The number 45 was a number of power to many American revolutionaries. It’s said that the 4 white and 5 red vertical stripes which made up the flag of the Sons of Liberty, who incidentally would be a terrorist organization by the standards of the U.S. government today, was to honor and embody the rebellious defense of English freedom that was issue 45 of The North Briton, a pamphlet by John Wilkes.
Wilkes was persecuted for disseminating this pamphlet and removed from parliament in it’s wake but the power of the pamphlet had already incited a rebellious spirit both in England and the Colonies that Wilkes’ opposition could not contain through persecution.
As you read the text you’ll realize that the days of John Wilkes were no different from our own in many ways, and neither should our response to abusive government be different from that of our predecessors who refused to give up their good ol’ English Freedom.
THE NORTH BRITON
No. XLV, Saturday, April 23, 1763.
Genus orationis atrox, et vehemens, cui opponitur lenitatis
ct mansuetudinis.
CICERO.
The King’s Speech has always been considered by the
legislature, and by the public at large, as the Speech of the
Minister. It has regularly, at the beginning of every session
of parliament, been referred by both houses to the consideration
of a committee, and has been generally canvassed with
the utmost freedom, when the minister of the crown has been
obnoxious to the nation. The ministers of this free country,
conscious of the undoubted privileges of so spirited a people,
and with the terrors of parliament before their eyes, have
ever been cautious, no less with regard to the matter, than
to the expressions, of speeches, which they have advised the
sovereign to make from the throne, at the opening of every
session. They well knew that an honest house of parliament,
true to their trust, could not fail to detect the fallacious arts,
or to remonstrate against the daring acts of violence, committed
by any minister. The speech at the close of the session
has ever been considered as the most secure method of
promulgating the favourite court creed among the vulgar ;
because the parliament, which is the constitutional guardian
of the liberties of the people, has in this case no opportunity
of remonstrating, or of impeaching any wicked servant of
the crown.
This week has given the public the most abandoned instance
of ministerial effrontery ever attempted to be imposed
on mankind. The minister’s speech of last Tuesday,
is not to be paralleled in the annals of this country. I am
in doubt, whether the imposition is greater on the sovereign,
or on the nation. Every friend of his country must lament
that a prince of so many great and amiable qualities, whom
England truly reveres, can be brought to give the sanction
of his sacred name to the most odious measures, and to the
most unjustifiable, public declarations, from a throne ever
renowned for truth, honour, and unsullied virtue. I am sure,
all foreigners, especially the king of Prussia, will hold the
minister in contempt and abhorrence. He has made our
sovereign declare, My expectations have been fully answered
by the happy effects which the several allies of my crown
have derived from this salutary measure of the definitive
Treaty. The powers at war with my good brother, the King
of Prussia, have been induced to agree to such terms of
accomodation, as that great prince has approved; and the
success which has attended my negociation. has necessarily
and immediately diffused the blessings of peace through
every part of Europe. The infamous fallacy of this whole
sentence is apparent to all mankind : for it is known, that the
King of Prussia did not barely approve, but absolutely dic-
tated, as conqueror, every article of the terms of peace. No
advantage of any kind has accrued to that magnanimous
prince from our negotiations, but he was basely deserted by
the Scottish prime-minister of England. He was known by
every court in Europe to be scarcely on better terms of friendship
here, than at Vienna; and he was betrayed by us in the
treaty of peace. What a strain of insolence, therefore, is
it in a minister to lay claim to what he is conscious all his
efforts tended to prevent, and meanly to arrogate to himself
a share in the fame and glory of one of the greatest princes
the world has ever seen? The king of Prussia, however,
has gloriously kept all his former conquests, and stipulated
security for all his allies, even for the elector of Hanover.
I know in what light this great prince is considered in
Europe, and in what manner he has been treated here ; among
other reasons, perhaps, from some contemptuous expressions
he may have used of the Scot: expressions which are every
day echoed by the whole body of Englishmen through the
southern part of this island.
The Preliminary Articles of Peace were such as have
drawn the contempt of mankind on our wretched negocia-
tors. All our most valuable conquests were agreed to be
restored, and the East India Company would have been infallibly
ruined by a single article of this fallacious and baneful
negociation. No hireling of the minister has been hardy
enough to dispute this; yet the minister himself has made
our sovereign declare, the satisfaction which he felt at the
approaching re-establishment of peace upon conditions so
honourable to his crown, and so beneficial to his people. As
to the entire approbation of parliament, which is so vainly
boasted of, the world knows how that was obtained. The
large debt on the Civil List, already above half a year in
arrear, shews pretty clearly the transactions of the winter.
