( PDF ) Select Works - Vol. 4 - Miscellaneous Writings

Download PDF

ads:

Return to the Introduction to Edmund Burke and the detailed Table of Contents.

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).

TABLE OF CONTENTS

z EDITOR’S FOREWORD

{ ENDNOTES

z EDITOR’S NOTE

z SHORT TITLES

z SPEECH TO THE ELECTORS OF BRISTOL

{ MR. EDMUND BURKE’S SPEECH TO THE ELECTORS OF BRISTOL

{ ENDNOTES

z SPEECH ON THE REFORM OF THE REPRESENTATION OF THE COMMONS IN

PARLIAMENT

{ SPEECH

{ ENDNOTES

z TWO LETTERS TO GENTLEMEN IN BRISTOL ON THE TRADE OF IRELAND

{ TO SAMUEL SPAN, ESQ; MASTER OF THE SOCIETY OF MERCHANTS

ADVENTURERS OF BRISTOL

{ COPY OF A LETTER TO MESS. ******* ****** AND CO. BRISTOL

{ ENDNOTES

z THOUGHTS AND DETAILS ON SCARCITY PREFACE

{ THOUGHTS AND DETAILS ON SCARCITY

{ ENDNOTES

z SPEECH ON FOX’S EAST INDIA BILL

{ MR. BURKE’S SPEECH, ON THE 1ST DECEMBER 1783

{ ENDNOTES

z A LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE ON THE CATHOLICS OF IRELAND

{ A LETTER FROM THE RIGHT HON. EDMUND BURKE, M.P. IN THE

THE ONLINE LIBRARY OF

LIBERTY

CLASSICS IN THE HISTORY OF LIBERTY

EDMUND BURKE, SELECT WORKS OF EDMUND BURKE (1999)

VOLUME IV: MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS

Updated: April 7, 2004

e 1 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of Lib...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

ads:

Livros Grátis

http://www.livrosgratis.com.br

Milhares de livros grátis para download.

KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN, TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE, BART.

M.P.

{ ENDNOTES

z SKETCH OF THE NEGRO CODE

{ A LETTER TO THE RIGHT HON. HENRY DUNDAS, ONE OF HIS MAJESTY’S

PRINCIPAL SECRETARIES OF STATE

{ SKETCH OF THE NEGRO CODE

{ ENDNOTES

z SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY ON EDMUND BURKE

EDITOR’S FOREWORD

In the three volumes of Liberty Fund’s new edition of E. J. Payne’s Select Works of Edmund Burke

are writings in which Burke expounded his Whig theory of limited (and party) government, his

views on the imperial crisis that led to American independence, and his views on the great

Revolution in France, which he saw as a crisis of Western civilization. This companion volume

includes writings that present Burke’s views on three additional themes: representation,

economics, and the defense of politically oppressed peoples. These themes are touched upon in

many of his writings, but the documents selected for this volume are among the clearest

examples of his thought on these subjects.

The first theme is Burke’s understanding of representative government. Although he was skeptical

of democracy as a form of government for any but small countries (and not optimistic even

there), he did believe that government existed for the good of the whole community and must

represent the interests of all its people. But, as he explained in his Speech to the Electors of

Bristol after his election there, his idea of representation was not the radically democratic one

that saw representation as a mere substitute for direct democracy and a representative as a mere

agent of the local electorate whose duty it was to carry out its wishes despite his own best

judgment.

As Burke said in his own words in this speech, while he surely would listen respectfully and

seriously to his constituents, he rejected the idea of “ authoritative instructions; Mandates issued,

which the Member [of Parliament] is bound blindly and implicitly to obey, to vote, and to argue

for, though contrary to the clearest conviction of his judgement and conscience.”

(In his Speech

on the Reform of the Representation of the Commons in Parliament, which follows this speech in

the present volume, Burke explained the political theory that lies behind the view of

representation that he rejected at Bristol.) Rather, he argued in his Bristol speech, a

representative was to act for the interest of his constituents, to be sure, but as part of a larger

national whole, in accordance with the enlightened judgment that could be exercised only at the

center of government and in possession of the knowledge available there. If nothing were at issue

in politics but the question of whose will should prevail, clearly the will of the electors should. But

for Burke, political judgment was a matter of reason: prudent, practical reason.

e 2 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of Lib...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

ads:

This view of the function of representative government was compatible with the aristocratic

theory of civil society that Burke set forth in his Reflections on the Revolution in France and in its

sequel, An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs (which may be found in Daniel Ritchie’s Further

Reflections on the Revolution in France, published by Liberty Fund). The British constitution that

he admired and loved was a prescriptive one, not based upon the democratic theory of the rights

of men, but legitimated by its long service to the welfare of the people. It is explained here in a

speech that Burke neither delivered nor published, but which his literary executors found among

his papers and included in the first set of his Works: the Speech on the Reform of the

Representation of the Commons in Parliament. Burke’s political theory derived the powers of

government from the consent of the people, as he had explained in his early and never-

completed Tracts relative to the Laws against Popery in Ireland. But both there and in this

speech, the people’s consent was demanded and controlled by their moral obligation to obey a

government that served their welfare. It was not derived from Everyman’s original right to govern

himself in the “state of nature.”

The second theme dealt with in this volume is economics. Since Burke never wrote a formal

treatise on that subject, his views on it are found in relatively brief form scattered throughout his

works. Two examples of them are included here.

The first is Two Letters to Gentlemen in Bristol on the Trade of Ireland, which Burke wrote to

merchants in Bristol while he was that city’s Member of Parliament. He had voted for certain

relaxations of the legislation that restrained Ireland’s right to export goods to Great Britain. The

Bristol merchants, typically, saw Ireland’s gain as their loss and wrote to protest Burke’s vote as

hostile to their interests. Burke replied that trade is not a zero-sum game but a two-way street,

the traffic on which benefits both parties.

One must not exaggerate what Burke says in those letters and make him out to be a free-trader

tout court. He was addressing a particular question, the trade between the two kingdoms under

one crown of Great Britain and Ireland. He had no desire to have the British Parliament relinquish

its power to regulate commerce within and outside the Empire. In the debate on British policy

toward the American colonies, he had accepted the Navigation Acts by which Britain severely

restricted American trade because the Americans derived real benefits from their membership in

the Empire, and he was content to argue that the Acts were a reason for Britain not to tax the

colonies. Nor did he propose opening all of Britain’s possessions to international trade on even

terms.

Yet we can say that he had a bias in favor of freeing trade from mercantilist restraints. After the

controversy over the trade between Britain and Ireland, he wrote to a member of the Irish

Parliament that his aim had been “to fix the principle of a free trade in all the parts of these

islands, as founded in justice and beneficial to the whole, but principally to the seat of the

supreme power.”

The regulation of trade, however, would remain with the supreme power.

Nor should we exaggerate the import of the next document, Thoughts and Details on Scarcity. It,

too, addresses a narrow question—whether government should subsidize the wages of

agricultural laborers in a period of bad harvests—and is not a general treatise on economics. It is

cast, nevertheless, in broad terms that strongly reflect Burke’s Whig desire to limit the power of

government, particularly over private property, which he regarded as the strong bulwark of

e 3 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of Lib...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

liberty. Its meaning, therefore, cannot be limited to the question of agricultural wages, and it

implies a laissez-faire theory of economics.

On the other hand, Burke was not always unwilling to have government intervene in economic

matters. The next document included here, the Speech on Fox’s East India Bill, shows that,

having earlier defended the chartered rights of the East India Company against efforts to bring it

under greater control by the British government, Burke had changed his mind and now advocated

stripping the Company of independent power to govern the parts of India that it controlled. The

interested reader may also consult the Ninth Report of the House of Commons Select Committee

on India, of which Burke is the acknowledged author, for his free-market views, but should be

careful not to make him out to be a Manchester liberal before his time.

The third theme is Burke’s genuine concern for oppressed peoples. Burke always claimed to be a

reformer, and in many ways he was one. For example, one of the actions that cost him his seat

as M.P. for Bristol was his support of a bill for the relief of insolvent debtors. The documents

selected here, however, demonstrate his concern for peoples outside Great Britain but under

British rule. Burke was always an imperialist but an enlightened one who believed that the Empire

could and should be a blessing to all the lands that composed it. Volume 1 of this set presents the

arguments he used in favor of the American colonies and against the British policy that drove

them into revolt. He did not favor American independence, but when it came he accepted it

gracefully and even saw a benefit to the British people in it. If the British government had

succeeded in suppressing the American revolt by force, he feared, the result would have been a

vast increase in the power of the Crown, and no Whig could approve of that. “We lost our

Colonies”; he therefore said, “but we kept our Constitution.”

The other great imperial topics he dealt with were India and Ireland. The first of these is the

subject of Burke’s Speech on Fox’s East India Bill, which is a lengthy indictment of the East India

Company’s misgovernment of India. It was followed by his Speech on the Nabob of Arcot’s Debts,

the Ninth Report of the Select Committee, and the long series of speeches in the impeachment of

Warren Hastings, the Company’s Governor-General of Bengal, whom the Committee failed to

convict.

Whether Burke was fair to the Company and to Hastings is a matter of dispute, as is the issue of

whether the prosecution of Hastings had much effect on Britain’s subsequent government of

India. But there is little doubt of the sincerity of Burke’s conviction that, as he said in his speech

on the East India bill, “Our Indian government is in its best state a grievance,”

or of his desire

to relieve that grievance and do justice to the suffering people of India.

Burke himself was Irish and had been born into a family in which the father had conformed to the

Established Church in order to practice law (a profession forbidden to Catholics under the Penal

Laws), while his mother remained Catholic. His relatives on his mother’s side were numerous, and

he remained in friendly contact with them throughout his life. He had an intense sympathy with

their plight under the government of what came to be called the Protestant Ascendancy, and he

labored long and with considerable success to relieve Irish Catholics of their legal burdens. His

Letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe presents a good picture of their situation as it was in 1792 and of

what more he thought should be done for them. The interested reader may also consult Burke’s

document On the State of Ireland, written in the same year, and his Tracts relative to the Laws

e 4 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of Lib...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

against Popery in Ireland, written three decades earlier, when the laws against the Catholics of

Ireland were even more severe.

Finally, while Burke did not take much part in the movement to abolish the slavery of African

blacks in the British colonies, he did write a document, Sketch of the Negro Code, that outlined a

typically Burkean plan for the gradual amelioration and eventual abolition first of the slave trade

and then of slavery itself. Once again, it shows Burke’s genuine concern for politically oppressed

peoples. He admired and defended aristocracy, but he did so as a man who truly believed that

noblesse oblige.

That phrase, noblesse oblige, explains what may seem to be a contradiction in Burke’s attitude

toward the poor and oppressed. He strongly opposed a government policy of relieving their lot in

England by subsidizing their wages in a time of poor harvests. Yet he denounced Britain’s

government for its policies in America, India, Ireland, and the slave-owning colonies.

But we must notice that Burke never proposed that government should support the poor in any of

those instances. Even in regard to Negro slavery, his aim was gradually to abolish the slave trade

and slavery while training the slaves to learn the social and economic skills necessary for

freedom, to acquire property, and thus to be able to support themselves. So also in America,

India, and Ireland. He wanted government to stop burdening the peoples of those countries with

oppressive policies and to allow them the freedom to earn their own way. But, he thought, it was

simply not the function of government to furnish them with their livelihood. Doing that in a period

of hardship was a work of private charity and the Christian duty of the aristocracy of property

owners, for whom “noblesse” did indeed oblige, not in justice but in charity.

Whether this policy would have been adequate after the Industrial Revolution had transformed

Great Britain is a valid question. But although the Industrial Revolution got under way during

Burke’s latter years (perhaps as late as 1780), it did not hit its full stride until the following

century. Burke did not see what it would do to the rural economic order dominated by the land-

owning aristocracy, which he thought, rightly or wrongly, could handle the problem of poverty

without government intervention in such questions as wages.

I have borrowed freely for the factual information in the footnotes to these documents, usually

without explicit acknowledgment of the source when information could have been obtained from

other sources as well. The sources I have used most frequently are the Oxford English Dictionary;

the Dictionary of National Biography; The Loeb Classical Library; The Writings and Speeches of

Edmund Burke (general ed. Paul Langford); The Correspondence of Edmund Burke (general ed.

Thomas Copeland); Carl Cone’s two-volume Burke and the Nature of Politics; Thomas Mahoney’s

Edmund Burke and Ireland; and Edmund Burke: A Bibliography of Secondary Sources to 1982, by

Clara Gandy and Peter Stanlis, as well as several encyclopedias and general reference works.

Francis Canavan

Fordham University

ENDNOTES

e 5 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of Lib...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

[1.] See below, p. 11.

[2.]

Letter to Thomas Burgh, Esq., New Year’s Day, 1780, W&S 9:550.

[3.]

Letter to a Noble Lord (1796), W&S 9:152.

[4.]

See below, p. 126.

EDITOR’S NOTE

The texts used in this volume have been chosen from their original publication in accordance with

William B. Todd’s Bibliography of Edmund Burke (Godalming, Surrey: St. Paul’s Bibliographies,

1982). Burke’s Speech on the Reform of the Representation of the Commons in Parliament and

Sketch of the Negro Code, however, were not published in Burke’s lifetime and were included by

his literary executors in their New Edition of The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

(London: F. C. and J. Rivington, 16 vols., 1808–27), from vols. 10 and 9 of which, respectively,

they are taken here. Thoughts and Details on Scarcity also did not appear in print in Burke’s

lifetime, but is taken here from the pamphlet under that title published by his executors prior to

their publication of his Works (in vol. 7 of which it is reprinted).

Burke’s speech at Bristol on November 3, 1774, is taken from Mr. Burke’s Speeches at His Arrival

at Bristol and at The Conclusion of the Poll (London: J. Dodsley, 2nd edition, 1775).

Two Letters from Mr. Edmund Burke to Gentlemen in the City of Bristol on the Bills Depending in

Parliament Relative to the Trade of Ireland, 1st edition, was published in London by J. Dodsley in

1778.

Burke’s speech on Fox’s East India Bill is taken from Mr. Burke’s Speech on the 1st December

1783, upon the question for the Speaker’s leaving the chair in order for the House to resolve itself

into a committee on Mr. Fox’s East India Bill (London: J. Dodsley, 1st edition, 1784).

Burke’s Letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe is taken from A Letter from the Right Hon. Edmund

Burke, M.P. in the Kingdom of Great Britain, to Sir Hercules Langrishe, Bart. M.P. on the subject

of Roman Catholics of Ireland, and the Propriety of Admitting Them to the Elective Franchise,

consistently with the Principles of the Constitution as Established at the Revolution (London: J.

Debrett, 2nd edition, corrected, 1792).

Thoughts and Details on Scarcity, originally presented to the Right Hon. William Pitt, in the month

of November, 1795, by the late Right Honourable Edmund Burke was first published in London in

1800 by F. and C. Rivington and J. Hatchard.

Burke’s spellings (including in particular Indian and other foreign names), capitalizations, and use

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

I take this occasion to express my thanks to the staff of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript

Library at Yale University for providing the text of Burke’s speech at Bristol, and to the staff of the

Boston Athenaeum for providing the text of the two letters to gentlemen in Bristol. I owe special

e 6 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of Lib...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

thanks to Ms. Carol Rosato of the Duane Library at Fordham University for her help in providing

the texts of the speech on Fox’s East India Bill, the letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe, and Thoughts

and Details on Scarcity.

I also thank my friends and fellow Burke scholars Professors Peter J. Stanlis of Rockford College

and Daniel E. Ritchie of Bethel College for their very helpful comments on my work for these

Liberty Fund volumes.

SHORT TITLES

THE ANNUAL REGISTER The Annual Register (began publication by J. Dodsley in

London in 1758, under Burke’s editorship, and continues publication to the present

day).

