第43章 SOCIAL PROBLEMS(13)

The same creed was accepted by the artisans in the growing towns,from whom the Corresponding Societies drew their recruits.But the revolutionary sentiment was not so widely spread as its adherents hoped or its enemies feared.The Birmingham mob of 1791acted,with a certain unconscious humour,on the side of church and king.They had perhaps an instinctive perception that it was an advantage to plunder on the side of the constable.In fact,however,the general feeling in all classes was anti-Jacobin.Place,an excellent witness,himself a member of the Corresponding Societies,declares that the repressive measures were generally popular even among the workmen.(61)They were certainly not penetrated with revolutionary fervour.Had it been otherwise,the repressive measures,severe as they were,would have stimulated rather than suppressed the societies,and,instead of silencing the revolutionists,have provoked a rising.

At the early period the Jacobin and the home-bred Radical might combine against government.A manifesto of the Corresponding Societies begins by declaring that 'all men are by nature free and equal and independent of each other,'and argues also that these are the 'original principles of English government.'(62)Magna Charta is an early expression of the Declaration of Rights,and thus pure reason confirms British tradition.The adoption of a common platform,however,covered a profound difference of sentiment.

Horne Tooke represents the old type of reformer.He was fully resolved not to be carried away by the enthusiasm of his allies.'My companions in a stage,'he said to Cartwright,'may be going to Windsor:I will go with them to Hounslow.

But there I will get out:no further will I go,by God!'(63)When Sheridan supported a vote of sympathy for the French revolutionists,Tooke insisted upon adding a rider declaring the content of Englishmen with their own constitution.(64)He offended some of his allies by asserting that the 'main timbers'of the constitution were sound though the dry-rot had got into the superstructure.

He maintained,according to Godwin,(65)that the best of all governments had been that of England under George I.Though Cartwright said at the trial that Horne Tooke was taken to 'have no religion whatever,'he was,according to Stephens,'a great stickler for the church of England':and stood up for the House of Lords as well as the church on grounds of utility.(66)He always ridiculed Paine and the doctrine of abstract rights,(67)and told Cartwright that though all men had an equal right to a share of property,they had not a right to an equal share.Horne Tooke's Radicalism (I use the word by anticipation)was that of the sturdy tradesman.He opposed the government because he hated war,taxation and sinecures.He argued against universal suffrage with equal pertinacity.A comfortable old gentleman,with a good cellar of Madeira,and proud of his wall-fruit in a well-tilled garden,had no desire to see George III at the guillotine,and still less to see a mob supreme in Lombard Street or banknotes superseded by assignats.He might be jealous of the great nobles,but he dreaded mob-rule.He could denounce abuses,but he could not desire anarchy.He is said to have retorted upon some one who had boasted that English courts of justice were open to all classes:'So is the London tavern --to all who can pay.'(68)That is in the spirit of Bentham;and yet Bentham complains that Horne Tooke's disciple,Burdett,believed in the common law,and revered the authority of Coke.(69)In brief,the creed of Horne Tooke meant 'liberty'founded upon tradition.I shall presently notice the consistency of this with what may be called his philosophy.Meanwhile it was only natural that radicals of this variety should retire from active politics,having sufficiently burnt their fingers by flirtation with the more thorough-going party.How they came to life again will appear hereafter.

Horne Tooke himself took warning from his narrow escape.He stayed quietly in his house at Wimbledon.(70)There he divided his time between his books and his garden,and received his friends to Sunday dinners.Bentham,Mackintosh,Coleridge,and Godwin were among his visitors.Coleridge calls him a 'keen iron man,'and reports that he made a butt of Godwin as he had done of Paine.(71)Porson and Boswell encountered him in drinking matches and were both left under the table.(72)The house was thus a small centre of intellectual life,though the symposia were not altogether such as became philosophers.Horne Tooke was a keen and shrewd disputant,well able to impress weaker natures.

His neighbour,Sir Francis Burdett,became his political disciple,and in later years was accepted as the radical leader.Tooke died at Wimbledon 18th March 1812.