The Portable Edmund Burke (Portable Library) (46 page)

For a considerable time, the people of New England had hardly any that deserved the name of a regular form of government. The court took very little care of them. By their charter they were empowered to establish such an order, and to make such laws, as they pleased, provided they were not contrary to the laws of England. A point not easily settled, neither was there any means appointed for settling it. As they who composed the new colonies were generally persons of a contracted way of thinking and most violent enthusiasts, they imitated the Jewish polity in almost all respects; and adopted the books of Moses as the law of the land. The first laws which they made were grounded upon them, and were therefore very ill suited to the customs, genius or circumstances of that country and of those times; for which reason they have since fallen into disuse.

As to religion, it was, as I have said, the Puritan. In England, this could hardly be considered as a formed sect at the time of their emigration, since several who had received episcopal ordination were reckoned to belong to it. But as soon as they found themselves at liberty in America, they fell into a way very little different from the independent mode. Every parish was sovereign within itself. Synods indeed were occasionally called; but they served only to prepare and digest matters, which were to receive their sanction from the approbation of the several churches. The synods could exercise no branch of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, either as to doctrine or to discipline. They had no power of excommunication. They could only refuse to hold communion with those whose principles and practices they disliked. The magistrates assisted in those synods, not only to hear, but to deliberate and determine. From such a form as this, great religious freedom might, one would have imagined, be well expected. But the truth is, they had no idea at all of such a freedom. The very doctrine of any sort of toleration was so odious to the greater part, that one of the first persecutions set up here was against a small party which arose amongst themselves, who were hardy enough to maintain, that the civil magistrate had no lawful power to use compulsory measures in affairs of religion. After harrassing these people by all the vexatious ways imaginable, they obliged them to fly out of their jurisdiction. These emigrants settled themselves to the southward, near Cape Cod, where they formed a new government upon their own principles, and built a town, which they called Providence. This has since made the fourth and smallest, but not the worst inhabited, of the New England governments, called Rhode Island, from an island of that name which forms a part of it. As a persecution gave rise to the first settlement of New England, so a subsequent persecution in this colony gave rise to new colonies, and this facilitated the spreading of the people over the country.

If men, merely for the moderation of their sentiments, were exposed to such severe treatment, it was not to be expected that others should escape unpunished. The very first colony had hardly set its foot in America, when, discovering that some amongst them were false brethren and ventured to make use of the common prayer, they found means of making the country so uneasy to them, that they were glad to fly back to England.

As soon as they began to think of making laws, I find no less than five about matters of religion; all contrived, and not only contrived but executed in some respects, with so much rigor, that the persecution which drove the Puritans out of England might be considered as great lenity and indulgence in the comparison. For, in the first of these laws, they deprive every one, who does not communicate with their established church, of the right to his freedom, or a vote in the election of any of their magistrates. In the second, they sentence to banishment any who should oppose the fourth commandment, or deny the validity of infant baptism or the authority of magistrates. In the third, they condemn Quakers to banishment, and make it capital for them to return; and, not stopping at the offenders, they lay heavy fines upon all who should bring them into the province, or even harbor them for an hour. In the fourth, they provide banishment, and death in case of return, for Jesuits and Popish priests of every denomination. In the fifth, they decree death to any who shall worship images. After they had provided such a complete code of persecution, they were not long without opportunities of reading bloody lectures upon it. The Quakers, warmed with that spirit which animates the beginning of most sects, had spread their doctrines all over the British dominions in Europe, and began at last to spread them with equal zeal in America. The clergy and the magistrates in New England took the alarm; they seized upon some of those people, they set them in the stocks and in the pillory without effect; they scourged, they imprisoned, they banished them; they treated all those, who seemed to commiserate their sufferings, with great rigor; but their persecution had no other effect than to inflame their own cruelty and the zeal of the sufferers. The constancy of the Quakers under their sufferings begot a pity and esteem for their persons, and an approbation of their doctrines; their proselytes increased; the Quakers returned as fast as they were banished; and the fury of the ruling party was raised to such a height, that they proceeded to the most sanguinary extremities. Upon the law they had made, they seized at different times upon five of those who had returned from banishment, condemned, and hanged them. It is unknown how far their madness had extended, if an order from the king and council in England about the year 1661 had not interposed to restrain them.

It is a task not very agreeable to insist upon such matters; but, in reality, things of this nature form the greatest part of the history of New England, for a long time. They persecuted the Anabaptists, who were no inconsiderable body amongst them, with almost an equal severity. In short, this people, who in England could not bear being chastised with rods, had no sooner got free from their fetters than they scourged their fellow refugees with scorpions; though the absurdity, as well as the injustice of such a proceeding in them might stare them in the face!

One may observe that men of all persuasions confine the word persecution, and all the ill ideas of injustice and violence which belong to it, solely to those severities which are exercised upon themselves, or upon the party they are inclined to favor. Whatever is inflicted upon others, is a just punishment upon obstinate impiety, and not a restraint upon conscientious differences. The persecution we have ourselves suffered is a good ground for retaliation against an old enemy; and if one of our friends and fellow-sufferers should prove so wicked as to quit our cause, and weaken it by his dissension, he deserves to be punished yet more than the old enemy himself. Besides this, the zealous never fail to draw political inferences from religious tenets, by which they interest the magistrate in the dispute; and then to the heat of a religious fervor is added the fury of a party zeal. All intercourse is cut off between the parties. They lose all knowledge of each other, though countrymen and neighbors; and are therefore easily imposed upon with the most absurd stories concerning each other’s opinions and practices. They judge of the hatred of the adverse side by their own. Then fear is added to their hatred; and preventive injuries arise from their fear. The remembrance of the past, the dread of the future, the present ill, will join together to urge them forward to the most violent courses.

