ilization and especially in Britain.rnHume was a lifelong republican, and in the essay “Idea of arnPerfect Commonwealth,” he even sketched out an idealrnrepublic which had a considerable influence on the federalismrnof Madison and Hamilton. But Hume did not think thatrnmonarchy was an illegitimate form of government. The civilizingrnforces of modernity had improved the character of monarchiesrnand republics so that property and the rule of law werernabout as secure, he thought, in the “absolute” monarchy ofrnFrance as in republics. Whether a modern state should bernmonarchical or republican was, for Hume, an open question.rnIn the ease of Britain, however, he was convinced that constitutionalrnmonarchy would, for some time, be the best arrangement.rnAnd it was, in part, for this reason that he opposed thernWilkes movement, which contained subversive republicanrnthemes. Indeed, the British constitution already contained arnstrong republican element, and Hume thought that, shouldrnmonarchy collapse in Britain, the republic that would emergernwould resemble more the oppressive republic of Cromwell thanrna regime of ordered liberty. “Such Fools are they,” he wrote hisrnnephew in 1775, “who perpetually cry out Liberty: and think tornaugment it, by shaking off the Monarchy.”rnJust what kind of republic Britain might become was intimatedrnin the phenomenon of William Pitt, who had framed arnvision of a great mercantile empire based on an invinciblernBritish naval force. Neither the young George III nor the indolentrnWhig magnates shared this vision, but it had enormousrnappeal to the commercial classes centered in London. Pitt, byrntying it to eloquent speeches about British “Liberty” andrnFrench “Slavery,” was able to touch nationalistic sentimentsrnand endow the vision with a certain moral grandeur. The empirernbegan to take shape with the Seven Years’ War, largely conceivedrnand engineered by Pitt himself. We may think of this asrnthe first world war, insofar as it was a scene of coordinated engagementsrnfought all over the globe. French sea power receivedrna blow from which it never recovered, and when the smokerncleared, Britain possessed Canada and had increased its empirerneast and west. But George III ended the war before Pitt’s planrnwas complete. This threw Pitt into bitter opposition, and hernturned to his power base: the commercial interests centered inrnLondon. It was to this popular audience outside Padiamentrnthat Pitt’s speeches in Parliament were directed, promptingrnSamuel Johnson’s quip that whereas Walpole was a ministerrngiven by the King to the people, Pitt was a minister given by thernpeople to the King.rnJohn Wilkes was a protege of Pitt and had joined him inrnopposition. It was his satirical treatment of the King’s pacifistrnpolicy toward France and of the Scottish Lord Bute’s corruptingrninfluence on the young King that drew the charge of seditiousrnlibel. Wilkes’ arrest and conviction led to protests among thernLondon commercial interests who had supported Pitt’s warrnpolicies. It was this audience to which Wilkes appealed uponrnhis return as an outlaw, and it was this audience that four timesrnsent him to Parliament and was outraged each time he was expelled.rnDuring the nearly decade-long “Wilkes and Liberty” riots,rnthere was dark talk of overthrowing the monarchy. ThernKing and his ministers were openly insulted not only by thernpopulace but by the mayor of London and other leading officials.rnOn one occasion, 500 constables were needed to escortrnthe King to Parliament.rnLondon was clearly radical and republican in its sentimentsrnand, in Hume’s view, had become a kind of republic within thernrealm which threatened to topple the monarchy and dominaternthe whole. Hume was opposed to this for a number of reasons.rnThe republic that would emerge would be a vast mercantilernrepublican empire centered in London and founded on Pitt’srnpolicy of commerce by war. Hume was opposed to this for arnnumber of reasons.rnFirst, he had argued in his philosophical and historical writingsrnagainst governments comprehending a vast territory, orrnwhat were called in the 18th century “empires.” “Extendedrngovernments,” he said, “soon become absolute” and a “largerngovernment is accustomed by degrees to tyranny.” Further, hernthought that republican empires were more oppressive thanrnmonarchical. The reason is that the King has an interest inrntreating his subjects as equals. Republics, however, require homogeneityrnand majority rule. The “people” are sovereign in arnrepublic. When a republic takes on the form of empire, a distinctionrnmust be made between the true “people” and thernprovinces. Such a government “will be sure to contrive matters,rnby restrictions on trade, and by taxes, so as to draw some private,rnas well as public, advantage” from the provinces.rnHume compares the oppressive treatment of Corsica, whenrnit was under the republic of Genoa, with the milder treatmentrnit received after being conquered by the French monarchy.rnCloser to home is the oppression of Ireland by Britain. Strictlyrnspeaking, Britain is not a republic, but the republican elementrnhas so hedged in the monarchy as to make it virtually one. Thernoppression of Ireland, Hume thinks, is especially remarkablernbecause “being in good measure, peopled from England,” onernwould expect it to receive “better treatment than that of a conqueredrnprovince.” He thought the same was true of the Americanrncolonies.rnA republican mercantile empire tends toward centralizationrnand consolidation of all independent political life. All powersrngravitate to the capital with the inevitable tendency to absolutism.rn”Enormous cities,” he wrote, are “destructive to society,rnbeget vice and disorder of all kinds, starve the remoterrnprovinces, and even starve themselves, by the prices to whichrnthey raise all provisions.” This natural tendency of mercantilernempires is made worse by the late 17th-century discovery ofrnpublic credit, a practice Hume adamantly opposed and aboutrnwhich he wrote a brilliant “public choice” type criticism in thernessay “Of Public Credit.” One effect of public credit is that itrnenriches the power and privileges of the city at the expense ofrnthe provinces. And in the case of republics or limited monarchies,rnthe “immense greatness” of cities “under a governmentrnwhich admits not of discretionary power, renders the peoplernfactious, mutinous, seditious, and even perhaps rebellious.”rnThis observation was published in 1752, four years before thernoutbreak of Pitt’s Seven Years’ War. The nation was left withrnan unprecedented public debt and a vast mercantile empire tornprotect from a humiliated France, which meant further warsrnand more debt. It was to pay for this debt that Parliamentrnturned to the colonies as a permanent source of revenue. Thernexpanding empire and the cost of financing it had increased thernpower and independence of London beyond what Hume couldrnhave imagined in 1752, when he had already judged that “thernhead is undoubtedly too large for the body.”rnFar from being inconsistent, then, Hume’s support for Americanrnindependence and his rejection of “Wilkes and Liberty”rnare two aspects of the same criticism of the British polity.rnHume defended the integrity of provincial life as the cradle ofrnNOVEMBER 1995/21rnrnrn