THE ANSWER TO THE LETTER Written to a Member of Parliament Upon the Occasion of some VOTES OF THE HOUSE of COMMONS against their late Speaker and Others LONDON Printed in the Year MDCXCV THE ANSWER c. SIR WHen you did me the Honour to write me a Letter upon the occasion of some Votes passed in our House against the late Speaker and others I had then leave given me to retire into the Country for my Health It was the Reason I could return you Thanks no sooner for the Favour you put upon me to read your Thoughts upon the Affair handled by the Commons against such Members as had taken Money for expediting of Business I do Sir naturally run into all the Measures of good and unbiassed Men for the Honour Safety and Interest of my Country which never more wanted good Example and Support than at this Day I must likewise tell you That I ever loved Freedom and Ingenuity and will not stick to give your Letter such a suitable Return as may be consistent with your own and its Character I confess when I read your two first Periods I had some Difficulties to guess who might be the Author but after I had proceeded mid-way in your historical and political Reflexions it was no great trouble to find you out So equal a Pace you tread in your admired way of writing that it made me call to mind a frugal Gentleman once my Neighbour in the Country who had the Art to fit a Servant of his own to so many Uses that upon occasion you found the same Man a Gardener Cook Coach-man and Barber by turns I must say That in your learned Works now abroad in the World you use the same Repetitions in your Observators Vindications Inquiries Answers to Declarations Great Bastards Protectors to little ones and in your Letters to your Friends For had not the Letter you did me the Honour to write me exceeded the Bonds of your Ordinary Observators I had taken it for granted you had began a fresh to your Politicks I find you sustain sudden and ill disgested Thoughts with so many Greek Latin and French Transcripts abundance whereof according to your Custom are but upon Hear-say and stoln from some Gentlemens Conversation where you are said to intrude with a great deal of Impudence and ill Breeding You begin then Sir your first Flight with the amends the Parliament has made in the research of the Blood-suckers of the Nation for the Loss of an incomparable Queen but that I may endeavor the better Answer you will give me leave to inform you a little in our Constitution to which by Birth and Knowledge you may be a Stranger The House of Commons in England contains the Representatives of the People originally called to that Honour by the King's Rescript they meet where it pleaseth his Majesty to appoint them and are generally called either to give Money for the pressing Affairs of the Kingdom in War and Peace or to give their Consent to the Establishment of wholesom Laws or to humbly represent the Necessities of the People and their Grievances that thereby redress may be had orderly and according to Law You know the House of Commons is no Judicatory nor cannot do so much as can any ordinary Justice of Peace Administer an Oath The House of Lords Spiritual and Temporal make up the other two Estates and are a Court of Judicatory when assembled together by the King's Order they can determine finally in Legal Differences between Man and Man And if Bribery should unhappily get footing in that House the usual Punishment thereof ought naturally to follow But at the same time what is unhandsomly taken without the knowledge of a Peer by any of his Family be it Wife Son Daughter or Servant it cannot be charged upon himself as a Fault if he have no accession to the Thing I should be heartily glad and I think it would contribute both for the Honour and God of the Nation That there might be an established and explained Law against all taking of Money in both Houses to compass which I think it would be fit to go to the most necessary ways to reform a House of Commons There be two radical Evils that ought to be remedied the one is The manner of Elections where besides all the usual Disorders and Debauche to excess there Reigns a popular Partiality for the Richest or Profusest to run away with the Election upon any occasion and Vertue which is generally modest to be neglected But the greater is Many Men of uneasy Circumstances do get into being Parliament-men and keep there as in a Sanctuary to secure their Estates and Persons from just Debts From which last Source intolerable in a well-governed Nation there is given a natural and necessary handle to take and retain what in Conscience ought to be paid innumerable Families suffering by an abused Constitution so much famed as being the Nations great Barricade against the Enemies of Liberty and Property the darling of Mankind and without which they must be uneasie and unhappy What our House has done in confining or expelling two of its Members to vindicate the Honour of its illustrious Body does not want