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قراءة كتاب An Answer to a Question that Nobody thinks of, viz., But what if the Queen should Die?
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An Answer to a Question that Nobody thinks of, viz., But what if the Queen should Die?
to give the people all satisfaction that their money was safe, and that the funds laid by the parliament in the former ministry should be kept sacred, and the payments punctually made, but took care to obtain parliamentary securities, by real funds to be settled for the payment of those debts contracted by the former ministry, and for which no provision was made before. This was the establishment of a fund for payment of the interests of the navy debt, ordnance, victualling, transport, &c., to the value of seven or eight millions, which is the substance of what we new call the South-sea stock. By this means the public credit, which it was suggested would receive such a blow at the Change as that it should never recover again, and that it would be impossible for the new ministry to raise any needful sums of money for the carrying on the war, or for the public occasions, recovered itself so as that the government hath ever since found it easy to borrow whatever sums they thought fit to demand, in the same manner as before. Now that these loans are safe, no man that weighs the circumstances of the ministry and government, and the circumstances of the people, can doubt; the first being in a constant necessity of supporting the public credit for the carrying on the public affairs, on any sudden emergency that may happen, and being liable to the resentment of parliament, if any open infraction should be made upon the funds, which touches so nearly the honour of the parliaments, and the interest of most of the best families in the nation. While this is the case, we think it is not rational to believe that any ministry will venture to attack parliamentary credit, in such a manner; and this will eminently be the case as long as her majesty sits on the throne. Nor can a thing so barefacedly tyrannical and arbitrary, and, above all, dishonourable and unjust, be suggested as possible to be attempted in the reign of so just and conscientious a prince; so that we may be very willing to allow that there is not the least danger of the public faith being broken, the public credit lost, the public funds stopped, or the money being misapplied. No cheat, no sponge, while her majesty lives. But, alas for us! What if the queen should die?
From this piece of civil right, come we to those things we call liberties and privileges. These may indeed be joined in some respects; but as we are engaged in speaking particularly to such points, wherein our present dangers do or do not appear, it is proper to mention them apart. Privileges may be distinguished here from liberties, as they respect affairs of trade, corporations, parliaments, and legislature, &c. Liberty, as they respect laws, establishments, declared right, and such like. As to the first, from the revolution to this time, they have not only been confirmed, which we had before, but many privileges added to the people, some of which are essential to the well-being of the kingdom. All the quo warrantos against corporation privileges, the high commission court against the church's privileges extending prerogative in detriment of the subject's natural right, and many such things, which were fatal to the privileges of this protestant nation, were laid aside, and received their just condemnation in the revolution; and not so only, but the privileges obtained since the revolution by consent of parliament, are very considerable; such as the toleration to this part of Britain, and the establishment of the church of Scotland; for the north part; in matters of religion; such as the triennial election of parliaments; in civil affairs, such as the several corporations granted upon really useful foundations in trade; as the bank company, &c., and such like. These and many more, which may be named, and which these are named only as heads of, are secured to us by law; and those laws yet again made sure to us by the honour and veracity of her majesty, and as long as her majesty's life is spared to these nations, we have great reason to believe we shall rather increase than lose our privileges. But what if the queen should die?
Our LIBERTIES, which come next in order, may be summed up in what we call legal, and native right; or such as by the natural consequence of a free nation, and a just government; or such as by mutual assent and consent of sovereign and subject, are become the legal right of the latter. These, needless to be enumerated here, are summed up into one; or are expressly enacted by statute law, and thereby become fundamental to the constitution. These receive no wound, but one of these two ways, either by open infraction and contempt of right, or by dispensing arbitrary power; both of which, by the many assurances from the throne, by the constant jealousies of parliaments, and the full liberty they have more of late than ever taken to examine into, and censure breaches of the laws, we are very well assured shall not be attempted in her majesty's time: nay, on the contrary, the superiority, and influence of parliaments over and upon the management of public matters, nay, even their influence upon the royal majesty of the sovereign, has been such, and has in such a manner insensibly increased of late, that the like has never been known or practised in this nation for some ages before. We see her majesty declines extending her prerogative, either to the detriment of her subjects, in cases civil or religious, and wherein it might be so extended; nay, when even the parliament have desired her to extend it: so that we have a great satisfaction in the safety of our established liberties, and that no tyrannical, arbitrary invasions of right shall be made during her majesty's reign. But what if the queen should die?
In like manner for our properties, our estates, inheritance, lands, goods, lives, liberties, &c. These are effectually secured by laws of the land, and the sovereign in this country, having no right, but by law, to any part of the subject's estate, causes that estate to be called PROPERTY. The kings and queens of Britain are monarchs limited to act by the laws. When they cease to rule by law, the constitution is broken, and they become tyrants, and arbitrary, despotic invaders of right. This is declared by the revolution, wherein the rights of the subject are openly, not set down only, but claimed, demanded as what justice required should be granted to them, and as what the sovereign, as aforesaid, has no right, no pretence, no just authority to take, or detain from him. This is the great capital and fundamental article of Magna Charta, and the foundation upon which all the laws subsequent and consequential to Magna Charta have been made. [No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or be disseized of his freehold, or liberties, or free customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or otherwise destroyed; nor we will not pass upon him, nor condemn him, but by lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land. Magna Charta, cap. xxix.] The words are plain and direct; and as to the subject we are now upon, they require no comment, no explication. Whatever they do, as to pleading in law the proof of the subject's right to the free possession of his own property, is also the less needful to enlarge upon here, because it is acknowledged in full and express terms by the sovereign, as well in practice, as in expression. Her majesty, adhering strictly to this, as a rule, has from the beginning of her reign made it her golden rule, to govern according to law. Nor, while the establishment of the crown itself is built upon the legal constitution of this nation, can it be otherwise here: that prince that governs here and not by law, may be said rather to oppress than to govern; rather to overrule, than to rule over his people. Now it cannot without great and unjustifiable violence to her majesty's just government, be suggested, that we are in any danger of oppression during the righteous administration of her majesty's reign. The queen raises no money without act of parliament, keeps up no standing army in time of peace,