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LETTER L.: The Principles of Penal Law: Landholders versus Stockholders. - David Hume, Letters of David Hume to William Strahan [1756]

Edition used:

Letters of David Hume to William Strahan, ed. G. Birkbeck Hill (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1888).

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LETTER L.

The Principles of Penal Law: Landholders versus Stockholders.

Dear Sir

I have now the Prospect of being settled, so as to be able to attend the Correction of the Proof Sheets. If you can, therefore, contrive to send me one which will arrive on Saturday Sennight the 31 of August, you shall have it returnd by Course of Post; and I shall never after fail to return one every post, which will be five times a week. I am oblig’d to you for humouring me in this particular.

I have receiv’d a Present of a new Book, from the Author, The Principles of penal Law1. . The Direction of it seems to be writ in your hand; and Cadel is one of the Publishers. If the Author does not propose to keep his Name a Secret, I shoud be glad to know it: For the Book is very ingenious and judicious. In all cases, if you know the Author, make him my Compliments and give him my Thanks. I did not imagine, however, that so ingenious a Man woud in this age have had so much weak Superstition, as appears in many passages2. . But these perhaps were inserted only from Decency and Prudence: And so the World goes on, in perpetually deceiving themselves and one another3. .

I am always oblig’d to you for your political Speculations: But I cannot agree with you, that, if matters came to a fair and open Strugle between the Land-holders and the Stock-holders, the latter woud be able to reduce the former to any Composition4. . The Authority of the Land-holders is solidly establishd over their Tenants and Neighbours: But what Stock-holder has any Influence even over his next Neighbour in his own Street? And if public Credit fall, as it must by the least Touch5. , he woud be reduc’d to instant Poverty, and have authority no-where. My only apprehensions are, with regard to the public, that this open Struggle will never happen, and that these two Orders of Men are so involvd with each other by Connexions and Interest, that the public Force will be allowd to go to total Decay, before the violent Remedy, which is the only one, will be ventur’d on6. . But this Event will depend much on Accidents of Men and times; and the Decision will not probably be very distant: The first War will put the Matter to a tryal, I fancy about the third or fourth Year of it, if we exert ourselves with our usual Frenzy7. . You may judge, from our late Treatment of the House of Bourbon, whether we can regard the present Peace as very durable.

I am Dear Sir Yours sincerely

David Hume.

  • Edinburgh,

19th of Augst., 17718. .

[1.]Note 1. The author was William Eden, afterwards first Lord Auckland. Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, iii. 119. A second edition was published this same year.

[2.]Note 2. Horace Walpole speaks of Eden as ‘that superlative jackass’ (Letters, vii. 426), and as ‘a most wicked coxcomb,’ who ‘had not sense or judgment enough to cloak his folly’ (Ib. viii. 204). I have not done more than glance through the book. The superstitious passages I failed to discover, but I came on much that would not have been unworthy of Bentham or Romilly.

[3.]Note 3. Hume was not unwilling at times to assist in this universal deception. In 1764 he was consulted about a young man, whom, says his correspondent, ‘to speak plain language I believe to be a sort of disciple of your own;’ but whose hope of advancement lay in his taking orders in the English Church. Hume wrote back:—’What! do you know that Lord Bute is again all-powerful, or rather that he was always so, but is now acknowledged for such by all the world? Let this be a new motive for Mr. V— to adhere to the ecclesiastical profession, in which he may have so good a patron; for civil employments for men of letters can scarcely be found; all is occupied by men of business, or by parliamentary interest. It is putting too great a respect on the vulgar and on their superstitions to pique one's self on sincerity with regard to them. Did ever one make it a point of honour to speak truth to children or madmen? If the thing were worthy being treated gravely, I should tell him that the Pythian oracle, with the approbation of Xenophon, advised every one to worship the gods— [ww] 1. . I wish it were still in my power to be a hypocrite in this particular. The common duties of society usually require it; and the ecclesiastical profession only adds a little more to an innocent dissimulation or rather simulation, without which it is impossible to pass through the world. Am I a liar, because I order my servant to say, I am not at home, when I do not desire to see company?’ Burton's Hume, ii. 185–7.