It is, however, remarkable, that the minister’s speeche dwells
on the entire approbation given by parliament to the Preliminary
Articles, which I will venture to say, he must by this
time be ashamed of; for he has been brought to confess the
total want of that knowledge, accuracy and precision, by
which such immense advantages both of trade and territory,
were sacrificed to our inveterate enemies. These gross
blunders are, indeed, in some measure set right by the Definitive
Treaty; yet, the most important articles, relative to
cessions, commerce, and the FISHERY, remain as they were,
with respect to the French. The proud and feeble Spaniard,
too, does not RENOUNCE, but only DESISTS from all pretensions,
which he may have formed, to the right of fishing — where?
only about the island of NEWFOUNDLAND — till a favourable
opportunity arises of insisting on it, there, as well as else-
where.
The minister cannot forbear, even in the King’s Speech,
insulting us with a dull repetition of the word ceconomy. I
did not expect so soon to have seen that word again, after
it had been so lately exploded, and more than once, by a most
numerous audience, hissed off the stage of our English theatres.
It is held in derision by the voice of the people, and
every tongue loudly proclaims the universal contempt, in
which these empty professions are held by this nation. Let
the public be informed of a single instance of ceconomy,
except indeed in the household. Is a regiment, which was
compleated as to its compliment of officers on the Tuesday,
and broke on the Thursday, a proof of ceconomy? Is the
pay of the Scottish Master Elliot to be voted by an English
parliament, under the head of ceconomy? Is this, among
a thousand others, one of the convincing proofs of a firm
resolution to form government on a plan of strict ceconomy?
Is it not notorious, that in the reduction of the army, not the
least attention has been paid to it? Many unnecessary expenses
have been incurred, only to increase the power of the
crown, that is, to create more lucrative jobbs for the creatures
of the minister. The staff indeed is broke, but the
discerning part of mankind immediately comprehended the
mean subterfuge, and resented the indignity put upon so
brave an officer, as marshal Ligonier. That step was taken
to give the whole power of the army to the crown, that is, to
the minister. Lord Ligonier is now no longer at the head
of the army; but Lord Bute in effect is: I mean that every
preferment given by the crown will be found still to be obtained
by his enormous influence, and to be bestowed only
on the creatures of the Scottish faction. The nation is still
in the same deplorable state, while he governs, and can make
the tools of his power pursue the same odious measure.
Such a retreat, as he intends, can only mean that personal indemnity,
which, I hope, guilt will never find from an injured
nation. The negociations of the late inglorious peace, and the
excise, will haunt him, wherever he goes, and the terrors of
the just resentment, which he must be to meet from a brave
and insulted people, and which must finally crush him, will
be for ever before his eyes.
In vain will such a minister, or the foul dregs of his
power, the tools of corruption and despotism, preach up in
the speech that spirit of concord, and that obedience to the
laws, which is essential, to good order. They have sent the
spirit of discord through the land, and I will prophecy, that
it will never be extinguished, but by the extinction of their
power. Is the spirit of concord to go hand in hand with the
Peace and Excise thro’ this nation ? Is it to be expected
between an insolent Exciseman, and a peer, gentleman, freeholder,
or farmer, whose private houses are now made liable
to be entered and searched at pleasure ? Gloucestershire,
Herefordshire, and in general all the Cyder countries, are
not surely the several counties which are alluded to in the
speech. The spirit of concord hath not gone forth among
them ; but the spirit of liberty has, and a noble opposition has
been given to the wicked instruments of oppression. A nation
as sensible as the English, will see that a spirit of concord,
when they are oppressed, means a tame submission to
injury, and that a spirit of liberty ought then to arise, and I
am sure ever will, in proportion to the weight of the grievance
they feel. Every legal attempt of a contrary tendency
to the spirit of concord will be deemed a justifiable resistance,
warranted by the spirit of the English constitution.
A despotic minister will always endeavour to dazzle his
prince with high-flown ideas of the prerogative and honour
of the crown, which the minister will make a parade of
firmly maintaining. I wish as much as any man in the
kingdom to see the honour of the crown maintained in a
manner truly becoming to Royalty. I lament to see it sunk
even to prostitution. What a shame was it to see the security
of this country, in point of military force complimented away,
contrary to the opinion of Royalty itself, and sacrificed to
the prejudices and to the ignorance of a set of people, the
most unfit from every consideration to be consulted on a
matter relative to the security of the house of Hanover? I
wish to see the honour of the crown religiously asserted with
regard to our allies, and the dignity of it scrupulously maintained
with regard to foreign princes. Is it possible such an
indignity can have happened, such a sacrifice of the honour -
of the crown of England, as that a minister should already
have kissed his majesty’s hand on being appointed to the
most insolent and ungrateful court in the world, without a
previous assurance of that reciprocal nomination which the
meanest court in Europe would insist upon, before she pro-
ceeded to an act otherwise so derogatory to her honour?