ORR. 1844 Burke, Edmund, Correspondence of the Ri

ht Honourable Edmund Burke

between the Year 1744, and the Period of his Decease, in 1797, eds. Charles William

Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, 5th Earl Fitzwilliam, and Sir Richard Bourke. 4 vols. (London:

Francis and John Rivington, 1844).

ORR. Copeland, Thomas W., gen. ed., The Correspondence of Edmund Burke. 10

vols. (Chicago and Cambridge: University of Chicago Press and Cambridge University

Press, 1958–78).

ARLIAMENTARY HISTORY The Parliamentary History of England from the Norman

Conquest in 1066 to the year 1803, ed. W. Cobbett. 36 vols. London: T. C. Hansard,

1806–20).

ORKS The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke. A New Edition. 16 vols.

(London: F. C. and J. Rivington, 1808–27).

W&S Langford, Paul, gen. ed., The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke. 12

vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981–).

SPEECH TO THE ELECTORS OF BRISTOL

[November 3, 1774]

Burke was elected in 1765 to the House of Commons from the borough of

Wendover, which was “owned” by Lord Verney (its voters were his tenants and

did his bidding). But in 1774, Lord Verney told Burke that financial difficulties

prevented him from renominating the impecunious Burke in that year’s election.

At the last moment, however, after the public poll (which went on for days) had

already begun in Bristol, Britain’s second most important port, Joseph Harford

and Richard Champion, merchants of that city, nominated Burke for one of

Bristol’s two seats. Burke rushed to Bristol and delivered a speech on his arrival

there. What is printed here, however, is Burke’s speech at the conclusion of the

poll, after he had been elected. It has become the classic exposition of a certain

view of the role of an elected representative.

e 7 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of Lib...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

To understand some of the things that Burke says in this speech, one will need a

bit of historical background. In those days, each parliamentary constituency

elected two members of Parliament. Bristol’s previous incumbents had been Lord

Clare (a courtesy title, since, if he had been a nobleman, he could not have sat in

the Commons), a Whig, and Matthew Brickdale, a Tory. But the Whigs were

dissatisfied with Lord Clare, who had gone over to the court party, and thought

they could take Brickdale’s seat as well in the 1774 election.

Their first nominee was Henry Cruger, Jr., who came of a prominent commercial

family. Some of the Crugers had emigrated to New York, and Henry’s uncle, John

Cruger, was the Speaker of the New York Assembly when that body elected

Edmund Burke in 1770 as the colony’s agent at the British royal court. Burke was

acquainted with him through official correspondence, and he was still the

Speaker at the time of the election in Bristol.

His nephew, Henry Cruger, was a political radical, as radicalism was reckoned in

that day, and some of his faction of the Whigs had sounded out Burke for the

second candidacy. When the two of them met in Burke’s home in Beaconsfield,

however, it became clear that they had important differences in political

philosophy, and Cruger declined to stand for election with Burke. Burke’s last-

minute nomination was the result of Lord Clare’s suddenly withdrawing on the

day the poll opened, because he had been assured of a safe seat in another

constituency. Harford and Champion, men of more moderate views than

Cruger’s, now nominated Burke and urged him to come at once to Bristol.

Cruger was easily elected, but Burke won only after a closely contested poll.

Brickdale, following a custom of losers still practiced to the present day, sought

to have the election results nullified on grounds of fraud. A large number of those

who had voted, he alleged, were not freemen of Bristol and therefore not entitled

to cast a vote. He petitioned the House of Commons not to seat Burke; a

committee held hearings and reported in Burke’s favor, and the House accepted

its recommendation.

The important part of this speech, however, is Burke’s declaration of the

independence that an elected representative ought to enjoy in Parliament. He not

only stated his view but acted on it, in ways which his Two Letters on the Trade

of Ireland, printed below, illustrate. One may well believe that on the issues on

which Burke acted contrary to the wishes of his constituents, he was right and

they were wrong. But the discontent he caused in them made it obvious that he

could not win in the election of 1780, so he withdrew from the poll and accepted

a safe seat from his parliamentary patron, Lord Rockingham, which he held until

his retirement in 1794.

MR. EDMUND BURKE’S SPEECH TO THE ELECTORS OF BRISTOL

[On his being declared by the Sheriffs, duly elected one of the Representatives in

Parliament for that City, on Thursday the 3d of November, 1774]

e 8 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of Lib...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

ENTLEMEN

I CANNOT AVOID SYMPATHIZING strongly with the feelings of the Gentleman who has received the

same honour that you have conferred on me. If he, who was bred and passed his whole Life

amongst you; if he, who, through the easy gradations of acquaintance, friendship, and esteem,

has obtained the honour, which seems of itself, naturally and almost insensibly, to meet with

those, who, by the even tenour of pleasing manners and social virtues, slide into the love and

confidence of their fellow-citizens; if he cannot speak but with great emotion on this subject,

surrounded as he is on all sides with his old friends; you will have the goodness to excuse me, if

my real, unaffected embarrassment prevents me from expressing my gratitude to you as I ought.

I was brought hither under the disadvantage of being unknown, even by sight, to any of you. No

previous canvass was made for me.

I was put in nomination after the poll was opened. I did not

appear until it was far advanced. If, under all these accumulated disadvantages, your good

opinion has carried me to this happy point of success; you will pardon me, if I can only say to you

collectively, as I said to you individually, simply and plainly, I thank you—I am obliged to you—I

am not insensible of your kindness.

This is all that I am able to say for the inestimable favour you have conferred upon me. But I

cannot be satisfied, without saying a little more in defence of the right you have to confer such a

favour. The person that appeared here as counsel for the Candidate,

who so long and so

earnestly solicited your votes, thinks proper to deny, that a very great part of you have any votes

to give. He fixes a standard period of time in his own imagination, not what the law defines, but

merely what the convenience of his Client suggests, by which he would cut off, at one stroke, all

those freedoms, which are the dearest privileges of your Corporation;

which the common law

authorizes: which your Magistrates are compelled to grant; which come duly authenticated into

this Court;

and are saved in the clearest words, and with the most religious care and

tenderness, in that very act of Parliament, which was made to regulate the Elections by Freemen,

and to prevent all possible abuses in making them.

I do not intend to argue the matter here. My learned Counsel has supported your Cause with his

usual Ability; the worthy Sheriffs have acted with their usual equity, and I have no doubt, that

the same equity, which dictates the return, will guide the final determination. I had the honour, in

conjunction with many far wiser men, to contribute a very small assistance, but however some

assistance, to the forming the Judicature which is to try such questions. It would be unnatural in

me, to doubt the Justice of that Court,

in the trial of my own cause, to which I have been so

active to give jurisdiction over every other.

I assure the worthy Freemen, and this Corporation, that, if the Gentleman perseveres in the

intentions, which his present warmth dictates to him, I will attend their cause with diligence, and

I hope with effect. For, if I know any thing of myself, it is not my own Interest in it, but my full

conviction, that induces me to tell you— I think there is not a shadow of doubt in the case.

I do not imagine that you find me rash in declaring myself, or very forward in troubling you. From

the beginning to the end of the election, I have kept silence in all matters of discussion. I have

never asked a question of a voter on the other side, or supported a doubtful vote on my own. I

respected the abilities of my managers; I relied on the candour of the court. I think the worthy

e 9 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of Lib...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

sheriffs will bear me witness, that I have never once made an attempt to impose upon their

reason, to surprize their justice, or to ruffle their temper. I stood on the hustings (except when I

gave my thanks to those who favoured me with their votes) less like a Candidate, than an

unconcerned Spectator of a public proceeding. But here the face of things is altered. Here is an

attempt for a general massacre of Suffrages; an attempt, by a promiscuous carnage of friends

and foes, to exterminate above two thousand votes, including seven hundred polled for the

Gentleman himself, who now complains, and who would destroy the Friends whom he has

obtained, only because he cannot obtain as many of them as he wishes.

How he will be permitted, in another place, to stultify and disable himself, and to plead against

his own acts, is another question. The law will decide it. I shall only speak of it as it concerns the

propriety of public conduct in this city. I do not pretend to lay down rules of decorum for other

Gentlemen. They are best judges of the mode of proceeding that will recommend them to the

favour of their fellow-citizens. But I confess, I should look rather awkward, if I had been the very

first to produce the new copies of freedom,

if I had persisted in producing them to the last; if I

had ransacked, with the most unremitting industry, and the most penetrating research, the

remotest corners of the kingdom to discover them; if I were then, all at once, to turn short, and

declare, that I had been sporting all this while with the right of election: and that I had been

drawing out a Poll, upon no sort of rational grounds, which disturbed the peace of my fellow-

citizens for a month together—I really, for my part, should appear awkward under such

circumstances.

It would be still more awkward in me, if I were gravely to look the sheriffs in the face, and to tell

them, they were not to determine my cause on my own principles; nor to make the return upon

those votes, upon which I had rested my election. Such would be my appearance to the court and

magistrates.

But how should I appear to the Voters themselves? If I had gone round to the citizens intitled to

Freedom, and squeezed them by the hand— “Sir, I humbly beg your Vote—I shall be eternally

thankful—may I hope for the honour of your support?—Well!—come—we shall see you at the

Council-house.” —If I were then to deliver them to my managers, pack them into tallies, vote

them off in court, and when I heard from the Bar— “Such a one only! and such a one for ever!—

he’s my man!” — “Thank you, good Sir—Hah! my worthy friend! thank you kindly—that’s an

honest fellow—how is your good family?” —Whilst these words were hardly out of my mouth, if I

should have wheeled round at once, and told them— “Get you gone, you pack of worthless

fellows! you have no votes—you are Usurpers! you are intruders on the rights of real freemen! I

will have nothing to do with you! you ought never to have been produced at this Election, and the

sheriffs ought not to have admitted you to poll.”

Gentlemen, I should make a strange figure, if my conduct had been of this sort. I am not so old

an acquaintance of yours as the worthy Gentleman. Indeed I could not have ventured on such

kind of freedoms with you. But I am bound, and I will endeavour, to have justice done to the

rights of Freemen; even though I should, at the same time, be obliged to vindicate the former

part of my antagonist’s conduct against his own present inclinations.

I owe myself, in all things, to all the freemen of this city. My particular friends have a demand on

me, that I should not deceive their expectations. Never was cause or man supported with more

e 10 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

constancy, more activity, more spirit. I have been supported with a zeal indeed and heartiness in

my friends, which (if their object had been at all proportioned to their endeavours) could never be

sufficiently commended. They supported me upon the most liberal principles. They wished that

the members for Bristol should be chosen for the City, and for their Country at large, and not for

themselves.

So far they are not disappointed. If I possess nothing else, I am sure I possess the temper that is

fit for your service. I know nothing of Bristol, but by the favours I have received, and the virtues I

have seen exerted in it.

I shall ever retain, what I now feel, the most perfect and grateful attachment to my friends—and

I have no enmities; nor resentment. I never can consider fidelity to engagements, and constancy

in friendships, but with the highest approbation; even when those noble qualities are employed

against my own pretensions. The Gentleman, who is not fortunate as I have been in this contest,

enjoys, in this respect, a consolation full of honour both to himself and to his friends. They have

certainly left nothing undone for his service.

As for the trifling petulance, which the rage of party stirs up in little minds, though it should shew

itself even in this court, it has not made the slightest impression on me. The highest flight of such

clamorous birds is winged in an inferior region of the air. We hear them, and we look upon them,

just as you, Gentlemen, when you enjoy the serene air on your lofty rocks, look down upon the

Gulls, that skim the mud of your river, when it is exhausted of its tide.

I am sorry I cannot conclude, without saying a word on a topick touched upon by my worthy

Colleague.

I wish that topick had been passed by; at a time when I have so little leisure to

discuss it. But since he has thought proper to throw it out, I owe you a clear explanation of my

poor sentiments on that subject.

He tells you, that “the topick of Instructions

has occasioned much altercation and uneasiness in

this City”; and he expresses himself (if I understand him rightly) in favour of the coercive

authority of such instructions.

Certainly, Gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of a Representative, to live in the

strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his

constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion high respect; their

business unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his

satisfactions, to theirs; and, above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own.

But, his unbiassed opinion, his mature judgement, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to

sacrifice to you; to any man, or to any sett of men living. These he does not derive from your

pleasure; no, nor from the Law and the Constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the

abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your Representative owes you, not his industry only, but

his judgement; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

My worthy Colleague says, his Will ought to be subservient to yours. If that be all, the thing is

innocent. If Government were a matter of Will upon any side, yours, without question, ought to

be superior. But Government and Legislation are matters of reason and judgement, and not of

inclination; and, what sort of reason is that, in which the determination precedes the discussion;

e 11 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

in which one sett of men deliberate, and another decide; and where those who form the

conclusion are perhaps three hundred miles distant from those who hear the arguments?

To deliver an opinion, is the right of all men; that of Constituents is a weighty and respectable

opinion, which a Representative ought always to rejoice to hear; and which he ought always most

seriously to consider. But authoritative instructions; Mandates issued, which the Member is bound

blindly and implicitly to obey, to vote, and to argue for, though contrary to the clearest conviction

of his judgement and conscience; these are things utterly unknown to the laws of this land, and

which arise from a fundamental Mistake of the whole order and tenour of our Constitution.

Parliament is not a Congress of Ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests

each must maintain, as an Agent and Advocate, against other Agents and Advocates; but

Parliament is a deliberative Assembly of one Nation, with one Interest, that of the whole; where,

not local Purposes, not local Prejudices ought to guide, but the general Good, resulting from the

general Reason of the whole. You chuse a Member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is

not Member of Bristol, but he is a Member of Parliament. If the local Constituent should have an

Interest, or should form an hasty Opinion, evidently opposite to the real good of the rest of the

Community, the Member for that place ought to be as far, as any other, from any endeavour to

give it Effect. I beg pardon for saying so much on this subject. I have been unwillingly drawn into

it; but I shall ever use a respectful frankness of communication with you. Your faithful friend,

your devoted servant, I shall be to the end of my life: A flatterer you do not wish for. On this

point of instructions, however, I think it scarcely possible, we ever can have any sort of

difference. Perhaps I may give you too much, rather than too little trouble.

From the first hour I was encouraged to court your favour to this happy day of obtaining it, I have

never promised you any thing, but humble and persevering endeavours to do my duty. The

weight of that duty, I confess, makes me tremble; and whoever well considers what it is, of all

things in the world will fly from what has the least likeness to a positive and precipitate

engagement. To be a good Member of Parliament, is, let me tell you, no easy task; especially at

this time, when there is so strong a disposition to run into the perilous extremes of servile

compliance, or wild popularity. To unite circumspection with vigour, is absolutely necessary; but it

is extremely difficult. We are now Members for a rich commercial City; this City, however, is but a

part of a rich commercial Nation, the Interests of which are various, multiform, and intricate. We

are Members for that great Nation, which however is itself but part of a great Empire, extended

by our Virtue and our Fortune to the farthest limits of the East and of the West. All these wide-

spread Interests must be considered; must be compared; must be reconciled if possible. We are

Members for a free Country; and surely we all know, that the machine of a free Constitution is no

simple thing; but as intricate and as delicate, as it is valuable. We are Members in a great and

ancient Monarchy; and we must preserve religiously, the true legal rights of the Sovereign, which

form the Key-stone that binds together the noble and well-constructed Arch of our Empire and

our Constitution. A Constitution made up of balanced Powers must ever be a critical thing. As

such I mean to touch that part of it which comes within my reach. I know my Inability, and I wish

for support from every Quarter. In particular I shall aim at the friendship, and shall cultivate the

best Correspondence, of the worthy Colleague you have given me.

I trouble you no farther than once more to thank you all; you, Gentlemen, for your Favours; the

Candidates for their temperate and polite behaviour; and the Sheriffs, for a Conduct which may

e 12 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

give a Model for all who are in public Stations.

FINIS

ENDNOTES

[1.] In fact, Richard Champion and others had been working for two or three months to win

support for Burke.

[1.]

Matthew Brickdale.

[2.]

The municipal corporation of Bristol.

[3.]

The electorate of Bristol.

[1.]

The House of Commons.