Johnson recognises ‘the universal conspiracy of mankind against themselves;’ but though he may have yielded at times to the temptation of deceiving himself, he would never deceive others. As regards children and servants he was wide as the poles asunder from Hume. ‘Accustom your children,’ said he, ‘constantly to a strict attention to truth, even in the most minute particulars. If a thing happened at one window, and they, when relating it, say that it happened at another, do not let it pass, but instantly check them; you do not know where deviation from truth will end.’ Boswell's Johnson, iii. 228. ‘He would not allow his servant to say he was not at home when he really was. “A servant's strict regard for truth (said he) must be weakened by such a practice. A philosopher may know that it is merely a form of denial; but few servants are such nice distinguishers. If I accustom a servant to tell a lie for me, have I not reason to apprehend that he will tell many lies for himself?“’ Ib. i. 436. See post, Letter of March 24, 1773.

[4.]Note 4. Strahan, in his letter of July 23, had said:—’But supposing what you seem to apprehend to be unavoidable, if matters come to a public bankruptcy, it will not so materially effect the general prosperity of the nation as you and many others imagine. . . . But not to enter further into the consequences of an event, of which history affords no precedent, I think I may venture to say that the Stockholders will not tamely submit to be the only sufferers. The Debt is in fact a Debt upon the lands of Great Britain, these are the real Security, supported by the faith of the Legislature. It is impossible to conceive that the public creditors would suffer the land-holders to enjoy their full property, and undiminished by taxes too, whilst they were robbed of their all.’ M. S. R. S. E.

Hume, in a note on his Essay Of Public Credit, published nineteen years earlier, had said:—’I have heard it has been computed that all the creditors of the public, natives and foreigners, amount only to 17,000. These make a figure at present on their income; but in case of a public bankruptcy would in an instant become the lowest, as well as the most wretched of the people. The dignity and authority of the landed gentry and nobility is much better rooted; and would render the contention very unequal, if ever we come to that extremity. One would incline to assign to this event a very near period, such as half a century, had not our fathers’ prophecies of this kind been already found fallacious, by the duration of our public credit so much beyond all reasonable expectation. When the astrologers in France were every year foretelling the death of Henry IV, These fellows, says he, must be right at last. We shall therefore be more cautious than to assign any precise date; and shall content ourselves with pointing out the event in general.’ Hume's Phil. Works, ed. 1854, iii. 398. It was between the land-holders and the stock-holders that the struggle would lie, if it ever took place, because the land tax was at this time the chief war tax. It had been raised from three shillings to four shillings in the pound only eight months before on the threat of a war with Spain. Parl. Hist. xvi. 1330. Lord Macaulay, in describing the origin of the land-tax, says:—’The rate was, in time of war, four shillings in the pound. In time of peace, before the reign of George the Third, only two or three shillings were usually granted; and during a short part of the prudent and gentle administration of Walpole, the Government asked for only one shilling. But, after the disastrous year in which England drew the sword against her American Colonies, the rate was never less than four shillings.’ History of England, ed. 1874, vi. 325. A passage in Lord Sheffield's speech on April 2, 1798, on Pitt's Bill for the Redemption of the Land Tax shows his fear, that if the struggle of which Hume speaks were to take place, the land-holders would be the sufferers. He says:—’This was such a favourite tax that, he understood, as soon as it was sold, there was an intention of laying a new land-tax. Unfortunately for the country, those whose odious task it was to propose taxes did not always extend their knowledge beyond the bills of mortality. They were too much in the hands of monied men, who were so full of expedients relative to the funds, that they could seldom think of the interior circumstances of the country.’ Parl. Hist. xxxiii. 1374.

[5.]Note 5. Lord North, in his speech on the Budget for 1771, said:—’Trade flourishes in all parts of the kingdom; the American disputes are settled; and there is nothing to interrupt the peace and prosperity of the nation but the discontents which a desperate faction is fomenting by the basest falsehoods and with the most iniquitous views.’ Parl. Hist. xvii. 165. In 1772, speaking on the Budget, he said:—’At present there is the fairest prospect of the continuance of peace that I have known in my time. . . . The hypothesis of a ten years’ peace is by no means chimerical. The pacific dispositions of the French King, who regulates the motions of our great rival and antagonist, are well known. What then hinders us from cherishing this hope? I know I shall be laughed at for forming any calculation upon so precarious an event. . . . We see some, though no very certain prospect of gradually reducing the national debt.’ Ib. p. 489.

