Part 4

This makes them Cholerick, Envious, and above all Contentious, so that the Nation is ever divided into Parties and Factions: They pursue their Feuds with the most eagerness imaginable in their Turns, commit all Kinds of Errors even on both Sides alternately, as they get uppermost.

This occasions much Heat, tho' the Country is Cold, little Charity, and above all, (which the Climate has the blame off) they are by their own Confession, of short Memories, partly as to Injuries, but especially as to Kindnesses, Services and inherent Merit. Hence, Gratitude is not the national Virtue, nor is encouraging Virtue any Branch of the Manufacture of the Place; long Services often meet here with unjust Censures; overgrown Merit with necessary Contempt: He must be a bold Man that dares oblige them; he is sure to provoke them by it to use him very severely.

If they are reduc'd to any extreme Distress, he must be weary of his Life that Attempts to rescue them from the Danger; he is as sure to Die for it as they are sure to be Unjust: It is Natural to the Blood of the Race, if they are obliged beyond the Power of Payment, they presently hate, because they scorn to be in Debt. Hence also Benefactors are the most abhorr'd People in the World, they Walk always alone, for every Man keeps at a distance from them.

If a Man happens to be bound Apprentice to his own generous Spirit, and resolves to do them good, he must do it to God, to do it to them is to work to the Devil; he must be sure to run the Gauntlet, and bear the Lashes of Ten thousand Tongues, the Reproach of all those he serves, and will Die unpitied.

If ever they do relent, if ever they acknowledge Services, 'tis always after the Man is dead, that he may not upbraid them with it. An eminent great Man among them, and rich to a Prodigy, had been almost drowned, but was taken up in the Interval by a poor Man; when he came to himself, he gave the poor Man Six-pence, but could never abide the sight of him after: The poor Man afterwards had the Dissaster of being drowned himself, and then the rich Man bewail'd that he had not made him a better Return, wherefore, in abundant Gratitude, he settled upon the Widow and her Six Children, a noble Pension of 20 s. per Annum.

It was a saying of One of their great and wise Men, of a poor Servant that had saved his Life; he saved my Life, said he, and therefore I hate to see him, for it is an intolerable Life to have always a Creditor in my Sight that I cannot ballance Accounts with.

But all this is by the By. The Inhabitants of this Great Island are, those things excepted, a Noble, Gallant, Ancient, Wealthy People; and a Stranger may very well winter among them. I could say more in their Praise but the ensuing History calls me off from that Subject.

There happen'd in that famous Island, when I was last there, an Occasion upon some State Affairs to assemble an extraordinary Council of the Nobility, to consult together with the Sovereign; whole Hereditary Councellors they were by the Constitution of the Place: These were not chosen by the Inhabitants, as in such Cases among us our Parliament Men are chosen; but were by Birth and Blood, or by Dignities, High-Offices, &c. entitled to sit in the aforesaid Council, except one Part of the Island, who had by some former Constitution been a several distinct Government, and had a certain Number of Nobility of their own. This Part having by some ancient Treaty been join'd to the other, their whole Nobility were not intituled to the Right of sitting in Council as above; but they usually met by themselves upon such Occasions, and chose a certain Number to represent the whole Body. This Number was, as near as I can remember, Sixteen or thereabouts, not reckoning some who were singled out by the Sovereign to be advanc'd by new Titles, to be Members of the Great Body of the Hereditary Nobility; a Favour, which by the Stipulations of the said Agreement, was reserv'd to the Sovereign of that whole Island.

Now there happening, as I have noted, an Occasion to assemble this Great Council; the Nobility of that Part of the Island which were thus particularly constituted, behoved to meet, as said is, to elect the Number that were to represent them in the great Assembly; and the History of that Meeting having so many strange Circumstances in it, and making so much Noise in that Country, it cannot but be useful for us to be inform'd of it.

The Nobility of that Island, as I find it too much the Fate of all the Nobility in the World, were unhappily divided into Factions and separate Interests, and therefore before I proceed to the Relation, it will be necessary to give you a brief Account of these several Divisions, and as to the Characters of the Persons, it will necessarily fall into the Course of the Story.

The Divisions and Animosities which, as I say, were among the Nobility, were very unhappily occasion'd upon two several Foundations, and therefore consisted of two several Kinds.

This Island, it seems, was govern'd by a very glorious Queen, who however she was of the ancient Royal Blood of that Country, was yet for Reasons more especially respecting the Safety of the Country, plac'd upon the Throne by the Suffrage of the Nobility and People, without Regard to her Father or his Male Children, who for like Reasons of Safety they had Depos'd and render'd incapable: There being, it seems a Power reserv'd by the Constitution of that Place, to the said Nobility and People so to do a thing so like what we call in England Parliamentary Limitation, that it gives me great Reason to think the Power of Parliaments limiting the Crown is a natural Principle, and founded upon meer Original Light, since it should be so exactly establish'd in a Country so remote and so entirely excluded from Correspondence with Europe, as this of the Island of Atalantis.