[1.]

This seems to charge Brickdale with being the first of the candidates who scoured the

countryside outside the city, and even places far away, for persons with a title to being freemen

of Bristol and with having brought them in to vote.

[1.]

A footnote in the original publication states: “Mr. Brickdale opened his poll, it seems, with a

tally of those very kind of freemen, and voted many hundreds of them.”

[

1.] Henry Cruger, Jr., who spoke before Burke at the conclusion of the poll, had pledged

himself to a “radical” program.

[2.]

Instructions given by constituents to their representatives in Parliament.

SPEECH ON THE REFORM OF THE REPRESENTATION OF THE COMMONS IN

ARLIAMENT

[May 7, 1782]

On this day, William Pitt the Younger (1759–1806) made a motion in the House

of Commons for a committee to inquire into the state of the representation of the

Commons in Parliament. The geographical distribution of seats in the House of

Commons had changed little in centuries (and was not to be changed until 1832).

The right to send representatives to Parliament was therefore a product of

history and conformed to no discernible rational pattern. Populous cities of recent

growth elected no members of Parliament, while “decayed,” thinly populated, old

boroughs elected two; counties suffered disparities, since large counties had only

two members of Parliament, just as small ones did. In addition, seats in the

Commons were shamelessly bought and sold.

A demand for the reform and more even distribution of the representation of the

people had been first formulated only a decade earlier. The parliamentary reform

e 13 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

movement was at the beginning not a widely popular one; the great

unrepresented towns showed no enthusiasm for it. England was still a

predominantly agricultural country ruled by a landholding aristocracy, and the

nation was content to have it so. Even the reformers, by and large, sought only

moderate changes in the representative system, but the American, and later the

French, revolutions fostered radical ideas of democracy based on the natural

right of individual men to govern themselves. It was characteristic of Burke that

he focussed his attention on this radical ideology and attacked it as a deadly

threat to the aristocratic constitution under which England had flourished for so

long.

Yet Burke, and the Rockingham Whigs whose spokesman he was, were, in their

own way, reformers. As they saw the matter, the corruption of politics was due

to the undue influence of the Crown on elections to and votes in Parliament. To

reduce this influence, Burke had proposed his “economical reform” bill in 1780

(little of which was actually passed). It sought to eliminate many of the sinecure

jobs in the royal household (which could be held by members of Parliament) and

to trim the king’s civil list, which the Treasury used as a campaign fund in

parliamentary elections. Farther than that, however, the Rockingham Whigs

refused to go.

This attitude explains both why Burke wrote his speech on Pitt’s motion and why

it was never delivered. The Parliamentary History of England shows that Pitt

made his motion on the 7th of May and that it was debated and rejected on that

day but makes no mention of a speech by Edmund Burke. The reason probably is

that on the preceding day Burke had gotten leave to introduce another

economical reform bill, and his friends dissuaded him from alienating Pitt by

attacking his motion, since they wanted his support for economical reform.

Burke later wrote what is at least an initial draft of the speech he would have

given, but never published it. His literary executors found it among his papers

after his death and published it in volume 10 of their edition of his Works, from

which the following document is taken. Incomplete though it is, it is presented

here because of the important contribution it makes to our understanding of

Burke’s political theory and of his idea of representation in particular.

SPEECH

[On a Motion made in the House of Commons, the 7th of May 1782, for a

Committee to inquire into the state of the Representation of the Commons in

Parliament]

SPEAKER

WE HAVE NOW DISCOVERED, at the close of the eighteenth century, that the Constitution of England,

which for a series of ages had been the proud distinction of this Country, always the admiration,

and sometimes the envy of the wise and learned in every other Nation, we have discovered that

e 14 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

this boasted Constitution, in the most boasted part of it, is a gross imposition upon the

understanding of mankind, an insult to their feelings, and acting by contrivances destructive to

the best and most valuable interests of the people. Our political architects have taken a survey of

the fabrick of the British Constitution. It is singular, that they report nothing against the Crown,

nothing against the Lords; but in the House of Commons every thing is unsound; it is ruinous in

every part. It is infested by the dry rot, and ready to tumble about our ears without their

immediate help. You know by the faults they find, what are their ideas of the alteration. As all

government stands upon opinion, they know that the way utterly to destroy it is to remove that

opinion, to take away all reverence, all confidence from it; and then, at the first blast of publick

discontent and popular tumult, it tumbles to the ground.

In considering this question, they, who oppose it, oppose it on different grounds; one is, in the

nature of a previous question; that some alterations may be expedient, but that this is not the

time for making them. The other is, that no essential alterations are at all wanting: and that

neither now, nor at any time, is it prudent or safe to be meddling with the fundamental principles,

and ancient tried usages of our Constitution—that our Representation is as nearly perfect as the

necessary imperfection of human affairs and of human creatures will suffer it to be; and that it is

a subject of prudent and honest use and thankful enjoyment, and not of captious criticism and

rash experiment.

On the other side, there are two parties, who proceed on two grounds, in my opinion, as they

state them, utterly irreconcileable. The one is juridical, the other political. The one is in the nature

of a claim of right, on the supposed rights of man as man; this party desire the decision of a suit.

The other ground, as far as I can divine what it directly means, is, that the Representation is not

so politically framed as to answer the theory of its institution. As to the claim of right, the

meanest petitioner, the most gross and ignorant, is as good as the best; in some respects his

claim is more favourable on account of his ignorance; his weakness, his poverty and distress, only

add to his titles; he sues in forma pauperis;

he ought to be a favourite of the Court. But when

the other ground is taken, when the question is political, when a new Constitution is to be made

on a sound theory of government, then the presumptuous pride of didactick ignorance is to be

excluded from the counsel in this high and arduous matter, which often bids defiance to the

experience of the wisest. The first claims a personal representation, the latter rejects it with scorn

and fervour. The language of the first party is plain and intelligible; they, who plead an absolute

right, cannot be satisfied with anything short of personal representation, because all natural

rights must be the rights of individuals; as by nature there is no such thing as politick or

corporate personality; all these ideas are mere fictions of Law, they are creatures of voluntary

institution; men as men are individuals, and nothing else.

They therefore, who reject the

principle of natural and personal representation, are essentially and eternally at variance with

those, who claim it. As to the first sort of Reformers, it is ridiculous to talk to them of the British

Constitution upon any or upon all of its bases; for they lay it down, that every man ought to

govern himself, and that where he cannot go himself he must send his Representative; that all

other government is usurpation, and is so far from having a claim to our obedience, it is not only

our right, but our duty, to resist it. Nine tenths of the Reformers argue thus, that is on the natural

right.

It is impossible not to make some reflection on the nature of this claim, or avoid a

comparison between the extent of the principle and the present object of the demand. If this

claim be founded, it is clear to what it goes. The House of Commons, in that light, undoubtedly is

no representative of the people as a collection of individuals. Nobody pretends it, nobody can

e 15 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

justify such an assertion. When you come to examine into this claim of right, founded on the right

of self-government in each individual, you find the thing demanded infinitely short of the principle

of the demand. What! one third only of the Legislature,

and of the Government no share at all?

What sort of treaty of partition is this for those, who have an inherent right to the whole? Give

them all they ask, and your grant is still a cheat; for how comes only a third to be their younger

childrens fortune in this settlement? How came they neither to have the choice of Kings, or Lords,

or Judges, or Generals, or Admirals, or Bishops, or Priests, or Ministers,

or Justices of Peace?

Why, what have you to answer in favour of the prior rights of the Crown and Peerage but this—

our Constitution is a prescriptive Constitution; it is a Constitution, whose sole authority is, that it

has existed time out of mind.

It is settled in these two portions against one, legislatively; and in

the whole of the judicature, the whole of the federal

capacity, of the executive, the prudential

and the financial administration, in one alone. Nor was your House of Lords and the prerogatives

of the Crown settled on any adjudication in favour of natural rights, for they could never be so

partitioned. Your King, your Lords, your Judges, your Juries, grand and little, all are prescriptive;

and what proves it, is, the disputes not yet concluded, and never near becoming so, when any of

them first originated. Prescription is the most solid of all titles, not only to property, but, which is

to secure that property, to Government.

They harmonize with each other, and give mutual aid

to one another. It is accompanied with another ground of authority in the constitution of the

human mind, presumption. It is a presumption in favour of any settled scheme of government

against any untried project, that a nation has long existed and flourished under it. It is a better

presumption even of the choice of a nation, far better than any sudden and temporary

arrangement by actual election. Because a nation is not an idea only of local extent, and

individual momentary aggregation, but it is an idea of continuity, which extends in time as well as

in numbers, and in space. And this is a choice not of one day, or one set of people, not a

tumultuary and giddy choice; it is a deliberate election of ages and of generations; it is a

Constitution made by what is ten thousand times better than choice, it is made by the peculiar

circumstances, occasions, tempers, dispositions, and moral, civil, and social habitudes of the

people, which disclose themselves only in a long space of time. It is a vestment, which

accommodates itself to the body. Nor is prescription of government formed upon blind unmeaning

prejudices—for man is a most unwise, and a most wise, being. The individual is foolish. The

multitude, for the moment, is foolish, when they act without deliberation; but the species is wise,

and when time is given to it, as a species it almost always acts right.

The reason for the Crown as it is, for the Lords as they are, is my reason for the Commons as

they are, the Electors as they are. Now, if the Crown and the Lords, and the Judicatures, are all

prescriptive, so is the House of Commons of the very same origin, and of no other. We and our

Electors have their powers and privileges both made and circumscribed by prescription, as much

to the full as the other parts; and as such we have always claimed them, and on no other title.

The House of Commons is a legislative body corporate by prescription, not made upon any given

theory, but existing prescriptively—just like the rest. This prescription has made it essentially

what it is, an aggregate collection of three parts, Knights, Citizens, Burgesses.

The question is,

whether this has been always so, since the House of Commons has taken its present shape and

circumstances, and has been an essential operative part of the Constitution; which, I take it, it

has been for at least five hundred years.

This I resolve to myself in the affirmative: and then another question arises, whether this House

stands firm upon its ancient foundations, and is not, by time and accidents, so declined from its

e 16 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

perpendicular as to want the hand of the wise and experienced architects of the day to set it

upright again, and to prop and buttress it up for duration; whether it continues true to the

principles, upon which it has hitherto stood; whether this be de facto the Constitution of the

House of Commons, as it has been since the time, that the House of Commons has, without

dispute, become a necessary and an efficient part of the British Constitution?

To ask whether a

thing, which has always been the same, stands to its usual principle, seems to me to be perfectly

absurd; for how do you know the principles but from the construction? and if that remains the

same, the principles remain the same. It is true, that to say your Constitution is what it has been,

is no sufficient defence for those, who say it is a bad Constitution. It is an answer to those, who

say that it is a degenerate Constitution. To those, who say it is a bad one, I answer, look to its

effects. In all moral machinery the moral results are its test.

On what grounds do we go, to restore our Constitution to what it has been at some given period,

or to reform and re-construct it upon principles more conformable to a sound theory of

government? A prescriptive Government, such as ours, never was the work of any Legislator,

never was made upon any foregone theory. It seems to me a preposterous way of reasoning, and

a perfect confusion of ideas, to take the theories, which learned and speculative men have made

from that Government, and then supposing it made on those theories, which were made from it,

to accuse the Government as not corresponding with them. I do not vilify theory and

speculation—no, because that would be to vilify reason itself. Neque decipitur ratio, neque decipit

unquam.

No; whenever I speak against theory, I mean always a weak, erroneous, fallacious,

unfounded, or imperfect theory; and one of the ways of discovering, that it is a false theory, is by

comparing it with practice. This is the true touchstone of all theories, which regard man and the

affairs of men—does it suit his nature in general; does it suit his nature as modified by his habits?

The more frequently this affair is discussed, the stronger the case appears to the sense and the

feelings of mankind. I have no more doubt than I entertain of my existence, that this very thing,

which is stated as an horrible thing, is the means of the preservation of our Constitution, whilst it

lasts; of curing it of many of the disorders, which, attending every species of institution, would

attend the principle of an exact local representation, or a representation on the principle of

numbers.

If you reject personal representation, you are pushed upon expedience; and then

what they wish us to do is, to prefer their speculations on that subject to the happy experience of

this Country of a growing liberty and a growing prosperity for five hundred years. Whatever

respect I have for their talents, this, for one, I will not do. Then what is the standard of

expedience? Expedience is that, which is good for the community, and good for every individual in

it. Now this expedience is the desideratum,

to be sought either without the experience of

means, or with that experience. If without, as in case of the fabrication of a new Commonwealth,

I will hear the learned arguing what promises to be expedient: but if we are to judge of a

Commonwealth actually existing, the first thing I inquire is, what has been found expedient or

inexpedient? And I will not take their promise rather than the performance of the Constitution.

* * *

But no, this was not the cause of the discontents. I went through most of the Northern

parts—the Yorkshire Election was then raging; the year before, through most of the Western

Counties—Bath, Bristol, Gloucester—not one word, either in the towns or country, on the subject

of representation; much on the Receipt Tax, something on Mr. Fox’s ambition; much greater

apprehension of danger from thence than from want of representation. One would think that the

ballast of the ship was shifted with us, and that our Constitution had the gunnel under water. But

e 17 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

can you fairly and distinctly point out what one evil or grievance has happened, which you can

refer to the Representative not following the opinion of his Constituents? What one symptom do

we find of this inequality? But it is not an arithmetical inequality, with which we ought to trouble

ourselves. If there be a moral, a political equality, this is the desideratum in our Constitution, and

in every Constitution in the world. Moral inequality is as between places and between classes.

Now I ask, what advantage do you find, that the places, which abound in representation, possess

over others, in which it is more scanty, in security for freedom, in security for justice, or in any

one of those means of procuring temporal prosperity and eternal happiness, the ends, for which

society was formed? Are the local interests of Cornwall and Wiltshire, for instance, their roads,

canals, their prisons, their police, better than Yorkshire, Warwickshire, or Staffordshire? Warwick

has Members; is Warwick, or Stafford, more opulent, happy, or free, than Newcastle, or than

Birmingham? Is Wiltshire the pampered favourite, whilst Yorkshire, like the child of the bond-

woman, is turned out to the desert? This is like the unhappy persons, who live, if they can be said

to live, in the Statical Chair;

who are ever feeling their pulse, and who do not judge of health by

the aptitude of the body to perform its functions, but by their ideas of what ought to be the true

balance between the several secretions. Is a Committee of Cornwall, &c thronged, and the others

deserted? No. You have an equal representation, because you have men equally interested in the

prosperity of the whole, who are involved in the general interest and the general sympathy; and,

perhaps, these places, furnishing a superfluity of publick agents and administrators, (whether in

strictness they are Representatives or not, I do not mean to inquire, but they are agents and

administrators,) will stand clearer of local interests, passions, prejudices and cabals, than the

others, and therefore preserve the balance of the parts, and with a more general view, and a

more steady hand, than the rest. * * * * *

In every political proposal we must not leave out of the question the political views and object of

the proposer; and these we discover, not by what he says, but by the principles he lays down. I

mean, says he, a moderate and temperate reform;

that is, I mean to do as little good as

possible. If the Constitution be what you represent it and there be no danger in the change, you

do wrong not to make the reform commensurate to the abuse. Fine reformer indeed! generous

donor! What is the cause of this parsimony of the liberty, which you dole out to the people? Why

all this limitation in giving blessings and benefits to mankind? You admit that there is an extreme

in liberty, which may be infinitely noxious to those, who are to receive it, and which in the end

will leave them no liberty at all. I think so too; they know it, and they feel it. The question is

then, what is the standard of that extreme? What that gentleman, and the Associations,

or some

parts of their phalanxes, think proper? Then our liberties are in their pleasure; it depends on their

arbitrary will how far I shall be free. I will have none of that freedom. If, therefore, the standard

of moderation be sought for, I will seek for it. Where? Not in their fancies, nor in my own: I will

seek for it where I know it is to be found, in the Constitution I actually enjoy. Here it says to an

encroaching prerogative, Your sceptre has its length, you cannot add an hair to your head, or a

gem to your Crown, but what an eternal Law has given to it. Here it says to an overweening

peerage, Your pride finds banks, that it cannot overflow: here to a tumultuous and giddy people,

There is a bound to the raging of the Sea. Our Constitution is like our Island, which uses and

restrains its subject Sea; in vain the waves roar. In that Constitution I know, and exultingly I feel,

both that I am free, and that I am not free dangerously to myself or to others. I know that no

power on earth, acting as I ought to do, can touch my life, my liberty, or my property. I have that

inward and dignified consciousness of my own security and independence, which constitutes, and

is the only thing, which does constitute, the proud and comfortable sentiment of freedom in the

e 18 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

human breast. I know too, and I bless God for my safe mediocrity; I know that, if I possessed all

the talents of the gentlemen on the side of the House I sit, and on the other, I cannot by Royal

favour, or by popular delusion, or by oligarchical cabal, elevate myself above a certain very

limited point, so as to endanger my own fall, or the ruin of my Country. I know there is an order,

that keeps things fast in their place; it is made to us, and we are made to it. Why not ask another

wife, other children, another body, another mind?

