Defoe Daniel An Answer to a Question that Nobody thinks of, viz., But what if the Queen should Die?
AN ANSWER TO A QUESTION, &c
handled sundry ways, by sundry authors, and very much insisted upon as a foundation for us to build upon. We shall give our thoughts upon it with plainness, and without fear or favour. Good manners require we should speak of the ministry with all due regard to their character and persons. This, a tract designed to inquire seriously of a weighty and essential, not a trifling thing, which requires but a trifling examination; nor shall it be handled here with satire and scurrility. We approve neither of the flatteries of one side, nor the insultings of the other. We shall readily and most willingly join with those who are of opinion that it is not the interest of the ministry to be for the pretender, and that the ministry are not blind to, or careless of, their own interest; and consequently, that the ministry cannot be for the pretender. This I hope may be called a direct answer. When I say "cannot," I must not be understood potentially, that they have no moral capacity; but they cannot without such inconsistencies, contradictions, and improbable things happening in, which render it highly irrational so much as to suppose it of them. To shut the door against any possibility of cavil, it may be needful also to take it with us as we go, what we mean by the words "be for" the pretender; and this can be no otherwise understood, than to have a design, however remote, and upon whatever views, to bring him in to possess the throne of these kingdoms. The matter then being laid down thus, as sincerely and plainly as possible, we come to the question point-blank, and think it our duty to say with the greatest sincerity, that we do not believe the ministry are in any kind, or with any prospect, near or remote, acting for or with a design or view to bring in the pretender. Having granted this, we must, however, to prevent any breaking in, by way of cavil on one hand, or triumph on the other, subjoin immediately, that we do not in the least grant by this that the protestant succession is in no danger, even from several of the measures now taken in the world. It is far from any reflection upon the ministry to say that, however they may act upon a right sincere principle for the protestant succession in all they do, which, as above, we profess to believe, yet that many of the tools they make use of are of another make, and have no edge to cut any other way; no thoughts to move them towards any other end; no other centre, which they can have any tendency to; that the pretender's interest is the magnet which draws them by its secret influence to point to him as their pole; that they have their aim at his establishment here, and own it to be their aim; and as they are not shy to profess it among themselves, so their conduct in many things makes it sufficiently public. This is not meant as any reflection upon the ministry for making use of such men: the late ministry did the same, and every ministry will, and must employ men sometimes, not as they always join with them in their politic principles, but as either the men are found useful in their several employments, or as the ministry may be under other circumstances, which makes it necessary to them to employ them. Nor, as the Review well enough observed, does it follow that because the ministry have employed or joined with jacobites in the public affairs, that therefore they must have done it with a jacobite principle. But let the ministry employ these men by what necessity, or upon what occasion they will, though it may not follow that the ministry are therefore for the pretender, yet it does not also follow that there is no danger of the protestant succession from the employing those sort of people: For, what if the queen should die?
The ministry, it is hoped, are established in the interest of their queen and country; and therefore it has been argued, that supposing the ministry had the pretender in their eye, yet that it is irrational to suggest that they can have any such view during the life of her present majesty. Nay, even those professed jacobites, who we spoke of just now, cannot be so ungrateful to think of deposing the queen, who has been so bountiful, so kind, so exceeding good to them, as in several cases to suffer them to be brought into the management of her own affairs, when by their character they might have been thought dangerous, even to her person; thus winning and engaging them by her bounty, and the confidence that has been placed in them, not to attempt anything to her prejudice, without the most monstrous ingratitude, without flying in the face of all that sense of honour and obligation, which it is possible for men of common sense to entertain. And it can hardly be thought that even papists themselves, under the highest possessions of their religious zeal, can conquer the native aversions they must have to such abominable
ingratitude, or to think of bringing in the pretender upon this protestant nation, even while the queen shall be on the throne. But though this may, and some doubt that also, tie up their hands during the queen's life, yet they themselves give us but small reason to expect anything from them afterward, and it will be hard to find anybody to vouch for them then. These very jacobites, papists, and professed enemies to the revolution, may be supposed upon these pretensions to be quiet, and offer no violence to the present establishment while her majesty has the possession, and while that life lasts, to which they are so much indebted for her royal goodness and clemency. But what would they do if the queen should die?