THE

PATRIOT.

ADDRESSED TO THE

ELECTORS OF GREAT BRITAIN.

[ 1774. ]

They bawl for freedom in their senseless mood,
Yet ftill revolt when truth would fet them free;
Licence they mean, when they cry liberty,
For who loves that must first be wise and good.

MILTON.

T

O improve the golden moment of opportunity, and catch the good that is within our reach, is the great art of life. Many wants are fuffered, which might once have been supplied; and 'much time is loft in regretting the time which had been loft before.

At the end of every seven years comes the Saturnalian season, when the freemen of Great Britain may please themselves with the choice of their reprefentatives. This happy day has now arrived, fomewhat fooner than it could be claimed.

To felect and depute those, by whom laws are to be made, and taxes to be granted, is a high dignity and an important truft and it is the bufinefs of

every elector to confider, how this dignity may be well fuftained, and this truft faithfully dif charged.

It ought to be deeply impreffed on the minds of all who have voices in this national deliberation, that no man can deserve a feat in parliament who is not a PATRIOT. No other man will protect our rights, not other man can merit our confidence.

A PATRIOT is he whose publick conduct is regulated by one fingle motive, the love of his country; who, as an agent in parliament, has for himself neither hope nor fear, neither kindness nor resentment, but refers every thing to the common interest.

That of five hundred men, fuch as this degenerate age affords, a majority can be found thus virtuously abstracted, who will affirm? Yet there is no good in despondence: vigilance and activity often effect more than was expected. Let us take a Patriot where we can meet him; and that we may not flatter ourselves by falfe appearances, diftinguish those marks which are certain from thofe which may deceive: for a man may have the external appearance of a Patriot, without the constituent qualities; as false coins have often luftre, though they want weight.

Some claim a place in the list of Patriots by an acrimonious and unremitting oppofition to the

court.

This mark is by no means infallible. Patriotifm is not neceffarily included in rebellion. A man may hate his king, yet not love his country. He that has been refufed a reasonable or unreasonable

requeft,

request, who thinks his merit under-rated, and fees his influence declining, begins foon to talk of na tural equality, the abfurdity of many made for one, the original compact, the foundation of authority, and the majefty of the people. As his political melancholy increafes, he tells, and perhaps dreams, of the advances of the prerogative, and the dangers of arbitrary power; yet his defign in all his declamation is not to benefit his country, but to gratify his malice.

These, however, are the most honeft of the opponents of government; their patriotifm is a species of disease; and they feel fome part of what they exprefs. But the greater, far the greater number of those who rave and rail, and inquire and accuse, neither fufpect nor fear, nor care for the Publick; but hope to force their way to riches by virulence and invective, and are vehement and clamorous, only that they may be fooner hired to be filent.

A man fometimes ftarts up a Patriot, only by diffeminating difcontent and propagating reports of fecret influence, of dangerous counfels, of violated rights and encroaching ufurpation.

This practice is no certain note of Patriotifm. To inftigate the populace with rage beyond the provocation, is to fufpend publick happiness, if not to destroy it. He is no lover of his country, that unneceffarily disturbs its peace. Few errours, and few faults of government can juftify an appeal to the rabble; who ought not to judge of what they cannot understand, and whose opinions are not propagated by reason, but caught by contagion.

The

The fallaciousness of this note of patriotifm is particularly apparent, when the clamour continues after the evil is past. They who are ftill filling our ears with Mr. Wilkes, and the Freeholders of Middlefex, lament a grievance that is now at an end. Mr. Wilkes may be chofen, if any will choofe him, and the precedent of his exclufion makes not any honeft, or any decent man, think himself in danger.

It may be doubted whether the name of a Patriot can be fairly given as the reward of fecret fatire, or open outrage. To fill the news-papers with fly hints of corruption and intrigue, to circulate the Middlefex Journal and London Pacquet, may indeed be zeal; but it may likewise be intereft and malice. To offer a petition, not expected to be granted; to infult a king with a rude remonftrance, only because there is no punishment for legal infolence, is not courage, for there is no danger; nor patriotifm, for it tends to the. fubverfion of order, and lets wickedness loose upon the land, by destroying the reverence due to fovereign authority.

It is the quality of Patriotifm to be jealous and watchful, to obferve all fecret machinations, and to fee publick dangers at a distance. The true Lover of his country is ready to communicate his fears, and to found the alarm, whenever he perceives the approach of mischief. But he founds no alarm, when there is no enemy: he never terrifies his countrymen till he is terrified himfelf. The patriotifm therefore may be justly doubted of him, who profeffes to be disturbed by incredibilities; who tells, that the last peace was obtained by bribing the Princess of Wales; VOL. VIII.

L

that

that the King is grafping at arbitrary power; and that because the French in the new conquefts enjoy their own laws, there is a defign at court of abolishing in England the trial by juries.

Still lefs does the true Patriot circulate opinions which he knows to be falfe. No man, who loves his country, fills the nation with clamorous complaints, that the proteftant religion is in danger, because popery is established in the extenfive province of Quebec, a falfehood fo open and shameless, that it can need no confutation among thofe who know that of which it is almoft impoffible for the most unenlightened zealot to be ignorant.

That Quebec is on the other fide of the Atlantick, at too great a distance to do much good or harm to the European world:

That the inhabitants, being French, were always papists, who are certainly more dangerous as enemies, than as fubjects:

That though the province be wide, the people are few, probably not fo many as may be found in one of the larger English counties:

That perfecution is not more virtuous in a proteftant than a papist; and that while we blame Lewis the Fourteenth, for his dragoons and his gallies, we ought, when power comes into our hands, to use it with greater equity:

That when Canada with its inhabitants was yielded, the free enjoyment of their religion was ftipulated; a condition, of which King William, who was no propagator of popery, gave an example nearer home, at the furrender of Limerick :

That