But Electoral Policy has ever been obsequious to the court of
Vienna, and forgets the insolence with which count Colloredo
left England. Upon a principle of dignity and (economy,
lord Stermont, a Scottish peer of the loyal house of Murray,
kissed his Majesty’s hand I think on Wednesday in the Easter
week ; but this ignominious act has not yet disgraced the
nation in the London Gazette. The ministry are not ashamed
of doing the thing in private; they are only afraid of the
publication. Was it a tender regard for the honour of the
late king, or of his present majesty, that invited to court lord
George Sackville. in these first days of Peace, to share in the
general satisfaction, which all good courtiers received in the
indignity offered to lord Ligonier, and on the advancement
of — ? Was this to show princely gratitude to the eminent
services of the accomplished general of the house of Bruns-
wic, who has had so great a share in rescuing Europe from
the yoke of France ; and whose nephew we hope soon to see
made happy in the possession of the most amiable princess in
the world ? Or, is it meant to assert the honour of the crown
only against the united wishes of a loyal and affectionate
people, founded in a happy experience of the talents, integrity,
and virtue of those, who have had the glory of redeeming
their country from bondage and ruin, in order to support,
by every art of corruption and intimidation, a weak disjointed,
incapable set of — I will call them any thing but
ministers — by whom the Favourite still meditates to rule
this kingdom with a rod of iron.
The Stuart line has ever been intoxicated with the slavish
doctrines of the absolute, independent, unlimited power of
the crown. Some of that line were so weakly advised, as to
endeavour to reduce them into practice ; but the English
nation was too spirited to suffer the least encroachment on
the ancient liberties of this kingdom. The King of England
is only the first magistrate of this country; but is invested by
law with the whole executive power. He is, however, responsible
to his people for the due execution of the royal
functions, in the choice of ministers, etc., equally with the
meanest of his subjects in his particular duty. The personal
character of our present amiable sovereign makes us easy
and happy that so great a power is lodged in such hands; but
the favourite has given too just cause for him to escape the
general odium. The prerogative of the crown is to exert the
constitutional powers entrusted to it in a way, not of blind
favour and partiality, but of wisdom and judgment. This is
the spirit of our constitution. The people too have their
prerogative, and I hope, the fine words of Dryden will be
engraven on our hearts :
legislature, and by the public at large, as the Speech of the
Minister. It has regularly, at the beginning of every session
of parliament, been referred by both houses to the consideration
of a committee, and has been generally canvassed with
the utmost freedom, when the minister of the crown has been
obnoxious to the nation. The ministers of this free country,
conscious of the undoubted privileges of so spirited a people,
and with the terrors of parliament before their eyes, have
ever been cautious, no less with regard to the matter, than
to the expressions, of speeches, which they have advised the
sovereign to make from the throne, at the opening of every
session. They well knew that an honest house of parliament,
true to their trust, could not fail to detect the fallacious arts,
or to remonstrate against the daring acts of violence, committed
by any minister. The speech at the close of the session
has ever been considered as the most secure method of
promulgating the favourite court creed among the vulgar ;
because the parliament, which is the constitutional guardian
of the liberties of the people, has in this case no opportunity
of remonstrating, or of impeaching any wicked servant of
the crown.
This week has given the public the most abandoned instance
of ministerial effrontery ever attempted to be imposed
on mankind. The minister’s speech of last Tuesday,
is not to be paralleled in the annals of this country. I am
in doubt, whether the imposition is greater on the sovereign,
or on the nation. Every friend of his country must lament
that a prince of so many great and amiable qualities, whom
England truly reveres, can be brought to give the sanction
of his sacred name to the most odious measures, and to the
most unjustifiable, public declarations, from a throne ever
renowned for truth, honour, and unsullied virtue. I am sure,
all foreigners, especially the king of Prussia, will hold the
minister in contempt and abhorrence. He has made our
sovereign declare, My expectations have been fully answered
by the happy effects which the several allies of my crown
have derived from this salutary measure of the definitive
Treaty. The powers at war with my good brother, the King
of Prussia, have been induced to agree to such terms of
accomodation, as that great prince has approved; and the
success which has attended my negociation. has necessarily
and immediately diffused the blessings of peace through
every part of Europe. The infamous fallacy of this whole
sentence is apparent to all mankind : for it is known, that the
King of Prussia did not barely approve, but absolutely dic-
tated, as conqueror, every article of the terms of peace. No
advantage of any kind has accrued to that magnanimous
prince from our negotiations, but he was basely deserted by
the Scottish prime-minister of England. He was known by
every court in Europe to be scarcely on better terms of friendship
here, than at Vienna; and he was betrayed by us in the
treaty of peace. What a strain of insolence, therefore, is
it in a minister to lay claim to what he is conscious all his
efforts tended to prevent, and meanly to arrogate to himself
a share in the fame and glory of one of the greatest princes
the world has ever seen? The king of Prussia, however,
has gloriously kept all his former conquests, and stipulated
security for all his allies, even for the elector of Hanover.
