then, after all, were the provinces and cities.
And the States-General were at that moment as much
qualified to represent those provinces and cities
as they ever had been, and they claimed no more.
Wilkes, nor any other of the Leicester party, ever
hinted at a general assembly of the people. Universal
suffrage was not dreamed of at that day. By the
people, he meant, if he meant anything, only that very
small fraction of the inhabitants of a country, who,
according to the English system, in the reign of Elizabeth,
constituted its Commons. He chose, rather from
personal and political motives than philosophical
ones, to draw a distinction between the people and
the States, but it is quite obvious, from the tone
of his private communications, that by the ‘States’
he meant the individuals who happened, for the time-being,
to be the deputies of the States of each Province.
But it was almost an affectation to accuse those individuals
of calling or considering themselves ‘sovereigns;’
for it was very well known that they sat as envoys,
rather than as members of a congress, and were perpetually
obliged to recur to their constituents, the States
of each Province, for instructions. It was idle,
because Buys and Barneveld, and Roorda, and other
leaders, exercised the influence due to their talents,
patriotism, and experience, to stigmatize them as
usurpers of sovereignty, and to hound the rabble upon
them as tyrants and mischief-makers. Yet to take
this course pleased the Earl of Leicester, who saw
no hope for the liberty of the people, unless absolute
and unconditional authority over the people, in war,
naval affairs, justice, and policy, were placed in
his hands. This was the view sustained by the
clergy of the Reformed Church, because they found
it convenient, through such a theory, and by Leicester’s
power, to banish Papists, exercise intolerance in matters
of religion, sequestrate for their own private uses
the property of the Catholic Church, and obtain for
their own a political power which was repugnant to
the more liberal ideas of the Barneveld party.
The States of Holland—inspired as it were
by the memory of that great martyr to religious and
political liberty, William the Silent—maintained
freedom of conscience.
The Leicester party advocated a different theory on
the religious question. They were also determined
to omit no effort to make the States odious.
“Seeing their violent courses,” said Wilkes
to Leicester, “I have not been negligent, as
well by solicitations to the ministers, as by my letters
to such as have continued constant in affection to
your Lordship, to have the people informed of the
ungrateful and dangerous proceedings of the States.
They have therein travailed with so good effect, as
the people are now wonderfully well disposed, and
have delivered everywhere in speeches, that if, by
the overthwart dealings of the States, her Majesty
shall be drawn to stay her succours and goodness to
them, and that thereby your Lordship be also discouraged
to return, they will cut their throats.”