Such is the manner of proceeding of religious parties towards each other; and in this respect the New England people are not worse than the rest of mankind, nor was their severity any just matter of reflection upon that mode of religion which they profess. No religion whatsoever, true or false, can excuse its own members, or accuse those of any other, upon the score of persecution. The principles which give rise to it are common to all mankind, and they influence them as they are men, and not as they belong to this or that persuasion. In all persuasions the bigots are persecutors; the men of a cool and reasonable piety are favorers of toleration; because the former sort of men, not taking the pains to be acquainted with the grounds of their adversaries’ tenets, conceive them to be so absurd and monstrous, that no man of sense can give in to them in good earnest. For which reason they are convinced that some oblique bad motive induces them to pretend to the belief of such doctrines and to the maintaining of them with obstinacy. This is a very general principle in all religious differences, and it is the corner stone of all persecution.

Besides the disputes with those of another denomination, the Independents were for a long time harrassed with one in the bowels of their own churches. The stale disputes about grace and works, produced dissensions, riots, and almost a civil war in the colony. The famous Sir Henry Vane the younger, an enthusiastic, giddy, turbulent man, of a no very good disposition, came hither with some of the adventurers; and rather than remain idle, played at small games in New England, where the people had chosen him governor. It is not hard to conceive, how such a man, at the head of such a people and engaged in such controversy, could throw every thing into confusion. In the very height of this hopeful dispute, they had a war upon their hands with some of the Indian nations. Their country was terribly harrassed, and numbers were every day murdered, by the incursions of the enemy. All this time they had an army in readiness for action, which they would not suffer to march even to defend their own lives and possessions, because “many of the officers and soldiers were under a covenant of works.”

 

ON THE RESIGNATION of the Earl of Bute, in 1763, our affairs had been delivered into the hands of three ministers of his recommendation: Mr. Grenville, the Earl of Egremont, and the Earl of Halifax. This arrangement, notwithstanding the retirement of Lord Bute, announced to the public a continuance of the same measures; nor was there more reason to expect a change from the death of the Earl of Egremont. The Earl of Sandwich supplied his place. The Duke of Bedford, and the gentlemen who act in that connection, and whose general character and politics were sufficiently understood, added to the strength of the ministry, without making any alteration in their plan of conduct....

As to their politics, the principles of the peace of Paris governed in foreign affairs. In domestic, the same scheme prevailed, of contradicting the opinions and disgracing most of the persons who had been countenanced and employed in the late reign. The inclinations of the people were little attended to; and a disposition to the use of forcible methods ran through the whole tenor of administration. The nation in general was uneasy and dissatisfied. Sober men saw causes for it in the constitution of the ministry and the conduct of the ministers. The ministers, who have usually a short method on such occasions, attributed their unpopularity wholly to the efforts of faction.

... With regard to our domestic affairs, there was no want of industry ; but there was a great deficiency of temper and judgment, and manly comprehension of the public interest. The nation certainly wanted relief, and government attempted to administer it. Two ways were principally chosen for this great purpose. The first by regulations; the second by new funds of revenue. Agreeably to this plan, a new naval establishment was formed at a good deal of expense, and to little effect, to aid in the collection of the customs. Regulation was added to regulation; and the strictest and most unreserved orders were given, for a prevention of all contraband trade here, and in every part of America. A teasing custom-house, and a multiplicity of perplexing regulations, ever have, and ever will appear, the masterpiece of finance to people of narrow views....

The greatest part of these regulations were made for America; and they fell so indiscriminately on all sorts of contraband, or supposed contraband, that some of the most valuable branches of trade were driven violently from our ports; which caused a universal consternation throughout the colonies. Every part of the trade was infinitely distressed by them. Men-of-war now for the first time, armed with regular commissions of custom-house officers, invested the coasts, and gave to the collection of revenue the air of hostile contribution. About the same time that these regulations seemed to threaten the destruction of the only trade from whence the plantations derived any specie, an act was made putting a stop to the future emission of paper currency, which used to supply its place among them. Hand in hand with this went another act, for obliging the colonies to provide quarters for soldiers. Instantly followed another law, for levying throughout all America new port duties, upon a vast variety of commodities of their consumption, and some of which lay heavy upon objects necessary for their trade and fishery. Immediately upon the heels of these, and amidst the uneasiness and confusion produced by a crowd of new impositions and regulations, some good, some evil, some doubtful, all crude and ill-considered, came another act, for imposing a universal stamp-duty on the colonies; and this was declared to be little more than an experiment, and a foundation of future revenue. To render these proceedings the more irritating to the colonies, the principal argument used in favor of their ability to pay such duties was the liberality of the grants of their assemblies during the late war. Never could any argument be more insulting and mortifying to a people habituated to the granting of their own money.

Taxes for the purpose of raising revenue had hitherto been sparingly attempted in America. Without ever doubting the extent of its lawful power, Parliament always doubted the propriety of such impositions. And the Americans on their part never thought of contesting a right by which they were so little affected. Their assemblies in the main answered all the purposes necessary to the internal economy of a free people, and provided for all the exigencies of government which arose amongst themselves. In the midst of that happy enjoyment, they never thought of critically settling the exact limits of a power which was necessary to their union, their safety, their equality, and even their liberty. Thus the two very difficult points, superiority in the presiding state, and freedom in the subordinate, were on the whole sufficiently, that is, practically, reconciled; without agitating those vexatious questions which in truth rather belong to metaphysics than politics, and which can never be moved without shaking the foundations of the best governments that have ever been constituted by human wisdom. By this measure was let loose that dangerous spirit of disquisition, not in the coolness of philosophical inquiry, but inflamed with all the passions of a haughty, resentful people, who thought themselves deeply injured, and that they were contending for everything that was valuable in the world.