The Queen of this Island, by the Assistance of exquisite Councellors, Punctual Management, and a mild merciful Administration, had obtain'd the entire Affection of Her Subjects at Home, and as long as she continued the Administration in those Hands she preserv'd that Affection very entire to herself; She had also, by the Conduct of eminent and most glorious Commanders, rendered her self Victorious abroad, in a long, terrible and expensive War, against the barbarous Tartarian Emperor, whose growing Greatness, had forced her Predecessor, in Conjunction with several neighbouring Nations, to have recourse to Arms, to keep up a Ballance of Power in that Part of the World, as long as those fortunate Generals commanded, her Affairs were blest by Sea and Land; till the Barbarians began to stoop their Pride, to be humbled, and they sought Peace, made great Offers of restoring the Kingdoms they had usurped, and of establishing a lasting Tranquillity in those Parts of the World.

How the Face of Affairs there altered, how some Factions prevailing at Home, made a Breach in all this blessed Harmony, how the faithful Councellors at Home were dismiss'd and disgrac'd, the victorious Generals Abroad ill used and ungratefully treated, by which the Publick Credit sunk at Home, the great Confederates of this glorious Queen were discouraged and allarmed, the Barbarians encouraged to hold out, carry on the War, and reject the Terms of Peace, they would before have complied with: These are Things perhaps my stay in that Place not permitting me to get a full Account of, much less see the Issue of, I shall for the present omit, perhaps my next Voyage may more fully quallifie me to inform you.

My present Relation refers more especially to the Affair of the Election of those representing Nobles, which, as before, the Northern Part of the Island, by a late Treaty of Coalition, were obliged to send up as often as the Soveraign of the Country thought fit to Summon her Hereditary Council to meet, which Summons was generally once in Three Years.

To let you into the Nature of the unhappy Strife which is the Subject of my present Relation, it may be necessary to descend to a Historical Relation of some Facts for a few Years past, and to give the Characters of some Persons who have the principal Conduct in the present Affairs.

There had been a Contention in the last Election in the same Place, (we shall go no further back) of something of the like Nature with this; wherein the same Heat was unhappily breaking out against the Friends and Favourites of the great Queen of the Island, as had now come to a full height; it is too true, That the Factions which then agitated the Nobility being between the Court-Party then so called, and a flying Squadron of Noblemen, who were of the same general Denomination with themselves, that Breach tended so much to the dividing their Interest, that they could never effectually joyn it again, they made that Seperation of Affection then which they could never unite, let in those Enemies then which they could never get removed again, brought those Charges and Accusations against one another then which their Enemies have since made use off, and which they cannot now deny but are fatal to them.

The Parties are so naturally resembling our unhappy Divisions in Britain, have been so exactly pursued by our Methods, are so properly adapted to Persons as well as Things, so alike in Temper, Manners, Management and Design, to our Parties, of Tory, Whig, High Church, Low Church, Old Whig, New Whig, High Flyer, Dissenter, Jacobite, Court, Country, Revolution, Union, and the like. That to give the more lively Representation of them to your Minds, and to avoid the barbarous Words used in the Country, where the Language is altogether unknown to us, and unlike ours, I shall even call them by the same Names, giving a brief Description as I go on, and always desiring you to add a Subintelligitur for the word Atalantick to them all; as the Atalantick Whigs, Atalantick Tories, Atalantick High Church, and so of all the rest: And whenever you meet with the Names or Distinctions of Whig, Tory, High Church, Low Church, &c. in this Discourse, the Author provides against any other Suggestion or Meaning, than that of the Whigs, Tories, High Church, Low Church, Old Whig, New Whig, High Flyers, Dissenters, Jacobites, &c. who are Inhabitants of the famous Island of Atalantis Major, situate beyond the North Cape, between the Degrees of 42 and 80 of Northern Latitude, as you sail from China into Europe, by the Streights of Nassau, the Island of Nova Zembla, (if it be an Island) and the like, being what we call the North-East Passages: And you cannot blame me for being thus Particular in this early Protestation, if you consider how ready the Men of this Age are to Censure, Condemn and Reproach, the Meaning of Authors, whether they themseves have any meaning or no. If any Man shall presume to say, there is no such Place, I may as readily answer their Presumption, by another less Criminal, viz. That they never have past that Way to China, and consequently cannot demonstrate the Truth of what they say.

