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EDITION USED

Select Works of Edmund Burke. A New Imprint of the Payne Edition. Foreword and

Biographical Note by Francis Canavan, 4 vols (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1999).

Volume 1: Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents; The Two Speeches on

America

Volume 2: Reflections on the Revolution in France

z Volume 3: Letters on a Regicide Peace

Miscellaneous Writings

TABLE OF CONTENTS

z EDITOR’S FOREWORD

{

ENDNOTES

z EDITOR’S NOTE

INTRODUCTION

{ ENDNOTES

TWO LETTERS ADDRESSED TO A MEMBER OF THE PRESENT PARLIAMENT, ON THE

PROPOSALS FOR PEACE WITH THE REGICIDE DIRECTORY OF FRANCE BY THE RIGHT

HONOURABLE EDMUND BURKE

{ LETTER I ON THE OVERTURES OF PEACE



ENDNOTES

{ LETTER II ON THE GENIUS AND CHARACTER OF THE FRENCH

REVOLUTION AS IT REGARDS OTHER NATIONS

 ENDNOTES

A THIRD LETTER TO A MEMBER OF THE PRESENT PARLIAMENT, ON THE PROPOSALS

FOR PEACE WITH THE REGICIDE DIRECTORY OF FRANCE BY THE LATE RIGHT

HONOURABLE EDMUND BURKE

{ ADVERTISEMENT

THE ONLINE LIBRARY OF LIBERTY

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EDMUND BURKE, SELECT WORKS OF EDMUND BURKE, IN 4 VOLS.

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VOLUME III: LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE

Updated: May 8, 2004

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{ LETTER III

 ENDNOTES

z LETTER IV TO THE EARL FITZWILLIAM

{ ENDNOTES

z NOTES

{ LETTER I

{ LETTER II

{ LETTER III

{ LETTER IV

EDITOR’S FOREWORD

This volume includes Burke’s four Letters on a Regicide Peace, his last published

writings on the French Revolution and the policy toward it that he would have Great

Britain follow. There is no need to explain here the historical circumstances in which

Burke wrote these works or the details of their composition and publication, since E. J.

Payne has so thoroughly done that in his Introduction. A few comments will be

enough—possibly more than enough.

As Payne says, there were contemporaries of Burke, “chiefly among the Foxite Whigs,

who saw in the ‘Reflections’ the beginnings of a distorted view of things which in the

‘Regicide Peace’ letters culminated and amounted to lunacy.” It is a criticism that has

often been repeated since then: Burke’s attack on the Revolution became simply

hysterical. But Payne thinks otherwise and holds that in the letters Burke expressed “a

far bolder, wider, more accurate view” than that expressed in the Reflections and wrote

“as a statesman, a scholar, and a historical critic.” The Letters on a Regicide Peace, he

concludes, are entitled “to rank even before the ‘Reflections,’ and to be called the

writer’s masterpiece.”

Nonetheless, Payne maintains that, although Burke was substantially right in his

judgment of the French Republic under the Directory, he was wrong in his defense of

the ancien régime as it existed not only in France but also throughout Europe. “That

political system of Europe,” he says, “which Burke loved so much, was rotten to the

heart; and it was the destiny of French republicanism to begin the long task of breaking

it up, crumbling it to dust, and scattering it to the winds. This is clear as the day to us.”

Without nostalgia for that political system, however, we may once again note a touch

of nineteenth-century optimism in Payne’s remark. For one could also point to the

difficulty France has had in establishing a stable democratic regime. One might also

agree that the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the following years destroyed a system

that was rotten to the heart and deserved to perish. But are we willing to assign a

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historical destiny to Leninism and Stalinism? Our experience with revolutions in the

nineteenth and twentieth centuries suggests that we should maintain a certain caution

about historical destiny and the ideologies that foster belief in it.

John Gray, a Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford, has warned us not to neglect “the oldest

lesson of history, which is that no form of government is ever secure or final.” The

liberal democratic regime, he believes, suffers from a weakness that derives from “the

cultural sources of liberal self-deception that emerged from the French Revolution,”

which in turn was a product of the Enlightenment. But he wonders whether “the

Enlightenment cultures of the West can shed these disabling utopias without undergoing

a traumatic loss of self-confidence.” It would be highly optimistic, he believes, to hope

for “Enlightenment without illusions.”

It was the illusion of a secular utopia, proclaimed by such of his contemporaries as the

Marquis de Condorcet and Joseph Priestley, that Burke feared in the Revolution. As the

French political scientist Bertrand de Jouvenel was to say in the twentieth century,

“there is a tyranny in the womb of every Utopia.”

Burke was right in pointing out the

danger of political utopianism. His mistake was to tie the causes of civilization and

Christendom too closely to the political regime of monarchy and aristocracy that existed

in his time. The flaw in the democratic revolution that began at that time was that it

justified itself with a political theory rooted in the philosophy of the Enlightenment.

Today it would seem that the future of democracy depends on developing and adopting

a sounder political philosophy than one based on what is, to an increasing degree, an

intellectually and morally bankrupt liberalism. To that project Burke, for all his devotion

to a social and political order that was dying as he wrote, can make a valuable

contribution.

Francis Canavan

Fordham University

ENDNOTES

[1.] Pp. 56–57.

[2.]

P. 55.

[3.]

National Review 48 (April 8, 1996): 53–54.

[4.]

Sovereignty: An Inquiry into the Political Good (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, Inc.,

1997), p. 12.

DITOR

’

OTE

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In this volume, the pagination of E. J. Payne’s edition is indicated by bracketed page

numbers embedded in the text. Cross references have been changed to reflect the

pagination of the current edition. Burke’s and Payne’s spellings, capitalizations, and use

of italics have been retained, strange as they may seem to modern eyes. The use of

double punctuation (e.g., ,—) has been eliminated except in quoted material. In the

present volume, footnotes in Letters 1, 2, and 4 are Burke’s. Footnotes in Letter 3 are

explained in the two advertisements preceding Letter 3.

All references to Burke’s Correspondence are to the 1844 edition.

NTRODUCTION

by E. J. Payne

The autumn of 1795 opened a new scene in the great drama of French affairs. It

witnessed the establishment of the Directory. Five years had now passed since Burke

had published his famous denunciation of the French Revolution. Those five years had

witnessed portents and convulsions transcending all living experience. The Revolution

still existed: but it had passed through strange transformations. The monarchy had

perished in attempting to compromise with the Revolution. The dethroned King had

been tried and executed as a traitor. The Queen and the Princess Elizabeth had met the

same fate. The Dauphin, a mere boy, had been slowly murdered in a prison. The King’s

brothers, with the remnant of the anti-Revolutionary party, had fled from French soil to

spread terror and indignation through Europe. Meanwhile, the destinies of France had

been shaped by successive groups of eager and unscrupulous politicians. Those whom

Burke had early denounced had long disappeared. Necker was in exile: Mirabeau was

dead: Lafayette was in an Austrian dungeon: Barnave and Bailly had perished on the

scaffold. To their idle schemes of constitutional monarchy had succeeded the unmixed

democracy of the Convention: and to themselves that fierce and desperate race in

whom the spirit of the Revolution dwelt in all its fulness, and in whom posterity will ever

regard it as personified—the Dantons, the Héberts, the Marats, the Talliens, the Saint-

Justs, the Santerres, and the Robespierres. The terrible story of the Convention is

summed up in a few words. The Gironde and the Mountain had wrestled fiercely for

power: and the victory had fallen to the least moderate of the two. The ascendancy of

the Mountain in the Convention had produced the domination of Robespierre. The fall of

Robespierre had been followed by the Thermidorian reaction, and the White Terror: and

the Convention, rapidly becoming more and more odious to the people, had at length

dissolved, bequeathing to France as the result of its labours the constitution of the

Directory. In the midst of all these changes France had been assailed by all Europe in

arms. Yet she had shown no signal of distress. Neither the ferocious contests of her

leaders, nor their deadly revenges, nor their gross follies, nor their reckless policy, had

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wasted her elastic powers. On the contrary, France was animated with a new life. That

liberty which she had purchased with so many crimes and sacrifices she had proved

herself able to defend. Nor was this all. In vindicating that liberty, she had wrested from

her assailants trophies which threw into the shade the conquests of the Grand

Monarque himself. In less than three years she had become actual mistress of nearly all

that lay between the Rhine, the Alps, the Pyrenees, and the ocean, and potentially

mistress of all the rest. She had attained a position, which, if maintained, would prove

the destruction of the old balance of power in Europe.

In the eyes of outsiders, the establishment of the Directory was the most important

incident since the abolition of the monarchy. It confirmed the republican form of

government: and its filiation with the Convention justified the transfer to it of the

epithet Regicide. The execution of Louis XVI, though of small importance in the internal

politics of France, had been the turning point in the relations of the Republic to the

European world. But European intervention, in a feeble and undecided form, had

commenced long before the tragedy of January 1793. The King’s treason had been the

breach of his sworn fidelity to the new order of things, followed by an attempted flight

to the camp of a general who was plotting the destruction of the Revolution by arms.

Two months after that attempt, the Emperor and the King of Prussia had held the

meeting of Pilnitz: in the following year the forces of the Armed Coalition were on the

soil of France. The capture of Longwy struck terror into none save those who were

profoundly ignorant of the state of the opposing elements. The invasion of Champagne,

if such it can be called, acted on France like an electric stroke. Longwy was taken on the

23rd of August, 1792. Before the end of the year, the generals of France had not only

hurled the Germans back on the Rhine, but had sprung in all its parts that deep mine

which was destined to shatter the ancient fabric of Europe. They had seized Spires,

Worms, and Mentz. They had levied contributions on the rich city of Frankfort: they had

incorporated Savoy with France, by the name of the Department of Mont Blanc: they

had annexed the county of Nice. On the northern frontier they had been even more

successful. A few years before, the Austrian throne had been occupied by a sovereign

whose head was full of modern ideas. Joseph the Second was a man of progress and

enlightenment. Relying on the alliance with France which had been cemented by the

marriage of the French king with an Austrian princess, he had ordered the demolition of

all the Austrian fortresses on the Flemish frontier, and transferred his military strength

to the frontiers of Bavaria and Turkey. The consequences, as soon as France became an

enemy, were obvious. The single fight of Gemappe laid Austrian Flanders prostrate.

Mons, Tournay, Nieuport, Ostend, Bruges, and finally Brussels itself, threw open their

gates to Dumouriez and Miranda: and the Convention, in defiance of the feeble Dutch,

had decreed the invasion of Holland and the opening of the Scheldt. The forces of the

Armed Coalition, consisting of Austria and Prussia alone, were scattered by the

Republican armies like chaff before the wind.

The year 1793 opened a new phase of the struggle. France was no longer the helpless

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object of intervention and plunder. France had braced herself for resistance: she had

proved her strength. Europe began to dread as well as to hate her. Meanwhile a fiercer

element was added to the ferment. The dark days of December had witnessed the trial

of Louis at the bar of the Convention: the 21st of January witnessed his execution. The

attitude of England had for above two years been one of utter carelessness. Burke’s

voice had been raised almost alone in tones of alarm: and Burke had been unanimously

laughed down. The English nation were not unlike the Spanish Admiral Don Alonzo del

Campo, with his fleet peaceably riding at anchor in the lake of Maracaibo. Two days

before the redoubtable Morgan destroyed that fleet, a negro, says the chronicler, came

on board, telling him, “Sir, be pleased to have great care of yourself: for the English

have prepared a fire-ship, with design to burn your fleet.” But Don Alonzo, not believing

this, answered: “How can that be? Have they peradventure wit enough to build a fire-

ship? Or what instruments have they to do it withal?” The English parliament gave as

little attention to the alarms of Burke. But as the year 1792 wore on, more and more

came to light of the intrigues between French revolutionists and English sympathizers.

English representatives now presented themselves in the Convention. The deepest

anxiety filled those who feared the effect in England of the Revolutionary example: and

some thought a civil war, in which France would be the ally of a revolutionary element,

to be at hand. Without going beyond the actual, the system of plunder which the French

pursued in Belgium excited English indignation: and when Holland was invaded and the

Scheldt declared to be open, the unprincipled and reckless aims of the Convention

became clear. They were boldly avowed by Danton: France intended to grasp all that

lay within her natural boundaries, the Ocean, the Rhine, the Alps, and the Pyrenees.

Since the abolition of the Monarchy, England had held no regular communication with

the French government. The French Minister, however, remained in London: and

through him, though unofficially, the English ministry endeavoured to recall the

politicians of France to peace and moderation. But there was in truth no common

ground of negotiation. Crediting the reports of English sympathizers, the Parisian

politicians believed the English Monarchy to be on the verge of a dissolution as

complete as that which had befallen their own. They showed no respect to Grenville’s

remonstrances: and by the middle of January war was known by diplomatists to be a

certainty. The execution of the French King precipitated it. George III then broke off all

negotiation with the French Minister, and ordered him to quit England in eight days.

England was at war with France, and the Armed Coalition was thus reinforced by all the

wealth, power and authority of the leading nation in Europe. The rest of Europe soon

followed. Before the summer of 1793 Austria, Prussia, England, Holland, Russia, Spain,

and all Italy except the Republics of Venice and Genoa, were at war with the French

Republic.

Pitted against such a Coalition France might well expect reverses. She could hardly

expect to keep her bold and reckless conquests: she might well have been content to

purchase the right to choose her own government with the loss of a considerable part of

her own territory. Austria and Prussia were bent on dismembering her: England coveted

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her rich possessions beyond seas. Disaster after disaster befell the armies of the

Revolution. The Austrian generals, better skilled in tactics and in command of veteran

soldiers, quickly rescued Flanders from the undisciplined levies of the French. At

Neerwinden the French were totally defeated: and before the end of March they were

driven to their own soil. The Armed Coalition now seemed to have its way made plain

before its face. The second invasion of France was a different matter to the desultory

irruption of the preceding summer. The task, if achieved, was certain to accomplish its

end: but it was no easy one. The famous Iron Frontier had to be forced. Condé and

Valenciennes were invested: and the capture of Condé was the first-fruits of the

invasion. On the 28th of July, 1793, Valenciennes was taken by the Duke of York. In

every quarter the prospects of the Republic darkened. Mentz was retaken. From the

lower Loire came the news of the formidable and famous insurrection of La Vendée.

Toulon was occupied by Lord Hood, in the name of Louis XVII. British ships seized the

French islands in the West Indies, and did not even spare the petty fishing stations of

St. Pierre and Miquelon, which were all that remained to the French of their vast and

rich titular empire in North America. British troops seized the poor remains of the once

brilliant French empire in India. Greater ills than the loss of Tobago and Pondicherry

were menacing at home. Famine stalked through the people. Bankruptcy threatened the

treasury. In that dark hour France drew strength from her perils. Throughout the

departments the people cheerfully gave up their all to the imperious necessities of the

public cause. France became one vast camp. The cathedrals were turned into barracks:

the church bells were cast into cannon. The decree went forth that all Frenchmen should

be in permanent readiness for military service. Custine, the general who had

surrendered Mentz, was executed. Meanwhile, the Duke of York was besieging Dunkirk;

and the existence of the Republic depended on the defence of the Iron Frontier. On all

sides, indeed, the defence of France aroused all the energy and ingenuity of the French

character. The French were now no longer in the hands of generals who hesitated

between the Dauphin, the Duke of Orleans, and the Assembly: who had not decided

whether to play the part of a Cromwell or of a Monk. They were led by stout and

earnest republicans: by Carnot, Moreau, and Jourdan; Pichegru and Hoche defended the

Rhine: Davoust and Labourdonnaye the Pyrenees: Kellermann and Massena the Alps.

Before the end of the year, La Vendée was pacified: Toulon was recovered: while

Moreau and Jourdan had not only stayed the progress of the Allies on the Iron Frontier,

but had a second time effected a lodgment on the soil of Flanders. The end of the year

1793 found France, though surrounded by the whole world as an enemy, in a far

stronger position than the beginning.

The fortunes of France steadily rose from the hour when the Duke of York was forced to

raise the siege of Dunkirk. During the winter, the army in Flanders was reinforced to the

utmost: and early in 1794 the command of it was transferred from Jourdan to Pichegru.

Meanwhile, the spirit of the Allies began to flag. There was little union or sympathy

among them: and as for Austria and Prussia, they hated each other with their old

hatred. Prussia, jealous of the aggrandisement of Austria, left her unsupported: there

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was no combined plan: and the spring was wasted in desultory fighting on the Sambre

and the Meuse. The French gained daily: but it was not until the 26th of June that the

decisive action was fought on the plains of Fleurus. The French now entered Brussels.

Before the summer of 1794 was ended, the Allies were swept from the Austrian

Netherlands and driven back on Holland. Here the reality of their success was at once

tested by its effect on the Dutch. The party of the Stadtholder had long maintained with

great difficulty a doubtful ascendancy. The French sympathizers now took fresh heart:

and throughout Holland the approach of the French produced a powerful revival of the

republican party. Everywhere the Revolution reproduced itself. Province after province

of the United Netherlands gladly capitulated as the French advanced. While the

Stadtholder fled to England, the British contingent was falling back on Gröningen and

Friesland: and it at length retired to German soil, and sailed homeward. The French had

conquered the key of Europe.

The policy of the Coalition throughout the war was so bad that no French patriot could

have wished it worse. Union among them there was none: they had not even united

plans for the Flemish campaign. Of the French royalists they made no account

whatever. They did indeed consult, as advisers, the worthless emigrants: but they

never sought by any practical means to gain as allies the strong anti-Revolutionary

elements which existed within France. Early in the history of the Coalition, Burke had

taken up his pen to expose these fundamental errors. He had predicted that the

Coalition as it stood could be no match for French energy. “Instead of being at the head

of a great confederacy,” he wrote, “and the arbiters of Europe, we shall, by our

mistakes, break up a great design into a thousand little selfish quarrels. The enemy will

triumph, and we shall sit down under the terms of unsafe and dependent peace,

weakened, mortified, and disgraced, whilst all Europe, England included, is left open

and defenceless on every part, to Jacobin principles, intrigues, and arms.”

provisional government, he insisted, ought to be formed out of the French emigrants,

and this government should be formally recognized. The powers that were in France

ought to be considered as outlaws. “France,” he wrote, “is out of herself. The moral

France is separated from the geographical. The master of the house is expelled: and the

robbers are in possession.” The Parliament of Paris should be organized, and it should

recognize the Regent according to the ancient laws of the kingdom. Burke emphatically

denounced that change which was fast transmuting a holy war into a war of mere

plunder. France was, and always ought to be, a great nation. The liberties of Europe

could only be preserved by her remaining a great and even a preponderating power. Yet

England was foolishly bent on depriving her of her commerce and her marine, while

Austria was bent on despoiling her of her whole frontier, from Dunkirk to Switzerland.

This was enough to unite everything that was French within the boundaries of France;

and to make an enemy to the Coalition out of every Frenchman who had a spark of

patriotic feeling.

In little more than a year the predictions of Burke had been accomplished. The fortunes

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of the Armed Coalition now rapidly declined. In the eyes of the whole world it stood

defeated: and its dissolution followed as a matter of course upon its defeat. A third-rate

Italian State led the way. Tuscany is by nature indefensible; and the fact that its only

commercial centre of any importance, the port of Leghorn, was at the mercy of the

Toulon fleet, had hitherto kept the Grand Duke of Tuscany in subordination to France.

Dreading the vengeance of the conqueror, he hastened to make his peace the moment

victory declared for the French, apologizing abjectly for his desertion, on the ground

that he had been compelled to it by threats. The defection of Prussia was more serious.

The King of Prussia had only engaged in the war in the hope of adding to his Rhenish

territories at the expense of France. Liberally subsidized by the English, he sent a few

troops for show to the army of the Coalition, and employed the bulk of the loan in an

expedition for the dismemberment of Poland. At Basle, on the 5th of April, 1795, the

treaty of peace between Prussia and the Republic was signed by Von Hardenberg and

Barthélemy. Prussia was to leave in the hands of the French, pending a general

pacification, all her possessions on the left bank of the Rhine: for these she was to be

indemnified out of the rich fund of the Ecclesiastical Sovereignties. Holland was

revolutionized. The Stadtholderate was extinguished, and an alliance effected which

practically annexed the United Netherlands to France as completely as the Austrian

Netherlands, which had been formally incorporated with France by a law of the

Convention. Spain was the next to make peace. Basle was the scene of Spanish

humiliation, as it had been of Prussian humiliation. The rich island of St. Domingo, and

the fertile tracts of Florida were ceded to France: and the favourite Manuel Godoy,

already created Duke of Alcudia, was rewarded with the title of Prince of the Peace.

Thus did Spain sow the seeds of which she reaped the fruit in the expulsion of her

dynasty, in the loss of her American possessions, in her financial ruin, and in her

exclusion from the number of the great nations of Europe. Thus did Prussia sow the

seed of which she reaped the fruit in the bloody fields of Jena and Friedland, in her

bitter servitude, and in a hazard, as near as nation ever escaped, of total extinction.

These desertions left nothing remaining of the Coalition, save England and Austria.

Austria had a substantial reason for standing out. Austria had great things at stake: she

hoped for the subjection of Suabia and Bavaria, and she had set her heart on the

annexation of Alsace. Even if she banished her dreams of conquest, she could not

withdraw from the contest worsted and reduced in territory. The French had conquered

the Netherlands, her richest possession, and indeed for their size the most populous

and flourishing provinces of Europe. They did not merely hold the Austrian Netherlands

as conquerors: a law incorporating these with the French Republic had been among the

last acts of the Convention. The Convention had a passion for abolishing old names and

substituting new ones in their place. They called their conquest by the name of Belgium,

a name long appropriated to the Netherlands by Latin-writing diplomatists and

historians, but henceforth exclusively applied to the Austrian Netherlands. It was worth

the while of Austria to go on with the war if there were any prospect of recovering the

Netherlands. But there was small prospect of this after the spring of 1794: and month

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by month that prospect had been diminishing. Austria, staggering under her reverses,

was fast drifting into a peacemaking mood; and in April 1797, even while Burke was

writing his famous Third Letter, England’s only ally was arranging at Leoben the

preliminaries of that “Regicide Peace” which was consummated in the autumn at Campo

Formio: a peace which yielded to the French everything for which Burke was urging

England to fight, and diverted the whole force of the enraged French nation to her sole

antagonist across the Channel. England had been slow to join the Coalition: she was

now the only member of it who was in earnest. “British interests,” as the phrase now

goes, would have lost nothing by a peace. On the contrary, they would have gained: for

what England had won beyond seas, she might, if she were so minded, have retained.

On the question of the war with France, English public opinion had been passionately

divided. Fox had opposed it from the beginning with the utmost force of his eloquence

and his authority. It was when this war was looming in the distance that Burke had

formally confirmed his alienation from Fox, and finally broken with that great party to

which he had formerly been bound by his convictions, his personal associations, and his

public acts during a career of nearly thirty years. Fox had denounced the war even

before it began. On the 15th December, 1792, he had made his motion for sending a

minister to Paris, to treat with the Convention. That motion, which was seconded by

Grey, involved the entire question now at stake. Speaking on that motion in his most

eloquent mood, and animating the majority by his usual arguments for an inexpiable

war with France, Burke had quoted some lines of Virgil which might serve for the key-

note of his subsequent utterances:

Tum vos, O Tyrii, stirpem et genus omne futurum

Exercete odiis; cinerique haec mittite nostro

Munera: nullus amor populis, nec foedera sunto.

Litora litoribus contraria, fluctibus undas

Imprecor, arma armis: pugnent ipsique nepotes.

Lansdowne had raised a similar discussion in the Lords; but in both houses the

disposition to war predominated. When the war actually broke out, the question was

debated with redoubled ardour. But the advocates of peace were nowhere. In vain did

the calm, penetrating, practical statesmanship of Lansdowne, based upon his unrivalled

knowledge of continental affairs, protest to the Lords against England being made the

“cat’s-paw of Europe.” Nor had the heated sympathies of Fox any more effect in the

Commons. The nation was pledged to the war; and for a while it prosecuted the war

with vigour.

In these early debates on the war Burke had brought the Ministry an important

accession of strength. When he seceded from the Whig ranks, he carried with him a

large and respectable section of the party: the Portlands, the Fitzwilliams, and the

Windhams. Like Burke, these men served the cause of general liberty and good

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government with a firm and genuine devotion: like him, they believed that cause to be

disgraced and profaned by the crimes committed by the French government in its

name. Like Burke, they believed in an England flourishing at home, but so using her

wealth and her power as to make herself potent abroad: in an England which would not

tamely suffer by her side aggressors who defied the public law of Europe, insulted its

diplomatists, and rearranged the relations of its peoples by the standard of their own

rapacity, or convenience, or caprice. These were the most strenuous supporters of the

war. The original following of Mr. Pitt was less in earnest. Pitt never loved the war. He

never bent to it the whole force of his powerful mind. Conceiving the war to be mainly

the business of those great military powers who had been robbed of their territories by

France, he thought his part done, so far as concerned Europe, when he had persuaded

Parliament to vote them their subsidies, and equipped a small contingent to help them.

He was for extending the power of England, on the old Whig principle, through its

commerce and its colonies. Tidings of the capture of islands in the West Indies, and

comptoirs in the East, were more welcome to his ear than tidings of the occupation of

Toulon and the beleaguering of Dunkirk. Beyond seas, the war-ships of England were as

irresistible as the legions of Pichegru and Buonaparte. As years went on, England gained

one by one those rich and productive settlements whose growth had for a century and a

half been her envy and her temptation. She left the French not a single colony. She

stripped the Dutch, rejoicing in their new servitude, one by one of those famous

possessions whence they had drawn the fatal wealth which had demoralized and blotted

them out from the powers of Europe. Pitt lived to become master, according to a

sarcasm then current, of every island in the world, the British Islands only excepted.

So long as the Allies were successful, the war was popular enough. When the Coalition

was defeated, and that process of defection began which ultimately left England

standing alone against the victorious Republic, the tide of opinion naturally turned.

Burke’s idea of a war for the old régime, steadfastly and sternly waged until the old

régime should be restored, had gradually fallen into disrepute: and in the end it may be

doubted whether any one believed in it except himself and Lord Fitzwilliam. Europe had

made a cat’s-paw of England: but it wanted that convenient instrument no longer. And

Pitt’s real impulse to the war was counterbalanced by the damage it wrought on

commerce and manufactures at home. For in Pitt’s view, the war against France was

almost as much a war of plunder as in the view of the Emperor or the King of Prussia.

The French cared little for their colonies. “Perish the colonies, rather than a single

principle,” had rung through the Assembly, in a famous debate on the consequence of

granting political rights to the Haytian mulattoes: and the sentiment gained thunders of

applause. Pitt was for conceding to the French their beloved principles, so far as these

tended to put England in possession of the French sugar islands. He remembered the

days, thirty years ago, when his father had annexed Dominica, and Grenada, and

Tobago, amidst the applause of English merchants and politicians. But England in the

present war had been less successful: so little successful, hitherto, that it was beginning

to be thought that she had already gone quite far enough. She felt the loss of her trade

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with France, Holland, and Spain more than she felt the small advantages she had

gained in the East and West Indies. In this third year of the war the mercantile interest

of England, an interest on which Pitt greatly relied, began to protest against its

continuance. The commerce of England with her nearest neighbours was paralysed. No

sooner was the question of England’s continuing the war, deserted by all her Allies,

raised in Parliament early in 1795, than petitions in favour of peace poured in from all

her seats of commerce, from Southampton, from Manchester, from Hull, and from

Liverpool. It was now two years since Grey had first challenged Ministers to justify to

the house their action in plunging the nation into an unnecessary war with the

Convention. Now that the Armed Coalition had failed and dissolved, he returned to the

charge. On the 26th of January, 1795, he moved “To declare it to be the opinion of the

House of Commons, that the existence of the present government in France ought not

to be considered as precluding at that time a negotiation for peace.” In other words,

England was invited to make a “Regicide Peace” —a peace with that government which

not only had murdered a mild and lawful monarch, but had declared war against

monarchs and monarchies throughout the world.

Grey had stated his motion too categorically. Pitt was determined neither to accept nor

to reject it. He honestly wished to end the war: but he did not wish to be driven to it by

Mr. Grey. He did not wish to tie himself to negotiate immediately, or to negotiate at any

definite distance of time. He wished to persuade the nation, at the same time, of his

own willingness to end the war, and of his own fitness to decide on the time when, and

the persons with whom, and the circumstances in which, any negotiations for ending it

should be undertaken. He therefore carried an amendment, resolving to prosecute the

war “until a pacification could be effected, on just and honourable terms, with any

government in France capable of maintaining the accustomed relations of peace and

amity with other countries.” This device neither helped nor retarded the disposition for

peace in England. It only embittered the politicians of the Convention. It fixed in them a

belief in the duplicity and the Punic faith of England. They had long believed

extravagant falsehoods contrived to poison them against England. Here at least there

was no room for doubt. England was still full of her old animosity: she was still resolved

on an inexpiable war with the Republic. The real meaning of this, in the eyes of France,

was simply that England was determined to take every advantage afforded by her naval

position for the reduction and impoverishment of France, on pretence of restoring that

tyrannous and detestable government from which she had escaped. At the same time,

England had not the honesty to confess this in the face of Europe. That England should

be so nice and delicate, so anxious to avoid the contagion of Regicide, must have

seemed ridiculous indeed. The sovereigns of Prussia, of Spain, and of Naples, not to

mention lesser ones, were known to be willing to treat with the Convention, stained

though it was with the blood of a king. The Emperor was on the point of negotiating:

the Pope himself could not be regarded as irreconcilable. England, a republic in all but

name, ruled by men whose halls were hung with the portraits of Cromwell, of Hampden,

and of Sidney, whose great grandfathers had seen their monarch perish on a scaffold,

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whose ministers had always feared the people more than they feared Crown or

Assembly—England was making the Regicide Government a mere stalking-horse to

cover her greed and her ambition, to gratify a jealousy pent up during twenty years,

and to avenge on France the loss of that fairest empire an European nation ever

grasped, now grown into the independent United States of North America.

These considerations were not without an impression on thoughtful people in England.

On the 6th of February, 1795, Grey again returned to the charge. The previous question

was moved, and he was again defeated. It was not a full house: but the majority

against him was numerically less. And it was less in moral weight by one vote, that of

Wilberforce, who on this occasion divided with the minority.

When Parliament met for the Session of 1794–1795, though the failure of the Coalition

was plain, its dissolution was only foreseen. It took place during the spring and the

summer. When Parliament next met in October 1795, all Europe, save England and

Austria, had made peace with France: and Austria was only waiting to see if she could

perchance make better terms through the help of England. The defection of Prussia had

produced one curious result. It forced that peace which Prussia had accepted on the

smaller states of Western Germany. Those states hastened to make their peace, to save

themselves from annexation: and among the rest, the King of England was forced to

make peace as Elector of Hanover. Another ill-judged blow at the Republic had been

fruitlessly attempted. The Quiberon expedition had failed, having served no other

purpose than to deepen French hatred and distrust of England. And a change had taken

place which tended to discredit the argument of Mr. Pitt, that no peace could be made

with the blood-stained Republic. The Convention, with all its follies, all its crimes, and

all its glories, was gone. It had not passed away in the throes of revolution. It had

quietly expired in a time of comparative domestic tranquillity, bequeathing its power

and its prestige, purged of the horror which attached to its name, to a new constitution

of its own devising. This new constitution was the Directory.

The new scheme of government differed essentially from the mass of those paper-

constitutions which Burke described Sieyes as keeping assorted in the pigeon-holes of

his desk. Ostensibly, it was a step in the direction of constitutional government on the

English model: practically, it was the first stepping-stone to a military despotism. It was

really an anarchy of the worst type. It was a despotism not strong enough to despise

opposition, not bold enough to scorn vacillation, not quick and sagacious enough to

efface the results of its inherent defects before they had wrought its destruction. It

indulged freely in the safe and easy cant of republicanism. The republic was “one and

indivisible”: the sovereignty resided in the universality of French citizens. There was

universal suffrage, to be exercised in primary assemblies: these elected the secondary

or elective assemblies; these elected the legislative body. This legislative body consisted

of a Council of Ancients, and a Council of Five Hundred, one third of each going out

every year. So far all was in accordance with the first ideas of the Revolution. But added

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to, and overriding all this, was a power which discharged functions necessary to the

well-being of France—functions which had been discharged by the Committee of Public

Safety, and which in a very short time were concentrated in the person of a single man.

France had need of a strong and legitimate executive power. Where was such a power

to be found? Where but in her own best-approved citizens? Of these France had many:

and that struggle for power which had hitherto led to so much rancour and bloodshed

could easily be avoided by the method of divided authority, based on a system of secret

voting. The executive power was therefore vested in a council of Five Directors. They

were chosen as follows. The Council of Five Hundred balloted for fifty candidates: and

out of these, the Council of Ancients balloted the Directory. One Director was to retire

every year, the retiring member during the first year being determined by lot. Each

Director in his turn was to be President of the Republic for a term of three months. The

Directors had official costumes, guards, military honours, messengers of state, a large

annual salary, and a residence in the Palace of the Luxembourg. Given these

preliminaries, it was easy to guess what would be the composition of the highest body

in the State. If the chicaners and wire-pullers did their best, they could at least return a

majority, let public worth and tried statesmanship, if such things existed, meet with

what recognition they would. The ballot resulted in the election of five men not only

unconnected with, but radically opposed to each other. The first lot for President fell

upon Rewbell, a country lawyer, or rather land-bailiff, of Alsace, who had been returned

to the Convention by that peasantry of whom he had been the hired oppressor. He was

a Convention politician of the most reckless and sanguinary type. The same may be said

of another of the Directors. Lareveillère-Lepaux, an ugly and deformed creature, the

malignity of whose face, according to his opponents, did but reflect the depravity of his

soul, had been bred to the law, like Rewbell. He and Rewbell stood and fell together.

The third Director was the famous soldier Carnot. In the Convention, Carnot had been a

man of blood: in the Directory he proved himself a statesman and a man of peace.

Letourneur, the fourth Director, a nonentity whose only known exploit was that of

having made some bad verses, was the first to retire in twelve month’s time. The lot

was an unlucky one: for Letourneur, under the influence of Carnot, was in favour of

peace on reasonable terms. Barras, the fifth Director, was a profligate and extravagant

nobleman, one of whose mistresses, Josephine Beauharnais, had been married to an

ambitious young officer of artillery, for whom he interested himself to procure

promotion and active employment. This young man was Napoleon Bonaparte.

Those essential vices of the Directorial constitution, which soon wrought its disruption,

remained for the present unnoticed. Except Carnot, the men who were at its head were

little known beyond the circle of Parisian politicians. For Burke, the Directory was a

mere Committee of the Regicide Convention, inheriting in all fulness its reckless policy,

and its infamous principles. One fact amply justified him in extending to the Directory

that hateful epithet “Regicide,” which he had bestowed upon the Convention. The new

law provided that no man should be a Director who had not given his vote in the

Convention for the death of the King. All the Directors were thus in the strictest sense

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of the word Regicides. While Carnot was planning the restoration of peace, at the

imminent risk of his own head, Burke was not altogether without justification when he

described him as a sanguinary tyrant, sunk on the down of usurped pomp, not satiated

with the blood of his own sovereign, but indulging his ravening maw in the expectation

of more. Such a picture may indeed not misrepresent the party who had dominated in

the Convention, and succeeded in dominating in the Directory. But it misrepresents

Carnot, who resisted while resistance was possible, and at length fell from his elevation,

and fled for his life.

Apart from the merits or demerits of its constitution, the establishment of the Directory

was an opportunity not likely to be lost by those politicians, on both sides of the house,

who whether openly or secretly wished to put an end to the war. It coincided with the

end of the Parliamentary vacation of 1795. We have seen how fast the necessity for

peace had meanwhile grown upon the allies. The Ministry now boldly reversed their

policy. Their attitude hitherto had drawn no signs of a peaceable disposition from the

French Government. With the view of doing so, a pamphlet was prepared by Lord

Auckland, a noted and able adherent of the Ministry. Auckland, a man of liberal views,

an accomplished diplomatist and a shrewd politician, had hitherto been one of the most

strenuous supporters of the war. It was he who had penned the pregnant manifesto to

the Dutch, dated from the Hague in January, 1793. In the early debates of this very

year, he had opposed the weight of his authority to the arguments of Lansdowne and

Stanhope in favour of peace. He now bent himself to the facts of the situation. The old

dream of re-establishing the Monarchy, the Church, and the emigrant nobility, he

pronounced to be at an end. France had undergone a radical and lasting change, of

which the events of the past year were a guarantee. Robespierre and the Convention

had passed away: the politicians of France were mending their ways, and had formed at

last a constitution based on the time-honoured English principle of a separation of the

legislative and the executive powers. France had sown her wild oats, and was seriously

beginning a quiet and progressive national career. He had been of opinion, with Pitt,

that peace could not be made with the Convention: with Pitt, he caught at every straw

which pointed at the chance of a peace with the Directory. He quieted the alarms of

those who dreaded the ambition of the French politicians, and the already portentous

growth of France, by a venerable historical paradox. If the French were fools enough to

build up too big an empire, it must before long fall to pieces by its own weight. France

was fostering the smaller republics which she had created on her frontier: she was very

likely to crumble into separate republics herself. Auckland had an argument or two to

soothe the Whig adherents of Burke and Portland. The continuance of the war could not

but favour that coming despotism of which Pitt’s Gagging Acts were a sign. The longer it

went on, the more powerful must the Crown become, and the more unpopular the Whig

anti-Jacobins with the people. So far, the Revolution had been a wholesome lesson to

headstrong kings. But it had been a wholesome lesson also to the upper classes of all

political societies. Let the English landed interest take warning by the example of the

landed interest of France. Let England wisely make the best of the past, secure what

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compensation she could get, save what remained of the independence of Western

Europe, and think herself well rid of her selfish and useless allies. Such were the views

set forth in Auckland’s pamphlet of the last week of October, 1795.

The attitude of Burke in this changed situation could not be to the Ministry a matter of

indifference. He had swayed public opinion towards the war: he had strenuously

supported it: and though now broken by sorrow and disease, no longer in Parliament,

and living in strict retirement at Beaconsfield, he had given striking proof that the

power of his pen had not abated. The failure of the Hastings prosecution had bitterly

disappointed him: and after the acquittal, he ceased for a time to busy himself with

public affairs, not even, as he declared to a correspondent, reading a newspaper for

months together. A personal attack roused him: and his famous “Letter to a Noble

Lord,” which had surprised the world by its fiery and bitter eloquence, indicated that he

was still a prominent man in the country. Lord Auckland, though never an intimate

friend, and never until lately even a political ally, addressed to him a respectful letter,

accompanying it with a copy of the October pamphlet. He preserved Burke’s reply: and

on the publication of Burke’s posthumous works many years afterwards he supplied a

copy of it for insertion among them. Burke’s letter breathed no gust of passion at

finding that the Ministry had at length deliberately abandoned that policy which had

tempted him from his life-long allegiance. He employed to express what he felt no

stronger terms than grief, dismay, and dejection. But he declared that the policy of Fox

and Lansdowne, now advisedly embraced by the Ministry, could lead to nothing but

ruin, utter and irretrievable. He declared that in that ruin would be involved not only the

Ministry, but the Crown, the succession, the importance, the independence, the very

existence, of the country. These expressions, however, were private. Burke still hoped

that the Ministry had not come to their final decision. He still hoped that the English

people would hesitate before casting in their lot with Jacobinism and thus taking, as he

believed, the first step to the dissolution of their own established government.

The King’s Speech at the opening of Parliament contained a passage which more

guardedly foreshadowed the same conclusion. Should the crisis in France, it declared,

terminate in any order of things compatible with the tranquillity of other countries, and

affording a reasonable expectation of security and permanence in any treaty which

might be concluded, the appearance of a disposition to negotiate for a general peace on

just and suitable terms would not fail to be met, on the part of the Government, with an

earnest desire to give it the fullest and speediest effect. Briefly, if the Directory stood its

ground, and wished for peace, Mr. Pitt would make peace with the Directory. Mr. Pitt

spoke to the same effect in the Debate on the Address. Five months before, Mr. Pitt had

declared his resolution not to acknowledge the then Government. The Convention, he

said, was a government reeking with the blood of their sovereign. With the Convention,

had it lasted, he would have waged an inexpiable war. But France had now seen the

error of her ways. The Convention, after bringing France to the verge of ruin, had

vanished. A new constitution, embracing, as far as the French politicians were able, the

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political principles of England, had been adopted. It had been ushered in with a solemn

recantation of all the pernicious maxims hitherto in repute. Boissy D’Anglas, adopting

the now trite philosophy with which Burke himself had familiarised the European world,

had shown how that melancholy succession of crimes and blunders, which formed the

recent history of France, had come about. Constitutions could not be built up anew from

the ground. Men could not live by blotted paper alone: society was an organism, not a

machine which could be altered and regulated at will. These invaluable truths had

convinced the French of the folly of their à priori politics. They now resorted to the

practical lessons of experience. All this time, however, no one in England knew what

was the nature of the constitution, which had now been in existence a day and a half.

No one knew who were the persons in power. And Mr. Pitt could not therefore speak in

positive terms as to the particular measures the Government would be able to adopt.

He took the opportunity, however, of solemnly affirming one of Burke’s main

arguments. He declared himself still in favour of a crusade against Jacobinism. If the

principles of the Convention still swayed the French Government; if the Directory

persisted in the policy of spreading their republicanism and irreligion throughout Europe

by fire and sword; if France became the Rome of an atheistic Inquisition; then the war

should be maintained, so far as the Ministry were able to maintain it.

Six weeks passed. The Directory began with every possible assumption of moderation,

and every possible manifestation of a desire of conciliation both at home and abroad.

They professed to maintain the war only as a war of self-defence. What more could be

desired? The Ministry hastened to pronounce that the new government of France really

was all that had been anticipated in the Royal Speech, and that they meant to make

peace with it—if they could. A Royal Message, followed by an address from Parliament,

embodied this solemn approval of the Directory: and Pitt vindicated his policy in one of

his greatest speeches. The French, he declared, had adopted that grand panacea of all

social difficulties, a mixed form of government. The pure democracy of the Revolution

was at an end. In time, the course of events would suggest gradual improvements in

the new constitution, and it would probably grow like the English constitution, every

year more useful, more capable of being applied to the wants of the people, more

intrinsically excellent. Such a constitution ought to be stable, and capable of supporting

a stable peace with other nations. He could not presume to say this prospect was

certain. It was enough, for those who had peace and the common welfare of Europe at

heart, that it was reasonably probable. The Ministry would now negotiate. What the

issue of their negotiations might be, depended on the views and the temper of France.

If France wished for peace on reasonable terms, she could not now allege a contrary

disposition on the part of England.

Lord Auckland’s pamphlet had now reached a second edition. It had been translated

into French. It began with a French motto: Que faire dans une telle nuit? Attendre le

jour. The night of Revolution was now far spent: the daystar of peace and moderation

was arisen. Such was the gay vision with which the Ministry dazzled the English people.

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But it created the deepest alarm in those who looked below the surface. England was

now on the verge of the precipice: and the ghastly depth of that precipice was easily

measured by a glance at Holland. Holland had made her peace: England was now on

the verge of making hers. Negotiations for peace might at any moment be commenced

and ended: and before England had realized what she was doing, she might find herself

fast bound in a treaty with the Regicide Republic. Such a treaty would lead to an

alliance: such an alliance to the fatal assimilation of the two governments which had

already taken place in Holland. The Stadtholder of Holland and his family were safely

lodged in Hampton Court: where would be the asylum of George the Third, and the

Royal Family of England?

Feeble and broken as Burke was, he did not shrink from taking up his pen for what

could not but be a sustained controversy. He began with the pamphlet of October,

which he examined, from beginning to end, in a letter addressed to the Earl Fitzwilliam.

This letter he never published: he never even finished it. It was found by his executors

among his papers, and published with other posthumous works in 1812 as the “Fourth

Letter on a Regicide Peace.” It is so published in the present volume: but it is really the

First. The task animated Burke to an extraordinary degree. Nothing more gay and

vivacious than the first part of this letter ever came from his pen. It breathes at first

that spirit of pure and good-humoured raillery which had so often won the author the

ear of the Commons when it had been deaf to his deeper and more studied irony, to his

prophetic warnings, and to his lavished stores of knowledge and wisdom. But these

elements were not wanting. As the writer warms to his subject, he opens the vial of

that fierce and blasting contempt which none knew better how to pour forth upon

occasion. Burke’s representatives, in preserving this relic to the world, preserved to it a

literary treasure of high value. Its interest, however, is little more than literary. Its

scope does not extend beyond the four corners of the October pamphlet, except

towards the end, where the first Editor has tacked on to it one of Burke’s old philippics

against Jacobinism. It proves that Burke was not deceived by the Directorial imposture.

He, for one, saw clearly that the mantle of the Committee of Public Safety had

descended on the Directory. He saw that France was still at heart Jacobin, and still bent

on a war with the ancient political system of Europe; a war whose principle was

fanaticism, whose object was conquest, and which was everywhere attended with insult,

with plunder, and with destruction. This war could not be judged by any modern

standard, or indeed by any single standard in the records of history. It resembled in

some degree the wars of Attila and the wars of Mahomet. But adequately to shadow

forth those who planned and conducted it, Mahomet and Attila must be rolled into one.

A peace with France would lay Europe prostrate at the feet of a horde of greedy, cruel,

fanatical savages.

The grant of his well-earned pension had done something to restore the balance of

Burke’s powers. It assured him ease in his affairs during what he knew must be the

short remainder of his career: and during the spring he now busied himself with his

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farm, with his pamphlet, and with the establishment of a school for the children of

French emigrants at the village of Penn, a mile or two from his door. In this school he

took a keen delight: he visited it almost daily; and he declared it to be the only pleasure

which remained to him. Many a Frenchman who twenty years afterwards served the

restored Bourbon dynasty, had worn the blue uniform and white cockade of the Penn

school, and had eagerly turned his eyes to greet the worn face and emaciated figure of

the famous Englishman who had stirred up Europe in their cause. At present, it was not

Burke’s policy to thrust the peace controversy into prominence. Time, unveiling slowly

and surely the character of the new government, would do more. But the opposition still

continued the agitation. Peace was no nearer than when the government, towards the

end of the previous year, had signified their gracious approval of the constitution of the

Directory. The opposition, pushing their success, demanded that the peace negotiations

should be accelerated. Why did the Ministry delude the nation with the prospect of a

peace, while nothing was done, and every day brought news of some fresh success to

the arms of the French? Mr. Pitt could only reply that steps towards a negotiation were

being taken. His situation was not without difficulty. Though his own imperious mind

was set upon a peace some of his best supporters were swayed by Burke’s disapproval

of it. Windham was against peace: Loughborough, the Chancellor, was against it:

Fitzwilliam and Portland were against it. All these united in urging Burke to publish the

pamphlet he was known to be writing: and the Ministry, yielding to the pressure of the

opposition, now took a more decided step. Burke now hastened to finish his pamphlet.

He laboured at it from time to time: sometimes he carried what he had written to the

sick chamber of his wife, and read it aloud to the sole companion of his declining years.

But before he had completed it, he was himself stricken down by a violent attack of his

fatal malady, which compelled him to retreat at once to Bath.

When his labours were thus interrupted, the long-promised steps towards pacification

had been taken: the vista of those negotiations which his pen was to make famous, and

which were to be its last employment, was opened. At Basle, the scene of the

humiliating peace made by Prussia, and of the more humiliating one made by Spain, in

the previous year, an English diplomatist had been deputed to open negotiations with

Barthélemy, who, on the part of the Directory, had conducted both negotiations on the

part of France. Mr. Wickham was deputed to propose a Congress, and to enquire upon

what terms France was willing to make peace with England. The proposal for a Congress

was at once viewed with suspicion: and the Directory in the clearest and promptest

manner declared that if England made the restoration of the Austrian Netherlands a

necessary condition of peace, negotiation must be at an end. The Netherlands were now

part of France. They had been incorporated with the Republic by a law which the

Directory had not the power, even if they had the will, to alter. The French government

thus took a stand which they unswervingly maintained throughout the whole business.

Nor can there be any question that they were right. Every argument of policy, almost of

moral right, justified the French in maintaining this trophy of the famous campaign of

’94.

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In adding the Belgian Netherlands to France, French statesmen were not guilty of the

gross folly of annexing the ancient territory of a neighbouring nation, inhabited by a

patriotic and high-spirited population. Flanders and Brabant had no more to do with

Ducal Austria than Hanover had to do with England. They had descended to its reigning

family by an accident: they were the remains of a once-flourishing kingdom, itself

nearly allied to France. The people were unanimous for the French incorporation. It was

here that the aggression of the Allies had commenced. Belgium was the gate of France:

its surrender would be the surrender of her hard-won guarantee for the security of her

territory against future invasion. The surrender of Belgium involved the loss of another

inestimable advantage. The possession of it was the sole guarantee for the

independence of Holland. Cut off Holland, to France or to England an equally desirable

ally, by surrendering Belgium, and a counter-revolution would have brought the

Stadtholder back to the Hague in a month.

The Basle negotiations thus put an end to all hope of restoring peace, unless by

surrendering the principle of a balance of the European power in which France should

not disproportionately predominate. For above a century the maintenance of this

principle had been a primary maxim of English politics. England had never even

sanctioned a negotiation into which entered any contemplation of its surrender. For that

principle William had organised the Grand Alliance: for that principle the war begun by

him had been steadily maintained and brought to a glorious end by the great ministers

and generals of Queen Anne. At the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, at the first treaty of Paris

in 1763, it had been triumphantly affirmed. Even at the peace of 1783, when England

retired in defeat from an inglorious and disastrous contest, it had not been assailed.

Advocates of peace in England were thus confronted by a serious dilemma. Peace on

the French terms meant, in Burke’s words, nothing less than the surrender of Europe,

bound hand and foot, to France. But out of this dilemma the advocates of peace

contrived to make new capital. What had produced the failure of the negotiations?

Simply the absence of full authority on the part of the ministerial delegate. The whole

transaction was informal: and besides, on many other grounds, the French had reason

to distrust the sincerity of the English Ministry. Nor were the English Ministry in truth

really desirous of peace. The negotiation was a mere trick to take the wind out of the

sails of the Opposition: a trick to persuade the country to go on granting useless

supplies and squandered subsidies. If a peace were to be made, France must see a

complete change of men and measures in England. She would make no peace with Mr.

Pitt: but it did not therefore follow that she would not cheerfully confide in the sincerity

of Mr. Fox, Mr. Sheridan, and Mr. Grey. But Mr. Pitt dexterously converted this identical

version of the affair to his own use. The proposals of Basle could indeed hardly be said

to amount to a negotiation. They indicated only a perverse and suspicious temper on

the part of France, which had prevented the negotiations from being matured. Some

power among the former Allies, which had already made its peace, might yet by

interposing its assurances of the honesty, good faith, and ultimate reasonableness of

the English Ministry, if only a serious and formal negotiation could be arranged, bring

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about the desired end, without throwing England into the hands of Mr. Fox. With this

view, Mr. Pitt sought the mediation of Prussia. But this attempt came to nothing also.

But fortune suddenly put a new resource into Mr. Pitt’s hands. A war of aggression

carried on on every frontier could not be long carried on without reverses: and the

French arms in the summer of 1796 sustained a serious check. Secure on the side of

the Netherlands, France was pushing to the utmost the advantages she had gained on

the Rhine and in Italy. The plan of the war was bold and simple. On the Rhine were

Jourdan and Moreau: in Italy Bonaparte had established a base of operations by the

submission of Sardinia. Jourdan and Moreau were to unite and push on by the valley of

the Danube, while Bonaparte, after sweeping Northern Italy of the Austrians, was to

force the passes of the Tyrol, unite with Moreau and Jourdan, and pour the whole forces

of the French Republic on Vienna. Fortune steadily attended the French arms in Italy:

and nothing in the world seemed more unlikely than reverses in Germany. Once more

Frankfort was occupied and pillaged: the important princes of Baden and Wirtemberg,

and the nest of petty sovereigns who were included in the Circle of Swabia, hastened to

buy peace by submission and contributions. The defence of the Empire had been

entrusted to the Archduke Charles, a young general not wholly unworthy of the praise

which Burke bestows upon him. Placed between the two armies of Moreau and Jourdan,

he was compelled to retreat before them step by step, until a blow well-directed on the

former general at Donauwerth separated him from his artillery and stores and

compelled him to a temporary pause. Turning his success to instant advantage, Charles

left a small force to keep Moreau in check, and drew off the bulk of his army to fall with

crushing force upon Jourdan. After a few days’ skilful manoeuvring, he completely

defeated him in the battle of Amberg. This victory completely frustrated the plans for

the German campaign. Jourdan was obliged to flee in disorder to the Lower Rhine,

losing in his retreat, if it could be dignified with the name, nearly half his army. Moreau

pushed on into Bavaria: but the disaster sustained by Jourdan, and the daily

reinforcements poured into the Imperial ranks, made it necessary to commence a

retreat, which he effected in so masterly a manner as to entitle it to high celebrity

among military exploits.

Jourdan’s failure naturally kindled fresh hopes in those who believed the French might

yet listen to reasonable proposals of peace. So severe a blow could not but tend to

bring the Directory to reason. The English Ministry at once seized the opportunity. As

soon as the news reached the Cabinet, a note was despatched to the Danish Minister in

London, enclosing a request to be delivered to the Directory through the Danish Minister

at Paris. The enclosure was brief, and intended to bear in every line marks of plainness

and sincerity. It requested a passport for an English envoy, who was to proceed at once

to Paris, and ascertain, by direct consultation with the French Government, if any base

of pacification could be laid down. Such an application, at such a moment, could not but

prepossess the French in favour of English sincerity. It would show that in spite of the

favourable turn taken by the war, England was anxious to put an end to it.

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Unfortunately for the salutary effect which might have been wrought in the French mind

by Jourdan’s disaster, it had been more than counteracted by the extraordinary advance

of the French in their second line of attack on Austria. In Italy a campaign more rapid

and more brilliant than anything on record had been made by the youthful protégé of

Barras. A force of forty thousand picked French troops, well inured to a hot climate by

service against Spain in the Pyrenees, was set free for further operations by the peace

which had been made by Godoy. Early in the year these troops were sent to reinforce

the French army in the maritime Alps: and the command of the whole was given to

Bonaparte. Hardly had the first blow been struck, when the King of Sardinia sued for

peace, and opened to French garrisons those famous fortresses which made Piedmont

the key of Italy. The Duke of Parma followed his example. Bonaparte was in a week or

two in possession of Milan, and overrunning the whole of Lombardy. Before the end of

May, he had passed the Mincio, forcing the Austrians partly into Mantua and partly into

the uplands. Not a single disaster stayed his progress. News of the great victories of

Castiglione and Arcola, of the siege of Mantua, of the submission of Naples, and of the

formation of the Cispadane Republic, came like a succession of thunderclaps to Paris

and to London. The young Corsican adventurer had brought to pass the favourite dream

of French ambition. He had conquered Italy. He had done far more: he had almost

revived the Empire of Charlemagne.

After some formal parley, the French Directory at length granted a passport for an

English envoy to be sent to Paris. But this double issue of the year’s events complicated

the negotiation at the outset. The English based their hopes of the abandonment of

French military ambition on the successes of the Archduke Charles, on the failure and

mismanagement of the internal resources of France, prominently insisted on by the

moderate party in the debates of the two Assemblies, and not least on the pacific

disposition of one or two of the Directors themselves. They believed it to be worth the

while of the Directory to sacrifice the Austrian Netherlands to secure a peace which

should ensure the stability of the new constitution. But had the Directory no reason to

suppose that the renewal of the negotiations by England indicated a disposition to

concede this very point? Barthélemy’s answer to Wickham had been explicit enough.

The conquest of Italy far outweighed the disasters in Germany: and the Directory might

very well imagine that the latter rather than the former had suggested the initiative

now taken by England. Had Lord Grenville hinted through the Danish Minister the

grounds which induced him to offer peace, and made it known that his terms would be

substantially the same which had been rejected at Basle, there can be no doubt that the

Directory would have indignantly refused to treat. The new negotiation was thus based

from the very outset on mutual misunderstandings.

A few months had so changed the situation that scarcely a line of all that Burke had

written before his compulsory retreat to Bath was now applicable to it. Peace with

France was no longer obscurely hinted at. It was openly avowed as a foremost object of

policy: it was sought by every possible means, at the sacrifice of ministerial

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consistency, almost of national dignity and honour. Twice, at Basle and Berlin, had the

British Ministry held out the hand of conciliation, and each time they had been met with

a haughty rebuff. Yet the experiment was about to be repeated at Paris. All this was so

much gain to those who opposed on principle all dealings with the Regicide Republic.

Every repetition of the experiment weakened the cause of the peacemakers. If the

present negotiation could be made to end in failure, all peril of a French alliance would

be nearly over. Should the French Government only maintain its insolent attitude and

arrogant demands, and the British plenipotentiary therefore return unsuccessful, a great

step would have been gained. The old war-cry might then be effectually raised. The

British public might then be roused to an indignant enthusiasm: the fortune of war

might turn: a new Armed Coalition might be formed: and the troubles of France might

be ended at some distant period by a Restoration.

Such were the hopes with which Burke began, before the name of the British envoy was

known, to write his First published Letter on a Regicide Peace. The contemplation of the

past vicissitudes of France suggested that brilliant historical phantasmagoria with which

the volume opens. In the mutable scheme of human events, all things were possible.

That terrible and unnatural spectre which now stalked over paralysed Europe was liable

to the same fate which had befallen the murdered French Monarchy. The ends of

Providence were often accomplished by slight means. Nearly four centuries ago the

power that was then devastating France had been broken by a poor girl at the door of

an inn. Who should say that Providence had no second Joan of Arc, to save France from

an enemy a thousandfold more cruel and hateful?

In an exordium of greater length than he commonly allowed himself, before reaching

the main question of argument, but turning with such life and swiftness to almost every

element contained in the question, that it seems unusually brief, Burke went on to

sketch out the true position of England and the Allies, and the true relation of France

with the rest of Europe. He then turned to the history of the overtures for peace.

Omitting the Auckland pamphlet, and dating the negotiations from the King’s Speech

which accompanied it, he pictured with bitter irony the crowned heads of Europe

patiently waiting as suitors in the antechamber of the Luxembourg, and among the rest,

the proud monarchy of Britain bidding for the mercy of the regicide tyrants. He next

states the result of the Basle negotiations, which was briefly this. All that the Republic

had incorporated with itself, by a “law” which it arrogantly assumed to be irreversible, it

meant to keep. The Austrian Netherlands in the North, Savoy in the East, Nice in the

South, had been thus incorporated. The possession of the Austrian Netherlands,

provinces in themselves of the highest value and importance, had a secondary

operation. It fettered at the feet of triumphant France, with links of steel, the captive

republic of Holland. The possession of Savoy threatened a similar degradation for

Switzerland. The possession of Nice threatened a similar degradation for Italy. When

Burke was writing, Italy had actually been trampled under the iron heel of Bonaparte:

and only two years passed before the prediction was fulfilled to the letter in

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Switzerland.

The conquest of Italy, together with the over-running of half Germany, came in

opportunely for Burke’s argument. Here was the best commentary on the pacific

professions of the Directory. In the counsels which projected this crusade against the

liberties of Europe there was no halt or hesitation. Europe might sue for peace: the

Directory could afford to refuse it, and ultimately to impose on Europe its own terms.

From the previous conduct of the Directory, from its ascertained character, and from

the present situation of affairs, Burke drew the conclusion that no terms which England

could accept would be offered. He then passed on to consider how far the minority, in

proposing peace, could be considered as expressing the public mind of England. None

but regicide sympathizers could really desire a regicide peace: the rest of the nation, if

once roused to a full consideration of the question, and to a sense of its enormous

moment, must be in favour of maintaining the war. What proportion did the Jacobins,

with Lansdowne, Fox, and Grey at their head, bear to the English nation? Burke was

ready with an answer: and his answer, based as it was on data which he thought

sufficient, is a curious and valuable piece of statistics. He estimated the number of

Englishmen and Scotsmen capable of forming political opinions at four hundred

thousand. One-fifth, or eighty thousand, of these he reckoned as Jacobins. The

remainder he assumed to be supporters of the ancient and natural policy of England.

How, then, was the present unpopularity of the war to be accounted for? How was it

that the English people, a people of sympathies easily kindled into a warlike flame, and

in general only too ready to support a policy of action, were petitioning on all sides

against a war in which England and her Allies had everywhere been worsted, a war

which, in an age of prolonged wars, had not lasted four years, and in which the strength

of England had not yet been half put forth? How was it that the English people were

willing to surrender everything for which the war had been declared—the independence

of Holland, the right of their Austrian allies to the Netherlands, the cause of monarchy,

religion, and property, in France, and on all the borders of France? To see a republican

propaganda securely established in the heart of Europe, destined to work what changes

none could foresee, not only throughout Europe, but throughout the civilized world? The

answer was obvious. In order that a war may be popular, it must affect British

interests. In other words, it must be a mercenary war: a war either to gain plunder, or

to protect from spoliation, or both.

In contrasting the mercenary war of 1739 with the War of the Grand Alliance a

generation before, and tracing the analogy between that famous struggle and the

present one, Burke employed a method which the reader of his works has already seen

well exemplified in the Speech on Conciliation with America. It was the method of

applying reason to historical example: and Burke’s natural examples were the wars

which Britain had waged during the preceding century. Wars, he maintained, must not

be judged by the impulse which leads to them, or by the spirit with which they are first

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prosecuted. A popular war is generally a mercenary war, and therefore, as likely as not,

an unjust war. That famous war of 1739, in which the English nation had been roused

to an enthusiasm so memorable, Burke pronounced, after a careful examination of the

original documents of the times, to have been an extremely unjust war. In that other

great war for the balance of power, which had been waged in the preceding generation

by William III at the head of the Grand Alliance, the conditions were reversed. That war

was a righteous and necessary one, if any ever were such. But was that war a popular

one? Was it even carried on with spirit and vigour when the break-up of the hollow

peace of Ryswick called the British people to redoubled exertions? On the contrary, all

classes of the people, sodden with ignorance and toryism, detested it. The great Whig

ministers themselves despaired of it. “The sober firmness of Somers, the undaunted

resolution of Shrewsbury, the adventurous spirit of Montagu and Orford, were

staggered. They were not yet mounted to the elevation of the King.” The ministers

begged the King to reconsider his policy. Strong in his wise determination, the King

refused: and as time rolled on, his policy was amply justified. The march of events

gradually animated the Lords, the Commons, and the people at large.

This fine historical argument is stated by Burke in his happiest manner—a manner

which irresistibly recalls his arguments on Conciliation with America. He naturally

changed his style in passing on to his next task, that of animating the English people by

exhibiting to them a picture, painted in the most glowing colours, of their abominated

enemy. Macaulay, in a clever jeu d’esprit, has described Burke as a merry, good-

natured Irishman, who liked to go out at nights to a children’s party carrying a magic

lantern, with which he alternately amused and terrified them. Such a picture of the

effect upon England of a Jacobin Peace concludes the Fourth Letter. In such a spirit he

had astonished the House by flinging the Birmingham dagger on the floor. Very

different is that calm analysis of the French Republic which concludes the First Letter,

and is continued in the Second. Keen of eye, and firm of hand, like some skilled

anatomist, he gradually lays bare the structure of this political monster. Less, however,

is now made of the natural and inborn atrociousness of the French republic, less of the

crimes and follies of the Assembly and Convention. The main point insisted on is that

France, once a scene of chaos, a proverb for anarchy, has become a vast, united,

sagacious, and terrible power: a power which Europe must boldly face, but to face

which Europe has hitherto been totally lacking in resolution. The exposure of the true

aims and the actual character of the new French ambition is the main point of the

present letters: and in this great and central point it may safely be said that Burke was

perfectly and invariably right. How the spirit which animated France was aroused, of

what elements it was compounded, whether its prevalence might have been prevented,

what might and ought to have been the policy of the leading men in France, were

questions that had really passed into the limbo of chroniclers. On these subordinate

questions we think that Burke was often wrong: on the main question we are sure that

he was right. He was as right as he had been in arguing upon the Double Cabinet, upon

the Taxation of America, upon the Irish Penal Laws, upon Economical Reform, upon the

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wrongs of India, and upon almost every real question, that is, upon every practical

question, staring the world in the face and demanding solution, with which he was

brought in contact. Here was a new power repudiating not only law and diplomacy, but

moral right, aggressive in its nature, powerful in its resources, served by sagacious

minds and iron sinews, avowedly warring against the rest of the world to make it like

unto itself, or in other words, to conquer it. Such a pest ought to be resisted, and such

resistance ought to be continued, through failure and through discouragement, until the

tyranny should be overpast. In this general conclusion the events of the next fourteen

years proved Burke to have been right, as fully and as clearly as events are capable of

proving anything.

We have said that the French were in the right to keep fast hold on the Austrian

Netherlands. Had it been clear that the French merely wished to retain them for

purposes of defence, as a compensation for the outrage attempted upon the French

nation by what was really a war of plunder, and as a recognition on the part of Europe

of the great alteration which the Revolution had wrought in both the outward and the

inward aspect of the French nationality, we think that England ought to have made

peace. But it was not so: the Belgian annexation, as the sequel soon proved, was but

the beginning of a policy of Conquest. And in any case, England could make no peace

yielding up the Netherlands to France, unless her Austrian ally assented to it. To have

made such a peace would have been to drink of that cup of humiliation which had been

eagerly drained by Spain and Prussia, and to have yielded that position the firm

maintenance of which in succeeding years sufficed to save the whole of Europe from the

all-levelling despotism of Bonaparte. In any case, no equitable peace could be made in

haste. The changes we have related, few and simple in themselves, had penetrated to

the very base of all European relations: and the reparation of the strains and fractures

they had wrought was a task demanding in the highest degree patience, moderation,

firmness, and good sense. These were not wanting on the side of England. They were

totally wanting on the side of France.

The messenger of peace whom Pitt despatched to Paris in October 1796 was James,

first Earl of Malmesbury: a diplomatist who had well earned his honourable rank by

public services. None of the politicians at Pitt’s disposal knew Europe better: none could

have dealt with the Directory more wisely. Malmesbury was a thorough Englishman. His

frank manners and commanding presence, added to a fine face, piercing eyes, and

abundant white hair, had gained him among his friends the byename of “the Lion.” No

man was better calculated to restore French confidence in England, and to satisfy the

Directory of the sincerity of England’s desire for peace. As soon as it was known who

was to be the envoy, it was felt that in his person the cause of the peacemakers must

stand or fall. In due time Lord Malmesbury set out on his mission. The anxiety which

prevailed as to its result suggested the remark that his journey to Paris was a slow one.

Burke contemptuously replied that this was not wonderful, seeing that he went all the

way on his knees. His journey thither may have been tardy: but his return to England

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was precipitate. Among articles of less importance, Lord Malmesbury was to offer to

France equivalents from among the English conquests, in exchange for the restoration,

on the part of France, of Belgium to Austria. This restoration England still insisted on.

The Directory, through their negotiator, Delacroix, declared that this was impossible. No

publicist could possibly construe the Act of Constitution so as to admit of it. Belgium

was annexed to France by a law which was of the very essence of the constitution. The

Emperor, if he pleased, might take his equivalent elsewhere in Europe. France proposed

to secularise the three Ecclesiastical Electorates, and to seize the rich bishoprics which

filled up the nooks and corners in the geographical mosaic of Germany and Italy. If

there must still be the same number of Electors, the Stadtholder, the Duke of

Brunswick, and the Duke of Wirtemberg would be convenient substitutes for the Prince-

Bishops. The objections to all this were obvious. It still left France in a dominant military

position, which there was no reason to suppose her indisposed to abuse: and it would

have been accomplished, not at the expense of France, but at the expense of all that

remained of Austrian influence in the Empire.

The history of the failure of the negotiations is amply detailed in the Second Part of the

Third Letter. Malmesbury’s last interview with Delacroix, during which the whole

proposal of England was amply exposed and discussed, took place on the 17th of

December. Next day, the two memorials containing the English proposals, the one

relating to France, the other to Holland, were returned by the Directory to him on the

ground that they were not properly signed, and that they contained no ultimatum. The

Directory wished for an ultimatum: they did, in fact, with indecent haste and utterly

undiplomatic manners, demand of Lord Malmesbury an ultimatum within twenty-four

hours. Malmesbury must then have seen that the negotiations were all moonshine, and

that the Directory were determined on war. He complied, however, as far as he was

able, with this peremptory demand. He affixed his signature to the memorials. He

pointed out that they contained no ultimatum: that they represented nothing more than

a basis of discussion: and that to ask for an ultimatum, at the present stage of affairs,

was to snuff out the negotiation. He therefore invited the Directory to produce, if they

were so disposed, a counterproject. Immediately on receiving this temperate reply, and

without an hour’s delay, the Directory gave him notice to quit Paris within eight and

forty hours. The pacific intentions of the Directory may be estimated by the fact that on

the evening of the 16th, the day preceding the final conference between Malmesbury

and Delacroix, a fleet set out from Brest for the Irish coast, carrying a force of eighteen

thousand men, the command of which was entrusted to Hoche.

The British Ministry lost no time in publishing their comment on the failure of the

negotiation. In a long and laboured Declaration, dated December the 27th, they evinced

the strongest disappointment, and cast the whole blame on the French. They

“lamented” its abrupt termination, and solemnly engaged, “in the face of all Europe,” to

renew negotiations as soon as the French should be disposed to recommence them.

This undignified attitude had at least the merit of consistency. It sealed and confirmed

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that abject apostrophe to the French in the name of Pitt and his colleagues, which Burke

in his contemptuous mood had already penned— “Citizen Regicides! . . . . Nothing shall

hinder us from renewing our supplications. You may turn us out at the door: but we will

jump in at the window” (p. 83).

Burke had foreseen the failure of the negotiations: and it was natural for him to hail its

announcement with a satisfaction bordering on triumph. The ground was cut from under

the feet of the peacemakers: and nothing remained but to prosecute the war. He now

took up the pen for the last of its many labours—to write a Third and final Letter,

characterising the recent negotiations, pointing out how inevitable was their failure, and

animating the nation to the continuance of the war, by proving at large, in answer to

those who held that the war was ruining the country, the sufficiency of British resources

for its maintenance. Pitt’s purpose in the Declaration was to soothe the national

resentment, and to stifle the warlike spirit, if such there were, of the English people. It

was impossible to foresee what force or form that spirit might assume. If the people

were bent on peace, they would see that the French Republic would make none with a

Ministry which had done its best to destroy it. If the people were bent on war, they

would see that Mr. Pitt was lacking in spirit, as he had gone far to prove himself lacking

in ability, to conduct it. In either case, Mr. Pitt and his colleagues must lose their places.

Burke was anxious to avoid the dilemma. He knew that Windham and Fitzwilliam were

not strong enough to form a Ministry: he knew that a revulsion of feeling would throw

the nation into the hands of the Regicide Peace party, of Shelburne and Fox, who had

quenched their old mutual hostility, and agreed on a coalition. Erskine had published a

pamphlet early in the year in furtherance of this object: and the disposition of the

nation may be estimated by the unparalleled fact that thirty-three editions of it were

called for during the year. In this pamphlet Erskine appealed, in answer to Burke’s First

and Second Letters, to the principles which the great statesman had laid down in his

famous speech on “Conciliation with America.” Boldly denying, as he did, all Burke’s

recent conclusions, and contrasting them with those contained in his collected works,

then recently republished, Erskine tempered his criticism with the confession that when

he looked into his own mind, he found “all its best lights and principles fed from that

immense magazine of moral and political wisdom.” A sense, he said, of mingled awe

and gratitude checked him, even in that respectful liberty which he allowed himself in

the controversy. Erskine went on, in words as truthful as they were appropriate, to

mark out the position which Burke had taken up, and in which he was now left. “When I

look,” he wrote, “at his inveterate consistency, even to this hour, when all support of

men and things has been withdrawn from him: when I compare him with those who

took up his errors only for their own convenience, and for the same convenience laid

them down, he rises to such a deceptive height in my imagination, that, with my eyes

fixed upon ministers, I view him as upon an eminence too high to be approached.”

This estimate was not Erskine’s alone. Those who wish to see to what intellectual

eminence it is possible for a man to attain in his life-time, should read the

Parliamentary debates of this time. Burke’s opinions, on all subjects, are there quoted,

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like Scripture, by all parties, and in the most opposite senses.

The composition of the great fragment of a Third Letter on a Regicide Peace was spread

over the last six months of Burke’s life. It was begun in January, and the rest was

probably written during the short intervals of ease which he enjoyed, while his incurable

malady was slowly hastening his end. Burke spent the early part of the year partly at

Beaconsfield and partly at Bath. To the latter place he went much against his

inclination: for his sincere wish was to die as quietly as might be at home. His political

allies drove him to the crowded pump-room of Bath in hopes of prolonging a life so

necessary, as they thought, to the welfare of the country. “Your life,” Windham had

written on the 22nd of January, “is at this moment of more consequence than that of

any other man now living.” The cause of the Regicide war had now become indeed

precarious. The hopes of those who wished to reanimate the nation rested, as Windham

put it, on Burke’s pen and Hoche’s sword. The events of April added new force to the

latter argument. Bonaparte, at the gates of Vienna, had driven Austria herself to sue for

peace: and England now stood alone. In full expectation of speedy invasion, Windham

turned anxiously to Burke. Unwilling as he was to tax Burke’s declining powers, he

begged him to write only a short letter indicating the measures necessary to be taken

for the immediate safety of the country. “The danger,” he wrote, “is coming thundering

upon us. We are miserably unprepared, in means, and in spirit, for the crisis.” But while

the need was growing more urgent, Burke was growing less and less able to respond to

it. The end was fast approaching. Towards the end of May, having spent four months at

Bath to no purpose, he returned to his house at Beaconsfield. It was, as he expressed

it, so much on his way to the tomb. “There,” he wrote, “I shall be nearer to a habitation

more permanent, humbly and fearfully hoping that my better part may find a better

mansion.” Six weeks after this he died. Events had by that time far outrun the labours

of his pen. Malmesbury was fruitlessly repeating the peace negotiations at Lille; while

the French war-party were thwarting all attempts at compromise, and hastening on the

Revolution of Fructidor, which extinguished all moderate counsels, and paved the way

for the ambitious and unscrupulous despotism of Bonaparte. The Lille negotiations were

yet going on, when Canning wrote to a member of the embassy: “There is but one

event, but that is an event for the world—Burke is dead! . . . . He is the man that will

mark this age, marked as it is in itself by events, to all time.”

Dr. French Laurence, an eminent civilian, whose association with Burke during the

Hastings Impeachment had led to the closest political and social relations with him, and

Dr. Walker King, Bishop of Rochester, were Burke’s literary executors. The Third Letter

on a Regicide Peace was prepared for the press by the former; the Fourth, by the latter.

The exact condition in which the Third Letter came to the hands of Laurence is

described in the Advertisements, prefixed to it on publication, and reprinted in the

present volume. Laurence added to it what was necessary to fill up the design: and the

added portions are easy to be distinguished from the original. In the part written by

Burke’s own hand it is impossible to trace any marks of declining intellectual power. But

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it is easy to trace in it a declining disposition or ability to employ the old weapons of

authorship. The rare exuberance, the inextinguishable force and vivacity which mark

the “Letter to a Noble Lord,” and are not wanting in the “Fourth Letter,” are gone. In

part, no doubt, they were extinguished by pain and debility. Nothing remains but the

clear vision, the unimpaired judgment, the stern penetration which fact and reason

alone survive, and the large conception which appears, to any other mind becoming for

the first time familiar with it, almost a revelation.

The “Regicide Peace” Letters form a natural complement to the two volumes of Burke’s

Select Works already issued in the present series. The main topic of the Tract and

Speeches contained in the first volume is the relation of Government to the people in

the mass, whether at home or in the colonies. The main topic of the famous work

contained in the second volume is the relation of the present generation of men, viewed

as a political body, to those which have passed away, and to those which are to come.

The question in the present volume is the almost equally inexhaustible one of the

relation of separate nations to that great family of nations which is called the civilized

world. Of this question the interest is inexhaustible because it is perpetual, and because

the conditions which surround it are perpetually changing. It is one which is passed on

from one generation of Englishmen to another, with the continuous life of the great

community itself which they compose. The duty and interest of England as a member of

the European family of nations is indeed a large subject. We have it in the present

volume discussed by a large and forethoughtful mind. In times when the duties of

nations to their neighbours are as little settled, so far at least as belongs to practice, as

were the duties of man in the Hobbesian state of nature, and when political conditions

all over the world are rapidly becoming such that the attitude of nations to each other is

practically determined, and determined in a very short space of time, by the capricious

impulses of a majority told by the head, the mature conclusions of one so wise and so

well-informed as Burke on this subject should possess some interest. Let us see, as

briefly as possible, to what those conclusions amount.

In the preface to a previous volume of Burke’s works

we have sketched out Burke’s

doctrine of the position of the individual man in relation to mankind at large. Man is so

formed as to be entirely controlled by instincts arising from intercourse with his

neighbours. Severance from his fellow-men means the extinction of those controlling

instincts, and the extinction, in and through them, of all the power that gives to man’s

natural eminence in the animal world its natural extent and significance. Now the

common intercourse, the mutual relations and interests, the jealousies, the gains, the

losses, of men in society, as well as the sentiments and the reasonings which practically

guide them, each and all have their parallel in the relations of the nations. No nation

can isolate itself from the rest of the world, without committing moral suicide. No nation

can cast off its responsibility, whether to its neighbours, or to its own children, or even

to its yet unborn descendants. The nation that shows any signs of this betrayal of its

inherited trusts is on the high road to dissolution.

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But how far does this analogy between the human individual and the body politic hold

good? Limits it unquestionably has. The human individual, for instance, presuming him

to escape casual causes of death, is absolutely certain of dissolution in the ordinary

course of nature within a space of time not exceeding, except in the rarest cases, a

well-ascertained limit. But it is false to argue from this to similar conditions in the body

politic. The body politic, well says Mr. Mill, may indeed die: but it dies of disease or

violence, not of old age. Again, that grand and beautiful relation which subsists between

an old country and the offshoots from its own flesh and blood which it has settled

beyond seas, has been the subject of misconception more pernicious, because more

influencing practice. What business, Burke had heard it gravely argued in Parliament,

has a child to rebel against its parent, and therefore, what business have the Colonies

to resist taxation from home? It is clear, therefore, that the analogy has its limits;

perhaps very narrow ones.

The general question to which Burke’s arguments belong is, When is a nation bound to

go to war with its neighbour, and having once gone to war, when is it justified in

making peace? Wars, said Burke, using the words of Bacon, are suits to the tribunal of

God’s justice. That fearful tribunal is not to be lightly invoked. Justa bella quibus

necessaria. A war is only just when it is also necessary: and it only becomes necessary

when all other means of accomplishing its object have been tried, and have failed.

Seeing that war is to the community of nations what the ordinary means of justice are

to single societies, it is clear that whatever conditions may attend it we may be sure of

this—that nothing can banish it from the world which does not also banish international

justice. Those who say otherwise can scarcely impose even upon themselves. When

diplomacy has failed, war is the sole means of obtaining redress among nations: and

nations, in their own suits, fulfil the functions both of advocate and judge. In civil

society, a man has ceased to be judge in his own cause as soon as he has emerged

from the Hobbesian state of nature. Here, then, the analogy of the state and the

individual terminates. A state makes war, after it has itself decided upon the justice of

its cause. On the question of that justice itself, the analogy is still valid. Justice is either

civil or criminal. To obtain his civil rights, a man has recourse to the law; he has

recourse to the same law to protect himself from wrong by punishing the malefactor in

such a way as shall deter generally from the commission of the offence. Criminal

justice, in its true aspect, is strictly preventive: the murderer is sent to the gallows, not

because he has murdered a man, but that men may not be murdered. Of vindictive or

avenging justice, fully civilized society knows nothing. That form of justice, in its strict

sense, has long been left by legislators to other and not less potent instruments; to

social penalties, to the guilty conscience, and to the awful Power which says

“Vengeance is mine, I will repay.” Both these forms of justice have their analogies in

that transcendent justice which a nation demands by making war. But England stands

with regard to the appeal to war in a different relation from the rest of Europe: in a

relation, indeed, so far as relates to offensive war, which may be described as

intermediate between that of the rest of Europe and that of America. So far as relates

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to defensive war, the case is otherwise. Here England must fully realize and amply

guard against the strategic dangers which are peculiar to her position. The relations of

England with the rest of Europe differ widely from the relations among themselves of

the nations which compose the rest of Europe. The physical cause, in Burke’s phrase, is

“a slender dyke of five and twenty miles.” This insular position has been the occasion,

while other powerful elements have been the efficient causes, of England’s vast

commerce, and of England’s naval superiority. England’s interests lie less on the

continent than on the sea-shore: her neighbours inhabit the coasts of the whole world.

New York and Bombay are nearer to her than Paris and Vienna; disturbances in the

highlands of India and China, war in the Drakenberg or the Rocky Mountains, touch her

more nearly than such events at her own door as the annexation of Holstein, or the

separation of Belgium and Holland. But her navy and her purse are tempting objects to

the designing politicians of Europe: and happy is the European schemer who can make

a cat’s-paw of Great Britain. And there are a mean sort of Englishmen who are anxious

that England should be ever huffing and swaggering in the councils of Europe, as if this

great kingdom, with her six hundred years of national glory, with her splendid offshoots

and dependencies on every habitable shore of the globe, were in peril of being cast into

the shade by some brand-new Republic or Empire of yesterday. The difference between

England and the rest of Europe is a difference in kind. The deduction which in Burke’s

time was unhesitatingly drawn from this, and which in a modified form has survived all

subsequent changes in the European system, was well expressed by Waller, in his

famous comparison of the situation of England to that of the mysterious powers of the

air:

Angels and we have this prerogative,

That none can at our happy seats arrive:

While we descend at pleasure to invade

The bad with vengeance, and the good to aid.

England was the natural arbitress of Europe. This position had been aspired to by Henry

the Eighth: it had been seized by Elizabeth: it had been gloriously held by Cromwell: it

had been extended and confirmed by William of Orange: within living memory it had

been pushed to the utmost, amidst the plaudits of the world, by Chatham. To most

Englishmen in those days the doctrine of Waller’s lines was a matter not only of belief,

but of sentiment. England believed herself, and not without reason, the supreme court

of appeal in the transcendent lawsuits of Europe. Moral causes alone could put her

mighty forces in motion: and these moral causes might lie not only in wrongs attempted

on herself, but in those attempted on others. As to what England should construe as a

wrong to herself, it was unnecessary to examine; it was sufficient that England was

always able to make up her mind on the question when the contingency occurred. The

question of the wrongs of others was more difficult. Now, both these questions were

united in the case of the war with France. England had at her door a political nuisance

which was fast spreading over Europe, and even propagating itself within England’s own

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limits. Was England justified in going to war? In the circumstances, according to the

standard maxims of eighty years ago, unquestionably she was.

By which of the different forms of justice enumerated by the philosophers was England’s

war with France justified? Burke answered, in the first place, by the civil law itself.

Suppose your neighbour’s house to have been seized by a gang of thieves and

assassins, who after murdering the owner, and driving out his family, settled into an

organized gang of marauders, infesting the whole neighbourhood. From an obvious

point of view, this is what France might be said to have done. Even if such a gang of

thieves and assassins abstained from molesting yourself, and confined themselves for a

time to attacking those who occupied a less defensible position, was it a wise policy to

let them go on confirming their position and adding to their strength, instead of doing

your utmost to crush them at the outset? And intervention in France was, he thought,

justifiable on much more limited grounds. Put the case in a much more modest way.

Suppose your neighbour to have set up at your door a new erection in the nature of a

nuisance. Were you not justified in taking immediate steps to abate it? Clear as might

be his right to do what he would with his own, the rights of ownership are regulated and

restrained by the rights of vicinage. The court-leet of Christendom, the grand vicinage

of Europe, were therefore bound to ascertain and to prevent any capital innovation

which might amount to a dangerous nuisance. This was the ground that had been taken

up in the famous Whitehall Declaration. All the surrounding powers, it was there said,

had a right, and felt it a duty, to stop the progress of an evil which attacked the

fundamental principles by which mankind was united in civil society.

Burke readily admitted great limitations to this right of making war upon a neighbouring

nation for misgovernment. The evil to be attacked must have declared itself by

something more than casual or temporary manifestations. It must be shown to be

radicated in the nature of the thing itself: to be permanent in its action and constant in

its effects: to be progressive, and not stationary; and to be curable by no other means

than the knife. Burke had remarked that such communities existed in Europe long

anterior to the French Republic. In one memorable passage in his book on the

Revolution, he had denounced to the whole of the Christian world the “barbarous and

anarchic despotism of Turkey.” Here was a power more barbarous and anarchic, more

destructive, in its policy and in the tendency of its whole being, to the human race, than

even the monstrous despotism of Turkey. It enjoyed a less advantageous position. It

was a new wrong, and could plead no prescription. It had destroyed a great nation: that

nation ought to be reinstated. It had discomposed Europe: Europe ought to be

rearranged in its old relations. Of its doings, if left to itself, none could foresee the end:

let another end then be put to them, and that right speedily.

Such had in a great measure been the grounds on which war with France had been

resolved upon by the English cabinet in ’92. But that resolution had beyond question

been leavened by a less controllable element. Still more did that same element leaven

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the resolution with which England maintained her warlike attitude after the execution of

Louis in ’93. That element was the impulse to vindictive justice: the demand for the

actual punishment of the regicides, the atheists, and the levellers. This fact Burke took

small pains to conceal. When in ’93 the fortunes of the Allies had given delusive hopes

of success, he had even sketched out the limits to which retribution should proceed. He

was totally opposed to an amnesty. He was for executing a stern vengeance on the

regicides who had sat in the Convention: on those who had composed the Revolutionary

Tribunal: on those who should be proved to have taken a leading part in acts of

sacrilege: on all the leaders of the Jacobin Clubs. Not one of these, he said, should

escape his due punishment. He was not, indeed, for taking the lives of all. Justice ought

to be tempered with mercy. “There would be deaths—but for the number of criminals,

and the size of France, not many.” The rest was to be done by transportation, by the

galleys, in some cases by mere exile. And in fortifying this opinion by the example of

the English restoration, Burke half apologized for the treachery of the monarch who

after granting a general amnesty had sent more than one true English patriot to a cruel

death. Here, then, we see what Burke regarded as one object of the war. The

restoration of the monarchy and the church was to be followed by a Bloody Assize.

Was the war with France really justifiable on these grounds? British public opinion soon

cooled down to the conviction that it was not: and these “second thoughts” are

confirmed by the verdict of history. When these Letters were written, the war, in

whatever spirit commenced, was not being waged as a Regicide War: the objection to

peace was not Burke’s repugnance to a Regicide Peace. It would have been as easy to

reanimate the King’s corpse, as to expel the Republic from France, and to reinstate the

monarchy. The war was maintained on other grounds. It was maintained because the

robbers in possession had carried on and improved upon the policy of the old master of

the house; because the Republic and the demon of French national ambition had so

readily coalesced; because under the Republic that demon had started to new life and

formed more audacious plans; and because these plans were actually being executed,

and that with extraordinary vigour and persistency. The character of the war had

completely changed. The change had begun with the victory of Fleurus; it was clearly

perceived in the last six months of Burke’s life: and in the year which followed it was

made plain to the dullest of politicians by the unprovoked seizure of Switzerland and the

merciless sack of Rome. Had Burke lived to see ’98, he would have seen the fullest

confirmation of the main principles he had laid down. He would then have seen his

character of the rapacious, conscienceless Republic amply verified: he would have seen

England once more animated by a determination to crush its dreadful force, and placing

herself resolutely at the head of a second coalition armed in defence of the public rights

of Europe. But he would also have seen that the English people were no longer filled

with that burning hatred of “Jacobinism” and “Regicide” which animated him, and with

which he had done his best to animate them. And in such a case the people are

generally in the right.

