Introduction

Summary

The true springs and motives of political measures are confined within a very narrow circle, and known to very few; the good reasons alleged are seldom the true ones. The public commonly judges, or rather guesses, wrong… I therefore recommend to you a prudent pyrrhonism in all matters of State, until you become one of the wheels of them yourself, and consequently acquainted with the general motion, at least, of the others; for as to all the minute and secret springs, that contribute more or less to the whole machine, no man living ever knows them all, not even he who has the principal direction of it.

Chesterfield to Stanhope, 15 March 1754: Dobrée, v, 2098

For my part, I could never perceive such a mighty mystery in politics, as some pretend. I do not know anything else it consists in, but consulting the good of the community, and pursuing short, easy and lawful means, which are always the safest and best, to obtain the end.

The Monitor, 22 January 1757

POLITICAL ACTION AND ITS HISTORICAL EXPLANATION

Eighteenth-century politics have been more often disparaged than understood. Modern writers sketching their general characteristics have held them up for condemnation as shallow, corrupt, incompetently conducted, lacking in principled commitment. Political tactics have been scaled down to cynical manoeuvres in which the issues at stake are presented as seldom more exalted than the distribution of place or pension, peerages or bishoprics, boroughs or military promotion.