The great object of most of these Reformers is to prepare the destruction of the Constitution, by

disgracing and discrediting the House of Commons. For they think, prudently, in my opinion, that

if they can persuade the nation, that the House of Commons is so constituted as not to secure the

publick liberty; not to have a proper connexion with the publick interests, so constituted, as not

either actually or virtually

to be the Representative of the people, it will be easy to prove, that a

Government, composed of a Monarchy, an Oligarchy chosen by the Crown, and such a House of

Commons, whatever good can be in such a system, can by no means be a system of free

government.

The Constitution of England is never to have a quietus; it is to be continually vilified, attacked,

reproached, resisted; instead of being the hope and sure anchor in all storms, instead of being

the means of redress to all grievances, itself is the grand grievance of the nation, our shame

instead of our glory. If the only specifick plan proposed, individual personal representation, is

directly rejected by the person, who is looked on as the great support of this business, then the

only way of considering it is a question of convenience. An honourable gentleman prefers the

individual to the present. He therefore himself sees no middle term whatsoever, and therefore

prefers of what he sees the individual; this is the only thing distinct and sensible, that has been

advocated. He has then a scheme, which is the individual representation; he is not at a loss, not

inconsistent—which scheme the other right honourable Gentleman reprobates. Now what does

this go to, but to lead directly to anarchy? For to discredit the only Government, which he either

possesses or can project, what is this but to destroy all government; and this is anarchy. My right

honourable friend, in supporting this motion, disgraces his friends and justifies his enemies, in

order to blacken the Constitution of his Country, even of that House of Commons, which

supported him.

There is a difference between a moral or political exposure of a publick evil,

relative to the administration of government, whether in men or systems, and a declaration of

defects, real or supposed, in the fundamental Constitution of your Country. The first may be

cured in the individual by the motives of religion, virtue, honour, fear, shame, or interest. Men

may be made to abandon also false systems, by exposing their absurdity or mischievous

tendency to their own better thoughts, or to the contempt or indignation of the publick; and after

all, if they should exist, and exist uncorrected, they only disgrace individuals as fugitive opinions.

But it is quite otherwise with the frame and Constitution of the State; if that is disgraced,

patriotism is destroyed in its very source. No man has ever willingly obeyed, much less was

desirous of defending with his blood, a mischievous and absurd scheme of government. Our first,

our dearest, most comprehensive relation, our Country, is gone.

It suggests melancholy reflections, in consequence of the strange course we have long held, that

we are now no longer quarrelling about the character, or about the conduct of men, or the tenour

of measures; but we are grown out of humour with the English Constitution itself; this is become

the object of the animosity of Englishmen. This Constitution in former days used to be the

admiration and the envy of the world; it was the pattern for politicians; the theme of the

e 19 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

eloquent; the meditation of the philosopher in every part of the world. As to Englishmen, it was

their pride, their consolation. By it they lived, for it they were ready to die. Its defects, if it had

any, were partly covered by partiality, and partly born by prudence. Now all its excellencies are

forgot, its faults are now forcibly dragged into day, exaggerated by every artifice of

representation. It is despised and rejected of men;

and every device and invention of ingenuity,

or idleness, set up in opposition or in preference to it. It is to this humour, and it is to the

measures growing out of it, that I set myself (I hope not alone) in the most determined

opposition. Never before did we at any time in this Country meet upon the theory of our frame of

Government, to sit in judgment on the Constitution of our Country, to call it as a delinquent

before us, and to accuse it of every defect and every vice; to see whether it, an object of our

veneration, even our adoration, did or did not accord with a pre-conceived scheme in the minds

of certain gentlemen. Cast your eyes on the journals of Parliament. It is for fear of losing the

inestimable treasure we have, that I do not venture to game it out of my hands for the vain hope

of improving it. I look with filial reverence on the Constitution of my Country, and never will cut it

in pieces, and put it into the kettle of any magician, in order to boil it, with the puddle of their

compounds, into youth and vigour. On the contrary, I will drive away such pretenders; I will

nurse its venerable age, and with lenient arts extend a parent’s breath.

ENDNOTES

[1.] In the character of a pauper, which confers permission to sue without liability for costs.

[1.]

Burke here states the political theory of the radical reformers. He himself would not deny

that the constitution of a civil society is a convention. But he would deny that there is a gulf

between nature and convention; rather, convention, when properly made, complements and

implements nature. Burke sees man as by nature a social and political animal whose nature

requires civil society and therefore requires a conventional constitution that corresponds to the

needs of human nature. Civil society is thus natural to man but exists in conventional and

variable forms.

[2.]

Most of the parliamentary reformers were in fact much more moderate in their proposals,

but the most radical of them argued in these terms, as Thomas Paine was to do in his The Rights

of Man, his reply to Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France.

[1.]

The House of Commons was only one part of the tripartite lawmaking body composed of

King, Lords, and Commons.

[2.]

Burke conceived of Church and State as one unified whole, of which the King (in Parliament,

of course) was the head.

[3.]

For a treatment of this much discussed sentence, see Canavan, Edmund Burke: Prescription

and Providence, chap. 6, “Time Out of Mind.”

[

4.] The power of a national government to conduct relations with the governments of other

nations and to make compacts or treaties (foedera) with them.

[1.]

Prescription is a title to the ownership of property which arises out of long-continued and

e 20 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

uncontested possession and overrides all earlier claims to the property. It makes it impossible,

after the period required for prescription has elapsed, to revive old claims to the property. Then it

is no longer enough to produce documents proving that A’s great-great-grandfather got the

property by fraud from B’s great-great-grandfather. Similarly, Burke holds, the long-continued

existence of a constitution under which a people has lived and flourished makes it immune to

claims based on every man’s right to govern himself in the state of nature and therefore to vote

for representatives when he enters civil society.

[1.]

The House of Commons was composed of knights, who represented shires (counties);

citizens, who represented cities; and burgesses, who represented boroughs.

[2.]

That the Constitution had so “declined from its perpendicular” was Pitt’s argument in the

speech in which he introduced his motion.

[1.]

“Reason is never deceived nor ever deceives.” The Latin phrase, attributed to Manilius, is

found on the title page of Jean LeClerc’s Logica: sive Ars Ratiocinandi (London, 1692), which was

part of the curriculum at Trinity College, Dublin, when Burke was a student there.

[1.]

Representation in the House of Commons was of communities, each of which, regardless of

size, had two members of Parliament.

[2.]

The object desired.

[3.]

The blank space here may indicate either that Burke had not finished writing his speech

when he laid it aside or that a page or pages had disappeared from it by the time his literary

executors found the document among his papers.

[1.]

A weighing chair designed to determine the amount of weight a sick person had lost by

perspiration.

[1.]

In proposing his motion, Pitt had said that he and others had on many occasions

“maintained the necessity that there was for a calm revision of the principles of the constitution,

and a moderate reform of such defects as had imperceptibly and gradually stole in to deface, and

which threatened at last totally to destroy the most beautiful fabric of government in the world.”

Parliamentary History of England 22:1416.

[2.]

Societies that advocated parliamentary reform, beginning with the Society of Supporters of

the Bill of Rights, which adopted a series of resolutions in June 1771, including one that

demanded full and equal representation of the people.

[1.]

Burke defines “virtual representation” in his Letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe, below, p. 240.

[1.]

The speaker referred to must be Charles James Fox, whom Burke calls “my right honourable

friend,” and who had spoken in this debate in favor of “equal representation,” Parliamentary

History 22:1452–53. The strong language Burke uses here about his friend and close political

associate may foreshadow the complete break between them over the French Revolution.

e 21 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

[1.] An allusion to Isaiah 53:3.

TWO LETTERS TO GENTLEMEN IN BRISTOL ON THE TRADE OF IRELAND

[April 23 and May 2, 1778]

After the British defeat at Saratoga in 1777, Lord North’s administration came to

believe that concessions would have to be made not only to the rebellious

American colonies but to Ireland as well. Great Britain and Ireland at this time

were legally distinct kingdoms, under a common crown, but with separate

legislatures and governing bodies (though in fact the British government kept the

Irish one firmly under its thumb). Ireland chafed under the restrictions that

British legislation placed on the export of Irish goods to Great Britain, and was

becoming restive. Lord North therefore acquiesced when Earl Nugent (an Irish

lord and member of the British House of Commons) introduced bills in the

Commons in April 1778 to eliminate or reduce some of these restrictions on Irish

trade. Burke enthusiastically supported them, even though he and his party, the

Rockingham Whigs, were in opposition to the government.

The response from the manufacturing and trading cities of England was an angry

one, not least from Burke’s constituency of Bristol, which was then the second

greatest port of the kingdom. His constituents let him know that by his support of

these measures in favor of freeing Irish trade, he was in danger of losing his seat

at the next election, as in fact he did in 1780, though not entirely for this reason.

One of the letters of protest sent to Burke was from Samuel Span, Master of the

Society of Merchant Adventurers of Bristol. Another was from Harford, Cowles

and Co., a firm of iron manufacturers. Burke wrote replies to these letters and

published them in this pamphlet on May 12, 1778. In it he rejected the

mercantilist assumption that trade was a zero-sum game in which what Ireland

gained Britain necessarily lost. His strategy, however, was typically Burkean, as

he explained in a letter after the struggle was over (Works 9:235–36): “I was in

hopes that we might obtain, gradually, and by parts, what we might attempt at

once and in the whole without success; that one concession would lead to

another; and that the people of England, discovering, by a progressive

experience, that none of the concessions actually made were followed by the

consequences they had dreaded, their fears from what they were yet to yield

would considerably diminish. But that, to which I attached myself the most

particularly, was to fix the principle of a free trade in all the ports of these

Islands, as founded in justice, and beneficial to the whole; but principally to this,

the seat of the supreme power.”

AMUEL

PAN

, E

; M

ASTER

THE

OCIETY

ERCHANTS

DVENTURERS

RISTOL

SIR,

I AM HONOURED WITH YOUR LETTER of the 13th, in answer to mine, which accompanied the

e 22 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

resolutions of the House relative to the trade of Ireland.

You will be so good as to present my best respects to the Society, and to assure them, that it was

altogether unnecessary to remind me of the interest of the constituents. I have never regarded

any thing else, since I had a seat in parliament. Having frequently and maturely considered that

interest, and stated it to myself in almost every point of view, I am persuaded, that, under the

present circumstances, I cannot more effectually pursue it, than by giving all the support in my

power to the propositions which I lately transmitted to the Hall.

The fault I find in the scheme is, that it falls extremely short of that liberality in the commercial

system, which, I trust, will one day be adopted. If I had not considered the present resolutions,

merely as preparatory to better things, and as a means of shewing experimentally, that justice to

others is not always folly to ourselves, I should have contented myself with receiving them in a

cold and silent acquiescence. Separately considered, they are matters of no very great

importance. But they aim, however imperfectly, at a right principle. I submit to the restraint to

appease prejudice: I accept the enlargement, so far as it goes, as the result of reason and of

sound policy.

We cannot be insensible of the calamities which have been brought upon this nation by an

obstinate adherence to narrow and restrictive plans of government.

I confess, I cannot prevail

on myself to take them up, precisely at a time, when the most decisive experience has taught the

rest of the world to lay them down. The propositions in question did not originate from me, or

from my particular friends. But when things are so right in themselves, I hold it my duty, not to

enquire from what hands they come. I opposed the American measures upon the very same

principle on which I support those that relate to Ireland. I was convinced, that the evils which

have arisen from the adoption of the former, would be infinitely aggravated by the rejection of

the latter.

Perhaps Gentlemen are not yet fully aware of the situation of their country, and what its

exigencies absolutely require. I find that we are still disposed to talk at our ease, and as if all

things were to be regulated by our good pleasure. I should consider it as a fatal symptom, if, in

our present distressed and adverse circumstances, we should persist in the errors which are

natural only to prosperity. One cannot indeed sufficiently lament the continuance of that spirit of

delusion, by which, for a long time past, we have thought fit to measure our necessities by our

inclinations. Moderation, prudence, and equity, are far more suitable to our condition, than

loftiness, and confidence, and rigour. We are threatened by enemies of no small magnitude,

whom, if we think fit, we may despise, as we have despised others; but they are enemies who

can only cease to be truly formidable, by our entertaining a due respect for their power. Our

danger will not be lessened by our shutting our eyes to it; nor will our force abroad be encreased

by rendering ourselves feeble, and divided at home.

There is a dreadful schism in the British nation. Since we are not able to reunite the empire, it is

our business to give all possible vigour and soundness to those parts of it which are still content

to be governed by our councils. Sir, it is proper to inform you, that our measures must be

healing. Such a degree of strength must be communicated to all the members of the state, as

may enable them to defend themselves, and to co-operate in the defence of the whole. Their

temper too must be managed, and their good affections cultivated. They may then be disposed to

e 23 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

bear the load with chearfulness, as a contribution towards what may be called with truth and

propriety, and not by an empty form of words, a common cause. Too little dependence cannot be

had, at this time of day, on names and prejudices. The eyes of mankind are opened; and

communities must be held together by an evident and solid interest. God forbid, that our conduct

should demonstrate to the world, that Great Britain can, in no instance whatsoever, be brought to

a sense of rational and equitable policy, but by coercion and force of arms!

I wish you to recollect, with what powers of concession, relatively to commerce, as well as to

legislation, his Majesty’s Commissioners to the United Colonies have sailed from England within

this week.

Whether these powers are sufficient for their purposes, it is not now my business to

examine. But we all know, that our resolutions in favour of Ireland are trifling and insignificant,

when compared with the concessions to the Americans. At such a juncture, I would implore every

man, who retains the least spark of regard to the yet remaining honour and security of this

country, not to compel others to an imitation of their conduct; or by passion and violence, to

force them to seek in the territories of the separation,

that freedom, and those advantages,

which they are not to look for whilst they remain under the wings of their ancient government.

After all, what are the matters we dispute with so much warmth? Do we in these resolutions

bestow any thing upon Ireland? Not a shilling. We only consent to leave to them, in two or three

instances, the use of the natural faculties which God has given to them, and to all mankind. Is

Ireland united to the crown of Great Britain for no other purpose, than that we should counteract

the bounty of Providence in her favour? And in proportion as that bounty has been liberal, that we

are to regard it as an evil, which is to be met with in every sort of corrective? To say that Ireland

interferes with us, and therefore must be checked, is, in my opinion, a very mistaken, and a very

dangerous principle. I must beg leave to repeat, what I took the liberty of suggesting to you in

my last letter, that Ireland is a country, in the same climate, and of the same natural qualities

and productions, with this; and has consequently no other means of growing wealthy in herself,

or, in other words, of being useful to us, but by doing the very same things which we do, for the

same purposes. I hope that in Great Britain we shall always pursue, without exception, every

means of prosperity; and of course, that Ireland will interfere with us in something or other; for

either, in order to limit her, we must restrain ourselves, or we must fall into that shocking

conclusion, that we are to keep our yet remaining dependency, under a general and

indiscriminate restraint, for the mere purpose of oppression. Indeed, Sir, England and Ireland

may flourish together. The world is large enough for us both. Let it be our care, not to make

ourselves too little for it.