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Burke has provided us, in one short sentence, with a gauge of the varying soundness

and hollowness of his argument. “France,” he wrote in ’93, “is not formidable as a great

republic, but as the most dreadful gang of robbers and murderers that ever was

embodied.” Burke was wrong. Whether the particular citizens who moulded its destinies

were robbers and murderers, or patriots and philosophers, it was as a great republic, if

at all, that France was formidable. She had forced the whole of Europe to acknowledge

her as a great republic. Even England, though she had not made peace with her, had

virtually acknowledged her as a great republic ever since the negotiation at Basle. But

although the old Regicide argument, so far as European public opinion was concerned,

had thus been cast into the shade, it did not follow that Burke was bound to cease from

employing it. For him, at least, it was as valid and cogent as while the guillotine was

still wet with the blood of the Son of St. Louis. It was equally valid and cogent for

thousands of English men and women, who read in the recent events in France the

doom of the old political system of Europe. That doom had been pronounced by a

decree which no war could reverse, though waged in the name of Chivalry and

Christianity, supported by all the religious philosophy of both Churches, and by the

wealth of both Indies. That political system of Europe, which Burke loved so much, was

rotten to the heart; and it was the destiny of French republicanism to begin the long

task of breaking it up, crumbling it to dust, and scattering it to the winds. This is clear

as the day to us. But the spectator of eighty years ago might well be excused for

averting his eyes from that which indicated it.

Not only was the scheme of which the author speaks at the end of the First Letter never

completed, but not one of the four Letters of which the present volume consists, can be

considered a finished work, complete in all its parts and members. The First most nearly

approaches completion: and the Second was hastily written as a supplement to it. The

First and Second Letters may really be considered as a first and second part of the

same work. The Third and Fourth are merely grand fragments, running in each case into

a continuation patched up by another hand out of the author’s remains. The book on

the Revolution (Select Works, Vol. ii.) similarly consists of one or two colossal

fragments of a whole that only existed in Burke’s vast imagination. The reader

unavoidably compares the Reflections on the Revolution with the Letters on a Regicide

Peace. Difficult as the comparison would in any case be, this condition of

incompleteness and mutilation renders it more difficult than ever. But one thing will be

abundantly clear to any one who reads the present volume through. Utterly wrong were

those contemporary critics, chiefly among the Foxite Whigs, who saw in the

“Reflections” the beginnings of a distorted view of things which in the “Regicide Peace”

letters culminated and amounted to lunacy. The intemperate heat, the factious

preoccupation, and the precipitate judgment which vitiate so much of the “Reflections”

are indeed to be traced more or less in the “Regicide Peace.” But the question is

altered: and a far bolder, wider, more accurate view of its elements predominates. It is

a view which reminds us strongly of the writer’s arguments on the American question.

In the “Reflections” Burke was avowedly writing in a partial and prejudiced sense. He

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took upon himself to expound on the spur of the moment the unreasoned creed and the

traditional sentiment of the ordinary Englishman of his day. In the present volume

Burke relinquishes this “John Bull” masquerade, and writes as a statesman, a scholar,

and a historical critic. The reader will find more than one of his early arguments

repudiated. This was the natural result of wider and more prolonged experience. In the

“Reflections,” for instance, he had declared it to be the tendency of the new French

state to crumble into separate republics. That argument was blindly adopted by Lord

Auckland: and in the present volume it is treated with the greatest scorn, and directly

confuted by a reference to facts. In the present volume, though Burke writes with

opinions in the main unchanged, he also writes with knowledge vastly enlarged. He

writes, moreover, with a deeper and more sustained sense of the importance of the

question at issue, both to England and to Europe: and with a solemn sense of personal

responsibility natural in a veteran statesman consciously taking his leave of the world.

These qualities, combined with a degree of eloquence and logical ability which is to say

the least equal to that displayed in the earlier work, have been thought by some to

entitle the Letters on a Regicide Peace, fragmentary as they are, to rank even before

the “Reflections,” and to be called the writer’s masterpiece.

London,

February 21, 1878.

ENDNOTES

[1.] Remarks on the Policy of the Allies, 1793.

[1.]

View of the Causes and Consequences of the Present War with France, p. 119.

[1.]

Malmesbury’s Correspondence, Vol. III. p. 398.

[1.]

Select Works of Burke, Vol. II. p. 45.

ETTERS

DDRESSED

A M

EMBER

THE

RESENT

ARLIAMENT

THE

ROPOSALS

FOR

EACE

WITH

THE

EGICIDE

IRECTORY

RANCE

THE

RIGHT

HONOURABLE

DMUND

URKE

[Second Edition. Rivingtons, 1796.]

LETTER I ON THE OVERTURES OF PEACE

[Argument

NTRODUCTION, pp. 62–78. Difficulties of the

“philosophy of history,” p. 62. Rise and successes

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of the Regicide Republic, p. 64. England often at

her strongest when she believes herself to be

weakest, as in 1757, p. 67. The nation to be

awakened, p. 68. Double aspect of the Wealth of

England, p. 69. England cannot act apart from

Europe, p. 70. Discreditable issue of the war

hitherto, p. 72. Disaster abroad reflected in

distemper at home, p. 73, which is explained by

the want of high-principled leaders, p. 75. The

peculiar character of a war with a Regicide State,

p. 76. This leads the author (Part I) to review the

history of the Overtures for Peace already made

by the English Government, and to show from

them that no Peace is seriously contemplated by

France. Thence (Part II) to show that these

Overtures cannot accord with the sentiments of

the English nation, and lastly (Part III) to show

that the nature of the Regicide Republic is such

that no Peace could be made with it.

PART I, pp. 78–101

History of the Overtures for Peace

Indications of French temper. Bird’s mission, p.

79; Hamburg declaration, p. 81.

1st O

VERTURES. Speech from the Throne, Oct. 29,

1795, and reply of 5th Pluviose (Jan. 25, 1796),

p. 82.

2nd O

VERTURES

. Note of March 8, 1796, from Mr.

Wickham to M. Barthélémy, and answer of the

latter, March 26, p. 86. Downing Street Note of

April 10, p. 91. Disasters of the Summer, and

failure of rumoured Prussian mediation, p. 92.

RESENT OVERTURES. Lord Grenville’s request,

through the Danish Minister, for a passport for an

English plenipotentiary, Sept. 6, 1796, p. 93.

Refusal of the French Government, Sept. 19, p.

94. Lord Grenville applies directly, by the note of

Sept. 19, and the passport is despatched on the

11th of Vendémiaire. The first manifesto, issued

at the same time as the passport, proves the

futility of going on with the negotiations, p. 96.

These views confirmed by the second manifesto of

Oct. 5, p. 98. Burke mournfully contrasts the

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present with the former attitude of the

Government, and quotes the famous W

HITEHALL

ECLARATION of Oct. 29, 1793, p. 99.

PART II, pp. 101–22

The Overtures do not represent the feeling of

the British Nation

They are contrary to the policy of England, p. 101,

and to the disposition of the nation, p. 102. The

Jacobins a minority, p. 105. Dulness and inaction

of the sound part of the nation, p. 106. A popular

war, such as the Spanish War of 1739, is

produced by superficial causes: the deep causes

of the present war require to be explained and

enforced, p. 108. Power of the British nation

under a great leader fully illustrated by the history

of the great war with France, 1689–1713, pp.

110–22. Weakness of England then as a military

power, p. 112, an isolated nation, with little

commerce, p. 113. In spite of all this, Unanimous

Address of a factious House of Commons in 1697

against the Enemy’s Overtures for Peace, p. 114.

Continuation of William’s Great War, p. 115. He

carries it on against the Ministry and People, and

converts the Lords to his views, p. 117, and

ultimately the Commons, p. 118. Conclusion

drawn from this, p. 119. If the war against Louis

XIV was thus heroically carried on, how much

more should the present war be fought out, p.

122.

PART III, pp. 122–52

Why no Peace possible with France

A state based on the principles of Regicide,

Jacobinism, and Atheism (p. 124), and fortified by

the propagation of a corresponding system of

manners and morals (pp. 126–32), is a standing

menace to Europe. Europe is a moral and social

unity (p. 132) in which France has violently

isolated herself, and taken up a position of

hostility, p. 134. Position of Europe and France

illustrated from the Civil Law, p. 135, and the war

upon France justified by the principles of the Law

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of Vicinage, p. 138. The condition of France

transferred for the sake of argument to England,

p. 139. The case of Algiers distinguished, p. 143.

ONCLUSION

, pp. 147–52. Popular opinion no safe

guide: the decision must rest with Ministers, p.

147. Scheme of future letters, arranged in six

heads, p. 148. Personal explanation, p. 149.]

MY DEAR SIR,

LAST

CONVERSATION

, though not in the tone of absolute

despondency, was far from chearful. We could not easily account for

some unpleasant appearances. They were represented to us as

indicating the state of the popular mind; and they were not at all what

we should have expected from our old ideas even of the faults and

vices of the English character. The disastrous events, which have

followed one upon another in a long unbroken funereal train, moving

in a procession that seemed to have no end—these were not the

principal causes of our dejection. We feared more from what

threatened to fail within, than what menaced to oppress us from

abroad. To a people who have once been proud and great, and great

because they were proud, a change in the national spirit is the most

terrible of all revolutions.

I shall not live to behold the unravelling of the intricate plot, which

saddens and perplexes the awful drama of Providence, now acting on

the moral theatre of the world. Whether for thought or for action, I

am at the end of my career. You are in the middle of yours. In what

part of it’s orbit the nation, with which we are carried along, moves at

this instant, it is not easy to conjecture. It may, perhaps, be far

advanced in its aphelion. But when to return?

Not to lose ourselves in the infinite void of the conjectural world, our

business is with what is likely to be affected for the better or the

worse by the wisdom or weakness of our plans. In all speculations

upon men and human affairs, it is of no small moment to distinguish

things of accident from permanent causes, and from effects that

cannot be altered. It is not every irregularity in our movement that is

a total deviation from our course. I am not quite of the mind of those

speculators, who seem assured, that necessarily, and by the

constitution of things, all States have the same periods of infancy,

manhood, and decrepitude, that are found in the individuals who

compose them. Parallels of this sort rather furnish similitudes to

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illustrate or to adorn, than supply analogies from whence to reason.

The objects which are attempted to be forced into an analogy are not

found in the same classes of existence. Individuals are physical

beings, subject to laws universal and invariable. The immediate cause

acting in these laws may be obscure: the general results are subjects

of certain calculation. But commonwealths are not physical but moral

essences. They are artificial combinations; and, in their proximate

efficient cause, the arbitrary productions of the human mind. We are

not yet acquainted with the laws which necessarily influence the

stability of that kind of work made by that kind of agent. There is not

in the physical order (with which they do not appear to hold any

assignable connexion) a distinct cause by which any of those fabrics

must necessarily grow, flourish, or decay; nor, in my opinion, does

the moral world produce any thing more determinate on that subject,

than what may serve as an amusement (liberal indeed, and ingenious,

but still only an amusement) for speculative men. I doubt whether the

history of mankind is yet complete enough, if ever it can be so, to

furnish grounds for a sure theory on the internal causes which

necessarily affect the fortune of a State. I am far from denying the

operation of such causes: but they are infinitely uncertain, and much

more obscure, and much more difficult to trace, than the foreign

causes that tend to raise, to depress, and sometimes to overwhelm a

community.

It is often impossible, in these political enquiries, to find any

proportion between the apparent force of any moral causes we may

assign, and their known operation. We are therefore obliged to deliver

up that operation to mere chance; or, more piously (perhaps more

rationally), to the occasional interposition and the irresistible hand of

the Great Disposer. We have seen States of considerable duration,

which for ages have remained nearly as they have begun, and could

hardly be said to ebb or flow. Some appear to have spent their vigour

at their commencement. Some have blazed out in their glory a little

before their extinction. The meridian of some has been the most

splendid. Others, and they the greatest number, have fluctuated, and

experienced at different periods of their existence a great variety of

fortune. At the very moment when some of them seemed plunged in

unfathomable abysses of disgrace and disaster, they have suddenly

emerged. They have begun a new course, and opened a new

reckoning; and even in the depths of their calamity, and on the very

ruins of their country, have laid the foundations of a towering and

durable greatness. All this has happened without any apparent

previous change in the general circumstances which had brought on

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their distress. The death of a man at a critical juncture, his disgust,

his retreat, his disgrace, have brought innumerable calamities on a

whole nation. A common soldier, a child, a girl at the door of an inn,

have changed the face of fortune, and almost of Nature.

UCH

AND

OFTEN

INFLUENCED

SUCH

CAUSES

, has commonly been the fate

of Monarchies of long duration. They have their ebbs and their flows.

This has been eminently the fate of the Monarchy of France. There

have been times in which no Power has ever been brought so low.

Few have ever flourished in greater glory. By turns elevated and

depressed, that Power had been, on the whole, rather on the

encrease; and it continued not only powerful but formidable to the

hour of the total ruin of the Monarchy. This fall of the Monarchy was

far from being preceded by any exterior symptoms of decline. The

interior were not visible to every eye; and a thousand accidents might

have prevented the operation of what the most clear-sighted were not

able to discern, nor the most provident to divine. A very little time

before its dreadful catastrophe, there was a kind of exterior splendour

in the situation of the Crown, which usually adds to Government

strength and authority at home. The Crown seemed then to have

obtained some of the most splendid objects of state ambition. None of

the Continental Powers of Europe were the enemies of France. They

were all either tacitly disposed to her or publickly connected with her;

and in those who kept the most aloof, there was little appearance of

jealousy; of animosity there was no appearance at all. The British

Nation, her great preponderating rival, she had humbled; to all

appearance she had weakened; certainly had endangered, by cutting

off a very large, and by far the most growing part of her empire. In

that it’s acmé of human prosperity and greatness, in the high and

palmy state of the Monarchy of France, it fell to the ground without a

struggle. It fell without any of those vices in the Monarch, which have

sometimes been the causes of the fall of kingdoms, but which existed,

without any visible effect on the state, in the highest degree in many

other Princes; and, far from destroying their power, had only left

some slight stains on their character. The financial difficulties were

only pretexts and instruments of those who accomplished the ruin of

that Monarchy. They were not the causes of it.

Deprived of the old Government, deprived in a manner of all

Government, France, fallen as a Monarchy, to common speculators

might have appeared more likely to be an object of pity or insult,

according to the disposition of the circumjacent powers, than to be

the scourge and terror of them all. But out of the tomb of the

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murdered Monarchy in France, has arisen a vast, tremendous,

unformed spectre, in a far more terrific guise than any which ever yet

have overpowered the imagination and subdued the fortitude of man.

Going straight forward to its end, unappalled by peril, unchecked by

remorse, despising all common maxims and all common means, that

hideous phantom overpowered those who could not believe it was

possible she could at all exist, except on the principles, which habit

rather than nature had persuaded them were necessary to their own

particular welfare and to their own ordinary modes of action. But the

constitution of any political being, as well as that of any physical

being, ought to be known, before one can venture to say what is fit

for its conservation, or what is the proper means for its power. The

poison of other States is the food of the new Republick. That

bankruptcy, the very apprehension of which is one of the causes

assigned for the fall of the Monarchy, was the capital on which she

opened her traffick with the world.

The Republick of Regicide, with an annihilated revenue, with defaced

manufactures, with a ruined commerce, with an uncultivated and half

depopulated country, with a discontented, distressed, enslaved, and

famished people, passing with a rapid, eccentrick, incalculable course

from the wildest anarchy to the sternest despotism, has actually

conquered the finest parts of Europe, has distressed, disunited,

deranged, and broke to pieces all the rest; and so subdued the minds

of the rulers in every nation, that hardly any resource presents itself

to them, except that of entitling themselves to a contemptuous mercy

by a display of their imbecility and meanness. Even in their greatest

military efforts and the greatest display of their fortitude, they seem

not to hope, they do not even appear to wish, the extinction of what

subsists to their certain ruin. Their ambition is only to be admitted to

a more favoured class in the order of servitude under that

domineering power.

This seems the temper of the day. At first the French force was too

much despised. Now it is too much dreaded. As inconsiderate courage

has given way to irrational fear, so it may be hoped, that through the

medium of deliberate sober apprehension, we may arrive at steady

fortitude. Who knows whether indignation may not succeed to terror,

and the revival of high sentiment, spurning away the delusion of a

safety purchased at the expence of glory, may not yet drive us to that

generous despair, which has often subdued distempers in the State

for which no remedy could be found in the wisest counsels?

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OTHER GREAT STATES having been without any regular certain course of

elevation or decline, we may hope that the British fortune may

fluctuate also; because the public mind, which greatly influences that

fortune, may have it’s changes. We are therefore never authorized to

abandon our country to it’s fate, or to act or advise as if it had no

resource. There is no reason to apprehend, because ordinary means

threaten to fail, that no others can spring up. Whilst our heart is

whole, it will find means, or make them. The heart of the citizen is a

perennial spring of energy to the State. Because the pulse seems to

intermit, we must not presume that it will cease instantly to beat. The

publick must never be regarded as incurable. I remember in the

beginning of what has lately been called the Seven Years’ War, that

an eloquent writer and ingenious speculator, Dr. Brown, upon some

reverses which happened in the beginning of that war, published an

elaborate philosophical discourse to prove that the distinguishing

features of the people of England had been totally changed, and that

a frivolous effeminacy was become the national character. Nothing

could be more popular than that work. It was thought a great

consolation to us, the light people of this country, (who were and are

light, but who were not and are not effeminate,) that we had found

the causes of our misfortunes in our vices. Pythagoras could not be

more pleased with his leading discovery. But whilst, in that splenetick

mood, we amused ourselves in a sour critical speculation, of which we

were ourselves the objects, and in which every man lost his particular

sense of the publick disgrace in the epidemic nature of the distemper;

whilst, as in the Alps, goitre kept goitre in countenance; whilst we

were thus abandoning ourselves to a direct confession of our

inferiority to France, and whilst many, very many, were ready to act

upon a sense of that inferiority, a few months effected a total change

in our variable minds. We emerged from the gulph of that speculative

despondency, and were buoyed up to the highest point of practical

vigour. Never did the masculine spirit of England display itself with

more energy, nor ever did it’s genius soar with a prouder pre-

eminence over France, than at the time when frivolity and effeminacy

had been at least tacitly acknowledged as their national character, by

the good people of this kingdom.

ONE

(

THEY

PROPERLY

TREATED

) I despair neither of the publick

fortune nor of the publick mind. There is much to be done

undoubtedly, and much to be retrieved. We must walk in new ways,

or we can never encounter our enemy in his devious march. We are

not at an end of our struggle, nor near it. Let us not deceive

ourselves: we are at the beginning of great troubles. I readily

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acknowledge that the state of publick affairs is infinitely more

unpromising than at the period I have just now alluded to; and the

position of all the Powers of Europe, in relation to us, and in relation

to each other, is more intricate and critical beyond all comparison.

Difficult indeed is our situation. In all situations of difficulty men will

be influenced in the part they take, not only by the reason of the

case, but by the peculiar turn of their own character. The same ways

to safety do not present themselves to all men, nor to the same men

in different tempers. There is a courageous wisdom: there is also a

false reptile prudence, the result not of caution but of fear. Under

misfortunes it often happens that the nerves of the understanding are

so relaxed, the pressing peril of the hour so completely confounds all

the faculties, that no future danger can be properly provided for, can

be justly estimated, can be so much as fully seen. The eye of the

mind is dazzled and vanquished. An abject distrust of ourselves, an

extravagant admiration of the enemy, present us with no hope but in

a compromise with his pride, by a submission to his will. This short

plan of policy is the only counsel which will obtain a hearing. We

plunge into a dark gulph with all the rash precipitation of fear. The

nature of courage is, without a question, to be conversant with

danger; but in the palpable night of their terrors, men under

consternation suppose, not that it is the danger, which, by a sure

instinct, calls out the courage to resist it, but that it is the courage

which produces the danger. They therefore seek for a refuge from

their fears in the fears themselves, and consider a temporizing

meanness as the only source of safety.

The rules and definitions of prudence can rarely be exact; never

universal. I do not deny that in small truckling states a timely

compromise with power has often been the means, and the only

means, of drawling out their puny existence. But a great state is too

much envied, too much dreaded, to find safety in humiliation. To be

secure, it must be respected. Power, and eminence, and

consideration, are things not to be begged. They must be

commanded: and they who supplicate for mercy from others can

never hope for justice thro’ themselves. What justice they are to

obtain, as the alms of an enemy, depends upon his character; and

that they ought well to know before they implicitly confide.

UCH CONTROVERSY THERE HAS BEEN in Parliament, and not a little amongst

us out of doors, about the instrumental means of this nation towards

the maintenance of her dignity, and the assertion of her rights. On the

most elaborate and correct detail of facts, the result seems to be that

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at no time has the wealth and power of Great Britain been so

considerable as it is at this very perilous moment. We have a vast

interest to preserve, and we possess great means of preserving it. But

it is to be remembered that the artificer may be incumbered by his

tools, and that resources may be among impediments. If wealth is the

obedient and laborious slave of virtue and of publick honour, then

wealth is in it’s place, and has it’s use. But if this order is changed,

and honor is to be sacrificed to the conservation of riches, riches,

which have neither eyes nor hands, nor any thing truly vital in them,

cannot long survive the being of their vivifying powers, their

legitimate masters, and their potent protectors. If we command our

wealth, we shall be rich and free. If our wealth commands us, we are

poor indeed. We are bought by the enemy with the treasure from our

own coffers. Too great a sense of the value of a subordinate interest

may be the very source of it’s danger, as well as the certain ruin of

interests of a superiour order. Often has a man lost his all because he

would not submit to hazard all in defending it. A display of our wealth

before robbers is not the way to restrain their boldness, or to lessen

their rapacity. This display is made, I know, to persuade the people of

England that thereby we shall awe the enemy, and improve the terms

of our capitulation: it is made, not that we should fight with more

animation, but that we should supplicate with better hopes. We are

mistaken. We have an enemy to deal with who never regarded our

contest as a measuring and weighing of purses. He is the Gaul that

puts his sword into the scale. He is more tempted with our wealth as

booty, than terrified with it as power. But let us be rich or poor, let us

be either in what proportion we may, nature is false or this is true,

that where the essential publick force (of which money is but a part)

is in any degree upon a par in a conflict between nations, that state

which is resolved to hazard it’s existence rather than to abandon it’s

objects, must have an infinite advantage over that which is resolved

to yield rather than to carry it’s resistance beyond a certain point.

Humanly speaking, that people which bounds it’s efforts only with it’s

being, must give the law to that nation which will not push its

opposition beyond its convenience.

F WE LOOK TO NOTHING but our domestick condition, the state of the

nation is full even to plethory; but if we imagine that this country can

long maintain it’s blood and it’s food, as disjoined from the community

of mankind, such an opinion does not deserve refutation as absurd,

but pity as insane.

I do not know that such an improvident and stupid selfishness

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deserves the discussion, which, perhaps, I may bestow upon it

hereafter. We cannot arrange with our enemy in the present

conjuncture, without abandoning the interest of mankind. If we look

only to our own petty peculium in the war, we have had some

advantages; advantages ambiguous in their nature, and dearly

bought. We have not in the slightest degree impaired the strength of

the common enemy in any one of those points in which his particular

force consists: at the same time that new enemies to ourselves, new

allies to the Regicide Republick, have been made out of the wrecks

and fragments of the general confederacy. So far as to the selfish

part. As composing a part of the community of Europe, and interested

in it’s fate, it is not easy to conceive a state of things more doubtful

and perplexing. When Louis the Fourteenth had made himself master

of one of the largest and most important provinces of Spain; when he

had in a manner over-run Lombardy, and was thundering at the gates

of Turin; when he had mastered almost all Germany on this side the

Rhine; when he was on the point of ruining the august fabrick of the

Empire; when, with the Elector of Bavaria in his alliance, hardly any

thing interposed between him and Vienna; when the Turk hung with a

mighty force over the Empire on the other side; I do not know, that in

the beginning of 1704 (that is in the third year of the renovated war

with Louis the Fourteenth) the state of Europe was so truly alarming.

To England it certainly was not. Holland (and Holland is a matter to

England of value inestimable) was then powerful, was then

independent, and though greatly endangered, was then full of energy

and spirit. But the great resource of Europe was in England. Not in a

sort of England detached from the rest of the world, and amusing

herself with the puppet shew of a naval power (it can be no better,

whilst all the sources of that power, and of every sort of power, are

precarious), but in that sort of England, who considered herself as

embodied with Europe; in that sort of England, who, sympathetick

with the adversity or the happiness of mankind, felt that nothing in

human affairs was foreign to her. We may consider it as a sure axiom

that, as on the one hand, no confederacy of the least effect or

duration can exist against France, of which England is not only a part,

but the head, so neither can England pretend to cope with France but

as connected with the body of Christendom.

UR ACCOUNT OF THE WAR, as a war of communion, to the very point in

which we began to throw out lures, oglings, and glances for peace,

was a war of disaster and of little else. The independant advantages

obtained by us at the beginning of the war, and which were made at

the expence of that common cause, if they deceive us about our

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largest and our surest interest, are to be reckoned amongst our

heaviest losses.

The allies, and Great Britain amongst the rest (perhaps amongst the

foremost), have been miserably deluded by this great fundamental

error; that it was in our power to make peace with this monster of a

State, whenever we chose to forget the crimes that made it great,

and the designs that made it formidable. People imagined that their

ceasing to resist was the sure way to be secure. This “ pale cast of

thought sicklied over all their enterprizes and turned all their politicks

awry.” They could not, or rather they would not read, in the most

unequivocal declarations of the enemy, and in his uniform conduct,

that more safety was to be found in the most arduous war, than in the

friendship of that kind of being. It’s hostile amity can be obtained on

no terms that do not imply an inability hereafter to resist it’s designs.

This great prolific error (I mean that peace was always in our power)

has been the cause that rendered the allies indifferent about the

direction of the war; and persuaded them that they might always

risque a choice, and even a change in it’s objects. They seldom

improved any advantage; hoping that the enemy, affected by it,

would make a proffer of peace. Hence it was that all their early

victories have been followed almost immediately with the usual effects

of a defeat; whilst all the advantages obtained by the Regicides, have

been followed by the consequences that were natural. The

discomfitures, which the Republick of Assassins has suffered, have

uniformly called forth new exertions, which not only repaired old

losses, but prepared new conquests. The losses of the allies, on the

contrary, (no provision having been made on the speculation of such

an event) have been followed by desertion, by dismay, by disunion,

by a dereliction of their policy, by a flight from their principles, by an

admiration of the enemy, by mutual accusations, by a distrust in

every member of the alliance of it’s fellow, of it’s cause, it’s power,

and it’s courage.

REAT DIFFICULTIES in consequence of our erroneous policy, as I have

said, press upon every side of us. Far from desiring to conceal or even

to palliate the evil in the representation, I wish to lay it down as my

foundation, that never greater existed. In a moment when sudden

panick is apprehended, it may be wise, for a while to conceal some

great publick disaster, or to reveal it by degrees, until the minds of

the people have time to be re-collected, that their understanding may

have leisure to rally, and that more steady counsels may prevent their

doing something desperate under the first impressions of rage or

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terror. But with regard to a general state of things, growing out of

events and causes already known in the gross, there is no piety in the

fraud that covers it’s true nature; because nothing but erroneous

resolutions can be the result of false representations. Those measures

which in common distress might be available, in greater, are no better

than playing with the evil. That the effort may bear a proportion to

the exigence, it is fit it should be known; known in it’s quality, in it’s

extent, and in all the circumstances which attend it. Great reverses of

fortune there have been, and great embarrassments in counsel: a

principled Regicide enemy possessed of the most important part of

Europe, and struggling for the rest: within ourselves, a total

relaxation of all authority, whilst a cry is raised against it, as if it were

the most ferocious of all despotism. A worse phaenomenon—our

government disowned by the most efficient member of it’s tribunals;

ill supported by any of their constituent parts; and the highest tribunal

of all (from causes not for our present purpose to examine) deprived

of all that dignity and all that efficiency which might enforce, or

regulate, or if the case required it, might supply the want of every

other court. Public prosecutions are become little better than schools

for treason; of no use but to improve the dexterity of criminals in the

mystery of evasion; or to shew with what compleat impunity men

may conspire against the Commonwealth; with what safety assassins

may attempt it’s awful head. Every thing is secure, except what the

laws have made sacred; every thing is tameness and languor that is

not fury and faction. Whilst the distempers of a relaxed fibre

prognosticate and prepare all the morbid force of convulsion in the

body of the State, the steadiness of the physician is overpowered by

the very aspect of the disease.

The doctor of the Constitution,

pretending to under-rate what he is not able to contend with, shrinks

from his own operation. He doubts and questions the salutary but

critical terrors of the cautery and the knife. He takes a poor credit

even from his defeat; and covers impotence under the mask of lenity.

He praises the moderation of the laws, as, in his hands, he sees them

baffled and despised. Is all this, because in our day the statutes of the

kingdom are not engrossed in as firm a character, and imprinted in as

black and legible a type as ever? No! the law is a clear, but it is a

dead letter. Dead and putrid, it is insufficient to save the State, but

potent to infect and to kill. Living law, full of reason, and of equity and

justice, (as it is, or it should not exist) ought to be severe and awful

too; or the words of menace, whether written on the parchment roll of

England, or cut into the brazen tablet of Rome, will excite nothing but

contempt. How comes it, that in all the State prosecutions of

magnitude, from the Revolution to within these two or three years,

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the Crown has scarcely ever retired disgraced and defeated from it’s

Courts? Whence this alarming change? By a connexion easily felt, and

not impossible to be traced to it’s cause, all the parts of the State

have their correspondence and consent. They who bow to the enemy

abroad will not be of power to subdue the conspirator at home. It is

impossible not to observe, that in proportion as we approximate to

the poisonous jaws of anarchy, the fascination grows irresistible. In

proportion as we are attracted towards the focus of illegality,

irreligion, and desperate enterprize, all the venomous and blighting

insects of the State are awakened into life. The promise of the year is

blasted, and shrivelled, and burned up before them. Our most

salutary and most beautiful institutions yield nothing but dust and

smut: the harvest of our law is no more than stubble. It is in the

nature of these eruptive diseases in the State to sink in by fits, and

re-appear. But the fuel of the malady remains; and in my opinion is

not in the smallest degree mitigated in it’s malignity, though it waits

the favourable moment of a freer communication with the source of

Regicide to exert and to encrease it’s force.

THAT

THE

PEOPLE

ARE

CHANGED

, that the Commonwealth cannot be

protected by its laws? I hardly think it. On the contrary, I conceive,

that these things happen because men are not changed, but remain

always what they always were; they remain what the bulk of us must

ever be, when abandoned to our vulgar propensities, without guide,

leader or controul. That is, made to be full of a blind elevation in

prosperity; to despise untried dangers; to be overpowered with

unexpected reverses; to find no clue in a labyrinth of difficulties; to

get out of a present inconvenience, with any risque of future ruin; to

follow and to bow to fortune; to admire successful though wicked

enterprize, and to imitate what we admire; to contemn the

government which announces danger from sacrilege and regicide,

whilst they are only in their infancy and their struggle, but which finds

nothing that can alarm in their adult state, and in the power and

triumph of those destructive principles. In a mass we cannot be left to

ourselves. We must have leaders. If none will undertake to lead us

right, we shall find guides who will contrive to conduct us to shame

and ruin.

We are in a war of a peculiar nature. It is not with an ordinary

community, which is hostile or friendly as passion or as interest may

veer about; not with a State which makes war through wantonness,

and abandons it through lassitude. We are at war with a system,

which, by it’s essence, is inimical to all other Governments, and which

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makes peace or war, as peace and war may best contribute to their

subversion. It is with an armed doctrine that we are at war. It has, by

it’s essence, a faction of opinion, and of interest, and of enthusiasm,

in every country. To us it is a Colossus which bestrides our channel. It

has one foot on a foreign shore, the other upon the British soil. Thus

advantaged, if it can at all exist, it must finally prevail. Nothing can so

compleatly ruin any of the old Governments, ours in particular, as the

acknowledgment, directly or by implication, of any kind of superiority

in this new power. This acknowledgment we make, if in a bad or

doubtful situation of our affairs, we solicit peace; or if we yield to the

modes of new humiliation, in which alone she is content to give us an

hearing. By that means the terms cannot be of our choosing; no, not

in any part.

It is laid in the unalterable constitution of things—none can aspire to

act greatly, but those who are of force greatly to suffer. They who

make their arrangements in the first run of misadventure, and in a

temper of mind the common fruit of disappointment and dismay, put

a seal on their calamities. To their power they take a security against

any favours which they might hope from the usual inconstancy of

fortune. I am therefore, my dear friend, invariably of your opinion

(though full of respect for those who think differently) that neither the

time chosen for it, nor the manner of soliciting a negotiation, were

properly considered; even though I had allowed (I hardly shall allow)

that with the horde of Regicides we could by any selection of time, or

use of means, obtain any thing at all deserving the name of peace.

In one point we are lucky. The Regicide has received our advances

with scorn. We have an enemy, to whose virtues we can owe nothing;

but on this occasion we are infinitely obliged to one of his vices. We

owe more to his insolence than to our own precaution. The

haughtiness by which the proud repel us, has this of good in it; that in

making us keep our distance, they must keep their distance too. In

the present case, the pride of the Regicide may be our safety. He has

given time for our reason to operate; and for British dignity to recover

from it’s surprise. From first to last he has rejected all our advances.

Far as we have gone, he has still left a way open to our retreat.

There is always an augury to be taken of what a peace is likely to be,

from the preliminary steps that are made to bring it about. We may

gather something from the time in which the first overtures are made;

from the quarter whence they come; from the manner in which they

are received. These discover the temper of the parties. If your enemy

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offers peace in the moment of success, it indicates that he is satisfied

with something. It shews that there are limits to his ambition or his

resentment. If he offers nothing under misfortune, it is probable, that

it is more painful to him to abandon the prospect of advantage than to

endure calamity. If he rejects solicitation, and will not give even a nod

to the suppliants for peace, until a change in the fortune of the war

threatens him with ruin, then I think it evident, that he wishes nothing

more than to disarm his adversary to gain time. Afterwards a question

arises, which of the parties is likely to obtain the greater advantages,

by continuing disarmed and by the use of time.

With these few plain indications in our minds, it will not be improper

to re-consider the conduct of the enemy together with our own, from

the day that a question of peace has been in agitation. In considering

this part of the question, I do not proceed on my own hypothesis. I

suppose, for a moment, that this body of Regicide, calling itself a

Republick, is a politick person, with whom something deserving the

name of peace may be made. On that supposition, let us examine our

own proceeding. Let us compute the profit it has brought, and the

advantage that it is likely to bring hereafter. A peace too eagerly

sought, is not always the sooner obtained. The discovery of vehement

wishes generally frustrates their attainment; and your adversary has

gained a great advantage over you when he finds you impatient to

conclude a treaty. There is in reserve, not only something of dignity,

but a great deal of prudence too. A sort of courage belongs to

negotiation, as well as to operations of the field. A negotiator must

often seem willing to hazard the whole issue of his treaty, if he wishes

to secure any one material point.

HE REGICIDES were the first to declare war. We are the first to sue for

peace. In proportion to the humility and perseverance we have shewn

in our addresses, has been the obstinacy of their arrogance in

rejecting our suit. The patience of their pride seems to have been

worn out with the importunity of our courtship. Disgusted as they are

with a conduct so different from all the sentiments by which they are

themselves filled, they think to put an end to our vexatious solicitation

by redoubling their insults.

It happens frequently, that pride may reject a public advance, while

interest listens to a secret suggestion of advantage. The opportunity

has been afforded. At a very early period in the diplomacy of

humiliation, a gentleman was sent on an errand,

of which, from the

motive of it, whatever the event might be, we can never be ashamed.

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Humanity cannot be degraded by humiliation. It is it’s very character

to submit to such things. There is a consanguinity between

benevolence and humility. They are virtues of the same stock. Dignity

is of as good a race; but it belongs to the family of Fortitude. In the

spirit of that benevolence, we sent a gentleman to beseech the

Directory of Regicide, not to be quite so prodigal as their Republick

had been of judicial murder. We solicited them to spare the lives of

some unhappy persons of the first distinction, whose safety at other

times could not have been an object of solicitation. They had quitted

France on the faith of the declaration of the rights of citizens. They

never had been in the service of the Regicides, nor at their hands had

received any stipend. The very system and constitution of government

that now prevails was settled subsequent to their emigration. They

were under the protection of Great Britain, and in his Majesty’s pay

and service. Not an hostile invasion, but the disasters of the sea, had

thrown them upon a shore more barbarous and inhospitable than the

inclement ocean under the most pitiless of it’s storms. Here was an

opportunity to express a feeling for the miseries of war; and to open

some sort of conversation, which (after our publick overtures had

glutted their pride), at a cautious and jealous distance, might lead to

something like an accommodation. What was the event? A strange

uncouth thing, a theatrical figure of the opera, his head shaded with

three-coloured plumes, his body fantastically habited, strutted from

the back scenes, and after a short speech, in the mock-heroic falsetto

of stupid tragedy, delivered the gentleman who came to make the

representation into the custody of a guard, with directions not to lose

sight of him for a moment; and then ordered him to be sent from

Paris in two hours.

Here it is impossible that a sentiment of tenderness should not strike

athwart the sternness of politicks, and make us recal to painful

memory the difference between this insolent and bloody theatre, and

the temperate, natural majesty of a civilized court, where the afflicted

family of Asgill did not in vain solicit the mercy of the highest in rank,

and the most compassionate of the compassionate sex.

In this intercourse, at least, there was nothing to promise a great deal

of success in our future advances. Whilst the fortune of the field was

wholly with the Regicides, nothing was thought of but to follow where

it led; and it led to every thing. Not so much as a talk of treaty. Laws

were laid down with arrogance. The most moderate politician in their

clan

was chosen as the organ, not so much for prescribing limits to

their claims, as to mark what, for the present, they are content to

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leave to others. They made, not laws, not conventions, not late

possession, but physical nature and political convenience, the sole

foundation of their claims. The Rhine, the Mediterranean, and the

ocean were the bounds which for the time they assigned to the

Empire of Regicide. What was the Chamber of Union of Louis the

Fourteenth, which astonished and provoked all Europe, compared to

this declaration? In truth, with these limits, and their principle, they

would not have left even the shadow of liberty or safety to any nation.

This plan of empire was not taken up in the first intoxication of

unexpected success. You must recollect, that it was projected, just as

the report has stated it, from the very first revolt of the faction

against their Monarchy; and it has been uniformly pursued, as a

standing maxim of national policy, from that time to this. It is,

generally, in the season of prosperity that men discover their real

temper, principles, and designs. But this principle, suggested in their

first struggles, fully avowed in their prosperity, has in the most

adverse state of their affairs been tenaciously adhered to. The report,

combined with their conduct, forms an infallible criterion of the views

of this Republick.

In their fortune there has been some fluctuation. We are to see how

their minds have been affected with a change. Some impression it

made on them undoubtedly. It produced some oblique notice of the

submissions that were made by suppliant nations. The utmost they

did was to make some of those cold, formal, general professions of a

love of peace which no Power has ever refused to make; because they

mean little, and cost nothing. The first paper I have seen (the

publication at Hamburgh) making a shew of that pacific disposition,

discovered a rooted animosity against this nation, and an incurable

rancour, even more than any one of their hostile acts. In this

Hamburgh declaration, they choose to suppose, that the war, on the

part of England, is a war of Government, begun and carried on

against the sense and interests of the people; thus sowing in their

very overtures towards peace the seeds of tumult and sedition: for

they never have abandoned, and never will they abandon, in peace, in

war, in treaty, in any situation, or for one instant, their old steady

maxim of separating the people from their Government. Let me add—

and it is with unfeigned anxiety for the character and credit of

Ministers that I do add—if our Government perseveres, in it’s as

uniform course, of acting under instruments with such preambles, it

pleads guilty to the charges made by our enemies against it, both on

its own part, and on the part of Parliament itself. The enemy must

succeed in his plan for loosening and disconnecting all the internal

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holdings of the kingdom.

It was not enough that the Speech from the Throne, in the opening of

the session in 1795, threw out oglings and glances of tenderness. Lest

this coquetting should seem too cold and ambiguous, without waiting

for it’s effect, the violent passion for a relation to the Regicides

produced a direct Message from the Crown, and it’s consequences

from the two Houses of Parliament. On the part of the Regicides these

declarations could not be entirely passed by without notice: but in

that notice they discovered still more clearly the bottom of their

character. The offer made to them by the message to Parliament was

hinted at in their answer; but in an obscure and oblique manner as

before. They accompanied their notice of the indications manifested

on our side, with every kind of insolent and taunting reflection. The

Regicide Directory, on the day which, in their gipsey jargon, they call

the 5th of Pluviose, in return for our advances, charge us with eluding

our declarations under “evasive formalities and frivolous pretexts.”

What these pretexts and evasions were, they do not say, and I have

never heard. But they do not rest there. They proceed to charge us,

and, as it should seem, our allies in the mass, with direct perfidy;

they are so conciliatory in their language as to hint that this perfidious

character is not new in our proceedings. However, notwithstanding

this our habitual perfidy, they will offer peace “on conditions as

moderate” —as what? As reason and as equity require? No! as

moderate “as are suitable to their national dignity. ” National dignity

in all treaties I do admit is an important consideration. They have

given us an useful hint on that subject: but dignity, hitherto, has

belonged to the mode of proceeding, not to the matter of a treaty.

Never before has it been mentioned as the standard for rating the

conditions of peace; no, never by the most violent of conquerors.

Indemnification is capable of some estimate; dignity has no standard.

It is impossible to guess what acquisitions pride and ambition may

think fit for their dignity. But lest any doubt should remain on what

they think for their dignity, the Regicides in the next paragraph tell us

“that they will have no peace with their enemies, until they have

reduced them to a state, which will put them under an impossibility of

pursuing their wretched projects”; that is, in plain French or English,

until they have accomplished our utter and irretrievable ruin. This is

their pacific language. It flows from their unalterable principle in

whatever language they speak, or whatever steps they take, whether

of real war, or of pretended pacification. They have never, to do them

justice, been at much trouble in concealing their intentions. We were

as obstinately resolved to think them not in earnest; but I confess

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jests of this sort, whatever their urbanity may be, are not much to my

taste.

To this conciliatory and amicable publick communication, our sole

answer, in effect, is this. “Citizen Regicides! whenever you find

yourselves in the humour, you may have a peace with us. That is a

point you may always command. We are constantly in attendance,

and nothing you can do shall hinder us from the renewal of our

supplications. You may turn us out at the door; but we will jump in at

the window.”

To those, who do not love to contemplate the fall of human greatness,

I do not know a more mortifying spectacle, than to see the assembled

majesty of the crowned heads of Europe waiting as patient suitors in

the antechamber of Regicide. They wait, it seems, until the

sanguinary tyrant Carnot shall have snorted away the fumes of the

indigested blood of his Sovereign. Then, when, sunk on the down of

usurped pomp, he shall have sufficiently indulged his meditations with

what Monarch he shall next glut his ravening maw, he may

condescend to signify that it is his pleasure to be awake; and that he

is at leisure to receive the proposals of his high and mighty clients for

the terms on which he may respite the execution of the sentence he

has passed upon them. At the opening of those doors, what a sight it

must be to behold the plenipotentiaries of royal impotence, in the

precedency which they will intrigue to obtain, and which will be

granted to them according to the seniority of their degradation,

sneaking into the Regicide presence, and with the reliques of the

smile which they had dressed up for the levée of their masters still

flickering on their curled lips, presenting the faded remains of their

courtly graces, to meet the scornful, ferocious, sardonic grin of a

bloody ruffian, who, whilst he is receiving their homage, is measuring

them with his eye, and fitting to their size the slider of his Guillotine!

These ambassadors may easily return as good courtiers as they went;

but can they ever return from that degrading residence, loyal and

faithful subjects; or with any true affection to their master, or true

attachment to the constitution, religion, or laws of their country?

There is great danger that they who enter smiling into this Trophonian

Cave, will come out of it sad and serious conspirators; and such will

continue as long as they live. They will become true conductors of

contagion to every country which has had the misfortune to send

them to the source of that electricity. At best they will become totally

indifferent to good and evil, to one institution or another. This species

of indifference is but too generally distinguishable in those who have

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been much employed in foreign Courts; but in the present case the

evil must be aggravated without measure; for they go from their

country, not with the pride of the old character, but in a state of the

lowest degradation; and what must happen in their place of residence

can have no effect in raising them to the level of true dignity, or of

chaste self-estimation, either as men, or as representatives of

crowned heads.

Our early proceeding, which has produced these returns of affront,

appeared to me totally new, without being adapted to the new

circumstances of affairs. I have called to my mind the speeches and

messages in former times. I find nothing like these. You will look in

the journals to find whether my memory fails me. Before this time,

never was a ground of peace laid, (as it were, in a parliamentary

record,) until it had been as good as concluded. This was a wise

homage paid to the discretion of the Crown. It was known how much

a negotiation must suffer by having any thing in the train towards it

prematurely disclosed. But when those parliamentary declarations

were made, not so much as a step had been taken towards a

negotiation in any mode whatever. The measure was an unpleasant

and unseasonable discovery.

I conceive that another circumstance in that transaction has been as

little authorised by any example; and that it is as little prudent in

itself; I mean the formal recognition of the French Republic. Without

entering, for the present, into a question on the good faith manifested

in that measure, or on it’s general policy, I doubt, upon mere

temporary considerations of prudence, whether it was perfectly

adviseable. It is not within the rules of dexterous conduct to make an

acknowledgment of a contested title in your enemy, before you are

morally certain that your recognition will secure his friendship.

Otherwise it is a measure worse than thrown away. It adds infinitely

to the strength, and consequently to the demands of the adverse

party. He has gained a fundamental point without an equivalent. It

has happened as might have been foreseen. No notice whatever was

taken of this recognition. In fact, the Directory never gave themselves

any concern about it; and they received our acknowledgment with

perfect scorn. With them, it is not for the States of Europe to judge of

their title. But in their eye the title of every other power depends

wholly on their pleasure.

Preliminary declarations of this sort, thrown out at random, and sown,

as it were, broad-cast, were never to be found in the mode of our

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proceeding with France and Spain, whilst the great Monarchies of

France and Spain existed. I do not say, that a diplomatick measure

ought to be, like a parliamentary or a judicial proceeding, according to

strict precedent. I hope I am far from that pedantry. But this I know,

that a great state ought to have some regard to it’s antient maxims;

especially where they indicate it’s dignity; where they concur with the

rules of prudence; and above all, where the circumstances of the time

require that a spirit of innovation should be resisted, which leads to

the humiliation of sovereign powers. It would be ridiculous to assert,

that those powers have suffered nothing in their estimation. I admit

that the greater interests of state will for a moment supersede all

other considerations: but if there was a rule that a sovereign never

should let down his dignity without a sure payment to his interest, the

dignity of Kings would be held high enough. At present, however,

fashion governs in more serious things than furniture and dress. It

looks as if sovereigns abroad were emulous in bidding against their

estimation. It seems as if the pre-eminence of Regicide was

acknowledged; and that Kings tacitly ranked themselves below their

sacrilegious murderers, as natural magistrates and judges over them.

It appears as if dignity were the prerogative of crime; and a

temporising humiliation the proper part for venerable authority. If the

vilest of mankind are resolved to be the most wicked, they lose all the

baseness of their origin, and take their place above Kings. This

example in sovereign Princes, I trust, will not spread. It is the concern

of mankind, that the destruction of order should not be a claim to

rank: that crimes should not be the only title to preeminence and

honour.

T THIS SECOND STAGE of humiliation, (I mean the insulting declaration in

consequence of the message to both Houses of Parliament) it might

not have been amiss to pause; and not to squander away the fund of

our submissions, until we know what final purposes of public interest

they might answer. The policy of subjecting ourselves to further

insults is not to me quite apparent. It was resolved however, to

hazard a third trial. Citizen Barthelemi had been established on the

part of the new Republick, at Basle; where, with his proconsulate of

Switzerland and the adjacent parts of Germany, he was appointed as

a sort of factor to deal in the degradation of the crowned heads of

Europe. At Basle it was thought proper, in order to keep others, I

suppose, in countenance, that Great Britain should appear at this

market, and bid with the rest, for the mercy of the People-King.

On the 6th of March, 1796, Mr. Wickham, in consequence of authority,

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was desired to sound France on her disposition towards a general

pacification; to know whether she would consent to send Ministers to

a Congress at such a place as might be hereafter agreed upon; to

know whether they would communicate the general grounds of a

pacification such as France (the diplomatick name of the Regicide

power) would be willing to propose, as a foundation for a negociation

for peace with his Majesty and his allies: but he had no authority to

enter into any negociation or discussion with citizen Barthelemi upon

these subjects.

On the part of Great Britain this measure was a voluntary act, wholly

uncalled for on the part of Regicide. Suits of this sort are at least

strong indications of a desire for accommodation. Any other body of

men but the Directory would be somewhat soothed with such

advances. They could not however begin their answer, which was

given without much delay, and communicated on the 28th of the

same month, without a preamble of insult and reproach. “They doubt

the sincerity of the pacific intentions of this Court.” She did not begin,

say they, yet to “know her real interests” — “she did not seek peace

with good faith. ” This, or something to this effect, has been the

constant preliminary observation, (now grown into a sort of office-

form) on all our overtures to this power: a perpetual charge on the

British Government of fraud, evasion, and habitual perfidy.

It might be asked, from whence did these opinions of our insincerity

and ill faith arise? It was because the British Ministry (leaving to the

Directory, however, to propose a better mode) proposed a Congress

for the purpose of a general pacification; and this they said “would

render negociation endless.” From hence they immediately inferred a

fraudulent intention in the offer. Unquestionably their mode of giving

the law would bring matters to a more speedy conclusion. As to any

other method more agreeable to them than a Congress, an alternative

expressly proposed to them, they did not condescend to signify their

pleasure.

This refusal of treating conjointly with the powers allied against this

Republick, furnishes matter for a great deal of serious reflexion. They

have hitherto constantly declined any other than a treaty with a single

power. By thus dissociating every State from every other, like deer

separated from the herd, each power is treated with on the merit of

his being a deserter from the common cause. In that light the

Regicide power finding each of them insulated and unprotected, with

great facility gives the law to them all. By this system, for the

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present, an incurable distrust is sown amongst confederates; and in

future, all alliance is rendered impracticable. It is thus they have

treated with Prussia, with Spain, with Sardinia, with Bavaria, with the

Ecclesiastical State, with Saxony; and here we see them refuse to

treat with Great Britain in any other mode. They must be worse than

blind who do not see with what undeviating regularity of system, in

this case and in all cases, they pursue their scheme for the utter

destruction of every independent power; especially the smaller, who

cannot find any refuge whatever but in some common cause.

Renewing their taunts and reflections, they tell Mr. Wickham, “that

their policy has no guides but openness and good faith, and that their

conduct shall be conformable to these principles.” They say

concerning their Government, that “yielding to the ardent desire by

which it is animated to procure peace for the French Republick, and

for all nations, it will not fear to declare itself openly. Charged by the

Constitution with the execution of the laws, it cannot make or listen to

any proposal that would be contrary to them. The constitutional act

does not permit it to consent to any alienation of that which,

according to the existing laws, constitutes the territory of the

Republick.”

“With respect to the countries occupied by the French armies and

which have not been united to France, they, as well as other interests

political and commercial, may become the subject of a negociation,

which will present to the Directory the means of proving how much it

desires to attain speedily to a happy pacification. That the Directory is

ready to receive in this respect any overtures that shall be just,

reasonable, and compatible with the dignity of the Republick. ” On the

head of what is not to be the subject of negotiation, the Directory is

clear and open. As to what may be a matter of treaty, all this open

dealing is gone. She retires into her shell. There she expects

overtures from you; and that you are to guess what she shall judge

just, reasonable, and above all, compatible with her dignity.

In the records of pride there does not exist so insulting a declaration.

It is insolent in words, in manner, but in substance it is not only

insulting but alarming. It is a specimen of what may be expected from

the masters we are preparing for our humbled country. Their

openness and candour consist in a direct avowal of their despotism

and ambition. We know that their declared resolution had been to

surrender no object belonging to France previous to the war. They

had resolved, that the Republick was entire, and must remain so. As

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to what she has conquered from the allies and united to the same

indivisible body, it is of the same nature. That is, the allies are to give

up whatever conquests they have made or may make upon France,

but all which she has violently ravished from her neighbours and

thought fit to appropriate, are not to become so much as objects of

negociation.

In this unity and indivisibility of possession are sunk ten immense and

wealthy provinces, full of strong, flourishing and opulent cities, the

Austrian Netherlands, the part of Europe the most necessary to

preserve any communication between this kingdom and its natural

allies, next to Holland the most interesting to this country, and

without which Holland must virtually belong to France. Savoy and

Nice, the keys of Italy, and the citadel in her hands to bridle

Switzerland, are in that consolidation. The important territory of Liège

is torn out of the heart of the Empire. All these are integrant parts of

the Republick, not to be subject to any discussion, or to be purchased

by any equivalent. Why? Because there is a law which prevents it.

What law? The law of nations? The acknowledged public law of

Europe? Treaties and conventions of parties? No! not a pretence of

the kind. It is a declaration not made in consequence of any

prescription on her side, not on any cession or dereliction, actual or

tacit, of other powers. It is a declaration pendente lite in the middle of

a war, one principal object of which was originally the defence, and

has since been the recovery, of these very countries.

This strange law is not made for a trivial object, not for a single port,

or for a single fortress; but for a great kingdom; for the religion, the

morals, the laws, the liberties, the lives and fortunes of millions of

human creatures, who without their consent, or that of their lawful

government, are, by an arbitrary act of this regicide and homicide

Government, which they call a law, incorporated into their tyranny.

In other words, their will is the law, not only at home, but as to the

concerns of every nation. Who has made that law but the Regicide

Republick itself, whose laws, like those of the Medes and Persians,

they cannot alter or abrogate, or even so much as take into

consideration? Without the least ceremony or compliment, they have

sent out of the world whole sets of laws and lawgivers. They have

swept away the very constitutions under which the Legislatures acted,

and the Laws were made. Even the fundamental sacred Rights of Man

they have not scrupled to profane. They have set this holy code at

naught with ignominy and scorn. Thus they treat all their domestic

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laws and constitutions, and even what they had considered as a Law

of Nature; but whatever they have put their seal on for the purposes

of their ambition, and the ruin of their neighbours, this alone is

invulnerable, impassible, immortal. Assuming to be masters of every

thing human and divine, here, and here alone, it seems they are

limited, “ cooped and cabined in”; and this omnipotent legislature

finds itself wholly without the power of exercising it’s favourite

attribute, the love of peace. In other words, they are powerful to

usurp, impotent to restore; and equally by their power and their

impotence they aggrandize themselves, and weaken and impoverish

you and all other nations.

OTHING CAN BE MORE PROPER or more manly than the state publication

called a note on this proceeding, dated Downing-street, the 10th of

April, 1796. Only that it is better expressed, it perfectly agrees with

the opinion I have taken the liberty of submitting to your

consideration.

I place it below at full length as my justification in

thinking that this astonishing paper is not only a direct negative to all

treaty, but is a rejection of every principle upon which treaties could

be made. To admit it for a moment were to erect this power, usurped

at home, into a Legislature to govern mankind. It is an authority that

on a thousand occasions they have asserted in claim, and whenever

they are able, exerted in practice. The dereliction of this whole

scheme of policy became, therefore, an indispensable previous

condition to all renewal of treaty. The remark of the British Cabinet on

this arrogant and tyrannical claim is natural and unavoidable. Our

Ministry state, “ That while these dispositions shall be persisted in,

nothing is left for the King but to prosecute a war that is just and

necessary. ”

T WAS OF COURSE, that we should wait until the enemy shewed some

sort of disposition on their part to fulfil this condition. It was hoped

indeed that our suppliant strains might be suffered to steal into the

august ear in a more propitious season. That season, however,

invoked by so many vows, conjurations, and prayers, did not come.

Every declaration of hostility renovated, and every act pursued with

double animosity—the over-running of Lombardy—the subjugation of

Piedmont—the possession of its impregnable fortresses—the seizing

on all the neutral states of Italy—our expulsion from Leghorn—

instances for ever renewed for our expulsion from Genoa—Spain

rendered subject to them and hostile to us—Portugal bent under the

yoke— half the Empire over-run and ravaged, were the only signs

which this mild Republick thought proper to manifest of their pacific

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sentiments. Every demonstration of an implacable rancour and an

untameable pride were the only encouragements we received to the

renewal of our supplications. Here, therefore, they and we were fixed.

Nothing was left to the British Ministry but “to prosecute a war just

and necessary” —a war equally just as at the time of our engaging in

it—a war become ten times more necessary by every thing which

happened afterwards. This resolution was soon, however, forgot. It

felt the heat of the season and melted away. New hopes were

entertained from supplication. No expectations, indeed, were then

formed from renewing a direct application to the French Regicides

through the Agent General for the humiliation of Sovereigns. At length

a step was taken in degradation which even went lower than all the

rest. Deficient in merits of our own, a Mediator was to be sought—and

we looked for that Mediator at Berlin! The King of Prussia’s merits in

abandoning the general cause might have obtained for him some sort

of influence in favour of those whom he had deserted—but I have

never heard that his Prussian Majesty had lately discovered so marked

an affection for the Court of St. James’s, or for the Court of Vienna, as

to excite much hope of his interposing a very powerful mediation to

deliver them from the distresses into which he had brought them.

If humiliation is the element in which we live, if it is become, not only

our occasional policy, but our habit, no great objection can be made

to the modes in which it may be diversified; though, I confess, I

cannot be charmed with the idea of our exposing our lazar sores at

the door of every proud servitor of the French Republick, where the

court-dogs will not deign to lick them. We had, if I am not mistaken, a

minister at that court, who might try it’s temper, and recede and

advance as he found backwardness or encouragement. But to send a

gentleman there on no other errand than this, and with no assurance

whatever that he should not find, what he did find, a repulse, seems

to me to go far beyond all the demands of a humiliation merely

politick. I hope it did not arise from a predilection for that mode of

conduct.

HE CUP OF BITTERNESS was not, however, drained to the dregs. Basle

and Berlin were not sufficient. After so many and so diversified

repulses, we were resolved to make another trial, and to try another

Mediator, among the unhappy gentlemen in whose persons Royalty is

insulted and degraded at the seat of plebeian pride and upstart

insolence. There is a minister from Denmark at Paris. Without any

previous encouragement to that, any more than the other steps, we

sent through this turnpike to demand a passport for a person who on

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our part was to solicit peace in the metropolis, at the footstool of

Regicide itself. It was not to be expected that any one of those

degraded beings could have influence enough to settle any part of the

terms in favour of the candidates for further degradation; besides,

such intervention would be a direct breach in their system, which did

not permit one sovereign power to utter a word in the concerns of his

equal.—Another repulse. We were desired to apply directly in our

persons.—We submitted and made the application.

MIGHT

THOUGHT

that here, at length, we had touched the bottom of

humiliation; our lead was brought up covered with mud. But “in the

lowest deep, a lower deep” was to open for us still more profound

abysses of disgrace and shame. However, in we leaped. We came

forward in our own name. The passport, such a passport and safe-

conduct as would be granted to thieves who might come in to betray

their accomplices, and no better, was granted to British supplication.

To leave no doubt of it’s spirit, as soon as the rumour of this act of

condescension could get abroad, it was formally announced, with an

explanation from authority, containing an invective against the

Ministry of Great Britain, their habitual frauds, their proverbial Punick

perfidy. No such State Paper, as a preliminary to a negociation for

peace, has ever yet appeared. Very few declarations of war have ever

shewn so much and so unqualified animosity. I place it below

as a

diplomatick curiosity: and in order to be better understood, in the few

remarks I have to make upon a piece which indeed defies all

description; “None but itself can be it’s parallel.”

I pass by all the insolence and contumely of the performance as it

comes from them. The question is not now how we are to be affected

with it in regard to our dignity. That is gone. I shall say no more

about it. Light lie the earth on the ashes of English pride. I shall only

observe upon it politically, and as furnishing a direction for our own

conduct in this low business.

HE VERY IDEA of a negociation for peace, whatever the inward

sentiments of the parties may be, implies some confidence in their

faith, some degree of belief in the professions which are made

concerning it. A temporary and occasional credit, at least, is granted.

Otherwise men stumble on the very threshold. I therefore wish to ask

what hope we can have of their good faith, who, as the very basis of

the negociation, assume the ill faith and treachery of those they have

to deal with? The terms, as against us, must be such as imply a full

security against a treacherous conduct—that is, what this Directory

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stated in it’s first declaration, to place us “in an utter impossibility of

executing our wretched projects.” This is the omen, and the sole

omen, under which we have consented to open our treaty.

HE SECOND OBSERVATION I have to make upon it, (much connected

undoubtedly with the first,) is, that they have informed you of the

result they propose from the kind of peace they mean to grant you;

that is to say, the union they propose among nations with the view of

rivalling our trade and destroying our naval power: and this they

suppose (and with good reason too) must be the inevitable effect of

their peace. It forms one of their principal grounds for suspecting our

Ministers could not be in good earnest in their proposition. They make

no scruple beforehand to tell you the whole of what they intend; and

this is what we call, in the modern style, the acceptance of a

proposition for peace! In old language it would be called a most

haughty, offensive, and insolent rejection of all treaty.

HIRDLY, THEY TELL YOU what they conceive to be the perfidious policy

which dictates your delusive offer; that is, the design of cheating not

only them, but the people of England, against whose interest and

inclination this war is supposed to be carried on.

If we proceed in this business, under this preliminary declaration, it

seems to me that we admit, (now for the third time) by something a

great deal stronger than words, the truth of the charges of every kind

which they make upon the British Ministry, and the grounds of those

foul imputations. The language used by us, which in other

circumstances would not be exceptionable, in this case tends very

strongly to confirm and realize the suspicion of our enemy. I mean the

declaration, that if we do not obtain such terms of peace as suits our

opinion of what our interests require, then, and in that case, we shall

continue the war with vigour. This offer, so reasoned, plainly implies,

that without it, our leaders themselves entertain great doubts of the

opinion and good affections of the British people; otherwise there

does not appear any cause, why we should proceed under the

scandalous construction of our enemy, upon the former offer made by

Mr. Wickham, and on the new offer made directly at Paris. It is not,

therefore, from a sense of dignity, but from the danger of radicating

that false sentiment in the breasts of the enemy, that I think, under

the auspices of this declaration, we cannot, with the least hope of a

good event, or, indeed, with any regard to the common safety,

proceed in the train of this negociation. I wish Ministry would seriously

consider the importance of their seeming to confirm the enemy in an

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opinion, that his frequent appeals to the people against their

Government have not been without their effect. If it puts an end to

this war, it will render another impracticable.

Whoever goes to the directorial presence under this passport, with

this offensive comment, and foul explanation, goes in the avowed

sense of the Court to which he is sent; as the instrument of a

Government dissociated from the interests and wishes of the Nation,

for the purpose of cheating both the people of France and the people

of England. He goes out the declared emissary of a faithless Ministry.

He has perfidy for his credentials. He has national weakness for his

full powers. I yet doubt whether any one can be found to invest

himself with that character. If there should, it would be pleasant to

read his instructions on the answer which he is to give to the

Directory, in case they should repeat to him the substance of the

Manifesto which he carries with him in his portfolio.

O MUCH FOR THE first Manifesto of the Regicide Court which went along

with the passport. Lest this declaration should seem the effect of

haste, or a mere sudden effusion of pride and insolence, on full

deliberation about a week after comes out a second. In this

manifesto, which is dated the fifth of October, one day before the

speech from the Throne, on the vigil of the festive day of cordial

unanimity so happily celebrated by all parties in the British

Parliament, the Regicides, our worthy friends, (I call them by advance

and by courtesy what by law I shall be obliged to call them hereafter)

our worthy friends, I say, renew and enforce the former declaration

concerning our faith and sincerity, which they pinned to our passport.

On three other points which run through all their declarations, they

are more explicit than ever.

First, they more directly undertake to be the real representatives of

the people of this kingdom: and on a supposition in which they agree

with our parliamentary reformers, that the House of Commons is not

that Representative, the function being vacant, they, as our true

constitutional organ, inform his Majesty and the world of the sense of

the nation. They tell us that “the English people see with regret his

Majesty’s Government squandering away the funds which had been

granted to him.” This astonishing assumption of the publick voice of

England is but a slight foretaste of the usurpation which, on a peace,

we may be assured they will make of all the powers in all the parts of

our vassal constitution. “If it be thus in the green leaf, what will it be

in the dry?”

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Next they tell us, as a condition to our treaty, that “this Government

must abjure the unjust hatred it bears to them, and at last open it’s

ears to the voice of humanity.” Truly this is even from them an

extraordinary demand. Hitherto, it seems, we have put wax into our

ears, to shut them up against the tender, soothing strains, in the

affettuoso of humanity, warbled from the throats of Reubel, Carnot,

Tallien, and the whole chorus of Confiscators, Domiciliary Visitors,

Committee-men of Research, Jurors and Presidents of Revolutionary

Tribunals, Regicides, Assassins, Massacrers, and Septembrizers. It is

not difficult to discern what sort of humanity our Government is to

learn from these syren singers. Our Government also, (I admit, with

some reason,) as a step towards the proposed fraternity, is required

to abjure the unjust hatred which it bears to this body of honour and

virtue. I thank God I am neither a Minister nor a leader of Opposition.

I protest I cannot do what they desire, if I were under the guillotine,

or as they ingeniously and pleasantly express it, “looking out of the

little national window.” Even at that opening I could receive none of

their light. I am fortified against all such affections by the declaration

of the Government, which I must yet consider as lawful, made on the

29th of October 1793,

and still ringing in my ears. This declaration

was transmitted not only to all our commanders by sea and land, but

to our Ministers in every Court of Europe. It is the most eloquent and

highly finished in the style, the most judicious in the choice of topicks,

the most orderly in the arrangement, and the most rich in the

colouring, without employing the smallest degree of exaggeration, of

any state paper that has ever yet appeared. An ancient writer,

Plutarch, I think it is, quotes some verses on the eloquence of

Pericles, who is called “the only orator that left stings in the minds of

his hearers.” Like his, the eloquence of the declaration, not

contradicting, but enforcing sentiments of the truest humanity, has

left stings that have penetrated more than skin-deep into my mind;

and never can they be extracted by all the surgery of murder; never

can the throbbings they have created, be assuaged by all the

emollient cataplasms of robbery and confiscation.

The third point which they have more clearly expressed than ever, is

of equal importance with the rest; and with them furnishes a complete

view of the Regicide system. For they demand as a condition without

which our ambassador of obedience cannot be received with any hope

of success, that he shall be “provided with full powers to negociate a

peace between the French Republick and Great Britain, and to

conclude it definitively

BETWEEN

THE

TWO

POWERS

.” With their spear they

draw a circle about us. They will hear nothing of a joint treaty. We

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must make a peace separately from our allies. We must, as the very

first and preliminary step, be guilty of that perfidy towards our friends

and associates, with which they reproach us in our transactions with

them our enemies. We are called upon scandalously to betray the

fundamental securities to ourselves and to all nations. In my opinion,

(it is perhaps but a poor one) if we are meanly bold enough to send

an ambassador, such as this official note of the enemy requires, we

cannot even dispatch our emissary without danger of being charged

with a breach of our alliance. Government now understand the full

meaning of the passport.

TRANGE

REVOLUTIONS

have happened in the ways of thinking and in the

feelings of men. But it requires a very extraordinary coalition of

parties indeed, and a kind of unheard-of unanimity in public Councils,

which can impose this new-discovered system of negociation, as

sound national policy, on the understanding of a spectator of this

wonderful scene, who judges on the principles of any thing he ever

before saw, read, or heard of, and above all, on the understanding of

a person who has had in his eye the transactions of the last seven

years.

I know it is supposed, that if good terms of capitulation are not

granted, after we have thus so repeatedly hung out the white flag, the

national spirit will revive with tenfold ardour. This is an experiment

cautiously to be made. Reculer pour mieux sauter, according to the

French by-word, cannot be trusted to as a general rule of conduct. To

diet a man into weakness and languor, afterwards to give him the

greater strength, has more of the empirick than the rational

physician. It is true that some persons have been kicked into courage;

and this is no bad hint to give to those who are too forward and liberal

in bestowing insults and outrages on their passive companions. But

such a course does not at first view appear a well-chosen discipline to

form men to a nice sense of honour, or a quick resentment of injuries.

A long habit of humiliation does not seem a very good preparative to

manly and vigorous sentiment. It may not leave, perhaps, enough of

energy in the mind fairly to discern what are good terms or what are

not. Men low and dispirited may regard those terms as not at all

amiss, which in another state of mind they would think intolerable: if

they grew peevish in this state of mind, they may be roused, not

against the enemy whom they have been taught to fear, but against

the Ministry,

who are more within their reach, and who have refused

conditions that are not unseasonable, from power that they have been

taught to consider as irresistible.

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IF ALL THAT FOR SOME MONTHS I have heard have the least foundation, (I

hope it has not,) the Ministers are, perhaps, not quite so much to be

blamed, as their condition is to be lamented. I have been given to

understand, that these proceedings are not in their origin properly

theirs. It is said that there is a secret in the House of Commons. It is

said that Ministers act not according to the votes, but according to the

dispositions, of the majority. I hear that the minority has long since

spoken the general sense of the nation; and that to prevent those

who compose it from having the open and avowed lead in that house,

or perhaps in both Houses, it was necessary to pre-occupy their

ground, and to take their propositions out of their mouths, even with

the hazard of being afterwards reproached with a compliance which it

was foreseen would be fruitless.

If the general disposition of the people be, as I hear it is, for an

immediate peace with Regicide, without so much as considering our

publick and solemn engagements to the party in France whose cause

we had espoused, or the engagements expressed in our general

alliances, not only without an enquiry into the terms, but with a

certain knowledge that none but the worst terms will be offered, it is

all over with us. It is strange, but it may be true, that as the danger

from Jacobinism is increased in my eyes and in yours, the fear of it is

lessened in the eyes of many people who formerly regarded it with

horror. It seems, they act under the impression of terrors of another

sort, which have frightened them out of their first apprehensions. But

let their fears, or their hopes, or their desires, be what they will, they

should recollect, that they who would make peace without a previous

knowledge of the terms, make a surrender. They are conquered. They

do not treat; they receive the law. Is this the disposition of the people

of England? Then the people of England are contented to seek in the

kindness of a foreign systematick enemy combined with a dangerous

faction at home, a security which they cannot find in their own

patriotism and their own courage. They are willing to trust to the

sympathy of Regicides the guarantee of the British Monarchy. They

are content to rest their religion on the piety of atheists by

establishment. They are satisfied to seek in the clemency of practised

murderers the security of their lives. They are pleased to confide their

property to the safeguard of those who are robbers by inclination,

interest, habit, and system. If this be our deliberate mind, truly we

deserve to lose, what it is impossible we should long retain, the name

of a nation.

In matters of State, a constitutional competence to act is in many

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cases the smallest part of the question. Without disputing (God forbid

I should dispute) the sole competence of the King and the Parliament,

each in it’s province, to decide on war and peace, I venture to say, no

war can be long carried on against the will of the people. This war, in

particular, cannot be carried on unless they are enthusiastically in

favour of it. Acquiescence will not do. There must be zeal. Universal

zeal in such a cause, and at such a time as this is, cannot be looked

for; neither is it necessary. A zeal in the larger part carries the force

of the whole. Without this, no Government, certainly not our

Government, is capable of a great war. None of the ancient regular

Governments have wherewithal to fight abroad with a foreign foe, and

at home to overcome repining, reluctance, and chicane. It must be

some portentous thing, like Regicide France, that can exhibit such a

prodigy. Yet even she, the mother of monsters, more prolifick than

the country of old called ferax monstrorum, shews symptoms of being

almost effete already; and she will be so, unless the fallow of a peace

comes to recruit her fertility. But whatever may be represented

concerning the meanness of the popular spirit, I, for one, do not think

so desperately of the British nation. Our minds, as I said, are light;

but they are not depraved. We are dreadfully open to delusion and to

dejection; but we are capable of being animated and undeceived.

It cannot be concealed—we are a divided people. But in divisions,

where a part is to be taken, we are to make a muster of our strength.

I have often endeavoured to compute and to class those who, in any

political view, are to be called the people. Without doing something of

this sort we must proceed absurdly. We should not be much wiser, if

we pretended to very great accuracy in our estimate. But I think, in

the calculation I have made, the error cannot be very material. In

England and Scotland, I compute that those of adult age, not

declining in life, of tolerable leisure for such discussions, and of some

means of information, more or less, and who are above menial

dependence, (or what virtually is such) may amount to about four

hundred thousand. There is such a thing as a natural representative of

the people. This body is that representative; and on this body, more

than on the legal constituent, the artificial representative depends.

This is the British publick; and it is a publick very numerous. The rest,

when feeble, are the objects of protection; when strong, the means of

force. They who affect to consider that part of us in any other light,

insult while they cajole us; they do not want us for counsellors in

deliberation, but to list us as soldiers for battle.

F THESE four hundred thousand political citizens, I look upon one fifth,

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or about eighty thousand, to be pure Jacobins; utterly incapable of

amendment; objects of eternal vigilance; and when they break out, of

legal constraint. On these, no reason, no argument, no example, no

venerable authority, can have the slightest influence. They desire a

change; and they will have it if they can. If they cannot have it by

English cabal, they will make no sort of scruple of having it by the

cabal of France, into which already they are virtually incorporated. It

is only their assured and confident expectation of the advantages of

French fraternity and the approaching blessings of Regicide

intercourse, that skins over their mischievous dispositions with a

momentary quiet.

This minority is great and formidable. I do not know whether if I

aimed at the total overthrow of a kingdom I should wish to be

encumbered with a larger body of partizans. They are more easily

disciplined and directed than if the number were greater. These, by

their spirit of intrigue, and by their restless agitating activity, are of a

force far superior to their numbers; and if times grew the least

critical, have the means of debauching or intimidating many of those

who are now sound, as well as of adding to their force large bodies of

the more passive part of the nation. This minority is numerous

enough to make a mighty cry for peace, or for war, or for any object

they are led vehemently to desire. By passing from place to place with

a velocity incredible, and diversifying their character and description,

they are capable of mimicking the general voice. We must not always

judge of the generality of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation.

HE MAJORITY, the other four fifths, is perfectly sound; and of the best

possible disposition to religion, to government, to the true and

undivided interest of their country. Such men are naturally disposed

to peace. They who are in possession of all they wish are languid and

improvident. With this fault, (and I admit it’s existence in all it’s

extent) they would not endure to hear of a peace that led to the ruin

of every thing for which peace is dear to them. However, the desire of

peace is essentially the weak side of that kind of men. All men that

are ruined, are ruined on the side of their natural propensities. There

they are unguarded. Above all, good men do not suspect that their

destruction is attempted through their virtues. This their enemies are

perfectly aware of: and accordingly, they, the most turbulent of

mankind, who never made a scruple to shake the tranquillity of their

country to its center, raise a continual cry for peace with France.

Peace with Regicide, and war with the rest of the world, is their

motto. From the beginning, and even whilst the French gave the

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blows, and we hardly opposed the vis inertiae to their efforts—from

that day to this hour, like importunate Guinea-fowls crying one note

day and night, they have called for peace.

In this they are, as I confess in all things they are, perfectly

consistent. They who wish to unite themselves to your enemies,

naturally desire, that you should disarm yourself by a peace with

these enemies. But it passes my conception, how they, who wish well

to their country on its antient system of laws and manners, come not

to be doubly alarmed, when they find nothing but a clamor for peace,

in the mouths of the men on earth the least disposed to it in their

natural or in their habitual character.

I have a good opinion of the general abilities of the Jacobins: not that

I suppose them better born than others; but strong passions awaken

the faculties. They suffer not a particle of the man to be lost. The

spirit of enterprise gives to this description the full use of all their

native energies. If I have reason to conceive that my enemy, who, as

such, must have an interest in my destruction, is also a person of

discernment and sagacity, then I must be quite sure that, in a

contest, the object he violently pursues is the very thing by which my

ruin is likely to be the most perfectly accomplished. Why do the

Jacobins cry for peace? Because they know, that this point gained, the

rest will follow of course. On our part, why are all the rules of

prudence, as sure as the laws of material nature, to be at this time

reversed? How comes it, that now for the first time, men think it right

to be governed by the counsels of their enemies? Ought they not

rather to tremble, when they are persuaded to travel on the same

road, and to tend to the same place of rest?

The minority I speak of is not susceptible of an impression from the

topics of argument to be used to the larger part of the community. I

therefore do not address to them any part of what I have to say. The

more forcibly I drive my arguments against their system, so as to

make an impression where I wish to make it, the more strongly I rivet

them in their sentiments. As for us, who compose the far larger, and

what I call the far better part of the people, let me say, that we have

not been quite fairly dealt with when called to this deliberation. The

Jacobin minority have been abundantly supplied with stores and

provisions of all kinds towards their warfare. No sort of argumentative

materials, suited to their purposes, have been withheld. False they

are, unsound, sophistical; but they are regular in their direction. They

all bear one way; and they all go to the support of the substantial

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merits of their cause. The others have not had the question so much

as fairly stated to them.

HERE

HAS

NOT

BEEN

, in this century, any foreign peace or war, in it’s

origin the fruit of popular desire, except the war that was made with

Spain in 1739. Sir Robert Walpole was forced into the war by the

people, who were inflamed to this measure by the most leading

politicians, by the first orators, and the greatest poets of the time. For

that war, Pope sung his dying notes. For that war, Johnson, in more

energetic strains, employed the voice of his early genius. For that

war, Glover distinguished himself in the way in which his muse was

the most natural and happy. The crowd readily followed the politicians

in the cry for a war which threatened little bloodshed, and which

promised victories that were attended with something more solid than

glory. A war with Spain was a war of plunder. In the present conflict

with Regicide, Mr. Pitt has not hitherto had, nor will perhaps for a few

days have, many prizes to hold out in the lottery of war, to tempt the

lower part of our character. He can only maintain it by an appeal to

the higher; and to those, in whom that higher part is the most

predominant, he must look the most for his support. Whilst he holds

out no inducements to the wise, nor bribes to the avaricious, he may

be forced by a vulgar cry into a peace ten times more ruinous than

the most disastrous war. The weaker he is in the fund of motives

which apply to our avarice, to our laziness, and to our lassitude, if he

means to carry the war to any end at all, the stronger he ought to be

in his addresses to our magnanimity and to our reason.

In stating that Walpole was driven by a popular clamour into a

measure not to be justified, I do not mean wholly to excuse his

conduct. My time of observation did not exactly coincide with that

event; but I read much of the controversies then carried on. Several

years after the contests of parties had ceased, the people were

amused, and in a degree warmed with them. The events of that aera

seemed then of magnitude, which the revolutions of our time have

reduced to parochial importance; and the debates, which then shook

the nation, now appear of no higher moment than a discussion in a

vestry. When I was very young, a general fashion told me I was to

admire some of the writings against that Minister; a little more

maturity taught me as much to despise them. I observed one fault in

his general proceeding. He never manfully put forward the entire

strength of his cause. He temporized; he managed; and, adopting

very nearly the sentiments of his adversaries, he opposed their

inferences. This, for a political commander, is the choice of a weak

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post. His adversaries had the better of the argument, as he handled

it; not as the reason and justice of his cause enabled him to manage

it. I say this, after having seen, and with some care examined, the

original documents concerning certain important transactions of those

times. They perfectly satisfied me of the extreme injustice of that war,

and of the falsehood of the colours, which to his own ruin, and guided

by a mistaken policy, he suffered to be daubed over that measure.

Some years after, it was my fortune to converse with many of the

principal actors against that Minister, and with those who principally

excited that clamour. None of them, no not one, did in the least

defend the measure, or attempt to justify their conduct. They

condemned it as freely as they would have done in commenting upon

any proceeding in history, in which they were totally unconcerned.

Thus it will be. They who stir up the people to improper desires,

whether of peace or war, will be condemned by themselves. They who

weakly yield to them will be condemned by history.

In my opinion, the present Ministry are as far from doing full justice to

their cause in this war, as Walpole was from doing justice to the peace

which at that time he was willing to preserve. They throw the light on

one side only of their case; though it is impossible they should not

observe, that the other side which is kept in the shade has it’s

importance too. They must know that France is formidable not only as

she is France, but as she is Jacobin France. They knew from the

beginning that the Jacobin party was not confined to that country.

They knew, they felt, the strong disposition of the same faction in

both countries to communicate and to co-operate. For some time

past, these two points have been kept, and even industriously kept,

out of sight. France is considered as merely a foreign Power; and the

seditious English only as a domestic faction. The merits of the war

with the former have been argued solely on political grounds. To

prevent the mischievous doctrines of the latter from corrupting our

minds, matter and argument have been supplied abundantly, and

even to surfeit, on the excellency of our own government. But nothing

has been done to make us feel in what manner the safety of that

Government is connected with the principle and with the issue of this

war. For any thing which in the late discussion has appeared, the war

is entirely collateral to the state of Jacobinism; as truly a foreign war

to us and to all our home concerns, as the war with Spain in 1739,

about Guarda-Costas, the Madrid Convention, and the fable of Captain

Jenkins’s ears.

HENEVER THE ADVERSE PARTY has raised a cry for peace with the

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Regicide, the answer has been little more than this, “that the

Administration wished for such a peace, full as much as the

Opposition; but that the time was not convenient for making it.”

Whatever else has been said was much in the same spirit. Reasons of

this kind never touched the substantial merits of the war. They were

in the nature of dilatory pleas, exceptions of form, previous questions.

Accordingly all the arguments against a compliance with what was

represented as the popular desire, (urged on with all possible

vehemence and earnestness by the Jacobins) have appeared flat and

languid, feeble and evasive. They appeared to aim only at gaining

time. They never entered into the peculiar and distinctive character of

the war. They spoke neither to the understanding nor to the heart.

Cold as ice themselves, they never could kindle in our breasts a spark

of that zeal, which is necessary to a conflict with an adverse zeal;

much less were they made to infuse into our minds that stubborn

persevering spirit, which alone is capable of bearing up against those

vicissitudes of fortune which will probably occur, and those burthens

which must be inevitably borne in a long war. I speak it emphatically,

and with a desire that it should be marked, in a long war; because,

without such a war, no experience has yet told us, that a dangerous

power has ever been reduced to measure or to reason. I do not throw

back my view to the Peloponnesian war of twenty-seven years; nor to

two of the Punic wars, the first of twenty-four, the second of

eighteen; nor to the more recent war concluded by the treaty of

Westphalia, which continued, I think, for thirty. I go to what is but

just fallen behind living memory, and immediately touches our own

country. Let the portion of our history from the year 1689 to 1713 be

brought before us. We shall find, that in all that period of twenty-four

years, there were hardly five that could be called a season of peace;

and the interval between the two wars was in reality, nothing more

than a very active preparation for renovated hostility. During that

period, every one of the propositions of peace came from the enemy:

the first, when they were accepted, at the peace of Ryswick; the

second, when they were rejected, at the congress at

Gertruydenburgh; the last, when the war ended by the treaty of

Utrecht. Even then, a very great part of the nation, and that which

contained by far the most intelligent statesmen, was against the

conclusion of the war. I do not enter into the merits of that question

as between the parties. I only state the existence of that opinion as a

fact, from whence you may draw such an inference as you think

properly arises from it.

T IS FOR US at present to recollect what we have been; and to consider

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what, if we please, we may be still. At the period of those wars, our

principal strength was found in the resolution of the people; and that

in the resolution of a part only of the then whole, which bore no

proportion to our existing magnitude. England and Scotland were not

united at the beginning of that mighty struggle. When, in the course

of the contest they were conjoined, it was in a raw, an ill-cemented,

an unproductive union. For the whole duration of the war, and long

after, the names, and other outward and visible signs of

approximation, rather augmented than diminished our insular feuds.

They were rather the causes of new discontents and new troubles,

than promoters of cordiality and affection. The now single and potent

Great Britain was then not only two countries, but, from the party

heats in both, and the divisions formed in each of them, each of the

old kingdoms within itself in effect was made up of two hostile

nations. Ireland, now so large a source of the common opulence and

power, which wisely managed might be made much more beneficial

and much more effective, was then the heaviest of the burthens. An

army not much less than forty thousand men was drawn from the

general effort, to keep that kingdom in a poor, unfruitful, and

resourceless subjection.

UCH

WAS

THE

STATE

of the empire. The state of our finances was worse,

if possible. Every branch of the revenue became less productive after

the Revolution. Silver, not as now a sort of counter, but the body of

the current coin, was reduced so low as not to have above three parts

in four of the value in the shilling. It required a dead expence of three

millions sterling to renew the coinage. Publick credit, that great but

ambiguous principle, which has so often been predicted as the cause

of our certain ruin, but which for a century has been the constant

companion, and often the means, of our prosperity and greatness,

had it’s origin, and was cradled, I may say, in bankruptcy and

beggary. At this day we have seen parties contending to be admitted,

at a moderate premium, to advance eighteen millions to the

Exchequer. For infinitely smaller loans, the Chancellor of the

Exchequer of that day, Montagu, the father of publick credit, counter-

securing the State by the appearance of the city, with the Lord-Mayor

of London at his side, was obliged, like an agent at an election, to go

cap in hand from shop to shop, to borrow an hundred pound and even

smaller sums. When made up in driblets as they could, their best

securities were at an interest of 12 per cent. Even the paper of the

Bank (now at par with cash, and even sometimes preferred to it) was

often at a discount of twenty per cent. By this the state of the rest

may be judged.

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AS TO OUR COMMERCE, the imports and exports of the nation, now six

and forty million, did not then amount to ten. The inland trade, which

is commonly passed by in this sort of estimates, but which, in part

growing out of the foreign and connected with it, is more

advantageous, and more substantially nutritive to the State, is not

only grown in a proportion of near five to one as the foreign, but has

been augmented, at least, in a tenfold proportion. When I came to

England, I remember but one river navigation, the rate of carriage on

which was limited by an Act of Parliament. It was made in the reign of

William the Third; I mean that of the Aire and Calder. The rate was

settled at thirteen pence. So high a price demonstrated the feebleness

of these beginnings of our inland intercourse. In my time, one of the

longest and sharpest contests I remember in your House, and which

rather resembled a violent contention amongst national parties than a

local dispute, was, as well as I can recollect, to hold the price up to

threepence. Even this, which a very scanty justice to the proprietors

required, was done with infinite difficulty. As to private credit, there

were not, as I best remember, twelve Banker’s shops at that time out

of London. In this their number, when I first saw the country, I cannot

be quite exact; but certainly those machines of domestick credit were

then very few indeed. They are now in almost every market town: and

this circumstance (whether the thing be carried to an excess or not)

demonstrates the astonishing encrease of private confidence, of

general circulation, and of internal commerce; an encrease out of all

proportion to the growth of the foreign trade. Our naval strength in

the time of King William’s war was nearly matched by that of France;

and though conjoined with Holland, then a maritime Power hardly

inferior to our own, even with that force we were not always

victorious. Though finally superior, the allied fleets experienced many

unpleasant reverses on their own element. In two years three

thousand vessels were taken from the English trade. On the continent

we lost almost every battle we fought.

In 1697, it is not quite an hundred years ago, in that state of things,

amidst the general debasement of the coin, the fall of the ordinary

revenue, the failure of all the extraordinary supplies, the ruin of

commerce and the almost total extinction of an infant credit, the

Chancellor of the Exchequer himself, whom we have just seen begging

from door to door, came forward to move a resolution, full of vigour,

in which, far from being discouraged by the generally adverse fortune,

and the long continuance of the war, the Commons agreed to address

the Crown in the following manly, spirited, and truly animating style.