[6.]Note 6. Hume, at the end of chap. xxi. of his History, says:—’The first instance of debt contracted upon parliamentary security occurs in this reign [Henry the Sixth's]. The commencement of this pernicious practice deserves to be noted; a practice the more likely to become pernicious, the more a nation advances in opulence and credit. The ruinous effects of it are now become but too apparent, and threaten the very existence of the nation.’ Perhaps Johnson had heard this sentence quoted when, ‘speaking of the National Debt,’ he said to Dr. Maxwell, ‘it was an idle dream to suppose that the country could sink under it. Let the public creditors be ever so clamorous, the interest of millions must ever prevail over that of thousands.’ Boswell's Johnson, ii. 127. (See ante, p. 68.)

Adam Smith speaks of ‘the enormous debts which at present oppress, and will in the long run probably ruin all the great nations of Europe.’ ‘The practice of funding,’ he continues, ‘has gradually enfeebled every nation which has adopted it.’ After describing its effects on different nations he asks:—’Is it likely that in Great Britain alone a practice which has brought either weakness or dissolution into every other country should prove altogether innocent?’ Further on he adds:—’When national debts have once been accumulated to a certain degree, there is scarce, I believe, a single instance of their having been fairly and completely paid. The liberation of the public revenue, if it has ever been brought about at all, has always been brought about by a bankruptcy; sometimes by an avowed one, but always by a real one, though frequently by a pretended payment.’ Wealth of Nations, ed. 1811, iii. 392, 418, 420.

[7.]Note 7. A statement by Johnson in 1783, when the Debt had been raised by the American War from 129 to 268 millions, shows what a feeling of security there was even then in the stock-holders. He says:—’It is better to have five per cent. out of land than out of money, because it is more secure; but the readiness of transfer and promptness of interest make many people rather choose the funds.’ Boswell's Johnson, iv. 164.

Lord North on May 1, 1772, speaking of the Stocks, said:—Look back 25 years, and you will find that it is only since that period that they sold for less than their original value.’ Parl. Hist. xvii. 489. At the time he was speaking they were at 88. Gent. Mag. 1772, p. 200. The second Pitt, on April 2, 1798, said ‘the present price of three per cents. is about fifty.’ Parl. Hist. xxxiii. 1367. They were that year as low as 47. The year before, in the alarm of the Mutiny at the Nore, they had fallen to 48 (Ann. Reg. 1797, ii. 162), when Hume's forebodings seemed likely to come true.

[8.]Note 8. Walter Scott was four days old when Hume wrote this letter. He was born at a short distance from James's Court, on August 15, 1771, in a house belonging to his father, at the head of the College Wynd.

[3.]Note 3. Hume was not unwilling at times to assist in this universal deception. In 1764 he was consulted about a young man, whom, says his correspondent, ‘to speak plain language I believe to be a sort of disciple of your own;’ but whose hope of advancement lay in his taking orders in the English Church. Hume wrote back:—’What! do you know that Lord Bute is again all-powerful, or rather that he was always so, but is now acknowledged for such by all the world? Let this be a new motive for Mr. V— to adhere to the ecclesiastical profession, in which he may have so good a patron; for civil employments for men of letters can scarcely be found; all is occupied by men of business, or by parliamentary interest. It is putting too great a respect on the vulgar and on their superstitions to pique one's self on sincerity with regard to them. Did ever one make it a point of honour to speak truth to children or madmen? If the thing were worthy being treated gravely, I should tell him that the Pythian oracle, with the approbation of Xenophon, advised every one to worship the gods— [ww] 1. . I wish it were still in my power to be a hypocrite in this particular. The common duties of society usually require it; and the ecclesiastical profession only adds a little more to an innocent dissimulation or rather simulation, without which it is impossible to pass through the world. Am I a liar, because I order my servant to say, I am not at home, when I do not desire to see company?’ Burton's Hume, ii. 185–7.

Johnson recognises ‘the universal conspiracy of mankind against themselves;’ but though he may have yielded at times to the temptation of deceiving himself, he would never deceive others. As regards children and servants he was wide as the poles asunder from Hume. ‘Accustom your children,’ said he, ‘constantly to a strict attention to truth, even in the most minute particulars. If a thing happened at one window, and they, when relating it, say that it happened at another, do not let it pass, but instantly check them; you do not know where deviation from truth will end.’ Boswell's Johnson, iii. 228. ‘He would not allow his servant to say he was not at home when he really was. “A servant's strict regard for truth (said he) must be weakened by such a practice. A philosopher may know that it is merely a form of denial; but few servants are such nice distinguishers. If I accustom a servant to tell a lie for me, have I not reason to apprehend that he will tell many lies for himself?“’ Ib. i. 436. See post, Letter of March 24, 1773.

[1.]Memorabilis, i. 3. 1.