Selected quad for the lemma: england_n
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A63117
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Free thoughts concerning officers in the House of Commons
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Trenchard, John, 1662-1723.; Trenchard, John, 1662-1723. Short history of standing armies in England.
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1698
(1698)
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Wing T2112A; ESTC T40180
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4,169
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4
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FREE THOUGHTS Concerning Officers in the House of Commons To the Reader THE following Paper was printed in the year 1698. as a Preface to the History of Standing Armies and as it then met with a general Approbation so if I mistake not it had a favourable reception with some whose Eyes are now open'd and see better things therefore in order to put them in mind of their obsolete forgotten Notions and to give others a Caution not to be misled by those who hold no Principles longer than they are out of Places I thought it might not be unseasonable at this time to reprint it however if it does no good I am sure it can do no harm THERE is nothing in which the generality of Mankind are so much mistaken as when they discourse of Government The different Effects of it are obvious to every one but few can trace its Causes Most Men attribute all publick Miscarriages to the Corruption of Mankind They think the whole Mass is infected that it's impossible to make any Reformation and so submit patiently to their Country's Calamities or else share in the Spoil whereas Complaints of this kind are as old as the World and every Age has thought their own the worst We have not only our own Experience but the Example of all Times to prove that Men in the same Circumstances will do the same things call them by what Names of distinction you please A Government is a mere piece of Clockwork and having such Springs and Wheels must act accordingly and therefore the Art is to constitute it so that it must move to the publick Advantage It is certain that most Men will act for their own Interest and all wise Governments are founded upon that Principle So that the Endeavour must be to make the Interest of the Governors and Governed the same In an Absolute Monarchy where the whole Power is in one Man his Interest will only be regarded In an Aristocracy the Interest of a few and in a free Government the Interest of the whole This wou'd be the Case of England if some Abuses that have lately crept into our Constitution were remov'd The Freedom of this Kingdom depends upon the Peoples chusing the House of Commons who are a part of the Legislature and have the sole Power of giving Mony Were this a true Representative and free from external Force or private Corruption nothing could pass there but what they thought was for the public Advantage For their own Interest is so interwoven with the Peoples that if they act for themselves they must act for the common Interest of England And if a few Men among them should think it their Interest to abuse their Power it will be the Interest of all the rest to punish them for it and then our Government would act mechanically and a Rogue will as necessarily be hang'd as a Clock strike twelve This is the Fountain head from whence the People expect all their Happiness and the redress of their Grievances and if we can preserve them free from Corruption they will keep every body else so Our Constitution seems to have provided for it by never suffering the King till Charles the Second's Reign to have an Army to frighten them into a Compliance nor Places or Revenues great enough to bribe them into it The Places in the King's Gift were but few and most of them Patent Places for Life and the rest great Offices of State enjoy'd by single Persons which seldom fell to the share of the Commons such as the Lord Chancellor Lord Treasurer Privy-Seal Lord High-Admiral c. And when these Offices were possess'd by the Lords the Commons were severe Inquisitors into their Actions Thus the Government of England continued till the time of Charles the First who was the first I have read of that made an Opposition to himself in the House of Commons the Road to Preferment of which the Earl of Strafford and Noy were the most remarkable Instances who from great Patriots became the chief Asserters of Despotic Power But this serv'd only to exasperate the rest for he had not Places enough for all that expected them nor Mony enough to bribe them 'Tis true he rais'd great Sums of Mony upon the People but it being without Authority of Parliament and having no Army to back him it met with such Difficulties in the raising that it did him little good and ended at last in his Ruin tho by the means of a long and miserable War which brought all things into the power of an Army who govern'd the Nation by a Council of War and made all Parties join in calling in Charles the Second So that he came in with the general Applause of the People who in a kind fit gave him a vast Revenue for Life By this he was enabled to raise a new Army and bribe the Parliament which he did to the purpose But being a luxurious Prince he cou'd not part with great Sums at once He only fed them from hand to mouth So that they found it as necessary to keep him in a constant dependence upon them as they had upon him They knew he wou'd give them ready Mony no longer than he had absolute necessity for them and he had not Places enough in his Disposal to secure a Majority in the House for in those early days the Art was not found out of splitting and multiplying Places as instead of a Lord Treasurer to have five Lords of the Treasury instead of a Lord Admiral to have seven Lords of the Admiralty to have seven Commissioners of the Customs nine of the Excise fourteen of the Navy Office ten of the Stamp Office eight of the Prize Office sixteen of the Commissioners of Trade two of the Post Office four of the Transports four for Hackney Coaches four for Wine-Licences four for the Victualling Office and multitudes of other Offices which are endless to enumerate I believe the Gentlemen who have the good Fortune to be in some of these Imployments will not pretend that they have bin better executed since they were in so many hands than when in fewer and I must confess I see no reason why they may not be made twice as many and so on unless the Number be ascertain'd by Parliament and what danger this may be to our Constitution I think of with Horror For if in Ages to come they shou'd be all given to Parliament Men what will become of our so much boasted Liberty What shall be done when the Criminal becomes the Judg and the Malefactors are left to try themselves We may be sure their common Danger will unite them and they will all stand by one another I do not speak this by guess for I have read of a Country where there was a constant Series of Mismanagement for many years together and yet no body was punish'd and even in our own Country I believe some Men now alive can remember the time when if the then