Censure and Obloquy from the most sensible part of the Nation and Strangers who know not to this day upon what Law the displeasure was founded You seem satisfied to rally the Misfortune of two Gentlemen and while you endavor to descend your Malice to Posterity they have still a sufficient stock of Vertue to defend them It 's true you say it will look but with an ill Grace beyond Sea to hear of one of the English Parliaments sent to the Tower for Bribery so great a Name for the most incorrupted Body of Men in all Christendom has the House of Commons of England ver born Believe me Sir as you do not seem Learned at home so give me leave to conclude you Ignorant of the abroad World Strangers understand so little of our Constitution that hardly any Foreigner has writ tolerable of the Forms or Power of our House and to believe us an incorrupted Body what greater Arguments can be taken against that than from your own Mouth Who often have been heard to aver That in former Reigns many Members of the House of Commons were Pensioners to King Charles the Second and the French King and that certain Sums of Money so appointed had been put at the Roots of Trees in St. James's Park and other hidden Corners where afterwards the Parliament-men went or sent to fetch them But the Misfortune was there was no search made into the Matter then Sir I cannot enough admire why you are so hard upon Mr. G. It may be he has not paid you the Deference and Respect you expected of him or has he incurred your Displeasure as did unhappily once the Master of a Tavern for neglecting to give you the first and lowest Bow or according to the manner of some other
Gentlemen who have taken upon the right Altitude of your Parts has slighted your Company and Person There may be some Reason why you hate Sir J.T. he it was who gave you a soft Reprimand for an Indiscretion or Misdemeanor committed by you against the Commons of England in your authentique Politicks called the new Observator where you seemed quite of another Mind than you are at present Here it is you cannot endure one Farthing of Money designed for the Publick be put to any other Use there you can dispense with a Million at a time rather to be thrown in the Sea than that the House should prosecute or find out who did purloin it In this ext Period you enter fairly upon your large and well-accommodating Field of Greek and Roman Histories and Examples Here it is you bring in the unparalleled Antoninus and his happy Reign with a Prayer of your own there may be no Ground for comparing the present England to the then depraved Rome For my own part I go so far along with you That I think we exceed Rome in all that 's Corrupt Dissolute and Confused without even holding that small remainder of Vertue that stuck still to some of the Romans in the worst of Times The World is convinced how great a Master the King is of all heroick Vertue and methinks you might have allowed him rather a Resemblance to Julius Cesar than to Marcus Antoninus For they both descended from noble Ancestors they had both grea Enemies in their Youth and first Age. Cesar had Sylla and his Faction King William had de Witt and his They both came into Britain with a foreign Force Cesar came to remove Barbarity and to establish the Roman Law and Civility his Majesty came to vindicate and assert the Laws established they both succeeded in their Undertakings they both entered the Island with a great Fleet they both met with Misfortunes in their Fleets they both returned to the Continent having composed their Insulary Affairs they both returned to make War against France Cesar conquered and reduced it into the Form of a Province in the space of Ten years his Majesty is now pretty well advanced in the Seventh years War And I hope by it hath continued Ten years or it may be shorter time France shall be brought to be as easie to England as Cesar made it to Rome Both Generals were almost Forty years old when they began the career of their Fortunes both Generals were born in a popular State that had their Denomination from the Number Seven Rome was built upon Seven Hills and the united States are made up of Seven Provinces Cesar was Consul and Captain-General of the Roman Armies King William is Stadtholder and Captain-General of the States their Fleet and Forces Here Sir is much more Ground for a Parallel than that of your cold-headed Philosopher Antoninus There are some Vices the illustrious Crimes of the antient Romans such as Emulation Ambition and Thirst after Dominion Sir As I cannot allow Emulation in Vertue a a Crime so I find you ignorant of the Roman Antiquity when you bing in Ambition and Thirst afer Dominion to have raised their first Empire It was Valour Parsimony and great Honesty and Simplicity in their Manners and Actions and an absolute Necessity of defending themselves being Strangers and Rome from falling under the Power of her Neighbors You give an Instance of Ignorance when you call Rome a