I know it is said, that the people of Ireland do not pay the same taxes, and therefore ought not in

equity to enjoy the same benefits with this. I had hopes, that the unhappy phantom of a

compulsory equal taxation had haunted us long enough. I do assure you, that until it is entirely

banished from our imaginations, (where alone it has, or can have any existence) we shall never

cease to do ourselves the most substantial injuries. To that argument of equal taxation, I can only

say, that Ireland pays as many taxes, as those who are the best judges of her powers,

are of

opinion she can bear. To bear more she must have more ability; and in the order of nature, the

advantage must precede the charge. This disposition of things, being the law of God, neither you

nor I can alter it. So that if you will have more help from Ireland, you must previously supply her

with more means. I believe it will be found, that if men are suffered freely to cultivate their

natural advantages, a virtual equality of contribution will come in its own time, and will flow by an

e 24 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

easy descent, through its own proper and natural channels. An attempt to disturb that course,

and to force nature, will only bring on universal discontent, distress and confusion.

You tell me, Sir, that you prefer an union with Ireland

to the little regulations which are

proposed in Parliament. This union is a great question of state, to which, when it comes properly

before me in my parliamentary capacity, I shall give an honest and unprejudiced consideration.

However, it is a settled rule with me, to make the most of my actual situation; and not to refuse

to do a proper thing, because there is something else more proper, which I am not able to do.

This union is a business of difficulty; and on the principles of your letter, a business impracticable.

Until it can be matured into a feasible and desirable scheme, I wish to have as close an union of

interest and affection with Ireland, as I can have; and that, I am sure, is a far better thing than

any nominal union of government.

France, and indeed most extensive empires, which by various designs and fortunes have grown

into one great mass, contain many Provinces that are very different from each other in privileges

and modes of government; and they raise their supplies in different ways; in different

proportions; and under different authorities; yet none of them are for this reason, curtailed of

their natural rights; but they carry on trade and manufactures with perfect equality. In some way

or other the true balance is found; and all of them are properly poised and harmonised. How

much have you lost by the participation of Scotland in all your commerce?

The external trade of

England has more than doubled since that period; and I believe your internal (which is the most

advantageous) has been augmented at least fourfold. Such virtue there is in liberality of

sentiment, that you have grown richer even by the partnership of poverty.

If you think, that this participation was a loss, commercially considered, but that it has been

compensated by the share which Scotland has taken in defraying the public charge—I believe you

have not very carefully looked at the public accounts. Ireland, Sir, pays a great deal more than

Scotland; and is perhaps as much, and as effectually united to England as Scotland is. But if

Scotland, instead of paying little, had paid nothing at all, we should be gainers, not losers by

acquiring the hearty co-operation of an active intelligent people, towards the increase of the

common stock; instead of our being employed in watching and counteracting them, and their

being employed in watching and counteracting us, with the peevish and churlish jealousy of rivals

and enemies on both sides.

I am sure, Sir, that the commercial experience of the merchants of Bristol, will soon disabuse

them of the prejudice, that they can trade no longer, if countries more lightly taxed, are

permitted to deal in the same commodities at the same markets. You know, that in fact, you

trade very largely where you are met by the goods of all nations. You even pay high duties, on

the import of your goods, and afterwards undersell nations less taxed, at their own markets; and

where goods of the same kind are not charged at all. If it were otherwise, you could trade very

little. You know, that the price of all sorts of manufacture is not a great deal inhanced, (except to

the domestic consumer) by any taxes paid in this country. This I might very easily prove.

The same consideration will relieve you from the apprehension you express, with relation to

sugars, and the difference of the duties paid here and in Ireland. Those duties affect the interior

consumer only; and for obvious reasons, relative to the interest of revenue itself, they must be

proportioned to his ability of payment; but in all cases in which sugar can be an object of

e 25 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

commerce, and therefore (in this view) of rivalship, you are sensible, that you are at least on a

par with Ireland. As to your apprehensions concerning the more advantageous situation of

Ireland, for some branches of commerce, (for it is so but for some) I trust you will not find them

more serious. Millford Haven, which is at your door, may serve to shew you, that the mere

advantage of ports is not the thing which shifts the seat of commerce from one part of the world

to the other. If I thought you inclined to take up this matter on local considerations, I should

state to you, that I do not know any part of the kingdom so well situated for an advantageous

commerce with Ireland as Bristol; and that none would be so likely to profit of its prosperity as

our city. But your profit and theirs must concur. Beggary and bankruptcy are not the

circumstances which invite to an intercourse with that or with any country; and I believe it will be

found invariably true, that the superfluities of a rich nation furnish a better object of trade than

the necessities of a poor one. It is the interest of the commercial world that wealth should be

found every where.

The true ground of fear, in my opinion is this; that Ireland, from the vitious system of its internal

polity, will be a long time before it can derive any benefit from the liberty now granted, or from

any thing else. But as I do not vote advantages, in hopes that they may not be enjoyed, I will not

lay any stress upon this consideration. I rather wish, that the Parliament of Ireland may, in its

own wisdom, remove these impediments, and put their country in a condition to avail itself of its

natural advantages. If they do not, the fault is with them, and not with us.

I have written this long letter, in order to give all possible satisfaction to my constituents with

regard to the part I have taken in this affair. It gave me inexpressible concern to find, that my

conduct had been a cause of uneasiness to any of them. Next to my honour and conscience, I

have nothing so near and dear to me as their approbation. However, I had much rather run the

risque of displeasing than of injuring them; if I am driven to make such an option. You obligingly

lament, that you are not to have me for your advocate; but if I had been capable of acting as an

advocate in opposition to a plan so perfectly consonant to my known principles, and to the

opinions I had publicly declared on an hundred occasions, I should only disgrace myself, without

supporting with the smallest degree of credit or effect, the cause you wished me to undertake. I

should have lost the only thing which can make such abilities as mine of any use to the world now

or hereafter; I mean that authority which is derived from an opinion, that a member speaks the

language of truth and sincerity; and that he is not ready to take up or lay down a great political

system for the convenience of the hour; that he is in parliament to support his opinion of the

public good, and does not form his opinion in order to get into parliament, or to continue in it. It

is in a great measure for your sake, that I wish to preserve this character. Without it, I am sure, I

should be ill able to discharge, by any service, the smallest part of that debt of gratitude and

affection, which I owe you for the great and honourable trust you have reposed in me. I am, with

the highest regard and esteem,

SIR,

YOUR MOST OBEDIENT AND HUMBLE SERVANT,

E. B.

Beaconsfield,

e 26 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

23d April, 1778

COPY OF A LETTER TO MESS. ******* ****** AND CO. BRISTOL

GENTLEMEN,

IT GIVES ME THE MOST SENSIBLE CONCERN to find, that my vote on the resolutions relative to the

trade of Ireland, has not been fortunate enough to meet with your approbation. I have explained

at large the grounds of my conduct on that occasion in my letters to the Merchants Hall:

but my

very sincere regard and esteem for you will not permit me to let the matter pass without an

explanation, which is particular to yourselves, and which, I hope, will prove satisfactory to you.

You tell me, that the conduct of your late member

is not much wondered at; but you seem to be

at a loss to account for mine; and you lament, that I have taken so decided a part against my

constituents.

This is rather an heavy imputation. Does it then really appear to you, that the propositions, to

which you refer, are, on the face of them, so manifestly wrong, and so certainly injurious to the

trade and manufactures of Great Britain, and particularly to yours, that no man could think of

proposing, or supporting them, except from resentment to you, or from some other oblique

motive? If you suppose your late member, or if you suppose me, to act upon other reasons than

we choose to avow, to what do you attribute the conduct of the other members, who in the

beginning almost unanimously adopted those resolutions? To what do you attribute the strong

part taken by the ministers, and along with the ministers, by several of their most declared

opponents? This does not indicate a ministerial jobb; a party design; or a provincial or local

purpose. It is therefore not so absolutely clear, that the measure is wrong, or likely to be

injurious to the true interests of any place, or any person.

The reason, gentlemen, for taking this step, at this time, is but too obvious and too urgent. I

cannot imagine, that you forget the great war, which has been carried on with so little success

(and, as I thought, with so little policy) in America; or that you are not aware of the other great

wars which are impending. Ireland has been called upon to repel the attacks of enemies of no

small power, brought upon her by councils, in which she has had no share. The very purpose and

declared object of that original war, which has brought other wars, and other enemies on Ireland,

was not very flattering to her dignity, her interest, or to the very principle of her liberty. Yet she

submitted patiently to the evils she suffered from an attempt to subdue to your obedience,

countries whose very commerce was not open to her. America was to be conquered, in order that

Ireland should not trade thither; whilst the miserable trade which she is permitted to carry on to

other places has been torn to pieces in the struggle. In this situation, are we neither to suffer her

to have any real interest in our quarrel, or to be flattered with the hope of any future means of

bearing the burthens which she is to incurr in defending herself against enemies which we have

brought upon her?

I cannot set my face against such arguments. Is it quite fair to suppose, that I have no other

motive for yielding to them, but a desire of acting against my constituents? It is for you, and for

your interest, as a dear, cherished, and respected part of a valuable whole, that I have taken my

share in this question. You do not, you cannot suffer by it. If honesty be true policy with regard to

e 27 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

the transient interest of individuals, it is much more certainly so with regard to the permanent

interests of communities. I know, that it is but too natural for us to see our own certain ruin, in

the possible prosperity of other people. It is hard to persuade us, that every thing which is got by

another is not taken from ourselves. But it is fit, that we should get the better of these

suggestions, which come from what is not the best and soundest part of our nature, and that we

should form to ourselves a way of thinking, more rational, more just, and more religious. Trade is

not a limited thing; as if the objects of mutual demand and consumption, could not stretch

beyond the bounds of our jealousies. God has given the earth to the children of men, and he has

undoubtedly, in giving it to them, given them what is abundantly sufficient for all their exigencies;

not a scanty, but a most liberal provision for them all. The Author of our nature has written it

strongly in that nature, and has promulgated the same law in his written word,

that man shall

eat his bread by his labour; and I am persuaded, that no man, and no combination of men, for

their own ideas of their particular profit, can, without great impiety, undertake to say, that he

shall not do so; that they have no sort of right, either to prevent the labour, or to withhold the

bread. Ireland having received no compensation, directly or indirectly, for any restraints on their

trade, ought not, in justice or common honesty, be made subject to such restraints. I do not

mean to impeach the right of the parliament of Great Britain, to make laws for the trade of

Ireland. I only speak of what laws it is right for Parliament to make.

It is nothing to an oppressed people, to say that in part they are protected at our charge. The

military force which shall be kept up in order to cramp the natural faculties of a people, and to

prevent their arrival to their utmost prosperity, is the instrument of their servitude not the means

of their protection. To protect men, is to forward, and not to restrain their improvement. Else,

what is it more, than to avow to them, and to the world, that you guard them from others, only

to make them a prey to yourself. This fundamental nature of protection does not belong to free,

but to all governments; and is as valid in Turkey as in Great Britain. No government ought to own

that it exists for the purpose of checking the prosperity of its people, or that there is such a

principle involved in its policy.

Under the impression of these sentiments, (and not as wanting every attention to my

constituents, which affection and gratitude could inspire,) I voted for these bills which give you so

much trouble. I voted for them, not as doing complete justice to Ireland, but as being something

less unjust than the general prohibition which has hitherto prevailed. I hear some discourse, as if

in one or two paltry duties on materials, Ireland had a preference; and that those who set

themselves against this act of scanty justice, assert that they are only contending for an equality.

What equality? Do they forget, that the whole woollen manufacture of Ireland, the most extensive

and profitable of any, and the natural staple of that kingdom, has been in a manner so destroyed

by restrictive laws of ours, and (at our persuasion, and on our promises) by restrictive laws of

their own,

that in a few years, it is probable, they will not be able to wear a coat of their own

fabric. Is this equality? Do gentlemen forget, that the understood faith upon which they were

persuaded to such an unnatural act, has not been kept; but a linen-manufacture has been set up,

and highly encouraged, against them? Is this equality? Do they forget the state of the trade of

Ireland in beer, so great an article of consumption, and which now stands in so mischievous a

position with regard to their revenue, their manufacture, and their agriculture? Do they find any

equality in all this? Yet if the least step is taken towards doing them common justice in the

lightest articles for the most limited markets, a cry is raised, as if we were going to be ruined by

partiality to Ireland.

e 28 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

Gentlemen, I know that the deficiency in these arguments is made up (not by you, but by others)

by the usual resource on such occasions, the confidence in military force, and superior power. But

that ground of confidence, which at no time was perfectly just, or the avowal of it tolerably

decent, is at this time very unseasonable. Late experience has shewn, that it cannot be altogether

relied upon; and many, if not all our present difficulties, have arisen from putting our trust in

what may very possibly fail; and if it should fail, leaves those who are hurt by such a reliance,

without pity. Whereas honesty and justice, reason and equity, go a very great way in securing

prosperity to those who use them; and in case of failure, secure the best retreat, and the most

honourable consolations.

It is very unfortunate, that we should consider those as rivals, whom we ought to regard as

fellow-labourers in a common cause. Ireland has never made a single step in its progress towards

prosperity, by which you have not had a share; and perhaps the greatest share, in the benefit.

That progress has been chiefly owing to her own natural advantages; and her own efforts, which,

after a long time, and by slow degrees, have prevailed in some measure over the mischievous

systems which have been adopted. Far enough she is still from having arrived even at an ordinary

state of perfection; and if our jealousies were to be converted into politics, as systematically as

some would have them, the trade of Ireland would vanish out of the system of commerce. But,

believe me, if Ireland is beneficial to you, it is so not from the parts in which it is restrained, but

from those in which it is left free, though not left unrivalled. The greater its freedom, the greater

must be your advantage. If you should lose in one way, you will gain in twenty.

Whilst I remain under this unalterable and powerful conviction, you will not wonder at the decided

part I take. It is my custom so to do, when I see my way clearly before me; and when I know,

that I am not misled by any passion, or any personal interest; which in this case, I am very sure,

I am not. I find that disagreeable things are circulated among my constituents; and I wish my

sentiments, which form my justification, may be equally general with the circulation against me. I

have the honour to be, with the greatest regard and esteem,

GENTLEMEN,

OUR

MOST

OBEDIENT

AND

HUMBLE

SERVANT

E. B.

rend="ital">Westminster,

May 2, 1773

ENDNOTES

[1.] Of the Society of Merchant Adventurers of Bristol.

[1.]

The revolt of the American colonies and the entry of France into the war on the American

side.

[1.]

A commission led by the Earl of Carlisle had just sailed for America in an attempt at

e 29 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

reconciliation with the colonies. The effort failed because the colonies were no longer interested in

reconciliation.

[1.]

The reference is to Irish emigration to America.

[1.]

The Irish Parliament.

[2.]

In 1800, after Burke’s death, an Act of Union abolished the Irish Parliament and joined

Ireland and Great Britain in one United Kingdom with one Parliament.

[1.]

By the Act of Union of 1707, England gave up its commercial exclusiveness and Scotland

gave up its legislative independence.

[1.]

The preceding letter in this pamphlet and an earlier one dated April 9, 1778.

[2.]

Lord Nugent, who introduced the Irish trade bills in this session of Parliament, had earlier

been one of Bristol’s members of Parliament.

[1.]

Genesis 3:19.

[1.]

“In 1699 the Irish Parliament, on government initiative, imposed heavy export duties on

Irish woolen goods . . . , on the understanding that the Irish linen industry would be encouraged;

and in the same year, 1699, the English Parliament forbade the export of Irish wool to foreign

countries.” W&S 9:516, n. 1.