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This is the EIGHTH year in which your Majesty’s most

dutiful and loyal subjects the Commons in Parliament

assembled, have assisted your Majesty with large

supplies for carrying on a just and necessary war, in

defence of our religion, and preservation of our laws,

and vindication of the rights and liberties of the people

of England.

Afterwards they proceed in this manner:

To shew to your Majesty and all Christendom, that the

Commons of England will not be amused or diverted

from their firm resolutions of obtaining by W

AR, a safe

and honourable peace, we do, in the name of those we

represent, renew our assurances to support your

Majesty and your Government against all your enemies

at home and abroad; and that we will effectually assist

you in carrying on the war against France.

The amusement and diversion they speak of, was the suggestion of a

treaty proposed by the enemy, and announced from the Throne. Thus

the people of England felt in the eighth, not in the fourth year of the

war. No sighing or panting after negociation; no motions from the

Opposition to force the Ministry into a peace; no messages from

Ministers to palsy and deaden the resolution of Parliament or the spirit

of the nation. They did not so much as advise the King to listen to the

propositions of the enemy, nor to seek for peace but through the

mediation of a vigorous war. This address was moved in an hot, a

divided, a factious, and in a great part, disaffected House of

Commons, and it was carried nemine contradicente.

HILE THAT FIRST WAR (which was ill smothered by the treaty of

Ryswick) slept in the thin ashes of a seeming peace, a new

conflagration was in it’s immediate causes. A fresh and a far greater

war was in preparation. A year had hardly elapsed when

arrangements were made for renewing the contest with tenfold fury.

The steps which were taken, at that time, to compose, to reconcile, to

unite, and to discipline all Europe against the growth of France,

certainly furnish to a statesman the finest and most interesting part in

the history of that great period. It formed the master-piece of King

William’s policy, dexterity, and perseverance. Full of the idea of

preserving, not only a local civil liberty, united with order, to our

country, but to embody it in the political liberty, the order, and the

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independence of nations united under a natural head, the King called

upon his Parliament to put itself into a posture to preserve to England

the weight and influence it at present had on the counsels and affairs

ABROAD

. “It will be requisite Europe should see you will not be wanting

to yourselves.”

Baffled as that Monarch was, and almost heart-broken at the

disappointment he met with in the mode he first proposed for that

great end, he held on his course. He was faithful to his object; and in

councils, as in arms, over and over again repulsed, over and over

again he returned to the charge. All the mortifications he had suffered

from the last Parliament, and the greater he had to apprehend from

that newly chosen, were not capable of relaxing the vigour of his

mind. He was in Holland when he combined the vast plan of his

foreign negociations. When he came to open his design to his

Ministers in England, even the sober firmness of Somers, the

undaunted resolution of Shrewsbury, and the adventurous spirit of

Montagu and Orford, were staggered. They were not yet mounted to

the elevation of the King. The Cabinet met on the subject at

Tunbridge Wells the 28th of August, 1698; and there, Lord Somers

holding the pen, after expressing doubts on the state of the continent,

which they ultimately refer to the King, as best informed, they give

him a most discouraging portrait of the spirit of this nation.

“So far as relates to England,” say these Ministers,

it would be want of duty not to give your Majesty this

clear account, that there is a deadness and want of

spirit in the nation universally, so as not to be at all

disposed to entering into a new war. That they seem to

be tired out with taxes to a degree beyond what was

discerned, till it appeared upon occasion of the late

elections. This is the truth of the fact upon which your

Majesty will determine what resolution ought to be

taken.

IS MAJESTY DID DETERMINE; and did take and pursue his resolution. In all

the tottering imbecility of a new Government, and with Parliament

totally unmanageable, he persevered. He persevered to expel the

fears of his people, by his fortitude; to steady their fickleness, by his

constancy; to expand their narrow prudence, by his enlarged wisdom;

to sink their factious temper in his public spirit. In spite of his people,

he resolved to make them great and glorious; to make England,

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inclined to shrink into her narrow self, the Arbitress of Europe, the

tutelary Angel of the human race. In spite of the Ministers, who

staggered under the weight that his mind imposed upon theirs,

unsupported as they felt themselves by the popular spirit, he infused

into them his own soul; he renewed in them their ancient heart; he

rallied them in the same cause.

It required some time to accomplish this work. The people were first

gained; and through them their distracted representatives. Under the

influence of King William, Holland had resisted the allurements of

every seduction, and the terrors of every menace. With Hannibal at

her gates, she had nobly and magnanimously refused all separate

treaty, or any thing which might for a moment appear to divide her

affection or her interest, or even to distinguish her in identity from

England. Having settled the great point of the consolidation (which he

hoped would be eternal) of the countries, made for a common interest

and common sentiment, the King, in his message to both Houses,

calls their attention to the affairs of the States General. The House of

Lords was perfectly sound, and entirely impressed with the wisdom

and dignity of the King’s proceedings. In answer to the message,

(which you will observe was narrowed to a single point, the danger of

the States General) after the usual professions of zeal for his service,

the Lords opened themselves at large. They go far beyond the

demands of the message. They express themselves as follows:

We take this occasion further to assure your Majesty,

that we are sensible of the great and imminent danger

to which the States General are exposed. And we

perfectly agree with them in believing that their safety

and ours are so inseparably united, that whatsoever is

ruin to the one must be fatal to the other.

We humbly desire your Majesty will be pleased, not only

to make good all the articles of any former treaties to

the States General, but that you will enter into a strict

league, offensive and defensive, with them, for their

common preservation: and that you will invite into it all

Princes and States who are concerned in the present

visible danger, arising from the union of France and

Spain.

And we further desire your Majesty, that you will be

pleased to enter into such alliances with the Emperor,

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as your Majesty shall think fit, pursuant to the ends of

the treaty of 1689; towards all which we assure your

Majesty of our hearty and sincere assistance; not

doubting, but whenever your Majesty shall be obliged to

be engaged for the defence of your allies, and securing

the liberty and quiet of Europe, Almighty God will

protect your sacred person in so righteous a cause. And

that the unanimity, wealth, and courage of your

subjects will carry your Majesty with honour and

success through all the difficulties of a

JUST

WAR

The House of Commons was more reserved; the late popular

disposition was still in a great degree prevalent in the representative,

after it had been made to change in the constituent body. The

principle of the Grand Alliance was not directly recognized in the

resolution of the Commons, nor the war announced, though they were

well aware the alliance was formed for the war. However, compelled

by the returning sense of the people, they went so far as to fix the

three great immoveable pillars of the safety and greatness of England,

as they were then, as they are now, and as they must ever be to the

end of time. They asserted in general terms the necessity of

supporting Holland; of keeping united with our allies; and maintaining

the liberty of Europe; though they restricted their vote to the succours

stipulated by actual treaty. But now they were fairly embarked; they

were obliged to go with the course of the vessel; and the whole

nation, split before into an hundred adverse factions, with a King at

it’s head evidently declining to his tomb, the whole nation, Lords,

Commons, and People, proceeded as one body, informed by one soul.

Under the British union, the union of Europe was consolidated; and it

long held together with a degree of cohesion, firmness, and fidelity

not known before or since in any political combination of that extent.

Just as the last hand was given to this immense and complicated

machine, the master workman died. But the work was formed on true

mechanical principles; and it was as truly wrought. It went by the

impulse it had received from the first mover. The man was dead: but

the grand alliance survived, in which King William lived and reigned.

That heartless and dispirited people, whom Lord Somers had

represented, about two years before, as dead in energy and

operation, continued that war to which it was supposed they were

unequal in mind, and in means, for near thirteen years.

OR WHAT HAVE I ENTERED into all this detail? To what purpose have I

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recalled your view to the end of the last century? It has been done to

shew that the British Nation was then a great people—to point out

how and by what means they came to be exalted above the vulgar

level, and to take that lead which they assumed among mankind. To

qualify us for that pre-eminence, we had then an high mind, and a

constancy unconquerable; we were then inspired with no flashy

passions; but such as were durable as well as warm; such as

corresponded to the great interests we had at stake. This force of

character was inspired, as all such spirit must ever be, from above.

Government gave the impulse. As well may we fancy that of itself the

sea will swell, and that without winds the billows will insult the

adverse shore, as that the gross mass of the people will be moved,

and elevated, and continue by a steady and permanent direction to

bear upon one point, without the influence of superior authority, or

superior mind.

This impulse ought, in my opinion, to have been given in this war;

and it ought to have been continued to it at every instant. It is made,

if ever war was made, to touch all the great springs of action in the

human breast. It ought not to have been a war of apology. The

Minister had, in this conflict, wherewithal to glory in success; to be

consoled in adversity; to hold high his principle in all fortunes. If it

were not given him to support the falling edifice, he ought to bury

himself under the ruins of the civilized world. All the art of Greece,

and all the pride and power of eastern Monarchs, never heaped upon

their ashes so grand a monument.

There were days when his great mind was up to the crisis of the world

he is called to act in.

His manly eloquence was equal to the elevated

wisdom of such sentiments. But the little have triumphed over the

great; an unnatural, (as it should seem) not an unusual victory. I am

sure you cannot forget with how much uneasiness we heard in

conversation the language of more than one gentleman at the

opening of this contest, “that he was willing to try the war for a year

or two, and if it did not succeed, then to vote for peace.” As if war

was a matter of experiment! As if you could take it up or lay it down

as an idle frolick! As if the dire goddess that presides over it, with her

murderous spear in her hand, and her gorgon at her breast, was a

coquette to be flirted with! We ought with reverence to approach that

tremendous divinity, that loves courage, but commands counsel. War

never leaves, where it found a nation. It is never to be entered into

without a mature deliberation; not a deliberation lengthened out into

a perplexing indecision, but a deliberation leading to a sure and fixed

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judgment. When so taken up, it is not to be abandoned without

reason as valid, as fully and as extensively considered. Peace may be

made as unadvisedly as war. Nothing is so rash as fear; and the

counsels of pusillanimity very rarely put off, whilst they are always

sure to aggravate, the evils from which they would fly.

In that great war carried on against Louis the Fourteenth, for near

eighteen years, Government spared no pains to satisfy the nation

that, though they were to be animated by a desire of glory, glory was

not their ultimate object; but that every thing dear to them, in

religion, in law, in liberty—every thing which as freemen, as

Englishmen, and as citizens of the great commonwealth of

Christendom, they had at heart, was then at stake. This was to know

the true art of gaining the affections and confidence of an high-

minded people; this was to understand human nature. A danger to

avert a danger; a present inconvenience and suffering to prevent a

foreseen future, and a worse calamity; these are the motives that

belong to an animal, who, in his constitution, is at once adventurous

and provident; circumspect and daring; whom his Creator has made,

as the Poet says, “of large discourse, looking before and after.” But

never can a vehement and sustained spirit of fortitude be kindled in a

people by a war of calculation. It has nothing that can keep the mind

erect under the gusts of adversity. Even where men are willing, as

sometimes they are, to barter their blood for lucre, to hazard their

safety for the gratification of their avarice, the passion which animates

them to that sort of conflict, like all the short-sighted passions, must

see it’s objects distinct and near at hand. The passions of the lower

order are hungry and impatient. Speculative plunder; contingent

spoil; future, long adjourned, uncertain booty; pillage which must

enrich a late posterity, and which possibly may not reach to posterity

at all; these, for any length of time, will never support a mercenary

war. The people are in the right. The calculation of profit in all such

wars is false. On balancing the account of such wars, ten thousand

hogsheads of sugar are purchased at ten thousand times their price.

The blood of man should never be shed but to redeem the blood of

man. It is well shed for our family, for our friends, for our God, for our

country, for our kind. The rest is vanity; the rest is crime.

In the war of the Grand Alliance, most of these considerations

voluntarily and naturally had their part. Some were pressed into the

service. The political interest easily went in the track of the natural

sentiment. In the reverse course the carriage does not follow freely. I

am sure the natural feeling, as I have just said, is a far more

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predominant ingredient in this war, than in that of any other that ever

was waged by this kingdom.

THE

WAR

MADE

PREVENT

the union of two crowns upon one head was

a just war, this, which is made to prevent the tearing all crowns from

all heads which ought to wear them, and with the crowns to smite off

the sacred heads themselves, this is a just war.

F A WAR TO PREVENT Louis the Fourteenth from imposing his religion was

just, a war to prevent the murderers of Louis the Sixteenth from

imposing their irreligion upon us is just; a war to prevent the

operation of a system, which makes life without dignity, and death

without hope, is a just war.

F TO PRESERVE POLITICAL INDEPENDENCE and civil freedom to nations, was a

just ground of war; a war to preserve national independence,

property, liberty, life, and honour, from certain universal havock, is a

war just, necessary, manly, pious; and we are bound to persevere in

it by every principle, divine and human, as long as the system which

menaces them all, and all equally, has an existence in the world.

OU, WHO HAVE LOOKED at this matter with as fair and impartial an eye

as can be united with a feeling heart, you will not think it an hardy

assertion, when I affirm, that it were far better to be conquered by

any other nation, than to have this faction for a neighbour. Before I

felt myself authorised to say this, I considered the state of all the

countries in Europe for these last three hundred years, which have

been obliged to submit to a foreign law. In most of those I found the

condition of the annexed countries even better, certainly not worse,

than the lot of those which were the patrimony of the conquerour.

They wanted some blessings; but they were free from many very

great evils. They were rich and tranquil. Such was Artois, Flanders,

Lorrain, Alsatia, under the old Government of France. Such was Silesia

under the King of Prussia. They who are to live in the vicinity of this

new fabrick, are to prepare to live in perpetual conspiracies and

seditions; and to end at last in being conquered, if not to her

dominion, to her resemblance. But when we talk of conquest by other

nations, it is only to put a case. This is the only power in Europe by

which it is possible we should be conquered. To live under the

continual dread of such immeasurable evils is itself a grievous

calamity. To live without the dread of them is to turn the danger into

the disaster. The influence of such a France is equal to a war; it’s

example, more wasting than an hostile irruption. The hostility with

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any other power is separable and accidental; this power, by the very

condition of it’s existence, by it’s very essential constitution, is in a

state of hostility with us, and with all civilized people.

A Government of the nature of that set up at our very door, has never

been hitherto seen, or even imagined, in Europe. What our relation to

it will be cannot be judged by other relations. It is a serious thing to

have a connexion with a people, who live only under positive,

arbitrary, and changeable institutions; and those not perfected nor

supplied, nor explained, by any common acknowledged rule of moral

science. I remember that in one of my last conversations with the late

Lord Camden, we were struck much in the same manner with the

abolition in France of the law, as a science of methodized and artificial

equity. France, since her Revolution, is under the sway of a sect,

whose leaders have deliberately, at one stroke, demolished the whole

body of that jurisprudence which France had pretty nearly in common

with other civilized countries. In that jurisprudence were contained

the elements and principles of the law of nations, the great ligament

of mankind. With the law they have of course destroyed all seminaries

in which jurisprudence was taught, as well as all the corporations

established for it’s conservation. I have not heard of any country,

whether in Europe or Asia, or even in Africa on this side of Mount

Atlas, which is wholly without some such colleges and such

corporations, except France. No man, in a publick or private concern,

can divine by what rule or principle her judgments are to be directed;

nor is there to be found a professor in any University, or a practitioner

in any Court, who will hazard an opinion of what is or is not law in

France, in any case whatever. They have not only annulled all their

old treaties, but they have renounced the law of nations from whence

treaties have their force. With a fixed design, they have outlawed

themselves, and, to their power, outlawed all other nations.

Instead of the religion and the law by which they were in a great

politick communion with the Christian world, they have constructed

their Republick on three bases, all fundamentally opposite to those on

which the communities of Europe are built. It’s foundation is laid in

Regicide; in Jacobinism; and in Atheism; and it has joined to those

principles, a body of systematick manners which secures their

operation.

If I am asked how I would be understood in the use of these terms,

Regicide, Jacobinism, Atheism, and a system of correspondent

manners and their establishment, I will tell you.

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I call a commonwealth Regicide, which lays it down as a fixed law of

nature, and a fundamental right of man, that all government, not

being a democracy, is an usurpation;

that all Kings, as such, are

usurpers, and for being Kings, may and ought to be put to death, with

their wives, families, and adherents. The commonwealth which acts

uniformly upon those principles; and which after abolishing every

festival of religion, chooses the most flagrant act of a murderous

Regicide treason for a feast of eternal commemoration, and which

forces all her people to observe it—this I call Regicide by

establishment.

Jacobinism is the revolt of the enterprising talents of a country against

it’s property. When private men form themselves into associations for

the purpose of destroying the pre-existing laws and institutions of

their country; when they secure to themselves an army by dividing

amongst the people of no property, the estates of the ancient and

lawful proprietors; when a state recognizes those acts; when it does

not make confiscations for crimes, but makes crimes for confiscations;

when it has it’s principal strength, and all it’s resources in such a

violation of property; when it stands chiefly upon such a violation;

massacring by judgments, or otherwise, those who make any struggle

for their old legal government, and their legal, hereditary, or acquired

possessions—I call this Jacobinism by Establishment.

I call it Atheism by Establishment, when any State, as such, shall not

acknowledge the existence of God as a moral Governor of the World;

when it shall offer to Him no religious or moral worship: when it shall

abolish the Christian religion by a regular decree; when it shall

persecute with a cold, unrelenting, steady cruelty, by every mode of

confiscation, imprisonment, exile, and death, all it’s ministers; when it

shall generally shut up, or pull down, churches; when the few

buildings which remain of this kind shall be opened only for the

purpose of making a profane apotheosis of monsters whose vices and

crimes have no parallel amongst men, and whom all other men

consider as objects of general detestation, and the severest

animadversion of law. When, in the place of that religion of social

benevolence, and of individual self-denial, in mockery of all religion,

they institute impious, blasphemous, indecent theatric rites, in honour

of their vitiated, perverted reason, and erect altars to the

personification of their own corrupted and bloody Republick; when

schools and seminaries are founded at publick expence to poison

mankind, from generation to generation, with the horrible maxims of

this impiety; when wearied out with incessant martyrdom, and the

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cries of a people hungering and thirsting for religion, they permit it,

only as a tolerated evil—I call this Atheism by Establishment.

When to these establishments of Regicide, of Jacobinism, and of

Atheism, you add the correspondent system of manners, no doubt can

be left on the mind of a thinking man, concerning their determined

hostility to the human race. Manners are of more importance than

laws. Upon them, in a great measure, the laws depend. The law

touches us but here and there, and now and then. Manners are what

vex or sooth, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us,

by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the

air we breathe in. They give their whole form and colour to our lives.

According to their quality, they aid morals, they supply them, or they

totally destroy them. Of this the new French Legislators were aware;

therefore, with the same method, and under the same authority, they

settled a system of manners, the most licentious, prostitute, and

abandoned that ever has been known, and at the same time the most

coarse, rude, savage, and ferocious. Nothing in the Revolution, no,

not to a phrase or a gesture, not to the fashion of a hat or a shoe,

was left to accident. All has been the result of design; all has been

matter of institution. No mechanical means could be devised in favour

of this incredible system of wickedness and vice, that has not been

employed. The noblest passions, the love of glory, the love of country,

have been debauched into means of it’s preservation and it’s

propagation. All sorts of shews and exhibitions calculated to inflame

and vitiate the imagination, and pervert the moral sense, have been

contrived. They have sometimes brought forth five or six hundred

drunken women, calling at the bar of the Assembly for the blood of

their own children, as being royalists or constitutionalists. Sometimes

they have got a body of wretches, calling themselves fathers, to

demand the murder of their sons; boasting that Rome had but one

Brutus, but that they could shew five hundred. There were instances

in which they inverted and retaliated the impiety, and produced sons,

who called for the execution of their parents. The foundation of their

Republick is laid in moral paradoxes. Their patriotism is always

prodigy. All those instances to be found in history, whether real or

fabulous, of a doubtful publick spirit, at which morality is perplexed,

reason is staggered, and from which affrighted nature recoils, are

their chosen, and almost sole examples for the instruction of their

youth.

The whole drift of their institution is contrary to that of the wise

Legislators of all countries, who aimed at improving instincts into

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morals, and at grafting the virtues on the stock of the natural

affections. They, on the contrary, have omitted no pains to eradicate

every benevolent and noble propensity in the mind of men. In their

culture it is a rule always to graft virtues on vices. They think

everything unworthy of the name of publick virtue, unless it indicates

violence on the private. All their new institutions, (and with them

every thing is new,) strike at the root of our social nature. Other

Legislators, knowing that marriage is the origin of all relations, and

consequently the first element of all duties, have endeavoured, by

every art, to make it sacred. The Christian Religion, by confining it to

the pairs, and by rendering that relation indissoluble, has, by these

two things, done more towards the peace, happiness, settlement, and

civilization of the world, than by any other part in this whole scheme

of Divine Wisdom. The direct contrary course has been taken in the

Synagogue of Antichrist, I mean in that forge and manufactory of all

evil, the sect which predominated in the Constituent Assembly of

1789. Those monsters employed the same, or greater industry, to

desecrate and degrade that State, which other Legislators have used

to render it holy and honourable. By a strange, uncalled-for

declaration, they pronounced, that marriage was no better than a

common civil contract. It was one of their ordinary tricks, to put their

sentiments into the mouths of certain personated characters, which

they theatrically exhibited at the bar of what ought to be a serious

Assembly. One of these was brought out in the figure of a prostitute,

whom they called by the affected name of “a mother without being a

wife.” This creature they made to call for a repeal of the incapacities,

which in civilized States are put upon bastards. The prostitutes of the

Assembly gave to this their puppet the sanction of their greater

impudence. In consequence of the principles laid down, and the

manners authorised, bastards were not long after put on the footing

of the issue of lawful unions. Proceeding in the spirit of the first

authors of their constitution, succeeding assemblies went the full

length of the principle, and gave a licence to divorce at the mere

pleasure of either party, and at a month’s notice. With them the

matrimonial connexion is brought into so degraded a state of

concubinage, that, I believe, none of the wretches in London, who

keep warehouses of infamy, would give out one of their victims to

private custody on so short and insolent a tenure. There was indeed a

kind of profligate equity in thus giving to women the same licentious

power. The reason they assigned was as infamous as the act;

declaring that women had been too long under the tyranny of parents

and of husbands. It is not necessary to observe upon the horrible

consequences of taking one half of the species wholly out of the

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guardianship and protection of the other.

The practice of divorce, though in some countries permitted, has been

discouraged in all. In the East polygamy and divorce are in discredit;

and the manners correct the laws. In Rome, whilst Rome was in it’s

integrity, the few causes allowed for divorce amounted in effect to a

prohibition. They were only three. The arbitrary was totally excluded;

and accordingly some hundreds of years passed, without a single

example of that kind. When manners were corrupted, the laws were

relaxed; as the latter always follow the former, when they are not

able to regulate them, or to vanquish them. Of this circumstance the

Legislators of vice and crime were pleased to take notice, as an

inducement to adopt their regulation: holding out an hope, that the

permission would as rarely be made use of. They knew the contrary to

be true; and they had taken good care, that the laws should be well

seconded by the manners. Their law of divorce, like all their laws, had

not for it’s object the relief of domestick uneasiness, but the total

corruption of all morals, the total disconnection of social life.

It is a matter of curiosity to observe the operation of this

encouragement to disorder. I have before me the Paris paper,

correspondent to the usual register of births, marriages, and deaths.

Divorce, happily, is no regular head of registry among civilized

nations. With the Jacobins it is remarkable, that divorce is not only a

regular head, but it has the post of honour. It occupies the first place

in the list. In the three first months of the year 1793, the number of

divorces in that city amounted to 562. The marriages were 1785; so

that the proportion of divorces to marriages was not much less than

one to three; a thing unexampled, I believe, among mankind. I

caused an enquiry to be made at Doctor’s Commons, concerning the

number of divorces; and found, that all the divorces, (which, except

by special Act of Parliament, are separations, and not proper divorces)

did not amount in all those Courts, and in a hundred years, to much

more than one fifth of those that passed, in the single city of Paris, in

three months. I followed up the enquiry relative to that city through

several of the subsequent months until I was tired, and found the

proportions still the same. Since then I have heard that they have

declared for a revisal of these laws: but I know of nothing done. It

appears as if the contract that renovates the world was under no law

at all. From this we may take our estimate of the havock that has

been made through all the relations of life. With the Jacobins of

France, vague intercourse is without reproach; marriage is reduced to

the vilest concubinage; children are encouraged to cut the throats of

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their parents; mothers are taught that tenderness is no part of their

character; and to demonstrate their attachment to their party, that

they ought to make no scruple to rake with their bloody hands in the

bowels of those who came from their own.

To all this let us join the practice of cannibalism, with which, in the

proper terms, and with the greatest truth, their several factions

accuse each other. By cannibalism, I mean their devouring, as a

nutriment of their ferocity, some part of the bodies of those they have

murdered; their drinking the blood of their victims, and forcing the

victims themselves to drink the blood of their kindred slaughtered

before their faces. By cannibalism, I mean also to signify all their

nameless, unmanly, and abominable insults on the bodies of those

they slaughter.

As to those whom they suffer to die a natural death, they do not

permit them to enjoy the last consolations of mankind, or those rights

of sepulture, which indicate hope, and which meer nature has taught

to mankind in all countries, to soothe the afflictions, and to cover the

infirmity of mortal condition. They disgrace men in the entry into life;

they vitiate and enslave them through the whole course of it; and

they deprive them of all comfort at the conclusion of their dishonoured

and depraved existence. Endeavouring to persuade the people that

they are no better than beasts, the whole body of their institution

tends to make them beasts of prey, furious and savage. For this

purpose the active part of them is disciplined into a ferocity which has

no parallel. To this ferocity there is joined not one of the rude,

unfashioned virtues, which accompany the vices, where the whole are

left to grow up together in the rankness of uncultivated nature. But

nothing is left to nature in their systems.

The same discipline which hardens their hearts relaxes their morals.

Whilst courts of justice were thrust out by revolutionary tribunals, and

silent churches were only the funeral monuments of departed religion,

there were no fewer than nineteen or twenty theatres, great and

small, most of them kept open at the publick expence, and all of them

crowded every night. Among the gaunt, haggard forms of famine and

nakedness, amidst the yells of murder, the tears of affliction, and the

cries of despair, the song, the dance, the mimick scene, the buffoon

laughter, went on as regularly as in the gay hour of festive peace. I

have it from good authority, that under the scaffold of judicial murder,

and the gaping planks that poured down blood on the spectators, the

space was hired out for a shew of dancing dogs. I think, without

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concert, we have made the very same remark on reading some of

their pieces, which, being written for other purposes, let us into a

view of their social life. It struck us that the habits of Paris had no

resemblance to the finished virtues, or to the polished vice, and

elegant, though not blameless luxury, of the capital of a great empire.

Their society was more like that of a den of outlaws upon a doubtful

frontier; of a lewd tavern for the revels and debauches of banditti,

assassins, bravos, smugglers, and their more desperate paramours,

mixed with bombastick players, the refuse and rejected offal of

strolling theatres, puffing out ill-sorted verses about virtue, mixed

with the licentious and blasphemous songs, proper to the brutal and

hardened course of life belonging to that sort of wretches. This system

of manners in itself is at war with all orderly and moral society, and is

in it’s neighbourhood unsafe. If great bodies of that kind were any

where established in a bordering territory, we should have a right to

demand of their Governments the suppression of such a nuisance.

What are we to do if the Government and the whole community is of

the same description? Yet that Government has thought proper to

invite ours to lay by its unjust hatred, and to listen to the voice of

humanity as taught by their example.

The operation of dangerous and delusive first principles obliges us to

have recourse to the true ones. In the intercourse between nations,

we are apt to rely too much on the instrumental part. We lay too

much weight upon the formality of treaties and compacts. We do not

act much more wisely when we trust to the interests of men as

guarantees of their engagements. The interests frequently tear to

pieces the engagements; and the passions trample upon both.

Entirely to trust to either, is to disregard our own safety, or not to

know mankind. Men are not tied to one another by papers and seals.

They are led to associate by resemblances, by conformities, by

sympathies. It is with nations as with individuals. Nothing is so strong

a tie of amity between nation and nation as correspondence in laws,

customs, manners, and habits of life. They have more than the force

of treaties in themselves. They are obligations written in the heart.

They approximate men to men, without their knowledge, and

sometimes against their intentions. The secret, unseen, but

irrefragable bond of habitual intercourse, holds them together, even

when their perverse and litigious nature sets them to equivocate,

scuffle, and fight about the terms of their written obligations.

As to war, if it be the means of wrong and violence, it is the sole

means of justice amongst nations. Nothing can banish it from the

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world. They who say otherwise, intending to impose upon us, do not

impose upon themselves. But it is one of the greatest objects of

human wisdom to mitigate those evils which we are unable to

remove. The conformity and analogy of which I speak, incapable, like

every thing else, of preserving perfect trust and tranquillity among

men, has a strong tendency to facilitate accommodation, and to

produce a generous oblivion of the rancour of their quarrels. With this

similitude, peace is more of peace, and war is less of war. I will go

further. There have been periods of time in which communities,

apparently in peace with each other, have been more perfectly

separated than, in later times, many nations in Europe have been in

the course of long and bloody wars. The cause must be sought in the

similitude throughout Europe of religion, laws, and manners. At

bottom, these are all the same. The writers on public law have often

called this aggregate of nations a Commonwealth. They had reason. It

is virtually one great state having the same basis of general law; with

some diversity of provincial customs and local establishments. The

nations of Europe have had the very same christian religion, agreeing

in the fundamental parts, varying a little in the ceremonies and in the

subordinate doctrines. The whole of the polity and oeconomy of every

country in Europe has been derived from the same sources. It was

drawn from the old Germanic or Gothic custumary; from the feudal

institutions which must be considered as an emanation from that

custumary; and the whole has been improved and digested into

system and discipline by the Roman law. From hence arose the

several orders, with or without a Monarch, which are called States, in

every European country; the strong traces of which, where Monarchy

predominated, were never wholly extinguished or merged in

despotism. In the few places where Monarchy was cast off, the spirit

of European Monarchy was still left. Those countries still continued

countries of States; that is, of classes, orders, and distinctions, such

as had before subsisted, or nearly so. Indeed the force and form of

the institution called States, continued in greater perfection in those

republican communities than under Monarchies. From all those

sources arose a system of manners and of education which was nearly

similar in all this quarter of the globe; and which softened, blended,

and harmonized the colours of the whole. There was little difference in

the form of the Universities for the education of their youth, whether

with regard to faculties, to sciences, or to the more liberal and elegant

kinds of erudition. From this resemblance in the modes of intercourse,

and in the whole form and fashion of life, no citizen of Europe could be

altogether an exile in any part of it. There was nothing more than a

pleasing variety to recreate and instruct the mind, to enrich the

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imagination, and to meliorate the heart. When a man travelled or

resided for health, pleasure, business or necessity, from his own

country, he never felt himself quite abroad.

The whole body of this new scheme of manners, in support of the new

scheme of politicks, I consider as a strong and decisive proof of

determined ambition and systematick hostility. I defy the most

refining ingenuity to invent any other cause for the total departure of

the Jacobin Republick from every one of the ideas and usages,

religious, legal, moral, or social, of this civilized world, and for her

tearing herself from its communion with such studied violence, but

from a formed resolution of keeping no terms with that world. It has

not been, as has been falsely and insidiously represented, that these

miscreants had only broke with their old Government. They made a

schism with the whole universe; and that schism extended to almost

every thing great and small. For one, I wish, since it is gone thus far,

that the breach had been so compleat, as to make all intercourse

impracticable; but, partly by accident, partly by design, partly from

the resistance of the matter, enough is left to preserve intercourse,

whilst amity is destroyed or corrupted in it’s principle.

This violent breach of the community of Europe we must conclude to

have been made, (even if they had not expressly declared it over and

over again) either to force mankind into an adoption of their system,

or to live in perpetual enmity with a community the most potent we

have ever known. Can any person imagine, that in offering to

mankind this desperate alternative, there is no indication of a hostile

mind, because men in possession of the ruling authority are supposed

to have a right to act without coercion in their own territories? As to

the right of men to act any where according to their pleasure, without

any moral tie, no such right exists. Men are never in a state of total

independence of each other. It is not the condition of our nature: nor

is it conceivable how any man can pursue a considerable course of

action without it’s having some effect upon others; or, of course,

without producing some degree of responsibility for his conduct. The

situations in which men relatively stand produce the rules and

principles of that responsibility, and afford directions to prudence in

exacting it.

Distance of place does not extinguish the duties or the rights of men;

but it often renders their exercise impracticable. The same

circumstance of distance renders the noxious effects of an evil system

in any community less pernicious. But there are situations where this

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difficulty does not occur; and in which, therefore, these duties are

obligatory, and these rights are to be asserted. It has ever been the

method of publick jurists, to draw a great part of the analogies on

which they form the law of nations from the principles of law which

prevail in civil community. Civil laws are not all of them merely

positive. Those which are rather conclusions of legal reason, than

matters of statutable provision, belong to universal equity, and are

universally applicable. Almost the whole praetorian law is such. There

is a Law of Neighbourhood which does not leave a man perfect master

on his own ground. When a neighbour sees a new erection, in the

nature of a nuisance, set up at his door, he has a right to represent it

to the judge; who, on his part, has a right to order the work to be

staid; or if established, to be removed. On this head, the parent law is

express and clear; and has made many wise provisions, which,

without destroying, regulate and restrain the right of ownership, by

the right of vicinage. No innovation is permitted that may redound,

even secondarily, to the prejudice of a neighbour. The whole doctrine

of that important head of praetorian law, “ De novi operis nunciatione,

” is founded on the principle, that no new use should be made of a

man’s private liberty of operating upon his private property, from

whence a detriment may be justly apprehended by his neighbour. This

law of denunciation is prospective. It is to anticipate what is called

damnum infectum, or damnum nondum factum, that is a damage

justly apprehended but not actually done. Even before it is clearly

known whether the innovation be damageable or not, the judge is

competent to issue a prohibition to innovate, until the point can be

determined. This prompt interference is grounded on principles

favourable to both parties. It is preventive of mischief difficult to be

repaired, and of ill blood difficult to be softened. The rule of law,

therefore, which comes before the evil, is amongst the very best parts

of equity, and justifies the promptness of the remedy; because, as it

is well observed, Res damni infecti celeritatem desiderat et periculosa

est dilatio. This right of denunciation does not hold, when things

continue, however inconveniently to the neighbourhood, according to

the antient mode. For there is a sort of presumption against novelty,

drawn out of a deep consideration of human nature and human

affairs; and the maxim of jurisprudence is well laid down, Vetustas

pro lege semper habetur.

Such is the law of civil vicinity. Now where there is no constituted

judge, as between independent states there is not, the vicinage itself

is the natural judge. It is, preventively, the assertor of its own rights;

or remedially, their avenger. Neighbours are presumed to take

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cognizance of each other’s acts. Vicini vicinorum facta praesumuntur

scire. This principle, which, like the rest, is as true of nations as of

individual men, has bestowed on the grand vicinage of Europe a duty

to know, and a right to prevent, any capital innovation which may

amount to the erection of a dangerous nuisance.

Of the importance

of that innovation, and the mischief of that nuisance, they are, to be

sure, bound to judge not litigiously; but it is in their competence to

judge. They have uniformly acted on this right. What in civil society is

a ground of action, in politick society is a ground of war. But the

exercise of that competent jurisdiction is a matter of moral prudence.

As suits in civil society, so war in the political, must ever be a matter

of great deliberation. It is not this or that particular proceeding,

picked out here or there, as a subject of quarrel, that will do. There

must be an aggregate of mischief. There must be marks of

deliberation; there must be traces of design; there must be

indications of malice; there must be tokens of ambition. There must

be force in the body where they exist; there must be energy in the

mind. When all these circumstances combine, or the important parts

of them, the duty of the vicinity calls for the exercise of it’s

competence; and the rules of prudence do not restrain, but demand

it.

In describing the nuisance erected by so pestilential a manufactory,

by the construction of so infamous a brothel, by digging a night-cellar

for such thieves, murderers, and house-breakers, as never infested

the world, I am so far from aggravating, that I have fallen infinitely

short of the evil. No man who has attended to the particulars of what

has been done in France, and combined them with the principles there

asserted, can possibly doubt it. When I compare with this great cause

of nations, the trifling points of honour, the still more contemptible

points of interest, the light ceremonies, the undefinable punctilios, the

disputes about precedency, the lowering or the hoisting of a sail, the

dealing in a hundred or two of wild-cat skins on the other side of the

globe, which have often kindled up the flames of war between

nations, I stand astonished at those persons who do not feel a

resentment, not more natural than politick, at the atrocious insults

that this monstrous compound offers to the dignity of every nation,

and who are not alarmed with what it threatens to their safety.

I have therefore been decidedly of opinion, with our declaration at

Whitehall, in the beginning of this war, that the vicinage of Europe

had not only a right, but an indispensable duty, and an exigent

interest, to denunciate this new work before it had produced the

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danger we have so sorely felt, and which we shall long feel. The

example of what is done by France is too important not to have a vast

and extensive influence; and that example, backed with it’s power,

must bear with great force on those who are near it; especially on

those who shall recognize the pretended Republick on the principle

upon which it now stands. It is not an old structure which you have

found as it is, and are not to dispute of the original end and design

with which it had been so fashioned. It is a recent wrong, and can

plead no prescription. It violates the rights upon which not only the

community of France, but all communities, are founded. The principles

on which they proceed are general principles, and are as true in

England as in any other country. They who (though with the purest

intentions) recognize the authority of these Regicides and robbers

upon principle, justify their acts, and establish them as precedents. It

is a question not between France and England. It is a question

between property and force. The property claims; and it’s claim has

been allowed. The property of the nation is the nation. They who

massacre, plunder, and expel the body of the proprietary, are

murderers and robbers. The State, in it’s essence, must be moral and

just: and it may be so, though a tyrant or usurper should be

accidentally at the head of it. This is a thing to be lamented: but this

notwithstanding, the body of the commonwealth may remain in all it’s

integrity and be perfectly sound in it’s composition. The present case

is different. It is not a revolution in government. It is not the victory

of party over party. It is a destruction and decomposition of the whole

society; which never can be made of right by any faction, however

powerful, nor without terrible consequences to all about it, both in the

act and in the example. This pretended Republick is founded in

crimes, and exists by wrong and robbery; and wrong and robbery, far

from a title to any thing, is war with mankind. To be at peace with

robbery is to be an accomplice with it.

Mere locality does not constitute a body politick. Had Cade and his

gang got possession of London, they would not have been the Lord-

Mayor, Aldermen, and Common Council. The body politick of France

existed in the majesty of it’s throne; in the dignity of it’s nobility; in

the honour of it’s gentry; in the sanctity of it’s clergy; in the

reverence of it’s magistracy; in the weight and consideration due to

it’s landed property in the several bailliages; in the respect due to it’s

moveable substance represented by the corporations of the kingdom.

All these particular moleculae united, form the great mass of what is

truly the body politick, in all countries. They are so many deposits and

receptacles of justice; because they can only exist by justice. Nation is

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a moral essence, not a geographical arrangement, or a denomination

of the nomenclator. France, though out of her territorial possession,

exists; because the sole possible claimant, I mean the proprietary,

and the Government to which the proprietary adheres, exists and

claims. God forbid, that if you were expelled from your house by

ruffians and assassins, that I should call the material walls, doors and

windows of — — —, the ancient and honourable family of — — —. Am

I to transfer to the intruders, who not content to turn you out naked

to the world, would rob you of your very name, all the esteem and

respect I owe to you? The Regicides in France are not France. France

is out of her bounds, but the kingdom is the same.

To illustrate my opinions on this subject, let us suppose a case, which,

after what has happened, we cannot think absolutely impossible,

though the augury is to be abominated, and the event deprecated

with our most ardent prayers. Let us suppose then, that our gracious

Sovereign was sacrilegiously murdered; his exemplary Queen, at the

head of the matronage of this land, murdered in the same manner:

that those Princesses whose beauty and modest elegance are the

ornaments of the country, and who are the leaders and patterns of

the ingenuous youth of their sex, were put to a cruel and ignominious

death, with hundreds of others, mothers and daughters, ladies of the

first distinction; that the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York, princes

the hope and pride of the nation, with all their brethren, were forced

to fly from the knives of assassins; that the whole body of our

excellent Clergy were either massacred or robbed of all, and

transported; the Christian Religion, in all its denominations, forbidden

and persecuted; the law totally, fundamentally, and in all it’s parts

destroyed; the judges put to death by revolutionary tribunals; the

Peers and Commons robbed to the last acre of their estates;

massacred if they staid, or obliged to seek life in flight, in exile, and in

beggary; that the whole landed property should share the very same

fate; that every military and naval officer of honour and rank, almost

to a man, should be placed in the same description of confiscation and

exile; that the principal merchants and bankers should be drawn out,

as from an hen-coop, for slaughter; that the citizens of our greatest

and most flourishing cities, when the hand and the machinery of the

hangman were not found sufficient, should have been collected in the

publick squares, and massacred by thousands with cannon; if three

hundred thousand others should have been doomed to a situation

worse than death in noisome and pestilential prisons—in such a case,

is it in the faction of robbers I am to look for my country? Would this

be the England that you and I, and even strangers, admired,

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honoured, loved, and cherished? Would not the exiles of England

alone be my Government and my fellow-citizens? Would not their

places of refuge be my temporary country? Would not all my duties

and all my affections be there and there only? Should I consider

myself as a traitor to my country, and deserving of death, if I knocked

at the door and heart of every potentate in Christendom to succour

my friends, and to avenge them on their enemies? Could I, in any

way, shew myself more a patriot? What should I think of those

potentates who insulted their suffering brethren; who treated them as

vagrants, or at least as mendicants; and could find no allies, no

friends, but in Regicide murderers and robbers? What ought I to think

and feel, if being geographers instead of Kings, they recognized the

desolated cities, the wasted fields, and the rivers polluted with blood,

of this geometrical measurement, as the honourable member of

Europe, called England? In that condition, what should we think of

Sweden, Denmark, or Holland, or whatever Power afforded us a

churlish and treacherous hospitality, if they should invite us to join the

standard of our King, our Laws, and our Religion, if they should give

us a direct promise of protection—if after all this, taking advantage of

our deplorable situation, which left us no choice, they were to treat us

as the lowest and vilest of all mercenaries? If they were to send us far

from the aid of our King, and our suffering Country, to squander us

away in the most pestilential climates for a venal enlargement of their

own territories, for the purpose of trucking them, when obtained, with

those very robbers and murderers they had called upon us to oppose

with our blood? What would be our sentiments, if in that miserable

service we were not to be considered either as English, or as Swedes,

Dutch, Danes, but as outcasts of the human race? Whilst we were

fighting those battles of their interest, and as their soldiers, how

should we feel if we were to be excluded from all their cartels? How

must we feel, if the pride and flower of the English Nobility and

Gentry, who might escape the pestilential clime, and the devouring

sword, should, if taken prisoners, be delivered over as rebel subjects,

to be condemned as rebels, as traitors, as the vilest of all criminals,

by tribunals formed of Maroon negro slaves, covered over with the

blood of their masters, who were made free and organized into

judges, for their robberies and murders? What should we feel under

this inhuman, insulting, and barbarous protection of Muscovites,

Swedes, or Hollanders? Should we not obtest Heaven, and whatever

justice there is yet on earth? Oppression makes wise men mad; but

the distemper is still the madness of the wise, which is better than the

sobriety of fools. Their cry is the voice of sacred misery, exalted, not

into wild raving, but into the sanctified phrensy of prophecy and

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inspiration. In that bitterness of soul, in that indignation of suffering

virtue, in that exaltation of despair, would not persecuted English

loyalty cry out, with an awful warning voice, and denounce the

destruction that waits on Monarchs, who consider fidelity to them as

the most degrading of all vices; who suffer it to be punished as the

most abominable of all crimes; and who have no respect but for

rebels, traitors, Regicides, and furious negro slaves, whose crimes

have broke their chains? Would not this warm language of high

indignation have more of sound reason in it, more of real affection,

more of true attachment, than all the lullabies of flatterers, who would

hush Monarchs to sleep in the arms of death? Let them be well

convinced, that if ever this example should prevail in it’s whole

extent, it will have it’s full operation. Whilst Kings stand firm on their

base, though under that base there is a sure-wrought mine, there will

not be wanting to their levées a single person of those who are

attached to their fortune, and not to their persons or cause. But

hereafter none will support a tottering throne. Some will fly for fear of

being crushed under the ruin; some will join in making it. They will

seek in the destruction of Royalty, fame, and power, and wealth, and

the homage of Kings, with Reubel, with Carnot, with Revellière, and

with the Merlins and the Talliens, rather than suffer exile and beggary

with the Condés, or the Broglies, the Castries, the D’Avrais, the

Serrents, the Cazalés, and the long line of loyal, suffering Patriot

Nobility, or to be butchered with the oracles and the victims of the

laws, the D’Ormestons, the d’Espremesnils, and the Malesherbes. This

example we shall give, if, instead of adhering to our fellows in a cause

which is an honour to us all, we abandon the lawful Government and

lawful corporate body of France, to hunt for a shameful and ruinous

fraternity with this odious usurpation that disgraces civilized society

and the human race.

And is then example nothing? It is every thing. Example is the school

of mankind, and they will learn at no other. This war is a war against

that example. It is not a war for Louis the Eighteenth, or even for the

property, virtue, fidelity of France. It is a war for George the Third, for

Francis the Second, and for all the dignity, property, honour, virtue,

and religion of England, of Germany, and of all nations.

I know that all I have said of the systematick unsociability of this

new-invented species of republick, and the impossibility of preserving

peace, is answered by asserting that the scheme of manners, morals,

and even of maxims and principles of state, is of no weight in a

question of peace or war between communities. This doctrine is

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supported by example. The case of Algiers is cited, with an hint, as if

it were the stronger case. I should take no notice of this sort of

inducement, if I had found it only where first it was. I do not want

respect for those from whom I first heard it—but having no

controversy at present with them, I only think it not amiss to rest on

it a little, as I find it adopted with much more of the same kind, by

several of those on whom such reasoning had formerly made no

apparent impression. If it had no force to prevent us from submitting

to this necessary war, it furnishes no better ground for our making an

unnecessary and ruinous peace.

This analogical argument drawn from the case of Algiers would lead us

a good way. The fact is, we ourselves with a little cover, others more

directly, pay a tribute to the Republick of Algiers. Is it meant to

reconcile us to the payment of a tribute to the French Republick? That

this, with other things more ruinous, will be demanded hereafter, I

little doubt; but for the present, this will not be avowed—though our

minds are to be gradually prepared for it. In truth, the arguments

from this case are worth little, even to those who approve the buying

an Algerine forbearance of piracy. There are many things which men

do not approve that they must do to avoid a greater evil. To argue

from thence, that they are to act in the same manner in all cases, is

turning necessity into a law. Upon what is matter of prudence, the

argument concludes the contrary way. Because we have done one

humiliating act, we ought with infinite caution to admit more acts of

the same nature, lest humiliation should become our habitual state.

Matters of prudence are under the dominion of circumstances, and not

of logical analogies. It is absurd to take it otherwise.

I, for one, do more than doubt the policy of this kind of convention

with Algiers. On those who think as I do, the argument ad hominem

can make no sort of impression. I know something of the Constitution

and composition of this very extraordinary Republick. It has a

Constitution, I admit, similar to the present tumultuous military

tyranny of France, by which an handful of obscure ruffians domineer

over a fertile country and a brave people. For the composition, too, I

admit, the Algerine community resembles that of France; being

formed out of the very scum, scandal, disgrace, and pest of the

Turkish Asia. The grand Seignor, to disburthen the country, suffers

the Dey to recruit, in his dominions, the corps of Janissaries, or

Asaphs, which form the Directory and Council of Elders of the African

Republick one and indivisible. But notwithstanding this resemblance,

which I allow, I never shall so far injure the Janissarian Republick of

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Algiers, as to put it in comparison for every sort of crime, turpitude,

and oppression with the Jacobin Republick of Paris. There is no

question with me to which of the two I should choose to be a

neighbour or a subject. But situated as I am, I am in no danger of

becoming to Algiers either the one or the other. It is not so in my

relation to the atheistical fanaticks of France. I am their neighbour; I

may become their subject. Have the gentlemen who borrowed this

happy parallel, no idea of the different conduct to be held with regard

to the very same evil at an immense distance, and when it is at your

door? When it’s power is enormous, as when it is comparatively as

feeble as it’s distance is remote? When there is a barrier of language

and usages, which prevents corruption through certain old

correspondences and habitudes, from the contagion of the horrible

novelties that are introduced into every thing else? I can contemplate,

without dread, a royal or a national tyger on the borders of Pegu. I

can look at him, with an easy curiosity, as prisoner within bars in the

menagerie of the Tower. But if, by habeas corpus, or otherwise, he

was to come into the lobby of the House of Commons whilst your door

was open, any of you would be more stout than wise, who would not

gladly make your escape out of the back windows. I certainly should

dread more from a wild cat in my bed-chamber, than from all the

lions that roar in the deserts behind Algiers. But in this parallel it is

the cat that is at a distance, and the lions and tygers that are in our

ante-chambers and our lobbies. Algiers is not near; Algiers is not

powerful; Algiers is not our neighbour; Algiers is not infectious.

Algiers, whatever it may be, is an old creation; and we have good

data to calculate all the mischief to be apprehended from it. When I

find Algiers transferred to Calais, I will tell you what I think of that

point. In the mean time, the case quoted from the Algerine reports,

will not apply as authority. We shall put it out of court; and so far as

that goes, let the counsel for the Jacobin peace take nothing by their

motion.

When we voted, as you and I did, with many more whom you and I

respect and love, to resist this enemy, we were providing for dangers

that were direct, home, pressing, and not remote, contingent,

uncertain, and formed upon loose analogies. We judged of the danger

with which we were menaced by Jacobin France, from the whole tenor

of it’s conduct; not from one or two doubtful or detached acts or

expressions. I not only concurred in the idea of combining with Europe

in this war; but to the best of my power ever stimulated Ministers to

that conjunction of interests and of efforts. I joined with them with all

my soul, on the principles contained in that manly and masterly state-

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paper, which I have two or three times referred to,

and may still

more frequently hereafter. The diplomatick collection never was more

enriched than with this piece. The historick facts justify every stroke

of the master. “Thus painters write their names at Co.”

Various persons may concur in the same measure on various grounds.

They may be various, without being contrary to, or exclusive of each

other. I thought the insolent, unprovoked aggression of the Regicide

upon our ally of Holland, a good ground of war. I think his manifest

attempt to overturn the balance of Europe, a good ground of war. As

a good ground of war, I consider his declaration of war on his Majesty

and his kingdom. But though I have taken all these to my aid, I

consider them as nothing more than as a sort of evidence to indicate

the treasonable mind within. Long before their acts of aggression, and

their declaration of war, the faction in France had assumed a form,

had adopted a body of principles and maxims, and had regularly and

systematically acted on them, by which she virtually had put herself in

a posture, which was in itself a declaration of war against mankind.

T IS SAID BY THE DIRECTORY in their several manifestoes, that we of the

people are tumultuous for peace; and that Ministers pretend

negociation to amuse us. This they have learned from the language of

many amongst ourselves, whose conversations have been one main

cause of whatever extent the opinion for peace with Regicide may be.

But I, who think the Ministers unfortunately to be but too serious in

their proceedings, find myself obliged to say a little more on this

subject of the popular opinion.

Before our opinions are quoted against ourselves, it is proper that,

from our serious deliberation, they may be worth quoting. It is

without reason we praise the wisdom of our Constitution, in putting

under the discretion of the Crown the awful trust of war and peace, if

the Ministers of the Crown virtually return it again into our hands. The

trust was placed there as a sacred deposit, to secure us against

popular rashness in plunging into wars, and against the effects of

popular dismay, disgust, or lassitude in getting out of them as

imprudently as we might first engage in them. To have no other

measure in judging of those great objects than our momentary

opinions and desires, is to throw us back upon that very democracy

which, in this part, our Constitution was formed to avoid.

It is no excuse at all for a minister, who at our desire, takes a

measure contrary to our safety, that it is our own act. He who does

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not stay the hand of suicide, is guilty of murder. On our part I say,

that to be instructed, is not to be degraded or enslaved. Information

is an advantage to us; and we have a right to demand it. He that is

bound to act in the dark cannot be said to act freely. When it appears

evident to our governors that our desires and our interests are at

variance, they ought not to gratify the former at the expence of the

latter. Statesmen are placed on an eminence, that they may have a

larger horizon than we can possibly command. They have a whole

before them, which we can contemplate only in the parts, and even

without the necessary relations. Ministers are not only our natural

rulers but our natural guides. Reason, clearly and manfully delivered,

has in itself a mighty force: but reason in the mouth of legal

authority, is, I may fairly say, irresistible.

I admit that reason of state will not, in many circumstances, permit

the disclosure of the true ground of a public proceeding. In that case,

silence is manly; and it is wise. It is fair to call for trust when the

principle of reason itself suspends it’s public use. I take the distinction

to be this. The ground of a particular measure, making a part of a

plan, it is rarely proper to divulge. All the broader grounds of policy on

which the general plan is to be adopted, ought as rarely to be

concealed. They who have not the whole cause before them, call them

politicians, call them people, call them what you will, are no judges.

The difficulties of the case, as well as it’s fair side, ought to be

presented. This ought to be done: and it is all that can be done. When

we have our true situation distinctly presented to us, if then we

resolve, with a blind and headlong violence, to resist the admonitions

of our friends, and to cast ourselves into the hands of our potent and

irreconcileable foes, then, and not till then, the ministers stand

acquitted before God and man, for whatever may come.

AMENTING AS I DO, that the matter has not had so full and free a

discussion as it requires, I mean to omit none of the points which

seem to me necessary for consideration, previous to an arrangement

which is for ever to decide the form and the fate of Europe. In the

course, therefore, of what I shall have the honour to address to you, I

propose the following questions to your serious thoughts. 1. Whether

the present system, which stands for a Government in France, be

such as in peace and war affects the neighbouring States in a manner

different from the internal Government that formerly prevailed in that

country? 2. Whether that system, supposing its views hostile to other

nations, possesses any means of being hurtful to them peculiar to

itself? 3. Whether there has been lately such a change in France, as to

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alter the nature of its system, or it’s effect upon other Powers? 4.

Whether any publick declarations or engagements exist, on the part of

the allied Powers, which stand in the way of a treaty of peace, which

supposes the right and confirms the power of the Regicide faction in

France? 5. What the state of the other Powers of Europe will be with

respect to each other, and their colonies, on the conclusion of a

Regicide Peace? 6. Whether we are driven to the absolute necessity of

making that kind of peace?

These heads of enquiry will enable us to make the application of the

several matters of fact and topicks of argument, that occur in this

vast discussion, to certain fixed principles. I do not mean to confine

myself to the order in which they stand. I shall discuss them in such a

manner as shall appear to me the best adapted for shewing their

mutual bearings and relations. Here then I close the public matter of

my Letter; but before I have done, let me say one word in apology for

myself.

N WISHING THIS NOMINAL PEACE not to be precipitated, I am sure no man

living is less disposed to blame the present Ministry than I am. Some

of my oldest friends, (and I wish I could say it of more of them) make

a part in that Ministry. There are some indeed, “ whom my dim eyes

in vain explore.” In my mind, a greater calamity could not have fallen

on the publick than the exclusion of one of them. But I drive away

that, with other melancholy thoughts. A great deal ought to be said

upon that subject, or nothing. As to the distinguished persons to

whom my friends, who remain, are joined, if benefits, nobly and

generously conferred, ought to procure good wishes, they are intitled

to my best vows; and they have them all. They have administered to

me the only consolation I am capable of receiving, which is to know

that no individual will suffer by my thirty years’ service to the publick.

If things should give us the comparative happiness of a struggle, I

shall be found, (I was going to say fighting—that would be foolish—

but) dying by the side of Mr. Pitt. I must add, that if any thing

defensive in our domestick system can possibly save us from the

disasters of a Regicide peace, he is the man to save us. If the finances

in such a case can be repaired, he is the man to repair them. If I

should lament any of his acts, it is only when they appear to me to

have no resemblance to acts of his. But let him not have a confidence

in himself, which no human abilities can warrant. His abilities are fully

equal (and that is to say much for any man) to those that are

opposed to him. But if we look to him as our security against the

consequences of a Regicide Peace, let us be assured, that a Regicide

p. 149

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Peace and a Constitutional Ministry are terms that will not agree. With

a Regicide Peace the King cannot long have a Minister to serve him,

nor the Minister a King to serve. If the Great Disposer, in reward of

the royal and the private virtues of our Sovereign, should call him

from the calamitous spectacles, which will attend a state of amity with

Regicide, his successor will surely see them, unless the same

providence greatly anticipates the course of nature. Thinking thus,

(and not, as I conceive, on light grounds) I dare not flatter the

reigning Sovereign, nor any Minister he has or can have, nor his

Successor Apparent, nor any of those who may be called to serve

him, with what appears to me a false state of their situation. We

cannot have them and that Peace together.

I do not forget that there had been a considerable difference between

several of our friends, with my insignificant self, and the great man at

the head of Ministry, in an early stage of these discussions. But I am

sure there was a period in which we agreed better in the danger of a

Jacobin existence in France. At one time, he and all Europe seemed to

feel it. But why am not I converted with so many great Powers, and

so many great Ministers? It is because I am old and slow. I am in this

year, 1796, only where all the powers of Europe were in 1793. I

cannot move with this procession of the Equinoxes, which is preparing

for us the return of some very old, I am afraid no golden aera, or the

commencement of some new aera that must be denominated from

some new metal. In this crisis I must hold my tongue, or I must speak

with freedom. Falsehood and delusion are allowed in no case

whatever: but, as in the exercise of all the virtues, there is an

oeconomy of truth. It is a sort of temperance, by which a man speaks

truth with measure that he may speak it the longer. But, as the same

rules do not hold in all cases, what would be right for you, who may

presume on a series of years before you, would have no sense for me,

who cannot, without absurdity, calculate on six months of life. What I

say, I must say at once. Whatever I write is in it’s nature

testamentary. It may have the weakness, but it has the sincerity of a

dying declaration. For the few days I have to linger here, I am

removed completely from the busy scene of the world; but I hold

myself to be still responsible for every thing that I have done whilst I

continued on the place of action. If the rawest tyro in politicks has

been influenced by the authority of my grey hairs, and led by any

thing in my speeches, or my writings, to enter into this war, he has a

right to call upon me to know why I have changed my opinions, or

why, when those I voted with, have adopted better notions, I

persevere in exploded errour.

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When I seem not to acquiesce in the acts of those I respect in every

degree short of superstition, I am obliged to give my reasons fully. I

cannot set my authority against their authority. But to exert reason is

not to revolt against authority. Reason and authority do not move in

the same parallel. That reason is an amicus curiae who speaks de

plano, not pro tribunali. It is a friend who makes an useful suggestion

to the Court, without questioning it’s jurisdiction. Whilst he

acknowledges it’s competence, he promotes it’s efficiency. I shall

pursue the plan I have chalked out in my Letters that follow this.

Endnotes

[1.] “ Mussabat tacito medicina timore.”

[

1.] Mr. Bird sent to state the real situation of the Duc de Choiseul.

[1.]

Boissy d’Anglas.

[1.]

“This Court has seen, with regret, how far the tone and spirit of

that answer, the nature and extent of the demands which it contains,

and the manner of announcing them, are remote from any

dispositions for peace.

“The inadmissible pretension is there avowed of appropriating to

France all that the laws existing there may have comprised under the

denomination of French territory. To a demand such as this, is added

an express declaration that no proposal contrary to it will be made, or

even listened to. And even this, under the pretence of an internal

regulation, the provisions of which are wholly foreign to all other

nations.

“While these dispositions shall be persisted in, nothing is left for the

King, but to prosecute a war equally just and necessary.

“Whenever his enemies shall manifest more pacific sentiments, his

Majesty will, at all times, be eager to concur in them, by lending

himself, in concert with his allies, to all such measures as shall be

calculated to re-establish general tranquillity on conditions just,

honourable and permanent, either by the establishment of a general

Congress, which has been so happily the means of restoring peace to

Europe, or by a preliminary discussion of the principles which may be

proposed, on either side, as a foundation of a general pacification; or,

lastly, by an impartial examination of any other way which may be

pointed out to him for arriving at the same salutary end.”

Downing-Street, April 10, 1796.

p. 74

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[1.] Official Note, extracted from the Journal of the Defenders of the

Country.

“ EXECUTIVE DIRECTORY.

“Different Journals have advanced that an English Plenipotentiary had

reached Paris, and had presented himself to the Executive Directory,

but that his propositions not having appeared satisfactory, he had

received orders instantly to quit France.

“All these assertions are equally false.

“The notices given, in the English Papers, of a Minister having been

sent to Paris, there to treat of peace, bring to recollection the

overtures of Mr. Wickham to the Ambassador of the Republick at

Basle, and the rumours circulated relative to the mission of Mr.

Hammond to the Court of Prussia. The insignificance, or rather the

subtle duplicity, the PUNICK stile of Mr. Wickham’s note, is not

forgotten. According to the partizans of the English Ministry, it was to

Paris that Mr. Hammond was to come to speak for peace: when his

destination became publick, and it was known that he went to Prussia,

the same writer repeated that it was to accelerate a peace, and

notwithstanding the object, now well known, of this negociation, was

to engage Prussia to break her treaties with the Republick, and to

return into the coalition. The Court of Berlin, faithful to its

engagements, repulsed these perfidious propositions. But in

converting this intrigue into a mission for peace, the English Ministry

joined to the hope of giving a new enemy to France, that of justifying

the continuance of the war in the eyes of the English nation, and of

throwing all the odium of it on the French Government. Such was also

the aim of Mr. Wickham’s note. Such is still that of the notices given

at this time in the English papers.

“This aim will appear evident, if we reflect how difficult it is, that the

ambitious Government of England should sincerely wish for a peace

that would snatch from it it’s maritime preponderancy, would re-

establish the freedom of the seas, would give a new impulse to the

Spanish, Dutch, and French marines, and would carry to the highest

degree of prosperity the industry and commerce of those nations in

which it has always found rivals, and which it has considered as

enemies of it’s commerce, when they were tired of being it’s dupes.

“But there will no longer be any credit given to the pacific intentions

of the English Ministry, when it is known, that it’s gold and it’s

intrigues, it’s open practices, and it’s insinuations, besiege more than

ever the Cabinet of Vienna, and are one of the principal obstacles to

the negotiation which that Cabinet would of itself be induced to enter

on for peace.

“They will no longer be credited, finally, when the moment of the

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rumour of these overtures being circulated is considered. The English

nation supports impatiently the continuance of the war, a reply must

be made to it’s complaints, it’s reproaches: the Parliament is about to

re-open it’s sittings, the mouths of the orators who will declaim

against the war must be shut, the demand of new taxes must be

justified; and to obtain these results, it is necessary to be enabled to

advance, that the French Government refuses every reasonable

proposition of peace.”

[

1.] “In their place has succeeded a system destructive of all publick

order, maintained by proscriptions, exiles, and confiscations, without

number: by arbitrary imprisonment; by massacres which cannot be

remembered without horror; and at length by the execrable murder of

a just and beneficent Sovereign, and of the illustrious Princess, who,

with an unshaken firmness, has shared all the misfortunes of her

Royal Consort, his protracted sufferings, his cruel captivity and his

ignominious death.” — “They (the allies) have had to encounter acts

of aggression without pretext, open violations of all treaties,

unprovoked declarations of war; in a word, whatever corruption,

intrigue or violence could effect for the purpose so openly avowed, of

subverting all the institutions of society, and of extending over all the

nations of Europe that confusion, which has produced the misery of

France.” — “This state of things cannot exist in France without

involving all the surrounding powers in one common danger, without

giving them the right, without imposing it upon them as a duty, to

stop the progress of an evil, which exists only by the successive

violation of all law and all property, and which attacks the

fundamental principles by which mankind is united in the bonds of

civil society.” — “The King would impose none other than equitable

and moderate conditions, not such as the expence, the risques and

the sacrifices of the war might justify; but such as his Majesty thinks

himself under the indispensable necessity of requiring, with a view to

these considerations, and still more to that of his own security and of

the future tranquillity of Europe. His Majesty desires nothing more

sincerely than thus to terminate a war, which he in vain endeavoured

to avoid, and all the calamities of which, as now experienced by

France, are to be attributed only to the ambition, the perfidy and the

violence of those, whose crimes have involved their own country in

misery, and disgraced all civilized nations.” — “The King promises on

his part the suspension of hostilities, friendship, and (as far as the

course of events will allow, of which the will of man cannot dispose)

security and protection to all those who, by declaring for a

monarchical form of Government, shall shake off the yoke of

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sanguinary anarchy; of that anarchy which has broken all the most

sacred bonds of society, dissolved all the relations of civil life, violated

every right, confounded every duty; which uses the name of liberty to

exercise the most cruel tyranny, to annihilate all property, to seize on

all possessions; which founds it’s power on the pretended consent of

the people, and itself carries fire and sword through extensive

provinces for having demanded their laws, their religion and their

lawful Sovereign. ”

Declaration sent by his Majesty’s command to the Commanders of his

Majesty’s fleets and armies employed against France, and to his

Majesty’s Ministers employed at foreign Courts.— W

HITEHALL

, Oct. 29,

1793.

[1.]

Ut lethargicus hic, cum fit pugil, et medicum urget.— HOR.

[1.]

See the Declaration.

[1.]

See declaration, Whitehall, October 29, 1793. [Ante, p. 99.]

[1.]

Nothing could be more solemn than their promulgation of this

principle as a preamble to the destructive code of their famous articles

for the decomposition of society into whatever country they should

enter. “La Convention Nationale, après avoir entendu le rapport de

ses Comités de Finances, de la Guerre, & Diplomatiques réunis, fidèle

au principe de souveraineté de peuples qui ne lui permet pas de

reconnoître aucune institution qui y porte atteinte, ” &c. &c. Decrêt

sur le Rapport de Cambon, Dec. 18, 1792, and see the subsequent

proclamation.

[1.]

“This state of things cannot exist in France without involving all

the surrounding powers in one common danger, without giving them

the right, without imposing it on them as a duty, to stop the progress

of an evil which attacks the fundamental principles by which mankind

is united in civil society.” Declaration, 29th Oct., 1793.

[1.]

Declaration, Whitehall, Oct. 29, 1793.

LETTER II ON THE GENIUS AND CHARACTER OF THE

FRENCH REVOLUTION AS IT REGARDS OTHER NATIONS

[Argument

NTRODUCTION, p. 154. The complete transformation

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of France by its New Government leads the writer

to enquire into the nature of the governing

faction.

PART I, pp. 155–68

(1) Great Diffusion, (2) Great Abilities, and

(3) Great Successes of the Jacobin Party

(1) Not a local party, p. 155, though their centre

is in France: this illustrated by the action of the

Allies, p. 155, which was (2) paralysed by the

intrigues of the Jacobins, p. 156. Their easy

triumph over the routine politicians of Europe, p.

157, and over the ridiculous “centrifugal war”

waged against France, p. 159. (3) False policy

pursued in the war, p. 159, and impossibility now

of compensating the successes of the French,

without which they are not likely to make peace,

unless “by giving up Europe, bound hand and

foot, to France,” p. 161.

PART II, pp. 168–89

Jacobinism implies the Repudiation of the

Ordinary Relations of France with the rest of

Europe

Jacobinism alien from ordinary European

relations, p. 168. Two classes of Jacobins,

philosophers and politicians; character of the

former, p. 170, of the latter, p. 171. Ambition of

French politicians, p. 172. Divided into the Anti-

Anglican and Anti-Continental factions, p. 173, the

existence of which is traced to the reign of Louis

XV, p. 174. Causes of discontent on the part of

the politicians, and their ready conversion to

Republicanism, as a more powerful system for

aggression, p. 175. Their intrigues in Holland,

Austria, and America, before the Revolution, p.

178. Essential antagonism between France since

the Revolution, and the rest of Europe, especially

England, p. 180. And the only safety for Europe

the destruction of the new system in France,

illustrated by the fate of Louis XVI, p. 184].

MY DEAR SIR,

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I CLOSED MY FIRST LETTER with serious matter; and I hope it has

employed your thoughts. The system of peace must have a reference

to the system of the war. On that ground, I must therefore again recal

your mind to our original opinions, which time and events have not

taught me to vary.

My ideas and my principles led me, in this contest, to encounter

France, not as a State, but as a Faction. The vast territorial extent of

that country, it’s immense population, it’s riches of production, it’s

riches of commerce and convention—the whole aggregate mass of

what, in ordinary cases, constitutes the force of a State, to me were

but objects of secondary consideration. They might be balanced; and

they have been often more than balanced. Great as these things are,

they are not what make the faction formidable. It is the faction that

makes them truly dreadful. The faction is the evil spirit that possesses

the body of France; that informs it as a soul; that stamps upon it’s

ambition, and upon all it’s pursuits, a characteristic mark, which

strongly distinguishes them from the same general passions, and the

same general views, in other men and in other communities. It is that

spirit which inspires into them a new, a pernicious, and desolating

activity. Constituted as France was ten years ago, it was not in that

France to shake, to shatter, and to overwhelm Europe in the manner

that we behold. A sure destruction impends over those infatuated

Princes, who, in the conflict with this new and unheard-of power,

proceed as if they were engaged in a war that bore a resemblance to

their former contests; or that they can make peace in the spirit of

their former arrangements or pacification. Here the beaten path is the

very reverse of the safe road.

As to me, I was always steadily of opinion that this disorder was not

in it’s nature intermittent. I conceived that the contest, once begun,

could not be laid down again to be resumed at our discretion; but that

our first struggle with this evil would also be our last. I never thought

we could make peace with the system; because it was not for the

sake of an object we pursued in rivalry with each other, but with the

system itself, that we were at war. As I understood the matter, we

were at war, not with it’s conduct, but with it’s existence; convinced

that it’s existence and it’s hostility were the same.

HE FACTION IS NOT LOCAL or territorial. It is a general evil. Where it least

appears in action, it is still full of life. In it’s sleep it recruits it’s

strength, and prepares it’s exertion. It’s spirit lies deep in the

corruptions of our common nature. The social order which restrains it,

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feeds it. It exists in every country in Europe; and among all orders of

men in every country, who look up to France as to a common head.

The centre is there. The circumference is the world of Europe

wherever the race of Europe may be settled. Everywhere else the

faction is militant; in France it is triumphant. In France is the bank of

deposit, and the bank of circulation, of all the pernicious principles

that are forming in every State. It will be a folly scarcely deserving of

pity, and too mischievous for contempt, to think of restraining it in

any other country whilst it is predominant there. War, instead of being

the cause of it’s force, has suspended it’s operation. It has given a

reprieve, at least, to the Christian World.

HE TRUE NATURE of a Jacobin war, in the beginning, was, by most of the

Christian Powers, felt, acknowledged, and even in the most precise

manner declared. In the joint manifesto, published by the Emperor

and the King of Prussia, on the 4th of August 1792, it is expressed in

the clearest terms, and on principles which could not fail, if they had

adhered to them, of classing those monarchs with the first

benefactors of mankind. This manifesto was published, as they

themselves express it, “to lay open to the present generation, as well

as to posterity, their motives, their intentions, and the

disinterestedness of their personal views; taking up arms for the

purpose of preserving social and political order amongst all civilized

nations, and to secure to each state its religion, happiness,

independence, territories, and real constitution.” “On this ground,

they hoped that all Empires, and all States, ought to be unanimous;

and becoming the firm guardians of the happiness of mankind, that

they cannot fail to unite their efforts to rescue a numerous nation

from it’s own fury, to preserve Europe from the return of barbarism,

and the Universe from the subversion and anarchy with which it was

threatened.” The whole of that noble performance ought to be read at

the first meeting of any Congress which may assemble for the

purpose of pacification. In that piece “these Powers expressly

renounce all views of personal aggrandizement,” and confine

themselves to objects worthy of so generous, so heroic, and so

perfectly wise and politick an enterprise. It was to the principles of

this consideration, and to no other, that we wished our Sovereign and

our Country to accede, as a part of the commonwealth of Europe. To

these principles, with some trifling exceptions and limitations, they did

fully accede.

And all our friends who did take office acceded to the

Ministry (whether wisely or not) as I always understood the matter,

on the faith and on the principles of that declaration.

p. 155

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AS LONG AS THESE POWERS flattered themselves that the menace of force

would produce the effect of force, they acted on those declarations:

but when their menaces failed of success, their efforts took a new

direction. It did not appear to them that virtue and heroism ought to

be purchased by millions of rix-dollars. It is a dreadful truth, but it is a

truth that cannot be concealed; in ability, in dexterity, in the

distinctness of their views, the Jacobins are our superiors. They saw

the thing right from the very beginning. Whatever were the first

motives to the war among politicians, they saw that it is in it’s spirit,

and for it’s objects, a civil war; and as such they pursued it. It is a

war between the partizans of the ancient, civil, moral, and political

order of Europe against a sect of fanatical and ambitious atheists

which means to change them all. It is not France extending a foreign

empire over other nations: it is a sect aiming at universal empire, and

beginning with the conquest of France. The leaders of that sect

secured the centre of Europe; and that secured, they knew, that

whatever might be the event of battles and sieges, their cause was

victorious. Whether it’s territory had a little more or a little less peeled

from it’s surface, or whether an island or two was detached from it’s

commerce, to them was of little moment. The conquest of France was

a glorious acquisition. That once well laid as a basis of empire,

opportunities never could be wanting to regain or to replace what had

been lost, and dreadfully to avenge themselves on the faction of their

adversaries.

HEY

SAW

WAS

a civil war. It was their business to persuade their

adversaries that it ought to be a foreign war. The Jacobins every

where set up a cry against the new crusade; and they intrigued with

effect in the cabinet, in the field, and in every private society in

Europe. Their talk was not difficult. The condition of Princes, and

sometimes of first Ministers too, is to be pitied. The creatures of the

desk, and the creatures of favour, had no relish for the principles of

the manifestoes. They promised no governments, no regiments, no

revenues from whence emoluments might arise, by perquisite or by

grant. In truth, the tribe of vulgar politicians are the lowest of our

species. There is no trade so vile and mechanical as government in

their hands. Virtue is not their habit. They are out of themselves in

any course of conduct recommended only by conscience and glory. A

large, liberal and prospective view of the interests of States passes

with them for romance; and the principles that recommend it for the

wanderings of a disordered imagination. The calculators compute

them out of their senses. The jesters and buffoons shame them out of

every thing grand and elevated. Littleness, in object and in means, to

p. 157

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them appears soundness and sobriety. They think there is nothing

worth pursuit, but that which they can handle; which they can

measure with a two-foot rule; which they can tell upon ten fingers.

Without the principles of the Jacobins, perhaps without any principles

at all, they played the game of that faction. There was a beaten road

before them. The Powers of Europe were armed; France had always

appeared dangerous; the war was easily diverted from France as a

faction, to France as a state. The Princes were easily taught to slide

back into their old habitual course of politicks. They were easily led to

consider the flames that were consuming France, not as a warning to

protect their own buildings, (which were without any party wall, and

linked by a contignation into the edifice of France,) but as an happy

occasion for pillaging the goods, and for carrying off the materials of

their neighbour’s house. Their provident fears were changed into

avaricious hopes. They carried on their new designs without seeming

to abandon the principles of their old policy. They pretended to seek,

or they flattered themselves that they sought, in the accession of new

fortresses, and new territories, a defensive security. But the security

wanted was against a kind of power, which was not so truly

dangerous in it’s fortresses nor in it’s territories, as in it’s spirit and

it’s principles. They aimed, or pretended to aim, at defending

themselves against a danger, from which there can be no security in

any defensive plan. If armies and fortresses were a defence against

Jacobinism, Louis the Sixteenth would this day reign a powerful

monarch over an happy people.

HIS ERROR OBLIGED THEM, even in their offensive operations, to adopt a

plan of war, against the success of which there was something little

short of mathematical demonstration. They refused to take any step

which might strike at the heart of affairs. They seemed unwilling to

wound the enemy in any vital part. They acted through the whole, as

if they really wished the conservation of the Jacobin power; as what

might be more favourable than the lawful Government to the

attainment of the petty objects they looked for. They always kept on

the circumference; and the wider and remoter the circle was, the

more eagerly they chose it as their sphere of action in this centrifugal

war. The plan they pursued, in it’s nature, demanded great length of

time. In it’s execution, they, who went the nearest way to work, were

obliged to cover an incredible extent of country. It left to the enemy

every means of destroying this extended line of weakness. Ill success

in any part was sure to defeat the effect of the whole. This is true of

Austria. It is still more true of England. On this false plan, even good

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fortune, by further weakening the victor, put him but the further off

from his object.

As long as there was any appearance of success, the spirit of

aggrandizement, and consequently the spirit of mutual jealousy seized

upon all the coalesced Powers. Some sought an accession of territory

at the expence of France, some at the expence of each other; some at

the expence of third parties; and when the vicissitude of disaster took

it’s turn, they found common distress a treacherous bond of faith and

friendship.

The greatest skill conducting the greatest military apparatus has been

employed; but it has been worse than uselessly employed, through

the false policy of the war. The operations of the field suffered by the

errors of the Cabinet. If the same spirit continues when peace is

made, the peace will fix and perpetuate all the errors of the war;

because it will be made upon the same false principle. What has been

lost in the field, in the field may be regained. An arrangement of

peace in it’s nature is a permanent settlement; it is the effect of

counsel and deliberation, and not of fortuitous events. If built upon a

basis fundamentally erroneous, it can only be retrieved by some of

those unforeseen dispositions, which the all-wise but mysterious

Governor of the World sometimes interposes, to snatch nations from

ruin. It would not be pious error, but mad and impious presumption,

for any one to trust in an unknown order of dispensations, in defiance

of the rules of prudence, which are formed upon the known march of

the ordinary providence of God.

T WAS not of that sort of war that I was amongst the least

considerable, but amongst the most zealous advisers; and it is not by

the sort of peace now talked of, that I wish it concluded. It would

answer no great purpose to enter into the particular errours of the

war. The whole has been but one errour. It was but nominally a war

of alliance. As the combined powers pursued it, there was nothing to

hold an alliance together. There could be no tie of honour, in a society

for pillage. There could be no tie of a common interest where the

object did not offer such a division amongst the parties, as could well

give them a warm concern in the gains of each other, or could indeed

form such a body of equivalents, as might make one of them willing to

abandon a separate object of his ambition for the justification of any

other member of the alliance. The partition of Poland offered an object

of spoil in which the parties might agree. They were circumjacent; and

each might take a portion convenient to his own territory. They might

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dispute about the value of their several shares: but the contiguity to

each of the demandants always furnished the means of an

adjustment. Though hereafter the world will have cause to rue this

iniquitous measure, and they most who were most concerned in it, for

the moment there was wherewithal in the object to preserve peace

amongst confederates in wrong. But the spoil of France did not afford

the same facilities for accommodation. What might satisfy the House

of Austria in a Flemish frontier afforded no equivalent to tempt the

cupidity of the King of Prussia. What might be desired by Great Britain

in the West-Indies, must be coldly and remotely, if at all, felt as an

interest at Vienna; and it would be felt as something worse than a

negative interest at Madrid. Austria, long possessed with unwise and

dangerous designs on Italy, could not be very much in earnest about

the conservation of the old patrimony of the House of Savoy: and

Sardinia, who owed to an Italian force all her means of shutting out

France from Italy, of which she has been supposed to hold the key,

would not purchase the means of strength upon one side by yielding it

on the other. She would not readily give the possession of Novara for

the hope of Savoy. No continental Power was willing to lose any of it’s

continental objects for the encrease of the naval power of Great

Britain; and Great Britain would not give up any of the objects she

sought for as the means of an encrease to her naval power, to further

their aggrandizement.

The moment this war came to be considered as a war merely of profit,

the actual circumstances are such, that it never could become really a

war of alliance. Nor can the peace be a peace of alliance, until things

are put upon their right bottom.

DON’T FIND IT DENIED, that when a treaty is entered into for peace, a

demand will be made on the Regicides to surrender a great part of

their conquests on the Continent. Will they, in the present state of the

war, make that surrender without an equivalent? This continental

cession must of course be made in favour of that party in the alliance,

that has suffered losses. That party has nothing to furnish towards an

equivalent. What equivalent, for instance, has Holland to offer, who

has lost her all? What equivalent can come from the Emperor, every

part of whose territories contiguous to France, is already within the

pale of the Regicide dominion? What equivalent has Sardinia to offer

for Savoy and for Nice, I may say for her whole being? What has she

taken from the faction of France? She has lost very nearly her all; and

she has gained nothing. What equivalent has Spain to give? Alas! she

has already paid for her own ransom the fund of equivalent, and a

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dreadful equivalent it is, to England and to herself. But I put Spain out

of the question. She is a province of the Jacobin Empire, and she must

make peace or war according to the orders she receives from the

Directory of Assassins. In effect and substance, her Crown is a fief of

Regicide.

Whence then can the compensation be demanded? Undoubtedly from

that power which alone has made some conquests. That power is

England. Will the allies then give away their ancient patrimony, that

England may keep Islands in the West-Indies? They never can

protract the war in good earnest for that object; nor can they act in

concert with us, in our refusal to grant any thing towards their

redemption. In that case we are thus situated. Either we must give

Europe, bound hand and foot, to France; or we must quit the West

Indies without any one object, great or small, towards indemnity and

security. I repeat it—without any advantage whatever: because,

supposing that our conquest could comprize all that France ever

possessed in the tropical America, it never can amount, in any fair

estimation, to a fair equivalent for Holland, for the Austrian

Netherlands, for the lower Germany, that is, for the whole antient

kingdom or circle of Burgundy, now under the yoke of Regicide, to say

nothing of almost all Italy under the same barbarous domination. If

we treat in the present situation of things, we have nothing in our

hands that can redeem Europe. Nor is the Emperor, as I have

observed, more rich in the fund of equivalents.

If we look to our stock in the Eastern world, our most valuable and

systematick acquisitions are made in that quarter. Is it from France

they are made? France has but one or two contemptible factories,

subsisting by the offal of the private fortunes of English individuals to

support them, in any part of India. I look on the taking of the Cape of

Good Hope as the securing of a post of great moment. It does honour

to those who planned, and to those who executed that enterprize: but

I speak of it always as comparatively good; as good as any thing can

be in a scheme of war that repels us from a center, and employs all

our forces where nothing can be finally decisive. But giving, as I freely

give, every possible credit to these eastern conquests, I ask one

question—On whom are they made? It is evident, that if we can keep

our eastern conquests, we keep them not at the expence of France,

but at the expence of Holland, our ally; of Holland, the immediate

cause of the war, the nation whom we had undertaken to protect; and

not of the Republic which it was our business to destroy. If we return

the African and the Asiatick conquests, we put them into the hands of

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a nominal State, (to that Holland is reduced) unable to retain them;

and which will virtually leave them under the direction of France. If we

withhold them, Holland declines still more as a State; and she loses so

much carrying trade and that means of keeping up the small degree

of naval power she holds; for which policy, and not for any

commercial gain, she maintains the Cape, or any settlement beyond

it. In that case, resentment, faction, and even necessity will throw her

more and more into the power of the new mischievous Republick. But

on the probable state of Holland, I shall say more, when in this

correspondence I come to talk over with you the state in which any

sort of Jacobin peace will leave all Europe. So far as to the East

Indies.

As to the West Indies, indeed as to either, if we look for matter of

exchange in order to ransom Europe, it is easy to shew that we have

taken a terrible roundabout road. I cannot conceive, even if, for the

sake of holding conquests there, we should refuse to redeem Holland,

and the Austrian Netherlands, and the hither Germany, that Spain,

merely as she is Spain, (and forgetting that the Regicide Ambassador

governs at Madrid) will see with perfect satisfaction Great Britain sole

mistress of the Isles. In truth it appears to me, that, when we come

to balance our account, we shall find in the proposed peace only the

pure, simple, and unendowed charms of Jacobin amity. We shall have

the satisfaction of knowing that no blood or treasure has been spared

by the allies for support of the Regicide system. We shall reflect at

leisure on one great truth, that it was ten times more easy totally to

destroy the system itself, than when established, it would be to

reduce it’s power: and that this Republick, most formidable abroad,

was, of all things, the weakest at home. That her frontier was terrible,

her interior feeble; that it was matter of choice to attack her where

she is invincible, and to spare her where she was ready to dissolve by

her own internal disorders. We shall reflect, that our plan was good

neither for offence nor defence.

It would not be at all difficult to prove that an army of a hundred

thousand men, horse, foot, and artillery, might have been employed

against the enemy on the very soil which he has usurped, at a far less

expense than has been squandered away upon tropical adventures. In

these adventures it was not an enemy we had to vanquish, but a

cemetery to conquer. In carrying on the war in the West Indies, the

hostile sword is merciful: the country in which we engage is the

dreadful enemy. There the European conqueror finds a cruel defeat in

the very fruits of his success. Every advantage is but a new demand

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on England for recruits to the West Indian grave. In a West India war,

the Regicides have for their troops a race of fierce barbarians, to

whom the poisoned air, in which our youth inhale certain death, is

salubrity and life. To them the climate is the surest and most faithful

of allies.

Had we carried on the war on the side of France which looks towards

the Channel or the Atlantick, we should have attacked our enemy on

his weak and unarmed side. We should not have to reckon on the loss

of a man, who did not fall in battle. We should have an ally in the

heart of the country, who to our hundred thousand, would at one time

have added eighty thousand men at the least, and all animated by

principle, by enthusiasm, and by vengeance: motives which secured

them to the cause in a very different manner from some of our allies

whom we subsidized with millions. This ally, or rather this principal in

the war, by the confession of the Regicide himself, was more

formidable to him than all his other foes united. Warring there, we

should have led our arms to the capital of Wrong. Defeated, we could

not fail (proper precautions taken) of a sure retreat. Stationary, and

only supporting the Royalists, an impenetrable barrier, an

impregnable rampart, would have been formed between the enemy

and his naval power. We are probably the only nation who have

declined to act against an enemy, when it might have been done in

his own country; and who having an armed, a powerful, and a long

victorious ally in that country, declined all effectual cooperation, and

suffered him to perish for want of support. On the plan of a war in

France, every advantage that our allies might gain would be doubled

in its effect. Disasters on the one side might have a fair chance of

being compensated by victories on the other. Had we brought the

main of our force to bear upon that quarter, all the operations of the

British and Imperial crowns would have been combined. The war

would have had system, correspondence, and a certain direction. But

as the war has been pursued, the operations of the two crowns have

not the smallest degree of mutual bearing or relation.

Had acquisitions in the West Indies been our object, or success in

France, every thing reasonable in those remote parts might be

demanded with decorum, and justice, and a sure effect. Well might

we call for a recompense in America for those services to which

Europe owed its safety. Having abandoned this obvious policy

connected with principle, we have seen the Regicide power taking the

reverse course, and making real conquests in the West Indies, to

which all our dear-bought advantages, if we could hold them, are

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mean and contemptible. The noblest island within the tropicks, worth

all that we possess put together, is by the vassal Spaniard delivered

into her hands. The island of Hispaniola, of which we have but one

poor corner, by a slippery hold, is perhaps equal to England in extent,

and in fertility is far superior. The part possessed by Spain of that

great island, made for the seat and center of a tropical empire, was

not improved, to be sure, as the French division had been, before it

was systematically destroyed by the cannibal republick: but it is not

only the far larger, but the far more salubrious and more fertile part.

