DOWN WITH THE TORIES!
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.
Paris. 26th November 18.14.
An old correspondent — who since the Glorious Three Days, and their virtuous sequel, the Bill, the whole Bill, &c. so triumph. antly thrust down the throat of the Lords—has been reposing in full and happy security on the sure, however slow advancement of the People's cause, has recently, along with every true friend of our country, been most disagreeably startled from his dream of political amelio- ration. It is at least an argument that indignation is fast gathering in the great family of Britons, when it is found swelling high even in those who, sojourners in a foreign land, are in the predicament of cockle-shells thrown up, as COWPER says, far beyond the ordinary limits of the tide. I read in the history of Greece that the Pisistratidle, who, though tyrants, were yet liberal, enlightened statesmen, compared with the knowledge-taxing, tithe-bunting, people-dragooning faction, which, encouraged by a Court intrigue, has dared again to lift its hateful head, scotched, it would seem, but not killed—(the People will do its work better this time),—these tyrants, I say, erected in the public places and walks of Athens, pillars whereon were engraven instructive sentences for the edification of the people. The efficacy of the placard, as a means of political information and encouragement, is well known to our countrymen : they ought to give it yet further extension. And, by way of example, I would recommend to the Reformers of Great Britain the following political instructions of a departed statesman, whose energetic opposition to the war against American Independence, begun and ruthlessly prosecuted by the Tories, to the detriment and eternal disgrace of the free people who suffered it, has in some sort redeemed his vehement advocacy of that second and worse liberticidal war, fomented and yet more madly prosecuted by these same Tories against the freedom of Europe ; the end of which has been to burden our country with 800 millions of debt, and to endanger the very exis- tence of liberty at home by establishing the despotism of the sword in every country abroad. These salutary counsels are extracted from Thoughts on the Present Discontents (1770) ; and deserve to be placarded in every town and village of the Three Nations,—those nations which Tory spite and clerical interests alone prevent from coalescing in a cordial union, which would triple their strength and prosperity, and make them a match for the world,—those nations formed by God to love and respect each other, of whom one at least the Tories are even now preparing to pacify, as they phrase it, with the sword and the gallows, by the instrumentality of the other two, to the utter ruin of cordiality and freedom in all.
Such was the exhortation of EDMUND BURKE to the People of the Three Nations, at the very epoch when this same Tory faction, which the tide of liberty that set in at the Revolution had long kept at a distance from power, had at length regained the post to which Tories tend as naturally as the needle to the Pole—had established themselves in the Court, and occupied, as now, the back-stairs to the Throne. There, protected and cherished by GEORGE the Third, and his Queen, a Ger- man lady from Mecklenburg-Strelitz—you will look for it in vain on the map, unless a very large one—they intrenched, and, with but few and brief intervals, have ever since maintained themselves, to the ruin of any other nation but one like our's, endowed by God with hearts and sinews to surmount half a century even of Tory Government. BURKE called on the British People to strangle the monster in its cradle : but he called in vain, for he invoked no great principle of go- vernment, and no great national interest ; the advocate of Septennial Parliaments, and no friend to extended suffrage, be called in the name
A WARNING VOICE FROM THE GRAVE;
OR EDMUND BURKE'S INSTRUCTIONS TO THE PEOPLE HOW TO RESIST T.HE INTRIGUES OF A COURT AND THE VIOLENCE OF TI1E TORIES.
" When had men combine, the good must associate "—i. e. form everywhere Political Unions.
"it is not every conjuncture which calls with equal force upon thc activity of honest men ; but critical exigences now and then arise ; and I atu mistaken if THIS be not one of them. Men will see the necessity of HONEST COMBINATION; but they may see it when it is TOO LATE. They may embody when it will be ruinous to themselves, and of no advantage to the country ; when, for want of such a TIMELY UNION as may enable them to oppose in FAVOUR OF THE LAWS, With THE LAWS ON THEIR SIDE, they .may at length find themselves under the necessity of CONSPIRING instead of CONSULTING. The LAW for which they stand may become a WEAPON in the hands of its BerrettasT ENEMIES (the Toaxas) ; and they will be cast at length into that MISERABLE ALTERNATIVE BETWEEN SLAVERY AND CIVIL CONFUSION, which no good man can look upon without horror ; an alternative in which it is im- possible he should take either part with a conscience perfectly at repose. To keep that situation of guilt and remorse at the utmost distance, is, therefore, our first obligation. EARLY ACTIVITY MAY PREVENT LATE AND FRUITLESS VIOLENCE."