THOUGHTS AND DETAILS ON SCARCITY

[November 1795]

This document is the nearest thing to a formal treatise on economics that

Edmund Burke ever wrote. Even so, it was not meant as a full treatment of the

subject but was a lengthy memorandum to the Prime Minister, William Pitt, on an

immediate question of policy. Burke was alarmed by a project for governmental

subsidy of the wages of agricultural laborers during a time of poor harvests. His

memorandum was therefore very much an ad hoc document, addressed to a

temporary situation.

Burke thought well enough of it, however, to plan to expand it into a fuller work.

But in the year and a half that remained of his life, he was a sick and dying man,

and more urgently concerned with the folly of British overtures toward peace with

Revolutionary France. He never managed to write more than several disjointed

pages of his proposed economic treatise, and the memorandum was not

published until after his death, by his literary executors, French Laurence and

Walker King.

They had it published in 1800 with a lengthy preface by themselves. It is

included here for their explanation of the circumstances in which Burke wrote the

e 30 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

memorandum and of their editing and interpolation in Burke’s text of the

fragments of his planned expansion of it that they found among his papers.

HOUGHTS

AND

ETAILS

CARCITY

[Originally Presented to The Right Hon. William Pitt, in the Month of November,

1795]

PREFACE

BEACONSFIELD, Nov. 1, 1800

HE WISDOM, WHICH IS CANONIZED BY DEATH, is consulted with a sort of sacred veneration. A casual

remark, or an incidental maxim in some ancient author, an interesting narrative, or a pointed

anecdote from the history of past times, even though they bear but a remote and general

application to the exigency of our own immediate situation, are caught up with eagerness, and

remembered with delight. But how much more important is the instruction which we may derive

from the posthumous opinions of those who, having been most eminent in our own times for

superior talents and more extensive knowledge, have formed their observation on circumstances

so similar to our own, as only not to be the same, yet who speak without influence from the little

prejudices and passions, to which accident, folly, or malevolence may have given birth in the

present moment.

The late Mr. Burke, in the estimation of those who were most capable of judging, stood high, both

as a scientific and a practical farmer. He carried into his fields the same penetrating,

comprehensive, and vigorous mind, which shone forth so conspicuously in all his exertions on the

stage of public life. Wherever he was, in whatever he was engaged, he was alike assiduous in

collecting information, and happy in combining, what he acquired, into general principles. All that

the ancients have left us upon husbandry was familiar to him, and he once encouraged and set on

foot a new edition of those valuable writers; but, though he might occasionally derive new hints

even from those sources, he preferred the authority of his own hind

to that of Hesiod or Virgil,

of Cato or Columella. He thought for himself upon this, as upon other subjects; and not rejecting

sound reforms of demonstrated errors, he was, however, principally guided by the traditionary

skill and experience of that class of men, who, from father to son, have for generations laboured

in calling forth the fertility of the English soil. He not only found in agriculture the most agreeable

relaxation from his more serious cares, but he regarded the cultivation of the earth, and the

improvement of all which it produces, as a sort of moral and religious duty. Towards the close of

his life, when he had lost his son, in whom all his prospects had long centered, after lamenting, in

an elegant allusion to Virgil, that the trees, which he had been nursing for many years, would now

afford no shade to his posterity, he was heard to correct himself, by adding, “Yet be it so: I ought

not therefore to bestow less attention upon them—they grow to God.”

Agriculture, and the commerce connected with, and dependent upon it, form one of the most

considerable branches of political economy; and as such, Mr. Burke diligently studied them.

Indeed, when he began to qualify himself for the exalted rank which he afterwards held among

statesmen, he laid a broad and deep foundation; and to an accurate research into the

constitution, the laws, the civil and military history of these kingdoms, he joined an enlightened

e 31 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

acquaintance with the whole circle of our commercial system. On his first introduction, when a

young man, to the late Mr. Gerard Hamilton, who was then a Lord of Trade, the latter ingenuously

confessed to a friend still living, how sensibly he felt his own inferiority, much as he had

endeavoured to inform himself, and aided as he was by official documents, inaccessible to any

private person. He was also consulted, and the greatest deference was paid to his opinions by Dr.

Adam Smith, in the progress of the celebrated work on the Wealth of Nations.

In Parliament, Mr. Burke very soon distinguished himself on these topics. When the first great

permanent law for regulating our foreign corn-trade

was under the consideration of the House in

1772, he was one of its principle supporters, in a speech admired at the time for its excellence,

and described as abounding with that knowledge in oeconomics, which he was then universally

allowed to possess, and illustrated with that philosophical discrimination, of which he was so

peculiarly a master. About the same time, too, he zealously promoted the repeal of the statutes

against forestallers;

a measure not lightly and hastily proposed or adopted in the liberal

impulse of an unguarded moment, but the result of various investigations made by the House, or

in different committees, during six years of scarcity and high prices; a measure which, although

two Bills of a contrary tendency had formerly been introduced and lost, so approved itself, at

length, to the reason of all, that it was ordered to be brought in, without a single dissentient

voice. Yet, though such was his early pre-eminence in these pursuits, to the last hour of his life,

as his fame spread wider and wider over Europe, he availed himself of the advantage which this

afforded him, to enlarge the sphere of his enquiries into the state of other countries, that he

might benefit his own. The consequence of all was, he every day became more firmly convinced,

that the unrestrained freedom of buying and selling is the great animating principle of production

and supply.

The present publication records Mr. Burke’s most mature reflections on these interesting subjects;

the more valuable, because the sentiments which he delivered on the occasions already

mentioned, have not been preserved to us, either by himself or by others. He was alarmed by the

appearance of the crop in 1795, even before the harvest. In the autumn of that year, when the

produce of the harvest began to be known, the alarm became general. Various projects, as in

such cases will always happen, were offered to Government; and, in his opinion, seemed to be

received with too much complaisance. Under this impression, anxious as he ever was, even in his

retirement, and in the midst of his own private affliction, for the publick safety and prosperity, he

immediately addressed to Mr. Pitt

a Memorial, which is the ground-work of the following tract.

Afterwards, considering the importance of the matter, and fearing a long cycle of scarcity to

come, he intended to have dilated the several branches of the argument, and to have moulded

his “Thoughts and Details” into a more popular shape. This he purposed to have done in a series

of letters on rural oeconomics, inscribed to his friend Mr. Arthur Young. It may be remembered,

that he even announced this design in an advertisement.

But his attention was irresistibly called

another way. His whole mind was engrossed by the change of policy which discovered itself in our

councils at that period,

when forgetting the manly arts, by which alone great nations have ever

extricated themselves from momentous and doubtful conflicts, we descended, against the

remonstrances of our allies, to the voluntary and unnecessary humiliation of soliciting a peace,

which, in his judgment, the animosity of our insolent enemy was not then disposed to grant, and

which, if offered, we could not then have accepted, without the certainty of incurring dangers

much more formidable than any that threatened us from the protraction of the war. He hastened

to raise and re-inspirit the prostrate genius of his country. In a great measure he succeeded, and

e 32 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

was still employed in the pious office, when Divine Providence took him to receive the reward of

those, who devote themselves to the cause of virtue and religion. After his decease, two or three

detached fragments only of the first letter to Mr. Young were found among his papers. These

could not be printed in that imperfect state, and they seemed too precious to be wholly thrown

aside. They have been inserted, therefore, in the Memorial, where they seemed best to cohere.

The first and largest of these interpolations reaches from the middle of the sixth to the bottom of

the 18th page; the second commences near the bottom of the 20th, and ends a little below the

middle of the 24th; and the last, occupying about three pages and a half, forms the present

conclusion.

The Memorial had been fairly copied, but did not appear to have been examined or corrected, as

some trifling errors of the transcriber were perceptible in it. The manuscript of the fragments was

a rough draft from the Author’s own hand, much blotted and very confused. It has been followed

with as much fidelity as was possible, after consulting those who were most accustomed to Mr.

Burke’s manner of writing. Two or three chasms in the grammar and sense, from the casual

omission of two or three unimportant words at a distance, have been supplied by conjecture. The

principal alteration has been the necessary change of the second for the third person, and the

consequent suppression of the common form of affectionate address, where Mr. Young is named.

That gentleman alone can have reason to complain of this liberty, inasmuch as it may seem to

have deprived him of that, which in some sort was his property, and which no man would have

known better how to value. But, it is hoped, he will pardon it, since in this manner alone these

golden fragments (to borrow a favourite phrase of critics and commentators) could have been

made, as they were designed to be, of general utility. To the reader no apology is due, if the

disquisitions thus interwoven may seem a little disproportioned to the summary statements of the

original Memorial. Their own intrinsic worth and beauty will be an ample compensation for that

slight deformity; though perhaps in such a composition, as this professes to be (and the title is

Mr. Burke’s own) nothing of the kind could have been fairly regarded as an irregular excrescence,

had it been placed by himself, where it now stands.

The Memorial, which was indeed communicated to several members of the King’s Government,

was believed at the time to have been not wholly unproductive of good. The enquiry, which had

been actually begun, into the quantity of corn in hand,

was silently dropped. The scheme of

public granaries, if it ever existed, was abandoned. In Parliament the Ministers maintained a

prudent and dignified forbearance; and repressed in others, or where they could not entirely

controul, interposed to moderate and divert, that restless spirit of legislation, which is an evil that

seems to grow up, as the vehemence of party-contention abates. The consistency and good sense

of the Commons defeated an attempt, which was made towards the close of the sessions, to

revive against forestallers of one particular description, some portion of the exploded laws.

Last year, on the approach of our present distresses, the same excellent temper of mind seemed

to prevail in Government, in Parliament, and among the people. There was no proposal of taking

stock, no speculation of creating a new establishment of royal purveyors to provide us with our

daily dole of bread. The corn merchants were early assured that they should not again have to

contend with the competition of the Treasury,

in the foreign market. A Committee of the House

of Commons ventured to dissuade the stopping of the distilleries

in a report, very closely

coinciding with the reasoning of Mr. Burke. Little or no popular declamation was heard on the

miseries of “the labouring poor”; not a single petition was presented, or motion made, against

e 33 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

forestallers. The least objectionable of the experiments suggested, to encrease the supply or

lessen the consumption, were adopted. It is hardly worthy of mention, as an exception, that a

Parliamentary charter was granted to a company of very worthy and well-meaning persons, who,

on the notion of a combination (which, by the way, they totally failed in proving) among the

trades that supply the capital with bread, opened a subscription for undertaking to furnish nearly

one-tenth of the consumption. They were contented to do this with limited profits, merely as

humane badgers and jobbers, charitable millers, sentimental mealmen,

and philanthropic

bakers. But distrusting a little their own sufficiency for their new business, they naturally desired

to be exempted from the operation of the bankrupt laws; and their bill was carried by a very

small majority, consisting of partners in the firm. All this while, under trials much more severe

than in the former dearth, the inferior classes displayed a patience and resignation, only to be

equalled by the alacrity and zeal, which the higher and middle orders every where manifested, to

relieve the necessities of their poorer neighbours in every practicable mode.

The present is a season of ferment and riot. The old cry against forestallers has been raised again

with more violence than ever. It has been adjudged, for the first time, it is presumed, since the

repealing act of 1772, that they are still liable to be punished by the common law, with fine and

imprisonment at least, if not with whipping and the pillory, according to the notion which the

judge may entertain of their crime.

The interpreters of the law must expound it, according to their conscientious judgments, as it is;

and the doctrine is not quite new. It has certainly been suggested in grave books since the

repeal. Yet men of sober minds have doubted, and will doubt, whether in the whole code of

customs and usages, derived to us from our ancestors, there can be found any one part so

radically inapplicable to the present state of the country, as their Trade law; which, formed before

commerce can be said to have existed, on mixed considerations, of police for the prevention of

theft and rapine, and of protection to the interest of the Lord in the rights of toll and stallage,

permitted no transaction of bargain and sale in any kind of commodity, but openly at a market, or

a fair, and more anciently still, with the addition of witnesses also before the magistrate, or the

priest; which knew of no commercial principle, but that of putting, in every instance, the grower,

the maker, or the importer, native and foreigner alike, at the mercy of the consumer, and for that

purpose prohibited every intermediate profit, and every practice by act, by word, or by writing,

that could enhance the price; by which, if the dragging of the mouldering records into day be not

a mere robbery of the moths and worms, should a gentleman encourage fishermen, brewers, and

bakers to settle on his estate, it may be pronounced a forestallage of the next town, and a silk

merchant, should he ask too much for his raw and organzine

(the unfortunate Lombard in the

assize-book only asked, he did not get it from the poor silkewemen)

may be punished by a

heavy fine; which cannot now be partially in force against one set of dealers, and abrogated by

disuse with regard to all others; which, if generally applied for a single term, without the

interposition of that wisdom of Parliament, over which this resort to the common law is by some

regarded as a triumph, would more effectually clog, distress, and ruin our foreign and domestic

commerce in all its branches, than a confederacy of the whole world against us in many years.

Be the late convictions, however, what they may, in legal merits; their practical effects have been

much to be deplored. Gross minds distorted them into authorities to prove, that there was plenty

in the land, and that the arts of greedy and unfeeling men alone intercepted the bounty of

Providence. Meetings were called; non-consumption agreements were signed, to fix a compulsory

e 34 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

price, and associations were formed, chiefly in cities and great towns, to prosecute those, without

whom cities and great towns can never be regularly fed. There is no weak, no wild, no violent

project, which did not find countenance in some quarter or other. The fall of the market

immediately after the harvest, and the subsequent rise, though the natural effects of obvious

causes, encreased the public agitation; and the multitude began to pursue their usual course of

providing in the shortest way for their instant wants, or of terrifying, or punishing those, whom

they had been taught to consider as their oppressors; unconscious or unconcerned that they were

thus only preparing for themselves a tenfold aggravation of their own future sufferings. The eyes

of all were now turned towards Parliament, not for a train of judicious measures, which, if it be

possible, may hereafter again equalize the production with the consumption of the country, but

for an immediate supply; as if the omnipotence of Parliament could restore a single grain that has

been injured by the most contemptible insect.

At such a juncture, however unfavourable it may be to the popularity of this little tract, the

publication of it was felt to be a duty. He who wrote it, ever set that consideration before him as

the first motive of all his actions. While he lived, he never ceased, publickly and privately, to warn

his country and her rulers, against every danger which his wisdom foresaw. He now gives to her

and them, this solemn warning from his grave.

THOUGHTS AND DETAILS ON SCARCITY

OF ALL THINGS, an indiscreet tampering with the trade of provisions is the most dangerous, and it

is always worst in the time when men are most disposed to it: that is, in the time of scarcity.

Because there is nothing on which the passions of men are so violent, and their judgment so

weak, and on which there exists such a multitude of ill-founded popular prejudices.

The great use of Government is as a restraint; and there is no restraint which it ought to put

upon others, and upon itself too, rather than on the fury of speculating under circumstances of

irritation. The number of idle tales spread about by the industry of faction, and by the zeal of

foolish good-intention, and greedily devoured by the malignant credulity of mankind, tends

infinitely to aggravate prejudices, which, in themselves, are more than sufficiently strong. In that

state of affairs, and of the publick with relation to them, the first thing that Government owes to

us, the people, is information; the next is timely coercion: the one to guide our judgment; the

other to regulate our tempers.

To provide for us in our necessities is not in the power of Government. It would be a vain

presumption in statesmen to think they can do it. The people maintain them, and not they the

people. It is in the power of Government to prevent much evil; it can do very little positive good

in this, or perhaps in any thing else. It is not only so of the state and statesman, but of all the

classes and descriptions of the Rich—they are the pensioners of the poor, and are maintained by

their superfluity. They are under an absolute, hereditary, and indefeasible dependance on those

who labour, and are miscalled the Poor.

The labouring people are only poor, because they are numerous. Numbers in their nature imply

poverty. In a fair distribution among a vast multitude, none can have much. That class of

dependant pensioners called the rich, is so extremely small, that if all their throats were cut, and

a distribution made of all they consume in a year, it would not give a bit of bread and cheese for

e 35 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

one night’s supper to those who labour, and who in reality feed both the pensioners and

themselves.