beggarly Village that City though it begun small was never a Village You ought to know the Occasion why Romulus killed his Brother Remus In the next Place you ascend for some Pages your Chariot of Triumph with the antient Romans as Cincinnatus Attilus Regulus and Paulus Aemilius Here it is you have an infinite sublime and immortal Scope for your Pen on these Pinacles it is you hang out your Ornaments that serve you alike for all Holydays out of these your Magazines do you take upon all Occasions Greek and Roman Weapons to ruin Yours and the Enemies of the State as you call them for the which great and generous Undertaking you deserve at least a Statue for your self Thus Sir after a long and tedious Journey through Corruptions and ancient Examples you arrive in your noted and well-frequented Port of England's All being at Stake Liberty Religion Laws and Property and not only so but the Fate of Christendom And in one Word here your Eloquence is employed in running through the whole popular Strain in how far every one is engaged for the gneeral Weal of the Nation that Corruption may be discouraged and the publick Money employed according to the Intention of the Givers in all which England is beholden to you Yet I must tell you by the way there was upon a time a very bad Man gave good Council in a popular State and when it came to be debated whether it should be followed or not it was allowed by all to be good Council but that it would be ill receive by the People because of the lame and narrow Reputation of the Person who gave it he being a very ill Man You seem to exert your Malice and mercenary Pen at a time in that the whole Subject of your Pamphlet is only levelled at two or three Persons whose Vertue Capacity and Service to their Country upon many Occasions cannot be overthrown or defaced by your Calumnies I thought the severe Checks you have so often and so justly met withal might have prevailed with you to keep to your promise to drop your Pen for good and all being you were made sufficiently to understand your Incapacity and Inability to manage it But there may be some Reasons have induced you to keep it still employ'd as the renewing your prostrate and prostitute Flatteries to your Friends and Benefactors or perhaps after almost Three years silence you will let the World know your late Improvement in ancient History to which you were a Stranger But being we are about the matter of Corruptions there is Sir among many one kind of Corruption lies particularly heavy upon your Vertue and that is the horrible Flatteries that are squander'd over all your Scriblings I am confident that Antiquity never saw so many intolerable Persons set off with Praises due to Vertue as have been since the last reflourishing of Letters in Europe Vertue and Vice Truth and Falshood Justice and Injustice are so ill distinguished by mercenary Pens That many good Men do almost wish the World had remained as to some part in Gothish Ignorance to this day It is a great Truth That England has much and it may be more than is necessary at Stake The august House of Commons had framed near the close of the last Sessions such Resolutions as were truly fitted to the Interest and Honour of their Country and I wish their next Meeting may perfect what was then happily begun and then sufficient and well-grounded Matter will be given you to eternize that incorrupted
and honourable Body by your well-fashion'd Pen if you like the Subject better than that of Railing You ask leave to do the Romans Greeks and Carthaginians Justice assuring the World they embezled no publick Money but kept it equally Sacred with what they consecrated to the Service of their Gods For the Carthaginians I cannot see any great Reason you have to undertake their Defence being their History and Learning is lost save what we have in so far as they had to do with the Greeks and Romans in War or Treaty But I am led to believe That they were not a better sort of People than the States of Rome or Greece but that almost every Age among these two Nations had its Corruptions and Embezlements of publick and sacred Money I am perswaded To omit many among the Greeks Do you remember what council Alciabiades gave to his Uncle Pericles when he found him much taken up what way to render an Account to Athens for her publick Money Did he not desire him rather to find out a way to make no accompt with them of that City at all Do not you find that Pericles not only used the publick Money of Athens as he thought fit but laid likewise hand upon the sacred Money reposited in that City by for its better Security against barbarous hands But his good Fortune his Character and the pliable Age he lived in secured him Do you remember why Aristides and Themistocles were banished Scipio African the Elder was not free from the same Imputation But his Brother the Asiatique Scipio was highly Guilty For the Romans robbing the Temple of the Gods there is nothing more infamous than