THE LATE | JOHN WILKES'S | CATECHISM | OF A | Ministerial Member; | TAKEN
| From and Original Manuscript in Mr. WILKES'S Handwriting, never before
printed, and adapted to the present Occasion. | With Permission. | LONDON:
| Printed for one of the Candidates for the Office of Printer to the KING'S
MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY, and Sold by WILLIAM HONE, 55, Fleet Street, and
67, Old Bailey, three Doors from Ludgate Hill. 1817. Price Two-pence.
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A C A T E C H I S M,
THAT IS TO SAY,
An Instruction, to be learned of every Person before
he be brought to be confirmed a Placeman or Pensioner by the Minister.
Question.
WHAT is your Name?
Answer. Lick Spittle.
Q. Who gave you this Name?
A. My Sureties to the Ministry, in my Political Change, wherein I was made
a member of the Majority, the Child of Corruption, and a Locust to devour
the good Things of this Kingdom.
Q. What did your Sureties then for you?
A. They did promise and vow three things in my Name. First, that I should
renounce the Reformists and all their Works, the pomps and vanity of Popular
Favour, and all the sinful lusts of Independence. Secondly, that I should
believe all the Articles of the Court Faith. And thirdly, that I should
keep the Minister's sole Will and Commandments, and walk in the same, all
the days of my life.
Q. Dost thou not think that thou art bound to believe and to do as they
have promised for thee?
A. Yes verily, and for my own sake, so I will; and I heartily thank our
heaven-born Ministry, that they have called me to this state of elevation,
through my own flattery, cringing, and bribery: and I shall pray to their
successors to give me their assistance, that I may continue the same unto
my life's end.
Q. Rehearse the Articles of thy Belief.
A. I believe in GEORGE, the Regent Almighty, maker of New Streets and Knights
of the Bath,
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And in the present Ministry, his only choice, who were conceived of Toryism,
brought forth of WILLIAM PITT, suffered loss of Place under CHARLES JAMES
FOX, were execrated, dead, and buried. In a few months they rose again from
their minority; they re-ascended to the Treasury benches, and sit at the
right hand of a little man in a large wig; from whence they laugh at the
Petitions of the People, who pray for Reform, and that the sweat of their
brow may procure them Bread.
I believe that King James the Second was a legitimate Sovereign, and that
King William the Third was not; that the Pretender was of the right line,
and that George the Third's Grandfather was not; that the dynasty of Bourbon
is immortal; and that the glass in the eye of Lord James Murray, was not
Betty Martin. I believe in the immaculate purity of the Committee of Finance,
in the independence of the Committee of Secresy, and that the Pitt System
is everlasting. Amen.
Q. What dost thou chiefly learn in these Articles of thy Belief?
A. First, I learn to Forswear all conscience, which was never meant to trouble
me, nor the rest of the tribe of Courtiers. Secondly, to swear black is
white, or white black, according to the good pleasure of the Ministers.
Thirdly, to put on the helmet of impudence, the only armour against the
shafts of patriotism.
Q. You said that your Sureties did promise for you, that you should keep
the Minister's Commandments: tell me how many there be?
A. Ten.
Q. Which be they?
Answer.
The same to which the Minister for the time being always obliges all his
creatures to swear, I the Minister am the Lord thy liege, who brought thee
out of Want and Beggary, into the House of Commons.
I. Thou shalt have no other Patron but me.
II. Thou shalt not support any measure but mine, nor shalt thou frame clauses
of any bill in its progress to the House above, or in the Committee beneath,
or when the mace is under the table, except it be mine. Thou shalt not bow
to Lord COCHRANE, nor shake hands with him, nor any other of my real opponents;
for I thy Lord am a jealous Minister, and forbid familiarity of the Majority,
with the Friends of the People, unto the third and fourth
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cousins of them that divide against me; and give places, and thousands
and tens of thousands, to them that divide with me, and keep my Commandments.
III. Thou shalt not take the Pension of thy Lord the Minister in vain; for
I the Minister will force him to accept the Chilterns that taketh my Pension
in vain.
IV. Remember that thou attend the Minister's Levee day; on other days thou
shalt speak for him in the House, and fetch and carry, and do all that he
commandeth thee to do; but the Levee day is for the glorification of the
Minister thy Lord: In it thou shalt do no work in the House, but shall wait
upon him, thou, and thy daughter, and thy wife, and the Members that are
within his influence; for on other days the Minster is inaccessible, but
delighteth in the Levee day, wherefore the Minister appointed the Levee
day, and chatteth thereon familiarly, and is amused with it.
V. Honour the Regent and the helmets of the Life Gaurds, that thy stay may
be long in the Place, which thy Lord the Minister giveth thee.
VI. Thou shalt not call starving to death murder.
VII. Thou shall not call Royal gallavanting adultery.
VIII. Thou shalt not say, that to rob the Public is to steal.
IX. Thou shalt bear false witness against the People.
X. Thou shalt not covet the People's applause, thou shalt not covet the
People's praise, nor their good name, nor their esteem, nor their reverence,
nor any reward that is theirs.
Q. What dost thou chiefly learn by these Commandments?
A. I learn two things --- my duty towards the Minister, and my duty towards
myself.
Q. What is thy duty towards the Minister?
A. My duty towards the Minister is, to trust him as much as I can; to fear
him; to honour him with all my words, with all my bows, with all my scrapes,
and all my cringes; to flatter him; to give him thanks; to give up my whole
soul to him; to idolize his name, and obey his word; and serve him blindly
all the days of his political life.