Having thus premised what I think necessary, to fence this Work against the Malice of the Times, I am next to tell you, That I shall confine this Part of my Account to the Transactions of the Northern Part of this great Island, and therein to what happened in this Case of the Election of their Noble Councellors only; yet I must Hint a little at what had been transacting in the Southern Parts of the Island; and this is absolutely necessary, in order to make the other Accounts intelligible.

In order to this, you are to understand, That the Southern Part of the Island was the most remarkable of any, as to the Policy of their Government, and the Character of the People; and excepting Englishmen and Polanders, there is not such another Nation in the World: Here they reckoned about Fifty three several Sects, Divisions, and espoused Opinions in Religion, upon most of the Heads whereof the People actually seperated from one another; such as, (1.) Churchmen, and among them High Church, Low Church, Non Jurors, Prelatists, Socinians, Arians, Arminians, Deists, Atheists, Immoralists, Flyers, Soul-Sleepers, Prophets, &c. (2.) Presbyterians, and under that head all kind of Dissenters, Cameronians, Independants, Anabaptists, Baptists, Seventh-Day-Men, Sabatarians, Donatists, Gnosticks, Antiprelatists, Muggletonians, and various undistinguishable Quakers both wet and dry, Sweet Singers, Family of Love, Christian Jews, Jewish Christians, and the like. In the State, the Divisions were no less Fatal, or the variety greater in Proportion, these we may, as I said before, call by the Names which the like Factions are distinguish'd by here; such as Tory, Whig, Low Church, Hot Whig, Old Whig, Modern Whig, High Flyer, High Church, High Tory, a Gillicranky, a Tantivy, Tackers, Non Jurors, Assassinators, Junto's, Squadroni, Court, Country, Revolutionists, Non Resisters, Passive Obedience Men, and the like.

You may understand, that the Queen of the Island had thought fit to change Hands in the Administration just before I came there, and tho' it was given out that the change would not be from what we call here a Whig to a Tory Ministry, in effect it past for no other, especially for that the Whigs were generally laid by in every publick Matter, and the Tories, or at least such as had appear'd with them were all taken in.

Among the Persons turn'd out of Employ, or very much envy'd in it, we find two great Personages, Men of the greatest Eminency in their Station that the Age had produc'd in that Island, their Country had no Error to find in their Conduct except it were that it was so much in debt to their Services, that they could not be capable of rewarding it, therefore like the corrupted Nature of the whole Race of Man, they hate the Men, as a late Author says, because they hate to be in debt beyond the Power of Payment.

One of these presided over the Treasure, the other over the Army, and except what may have happen'd since those days, their very Enemies had not been able to assign any Reason from their own Behaviour, why they dismist them. Of these more in the Process of the Story.

For the present it shall suffice to tell you, without other Preamble, both these were by the Artifice of their Enemies, dispossess'd of the Queen of the Island's Favour, and that with them fell the Juncto's and Squadrons of their Friends in most Part of the Southern Atalantis.

In the North Part of the Island the Divisions of the Court had not extended so far, at least they had not been push'd so vigorously, the great Officers kept their Posts, whether Civil or Military, not the least Alteration was made, except of a few inferiour Officers, and those but casually; all seem'd to stand at a Stay till the Election of the noble Councellors aforesaid, and till the sitting of the great Council, as above.

There were some of the Nobility of these Northern Parts that had very much the Favour of their Prince, and by whom she had always been directed in those things that related to that Part of Her Dominions, These were,

1. The Duke de Sanquarius, a Northern Prince of great Reputation who had the principal Trust in the Management of the late Coalition, which, as is noted already, had formerly been made between this Northern Part of the Island and the Southern. This Prince was a Person of great Prudence and Policy, perfect Master of the Interest, Temper and Constitution of the Country and People; great and as a Master of his own Passions, that had an Insight into Persons as well as things, and was, without Dispute, the best qualify'd to manage that uneasy People, of any Man in that Part of the Island: He had a leading Interest among them, and us'd it with such Temper and such Clearness of Judgment, as seldom failed to bring to pass whatever he undertook. He was Viceroy in the great Meeting of the States of that Country, several times; in which he behav'd to the Satisfaction of his Sovereign and the general Good, even to the Confession of his Enemies, after the separate Government of that Part of the Island ceas'd he was receiv'd very graciously by the Queen, and made principal Secretary of State.

2. The Earl of Stairdale was another, a Nobleman of extraordinary Merit, distinguish'd for a thousand good Qualities; affable, generous, exceeding curteous, steddy in a sound Principle, wise above his Age, brave above his Neighbours. His Family had been famous for the Gown, he was like to make it more so by the Sword: He had at this time a very honourable Command in the Armies of Atalantis Major, and being the same thing as we call a Lieutenant General, was employed against the Tartarians.