Note 88 — Chapter IV
Reading edition
Observations on a pamphlet entitled “Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents,” by Catherine Macaulay, 8vo., price 2s.
“Assume a virtue if you have it not.”
This tract has long since sunk into oblivion; no copy of it is to be found even in the British Museum, and I have searched for it in vain in other large repositories of ephemeral literature. As far as can be inferred from the extracts and criticism in contemporary periodicals, Mrs. Macaulay’s great panacea for the removal of all national grievances consisted of short Parliaments, with the additional security of members being made incapable of re-election under a certain number of years. This arrangement the writer predicted would do away with the evils generally considered to attach to frequent elections, “so that the violent contentions for seats in Parliament, both on the side of Government and of individuals, would sink into the quiet coolness of nominations for parish officers.”—She overlooked the effect of such a system on the character of the House, and the experience of France seems to prove that it would lead to the election of few persons above the calibre of parish officers.
The style and spirit of the work seem to be fairly represented in the following extract:—“The wicked system of policy set on foot by the leaders of the revolutionists in the reign of King William, and which proceeded perhaps more from fear of personal safety than from any very material intent against their country, was thoroughly completed under the Administration of their sons. But whilst this State faction, who called themselves Whigs, but who in reality were as much the destructive, though concealed, enemies of public liberty as were its more generous because more avowed adversaries, the Tories, whilst they were erecting their batteries against those they termed inveterate Jacobites and prejudiced republicans, it never came into their heads that they were ruining their own importance, and consequently rendering the Crown strong enough to set all parties at defiance, to put them on their good behaviour, and to treat them with that contempt which is natural to a Sovereign in the plenitude of independent power.”—E.