The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII | Page 9

back. In
short, they want a common principle to cement, and motive to spirit
them; For the bare acting upon a principle from the dictates of a good

conscience, or prospect of serving the public, will not go very far under
the present dispositions of mankind. This was amply verified last
sessions of Parliament, upon occasion of the money bill, the merits of
which I shall not pretend to examine. 'Tis enough that, upon the first
news of its transmission hither, in the form it afterwards appeared, the
members, upon discourse with their friends, seemed unanimous against
it, I mean those of both parties, except a few, who were looked upon as
persons ready to go any lengths prescribed them by the court. Yet with
only a week's canvassing among a very few hands, the bill passed after
a full debate, by a very great majority; yet, I believe, you will hardly
attempt persuading me, or anybody else, that one man in ten, of those
who changed their language, were moved by reasons any way affecting
the merits of the cause, but merely through hope, fear, indolence, or
good manners. Nay, I have been assured from good hands, that there
was still a number sufficient to make a majority against the bill, if they
had not apprehended the other side to be secure, and therefore thought
it imprudence, by declaring themselves, to disoblige the government to
no purpose.
Reflecting upon this and forty other passages, in the several Houses of
Commons since the Revolution, makes me apt to think there is nothing
a chief governor can be commanded to attempt here wherein he may
not succeed, with a very competent share of address, and with such
assistance as he will always find ready at his devotion. And therefore I
repeat what I said at first, that I am not at all surprised at what you tell
me. For, if there had been the least spark of public spirit left, those who
wished well to their country and its constitution in church and state,
should, upon the first news of the late Speaker's promotion, (and you
and I know it might have been done a great deal sooner) have
immediately gone together, and consulted about the fittest person to
succeed him. But, by all I can comprehend, you have been so far from
proceeding thus, that it hardly ever came into any of your heads. And
the reason you give is the worst in the world: That none offered
themselves, and you knew not whom to pitch upon. It seems, however,
the other party was more resolved, or at least not so modest: For you
say your vote is engaged against your opinion, and several gentlemen
in my neighbourhood tell me the same story of themselves; this, I

confess, is of an unusual strain, and a good many steps below any
condescensions a court will, I hope, ever require from you. I shall not
trouble myself to inquire who is the person for whom you and others
are engaged, or whether there be more candidates from that side, than
one. You tell me nothing of either, and I never thought it worth the
question to anybody else. But, in so weighty an affair, and against your
judgment, I cannot look upon you as irrevocably determined. Therefore
I desire you will give me leave to reason with you a little upon the
subject, lest your compliance, or inadvertency, should put you upon
what you may have cause to repent as long as you live.
You know very well, the great business of the high-flying Whigs, at
this juncture, is to endeavour a repeal of the test clause. You know
likewise that the moderate men, both of High and Low Church, profess
to be wholly averse from this design, as thinking it beneath the policy
of common gardeners to cut down the only hedge that shelters from the
north.[3] Now, I will put the case; If the person to whom you have
promised your vote be one of whom you have the least apprehension
that he will promote or assent to the repealing of that clause, whether it
be decent or proper, he should be the mouth of an assembly, whereof a
very great majority pretend to abhor his opinion. Can a body, whose
mouth and heart must go so contrary ways, ever act with sincerity, or
hardly with consistence? Such a man is no proper vehicle to retain or
convey the sense of the House, which, in so many points of the greatest
moment, will be directly contrary to his; 'tis full as absurd, as to prefer
a man to a bishopric who denies revealed religion. But it may possibly
be a great deal worse. What if the person you design to vote into