I know in what light this great prince is considered in
Europe, and in what manner he has been treated here ; among
other reasons, perhaps, from some contemptuous expressions
he may have used of the Scot: expressions which are every
day echoed by the whole body of Englishmen through the
southern part of this island.
The Preliminary Articles of Peace were such as have
drawn the contempt of mankind on our wretched negocia-
tors. All our most valuable conquests were agreed to be
restored, and the East India Company would have been infallibly
ruined by a single article of this fallacious and baneful
negociation. No hireling of the minister has been hardy
enough to dispute this; yet the minister himself has made
our sovereign declare, the satisfaction which he felt at the
approaching re-establishment of peace upon conditions so
honourable to his crown, and so beneficial to his people. As
to the entire approbation of parliament, which is so vainly
boasted of, the world knows how that was obtained. The
large debt on the Civil List, already above half a year in
arrear, shews pretty clearly the transactions of the winter.
It is, however, remarkable, that the minister’s speeche dwells
on the entire approbation given by parliament to the Preliminary
Articles, which I will venture to say, he must by this
time be ashamed of; for he has been brought to confess the
total want of that knowledge, accuracy and precision, by
which such immense advantages both of trade and territory,
were sacrificed to our inveterate enemies. These gross
blunders are, indeed, in some measure set right by the Definitive
Treaty; yet, the most important articles, relative to
cessions, commerce, and the FISHERY, remain as they were,
with respect to the French. The proud and feeble Spaniard,
too, does not RENOUNCE, but only DESISTS from all pretensions,
which he may have formed, to the right of fishing — where?
only about the island of NEWFOUNDLAND — till a favourable
opportunity arises of insisting on it, there, as well as else-
where.
The minister cannot forbear, even in the King’s Speech,
insulting us with a dull repetition of the word ceconomy. I
did not expect so soon to have seen that word again, after
it had been so lately exploded, and more than once, by a most
numerous audience, hissed off the stage of our English theatres.
It is held in derision by the voice of the people, and
every tongue loudly proclaims the universal contempt, in
which these empty professions are held by this nation. Let
the public be informed of a single instance of ceconomy,
except indeed in the household. Is a regiment, which was
compleated as to its compliment of officers on the Tuesday,
and broke on the Thursday, a proof of ceconomy? Is the
pay of the Scottish Master Elliot to be voted by an English
parliament, under the head of ceconomy? Is this, among
a thousand others, one of the convincing proofs of a firm
resolution to form government on a plan of strict ceconomy?
Is it not notorious, that in the reduction of the army, not the
least attention has been paid to it? Many unnecessary expenses
have been incurred, only to increase the power of the
crown, that is, to create more lucrative jobbs for the creatures
of the minister. The staff indeed is broke, but the
discerning part of mankind immediately comprehended the
mean subterfuge, and resented the indignity put upon so
brave an officer, as marshal Ligonier. That step was taken
to give the whole power of the army to the crown, that is, to
the minister. Lord Ligonier is now no longer at the head
of the army; but Lord Bute in effect is: I mean that every
preferment given by the crown will be found still to be obtained
by his enormous influence, and to be bestowed only
on the creatures of the Scottish faction. The nation is still
in the same deplorable state, while he governs, and can make
the tools of his power pursue the same odious measure.
Such a retreat, as he intends, can only mean that personal indemnity,
which, I hope, guilt will never find from an injured
nation. The negociations of the late inglorious peace, and the
excise, will haunt him, wherever he goes, and the terrors of
the just resentment, which he must be to meet from a brave
and insulted people, and which must finally crush him, will
be for ever before his eyes.