It was delivered into the hands of the barbarians without, as I can

find, any public reclamation on our part, not only in contravention of

one of the fundamental treaties that compose the public law of

Europe, but in defiance of the fundamental colonial policy of Spain

herself. This part of the Treaty of Utrecht was made for great general

ends, unquestionably: but whilst it provided for those general ends, it

was an affirmance of that particular policy. It was not to injure but to

save Spain, by making a settlement of her estate which prohibited her

to alienate it to France. It is her policy not to see the balance of West

Indian power overturned, by France or by Great Britain. Whilst the

monarchies subsisted, this unprincipled cession was what the

influence of the elder branch of the House of Bourbon never dared

attempt on the younger. But cannibal terror has been more powerful

than family influence. The Bourbon monarchy of Spain is united to the

republic of France by what may be truly called the ties of blood.

By this measure the balance of power in the West Indies is totally

destroyed. It has followed the balance of power in Europe. It is not

alone what shall be left nominally to the assassins, that is theirs.

Theirs is the whole empire of Spain in America. That stroke finishes

all. I should be glad to see our suppliant negotiator in the act of

putting his feather to the ear of the Directory; and by his tickling, to

charm that rich prize out of the iron gripe of robbery and ambition! It

does not require much sagacity to discern that no power wholly

baffled and defeated in Europe can flatter itself with conquests in the

West Indies. In that state of things it can neither keep nor hold. No! It

cannot even long make war, if the grand bank and deposit of its force

is at all in the West Indies. But here a scene opens to my view too

important to pass by, perhaps too critical to touch. Is it possible that

it should not present itself, in all its relations, to a mind habituated to

consider either war or peace on a large scale, or as one whole?

Unfortunately other ideas have prevailed. A remote, an expensive, a

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murderous, and in the end, an unproductive adventure, carried on

upon ideas of mercantile knight-errantry, without any of the generous

wildness of Quixotism, is considered as sound, solid sense: and a war

in a wholesome climate, a war at our door, a war directly on the

enemy, a war in the heart of his country, a war in concert with an

internal ally, and in combination with the external, is regarded as folly

and romance.

My dear Friend, I hold it impossible that these considerations should

have escaped the Statesmen on both sides of the water, and on both

sides of the house of Commons. How a question of peace can be

discussed without having them in view, I cannot imagine. If you or

others see a way out of these difficulties I am happy. I see indeed a

fund from whence equivalents will be proposed. I see it. But I cannot

just now touch it. It is a question of high moment. It opens another

Iliad of woes to Europe.

Such is the time proposed for making a common political peace, to

which no one circumstance is propitious. As to the grand principle of

the peace, it is left, as if by common consent, wholly out of the

question.

IEWING THINGS IN THIS LIGHT, I have frequently sunk into a degree of

despondency and dejection hardly to be described: yet out of the

profoundest depths of this despair, an impulse which I have in vain

endeavoured to resist has urged me to raise one feeble cry against

this unfortunate coalition which is formed at home, in order to make a

coalition with France, subversive of the whole ancient order of the

world. No disaster of war, no calamity of season, could ever strike me

with half the horror which I felt from what is introduced to us by this

junction of parties, under the soothing name of peace. We are apt to

speak of a low and pusillanimous spirit as the ordinary cause by which

dubious wars terminate in humiliating treaties. It is here the direct

contrary. I am perfectly astonished at the boldness of character, at

the intrepidity of mind, the firmness of nerve, in those who are able

with deliberation to face the perils of Jacobin fraternity.

This fraternity is indeed so terrible in it’s nature, and in it’s manifest

consequences, that there is no way of quieting our apprehensions

about it, but by totally putting it out of sight, by substituting for it,

through a sort of periphrasis, something of an ambiguous quality, and

describing such a connection under the terms of “ the usual relations

of peace and amity. ” By this means the proposed fraternity is hustled

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in the crowd of those treaties, which imply no change in the public law

of Europe, and which do not upon system affect the interior condition

of nations. It is confounded with those conventions in which matters

of dispute among sovereign powers are compromised, by the taking

off a duty more or less, by the surrender of a frontier town, or a

disputed district on the one side or the other; by pactions in which the

pretensions of families are settled, (as by a conveyancer, making

family substitutions and successions), without any alteration in the

laws, manners, religion, privileges and customs of the cities or

territories which are the subject of such arrangements.

All this body of old conventions, composing the vast and voluminous

collection called the corps diplomatique, forms the code or statute

law, as the methodized reasonings of the great publicists and jurists

form the digest and jurisprudence, of the Christian world. In these

treasures are to be found the usual relations of peace and amity in

civilized Europe; and there the relations of ancient France were to be

found amongst the rest.

The present system in France is not the ancient France. It is not the

ancient France with ordinary ambition and ordinary means. It is not a

new power of an old kind. It is a new power of a new species. When

such a questionable shape is to be admitted for the first time into the

brotherhood of Christendom, it is not a mere matter of idle curiosity

to consider how far it is, in it’s nature, alliable with the rest, or

whether “the relations of peace and amity” with this new State are

likely to be of the same nature with the usual relations of the States

of Europe.

The Revolution in France had the relation of France to other nations as

one of it’s principal objects. The changes made by that Revolution

were not the better to accommodate her to the old and usual

relations, but to produce new ones. The Revolution was made, not to

make France free, but to make her formidable; not to make her a

neighbour, but a mistress; not to make her more observant of laws,

but to put her in a condition to impose them. To make France truly

formidable it was necessary that France should be new-modelled.

They who have not followed the train of the late proceedings, have

been led by deceitful representations (which deceit made a part in the

plan) to conceive that this totally new model of a state in which

nothing escaped a change, was made with a view to it’s internal

relations only.

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IN THE REVOLUTION OF FRANCE two sorts of men were principally

concerned in giving a character and determination to it’s pursuits; the

philosophers and the politicians. They took different ways: but they

met in the same end. The philosophers had one predominant object,

which they pursued with a fanatical fury, that is, the utter extirpation

of religion. To that every question of empire was subordinate. They

had rather domineer in a parish of Atheists, than rule over a Christian

world. Their temporal ambition was wholly subservient to their

proselytizing spirit, in which they were not exceeded by Mahomet

himself.

They who have made but superficial studies in the Natural History of

the human mind, have been taught to look on religious opinions as

the only cause of enthusiastick zeal, and sectarian propagation. But

there is no doctrine whatever, on which men can warm, that is not

capable of the very same effect. The social nature of man impels him

to propagate his principles, as much as physical impulses urge him to

propagate his kind. The passions give zeal and vehemence. The

understanding bestows design and system. The whole man moves

under the discipline of his opinions. Religion is among the most

powerful causes of enthusiasm. When any thing concerning it

becomes an object of much meditation, it cannot be indifferent to the

mind. They who do not love religion, hate it. The rebels to God

perfectly abhor the Author of their being. They hate him “ with all

their heart, with all their mind, with all their soul, and with all their

strength.” He never presents himself to their thoughts but to menace

and alarm them. They cannot strike the Sun out of Heaven, but they

are able to raise a smouldering smoke that obscures him from their

own eyes. Not being able to revenge themselves on God, they have a

delight in vicariously defacing, degrading, torturing, and tearing in

pieces his image in man. Let no one judge of them by what he has

conceived of them, when they were not incorporated, and had no

lead. They were then only passengers in a common vehicle. They

were then carried along with the general motion of religion in the

community, and without being aware of it, partook of it’s influence. In

that situation, at worst, their nature was left free to counterwork their

principles. They despaired of giving any very general currency to their

opinions. They considered them as a reserved privilege for the chosen

few. But when the possibility of dominion, lead, and propagation

presented themselves, and that the ambition, which before had so

often made them hypocrites, might rather gain than lose by a daring

avowal of their sentiments, then the nature of this infernal spirit,

which has “ evil for it’s good,” appeared in it’s full perfection. Nothing,

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indeed, but the possession of some power, can with any certainty

discover what at the bottom is the true character of any man. Without

reading the speeches of Vergniaux, Français of Nantz, Isnard, and

some others of that sort, it would not be easy to conceive the passion,

rancour, and malice of their tongues and hearts. They worked

themselves up to a perfect phrenzy against religion and all it’s

professors. They tore the reputation of the Clergy to pieces by their

infuriated declamations and invectives, before they lacerated their

bodies by their massacres. This fanatical atheism left out, we omit the

principal feature in the French Revolution, and a principal

consideration with regard to the effects to be expected from a peace

with it.

OTHER

SORT

MEN

were the politicians. To them who had little or

not at all reflected on the subject, religion was in itself no object of

love or hatred. They disbelieved it, and that was all. Neutral with

regard to that object, they took the side which in the present state of

things might best answer their purposes. They soon found that they

could not do without the philosophers; and the philosophers soon

made them sensible that the destruction of religion was to supply

them with means of conquest, first at home, and then abroad. The

philosophers were the active internal agitators, and supplied the spirit

and principles: the second gave the practical direction. Sometimes the

one predominated in the composition, sometimes the other. The only

difference between them was in the necessity of concealing the

general design for a time, and in their dealing with foreign nations;

the fanaticks going strait forward and openly, the politicians by the

surer mode of zigzag. In the course of events this, among other

causes, produced fierce and bloody contentions between them. But at

the bottom they thoroughly agreed in all the objects of ambition and

irreligion, and substantially in all the means of promoting these ends.

ITHOUT QUESTION, to bring about the unexampled event of the French

Revolution, the concurrence of a very great number of views and

passions was necessary. In that stupendous work, no one principle by

which the human mind may have it’s faculties at once invigorated and

depraved, was left unemployed: but I can speak it to a certainty, and

support it by undoubted proofs, that the ruling principle of those who

acted in the Revolution as statesmen, had the exterior

aggrandizement of France as their ultimate end, in the most minute

part of the internal changes that were made. We, who of late years

have been drawn from an attention to foreign affairs by the

importance of our domestic discussions, cannot easily form a

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conception of the general eagerness of the active and energetick part

of the French nation itself, the most active and energetick of all

nations previous to it’s Revolution, upon that subject. I am convinced

that the foreign speculators in France, under the old Government,

were twenty to one of the same description then or now in England;

and few of that description there were, who did not emulously set

forward the Revolution. The whole official system, particularly in the

diplomatic part, the regulars, the irregulars, down to the clerks in

office, (a corps, without all comparison, more numerous than the

same amongst us) co-operated in it. All the intriguers in foreign

politicks, all the spies, all the intelligencers, actually or late in

function, all the candidates for that sort of employment, acted solely

upon that principle.

N THAT SYSTEM of aggrandizement there was but one mind: but two

violent factions arose about the means. The first wished France,

diverted from the politicks of the continent, to attend solely to her

marine, to feed it by an encrease of commerce, and thereby to

overpower England on her own element. They contended, that if

England were disabled, the Powers on the continent would fall into

their proper subordination; that it was England which deranged the

whole continental system of Europe. The others, who were by far the

more numerous, though not the most outwardly prevalent at Court,

considered this plan for France as contrary to her genius, her

situation, and her natural means. They agreed as to the ultimate

object, the reduction of the British power, and if possible, it’s naval

power; but they considered an ascendancy on the continent as a

necessary preliminary to that undertaking. They argued that the

proceedings of England herself had proved the soundness of this

policy. That her greatest and ablest Statesmen had not considered the

support of a continental balance against France as a deviation from

the principle of her naval power, but as one of the most effectual

modes of carrying it into effect. That such had been her policy ever

since the Revolution; during which period the naval strength of Great

Britain had gone on encreasing in the direct ratio of her interference

in the politicks of the continent. With much stronger reason ought the

politicks of France to take the same direction; as well for pursuing

objects which her situation would dictate to her, though England had

no existence, as for counteracting the politicks of that nation; to

France continental politicks are primary; they looked on them only of

secondary consideration to England, and however necessary, but as

means necessary to an end.

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WHAT IS TRULY ASTONISHING, the partizans of those two opposite systems

were at once prevalent, and at once employed, and in the very same

transactions, the one ostensibly, the other secretly, during the latter

part of the reign of Lewis XV. Nor was there one Court in which an

Ambassador resided on the part of the Ministers, in which another as

a spy on him did not also reside on the part of the King: they who

pursued the scheme for keeping peace on the continent, and

particularly with Austria, acting officially and publickly, the other

faction counteracting and opposing them. These private agents were

continually going from their function to the Bastille, and from the

Bastille to employment, and favour again. An inextricable cabal was

formed, some of persons of rank, others of subordinates. But by this

means the corps of politicians was augmented in number, and the

whole formed a body of active, adventuring, ambitious, discontented

people, despising the regular Ministry, despising the Courts at which

they were employed, despising the Court which employed them.

The unfortunate Louis the Sixteenth

was not the first cause of the

evil by which he suffered. He came to it, as to a sort of inheritance, by

the false politicks of his immediate predecessor. This system of dark

and perplexed intrigue had come to it’s perfection before he came to

the throne: and even then the Revolution strongly operated in all it’s

causes.

HERE WAS NO POINT ON WHICH the discontented diplomatic politicians so

bitterly arraigned their Cabinet, as for the decay of French influence in

all others. From quarrelling with the Court, they began to complain of

Monarchy itself; as a system of Government too variable for any

regular plan of national aggrandizement. They observed, that in that

sort of regimen too much depended on the personal character of the

Prince; that the vicissitudes produced by the succession of Princes of a

different character, and even the vicissitudes produced in the same

man, by the different views and inclinations belonging to youth,

manhood, and age, disturbed and distracted the policy of a country

made by nature for extensive empire, or what was still more to their

taste, for that sort of general over-ruling influence which prepared

empire or supplied the place of it. They had continually in their hands

the observations of Machiavel on Livy. They had Montesquieu’s

Grandeur & Décadence des Romains as a manual; and they compared

with mortification the systematic proceedings of a Roman senate with

the fluctuations of a Monarchy. They observed the very small

additions of territory which all the power of France, actuated by all the

ambition of France, had acquired in two centuries. The Romans had

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frequently acquired more in a single year. They severely and in every

part of it criticised the reign of Louis the XIVth, whose irregular and

desultory ambition had more provoked than endangered Europe.

Indeed, they who will be at the pains of seriously considering the

history of that period will see, that those French politicians had some

reason. They who will not take the trouble of reviewing it through all

it’s wars and all it’s negociations, will consult the short but judicious

criticism of the Marquis de Montalembert on that subject. It may be

read separately from his ingenious system of fortification and military

defence, on the practical merit of which I am unable to form a

judgment.

The diplomatick politicians of whom I speak, and who formed by far

the majority in that class, made disadvantageous comparisons even

between their more legal and formalising Monarchy, and the

monarchies of other states, as a system of power and influence. They

observed, that France not only lost ground herself, but through the

languor and unsteadiness of her pursuits, and from her aiming

through commerce at naval force which she never could attain without

losing more on one side than she could gain on the other, three great

powers, each of them (as military states) capable of balancing her,

had grown up on the continent. Russia and Prussia had been created

almost within memory; and Austria, though not a new power, and

even curtailed in territory, was by the very collision in which she lost

that territory, greatly improved in her military discipline and force.

During the reign of Maria Theresa the interior oeconomy of the

country was made more to correspond with the support of great

armies than formerly it had been. As to Prussia, a merely military

power, they observed that one war had enriched her with as

considerable a conquest as France had acquired in centuries. Russia

had broken the Turkish power by which Austria might be, as formerly

she had been, balanced in favour of France. They felt it with pain, that

the two northern powers of Sweden and Denmark were in general

under the sway of Russia; or that at best, France kept up a very

doubtful conflict, with many fluctuations of fortune, and at an

enormous expence, in Sweden. In Holland, the French party seemed,

if not extinguished, at least utterly obscured, and kept under by a

Stadtholder, sometimes leaning for support on Great Britain,

sometimes on Prussia, sometimes on both, never on France. Even the

spreading of the Bourbon family had become merely a family

accommodation; and had little effect on the national politicks. This

alliance, they said, extinguished Spain by destroying all it’s energy,

without adding any thing to the real power of France in the accession

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of the forces of it’s great rival. In Italy, the same family

accommodation, the same national insignificance, were equally

visible. What cure for the radical weakness of the French Monarchy, to

which all the means which wit could devise, or nature and fortune

could bestow, towards universal empire, was not of force to give life,

or vigour, or consistency, but in a republick? Out the word came; and

it never went back.

Whether they reasoned right or wrong, or that there was some

mixture of right and wrong in their reasoning, I am sure, that in this

manner they felt and reasoned. The different effects of a great

military and ambitious republick, and of a monarchy of the same

description were constantly in their mouths. The principle was ready

to operate when opportunities should offer, which few of them indeed

foresaw in the extent in which they were afterwards presented; but

these opportunities, in some degree or other, they all ardently wished

for.

When I was in Paris in 1773, the treaty of 1756 between Austria and

France was deplored as a national calamity; because it united France

in friendship with a Power, at whose expence alone they could hope

any continental aggrandizement. When the first partition of Poland

was made, in which France had no share, and which had farther

aggrandized every one of the three Powers of which they were most

jealous, I found them in a perfect phrenzy of rage and indignation.

Not that they were hurt at the shocking and uncoloured violence and

injustice of that partition; but at the debility, improvidence, and want

of activity in their Government, in not preventing it as a means of

aggrandizement to their rivals, or in not contriving, by exchanges of

some kind or other, to obtain their share of advantage from that

robbery.

In that or nearly in that state of things and of opinions, came the

Austrian match; which promised to draw the knot, as afterwards in

effect it did, still more closely between the old rival houses. This

added exceedingly to their hatred and contempt of their monarchy. It

was for this reason that the late glorious Queen, who on all accounts

was formed to produce general love and admiration, and whose life

was as mild and beneficent as her death was beyond example great

and heroic, became so very soon and so very much the object of an

implacable rancour, never to be extinguished but in her blood. When I

wrote my letter in answer to M. de Menonville, in the beginning of

January, 1791, I had good reason for thinking that this description of

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revolutionists did not so early nor so steadily point their murderous

designs at the martyr King as at the Royal Heroine. It was accident,

and the momentary depression of that part of the faction, that gave to

the husband the happy priority in death.

ROM

THIS

THEIR

RESTLESS

DESIRE

of an over-ruling influence, they bent a

very great part of their designs and efforts to revive the old French

party, which was a democratick party, in Holland, and to make a

revolution there. They were happy at the troubles which the singular

imprudence of Joseph the Second had stirred up in the Austrian

Netherlands. They rejoiced, when they saw him irritate his subjects,

profess philosophy, send away the Dutch garrisons, and dismantle his

fortifications. As to Holland, they never forgave either the King or the

Ministry, for suffering that object, which they justly looked on as

principal in their design of reducing the power of England, to escape

out of their hands. This was the true secret of the commercial treaty,

made, on their part, against all the old rules and principles of

commerce, with a view of diverting the English nation, by a pursuit of

immediate profit, from an attention to the progress of France in it’s

designs upon that Republic. The system of the oeconomists, which led

to the general opening of commerce, facilitated that treaty, but did

not produce it. They were in despair when they found that by the

vigour of Mr. Pitt, supported in this point by Mr. Fox and the

opposition, the object, to which they had sacrificed their

manufactures, was lost to their ambition. This eager desire of raising

France from the condition into which she had fallen, as they

conceived, from her monarchical imbecility, had been the main spring

of their precedent interference in that unhappy American quarrel, the

bad effects of which to this nation have not, as yet, fully disclosed

themselves.

These sentiments had been long lurking in their breasts, though their

views were only discovered now and then, in heat and as by escapes;

but on this occasion they exploded suddenly. They were professed

with ostentation, and propagated with zeal. These sentiments were

not produced, as some think, by their American alliance. The

American alliance was produced by their republican principles and

republican policy. This new relation undoubtedly did much. The

discourses and cabals that it produced, the intercourse that it

established, and above all, the example, which made it seem

practicable to establish a Republick in a great extent of country,

finished the work, and gave to that part of the Revolutionary faction a

degree of strength, which required other energies than the late King

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possessed, to resist, or even to restrain. It spread every where; but it

was no where more prevalent than in the heart of the Court. The

palace of Versailles, by it’s language, seemed a forum of democracy.

To have pointed out to most of those politicians, from their

dispositions and movements, what has since happened, the fall of

their own Monarchy, of their own Laws, of their own Religion, would

have been to furnish a motive the more for pushing forward a system

on which they considered all these things as incumbrances. Such in

truth they were. And we have seen them succeed, not only in the

destruction of their monarchy, but in all the objects of ambition that

they proposed from that destruction.

HEN I CONTEMPLATE the scheme on which France is formed, and when I

compare it with these systems, with which it is, and ever must be, in

conflict, those things which seem as defects in her polity are the very

things which make me tremble. The States of the Christian World

have grown up to their present magnitude in a great length of time,

and by a great variety of accidents. They have been improved to what

we see them with greater or less degrees of felicity and skill. Not one

of them has been formed upon a regular plan or with any unity of

design. As their Constitutions are not systematical, they have not

been directed to any peculiar end, eminently distinguished, and

superseding every other. The objects which they embrace are of the

greatest possible variety, and have become in a manner infinite. In all

these old countries the state has been made to the people, and not

the people conformed to the state. Every state has pursued, not only

every sort of social advantage, but it has cultivated the welfare of

every individual. His wants, his wishes, even his tastes have been

consulted. This comprehensive scheme virtually produced a degree of

personal liberty in forms the most adverse to it. That liberty was

found, under monarchies stiled absolute, in a degree unknown to the

ancient commonwealths. From hence the powers of all our modern

states meet in all their movements with some obstruction. It is

therefore no wonder, that when these states are to be considered as

machines to operate for some one great end, that this dissipated and

balanced force is not easily concentered, or made to bear with the

whole nation upon one point.

The British State is, without question, that which pursues the greatest

variety of ends, and is the least disposed to sacrifice any one of them

to another, or to the whole. It aims at taking in the entire circle of

human desires, and securing for them their fair enjoyment. Our

legislature has been ever closely connected, in it’s most efficient part,

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with individual feeling and individual interest. Personal liberty, the

most lively of these feelings and the most important of these

interests, which in other European countries has rather arisen from

the system of manners and the habitudes of life, than from the laws

of the state, (in which it flourished more from neglect than attention)

in England has been a direct object of Government.

On this principle England would be the weakest power in the whole

system. Fortunately, however, the great riches of this kingdom,

arising from a variety of causes, and the disposition of the people,

which is as great to spend as to accumulate, has easily afforded a

disposeable surplus that gives a mighty momentum to the state. This

difficulty, with these advantages to overcome it, has called forth the

talents of the English financiers, who, by the surplus of industry

poured out by prodigality, have outdone every thing which has been

accomplished in other nations. The present Minister has outdone his

predecessors; and as a Minister of revenue, is far above my power of

praise. But still there are cases in which England feels more than

several others, (though they all feel) the perplexity of an immense

body of balanced advantages, and of individual demands, and of some

irregularity in the whole mass.

France differs essentially from all those Governments which are

formed without system, which exist by habit, and which are confused

with the multitude, and with the complexity of their pursuits. What

now stands as Government in France is struck out at a heat. The

design is wicked, immoral, impious, oppressive; but it is spirited and

daring: it is systematick; it is simple in it’s principle; it has unity and

consistency in perfection. In that country entirely to cut off a branch

of commerce, to extinguish a manufacture, to destroy the circulation

of money, to violate credit, to suspend the course of agriculture, even

to burn a city, or to lay waste a province of their own, does not cost

them a moment’s anxiety. To them, the will, the wish, the want, the

liberty, the toil, the blood of individuals is as nothing. Individuality is

left out of their scheme of Government. The state is all in all. Every

thing is referred to the production of force; afterwards every thing is

trusted to the use of it. It is military in it’s principle, in it’s maxims, in

it’s spirit, and in all it’s movements. The state has dominion and

conquest for it’s sole objects; dominion over minds by proselytism,

over bodies by arms.

Thus constituted with an immense body of natural means, which are

lessened in their amount only to be increased in their effect, France

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has, since the accomplishment of the Revolution, a complete unity in

it’s direction. It has destroyed every resource of the State which

depends upon opinion and the good-will of individuals. The riches of

convention disappear. The advantages of nature in some measure

remain; even these, I admit, are astonishingly lessened; the

command over what remains is complete and absolute. We go about

asking when assignats will expire, and we laugh at the last price of

them. But what signifies the fate of those tickets of despotism? The

despotism will find despotick means of supply. They have found the

short cut to the productions of Nature, while others, in pursuit of

them, are obliged to wind through the labyrinth of a very intricate

state of society. They seize upon the fruit of the labour; they seize

upon the labourer himself. Were France but half of what it is in

population, in compactness, in applicability of it’s force, situated as it

is, and being what it is, it would be too strong for most of the States

of Europe, constituted as they are, and proceeding as they proceed.

Would it be wise to estimate what the world of Europe, as well as the

world of Asia, had to dread from Jinghiz Khân, upon a contemplation

of the resources of the cold and barren spot in the remotest Tartary,

from whence first issued that scourge of the human race? Ought we to

judge from the excise and stamp duties of the rocks, or from the

paper circulation of the sands of Arabia, the power by which Mahomet

and his tribes laid hold at once on the two most powerful Empires of

the world; beat one of them totally to the ground, broke to pieces the

other, and, in not much longer space of time than I have lived,

overturned governments, laws, manners, religion, and extended an

empire from the Indus to the Pyrenees?

Material resources never have supplied, nor ever can supply, the want

of unity in design and constancy in pursuit. But unity in design, and

perseverance, and boldness in pursuit, have never wanted resources,

and never will. We have not considered as we ought the dreadful

energy of a State, in which the property has nothing to do with the

Government. Reflect, my dear Sir, reflect again and again on a

Government, in which the property is in complete subjection, and

where nothing rules but the mind of desperate men. The condition of

a commonwealth not governed by it’s property was a combination of

things, which the learned and ingenious speculator Harrington, who

has tossed about society into all forms, never could imagine to be

possible. We have seen it; the world has felt it; and if the world will

shut their eyes to this state of things, they will feel it more. The rulers

there have found their resources in crimes. The discovery is dreadful:

the mine exhaustless. They have every thing to gain, and they have

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nothing to lose. They have a boundless inheritance in hope; and there

is no medium for them, betwixt the highest elevation, and death with

infamy. Never can they who from the miserable servitude of the desk

have been raised to Empire, again submit to the bondage of a

starving bureau, or the profit of copying music, or writing plaidoyers

by the sheet. It has made me often smile in bitterness, when I have

heard talk of an indemnity to such men, provided they returned to

their allegiance.

ROM

ALL

THIS

, what is my inference? It is, that this new system of

robbery in France, cannot be rendered safe by any art; that it must be

destroyed, or that it will destroy all Europe; that to destroy that

enemy, by some means or other, the force opposed to it should be

made to bear some analogy and resemblance to the force and spirit

which that system exerts; that war ought to be made against it in its

vulnerable parts. These are my inferences. In one word, with this

Republick nothing independent can co-exist. The errors of Louis the

XVIth. were more pardonable to prudence, than any of those of the

same kind into which the Allied Courts may fall. They have the benefit

of his dreadful example.

The unhappy Louis XVI. was a man of the best intentions that

probably ever reigned. He was by no means deficient in talents. He

had a most laudable desire to supply by general reading, and even by

the acquisition of elemental knowledge, an education in all points

originally defective; but nobody told him (and it was no wonder he

should not himself divine it) that the world of which he read, and the

world in which he lived, were no longer the same. Desirous of doing

every thing for the best, fearful of cabal, distrusting his own

judgment, he sought his Ministers of all kinds upon public testimony.

But as Courts are the field for caballers, the publick is the theatre for

mountebanks and impostors. The cure for both those evils is in the

discernment of the Prince. But an accurate and penetrating

discernment is what in a young Prince could not be looked for.

His conduct in it’s principle was not unwise; but, like most other of his

well-meant designs, it failed in his hands. It failed partly from mere ill

fortune, to which speculators are rarely pleased to assign that very

large share to which she is justly entitled in all human affairs. The

failure, perhaps, in part was owing to his suffering his system to be

vitiated and disturbed by those intrigues, which it is, humanly

speaking, impossible wholly to prevent in Courts, or indeed under any

form of Government. However, with these aberrations, he gave

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himself over to a succession of the statesmen of publick opinion. In

other things he thought that he might be a King on the terms of his

predecessors. He was conscious of the purity of his heart and the

general good tendency of his Government. He flattered himself, as

most men in his situation will, that he might consult his ease without

danger to his safety. It is not at all wonderful that both he and his

Ministers, giving way abundantly in other respects to innovation,

should take up in policy with the tradition of their monarchy. Under

his ancestors the Monarchy had subsisted, and even been

strengthened by the generation or support of Republicks. First, the

Swiss Republicks grew under the guardianship of the French

Monarchy. The Dutch Republicks were hatched and cherished under

the same incubation. Afterwards, a Republican constitution was under

it’s influence established in the Empire against the pretensions of it’s

chief. Even whilst the Monarchy of France, by a series of wars and

negotiations, and lastly by the treaties of Westphalia, had obtained

the establishment of the Protestants in Germany as a law of the

Empire, the same Monarchy under Louis the XIIIth. had force enough

to destroy the Republican system of the Protestants at home.

Louis the XVIth. was a diligent reader of history. But the very lamp of

prudence blinded him. The guide of human life led him astray. A silent

revolution in the moral world preceded the political, and prepared it.

It became of more importance than ever what examples were given,

and what measures were adopted. Their causes no longer lurked in

the recesses of cabinets, or in the private conspiracies of the factious.

They were no longer to be controlled by the force and influence of the

grandees, who formerly had been able to stir up troubles by their

discontents, and to quiet them by their corruption. The chain of

subordination, even in cabal and sedition, was broken in it’s most

important links. It was no longer the great and the populace. Other

interests were formed, other dependencies, other connexions, other

communications. The middle classes had swelled far beyond their

former proportion. Like whatever is the most effectively rich and great

in society, these classes became the seat of all the active politicks;

and the preponderating weight to decide on them. There were all the

energies by which fortune is acquired; there the consequence of their

success. There were all the talents which assert their pretensions, and

are impatient of the place which settled society prescribes to them.

These descriptions had got between the great and the populace; and

the influence on the lower classes was with them. The spirit of

ambition had taken possession of this class as violently as ever it had

done of any other. They felt the importance of this situation. The

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correspondence of the monied and the mercantile world, the literary

intercourse of academies, but, above all, the press, of which they had

in a manner, entire possession, made a kind of electrick

communication every where. The press, in reality, has made every

Government, in it’s spirit, almost democratick. Without the great, the

first movements in this revolution could not, perhaps, have been

given. But the spirit of ambition, now for the first time connected with

the spirit of speculation, was not to be restrained at will. There was no

longer any means of arresting a principle in it’s course. When Louis

the XVIth. under the influence of the enemies to Monarchy, meant to

found but one Republic, he set up two. When he meant to take away

half the crown of his neighbour, he lost the whole of his own. Louis

the XVIth. could not with impunity countenance a new Republick: yet

between his throne and that dangerous lodgment for an enemy, which

he had erected, he had the whole Atlantick for a ditch. He had for an

out-work the English nation itself, friendly to liberty, adverse to that

mode of it. He was surrounded by a rampart of Monarchies, most of

them allied to him, and generally under his influence. Yet even thus

secured, a Republick erected under his auspices, and dependent on

his power, became fatal to his throne. The very money which he had

lent to support this Republick, by a good faith, which to him operated

as perfidy, was punctually paid to his enemies, and became a

resource in the hands of his assassins.

With this example before their eyes, do any Ministers in England, do

any Ministers in Austria, really flatter themselves, that they can erect,

not on the remote shores of the Atlantick, but in their view, in their

vicinity, in absolute contact with one of them, not a commercial but a

martial Republick—a Republick not of simple husbandmen or

fishermen, but of intriguers, and of warriors—a Republick of a

character the most restless, the most enterprizing, the most impious,

the most fierce and bloody, the most hypocritical and perfidious, the

most bold and daring that ever has been seen, or indeed that can be

conceived to exist, without bringing on their own certain ruin?

Such is the Republick to which we are going to give a place in civilized

fellowship. The Republick, which with joint consent we are going to

establish in the center of Europe, in a post that overlooks and

commands every other State, and which eminently confronts and

menaces this kingdom.

You cannot fail to observe, that I speak as if the allied powers were

actually consenting, and not compelled by events to the establishment

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of this faction in France. The words have not escaped me. You will

hereafter naturally expect that I should make them good. But whether

in adopting this measure we are madly active, or weakly passive, or

pusillanimously panick-struck, the effects will be the same. You may

call this faction, which has eradicated the monarchy—expelled the

proprietary, persecuted religion, and trampled upon law

—you may

call this France if you please: but of the ancient France nothing

remains but it’s central geography; it’s iron frontier; it’s spirit of

ambition; it’s audacity of enterprize; it’s perplexing intrigue. These

and these alone remain; and they remain heightened in their principle

and augmented in their means. All the former correctives, whether of

virtue or of weakness, which existed in the old Monarchy, are gone.

No single new corrective is to be found in the whole body of the new

institutions. How should such a thing be found there, when every

thing has been chosen with care and selection to forward all those

ambitious designs and dispositions, not to controul them? The whole

is a body of ways and means for the supply of dominion, without one

heterogeneous particle in it.

Here I suffer you to breathe, and leave to your meditation what has

occurred to me on the genius and character of the French Revolution.

From having this before us, we may be better able to determine on

the first question I proposed, that is, how far nations, called foreign,

are likely to be affected with the system established within that

territory? I intended to proceed next on the question of her facilities,

from the internal state of other nations, and particularly of this, for

obtaining her ends: but I ought to be aware, that my notions are

controverted. I mean, therefore, in my next letter, to take notice of

what, in that way, has been recommended to me as the most

deserving of notice. In the examination of those pieces, I shall have

occasion to discuss some others of the topics I have recommended to

your attention. You know, that the Letters which I now send to the

press, as well as a part of what is to follow, have been long since

written. A circumstance which your partiality alone could make of

importance to you, but which to the publick is of no importance at all,

retarded their appearance. The late events which press upon us

obliged me to make some few additions; but no substantial change in

the matter.

This discussion, my Friend, will be long. But the matter is serious; and

if ever the fate of the world could be truly said to depend on a

particular measure, it is upon this peace. For the present, farewell.

p. 188

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p. 189-1

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Endnotes

[1.] See Declaration. Whitehall, Oct. 29, 1793.

[1.]

It may be right to do justice to Louis XVI. He did what he could

to destroy the double diplomacy of France. He had all his secret

correspondence burnt, except one piece, which was called,

Conjectures raisonnées sur la Situation de la France dans le Système

Politique de l’Europe; a work executed by M. Favier, under the

direction of Count Broglie. A single copy of this was said to have been

found in the Cabinet of Louis XVI. It was published with some

subsequent state papers of Vergennes, Turgot, and others, as, “A new

Benefit of the Revolution”; and the advertisement to the publication

ends with the following words. “ Il sera facile de se convaincre, qu’

COMPRIS

MÊME

REVOLUTION

, en grande partie,

TROUVE

DANS

CES

MÉMOIRES ET SES CONJECTURES LE GERME DE TOUT CE QU’ARRIVA AUJOURD’HUI, &

qu’on ne peut pas sans les avoir lus, être bien au fait des intérêts, &

même des vues actuelles des diverses puissances de l’Europe. ” The

book is entitled, Politique de tous les Cabinets de l’Europe pendant les

règnes de Louis XV. & Louis XVI. It is altogether very curious, and

worth reading.

[1.]

See our declaration.

A T

HIRD

ETTER

A M

EMBER

THE

RESENT

ARLIAMENT

THE PROPOSALS FOR PEACE WITH THE REGICIDE DIRECTORY OF

FRANCE BY THE LATE RIGHT HONOURABLE EDMUND BURKE

[Third Edition. Rivingtons, 1797.]

IN the conclusion of MR. BURKE’S second Letter on the

Proposals of Peace, he threw out some intimation of the

plan which he meant to adopt in the sequel. A third

Letter was mentioned by him, as having been then in

part written. “He intended to proceed next on the

question of the facilities possessed by the French

Republick, from the internal State of other Nations, and

particularly of this, for obtaining her ends; and, as his

notions were controverted, to take notice of what, in

that way, had been recommended to him.”

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But the abrupt and unprecedented conclusion of Lord Malmesbury’s

first negociation induced him to make some change in the

arrangement of his matter. He took up the question of his Lordship’s

mission, as stated in the papers laid before Parliament, his Majesty’s

Declaration, and in the publick comments upon it; he thought it

necessary to examine the new basis of compensation proposed for

this treaty; and having heard it currently whispered about, that the

foundation of all his opinions failed in this essential point, that he had

not shewn what means and resources we possessed to carry them

into effect, he also determined to bring forward the consideration of

the “absolute necessity of peace,” which he had postponed at the end

of his first letter. This was the origin of the letter now offered to the

Publick.

The greater part of this pamphlet was actually revised in print by the

Author himself, but not in the exact order of the pages. He enlarged

his first draft, and separated one great member of his subject for the

purpose of introducing some other matter between. Two separate

parcels of manuscript, designed to intervene, were found among his

papers. One of them he seemed to have gone over himself, and to

have improved and augmented. The other (fortunately the smaller)

was much more imperfect, just as it was taken from his mouth by

dictation. Of course it was necessary to use a more ample discretion

in preparing that part for the press.

There is, however, still a very considerable member, or rather there

are large fragments and pieces of a considerable member, to which

the candour and indulgence of the Publick must be respectfully

intreated. Mr. Burke had himself chalked out an accurate outline.

There were loose papers found, containing a summary and conclusion

of the whole. He had preserved some scattered hints, documents, and

parts of a correspondence on the state of the country. He had been

long anxiously waiting for some authentick and official information,

which he wanted, to ascertain to the Publick, what with his usual

sagacity he had fully anticipated from his own observation to his own

conviction. When the first Reports of the Finance Committee of the

House of Commons, and the Great Reports of the Secret Committee

of both Houses, were procured and were printed, he read them with

much avidity; but the Supreme Disposer of all, in his inscrutable

counsels, did not permit the complete execution of the task which he

meditated.

Under these circumstances his friends originally inclined to lop off

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altogether that member which he had left so lame and mutilated; but

from a consideration how much the ultimate credit of all his opinions

might possibly depend on that main branch of his question not being

wholly suppressed, it was thought best that some use should be made

of the important materials which he had so far in readiness. It was

then conceived that it might in some degree answer the purpose, to

draw out mere tables of figures, with short observations under each of

them; and they were actually printed in that form. These would still

however have remained an unseemly chasm, very incoherently and

aukwardly filled. At length, therefore, it was resolved, after much

hesitation, and under a very unpleasant responsibility, to make a

humble attempt at supplying the void with some continued

explanation and illustration of the documents, agreeably to Mr.

Burke’s own Sketch. In performing with reverential diffidence that

duty of friendship, no one sentiment has been attributed to Mr. Burke,

which is not most explicitly known, from repeated conversations and

from correspondence, to have been entertained by that illustrious

man. Some passages from his own private letters, and some from

letters to him, which he was pleased to commend and to preserve,

have been interwoven.

From what has been thus fairly submitted, it will be seen, that it is

impossible to indicate every period or sentence in the latter part of

this letter, which is, and which is not, from the hand of Mr. Burke. It

would swell this advertisement to a long preface. In general, the style

will too surely declare the author. Not only his friends, but his

bitterest enemies (if he now has any enemies) will agree, that he is

not to be imitated: he is, as Cowley says, “a vast species alone.”

The fourth Letter, which was originally designed for the first, has been

found complete, as it was first written. The friends of the Author trust

that they shall be able to present it to the Publick nearly as it came

from his pen, with little more than some trifling alterations of

temporary allusions to things now past, and in this eventful crisis

already obsolete.

SECOND ADVERTISEMENT

IN the Advertisement originally prefixed to this

Publication, it was supposed that enough had been said

to point out generally the only part of the Letter, in

which any considerable additions had been made by

another hand. The attention of the Reader was directed

p. 193

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to the last member of it, especially to the arrangement

and illustrations of the documents there inserted, as

having been supplied agreeably to an outline marked

out by Mr. Burke himself. Strange mistakes, however,

have been committed by some of our Criticks in the

Publick Prints. One of them, wholly forgetting how large

a proportion of the work was stated to have been given

untouched to the Publick, and applying to the whole

what was expressly limited to pieces and fragments of

one considerable member, was pleased to represent the

Advertisement as giving notice of “a manufactory for

pamphlets under the title of Edmund Burke.” A second

more handsomely selected the supplement alone for

observation, and gave it distinguished praise, as being

written with all Mr. Burke’s “depth of research.” A third

pronounced the Letter to be “evidently a work of shreds

and patches,” and then sagaciously produced, as

perhaps “the most curious part” of the whole, what was

in reality a shred from the most imperfect parcel of the

authentick Manuscript; and he crowned all by speaking

in the same handsome manner with the former, of the

supplement, to which he ascribed Mr. Burke’s “usual

superiority.” Some have levelled innocent pleasantries

at a wrong mark, and others have bestowed

commendation on detached sentiments and phrases,

under the influence of similar errour. No deception of

this kind was intended; but what has happened seems

to indicate that some further explanation may be

acceptable.

All the beginning, nearly down to the end of the fifty-sixth page

was

revised in print by the illustrious Authour. What follows to the end of

the seventy-fourth page,

†

is printed from a parcel of manuscript,

which appeared to have been re-considered, and in part re-written.

Very little alteration was made in those eighteen pages, except of a

mere mechanical kind, in re-modelling two or three sentences, which,

having been much interlined, were in consequence rather clogged and

embarrassed in their movement; a sort of correction, which the

Authour himself was accustomed to postpone, till he saw and read the

proof-sheets. The succeeding twelve pages and a half, to the end of

the paragraph in page eighty-seven,

‡

are all that rest on the authority

of the more imperfect manuscript. The true order was ascertained by

the circumstance, that full two pages at the beginning of the latter

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contained a rude and meagre draft of the same subject with the

concluding pages of the former parcel; to the head of which it was

necessary, on the other hand, to transfer a single short paragraph of

six lines and a half, which is to be found in the fifty-sixth and fifty-

seventh pages.

In the more imperfect parcel, a blank was left in the

middle of one sentence, which was filled up from conjecture, and

several other sentences were a little dilated and rounded, but without

any change in the sentiment.

All the first part of the great member which follows, on the question of

necessity, was revised in print by Mr. Burke, down to the middle of

the hundred and tenth page.

The brilliancy and solidity of the

oeconomical and moral philosophy, with which those pages abound,

manifest at once the inimitable Authour. His Friends at first thought of

supplying a short conclusion at the end of the hundred and second

page,

†

but in addition to the reasons formerly mentioned, a desire to

preserve the beautiful and truly philanthropick branch of the

argument, which relates to the condition of the poor, induced the

attempt to complete, what the great master had left unfinished.

It is the enquiry into the condition of the higher classes, which was

principally meant to be submitted to the candour and indulgence of

the Publick. The summary of the whole topick indeed, nearly as it

stands in the hundred and sixty-first and hundred and sixty-second

pages,

‡

contains the substance of all the preceding details: and that,

with a marginal reference to the bankrupt list, was found in Mr.

Burke’s own hand-writing. The censure of our defensive system, in

page a hundred and fourteen

and the two following pages, is taken

from a letter, of which he never wrote more than the introduction. He

intended to have comprised in it the short results of his opinions,

when he despaired of living to proceed with his original plan; but he

abandoned it, when his health for a short time seemed to improve,

about two months before his death. The actual conclusion of the

present Pamphlet is also from his dictation. But for some intermediate

passages, which were indispensably requisite to connect and introduce

these noble fragments, and for the execution of the details produced

to prove the flourishing state of the higher classes, and the general

prosperity of the country, his reputation is not responsible. The

Publick have been already informed, with all humility, upon what

ground they stand.

An errour of some magnitude has been discovered at the end of

the note in page 123.

The money actually received into the

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Exchequer on the new assessed takes of 1796 has been deducted

instead of the gross assessment, which is £401,652; leaving still an

increase of upwards of one fourth more than the whole increase of the

preceding three years, notwithstanding so heavy an additional

burthen.

LETTER

III

[Argument

NTRODUCTION, pp. 198–214. Lord Malmesbury’s

mission to Paris having ended in failure and insult,

the British Ministry, on Dec. 27, 1796, published a

long Declaration explaining the circumstances, but

expressing an intention to renew the negotiations

whenever the Directory might see fit. Burke

comments bitterly on the spirit shown by the

Ministry (p. 203), and declares the Ministry and

the Opposition to be equally wanting to the

national dignity (p. 205). After characterising the

Jacobin tone of the Opposition (p. 207), and

comparing their action in the two cases of the

imprisonment of Lafayette (p. 210) and of Sir

Sydney Smith (p. 212), he proceeds to examine

the Declaration itself.

PART I, pp. 214–34.

On the Declaration of Dec. 27, 1796

The natural and proper conclusion from the facts

which it recites, p. 214. Contrast of this with the

conclusion as it stands, p. 218. This conclusion for

the first time assumed the French government to

be a lawful one, leaving them, as it did, the

initiative in future negotiations (p. 219), while on

the very day of its issue a hostile French fleet was

quitting the shelter of a British port, p. 220. Burke

enquires, What can have been the motive of the

Ministry in making this un-English declaration (p.

222)? (1) It is said to be “a pledge to Europe” (p.

224): but the absurdity of supposing that it can

meet with the approval of Europe is shown by

going through the nations of Europe seriatim. It

must therefore be (2) a concession to some party

at home (p. 232): and, after observing that the

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old Tory and Whig parties have been

extinguished, leaving a Conservative and a

Jacobin party in their stead, he concludes it to be

a concession to the latter.

PART II, pp. 234–54

On the Futile Negotiations which preceded

the Declaration.

1. The futility of the negotiations confessed in the

Lords by Lord Auckland, and the embassy

described as an experiment, p. 234. This

degrading experiment not demanded by the

country, but the sole work of the Ministry, to

satisfy the leaders of the Jacobin Opposition, p.

236. Proofs of this from Lord Auckland’s

Pamphlet, ministerial newspapers, &c. p. 238. The

country disgraced by the negotiation (p. 240) in

the person of the Ambassador (p. 241), and of the

King himself (p. 242). 2. The false basis chosen

for the negotiations ensured their failure, p. 243.

The Ministry instructed Lord Malmesbury to

abandon that great principle of the maintenance

of a Balance of Power in Europe which England

has always hitherto insisted on, p. 244. Proofs of

this from the Treaties of Paris of 1783 and 1763,

and the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, p. 245. This

principle now for the first time treated as

obsolete, and France allowed to claim universal

empire through the means of universal revolution,

p. 247. Absurdity of the proposed principle of

“mutual compensation,” p. 249. As if Martinique,

England’s only conquest of any value to France,

could be compared with the Netherlands, which is

what England expected France to resign! (p. 249).

Having learned from Lord Malmesbury the nature

of the absurd settlement expected by England,

the Directory most naturally declined it, and drove

him from Paris, p. 252. Futility of further

negotiations proved from the character of the

Directory, and the absence of any public opinion

in France, p. 253. The allegation that these

humiliating negotiations were a “necessity” for

England is now disproved in a third and

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concluding part.

PART III, pp. 254–304

On the Ability of England to maintain the

War

Nothing remains but to prosecute the war

vigorously: and the ability of England to do this is

proved (1) by the readiness with which the open

loan of £18,000,000 has been raised (p. 255).

This indicates three facts: that England is

perfectly able to maintain the Balance of Power,

has spirit enough for the task, and confidence in

the Ministry whose duty it is to execute it (p.

256). The principle of this loan justified against its

assailants (p. 256), and that of “patriotic

contributions” refuted, p. 260. English resources

proved (2) by the abundance of labour, p. 263,

and the high wages it commands, p. 265. The

high price of provisions produced by other causes

than the war, p. 266. English resources proved

(3) by the enthusiasm of the upper classes for the

war, p. 268 (though this has not yet produced its

due effect), and by their obvious material

prosperity, p. 272, which is placed beyond a

doubt by the three recent enquiries into the

financial condition of the country before

Committees of the House of Commons, p. 273,

and by external evidence, p. 286. The

accumulation of Capital (contrary to the presages

of ignorance, p. 287) proved by the increased

number of Inclosure (p. 289) and Canal (p. 290)

Acts, all attributable to the vitality of the landed

interest, p. 291. The increase in the Post-Horse

duty, and in the revenue of the Post Office (p.

293), the low average of Bankruptcies (p. 294),

and the growth of retail trade, as shewn by the

duties on Licences (p. 295), all point the same

way: and the whole argument is crowned by the

proofs of the prosperity of the Port of London (p.

298), and by the evidence of the Inspector-

General, as given in the report of the Secret

Committee of the House of Lords, drawn up by

Lord Auckland himself, p. 301.

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CONCLUSION, pp. 304–6.

DEAR SIR,

THANK

YOU

FOR

THE

BUNDLE

of State-papers, which I received yesterday.

I have travelled through the Negotiation; and a sad, founderous road

it is. There is a sort of standing jest against my countrymen, that one

of them on his journey having found a piece of pleasant road, he

proposed to his companion to go over it again. This proposal, with

regard to the worthy traveller’s final destination, was certainly a

blunder. It was no blunder as to his immediate satisfaction; for the

way was pleasant. In the irksome journey of the Regicide

negotiations, it is otherwise: our “paths are not paths of pleasantness,

nor our ways the ways to peace.” All our mistakes (if such they are)

like those of our Hibernian traveller, are mistakes of repetition; and

they will be full as far from bringing us to our place of rest, as his well

considered project was from forwarding him to his inn. Yet I see we

persevere. Fatigued with our former course; too listless to explore a

new one; kept in action by inertness; moving only because we have

been in motion; with a sort of plodding perseverance, we resolve to

measure back again the very same joyless, hopeless, and inglorious

track. Backward and forward; oscillation not progression; much going

in a scanty space; the travels of a postillion, miles enough to circle the

globe in one short stage; we have been, and we are yet to be jolted

and rattled over the loose, misplaced stones, and the treacherous

hollows, of this rough, ill kept, broken up, treacherous French

causeway!

The Declaration, which brings up the rear of the papers laid before

Parliament, contains a review and a reasoned summary of all our

attempts, and all our failures; a concise but correct narrative of the

painful steps taken to bring on the essay of a treaty at Paris; a clear

exposure of all the rebuffs we received in the progress of that

experiment; an honest confession of our departure from all the rules

and all the principles of political negotiation, and of common

prudence, in the conduct of it; and to crown the whole, a fair account

of the atrocious manner in which the Regicide enemies had broken up

what had been so inauspiciously begun and so feebly carried on, by

finally, and with all scorn, driving our suppliant Ambassador out of the

limits of their usurpation.

Even after all that I have lately seen, I was a little surprized at this

exposure. A minute display of hopes formed without foundation, and

. 198-22

p. 198-31

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of labours pursued without fruit, is a thing not very flattering to self-

estimation. But truth has it’s rights; and it will assert them. The

Declaration, after doing all this with a mortifying candour, concludes

the whole recapitulation with an engagement still more extraordinary

than all the unusual matter it contains. It says, “That his Majesty, who

had entered into this negotiation with good faith, who has suffered no

impediment to prevent his prose, cuting it with earnestness and

sincerity, has now only to lament it’s abrupt termination, and to

renew in the face of all Europe the solemn declaration, that whenever

his enemies shall be disposed to enter upon the work of a general

pacification in a spirit of conciliation and equity, nothing shall be

wanting on his part to contribute to the accomplishment of that great

object.”

If the disgusting detail of the accumulated insults we have received, in

what we have very properly called our “solicitation,” to a gang of

felons and murderers, had been produced as a proof of the utter

inefficacy of that mode of proceeding with that description of persons,

I should have nothing at all to object to it. It might furnish matter

conclusive in argument, and instructive in policy: but with all due

submission to high authority, and with all decent deference to

superiour lights, it does not seem quite clear to a discernment no

better than mine, that the premises in that piece conduct irresistibly

to the conclusion. A laboured display of the ill consequences which

have attended an uniform course of submission to every mode of

contumelious insult, with which the despotism of a proud, capricious,

insulting and implacable foe has chosen to buffet our patience, does

not appear, to my poor thoughts, to be properly brought forth as a

preliminary to justify a resolution of persevering in the very same kind

of conduct, towards the very same sort of person, and on the very

same principles. We state our experience, and then we come to the

manly resolution of acting in contradiction to it. All that has passed at

Paris, to the moment of our being shamefully hissed off that stage,

has been nothing but a more solemn representation, on the theatre of

the nation, of what had been before in rehearsal at Basle. As it is not

only confessed by us, but made a matter of charge on the enemy,

that he had given us no encouragement to believe there was a change

in his disposition, or in his policy at any time subsequent to the period

of his rejecting our first overtures, there seems to have been no

assignable motive for sending Lord Malmesbury to Paris, except to

expose his humbled country to the worst indignities and the first of

the kind, as the Declaration very truly observes, that have been

known in the world of negotiation.

p. 200

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An honest neighbour of mine is not altogether unhappy in the

application of an old common story to a present occasion. It may be

said of my friend, what Horace says of a neighbour of his, “ garrit

aniles ex re fabellas. ” Conversing on this strange subject, he told me

a current story of a simple English country ’Squire, who was

persuaded by certain dilettanti of his acquaintance to see the world,

and to become knowing in men and manners. Among other celebrated

places, it was recommended to him to visit Constantinople. He took

their advice. After various adventures, not to our purpose to dwell

upon, he happily arrived at that famous city. As soon as he had a little

reposed himself from his fatigue, he took a walk into the streets; but

he had not gone far, before a “malignant and a turban’d Turk” had his

choler roused by the careless and assured air with which this infidel

strutted about in the metropolis of true believers. In this temper, he

lost no time in doing to our traveller the honours of the place. The

Turk crossed over the way, and with perfect good-will gave him two

or three lusty kicks on the seat of honour. To resent, or to return the

compliment in Turkey, was quite out of the question. Our traveller,

since he could not otherwise acknowledge this kind of favour, received

it with the best grace in the world—he made one of his most

ceremonious bows, and begged the kicking Mussulman “to accept his

perfect assurances of high consideration.” Our countryman was too

wise to imitate Othello in the use of the dagger. He thought it better,

as better it was, to assuage his bruised dignity with half a yard square

of balmy diplomatick diachylon. In the disasters of their friends,

people are seldom wanting in a laudable patience. When they are

such as do not threaten to end fatally, they become even matter of

pleasantry. The English fellow-travellers of our sufferer, finding him a

little out of spirits, entreated him not to take so slight a business so

very seriously. They told him it was the custom of the country; that

every country had its customs; that the Turkish manners were a little

rough; but that in the main the Turks were a good-natured people;

that what would have been a deadly affront any where else, was only

a little freedom there; in short, they told him to think no more of the

matter, and to try his fortune in another promenade. But the ’Squire,

though a little clownish, had some homebred sense. What! have I

come, at all this expence and trouble, all the way to Constantinople

only to be kicked? Without going beyond my own stable, my groom,

for half a crown, would have kicked me to my heart’s content. I don’t

mean to stay in Constantinople eight and forty hours, nor ever to

return to this rough, good-natured people, that have their own

customs.

p. 201

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p. 201-18

p. 201-33

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In my opinion the ’Squire was in the right. He was satisfied with his

first ramble and his first injuries. But reason of state and common-

sense are two things. If it were not for this difference, it might not

appear of absolute necessity, after having received a certain quantity

of buffetings by advance, that we should send a Peer of the realm to

the scum of the earth, to collect the debt to the last farthing; and to

receive, with infinite aggravation, the same scorns which had been

paid to our supplication through a Commoner. But it was proper, I

suppose, that the whole of our country, in all its orders, should have a

share of the indignity; and, as in reason, that the higher orders should

touch the larger proportion.

This business was not ended, because our dignity was wounded, or

because our patience was worn out with contumely and scorn. We had

not disgorged one particle of the nauseous doses with which we were

so liberally crammed by the mountebanks of Paris, in order to drug

and diet us into perfect tameness. No; we waited, till the morbid

strength of our boulimia for their physick had exhausted the well-

stored dispensary of their empiricism. It is impossible to guess at the

term to which our forbearance would have extended. The Regicides

were more fatigued with giving blows than the callous cheek of British

Diplomacy was hurt in receiving them. They had no way left for

getting rid of this mendicant perseverance, but by sending for the

Beadle, and forcibly driving our Embassy “of shreds and patches,”

with all it’s mumping cant, from the inhospitable door of Cannibal

Castle—

Where the gaunt mastiff, growling at the gate,

Affrights the beggar whom he longs to eat.

I think we might have found, before the rude hand of insolent office

was on our shoulder, and the staff of usurped authority brandished

over our heads, that contempt of the suppliant is not the best

forwarder of a suit; that national disgrace is not the high road to

security, much less to power and greatness. Patience, indeed,

strongly indicates the love of peace. But mere love does not always

lead to enjoyment. It is the power of winning that palm which insures

our wearing it. Virtues have their place; and out of their place they

hardly deserve the name. They pass into the neighbouring vice. The

patience of fortitude, and the endurance of pusillanimity, are things

very different, as in their principle, so in their effects.

N TRUTH THIS DECLARATION, containing a narrative of the first transaction

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of the kind (and I hope it will be the last) in the intercourse of

nations, as a composition, is ably drawn. It does credit to our official

style. The report of the Speech of the Minister in a great Assembly,

which I have read, is a comment upon the Declaration. Without

enquiry how far that report is exact, (inferior I believe it may be to

what it would represent,) yet still it reads as a most eloquent and

finished performance. Hardly one galling circumstance of the

indignities offered by the Directory of Regicide, to the supplications

made to that junto in his Majesty’s name, has been spared. Every one

of the aggravations attendant on these acts of outrage is, with

wonderful perspicuity and order, brought forward in it’s place, and in

the manner most fitted to produce it’s effect. They are turned to every

point of view in which they can be seen to the best advantage. All the

parts are so arranged as to point out their relation, and to furnish a

true idea of the spirit of the whole transaction.

This Speech may stand for a model. Never, for the triumphal

decoration of any theatre, not for the decoration of those of Athens

and Rome, or even of this theatre of Paris, from the embroideries of

Babylon or from the loom of the Gobelins, has there been sent any

historick tissue so truly drawn, so closely and so finely wrought, or in

which the forms are brought out in the rich purple of such glowing and

blushing colours. It puts me in mind of the piece of tapestry, with

which Virgil proposed to adorn the theatre he was to erect to

Augustus, upon the banks of the Mincio, who now hides his head in

his reeds, and leads his slow and melancholy windings through banks

wasted by the barbarians of Gaul. He supposes that the artifice is

such, that the figures of the conquered nations in his tapestry are

made to play their part, and are confounded in the machine:

Utque

Purpurea intexti tollant aulaea Britanni;

Or as Dryden translates it somewhat paraphrastically, but not less in

the spirit of the Prophet than of the Poet,

Where the proud theatres disclose the scene,

Which, interwoven, Britons seem to raise,

And show the triumph which their shame displays.

It is something wonderful, that the sagacity shown in the Declaration

and the Speech (and, so far as it goes, greater was never shown)

should have failed to discover to the writer and to the speaker the

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inseparable relation between the parties to this transaction; and that

nothing can be said to display the imperious arrogance of a base

enemy, which does not describe with equal force and equal truth the

contemptible figure of an abject embassy to that imperious Power.

LESS

STRIKING

, that the same obvious reflexion should not occur

to those gentlemen who conducted the opposition to Government. But

their thoughts were turned another way. They seem to have been so

entirely occupied with the defence of the French Directory, so very

eager in finding recriminatory precedents to justify every act of it’s

intolerable insolence, so animated in their accusations of Ministry for

not having, at the very outset, made concessions proportioned to the

dignity of the great victorious Power we had offended, that every

thing concerning the sacrifice in this business of national honour, and

of the most fundamental principles in the policy of negotiation,

seemed wholly to have escaped them. To this fatal hour, the

contention in Parliament appeared in another form, and was animated

by another spirit. For three hundred years and more, we have had

wars with what stood as Government in France. In all that period the

language of Ministers, whether of boast or of apology, was, that they

had left nothing undone for the assertion of the national honour; the

Opposition, whether patriotically or factiously, contending that the

Ministers had been oblivious of the national glory, and had made

improper sacrifices of that publick interest, which they were bound not

only to preserve, but by all fair methods to augment. This total

change of tone on both sides of your house, forms itself no

inconsiderable revolution; and I am afraid it prognosticates others of

still greater importance. The Ministers exhausted the stores of their

eloquence in demonstrating, that they had quitted the safe, beaten

high-way of treaty between independent Powers; that to pacify the

enemy they had made every sacrifice of the national dignity; and that

they had offered to immolate at the same shrine the most valuable of

the national acquisitions. The Opposition insisted, that the victims

were not fat nor fair enough to be offered on the altars of blasphemed

Regicide; and it was inferred from thence, that the sacrifical ministers,

(who were a sort of intruders in the worship of the new divinity) in

their schismatical devotion, had discovered more of hypocrisy than

zeal. They charged them with a concealed resolution to persevere in

what these gentlemen have (in perfect consistency, indeed, with

themselves, but most irreconcileably with fact and reason) called an

unjust and impolitick war.

That day was, I fear, the fatal term of local patriotism. On that day, I

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fear, there was an end of that narrow scheme of relations called our

country, with all it’s pride, it’s prejudices, and it’s partial affections. All

the little quiet rivulets that watered an humble, a contracted, but not

an unfruitful field, are to be lost in the waste expanse, and boundless,

barren ocean of the homicide philanthropy of France. It is no longer

an object of terror, the aggrandizement of a new power, which

teaches as a professor that philanthropy in the chair; whilst it

propagates by arms, and establishes by conquest, the comprehensive

system of universal fraternity. In what light is all this viewed in a

great assembly? The party which takes the lead there has no longer

any apprehensions, except those that arise from not being admitted

to the closest and most confidential connexions with the metropolis of

that fraternity. That reigning party no longer touches on it’s favourite

subject, the display of those horrours that must attend the existence

of a power, with such dispositions and principles, seated in the heart

of Europe. It is satisfied to find some loose, ambiguous expressions in

it’s former declarations, which may set it free from it’s professions and

engagements. It always speaks of peace with the Regicides as a great

and an undoubted blessing; and such a blessing, as if obtained,

promises, as much as any human disposition of things can promise,

security and permanence. It holds out nothing at all definite towards

this security. It only seeks, by a restoration, to some of their former

owners, of some fragments of the general wreck of Europe, to find a

plausible plea for a present retreat from an embarrassing position. As

to the future, that party is content to leave it covered in a night of the

most palpable obscurity. It never once has entered into a particle of

detail of what our own situation, or that of other powers must be,

under the blessings of the peace we seek. This defect, to my power, I

mean to supply; that if any persons should still continue to think an

attempt at foresight is any part of the duty of a Statesman, I may

contribute my trifle to the materials of his speculation.

S TO THE OTHER PARTY, the minority of to-day, possibly the majority of

to-morrow, small in number, but full of talents and every species of

energy, which, upon the avowed ground of being more acceptable to

France, is a candidate for the helm of this kingdom, it has never

changed from the beginning. It has preserved a perennial consistency.

This would be a never-failing source of true glory, if springing from

just and right; but it is truly dreadful if it be an arm of Styx, which

springs out of the profoundest depths of a poisoned soil. The French

maxims were by these gentlemen at no time condemned. I speak of

their language in the most moderate terms. There are many who

think that they have gone much further; that they have always

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magnified and extolled the French maxims; that not in the least

disgusted or discouraged by the monstrous evils, which have attended

these maxims from the moment of their adoption, both at home and

abroad, they still continue to predict, that in due time they must

produce the greatest good to the poor human race. They obstinately

persist in stating those evils as matter of accident; as things wholly

collateral to the system.

It is observed, that this party has never spoken of an ally of Great

Britain with the smallest degree of respect or regard; on the contrary,

it has generally mentioned them under opprobrious appellations, and

in such terms of contempt or execration, as never had been heard

before, because no such would have formerly been permitted in our

public assemblies. The moment, however, that any of those allies

quitted this obnoxious connexion, the party has instantly passed an

act of indemnity and oblivion in their favour. After this, no sort of

censure on their conduct; no imputation on their character! From that

moment their pardon was sealed in a reverential and mysterious

silence. With the Gentlemen of this minority, there is no ally, from one

end of Europe to the other, with whom we ought not to be ashamed

to act. The whole College of the States of Europe is no better than a

gang of tyrants. With them all our connexions were broken off at

once. We ought to have cultivated France, and France alone, from the

moment of her Revolution. On that happy change, all our dread of

that nation as a power was to cease. She became in an instant dear to

our affections, and one with our interests. All other nations we ought

to have commanded not to trouble her sacred throes, whilst in labour

to bring into an happy birth her abundant litter of constitutions. We

ought to have acted under her auspices, in extending her salutary

influence upon every side. From that moment England and France

were become natural allies, and all the other States natural enemies.

The whole face of the world was changed. What was it to us if she

acquired Holland and the Austrian Netherlands? By her conquests she

only enlarged the sphere of her beneficence; she only extended the

blessings of liberty to so many more foolishly reluctant nations. What

was it to England, if by adding these, among the richest and most

peopled countries of the world, to her territories, she thereby left no

possible link of communication between us and any other Power with

whom we could act against her? On this new system of optimism, it is

so much the better—so much the further are we removed from the

contact with infectious despotism. No longer a thought of a barrier in

the Netherlands to Holland against France. All that is obsolete policy.

It is fit that France should have both Holland and the Austrian

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Netherlands too, as a barrier to her against the attacks of despotism.

She cannot multiply her securities too much; and as to our security, it

is to be found in her’s. Had we cherished her from the beginning, and

felt for her when attacked, she, poor good soul, would never have

invaded any foreign nation; never have murdered her Sovereign and

his family; never proscribed, never exiled, never imprisoned, never

been guilty of extrajudicial massacre, or of legal murder. All would

have been a golden age, full of peace, order, and liberty! and

philosophy, raying out from Europe, would have warmed and

enlightened the universe: but unluckily, irritable philosophy, the most

irritable of all things, was put into a passion, and provoked into

ambition abroad and tyranny at home. They find all this very natural

and very justifiable. They chuse to forget, that other nations

struggling for freedom, have been attacked by their neighbours; or

that their neighbours have otherwise interfered in their affairs. Often

have neighbours interfered in favour of Princes against their rebellious

subjects; and often in favour of subjects against their Prince. Such

cases fill half the pages of history, yet never were they used as an

apology, much less as a justification, for atrocious cruelty in Princes,

or for general massacre and confiscation on the part of revolted

subjects; never as a politick cause for suffering any such powers to

aggrandize themselves without limit and without measure. A thousand

times have we seen it asserted in publick prints and pamphlets, that if

the nobility and priesthood of France had staid at home, their property

never would have been confiscated. One would think that none of the

clergy had been robbed previous to their deportation, or that their

deportation had, on their part, been a voluntary act. One would think

that the nobility and gentry, and merchants and bankers, who staid at

home, had enjoyed their property in security and repose. The

assertors of these positions well know, that the lot of thousands who

remained at home was far more terrible; that the most cruel

imprisonment was only a harbinger of a cruel and ignominious death;

and that in this mother country of freedom, there were no less than

Three Hundred Thousand at one time in prison. I go no further. I

instance only these representations of the party as staring indications

of partiality to that sect, to whose dominion they would have left this

country nothing to oppose but her own naked force, and consequently

subjected us, on every reverse of fortune, to the imminent danger of

falling under those very evils in that very system, which are

attributed, not to it’s own nature, but to the perverseness of others.

There is nothing in the world so difficult as to put men in a state of

judicial neutrality. A leaning there must ever be, and it is of the first

importance to any nation to observe to what side that leaning

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inclines—whether to our own community, or to one with which it is in

a state of hostility.

ARE

RARELY

without some sympathy in the sufferings of others; but

in the immense and diversified mass of human misery, which may be

pitied, but cannot be relieved, in the gross, the mind must make a

choice. Our sympathy is always more forcibly attracted towards the

misfortunes of certain persons, and in certain descriptions: and this

sympathetic attraction discovers, beyond a possibility of mistake, our

mental affinities, and elective affections. It is a much surer proof, than

the strongest declaration, of a real connexion and of an over-ruling

bias in the mind. I am told that the active sympathies of this party

have been chiefly, if not wholly attracted to the sufferings of the

patriarchal rebels, who were amongst the promulgators of the maxims

of the French Revolution, and who have suffered, from their apt and

forward scholars, some part of the evils, which they had themselves

so liberally distributed to all the other parts of the community. Some

of these men, flying from the knives which they had sharpened

against their country and it’s laws, rebelling against the very powers

they had set over themselves by their rebellion against their

Sovereign, given up by those very armies to whose faithful

attachment they trusted for their safety and support, after they had

compleatly debauched all military fidelity in it’s source—some of these

men, I say, had fallen into the hands of the head of that family, the

most illustrious person of which they had three times cruelly

imprisoned, and delivered in that state of captivity to those hands,

from which they were able to relieve, neither her, nor their own

nearest and most venerable kindred. One of these men connected

with this country by no circumstance of birth; not related to any

distinguished families here; recommended by no service; endeared to

this nation by no act or even expression of kindness; comprehended

in no league or common cause; embraced by no laws of publick

hospitality; this man was the only one to be found in Europe, in whose

favour the British nation, passing judgment, without hearing, on it’s

almost only ally, was to force, (and that not by soothing interposition,

but with every reproach for inhumanity, cruelty, and breach of the

laws of war,) from prison. We were to release him from that prison

out of which, in abuse of the lenity of Government amidst it’s rigour,

and in violation of at least an understood parole, he had attempted an

escape; an escape excuseable if you will, but naturally productive of

strict and vigilant confinement. The earnestness of gentlemen to free

this person was the more extraordinary, because there was full as

little in him to raise admiration, from any eminent qualities he

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possessed, as there was to excite an interest, from any that were

amiable. A person, not only of no real civil or literary talents, but of no

specious appearance of either; and in his military profession, not

marked as a leader in any one act of able or successful enterprize—

unless his leading on (or his following) the allied army of Amazonian

and male cannibal Parisians to Versailles, on the famous fifth of

October, 1789, is to make his glory. Any other exploit of his, as a

General, I never heard of. But the triumph of general fraternity was

but the more signalized by the total want of particular claims in that

case; and by postponing all such claims, in a case where they really

existed, where they stood embossed, and in a manner forced

themselves on the view of common short-sighted benevolence.

Whilst, for its improvement, the humanity of these gentlemen was

thus on it’s travels, and had got as far off as Olmutz, they never

thought of a place and a person much nearer to them, or of moving

an instruction to Lord Malmesbury in favour of their own suffering

countryman, Sir Sydney Smith.

HIS OFFICER, having attempted, with great gallantry, to cut out a

vessel from one of the enemy’s harbours, was taken after an

obstinate resistance; such as obtained him the marked respect of

those who were witnesses of his valour, and knew the circumstances

in which it was displayed. Upon his arrival at Paris, he was instantly

thrown into prison; where the nature of his situation will best be

understood, by knowing, that amongst its mitigations, was the

permission to walk occasionally in the court, and to enjoy the privilege

of shaving himself. On the old system of feelings and principles, his

sufferings might have been entitled to consideration, and even in a

comparison with those of Citizen la Fayette, to a priority in the order

of compassion. If the Ministers had neglected to take any steps in his

favour, a declaration of the sense of the House of Commons would

have stimulated them to their duty. If they had caused a

representation to be made, such a proceeding would have added force

to it. If reprisal should be thought adviseable, the address of the

House would have given an additional sanction to a measure, which

would have been, indeed, justifiable without any other sanction than

it’s own reason. But no. Nothing at all like it. In fact, the merit of Sir

Sydney Smith, and his claim on British compassion, was of a kind

altogether different from that which interested so deeply the authors

of the motion in favour of Citizen la Fayette. In my humble opinion,

Captain Sir Sydney Smith has another sort of merit with the British

nation, and something of a higher claim on British humanity than

Citizen de la Fayette. Faithful, zealous, and ardent in the service of his

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King and Country; full of spirit; full of resources; going out of the

beaten road, but going right, because his uncommon enterprize was

not conducted by a vulgar judgment—in his profession, Sir Sydney

Smith might be considered as a distinguished person, if any person

could well be distinguished in a service in which scarce a Commander

can be named without putting you in mind of some action of

intrepidity, skill, and vigilance, that has given them a fair title to

contend with any men and in any age. But I will say nothing farther of

the merits of Sir Sydney Smith. The mortal animosity of the Regicide

enemy supersedes all other panegyrick. Their hatred is a judgment in

his favour without appeal. At present he is lodged in the tower of the

Temple, the last prison of Louis the Sixteenth, and the last but one of

Maria Antonietta of Austria; the prison of Louis the Seventeenth; the

prison of Elizabeth of Bourbon. There he lies, unpitied by the grand

philanthropy, to meditate upon the fate of those who are faithful to

their King and Country. Whilst this prisoner, secluded from

intercourse, was indulging in these cheering reflections, he might

possibly have had the further consolation of learning (by means of the

insolent exultation of his guards) that there was an English

Ambassador at Paris; he might have had the proud comfort of

hearing, that this Ambassador had the honour of passing his mornings

in respectful attendance at the office of a Regicide pettifogger; and

that in the evening he relaxed in the amusements of the opera, and in

the spectacle of an audience totally new; an audience in which he had

the pleasure of seeing about him not a single face that he could

formerly have known in Paris; but in the place of that company, one

indeed more than equal to it in display of gaiety, splendour and

luxury; a set of abandoned wretches, squandering in insolent riot the

spoils of their bleeding country. A subject of profound reflection both

to the prisoner and to the Ambassador.

Whether all the matter upon which I have grounded my opinion of this

last party be fully authenticated or not, must be left to those who

have had the opportunity of a nearer view of it’s conduct, and who

have been more attentive in their perusal of the writings, which have

appeared in it’s favour. But for my part, I have never heard the gross

facts on which I ground my idea of their marked partiality to the

reigning Tyranny in France, in any part, denied. I am not surprized at

all this. Opinions, as they sometimes follow, so they frequently guide

and direct the affections; and men may become more attached to the

country of their principles, than to the country of their birth. What I

have stated here is only to mark the spirit which seems to me, though

in somewhat different ways, to actuate our great party-leaders; and

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to trace this first pattern of a negotiation to it’s true source.

Such is the present state of our publick councils. Well might I be

ashamed of what seems to be a censure of two great factions, with

the two most eloquent men, which this country ever saw, at the head

of them, if I had found that either of them could support their conduct

by any example in the history of their country. I should very much

prefer their judgment to my own, if I were not obliged, by an infinitely

overbalancing weight of authority, to prefer the collected wisdom of

ages to the abilities of any two men living. I return to the Declaration,

with which the history of the abortion of a treaty with the Regicides is

closed.

FTER SUCH AN ELABORATE DISPLAY had been made of the injustice and

insolence of an enemy, who seems to have been irritated by every

one of the means which had been commonly used with effect to

soothe the rage of intemperate power, the natural result would be,

that the scabbard, in which we in vain attempted to plunge our sword,

should have been thrown away with scorn. It would have been

natural, that, rising in the fulness of their might, insulted majesty,

despised dignity, violated justice, rejected supplication, patience

goaded into fury, would have poured out all the length of the reins

upon all the wrath which they had so long restrained. It might have

been expected, that, emulous of the glory of the youthful hero

alliance with him, touched by the example of what one man, well

formed and well placed, may do in the most desperate state of affairs,

convinced there is a courage of the Cabinet full as powerful, and far

less vulgar than that of the field, our Minister would have changed the

whole line of that unprosperous prudence, which hitherto had

produced all the effects of the blindest temerity. If he found his

situation full of danger, (and I do not deny that it is perilous in the

extreme) he must feel that it is also full of glory; and that he is placed

on a stage, than which no Muse of fire that had ascended the highest

heaven of invention, could imagine any thing more awful and august.

It was hoped, that in this swelling scene, in which he moved with

some of the first Potentates of Europe for his fellow actors, and with

so many of the rest for the anxious spectators of a part, which, as he

plays it, determines for ever their destiny and his own, like Ulysses, in

the unravelling point of the epic story, he would have thrown off his

patience and his rags together; and stripped of unworthy disguises,

he would have stood forth in the form, and in the attitude of an hero.

On that day, it was thought he would have assumed the port of Mars;

that he would bid to be brought forth from their hideous kennel

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(where his scrupulous tenderness had too long immured them) those

impatient dogs of war, whose fierce regards affright even the Minister

of Vengeance that feeds them; that he would let them loose, in

famine, fever, plagues, and death, upon a guilty race, to whose

frame, and to all whose habit, order, peace, religion, and virtue, are

alien and abhorrent. It was expected that he would at last have

thought of active and effectual war; that he would no longer amuse

the British Lion in the chace of mice and rats; that he would no longer

employ the whole naval power of Great Britain, once the terrour of the

world, to prey upon the miserable remains of a pedling commerce,

which the enemy did not regard, and from which none could profit. It

was expected that he would have re-asserted the justice of his cause;

that he would have re-animated whatever remained to him of his

allies, and endeavoured to recover those whom their fears had led

astray; that he would have re-kindled the martial ardour of his

citizens; that he would have held out to them the example of their

ancestry, the assertor of Europe, and the scourge of French ambition;

that he would have reminded them of a posterity, which if this

nefarious robbery, under the fraudulent name and false colour of a

government, should in full power be seated in the heart of Europe,

must for ever be consigned to vice, impiety, barbarism, and the most

ignominious slavery of body and mind. In so holy a cause it was

presumed, that he would, (as in the beginning of the war he did) have

opened all the temples; and with prayer, with fasting, and with

supplication, better directed than to the grim Moloch of Regicide in

France, have called upon us to raise that united cry, which has so

often stormed Heaven, and with a pious violence forced down

blessings upon a repentant people. It was hoped that when he had

invoked upon his endeavours the favourable regard of the Protector of

the human race, it would be seen that his menaces to the enemy, and

his prayers to the Almighty, were, not followed, but accompanied,

with correspondent action. It was hoped that his shrilling trumpet

should be heard, not to announce a shew, but to sound a charge.

Such a conclusion to such a Declaration and such a Speech, would

have been a thing of course; so much a thing of course, that I will be

bold to say, if in any ancient history, the Roman for instance,

(supposing that in Rome the matter of such a detail could have been

furnished) a Consul had gone through such a long train of

proceedings, and that there was a chasm in the manuscripts by which

we had lost the conclusion of the speech and the subsequent part of

the narrative, all criticks would agree, that a Freinshemius would have

been thought to have managed the supplementary business of a

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continuator most unskilfully, and to have supplied the hiatus most

improbably, if he had not filled up the gaping space, in a manner

somewhat similar (though better executed) to what I have imagined.

But too often different is rational conjecture from melancholy fact.

This exordium, as contrary to all the rules of rhetorick, as to those

more essential rules of policy which our situation would dictate, is

intended as a prelude to a deadening and disheartening proposition;

as if all that a Minister had to fear in a war of his own conducting,

was, that the people should pursue it with too ardent a zeal. Such a

tone as I guessed the Minister would have taken, I am very sure, is

the true, unsuborned, unsophisticated language of genuine natural

feeling under the smart of patience exhausted and abused. Such a

conduct as the facts stated in the Declaration gave room to expect, is

that which true wisdom would have dictated under the impression of

those genuine feelings. Never was there a jar or discord, between

genuine sentiment and sound policy. Never, no, never, did Nature say

one thing and Wisdom say another. Nor are sentiments of elevation in

themselves turgid and unnatural. Nature is never more truly herself,

than in her grandest forms. The Apollo of Belvedere (if the universal

robber has yet left him at Belvedere) is as much in Nature, as any

figure from the pencil of Rembrandt, or any clown in the rustic revels

of Teniers. Indeed it is when a great nation is in great difficulties, that

minds must exalt themselves to the occasion, or all is lost. Strong

passion under the direction of a feeble reason feeds a low fever, which

serves only to destroy the body that entertains it. But vehement

passion does not always indicate an infirm judgment. It often

accompanies, and actuates, and is even auxiliary to a powerful

understanding; and when they both conspire and act harmoniously,

their force is great to destroy disorder within, and to repel injury from

abroad. If ever there was a time that calls on us for no vulgar

conception of things, and for exertions in no vulgar strain, it is the

awful hour that Providence has now appointed to this nation. Every

little measure is a great errour; and every great errour will bring on

no small ruin. Nothing can be directed above the mark that we must

aim at. Every thing below it is absolutely thrown away.

XCEPT WITH THE ADDITION of the unheard-of insult offered to our

Ambassador by his rude expulsion, we are never to forget that the

point on which the negotiation with De la Croix broke off, was exactly

that which had stifled in it’s cradle the negotiation we had attempted

with Barthélémy. Each of these transactions concluded with a

manifesto upon our part: but the last of our manifestoes very

materially differed from the first. The first Declaration stated, that “

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nothing was left but to prosecute a war equally just and necessary. ”

In the second, the justice and necessity of the war is dropped: The

sentence importing that nothing was left but the prosecution of such a

war, disappears also. Instead of this resolution to prosecute the war,

we sink into a whining lamentation on the abrupt termination of the

treaty. We have nothing left but the last resource of female weakness,

of helpless infancy, of doting decrepitude—wailing and lamentation.

We cannot even utter a sentiment of vigour. “ His Majesty has only to

lament.” A poor possession, to be left to a great Monarch! Mark the

effect produced on our councils by continued insolence, and inveterate

hostility. We grow more malleable under their blows. In reverential

silence, we smother the cause and origin of the war. On that

fundamental article of faith, we leave every one to abound in his own

sense. In the Minister’s speech, glossing on the Declaration, it is

indeed mentioned; but very feebly. The lines are so faintly drawn as

hardly to be traced. They only make a part of our consolation in the

circumstances which we so dolefully lament. We rest our merits on

the humility, the earnestness of solicitation, and the perfect good faith

of those submissions, which have been used to persuade our Regicide

enemies to grant us some sort of peace. Not a word is said, which

might not have been full as well said, and much better too, if the

British nation had appeared in the simple character of a penitent

convinced of his errours and offences, and offering, by penances, by

pilgrimages, and by all the modes of expiation ever devised by

anxious, restless guilt, to make all the atonement in his miserable

power.

ECLARATION

ENDS

as I have before quoted it, with a solemn

voluntary pledge, the most full and the most solemn that ever was

given, of our resolution (if so it may be called) to enter again into the

very same course. It requires nothing more of the Regicides, than to

furnish some sort of excuse, some sort of colourable pretext, for our

renewing the supplications of innocence at the feet of guilt. It leaves

the moment of negotiation, (a most important moment,) to the choice

of the enemy. He is to regulate it according to the convenience of his

affairs. He is to bring it forward at that time when it may best serve to

establish his authority at home, and to extend his power abroad. A

dangerous assurance for this nation to give, whether it is broken or

whether it is kept. As all treaty was broken off, and broken off in the

manner we have seen, the field of future conduct ought to be

reserved free and unincumbered to our future discretion. As to the

sort of condition prefixed to the pledge, namely, “that the enemy

should be disposed to enter into the work of general pacification with

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the spirit of reconciliation and equity,” this phraseology cannot

possibly be considered otherwise than as so many words thrown in to

fill the sentence, and to round it to the ear. We prefixed the same

plausible conditions to any renewal of the negotiation, in our

manifesto on the rejection of our proposals at Basle. We did not

consider those conditions as binding. We opened a much more serious

negotiation without any sort of regard to them; and there is no new

negotiation, which we can possibly open upon fewer indications of

conciliation and equity, than were to be discovered, when we entered

into our last at Paris. Any of the slightest pretences, any of the most

loose, formal, equivocating expressions, would justify us, under the

peroration of this piece, in again sending the last, or some other Lord

Malmesbury to Paris.

I hope I misunderstand this pledge; or, that we shall shew no more

regard to it, than we have done to all the faith that we have plighted

to vigour and resolution in our former declaration. If I am to

understand the conclusion of the declaration to be what unfortunately

it seems to me, we make an engagement with the enemy, without

any correspondent engagement on his side. We seem to have cut

ourselves off from any benefit which an intermediate state of things

might furnish to enable us totally to overturn that power, so little

connected with moderation and justice. By holding out no hope, either

to the justly discontented in France, or to any foreign power, and

leaving the re-commencement of all treaty to this identical junto of

assassins, we do in effect assure and guarantee to them the full

possession of the rich fruits of their confiscations, of their murders of

men, women, and children, and of all the multiplied, endless,

nameless iniquities by which they have obtained their power. We

guarantee to them the possession of a country, such and so situated

as France, round, entire, immensely perhaps augmented.

ELL! SOME WILL SAY, in this case we have only submitted to the nature

of things. The nature of things is, I admit, a sturdy adversary. This

might be alleged as a plea for our attempt at a treaty. But what plea

of that kind can be alleged, after the treaty was dead and gone, in

favour of this posthumous declaration? No necessity has driven us to

that pledge. It is without a counterpart even in expectation. And what

can be stated to obviate the evil which that solitary engagement must

produce on the understandings or the fears of men? I ask, what have

the Regicides promised you in return, in case you should shew what

they would call dispositions to conciliation and equity, whilst you are

giving that pledge from the throne, and engaging Parliament to

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counter-secure it? It is an awful consideration. It was on the very day

of the date of this wonderful pledge,

in which we assumed the

directorial Government as lawful, and in which we engaged ourselves

to treat with them whenever they pleased; it was on that very day,

the Regicide fleet was weighing anchor from one of your harbours,

where it had remained four days in perfect quiet. These harbours of

the British dominions are the ports of France. They are of no use, but

to protect an enemy from your best Allies, the storms of Heaven, and

his own rashness. Had the West of Ireland been an unportuous coast,

the French naval power would have been undone. The enemy uses the

moment for hostility, without the least regard to your future

dispositions of equity and conciliation. They go out of what were once

your harbours, and they return to them at their pleasure. Eleven days

they had the full use of Bantry Bay, and at length their fleet returns

from their harbour of Bantry to their harbour of Brest. Whilst you are

invoking the propitious spirit of Regicide equity and conciliation, they

answer you with an attack. They turn out the pacifick bearer of your

“how-do-you-do’s,” Lord Malmesbury; and they return your visit, and

their “thanks for your obliging enquiries,” by their old practised

assassin Hoche. They come to attack—What? A town, a fort, a naval

station? They come to attack your King, your Constitution, and the

very being of that Parliament, which was holding out to them these

pledges, together with the entireness of the Empire, the Laws,

Liberties, and Properties of all the people. We know that they

meditated the very same invasion, and for the very same purposes,

upon this Kingdom; and had the coast been as opportune, would have

effected it.

Whilst you are in vain torturing your invention to assure them of your

sincerity and good faith, they have left no doubt concerning their good

faith, and their sincerity towards those to whom they have engaged

their honour. To their power they have been true to the only pledge

they have ever yet given to you, or to any of yours; I mean the

solemn engagement which they entered into with the deputation of

traitors who appeared at their bar, from England and from Ireland, in

1792. They have been true and faithful to the engagement which they

had made more largely; that is, their engagement to give effectual aid

to insurrection and treason, wherever they might appear in the world.

We have seen the British Declaration. This is the counter-declaration

of the Directory. This is the reciprocal pledge which Regicide amity

gives to the conciliatory pledges of Kings! But, thank God, such

pledges cannot exist single. They have no counterpart; and if they

had, the enemy’s conduct cancels such declarations; and I trust,

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along with them, cancels every thing of mischief and dishonour that

they contain.

HERE

ONE

THING

in this business which appears to be wholly

unaccountable, or accountable on a supposition I dare not entertain

for a moment. I cannot help asking, Why all this pains to clear the

British Nation of ambition, perfidy, and the insatiate thirst of war? At

what period of time was it that our country has deserved that load of

infamy, of which nothing but preternatural humiliation in language

and conduct can serve to clear us? If we have deserved this kind of

evil fame from any thing we have done in a state of prosperity, I am

sure, that it is not an abject conduct in adversity that can clear our

reputation. Well is it known that ambition can creep as well as soar.

