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Ideological Change in Eighteenth-Century Britain

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An Intellectual History of Political Corruption

Part of the book series: Political Corruption and Governance ((PCG))

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Abstract

Early Modern discourse incorporated a wide variety of concepts of corruption, ranging from the distortion of judgement and the abuse of office due to personal gain, gift giving or bribery, through to generalised fears of physical or moral decay1 We argue in this chapter that the volume of discourse about corruption reached a peak in Britain in the eighteenth century, and that much of this discourse came to focus more tightly on public office corruption. Although the idea that public office corruption might be a symptom of a more general, degenerative form of corruption was still very much alive, complaints about public office corruption became louder and more common. As a consequence, understandings of corruption underwent significant refinement, and along with them, understandings of what a properly functioning polity should look like.

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Notes

  1. See, for example, Bossuet’s references to corruption as a decay or degeneration, and as flattery and gifts that ‘blind the eyes of the wise’ (J.B. Bossuet (1990) [1677–79/1700] Politics Drawn From the Very Words of Holy Scripture, P. Riley (ed.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), Bk I, Art. iv, p. 20; and Bk VIII, Art. v, pp. 281–2). In Robert Gould’s satire (1693), The Corruption of the Times by Mony (London: Printed for M. Wotton), avarice and corruption were linked without any invocation of metaphors of disease or the body politic. Also, Anon. (1660) Speculum Politiae, Or, England’s Mirrour: Being a Looking-Glass for the Body Politick of this Nation (London: Printed for S.B.). The whole idea of organological correspondences informing degenerative corruption was satirised by this Royalist author who likened the world to a ‘large Tennis-Court of Nature…’ (p. 2); he lambasted the Parliamentary ‘state physicians’ who left the ‘body politick labouring under a convulsion of errours’ (pp. 11–12).

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  4. B. Mandeville (1924) [1724] The Fable of the Bees: or, Private Vices, Publick Benefits, Vol. I, RB. Kaye (commentary) (Oxford: Clarendon Press), p. 22.

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  5. Undated memo (1710–15?) Blenheim Papers, Vol. CCLXVIII, British Library Additional MSS 61368. See also J.A.W. Gunn (1983) Beyond Liberty and Property: The Process of Self-Recognition in Eighteenth-Century Political Thought (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press), pp. 194–5.

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  6. J. Innes (2002) ‘Changing Perceptions of the State in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries’, Journal of Historical Sociology 15, 109. John Locke was clearly aware of the danger of corruption being used to suborn elected representatives to betray their trust

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  7. (J. Locke (1988) [1690] Two Treatises of Government, P. Laslett (ed.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), § 222, p. 413). Mark Knights argues that Locke was involved in campaigns for electoral reform and commented on draft Bills for that purpose in 1699

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  8. (M. Knights (2011) ‘John Locke and Post-Revolutionary Politics: Electoral Reform and the Franchise’, Past and Present 213, 72–6).

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  9. See, for example, W.E.H. Lecky (1878–90) A History of England in the Eighteenth Century, 2nd edn (London: Longmans), Vol. I, pp. 366–73, 434–51;

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  19. Much of the national debt was offset by public credit that was seen to increase the crown’s patronage powers (J.G.A. Pocock (1972) ‘Virtue and Commerce in the Eighteenth Century’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 3 (1), 119–20). For lurther discussion of the problems of patronage in the seventeenth century, see Peck, Court Patronage and Corruption.

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  23. Though sometimes dismissed as a ‘dead metaphor’, the body politic and the imagery of political health, disease or life-cycles continues to resonate today. See, for example, A. Musolll (2004) Metaphor and Political Discourse: Analogical Reasoning in Debates about Europe (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), pp. 83–114.

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  24. Mandeville, Fable, Vol. I, p. 105. This does not mean that the metaphor passed into complete obsolescence, but its use rarely conveyed anything ‘new or interesting’ in political analysis, and the complex correspondences between social groups and bodily organs seems to have carried ever less explanatory weight. On the gradual decline of the metaphor in eighteenth-century thought, see P. Ihalainen (2009) ‘Towards an Immortal Political Body: The State Machine in Eighteenth-Century English Political Discourse’, Contributions to the History of Concepts 5 (1), 4–47.

