I prefer the following Abstract from the London Journal to any
Thing of my own, and therefore shall present it to your Readers this week
without any further Preface.
'Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such Thing as
Wisdom; and no such Thing as publick Liberty, without Freedom of Speech; which
is the Right of every Man, as far as by it, he does not hurt or controul the
Right of another: And this is the only Check it ought to suffer, and the only
Bounds it ought to know.
'This sacred Privilege is so essential to free Governments,
that the Security of Property, and the Freedom of Speech always go together;
and in those wretched Countries where a Man cannot call his Tongue his own, he
can scarce call any Thing else his own. Whoever would overthrow the Liberty of
a Nation, must begin by subduing the Freeness of Speech; a Thing
terrible to Publick Traytors.
'This Secret was so well known to the Court of King
Charles the First, that his wicked Ministry procured a Proclamation, to
forbid the People to talk of Parliaments, which those Traytors had laid aside.
To assert the undoubted Right of the Subject, and defend his Majesty's legal
Prerogative, was called Disaffection, and punished as Sedition. Nay, People
were forbid to talk of Religion in their Families: For the Priests had combined
with the Ministers to cook up Tyranny, and suppress Truth and the Law, while
the late King James, when Duke of York, went avowedly to Mass,
Men were fined, imprisoned and undone, for saying he was a Papist: And that
King Charles the Second might live more securely a Papist, there was an
Act of Parliament made, declaring it Treason to say that he was one.
'That Men ought to speak well of their Governours is
true, while their Governours deserve to be well spoken of; but to do
publick Mischief, without hearing of it, is only the Prerogative and Felicity
of Tyranny: A free People will be shewing that they are so, by their
Freedom of Speech.
'The Administration of Government, is nothing else but the
Attendance of the Trustees of the People upon the Interest and Affairs
of the People: And as it is the Part and Business of the People, for whose Sake
alone all publick Matters are, or ought to be transacted, to see whether they
be well or ill transacted; so it is the Interest, and ought to be the Ambition,
of all honest Magistrates, to have their Deeds openly examined, and publickly
scann'd: Only the wicked Governours of Men dread what is said of them;
Audivit Tiberius probra queis lacerabitur, atque perculsus est.
The publick Censure was true, else he had not felt it bitter.
'Freedom of Speech is ever the Symptom, as well as the Effect
of a good Government. In old Rome, all was left to the Judgment and
Pleasure of the People, who examined the publick Proceedings with such
Discretion, & censured those who administred them with such Equity and
Mildness, that in the space of Three Hundred Years, not five publick Ministers
suffered unjustly. Indeed whenever the Commons proceeded to Violence,
the great Ones had been the Agressors.
'GUILT only dreads Liberty of Speech, which drags it
out of its lurking Holes, and exposes its Deformity and Horrour to Day-light.
Horatius, Valerius, Cincinnatus, and other vertuous and
undesigning Magistrates of the Roman Commonwealth, had nothing to fear from
Liberty of Speech. Their virtuous Administration, the more it was
examin'd, the more it brightned and gain'd by Enquiry. When Valerius in
particular, was accused upon some slight grounds of affecting the Diadem; he,
who was the first Minister of Rome, does not accuse the People for
examining his Conduct, but approved his Innocence in a Speech to them; and gave
such Satisfaction to them, and gained such Popularity to himself, that they
gave him a new Name; inde cognomen factum Publicolae est; to denote that
he was their Favourite and their Friend -- Latae deinde leges -- Ante omnes
de provocatione ADVERSUS MAGISTRATUS AD POPULUM, Livii, lib. 2. Cap. 8.
'But Things afterwards took another Turn. Rome, with
the Loss of its Liberty, lost also its Freedom of Speech; then Mens Words began
to be feared and watched; and then first began the poysonous Race of
Informers, banished indeed under the righteous Administration of
Titus, Narva, Trajan, Aurelius, &c. but
encouraged and enriched under the vile Ministry of Sejanus,
Tigillinus, Pallas, and Cleander: Queri libet, quod in
secreta nostra non inquirant principes, nisi quos Odimus, says Pliny
to Trajan.
'The best Princes have ever encouraged and promoted Freedom
of Speech; they know that upright Measures would defend themselves, and that
all upright Men would defend them. Tacitus, speaking of the Reign of
some of the Princes above-mention'd, says with Extasy, Rara Temporum
felicitate, ubi sentire quae velis, & quae sentias dicere licet: A
blessed Time when you might think what you would, and speak what you thought.
'I doubt not but old Spencer and his Son, who
were the Chief Ministers and Betrayers of Edward the
Second, would have been very glad to have stopped the Mouths of all the
honest Men in England. They dreaded to be called Traytors,
because they were Traytors. And I dare say, Queen Elizabeth's
Walsingham, who deserved no Reproaches, feared none. Misrepresentation of
publick Measures is easily overthrown, by representing publick Measures truly;
when they are honest, they ought to be publickly known, that they may be
publickly commended; but if they are knavish or pernicious, they ought to be
publickly exposed, in order to be publickly detested.'