The pride of no person in a flourishing condition is more justly to be

dreaded, than that of him who is mean and cringing under a doubtful

and unprosperous fortune. But it seems it was thought necessary to

give some out-of-the-way proofs of our sincerity, as well as of our

freedom from ambition. Is then fraud and falsehood become the

distinctive character of Englishmen? Whenever your enemy chooses to

accuse you of perfidy and ill faith, will you put it into his power to

throw you into the purgatory of self-humiliation? Is his charge equal

to the finding of the grand jury of Europe, and sufficient to put you

upon your trial? But on that trial I will defend the English Ministry. I

am sorry that on some points I have, on the principles I have always

opposed, so good a defence to make. They were not the first to begin

the war. They did not excite the general confederacy in Europe, which

was so properly formed on the alarm given by the Jacobinism of

France. They did not begin with an hostile aggression on the Regicides

or any of their allies. These parricides of their own country,

disciplining themselves for foreign by domestick violence, were the

first to attack a power that was our ally, by nature, by habit, and by

the sanction of multiplied treaties. Is it not true, that they were the

first to declare war upon this kingdom? Is every word in the

declaration from Downing-Street, concerning their conduct, and

concerning ours and that of our allies, so obviously false, that it is

necessary to give some new invented proofs of our good faith, in

order to expunge the memory of all this perfidy?

We know that over-labouring a point of this kind, has the direct

contrary effect from what we wish. We know that there is a legal

presumption against men quando se nimis purgitant; and if a charge

of ambition is not refuted by an affected humility, certainly the

character of fraud and perfidy is still less to be washed away by

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indications of meanness. Fraud and prevarication are servile vices.

They sometimes grow out of the necessities, always out of the habits

of slavish and degenerate spirits: and on the theatre of the world, it is

not by assuming the mask of a Davus or a Geta that an actor will

obtain credit for manly simplicity and a liberal openness of

proceeding. It is an erect countenance: it is a firm adherence to

principle; it is a power of resisting false shame and frivolous fear, that

assert our good faith and honour, and assure to us the confidence of

mankind. Therefore all these Negotiations, and all the Declarations

with which they were preceded and followed, can only serve to raise

presumptions against that good faith and public integrity, the fame of

which to preserve inviolate is so much the interest and duty of every

nation.

HE PLEDGE IS AN ENGAGEMENT “to all Europe.” This is the more

extraordinary, because it is a pledge, which no power in Europe,

whom I have yet heard of, has thought proper to require at our

hands. I am not in the secrets of office; and therefore I may be

excused for proceeding upon probabilities and exteriour indications. I

have surveyed all Europe from the east to the west, from the north to

the south, in search of this call upon us to purge ourselves of “subtle

duplicity and a Punick style” in our proceedings. I have not heard that

his Excellency the Ottoman Ambassador has expressed his doubts of

the British sincerity in our Negotiation with the most unchristian

Republic lately set up at our door. What sympathy, in that quarter,

may have introduced a remonstrance upon the want of faith in this

nation, I cannot positively say. If it exists, it is in Turkish or Arabick,

and possibly is not yet translated. But none of the nations which

compose the old Christian world have I yet heard as calling upon us

for those judicial purgations and ordeals, by fire and water, which we

have chosen to go through; for the other great proof, by battle, we

seem to decline.

For whose use, entertainment, or instruction, are all those over-

strained and over-laboured proceedings in Council, in Negotiation, and

in Speeches in Parliament, intended? What Royal Cabinet is to be

enriched with these high-finished pictures of the arrogance of the

sworn enemies of Kings, and the meek patience of a British

Administration? In what heart is it intended to kindle pity towards our

multiplied mortifications and disgraces? At best it is superfluous. What

nation is unacquainted with the haughty disposition of the common

enemy of all nations? It has been more than seen, it has been felt;

not only by those who have been the victims of their imperious

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rapacity, but, in a degree, by those very powers who have consented

to establish this robbery, that they might be able to copy it, and with

impunity to make new usurpations of their own. The King of Prussia

has hypothecated in trust to the Regicides his rich and fertile

territories on the Rhine, as a pledge of his zeal and affection to the

cause of liberty and equality. He has seen them robbed with

unbounded liberty, and with the most levelling equality. The woods

are wasted; the country is ravaged; property is confiscated; and the

people are put to bear a double yoke, in the exactions of a tyrannical

Government and in the contributions of an hostile irruption. Is it to

satisfy the Court of Berlin, that the Court of London is to give the

same sort of pledge of it’s sincerity and good faith to the French

Directory? It is not that heart full of sensibility—it is not Luchesini, the

Minister of his Prussian Majesty, the late ally of England, and the

present ally of it’s enemy, who has demanded this pledge of our

sincerity, as the price of the renewal of the long lease of his sincere

friendship to this kingdom.

It is not to our enemy, the now faithful ally of Regicide, late the

faithful ally of Great Britain, the Catholick King, that we address our

doleful lamentation. It is not to the Prince of Peace, whose declaration

of war was one of the first auspicious omens of general tranquillity,

which our dove-like Ambassador, with the olive branch in his beak,

was saluted with at his entrance into the ark of clean birds at Paris.

Surely it is not to the Tetrarch of Sardinia, now the faithful ally of a

power who has seized upon all his fortresses, and confiscated the

oldest dominions of his house; it is not to this once powerful, once

respected, and once cherished ally of Great Britain, that we mean to

prove the sincerity of the peace which we offered to make at his

expence. Or is it to him we are to prove the arrogance of the power

who, under the name of friend, oppresses him, and the poor remains

of his subjects, with all the ferocity of the most cruel enemy?

It is not to Holland, under the name of an ally laid under a permanent

military contribution, filled with their double garrison of barbarous

Jacobin troops and ten times more barbarous Jacobin clubs and

assemblies, that we find ourselves obliged to give this pledge.

Is it to Genoa, that we make this kind promise; a state which the

Regicides were to defend in a favourable neutrality, but whose

neutrality has been, by the gentle influence of Jacobin authority,

forced into the trammels of an alliance; whose alliance has been

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secured by the admission of French garrisons; and whose peace has

been for ever ratified by a forced declaration of war against

ourselves?

It is not the Grand Duke of Tuscany who claims this Declaration; not

the Grand Duke, who for his early sincerity, for his love of peace, and

for his entire confidence in the amity of the assassins of his House,

has been complimented in the British Parliament with the name of “

the wisest Sovereign in Europe ” —it is not this pacifick Solomon, or

his philosophick cudgelled Ministry, cudgelled by English and by

French, whose wisdom and philosophy between them, have placed

Leghorn in the hands of the enemy of the Austrian family, and driven

the only profitable commerce of Tuscany from its only port. It is not

this Sovereign, a far more able Statesman than any of the Medici in

whose chair he sits; it is not the philosopher Carletti, more ably

speculative than Galileo, more profoundly politick than Machiavel, that

call upon us so loudly to give the same happy proofs of the same

good faith to the Republick, always the same, always one and

indivisible.

It is not Venice, whose principal cities the enemy has appropriated to

himself, and scornfully desired the State to indemnify itself from the

Emperor, that we wish to convince of the pride and the despotism of

an enemy, who loads us with his scoffs and buffets.

It is not for his Holiness we intend this consolatory declaration of our

own weakness and of the tyrannous temper of his grand enemy. That

Prince has known both the one and the other from the beginning. The

artists of the French Revolution, had given their very first essays and

sketches of robbery and desolation against his territories, in a far

more cruel “murdering piece” than had ever entered into the

imagination of painter or poet. Without ceremony, they tore from his

cherishing arms the possessions which he held for five hundred years,

undisturbed by all the ambition of all the ambitious Monarchs who,

during that period, have reigned in France. Is it to him, in whose

wrong we have in our late negotiation ceded his now unhappy

countries near the Rhone, lately amongst the most flourishing

(perhaps the most flourishing for their extent) of all the countries

upon earth, that we are to prove the sincerity of our resolution to

make peace with the Republick of barbarism? That venerable

Potentate and Pontiff is sunk deep into the vale of years; he is half

disarmed by his peaceful character; his dominions are more than half

disarmed by a peace of two hundred years, defended, as they were,

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not by force but by reverence; yet in all these straits, we see him

display, amidst the recent ruins and the new defacements of his

plundered capital, along with the mild and decorated piety of the

modern, all the spirit and magnanimity of ancient Rome. Does he,

who, though himself unable to defend them, nobly refused to receive

pecuniary compensations for the protection he owed to his people of

Avignon, Carpentras, and the Venaissin—does he want proofs of our

good disposition to deliver over that people, without any security for

them, or any compensation to their Sovereign, to this cruel enemy?

Does he want to be satisfied of the sincerity of our humiliation to

France, who has seen his free, fertile and happy city and state of

Bologna, the cradle of regenerated law, the seat of sciences and of

arts, so hideously metamorphosed, whilst he was crying to Great

Britain for aid, and offering to purchase that aid at any price? Is it

him, who sees that chosen spot of plenty and delight converted into a

Jacobin ferocious Republick, dependent on the homicides of France—is

it him, who, from the miracles of his beneficent industry, has done a

work which defied the power of the Roman Emperors, though with an

enthralled world to labour for them, is it him, who has drained and

cultivated the Pontine Marshes, that we are to satisfy of our cordial

spirit of conciliation, with those who, in their equity, are restoring

Holland again to the seas, whose maxims poison more than the

exhalations of the most deadly fens, and who turn all the fertilities of

nature and of art into an howling desert? Is it to him, that we are to

demonstrate the good faith of our submissions to the cannibal

Republick; to him who is commanded to deliver up into their hands

Ancona and Civita Vecchia, seats of commerce, raised by the wise and

liberal labours and expences of the present and late Pontiffs—ports

not more belonging to the Ecclesiastical State than to the commerce

of Great Britain—thus wresting from his hands the power of the keys

of the centre of Italy, as before they had taken possession of the keys

of the northern part from the hands of the unhappy King of Sardinia,

the natural ally of England? Is it to him we are to prove our good faith

in the peace which we are soliciting to receive from the hands of his

and our robbers, the enemies of all arts, all sciences, all civilization,

and all commerce?

Is it to the Cispadane or to the Transpadane Republicks, which have

been forced to bow under the galling yoke of French liberty, that we

address all these pledges of our sincerity and love of peace with their

unnatural parents?

Are we by this declaration to satisfy the King of Naples, whom we

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have left to struggle as he can, after our abdication of Corsica, and

the flight of the whole naval force of England out of the whole circuit

of the Mediterranean, abandoning our allies, our commerce, and the

honour of a nation, once the protectress of all other nations, because

strengthened by the independence, and enriched by the commerce of

them all? By the express provisions of a recent treaty, we had

engaged with the King of Naples to keep a naval force in the

Mediterranean. But, good God! was a treaty at all necessary for this?

The uniform policy of this kingdom as a state, and eminently so as a

commercial State, has at all times led us to keep a powerful squadron

and a commodious naval station in that central sea, which borders

upon, and which connects, a far greater number and variety of States,

European, Asiatick, and African, than any other. Without such a naval

force, France must become despotick mistress of that sea, and of all

the countries whose shores it washes. Our commerce must become

vassal to her, and dependent on her will. Since we are come no longer

to trust to our force in arms, but to our dexterity in negotiation, and

begin to pay a desperate court to a proud and coy usurpation, and

have finally sent an Ambassador to the Bourbon Regicides at Paris;

the King of Naples, who saw that no reliance was to be placed on our

engagements, or on any pledge of our adherence to our nearest and

dearest interests, has been obliged to send his Ambassador also to

join the rest of the squalid tribe of the representatives of degraded

Kings. This Monarch, surely, does not want any proof of the sincerity

of our amicable dispositions to that amicable Republick, into whose

arms he has been given by our desertion of him.

To look to the powers of the North, it is not to the Danish

Ambassador, insolently treated, in his own character and in ours, that

we are to give proofs of the Regicide arrogance, and of our disposition

to submit to it.

With regard to Sweden, I cannot say much. The French influence is

struggling with her independence; and they who consider the manner

in which the Ambassador of that Power was treated not long since at

Paris, and the manner in which the father of the present King of

Sweden (himself the victim of Regicide principles and passions) would

have looked on the present assassins of France, will not be very

prompt to believe that the young King of Sweden has made this kind

of requisition to the King of Great Britain, and has given this kind of

auspice of his new government.

I speak last of the most important of all. It certainly was not the late

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Empress of Russia at whose instance we have given this pledge. It is

not the new Emperour, the inheritour of so much glory, and placed in

a situation of so much delicacy and difficulty for the preservation of

that inheritance—who calls on England, the natural ally of his

dominions, to deprive herself of her power of action, and to bind

herself to France. France at no time, and in none of it’s fashions, least

of all in it’s last, has been ever looked upon as the friend either of

Russia or of Great Britain. Every thing good, I trust, is to be expected

from this Prince, whatever may be, without authority, given out of an

influence over his mind possessed by that only Potentate from whom

he has any thing to apprehend, or with whom he has much even to

discuss.

This Sovereign knows, I have no doubt, and feels, on what sort of

bottom is to be laid the foundation of a Russian throne. He knows

what a rock of native granite is to form the pedestal of his statue, who

is to emulate Peter the Great. His renown will be in continuing with

ease and safety, what his predecessor was obliged to atchieve

through mighty struggles. He is sensible that his business is not to

innovate, but to secure and to establish; that reformations at this day

are attempts at best of ambiguous utility. He will revere his father

with the piety of a son; but in his government he will imitate the

policy of his mother. His father, with many excellent qualities, had a

short reign; because, being a native Russian, he was unfortunately

advised to act in the spirit of a foreigner. His mother reigned over

Russia three and thirty years with the greatest glory; because, with

the disadvantage of being a foreigner born, she made herself a

Russian. A wise Prince like the present will improve his country; but it

will be cautiously and progressively, upon it’s own native ground-work

of religion, manners, habitudes, and alliances. If I prognosticate right,

it is not the Emperour of Russia that ever will call for extravagant

proofs of our desire to reconcile ourselves to the irreconcileable

enemy of all Thrones.

I do not know why I should not include America among the European

Powers; because she is of European origin, and has not yet, like

France, destroyed all traces of manners, laws, opinions, and usages

which she drew from Europe. As long as that Europe shall have any

possessions either in the southern or the northern parts of that

America, even separated as it is by the ocean, it must be considered

as a part of the European system. It is not America, menaced with

internal ruin from the attempts to plant Jacobinism instead of Liberty

in that country; it is not America, whose independence is directly

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attacked by the French, the enemies of the independence of all

nations, that calls upon us to give security by disarming ourselves in a

treacherous peace. By such a peace, we shall deliver the Americans,

their liberty, and their order, without resource, to the mercy of their

imperious allies, who will have peace or neutrality with no state which

is not ready to join her in war against England.

Having run round the whole circle of the European system wherever it

acts, I must affirm, that all the foreign powers who are not leagued

with France for the utter destruction of all balance through Europe and

throughout the world, demand other assurances from this kingdom

than are given in that Declaration. They require assurances, not of the

sincerity of our good dispositions towards the usurpation in France,

but of our affection towards the College of the ancient States of

Europe, and pledges of our constancy, of our fidelity, and of our

fortitude in resisting to the last the power that menaces them all. The

apprehension from which they wish to be delivered cannot be from

any thing they dread in the ambition of England. Our power must be

their strength. They hope more from us than they fear. I am sure the

only ground of their hope, and of our hope, is in the greatness of mind

hitherto shewn by the people of this nation, and it’s adherence to the

unalterable principles of it’s antient policy, whatever Government may

finally prevail in France. I have entered into this detail of the wishes

and expectations of the European Powers, in order to point out more

clearly, not so much what their disposition, as (a consideration of far

greater importance) what their situation demands, according as that

situation is related to the Regicide Republick and to this Kingdom.

HEN IF IT IS NOT TO SATISFY the foreign Powers we make this assurance,

to what Power at home is it that we pay all this humiliating court? Not

to the old Whigs or to the antient Tories of this Kingdom; if any

memory of such antient divisions still exists amongst us. To which of

the principles of these parties is this assurance agreeable? Is it to the

Whigs we are to recommend the aggrandisement of France, and the

subversion of the balance of power? Is it to the Tories we are to

recommend our eagerness to cement ourselves with the enemies of

Royalty and Religion? But if these parties, which by their dissensions

have so often distracted the Kingdom, which by their union have once

saved it, and which by their collision and mutual resistance, have

preserved the variety of this Constitution in it’s unity, be (as I believe

they are) nearly extinct by the growth of new ones, which have their

roots in the present circumstances of the times—I wish to know, to

which of these new descriptions this Declaration is addressed? It can

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hardly be to those persons, who, in the new distribution of parties,

consider the conservation in England of the antient order of things, as

necessary to preserve order every where else, and who regard the

general conservation of order in other countries, as reciprocally

necessary to preserve the same state of things in those Islands. That

party never can wish to see Great Britain pledge herself to give the

lead and the ground of advantage and superiority to the France of to-

day, in any treaty which is to settle Europe. I insist upon it, that so far

from expecting such an engagement, they are generally stupefied and

confounded with it. That the other party which demands great

changes here, and is so pleased to see them every where else, which

party I call Jacobin, that this faction does from the bottom of it’s

heart, approve the declaration, and does erect it’s crest upon the

engagement, there can be little doubt. To them it may be addressed

with propriety, for it answers their purposes in every point.

The party in Opposition within the House of Lords and Commons, it is

irreverent, and half a breach of privilege, (far from my thoughts) to

consider as Jacobin. This party has always denied the existence of

such a faction; and has treated the machinations of those, whom you

and I call Jacobins, as so many forgeries and fictions of the Minister

and his adherents, to find a pretext for destroying freedom, and

setting up an arbitrary power in this Kingdom. However, whether this

Minority has a leaning towards the French system, or only a charitable

toleration of those who lean that way, it is certain that they have

always attacked the sincerity of the Minister in the same modes, and

on the very same grounds, and nearly in the same terms, with the

Directory. It must, therefore, be at the tribunal of the Minority, (from

the whole tenour of the speech) that the Minister appeared to

consider himself obliged to purge himself of duplicity. It was at their

bar that he held up his hand. It was on their sellette that he seemed

to answer interrogatories; it was on their principles that he defended

his whole conduct. They certainly take what the French call the haute

du pavé. They have loudly called for the negotiation. It was accorded

to them. They engaged their support of the war with vigour, in case

Peace was not granted on honourable terms. Peace was not granted

on any terms, honourable or shameful. Whether these judges, few in

number but powerful in jurisdiction, are satisfied; whether they to

whom this new pledge is hypothecated, have redeemed their own;

whether they have given one particle more of their support to

Ministry, or even favoured them with their good opinion, or their

candid construction, I leave it to those, who recollect that memorable

debate, to determine.

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The fact is, that neither this Declaration, nor the negotiation which is

it’s subject, could serve any one good purpose, foreign or domestick;

it could conduce to no end either with regard to allies or neutrals. It

tends neither to bring back the misled; nor to give courage to the

fearful; nor to animate and confirm those, who are hearty and zealous

in the cause.

HEAR

HAS

BEEN

SAID

(though I can scarcely believe it) that a

distinguished person in an Assembly, where if there be less of the

torrent and tempest of eloquence, more guarded expression is to be

expected, that, indeed, there was no just ground of hope in this

business from the beginning.

It is plain that this noble person, however conversant in negotiation,

having been employed in no less than four embassies, and in two

hemispheres, and in one of those negotiations having fully

experienced what it was to proceed to treaty without previous

encouragement, was not at all consulted in this experiment. For his

Majesty’s principal Minister declared, on the very same day, in

another House, “his Majesty’s deep and sincere regret at it’s

unfortunate and abrupt termination, so different from the wishes and

hopes that were entertained”; and in other parts of the speech speaks

of this abrupt termination as a great disappointment, and as a fall

from sincere endeavours and sanguine expectation. Here are, indeed,

sentiments diametrically opposite, as to the hopes with which the

negotiation was commenced and carried on, and what is curious is,

the grounds of the hopes on the one side and the despair on the other

are exactly the same. The logical conclusion from the common

premises is indeed in favour of the noble Lord, for they are agreed

that the enemy was far from giving the least degree of countenance

to any such hopes; and that they proceeded in spite of every

discouragement which the enemy had thrown in their way. But there

is another material point in which they do not seem to differ; that is

to say, the result of the desperate experiment of the noble Lord, and

of the promising attempt of the Great Minister, in satisfying the

people of England, and in causing discontent to the people of France;

or, as the Minister expresses it, “in uniting England and in dividing

France.”

For my own part, though I perfectly agreed with the noble Lord that

the attempt was desperate, so desperate indeed, as to deserve his

name of an experiment, yet no fair man can possibly doubt that the

Minister was perfectly sincere in his proceeding, and that, from his

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ardent wishes for peace with the Regicides, he was led to conceive

hopes which were founded rather in his vehement desires than in any

rational ground of political speculation. Convinced as I am of this, it

had been better, in my humble opinion, that persons of great name

and authority had abstained from those topics which had been used to

call the Minister’s sincerity into doubt, and had not adopted the

sentiments of the Directory upon the subject of all our negotiations;

for the noble Lord expressly says that the experiment was made for

the satisfaction of the country. The Directory says exactly the same

thing. Upon granting, in consequence of our supplications, the

passport to Lord Malmesbury, in order to remove all sort of hope from

it’s success, they charged all our previous steps, even to that moment

of submissive demand to be admitted to their presence, on duplicity

and perfidy; and assumed that the object of all the steps we had

taken was that “of justifying the continuance of the war in the eyes of

the English nation, and of throwing all the odium of it upon the

French”: “The English nation (said they) supports impatiently the

continuance of the war, and a reply must be made to it’s complaints

and it’s reproaches; the Parliament is about to be opened, and the

mouths of the orators who will declaim against the war must be shut;

the demands for new taxes must be justified; and to obtain these

results, it is necessary to be able to advance, that the French

Government refuses every reasonable proposition for peace. ” I am

sorry that the language of the friends to Ministry and the enemies to

mankind should be so much in unison.

S TO THE FACT in which these parties are so well agreed, that the

experiment ought to have been made for the satisfaction of this

country, (meaning the country of England) it were well to be wished,

that persons of eminence would cease to make themselves

representatives of the people of England without a letter of attorney,

or any other act of procuration. In legal construction, the sense of the

people of England is to be collected from the House of Commons; and,

though I do not deny the possibility of an abuse of this trust as well as

any other, yet I think, without the most weighty reasons, and in the

most urgent exigencies, it is highly dangerous to suppose that the

House speaks any thing contrary to the sense of the people, or that

the representative is silent when the sense of the constituent strongly,

decidedly, and upon long deliberation, speaks audibly upon any topic

of moment. If there is a doubt whether the House of Commons

represents perfectly the whole Commons of Great Britain, (I think

there is none) there can be no question but that the Lords and the

Commons together represent the sense of the whole people to the

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Crown, and to the world. Thus it is, when we speak legally and

constitutionally. In a great measure, it is equally true, when we speak

prudentially; but I do not pretend to assert, that there are no other

principles to guide discretion than those which are or can be fixed by

some law, or some constitution; yet before the legally presumed

sense of the people should be superseded by a supposition of one

more real (as in all cases, where a legal presumption is to be

ascertained) some strong proofs ought to exist of a contrary

disposition in the people at large, and some decisive indications of

their desire upon this subject. There can be no question, that,

previously to a direct message from the Crown, neither House of

Parliament did indicate any thing like a wish for such advances as we

have made, or such negotiations as we have carried on. The

Parliament has assented to Ministry; it is not Ministry that has obeyed

the impulse of Parliament. The people at large have their organs

through which they can speak to Parliament and to the Crown by a

respectful petition, and, though not with absolute authority, yet with

weight, they can instruct their Representatives. The freeholders and

other electors in this kingdom have another, and a surer mode of

expressing their sentiments concerning the conduct which is held by

Members of Parliament. In the middle of these transactions, this last

opportunity has been held out to them. In all these points of view, I

positively assert, that the people have no where, and in no way,

expressed their wish of throwing themselves and their Sovereign at

the feet of a wicked and rancorous foe, to supplicate mercy, which,

from the nature of that foe, and from the circumstances of affairs, we

had no sort of ground to expect. It is undoubtedly the business of

Ministers very much to consult the inclinations of the people, but they

ought to take great care that they do not receive that inclination from

the few persons who may happen to approach them. The petty

interests of such gentlemen, their low conceptions of things, their

fears arising from the danger to which the very arduous and critical

situation of publick affairs may expose their places; their

apprehensions from the hazards to which the discontents of a few

popular men at elections may expose their seats in Parliament—all

these causes trouble and confuse the representations which they

make to Ministers of the real temper of the nation. If Ministers,

instead of following the great indications of the Constitution, proceed

on such reports, they will take the whispers of a cabal for the voice of

the people, and the counsels of imprudent timidity for the wisdom of a

nation.

I well remember, that when the fortune of the war began, and it

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began pretty early, to turn, as it is common and natural, we were

dejected by the losses that had been sustained, and with the doubtful

issue of the contests that were foreseen. But not a word was uttered

that supposed peace upon any proper terms, was in our power, or

therefore that it should be in our desire. As usual, with or without

reason, we criticised the conduct of the war, and compared our

fortunes with our measures. The mass of the nation went no further.

For I suppose that you always understood me as speaking of that very

preponderating part of the nation, which had always been equally

adverse to the French principles, and to the general progress of their

Revolution throughout Europe; considering the final success of their

arms and the triumph of their principles as one and the same thing.

FIRST

MEANS

that were used, by any one professing our principles,

to change the minds of this party upon that subject, appeared in a

small pamphlet circulated with considerable industry. It was

commonly given to the noble person himself, who has passed

judgment upon all hopes of negotiation, and justified our late abortive

attempt only as an experiment made to satisfy the country; and yet

that pamphlet led the way in endeavouring to dissatisfy that very

country with the continuance of the war, and to raise in the people

the most sanguine expectations from some such course of negotiation

as has been fatally pursued. This leads me to suppose (and I am glad

to have reason for supposing) that there was no foundation for

attributing the performance in question to that authour; but without

mentioning his name in the title-page, it passed for his, and does still

pass uncontradicted. It was entitled “Remarks on the apparent

Circumstances of the War in the fourth Week of October, 1795.”

This sanguine little king’s-fisher (not prescient of the storm, as by his

instinct he ought to be) appearing at that uncertain season, before the

riggs of old Michaelmas were yet well composed, and when the

inclement storms of winter were approaching, began to flicker over

the seas, and was busy in building it’s halcyon nest, as if the angry

ocean had been soothed by the genial breath of May. Very

unfortunately this auspice was instantly followed by a speech from the

Throne, in the very spirit and principles of that pamphlet.

I say nothing of the newspapers, which are undoubtedly in the

interest, and which are supposed by some to be directly or indirectly

under the influence of Ministers, and which, with less authority than

the pamphlet I speak of, had indeed for some time before held a

similar language, in direct contradiction to their more early tone: in so

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much, that I can speak it with a certain assurance, that very many

who wished to Administration as well as you and I do, thought that in

giving their opinion in favour of this peace, they followed the opinion

of Ministry—they were conscious that they did not lead it. My

inference therefore is this, that the negotiation, whatever it’s merits

may be, in the general principle and policy of undertaking it, is, what

every political measure in general ought to be, the sole work of

Administration; and that if it was an experiment to satisfy any body, it

was to satisfy those, whom the Ministers were in the daily habit of

condemning, and by whom they were daily condemned; I mean, the

Leaders of the Opposition in Parliament. I am certain that the

Ministers were then, and are now, invested with the fullest confidence

of the major part of the nation, to pursue such measures of peace or

war as the nature of things shall suggest as most adapted to the

publick safety. It is in this light therefore, as a measure which ought

to have been avoided, and ought not to be repeated, that I take the

liberty of discussing the merits of this system of Regicide

Negotiations. It is not a matter of light experiment, that leaves us

where it found us. Peace or war are the great hinges upon which the

very being of nations turns. Negotiations are the means of making

peace or preventing war, and are therefore of more serious

importance than almost any single event of war can possibly be.

THE

VERY

OUTSET

I do not hesitate to affirm, that this country in

particular, and the publick law in general, have suffered more by this

negotiation of experiment, than by all the battles together that we

have lost from the commencement of this century to this time, when

it touches so nearly to it’s close. I therefore have the misfortune not

to coincide in opinion with the great Statesman who set on foot a

negotiation, as he said, “in spite of the constant opposition he had

met with from France.” He admits, “that the difficulty in this

negotiation became most seriously increased indeed, by the situation

in which we were placed, and the manner in which alone the enemy

would admit of a negotiation.” This situation so described, and so truly

described, rendered our solicitation not only degrading, but from the

very outset evidently hopeless.

I find it asserted, and even a merit taken for it, “that this country

surmounted every difficulty of form and etiquette which the enemy

had thrown in our way.” An odd way of surmounting a difficulty by

cowering under it! I find it asserted that an heroick resolution had

been taken, and avowed in Parliament, previous to this negotiation,

“that no consideration of etiquette should stand in the way of it.”

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Etiquette, if I understand rightly the term, which in any extent is of

modern usage, had it’s original application to those ceremonial and

formal observances practised at Courts, which had been established

by long usage, in order to preserve the sovereign power from the rude

intrusion of licentious familiarity, as well as to preserve Majesty itself

from a disposition to consult it’s ease at the expence of it’s dignity.

The term came afterwards to have a greater latitude, and to be

employed to signify certain formal methods used in the transactions

between sovereign States.

In the more limited as well as in the larger sense of the term, without

knowing what the etiquette is, it is impossible to determine whether it

is a vain and captious punctilio, or a form necessary to preserve

decorum in character and order in business. I readily admit, that

nothing tends to facilitate the issue of all public transactions more

than a mutual disposition, in the parties treating, to waive all

ceremony. But the use of this temporary suspension of the recognised

modes of respect consists in it’s being mutual, and in the spirit of

conciliation in which all ceremony is laid aside. On the contrary, when

one of the parties to a treaty intrenches himself up to the chin in

these ceremonies, and will not, on his side, abate a single punctilio,

and that all the concessions are upon one side only, the part so

conceding does by this act place himself in a relation of inferiority,

and thereby fundamentally subverts that equality which is of the very

essence of all treaty.

FTER THIS FORMAL ACT of degradation, it was but a matter of course,

that gross insult should be offered to our Ambassador, and that he

should tamely submit to it. He found himself provoked to complain of

the atrocious libels against his publick character and his person, which

appeared in a paper under the avowed patronage of that Government.

The Regicide Directory, on this complaint, did not recognise the

paper; and that was all. They did not punish, they did not dismiss,

they did not even reprimand the writer. As to our Ambassador, this

total want of reparation for the injury was passed by under the

pretence of despising it.

In this but too serious business, it is not possible here to avoid a

smile. Contempt is not a thing to be despised. It may be borne with a

calm and equal mind, but no man by lifting his head high can pretend

that he does not perceive the scorns that are poured down upon him

from above. All these sudden complaints of injury, and all these

deliberate submissions to it, are the inevitable consequences of the

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situation in which we had placed ourselves; a situation wherein the

insults were such as nature would not enable us to bear, and

circumstances would not permit us to resent.

T WAS NOT LONG, however, after this contempt of contempt upon the

part of our Ambassador (who by the way represented his Sovereign)

that a new object was furnished for displaying sentiments of the same

kind, though the case was infinitely aggravated. Not the Ambassador,

but the King himself was libelled and insulted; libelled, not by a

creature of the Directory, but by the Directory itself. At least so Lord

Malmesbury understood it, and so he answered it in his note of the

12th December, 1796, in which he says, “With regard to the offensive

and injurious insinuations which are contained in that paper, and

which are only calculated to throw new obstacles in the way of that

accommodation, which the French Government profess to desire, THE

KING HAS DEEMED IT FAR BENEATH HIS DIGNITY to permit an

answer to be made to them on his part, in any manner whatsoever.”

I am of opinion, that if his Majesty had kept aloof from that wash and

off-scouring of every thing that is low and barbarous in the world, it

might be well thought unworthy of his dignity to take notice of such

scurrilities. They must be considered as much the natural expression

of that kind of animal, as it is the expression of the feelings of a dog

to bark; but when the King had been advised to recognise not only

the monstrous composition as a Sovereign Power, but, in conduct, to

admit something in it like a superiority— when the Bench of Regicide

was made, at least, co-ordinate with his Throne, and raised upon a

platform full as elevated—this treatment could not be passed by under

the appearance of despising it. It would not, indeed, have been proper

to keep up a war of the same kind, but an immediate, manly, and

decided resentment ought to have been the consequence. We ought

not to have waited for the disgraceful dismissal of our Ambassador.

There are cases in which we may pretend to sleep: but the wittol rule

has some sense in it, Non omnibus dormio. We might, however, have

seemed ignorant of the affront; but what was the fact? Did we

dissemble or pass it by in silence? When dignity is talked of, (a

language which I did not expect to hear in such a transaction,) I must

say what all the world must feel, that it was not for the King’s dignity

to notice this insult, and not to resent it. This mode of proceeding is

formed on new ideas of the correspondence between Sovereign

Powers.

HIS WAS FAR from the only ill effect of the policy of degradation. The

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state of inferiority in which we were placed in this vain attempt at

treaty, drove us headlong from errour into errour, and led us to

wander far away, not only from all the paths which have been beaten

in the old course of political communication between mankind, but out

of the ways even of the most common prudence. Against all rules,

after we had met nothing but rebuffs in return to all our proposals, we

made two confidential communications to those in whom we had no

confidence, and who reposed no confidence in us. What was worse,

we were fully aware of the madness of the step we were taking.

Ambassadors are not sent to a hostile power, persevering in

sentiments of hostility, to make candid, confidential, and amicable

communications. Hitherto the world has considered it as the duty of

an Ambassador in such a situation to be cautious, guarded, dexterous,

and circumspect. It is true that mutual confidence and common

interest dispense with all rules, smooth the rugged way, remove every

obstacle, and make all things plain and level. When, in the last

century, Temple and De Witt negotiated the famous Triple Alliance,

their candour, their freedom, and the most confidential disclosures,

were the result of true policy. Accordingly, in spite of all the dilatory

forms of the complex Government of the United Provinces, the treaty

was concluded in three days. It did not take a much longer time to

bring the same State (that of Holland) through a still more

complicated transaction, that of the Grand Alliance. But in the present

case, this unparalleled candour, this unpardonable want of reserve,

produced what might have been expected from it, the most serious

evils. It instructed the enemy in the whole plan of our demands and

concessions. It made the most fatal discoveries.

ND FIRST, IT INDUCED US to lay down the basis of a treaty which itself

had nothing to rest upon; it seems, we thought we had gained a great

point in getting this basis admitted—that is, a basis of mutual

compensation and exchange of conquests. If a disposition to peace,

and with any reasonable assurance, had been previously indicated,

such a plan of arrangement might with propriety and safety be

proposed, because these arrangements were not, in effect, to make

the basis, but a part of the superstructure, of the fabrick of

pacification. The order of things would thus be reversed. The mutual

disposition to peace would form the reasonable base upon which the

scheme of compensation, upon one side or the other, might be

constructed. This truly fundamental base being once laid, all

differences arising from the spirit of huckstering and barter might be

easily adjusted. If the restoration of peace, with a view to the

establishment of a fair balance of power in Europe, had been made

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the real basis of the treaty, the reciprocal value of the compensations

could not be estimated according to their proportion to each other,

but according to their proportionate relation to that end: to that great

end the whole would be subservient. The effect of the treaty would be

in a manner secured before the detail of particulars was begun, and

for a plain reason, because the hostile spirit on both sides had been

conjured down. But if in the full fury, and unappeased rancour of war,

a little traffick is attempted, it is easy to divine what must be the

consequence to those who endeavour to open that kind of petty

commerce.

ILLUSTRATE

what I have said, I go back no further than to the two

last Treaties of Paris, and to the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, which

preceded the first of these two Treaties of Paris by about fourteen or

fifteen years. I do not mean here to criticise any of them. My opinions

upon some particulars of the Treaty of Paris in 1763, are published in

a pamphlet,

which your recollection will readily bring into your view.

I recur to them only to shew that their basis had not been, and never

could have been a mere dealing of truck and barter, but that the

parties being willing, from common fatigue or common suffering, to

put an end to a war, the first object of which had either been obtained

or despaired of, the lesser objects were not thought worth the price of

further contest. The parties understanding one another, so much was

given away without considering from whose budget it came, not as

the value of the objects, but as the value of peace to the parties

might require. At the last treaty of Paris, the subjugation of America

being despaired of on the part of Great Britain, and the independence

of America being looked upon as secure upon the part of France, the

main cause of the war was removed; and then the conquests which

France had made upon us (for we had made none of importance upon

her) were surrendered with sufficient facility. Peace was restored as

peace. In America the parties stood as they were possessed. A limit

was to be settled, but settled as a limit to secure that peace, and not

at all on a system of equivalents, for which, as we then stood with the

United States, there were little or no materials.

At the preceding treaty of Paris, I mean that of 1763, there was

nothing at all on which to fix a basis of compensation from reciprocal

cession of conquests. They were all on one side. The question with us

was not what we were to receive, and on what consideration, but

what we were to keep for indemnity or to cede for peace. Accordingly

no place being left for barter, sacrifices were made on our side to

peace; and we surrendered to the French their most valuable

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possessions in the West Indies without any equivalent. The rest of

Europe fell soon after into it’s antient order; and the German war

ended exactly where it had begun.

The treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was built upon a similar basis. All the

conquests in Europe had been made by France. She had subdued the

Austrian Netherlands, and broken open the gates of Holland. We had

taken nothing in the West Indies, and Cape Breton was a trifling

business indeed. France gave up all for peace. The allies had given up

all that was ceded at Utrecht. Louis the Fourteenth made all, or nearly

all, the cessions at Ryswick, and at Nimeguen. In all those treaties,

and in all the preceding, as well as in the others which intervened, the

question never had been that of barter. The balance of power had

been ever assumed as the known common law of Europe at all times,

and by all powers: the question had only been (as it must happen) on

the more or less inclination of that balance.

This general balance was regarded in four principal points of view: the

GREAT MIDDLE BALANCE, which comprehended Great Britain, France, and

Spain; the

BALANCE OF THE NORTH; the BALANCE, external and internal, of

ERMANY; and the BALANCE OF ITALY. In all those systems of balance,

England was the power to whose custody it was thought it might be

most safely committed.

France, as she happened to stand, secured the balance, or

endangered it. Without question she had been long the security for

the balance of Germany, and under her auspices the system, if not

formed, had been at least perfected. She was so in some measure

with regard to Italy, more than occasionally. She had a clear interest

in the balance of the North, and had endeavoured to preserve it. But

when we began to treat with the present France, or more properly to

prostrate ourselves to her, and to try if we should be admitted to

ransom our allies, upon a system of mutual concession and

compensation, we had not one of the usual facilities. For first, we had

not the smallest indication of a desire for peace on the part of the

enemy; but rather the direct contrary. Men do not make sacrifices to

obtain what they do not desire: and as for the balance of power, it

was so far from being admitted by France either on the general

system, or with regard to the particular systems that I have

mentioned, that, in the whole body of their authorized or encouraged

reports and discussions upon the theory of the diplomatic system,

they constantly rejected the very idea of the balance of power, and

treated it as the true cause of all the wars and calamities that had

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afflicted Europe: and their practice was correspondent to the

dogmatick positions they had laid down. The Empire and the Papacy it

was their great object to destroy, and this, now openly avowed and

stedfastly acted upon, might have been discerned with very little

acuteness of sight, from the very first dawnings of the Revolution, to

be the main drift of their policy. For they professed a resolution to

destroy every thing which can hold States together by the tie of

opinion.

Exploding, therefore, all sorts of balances, they avow their design to

erect themselves into a new description of Empire, which is not

grounded on any balance, but forms a sort of impious hierarchy, of

which France is to be the head and the guardian. The law of this their

Empire is any thing rather than the publick law of Europe, the antient

conventions of it’s several States, or the antient opinions which assign

to them superiority or pre-eminence of any sort, or any other kind of

connexion in virtue of antient relations. They permit, and that is all,

the temporary existence of some of the old communities; but whilst

they give to these tolerated States this temporary respite in order to

secure them in a condition of real dependence on themselves, they

invest them on every side by a body of Republicks, formed on the

model, and dependent ostensibly, as well as substantially, on the will,

of the mother Republick to which they owe their origin. These are to

be so many garrisons to check and controul the States which are to be

permitted to remain on the old model, until they are ripe for a change.

It is in this manner that France, on her new system, means to form an

universal empire, by producing an universal revolution. By this

means, forming a new code of communities according to what she

calls the natural rights of man and of States, she pretends to secure

eternal peace to the world, guaranteed by her generosity and justice,

which are to grow with the extent of her power. To talk of the balance

of power to the governors of such a country, was a jargon which they

could not understand even through an interpreter. Before men can

transact any affair, they must have a common language to speak, and

some common recognised principles on which they can argue.

Otherwise, all is cross-purpose and confusion. It was, therefore, an

essential preliminary to the whole proceeding, to fix, whether the

balance of power, the liberties and laws of the Empire, and the

treaties of different belligerent powers in past times, when they put

an end to hostilities, were to be considered as the basis of the present

negotiation.

The whole of the enemy’s plan was known when Lord Malmesbury was

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sent with his scrap of equivalents to Paris. Yet, in this unfortunate

attempt at negotiation, instead of fixing these points, and assuming

the balance of power and the peace of Europe as the basis to which all

cessions on all sides were to be subservient, our solicitor for peace

was directed to reverse that order. He was directed to make mutual

concessions, on a mere comparison of their marketable value, the

base of treaty. The balance of power was to be thrown in as an

inducement, and a sort of make-weight, to supply the manifest

deficiency which must stare him and the world in the face, between

those objects which he was to require the enemy to surrender, and

those which he had to offer as a fair equivalent.

O GIVE ANY FORCE to this inducement, and to make it answer even the

secondary purpose of equalizing equivalents having in themselves no

natural proportionate value, it supposed, that the enemy, contrary to

the most notorious fact, did admit this balance of power to be of some

value, great or small; whereas it is plain, that in the enemy’s estimate

of things, the consideration of the balance of power, as we have said

before, was so far from going in diminution of the value of what the

Directory was desired to surrender, or of giving an additional price to

our objects offered in exchange, that the hope of the utter destruction

of that balance became a new motive to the junto of Regicides for

preserving, as a means for realizing that hope, what we wished them

to abandon.

HUS STOOD THE BASIS of the treaty on laying the first stone of the

foundation. At the very best, upon our side, the question stood upon a

mere naked bargain and sale. Unthinking people here triumphed when

they thought they had obtained it, whereas when obtained as a basis

of a treaty, it was just the worst we could possibly have chosen. As to

our offer to cede a most unprofitable, and, indeed, beggarly,

chargeable counting-house or two in the East-Indies, we ought not to

presume that they would consider this as any thing else than a

mockery. As to any thing of real value, we had nothing under Heaven

to offer (for which we were not ourselves in a very dubious struggle)

except the Island of Martinico only. When this object was to be

weighed against the directorial conquests, merely as an object of a

value at market, the principle of barter became perfectly ridiculous. A

single quarter in the single city of Amsterdam was worth ten

Martinicos; and would have sold for many more years’ purchase in

any market overt in Europe. How was this gross and glaring defect in

the objects of exchange to be supplied? It was to be made up by

argument. And what was that argument? The extreme utility of

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possessions in the West-Indies to the augmentation of the naval

power of France. A very curious topick of argument to be proposed

and insisted on by an Ambassador of Great Britain. It is directly and

plainly this— “Come, we know that of all things you wish a naval

power, and it is natural you should, who wish to destroy the very

sources of the British greatness, to overpower our marine, to destroy

our commerce, to eradicate our foreign influence, and to lay us open

to an invasion, which, at one stroke, may complete our servitude and

ruin, and expunge us from among the nations of the earth. Here I

have it in my budget, the infallible arcanum for that purpose. You are

but novices in the art of naval resources. Let you have the West-

Indies back, and your maritime preponderance is secured, for which

you would do well to be moderate in your demands upon the Austrian

Netherlands.”

Under any circumstances, this is a most extraordinary topick of

argument; but it is rendered by much the more unaccountable, when

we are told, that, if the war has been diverted from the great object of

establishing society and good order in Europe by destroying the

usurpation in France, this diversion was made to increase the naval

resources and power of Great-Britain, and to lower, if not annihilate,

those of the marine of France. I leave all this to the very serious

reflexion of every Englishman.

This basis was no sooner admitted, than the rejection of a treaty upon

that sole foundation was a thing of course. The enemy did not think it

worthy of a discussion, as in truth it was not; and immediately, as

usual, they began, in the most opprobrious and most insolent manner,

to question our sincerity and good faith. Whereas, in truth, there was

no one symptom wanting of openness and fair dealing. What could be

more fair than to lay open to an enemy all that you wished to obtain,

and the price you meant to pay for it, and to desire him to imitate

your ingenuous proceeding, and in the same manner to open his

honest heart to you? Here was no want of fair dealing: but there was

too evidently a fault of another kind. There was much weakness;

there was an eager and impotent desire of associating with this

unsocial power, and of attempting the connexion by any means,

however manifestly feeble and ineffectual. The event was committed

to chance; that is, to such a manifestation of the desire of France for

peace, as would induce the Directory to forget the advantages they

had in the system of barter. Accordingly, the general desire for such a

peace was triumphantly reported from the moment that Lord

Malmesbury had set his foot on shore at Calais.

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It has been said, that the Directory was compelled against it’s will to

accept the basis of barter (as if that had tended to accelerate the

work of pacification!) by the voice of all France. Had this been the

case, the Directors would have continued to listen to that voice to

which it seems they were so obedient: they would have proceeded

with the negotiation upon that basis. But the fact is, that they

instantly broke up the negotiation, as soon as they had obliged our

Ambassador to violate all the principles of treaty, and weakly, rashly,

and unguardedly, to expose, without any counter-proposition, the

whole of our project with regard to ourselves and our allies, and

without holding out the smallest hope that they would admit the

smallest part of our pretensions.

When they had thus drawn from us all that they could draw out, they

expelled Lord Malmesbury, and they appealed for the propriety of

their conduct, to that very France which, we thought proper to

suppose, had driven them to this fine concession; and I do not find,

that in either division of the family of thieves, the younger branch, or

the elder, or in any other body whatsoever, there was any indignation

excited, or any tumult raised; or any thing like the virulence of

opposition which was shewn to the King’s Ministers here, on account

of that transaction.

OTWITHSTANDING ALL THIS, it seems a hope is still entertained, that the

Directory will have that tenderness for the carcase of their country, by

whose very distemper, and on whose festering wounds, like vermin,

they are fed; that these pious patriots will of themselves come into a

more moderate and reasonable way of thinking and acting. In the

name of wonder, what has inspired our Ministry with this hope any

more than with their former expectations?

Do these hopes only arise from continual disappointment? Do they

grow out of the usual grounds of despair? What is there to encourage

them, in the conduct, or even in the declarations of the Ruling Powers

in France, from the first formation of their mischievous Republic to the

hour in which I write? Is not the Directory composed of the same

junto? Are they not the identical men, who, from the base and sordid

vices which belonged to their original place and situation, aspired to

the dignity of crimes; and from the dirtiest, lowest, most fraudulent,

and most knavish of chicaners, ascended in the scale of robbery,

sacrilege, and assassination in all it’s forms, till at last they had

imbrued their impious hands in the blood of their Sovereign? Is it from

these men that we are to hope for this paternal tenderness to their

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country, and this sacred regard for the peace and happiness of all

nations?

SEEMS

there is still another lurking hope, akin to that which

duped us so egregiously before, when our delightful basis was

accepted: we still flatter ourselves that the publick voice of France will

compel this Directory to more moderation. Whence does this hope

arise? What publick voice is there in France? There are, indeed, some

writers, who, since this monster of a Directory has obtained a great

regular military force to guard them, are indulged in a sufficient

liberty of writing, and some of them write well undoubtedly. But the

world knows that in France there is no publick, that the country is

composed but of two descriptions; audacious tyrants and trembling

slaves. The contest between the tyrants is the only vital principle that

can be discerned in France. The only thing which there appears like

spirit, is amongst the late associates, and fastest friends of the

Directory, the more furious and untameable part of the Jacobins. This

discontented member of the faction does almost balance the reigning

divisions; and it threatens every moment to predominate. For the

present, however, the dread of their fury forms some sort of security

to their fellows, who now exercise a more regular, and therefore a

somewhat less ferocious tyranny. Most of the slaves chuse a quiet,

however reluctant, submission to those who are somewhat satiated

with blood, and who, like wolves, are a little more tame from being a

little less hungry, in preference to an irruption of the famished

devourers who are prowling and howling about the fold.

This circumstance assures some degree of permanence to the power

of those, whom we know to be permanently our rancourous and

implacable enemies. But to those very enemies, who have sworn our

destruction, we have ourselves given a further and far better security

by rendering the cause of the Royalists desperate. Those brave and

virtuous, but unfortunate adherents to the ancient constitution of their

country, after the miserable slaughters which have been made in that

body, after all their losses by emigration, are still numerous, but

unable to exert themselves against the force of the usurpation,

evidently countenanced and upheld by those very Princes who had

called them to arm for the support of the legal Monarchy. Where then,

after chasing these fleeting hopes of ours from point to point of the

political horizon, are they at last really found? Not where, under

Providence, the hopes of Englishmen used to be placed—in our own

courage and in our own virtues, but in the moderation and virtue of

the most atrocious monsters that have ever disgraced and plagued

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mankind.

HE ONLY EXCUSE TO BE MADE for all our mendicant diplomacy is the same

as in the case of all other mendicancy—namely, that it has been

founded on absolute necessity. This deserves consideration.

Necessity, as it has no law, so it has no shame; but moral necessity is

not like metaphysical, or even physical. In that category, it is a word

of loose signification, and conveys different ideas to different minds.

To the low-minded, the slightest necessity becomes an invincible

necessity. “The slothful man saith, There is a lion in the way, and I

shall be devoured in the streets.” But when the necessity pleaded is

not in the nature of things, but in the vices of him who alleges it, the

whining tones of common-place beggarly rhetorick produce nothing

but indignation; because they indicate a desire of keeping up a

dishonourable existence, without utility to others, and without dignity

to itself; because they aim at obtaining the dues of labour without

industry; and by frauds would draw from the compassion of others,

what men ought to owe to their own spirit and their own exertions.

I am thoroughly satisfied that if we degrade ourselves, it is the

degradation which will subject us to the yoke of necessity, and, not

that it is necessity which has brought on our degradation. In this

same chaos, where light and darkness are struggling together, the

open subscription of last year, with all it’s circumstances, must have

given us no little glimmering of hope; not (as I have heard, it was

vainly discoursed) that the loan could prove a crutch to a lame

negotiation abroad; and that the whiff and wind of it must at once

have disposed the enemies of all tranquillity to a desire for peace.

Judging on the face of facts, if on them it had any effect at all, it had

the direct contrary effect; for very soon after the loan became publick

at Paris, the negotiation ended, and our Ambassador was

ignominiously expelled. My view of this was different: I liked the loan,

not from the influence which it might have on the enemy, but on

account of the temper which it indicated in our own people. This alone

is a consideration of any importance; because all calculation, formed

upon a supposed relation of the habitudes of others to our own, under

the present circumstances, is weak and fallacious. The adversary must

be judged, not by what we are, or by what we wish him to be, but by

what we must know he actually is; unless we choose to shut our eyes

and our ears to the uniform tenour of all his discourses, and to his

uniform course in all his actions. We may be deluded; but we cannot

pretend that we have been disappointed. The old rule of Ne te

quaesiveris extra, is a precept as available in policy as it is in morals.

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Let us leave off speculating upon the disposition and the wants of the

enemy. Let us descend into our own bosoms; let us ask ourselves

what are our duties, and what are our means of discharging them. In

what heart are you at home? How far may an English Minister confide

in the affections, in the confidence, in the force of an English people?

What does he find us when he puts us to the proof of what English

interest and English honour demand? It is as furnishing an answer to

these questions that I consider the circumstances of the loan. The

effect on the enemy is not in what he may speculate on our resources,

but in what he shall feel from our arms.

The circumstances of the loan have proved beyond a doubt three

capital points, which, if they are properly used, may be advantageous

to the future liberty and happiness of mankind. In the first place, the

loan demonstrates, in regard to instrumental resources, the

competency of this kingdom to the assertion of the common cause,

and to the maintenance and superintendance of that, which it is it’s

duty and it’s glory to hold, and to watch over—the balance of power

throughout the Christian World. Secondly, it brings to light what,

under the most discouraging appearances, I always reckoned on; that

with it’s ancient physical force, not only unimpaired, but augmented,

it’s ancient spirit is still alive in the British nation. It proves, that for

their application there is a spirit equal to the resources, for it’s energy

above them. It proves that there exists, though not always visible, a

spirit which never fails to come forth whenever it is ritually invoked; a

spirit which will give no equivocal response, but such as will hearten

the timidity, and fix the irresolution, of hesitating prudence; a spirit

which will be ready to perform all the tasks that shall be imposed

upon it by publick honour. Thirdly, the loan displays an abundant

confidence in his Majesty’s Government, as administered by his

present servants, in the prosecution of a war which the people

consider, not as a war made on the suggestion of Ministers, and to

answer the purposes of the ambition or pride of statesmen, but as a

war of their own, and in defence of that very property which they

expend for it’s support; a war for that order of things, from which

every thing valuable that they possess is derived, and in which order

alone it can possibly be maintained.

HEAR IN DEROGATION of the value of the fact, from which I draw

inferences so favourable to the spirit of the people, and to it’s just

expectation from Ministers, that the eighteen million loan is to be

considered in no other light, than as taking advantage of a very

lucrative bargain held out to the subscribers. I do not in truth believe

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it. All the circumstances which attended the subscription strongly

spoke a different language. Be it, however, as these detractors say.

This with me derogates little, or rather nothing at all, from the

political value and importance of the fact. I should be very sorry if the

transaction was not such a bargain, otherwise it would not have been

a fair one. A corrupt and improvident loan, like every thing else

corrupt or prodigal, cannot be too much condemned: but there is a

shortsighted parsimony still more fatal than an unforeseeing expence.

The value of money must be judged, like every thing else, from it’s

rate at market. To force that market, or any market, is of all things

the most dangerous. For a small temporary benefit, the spring of all

public credit might be relaxed for ever. The monied men have a right

to look to advantage in the investment of their property. To advance

their money, they risk it; and the risk is to be included in the price. If

they were to incur a loss, that loss would amount to a tax on that

peculiar species of property. In effect, it would be the most unjust and

impolitick of all things, unequal taxation. It would throw upon one

description of persons in the community, that burthen which ought by

fair and equitable distribution to rest upon the whole. None on

account of their dignity should be exempt; none (preserving due

proportion) on account of the scantiness of their means. The moment

a man is exempted from the maintenance of the community, he is in a

sort separated from it. He loses the place of a citizen.

So it is in all taxation; but in a bargain, when terms of loss are looked

for by the borrower from the lender, compulsion, or what virtually is

compulsion, introduces itself into the place of treaty. When

compulsion may be at all used by a State in borrowing, the occasion

must determine. But the compulsion ought to be known, and well

defined, and well distinguished: for otherwise treaty only weakens the

energy of compulsion, while compulsion destroys the freedom of a

bargain. The advantage of both is lost by the confusion of things in

their nature utterly unsociable. It would be to introduce compulsion

into that in which freedom and existence are the same; I mean credit.

The moment that shame, or fear, or force, are directly or indirectly

applied to a loan, credit perishes.

There must be some impulse besides public spirit, to put private

interest into motion along with it. Monied men ought to be allowed to

set a value on their money; if they did not, there could be no monied

men. This desire of accumulation is a principle without which the

means of their service to the State could not exist. The love of lucre,

though sometimes carried to a ridiculous, sometimes to a vicious

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excess, is the grand cause of prosperity to all States. In this natural,

this reasonable, this powerful, this prolifick principle, it is for the

satyrist to expose the ridiculous; it is for the moralist to censure the

vicious; it is for the sympathetick heart to reprobate the hard and

cruel; it is for the Judge to animadvert on the fraud, the extortion,

and the oppression: but it is for the Statesman to employ it as he

finds it, with all it’s concomitant excellencies, with all it’s

imperfections on it’s head. It is his part, in this case, as it is in all

other cases, where he is to make use of the general energies of

nature, to take them as he finds them.

After all, it is a great mistake to imagine, as too commonly, almost

indeed generally, it is imagined, that the publick borrower and the

private lender are two adverse parties with different and contending

interests, and that what is given to the one, is wholly taken from the

other. Constituted as our system of finance and taxation is, the

interests of the contracting parties cannot well be separated,

whatever they may reciprocally intend. He who is the hard lender of

to-day, to-morrow is the generous contributor to his own payment.

For example, the last loan is raised on publick taxes, which are

designed to produce annually two millions sterling. At first view, this is

an annuity of two millions dead charge upon the publick in favour of

certain monied men. But inspect the thing more nearly, follow the

stream in it’s meanders; and you will find that there is a good deal of

fallacy in this state of things.

I take it, that whoever considers any man’s expenditure of his income,

old or new (I speak of certain classes in life) will find a full third of it

to go in taxes, direct or indirect. If so, this new-created income of two

millions will probably furnish 665,000l. (I avoid broken numbers)

towards the payment of it’s own interest, or to the sinking of it’s own

capital. So it is with the whole of the publick debt. Suppose it any

given sum, it is a fallacious estimate of the affairs of a nation to

consider it as a mere burthen; to a degree it is so without question,

but not wholly so, nor any thing like it. If the income from the interest

be spent, the above proportion returns again into the publick stock:

insomuch, that taking the interest of the whole debt to be twelve

million, three hundred thousand pound, (it is something more) not

less than a sum of four million one hundred thousand pound comes

back again to the publick through the channel of imposition. If the

whole, or any part, of that income be saved, so much new capital is

generated; the infallible operation of which is to lower the value of

money, and consequently to conduce towards the improvement of

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publick credit.

I take the expenditure of the capitalist, not the value of the capital, as

my standard; because it is the standard upon which, amongst us,

property as an object of taxation is rated. In this country, land and

offices only excepted, we raise no faculty tax. We preserve the faculty

from the expence. Our taxes, for the far greater portion, fly over the

heads of the lowest classes. They escape too who, with better ability,

voluntarily subject themselves to the harsh discipline of a rigid

necessity. With us, labour and frugality, the parents of riches, are

spread, and wisely too. The moment men cease to augment the

common stock, the moment they no longer enrich it by their industry

or their self-denial, their luxury and even their ease are obliged to pay

contribution to the publick; not because they are vicious principles,

but because they are unproductive. If, in fact, the interest paid by the

publick had not thus revolved again into it’s own fund; if this secretion

had not again been absorbed into the mass of blood, it would have

been impossible for the nation to have existed to this time under such

a debt. But under the debt it does exist and flourish; and this

flourishing state of existence in no small degree is owing to the

contribution from the debt to the payment. Whatever, therefore, is

taken from that capital by too close a bargain, is but a delusive

advantage; it is so much lost to the publick in another way. This

matter cannot, on the one side or the other, be metaphysically

pursued to the extreme, but it is a consideration of which, in all

discussions of this kind, we ought never wholly to lose sight.

T IS NEVER, THEREFORE, wise to quarrel with the interested views of men,

whilst they are combined with the publick interest and promote it: it is

our business to tie the knot, if possible, closer. Resources that are

derived from extraordinary virtues, as such virtues are rare, so they

must be unproductive. It is a good thing for a monied man to pledge

his property on the welfare of his country; he shews that he places his

treasure where his heart is; and, revolving in this circle, we know that

“wherever a man’s treasure is, there his heart will be also.” For these

reasons and on these principles, I have been sorry to see the

attempts which have been made, with more good meaning than

foresight and consideration, towards raising the annual interest of this

loan by private contributions. Wherever a regular revenue is

established, there voluntary contribution can answer no purpose, but

to disorder and disturb it in it’s course. To recur to such aids is, for so

much, to dissolve the community, and to return to a state of

unconnected nature. And even if such a supply should be productive

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in a degree commensurate to its object, it must also be productive of

much vexation, and much oppression. Either the citizens, by the

proposed duties, pay their proportion according to some rate made by

public authority, or they do not. If the law be well made, and the

contributions founded on just proportions, every thing superadded by

something that is not as regular as law, and as uniform in it’s

operation, will become more or less out of proportion. If, on the

contrary, the law be not made upon proper calculation, it is a disgrace

to the publick wisdom, which fails in skill to assess the citizen in just

measure, and according to his means. But the hand of authority is not

always the most heavy hand. It is obvious that men may be

oppressed by many ways, besides those which take their course from

the supreme power of the State. Suppose the payment to be wholly

discretionary. Whatever has it’s origin in caprice, is sure not to

improve in it’s progress, nor to end in reason. It is impossible for each

private individual to have any measure conformable to the particular

condition of each of his fellow-citizens, or to the general exigencies of

his country. ’Tis a random shot at best.

When men proceed in this irregular mode, the first contributor is apt

to grow peevish with his neighbours. He is but too well disposed to

measure their means by his own envy, and not by the real state of

their fortunes, which he can rarely know, and which it may in them be

an act of the grossest imprudence to reveal. Hence the odium and

lassitude, with which people will look upon a provision for the publick

which is bought by discord at the expence of social quiet. Hence the

bitter heartburnings, and the war of tongues which is so often the

prelude to other wars. Nor is it every contribution, called voluntary,

which is according to the free will of the giver. A false shame, or a

false glory, against his feelings, and his judgment, may tax an

individual to the detriment of his family, and in wrong of his creditors.

A pretence of publick spirit may disable him from the performance of

his private duties. It may disable him even from paying the legitimate

contributions which he is to furnish according to the prescript of law;

but what is the most dangerous of all is, that malignant disposition to

which this mode of contribution evidently tends, and which at length

leaves the comparatively indigent, to judge of the wealth, and to

prescribe to the opulent, or those whom they conceive to be such, the

use they are to make of their fortunes. From thence it is but one step

to the subversion of all property.

Far, very far am I from supposing that such things enter into the

purposes of those excellent persons whose zeal has led them to this

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kind of measure; but the measure itself will lead them beyond their

intention, and what is begun with the best designs, bad men will

perversely improve to the worst of their purposes. An ill-founded

plausibility in great affairs is a real evil. In France we have seen the

wickedest and most foolish of men, the Constitution-mongers of 1789,

pursuing this very course, and ending in this very event. These

projectors of deception set on foot two modes of voluntary

contribution to the state. The first, they called patriotick gifts. These,

for the greater part were not more ridiculous in the mode, than

contemptible in the project. The other, which they called the patriotick

contribution, was expected to amount to a fourth of the fortunes of

individuals, but at their own will and on their own estimate; but this

contribution threatening to fall infinitely short of their hopes, they

soon made it compulsory, both in the rate and in the levy, beginning

in fraud, and ending, as all the frauds of power end, in plain violence.

All these devices to produce an involuntary will, were under the

pretext of relieving the more indigent classes. But the principle of

voluntary contribution, however delusive, being once established,

these lower classes first, and then all classes, were encouraged to

throw off the regular methodical payments to the State as so many

badges of slavery. Thus all regular revenue failing, these impostors,

raising the superstructure on the same cheats with which they had

laid the foundation of their greatness, and not content with a portion

of the possessions of the rich, confiscated the whole, and to prevent

them from reclaiming their rights, murdered the proprietors. The

whole of the process has passed before our eyes, and been conducted

indeed with a greater degree of rapidity than could be expected.

My opinion then is, that publick contributions ought only to be raised

by the publick will. By the judicious form of our constitution, the

publick contribution is in it’s name and substance a grant. In it’s origin

it is truly voluntary; not voluntary according to the irregular,

unsteady, capricious will of individuals, but according to the will and

wisdom of the whole popular mass, in the only way in which will and

wisdom can go together. This voluntary grant obtaining in it’s

progress the force of a law, a general necessity which takes away all

merit, and consequently all jealousy from individuals, compresses,

equalizes, and satisfies the whole; suffering no man to judge of his

neighbour, or to arrogate any thing to himself. If their will complies

with their obligation, the great end is answered in the happiest mode;

if the will resists the burthen, every one loses a great part of his own

will as a common lot. After all, perhaps contributions raised by a

charge on luxury, or that degree of convenience which approaches so

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near as to be confounded with luxury, is the only mode of contribution

which may be with truth termed voluntary.

MIGHT

REST

HERE

, and take the loan I speak of as leading to a solution

of that question, which I proposed in my first letter: “Whether the

inability of the country to prosecute the war did necessitate a

submission to the indignities and the calamities of a Peace with the

Regicide power.” But give me leave to pursue this point a little

further.

I know that it has been a cry usual on this occasion, as it has been

upon occasions where such a cry could have less apparent

justification, that great distress and misery have been the

consequence of this war, by the burthens brought and laid upon the

people. But to know where the burthen really lies, and where it

presses, we must divide the people. As to the common people, their

stock is in their persons and in their earnings. I deny that the stock of

their persons is diminished in a greater proportion than the common

sources of populousness abundantly fill up—I mean, constant

employment; proportioned pay according to the produce of the soil,

and where the soil fails, according to the operation of the general

capital; plentiful nourishment to vigorous labour; comfortable

provision to decrepid age, to orphan infancy, and to accidental

malady. I say nothing to the policy of the provision for the poor, in all

the variety of faces under which it presents itself. This is the matter of

another enquiry. I only just speak of it as of a fact, taken with others,

to support me in my denial that hitherto any one of the ordinary

sources of the increase of mankind is dried up by this war. I affirm,

what I can well prove, that the waste has been less than the supply.

To say that in war no man must be killed, is to say that there ought to

be no war. This they may say, who wish to talk idly, and who would

display their humanity at the expence of their honesty, or their

understanding. If more lives are lost in this war than necessity

requires, they are lost by misconduct or mistake. But if the hostility

be just, the errour is to be corrected: the war is not to be abandoned.

That the stock of the common people, in numbers is not lessened, any

more than the causes are impaired, is manifest, without being at the

pains of an actual numeration. An improved and improving

agriculture, which implies a great augmentation of labour, has not yet

found itself at a stand, no, not for a single moment, for want of the

necessary hands, either in the settled progress of husbandry, or in the

occasional pressure of harvests. I have even reason to believe that

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there has been a much smaller importation, or the demand of it, from

a neighbouring kingdom than in former times, when agriculture was

more limited in it’s extent and it’s means, and when the time was a

season of profound peace. On the contrary, the prolifick fertility of

country life has poured it’s superfluity of population into the canals,

and into other publick works which of late years have been

undertaken to so amazing an extent, and which have not only not

been discontinued, but beyond all expectation pushed on with

redoubled vigour, in a war that calls for so many of our men, and so

much of our riches. An increasing capital calls for labour: and an

increasing population answers to the call. Our manufactures,

augmented both for the supply of foreign and domestick consumption,

reproducing with the means of life the multitudes which they use and

waste, (and which many of them devour much more surely and much

more largely than the war) have always found the laborious hand

ready for the liberal pay. That the price of the soldier is highly raised

is true. In part this rise may be owing to some measures not so well

considered in the beginning of this war; but the grand cause has been

the reluctance of that class of people from whom the soldiery is taken,

to enter into a military life—not that but once entered into, it has it’s

conveniences, and even it’s pleasures. I have seldom known a soldier

who, at the intercession of his friends, and at their no small charge,

had been redeemed from that discipline, that in a short time was not

eager to return to it again. But the true reason is the abundant

occupation, and the augmented stipend found in towns, and villages,

and farms, which leaves a smaller number of persons to be disposed

of. The price of men for new and untried ways of life must bear a

proportion to the profits of that mode of existence from whence they

are to be bought.

O FAR AS TO THE STOCK of the common people, as it consists in their

persons. As to the other part, which consists in their earnings, I have

to say, that the rates of wages are very greatly augmented almost

through the kingdom. In the parish where I live, it has been raised

from seven to nine shillings in the week for the same labourer,

performing the same task, and no greater. Except something in the

malt taxes, and the duties upon sugars, I do not know any one tax

imposed for very many years past which affects the labourer in any

degree whatsoever; while on the other hand, the tax upon houses not

having more than seven windows (that is, upon cottages) was

repealed the very year before the commencement of the present war.

On the whole, I am satisfied, that the humblest class, and that class

which touches the most nearly on the lowest, out of which it is

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continually emerging, and to which it is continually falling, receives far

more from publick impositions than it pays. That class receives two

million sterling annually from the classes above it. It pays to no such

amount towards any publick contribution.

HOPE

NOT

NECESSARY

for me to take notice of that language, so ill

suited to the persons to whom it has been attributed, and so

unbecoming the place in which it is said to have been uttered,

concerning the present war as the cause of the high price of

provisions during the greater part of the year 1796. I presume it is

only to be ascribed to the intolerable licence with which the

newspapers break not only the rules of decorum in real life, but even

the dramatick decorum, when they personate great men, and, like

bad poets, make the heroes of the piece talk more like us Grub-street

scribblers, than in a style consonant to persons of gravity and

importance in the State. It was easy to demonstrate the cause, and

the sole cause, of that rise in the grand article and first necessary of

life. It would appear that it had no more connexion with the war, than

the moderate price to which all sorts of grain were reduced, soon after

the return of Lord Malmesbury, had with the state of politicks and the

fate of his Lordship’s treaty. I have quite as good reason (that is, no

reason at all) to attribute this abundance to the longer continuance of

the war, as the gentlemen who personate leading Members of

Parliament, have had for giving the enhanced price to that war, at a

more early period of it’s duration. Oh, the folly of us poor creatures,

who, in the midst of our distresses, or our escapes, are ready to claw

or caress one another, upon matters that so seldom depend on our

wisdom or our weakness, on our good or evil conduct towards each

other!

An untimely shower, or an unseasonable drought; a frost too long

continued, or too suddenly broken up, with rain and tempest; the

blight of the spring, or the smut of the harvest; will do more to cause

the distress of the belly, than all the contrivances of all Statesmen can

do to relieve it. Let Government protect and encourage industry,

secure property, repress violence, and discountenance fraud, it is all

that they have to do. In other respects, the less they meddle in these

affairs the better; the rest is in the hands of our Master and theirs.

We are in a constitution of things wherein “ Modo sol nimius, modo

corripit imber. ” But I will push this matter no further. As I have said a

good deal upon it at various times during my publick service, and

have lately written something on it, which may yet see the light, I

shall content myself now with observing, that the vigorous and

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laborious class of life has lately got from the bon ton of the humanity

of this day, the name of the “ labouring poor. ” We have heard many

plans for the relief of the “ Labouring Poor. ” This puling jargon is not

as innocent as it is foolish. In meddling with great affairs, weakness is

never innoxious. Hitherto the name of Poor (in the sense in which it is

used to excite compassion) has not been used for those who can, but

for those who cannot labour—for the sick and infirm; for orphan

infancy; for languishing and decrepid age: but when we affect to pity

as poor, those who must labour or the world cannot exist, we are

trifling with the condition of mankind. It is the common doom of man

that he must eat his bread by the sweat of his brow, that is, by the

sweat of his body, or the sweat of his mind. If this toil was inflicted as

a curse, it is as might be expected from the curses of the Father of all

Blessings—it is tempered with many alleviations, many comforts.

Every attempt to fly from it, and to refuse the very terms of our

existence, becomes much more truly a curse, and heavier pains and

penalties fall upon those who would elude the tasks which are put

upon them by the great Master Workman of the World, who in his

dealings with his creatures sympathizes with their weakness, and

speaking of a creation wrought by mere will out of nothing, speaks of

six days of labour and one of rest. I do not call a healthy young man,

chearful in his mind, and vigorous in his arms—I cannot call such a

man, poor; I cannot pity my kind as a kind, merely because they are

men. This affected pity only tends to dissatisfy them with their

condition, and to teach them to seek resources where no resources

are to be found—in something else than their own industry, and

frugality, and sobriety. Whatever may be the intention (which,

because I do not know, I cannot dispute) of those who would

discontent mankind by this strange pity, they act towards us, in the

consequences, as if they were our worst enemies.

TURNING

OUR

VIEW

from the lower to the higher classes, it will not be

necessary for me to shew at any length that the stock of the latter, as

it consists in their numbers, has not yet suffered any material

diminution. I have not seen, or heard it asserted: I have no reason to

believe it. There is no want of officers, that I have ever understood,

for the new ships which we commission, or the new regiments which

we raise. In the nature of things it is not with their persons that the

higher classes principally pay their contingent to the demands of war.

There is another, and not less important, part which rests with almost

exclusive weight upon them. They furnish the means,

How war may best upheld,

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Move by her two main nerves, iron and gold,

In all her equipage.

Not that they are exempt from contributing also by their personal

service in the fleets and armies of their country. They do contribute,

and in their full and fair proportion, according to the relative

proportion of their numbers in the community. They contribute all the

mind that actuates the whole machine. The fortitude required of them

is very different from the unthinking alacrity of the common soldier,

or common sailor in the face of danger and death. It is not a passion,

it is not an impulse, it is not a sentiment. It is a cool, steady,

deliberate principle, always present, always equable; having no

connexion with anger; tempering honour with prudence; incited,

invigorated, and sustained by a generous love of fame; informed,

moderated and directed by an enlarged knowledge of it’s own great

publick ends; flowing in one blended stream from the opposite

sources of the heart and the head; carrying in itself it’s own

commission, and proving it’s title to every other command, by the

first and most difficult command, that of the bosom in which it

resides. It is a fortitude, which unites with the courage of the field the

more exalted and refined courage of the council; which knows as well

to retreat as to advance; which can conquer as well by delay, as by

the rapidity of a march, or the impetuosity of an attack; which can be,

with Fabius, the black cloud that lowers on the tops of the mountains,

or with Scipio, the thunderbolt of war; which, undismayed by false

shame, can patiently endure the severest trial that a gallant spirit can

undergo, in the taunts and provocations of the enemy, the suspicions,

the cold respect, and “mouth-honour” of those, from whom it should

meet a cheerful obedience; which, undisturbed by false humanity, can

calmly assume that most awful moral responsibility of deciding when

victory may be too dearly purchased by the loss of a single life, and

when the safety and glory of their country may demand the certain

sacrifice of thousands. Different stations of command may call for

different modifications of this fortitude, but the character ought to be

the same in all. And never, in the most “palmy state” of our martial

renown, did it shine with brighter lustre than in the present

sanguinary and ferocious hostilities, wherever the British arms have

been carried. But, in this most arduous, and momentous conflict,

which from it’s nature should have roused us to new and unexampled

efforts, I know not how it has been, that we have never put forth half

the strength, which we have exerted in ordinary wars. In the fatal

battles which have drenched the Continent with blood, and shaken the

system of Europe to pieces, we have never had any considerable army

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of a magnitude to be compared to the least of those by which, in

former times, we so gloriously asserted our place as protectors, not

oppressors, at the head of the great Commonwealth of Europe. We

have never manfully met the danger in front: and when the enemy,

resigning to us our natural dominion of the ocean, and abandoning

the defence of his distant possessions to the infernal energy of the

destroying principles which he had planted there for the subversion of

the neighbouring Colonies, drove forth, by one sweeping law of

unprecedented despotism, his armed multitudes on every side, to

overwhelm the Countries and States, which had for centuries stood

the firm barriers against the ambition of France; we drew back the

arm of our military force, which had never been more than half raised

to oppose him. From that time we have been combating only with the

other arm of our naval power; the right arm of England I admit; but

which struck almost unresisted, with blows that could never reach the

heart of the hostile mischief. From that time, without a single effort to

regain those outworks, which ever till now we so strenuously

maintained, as the strong frontier of our own dignity and safety, no

less than the liberties of Europe; with but one feeble attempt to

succour those brave, faithful, and numerous allies, whom for the first

time since the days of our Edwards and Henrys, we now have in the

bosom of France itself; we have been intrenching, and fortifying, and

garrisoning ourselves at home: we have been redoubling security on

security, to protect ourselves from invasion, which has now first

become to us a serious object of alarm and terrour. Alas! the few of

us, who have protracted life in any measure near to the extreme

limits of our short period, have been condemned to see strange

things; new systems of policy, new principles, and not only new men,

but what might appear a new species of men! I believe that any

person who was of age to take a part in publick affairs forty years

ago, if the intermediate space of time were expunged from his

memory, would hardly credit his senses, when he should hear from

the highest authority, that an army of two hundred thousand men was

kept up in this island, and that in the neighbouring island there were

at least fourscore thousand more. But when he had recovered from

his surprise on being told of this army, which has not it’s parallel,

what must be his astonishment to be told again, that this mighty force

was kept up for the mere purpose of an inert and passive defence,

and that, in it’s far greater part, it was disabled by it’s constitution

and very essence, from defending us against an enemy by any one

preventive stroke, or any one operation of active hostility? What must

his reflexions be, on learning further, that a fleet of five hundred men

of war, the best appointed, and to the full as ably commanded as this

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country ever had upon the sea, was for the greater part employed in

carrying on the same system of unenterprising defence? What must

be the sentiments and feelings of one, who remembers the former

energy of England, when he is given to understand, that these two

islands, with their extensive, and every where vulnerable coast,

should be considered as a garrisoned sea-town; what would such a

man, what would any man think, if the garrison of so strange a

fortress should be such, and so feebly commanded, as never to make

a sally; and that, contrary to all which has hitherto been seen in war,

an infinitely inferiour army, with the shattered relicks of an almost

annihilated navy, ill found, and ill manned, may with safety besiege

this superiour garrison, and without hazarding the life of a man, ruin

the place, merely by the menaces and false appearances of an attack?

Indeed, indeed, my dear friend, I look upon this matter of our

defensive system as much the most important of all considerations at

this moment. It has oppressed me with many anxious thoughts,

which, more than any bodily distemper, have sunk me to the

condition, in which you know that I am. Should it please Providence to

restore to me even the late weak remains of my strength, I propose

to make this matter the subject of a particular discussion. I only mean

here to argue, that the mode of conducting the war on our part, be it

good or bad, has prevented even the common havock of war in our

population, and especially among that class, whose duty and privilege

of superiority it is, to lead the way amidst the perils and slaughter of

the field of battle.

HE OTHER CAUSES, which sometimes affect the numbers of the lower

classes, but which I have shewn not to have existed to any such

degree during this war—penury, cold, hunger, nakedness, do not

easily reach the higher orders of society. I do not dread for them the

slightest taste of these calamities from the distress and pressure of

the war. They have much more to dread in that way from the

confiscations, the rapines, the burnings, and the massacres, that may

follow in the train of a peace, which shall establish the devastating

and depopulating principles and example of the French Regicides, in

security, and triumph and dominion. In the ordinary course of human

affairs, any check to population among men in ease and opulence, is

less to be apprehended from what they may suffer, than from what

they enjoy. Peace is more likely to be injurious to them in that respect

than war. The excesses of delicacy, repose, and satiety, are as

unfavourable as the extremes of hardship, toil, and want, to the

increase and multiplication of our kind. Indeed, the abuse of the

bounties of Nature, much more surely than any partial privation of

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them, tends to intercept that precious boon of a second and dearer

life in our progeny, which was bestowed in the first great command to

man from the All-gracious Giver of all, whose name be blessed,

whether he gives or takes away. His hand, in every page of his book,

has written the lesson of moderation. Our physical well-being, our

moral worth, our social happiness, our political tranquillity, all depend

on that controul of all our appetites and passions, which the ancients

The only real question to our present purpose, with regard to the

higher classes, is, how stands the account of their stock, as it consists

in wealth of every description? Have the burthens of the war

compelled them to curtail any part of their former expenditure; which,

I have before observed, affords the only standard of estimating

property as an object of taxation? Do they enjoy all the same

conveniencies, the same comforts, the same elegancies, the same

luxuries, in the same, or in as many different modes as they did

before the war?

N THE LAST ELEVEN YEARS, there have been no less than three solemn

enquiries into the finances of the kingdom, by three different

Committees of your House. The first was in the year 1786. On that

occasion, I remember, the Report of the Committee was examined,

and sifted, and bolted to the bran, by a gentleman whose keen and

powerful talents I have ever admired. He thought there was not

sufficient evidence to warrant the pleasing representation, which the

Committee had made, of our national prosperity. He did not believe

that our publick revenue could continue to be so productive as they

had assumed. He even went the length of recording his own

inferences of doubt, in a set of resolutions, which now stand upon

your Journals. And perhaps the retrospect, on which the Report

proceeded, did not go far enough back, to allow any sure and

satisfactory average for a ground of solid calculation. But what was

the event? When the next Committee sate in 1791, they found, that,

on an average of the last four years, their predecessors had fallen

short in their estimate of the permanent taxes, by more than three

hundred and forty thousand pounds a year. Surely then, if I can show

that in the produce of those same taxes, and more particularly of such

as affect articles of luxurious use and consumption, the four years of

the war have equalled those four years of peace, flourishing, as they

were, beyond the most sanguine speculations, I may expect to hear

no more of the distress occasioned by the war.

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The additional burdens which have been laid on some of those same

articles, might reasonably claim some allowance to be made. Every

new advance of the price to the consumer, is a new incentive to him

to retrench the quantity of his consumption; and if, upon the whole,

he pays the same, his property, computed by the standard of what he

voluntarily pays, must remain the same. But I am willing to forego

that fair advantage in the enquiry. I am willing that the receipts of the

permanent taxes which existed before January 1793, should be

compared during the war, and during the period of peace which I have

mentioned. I will go further. Complete accounts of the year 1791 were

separately laid before your House. I am ready to stand by a

comparison of the produce of four years up to the beginning of the

year 1792, with that of the war. Of the year immediately previous to

hostilities, I have not been able to obtain any perfect documents; but

I have seen enough to satisfy me, that although a comparison

including that year might be less favourable, yet it would not

essentially injure my argument.

You will always bear in mind, my dear Sir, that I am not considering

whether, if the common enemy of the quiet of Europe had not forced

us to take up arms in our own defence, the spring-tide of our

prosperity might not have flowed higher than the mark at which it

now stands. That consideration is connected with the question of the

justice and the necessity of the war. It is a question which I have long

since discussed. I am now endeavouring to ascertain whether there

exists, in fact, any such necessity as we hear every day asserted, to

furnish a miserable pretext for counselling us to surrender, at

discretion, our conquests, our honour, our dignity, our very

independence, and, with it, all that is dear to man. It will be more

than sufficient for that purpose, if I can make it appear that we have

been stationary during the war. What then will be said, if, in reality, it

shall be proved that there is every indication of increased and

increasing wealth, not only poured into the grand reservoir of the

national capital, but diffused through all the channels of all the higher

classes, and giving life and activity, as it passes, to the agriculture,

the manufactures, the commerce, and the navigation of the country?

The Finance Committee, which has been appointed in this Session,

has already made two reports. Every conclusion that I had before

drawn, as you know, from my own observation, I have the satisfaction

of seeing there confirmed by their authority. Large as was the sum,

by which the Committee of 1791 found the estimate of 1786 to have

been exceeded in the actual produce of four years of peace, their own

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estimate has been exceeded, during the war, by a sum more than

one-third larger. The same taxes have yielded more than half a million

beyond their calculation. They yielded this, notwithstanding the

stoppage of the distilleries, against which you may remember that I

privately remonstrated. With an allowance for that defalcation, they

have yielded sixty thousand pounds annually above the actual

average of the preceding four years of peace. I believe this to have

been without parallel in all former wars. If regard be had to the great

and unavoidable burthens of the present war, I am confident of the

fact.

But let us descend to particulars. The taxes, which go by the general

name of assessed taxes, comprehend the whole, or nearly the whole

domestick establishment of the rich. They include some things, which

belong to the middling, and even to all but the very lowest, classes.

They now consist of the duties on houses and windows, on male

servants, horses, and carriages. They did also extend to cottages, to

female servants, waggons, and carts used in husbandry, previous to

the year 1792; when, with more enlightened policy, at the moment

that the possibility of war could not be out of the contemplation of any

statesman, the wisdom of Parliament confined them to their present

objects. I shall give the gross assessment for five years, as I find it in

the Appendix to the second Report of your Committee:

Here will be seen a gradual increase during the whole progress of the

war: and if

I am correctly informed, the rise in the last year, after

every deduction that can be made, almost surpasses belief. It is

enormously out of all proportion to the increase, not of any single

year, but of all the years put together, since the time that the duties,

which I have mentioned above, were repealed.

There are some other taxes, which seem to have a reference to the

same general head. The present Minister, many years ago, subjected

bricks and tiles to a duty under the excise. It is of little consequence

to our present consideration, whether these materials have been

employed in building more commodious, more elegant, and more

1791 ending 5th April 1792 £1,706,334

1792 ″ ″ 1793 £1,585,991

1793 ″ ″ 1794 £1,597,623

1794 ″ ″ 1795 £1,608,196

1795 ″ ″ 1796 £1,625,874

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magnificent habitations, or in enlarging, decorating, and remodelling

those, which sufficed for our plainer ancestors. During the first two

years of the war, they paid so largely to the publick revenue, that in

1794 a new duty was laid upon them, which was equal to one half of

the old, and which has produced upwards of £165,000 in the last

three years. Yet notwithstanding the pressure of this additional

weight,

there has been an actual augmentation in the consumption.

The only two other articles which come under this description, are, the

stamp-duty on gold and silver plate, and the Customs on glass-plates.

This latter is now, I believe, the single instance of costly furniture to

be found in the catalogue of our imports. If it were wholly to vanish, I

should not think we were ruined. Both the duties have risen, during

the war, very considerably in proportion to the total of their produce.

We have no tax among us on the great necessaries of life with regard

to food. The receipts of our Custom-House, under the head of

Groceries, afford us, however, some means of calculating our luxuries

of the table. The articles of Tea, Coffee, and Cocoa-Nuts, I would

propose to omit, and to take them instead from the Excise, as best

showing what is consumed at home. Upon this principle, adding them

altogether (with the exception of Sugar, for a reason which I shall

afterwards mention) I find that they have produced, in one mode of

comparison, upwards of £272,000, and in the other mode, upwards of

£165,000, more, during the war than in peace.

An additional duty

was also laid in 1795 on Tea, another on Coffee, and a third on

Raisins; an article, together with currants, of much more extensive

use than would readily be imagined. The balance in favour of our

argument would have been much enhanced, if our Coffee and fruit-

ships from the Mediterranean had arrived, last year, at their usual

season. They do not appear in these accounts. This was one

consequence arising (would to God, that none more afflicting to Italy,

to Europe, and the whole civilized world had arisen!) from our

impolitick and precipitate desertion of that important maritime station.

As to Sugar,

I have excluded it from the Groceries, because the

account of the Customs is not a perfect criterion of the consumption,

much having been re-exported to the north of Europe, which used to

be supplied by France; and there are no materials to furnish grounds

for computing this re-exportation. The increase on the face of our

entries is immense during the four years of war—little short of

thirteen hundred thousand pounds.

The encrease of the duties on Beer has been regularly progressive, or

nearly so, to a very large amount.

It is a good deal above a million,

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and is more than equal to one-eighth of the whole produce. Under this

general head, some other liquors are included—Cyder, Perry, and

Mead, as well as Vinegar, and Verjuice; but these are of very trifling

consideration. The Excise-Duties on Wine, having sunk a little during

the first two years of the war, were rapidly recovering their level

again. In 1795, a heavy additional duty was imposed upon them, and

a second in the following year; yet being compared with four years of

peace to the end of 1790, they actually exhibit a small gain to the

revenue. And low as the importation may seem in 1796, when

contrasted with any year since the French Treaty in 1787, it is still

more than 3000 tons above the average importation for three years

previous to that period. I have added Sweets, from which our

factitious Wines are made; and I would have added Spirits, but that

the total alteration of the duties in 1789 and the recent interruption of

our Distilleries, rendered any comparison impracticable.