In vain will such a minister, or the foul dregs of his
power, the tools of corruption and despotism, preach up in
the speech that spirit of concord, and that obedience to the
laws, which is essential, to good order. They have sent the
spirit of discord through the land, and I will prophecy, that
it will never be extinguished, but by the extinction of their
power. Is the spirit of concord to go hand in hand with the
Peace and Excise thro’ this nation ? Is it to be expected
between an insolent Exciseman, and a peer, gentleman, freeholder,
or farmer, whose private houses are now made liable
to be entered and searched at pleasure ? Gloucestershire,
Herefordshire, and in general all the Cyder countries, are
not surely the several counties which are alluded to in the
speech. The spirit of concord hath not gone forth among
them ; but the spirit of liberty has, and a noble opposition has
been given to the wicked instruments of oppression. A nation
as sensible as the English, will see that a spirit of concord,
when they are oppressed, means a tame submission to
injury, and that a spirit of liberty ought then to arise, and I
am sure ever will, in proportion to the weight of the grievance
they feel. Every legal attempt of a contrary tendency
to the spirit of concord will be deemed a justifiable resistance,
warranted by the spirit of the English constitution.
A despotic minister will always endeavour to dazzle his
prince with high-flown ideas of the prerogative and honour
of the crown, which the minister will make a parade of
firmly maintaining. I wish as much as any man in the
kingdom to see the honour of the crown maintained in a
manner truly becoming to Royalty. I lament to see it sunk
even to prostitution. What a shame was it to see the security
of this country, in point of military force complimented away,
contrary to the opinion of Royalty itself, and sacrificed to
the prejudices and to the ignorance of a set of people, the
most unfit from every consideration to be consulted on a
matter relative to the security of the house of Hanover? I
wish to see the honour of the crown religiously asserted with
regard to our allies, and the dignity of it scrupulously maintained
with regard to foreign princes. Is it possible such an
indignity can have happened, such a sacrifice of the honour -
of the crown of England, as that a minister should already
have kissed his majesty’s hand on being appointed to the
most insolent and ungrateful court in the world, without a
previous assurance of that reciprocal nomination which the
meanest court in Europe would insist upon, before she pro-
ceeded to an act otherwise so derogatory to her honour?
But Electoral Policy has ever been obsequious to the court of
Vienna, and forgets the insolence with which count Colloredo
left England. Upon a principle of dignity and (economy,
lord Stermont, a Scottish peer of the loyal house of Murray,
kissed his Majesty’s hand I think on Wednesday in the Easter
week ; but this ignominious act has not yet disgraced the
nation in the London Gazette. The ministry are not ashamed
of doing the thing in private; they are only afraid of the
publication. Was it a tender regard for the honour of the
late king, or of his present majesty, that invited to court lord
George Sackville. in these first days of Peace, to share in the
general satisfaction, which all good courtiers received in the
indignity offered to lord Ligonier, and on the advancement
of — ? Was this to show princely gratitude to the eminent
services of the accomplished general of the house of Bruns-
wic, who has had so great a share in rescuing Europe from
the yoke of France ; and whose nephew we hope soon to see
made happy in the possession of the most amiable princess in
the world ? Or, is it meant to assert the honour of the crown
only against the united wishes of a loyal and affectionate
people, founded in a happy experience of the talents, integrity,
and virtue of those, who have had the glory of redeeming
their country from bondage and ruin, in order to support,
by every art of corruption and intimidation, a weak disjointed,
incapable set of — I will call them any thing but
ministers — by whom the Favourite still meditates to rule
this kingdom with a rod of iron.
The Stuart line has ever been intoxicated with the slavish
doctrines of the absolute, independent, unlimited power of
the crown. Some of that line were so weakly advised, as to
endeavour to reduce them into practice ; but the English
nation was too spirited to suffer the least encroachment on
the ancient liberties of this kingdom. The King of England
is only the first magistrate of this country; but is invested by
law with the whole executive power. He is, however, responsible
to his people for the due execution of the royal
functions, in the choice of ministers, etc., equally with the
meanest of his subjects in his particular duty. The personal
character of our present amiable sovereign makes us easy
and happy that so great a power is lodged in such hands; but
the favourite has given too just cause for him to escape the
general odium. The prerogative of the crown is to exert the
constitutional powers entrusted to it in a way, not of blind
favour and partiality, but of wisdom and judgment. This is
the spirit of our constitution. The people too have their
prerogative, and I hope, the fine words of Dryden will be
engraven on our hearts :
Freedom is the English subject’s Prerogative.
Tags: 45, history, john wilkes, sons of libert, the north briton