But the throats of the rich ought not to be cut, nor their magazines plundered; because, in their

persons they are trustees for those who labour, and their hoards are the banking-houses of these

latter. Whether they mean it or not, they do, in effect, execute their trust—some with more, some

with less fidelity and judgment. But on the whole, the duty is performed, and every thing returns,

deducting some very trifling commission and discount, to the place from whence it arose. When

the poor rise to destroy the rich, they act as wisely for their own purposes as when they burn

mills, and throw corn into the river, to make bread cheap.

When I say, that we of the people ought to be informed, inclusively I say, we ought not to be

flattered: flattery is the reverse of instruction. The poor in that case would be rendered as

improvident as the rich, which would not be at all good for them.

Nothing can be so base and so wicked as the political canting language, “The Labouring Poor. ”

Let compassion be shewn in action, the more the better, according to every man’s ability, but let

there be no lamentation of their condition. It is no relief to their miserable circumstances; it is

only an insult to their miserable understandings. It arises from a total want of charity, or a total

want of thought. Want of one kind was never relieved by want of any other kind. Patience, labour,

sobriety, frugality, and religion, should be recommended to them; all the rest is downright fraud.

It is horrible to call them “The once happy labourer.”

Whether what may be called moral or philosophical happiness of the laborious classes is increased

or not, I cannot say. The seat of that species of happiness is in the mind; and there are few data

to ascertain the comparative state of the mind at any two periods. Philosophical happiness is to

want little. Civil or vulgar happiness is to want much, and to enjoy much.

If the happiness of the animal man (which certainly goes somewhere towards the happiness of

the rational man) be the object of our estimate, then I assert, without the least hesitation, that

the condition of those who labour (in all descriptions of labour, and in all gradations of labour,

from the highest to the lowest inclusively) is on the whole extremely meliorated, if more and

better food is any standard of melioration. They work more, it is certain; but they have the

advantage of their augmented labour; yet whether that increase of labour be on the whole a good

or an evil, is a consideration that would lead us a great way, and is not for my present purpose.

But as to the fact of the melioration of their diet, I shall enter into the detail of proof whenever I

am called upon: in the mean time, the known difficulty of contenting them with any thing but

bread made of the finest flour, and meat of the first quality, is proof sufficient.

I further assert, that even under all the hardships of the last year, the labouring people did, either

out of their direct gains, or from charity, (which it seems is now an insult to them) in fact, fare

better than they did, in seasons of common plenty, 50 or 60 years ago; or even at the period of

my English observation, which is about 44 years. I even assert, that full as many in that class, as

ever were known to do it before, continued to save money; and this I can prove, so far as my

own information and experience extend.

It is not true that the rate of wages has not encreased with the nominal price of provisions. I

e 36 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

allow it has not fluctuated with that price, nor ought it; and the Squires of Norfolk

had dined,

when they gave it as their opinion, that it might or ought to rise and fall with the market of

provisions. The rate of wages in truth has no direct relation to that price. Labour is a commodity

like every other, and rises or falls according to the demand. This is in the nature of things;

however, the nature of things has provided for their necessities. Wages have been twice raised in

my time, and they bear a full proportion, or even a greater than formerly, to the medium of

provision during the last bad cycle of twenty years. They bear a full proportion to the result of

their labour. If we were wildly to attempt to force them beyond it, the stone which we had forced

up the hill would only fall back upon them in a diminished demand, or, what indeed is the far

lesser evil, an aggravated price of all the provisions, which are the result of their manual toil.

[There is an implied contract, much stronger than any instrument or article of agreement,

between the labourer in any occupation and his employer—that the labour, so far as that labour is

concerned, shall be sufficient to pay to the employer a profit on his capital, and a compensation

for his risk; in a word, that the labour shall produce an advantage equal to the payment.

Whatever is above that, is a direct tax; and if the amount of that tax be left to the will and

pleasure of another, it is an arbitrary tax.

If I understand it rightly, the tax proposed on the farming interest of this kingdom,

is to be

levied at what is called the discretion of justices of peace.

The questions arising on this scheme of arbitrary taxation are these—Whether it is better to leave

all dealing, in which there is no force or fraud, collusion or combination, entirely to the persons

mutually concerned in the matter contracted for; or to put the contract into the hands of those,

who can have none, or a very remote interest in it, and little or no knowledge of the subject.

It might be imagined that there would be very little difficulty in solving this question; for what

man, of any degree of reflection, can think, that a want of interest in any subject closely

connected with a want of skill in it, qualifies a person to intermeddle in any the least affair; much

less in affairs that vitally concern the agriculture of the kingdom, the first of all it’s concerns, and

the foundation of all it’s prosperity in every other matter, by which that prosperity is produced?

The vulgar error on this subject arises from a total confusion in the very idea of things widely

different in themselves; those of convention, and those of judicature. When a contract is making,

it is a matter of discretion and of interest between the parties. In that intercourse, and in what is

to arise from it, the parties are the masters. If they are not completely so, they are not free, and

therefore their contracts are void.

But this freedom has no farther extent, when the contract is made; then their discretionary

powers expire, and a new order of things takes it’s origin. Then, and not till then, and on a

difference between the parties, the office of the judge commences. He cannot dictate the

contract. It is his business to see that it be enforced; provided that it is not contrary to pre-

existing laws, or obtained by force or fraud. If he is in any way a maker or regulator of the

contract, in so much he is disqualified from being a judge. But this sort of confused distribution of

administrative and judicial characters, (of which we have already as much as is sufficient, and a

little more) is not the only perplexity of notions and passions which trouble us in the present

hour.

e 37 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

What is doing, supposes or pretends that the farmer and the labourer have opposite interests;

that the farmer oppresses the labourer; and that a gentleman called a justice of peace, is the

protector of the latter, and a controul and restraint on the former; and this is a point I wish to

examine in a manner a good deal different from that in which gentlemen proceed, who confide

more in their abilities than is fit, and suppose them capable of more than any natural abilities, fed

with no other than the provender furnished by their own private speculations, can accomplish.

Legislative acts, attempting to regulate this part of oeconomy, do, at least, as much as any other,

require the exactest detail of circumstances, guided by the surest general principles that are

necessary to direct experiment and enquiry, in order again from those details to elicit principles,

firm and luminous general principles, to direct a practical legislative proceeding.

First, then, I deny that it is in this case, as in any other of necessary implication, that contracting

parties should originally have had different interests. By accident it may be so undoubtedly at the

outset; but then the contract is of the nature of a compromise; and compromise is founded on

circumstances that suppose it the interest of the parties to be reconciled in some medium. The

principle of compromise adopted, of consequence the interests cease to be different.

But in the case of the farmer and the labourer, their interests are always the same, and it is

absolutely impossible that their free contracts can be onerous to either party. It is the interest of

the farmer, that his work should be done with effect and celerity: and that cannot be, unless the

labourer is well fed, and otherwise found with such necessaries of animal life, according to it’s

habitudes, as may keep the body in full force, and the mind gay and cheerful. For of all the

instruments of his trade, the labour of man (what the ancient writers have called the

instrumentum vocale) is that on which he is most to rely for the re-payment of his capital. The

other two, the semivocale in the ancient classification, that is, the working stock of cattle, and the

instrumentum mutum,

such as carts, ploughs, spades, and so forth, though not all

inconsiderable in themselves, are very much inferiour in utility or in expence; and without a given

portion of the first, are nothing at all. For in all things whatever, the mind is the most valuable

and the most important; and in this scale the whole of agriculture is in a natural and just order;

the beast is as an informing principle to the plough and cart; the labourer is as reason to the

beast; and the farmer is as a thinking and presiding principle to the labourer. An attempt to break

this chain of subordination in any part is equally absurd; but the absurdity is the most

mischievous in practical operation, where it is the most easy, that is, where it is the most subject

to an erroneous judgment.

It is plainly more the farmer’s interest that his men should thrive, than that his horses should be

well fed, sleek, plump, and fit for use, or than that his waggon and ploughs should be strong, in

good repair, and fit for service.

On the other hand, if the farmer ceases to profit of the labourer, and that his capital is not

continually manured and fructified, it is impossible that he should continue that abundant

nutriment, and cloathing, and lodging, proper for the protection of the instruments he employs.

It is therefore the first and fundamental interest of the labourer, that the farmer should have a

full incoming profit on the product of his labour. The proposition is self-evident, and nothing but

the malignity, perverseness, and ill-governed passions of mankind, and particularly the envy they

bear to each other’s prosperity, could prevent their seeing and acknowledging it, with

e 38 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

thankfulness to the benign and wise disposer of all things, who obliges men, whether they will or

not, in pursuing their own selfish interests, to connect the general good with their own individual

success.

But who are to judge what that profit and advantage ought to be? certainly no authority on earth.

It is a matter of convention dictated by the reciprocal conveniences of the parties, and indeed by

their reciprocal necessities. But, if the farmer is excessively avaricious?—why so much the

better—the more he desires to increase his gains, the more interested is he in the good condition

of those, upon whose labour his gains must principally depend.

I shall be told by the zealots of the sect of regulation, that this may be true, and may be safely

committed to the convention of the farmer and the labourer, when the latter is in the prime of his

youth, and at the time of his health and vigour, and in ordinary times of abundance. But in

calamitous seasons, under accidental illness, in declining life, and with the pressure of a

numerous offspring, the future nourishers of the community but the present drains and blood-

suckers of those who produce them, what is to be done? When a man cannot live and maintain

his family by the natural hire of his labour, ought it not to be raised by authority?

On this head I must be allowed to submit, what my opinions have ever been; and somewhat at

large.

And, first, I premise that labour is, as I have already intimated, a commodity, and as such, an

article of trade. If I am right in this notion, then labour must be subject to all the laws and

principles of trade, and not to regulations foreign to them, and that may be totally inconsistent

with those principles and those laws. When any commodity is carried to market, it is not the

necessity of the vender, but the necessity of the purchaser that raises the price. The extreme

want of the seller has rather (by the nature of things with which we shall in vain contend) the

direct contrary operation. If the goods at market are beyond the demand, they fall in their value;

if below it, they rise. The impossibility of the subsistence of a man, who carries his labour to a

market, is totally beside the question in this way of viewing it. The only question is, what is it

worth to the buyer?

But if authority comes in and forces the buyer to a price, who is this in the case (say) of a farmer,

who buys the labour of ten or twelve labouring men, and three or four handycrafts, what is it, but

to make an arbitrary division of his property among them?

The whole of his gains, I say it with the most certain conviction, never do amount any thing like

in value to what he pays to his labourers and artificers; so that a very small advance upon what

one man pays to many, may absorb the whole of what he possesses, and amount to an actual

partition of all his substance among them. A perfect equality will indeed be produced; that is to

say, equal want, equal wretchedness, equal beggary, and on the part of the partitioners, a

woeful, helpless, and desperate disappointment. Such is the event of all compulsory

equalizations. They pull down what is above. They never raise what is below: and they depress

high and low together beneath the level of what was originally the lowest.

If a commodity is raised by authority above what it will yield with a profit to the buyer, that

commodity will be the less dealt in. If a second blundering interposition be used to correct the

e 39 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

blunder of the first, and an attempt is made to force the purchase of the commodity (of labour for

instance), the one of these two things must happen, either that the forced buyer is ruined, or the

price of the product of the labour, in that proportion, is raised. Then the wheel turns round, and

the evil complained of falls with aggravated weight on the complainant. The price of corn, which is

the result of the expence of all the operations of husbandry, taken together, and for some time

continued, will rise on the labourer, considered as a consumer. The very best will be, that he

remains where he was. But if the price of the corn should not compensate the price of labour,

what is far more to be feared, the most serious evil, the very destruction of agriculture itself, is to

be apprehended.

Nothing is such an enemy to accuracy of judgment as a coarse discrimination; a want of such

classification and distribution as the subject admits of. Encrease the rate of wages to the

labourer, say the regulators—as if labour was but one thing and of one value. But this very broad

generic term, labour, admits, at least, of two or three specific descriptions: and these will suffice,

at least, to let gentlemen discern a little the necessity of proceeding with caution in their coercive

guidance of those whose existence depends upon the observance of still nicer distinctions and

sub-divisions, than commonly they resort to in forming their judgments on this very enlarged part

of economy.

The labourers in husbandry may be divided: 1st. into those who are able to perform the full work

of a man; that is, what can be done by a person from twenty-one years of age to fifty. I know no

husbandry work (mowing hardly excepted) that is not equally within the power of all persons

within those ages, the more advanced fully compensating by knack and habit what they lose in

activity. Unquestionably, there is a good deal of difference between the value of one man’s labour

and that of another, from strength, dexterity, and honest application. But I am quite sure, from

my best observation, that any given five men will, in their total, afford a proportion of labour

equal to any other five within the periods of life I have stated; that is, that among such five men

there will be one possessing all the qualifications of a good workman, one bad, and the other

three middling, and approximating to the first and the last. So that in so small a platoon as that

of even five, you will find the full complement of all that five men can earn. Taking five and five

throughout the kingdom, they are equal: therefore, an error with regard to the equalization of

their wages by those who employ five, as farmers do at the very least, cannot be considerable.

2dly. Those who are able to work, but not the complete task of a day-labourer. This class is

infinitely diversified, but will aptly enough fall into principal divisions. Men, from the decline,

which after fifty becomes every year more sensible, to the period of debility and decrepitude, and

the maladies that precede a final dissolution. Women, whose employment on husbandry is but

occasional, and who differ more in effective labour one from another than men do, on account of

gestation, nursing, and domestic management, over and above the difference they have in

common with men in advancing, in stationary, and in declining life. Children, who proceed on the

reverse order, growing from less to greater utility, but with a still greater disproportion of

nutriment to labour than is found in the second of these sub-divisions; as is visible to those who

will give themselves the trouble of examining into the interior economy of a poor-house.

This inferior classification is introduced to shew, that laws prescribing, or magistrates exercising,

a very stiff, and often inapplicable rule, or a blind and rash discretion, never can provide the just

proportions between earning and salary on the one hand, and nutriment on the other: whereas

e 40 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

interest, habit, and the tacit convention, that arise from a thousand nameless circumstances,

produce a tact that regulates without difficulty, what laws and magistrates cannot regulate at all.

The first class of labour wants nothing to equalize it; it equalizes itself. The second and third are

not capable of any equalization.

But what if the rate of hire to the labourer comes far short of his necessary subsistence, and the

calamity of the time is so great as to threaten actual famine? Is the poor labourer to be

abandoned to the flinty heart and griping hand of base self-interest, supported by the sword of

law, especially when there is reason to suppose that the very avarice of farmers themselves has

concurred with the errors of Government to bring famine on the land.

In that case, my opinion is this. Whenever it happens that a man can claim nothing according to

the rules of commerce, and the principles of justice, he passes out of that department, and comes

within the jurisdiction of mercy. In that province the magistrate has nothing at all to do: his

interference is a violation of the property which it is his office to protect. Without all doubt,

charity to the poor is a direct and obligatory duty upon all Christians, next in order after the

payment of debts, full as strong, and by nature made infinitely more delightful to us. Puffendorf,

and other casuists do not, I think, denominate it quite properly, when they call it a duty of

imperfect obligation. But the manner, mode, time, choice of objects, and proportion, are left to

private discretion; and perhaps, for that very reason it is performed with the greater satisfaction,

because the discharge of it has more the appearance of freedom; recommending us besides very

specially to the divine favour, as the exercise of a virtue most suitable to a being sensible of it’s

own infirmity.]

The cry of the people in cities and towns, though unfortunately (from a fear of their multitude and

combination) the most regarded, ought, in fact, to be the least attended to upon this subject; for

citizens are in a state of utter ignorance of the means by which they are to be fed, and they

contribute little or nothing, except in an infinitely circuitous manner, to their own maintenance.

