
to a term of imprisonment for libel. Still more, however,
was to come. Lord Weymouth had written advising the
Surrey magistrates to call in the aid of the soldiers to
suppress riots. Wilkes published the letter with a stinging
criticism; and the shooting of the rioters in St (ieorge s
Fields round the Court of King s Bench he stigmati/ed as
a bloody massacre. Though Weymouth was a peer, the
Commons took the matter up ; and, unwarrantably as
suming the function of a court of law, they voted Wilkes s
denunciation of Weymouth a libel. Adding to this No. 45
of the North Briton and the Essay on \Voman for which
Wilkes had been already punished they expelled him,
February 3, 1769. Chatham, who had now resigned office,
Burke and ( irenville were among those who opposed these
proceedings. The mob broke into disturbances. In the
T*u~blic Advertiser, then the most important paper in
London, the mysterious "Junius" hashed the ministers with
the fiercest virulence for their action in regard to Wilkes,
fojMheir treatment of the American Colonies, and for their
foreign policy, especially in the case of Corsica and the
Manilla ransom. Wilkes was re-elected for Middlesex,
February 16 ; and next day he was declared by the
Commons incapable of sitting in the present Parliament
an action indefensible on sound principles of law ; for in
that way anyone disliked by the majority might be excluded
from the House, not on any known legal ground but merely
by the arbitrary will of the Commons. Wilkes was more of
a hero than ever, and was a third time elected, March 16 ;
to be again declared incapable. A fourth time he was
elected, April 13, by a majority of 1143 votes to 296 for
Colonel Luttrell. The House then passed a resolution that
Colonel Luttrell was member for Middlesex a monstrous
perversion of the ri^ht of election, if the House could thus
falsify election returns and give the scat to a candidate
whom the electors had not chosen. The assaults of the
XV111 INTRODUCTION
opposition increased in vehemence; "Junius" grew more
virulent; addresses and petitions 1 poured in from all parts
of the country ; the mob broke out in greater turbulence.
Early in 1770 the Grafton ministry went down, and was suc
ceeded, not by an administration drawn from the victorious
opposition of Rockingham Whigs and Chatham s followers,
but "By Grafton s Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord North,
with the pronounced supporters of the king. George felt
strong enough to defy the Whigs and to choose ministers
who would act as he himself wished.
About this time there was indeed a danger that the
Crown would regain most, if not all, of the power lost at
the Revolution. The opposition was divided and dispirited.
The king and his supporters, having broken the old parties
and undermined the power of the aristocratic Whigs, had
strengthened themselves by means of government patronage
and all the resources of the Crown. In both Lords and
Commons the king had now a solid phalanx, which in the
circumstances of the time threatened to be a permanent
defence of autocratic rule. A glance forward, however,
shows that this disaster was averted chiefly by two things :
the growth of a free press ; and the discredit that fell on
the ministry on account of the American War.
III. THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS
It was amid the welter of public affairs, 1769 1770, that
Burke wrote Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discon
tents. The whole was ready in December for Rockingham s
inspection, but it received touches in the early part of 1770,
as is evident from references to events that then occurred.
The first six editions four appeared in 1770, two quarto and
two octavo were published anonymously, but the authorship
cannot have been long doubtful.
1 See the Middlesex Petition, "Appendix to Introduction B."
THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS XIX
The text of the present edition has been printed from
Collected Works, 1826. It has been compared with a copy
of the first edition and with a reprint of the sixth edition,
1784.
Both in writing and in correcting for the press, Burke
employed the services of others, and the early editions of
his works exhibit considerable differences of spelling. Even
the same edition may show variations of the same word on
different pages. Our present text, which keeps part of the
old orthography, has such variations. Contrast exterior,
interior (p. 32) with c.vteriour (p. 74), interiour (p. 28).
Some of the older spellings retained here are publick,
topicks, politicks; horrours, confront; dutchy ; phrensy ;
bigot led ; crra ; cryer ; harrass. None of them, however,
need cause any difficulty.
When we compare the text of the sixth edition, for
example, with that of the first, we see that Burke sought
to make improvements even in minute points. In the first
edition he wrote (see p. 60, below) "legal authority by
which they sit," which he afterwards changed to "legal
authority by which the house of commons sits" an altera
tion manifestly for the sake of perspicuity. Again (see p. 17)
the first edition has "those who acted then in publick,"
which later appears as "those who at that time acted in
publick." This change is most likely for the sake of
euphony. Sensitiveness to sound is the reason for another
change (see p. 251. The first edition has the unmelodious
" with the phantom of the tyranny of the Nobles, which
became in improved form "with a phantom of tyranny in
the Nobles."
3-
The jx)nst ruction .pJLihe pamphlet is admirable. The
parts are carefully arranged ; and, without appearing to have
an elaborate plan, the whole is firmly and properly jointed.
The "Analysis of Argument" (p. 104) shows how each