The ancient staple of our island, in which we are clothed, is very

imperfectly to be traced on the books of the Custom-House: but I

know, that our Woollen Manufactures flourish. I recollect to have seen

that fact very fully established, last year, from the registers kept in

the West-Riding of Yorkshire. This year, in the west of England I

received a similar account, on the authority of a respectable clothier,

in that quarter, whose testimony can less be questioned, because, in

his political opinions, he is adverse, as I understand, to the

continuance of the war. The principal articles of female dress, for

some time past, have been Muslins and Callicoes.

These elegant

fabricks of our own looms in the East, which serve for the remittance

of our own revenues, have lately been imitated at home, with

improving success, by the ingenious and enterprising manufacturers

of Manchester, Paisley, and Glasgow. At the same time the

importation from Bengal has kept pace with the extension of our own

dexterity and industry; while the sale of our printed goods,

of both

kinds, has been with equal steadiness advanced, by the taste and

execution of our designers and artists. Our Woollens and Cottons, it is

true, are not all for the home market. They do not distinctly prove,

what is my present point, our own wealth by our own expence. I

admit it: we export them in great and growing quantities: and they,

who croak themselves hoarse about the decay of our trade, may put

as much of this account, as they chuse, to the creditor side of money

received from other countries in payment for British skill and labour.

They may settle the items to their own liking, where all goes to

demonstrate our riches. I shall be contented here with whatever they

will have the goodness to leave me, and pass to another entry, which

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is less ambiguous—I mean that of Silk.

The manufactory itself is a

forced plant. We have been obliged to guard it from foreign

competition by very strict prohibitory laws. What we import, is the

raw and prepared material, which is worked up in various ways, and

worn in various shapes by both sexes. After what we have just seen,

you will probably be surprised to learn, that the quantity of silk,

imported during the war, has been much greater, than it was

previously in peace; and yet we must all remember to our

mortification, that several of our silk ships fell a prey to Citizen

Admiral Richery. You will hardly expect me to go through the tape and

thread, and all the other small wares of haberdashery and millinery to

be gleaned up among our imports. But I shall make one observation,

and with great satisfaction, respecting them. They gradually diminish,

as our own manufactures of the same description spread into their

places; while the account of ornamental articles which our country

does not produce, and we cannot wish it to produce, continues, upon

the whole, to rise, in spite of all the caprices of fancy and fashion. Of

this kind are the different furs

used for muffs, trimmings, and

linings, which, as the chief of the kind, I shall particularize. You will

find them below.

The diversions of the higher classes form another, and the only

remaining, head of enquiry into their expences. I mean those

diversions which distinguish the country and the town life; which are

visible and tangible to the Statesman; which have some publick

measure and standard. And here, when I look to the report of your

Committee, I, for the first time, perceive a failure. It is clearly so.

Whichever way I reckon the four years of peace, the old tax on the

sports of the field has certainly proved deficient since the war. The

same money, however, or nearly the same, has been paid to

Government; though the same number of individuals have not

contributed to the payment. An additional tax was laid in 1791, and,

during the war, has produced upwards of £61,000; which is about

£4000 more than the decrease of the old tax, in one scheme of

comparison; and about £4000 less, in the other scheme. I might

remark that the amount of the new tax, in the several years of the

war, by no means bears the proportion, which it ought, to the old.

There seems to be some great irregularity or other in the receipt: but

I do not think it worth while to examine into the argument. I am

willing to suppose that many, who, in the idleness of peace, made war

upon partridges, hares, and pheasants, may now carry more noble

arms against the enemies of their country. Our political adversaries

may do what they please with that concession. They are welcome to

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make the most of it. I am sure of a very handsome set-off in the

other branch of expence; the amusements of a town-life.

HERE

MUCH

GAIETY

, and dissipation, and profusion, which must

escape and disappoint all the arithmetick of political oeconomy. But

the Theatres are a prominent feature. They are established through

every part of the kingdom, at a cost unknown till our days. There is

hardly a provincial capital, which does not possess, or which does not

aspire to possess, a Theatre-Royal. Most of them engage for a short

time, at a vast price, every actor or actress of name in the metropolis;

a distinction, which, in the reign of my old friend Garrick, was

confined to very few. The dresses, the scenes, the decorations of

every kind, I am told, are in a new style of splendour and

magnificence; whether to the advantage of our dramatick taste, upon

the whole, I very much doubt. It is a shew, and a spectacle, not a

play, that is exhibited. This is undoubtedly in the genuine manner of

the Augustan age, but in a manner, which was censured by one of the

best Poets and Criticks of that or any age:

Migravit ab aure voluptas

Omnis ad incertos oculos, et gaudia vana:

Quatuor aut plures aulaea premuntur in horas,

Dum fugiunt equitum turmae, peditumque catervae—

I must interrupt the passage, most fervently to deprecate and

abominate the sequel,

Mox trahitur manibus Regum fortuna retortis.

I hope, that no French fraternization, which the relations of peace and

amity with systematized Regicide, would assuredly, sooner or later,

draw after them, even if it should overturn our happy constitution

itself, could so change the hearts of Englishmen, as to make them

delight in representations and processions, which have no other merit

than that of degrading and insulting the name of Royalty. But good

taste, manners, morals, religion, all fly, wherever the principles of

Jacobinism enter: and we have no safety against them but in arms.

The Proprietors, whether in this they follow or lead what is called the

town, to furnish out these gaudy and pompous entertainments, must

collect so much more from the Publick. It was just before the breaking

out of hostilities, that they levied for themselves the very tax, which,

at the close of the American war, they represented to Lord North, as

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certain ruin to their affairs to demand for the State. The example has

since been imitated by the Managers of our Italian Opera. Once during

the war, if not twice (I would not willingly misstate any thing, but I

am not very accurate on these subjects) they have raised the price of

their subscription. Yet I have never heard, that any lasting

dissatisfaction has been manifested, or that their houses have been

unusually and constantly thin. On the contrary, all the three theatres

have been repeatedly altered, and refitted, and enlarged, to make

them capacious of the crowds that nightly flock to them; and one of

those huge and lofty piles, which lifts its broad shoulders in gigantick

pride, almost emulous of the temples of God, has been reared from

the foundation at a charge of more than fourscore thousand pounds,

and yet remains a naked, rough, unsightly heap.

AM AFRAID, MY DEAR SIR, that I have tired you with these dull, though

important details. But we are upon a subject, which, like some of a

higher nature, refuses ornament, and is contented with conveying

instruction. I know too the obstinacy of unbelief, in those perverted

minds, which have no delight, but in contemplating the supposed

distress, and predicting the immediate ruin, of their country. These

birds of evil presage, at all times, have grated our ears with their

melancholy song; and, by some strange fatality or other, it has

generally happened, that they have poured forth their loudest and

deepest lamentations, at the periods of our most abundant prosperity.

Very early in my publick life, I had occasion to make myself a little

acquainted with their natural history. My first political tract in the

collection, which a friend has made of my publications, is an answer

to a very gloomy picture of the state of the nation, which was thought

to have been drawn by a statesman of some eminence in his time.

That was no more than the common spleen of disappointed ambition:

in the present day, I fear, that too many are actuated by a more

malignant and dangerous spirit. They hope, by depressing our minds

with a despair of our means and resources, to drive us, trembling and

unresisting, into the toils of our enemies, with whom, from the

beginning of the Revolution in France, they have ever moved in strict

concert and co-operation. If, with the report of your Finance

Committee in their hands, they can still affect to despond, and can

still succeed, as they do, in spreading the contagion of their pretended

fears, among well-disposed, though weak men; there is no way of

counteracting them, but by fixing them down to particulars. Nor must

we forget, that they are unwearied agitators, bold assertors, dextrous

sophisters. Proof must be accumulated upon proof, to silence them.

With this view, I shall now direct your attention to some other striking

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and unerring indications of our flourishing condition; and they will in

general be derived from other sources, but equally authentick; from

other reports and proceedings of both Houses of Parliament, all which

unite with wonderful force of consent in the same general result.

Hitherto we have seen the superfluity of our capital discovering itself

only in procuring superfluous accommodation and enjoyment, in our

houses, in our furniture, in our establishments, in our eating and

drinking, our clothing, and our publick diversions. We shall now see it

more beneficially employed in improving our territory itself. We shall

see part of our present opulence, with provident care, put out to

usury for posterity.

O WHAT ULTIMATE EXTENT it may be wise or practicable to push

inclosures of common and waste lands, may be a question of doubt, in

some points of view. But no person thinks them already carried to

excess; and the relative magnitude of the sums laid out upon them

gives us a standard of estimating the comparative situation of the

landed interest. Your House, this Session, appointed a Committee on

Waste Lands, and they have made a Report by their chairman, an

Honourable Baronet, for whom the Minister the other day, (with very

good intentions, I believe, but with little real profit to the publick)

thought fit to erect a Board of Agriculture. The account, as it stands

there, appears sufficiently favourable. The greatest number of

inclosing bills, passed in any one year of the last peace, does not

equal the smallest annual number in the war; and those of the last

year exceed, by more than one half, the highest year of peace. But

what was my surprise, on looking into the late report of the Secret

Committee of the Lords, to find a list of these Bills during the war,

differing in every year, and larger on the whole, by nearly one third!

I have checked this account by the Statute-Book, and find it to be

correct. What new brilliancy then does it throw over the prospect,

bright as it was before! The number during the last four years, has

more than doubled that of the four years immediately preceding; it

has surpassed the five years of peace, beyond which the Lords

Committees have not gone; it has even surpassed (I have verified the

fact) the whole ten years of peace. I cannot stop here. I cannot

advance a single step in this enquiry, without being obliged to cast my

eyes back to the period when I first knew the country. These Bills,

which had begun in the reign of Queen Anne, had passed every year

in greater or less numbers from the year 1723; yet in all that space of

time, they had not reached the amount of any two years during the

present war; and though soon after that time they rapidly increased,

still, at the accession of his present Majesty, they were very far short

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of the number passed in the four years of hostilities.

N MY FIRST LETTER I mentioned the state of our inland navigation,

neglected as it had been from the reign of King William to the time of

my observation. It was not till the present reign, that the Duke of

Bridgwater’s canal first excited a spirit of speculation and adventure in

this way. This spirit shewed itself, but necessarily made no great

progress, in the American war. When peace was restored, it began of

course to work with more sensible effect; yet in ten years from that

event, the Bills passed on that subject were not so many as from the

year 1793 to the present Session of Parliament. From what I can trace

on the Statute-Book, I am confident that all the capital expended in

these projects during the peace, bore no degree of proportion, (I

doubt on very grave consideration whether all that was ever so

expended was equal) to the money which has been raised for the

same purposes, since the war.

I know, that in the last four years of

peace, when they rose regularly, and rapidly, the sums specified in

the acts were not near one-third of the subsequent amount. In the

last Session of Parliament, the Grand Junction Company, as it is

called, having sunk half a million, (of which I feel the good effects at

my own door) applied to your House, for permission to subscribe half

as much more, among themselves. This Grand Junction is an

inoculation of the Grand Trunk: and in the present Session, the latter

Company has obtained the authority of Parliament, to float two

hundred acres of land, for the purpose of forming a reservoir, thirty

feet deep, two hundred yards wide at the head, and two miles in

length; a lake which may almost vie with that which feeds, what once

was the (now obliterated) canal of Languedoc.

HE PRESENT WAR IS, above all others of which we have heard or read, a

war against landed property. That description of property is in it’s

nature the firm base of every stable government; and has been so

considered, by all the wisest writers of the old philosophy, from the

time of the Stagyrite, who observes that the agricultural class of all

others is the least inclined to sedition. We find it to have been so

regarded in the practical politicks of antiquity, where they are brought

more directly home to our understandings and bosoms, in the History

of Rome, and above all, in the writings of Cicero. The country tribes

were always thought more respectable, than those of the City. And if

in our own history, there is any one circumstance to which, under

God, are to be attributed the steady resistance, the fortunate issue,

and sober settlement, of all our struggles for liberty, it is, that while

the landed interest, instead of forming a separate body, as in other

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countries, has, at all times, been in close connexion and union with

the other great interests of the country, it has been spontaneously

allowed to lead and direct, and moderate all the rest. I cannot,

therefore, but see with singular gratification that during a war which

has been eminently made for the destruction of the landed

proprietors, as well as of Priests and Kings, as much has been done,

by publick works, for the permanent benefit of their stake in this

country, as in all the rest of the current century, which now touches to

it’s close. Perhaps, after this, it may not be necessary to refer to

private observation; but I am satisfied, that in general, the rents of

lands have been considerably increased: they are increased very

considerably indeed, if I may draw any conclusion from my own little

property of that kind. I am not ignorant, however, where our publick

burdens are most galling. But all of this class will consider, who they

are, that are principally menaced; how little the men of their

description in other countries, where this revolutionary fury has but

touched, have been found equal to their own protection; how tardy,

and unprovided, and full of anguish in their flight, chained down as

they are by every tie to the soil; how helpless they are, above all

other men, in exile, in poverty, in need, in all the varieties of

wretchedness; and then let them well weigh what are the burdens to

which they ought not to submit for their own salvation.

ANY

THE

AUTHORITIES

, which I have already adduced, or to which I

have referred, may convey a competent notion of some of our

principal manufactures. Their general state will be clear from that of

our external and internal commerce, through which they circulate,

and of which they are at once the cause and effect. But the

communication of the several parts of the kingdom with each other,

and with foreign countries, has always been regarded as one of the

most certain tests to evince the prosperous or adverse state of our

trade in all it’s branches. Recourse has usually been had to the

revenue of the Post-office with this view. I shall include the product of

the Tax which was laid in the last war, and which will make the

evidence more conclusive, if it shall afford the same inference—I

allude to the Post-Horse duty, which shews the personal intercourse

within the Kingdom, as the Post-office shews the intercourse by

letters, both within and without. The first of these standards, then,

exhibits an increase, according to my former schemes of comparison,

from an eleventh to a twentieth part of the whole duty.

The Post-

office gives still less consolation to those who are miserable, in

proportion as the country feels no misery. From the commencement

of the war, to the month of April, 1796, the gross produce had

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increased by nearly one sixth of the whole sum which the state now

derives from that fund. I find that the year ending 5th of April, 1793,

gave £627,592, and the year ending at the same quarter in 1796,

£750,637, after a fair deduction having been made for the alteration

(which, you know, on grounds of policy I never approved) in your

privilege of franking. I have seen no formal document subsequent to

that period, but I have been credibly informed, there is very good

ground to believe, that the revenue of the Post-office

still continues

to be regularly and largely upon the rise.

HAT IS THE TRUE INFERENCE to be drawn from the annual number of

bankruptcies, has been the occasion of much dispute. On one side, it

has been confidently urged as a sure symptom of decaying trade: on

the other side, it has been insisted, that it is a circumstance attendant

upon a thriving trade; for that the greater is the whole quantity of

trade, the greater of course must be the positive number of failures,

while the aggregate success is still in the same proportion. In truth,

the increase of the number may arise from either of those causes. But

all must agree in one conclusion, that, if the number diminishes, and

at the same time, every other sort of evidence tends to shew an

augmentation of trade, there can be no better indication. We have

already had very ample means of gathering that the year 1796 was a

very favourable year of trade; and in that year the number of

Bankruptcies was at least one-fifth below the usual average. I take

this from the Declaration of the Lord Chancellor in the House of

Lords.

He professed to speak from the records of Chancery; and he

added another very striking fact—that on the property actually paid

into his Court (a very small part, indeed, of the whole property of the

kingdom) there had accrued in that year a nett surplus of eight

hundred thousand pounds, which was so much new capital.

UT THE REAL SITUATION of our trade, during the whole of this war,

deserves more minute investigation. I shall begin with that, which,

though the least in consequence, makes perhaps the most impression

on our senses, because it meets our eyes in our daily walks—I mean

our retail trade. The exuberant display of wealth in our shops was the

sight which most amazed a learned foreigner of distinction who lately

resided among us. His expression, I remember, was, that “ they

seemed to be bursting with opulence into the streets. ” The

documents which throw light on this subject are not many; but they

all meet in the same point: all concur in exhibiting an increase. The

most material are the General Licences

which the law requires to be

taken out by all dealers in exciseable commodities. These seem to be

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subject to considerable fluctuations. They have not been so low in any

year of the war, as in the years 1788 and 1789, nor ever so high in

peace, as in the first year of the war. I should next state the licences

to dealers in Spirits and Wine, but the change in them which took

place in 1789 would give an unfair advantage to my argument. I shall

therefore content myself with remarking, that from the date of that

change the spirit licences kept nearly the same level till the stoppage

of the Distilleries in 1795. If they dropped a little, and it was but little,

the Wine Licences during the same time more than countervailed that

loss to the revenue; and it is remarkable with regard to the latter,

that in the year 1796, which was the lowest in the excise duties on

wine itself, as well as in the quantity imported, more dealers in wine

appear to have been licenced, than in any former year, excepting the

first year of the war. This fact may raise some doubt, whether the

consumption has been lessened so much, as (I believe) is commonly

imagined. The only other retail-traders, whom I found so entered as

to admit of being selected, are Tea-dealers, and sellers of Gold and

Silver Plate; both of whom seem to have multiplied very much in

proportion to their aggregate number.

I have kept apart one set of

licensed sellers, because I am aware that our antagonists may be

inclined to triumph a little, when I name Auctioneers and Auctions.

They may be disposed to consider it as a sort of trade which thrives

by the distress of others. But if they will look at it a little more

attentively, they will find their gloomy comfort vanish. The publick

income from these licences has risen with very great regularity,

through a series of years which all must admit to have been years of

prosperity. It is remarkable too, that in the year 1793, which was the

great year of Bankruptcies, these duties on Auctioneers and

Auctions,

fell below the mark of 1791; and in 1796, which year had

one fifth less than the accustomed average of Bankruptcies, they

mounted at once beyond all former examples. In concluding this

general head, will you permit me, my dear Sir, to bring to your notice

an humble, but industrious and laborious set of chapmen against

whom the vengeance of your House has sometimes been levelled,

with what policy I need not stay to enquire, as they have escaped

without much injury? The Hawkers and Pedlars,

I am assured, are

still doing well, though from some new arrangements respecting them

made in 1789, it would be difficult to trace their proceedings in any

satisfactory manner.

HEN SUCH IS THE VIGOUR of our traffick in it’s minutest ramifications, we

may be persuaded that the root and the trunk are sound. When we

see the life-blood of the State circulate so freely through the capillary

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vessels of the system, we scarcely need enquire, if the heart performs

its functions aright. But let us approach it; let us lay it bare, and

watch the systole and diastole, as it now receives, and now pours

forth the vital stream through all the members. The port of London

has always supplied the main evidence of the state of our commerce.

I know, that amidst all the difficulties and embarrassments of the year

1793, from causes unconnected with and prior to the war, the

tonnage of ships in the Thames actually rose. But I shall not go

through a detail of official papers on this point. There is evidence

which has appeared this very session before your House, infinitely

more forcible and impressive to my apprehension, than all the

journals and ledgers of all the Inspectors General from the days of

Davenant. It is such as cannot carry with it any sort of fallacy. It

comes, not from one set, but from many opposite sets of witnesses,

who all agree in nothing else; witnesses of the gravest and most

unexceptionable character, and who confirm what they say, in the

surest manner, by their conduct. Two different bills have been

brought in for improving the port of London. I have it from very good

intelligence, that when the project was first suggested from necessity,

there were no less than eight different plans, supported by eight

different bodies of subscribers. The cost of the least was estimated at

two hundred thousand pounds, and of the most extensive, at twelve

hundred thousand. The two between which the contest now lies,

substantially agree (as all the others must have done) in the motives

and reasons of the preamble: but I shall confine myself to that bill

which is proposed on the part of the Mayor, Aldermen, and Common

Council, because I regard them as the best authority, and their

language in itself is fuller and more precise. I certainly see them

complain of the “great delays, accidents, damages, losses, and

extraordinary expences, which are almost continually sustained, to

the hindrance and discouragement of commerce, and the great injury

of the publick revenues.” But what are the causes to which they

attribute their complaints? The first is, “ T

HAT FROM THE VERY GREAT AND

PROGRESSIVE INCREASE

THE

NUMBER

AND

SIZE

SHIPS

AND

OTHER

VESSELS, TRADING TO THE PORT OF LONDON; the River Thames is, in general,

so much crowded that the navigation of a considerable part of the

river is rendered tedious and dangerous; and there is much want of

room for the safe and convenient mooring of vessels, and constant

access to them.” The second is of the same nature. It is the want of

regulations and arrangements, never before found necessary, for

expedition and facility. The third is of another kind, but to the same

effect: “that the legal quays are too confined, and there is not

sufficient accommodation for the landing and shipping of cargoes.”

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And the fourth and last is still different; they describe “the avenues to

the legal quays,” (which little more than a century since, the great fire

of London opened and dilated beyond the measure of our then

circumstances) to be now “much too narrow, and incommodious, for

the great concourse of carts and other carriages usually passing and

repassing there.” Thus, our trade has grown too big for the ancient

limits of art and nature. Our streets, our lanes, our shores, the river

itself, which has so long been our pride, are impeded, and obstructed,

and choaked up by our riches. They are like our shops, “bursting with

opulence.” To these misfortunes, to these distresses and grievances

alone, we are told, it is to be imputed that still more of our capital has

not been pushed into the channel of our commerce, to roll back in it’s

reflux still more abundant capital, and fructify the national treasury in

it’s course. Indeed, my dear Sir, when I have before my eyes this

consentient testimony of the Corporation of the City of London, the

West-India Merchants, and all the other Merchants who promoted the

other plans, struggling and contending, which of them shall be

permitted to lay out their money in consonance with their testimony; I

cannot turn aside to examine what one or two violent petitions,

tumultuously voted by real or pretended Liverymen of London, may

have said of the utter destruction and annihilation of trade.

HIS OPENS A SUBJECT, on which every true lover of his country, and at

this crisis, every friend to the liberties of Europe, and of social order in

every country, must dwell and expatiate with delight. I mean to wind

up all my proofs of our astonishing and almost incredible prosperity,

with the valuable information given to the Secret Committee of the

Lords by the Inspector-General. And here I am happy that I can

administer an antidote to all despondence, from the same dispensary

from which the first dose of poison was supposed to have come. The

Report of that Committee is generally believed to have been drawn

up, (and it is certainly done with great ability) by the same noble

Lord, who was said, as the author of the pamphlet of 1795, to have

led the way in teaching us to place all our hope on that very

experiment, which he afterwards declared in his place to have been

from the beginning utterly without hope. We have now his authority to

say, that as far as our resources were concerned, the experiment was

equally without necessity.

“It appears,” as he has very justly and satisfactorily observed, “by the

accounts of the value of the imports and exports for the last twenty

years, produced by Mr. Irving, that the demand for cash to be sent

abroad” (which by the way, including the loan to the Emperor, was

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nearly one third less sent to the Continent of Europe, than in the

seven years war) “was greatly compensated by a very large balance

of commerce in favour of this kingdom; greater than was ever known

in any preceding period. The value of the exports of the last year

amounted, according to the valuation on which the accounts of the

Inspector General are founded, to £30,424,184; which is more than

double what it was in any year of the American war, and one third

more than it was on the average during the last peace, previous to

the year 1792; and though the value of the imports to this country

has, during the same peace, greatly increased, the excess of the

value of the exports above that of the imports, which constitutes the

balance of trade, has augmented even in a greater proportion.” These

observations might perhaps be branched out into other points of view,

but I shall leave them to your own active and ingenious mind. There is

another and still more important light in which the Inspector General’s

information may be seen; and that is, as affording a comparison of

some circumstances in this war, with the commercial history of all our

other wars in the present century.

In all former hostilities, our exports gradually declined in value, and

then (with one single exception) ascended again, till they reached and

passed the level of the preceding peace. But this was a work of time,

sometimes more, sometimes less slow. In Queen Anne’s war, which

began in 1702, it was an interval of ten years, before this was

effected. Nine years only were necessary in the war of 1739, for the

same operation. The Seven Years’ war saw the period much

shortened: hostilities began in 1755, and in 1758, the fourth year of

the war, the exports mounted above the peace-mark. There was,

however, a distinguishing feature of that war, that our tonnage, to the

very last moment, was in a state of great depression, while our

commerce was chiefly carried on by foreign vessels. The American

war was darkened with singular and peculiar adversity. Our exports

never came near to their peaceful elevation, and our tonnage

continued, with very little fluctuation, to subside lower and lower.

the other hand, the present war, with regard to our commerce, has

the white mark of a singular felicity. If from internal causes, as well as

the consequence of hostilities, the tide ebbed in 1793, it rushed back

again with a bore in the following year; and from that time has

continued to swell, and run, every successive year, higher and higher

into all our ports. The value of our exports last year above the year

1792 (the mere increase of our commerce during the war) is equal to

the average value of all the exports during the wars of William and

Anne.

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It has been already pointed out, that our imports have not kept pace

with our exports; of course, on the face of the account, the balance of

trade, both positively and comparatively considered, must have been

much more than ever in our favour. In that early little tract of mine,

to which I have already more than once referred, I made many

observations on the usual method of computing that balance, as well

as the usual objection to it, that the entries at the Custom-House

were not always true. As you probably remember them, I shall not

repeat them here. On the one hand, I am not surprised that the same

trite objection is perpetually renewed by the detractors of our national

affluence; and on the other hand I am gratified in perceiving, that the

balance of trade seems to be now computed in a manner much

clearer, than it used to be, from those errors which I formerly noticed.

The Inspector-General appears to have made his estimate with every

possible guard and caution. His opinion is entitled to the greatest

respect. It was in substance (I shall again use the words of the noble

Reporter, as much better than my own) “That the true balance of our

trade amounted, on a medium of the four years preceding January

1796, to upwards of £6,500,000 per annum, exclusive of the profits

arising from our East and West India trade, which he estimates at

upwards of £4,000,000 per annum; exclusive of the profits derived

from our fisheries.” So that including the fisheries, and making a

moderate allowance for the exceedings, which Mr. Irving himself

supposes, beyond his calculation; without reckoning, what the public

creditors themselves pay to themselves, and without taking one

shilling from the stock of the landed interest; our colonies, our

oriental possessions, our skill and industry, our commerce, and

navigation, at the commencement of this year, were pouring a new

annual capital into the kingdom hardly half a million short of the

whole interest of that tremendous debt, from which we are taught to

shrink in dismay, as from an overwhelming and intolerable

oppression.

THEN

THE

REAL

STATE

of this nation is such as I have described, and I

am only apprehensive that you may think I have taken too much

pains to exclude all doubt on this question—if no class is lessened in

it’s numbers, or in it’s stock, or in it’s conveniencies, or even it’s

luxuries; if they build as many habitations, and as elegant and as

commodious as ever, and furnish them with every chargeable

decoration, and every prodigality of ingenious invention, that can be

thought of by those who even encumber their necessities with

superfluous accommodation; if they are as numerously attended; if

their equipages are as splendid; if they regale at table with as much

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or more variety of plenty than ever; if they are clad in as expensive

and changeful a diversity according to their tastes and modes; if they

are not deterred from the pleasures of the field by the charges, which

Government has wisely turned from the culture to the sports of the

field; if the theatres are as rich and as well filled, and greater, and at

a higher price than ever; and, what is more important than all, if it is

plain from the treasures which are spread over the soil, or confided to

the winds and the seas, that there are as many who are indulgent to

their propensities of parsimony, as others to their voluptuous desires,

and that the pecuniary capital grows instead of diminishing; on what

ground are we authorized to say that a nation gambolling in an ocean

of superfluity is undone by want? With what face can we pretend, that

they who have not denied any one gratification to any one appetite,

have a right to plead poverty in order to famish their virtues, and to

put their duties on short allowance? That they are to take the law

from an imperious enemy, and can contribute no longer to the honour

of their king, to the support of the independence of their country, to

the salvation of that Europe, which, if it falls, must crush them with its

gigantick ruins? How can they affect to sweat, and stagger, and groan

under their burthens, to whom the mines of Newfoundland, richer

than those of Mexico and Peru, are now thrown in as a make-weight

in the scale of their exorbitant opulence? What excuse can they have

to faint, and creep, and cringe, and prostrate themselves at the

footstool of ambition and crime, who, during a short though violent

struggle, which they have never supported with the energy of men,

have amassed more to their annual accumulation, than all the well-

husbanded capital that enabled their ancestors by long, and doubtful,

and obstinate conflicts to defend, and liberate, and vindicate the

civilized world? But I do not accuse the People of England. As to the

great majority of the nation, they have done whatever in their several

ranks, and conditions, and descriptions, was required of them by their

relative situations in society; and from those the great mass of

mankind cannot depart, without the subversion of all publick order.

They look up to that Government, which they obey that they may be

protected. They ask to be led and directed by those rulers, whom

Providence and the laws of their country have set over them, and

under their guidance to walk in the ways of safety and honour. They

have again delegated the greatest trust which they have to bestow, to

those faithful representatives who made their true voice heard against

the disturbers and destroyers of Europe. They suffered, with

unapproving acquiescence, solicitations, which they had in no shape

desired, to an unjust and usurping Power, whom they had never

provoked, and whose hostile menaces they did not dread. When the

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exigencies of the publick service could only be met by their voluntary

zeal, they started forth with an ardour which outstripped the wishes of

those, who had injured them by doubting, whether it might not be

necessary to have recourse to compulsion. They have, in all things,

reposed an enduring, but not an unreflecting confidence. That

confidence demands a full return; and fixes a responsibility on the

Ministers entire and undivided. The People stands acquitted, if the war

is not carried on in a manner suited to it’s objects. If the publick

honour is tarnished; if the publick safety suffers any detriment; they,

not the People, are to answer it, and they alone. It’s armies, it’s

navies, are given to them without stint or restriction. It’s treasures

are poured out at their feet. It’s constancy is ready to second all their

efforts. They are not to fear a responsibility for acts of manly

adventure. The responsibility which they are to dread, is, lest they

should shew themselves unequal to the expectation of a brave people.

The more doubtful may be the constitutional and oeconomical

questions, upon which they have received so marked a support, the

more loudly they are called upon to support this great war, for the

success of which their country is willing to supersede considerations of

no slight importance. Where I speak of responsibility, I do not mean

to exclude that species of it, which the legal powers of the country

have a right finally to exact from those who abuse a public trust; but

high as this is, there is a responsibility which attaches on them, from

which the whole legitimate power of the kingdom cannot absolve

them; there is a responsibility to conscience and to glory; a

responsibility to the existing world, and to that posterity, which men

of their eminence cannot avoid for glory or for shame; a responsibility

to a tribunal, at which, not only Ministers, but Kings and Parliaments,

but even Nations themselves, must one day answer.

Endnotes

[*] P. 234, l. 23, of the present Edition.

[

†] P. 246, l. 10, of the present Edition.

[

‡] P. 251, l. 20, of the present Edition.

[

§] It begins p. 234, l. 24, of the present Edition.

[*]

P. 268, l. 21, of the present Edition.

[

†] P. 262, l. 30, of the present Edition.

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[‡] Pp. 304 and 305 of the present Edition.

[

§] P. 270 of the present Edition.

[||]

P. 277 of the present Edition.

[1.]

The Archduke Charles of Austria.

[*]

Dec. 27, 1796.

[*]

Observations on a late State of the Nation.

[1.]

The account given above is from the appendix B to the second

Report. Since Mr. Burke’s death, a fourth Report has come out, which

very fully substantiates his information. There is a table, containing a

view of the Land Tax, and Assessed Taxes, blended together. The

amount of the Assessed Taxes may be easily found (except an

occasional difference in the last figure, from the omission of the

shillings and pence) by deducting the sum of £2,037,627, which is the

gross charge of the Land-Tax, according to the Report of the

Committee in 1791.

A ten per cent. was laid upon the Assessed Taxes in 1791, to

commence from October, 1790. In 1796 were laid, a new tax on

Horses not before included, an additional tax of 2s. and a new ten per

cent. These produced in that year altogether £84,232, which being

deducted, will still leave an actual increase in that one year of

£354,130.

[1.]

This and the following tables on the same construction are

compiled from the Reports of the Finance Committee in 1791 and

1797, with the addition of the separate paper laid before the House of

Commons, and ordered to be printed on the 7th of February, 1792.

1789 ending 5th April 1790 £3,572,434

1790 ″ ″ 1791 £3,741,222

1791 ″ ″ 1792 £3,743,961

1792 ″ ″ 1793 £3,623,619

1793 ″ ″ 1794 £3,635,250

1794 ″ ″ 1795 £3,645,824

1795 ″ ″ 1796 £3,663,501

1796 ″ ″ 1797 £4,101,869

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BRICKS AND TILES

YEARS

PEACE

YEARS

WAR

1787 £94,521 1793 £122,975

1788 £96,278 1794 £106,811

1789 £91,773 1795 £83,804

1790 £104,409 1796 £94,668

_______________ _______________

Increase

to 1790

£386,981 £408,258 £21,277

_______________ _______________

Increase

to 1791

1791 £115,382

Years

1791

£407,842 £416

PLATE

1787 £22,707 1793 £25,920

1788 £23,295 1794 £23,637

1789 £22,453 1795 £25,607

1790 £18,483 1796 £28,513

_______________ _______________

Increase

to 1790

£86,888 £103,677 £16,789

_______________ _______________

Increase

to 1791

1791 £31,523

Years

1791

£95,754 £7,923

GLASS PLATES

1787 — 1793 £5,655

1788 £5,496 1794 £5,456

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[1.]

1789 £4,686 1795 £5,839

1790 £6,008 1796 £8,871

_______________ _______________

£16,190 £25,821

_______________ _______________

Increase

to 1791

1791 £7,880

Years

1791

£24,070 £1,721

GROCERIES

YEARS

PEACE

YEARS

WAR

1787 £167,389 1793 £124,655

1788 £133,191 1794 £195,840

1789 £142,871 1795 £208,242

1790 £156,311 1796 £159,826

_______________ _______________

Increase

to 1790

£599,762 £688,563 £88,801

_______________ _______________

Increase

to 1791

1791 £236,727

Years

1791

£669,100 £19,463

TEA

1787 £1424,144 1793 £1477,644

1788 £1426,660 1794 £1467,132

1789 £1539,575 1795 £1507,518

1790 £1417,736 1796 £1526,307

_______________ _______________

Increase

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[1.]

to 1790

£1,808,115 £1,978,601 £170,48

_______________ _______________

Increase

to 1791

1791 £1448,709

Years

1791

£1,832,680 £145,92

The additional duty imposed in 1795, produced in that year

£137,656, and in 1796 £200,107.

COFFEE AND COCOA NUTS

1787 £17,006 1793 £36,846

1788 £30,217 1794 £49,177

1789 £34,784 1795 £27,913

1790 £38,647 1796 £19,711

_______________ _______________

Increase

to 1790

£120,654 £133,647 £12,993

_______________ _______________

Decrease

to 1791

1791 £41,194

Years

1791

£144,842 £11,195

The additional duty of 1795 in that year gave £16,775, and in 1796

£15,319.

SUGAR

YEARS

PEACE

YEARS

WAR

1787 £1,065,109 1793 £1,473,139

1788 £1,184,458 1794 £1,392,965

1789 £1,095,106 1795 £1,338,246

1790 £1,069,108 1796 £1,474,899

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[2.]

_______________ _______________

Increase

1790

£4,413,781 £5,679,249 £1,265,

_______________ _______________

Increase

1791

1791 £1,044,053

Years

1791

£4,392,725 £1,286,5

There was a new duty on Sugar in 1791, which produced in 1794

£234,292, in 1795 £206,932, and in 1796 £245,024. It is not clear

from the Report of the Committee, whether the additional duty is

included in the account given above.

BEER, &c

1787 £1,761,429 1793 £2,043,902

1788 £1,705,199 1794 £2,082,053

1789 £1,742,514 1795 £1,931,101

1790 £1,858,043 1796 £2,294,377

_______________ _______________

Increase

1790

£7,067,185 £8,351,433 £1,284,2

_______________ _______________

Increase

1791

1791 £1,880,478

Years

1791

£7,186,234 £1,165,1

WINE

YEARS

PEACE

YEARS

WAR

1787 £219,934 1793 £1222,887

1788 £215,578 1794 £1283,644

1789 £252,649 1795 £1317,072

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1790 £308,624 1796 £1187,818

_______________ _______________

Increase

to 1790

£996,785 £1,011,421 £14,638

_______________ _______________

Decreas

to 1791

1791 £336,549

Years

1791

£1,113,400 £101,97

QUANTITY IMPORTED

TONS TONS

1787 29,978 1793 22,788

1788 25,442 1794 27,868

1789 27,414 1795 32,033

1790 29,182 1796 19,079

The additional duty of 1795 produced that year

£730,871, and in 1796 £394,686. A second additional

duty which produced £98,165 was laid in 1796.

SWEETS

££

1787 £11,167 1793 £11,016

1788 £7,375 1794 £10,612

1789 £7,202 1795 £13,321

1790 £4,953 1796 £15,050

_______________ _______________

Increase

to 1790

£30,697 £49,990 £19,302

_______________ _______________

Increase

to 1791

1791 £13,282

Years

1791

£32,812 £17,178

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[1.]

In 1795, an additional duty was laid on this article, which produced

that year £5,679, and in 1796 £9,443, and in 1796 a second to

commence on the 20th of June; it’s produce in that year was

£2,325.

MUSLINS AND CALLICOES

YEARS

PEACE

YEARS

WAR

1788 £129,297 1793 £173,050

1789 £138,660 1794 £104,902

1790 £126,267 1795 £103,856

1791 £128,364 1796 £272,544

_______________ _______________

Increase

to 1791

£522,588 £654,352 £131,76

This table be

ins with 1788. The net produce of the precedin

year is

not in the Report, whence the table is taken.

PRINTED GOODS

YEARS

PEACE

YEARS

WAR

1787 £142,000 1793 £191,566

1788 £154,486 1794 £190,554

1789 £153,202 1795 £197,416

1790 £167,156 1796 £230,530

_______________ _______________

Increase

to 1790

£616,844 £810,066 £193,22

_______________ _______________

Increase

to 1791

1791 £191,489

Years

£666,333 £143,73

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[1.]

1791

These duties for 1787, are blended with several others. The

proportion of printed goods to the other articles for four years, was

found to be one-fourth. That proportion is here taken.

SILK

YEARS

PEACE

YEARS

WAR

1787 £159,912 1793 £209,915

1788 £123,998 1794 £221,306

1789 £157,730 1795 £210,725

1790 £212,522 1796 £221,007

_______________ _______________

Increase

to 1790

£634,162 £862,955 £208,79

_______________ _______________

Increase

to 1791

1791 £279,128

Years

1791

£773,378 £89,577

FURS

YEARS

PEACE

YEARS

WAR

1787 £3,463 1793 £2,829

1788 £2,957 1794 £3,353

1789 £1,151 1795 £3,266

1790 £3,328 1796 £6,138

_______________ _______________

Increase

to 1790

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[1.] Report of the Lords Committee of Secrecy, ordered to be printed,

28th April, 1797, Appendix 44.

[1.]

£10,899 £15,586 £4,687

_______________ _______________

Increase

to 1791

1791 £5,731

Years

1791

£13,167 £2,419

The skins here selected from the Custom-House Accounts are, Black

Bear, Ordinary Fox, Marten, Mink, Musquash, Otter, Raccoon, and

Wolf.

INCLOSURE BILLS

YEARS

PEACE

YEARS

WAR

1789 33 1793 60

1790 25 1794 73

1791 40 1795 77

1792 40 1796 72

_______________ _______________

138 283

NAVIGATION AND CANAL BILLS

4 YEARS OF PEACE 4 YEARS OF WAR

1789 3 1793 28

1790 8 1794 18

1791 10 1795 11

1792 9 1796 12

_______________ _______________

30 69

_______________ _______________

Money

raised

£2,377,200 £7,415,100

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[1.]

The above account is taken from a paper which was ordered by

the House of Commons to be printed, 8th December, 1796. From the

gross produce of the year ending 5th April, 1796, there has been

deducted in that statement the sum of £36,666, in consequence of

the regulation on franking, which took place on the 5th May, 1795,

and was computed at £40,000 per annum. To shew an equal number

of years, both of peace and war, the accounts of two preceding years

are given in the following table, from a Report made since Mr. Burke’s

death by a Committee of the House of Commons appointed to

consider the claims of Mr. Palmer, the late Comptroller General; and

for still greater satisfaction, the number of letters, inwards and

outwards, have been added, except for the year 1790–1791. The

letter-book for that year is not to be found.

POST HORSE DUTY

YEARS

PEACE

YEARS

WAR

1787 £169,410 1793 £191,488

1788 £204,659 1794 £202,884

1789 £170,554 1795 £196,691

1790 £181,155 1796 £204,061

_______________ _______________

Increase

1790

£725,778 £795,124 £69,346

_______________ _______________ to 1791

1791 £198,634

Years

1791

£755,002 £40,122

POST OFFICE

NUMBER OF LETTERS

GROSS

REVENUE

INWARDS OUTWARDS

April

1790–

1791

575,079 — —

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[1.] Since Mr. Burke's death a fourth Report of the Committee of

Finance has made its appearance. An account is there given from the

Stamp-office of the gross produce of duties on Hawkers and Pedlars

for four years of peace and four of war. It is therefore added in the

manner of the other tables.

[1.]

1791–

1792

585,432 6,391,149 5,081,344

1792–

1793

627,592 6,584,867 5,041,137

1793–

1794

691,268 7,094,777 6,537,234

1794–

1795

705,319 7,071,029 7,473,626

1795–

1796

750,637 7,641,077 8,597,167

From the last mentioned Report it appears that the

accounts have not been completely and authentically

made up, for the years ending 5th April, 1796 and

1797, but on the Receiver-General's books there is an

increase of the latter year over the former, equal to

something more than 5 per cent.

HAWKERS AND PEDLARS

1789 £6,132 1793 £6,042

1790 £6,708 1794 £6,104

1791 £6,482 1795 £6,795

1792 £6,008 1796 £7,882

_______________ _______________

£25,330 £26,823

_______________ _______________

Increase in 4 Years of War £1,493

GENERAL LICENCES

YEARS

PEACE

YEARS

WAR

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[1.]

1787 44,030 1793 45,568

1788 40,882 1794 42,129

1789 39,917 1795 43,350

1790 41,970 1796 41,190

_______________ _______________

Increase

to 1790

£166,799 £170,237 £3,438

_______________ _______________

Increase

to 1791

1791 44,240

Years

1791

167,009 £3,228

DEALERS IN TEA

YEARS

PEACE

YEARS

WAR

1787 10,934 1793 13,939

1788 11,949 1794 14,315

1789 12,501 1795 13,956

1790 13,126 1796 14,830

_______________ _______________

Increase

to 1790

£48,510 £57,040 £8,530

_______________ _______________

Increase

to 1791

1791 13,921

Years

1791

51,497 £5,543

SELLERS OF PLATE

1787 6,593 1793 8,178

1788 7,953 1794 8,296

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[2.]

[1.]

This account is extracted from different parts of Mr. Chalmers’

Estimate. It is but just to mention, that in Mr. Chalmers’ Estimate, the

sums are uniformly lower, than those of the same year in Mr. Irving’s

account.

[1.]

In a debate, 30th December, 1796, on the return of Lord

Malmesbury. See Woodfall's Parliamentary Debates, vol. xiii. page

591.

LETTER IV TO THE EARL FITZWILLIAM

1789 7,348 1795 8,128

1790 7,988 1796 8,835

_______________ _______________

Increase

to 1790

£29,882 £33,437 £3,555

_______________ _______________

Increase

to 1791

1791 8,327

Years

1791

31,616 £1,821

AUCTIONS AND AUCTIONEERS

1787 48,964 1793 70,004

1788 53,993 1794 82,659

1789 52,024 1795 86,890

1790 53,156 1796 109,594

_______________ _______________

Increase

to 1790

£208,137 £349,147 £141,01

_______________ _______________

Increase

to 1791

1791 70,973

Years

1791

230,146 £119,00

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[Christmas, 1795. First printed by Bishop King, from

Burke’s Manuscript, in vol. v. of the 4to ed. of Burke’s

Works, 1812.]

[Argument

PART I, pp. 308–76

Lord Auckland’s Pamphlet criticised

General purpose of the pamphlet, p. 308.

Particular positions controverted. 1. That the

Jacobin Faction is France, p. 314. Contrast of this

with the Whitehall Declaration of 1793, p. 318. 2.

That France will fall by the weight of her own

conquests, and crumble into separate republics, p.

321. Contrast of this with the reality—the

indivisible republic growing daily in force and

dimensions, p. 326. 3. That the reaction in

England against French ideas may encourage

despotic policy, p. 328. This illustrated by the

large seditious meetings advocating his views,

held while Lord Auckland’s pamphlet was in the

press, ibid. 4. That the Revolution has been a

wholesome lesson to sovereigns, p. 330, and to

the higher classes generally, p. 333. 5. That the

Jacobins are mending their ways, p. 337. This

answered by the proceedings at the inauguration

of the last Constitution, p. 341, including their

insults to England p. 345. That this new

Constitution is a good one—not unlike that of

England, p. 350, that Robespierre, the incarnation

of the old vices of the Revolution has perished, p.

353, that the constitution will be stable, and that

its stability will extend to the peace to be made

with it, p. 355. But England cannot possibly

suffer, even for an “adequate compensation,”

what Lord Auckland himself describes as “The

abandonment of the Independence of Europe,” p.

363. This illustrated by the certain ruin to Britain

in the West Indies which must result from the

relations at present subsisting between France

and Spain, p. 368. After this digression, Burke

returns to the allegation that the Jacobins are

mending their ways, p. 373, which he denies, and

alleges that this is only said with the purpose of

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deluding England into amity with them. The fatal

consequences of such amity are demonstrated in

the next Part.

PART II, pp. 376–94

Consequences in England itself of a Regicide

Peace

The Jacobin Faction will become dominant, p. 375.

Comparison of the British Parliament and the

Greek Divines, p. 381. Invasion of foreign

Jacobinism, p. 382. Ancient character and

decayed condition of the British Constitution, p.

384. Picture of the French Jacobins teaching the

lessons of their experience in England, p. 385. Its

effect on education, p. 389, on legislature and

judicature, p. 390. The end of all will be the

destruction of monarchy and religion. All this may

actually come about, and at short notice, p. 393.]

MY DEAR LORD,

I AM not sure, that the best way of discussing any subject, except

those that concern the abstracted sciences, is not somewhat in the

way of dialogue. To this mode, however, there are two objections. The

first, that it happens, as in the puppet-show, one man speaks for all

the personages. An unnatural uniformity of tone is in a manner

unavoidable. The other, and more serious objection is, that as the

author (if not an absolute sceptick) must have some opinion of his

own to enforce, he will be continually tempted to enervate the

arguments he puts into the mouth of his adversary, or to place them

in a point of view most commodious for their refutation. There is,

however, a sort of dialogue not quite so liable to these objections,

because it approaches more nearly to truth and nature: it is called

CONTROVERSY. Here the parties speak for themselves. If the writer, who

attacks another’s notions, does not deal fairly with his adversary, the

diligent reader has it always in his power, by resorting to the work

examined, to do justice to the original author and to himself. For this

reason you will not blame me, if, in my discussion of the merits of a

Regicide Peace, I do not choose to trust to my own statements, but to

bring forward along with them the arguments of the advocates for

that measure. If I choose puny adversaries, writers of no estimation

or authority, then you will justly blame me. I might as well bring in at

once a fictitious speaker, and thus fall into all the inconveniences of

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an imaginary dialogue. This I shall avoid; and I shall take no notice of

any author, who, my friends in town do not tell me, is in estimation

with those whose opinions he supports.

A piece has been sent to me, called “Remarks on the apparent

Circumstances of the War in the fourth week of October, 1795,” with a

French motto, Que faire encore une fois dans une telle nuit? —

Attendre le jour. The very title seemed to me striking and peculiar,

and to announce something uncommon. In the time I have lived to, I

always seem to walk on enchanted ground. Every thing is new, and

according to the fashionable phrase, revolutionary. In former days,

authors valued themselves upon the maturity and fulness of their

deliberations. Accordingly they predicted (perhaps with more

arrogance than reason) an eternal duration to their works. Quite the

contrary is our present fashion. Writers value themselves now on the

instability of their opinions, and the transitory life of their productions.

On this kind of credit the modern institutors open their schools. They

write for youth; and it is sufficient if the instruction lasts as long as a

present love, or as the painted silks and cottons of the season.

The doctrines in this work are applied, for their standard, with great

exactness, to the shortest possible periods both of conception and

duration. The title is “Some Remarks on the Apparent circumstances

of the War in the fourth week of October, 1795.” The time is critically

chosen. A month or so earlier would have made it the anniversary of a

bloody Parisian September, when the French massacre one another. A

day or two later would have carried it into a London November, the

gloomy month in which it is said by a pleasant author that Englishmen

hang and drown themselves. In truth, this work has a tendency to

alarm us with symptoms of publick suicide. However, there is one

comfort to be taken even from the gloomy time of year. It is a rotting

season. If what is brought to market is not good, it is not likely to

keep long. Even buildings run up in haste with untempered mortar in

that humid weather, if they are ill-contrived tenements, do not

threaten long to encumber the earth. The Author tells us (and I

believe he is the very first Author that ever told such a thing to his

readers) “that the entire fabrick of his speculations might be overset

by unforeseen vicissitudes”; and what is far more extraordinary, “that

even the whole consideration might be varied whilst he was writing

those pages. ” Truly, in my poor judgement, this circumstance formed

a very substantial motive for his not publishing those ill-considered

considerations at all. He ought to have followed the good advice of his

motto; Que faire encore dans une telle nuit? Attendre le jour. He

p. 309

-27

p. 310-4

p. 310-7

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ought to have waited till he had got a little more day-light on this

subject. Night itself is hardly darker than the fogs of that time.

Finding the last week in October so particularly referred to, and not

perceiving any particular event relative to the War, which happened

on any of the days in that week, I thought it possible that they were

marked by some astrological superstition, to which the greatest

politicians have been subject. I therefore had recourse to my Rider’s

Almanack. There I found indeed something that characterized the

work, and that gave directions concerning the sudden political and

natural variations, and for eschewing the maladies that are most

prevalent in that aguish intermittent season, “the last week of

October.” On that week the sagacious astrologer, Rider, in his note on

the third column of the calendar side, teaches us to expect “ variable

and cold weather ”; but instead of encouraging us to trust ourselves

to the haze and mist and doubtful lights of that changeable week, on

the answerable part of the opposite page, he gives us a salutary

caution, (indeed it is very nearly in the words of the author’s motto):

“ Avoid (says he) being out late at night, and in foggy weather, for a

cold now caught may last the whole winter. ”

This ingenious author,

who disdained the prudence of the almanack, walked out in the very

fog he complains of, and has led us to a very unseasonable airing at

that time. Whilst this noble writer, by the vigour of an excellent

constitution, formed for the violent changes he prognosticates, may

shake off the importunate rheum and malignant influenza of this

disagreeable week, a whole Parliament may go on spitting and

snivelling, and wheezing and coughing, during a whole session. All

this from listening to variable, hebdomadal politicians, who run away

from their opinions without giving us a month’s warning; and for not

listening to the wise and friendly admonitions of Dr. Cardanus Rider,

who never apprehends he may change his opinions before his pen is

out of his hand, but always enables us to lay in, at least, a year’s

stock of useful information.

At first I took comfort. I said to myself, that if I should, as I fear I

must, oppose the doctrines of the last week of October, it is probable

that, by this time, they are no longer those of the eminent writer, to

whom they are attributed. He gives us hopes that long before this he

may have embraced the direct contrary sentiments. If I am found in a

conflict with those of the last week of October, I may be in full

agreement with those of the last week in December, or the first week

in January 1796. But a second edition, and a French translation (for

the benefit, I must suppose, of the new Regicide Directory) have let

p. 310

-32

p. 312-2

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down a little of these flattering hopes. We and the Directory know,

that the author, whatever changes his works seemed made to

indicate, like a weather-cock grown rusty, remains just where he was

in the last week of last October. It is true, that his protest against

binding him to his opinions, and his reservation of a right to whatever

opinions he pleases, remain in their full force. This variability is

pleasant, and shews a fertility of fancy;

Qualis in aethereo felix Vertumnus Olympo

Mille habet ornatus, mille decenter habet.

Yet, doing all justice to the sportive variability of these weekly, daily,

or hourly speculators, shall I be pardoned, if I attempt a word on the

part of us simple country folk? It is not good for us, however it may

be so for great statesmen, that we should be treated with variable

politicks. I consider different relations as prescribing a different

conduct. I allow, that in transactions with an enemy, a Minister may,

and often must, vary his demands with the day, possibly with the

hour. With an enemy, a fixed plan, variable arrangements. This is the

rule the nature of the transaction prescribes. But all this belongs to

treaty. All these shiftings and changes are a sort of secret amongst

the parties, till a definite settlement is brought about. Such is the

spirit of the proceedings in the doubtful and transitory state of things

between enmity and friendship. In this change the subjects of the

transformation are by nature carefully wrapt up in their cocoons. The

gay ornament of summer is not seemly in his aurelia state. This

mutability is allowed to a foreign negociator. But when a great

politician condescends publickly to instruct his own countrymen on a

matter, which may fix their fate for ever, his opinions ought not to be

diurnal, or even weekly. These ephemerides of politicks are not made

for our slow and coarse understandings. Our appetite demands a

piece of resistance. We require some food that will stick to the ribs.

We call for sentiments, to which we can attach ourselves; sentiments,

in which we can take an interest; sentiments, on which we can warm,

on which we can ground some confidence in ourselves or in others.

We do not want a largess of inconstancy. Poor souls, we have enough

of that sort of poverty at home. There is a difference too between

deliberation and doctrine: a man ought to be decided in his opinions

before he attempts to teach. His fugitive lights may serve himself in

some unknown region, but they can not free us from the effects of the

error, into which we have been betrayed. His active Will-o’-the-Whisp

may be gone nobody can guess where, whilst he leaves us bemired

and benighted in the bog.

p. 312

-12

p. 312-16

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Having premised these few reflections upon this new mode of

teaching a lesson, which whilst the scholar is getting by heart the

master forgets, I come to the lesson itself. On the fullest

consideration of it, I am utterly incapable of saying with any great

certainty what it is, in the detail, that the author means to affirm or

deny, to dissuade or recommend. His march is mostly oblique, and his

doctrine rather in the way of insinuation than a dogmatick assertion.

It is not only fugitive in its duration, but is slippery, in the extreme,

whilst it lasts. Examining it part by part, it seems almost every where

to contradict itself; and the author, who claims the privilege of varying

his opinions, has exercised this privilege in every section of his

remarks. For this reason, amongst others, I follow the advice which

the able writer gives in his last page, which is “to consider the

impression of what he has urged, taken from the whole, and not from

detached paragraphs.” That caution was not absolutely necessary. I

should think it unfair to the author and to myself, to have proceeded

otherwise. The author’s whole, however, like every other whole, can

not be so well comprehended without some reference to the parts;

but they shall be again referred to the whole. Without this latter

attention, several of the passages would certainly remain covered with

an impenetrable and truly oracular obscurity.

The great general pervading purpose of the whole pamphlet is to

reconcile us to peace with the present usurpation in France. In this

general drift of the author I can hardly be mistaken. The other

purposes, less general, and subservient to the preceding scheme, are

to show, first, that the time of the remarks was the favourable time

for making that peace upon our side; secondly, that on the enemy’s

side their disposition towards the acceptance of such terms as he is

pleased to offer, was rationally to be expected; the third purpose was

to make some sort of disclosure of the terms, which, if the Regicides

are pleased to grant them, this nation ought to be contented to

accept: these form the basis of the negociation, which the author,

whoever he is, proposes to open.

Before I consider these Remarks along with the other reasonings

which I hear on the same subject, I beg leave to recal to your mind

the observation I made early in our correspondence, and which ought

to attend us quite through the discussion of this proposed peace,

amity, or fraternity, or whatever you may call it; that is, the real

quality and character of the party you have to deal with. This, I find,

as a thing of no importance, has every where escaped the author of

the October Remarks. That hostile power to the period of the fourth

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week in that month has been ever called and considered as an

usurpation. In that week, for the first time, it changed its name of an

usurped power, and took the simple name of France. The word France

is slipped in just as if the government stood exactly as before that

revolution which has astonished, terrified, and almost overpowered

Europe. “France,” says the author, “will do this”; “it is the interest of

France”; “the returning honour and generosity of France,” &c. &c.

Always merely France; just as if we were in a common political war

with an old recognized member of the commonwealth of Christian

Europe; and as if our dispute had turned upon a mere matter of

territorial or commercial controversy, which a peace might settle by

the imposition or the taking off a duty, with the gain or the loss of a

remote island or a frontier town or two, on the one side or the other.

This shifting of persons could not be done without the hocus-pocus of

abstraction. We have been in a grievous error. We thought that we

had been at war with rebels against the lawful government, but that

we were friends and allies of what is properly France; friends and

allies to the legal body politick of France. But by sleight of hand the

Jacobins are clean vanished, and it is France we have got under our

cup. Blessings on his soul that first invented sleep, said Don Sancho

Panza the wise! All those blessings, and ten thousand times more, on

him who found out abstraction, personification, and impersonals! In

certain cases they are the first of all soporificks. Terribly alarmed we

should be if things were proposed to us in the concrete; and if

fraternity was held out to us with the individuals, who compose this

France, by their proper names and descriptions: if we were told that it

was very proper to enter into the closest bonds of amity and good

correspondence with the devout, pacifick, and tender-hearted Syeyes,

with the all-accomplished Rewbel, with the humane guillotinists of

Bourdeaux, Tallien and Isabeau; with the meek butcher Legendre, and

with “the returned humanity and generosity” (that had been only on a

visit abroad) of the virtuous regicide brewer Santerre. This would

seem at the outset a very strange scheme of amity and concord; nay,

though we had held out to us, as an additional douceur, an assurance

of the cordial fraternal embrace of our pious and patriotic countryman

Thomas Paine. But plain truth would here be shocking and absurd;

therefore comes in abstraction and personification. “Make your Peace

with France.” That word France sounds quite as well as any other, and

it conveys no idea but that of a very pleasant country and very

hospitable inhabitants. Nothing absurd and shocking in amity and

good correspondence with France. Permit me to say, that I am not yet

well acquainted with this new-coined France, and, without a careful

assay, I am not willing to receive it in currency in place of the old

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Louis d’or.

Having therefore slipped the persons, with whom we are to treat, out

of view, we are next to be satisfied, that the French Revolution, which

this peace is to fix and consolidate, ought to give us no just cause of

apprehension. Though the Author labours this point, yet he confesses

a fact, (indeed he could not conceal it) which renders all his labours

utterly fruitless. He confesses, that the Regicide means to dictate a

pacification, and that this pacification, according to their decree

passed but a very few days before his publication appeared, is to

“unite to their Empire, either in possession or dependence, new

barriers, many frontier places of strength, a large sea-coast, and

many sea-ports.” He ought to have stated it, that they would annex to

their territory a country about a third as large as France, and much

more than half as rich; and in a situation the most important, for

command, that it would be possible for her any where to possess.

To remove this terror, (if the Regicides should carry their point) and

to give us perfect repose with regard to their Empire, whatever they

may acquire, or whomsoever they might destroy, he raises a doubt

“whether France will not be ruined by retaining these conquests, and

whether she will not wholly lose that preponderance, which she has

held in the scale of European powers, and will not eventually be

destroyed by the effect of her present successes; or, at least,

whether, so far as the political interests of England are concerned, she

[France] will remain an object of as much jealousy and alarm, as she

was under the reign of a Monarch. ” Here, indeed, is a paragraph full

of meaning! It gives matter for meditation almost in every word of it.

The secret of the pacifick politicians is out. This Republick, at all

hazards, is to be maintained. It is to be confined within some bounds,

if we can; if not, with every possible acquisition of power, it is still to

be cherished and supported. It is the return of the Monarchy we are to

dread, and therefore we ought to pray for the permanence of the

Regicide authority. Esto perpetua is the devout ejaculation of our Fra

Paolo for the Republick one and indivisible! It was the Monarchy that

rendered France dangerous; Regicide neutralizes all the acrimony of

that power and renders it safe and social. The October speculator is of

opinion, that Monarchy is of so poisonous a quality, that a moderate

territorial power is far more dangerous to its neighbours under that

abominable regimen, than the greatest Empire in the hands of a

Republick. This is Jacobinism sublimed and exalted into most pure and

perfect essence. It is a doctrine, I admit, made to allure and

captivate, if any thing in the world can, the Jacobin directory, to

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mollify the ferocity of Regicide, and to persuade those patriotick

Hangmen, after their reiterated oaths for our extirpation, to admit this

well humbled nation to the fraternal embrace. I do not wonder that

this tub of October has been racked off into a French cask. It must

make its fortune at Paris. That translation seems the language the

most suited to these sentiments. Our author tells the French Jacobins

that the political interests of Great Britain are in perfect unison with

the principles of their government; that they may take and keep the

keys of the civilized world, for they are safe in their unambitious and

faithful custody. We say to them, “We may, indeed, wish you to be a

little less murderous, wicked and atheistical, for the sake of morals:

we may think it were better you were less new-fangled in your

speech, for the sake of grammar: but, as politicians, provided you

keep clear of Monarchy, all our fears, alarms and jealousies are at an

end: at least they sink into nothing in comparison with our dread of

your detestable Royalty.” A flatterer of Cardinal Mazarin said, when

that Minister had just settled the match between the young Louis the

14th and a daughter of Spain, that this alliance had the effect of Faith,

and removed Mountains—that the Pyrenees were levelled by that

marriage. You may now compliment Rewbel in the same spirit on the

miracles of Regicide, and tell him, that the guillotine of Louis the 16th

had consummated a marriage between Great Britain and France,

which dried up the Channel, and restored the two countries to the

unity, which, it is said, they had before the unnatural rage of seas and

earthquakes had broke off their happy junction. It will be a fine

subject for the Poets, who are to prophecy the blessings of this peace.

I am now convinced, that the Remarks of the last week of October

cannot come from the author, to whom they are given; they are such

a direct contradiction to the style of manly indignation, with which he

spoke of those miscreants and murderers in his excellent Memorial to

the States of Holland—to that very State, which the Author, who

presumes to personate him, does not find it contrary to the political

interests of England to leave in the hands of these very miscreants,

against whom on the part of England he took so much pains to

animate their Republick. This cannot be; and, if this argument wanted

any thing to give it new force, it is strengthened by an additional

reason that is irresistible. Knowing that Noble person, as well as

myself, to be under very great obligations to the Crown, I am

confident he would not so very directly contradict, even in the

paroxysm of zeal against monarchy, the declarations made in the

name and with the fullest approbation of our Sovereign, his Master,

and our common benefactor. In those declarations you will see, that

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the King, instead of being sensible of greater alarm and jealousy from

a neighbouring crowned head, than from these Regicides, attributes

all the dangers of Europe to the latter. Let this writer hear the

description given in the Royal Declaration of the scheme of power of

these Miscreants, as “ a system destructive of all publick order;

maintained by proscriptions, exiles, and confiscations without

number; by arbitrary imprisonments; by massacres which cannot be

remembered without horrour; and at length by the execrable murder

of a just and beneficent Sovereign, and of the illustrious princess, who

with an unshaken firmness has shared all the misfortunes of her Royal

consort, his protracted sufferings, his cruel captivity, and his

ignominious death. ” After thus describing, with an eloquence and

energy equalled only by its truth, the means, by which this usurped

power had been acquired and maintained, that government is

characterized with equal force. His Majesty, far from thinking

Monarchy in France to be a greater object of jealousy, than the

Regicide usurpation, calls upon the French to re-establish “ a

monarchical government ” for the purpose of shaking off “ the yoke of

a sanguinary anarchy; of that anarchy, which has broken the most

sacred bonds of Society, dissolved all the relations of civil life, violated

every right, confounded every duty; which uses the name of liberty to

exercise the most cruel tyranny, to annihilate all property, to seize on

all possessions; which founds its power on the pretended consent of

the people, and itself carries fire and sword through extensive

provinces for having demanded their laws, their religion and their

rightful Sovereign. ”

“That strain I heard was of an higher mood.” That declaration of our

Sovereign was worthy of his throne. It is in a style, which neither the

pen of the writer of October, nor such a poor crow-quill as mine can

ever hope to equal. I am happy to enrich my letter with this fragment

of nervous and manly eloquence, which if it had not emanated from

the awful authority of a throne, if it were not recorded amongst the

most valuable monuments of history, and consecrated in the archives

of States, would be worthy as a private composition to live for ever in

the memory of men.

In those admirable pieces, does his Majesty discover this new opinion

of his political security in having the chair of the Scorner, that is, the

discipline of Atheism and the block of Regicide, set up by his side,

elevated on the same platform, and shouldering, with the vile image

of their grim and bloody idol, the inviolable majesty of his throne? The

sentiments of these declarations are the very reverse: they could not

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be other. Speaking of the spirit of that usurpation the Royal manifesto

describes with perfect truth its internal tyranny to have been

established as the very means of shaking the security of all other

States; as “ disposing arbitrarily of the property and blood of the

inhabitants of France, in order to disturb the tranquillity of other

nations, and to render all Europe the theatre of the same crimes and

the same misfortunes. ” It was but a natural inference from this fact,

that the Royal manifesto does not at all rest the justification of this

war on common principles: “ that it was not only to defend his own

rights, and those of his Allies, ” but “ that all the dearest interests of

his people imposed upon him a Duty still more important—that of

exerting his efforts for the preservation of civil society itself, as

happily established among the nations of Europe. ” On that ground

the protection offered is to those, who by “declaring for a Monarchical

government shall shake off the yoke of a sanguinary Anarchy.” It is

for that purpose the Declaration calls on them to join the standard of

an “ hereditary Monarchy ”; and declaring, that the safety and peace

of this Kingdom and the powers of Europe “ materially depend upon

the re-establishment of order in France, ” his Majesty does not

hesitate to declare, that “ the re-establishment of Monarchy in the

person of Louis the 17th and the lawful heirs of his crown appears to

him [his Majesty] the best mode of accomplishing these just and

salutary views. ”

This is what his Majesty does not hesitate to declare relative to the

political safety and peace of his Kingdom and of Europe, and with

regard to France under her ancient hereditary Monarchy in the course

and order of legal succession. But in comes a gentleman in the fag

end of October, dripping with the fogs of that humid and uncertain

season, and does not hesitate in Diameter to contradict this wise and

just Royal declaration; and stoutly, on his part, to make a counter-

declaration, that France, so far as the political interests of England are

concerned, will not remain, under the despotism of Regicide and with

the better part of Europe in her hands, so much an object of jealousy

and alarm, as she was under the reign of a Monarch. When I hear the

Master and reason on one side, and the Servant and his single and

unsupported assertion on the other, my part is taken.

This is what the Octobrist says of the political interests of England,

which it looks as if he completely disconnected with those of all other

nations. But not quite so; he just allows it possible (with an “at least”)

that the other powers may not find it quite their interest, that their

Territories should be conquered and their Subjects tyrannized over by

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the Regicides. No fewer than ten Sovereign Princes had, some the

whole, all a very considerable part, of their Dominions, under the yoke

of that dreadful faction. Amongst these was to be reckoned the first

Republick in the World, and the closest Ally of this Kingdom, which,

under the insulting name of an independency, is under her iron yoke;

and, as long as a faction averse to the old government is suffered

there to domineer, cannot be otherwise. I say nothing of the Austrian

Netherlands, countries of a vast extent, and amongst the most fertile

and populous of Europe; and with regard to us most critically situated.

The rest will readily occur to you.

But if there are yet existing any people, like me, old fashioned enough

to consider, that we have an important part of our very existence

beyond our limits, and who therefore stretch their thoughts beyond

the Pomoerium of England, for them too he has a comfort, which will

remove all their jealousies and alarms about the extent of the Empire

of Regicide. “ These conquests eventually will be the cause of her

destruction. ” So that they, who hate the cause of usurpation and

dread the power of France under any form, are to wish her to be a

conqueror, in order to accelerate her ruin. A little more conquest

would be still better. Will he tell us what dose of Dominion is to be the

quantum sufficit for her destruction, for she seems very voracious of

the food of her distemper? To be sure she is ready to perish with

repletion; she has a Boulimia, and hardly has bolted down one State,

than she calls for two or three more. There is a good deal of wit in all

this; but it seems to me (with all respect to the Author) to be carrying

the joke a great deal too far. I cannot yet think, that the Armies of the

Allies were of this way of thinking; and that, when they evacuated all

these countries, it was a stratagem of war to decoy France into ruin;

or that, if in a Treaty we should surrender them for ever into the

hands of the usurpation (the lease, the author supposes) it is a

master-stroke of policy to effect the destruction of a formidable rival,

and to render her no longer an object of jealousy and alarm. This, I

assure the Author, will infinitely facilitate the Treaty. The usurpers will

catch at this bait, without minding the hook, which this crafty angler

for the Jacobin gudgeons of the New Directory has so dexterously

placed under it.

Every symptom of the exacerbation of the publick malady is with him

(as with the Doctor in Molière) a happy prognostick of recovery.

Flanders gone!— tant mieux. Holland subdued!—charming! Spain

beaten, and all the hither Germany conquered!—Bravo! Better and

better still! But they will retain all their conquests on a Treaty! Best of

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all! What a delightful thing it is to have a gay physician who sees all

things, as the French express it, couleur de rose! What an escape we

have had, that we and our Allies were not the Conquerors! By these

conquests, previous to her utter destruction, she is “wholly to lose

that preponderance, which she held in the scale of the European

Powers.” Bless me! This new system of France, after changing all

other laws, reverses the law of gravitation. By throwing in weight

after weight her scale rises, and will by and by kick the beam!

Certainly there is one sense in which she loses her preponderance:

that is she is no longer preponderant against the Countries she has

conquered. They are part of herself. But I beg the Author to keep his

eyes fixed on the scales for a moment longer, and then to tell me in

downright earnest, whether he sees hitherto any signs of her losing

preponderance by an augmentation of weight and power. Has she lost

her preponderance over Spain, by her influence in Spain? Are there

any signs, that the conquest of Savoy and Nice begins to lessen her

preponderance over Switzerland and the Italian States—or that the

Canton of Berne, Genoa and Tuscany, for example, have taken arms

against her, or, that Sardinia is more adverse than ever to a

treacherous pacification? Was it in the last week of October, that the

German States shewed that Jacobin France was losing her

preponderance? Did the King of Prussia, when he delivered into her

safe custody his territories on this side of the Rhine, manifest any

tokens of his opinion of her loss of preponderance? Look on Sweden

and on Denmark: is her preponderance less visible there?

It is true, that in a course of ages Empires have fallen, and, in the

opinion of some, not in mine, by their own weight. Sometimes they

have been unquestionably embarrassed in their movements by the

dissociated situation of their Dominions. Such was the case of the

empire of Charles the Fifth and of his successor. It might be so of

others. But so compact a body of empire; so fitted in all the parts for

mutual support; with a Frontier by nature and art so impenetrable;

with such facility of breaking out with irresistible force, from every

quarter, was never seen in such an extent of territory from the

beginning of time, as in that empire, which the Jacobins possessed in

October 1795, and which Boissy d’Anglas, in his Report, settled as the

Law for Europe, and the Dominion assigned by Nature for the

Republick of Regicide. But this Empire is to be her ruin, and to take

away all alarm and jealousy on the part of England, and to destroy

her preponderance over the miserable remains of Europe!

These are choice speculations, with which the Author amuses himself,

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and tries to divert us, in the blackest hours of the dismay, defeat and

calamity of all civilized nations. They have but one fault, that they are

directly contrary to the common sense and common feeling of

mankind. If I had but one hour to live, I would employ it in decrying

this wretched system, and die with my pen in my hand to mark out

the dreadful consequences of receiving an arrangement of Empire

dictated by the despotism of Regicide to my own Country, and to the

lawful Sovereigns of the Christian World.

I trust I shall hardly be told, in palliation of this shameful system of

politicks, that the Author expresses his sentiments only as doubts. In

such things it may be truly said that “once to doubt is once to be

resolved.” It would be a strange reason for wasting the treasures and

shedding the blood of our country to prevent arrangements on the

part of another power, of which we were doubtful, whether they might

not be even to our advantage and render our neighbour less than

before the object of our jealousy and alarm. In this doubt there is

much decision. No nation would consent to carry on a war of

scepticism. But the fact is, this expression of doubt is only a mode of

putting an opinion when it is not the drift of the Author to overturn

the doubt. Otherwise, the doubt is never stated as the Author’s own,

nor left, as here it is, unanswered. Indeed, the mode of stating the

most decided opinions in the form of questions is so little uncommon,

particularly since the excellent queries of the excellent Berkeley, that

it became for a good while a fashionable mode of composition.

Here then the Author of the fourth week of October is ready for the

worst, and would strike the bargain of peace on these conditions. I

must leave it to you and to every considerate man to reflect upon the

effect of this on any Continental alliances present or future, and

whether it would be possible (if this book was thought of the least

authority) that its maxims with regard to our political interest must

not naturally push them to be beforehand with us in the fraternity

with Regicide, and thus not only strip us of any steady alliance at

present, but leave us without any of that communion of interest which

could produce alliances in future. Indeed, with these maxims, we

should be well divided from the World.

Notwithstanding this new kind of barrier and security that is found

against her ambition in her conquests, yet in the very same paragraph

he admits that “for the present at least it is subversive of the balance

of power.” This, I confess, is not a direct contradiction, because the

benefits which he promises himself from it, according to his

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hypothesis are future and more remote.

So disposed is this Author to peace, that, having laid a comfortable

foundation of our security in the greatness of her Empire, he has

another in reserve if that should fail, upon quite a contrary ground;

that is, a speculation of her crumbling to pieces and being thrown into

a number of little separate Republicks. After paying the tribute of

humanity to those who will be ruined by all these changes, on the

whole he is of opinion that “the change might be compatible with

general tranquillity, and with the establishment of a peaceful and

prosperous commerce among nations.” Whether France be great or

small, firm and entire, or dissipated and divided, all is well; provided

we can have peace with her.

But, without entering into speculations about her dismemberment

whilst she is adding great nations to her empire, is it then quite so

certain, that the dissipation of France into such a cluster of petty

Republicks would be so very favourable to the true balance of power

in Europe, as this Author imagines it would be, and to the commerce

of Nations? I greatly differ from him. I perhaps shall prove in a future

letter, with the political map of Europe before my eye, that the

general liberty and independence of the great Christian

commonwealth could not exist with such a dismemberment; unless it

were followed (as probably enough it would) by the dismemberment

of every other considerable country in Europe: and what convulsions

would arise in the constitution of every state in Europe, it is not easy

to conjecture in the mode, impossible not to foresee in the mass.

Speculate on, good my Lord! provided you ground no part of your

politicks on such unsteady speculations. But, as to any practice to

ensue, are we not yet cured of the malady of speculating on the

circumstances of things totally different from those in which we live

and move? Five years has this Monster continued whole and entire in

all its members. Far from falling into a division within itself, it is

augmented by tremendous additions. We cannot bear to look that

frightful form in the face as it is and in its own actual shape. We dare

not be wise. We have not the fortitude of rational fear. We will not

provide for our future safety; but we endeavour to hush the cries of

present timidity by guesses at what may be hereafter. “To-morrow,

and to-morrow, and to-morrow” —is this our style of talk, when “all

our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death?” Talk not to

me of what swarms of Republicks may come from this carcass! It is

no carcass. Now, now, whilst we are talking, it is full of life and action.

What say you to the Regicide Empire of to-day? Tell me, my friend, do

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its terrors appal you into an abject submission, or rouse you to a

vigorous defence? But do—I no longer prevent it—do go on—look into

futurity. Has this Empire nothing to alarm you when all struggle

against it is over, when Mankind shall be silent before it, when all

nations shall be disarmed, disheartened and truly divided by a

treacherous peace? Its malignity towards humankind will subsist with

undiminished heat, whilst the means of giving it effect must proceed,

and every means of resisting it must inevitably and rapidly decline.

Against alarm on their politick and military empire these are the

writer’s sedative remedies. But he leaves us sadly in the dark with

regard to the moral consequences which he states have threatened to

demolish a system of civilization under which his Country enjoys a

prosperity unparalleled in the history of Man. We had emerged from

our first terrors. But here we sink into them again; however, only to

shake them off upon the credit of his being a Man of very sanguine

hopes.

Against the moral terrors of this successful empire of barbarism,

though he has given us no consolation here, in another place he has

formed other securities; securities, indeed, which will make even the

enormity of the crimes and atrocities of France a benefit to the world.

We are to be cured by her diseases. We are to grow proud of our

Constitution upon the distempers of theirs. Governments throughout

all Europe are to become much stronger by this event. This too comes

in the favourite mode of doubt, and perhaps. “To those,” he says,

“who meditate on the workings of the human mind, a doubt may

perhaps arise, whether the effects, which I have described [namely

the change he supposes to be wrought on the publick mind with

regard to the French doctrines] “though at present a salutary check to

the dangerous spirit of innovation, may not prove favourable to

abuses of power, by creating a timidity in the just cause of liberty.”

Here the current of our apprehensions takes a contrary course.

Instead of trembling for the existence of our government from the

spirit of licentiousness and anarchy, the author would make us believe

we are to tremble for our liberties from the great accession of power

which is to accrue to government.

I believe I have read in some author who criticised the productions of

the famous Jurieu, that it is not very wise in people, who dash away in

prophecy, to fix the time of accomplishment at too short a period. Mr.

Brothers may meditate upon this at his leisure. He was a melancholy

prognosticator, and has had the fate of melancholy men. But they

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who prophecy pleasant things get great present applause; and in days

of calamity people have something else to think of—they lose in their

feeling of their distress all memory of those who flattered them in

their prosperity. But, merely for the credit of the prediction, nothing

could have happened more unluckily for the Noble Lord’s sanguine

expectations of the amendment of the publick mind and the

consequent greater security to government from the examples in

France, than what happened in the week after the publication of his

hebdomadal system. I am not sure it was not in the very week, one of

the most violent and dangerous seditions broke out, that we have

seen in several years. This sedition, menacing to the publick security,

endangering the sacred person of the King, and violating in the most

audacious manner the authority of Parliament, surrounded our

sovereign with a murderous yell and war whoop for that peace, which

the Noble Lord considers as a cure for all domestick disturbances and

dissatisfactions.

So far as to this general cure for popular disorders. As for

Government, the two Houses of Parliament, instead of being guided

by the speculations of the fourth week in October, and throwing up

new barriers against the dangerous power of the crown, which the

Noble Lord considered as no unplausible subject of apprehension—the

two Houses of Parliament thought fit to pass two Acts for the further

strengthening of that very government against a most dangerous and

wide spread faction.

Unluckily too for this kind of sanguine speculation, on the very first

day of the ever famed “last week of October,” a large, daring, and

seditious meeting was publickly held, from which meeting this

atrocious attempt against the Sovereign publickly originated.

No wonder, that the Author should tell us, that the whole

consideration might be varied whilst he was writing those pages. In

one, and that the most material, instance, his speculations not only

might be, but were at that very time, entirely overset. Their war-cry

for peace with France was the same with that of this gentle Author,

but in a different note. His is the gemitus columbae, cooing and

wooing fraternity: theirs the funereal screams of birds of night calling

for their ill-omened paramours. But they are both songs of courtship.

These Regicides considered a regicide peace as a cure for all their

evils; and, so far as I can find, they showed nothing at all of the

timidity which the Noble Lord apprehends in what they call the “just

cause of liberty.”

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However, it seems, that notwithstanding these awkward appearances

with regard to the strength of government, he has still his fears and

doubts about our liberties. To a free people this would be a matter of

alarm, but this Physician of October has in his shop all sorts of salves

for all sorts of sores. It is curious, that they all come from the

inexhaustible Drug Shop of the Regicide Dispensary. It costs him

nothing to excite terror, because he lays it at his pleasure. He finds a

security for this danger to liberty from the wonderful wisdom to be

taught to Kings, to Nobility, and even to the lowest of the people, by

the late transactions.

I confess I was always blind enough to regard the French Revolution,

in the act and much more in the example, as one of the greatest

calamities that had ever fallen upon mankind. I now find, that in its

effects it is to be the greatest of all blessings. If so, we owe amende

honorable to the Jacobins. They, it seems, were right—and if they

were right a little earlier than we are, it only shews that they

exceeded us in sagacity. If they brought out their right ideas

somewhat in a disorderly manner, it must be remembered that great

zeal produces some irregularity; but, when greatly in the right, it

must be pardoned by those, who are very regularly and temperately

in the wrong. The Master Jacobins had told me this a thousand times.

I never believed the Masters; nor do I now find myself disposed to

give credit to the Disciple. I will not much dispute with our Author,

which party has the best of this Revolution—that, which is from

thence to learn wisdom, or that, which from the same event has

obtained power. The dispute on the preference of strength to wisdom

may perhaps be decided as Horace has decided the Controversy

between Art and Nature. I do not like to leave all the power to my

adversary, and to secure nothing to myself but the untimely wisdom

that is taught by the consequences of folly. I do not like my share in

the partition, because to his strength my adversary may possibly add

a good deal of cunning, whereas my wisdom may totally fail in

producing to me the same degree of strength. But to descend from

the Author’s generalities a little nearer to meaning, the security given

to Liberty is this, “that Governments will have learned not to

precipitate themselves into embarrassments by speculative wars.

Sovereigns and Princes will not forget that steadiness, moderation and

economy are the best supports of the eminence on which they stand.

There seems to me a good deal of oblique reflexion in this lesson. As

to the lesson itself, it is at all times a good one. One would think

however, by this formal introduction of it, as a recommendation of the

arrangements proposed by the Author, it had never been taught

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before, either by precept or by experience; and that these maxims are

discoveries reserved for a Regicide peace. But is it permitted to ask,

what security it affords to the liberty of the subject, that the Prince is

pacifick or frugal? The very contrary has happened in our history. Our

best securities for freedom have been obtained from Princes who were

either warlike, or prodigal, or both.

Although the amendment of Princes, in these points, can have no

effect in quieting our apprehensions for Liberty on account of the

strength to be acquired to government by a Regicide peace, I allow,

that the avoiding of speculative wars may possibly be an advantage;

provided I well understand, what the Author means by a speculative

war. I suppose he means a war grounded on speculative advantages,

and not wars founded on a just speculation of danger. Does he mean

to include this war, which we are now carrying on, amongst those

speculative wars, which this Jacobin peace is to teach Sovereigns to

avoid hereafter? If so, it is doing the Party an important service. Does

he mean that we are to avoid such wars as that of the grand Alliance,

made on a speculation of danger to the independence of Europe? I

suspect he has a sort of retrospective view to the American war, as a

speculative war, carried on by England upon one side, and by Lewis

the 16th on the other. As to our share of that war, let reverence to

the dead and respect to the living prevent us from reading lessons of

this kind at their expence. I don’t know how far the Author may find

himself at liberty to wanton on that subject, but, for my part, I

entered into a coalition, which, when I had no longer a duty relative to

that business, made me think myself bound in honour not to call it up

without necessity. But if he puts England out of the question and

reflects only on Louis the 16th, I have only to say “Dearly has he

answered it.” I will not defend him. But all those, who pushed on the

Revolution, by which he was deposed, were much more in fault, than

he was. They have murdered him, and have divided his Kingdom as a

spoil; but they, who are the guilty, are not they, who furnish the

example. They, who reign through his fault, are not among those

Sovereigns, who are likely to be taught to avoid speculative wars by

the murder of their master. I think the Author will not be hardy

enough to assert, that they have shown less disposition to meddle in

the concerns of that very America, than he did, and in a way not less

likely to kindle the flame of speculative war. Here is one Sovereign not

yet reclaimed by these healing examples. Will he point out the other

Sovereigns, who are to be reformed by this peace? Their wars may

not be speculative. But the world will not be much mended by turning

wars from unprofitable and speculative to practical and lucrative,

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whether the liberty or the repose of mankind is regarded. If the

Author’s new Sovereign in France is not reformed by the example of

his own Revolution, that Revolution has not added much to the

security and repose of Poland, for instance, or taught the three great

partitioning powers more moderation in their second, than they had

shewn in their first division of that devoted Country. The first division,

which preceded these destructive examples, was moderation itself in

comparison of what has been done since the period of the Author’s

amendment.

This Paragraph is written with something of a studied obscurity. If it

means any thing, it seems to hint as if Sovereigns were to learn

moderation, and an attention to the Liberties of their people, from the

fate of the Sovereigns who have suffered in this war, and eminently of

Louis the XVIth.

Will he say, whether the King of Sardinia’s horrible tyranny was the

cause of the loss of Savoy and of Nice? What lesson of moderation

does it teach the Pope? I desire to know, whether his Holiness is to

learn not to massacre his subjects, nor to waste and destroy such

beautiful countries, as that of Avignon, lest he should call to their

assistance that great deliverer of nations, Jourdan Coupe-tête? What

lesson does it give of moderation to the Emperor, whose Predecessor

never put one man to death after a general rebellion of the Low

Countries, that the Regicides never spared man, woman, or child,

whom they but suspected of dislike to their usurpations? What, then,

are all these lessons about the softening the character of Sovereigns

by this Regicide peace? On reading this section one would imagine,

that the poor tame Sovereigns of Europe had been a sort of furious

wild beasts, that stood in need of some uncommonly rough discipline

to subdue the ferocity of their savage nature!

As to the example to be learnt from the murder of Louis the 16th, if a

lesson to Kings is not derived from his fate, I do not know whence it

can come. The Author, however, ought not to have left us in the dark

upon that subject, to break our shins over hints and insinuations. Is it,

then, true, that this unfortunate monarch drew his punishment upon

himself by his want of moderation, and his oppressing the liberties, of

which he had found his people in possession? Is not the direct

contrary the fact? And is not the example of this Revolution the very

reverse of any thing, which can lead to that softening of character in

Princes, which the Author supposes as a security to the people, and

has brought forward as a recommendation to fraternity with those,

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who have administered that happy emollient in the murder of their

King and the slavery and desolation of their Country?

But the Author does not confine the benefit of the Regicide lesson to

Kings alone. He has a diffusive bounty. Nobles, and men of property

will likewise be greatly reformed. They too will be led to a review of

their social situation and duties, “and will reflect, that their large

allotment of worldly advantages is for the aid and benefit of the

whole.” Is it then from the fate of Juignie, Archbishop of Paris, or of

the Cardinal de Rochefoucault, and of so many others, who gave their

fortunes, and, I may say, their very beings to the poor, that the rich

are to learn, that their “fortunes are for the aid and benefit of the

whole?” I say nothing of the liberal persons of great rank and

property, lay and ecclesiastick, men and women, to whom we have

had the honour and happiness of affording an asylum—I pass by

these, lest I should never have done, or lest I should omit some as

deserving as any I might mention. Why will the Author then suppose,

that the Nobles and men of property in France have been banished,

confiscated and murdered, on account of the savageness and ferocity

of their character, and their being tainted with vices beyond those of

the same order and description in other countries? No Judge of a

Revolutionary tribunal, with his hands dipped in their blood, and his

maw gorged with their property, has yet dared to assert what this

Author has been pleased, by way of a moral lesson, to insinuate.

Their Nobility and their men of property, in a mass, had the very

same virtues and the very same vices, and in the very same

proportions, with the same description of men in this and in other

nations. I must do justice to suffering honour, generosity, and

integrity. I do not know that any time or any country has furnished

more splendid examples of every virtue, domestick and publick. I do

not enter into the councils of Providence: but humanly speaking,

many of these Nobles and men of property, from whose disastrous

fate we are, it seems, to learn a general softening of character, and a

revision of our social situations and duties, appear to me full as little

deserving of that fate, as the Author, whoever he is, can be. Many of

them, I am sure, were such as I should be proud indeed to be able to

compare myself with, in knowledge, in integrity, and in every other

virtue. My feeble nature might shrink, though theirs did not, from the

proof; but my reason and my ambition tell me, that it would be a

good bargain to purchase their merits with their fate.