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of a party—of " connexions "—words of no power, and therefore the spirits of the great deep came not " when he did call them." His words, more potential now than when first uttered, call on the People i in the name of their own cause, their own well-under- stood interests, their own honour, their own liberty, each and all in jeopardy every hour that a Tory sits in piece. They call on the People, that willed the Reform and carried it, not to allow the blossoms of the tree they have planted to be blighted by the " killing frost " of Toryism : they call on the nation determined to have everywhere, and for all, cheap and speedy justice ; cheap and general instruction ; a frugal, useful, and God-serving Clergy, devoted to its duties ; an effec- tual control in every department and branch of Government and Admi- nistration at home and abroad ; realizable only by short Parliaments, extension of suffrage, and the ballot ; perfect harmony among the three nations that compose the British Union; and a cordial friendship with France and America, the only two nations abroad—and therefore spe- cially hated by the Tories—with whom a free people can form a safe and durable alliance. The exhortation of BURKE to resistance will be heard and obeyed now, for by half a century's painful experience the People know who, and what they are whom they are called on to resist; and are aware, as fully as a people can be, for whom, and for what, their interposition is demanded. They throw their eyes back over the sanguinary pages of GEORGE the Third, and read there the names of Bum, NORTH, PITT, CASTLEREAGH, four chosen sons of Toryism— symbols of servility, taxation, liberticide, and massacre : they see two wars, bloody, universal, disgraceful in principle, often shameful in conduct, entailing despotism on the Continent and pauperism at home ; they see millions of money wrung from the artisan and the labourer, eight hundred millions spent, squandered, shot away in powder and ball, crammed into the pockets of foreign despots, swelling fortunes in England to be crowned with the Peerage, and Toryism and pecula- tion intrenched in the Lords : they see all this, and demand for what ?— that GEORGE the Third and his Tories might raise arbitrarily a revenue in America to free him from his dependence on the People in England— that GEORGE the Third and his Tories might stifle liberty and good government in France, in order to perpetuate misrule and spendthrift pro- fusion in Great Britain. In these pages they read constructive treason, to make away with political opponents by the quibbling of lawyers, gagging-bills, game-laws, taxes on knowlege, suspensions of personal liberty, violations of the Englishman's sanctuary, his home—spies, pluralists in Church, sinccurists in State, political Bishops and elec- tioneering parsons—bringing the very worship of God into contempt— pensions to my lady and her chambermaid, military executions, massacres, corn-laws, and beggary,—every measure of craft and violence to break the spirit of a free people, brutalize its temper, perpetuate its political darkness, and establish the empire of Toryism on the lasting basis of pauperism, ignorance, and servitude. They contemplate these fruits of Tory government ; they contrast them with the fruits of good govern- ment—with peace, order, liberty, justice, economy, and their invariable concomitant, plenty. They know their enemies : they stand up for themselves—for their own righteous cause—the cause of God—for it is the cause of a whole people ; and, strong in their sense of right and divine protection, they reply to the warning call of EDMUND BURKE with the united voice of three free, still free, and determined nations. " Down with the Tories !—we will have no more men sabred by your dragoons—no more women and children trodden under the hoofs of your yeoman cavalry. Down with the Tories !—we will not have the pockets of the Tithe-collector filled by dint of military execution, and Ireland deluged with blood, that the Bishops and Clergy of a seventh of its famished population may receive more that' pays those of the whole Continent of Europe. Down with the Tories !—we will not have Church-rates levied by a troop of dragoons, the Unionists charged by a regiment of Guards the first time they go in harmless procession through our streets ; and meetings for political discussion—the right of Englishmen, earned by ages of resistance to arbi- trary power—dispersed, and our countrymen massacred by the mounted and armed minions of your despotism. Down with the Tories !—we will not have the great name of England any longer sullied, free constitutions undermined, and tyrants abetted, by the intrigues of your diplomacy in every capital in Europe : we will not have the dawning liberties of Spain and Portugal sacrificed to your rancour, and to the pretensions of banished despots ; nor the hopes of Italy and Poland for ever blasted by your unholy compact with the Holy Alliance hypocrites! Down with the Tories !—we will good and cheap government at home, lasting cordiality between our two islands, peace, order, and liberty—the only true order—and control over government, the only pledge for liberty. We will countenance freedom and good government everywhere abroad ; and call those our best friends and surest allies who have made the greatest progress in both. We will give instruction to our labourers ; equal rights to all denominations of citizens, and all sects of Christians ; we will tolerate no abuses in the Church, no profusion in the State ; no pampered pluralists in the one, no worthless sinecurists in the other; we will have no more kidnapping in the Navy, no more flogging in the Army (as though Englishmen were so many slaves of a Persian despot, reluctant to fight unless scourged to the combat—parsnais Ng& 740,111PG1) ; we will give our countrymen in arms something for which to fight—good laws, cheap justice, political rights, and a loaf undiminished by squirearchiallegislation,! Will you dare to promise them this, shameless squanderers of eight hundred millions, saberers of your countrymen, tools of every despot, foes to. all knowledge, fleecers and brutalizers of the people ? You will promise, for boundless is your effrontery ! Who will believe you ?—Not we, the People of Great Britain and Ireland.' Down with the Tories ! "
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