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  34. See J.G.A. Pocock (1985) Virtue, Commerce and History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 48.

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  35. T. Gordon (1744) The Works of Sallust, Translated into English with Political Discourses upon that Author (London: Printed for R. Ware), p. 93. Bayle also spoke of anger and flattery as sources of corruption; see P. Bayle (2000) [1697] Dictionnaire Historique et Critique in Political Writings, S. Jenkinson (ed.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 34, 66.

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  36. Pocock, ‘The Atlantic Republican Tradition’, 7–9. Levillain traces the similar uses of Tacitus in Anglo-Dutch republican discourse in the late seventeenth century (C.-E. Levillain (2005) ‘William Ill’s Military and Political Career in Neo-Roman Context, 1672–1702’, The Historical Journal 48 (2), 323, 332).

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  42. D. Lieberman (2006) ‘The Mixed Constitution and the Common Law’ in M. Goldie and R. Wokler (eds) The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 317–18. For Locke, corruption in the form of the temptations of office, such as luxury and flattery, was the means by which rulers came to see their interests as separate from the people’s, leading inevitably to arbitrary rule (Locke, Two Treatises, § 111, p. 343; §138, p. 361).

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  46. This was the view put forward by Charles Davenant in his Essay upon Public Virtue, which Levillain maintains was probably written in the mid-1690s at the height of the ‘moral reform’ movement (Levillain, ‘William Ill’s Military and Political Career’, p. 344); J. Innes (2009) Inferior Politics: Social Problems and Social Policies in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 180–1.

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  47. Formerly Lord Danby and Marquess of Carmarthen, Osborne was created Duke of Leeds in 1694. As Lord Danby, Osborne had been impeached for high treason in 1678 (E. Vallance (2007) The Glorious Revolution: 1688 -Britain’s Tight for Liberty (London: Abacus), pp. 34–5).

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  48. As Lord Chancellor, Macclesfield made use of large sums of money belonging to suitors in the court of Chancery, apparently investing it in South Sea stock. It was accepted practice for such sums to be used by Chancery officers to make loans and earn interest, but not to lose it on speculation. Macclesfield was also accused of selling Chancery offices and accepting large bribes (R.R. Neild (2002) Public Corruption: The Dark Side of Social Evolution (London: Anthem Press), pp. 111–12).

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  58. The South Sea Bubble disaster was preceded by the equally destructive Darien Scheme disaster that ‘cost Scotland approximately a quarter of the country’s liquid capital’ (A. Broadie (2001) The Scottish Enlightenment (Edinburgh: Birlinn Ltd), p. 7).

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  60. The Craftsman, or The Countryman’s Journal, ‘Irom 5 December 1726, spearheaded the opposition to Sir Robert Walpole. Backed by Bolingbroke and William Pulteney, and edited by Nicholas Amhurst… the journal’s avowed aim was to expose political cralt’. Bolingbroke was a principal contributor (J.A. Downie (2009) ‘The Craftsman, or, The Countryman’s Journal’ in The Oxford Companion to British History, J. Cannon (ed.) (Oxford: Oxford University Press)).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ARC Centre of Excellence in Policing and Security, Griffith University, Australia

    Bruce Buchan (Australian Research Council Future Fellow 2010–2014)

  2. School of Humanities, Griffith University, Australia

    Bruce Buchan (Australian Research Council Future Fellow 2010–2014)

  3. University of Adelaide, Australia

    Lisa Hill (Professor of Politics)

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  1. Bruce Buchan
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  2. Lisa Hill
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© 2014 Bruce Buchan and Lisa Hill

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Buchan, B., Hill, L. (2014). Ideological Change in Eighteenth-Century Britain. In: An Intellectual History of Political Corruption. Political Corruption and Governance. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137316615_6

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