For which of his vices did that great magistrate, D’Espremenil, lose his

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fortune and his head? What were the abominations of Malesherbes,

that other excellent magistrate, whose sixty years of uniform virtue

was acknowledged, in the very act of his murder, by the judicial

butchers who condemned him? On account of what misdemeanours

was he robbed of his property, and slaughtered with two generations

of his offspring; and the remains of the third race, with a refinement

of cruelty, and lest they should appear to reclaim the property

forfeited by the virtues of their ancestor, confounded in an Hospital

with the thousands of those unhappy foundling infants, who are

abandoned, without relation and without name, by the wretchedness

or by the profligacy of their parents?

Is the fate of the Queen of France to produce this softening of

character? Was she a person so very ferocious and cruel as, by the

example of her death, to frighten us into common humanity? Is there

no way to teach the Emperor a softening of character and a review of

his social situation and duty, but his consent, by an infamous accord

with regicide, to drive a second coach with the Austrian Arms through

the streets of Paris, along which, after a series of preparatory horrors

exceeding the atrocities of the bloody execution itself, the glory of the

Imperial Race had been carried to an ignominious death? Is this a

lesson of moderation to a descendant of Maria Theresa, drawn from

the fate of the daughter of that incomparable woman and sovereign?

If he learns this lesson from such an object and from such teachers,

the man may remain, but the King is deposed. If he does not carry

quite another memory of that transaction in the inmost recesses of his

heart, he is unworthy to reign; he is unworthy to live. In the chronicle

of disgrace he will have but this short tale told of him, “he was the

first Emperor, of his house, that embraced a regicide: He was the last,

that wore the imperial purple.” Far am I from thinking so ill of this

august Sovereign, who is at the head of the Monarchies of Europe,

and who is the trustee of their dignities and his own.

What ferocity of character drew on the fate of Elizabeth, the sister of

King Lewis the 16th? For which of the vices of that pattern of

benevolence, of piety, and of all the virtues, did they put her to

death? For which of her vices did they put to death the mildest of all

human creatures, the Duchess of Biron? What were the crimes of

those crowds of Matrons and Virgins of condition, whom they

massacred, with their juries of blood, in prisons and on scaffolds?

What were the enormities of the Infant King, whom they caused by

lingering tortures to perish in their dungeon, and whom if at last they

despatched by poison, it was in that detestable crime the only act of

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mercy they have ever shewn?

What softening of character is to be had, what review of their social

situations and duties is to be taught by these examples, to Kings, to

Nobles, to Men of Property, to Women, and to Infants? The Royal

Family perished, because it was royal. The Nobles perished, because

they were noble. The Men, Women and Children, who had property,

because they had property to be robbed of. The Priests were

punished, after they had been robbed of their all, not for their vices,

but for their virtues and their piety, which made them an honour to

their sacred profession, and to that nature, of which we ought to be

proud, since they belong to it. My Lord, nothing can be learned from

such examples, except the danger of being Kings, Queens, Nobles,

Priests, and Children to be butchered on account of their inheritance.

These are things, at which not Vice, not Crime, not Folly, but Wisdom,

Goodness, Learning, Justice, Probity, Beneficence stand aghast. By

these examples our reason and our moral sense are not enlightened,

but confounded; and there is no refuge for astonished and affrighted

virtue, but being annihilated in humility and submission, sinking into a

silent adoration of the inscrutable dispensations of Providence, and

flying with trembling wings from this world of daring crimes, and

feeble, pusillanimous, half-bred, bastard Justice, to the asylum of

another order of things, in an unknown form, but in a better life.

Whatever the Politician or Preacher of September or of October may

think of the matter, it is a most comfortless, disheartening, desolating

example. Dreadful is the example of ruined innocence and virtue, and

the compleatest triumph of the compleatest villainy, that ever vexed

and disgraced mankind! The example is ruinous in every point of

view, religious, moral, civil, political. It establishes that dreadful

maxim of Machiavel, that in great affairs men are not to be wicked by

halves. This maxim is not made for a middle sort of beings, who,

because they cannot be Angels, ought to thwart their ambition and

not endeavour to become infernal spirits. It is too well exemplified in

the present time, where the faults and errours of humanity, checked

by the imperfect timorous virtues, have been overpowered by those,

who have stopped at no crime. It is a dreadful part of the example,

that infernal malevolence has had pious apologists, who read their

lectures on frailties in favour of crimes; who abandoned the weak, and

court the friendship of the wicked. To root out these maxims, and the

examples that support them, is a wise object of years of war. This is

that war. This is that moral war. It was said by old Trivulzio, that the

battle of Marignan was the battle of the Giants, that all the rest of the

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many he had seen were those of the Cranes and Pygmies. This is true

of the objects, at least, of the contest. For the greater part of those,

which we have hitherto contended for, in comparison, were the toys

of children.

The October Politician is so full of charity and good nature, that he

supposes, that these very robbers and murderers themselves are in a

course of amelioration; on what ground I cannot conceive, except on

the long practice of every crime, and by its complete success. He is an

Origenist, and believes in the conversion of the Devil. All that runs in

the place of blood in his veins, is nothing but the milk of human

kindness. He is as soft as a curd, though, as a politician, he might be

supposed to be made of sterner stuff. He supposes (to use his own

expression) “that the salutary truths which he inculcates, are making

their way into their bosoms.” Their bosom is a rock of granite, on

which falsehood has long since built her strong hold. Poor Truth has

had a hard work of it with her little pickaxe. Nothing but gunpowder

will do.

As a proof, however, of the progress of this sap of Truth, he gives us

a confession they had made not long before he wrote. “Their

fraternity” (as was lately stated by themselves in a solemn report)

“has been the brotherhood of Cain and Abel, and they have organized

nothing but Bankruptcy and Famine.” A very honest confession truly;

and much in the spirit of their oracle, Rousseau. Yet, what is still more

marvellous than the confession, this is the very fraternity, to which

our author gives us such an obliging invitation to accede. There is,

indeed, a vacancy in the fraternal corps; a brother and a partner is

wanted. If we please, we may fill up the place of the butchered Abel;

and whilst we wait the destiny of the departed brother, we may enjoy

the advantages of the partnership, by entering without delay into a

shop of ready-made Bankruptcy and Famine. These are the Douceurs,

by which we are invited to regicide fraternity and friendship. But still

our Author considers the confession as a proof, that “truth is making

its way into their bosoms.” No! it is not making its way into their

bosoms. It has forced its way into their mouths! The evil spirit, by

which they are possessed, though essentially a liar, is forced, by the

tortures of conscience, to confess the truth; to confess enough for

their condemnation, but not for their amendment. Shakespeare very

aptly expresses this kind of confession, devoid of repentance, from

the mouth of an usurper, a murderer, and a regicide—

We ourselves compelled

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Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,

To give in evidence.

Whence is their amendment? Why, the Author writes, that on their

murderous insurrectionary system their own lives are not sure for an

hour; nor has their power a greater stability. True. They are

convinced of it, and accordingly the wretches have done all they can

to preserve their lives and to secure their power; but not one step

have they taken to amend the one, or to make a more just use of the

other. Their wicked policy has obliged them to make a pause in the

only massacres, in which their treachery and cruelty had operated as

a kind of savage justice, that is, the massacre of the accomplices of

their crimes. They have ceased to shed the inhuman blood of their

fellow murderers; but when they take any of those persons, who

contend for their lawful government, their property, and their religion,

notwithstanding the truth, which this author says is making its way

into their bosoms, it has not taught them the least tincture of mercy.

This we plainly see by their massacre at Quiberon, where they put to

death, with every species of contumely, and without any exception,

every prisoner of war who did not escape out of their hands. To have

had property, to have been robbed of it, and to endeavour to regain

it—these are crimes irremissible, to which every man, who regards his

property or his life, in every country, ought well to look in all

connexion with those, with whom, to have had property was an

offence, to endeavour to keep it, a second offence, to attempt to

regain it, a crime that puts the offender out of all the laws of peace or

war. You cannot see one of those wretches without an alarm for your

life as well as your goods. They are like the worst of the French and

Italian banditti, who, whenever they robbed, were sure to murder.

Are they not the very same Ruffians, Thieves, Assassins, and

Regicides, that they were from the beginning? Have they diversified

the scene by the least variety, or produced the face of a single new

villainy? Taedet harum quotidianarum formarum. Oh! but I shall be

answered, it is now quite another thing—they are all changed—you

have not seen them in their state dresses. This makes an amazing

difference. The new Habit of the Directory is so charmingly fancied,

that it is impossible not to fall in love with so well-dressed a

Constitution. The Costume of the Sansculotte Constitution of 1793

was absolutely insufferable. The Committee for Foreign Affairs were

such slovens, and stunk so abominably, that no Muscadin Ambassador

of the smallest degree of delicacy of nerves could come within ten

yards of them: but now they are so powdered and perfumed and

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ribbanded and sashed and plumed, that, though they are grown

infinitely more insolent in their fine cloaths, even than they were in

their rags (and that was enough), as they now appear, there is

something in it more grand and noble, something more suitable to an

awful Roman Senate, receiving the homage of dependent Tetrarchs.

Like that Senate (their perpetual model for conduct towards other

nations) they permit their vassals, during their good pleasure, to

assume the name of Kings, in order to bestow more dignity on the

suite and retinue of the Sovereign Republick by the nominal rank of

their slaves— Ut habeant instrumenta servitutis et reges. All this is

very fine, undoubtedly; and Ambassadors, whose hands are almost

out for want of employment, may long to have their part in this

august ceremony of the Republick one and indivisible. But, with great

deference to the new diplomatic taste, we old people must retain

some square-toed predilection for the fashions of our youth. I am

afraid you will find me, my Lord, again falling into my usual vanity, in

valuing myself on the eminent Men whose society I once enjoyed. I

remember in a conversation I once had with my ever dear friend

Garrick, who was the first of Actors, because he was the most acute

observer of nature I ever knew, I asked him, how it happened that

whenever a Senate appeared on the Stage, the Audience seemed

always disposed to laughter? He said the reason was plain; the

Audience was well acquainted with the faces of most of the Senators.

They knew, that they were no other than candle-snuffers,

revolutionary scene-shifters, second and third mob, prompters, clerks,

executioners, who stand with their axe on their shoulders by the

wheel, grinners in the Pantomime, murderers in Tragedies, who make

ugly faces under black wigs; in short, the very scum and refuse of the

Theatre; and it was of course, that the contrast of the vileness of the

Actors with the pomp of their Habits naturally excited ideas of

contempt and ridicule.

So it was at Paris on the inaugural day of the Constitution for the

present year. The foreign Ministers were ordered to attend at this

investiture of the Directory —for so they call the managers of their

burlesque Government. The Diplomacy, who were a sort of strangers,

were quite awe struck with “the pride, pomp, and circumstance” of

this majestick Senate; whilst the Sansculotte Gallery instantly

recognized their old insurrectionary acquaintance, burst out into a

horse laugh at their absurd finery, and held them in infinitely greater

contempt, than whilst they prowled about the streets in the

pantaloons of the last year’s Constitution, when their Legislators

appeared honestly, with their daggers in their belts and their pistols

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peeping out of their side pocket holes, like a bold brave Banditti, as

they are. The Parisians, (and I am much of their mind) think that a

thief with a crape on his visage, is much worse than a bare-faced

knave; and that such robbers richly deserve all the penalties of all the

Black Acts. In this their thin disguise, their comrades of the late

abdicated Sovereign Canaille hooted and hissed them; and from that

day have no other name for them, than what is not quite so easy to

render into English, impossible to make it very civil English. It belongs

indeed to the language of the Halles; but, without being instructed in

that dialect, it was the opinion of the polite Lord Chesterfield, that no

man could be a compleat master of French. Their Parisian brethren

called them Gueux plumés, which, though not elegant, is expressive

and characteristic— “ feathered scoundrels ” I think comes the

nearest to it in that kind of English. But we are now to understand,

that these Gueux, for no other reason, that I can divine, except their

red and white cloaths, form at last a State, with which we may

cultivate amity, and have a prospect of the blessings of a secure and

permanent peace. In effect then, it was not with the men, or their

principles, or their politicks, that we quarrelled. Our sole dislike was to

the cut of their cloaths.

But to pass over their dresses—Good God! in what habits did the

Representatives of the crowned heads of Europe appear, when they

came to swell the pomp of their humiliation, and attended in solemn

function this inauguration of Regicide? That would be the curiosity.

Under what robes did they cover the disgrace and degradation of the

whole College of Kings? What warehouses of masks and dominos

furnished a cover to the nakedness of their shame? The shop ought to

be known; it will soon have a good trade. Were the dresses of the

Ministers of those lately called Potentates, who attended on that

occasion, taken from the wardrobe of that property man at the Opera,

from whence my old acquaintance Anacharsis Cloots, some years ago,

equipped a body of Ambassadors, whom he conducted, as from all the

Nations of the World, to the bar of what was called the Constituent

Assembly? Among those mock Ministers, one of the most conspicuous

figures was the Representative of the British Nation, who unluckily

was wanting at the late ceremony. In the face of all the real

Ambassadors of the Sovereigns of Europe was this ludicrous

representation of their several Subjects, under the name of oppressed

Sovereigns,

exhibited to the Assembly; that Assembly received an

harangue in the name of those Sovereigns against their Kings,

delivered by this Cloots, actually a subject of Prussia, under the name

of Ambassador of the Human Race. At that time there was only a

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feeble reclamation from one of the Ambassadors of these tyrants and

oppressors. A most gracious answer was given to the Ministers of the

oppressed Sovereigns; and they went so far on that occasion as to

assign them, in that assumed character, a box at one of their

festivals.

I was willing to indulge myself in an hope that this second appearance

of Ambassadors was only an insolent mummery of the same kind. But

alas! Anacharsis himself, all fanatic as he was, could not have

imagined, that his Opera procession should have been the prototype

of the real appearance of the Representatives of all the Sovereigns of

Europe, themselves to make the same prostration that was made by

those who dared to represent their people in a complaint against

them. But in this the French Republick has followed, as they always

affect to do and have hitherto done with success, the example of the

ancient Romans, who shook all Governments by listening to the

complaints of their subjects, and soon after brought the Kings

themselves to answer at their bar. At this last ceremony the

Ambassadors had not Cloots for their Cotterel. Pity that Cloots had not

had a reprieve from the Guillotine ’till he had compleated his work!

But that engine fell before the curtain had fallen upon all the dignity of

the earth.

On this their gaudy day the new Regicide Directory sent for that

diplomatic rabble, as bad as themselves in principle, but infinitely

worse in degradation. They called them out by a sort of roll of their

Nations, one after another, much in the manner, in which they called

wretches out of their prison to the guillotine. When these

Ambassadors of Infamy appeared before them, the chief Director, in

the name of the rest, treated each of them with a short, affected,

pedantic, insolent, theatric laconium; a sort of epigram of contempt.

When they had thus insulted them in a style and language which

never before was heard, and which no Sovereign would for a moment

endure from another, supposing any of them frantic enough to use it,

to finish their outrage, they drummed and trumpeted the wretches

out of their Hall of Audience.

Among the objects of this insolent buffoonery was a person supposed

to represent the King of Prussia. To this worthy Representative they

did not so much as condescend to mention his Master; they did not

seem to know, that he had one; they addressed themselves solely to

Prussia in the abstract, notwithstanding the infinite obligation they

owed to their early protector for their first recognition and alliance,

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and for the part of his territory he gave into their hands for the first-

fruits of his homage. None but dead Monarchs are so much as

mentioned by them, and those only to insult the living by an invidious

comparison. They told the Prussians, they ought to learn, after the

example of Frederic the Great, a love for France. What a pity it is, that

he, who loved France so well as to chastise it, was not now alive, by

an unsparing use of the rod (which indeed he would have spared

little) to give them another instance of his paternal affection! But the

Directory were mistaken. These are not days in which Monarchs value

themselves upon the title of great. They are grown philosophick: they

are satisfied to be good.

Your Lordship will pardon me for this no very long reflexion on the

short but excellent speech of the Plumed Director to the Ambassador

of Cappadocia. The Imperial Ambassador was not in waiting, but they

found for Austria a good Judean representation. With great judgement

his Highness, the Grand Duke, had sent the most atheistick coxcomb

to be found in Florence, to represent, at the bar of impiety, the House

of Apostolic Majesty, and the descendants of the pious though high-

minded Maria Theresa. He was sent to humble the whole race of

Austria before those grim assassins, reeking with the blood of the

Daughter of Maria Theresa, whom they sent half dead in a dung cart

to a cruel execution; and this true born son of apostacy and infidelity,

this Renegado from the faith and from all honour and all humanity,

drove an Austrian coach over the stones which were yet wet with her

blood—with that blood, which dropped every step through her

tumbrel, all the way she was drawn from the horrid prison, in which

they had finished all the cruelty and horrors not executed in the face

of the sun! The Hungarian subjects of Maria Theresa, when they drew

their swords to defend her rights against France, called her, with

correctness of truth, though not with the same correctness, perhaps,

of Grammar, a King; Moriamur pro Rege nostro Maria Theresa. S

lived and died a King, and others will have Subjects ready to make

the same vow, when, in either sex, they shew themselves real Kings.

When the Directory came to this miserable fop, they bestowed a

compliment on his matriculation into their Philosophy; but as to his

Master, they made to him, as was reasonable, a reprimand, not

without a pardon, and an oblique hint at the whole family. What

indignities have been offered through this wretch to his Master, and

how well borne, it is not necessary that I should dwell on at present. I

hope that those who yet wear Royal Imperial and Ducal Crowns, will

learn to feel as Men and as Kings; if not, I predict to them, they will

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not long exist as Kings, or as Men.

Great Britain was not there. Almost in despair, I hope she will never,

in any rags and coversluts of Infamy, be seen at such an exhibition.

The hour of her final degradation is not yet come; she did not herself

appear in the Regicide presence, to be the sport and mockery of those

bloody buffoons, who, in the merriment of their pride, were insulting

with every species of contumely the fallen dignity of the rest of

Europe. But Britain, though not personally appearing to bear her part

in this monstrous Tragi-comedy, was very far from being forgotten.

The new-robed Regicides found a representative for her. And who was

this Representative? Without a previous knowledge any one would

have given a thousand guesses, before he could arrive at a tolerable

divination of their rancorous insolence. They chose to address what

they had to say concerning this Nation to the Ambassador of America.

They did not apply to this Ambassador for a Mediation. That, indeed,

would have indicated a want of every kind of decency; but it would

have indicated nothing more. But, in this their American apostrophe,

your Lordship will observe, they did not so much as pretend to hold

out to us directly, or through any Mediator, though in the most

humiliating manner, any idea whatsoever of Peace, or the smallest

desire of reconciliation. To the States of America themselves they paid

no compliment. They paid their compliment to Washington solely; and

on what ground? This most respectable Commander and Magistrate

might deserve commendation on very many of those qualities, which

they, who most disapprove some part of his proceedings, not more

justly, than freely, attribute to him; but they found nothing to

commend in him, “ but the hatred he bore to Great Britain. ” I verily

believe that in the whole history of our European wars, there never

was such a compliment paid from the Sovereign of one State to a

great Chief of another. Not one Ambassador from any one of those

Powers, who pretend to live in amity with this Kingdom, took the least

notice of that unheard-of declaration; nor will Great Britain, till she is

known with certainty to be true to her own dignity, find any one

disposed to feel for the indignities that are offered to her. To say the

truth, those miserable creatures were all silent under the insults that

were offered to themselves. They pocketed their epigrams, as

Ambassadors formerly took the gold boxes, and miniature pictures set

in diamonds, presented them by Sovereigns, at whose courts they

had resided. It is to be presumed that by the next post they faithfully

and promptly transmitted to their Masters the honours they had

received. I can easily conceive the epigram, which will be presented to

Lord Auckland or to the Duke of Bedford, as hereafter, according to

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circumstances, they may happen to represent this Kingdom. Few can

have so little imagination, as not readily to conceive the nature of the

boxes of epigrammatick lozenges, that will be presented to them.

But, hae nugae seria ducunt in mala. The conduct of the Regicide

Faction is perfectly systematick in every particular, and it appears

absurd only as it is strange and uncouth; not as it has an application

to the ends and objects of their Policy. When by insult after insult they

have rendered the character of Sovereigns vile in the eyes of their

subjects, they know there is but one step more to their utter

destruction. All authority, in a great degree, exists in opinion: royal

authority most of all. The supreme majesty of a Monarch cannot be

allied with contempt. Men would reason not unplausibly, that it would

be better to get rid of the Monarchy at once, than to suffer that which

was instituted, and well instituted, to support the glory of the Nation,

to become the instrument of its degradation and disgrace.

A good many reflexions will arise in your Lordship’s mind upon the

time and circumstances of that most insulting and atrocious

declaration of hostility against this Kingdom. The declaration was

made subsequent to the noble Lord’s Encomium on the new Regicide

Constitution; after the Pamphlet had made something more than

advances towards a reconciliation with that ungracious race, and had

directly disowned all those who adhered to the original declaration in

favour of Monarchy. It was even subsequent to the unfortunate

declaration in the Speech from the Throne (which this Pamphlet but

too truly announced) of the readiness of our Government to enter into

connexions of friendship with that Faction. Here was the answer, from

the Throne of Regicide, to the Speech from the Throne of Great

Britain. They go out of their way to compliment General Washington

on the supposed rancour of his heart towards this Country. It is very

remarkable, that they make this compliment of malice to the Chief of

the United States, who had first signed a treaty of peace, amity and

commerce with this Kingdom. This radical hatred, according to their

way of thinking, the most recent, solemn compacts of friendship

cannot or ought not to remove. In this malice to England, as in the

one great comprehensive virtue, all other merits of this illustrious

person are entirely merged. For my part, I do not believe the fact to

be so, as they represent it. Certainly it is not for Mr. Washington’s

honour as a Gentleman, a Christian, or a President of the United

States, after the treaty he has signed, to entertain such sentiments. I

have a moral assurance that the representation of the Regicide

Directory is absolutely false and groundless. If it be, it is a stronger

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mark of their audacity and insolence, and still a stronger proof of the

support they mean to give to the mischievous faction they are known

to nourish there to the ruin of those States, and to the end, that no

British affections should ever arise in that important part of the world,

which would naturally lead to a cordial, hearty British Alliance upon

the bottom of mutual interest and ancient affection. It shews, in what

part it is, and with what a weapon, they mean a deadly blow at the

heart of Great Britain. One really would have expected, when this new

Constitution of theirs, which had been announced as a great reform,

and which was to be, more than any of their former experimental

schemes, alliable with other Nations, that they would, in their very

first publick Act and their declaration to the collected representation of

Europe and America, have affected some degree of moderation, or, at

least, have observed a guarded silence with regard to their temper

and their views. No such thing; they were in haste to declare the

principles which are spun into the primitive staple of their frame. They

were afraid that a moment’s doubt should exist about them. In their

very infancy they were in haste to put their hand on their infernal

altar, and to swear the same immortal hatred to England which was

sworn in the succession of all the short-lived constitutions that

preceded it. With them every thing else perishes, almost as soon as it

is formed; this hatred alone is immortal. This is their impure Vestal

fire that never is extinguished; and never will it be extinguished whilst

the system of Regicide exists in France. What! are we not to believe

them? Men are too apt to be deceitful enough in their professions of

friendship, and this makes a wise man walk with some caution

through life. Such professions, in some cases, may be even a ground

of further distrust. But when a man declares himself your unalterable

enemy! No man ever declared to another a rancour towards him,

which he did not feel. Falsos in amore odia non fingere, said an

Author, who points his observations so as to make them remembered.

Observe, my Lord, that from their invasion of Flanders and Holland to

this hour, they have never made the smallest signification of a desire

of Peace with this Kingdom, with Austria, or indeed, with any other

power, that I know of. As superiours, they expect others to begin. We

have complied, as you may see. The hostile insolence, with which

they gave such a rebuff to our first overture in the speech from the

Throne, did not hinder us from making, from the same Throne, a

second advance. The two Houses, a second time, coincided in the

same sentiments with a degree of apparent unanimity, (for there was

no dissentient voice but yours) with which, when they reflect on it,

they will be as much ashamed, as I am. To this our new humiliating

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overture (such, at whatever hazard, I must call it) what did the

regicide Directory answer? Not one publick word of a readiness to

treat. No, they feel their proud situation too well. They never

declared, whether they would grant peace to you or not. They only

signified to you their pleasure, as to the Terms, on which alone they

would, in any case, admit you to it. You shewed your general

disposition to peace, and, to forward it, you left every thing open to

negotiations. As to any terms you can possibly obtain, they shut out

all negotiation at the very commencement. They declared, that they

never would make a peace, by which any thing, that ever belonged to

France, should be ceded. We would not treat with the Monarchy,

weakened as it must obviously be in any circumstance of restoration,

without a reservation of something for indemnity and security, and

that too in words of the largest comprehension. You treat with the

Regicides without any reservation at all. On their part, they assure

you formally and publickly, that they will give you nothing in the

name of indemnity or security, or for any other purpose.

It is impossible not to pause here for a moment, and to consider the

manner in which such declarations would have been taken by your

Ancestors from a Monarch distinguished for his arrogance; an

arrogance, which, even more than his ambition, incensed and

combined all Europe against him. Whatever his inward intentions may

have been, did Lewis the 14th ever make a declaration, that the true

bounds of France were the Ocean, the Mediterranean and the Rhine?

In any overtures for peace, did he ever declare, that he would make

no sacrifices to promote it? His declarations were always directly to

the contrary; and at the Peace of Ryswick his actions were to the

contrary. At the close of the War, almost in every instance victorious,

all Europe was astonished, even those who received them were

astonished, at his concessions. Let those, who have a mind to see,

how little, in comparison, the most powerful and ambitious of all

Monarchs is to be dreaded, consult the very judicious, critical

observations on the Politicks of that Reign, inserted in the Military

Treatise of the Marquis de Montalembert. Let those, who wish to know

what is to be dreaded from an ambitious republick, consult no author

no military critick, no historical critick. Let them open their own eyes,

which degeneracy and pusillanimity have shut from the light that

pains them, and let them not vainly seek their security in a voluntary

ignorance of their danger.

To dispose us towards this peace—an attempt, in which our Author

has, I do not know whether to call it, the good or ill fortune to agree

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with whatever is most seditious, factious and treasonable in this

country, we are told by many dealers in speculation, but not so

distinctly by the Author himself, (too great distinctness of affirmation

not being his fault)—but we are told, that the French have lately

obtained a very pretty sort of constitution, and that it resembles the

British constitution as if they had been twinned together in the womb.

Mire sagaces fallere hospites discrimen obscurum. It may be so; but I

confess I am not yet made to it; nor is the Noble Author. He finds the

“elements” excellent; but the disposition very inartificial indeed.

Contrary to what we might expect at Paris, the meat is good, the

cookery abominable. I agree with him fully in the last; and if I were

forced to allow the first, I should still think with our old coarse bye-

word, that the same power, which furnished all their former

restaurateurs, sent also their present cooks. I have a great opinion of

Thomas Paine, and of all his productions. I remember his having been

one of the Committee for forming one of their annual Constitutions, I

mean the admirable Constitution of 1793—after having been a

Chamber Counsel to the no less admirable Constitution of 1791. This

pious patriot has his eyes still directed to his dear native country,

notwithstanding her ingratitude to so kind a benefactor. This outlaw of

England, and lawgiver to France, is now, in secret probably, trying his

hand again; and inviting us to him by making his Constitution such, as

may give his disciples in England some plausible pretext for going into

the house that he has opened. We have discovered, it seems, that all,

which the boasted wisdom of our ancestors has laboured to bring to

perfection for six or seven centuries, is nearly or altogether matched

in six or seven days, at the leisure hours and sober intervals of Citizen

Thomas Paine.

But though the treacherous tapster Thomas

Hangs a new Angel two doors from us,

As fine as daubers’ hands can make it,

In hopes that strangers may mistake it;

We think it both a shame and sin

To quit the good old Angel Inn.

Indeed in this good old House, where every thing, at least, is well

aired, I shall be content to put up my fatigued horses, and here take a

bed for the long night that begins to darken upon me. Had I, however,

the honour (I must now call it so) of being a Member of any of the

Constitutional Clubs, I should think I had carried my point most

completely. It is clear, by the applauses bestowed on what the Author

calls this new Constitution, a mixed Oligarchy, that the difference

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between the Clubbists and the old adherents to the Monarchy of this

country is hardly worth a scuffle. Let it depart in peace, and light lie

the earth on the British Constitution! By this easy manner of treating

the most difficult of all subjects, the Constitution for a great Kingdom,

and by letting loose an opinion, that they may be made by any

adventurers in speculation in a small given time and for any Country,

all the ties, which, whether of reason or prejudice, attach mankind to

their old, habitual, domestic Governments, are not a little loosened:

all communion, which the similarity of the basis has produced

between all the Governments that compose what we call the Christian

World and the Republic of Europe, would be dissolved. By these

hazarded speculations France is more approximated to us in

Constitution than in situation, and in proportion as we recede from the

ancient system of Europe, we approach to that connection which alone

can remain to us, a close alliance with the new discovered moral and

political world in France.

These theories would be of little importance, if we did not, not only

know, but, sorely feel, that there is a strong Jacobin faction in this

Country, which has long employed itself in speculating upon

Constitutions, and to whom the circumstance of their Government

being home bred and prescriptive, seems no sort of recommendation.

What seemed to us to be the best system of liberty that a nation ever

enjoyed, to them seems the yoke of an intolerable slavery. This

speculative faction had long been at work. The French Revolution did

not cause it: it only discovered it, increased it, and gave fresh vigour

to its operations. I have reason to be persuaded, that it was in this

Country, and from English Writers and English Caballers, that France

herself was instituted in this revolutionary fury. The communion of

these two factions upon any pretended basis of similarity is a matter

of very serious consideration. They are always considering the formal

distributions of power in a constitution: the moral basis they consider

as nothing. Very different is my opinion: I consider the moral basis as

every thing; the formal arrangements, further than as they promote

the moral principles of Government, and the keeping desperately

wicked persons as the subjects of laws and not the makers of them,

to be of little importance. What signifies the cutting and shuffling of

Cards, while the Pack still remains the same? As a basis for such a

connection, as has subsisted between the powers of Europe, we had

nothing to fear, but from the lapses and frailties of men, and that was

enough; but this new pretended Republic has given us more to

apprehend from what they call their virtues, than we had to dread

from the vices of other men. Avowedly and systematically they have

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given the upper hand to all the vicious and degenerate part of human

nature. It is from their lapses and deviations from their principle, that

alone we have any thing to hope.

I hear another inducement to fraternity with the present Rulers. They

have murdered one Robespierre. This Robespierre they tell us was a

cruel Tyrant, and now that he is put out of the way, all will go well in

France. Astraea will again return to that earth from which she has

been an Emigrant, and all nations will resort to her golden scales. It is

very extraordinary, that the very instant the mode of Paris is known

here, it becomes all the fashion in London. This is their jargon. It is

the old bon ton of robbers, who cast their common crimes on the

wickedness of their departed associates. I care little about the

memory of this same Robespierre. I am sure he was an execrable

villain. I rejoiced at his punishment neither more nor less than I

should at the execution of the present Directory or any of its

Members. But who gave Robespierre the power of being a Tyrant? and

who were the instruments of his tyranny? The present virtuous

Constitution-mongers. He was a Tyrant, they were his satellites and

his hangmen. Their sole merit is in the murder of their colleague.

They have expiated their other murders by a new murder. It has

always been the case among this banditti. They have always had the

knife at each others’ throats, after they had almost blunted it at the

throats of every honest man. These people thought, that, in the

commerce of murder, he was like to have the better of the bargain, if

any time was lost: they therefore took one of their short revolutionary

methods, and massacred him in a manner so perfidious and cruel, as

would shock all humanity, if the stroke was not struck by the present

Rulers on one of their own Associates. But this last act of infidelity and

murder is to expiate all the rest, and to qualify them for the amity of

an humane and virtuous Sovereign and civilized People. I have heard

that a Tartar believes, when he has killed a Man, that all his estimable

qualities pass with his cloaths and arms to the murderer. But I have

never heard, that it was the opinion of any savage Scythian, that if he

kills a brother villain, he is ipso facto absolved of all his own offences.

The Tartarian doctrine is the most tenable opinion. The murderers of

Robespierre, besides what they are entitled to by being engaged in

the same tontine of Infamy, are his Representatives; have inherited

all his murderous qualities, in addition to their own private stock. But

it seems, we are always to be of a party with the last and victorious

Assassins. I confess, I am of a different mind; and am, rather

inclined, of the two, to think and speak less hardly of a dead ruffian,

than to associate with the living. I could better bear the stench of the

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gibbeted murderer, than the society of the bloody felons who yet

annoy the world. Whilst they wait the recompense due to their ancient

crimes, they merit new punishment by the new offences they commit.

There is a period to the offences of Robespierre. They survive in his

Assassins. Better a living dog, says the old proverb, than a dead lion;

not so here. Murderers and hogs never look well till they are hanged.

From villainy no good can arise, but in the example of its fate. So I

leave them their dead Robespierre, either to gibbet his memory, or to

deify him in their pantheon with their Marat and their Mirabeau.

It is asserted, that this government promises stability. God of his

Mercy forbid! If it should, nothing upon earth besides itself can be

stable. We declare this stability to be the ground of our making peace

with them. Assuming it therefore, that the Men and the System are

what I have described, and that they have a determined hostility

against this country, an hostility not only of policy but of

predilection—then I think that every rational being would go along

with me in considering its permanence as the greatest of all possible

evils. If, therefore, we are to look for peace with such a thing in any

of its monstrous shapes, which I deprecate, it must be in that state of

disorder, confusion, discord, anarchy and insurrection, such as might

oblige the momentary Rulers to forbear their attempts on

neighbouring States, or to render these attempts less operative, if

they should kindle new wars. When was it heard before, that the

internal repose of a determined and wicked enemy, and the strength

of his government, became the wish of his neighbour, and a security

against either his malice or his ambition? The direct contrary has

always been inferred from that state of things; accordingly, it has

ever been the policy of those, who would preserve themselves against

the enterprizes of such a malignant and mischievous power, to cut out

so much work for him in his own States, as might keep his dangerous

activity employed at home.

It is said in vindication of this system, which demands the stability of

the regicide power as a ground for peace with them, that when they

have obtained, as now it is said, (though not by this noble Author)

they have, a permanent Government, they will be able to preserve

amity with this Kingdom, and with others who have the misfortune to

be in their neighbourhood. Granted. They will be able to do so,

without question; but are they willing to do so? Produce the act,

produce the declaration. Have they made any single step towards it?

Have they ever once proposed to treat?

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The assurance of a stable peace, grounded on the stability of their

system, proceeds on this hypothesis, that their hostility to other

Nations has proceeded from their Anarchy at home, and to the

prevalence of a Populace which their government had not strength

enough to master. This I utterly deny. I insist upon it as a fact, that in

the daring commencement of all their hostilities, and their astonishing

perseverance in them, so as never once in any fortune, high or low, to

propose a treaty of peace to any power in Europe, they have never

been actuated by the People. On the contrary, the People, I will not

say have been moved, but impelled by them, and have generally

acted under a compulsion, of which most of Us are, as yet, thank God,

unable to form an adequate idea. The War against Austria was

formally declared by the unhappy Louis 16th; but who has ever

considered Louis 16th, since the Revolution, to have been the

Government? The second regicide Assembly, then the only

Government, was the Author of that War, and neither the nominal

King nor the nominal People had any thing to do with it further than in

a reluctant obedience. It is to delude ourselves to consider the state

of France, since their Revolution, as a state of Anarchy. It is

something far worse. Anarchy it is, undoubtedly, if compared with

Government pursuing the peace, order, morals, and prosperity of the

People. But regarding only the power that has really guided, from the

day of the Revolution to this time, it has been of all Governments the

most absolute, despotic, and effective, that has hitherto appeared on

earth. Never were the views and politics of any Government pursued

with half the regularity, system and method, that a diligent observer

must have contemplated with amazement and terror in theirs. Their

state is not an Anarchy, but a series of short-lived Tyrannies. We do

not call a Republic with annual Magistrates an Anarchy. Theirs is that

kind of Republic; but the succession is not effected by the expiration

of the term of the Magistrate’s service, but by his murder. Every new

Magistracy succeeding by homicide, is auspicated by accusing its

predecessors in the office of Tyranny, and it continues by the exercise

of what they charged upon others.

This strong hand is the law, and the sole law, in their State. I defy any

person to show any other law, or if any such should be found on

paper, that it is in the smallest degree, or in any one instance,

regarded or practised. In all their successions, not one Magistrate, or

one form of Magistracy, has expired by a mere occasional popular

tumult. Every thing has been the effect of the studied machinations of

the one revolutionary cabal, operating within itself upon itself. That

cabal is all in all. France has no Public; it is the only nation I ever

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heard of where the people are absolutely slaves, in the fullest sense,

in all affairs public and private, great and small, even down to the

minutest and most recondite parts of their household concerns. The

Helots of Laconia, the Regardants to the Manor in Russia and in

Poland, even the Negroes in the West Indies know nothing of so

searching, so penetrating, so heart-breaking a slavery. Much would

these servile wretches call for our pity under that unheard-of yoke, if

for their perfidious and unnatural Rebellion, and for the murder of the

mildest of all Monarchs, they did not richly deserve a punishment not

greater than their crime.

On the whole, therefore, I take it to be a great mistake, to think that

the want of power in the government furnished a natural cause of

war: whereas, the greatness of its power, joined to its use of that

power, the nature of its system, and the persons who acted in it, did

naturally call for a strong military resistance to oppose them, and

rendered it not only just, but necessary. But, at present, I say no

more on the genius and character of the power set up in France. I

may probably trouble you with it more at large hereafter. This subject

calls for a very full exposure; at present, it is enough for me, if I point

it out as a matter well worthy of consideration, whether the true

ground of hostility was not rightly conceived very early in this war,

and whether any thing has happened to change that system, except

our ill success in a war, which, in no principal instance, had its true

destination as the object of its operations. That the war has

succeeded ill in many cases, is undoubted; but then let us speak the

truth and say, we are defeated, exhausted, dispirited, and must

submit. This would be intelligible. The world would be inclined to

pardon the abject conduct of an undone Nation. But let us not conceal

from ourselves our real situation, whilst, by every species of

humiliation, we are but too strongly displaying our sense of it to the

Enemy.

The Writer of the Remarks in the last week of October appears to

think that the present Government in France contains many of the

elements, which, when properly arranged, are known to form the best

practical governments; and that the system, whatever may become

its particular form, is no longer likely to be an obstacle to negotiation.

If its form now be no obstacle to such negotiation, I do not know why

it was ever so. Suppose that this government promised greater

permanency than any of the former, (a point, on which I can form no

judgment) still a link is wanting to couple the permanence of the

government with the permanence of the peace. On this not one word

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is said: nor can there be, in my opinion. This deficiency is made up by

strengthening the first ringlet of the chain that ought to be, but that is

not, stretched to connect the two propositions. All seems to be done,

if we can make out, that the last French edition of Regicide is like to

prove stable.

As a prognostic of this stability, it is said to be accepted by the

people. Here again I join issue with the Fraternizers, and positively

deny the fact. Some submission or other has been obtained, by some

means or other, to every government that hitherto has been set up.

And the same submission would, by the same means, be obtained for

any other project that the wit or folly of man could possibly devise.

The Constitution of 1790 was universally received. The Constitution,

which followed it, under the name of a Convention, was universally

submitted to. The Constitution of 1793 was universally accepted.

Unluckily, this year’s Constitution, which was formed and its

genethliacon sung by the noble Author while it was yet in embryo, or

was but just come bloody from the womb, is the only one which in its

very formation has been generally resisted by a very great and

powerful party in many parts of the kingdom, and particularly in the

Capital. It never had a popular choice even in show. Those who

arbitrarily erected the new building out of the old materials of their

own Convention, were obliged to send for an Army to support their

work. Like brave Gladiators, they fought it out in the streets of Paris,

and even massacred each other in their House of Assembly in the

most edifying manner, and for the entertainment and instruction of

their Excellencies the Foreign Ambassadors, who had a box in this

constitutional Amphitheatre of a free People.

At length, after a terrible struggle, the Troops prevailed over the

Citizens. The Citizen Soldiers, the ever famed National Guards, who

had deposed and murdered their Sovereign, were disarmed by the

inferior trumpeters of that Rebellion. Twenty thousand regular Troops

garrison Paris. Thus a complete Military Government is formed. It has

the strength, and it may count on the stability of that kind of power.

This power is to last as long as the Parisians think proper. Every other

ground of stability, but from military force and terrour, is clean out of

the question. To secure them further, they have a strong corps of

irregulars, ready armed. Thousands of those Hell-hounds called

Terrorists, whom they had shut up in Prison on their last Revolution,

as the Satellites of Tyranny, are let loose on the people. The whole of

their Government, in its origination, in its continuance, in all its

actions, and in all its resources, is force; and nothing but force. A

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forced constitution, a forced election, a forced subsistence, a forced

requisition of soldiers, a forced loan of money.

They differ nothing from all the preceding usurpations, but that to the

same odium a good deal more of contempt is added. In this situation,

notwithstanding all their military force, strengthened with the

undisciplined power of the Terrorists, and the nearly general

disarming of Paris, there would almost certainly have been before this

an insurrection against them, but for one cause. The people of France

languished for Peace. They all despaired of obtaining it from the

coalesced powers, whilst they had a gang of professed Regicides at

their head; and several of the least desperate Republicans would have

joined with better men to shake them wholly off, and to produce

something more ostensible, if they had not been reiteratedly told that

their sole hope of peace was the very contrary to what they naturally

imagined. That they must leave off their cabals and insurrections,

which could serve no purpose, but to bring in that Royalty, which was

wholly rejected by the coalesced Kings. That, to satisfy them, they

must tranquilly, if they could not cordially, submit themselves to the

tyranny and the tyrants they despised and abhorred. Peace was held

out, by the allied Monarchies, to the people of France, as a bounty for

supporting the Republick of Regicides. In fact, a coalition, begun for

the avowed purpose of destroying that den of Robbers, now exists

only for their support. If evil happens to the Princes of Europe, from

the success and stability of this infernal business, it is their own

absolute crime.

We are to understand, however, (for sometimes so the Author hints)

that something stable in the Constitution of Regicide was required for

our amity with it; but the noble Remarker is no more solicitous about

this point, than he is for the permanence of the whole body of his

October Speculations. “If,” says he, speaking of the Regicide, “they

can obtain a practicable Constitution, even for a limited period of

time, they will be in a condition to re-establish the accustomed

relations of peace and amity.” Pray let us leave this bush-fighting.

What is meant by a limited period of time? Does it mean the direct

contrary to the terms, “an unlimited period?” If it is a limited period,

what limitation does he fix as a ground for his opinion? Otherwise, his

limitation is unlimited. If he only requires a Constitution that will last

while the treaty goes on, ten days existence will satisfy his demands.

He knows that France never did want a practicable Constitution nor a

Government, which endured for a limited period of time. Her

Constitutions were but too practicable; and short as was their

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duration, it was but too long. They endured time enough for treaties

which benefited themselves and have done infinite mischief to our

cause. But, granting him his strange thesis, that, hitherto, the mere

form or the mere term of their Constitutions, and, not their

indisposition, but their instability, has been the cause of their not

preserving the relations of Amity—how could a Constitution, which

might not last half an hour after the noble Lord’s signature of the

treaty, in the company, in which he must sign it, endure its

observance? If you trouble yourself at all with their Constitutions, you

are certainly more concerned with them after the treaty, than before

it, as the observance of conventions is of infinitely more consequence,

than the making them. Can any thing be more palpably absurd and

senseless, than to object to a treaty of peace, for want of durability in

Constitutions, which had an actual duration, and to trust a

Constitution, that at the time of the writing had not so much as a

practical existence? There is no way of accounting for such discourse

in the mouths of men of sense, but by supposing, that they secretly

entertain a hope, that the very act of having made a peace with the

Regicides will give a stability to the Regicide system. This will not

clear the discourse from the absurdity, but it will account for the

conduct, which such reasoning so ill defends. What a round-about way

is this to peace! To make war for the destruction of Regicides, and

then to give them peace in order to insure a stability, that will enable

them to observe it! I say nothing of the honour displayed in such a

system. It is plain it militates with itself almost in all the parts of it. In

one part it supposes stability in their Constitution, as a ground of a

stable peace. In another part, we are to hope for peace in a different

way; that is, by splitting this brilliant orb into little stars, and this

would make the face of heaven so fine. No! there is no system upon

which the peace, which in humility we are to supplicate, can possibly

stand.

I believe, before this time, that the mere form of a Constitution, in

any country, never was fixed as the sole ground of objecting to a

treaty with it. With other circumstances it may be of great moment.

What is incumbent on the assertors of the 4th week of October

system to prove, is not whether their then expected Constitution was

likely to be stable or transitory, but whether it promised to this

country and its allies, and to the peace and settlement of all Europe,

more good will, or more good faith, than any of the experiments

which have gone before it. On these points I would willingly join issue.

Observe first the manner, in which the Remarker describes (very

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truly, as I conceive) the people of France, under that auspicious

Government, and then observe the conduct of that Government to

other Nations. “The people without any established Constitution;

distracted by popular convulsions; in a state of inevitable bankruptcy;

without any commerce; with their principal Ports blockaded, and

without a Fleet that could venture to face one of our detached

Squadrons.” Admitting, as fully as he had stated it, this condition of

France, I would fain know how he reconciles this condition with his

ideas of any kind of a practicable Constitution, or duration for a

limited period, which are his sine qua non of Peace. But, passing by

contradictions as no fair objections to reasoning, this state of things

would naturally, at other times, and in other Governments, have

produced a disposition to peace, almost on any terms. But, in that

state of their Country, did the Regicide Government solicit peace or

amity with other Nations, or even lay any specious grounds for it in

propositions of affected moderation, or in the most loose and general

conciliatory language? The direct contrary. It was but a very few days

before the noble writer had commenced his Remarks, as if it were to

refute him by anticipation, that his France thought fit to lay out a new

territorial map of dominion, and to declare to us and to all Europe

what Territories she was willing to allot to her own Empire, and what

she is content (during her good pleasure) to leave to others.

This their Law of Empire was promulgated without any requisition on

that subject, and proclaimed in a style, and upon principles, which

never had been heard of in the annals of arrogance and ambition. She

prescribed the limits to her Empire, not upon principles of treaty,

convention, possession, usage, habitude, the distinction of tribes,

nations, or languages, but by physical aptitudes. Having fixed herself

as the Arbiter of physical dominion, she construed the limits of Nature

by her convenience. That was nature, which most extended and best

secured the Empire of France.

I need say no more on the insult offered, not only to all equity and

justice, but to the common sense of mankind, in deciding legal

property by physical principles, and establishing the convenience of a

Party as a rule of public Law. The noble Advocate for Peace has indeed

perfectly well exploded this daring and outrageous system of pride

and tyranny. I am most happy in commending him, when he writes

like himself. But hear, still further, and in the same good strain, the

great patron and advocate of amity with this accommodating, mild

and unassuming power, when he reports to you the Law they give,

and its immediate effects. “They amount,” says he, “to the sacrifice of

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Powers, that have been the most nearly connected with us: the direct,

or indirect annexation to France of all the ports of the Continent, from

Dunkirk to Hamburgh; an immense accession of Territory; and, in one

word, T

ABANDONMENT

THE

INDEPENDENCE

UROPE

! ” This is the Law

(the Author and I use no different terms) which this new Government,

almost as soon as it could cry in the cradle, and as one of the very

first acts, by which it auspicated its entrance into function as the

Pledge it gives of the firmness of its Policy—such is the Law, that this

proud Power prescribes to abject Nations. What is the comment upon

this Law, by the great Jurist, who recommends us to the Tribunal

which issued the Decree? “An obedience to it, would be (says he)

dishonourable to us, and exhibit us to the present age and to

posterity, as submitting to the Law prescribed to us by our Enemy.”

Here I recognize the voice of a British Plenipotentiary: I begin to feel

proud of my Country. But, alas, the short date of human elevation!

The accents of dignity died upon his tongue. This Author will not

assure us of his sentiments for the whole of a Pamphlet; but in the

sole energetick part of it, he does not continue the same through an

whole sentence, if it happens to be of any sweep or compass. In the

very womb of this last sentence, pregnant, as it should seem, with a

Hercules, there is formed a little Bantling of the mortal race, a

degenerate puny parenthesis, that totally frustrates our most

sanguine views and expectations, and disgraces the whole gestation.

Here is this destructive parenthesis, “unless some adequate

compensation be secured to us ” — T

! The Christian world may

shift for itself—Europe may groan in Slavery—we may be dishonoured

by receiving Law from an Enemy—but all is well, provided the

compensation to us be adequate! To what are we reserved? An

adequate compensation “for the Sacrifice of Powers the most nearly

connected with us”; an adequate compensation “for the direct or

indirect annexation to France of all the Ports of the Continent, from

Dunkirk to Hamburgh”; an adequate compensation “for the

abandonment of the independence of Europe!” Would that when all

our manly sentiments are thus changed, our manly language were

changed along with them; and that the English tongue were not

employed to utter what our Ancestors never dreamed could enter into

an English heart!

But let us consider this matter of adequate compensation. Who is to

furnish it? From what funds is it to be drawn? Is it by another Treaty

of Commerce? I have no objections to Treaties of Commerce, upon

principles of commerce. Traffick for traffick; all is fair. But—

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commerce, in exchange for empire, for safety, for glory! We set out in

our dealing with a miserable cheat upon ourselves. I know it may be

said that we may prevail on this proud, philosophical, military

Republick, which looks down with contempt on Trade, to declare it

unfit for the Sovereign of Nations to be eundem Negotiatorem et

Dominum; that, in virtue of this maxim of her State, the English in

France may be permitted, as the Jews are in Poland and in Turkey, to

execute all the little inglorious occupations; to be the sellers of new

and the buyers of old Cloaths; to be their Brokers and Factors, and to

be employed in casting up their debits and credits, whilst the master

Republick cultivates the arts of Empire, prescribes the forms of peace

to nations, and dictates laws to a subjected world. But are we quite

sure that when we have surrendered half Europe to them in hope of

this compensation, the Republick will confer upon us those privileges

of dishonour? Are we quite certain, that she will permit us to farm the

Guillotine; to contract for the provision of her twenty thousand

Bastiles; to furnish transports for the myriads of her Exiles to Guiana;

to become Commissioners for her naval Stores, or to engage for the

cloathing of those Armies which are to subdue the poor Reliques of

Christian Europe? No! She is bespoke by the Jew Subjects of her own

Amsterdam for all these services.

But if these, or matters similar, are not the compensations the

Remarker demands, and that, on consideration, he finds them neither

adequate nor certain, who else is to be the Chapman, and to furnish

the purchase money at this market of all the grand principles of

Empire, of Law, of Civilization, of Morals, and of Religion, where

British faith and honour are to be sold by inch of candle? Who is to be

the dedecorum pretiosus emptor? Is it the Navis Hispanae Magister?

Is it to be furnished by the Prince of Peace? Unquestionably. Spain as

yet possesses mines of gold and silver; and may give us in pesos

duros an adequate compensation for our honour and our virtue. When

these things are at all to be sold, they are the vilest commodities at

market.

It is full as singular as any of the other singularities in this work, that

the Remarker, talking so much as he does of cessions and

compensations, passes by Spain in his general settlement, as if there

were no such Country on the Globe: as if there were no Spain in

Europe, no Spain in America. But this great matter of political

deliberation cannot be put out of our thoughts by his silence. She has

furnished compensations—not to you, but to France. The Regicide

Republick, and the still nominally subsisting Monarchy of Spain, are

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united, and are united upon a principle of jealousy, if not of bitter

enmity to Great Britain. The noble Writer has here another matter for

meditation. It is not from Dunkirk to Hamburgh that the ports are in

the hands of France: they are in the hands of France from Hamburgh

to Gibraltar. How long the new Dominion will last, I cannot tell; but

France the Republick has conquered Spain, and the ruling Party in

that Court acts by her orders and exists by her power.

The noble Writer, in his views into futurity, has forgotten to look back

to the past. If he chooses it, he may recollect, that on the prospect of

the death of Philip the Fourth, and still more on the event, all Europe

was moved to its foundations. In the Treaties of Partition, that first

were entered into, and in the war that afterwards blazed out to

prevent those Crowns from being actually or virtually united in the

House of Bourbon, the predominance of France in Spain, and, above

all, in the Spanish Indies, was the great object of all these movements

in the Cabinet and in the Field. The grand alliance was formed upon

that apprehension. On that apprehension the mighty war was

continued during such a number of years, as the degenerate and

pusillanimous impatience of our dwindled race can hardly bear to have

reckoned—a war, equal within a few years in duration, and not

perhaps inferiour in bloodshed, to any of those great contests for

Empire, which in History make the most awful matter of recorded

Memory.

Ad confligendum venientibus undique Poenis,

Omnia cum belli trepido concussa tumultu

Horrida contremuere sub altis aetheris auris,

In dubioque fuit sub utrorum regna cadendum

Omnibus humanis esset terrâque marique—

When this war was ended (I cannot stay now to examine how) the

object of the war was the object of the Treaty. When it was found

impracticable, or less desirable than before, wholly to exclude a

branch of the Bourbon race from that immense succession, the point

of Utrecht was to prevent the mischiefs to arise from the influence of

the greater upon the lesser branch. His Lordship is a great Member of

the Diplomatick Body; he has of course all the fundamental Treaties,

which make the Public Statute Law of Europe, by heart; and indeed no

active Member of Parliament ought to be ignorant of their general

tenor and leading provisions. In the Treaty, which closed that war,

and of which it is a fundamental part, because relating to the whole

Policy of the Compact, it was agreed, that Spain should not give any

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thing from her territory in the West Indies to France. This Article,

apparently onerous to Spain, was in truth highly beneficial. But, oh,

the blindness of the greatest Statesman to the infinite and unlooked-

for combinations of things which lie hid in the dark prolifick womb of

Futurity! The great Trunk of Bourbon is cut down; the withered branch

is worked up into the construction of a French Regicide Republick.

Here we have, formed, a new, unlooked-for, monstrous,

heterogeneous alliance; a double-natured Monster; Republick above

and Monarchy below. There is no Centaur of fiction, no poetic Satyr of

the Woods; nothing short of the Hieroglyphick Monsters of Aegypt,

Dog in Head and Man in Body, that can give an idea of it. None of

these things can subsist in nature; so at least it is thought. But the

moral world admits Monsters which the physical rejects.

In this Metamorphosis, the first thing done by Spain, in the honey-

moon of her new servitude, was, with all the hardihood of

pusillanimity, utterly to defy the most solemn Treaties with Great

Britain and the Guarantee of Europe. She has yielded the largest and

fairest part of one of the largest and fairest Islands in the West Indies,

perhaps on the Globe, to the usurped Powers of France. She

compleats the title of those Powers to the whole of that important

central Island of Hispaniola. She has solemnly surrendered to the

Regicides and butchers of the Bourbon family, what that Court never

ventured, perhaps never wished, to bestow on the Patriarchal stock of

her own august House.

The noble Negotiator takes no notice of this portentous junction, and

this audacious surrender. The effect is no less than the total

subversion of the Balance of Power in the West Indies, and indeed

every where else. This arrangement, considered in itself, but much

more as it indicates a compleat Union of France with Spain, is truly

alarming. Does he feel nothing of the change this makes in that part

of his description of the state of France, where he supposes her not

able to face one of our detached Squadrons? Does he feel nothing for

the condition of Portugal under this new Coalition? Is it for this state

of things he recommends our junction in that common alliance as a

remedy? It is surely already monstrous enough. We see every

standing principle of Policy, every old governing opinion of Nations,

compleatly gone; and with it the foundation of all their

establishments. Can Spain keep herself internally where she is, with

this connexion? Does he dream, that Spain, unchristian, or even

uncatholic, can exist as a Monarchy? This Author indulges himself in

speculations of the division of the French Republick. I only say, that

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with much greater reason he might speculate on the Republicanism

and the subdivision of Spain.

It is not peace with France, which secures that feeble Government; it

is that peace, which, if it shall continue, decisively ruins Spain. Such a

peace is not the peace, which the remnant of Christianity celebrates

at this holy season. In it there is no glory to God on high, and not the

least tincture of good will to Man. What things we have lived to see!

The King of Spain in a group of Moors, Jews, and Renegadoes, and

the Clergy taxed to pay for his conversion! The Catholick King in the

strict embraces of the most unchristian Republick! I hope we shall

never see his Apostolick Majesty, his Faithful Majesty, and the King,

defender of the faith, added to that unhallowed and impious

Fraternity.

The Noble Author has glimpses of the consequences of Peace as well

as I. He feels for the Colonies of Great Britain, one of the principal

resources of our Commerce and our Naval Power, if Piratical France

shall be established, as he knows she must be, in the West Indies, if

we sue for peace on such terms as they may condescend to grant us.

He feels that their very Colonial System for the Interiour is not

compatible with the existence of our Colonies. I tell him, and doubt

not I shall be able to demonstrate, that, being what she is, if she

possesses a rock there we cannot be safe. Has this Author had in his

view, the transactions between the Regicide Republick and the yet

nominally subsisting Monarchy of Spain?

I bring this matter under your Lordship’s consideration, that you may

have a more compleat view, than this Author chooses to give of the

true France you have to deal with, as to its nature, and to its force

and its disposition. Mark it, my Lord, France in giving her Law to

Spain, stipulated for none of her indemnities in Europe, no

enlargement whatever of her Frontier. Whilst we are looking for

indemnities from France, betraying our own safety in a sacrifice of the

independence of Europe, France secures hers by the most important

acquisition of Territory ever made in the West Indies, since their first

settlement. She appears (it is only in appearance) to give up the

Frontier of Spain, and she is compensated, not in appearance, but in

reality, by a Territory, that makes a dreadful Frontier to the Colonies

of Great Britain.

It is sufficiently alarming, that she is to have the possession of this

great Island. But all the Spanish Colonies virtually are hers. Is there

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so puny a whipster in the petty form of the School of Politicks, who

can be at a loss for the fate of the British Colonies, when he combines

the French and Spanish consolidation with the known critical and

dubious dispositions of the United States of America, as they are at

present, but which, when a Peace is made, when the basis of a

Regicide ascendancy in Spain is laid, will no longer be so good as

dubious and critical? But I go a great deal further, and on much

consideration of the condition and circumstances of the West Indies,

and of the genius of this new Republick, as it has operated, and is

likely to operate on them, I say, that if a single Rock in the West

Indies is in the hands of this transatlantic Morocco, we have not an

hour’s safety there.

The Remarker, though he slips aside from the main consideration,

seems aware that this arrangement, standing as it does, in the West

Indies, leaves us at the mercy of the new Coalition, or rather at the

mercy of the sole guiding part of it. He does not indeed adopt a

supposition, such as I make, who am confident that any thing which

can give them a single good port and opportune piratical station

there, would lead to our ruin; the Author proceeds upon an idea, that

the Regicides may be an existing and considerable territorial power in

the West Indies, and, of course, her piratical system more dangerous

and as real. However, for that desperate case, he has an easy

remedy; but surely, in his whole shop, there is nothing so

extraordinary. It is, that we three, France, Spain, and England, (there

are no other of any moment) should adopt some “ analogy in the

interiour systems of Government in the several Islands, which we may

respectively retain after the closing of the War.” This plainly can be

done only by a Convention between the Parties, and I believe it would

be the first war ever made to terminate in an analogy of the interiour

Government of any country, or any parts of such countries. Such a

partnership in domestick Government is, I think, carrying Fraternity

as far as it will go.

It will be an affront to your sagacity, to pursue this matter into all its

details; suffice it to say, that if this Convention for analogous

domestick Government is made, it immediately gives a right for the

residence of a Consul (in all likelihood some Negro or Man of Colour)

in every one of your Islands; a Regicide Ambassador in London will be

at all your meetings of West India Merchants and Planters, and, in

effect, in all our Colonial Councils. Not one Order of Council can

hereafter be made, or any one Act of Parliament relative to the West

India Colonies even be agitated, which will not always afford reasons

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for protests and perpetual interference. The Regicide Republic will

become an integrant part of the Colonial Legislature; and, so far as

the Colonies are concerned, of the British too. But it will be still

worse; as all our domestick affairs are interlaced, more or less

intimately, with our external, this intermeddling must every where

insinuate itself into all other interiour transactions, and produce a

copartnership in our domestick concerns of every description.

Such are the plain inevitable consequences of this arrangement of a

system of analogous interiour Government. On the other hand,

without it, the Author assures us, and in this I heartily agree with him,

“that the correspondence and communications between the

neighbouring Colonies will be great; that the disagreements will be

incessant, and that causes even of National Quarrels will arise from

day to day. ” Most true. But, for the reasons I have given, the case, if

possible, will be worse by the proposed remedy, by the triple fraternal

interiour analogy; an analogy itself most fruitful, and more foodful,

than the old Ephesian Statue with the three tier of breasts. Your

Lordship must also observe how infinitely this business must be

complicated by our interference in the slow-paced Saturnian

movements of Spain, and the rapid parabolick flights of France. But

such is the Disease, such is the Cure, such is and must be the Effect

of Regicide Vicinity.

But what astonishes me is, that the Negotiator, who has certainly an

exercised understanding, did not see, that every person, habituated to

such meditations, must necessarily pursue the train of thought further

than he has carried it; and must ask himself, whether what he states

so truly of the necessity of our arranging an analogous interiour

Government, in consequence of the Vicinity of our Possessions in the

West Indies, does as extensively apply, and much more forcibly, to

the circumstance of our much nearer Vicinity with the Parent and

Author of this mischief. I defy even his acuteness and ingenuity to

shew me any one point in which the cases differ, except that it is

plainly more necessary in Europe than in America. Indeed, the further

we trace the details of the proposed peace, the more your Lordship

will be satisfied, that I have not been guilty of any abuse of terms,

when I use indiscriminately (as I always do in speaking of

arrangements with Regicide) the words Peace and Fraternity. An

analogy between our interiour Governments must be the

consequence. The noble Negotiator sees it as well as I do. I deprecate

this Jacobin interiour analogy. But, hereafter, perhaps, I may say a

good deal more upon this part of the subject.

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The noble Lord insists on very little more, than on the excellence of

their Constitution, the hope of their dwindling into little Republicks,

and this close copartnership in Government. I hear of others indeed

that offer, by other arguments, to reconcile us to this peace and

Fraternity; the Regicides, they say, have renounced the Creed of the

Rights of Man, and declared Equality a Chimera. This is still more

strange than all the rest. They have apostatised from their Apostacy.

They are renegadoes from that impious faith, for which they

subverted the ancient Government, murdered their King, and

imprisoned, butchered, confiscated, and banished their fellow

Subjects; and to which they forced every man to swear at the peril of

his Life. And now, to reconcile themselves to the world, they declare

this Creed, bought by so much blood, to be an imposture and a

Chimera. I have no doubt that they always thought it to be so, when

they were destroying every thing at home and abroad for its

establishment. It is no strange thing to those who look into the nature

of corrupted man, to find a violent persecutor a perfect unbeliever of

his own Creed. But this is the very first time that any man or set of

men were hardy enough to attempt to lay the ground of confidence in

them, by an acknowledgement of their own falsehood, fraud,

hypocrisy, treachery, heterodox doctrine, persecution, and cruelty.

Every thing we hear from them is new, and to use a phrase of their

own, revolutionary. Every thing supposes a total revolution in all the

principles of reason, prudence, and moral feeling.

If possible, this their recantation of the chief parts in the Canon of the

Rights of Man, is more infamous, and causes greater horror than their

originally promulgating, and forcing down the throats of mankind that

symbol of all evil. It is raking too much into the dirt and ordure of

human nature to say more of it.

I hear it said too, that they have lately declared in favour of property.

This is exactly of the same sort with the former. What need had they

to make this declaration, if they did not know, that by their doctrines

and practices they had totally subverted all property? What

Government of Europe, either in its origin or its continuance, has

thought it necessary to declare itself in favour of property? The more

recent ones were formed for its protection against former violations.

The old consider the inviolability of property and their own existence

as one and the same thing; and that a proclamation for its safety

would be sounding an alarm on its danger. But the Regicide Banditti

knew that this was not the first time they have been obliged to give

such assurances, and had as often falsified them. They knew that

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after butchering hundreds of men, women and children, for no other

cause, than to lay hold on their property, such a declaration might

have a chance of encouraging other nations to run the risque of

establishing a commercial House amongst them. It is notorious that

these very Jacobins, upon an alarm of the Shopkeepers of Paris, made

this declaration in favour of Property. These brave Fellows received

the apprehensions expressed on that head with indignation; and said,

that property could be in no danger, because all the world knew it was

under the protection of the Sansculottes. At what period did they not

give this assurance? Did they not give it, when they fabricated their

first constitution? Did they not then solemnly declare it one of the

rights of a Citizen (a right, of course, only declared and not then

fabricated) to depart from his Country, and choose another

Domicilium, without detriment to his property? Did they not declare,

that no property should be confiscated from the children, for the crime

of the parent? Can they now declare more fully their respect for

property, than they did at that time? And yet was there ever known

such horrid violences and confiscations, as instantly followed under

the very persons now in power, many of them leading Members of

that Assembly, and all of them violators of that engagement, which

was the very basis of their Republick—confiscations in which hundreds

of men, women and children, not guilty of one act of duty in resisting

their usurpation, were involved? This keeping of their old is, then, to

give us a confidence in their new engagements. But examine the

matter and you will see, that the prevaricating sons of violence give

no relief at all, where at all it can be wanted. They renew their old

fraudulent declaration against confiscations, and then they expressly

exclude all adherents to their ancient lawful Government from any

benefit of it: that is to say, they promise, that they will secure all their

brother plunderers in their share of the common plunder. The fear of

being robbed by every new succession of robbers, who do not keep

even the faith of that kind of society, absolutely required, that they

should give security to the dividends of Spoil; else they could not exist

a moment. But it was necessary, in giving security to robbers, that

honest men should be deprived of all hope of restitution; and thus

their interests were made utterly and eternally incompatible. So that

it appears, that this boasted security of property is nothing more than

a seal put upon its destruction: this ceasing of confiscation is to

secure the confiscators against the innocent proprietors. That very

thing, which is held out to you as your cure, is that which makes your

malady, and renders it, if once it happens, utterly incurable. You, my

Lord, who possess a considerable, though not an invidious, Estate,

may be well assured, that if by being engaged, as you assuredly

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would be, in the defence of your Religion, your King, your Order, your

Laws, and Liberties, that Estate should be put under confiscation, the

property would be secured, but in the same manner, at your expence.

But, after all, for what purpose are we told of this reformation in their

principles, and what is the policy of all this softening in ours, which is

to be produced by their example? It is not to soften us to suffering

innocence and virtue, but to mollify us to the crimes and to the

society of robbers and ruffians! But I trust that our Countrymen will

not be softened to that kind of crimes and criminals; for if we should,

our hearts will be hardened to every thing which has a claim on our

benevolence. A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of

the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from

cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The

pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour,

produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will

love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to

hate.

There is another piece of policy, not more laudable than this, in

reading these moral lectures, which lessens our hatred to Criminals,

and our pity to sufferers, by insinuating that it has been owing to their

fault or folly, that the latter have become the prey of the former. By

flattering us, that we are not subject to the same vices and follies, it

induces a confidence, that we shall not suffer the same evils by a

contact with the infamous gang of robbers who have thus robbed and

butchered our neighbours before our faces. We must not be flattered

to our ruin. Our vices are the same as theirs, neither more nor less. If

any faults we had, which wanted this French example to call us to a “

softening of character, and a review of our social relations and

duties,” there is yet no sign that we have commenced our

reformation. We seem, by the best accounts I have from the world, to

go on just as formerly, “some to undo, and some to be undone.”

There is no change at all: and if we are not bettered by the sufferings

of war, this peace, which, for reasons to himself best known, the

Author fixes as the period of our reformation, must have something

very extraordinary in it; because hitherto ease, opulence, and their

concomitant pleasure, have never greatly disposed mankind to that

serious reflexion and review which the Author supposes to be the

result of the approaching peace with vice and crime. I believe he

forms a right estimate of the nature of this peace; and that it will

want many of those circumstances which formerly characterized that

state of things.

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If I am right in my ideas of this new Republick, the different states of

peace and war will make no difference in her pursuits. It is not an

enemy of accident, that we have to deal with. Enmity to us and to all

civilized nations is wrought into the very stamina of its constitution. It

was made to pursue the purposes of that fundamental enmity. The

design will go on regularly in every position and in every relation.

Their hostility is to break us to their dominion: their amity is to

debauch us to their principles. In the former we are to contend with

their force; in the latter with their intrigues. But we stand in a very

different posture of defence in the two situations. In war, so long as

Government is supported, we fight with the whole united force of the

kingdom. When under the name of peace the war of intrigue begins,

we do not contend against our enemies with the whole force of the

kingdom. No— we shall have to fight (if it should be a fight at all, and

not an ignominious surrender of every thing which has made our

country venerable in our eyes and dear to our hearts) we shall have

to fight with but a portion of our strength against the whole of theirs.

Gentlemen who not long since thought with us, but who now

recommend a Jacobin peace, were at that time sufficiently aware of

the existence of a dangerous Jacobin faction within this kingdom. A

while ago, they seemed to be tremblingly alive to the number of

those, who composed it; to their dark subtlety; to their fierce

audacity; to their admiration of every thing that passes in France; to

their eager desire of a close communication with the mother faction

there. At this moment, when the question is upon the opening of that

communication, not a word of our English Jacobins. That faction is put

out of sight and out of thought. “It vanished at the crowing of the

cock.” Scarcely had the Gallick harbinger of peace and light began to

utter his lively notes, than all the cackling of us poor Tory geese to

alarm the garrison of the Capitol was forgot.

There was enough of

indemnity before. Now a complete act of oblivion is passed about the

Jacobins of England, though one would naturally imagine it would

make a principal object in all fair deliberation upon the merits of a

project of amity with the Jacobins of France. But however others may

chuse to forget the faction, the faction does not chuse to forget itself,

nor, however gentlemen may chuse to flatter themselves, it does not

forget them.

Never in any civil contest has a part been taken with more of the

warmth, or carried on with more of the arts of a party. The Jacobins

are worse than lost to their country. Their hearts are abroad. Their

sympathy with the Regicides of France is complete. Just as in a civil

contest, they exult in all their victories; they are dejected and

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mortified in all their defeats. Nothing that the Regicides can do, (and

they have laboured hard for the purpose) can alienate them from their

cause. You and I, my dear Lord, have often observed on the spirit of

their conduct. When the Jacobins of France, by their studied,

deliberated, catalogued files of murder, with the poignard, the sabre

and the tribunal, have shocked whatever remained of human

sensibility in our breasts, then it was they distinguished the resources

of party policy. They did not venture directly to confront the public

sentiment; for a very short time they seemed to partake of it. They

began with a reluctant and sorrowful confession: they deplored the

stains which tarnished the lustre of a good cause. After keeping a

decent time of retirement, in a few days crept out an apology for the

excesses of men cruelly irritated by the attacks of unjust power.

Grown bolder, as the first feeling of mankind decayed and the colour

of these horrors began to fade upon the imagination, they proceeded

from apology to defence. They urged, but still deplored, the absolute

necessity of such a proceeding. Then they made a bolder stride, and

marched from defence to recrimination. They attempted to

assassinate the memory of those, whose bodies their friends had

massacred; and to consider their murder as a less formal act of

justice. They endeavoured even to debauch our pity, and to suborn it

in favour of cruelty. They wept over the lot of those who were driven

by the crimes of Aristocrats to republican vengeance. Every pause of

their cruelty they considered as a return of their natural sentiments of

benignity and justice. Then they had recourse to history; and found

out all the recorded cruelties that deform the annals of the world, in

order that the massacres of the regicides might pass for a common

event; and even that the most merciful of Princes, who suffered by

their hands, should bear the iniquity of all the tyrants who have at

any time infested the earth. In order to reconcile us the better to this

republican tyranny, they confounded the bloodshed of war with the

murders of peace; and they computed how much greater prodigality

of blood was exhibited in battles and in the storm of cities, than in the

frugal well-ordered massacres of the revolutionary tribunals of France.

As to foreign powers, so long as they were conjoined with Great

Britain in this contest, so long they were treated as the most

abandoned tyrants and, indeed, the basest of the human race. The

moment any of them quits the cause of this Government, and of all

Governments, he is re-habilitated; his honour is restored; all

attainders are purged. The friends of Jacobins are no longer despots;

the betrayers of the common cause are no longer traitors.

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That you may not doubt that they look on this war as a civil war, and

the Jacobins of France as of their party, and that they look upon us,

though locally their countrymen, in reality as enemies, they have

never failed to run a parallel between our late civil war and this war

with the Jacobins of France. They justify their partiality to those

Jacobins by the partiality which was shewn by several here to the

Colonies; and they sanction their cry for peace with the Regicides of

France by some of our propositions for peace with the English in

America.

This I do not mention, as entering into the controversy how far they

are right or wrong in this parallel, but to shew that they do make it,

and that they do consider themselves as of a party with the Jacobins

of France. You cannot forget their constant correspondence with the

Jacobins whilst it was in their power to carry it on. When the

communication is again opened, the interrupted correspondence will

commence. We cannot be blind to the advantage which such a party

affords to Regicide France in all her views; and, on the other hand,

what an advantage Regicide France holds out to the views of the

republican party in England. Slightly as they have considered their

subject, I think this can hardly have escaped the writers of political

ephemerides for any month or year. They have told us much of the

amendment of the Regicides of France, and of their returning honour

and generosity. Have they told any thing of the reformation, and of

the returning loyalty of the Jacobins of England? Have they told us of

their gradual softening towards royalty; have they told us what

measures they are taking for “putting the crown in commission,” and

what approximations of any kind they are making towards the old

constitution of their country? Nothing of this. The silence of these

writers is dreadfully expressive. They dare not touch the subject: but

it is not annihilated by their silence, nor by our indifference. It is but

too plain, that our constitution cannot exist with such a

communication. Our humanity, our manners, our morals, our religion,

cannot stand with such a communication: the constitution is made by

those things, and for those things: without them it cannot exist; and

without them it is no matter whether it exists or not.

It was an ingenious parliamentary Christmas play, by which, in both

Houses, you anticipated the holidays—it was a relaxation from your

graver employment—it was a pleasant discussion you had, which part

of the family of the constitution was the elder branch? Whether one

part did not exist prior to the others; and whether it might exist and

flourish if

“

the others were cast into the fire?

”

In order to make this

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saturnalian amusement general in the family, you sent it down stairs,

that judges and juries might partake of the entertainment. The

unfortunate antiquary and augur, who is the butt of all this sport, may

suffer in the roystering horseplay and practical jokes of the servants’

hall. But whatever may become of him, the discussion itself and the

timing it put me in mind of what I read, (where I do not recollect) that

the subtle nation of the Greeks were busily employed, in the church of

Santa Sophia, in a dispute of mixed natural philosophy, metaphysics

and theology, whether the light on mount Tabor was created or

uncreated, and were ready to massacre the holders of the

unfashionable opinion, at the very moment when the ferocious enemy

of all philosophy and religion, Mahomet the Second, entered through a

breach into the capital of the Christian World. I may possibly suffer

much more than Mr. Reeves, (I shall certainly give much more

general offence) for breaking in upon this constitutional amusement

concerning the created or uncreated nature of the two Houses of

Parliament, and by calling their attention to a problem, which may

entertain them less, but which concerns them a great deal more, that

is, whether with this Gallick Jacobin fraternity, which they are desired

by some writers to court, all the parts of the Government, about

whose combustible or incombustible qualities they are contending,

may “not be cast into the fire” together. He is a strange visionary,

(but he is nothing worse) who fancies, that any one part of our

constitution, whatever right of primogeniture it may claim, or

whatever astrologers may divine from its horoscope, can possibly

survive the others. As they have lived, so they will die together. I

must do justice to the impartiality of the Jacobins. I have not

observed amongst them the least predilection for any of those parts.

If there has been any difference in their malice, I think they have

shewn a worse disposition to the House of Commons than to the

Crown. As to the House of Lords, they do not speculate at all about it;

and for reasons that are too obvious to detail.

The question will be concerning the effect of this French fraternity on

the whole mass. Have we any thing to apprehend from Jacobin

communication, or have we not? If we have not, is it by our

experience, before the war, that we are to presume, that, after the

war, no dangerous communion can exist between those, who are well

affected to the new constitution of France, and ill affected to the old

constitution here?

In conversation I have not yet found nor heard of any persons except

those who undertake to instruct the publick, so unconscious of the

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actual state of things, or so little prescient of the future, who do not

shudder all over, and feel a secret horror at the approach of this

communication. I do not except from this observation those who are

willing, more than I find myself disposed, to submit to this fraternity.

Never has it been mentioned in my hearing, or from what I can learn

in my inquiry, without the suggestion of an Alien Bill, or some other

measures of the same nature, as a defence against its manifest

mischief. Who does not see the utter insufficiency of such a remedy, if

such a remedy could be at all adopted? We expel suspected foreigners

from hence; and we suffer every Englishman to pass over into France,

to be initiated in all the infernal discipline of the place—to cabal, and

to be corrupted, by every means of cabal and of corruption, and then

to return to England, charged with their worst dispositions and

designs. In France he is out of the reach of your police; and when he

returns to England, one such English emissary is worse than a legion

of French, who are either tongue-tied, or whose speech betrays them.

But the worst Aliens are the ambassador and his train. These you

cannot expel without a proof (always difficult) of direct practice

against the State. A French ambassador, at the head of a French

party, is an evil which we have never experienced. The mischief is by

far more visible than the remedy. But, after all, every such measure

as an Alien Bill, is a measure of hostility, a preparation for it, or a

cause of dispute that shall bring it on. In effect, it is fundamentally

contrary to a relation of amity, whose essence is a perfectly free

communication. Every thing done to prevent it will provoke a foreign

war. Every thing, when we let it proceed, will produce domestick

distraction. We shall be in a perpetual dilemma; but it is easy to see

which side of the dilemma will be taken. The same temper, which

brings us to solicit a Jacobin peace, will induce us to temporise with all

the evils of it. By degrees our minds will be made to our

circumstances. The novelty of such things, which produces half the

horror and all the disgust, will be worn off. Our ruin will be disguised

in profit, and the sale of a few wretched baubles will bribe a

degenerate people to barter away the most precious jewel of their

souls. Our constitution is not made for this kind of warfare. It provides

greatly for our happiness, it furnishes few means for our defence. It is

formed, in a great measure, upon the principle of jealousy of the

crown; and as things stood, when it took that turn, with very great

reason. I go farther. It must keep alive some part of that fire of

jealousy eternally and chastely burning, or it cannot be the British

constitution. At various periods we have had tyranny in this country,

more than enough. We have had rebellions with more or less

justification. Some of our Kings have made adulterous connections

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abroad, and trucked away, for foreign gold, the interests and glory of

their crown. But, before this time, our liberty has never been

corrupted. I mean to say, that it has never been debauched from its

domestick relations. To this time it has been English Liberty, and

English Liberty only. Our love of Liberty, and our love of our Country,

were not distinct things. Liberty is now, it seems, put upon a larger

and more liberal bottom. We are men, and as men, undoubtedly,

nothing human is foreign to us. We cannot be too liberal in our

general wishes for the happiness of our kind. But in all questions on

the mode of procuring it for any particular community, we ought to be

fearful of admitting those, who have no interest in it, or who have,

perhaps, an interest against it, into the consultation. Above all, we

cannot be too cautious in our communication with those, who seek

their happiness by other roads than those of humanity, morals and

religion, and whose liberty consists, and consists alone, in being free

from those restraints, which are imposed by the virtues upon the

passions.

When we invite danger from a confidence in defensive measures, we

ought, first of all, to be sure, that it is a species of danger against

which any defensive measures, that can be adopted, will be sufficient.

Next, we ought to know that the spirit of our Laws, or that our own

dispositions, which are stronger than Laws, are susceptible of all those

defensive measures which the occasion may require. A third

consideration is whether these measures will not bring more odium

than strength to Government; and the last, whether the authority that

makes them, in a general corruption of manners and principles, can

ensure their execution? Let no one argue from the state of things, as

he sees them at present, concerning what will be the means and

capacities of Government when the time arrives, which shall call for

remedies commensurate to enormous evils.

It is an obvious truth, that no constitution can defend itself. It must

be defended by the wisdom and fortitude of men. These are what no

constitution can give. They are the gifts of God; and he alone knows,

whether we shall possess such gifts at the time we stand in need of

them. Constitutions furnish the civil means of getting at the natural; it

is all that in this case they can do. But our Constitution has more

impediments, than helps. Its excellencies, when they come to be put

to this sort of proof, may be found among its defects.

Nothing looks more awful and imposing than an ancient fortification.

Its lofty embattled walls, its bold, projecting, rounded towers that

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pierce the sky, strike the imagination and promise inexpugnable

strength. But they are the very things that make its weakness. You

may as well think of opposing one of these old fortresses to the mass

of artillery brought by a French irruption into the field, as to think of

resisting by your old laws and your old forms the new destruction

which the corps of Jacobin engineers of to-day prepare for all such

forms and all such laws. Besides the debility and false principle of

their construction to resist the present modes of attack, the Fortress

itself is in ruinous repair, and there is a practicable breach in every

part of it.

Such is the work. But miserable works have been defended by the

constancy of the garrison. Weather-beaten ships have been brought

safe to port by the spirit and alertness of the crew. But it is here that

we shall eminently fail. The day that by their consent the seat of

Regicide has its place among the thrones of Europe, there is no longer

a motive for zeal in their favour; it will at best be cold,

unimpassioned, dejected, melancholy duty. The glory will seem all on

the other side. The friends of the Crown will appear not as champions,

but as victims; discountenanced, mortified, lowered, defeated, they

will fall into listlessness and indifference. They will leave things to take

their course; enjoy the present hour, and submit to the common fate.

Is it only an oppressive night-mare, with which we have been loaded?

Is it then all a frightful dream, and are there no Regicides in the

world? Have we not heard of that prodigy of a ruffian, who would not

suffer his benignant Sovereign, with his hands tied behind him and

stripped for execution, to say one parting word to his deluded

people—of Santerre, who commanded the drums and trumpets to

strike up to stifle his voice, and dragged him backward to the machine

of murder? This nefarious villain (for a few days I may call him so)

stands high in France, as in a republick of robbers and murderers he

ought. What hinders this monster from being sent as ambassador to

convey to his Majesty the first compliments of his brethren, the

Regicide Directory? They have none that can represent them more

properly. I anticipate the day of his arrival. He will make his public

entry into London on one of the pale horses of his brewery. As he

knows that we are pleased with the Paris taste for the orders of

Knighthood,

he will fling a bloody sash across his shoulders with the

order of the Holy Guillotine, surmounting the Crown, appendant to the

ribband. Thus adorned, he will proceed from Whitechapel to the

further end of Pall-Mall, all the musick of London playing the

Marseillois Hymn before him, and escorted by a chosen detachment of

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the Legion de l’Echaffaud. It were only to be wished that no ill-fated

loyalist for the imprudence of his zeal may stand in the pillory at

Charing-Cross, under the statue of King Charles the First, at the time

of this grand procession, lest some of the rotten eggs, which the

Constitutional Society shall let fly at his indiscreet head, may hit the

virtuous murderer of his King. They might soil the state dress, which

the Ministers of so many crowned heads have admired, and in which

Sir Clement Cotterel is to introduce him at St. James’s.

If Santerre cannot be spared from the constitutional butcheries at

home, Tallien may supply his place, and in point of figure with

advantage. He has been habituated to commissions; and he is as well

qualified, as Santerre, for this. Nero wished the Roman people had but

one neck. The wish of the more exalted Tallien, when he sat in

judgment, was, that his Sovereign had eighty-three heads, that he

might send one to every one of the departments. Tallien will make an

excellent figure at Guildhall, at the next Sheriff’s feast. He may open

the ball with my Lady Mayoress. But this will be after he has retired

from the public table, and gone into the private room for the

enjoyment of more social and unreserved conversation with the

Ministers of State and the Judges of the Bench. There these Ministers

and Magistrates will hear him entertain the worthy Aldermen with an

instructing and pleasing narrative of the manner, in which he made

the rich citizens of Bordeaux squeak, and gently led them by the

publick credit of the guillotine to disgorge their anti-revolutionary pelf.

All this will be the display, and the town-talk, when our Regicide is on

a visit of ceremony. At home nothing will equal the pomp and

splendour of the Hôtel de la République. There another scene of gaudy

grandeur will be opened. When his citizen Excellency keeps the

festival, which every citizen is ordered to observe, for the glorious

execution of Louis the Sixteenth, and renews his oath of detestation

of Kings, a grand ball, of course, will be given on the occasion. Then

what a hurly burly; what a crowding; what a glare of a thousand

flambeaus in the square; what a clamour of footmen contending at

the door; what a rattling of a thousand coaches of Duchesses,

Countesses and Lady Marys, choaking the way and overturning each

other in a struggle, who should be first to pay her court to the

Citoyenne, the spouse of the twenty-first husband, he the husband of

the thirty-first wife, and to hail her in the rank of honourable matrons

before the four days duration of marriage is expired! Morals, as they

were: decorum, the great outguard of the sex, and the proud

sentiment of honour, which makes virtue more respectable, where it

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is, and conceals human frailty, where virtue may not be, will be

banished from this land of propriety, modesty, and reserve.

We had before an Ambassador from the most Christian King. We shall

have then one, perhaps two, as lately, from the most antichristian

Republick. His chapel will be great and splendid; formed on the model

of the Temple of Reason at Paris, while the famous ode of the

infamous Chênier will be sung, and a prostitute of the street adored

as a Goddess. We shall then have a French Ambassador without a

suspicion of Popery. One good it will have: it will go some way in

quieting the minds of that Synod of zealous protestant Lay Elders who

govern Ireland on the pacific principles of polemick theology, and who

now, from dread of the Pope, cannot take a cool bottle of claret, or

enjoy an innocent parliamentary job with any tolerable quiet.

So far, as to the French communication here. What will be the effect

of our communication there? We know, that our new brethren, whilst

they every where shut up the churches, increased, in Paris at one

time, at least four fold the opera-houses, the play-houses, the publick

shows of all kinds, and, even in their state of indigence and distress,

no expence was spared for their equipment and decoration. They were

made an affair of state. There is no invention of seduction, never

wholly wanting in that place, that has not been increased; brothels,

gaming-houses, every thing. And there is no doubt, but when they are

settled in a triumphant peace, they will carry all these arts to their

utmost perfection, and cover them with every species of imposing

magnificence. They have all along avowed them as a part of their

policy; and whilst they corrupt young minds through pleasure, they

form them to crimes. Every idea of corporal gratification is carried to

the highest excess, and wooed with all the elegance that belongs to

the senses. All elegance of mind and manners is banished. A

theatrical, bombastick, windy phraseology of heroic virtue, blended

and mingled up with a worse dissoluteness, and joined to a

murderous and savage ferocity, forms the tone and idiom of their

language and their manners. Any one who attends to all their own

descriptions, narratives and dissertations, will find in that whole place

more of the air of a body of assassins, banditti, house-breakers, and

outlawed smugglers, joined to that of a gang of strolling players,

expelled from and exploded in orderly theatres, with their prostitutes

in a brothel, at their debauches and bacchanals, than any thing of the

refined and perfected virtues, or the polished, mitigated vices, of a

great capital.

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Is it for this benefit we open “the usual relations of peace and amity?”

Is it for this our youth of both sexes are to form themselves by travel?