Q. What is thy duty towards thyself?
A. My duty towards myself is to love nobody but myself, and to do unto most
men what I would not they should do unto me; to sacrifice to my own interest
even my father and mother; to pay little reverence to the King, but to compensate
that omission by my servility to
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all that are put in authority under him; to lick the dust under the feet
of my superiors, and to shake a rod of iron over the backs of my inferiors;
to spare the People by neither word or deed; to observe neither truth nor
justice in my dealings with them; to bear them malice and hatred in my heart;
and where their wives and properties are concerned, to keep my body neither
in temperance, soberness, nor chastity, but to give my hands to picking
and stealing, and my tongue to evil speaking and lying, and slander of their
efforts to defend their liberties and recover their rights; never failing
to envy their privileges, and to learn to get the Pensions of myself and
my colleagues out of People's labour, and to do my duty in that department
of public plunder unto which it shall please the Minister to call me.
Q. My good Courtier, know this, that thou art not able of thyself to preserve
the Minister's favour, nor to walk in his Commandments, nor to serve him,
without his special protection; which thou must at all times learn to obtain
by diligent application. Let me hear, therefore, if thou canst rehearse
the Minister's Memorial.
Answer.
OUR Lord who art in Treasury, whatsoever
be thy name, thy power be prolonged, thy will be done throughout the empire,
as it is in each session. Give us our usual sops, and forgive us our occasional
absences on divisions; as we promise not to forgive them that divide against
thee. Turn us not out of our Places; but keep us in the House of Commons,
the land of Pensions and Plenty; and deliver us from the People. Amen.
Q. What desirest thou of the Minister in this Memorial?
A. I desire the Minister, our Patron, who is the disposer of the Nation's
overstrained Taxation, to give his protection unto me and to all Pensioners
and Placemen, that we may vote for him, serve him, and obey him, as far
as we find it convenient; and I beseech the Minister that he will give us
all things that be needful, both for our reputation and appearance in the
House and out of it; that he will be favorable to us, and forgive us our
negligences; that it will please him to save and defend us, in all dangers
of life and limb, from the People, our natural enemies; and that he will
help us in fleecing and grinding them; and this I trust he will do out of
care for himself, and our suppurt of him through our corruption and influence;
and therefore I say Amen. So be it.
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Q. How many Tests hath the Minister ordained?
A. Two only, as generally necessary to elevation; (that is to say) Passive
Obedience and Bribery.
Q. What meanest thou by this word Test?
A. I mean an outward visible sign of an inward intellectual meanness, ordained
by the Minister himself as a pledge to assure him thereof.
Q. How many parts are there in this Test?
A. Two; the outward visible sign, and the inward intellectual meanness.
Q. What is the outward visible sign or form of Passive Obedience?
A. Dangling at the Minister's heels, whereby the person is degraded beneath
the baseness of a slave, in the character of a Pensioner, Placeman, Expectant
Parasite, Toadeater, or Lord of the Bedchamber.
Q. What is the inward and intellectual meanness?
A. A death unto Freedom, a subject unto perpetual Thraldom: for being by
nature born free, and the children of Independence, we are hereby made the
children of Slavery.
Q. What is required of persons submitting to the test of Passive Obedience?
A. Apostacy, whereby they forsake Liberty; and faith, whereby they steadfastly
believe the promises of the Minister, made to them upon submitting to that
Test.
Q. Why was the Test of Bribery ordained?
A. For the continual support of the Minister's influence, and the feeding
of us, his needy creatures and sycophants.
Q. What is the outward part or sign in the Test of Bribery?
A. Bank notes, which the Minister hath commanded to be offered by his dependants.
Q. Why then are beggars submitted to this Test, when by reason of their
poverty they are not able to go through the necessary forms?
A. Because they promise them by their Sureties; which promise, when they
come to lucrative offices, they themselves are bound to perform.
Q. What is the inward part, or thing signified?
A. The industry and wealth of the People, which are verily and indeed taken
and had by Pensioners and Sinecurists, in their Corruption.
Q. What are the benefits whereof you are partakers thereby?
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A. The weakening and impoverishing the People, through the loss of their
Liberty and Property, while our wealth becomes enormous, and our pride intolerable.
Q. What is required of them who submit to the Test of Bribery and Corruption?
A. To examine themselves, whether they repent them truly of any signs of
former honour and patriotism, stedfastly purposing henceforward to be faithful
towards the Minister; to draw on and off like his glove; to crouch to him
like a spaniel; to purvey for him like a jackall; to be as supple to him
as Alderman Sir WILLIAM TURTLE; to have the most lively faith in the Funds,
especially in the Sinking Fund; to beleive the words of LORD CASTLEREAGH
alone; to have remembrance of nothing but what is in the Courier; to hate
MATTHEW WOOD, the present Lord Mayor, and his second Mayoralty, with all
our heart, with all our mind, with all our soul, and all our strength; to
admire Sir JOHN SILVESTER, the Recorder, and Mr. JOHN LANGLEY; and to be
in charity with those only who have something to give.
[Here endeth the Cathecism.]
[End Paper Advertisements]
JUST PUBLISHED BY W. HONE,
Uniform with this CATECHISM, price Two-pence each,
A POLITICAL CATECHISM. By an Englishman.
The POLITICAL LITANY. By Special Command.
The SINECURIST'S CREED. By Authority.
The BULLET TE DEUM. Imprimatur. F. RABELAIS.
Printed by J. D. Dewick
46, Barbican
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