Sylla's robbing the Confederate Temple at Delphi Crassus robbed that of Hierapolis and Pompey that of Jerusalem You say and so do I That upon Exigencies it 's no Sacrilege to borrow from the Churches even their most sacred Vtensils but you thank Heaven that we are under no such Hardship in this War Fro my part I am glad that our Churches are reduced to the modest and primitive Form of Worship and that our Altars have no superfluous Ornaments to spare but you ought to be perswaded of the Zeal of the Church for the publick Good when having no store of treasured Money nor Ornaments she runs willingly into the Measures of giving chearfully every Year a Fifth part of her whole which as it is but Duty is still more in proportion than the Gallican Clergy grant even his Year to the French King though they should continue so to the end of the War But that Mankind may be beholden to your illustrious Wit and rare Genie you are willing to descend from your Greek and Roman Flights and give us a Period or two purely your own You are plagued you say by your Neighbors in the Country with a thousand Questions about Mr. G. Sometimes they ask what great Things the Gentleman hath done for his Country to deserve so profitable a Place They expect you should acquaint sthem with the Opposition he made to the violent Courses of the last Reigns or of some Loss he sustained by them They enquire about his Behavior in the last Revolution and what wonderful Atchievoments he has done to support the present Government All which Questions you being a Stranger to the Gentleman desire me to answer supposing as you say I may know him Though Sir I may be as much a Stranger to him as your self yet you having reduced a thousand Questions to two or three I have taken Pains in the Thing and learned from impartial Mouths That Mr. G. is a Gentleman of very good Parts and of a plentiful Estate which you know sounds very well here in England That he had Merit enough to bring him to so profitable a Place if his good Fortune had been equal to have maintained him in it That he made the same Oppositions to the violent Courses in the last Reigns many other honest Gentlemen had done who durst only regret what was not in their Power to help As for his Behavior in the late Revolution he fillowed the Measures taken by all the sound and good part of the Nation he took the Oaths chearfully to his Majesty and was never accused for doing an unbecoming Thing to his Master And Sir had you known any worse Thing of him I am bold to think you would not have given me the trouble of your Questions You are pleased to continue and bring in a witty Jest of your own Where Mr G. and Sir J. T. being the Subject matter of your Discourse as seldom they fail to be a Neighbor of your own but no great Politician you say if Honesty be the best Policy your Neighbor may be such a Politician as your self to extenuate Mr. G. Fault was of Opinion That the necessity of his Circumstances in having a numerous Family or Daughters to Portion might tempt him to take 200 Gnineas And after a mighty Debate among your Country Statesmen it was resolved by the Board That nothing but the Circumstance mentioned by your Neighbor could extenuate the Bribery But you hap'ning to come in at the end of this wise Debate found that skipping from one Thing to another the Company came at last to run down their Comrade for imagining 200 Guineas a compotent Portion for a Daughter of Mr. G. But to bring off your Friend though at the Expence of a piece of History you were forced to tell them That even in the height of the Roman Empire such a Sum would have been esteemed a considerable Portion for the greatest and noblest Senators of Rome to give with a Daughter And that the Daughter of the Immortal Scipio Affricanus a Man not much inferior to Mr. G. was said to have had a great Portion given her by the Senate for her Father had nothing to give her though Master of the Spoils of Carthage when it amounted but to 2000 Pieces of Brass-money which comes far short of 200 Guineas of ours I have almost transcribed your Jest being very well satisfied that it is purely your own And I dare say you may freely enjoy it without any one's disputing you the Honour to have been its Author For after a dull and insipid Narration of you know not what nor to what purpose you are obliged to run back again to your Roman History to support you such Methods and Pieces of ill told History may go down with your good-natured Friends in the Country but they will not so in the City For to say the Truth you do not understand what you pretend to Pray Sir who taught you that the Roman Empire was at the height in Scipio's Days Did not he conclude a Piece though upon hard Terms for the Charthaginians Was not all France Spain Germany Britain Suisse Illyricum Dalmatia Panonia all higher Asia and Egypt then unsubdued Which Provinces make almost Three parts of Four of all the Roman Empire You do not seem to understand the Roman