Is it for this that with expence and pains we form their lisping infant

accents to the language of France? I shall be told that this abominable

medley is made rather to revolt young and ingenuous minds. So it is

in the description. So perhaps it may in reality to a chosen few. So it

may be when the Magistrate, the Law and the Church, frown on such

manners, and the wretches to whom they belong; when they are

chased from the eye of day, and the society of civil life, into night-

cellars, and caves and woods. But when these men themselves are

the magistrates; when all the consequence, weight and authority of a

great nation adopt them; when we see them conjoined with victory,

glory, power and dominion, and homage paid to them by every

Government, it is not possible that the downhill should not be slid

into, recommended by every thing which has opposed it. Let it be

remembered that no young man can go to any part of Europe without

taking this place of pestilential contagion in his way: and whilst the

less active part of the community will be debauched by this travel,

whilst children are poisoned at these schools, our trade will put the

finishing hand to our ruin. No factory will be settled in France, that will

not become a club of complete French Jacobins. The minds of young

men of that description will receive a taint in their religion, their

morals, and their politicks, which they will in a short time

communicate to the whole kingdom.

Whilst every thing prepares the body to debauch, and the mind to

crime, a regular church of avowed Atheism, established by law, with a

direct and sanguinary persecution of Christianity, is formed to prevent

all amendment and remorse. Conscience is formally deposed from its

dominion over the mind. What fills the measure of horror is, that

schools of Atheism are set up at the publick charge in every part of

the country. That some English parents will be wicked enough to send

their children to such schools there is no doubt. Better this Island

should be sunk to the bottom of the sea, than that (so far as human

infirmity admits) it should not be a country of Religion and Morals.

With all these causes of corruption, we may well judge what the

general fashion of mind will be through both sexes and all conditions.

Such spectacles and such examples will overbear all the laws that

ever blackened the cumbrous volumes of our statutes. When Royalty

shall have disavowed itself; when it shall have relaxed all the

principles of its own support; when it has rendered the systems of

Regicide fashionable, and received it as triumphant in the very

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persons who have consolidated that system by the perpetration of

every crime, who have not only massacred the prince, but the very

laws and magistrates which were the support of royalty, and

slaughtered with an indiscriminate proscription, without regard to

either sex or age, every person that was suspected of an inclination to

King, Law or Magistracy—I say, will any one dare to be loyal? Will any

one presume, against both authority and opinion, to hold up this

unfashionable, antiquated, exploded constitution?

The Jacobin faction in England must grow in strength and audacity; it

will be supported by other intrigues, and supplied by other resources,

than yet we have seen in action. Confounded at its growth, the

Government may fly to Parliament for its support. But who will answer

for the temper of a House of Commons elected under these

circumstances? Who will answer for the courage of a House of

Commons to arm the Crown with the extraordinary powers that it may

demand? But the ministers will not venture to ask half of what they

know they want. They will lose half of that half in the contest: and

when they have obtained their nothing, they will be driven by the

cries of faction either to demolish the feeble works they have thrown

up in a hurry, or, in effect, to abandon them. As to the House of

Lords, it is not worth mentioning. The Peers ought naturally to be the

pillars of the Crown: but when their titles are rendered contemptible,

and their property invidious and a part of their weakness and not of

their strength, they will be found so many degraded and trembling

individuals, who will seek by evasion to put off the evil day of their

ruin. Both Houses will be in perpetual oscillation between abortive

attempts at energy, and still more unsuccessful attempts at

compromise. You will be impatient of your disease, and abhorrent of

your remedy. A spirit of subterfuge and a tone of apology will enter

into all your proceedings, whether of law or legislation. Your Judges,

who now sustain so masculine an authority, will appear more on their

trial, than the culprits they have before them. The awful frown of

criminal justice will be smoothed into the silly smile of seduction.

Judges will think to insinuate and sooth the accused into conviction

and condemnation, and to wheedle to the gallows the most artful of

all delinquents. But they will not be so wheedled. They will not submit

even to the appearance of persons on their trial. Their claim to this

exemption will be admitted. The place, in which some of the greatest

names which ever distinguished the history of this country have

stood, will appear beneath their dignity. The criminal will climb from

the dock to the side-bar, and take his place and his tea with the

counsel. From the bar of the counsel, by a natural progress, he will

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ascend to the bench, which long before had been virtually abandoned.

They, who escape from justice, will not suffer a question upon

reputation. They will take the crown of the causeway: they will be

revered as martyrs; they will triumph as conquerors. Nobody will dare

to censure that popular part of the tribunal, whose only restraint on

misjudgment is the censure of the publick. They, who find fault with

the decision, will be represented as enemies to the institution. Juries,

that convict for the crown, will be loaded with obloquy. The Juries,

who acquit, will be held up as models of justice. If Parliament orders a

prosecution and fails, (as fail it will), it will be treated to its face as

guilty of a conspiracy maliciously to prosecute. Its care in discovering

a conspiracy against the state will be treated as a forged plot to

destroy the liberty of the subject; every such discovery, instead of

strengthening Government, will weaken its reputation.

In this state, things will be suffered to proceed, lest measures of

vigour should precipitate a crisis. The timid will act thus from

character; the wise from necessity. Our laws had done all that the old

condition of things dictated to render our Judges erect and

independent; but they will naturally fail on the side, upon which they

had taken no precautions. The judicial magistrates will find

themselves safe as against the Crown, whose will is not their tenure;

the power of executing their office will be held at the pleasure of

those, who deal out fame or abuse as they think fit. They will begin

rather to consult their own repose and their own popularity, than the

critical and perilous trust that is in their hands. They will speculate on

consequences, when they see at Court an ambassador, whose robes

are lined with a scarlet dyed in the blood of Judges. It is no wonder,

nor are they to blame, when they are to consider how they shall

answer for their conduct to the criminal of to-day turned into the

magistrate of to-morrow.

The Press—

The Army—

When thus the helm of justice is abandoned, an universal

abandonment of all other posts will succeed. Government will be for a

while the sport of contending factions, who whilst they fight with one

another will all strike at her. She will be buffeted and beat forward

and backward by the conflict of those billows; until at length, tumbling

from the Gallick coast, the victorious tenth wave shall ride, like the

bore, over all the rest, and poop the shattered, weather-beaten,

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leaky, water-logged vessel, and sink her to the bottom of the abyss.

Among other miserable remedies that have been found in the materia

medica of the old college, a change of Ministry will be proposed; and

probably will take place. They who go out can never long with zeal

and good will support Government in the hands of those they hate. In

a situation of fatal dependence on popularity, and without one aid

from the little remaining power of the Crown, it is not to be expected

that they will take on them that odium which more or less attaches

upon every exertion of strong power. The Ministers of popularity will

lose all their credit at a stroke, if they pursue any of those means

necessary to give life, vigour, and consistence to Government. They

will be considered as venal wretches, apostates, recreant to all their

own principles, acts, and declarations. They cannot preserve their

credit but by betraying that authority of which they have been the

usurpers.

To be sure no prognosticating symptoms of these things have as yet

appeared. Nothing even resembling their beginnings. May they never

appear! May these prognostications of the author be justly laughed at

and speedily forgotten! If nothing as yet to cause them has

discovered itself, let us consider in the author’s excuse, that we have

not yet seen a Jacobin legation in England. The natural, declared,

sworn ally of sedition, has not yet fixed its headquarters in London.

There never was a political contest, upon better or worse grounds,

that by the heat of party spirit may not ripen into civil confusion. If

ever a party adverse to the Crown should be in a condition here

publickly to declare itself, and to divide, however unequally, the

natural force of the kingdom, they are sure of an aid of fifty thousand

men, at ten days warning, from the opposite coast of France. But

against this infusion of a foreign force, the Crown has its guarantees,

old and new. But I should be glad to hear something said of the

assistance, which loyal subjects in France have received from other

powers in support of that lawful government, which secured their

lawful property. I should be glad to know, if they are so disposed to a

neighbourly, provident and sympathetick attention to their publick

engagements, by what means they are to come at us. Is it from the

powerful States of Holland we are to reclaim our guarantee? Is it from

the King of Prussia and his steady good affections and his powerful

navy, that we are to look for the guarantee of our security? Is it from

the Netherlands, which the French may cover with the swarms of their

citizen soldiers in twenty-four hours, that we are to look for this

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assistance? This is to suppose too that all these powers have no views

offensive or necessities defensive of their own. They will cut out work

for one another, and France will cut out work for them all.

That the Christian Religion cannot exist in this country with such a

fraternity, will not, I think, be disputed with me. On that religion,

according to our mode, all our laws and institutions stand as upon

their base. That scheme is supposed in every transaction of life; and if

that were done away, every thing else, as in France, must be changed

along with it. Thus religion perishing, and with it this constitution, it is

a matter of endless meditation what order of things would follow it.

But what disorder would fill the space between the present and that

which is to come, in the gross, is no matter of doubtful conjecture. It

is a great evil, that of a civil war. But in that state of things, a civil

war which would give to good men and a good cause some means of

struggle, is a blessing of comparison that England will not enjoy. The

moment the struggle begins, it ends. They talk of Mr. Hume’s

Euthanasia of the British Constitution, gently expiring without a groan

in the paternal arms of a mere Monarchy. In a Monarchy! Fine trifling

indeed! There is no such Euthanasia for the British Constitution—

ENDNOTES

[1.] Here I have fallen into an unintentional mistake. Rider’s

Almanack for 1794 lay before me; and, in truth, I then had no other.

For variety that sage astrologer has made some small changes on the

weather side of 1795; but the caution is the same on the opposite

page of instruction.

[1.]

Souverains Opprimés —See the whole proceeding in the Process

Verbal of the National Assembly.

[1.]

Hic auratis volitans argenteus anser

Porticibus, G

ALLOS in limine adesse canebat.

[1.]

See Debates in Parliament upon Motions, made in both Houses,

for prosecuting Mr. Reeves for a Libel upon the Constitution, Dec.

1795.

[1.]

“ In the Costume assumed by the members of the legislative

body, we almost behold the revival of the extinguished insignia of

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Knighthood, ” &c. &c. See A View of the relative State of Great-Britain

and France at the commencement of the year 1796.

NOTES

The references to “vol. i.” and “vol. ii.” are to the “Select Works” of Burke. For many of

the notes which follow, as in the case of those two volumes, the editor has to tender his

best thanks to John Frederick Boyes, Esq.

LETTER I

Page 62, line 2. Our last conversation. Burke assumes for his correspondent the

same point of view as his own. Cp. post, p. 77, l. 8. The letters are therefore not

controversial in form. The Monthly Review, April, 1815, describes them as “addressed to

those advocates of the peace who had originally been partizans of the war: and it was

only with persons of this description that Mr. B. deigned to enter into controversy.” This

is true of the ultimate public whom he hoped to influence, but not of the ostensible

correspondent.

l. 4.

unpleasant appearances. The continued manifestations of a desire for peace

with France.

l. 8.

disastrous events. The military disasters of the allies on the Continent,

beginning with the battle of Fleurus in 1794, and followed by the separate treaties of

peace successively made with the Republic by Tuscany, Prussia, Sweden, Holland, and

Spain, leaving only Great Britain and Austria at war with it.

l. 23.

in its aphelion, i.e. in its deviation from its normal path. Burke would have

hailed the returning popularity of the war in 1798 as a return to this normal path.

l. 33.

same periods of infancy, &c. The allusion is to an ever-popular but false

theory of history, which may be traced as early as Polybius. In Burke’s time this theory

was put forth in many forms. Churchill, Gotham, Book iii:

Let me not only the distempers know

Which in all states from common causes flow:

But likewise, those, which, by the will of fate,

On each peculiar mode of Empire wait:

Which in its very constitution lurk,

Too sure at last to do their destin’d work.

So Young, Second Letter on Pleasure: “It has often been observed that it is with states

as with men. They have their birth, growth, health, distemper, decay, and death. Men

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sometimes drop suddenly by an apoplexy, states by conquest; in full vigour both . . . .

On the soft beds of luxury most kingdoms have expired. Casti, Animali Parlanti, Canto

iv:

E tutti li politici systemi

In se di destruzion racchiudon’ semi.”

As to England, Mr. Hallam remarks that it differs from all free governments of powerful

nations which history has recorded by manifesting, after the lapse of several centuries,

not merely no symptoms of decay, but a more expansive energy. Middle Ages, vol. ii.

chap. viii.

P. 63, l. 3.

similitudes—analogies. The hint has been developed by Mill, in his

account of Fallacies of Generalization, Logic, Book 5. “Bodies politic,” says Mr. Mill, “die;

but it is of disease, or violent death. They have no old age.”

l. 10.

moral essences. Cp. post, p. 139, l. 28.

l. 14.

There is not, &c. Specific attempts to create a “philosophy of history” have at

length ceased with the extinction of the German schools of speculative philosophy.

Burke’s criticism thoroughly agrees with the general spirit of the best historians.

l. 29.

It is often impossible, in these political enquiries, &c. Burke derived his

observations from a favourite author: “La conservation des estats est chose qui

vraysemblablement surpasse nostre intelligence: c’est comme dict Platon, chose

puissante et de difficile dissolution, qu’une police civile; elle dure souvent contre les

maladies mortelles et intestines, contre les injures des loix injustes, contre la tyrannie,

contre le desbordement et ignorance des magistrats, license et sedition des peuples.”

Montaigne, Liv. iii., chap. 9. In an earlier chapter of Montaigne, and in Bolingbroke, we

have the duration of states compared with that of individuals.

P. 64, l. 1.

remained nearly as they have begun. e.g. China.

l. 3.

spent their vigour, &c. e.g. the Mahomedan Caliphate, the monarchy of

Charlemagne, &c.

l. 4.

blazed out, &c. The allusion is clearly to the Mogul Empire in the time of

Aurungzebe. “Most nations,” says Young, in the letter above quoted, “have been gayest

when nearest to their end, and like a taper in the socket have blazed as they expired.”

l. 5.

meridian of some. Ancient Rome, Venice, Holland, are instances.

l. 9.

plunged in unfathomable abysses, &c. Burke has in mind the phrase “Mersus

profundo pulchrior evenit.”

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l. 16. death of a man. Among many instances that will occur to the reader, Pericles

is perhaps the best.

Ibid.

his disgust. Coriolanus is an instance.

Ibid.

his retreat. Burke probably alludes to Pitt, and his disastrous withdrawal from

public affairs in 1768–1770. See vol. i. p. 206, where the revolt of America from

England is traced to this cause. The resignation of Charles V. is another instance, in its

effects on the Netherlands.

l. 17.

his disgrace. The allusion is probably to the Constable Charles de Bourbon,

whose disgrace at the French court led to the misfortunes sustained by France under

Francis I.

l. 18.

A common soldier. The allusion is to Arnold of Winkelried, whose self-devotion

on the field of Sempach secured the freedom of Switzerland.

Ibid.

a child. The allusion is to Hannibal, and the oath administered to him at twelve

years old, by his father Hamilcar. Cp. p. 348, l. 14.

Ibid.

a girl at the door, &c. The allusion is to Joan of Arc, who according to one

version of her story (probably the true one) acted as ostler at a small inn.

P. 65, l. 9.

humbled—weakened—endangered. By the independence of America,

established by the aid of France.

l. 13.

high and palmy state. Hamlet, Act i. sc. 1.

l. 29.

a vast, tremendous, unformed spectre. Burke is thinking of Virgil’s

“Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens.” Burke seems to have been the first

Englishman who discerned accurately the portentous shape which France was assuming.

This powerful description was fully justified during the following years.

P. 66, l. 7.

poison of other States, &c. A new application of the proverb that “one

man’s meat is another’s poison.”

l. 17.

finest parts of Europe. The Austrian Netherlands, the Rhine, Savoy and Nice,

Lombardy.

l. 28.

At first, &c. Burke himself was among those who believed France to be crushed

as a nation by the Revolution: but he soon undeceived himself.

P. 67, l. 15.

publick—never regarded, &c. Burke has in mind the famous Roman

maxim, “non de republica desperare.”

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l. 18. Dr. Brown. The work was his “Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the

Times.” See vol. i. p. 88, and the Editor’s note.

l. 27.

Pythagoras. Burke probably means Archimedes, and alludes to the well-known

story of his great discovery in solid geometry.

l. 32.

as in the Alps, goitre kept goitre, &c. The phrase is Juvenal’s:

Quis tumidum guttur miratur in Alpibus?

Sat. xiii. l. 162.

P. 68, l. 5.

never did the masculine spirit, &c. This great stir in the public mind

occurred when Burke was a young man lately arrived in London, and just turning his

attention to public affairs. It profoundly affected him, and influenced his whole life.

l. 33.

eye of the mind is dazzled and vanquished. Burke copies the phrase, “In

bello oculi primi vincuntur.”

P. 69, l. 6.

palpable night. “Palpable darkness,” Par. Lost, xii. 188.

l. 29.

at no time has the wealth, &c. See the Third Letter, pp. 254–306, where this

is proved in detail.

l. 31.

vast interest to preserve—great means of preserving it. “You must not

consider the money you spend in your defence, but the fortune you would lose if you

were not defended; and further, you must recollect you will pay less to an immediate

war, than to a peace with a war establishment and a war to follow it . . . . Your empire

cannot be saved by a calculation.” Grattan, Speech on Downfall of Buonaparte.

Reference to the use of the argument by Bacon and Swift will be given in a note to the

Third Letter.

P. 70, l. 7.

If our wealth commands us, &c. So B. Jonson, “The Fox,” Act vi. sc. 12:

These possess wealth as sick men possess fevers,

Which trulier may be said to possess them.

The conceit is derived from a classical source: “Ea invasit homines habendi cupido ut

possideri magis quam possidere videamur”: Pliny, Letters, B. ix. Lett. 30. So Archbishop

Leighton, Commentary on 1 St. Peter, iv. 8: “Hearts glued to the poor riches they

possess or rather are possessed by.” Leighton repeats it in his “Commentary on the Ten

Commandments.”

l. 8.

poor indeed. Shakspeare, Othello, Act iii. sc. 3:

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He that filches from me my good name,

Robs me of that which not enriches him,

And makes me poor indeed.

l. 21.

He is the Gaul, &c. Alluding to the story of Brennus, Livy, Lib. v. cap. 48.

l. 27.

that state which is resolved, &c. i.e. Republican France.

P. 71, l. 9.

petty peculium. Burke alludes to the additions by conquest to the

colonial empire, which went on until both the French and the Dutch were left without

any colonies at all.

l. 10.

ambiguous in their nature. He alludes to the conquest of Martinique with its

population of revolutionary people of colour.

l. 12.

any one of those points, &c. i.e. in his conquests on the border of France,

especially Austrian Flanders.

l. 19.

When Louis the Fourteenth, &c. Burke describes the most critical period in

the War of the Grand Alliance.

l. 36.

puppet shew of a naval power. See p. 164, where Burke maintains that

England ought to have made a campaign with 100,000 men on the Continent.

P. 72, l. 5.

nothing in human affairs, &c. The common phrase “Nihil humani

alienum.”

l. 12.

our account, &c. See note to p. 270, l. 6.

l. 25.

pale cast, &c. Hamlet, Act iii. sc. 2, transposed:

“And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,” &c.

l. 32.

prolific error, i.e. prolific of other errors. Cp. vol. i. p. 137, l. 31.

P. 73, l. 5.

early victories. The capture of Valenciennes, Condé, Quesnoy, Landrécy,

and Toulon. See the Introduction.

l. 13.

desertion. Prussia deserted the campaign as soon as it began to fail.

l. 15.

mutual accusations. Between England and Austria.

P. 74, l. 7.

cry is raised against it. Burke alludes to the public indignation which

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followed on the passing of the “Gagging Act” of 1794.

l. 9.

most efficient member, &c. Burke alludes to the failure of the prosecutions of

Hardy and Horne Tooke at the Old Bailey in 1794.

l. 11.

highest tribunal of all. Parliament.

l. 34.

Mussabat tacito, &c. Lucretius, Lib. vi. 1178.

P. 75, l. 17.

poisonous jaws, &c. The allusion is to the fascination said to be

exercised by serpents over birds.

l. 24.

It is in the nature, &c. The modern historian will hardly sympathise with

Burke’s lament over the failure of the State prosecutions, nor could Burke himself have

seriously wished to recall the days of Scroggs and Jefferies. Besides, his wishes had

been amply satisfied in the State Trials in Scotland, where, owing to the difference in

procedure, all the prisoners had been convicted.

l. 34.

what the bulk of us must ever be. A powerful statement of the weaknesses

inherent in democracies.

P. 76, l. 16.

Burke now powerfully enforces that view of the nature of the war of which

he was the author, and for a long time the sole expositor. It was perfectly true, and in a

year or two its truth was obvious to every one.

l. 20.

a system—an armed doctrine. Grattan, Speech on Downfall of Buonaparte:

“Sirs, the French Government is war; it is a Stratocracy elective, aggressive, and

predatory. . . . . Their constitution is essentially war, and the object of that war is the

downfall of Europe . . . . Not an army, but a military government in march!” Again: “If

the government of any other country contains an insurrectionary principle, as France

did when she offered to aid the insurrections of her neighbours, your interference is

warranted: if the government of another country contains the principle of universal

empire, as France did and promulgated, your interference is justifiable.” It was no easy

task to prove to the English government and people how the France of the Directory

differed from the France of Louis XIV. Macaulay, in a passage founded on the present

one, has admirably described Mr. Pitt’s own blindness to what was so distinctly seen by

Burke: “He went to war: but he would not understand the peculiar nature of that war.

He was obstinately blind to the plain fact that he was contending against a state which

was also a sect, and that the new quarrel between England and France was of quite a

different kind from the old quarrels about colonies in America and fortresses in the

Netherlands. He had to combat frantic enthusiasm, restless activity, the wildest and

most audacious spirit of innovation: and he acted as if he had had to deal with the

harlots and fops of the old court of Versailles, with Madame de Pompadour and the

Abbé Bernis.” “Biographies,” Pitt.

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l. 25. in every country. See the Second Letter, p. 155.

Ibid.

a Colossus. &c. Burke alludes to the famous Colossus which bestrode the

harbour of Rhodes. Jacobin sympathies in England were rapidly extinguished after

Burke’s death, when the struggle with France became a struggle for national existence.

P. 77, l. 6.

To their power = “as far as in them lies.”

P. 78, l. 28.

Regicides—first to declare war. This statement, pertinaciously

repeated in the early Parliamentary debates on the Peace question, is not strictly true.

England was the first to break off all diplomatic communication with France. The King

recalled Lord Gower from Paris, and commanded that ordinary relations should cease

with Chauvelin after the 10th of August, 1792, when the French monarchy was

abolished. Chauvelin, whom the Convention still continued in London, was only

communicated with as representing the monarchy, and on the execution of the King in

January, 1793, he received from the English government notice to quit England. It is

true that the French government had already instructed him to the same effect, but

these instructions were unknown to the English government.

P. 79, l. 16.

some unhappy persons. The Duke of Choiseul, and other “emigrants”

in British service, were shipwrecked and taken prisoners near Calais in 1795. Choiseul

was condemned by the Directory, but saved by the Revolution of Brumaire. He lived to

take part in the Revolution of 1830, and became aide-de-camp to Louis Philippe.

P. 80, l. 11.

afflicted family of Asgill. Charles Asgill, a young captain in the British

army in America, chosen by lot to be surrendered to the enemy’s mercy in reprisal for

the execution of Huddy, April 12, 1782. Asgill’s mother appealed to the King and Queen

of France to intercede in her son’s behalf. The intercession was successful: and Asgill

visited Paris to acknowledge in person the exertions of Marie Antoinette.

P. 81, l. 22.

a war of Government, &c. Such it unquestionably was in 1793.

Whether it continued to be so when the French government avowedly carried it on for

the purpose of destroying the European balance of power, and annihilating England, is

another question.

P. 82, l. 1.

Speech from the Throne. Intended to stop the mouths of the opposition

and prepare the way for negotiations with France. See Introduction. It had neither

effect.

l. 15.

gipsey jargon. The phrase is borrowed from the account given in the Annual

P. 83, l. 15.

“Citizen Regicides,” &c. In Burke’s most effective Parliamentary style,

and scarcely a caricature of the attitude assumed by the ministry. The passage reminds

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us of Thomson, Britannia:

Whence this unwonted patience, this weak doubt,

This tame beseeching of rejected peace,

This weak forbearance?

l. 24.

patient suitors, &c. The picture which follows is in that vein of profound and

scornful irony of which Burke was almost as great a master as his countryman Swift.

l. 25.

sanguinary tyrant Carnot. Burke has no word of toleration, much less of

praise, for a single statesman of the Revolution. Cp. the allusion to Hoche, p. 221.

Carnot’s vote for the death of the King outweighed everything else in the eyes of his

critic.

l. 27.

down of usurped pomp. Carnot was one of the Directors, who lived in the

palace of the Luxembourg.

P. 84, l. 15.

Trophonian Cave. The rites of the deity Trophonius were celebrated in a

cave near Lebadea, in Boeotia. Pausanias denies the tradition to which Burke here

alludes, that none ever laughed after once visiting the cave.

l. 33.

speeches and messages in former times. Burke’s usual line of argument.

Cp. vol. i. p. 267. Burke in the next page qualifies this reference to the past, to avoid

the charge of “pedantry.”

P. 86, l. 29.

squander away the fund of our submissions. Burke gloomily

anticipates the time when this humiliating attitude on the part of England may really

become necessary. Cp. vol. ii. p. 128, l. 26.

l. 33.

Barthélemy. This able diplomatist, who negotiated the Treaties with Spain and

Prussia, afterwards became a Director. Allied with Carnot, his upright and statesmanlike

opposition produced the Revolution of Fructidor. Carnot escaped: but Barthélemy was

dragged through the streets of Paris, and before the windows of the Luxembourg, in an

iron cage, on his way to the convict settlement of Cayenne.

P. 89, l. 34.

ten immense and wealthy provinces. Burke proceeds to characterize

the pretensions of France to the “Rhine, Alps, and Mediterranean” boundary.

P. 90, l. 25.

a law, &c. The decree of the Convention incorporating Belgium with

France, like Savoy and Nice.

l. 34.

sacred Rights of Man. See vol. ii. p. 149. The allusion is, of course, ironical.

P. 91, l. 7.

cooped and cabined in. “Cribbed, cabined, and confined.” Macbeth, Act

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iii. sc. 4.

P. 92, l. 22.

over-running of Lombardy. This had taken place early in the year

(1796).

l. 23.

Piedmont—its impregnable fortresses. Alessandria, Tortona, Coni, Ceva,

and others. See Hamley’s Operations of War, p. 142.

l. 25.

instances for ever renewed—Genoa. The Ligurian republic was constituted in

the next year, and the French policy thus completed.

l. 27.

half the Empire. Swabia and Bavaria, overrun by Moreau in this year.

P. 94, l. 17.

“in the lowest deep, a lower deep.” Par. Lost, Book iv. l. 76.

P. 95, l. 2.

“None but itself,” &c. The line “None but himself can be his parallel,” is

quoted from Theobald, in Martinus Scriblerus, as a specimen of fustian.

P. 96, l. 4.

Light lie the earth, &c. The phrase, repeated from Letter IV (p. 351) is

from the well-known elegy of Prior on Col. Villiers:

Light lie the earth, and flourish green the bough.

The conception is borrowed, through the Latins, from the Greek elegiac authors.

Meleager in Anthol.;

Π α µ µ τ ο ρ γ χ α ρ ε, σ τ ν π ά ρ ο ς ο β α ρ ν ε ς σ ε A

σ ι γ έ ν η ν κ α τ ν ν π έ χ ο ι ς β

α ρ ή ς.

See Martial, Ep. Lib. v. 34. Juv. Sat. vii. 207, &c.

P. 99, l. 6.

“If it be thus,” &c. St. Luke, xxiii. 31.

l. 12.

wax into our ears, &c. Burke alludes to the story of Ulysses and the Sirens,

Odyssey, Book xii.

l. 14.

Reubel, Carnot, Tallien. The two former were Directors: but Tallien had by

this time ceased to be a leading politician. He had sunk into obscurity as a member of

the Council of Five Hundred. He afterwards went to Egypt, and in 1801 appeared in

London as a prisoner, on which occasion he was feted by the Opposition.

l. 15.

Domiciliary Visitors. Under the law of August 1792, 3000 persons were at

once dragged away to prison in one night.

l. 17.

Revolutionary Tribunals. The famous Revolutionary Tribunal, which took

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cognizance of treason against the Republic, was instituted by Danton, who was himself

condemned by it. It had ceased to exist in December 1794, after employing its vigour

during the last six months against the party of Robespierre. It sent to the guillotine

2,774 persons, including the Queen and the Princess Elizabeth.

l. 18.

Septembrizers. Alluding to the massacres at Paris in September 1792, in

which 1500 persons perished. The “Septembriseur” par excellence was Tallien.

l. 26.

little national window. One of the pleasantries which enlivened the

despatches from Carrier to the Convention, describing his cruelties in La Vendée.

l. 28.

declaration of the Government. The Whitehall Declaration, which filled Burke

with unbounded admiration, to which he more than once recurs (see pp. 156, 318), was

from the pen of Lord Grenville.

P. 101, l. 2.

Plutarch. The allusion is not in Plutarch. Burke is thinking of Cicero, De

Oratore, Lib. III, cap. 34, where the critic recalls the satire poured on Pericles by the

comedians, who nevertheless ascribed to him such force and power of engaging

attention “ut in eorum mentibus qui audissent quasi aculeos quosdam relinqueret.”

l. 18.

With their spear, &c. The allusion is to the story of C. Popilius Laenas.

P. 102, l. 34.

Ut lethargicus, &c. Horace, Sat. Lib. ii. 3. 30.

P. 104, l. 8.

competence to act. Cp. vol. i. p. 254. Burke’s observations on the

necessity of popular support to a great war, though apparently quite modern in spirit,

were based on history, as he presently shows.

P. 104, l. 25.

country of old called ferax monstrorum. Burke quotes as usual from

memory, “Asia, terra ferax miraculorum,” Plin. Epist. 173.

l. 34.

muster of our strength. The remarkable estimate which follows excludes, as

usual with Burke, the mass of the people, who are regarded (P. 105, l. 15) as merely

the “objects of protection,” and the “means of force.” It is curious that one who had laid

down the rational doctrine of the causes of hostility between people and government

contained in vol. i. p. 75 (Present Discontents), should now see no anomaly in the

existence of an incurable Jacobin faction numbering one-fifth of the effective forces of

the country.

P. 106, l. 10.

By passing from place to place, &c. Cp. vol. ii. p. 180.

l. 18.

naturally disposed to peace. The observation is true: and it illustrates Pitt’s

difficulty. The mass of his supporters in the country were interested in peace.

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l. 19. languid and improvident. Dryden, the Medal:

The wise and wealthy love the surest way,

And are content to thrive and to obey:

But wisdom is to sloth too great a slave.

P. 107, l. 11.

But strong passions awaken the faculties, &c. Burke clearly has in

mind the lines of Akenside, “Pleasures of the Imagination,” Bk. ii.

“Passion’s fierce illapse

Rouses the mind’s whole fabric, with supplies

Of daily impulse, keeps the elastic powers

Intensely poised,” &c.

P. 108, l. 14.

Pope—dying notes. See the last fifty lines of the two dialogues called

“Epilogue to the Satires.”

l. 15.

Johnson. See the first sixty lines of “London” (1738).

l. 17.

Glover. See his poem, London, or the Progress of Commerce, and the pathetic

ballad, Admiral Hosier’s Ghost.

l. 35.

driven by a popular clamour, &c. See Lord Stanhope’s History of England.

P. 110, l. 25.

Guarda-Costas. The coast-guards of Spanish America, whose insolence

to English ships was a main cause of the war.

Ibid.

Madrid Convention. Made in 1713, for thirty years. It secured to England the

“Assiento,” or contract for supplying Spanish America with African slaves.

l. 26.

Captain Jenkins’s ears. Exhibited in the House of Commons as having being cut

off by a Spanish captain.

l. 34.

dilatory pleas, exceptions of form. Proceedings under the old legal system,

which deferred the consideration of the question without touching its merits. Moving

and carrying the previous question has the same effect in parliamentary debate.

P. 113, l. 7.

contending to be admitted at a moderate premium. Burke states

the circumstances of the loan voted in December, 1795, with the partiality to be

expected. For the facts, see the notes, post, to pp. 254–60.

l. 26.

When I came to England. In 1750.

l. 29.

Aire and Calder. The improvement of the navigation of these rivers, which

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connected the West Riding with the port of Hull, may be said to be the first step in the

construction of those two great networks of canals and railways, which have played so

important a part in developing English trade and manufactures. Burke returns to the

subject in the Third Letter, p. 290.

P. 118, l. 26.

three great immoveable pillars. Cp. vol. i. p. 295, note to p. 73, l.

17.

P. 121, l. 14.

“Of large discourse,” &c. Hamlet, Act iv. sc. 4.

P. 122, l. 8.

If the war, &c. In these three brief paragraphs Burke puts his argument

for the war into a compendious and striking form. Compare with the whole argument

Bacon’s very similar plea for a Holy War. As will be seen, Burke evidently had Bacon in

mind in some other passages: “Such people as have utterly degenerated from the laws

of Nature, as have in their very body and frame of estate a monstrosity, and may be

truly accounted, according to the examples we have formerly recited, common enemies

and grievances of mankind and disgraces and reproaches to human nature—such

people all nations are interested or ought to be interested to reform.” “When the

constitution of a State and the fundamental laws and customs of the same, if laws they

may be called, are against the laws of Nature and of Nations, then I say a war upon

them is lawful.”

P. 123, l. 31.

abolition of the law. Cp. vol. ii. p. 191.

P. 125, l. 9.

Jacobinism is the revolt, &c. So Southey, Essay on Popular

Disaffection: “Of mere men of letters, wherever they exist as a separate class, a large

proportion are always enlisted in hostility, open or secret, against the established order

of things.”

l. 27.

regular decree. The allusion is to the frantic efforts made under the

Convention to get rid of Christianity and even faith in a God and the soul. They came to

an end with the acknowledgment of Deism as the national faith, and the establishment

of the Festival of the Supreme Being by Robespierre in 1794.

P. 126, l. 2.

profane apotheosis. The allusion is to the funeral honours paid to the

remains of Marat in the Pantheon.

l. 8.

rites in honour of Reason. Burke alludes to the scene of Nov. 10, 1793, when

the Commune of Paris enthroned a superannuated prostitute in Nôtre Dame as the

goddess of Reason. Similar scenes were repeated throughout the country.

l. 11.

schools founded at the publick expence. By the Convention. They were

mere primary schools, in which were to be taught reading, writing, arithmetic, and the

republican catechism.

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l. 23. Manners are what, &c. Burke draws his arguments from the old, French

school itself. Massillon (Vices et Vertus des Grands): “Moeurs cultivées, bienséances

voisines de la vertu.” Again, “Les bienséances qui sont inseparables du rang, et qui sont

comme la première école de la vertu.”

P. 127, l. 8.

five or six hundred drunken women. It may be objected that Burke

has no business to charge upon the Directory all the excesses of the Assembly and

Convention. The presumption in the eyes of any candid observer was now in favour of

reaction. Burke had denied the reality of the reaction in his then unpublished Fourth

Letter.

l. 17.

paradoxes. Cp. vol. ii. p. 277, l. 13.

l. 20.

at which morality is perplexed, &c. The same idea is admirably expressed by

Molière: “Ne fatiguez point mon devoir par les propositions d’une facheuse extrémité

dont peut être nous n’aurons pas besoin.” Mons. Pourceaugnac, Act i, Scene 4.

l. 24.

improving instincts into morals. On this doctrine, so often insisted on by

Burke, see Introduction to vol. ii. p. 40, &c.

P. 128, l. 12.

common civil contract. Here again Burke goes back to the early

legislation of the Revolution. Subsequent legislation, in European countries least to be

suspected of revolutionism, has justified the advocates of the measure.

P. 130, l. 21.

cannibalism. Burke follows Bacon, in the Tract on a Holy War, in

arguing from the cannibalism, among other traits, of the American Indians that their

territory was forfeited by the Law of Nations, and that the Spaniards, or any one else,

might lawfully invade it.

P. 132, l. 21.

papers and seals. Cp. vol. i. p. 288, &c.

l. 24.

Nothing is so strong, &c. Burke’s sketch of the European system may remind

the reader of the relations of the Greek communities as reflected in Herodotus and

Thucydides.

l. 33.

As to war—sole means of justice. Burke uses a saying of Bacon, “Wars are

the highest trials of right,” Observations on a Libel.

P. 133, l. 28.

several orders. i.e. church, nobles, and commons.

P. 134, l. 2.

continued in greater perfection, &c. As in Venice, Holland, and

Switzerland. This was natural enough. The power of a Crown counterbalanced the

authority of the upper orders.

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l. 25. formed resolution, &c. Peace had however been made by France with all

Europe except England and Austria.

P. 135, l. 11.

never in a state, &c. Cp. Introduction to vol. ii. pp. 44–45.

l. 32.

praetorian law. The “Equity” of Roman law.

Ibid.

Law of Neighbourhood. So M. de Puisaye, quoted by Southey, “Public Opinion

and the Political Reformers”: “It is with the independence of nations as with the liberty

of individuals, they have a right to do everything which involves no wrong to others. So

long as my neighbour demeans himself conformably to the laws his conduct is no

concern of mine: but if he converts his house into a brothel or commence a

manufactory there which should poison my family with its unwholesome stench, I

prosecute him for a nuisance.”

P. 137, l. 9.

ground of action—ground of war. So Bacon, On a War with Spain.

“Wars (I speak not of ambitious, predatory wars) are suits of appeal to the Tribunal of

God’s justice.”

P. 138, l. 1.

trifling points of honour, &c. Imitated by Casti, Anim. Parl. Canto iii.:

Due passi più o men lunghi, più o men corti,

Un inchino talor più o men profondo,

Capace è di mandar sossopra il mondo.

l. 5.

wild-cat skins. In the American settlements.

P. 139, l. 23.

bailliages. Districts of judicature.

P. 140, l. 4.

France is out of her bounds. Burke means that the emigrants were the

real France. Sheridan often refers to this striking expression of Burke on the subject:

“Look at the map of Europe: there, where a great man (who however was always wrong

on this subject) said he looked for France, and found nothing but a chasm.” Speech,

Dec. 8, 1802. Again, Aug. 13, 1807: “France,” —as Mr. Burke described it— “a blank in

the map of Europe.”

P. 142, l. 9.

negro slaves. Burke alludes to the blacks of Hayti.

l. 15.

Oppression makes, &c. Ecclesiastes vii. 7.

l. 19.

bitterness of soul. Burke evidently had in mind the lines of Addison (The

Campaign) describing the cry of Europe for deliverance from Louis XIV:

States that their new captivity bemoan’d,

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Armies of martyrs that in exile groan’d,

Sighs from the depth of gloomy dungeons heard,

And prayers in bitterness of soul preferr’d.

This poem was sometimes quoted in the debates on peace in Parliament.

P. 143, l. 30.

Algiers. The argument had been advanced by Fox, on the occasion of

the famous debate, Dec. 15, 1792, when Burke first took his seat on the Treasury

bench. Mr. Fox moved the house to send a minister to Paris to treat with the provisional

government. “If we objected to the existing form of government in France, we had as

strong objections to the form of government at Algiers; yet at Algiers we had a consul.”

The argument from Mahomedan communities is derived from the controversial

theologians of a preceding age. See Hooker, Eccl. Pol. iv. 7, &c.

P. 146, l. 22.

“Thus painters write,” &c. Prior, “Protogenes and Apelles.” Apelles of

Co (Cos) visits his brother artist at Rhodes, and not finding him at home, draws a

perfect circle on a panel:

And will you please, sweet-heart, said he,

To show your master this from me?

By it he presently will know

How painters write their names at Co.

Burke alludes to Grenville’s master-hand similarly displayed in the Declaration.

P. 149, l. 30.

whom my dim eyes, &c. Burke has in mind a pathetic triplet from

Pope’s Homer:

Two, while I speak, my eyes in vain explore,

Two from one mother sprung—my Polydore,

And lov’d Lycaon; now perhaps no more!

Iliad, xxii. 63.

LETTER II

P. 155, l. 23. wherever the race, &c. i.e. in America as well as in Europe. Incidents

in Hayti and in Spanish America suggested the observation. Cp. post, p. 231.

P. 156, l. 29.

our friends. The Duke of Portland and his followers.

P. 157, l. 15.

Conquest of France. Cp. vol. ii. p. 291, l. 4.

P. 158, l. 24.

linked by a contignation, i.e. by a structural tie. The image is

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Shaksperian:

It is a massy wheel,

To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things

Are mortis’d and adjoin’d.

Hamlet, Act iii. sc. 3.

P. 159, l. 16.

Centrifugal war. The expression aptly characterizes the war policy of

the Allies. Cp. 163, l. 12, where it is explained as a “scheme of war that repels as from

a centre,” i.e. France itself.

P. 160, l. 22.

nothing to hold an alliance together. Burke proceeds to show why

the coalition failed. His thorough and exact analysis of the situation may be relied on.

P. 161, l. 11.

worse than a negative interest. Because all the West Indian

possessions of European powers other than Spain were originally encroachments on

Spain. Spain has been losing the West Indies piecemeal ever since she gained them.

l. 20.

No continental power, &c. The dilemma was complete.

P. 163, l. 5.

contemptible factories. Pondicherry, Karikal, &c.

l. 8.

Cape of Good Hope. The Cape was in those times only valuable in connexion

with India and the East. British policy and enterprise has made it the nucleus of a great

group of colonial states.

l. 25.

declines still more. The decline of Holland as a colonial power was measured

by the failing prosperity of the Dutch East Indian Company.

P. 164, l. 23, foll.

The passage which follows, expanding the criticisms on the general

plan of the war, and alluding to the unfortunate campaign in the West Indies, was

inserted by Burke in a subsequent edition. It ends p. 167, l. 28. It belongs to the period

of the Third Letter.

l. 35.

fierce barbarians. The negroes of Hayti and Guadaloupe.

P. 165, l. 7.

ally in the heart of the country. Burke was always for stirring the

strong anti-revolutionary elements which existed unused in France. The subsequent

history of French factions has amply shown how much might have been done in this

way.

P. 166, l. 15.

made for the seat, &c. Burke has in mind the early settlement of the

Spaniards in the West Indies, when Hayti was the centre of government, and the

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transfer of West Indian supremacy to the French with the possession of the west of the

island.

Ibid.

not improved as the French division had been. The extraordinary prosperity

of French Hayti is a striking feature in colonial history. See the Editor’s History of

European Colonies.

l. 21.

reclamation = protest.

P. 167, l. 1.

ties of blood. Burke derives the hint from Bacon, speaking of the Social

War: “You speak of a naturalisation in blood; there was a naturalisation indeed in

blood.” “Of General Naturalisation.”

l. 34.

I see, indeed, a fund, &c. Burke alludes to the ecclesiastical electorates of

Cologne, Trèves, and Mainz, and to the large sovereign bishoprics of Liège, Paderborn,

Munster, &c. These it was proposed to secularize and cede some parts to Austria and

Prussia in compensation for the Austrian Netherlands and the Rhenish possessions of

Prussia.

P. 169, l. 4.

Substitutions, i.e. family settlements. Cp. vol. ii. p. 207, l. 17.

P. 170, l. 19.

there is no doctrine whatever, &c. Burke repeats the observation

from Bolingbroke (On the true use of Retirement, &c.), who borrows it from Montaigne,

Essais, Liv. i. ch. 40: “Toute opinion est assez forte pour se faire espouser au prix de la

vie.”

l. 30.

with all their heart, &c. The phrase is borrowed from the Church of England

Catechism.

l. 33.

strike the sun out of heaven. Burke has in mind Gray, The Bard:

Fond impious man! think’st thou the sanguine cloud

Rais’d by thy breath can quench the orb of day?

P. 171, l. 7.

“carried along with the general motion,” &c.:

For as in Nature’s swiftness, with the throng

Of flying orbs whilst ours is borne along,

All seems at rest to the deluded eye,

Moved by the soul of the same harmony;

So carried on by your unwearied care

We rest in peace, and yet in motion share.

Dryden, Lines to the Lord Chancellor.

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l. 17. evil for its good. Milton, Par. Lost, Book iv. 110.

l. 18.

nothing, indeed, &c. Borrowed from Aristotle, ’Aρ χ ν δ ρ δ ε ί ξ ε ι.

P. 176, l. 9.

Montalembert. This veteran soldier and politician had cast in his lot

with the Revolution.

l. 13.

The diplomatic politicians, &c. This ingenious account of the growth of an

aggressive policy on the part of France, though based on notorious historical facts, is

difficult to justify specifically.

l. 23.

Russia and Prussia. The rise of the former dated from Peter the Great, of the

latter from Frederick.

l. 26.

by the very collision, &c. The Seven Years’ War.

P. 177, l. 4.

French party. See p. 175, l. 16.

l. 19.

Out the word came. The allusion is to the arguments in the Encyclopédie and

elsewhere. The politicians, of course, never employed the word except in theoretical

discussions, before the Revolution.

P. 178, l. 10.

Austrian match. Between the Dauphin and Marie Antoinette.

P. 179, l. 4.

commercial treaty. Made by Mr. Pitt in 1784.

l. 10.

facilitated—but did not produce it. Burke can hardly escape the charge of

bending his facts to his theory. Political ambition alone would never have produced the

treaty.

l. 17.

unhappy American quarrel. Here again the alliance of France with the

revolted Colonies may be accounted for without assuming an unnatural ambition on the

part of France.

l. 26.

produced by their republican principles. But cp. p. 182, post, where the

policy of the old monarchy is shown not to have been repugnant to republics.

l. 30.

in a great extent of country. The example of the United States destroyed at

once the old illusion that a non-monarchical government could only suit with small

states. Cp. vol. ii. p. 224, l. 35.

P. 180, l. 31.

found in monarchies stiled absolute. Burke repeats a well-known

conclusion of Gibbon.

P. 181, l. 8.

entire circle of human desires. Burke alludes to an idea put forth by

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Montesquieu and developed in Goldsmith’s Traveller. It is fully explained in the note to

vol. i. p. 237, l. 31. Burke’s account of the growth of English civilization has been well

amplified by Guizot: “The general character of European civilization has especially

distinguished the civilization of England. It was exhibited in that country with more

sequence and greater clearness than in any other. In England the civil and religious

orders, aristocracy, democracy, monarchy, local and central institutions, moral and

political development, have increased and advanced together . . . . Not one of the

ancient elements of society ever completely perished; no special principle was ever able

to obtain an exclusive dominion. There has always been a simultaneous development of

all the different powers, and a sort of compromise between the claims and the interests

of all of them. . . . . It cannot, for instance, be denied that the simultaneous

development of the different social elements caused England to advance more rapidly

than any of the continental states towards the true aim and object of all society—the

establishment of a free and regular government. . . . . Besides, the essence of Liberty is

the simultaneous manifestation of all interests, of all rights, of all forces, and of all

social elements. England had therefore made a nearer approach to liberty than the

greater number of other states.” —Lectures on Civilization, Lect. ix, Beckwith’s

translation.

l. 16.

direct object. Burke alludes to the specific provisions in its favour, from Magna

Charta to the Habeas Corpus Act.

l. 21.

as great to spend, &c. Cp. vol. i. p. 285, l. 34. Since 1832 the people have

been less disposed to expenditure.

l. 29.

above my power of praise. Burke’s general estimate of Pitt has been fully

confirmed by modern opinion. Supreme in influence over Parliament, and the first of the

great school of English financial statesmen, he failed signally as a war-minister.

P. 182, l. 27.

We go about asking when assignats will expire, &c. “The French,

beginning with bankruptcy at home, had proceeded abroad on the maxim of Machiavelli,

that men and arms will find money and provide for themselves.” Southey, Essay on

State of Public Opinion and the Political Reformers.

P. 183, l. 6.

Jinghiz Khan. A famous Asiatic conqueror of the twelfth century.

l. 28.

Harrington—never could imagine, &c. Harrington uniformly derives all

government from property. A man, he argues, with no estate, either in land, goods, or

money, can have nothing to govern, and therefore no share in government. A state of

things in which the people, not owning at least two thirds of the land, are supreme, he

denominates “an Anarchy.” See his System of Politics in Aphorisms.

l. 33.

“The mine exhaustless.” Burke is followed here by an opponent: “Nothing in

point of resources is beyond the reach of a revolutionary government: whereas regular

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governments have their limitations in this point.” —Marquis of Lansdowne’s Speech on

the Address, 1801.

P. 184, l. 4.

copying music. Burke is perhaps thinking of Rousseau.

Ibid.

plaidoyers. Law proceedings.

l. 10.

must be destroyed. Burke copies the “Delenda est Carthago” of Scipio.

P. 185, l. 32.

diligent reader of history. “A century after the expulsion of James,

Louis XVI was anxious to draw wisdom from the fate of the Stuarts. He was continually

reading over the lives of Charles I and James II, and even, it is said, added comments

with his own hand on the margin. Determined to avoid their erring policy, he, as we

have already seen, temporised and yielded on every possible occasion.” —Lord Mahon’s

Essay on the French Revolution.

P. 186, l. 35.

but one republic. i.e. America.

P. 187, l. 13.

paid to his enemies. i.e. to the new French government.

l. 20.

husbandmen or fishermen. As in New England.

P. 188, l. 6.

you may call this France, &c. We have elsewhere the idea of a country

or city being itself in exile when the worthy have departed and the worthless remain.

Coriolanus, when banished by the citizens, retaliates as he departs:

“I banish you,

And here remain with your uncertainties,” &c.

Act iii. Scene 3.

And Carew to Master William Montague:

Thus divided from your noble parts

The kingdom lives in exile.

“Non te civitas, non regia domus in exilium miserunt, sed tu utrasque.” Cicero, quoted

in letters of Swift to Gay.

P. 189, l. 1.

a circumstance which, &c. The allusion is to the months of July and

August, 1796, during which Burke was at Bath, prostrate under the malady which in the

next year carried him off.

ETTER

III

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P. 193, l. 24. “Vast species.” Cowley’s lines on Pindar:

The phoenix Pindar is a vast species alone.

P. 198, l. 22.

bundle of State-Papers. The correspondence between Lord

Malmesbury and Delacroix, beginning Dec. 17 and ending Dec. 20, 1796, together with

the long Royal Declaration of Dec. 27. The correspondence was presented to the House

of Commons Dec. 28.

l. 31.

“paths of pleasantness,” &c. Proverbs iii. 17.

P. 200, l. 31.

rehearsal at Basle. See ante, p. 86, &c.

P. 201, l. 9.

“garrit aniles,” &c. Hor. Sat. ii. 6. 77.

l. 18.

“malignant and a turban’d Turk.” See end of Othello.

l. 33.

In the disasters of their friends, &c. “Nous avons tous assez de force pour

supporter les maux d’autrui.” Rochefoucauld, Max. xix. Popularized in England through

the “Thoughts on Various Subjects” by Pope and Swift. Very humourously expressed by

Villemain in his “Souvenirs” when speaking of Talleyrand: “Il paraissait quelquefois

d’une résignation trop grande sur le malheur de ses amis.”

P. 203, l. 1.

boulimia. Raging hunger.

l. 8.

“shreds and patches.” Hamlet, Act iii. sc. 3.

l. 9.

mumping cant = Beggars’ set phrases. To “mump” is to go begging. Cp. vol. i.

p. 175, l. 6.

l. 11.

“Where the gaunt mastiff,” &c. Pope, Moral Essays, Ep. iii. l. 195.

l. 22.

neighbouring vice. The allusion is to the Aristotelian theory of Virtues, which

places each in a mean state between two vices.

l. 28.

speech of the Minister. Mr. Pitt’s speech of Dec. 30, 1796.

P. 204, l. 18.

Virgil proposed, &c. Georgics, Book iii. l. 25.

l. 19.

hides his head, &c. Bonaparte had forced the passage of the Mincio, April 30,

1796, cutting off the Austrian general Beaulieu from Mantua, and forcing him to retreat

upon the passes of the Tyrol.

P. 210, l. 7.

in this mother country of freedom, &c.:

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Onde provò con riflessioni egregie

La libertà delle prigioni regie.

Casti, Animali Parlanti, Canto xvi.

Casti’s work was published in the beginning of the present century. The coincidences

with Burke are too many to be accidental.

l. 32.

patriarchal rebels. Lafayette, Latour-Maubeuge, and Bureau de Pusy. Burke

goes on to speak particularly of Lafayette, who had been taken prisoner in the territory

of Liège in August, 1792. General Fitzpatrick as early as March, 1794, had moved the

Commons for an address to the Crown with the object of procuring his release. This

motion was opposed by Burke, and lost by a large majority. The motion was repeated

Dec. 16, 1796, warmly supported by Fox, and again lost. The Peace of Campo Formio,

made shortly after the publication of this letter, set Lafayette at liberty.

P. 211, l. 10.

that family. The Austrian.

l. 33.

not only of no real talents. Burke’s estimate of Lafayette is just.

P. 212, l. 3.

fifth of October. An account of this deportation from Versailles to Paris

is given in Burke’s “Reflections.” See Select Works, vol. ii. pp. 164–65.

l. 16.

This officer, &c. Smith was taken prisoner in an attempt to cut out some

vessels from the Havre. The French government had him sent to Paris, and imprisoned

in the Temple as a spy. He managed to escape, together with the royalist Phelippeaux,

an officer of engineers, by means of a forged order for transporting them to another

place of confinement. Phelippeaux accompanied Smith to the East, and aided him in the

famous defence of Acre in 1799, which stopped the advance of Bonaparte in Syria.

P. 215, ll. 20 foll.

Muse of fire—ascended the highest heaven of invention—

swelling scene—Potentates for fellow-actors—port of Mars—dogs of war—

famine, fever, &c. Burke has freely used the opening lines of Shakespeare’s Henry V:

O for a muse of fire, that would ascend

The brightest heaven of invention!

A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,

And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!

Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,

Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,

Leash’d in like hounds, should famine, sword, and fire,

Crouch for employment.

Burke evidently assumed that the passage was well-known to his readers.

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P. 216, l. 28. “Which has so often stormed Heaven, and with a pious violence

forced down blessings,” &c. St. Matthew xi. 14.

Regnum coelorum violenza pate

Da caldo amore è di viva speranza

Che vence la divina volontade.

Dante, Paradiso, Canto xx. l. 94.

By tears, and groans, and never ceasing care

And all the pious violence of prayer.

Young’s Last Day, Book ii.

We by devotion borrow from his throne,

And almost make omnipotence our own:

We force the gates of Heaven by fervent prayer,

And call forth triumph out of man’s despair.

Young’s Force of Religion.

P. 217, l. 9.

Freinshemius. The continuator of the Roman historian Livy.

l. 29.

Never, no never, &c. “Nunquam aliud natura, aliud Sapientia dixit.” Juvenal.

l. 32.

of Belvedere. The Belvedere palace at Rome.

Ibid.

universal robber. Bonaparte, who during the past year had stripped the states

of North Italy in succession of their choicest art-treasures as part of the price of peace.

P. 218, l. 3.

Vehement passion does not, &c. Addison, Spectator, No. 408: “We

may generally observe a pretty nice proportion between the strength of reason and

passion . . . . The weaker understandings have generally the weaker passions.”

l. 8.

If ever there was a time that calls on us for no vulgar conception of

things, and for exertions in no vulgar strain. “This sincere and solid compliment I

would pay them (the French people and commanders), of saying and showing, that we

must omit no human preparations which the heart and head of man can contrive and

execute.” Sheridan, Speech on Traitorous Correspondence, &c., April 28, 1798.

l. 18.

De la Croix. The minister who conducted the negotiations with Lord

Malmesbury.

l. 31.

His Majesty has only to lament. A poor possession to be left to a great

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monarch:

invenietque

Nil sibi legatum praeter plorare, suisque.

Hor. Sat. II. v. 9.

P. 220, l. 17.

former declaration. The Whitehall Declaration. See ante, pp. 99–100.

P. 221, l. 16.

Regicide fleet. A fleet of seventeen vessels sailed from Brest in

December, 1796, for a descent upon Ireland, relying on the support of the inhabitants.

It retreated to France without landing any troops. Seven ships were lost by a storm.

Hoche lost his way, and got back to Brest several days after the rest of his fleet, after

being hotly pursued by Lord Bridport.

l. 33.

practised assassin Hoche. The allusion is to the execution of the invaders at

Quiberon. Driven by the national army to an isolated rock, and unable to escape to the

British ships, all surrendered and were shot. Many of the wretched émigrés who thus

perished were personally known to Burke.

P. 224, l. 5.

mask of a Davus or a Geta. Characters of slaves in the Roman comedy.

P. 225, l. 15.

hypothecated in trust. By the Treaty of Peace with Prussia, concluded

at Basle April 5, 1795, the left bank of the Rhine was to be occupied by the French

pending a general pacification. The French evacuated the Prussian territories on the

right bank.

l. 26.

Lucchesini. An Italian adventurer who had ingratiated himself with Frederick

the Great, and had ever since been a diplomatist of high repute. Burke’s contemptuous

mention of him here is interesting, for it was he who negotiated for Prussia after the

battle of Jena.

l. 33.

Prince of Peace. Properly, “Prince of the Peace,” a title conferred on Godoy in

honour of the disgraceful peace negotiated by him between France and Spain, July 22,

1796. By this peace, the Spanish part of St. Domingo, and the Spanish possessions in

North America were ceded to France.

P. 226, l. 3.

Tetrarch. So called by Burke, contemptuously, from his holding his

crown on the sufferance of the Republic. Cp. post, p. 339, l. 32. The Sardinian king

saved his crown by suing for mercy at the first irruption of Bonaparte in 1796. He ceded

to the French Savoy and Nice, together with the right of occupying Coni, Ceva, Tortona,

Alessandria, and six less important fortresses, and the right of passing and repassing

through his dominions at any time.

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l. 21. admission of French garrisons. The fate of Genoa had been clear since the

first occupation of its soil in 1794. The French easily democratized the old

commonwealth, and in May of this year (1797) it was abolished and replaced by a

“Ligurian Republic,” which had a Directory and Councils like France.

l. 25.

early sincerity. The Grand-Duke of Tuscany, weak in mind and insignificant in

position, created general amusement by being the first member of the alliance to

detach himself from it. This he did early in 1795.

l. 32.

placed Leghorn, &c. Leghorn was seized by the French in June, 1796,

notwithstanding the peace made by the Grand-Duke. They expected to seize abundance

of English property, and, disappointed in this, pillaged their own allies.

P. 227, l. 16.

“murdering piece.” The technical name for this species of pictures;

like “landscape.”

l. 27.

sunk deep into the vale, &c. Pius VI was over eighty years of age.

P. 228, l. 8.

regenerated law. Burke alludes to the revival of the study of Civil Law

at Bologna.

l. 9.

hideously metamorphosed. In 1798 the same process was extended to Rome

itself.

l. 14.

work which defied the power, &c. The drainage of the Pontine marshes had

been attempted at intervals by several Popes: but no progress was made until the time

of Pius VI, who restored the canal of Augustus and constructed the modern road on the

line of the Appian way. It is not correct to say that the same task defied the engineers

of ancient Rome. Their works had fallen into decay.

P. 229, l. 16.

at all times—powerful squadron. The Mediterranean had been

evacuated by the British squadron employed on that station in consequence of the

demands of the war in the West Indies.

l. 21.

despotic mistress of that sea. “The Mediterranean a French lake.”

P. 230, l. 9.

himself the victim, &c. The allusion is to the assassination of Gustavus

(III) by Ankarström, March 16, 1792.

l. 16.

late Empress—new Emperor. Catherine II had died Nov. 17, 1796, leaving

Paul I her successor. Burke’s expectations from Paul were justified. The unprincipled

aggressions of France after the peace of Campo Formio drew him into the alliance: and

the tide of events on the continent was first changed by the Italian campaign in 1799,

in which Suwarrow bore so important a part.

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P. 231, l. 19. As long as Europe, &c. Though the possessory interest of Europe in

America has practically ceased, time has confirmed Burke’s diplomatic dictum that

“America is to be considered as part of the European system.”

l. 24.

attempts to plant Jacobinism instead of liberty. The allusion is to the

arrogant bearing and intrigues of the French envoy in the United States, where the

French confidently hoped to Jacobinize the government as in Holland and Genoa. The

Directory instructed their representative to take no notice of Washington, and to appeal

to the people.

P. 232, l. 25.

if any memory, &c. The qualification was necessary. This antiquated

distinction of parties, fading early in Burke’s career (cp. vol. i. p. 72, l. 11), was now

mere matter of history.

l. 33.

by their union have once saved it. An ingenious account of the desertion of

the Portland Whigs, with Burke at their head, in 1792.

P. 233, l. 16.

other party. The followers of Fox.

P. 234, l. 25.

distinguished person. Lord Auckland, a shrewd man bred to the law,

had risen to some eminence as a diplomatic agent of Mr. Pitt’s.

P. 238, l. 14.

when the fortune of the war began to turn. In 1793.

l. 32.

noble person himself. Lord Auckland. In the debates of the early part of 1795

he had opposed the peace proposals.

P. 239, l. 7.

no foundation for attributing, &c. Lord Auckland sent to Burke a copy

of the pamphlet on the day of its publication (Oct. 28, 1795), with a note confessing the

authorship, but stating that as regards the public he neither sought to avow the

publication nor wished to disavow it. Burke’s remarks on the authorship were therefore

justifiable.

l. 14.

riggs of old Michaelmas. Stormy weather about that time. (Rigs = capricious

tempests.)

l. 19.

Speech from the throne. The speech on the opening of the Session in 1795.

P. 242, l. 4.

As to our Ambassador, this total want of reparation for the injury

was passed by under pretence of despising it.

It is the cowish terror of his spirit

That dares not undertake: he’ll not feel wrongs

That tie him to an answer.

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Lear, Act iv. sc. 2.

P. 243, l. 15.

non omnibus dormio. The allusion is to a story contained in Plutarch’s

Eroticus, of one Galba, and Maecenas: Ω σ π ε ρ κ α Π ω µ α ο ς κ ε ν ο ς Κ ά β

β α ς ε σ τ ί α Μ α ι κ ή ν α ν, ε τ α ρ ν δ ι α π λ η κ τ

ι ζ ό µ ε ν ο ν π ν ε υ µ

ά τ ω ν π ρ ς τ γ ύ ν α ι ο ν, π έ κ λ ι ν ε ν σ υ χ τ ή ν κ ε φ α λ ν, ς δ κ

θ ε ύ δ ω ν, ν τ ο ύ τ δ τ ν ο κ ε τ ν τ ι ν ο ς π ρ ο σ ρ υ έ ν τ ο ς ξ ω θ ε

ν τ τ ρ α π έ ζ , κ α τ ν

ο ν ο ν φ α ι ρ ο υ µ έ ν ο υ, δ ι α β λ έ ψ α ς, “Kα κ ό

δ ε ι µ ο ν,” ε π ε ν, “ ο κ ο σ θ α, τ ι µ ´ ο ν Mα ι κ ή ν

κ α θ ε ύ δ ω.”

l. 32.

two confidential communications. Both delivered to Delacroix by Lord

Malmesbury on Saturday morning, Dec. 17, 1796. The first contained the proposed

terms of peace so far as they related to France, the second so far as they related to

Spain and Holland. The Confidential Memorials were not signed by Lord Malmesbury,

though his signature was affixed to the note to which they were appended: and the

Directory returned the memorials to him on Sunday stating that they could recognize no

unsigned documents, and demanding an ultimatum properly signed, within twenty-four

hours. On Monday, Lord Malmesbury returned the memorials properly signed, with a

statement that they contained not an ultimatum, but a project subject to discussion.

Later in the same day he received the peremptory notice to quit Paris in forty-eight

hours.

P. 246, l. 21.

German War. So called at first: afterwards best known as the Seven

Years’ War.

P. 247, l. 29.

the Empire and the Papacy. Neither of the two Cardinal powers of

mediaeval Europe, now in their political decay, were so formidable to progress as is now

often supposed. The continual attacks directed against them proceeded mainly from the

politicians, and date back long before 1789.

P. 248, l. 13.

body of republics. Alluding especially to the Ligurian and Cispadane

Republics in Italy. The establishment of the Parthenopaean Republic confirmed Burke’s

augury.

l. 19.

universal empire—universal revolution. In a very short time the justice of

the charge was confessed by the best friends of France. No sooner was the peace of

Campo Formio signed than the attacks on Rome, Switzerland, and Naples, made it clear

that faith would be kept by the Directory on no other terms than a submission to

republican principles.

P. 249, l. 2.

Scrap of equivalents. His contemptible list of proposed cessions to

France in exchange for the Austrian Netherlands.

P. 250, l. 7.

very dubious struggle. The result of the war in the rest of the West

Indies was still doubtful.

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P. 252, l. 10. family of thieves. The allusion is to the division of power between the

two assemblies—the Council of Ancients and the Council of Five Hundred.

l. 29.

The identical men, &c.

Da riguardo servil, da melensaggine

Vinte per uso,—un anima non hanno

Capace d’una bella scelleraggine.

Casti, Animali Parlanti, Cant. xi.

l. 30.

original place—dirtiest of chicaners. The allusion is to the two lawyers

Rewbel and Lepaux.

P. 254, l. 23.

“The slothful man,” &c. Proverbs xxii. 13.

P. 255, l. 4.

open subscription —of eighteen millions, proposed by Mr. Pitt,

December 7, 1795. For every £100 in cash the subscriber became entitled to £120 3

per cents., and £25 4 per cents., with further addition in the Long Annuities. The loan

was notoriously not an open competition. It was placed in the hands of the mercantile

house of Boyd. The circumstances attending the loan were brought to light by Mr. W.

Smith in a motion for a Committee of Enquiry. An ample account may be seen in the

Parliamentary History.

l. 8.

whiff and wind of it, &c.

With the whiff and wind of his fell sword

The unnerved father falls.

Hamlet, Act ii. Scene 2.

l. 25.

Ne te quaesiveris extra. Persius, Sat. i. 7.

P. 256, l. 18.

ritually, i.e. formally, properly.

P. 257, l. 2.

very lucrative bargain. The premium on the loan amounted to no less a

sum than £2,160,000!

P. 258, l. 14.

The love of lucre, &c. i.e. as productive of capital. Burke may have

had the following passage in his ear when he wrote the above clause: “The inclination is

natural in them all, pardonable in those who have not yet made their fortunes: and as

lawful in the rest as love of power or love of money can make it. But as natural, as

pardonable, and as lawful as this inclination is, where it is not under check of the civil

power, or when a corrupt ministry,” &c. Swift, Examiner, No. xxiv.

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l. 23. “with all its imperfections,” &c. This well-known phrase from Hamlet is a

favourite quotation with Burke. See vol. i. p. 243, l. 28.

P. 260, l. 27.

“wherever a man’s treasure,” &c. Luke xii. 34.

P. 267, l. 18.

“Modo sol nimius,” &c. Ovid, Met. Lib. v. 483.

P. 269, l. 1.

How war, &c. Milton, Sonnet xvii. l. 7.

l. 19.

Proving its title, &c. Among many embodiments of this commonplace,

Shakespeare’s is perhaps the best:

“Therefore, brave conquerors! for so you are,

That war against your own affections,

And the huge army of the world’s desires,” &c.

Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act i. Scene 1.

P. 270, l. 5.

“palmy state.” Cp. note, p. 65, l. 13, ante.

l. 6.

brighter lustre than in the present, &c. Burke alludes to the English campaign

in the Low Countries under the Duke of York. The British contingent took the field at the

investment of Valenciennes, which surrendered to the Duke of York, July 28, 1793. A

month after, the Duke was besieging Dunkirk: but was forced to raise the siege

suddenly by the arrival of overwhelming reinforcements to the enemy. He took the lead

in the succeeding year, capturing all the posts between Courtray and Lille; and the

English contingent was distinguished in the repulse of the French at Tournay, May 10,

1794. The English ranks were greatly thinned by the terrible fighting at Turcoing, on the

18th and 22nd, while the severe losses they inflicted on the enemy drew from the

Convention a decree denying all quarter to the British and Hanoverian troops. Moreau

and several other French generals, to their honour, refused to execute this savage

decree. A month afterwards, the decisive battle of Fleurus gave Flanders to the French.

At the head of an overwhelming number of troops, Pichegru drove the Duke into

Holland. The states of Holland having submitted to the French early in 1795: and the

English army, pursued by Macdonald and Moreau, had to retreat through a practically

hostile country into German territory. They embarked at Bremerhaven for England,

1795.

l. 21.

distant possessions. West Indies.

l. 23.

neighbouring colonies. The British West Indies.

Ibid.

one sweeping law, &c. That of August, 1793, which decreed a levy of the

people en masse until the enemy should be driven from the soil of the Republic.

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P. 271, l. 6. invasion. The alarm of invasion naturally began to be felt as England

was gradually deserted by the Allies, as a consequence of the great development of

France, and her bitterness against England. After the Peace of Campo Formio England

was left absolutely alone, and the probability of invasion was redoubled.

l. 13.

forty years ago. In the time of the elder Pitt and his vigorous war-policy.

P. 272, l. 27.

much more to dread. See Burke’s famous Letter to a Noble Lord.

P. 273, l. 1.

The excesses of delicacy, &c. The argument is amplified in a note of

Southey’s: “It is the lowest class which supplies the constant consumption of society. It

is they who are cut off by contagious diseases, who are poisoned in manufactories, who

supply our fleets and armies. The other class of society are exempt from most of these

chances of destruction, yet they produce little or no surplus of population, and the

families of all such as have been truly illustrious soon become extinct. The most

thoughtful people taken as a body are the least prolific. An increase of animal life

depends on something more than animal passion, or the abundance of the means of

subsistence.”

l. 9.

whose name, &c. These touching words allude to the recent death of the

author’s only son in 1794.

l. 13.

the ancients. Burke alludes to his favourite philosopher, Aristotle.

P. 282, l. 24.

The allusion is to the statutory registration of deeds in that county.

P. 286, l. 26.

“migravit ab aure voluptas.” Hor. Ep. ii. 1. 187.

P. 287, l. 23.

all the three theatres. The famed old ones of Drury Lane and Covent

Garden, and the “Little Theatre” in the Haymarket, made popular by Foote and Colman.

P. 288, l. 10.

my first political tract. The “Observations on the State of the Nation.”

See ante, p. 245. The publication of the quarto edition of his works evidently attracted

Burke’s attention anew to this early production.

P. 299, l. 18.

The different Bills. The first bill, originated by a private company, was

introduced in the previous session (1795–6), supported by the leading merchants, and

by the East India Company. It was defeated by the interest of the corporation of

London. The second bill, containing the rival scheme of the corporation, was introduced

early in 1797.

P. 303, l. 1.

bore —an exceptionally high tide.

P. 304, l. 34.

Famish their virtues, &c. The image belongs to Young: “Eusebius,

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though liberal to the demands of nature, rank, and duty, starves vice, caprice, and

folly.” Letter on Pleasure, iii.

P. 305, l. 7.

mines of Newfoundland. The fisheries. The expulsion of the French

from St. Pierre and Miquelon (see Introduction) had thrown them exclusively into

English hands.

LETTER IV

P. 309, l. 27. eternal duration. See for examples the conclusion of Horace’s Odes

and Ovid’s Metamorphoses.

P. 310, l. 4.

Parisian September. The allusion is to the memorable September of

1792.

l. 7.

pleasant author. Voltaire.

l. 32.

Rider’s Almanack. Then and long afterwards the best popular almanack.

P. 312, l. 2.

Second edition. Burke waited to watch the effect of Lord Auckland’s

work on the public. It had been out about two months when the criticism was begun.

l. 12.

Qualis in aethereo. Tibullus, Lib. iv. Carm. 2.

l. 16.

simple country folk. Burke was no longer in Parliament: he lived in retirement

at Beaconsfield.

P. 314.

The style here, as in many other parts, is that of a speech in debate.

P. 317, l. 5.

Esto perpetua. Father Paul Sarpi’s dying prayer for his country (Venice).

See Dr. Johnson’s Life of him.

P. 318, l. 7.

restored the two countries, &c. Thomson alludes to the idea, “Liberty,”

Part iv.:

Since first the rushing flood

Urged by almighty power, this favoured isle

Turned flashing from the Continent aside,

Indented shore to shore responsive still.

P. 319, l. 21.

“That strain I heard,” &c. Milton, Lycidas.

l. 23.

a style which, &c. Burke somewhat unfairly contrasts the flimsy style of

Auckland’s pamphlet with that of Grenville’s Declaration. The compositions were in

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different kinds.

P. 321, l. 16.

first republic in the world. Holland.

l. 27.

Pomoerium. The limit of the precincts of ancient Rome.

P. 322, l. 2.

boulimia. See ante, p. 203, l. 1.

l. 19.

Doctor in Molière. See “Le Malade Imaginaire.”

P. 323, l. 18.

opinion of some. See the opening of the first chapter. That empires

fall by their own weight is not only an ill-formed analogy, but formed on false premises.

A tree, or a building, never falls by its own weight until some other cause has done its

work.

P. 324, l. 11.

“once to doubt,” &c. Othello, Act iii. sc. 3.

l. 25.

excellent Berkeley. Bishop Berkeley’s Queries, mainly directed to the

condition of Ireland, make an important epoch in the history of Political Economy.

P. 326, l. 12.

dare not be wise. “Sapere aude.” Horace, Epistles, i. 2. 40.

l. 15.

“To-morrow and to-morrow,” &c. See Macbeth, Act v. sc. 5.

P. 327, l. 27.

the famous Jurieu. Pierre Jurieu (1637–1713) a Protestant theologian

of some eminence, had satisfied himself by study of the Prophets and Apocalypse that

the year 1689 would witness the final triumph of Protestantism over Rome. As the time

approached, so jubilant were the partisans of his views that a medal was struck in his

honour with the legend “Jurius Propheta.” The year 1689 however, passed without

seeing his predictions fulfilled. Jurieu reapplied himself to his studies, and discovered

that he had made an error of twenty-six years, and that 1715 was the real date of the

second advent of the Messiah and the fall of Antichrist. Before this date the prophet

died. Among his numerous writings is a curious one entitled “Les Soupirs de la France

esclave qui respire après la liberté.” It denounced the tyranny of Louis XIV, and

asserted the sovereignty of the people.

l. 29.

Mr. Brothers. Richard Brothers was a harmless fanatic who prophesied and

published various pamphlets containing his prophecies. In 1792 “he was commanded by

the Lord God to go down to the House of Parliament and acquaint the members for their

own personal safety and the general benefit of the country that the time of the world

was come to fulfil the 7th chapter of Daniel.” But on his publishing his prophetic mission

to George III to “deliver up his crown, that all his power and authority might cease,” he

was taken up on a warrant, on suspicion of treasonable practices. One member of

Parliament, a Mr. Halhed, believed in him, and repeatedly strove to bring his wrongs

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before the house.

P. 328, l. 35.

gemitus Columbae. Cooings. Isaiah lix. 11 (Vulg.).

P. 330, l. 3.

untimely wisdom, &c. “Eventus ille stultorum magister,” Livy.

P. 332, l. 17.

Jourdan Coupe-tête. Matthew Jourdan, the illiterate ruffian who

devastated the Comtat Venaissin, and executed the horrible “Massacre de la Glacière”

at Avignon. The Revolutionary Tribunal rid the world of him in 1794.

l. 18.

whose Predecessor, &c. Joseph the Second.

P. 333, l. 14.

Juignie—Cardinal de Rochefoucault. Juigné, Bishop of Chalons, had

taken part in the famous sitting of the 4th of August, 1789, and proposed a Te Deum in

celebration of it. He was now in exile at Constance. As to the Cardinal de Rochefoucault,

see note to vol. ii. p. 213, l. 31.

l. 16.

their very beings. Perhaps borrowed from what Grattan had said of the

famous preacher Dr. Kirwan: “In feeding the lamp of charity he had almost exhausted

the lamp of life.” Speech on the Address, Jan. 19, 1792.

P. 334, l. 15.

D’Espremenil. D’Espremenil had been a minister before the Revolution.

On the establishment of the Convention he had retired to the country, and ceased to

take any part in politics. From his country seat he was suddenly called before the

Revolutionary tribunal, condemned, and executed, in 1794.

l. 17.

Malesherbes. The famous ally of Turgot, in his plans for saving France by

timely fiscal and constitutional reforms. He had been the king’s advocate at his trial.

After the king’s execution, he also retired to the country: whence he was brought before

the Revolutionary tribunal, condemned, and executed with D’Espremenil. Sainte-Beuve

calls him “ce Franklin de vieille race.”

P. 335, l. 13.

“last that wore the imperial purple.” The prophecy was to meet with

a striking fulfilment.

P. 336, l. 13.

humility and submission—silent adoration—trembling wings. As

in the fine passage page 163, Burke is using classical materials. Pope, Essay on Man, i.

91:

Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar:

Wait the great teacher Death, and God adore.

P. 337, l. 4.

old Trivulzio. The famous old general was then (1515) in his seventy-

fourth year. The battle of Marignano was fought by him at the head of a French army. It

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gained Francis I, for a short time, possession of the whole Duchy of Milan.

Ibid.

battle of Marignan. Burke quotes from memory the famous description of this

battle in Mezeray, Book iii: “Il se trouva sur le champ quatorze mille Suisses morts et

pres de quatre mille François: ceux-là pour la plus grande part brisez de coups de

canons ou percez de traits d’arbaleste, et ceux-cy fendus et hachez par d’horribles et

larges playes. Aussi Trivulce, qui s’estoit trouvé à dix-huit batailles, disoit que celle-cy

estoit une bataille de géants, et que toutes les autres n’estoient en comparison que des

jeux d’enfans.”

l. 14.

Origenist, &c. So Young, Satire vi:

Dear Tillotson! be sure, the best of men!

Nor thought be more than thought great Origen—

“Though once upon a time he misbehav’d,

Poor Satan! doubtless he’ll at length be saved.”

P. 338, l. 13.

usurper, murderer, regicide. Claudius. See Hamlet, Act iii. sc. 3.

l. 33.

massacre at Quiberon. The captured French emigrants, not being recognised

as belligerents, were all shot. Burke alludes to this in the Third Letter, p. 170, where he

speaks of the “practised assassin Hoche.”

P. 339, l. 16.

Taedet harum, &c. Terence, Eun. ii. 3. 6.

l. 24.

Muscadin. Perfumed with musk.

l. 32.

Tetrarchs. Cp. p. 226, l. 3.

P. 340, l. 31.

“pride, pomp, and circumstance.” Othello, Act iii. sc. 3.

P. 342, l. 2.

Anacharsis Cloots. Jean Baptiste Clootz, or, properly, Klotz, a wealthy

German settled in Paris, and greatly inflamed with revolutionary ideas. He assumed the

name Anacharsis in honour of the philosophic Scythian, when travelling in Europe

before the Revolution. His early exploit is abundantly described by Burke. He afterwards

added to his assumed title of “Ambassador of the Human Race” that of “Personal Enemy

of God.” By a decree of the 26th of August, 1792, the title of citizen was conferred upon

him: on which occasion he thanked the French people at the bar of the Convention, and

pronounced a panegyric on the regicide Ankarström. Cp. note to p. 230, l. 9, ante. He

perished a victim to the Terror, March 23, 1794.

P. 343, l. 1.

their Cotterel. Sir Clement Cotterell was a high official of the Court of

George III.

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l. 5. gaudy day. An annual festival.

P. 344, l. 3.

grown philosophick. This keen sarcasm refers not only to the late

Emperor, Joseph the Second, and to Louis XVI, but to such living sovereigns as the

Grand Duke of Tuscany. See p. 226, where he is spoken of as a “pacific Solomon.”

l. 6.

Cappadocia. Burke of course means that Prussia had become to France what

Cappadocia was to Rome; a humble province of the regicide empire.

l. 8.

Judean representation. Burke likens Austria to Judea, as he has just likened

Prussia to Cappadocia.

l. 14.

daughter. Marie Antoinette.

l. 26.

Moriamur, &c. The story of the unanimous enthusiasm of the Hungarian Diet is

apocryphal. The words were used by Charles, Maria Theresa’s husband, and a certain

number of the nobles repeated it after him: but the majority murmured, and demanded

a readjustment of taxation.

P. 346, l. 15.

Lord Auckland—Duke of Bedford. The latter was one of the leaders

of the opposition in the Lords.

P. 347, l. 23.

I do not believe, &c. Burke is right. Washington bore no hatred to

Great Britain.

P. 348, l. 15.

infernal altar. The allusion is to the story of Hannibal, as stated by

Livy. Cp. note to p. 64, l. 18.

l. 28.

an Author who points, &c. Tacitus.

P. 350, l. 10.

Marquis de Montalembert. This veteran soldier was still living, and

actively employed in the service of the Republic. He wrote more than one “Military

Treatise.”

l. 26.

Mire sagaces, &c. Horace, Odes, Lib. ii. 5. 22.

l. 32.

old coarse bye-word. “God sends meat, and the devil sends cooks.”

l. 35.

Thomas Paine. The author of the Rights of Man had been installed as a

member of the Convention.

P. 351, l. 10.

house that he has opened. Burke goes on in his happiest vein of

humour, to apply to Paine the amusing lines of Swift on the old and the new Angel Inns.

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l. 32. light lie the earth, &c. Cp. ante, p. 96, l. 4.

P. 352, l. 7.

Republic of Europe. The argument is amplified in the First Letter.

l. 24.

I have reason to be persuaded, &c. Cp. the earlier pages of the Reflections

(Select Works, vol. ii.). Thiers, in his History, says that the French political clubs were

modelled on those of England.

l. 29.

formal distributions—moral basis. See the arguments in vol. ii. p. 278, and

following.

P. 353, l. 15.

Astraea. The goddess of Justice, said to have quitted the earth when

the Golden Age ceased.

P. 354, l. 6.

I have heard that a Tartar believes, &c. Butler, Hudibras (Part i. c.

2):

So a wild Tartar, when he spies

A man that’s handsome, valiant, wise,

If he can kill him thinks t’ inherit

His wit, his beauty, and his spirit.

So Shaftesbury, Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour: “For, in good earnest, to

destroy a philosophy in hatred to a man implies as errant a Tartar-notion as to destroy

or murder a man, in order to plunder him of his wit, and get the inheritance of his

understanding.”

l. 14.

tontine of Infamy. A happy stroke. A Tontine (so named from its inventor) is

a lottery in which the longest livers divide the produce of the stock, with its

accumulations. Cp. vol. ii. p. 361, l. 7.

l. 26.

Murderers and hogs, &c. This grim humour is borrowed from Bacon’s

“Spurious” Apophthegms, No. 16.

l. 30.

Pantheon. Cp. ante, note to p. 126, l. 2.

P. 357, l. 10.

regardants. A “villain regardant” is the old legal term for an ordinary

serf.

l. 11.

even the Negroes, &c. Burke goes too far. At this time the condition of the

negroes in the British West Indies, which Burke had been the first to characterise

adequately, in a juvenile production forty years before, was being widely discussed.

l. 26.

more at large hereafter. See the Second Letter.

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P. 358, l. 34. genethliacon. A birth-song. Burke’s observation is correct. It was the

strength of the opposition in the Assembly, and the goodness of their cause, that led to

the Revolution of Fructidor, and the triumph of the war-party, in 1797.

P. 361, l. 35.

“splitting this brilliant orb,” &c.:

Give me my Romeo, and when he shall die,

Take him and cut him out in little stars,

And he shall make the face of heaven so fine,

That all the world shall fall in love with night.

Romeo and Juliet, Act iii. sc. 2.

P. 365, l. 8.

eundem Negotiatorem, &c. The Roman negotiator or factor was usually

a slave.

l. 14.

master Republick cultivates the arts, &c. The allusion is to Virgil’s well-

known lines:

Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento;

Hae tibi erunt artes.

l. 33.

by inch of candle. By auction; the time for bidding limited by an inch of

candle.

Ibid.

dedecorum pretiosus, &c. Horace, Odes, Lib. iii. 6. 32.

l. 35.

Prince of Peace. See ante, p. 225, and the note.

P. 366, l. 2.

pesos duros. Dollars.

l. 24.

death of Philip the Fourth. Burke works out this hint in the First Letter, p.

111.

P. 369, l. 6.

this holy season. Cp. p. 312. From the two passages it may be

concluded that the work was begun late in December 1795.

P. 370, l. 19.

transatlantic Morocco. Burke alludes to the political rights which

according to French principles were granted to the free blacks and men of colour in the

French West Indies, and to the stimulus which this would give to communities originally

founded on piracy, and always addicted to it.

P. 372, l. 28.

Here ends that part of the critique upon Auckland’s Letter which Burke

corrected for the press. The following pages, down to p. 376, l. 28, were made up by

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Bishop King from loose uncorrected papers.

P. 373, l. 7.

bought by so much blood. Burke has in mind his favourite lines from

Addison’s Cato:

Remember, O my friends, the laws, the rights,

The generous plan of power deliver’d down

From age to age, by your renown’d forefathers—

So dearly bought, the price of so much blood—

O let it never perish in your hands,

But piously transmit it to your children.

P. 376, l. 1.

They never will love, &c. Dr. Johnson “loved a good hater.”

For in base mind nor friendship dwells, nor enmity.

Spenser, Faery Queen, Book iv, canto iv, st. 11.

l. 16.

best accounts I have, &c. Burke alludes to the strict retirement in which he

was living, since the death of his son.

l. 18.

“some to undo,” &c. The line is from Denham’s “Cooper’s Hill.”

l. 28.

Here the original terminates. The remaining portion of this letter does not belong

to Burke’s confutation of Lord Auckland. It was added by Bishop King from a separate

copy, already put into type, but never finished or published. The Bishop says that it

formed part of the Third Letter of Burke’s original scheme (see p. 148), and was laid

aside in consequence of the rupture of the negotiations.

P. 377, l. 17.

tremblingly alive. The expression is Pope’s. Essay on Man, i. 197.

l. 24.

“vanished at the crowing,” &c. Shakespeare, Hamlet.

l. 26.

us poor Tory geese. The allusion is to the story of the Capitol of Rome saved

from the Gauls by the cackling of geese, Livy, Lib. v. c. 47.

l. 33.

Hic auratis, &c. Virgil, Aen. viii. 655.

P. 378.

This bitter tirade, which applies to most of Burke’s former political associates,

cannot be read without pain. It must be remembered that he did not publish it.

P. 383, l. 13.

jewel of their souls, &c. Othello, Act iii. sc. 5.

P. 384, l. 31.

awful and imposing. The allusion is clearly to Windsor Castle, as seen

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on the approach from the uplands of Buckinghamshire, where Burke was living in

retirement.

P. 385, l. 30.

for a few days, &c. This indicates that the fragment was written while

Malmesbury’s negotiations were yet going on, and a favourable conclusion was

anticipated.

P. 387, l. 17.

coaches of Duchesses, Countesses, and Lady Marys:

Monsieur much complains at Paris

Of wrongs from Dutchesses, and Lady Marys.

Pope, Dunciad, Book ii.

P. 389, l. 2.

Is it for this that our youth of both sexes are to form themselves

by travel? Wordsworth illustrates the warning:

Not in my single self alone I found,

But in the minds of all ingenuous youth,

Change and subversion from that hour. No shock

Given to my moral nature had I known

Down to that very moment.

The Prelude, Book x.

Much of this book may be read to show the working of the French Revolution on the

minds of many of the young men of England.

P. 392, l. 32.

Tenth wave. Silius Italicus, xiv. 121.

Non aliter Boreas Rhodopes a vertice praeceps

Cum sese immisit decimoque volumine pontum

Expulit in terras.

So Taylor, “Mercy of the Divine Judgments”: “If Pharaoh will not be cured by one plague

he shall have ten, and if ten will not do it, the great and tenth wave which is far bigger

than all the rest.” Young, The Brothers, Act iv.:

This, Fate, is thy tenth wave, and quite o’erwhelms me.

P. 394, l. 26.

Mr. Hume’s Euthanasia, &c. In his early Essay “On the British

Government,” Hume argues from a fallacy already confuted by Burke (see p. 62) that

the “English constitution” must end either in a republic or an absolute monarchy. The

latter he thought the easiest and most natural.

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