They are truly “ Fruges consumere nati. ”

They are to be heard with great respect and attention

upon matters within their province, that is, on trades and manufactures; but on any thing that

relates to agriculture, they are to be listened to with the same reverence which we pay to the

dogmas of other ignorant and presumptuous men.

If any one were to tell them, that they were to give in an account of all the stock in their shops;

that attempts would be made to limit their profits, or raise the price of the labouring

manufacturers upon them, or recommend to Government, out of a capital from the publick

revenues, to set up a shop of the same commodities, in order to rival them, and keep them to

reasonable dealing, they would very soon see the impudence, injustice, and oppression of such a

course. They would not be mistaken; but they are of opinion, that agriculture is to be subject to

other laws; and to be governed by other principles.

A greater and more ruinous mistake cannot be fallen into, than that the trades of agriculture and

grazing can be conducted upon any other than the common principles of commerce; namely, that

the producer should be permitted, and even expected, to look to all possible profit which, without

fraud or violence, he can make; to turn plenty or scarcity to the best advantage he can; to keep

back or to bring forward his commodities at his pleasure; to account to no one for his stock or for

his gain. On any other terms he is the slave of the consumer; and that he should be so is of no

e 41 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

benefit to the consumer. No slave was ever so beneficial to the master as a freeman that deals

with him on an equal footing by convention, formed on the rules and principles of contending

interests and compromised advantages. The consumer, if he were suffered, would in the end

always be the dupe of his own tyranny and injustice. The landed gentleman is never to forget,

that the farmer is his representative.

[It is a perilous thing to try experiments on the farmer. The farmer’s capital (except in a few

persons, and in a very few places) is far more feeble than commonly is imagined. The trade is a

very poor trade; it is subject to great risks and losses. The capital, such as it is, is turned but

once in the year; in some branches it requires three years before the money is paid. I believe

never less than three in the turnip and grass-land course, which is the prevalent course on the

more or less fertile, sandy and gravelly loams, and these compose the soil in the south and

south-east of England, the best adapted, and perhaps the only ones that are adapted, to the

turnip husbandry.

It is very rare that the most prosperous farmer, counting the value of his quick and dead stock,

the interest of the money he turns, together with his own wages as a bailiff or overseer, ever

does make twelve or fifteen per centum by the year on his capital. I speak of the prosperous. In

most of the parts of England which have fallen within my observation, I have rarely known a

farmer, who to his own trade has not added some other employment or traffic, that, after a

course of the most unremitting parsimony and labour (such for the greater part is theirs), and

persevering in his business for a long course of years, died worth more than paid his debts,

leaving his posterity to continue in nearly the same equal conflict between industry and want, in

which the last predecessor, and a long line of predecessors before him, lived and died.

Observe that I speak of the generality of farmers who have not more than from one hundred and

fifty to three or four hundred acres. There are few in this part of the country within the former, or

much beyond the latter, extent. Unquestionably in other places there are much larger. But, I am

convinced, whatever part of England be the theatre of his operations, a farmer who cultivates

twelve hundred acres, which I consider as a large farm, though I know there are larger, cannot

proceed, with any degree of safety and effect, with a smaller capital than ten thousand pounds;

and that he cannot, in the ordinary course of culture, make more upon that great capital of ten

thousand pounds, than twelve hundred a year.

As to the weaker capitals, an easy judgment may be formed by what very small errors they may

be farther attenuated, enervated, rendered unproductive, and perhaps totally destroyed.

This constant precariousness and ultimate moderate limits of a farmer’s fortune, on the strongest

capital, I press, not only on account of the hazardous speculations of the times, but because the

excellent and most useful works of my friend, Mr. Arthur Young, tend to propagate that error

(such I am very certain it is, of the largeness of a farmer’s profits). It is not that his account of

the produce does often greatly exceed, but he by no means makes the proper allowance for

accidents and losses. I might enter into a convincing detail, if other more troublesome and more

necessary details were not before me.

This proposed discretionary tax on labour militates with the recommendations of the Board of

eco

use

rill

e 42 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

where the soil is not excessively heavy, or incumbered with large loose stones (which however is

the case with much otherwise good land), that course is the best, and most productive, provided

that the most accurate eye; the most vigilant superintendance; the most prompt activity, which

has no such day as to-morrow in its calendar; the most steady foresight and pre-disposing order

to have every body and every thing ready in it’s place, and prepared to take advantage of the

fortunate fugitive moment in this coquetting climate of ours—provided, I say, all these combine to

speed the plough, I admit its superiority over the old and general methods. But under

procrastinating, improvident, ordinary husbandmen, who may neglect or let slip the few

opportunities of sweetening and purifying their ground with perpetually renovated toil, and

undissipated attention, nothing, when tried to any extent, can be worse, or more dangerous: the

farm may be ruined, instead of having the soil enriched and sweetened by it.

But the excellence of the method on a proper soil, and conducted by an husbandman, of whom

there are few, being readily granted, how, and on what conditions, is this culture obtained? Why,

by a very great encrease of labour; by an augmentation of the third part, at least, of the hand-

labour, to say nothing of the horses and machinery employed in ordinary tillage. Now, every man

must be sensible how little becoming the gravity of Legislature it is to encourage a Board, which

recommends to us, and upon very weighty reasons unquestionably, an enlargement of the capital

we employ in the operations of the land, and then to pass an act which taxes that manual labour,

already at a very high rate; thus compelling us to diminish the quantity of labour which in the

vulgar course we actually employ.]

What is true of the farmer is equally true of the middle man; whether the middle man acts as

factor,

jobber, salesman, or speculator, in the markets of grain. These traders are to be left to

their free course; and the more they make, and the richer they are, and the more largely they

deal, the better both for the farmer and consumer, between whom they form a natural and most

useful link of connection; though, by the machinations of the old evil counsellor, Envy, they are

hated and maligned by both parties.

I hear that middle men are accused of monopoly. Without question, the monopoly of authority is,

in every instance and in every degree, an evil; but the monopoly of capital is the contrary. It is a

great benefit, and a benefit particularly to the poor. A tradesman who has but a hundred pound

capital, which (say) he can turn but once a year, cannot live upon a profit of 10 per cent. because

he cannot live upon ten pounds a year; but a man of ten thousand pounds capital can live and

thrive upon 5 per cent. profit in the year, because he has five hundred pounds a year. The same

proportion holds in turning it twice or thrice. These principles are plain and simple; and it is not

our ignorance, so much as the levity, the envy, and the malignity of our nature, that hinders us

from perceiving and yielding to them: but we are not to suffer our vices to usurp the place of our

judgment.

The balance between consumption and production makes price. The market settles, and alone can

settle, that price. Market is the meeting and conference of the consumer and producer, when they

mutually discover each other’s wants. Nobody, I believe, has observed with any reflection what

market is, without being astonished at the truth, the correctness, the celerity, the general equity,

with which the balance of wants is settled. They who wish the destruction of that balance, and

would fain by arbitrary regulation decree, that defective production should not be compensated

by encreased price, directly lay their axe to the root of production itself.

e 43 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

They may even in one year of such false policy, do mischiefs incalculable; because the trade of a

farmer is, as I have before explained, one of the most precarious in its advantages, the most

liable to losses, and the least profitable of any that is carried on. It requires ten times more of

labour, of vigilance, of attention, of skill, and let me add, of good fortune also, to carry on the

business of a farmer with success, than what belongs to any other trade. Seeing things in this

light, I am far from presuming to censure the late circular instruction of Council to Lord

Lieutenants

—but I confess I do not clearly discern its object. I am greatly afraid that the

enquiry will raise some alarm as a measure, leading to the French system of putting corn into

requisition. For that was preceded by an inquisition somewhat similar in it’s principle, though,

according to their mode, their principles are full of that violence, which here is not much to be

feared. It goes on a principle directly opposite to mine: it presumes, that the market is no fair

test of plenty or scarcity. It raises a suspicion, which may affect the tranquillity of the public

mind, “that the farmer keeps back, and takes unfair advantages by delay”; on the part of the

dealer, it gives rise obviously to a thousand nefarious speculations.

In case the return should on the whole prove favourable, is it meant to ground a measure for

encouraging exportation and checking the import of corn? If it is not, what end can it answer?

And, I believe, it is not.

This opinion may be fortified by a report gone abroad, that intentions are entertained of erecting

public granaries, and that this enquiry is to give Government an advantage in it’s purchases.

I hear that such a measure has been proposed, and is under deliberation, that is, for Government

to set up a granary in every market town, at the expence of the state, in order to extinguish the

dealer, and to subject the farmer to the consumer, by securing corn to the latter at a certain and

steady price.

If such a scheme is adopted, I should not like to answer for the safety of the granary, of the

agents, or of the town itself, in which the granary was erected—the first storm of popular phrenzy

would fall upon that granary.

So far in a political light.

In an economical light, I must observe, that the construction of such granaries throughout the

kingdom, would be at an expence beyond all calculation. The keeping them up would be at a

great charge. The management and attendance would require an army of agents, store-keepers,

clerks, and servants. The capital to be employed in the purchase of grain would be enormous. The

waste, decay, and corruption, would be a dreadful drawback on the whole dealing; and the

dissatisfaction of the people, at having decayed, tainted, or corrupted corn sold to them, as must

be the case, would be serious.

This climate (whatever others may be) is not favourable to granaries, where wheat is to be kept

for any time. The best, and indeed the only good granary, is the rick-yard of the farmer, where

the corn is preserved in it’s own straw, sweet, clean, wholesome, free from vermin and from

insects, and comparatively at a trifle of expence. This, with the barn, enjoying many of the same

advantages, have been the sole granaries of England from the foundation of it’s agriculture to this

day. All this is done at the expence of the undertaker, and at his sole risk. He contributes to

e 44 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

Government; he receives nothing from it but protection, and to this he has a claim.

The moment that Government appears at market, all the principles of market will be subverted. I

don’t know whether the farmer will suffer by it, as long as there is a tolerable market of

competition; but I am sure that, in the first place, the trading government will speedily become a

bankrupt, and the consumer in the end will suffer. If Government makes all it’s purchases at

once, it will instantly raise the market upon itself. If it makes them by degrees, it must follow the

course of the market. If it follows the course of the market, it will produce no effect, and the

consumer may as well buy as he wants—therefore all the expence is incurred gratis.

But if the object of this scheme should be, what I suspect it is, to destroy the dealer, commonly

called the middle man, and by incurring a voluntary loss to carry the baker to deal with

Government, I am to tell them that they must set up another trade, that of a miller or a

mealman, attended with a new train of expences and risks. If in both these trades they should

succeed, so as to exclude those who trade on natural and private capitals, then they will have a

monopoly in their hands, which, under the appearance of a monopoly of capital, will, in reality, be

a monopoly of authority, and will ruin whatever it touches. The agriculture of the kingdom cannot

stand before it.

A little place like Geneva, of not more than from twenty-five to thirty thousand inhabitants, which

has no territory, or next to none; which depends for it’s existence on the good-will of three

neighbouring powers, and is of course continually in the state of something like a siege, or in the

speculation of it, might find some resource in state granaries, and some revenue from the

monopoly of what was sold to the keepers of public-houses. This is a policy for a state too small

for agriculture. It is not (for instance) fit for so great a country as the Pope possesses, where,

however, it is adopted and pursued in a greater extent, and with more strictness. Certain of the

Pope’s territories, from whence the city of Rome is supplied, being obliged to furnish Rome and

the granaries of his Holiness with corn at a certain price, that part of the papal territories is

utterly ruined. That ruin may be traced with certainty to this sole cause, and it appears

indubitably by a comparison of their state and condition with that of the other part of the

ecclesiastical dominions not subjected to the same regulations, which are in circumstances highly

flourishing.

The reformation of this evil system is in a manner impracticable; for, first, it does keep bread and

all other provisions equally subject to the chamber of supply, at a pretty reasonable and regular

price, in the city of Rome. This preserves quiet among the numerous poor, idle, and naturally

mutinous people, of a very great capital. But the quiet of the town is purchased by the ruin of the

country, and the ultimate wretchedness of both. The next cause which renders this evil incurable,

is, the jobs which have grown out of it, and which, in spite of all precautions, would grow out of

such things, even under governments far more potent than the feeble authority of the Pope.

This example of Rome which has been derived from the most ancient times, and the most

flourishing period of the Roman empire (but not of the Roman agriculture) may serve as a great

caution to all Governments, not to attempt to feed the people out of the hands of the

magistrates. If once they are habituated to it, though but for one half-year, they will never be

satisfied to have it otherwise. And, having looked to Government for bread, on the very first

scarcity they will turn and bite the hand that fed them. To avoid that evil, Government will

e 45 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

redouble the causes of it; and then it will become inveterate and incurable.

I beseech the Government (which I take in the largest sense of the word, comprehending the two

Houses of Parliament) seriously to consider that years of scarcity or plenty, do not come

alternately or at short intervals, but in pretty long cycles and irregularly, and consequently that

we cannot assure ourselves, if we take a wrong measure, from the temporary necessities of one

season; but that the next, and probably more, will drive us to the continuance of it; so that in my

opinion, there is no way of preventing this evil which goes to the destruction of all our agriculture,

and of that part of our internal commerce which touches our agriculture the most nearly, as well

as the safety and very being of Government, but manfully to resist the very first idea, speculative

or practical, that it is within the competence of Government, taken as Government, or even of the

rich, as rich, to supply to the poor, those necessaries which it has pleased the Divine Providence

for a while to with-hold from them. We, the people, ought to be made sensible, that it is not in

breaking the laws of commerce, which are the laws of nature, and consequently the laws of God,

that we are to place our hope of softening the Divine displeasure to remove any calamity under

which we suffer, or which hangs over us.

So far as to the principles of general policy.

As to the state of things which is urged as a reason to deviate from them, these are the

circumstances of the harvest of 1795 and 1794. With regard to the harvest of 1794, in relation to

the noblest grain, wheat, it is allowed to have been somewhat short, but not excessively; and in

quality, for the seven and twenty years, during which I have been a farmer, I never remember

wheat to have been so good. The world were, however, deceived in their speculations upon it—

the farmer as well as the dealer. Accordingly the price fluctuated beyond any thing I can

remember; for, at one time of the year, I sold my wheat at 14l. a load, (I sold off all I had, as I

thought this was a reasonable price), when at the end of the season, if I had then had any to sell,

I might have got thirty guineas for the same sort of grain. I sold all that I had, as I said, at a

comparatively low price, because I thought it a good price, compared with what I thought the

general produce of the harvest; but when I came to consider what my own total was, I found that

the quantity had not answered my expectation. It must be remembered, that this year of

produce, (the year 1794) short, but excellent, followed a year which was not extraordinary in

production, nor of a superior quality, and left but little in store. At first this was not felt, because

the harvest came in unusually early—earlier than common, by a full month.

The winter, at the end of 1794, and beginning of 1795, was more than usually unfavourable both

to corn and grass, owing to the sudden relaxation of very rigorous frosts, followed by rains, which

were again rapidly succeeded by frosts of still greater rigour than the first.

Much wheat was utterly destroyed. The clover grass suffered in many places. What I never

observed before, the rye-grass, or coarse bent, suffered more than the clover. Even the meadow-

grass in some places was killed to the very roots. In the spring, appearances were better than we

expected. All the early sown grain recovered itself, and came up with great vigour; but that,

which was late sown, was feeble, and did not promise to resist any blights, in the spring, which,

however, with all its unpleasant vissicitudes passed off very well; and nothing looked better than

the wheat at the time of blooming: but at that most critical time of all, a cold dry east wind,

attended with very sharp frosts, longer and stronger than I recollect at that time of year,

e 46 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

destroyed the flowers, and withered up, in an astonishing manner, the whole side of the ear next

to the wind. At that time I brought to town some of the ears, for the purpose of shewing to my

friends the operation of those unnatural frosts, and according to their extent I predicted a great

scarcity. But such is the pleasure of agreeable prospects, that my opinion was little regarded.

On threshing, I found things as I expected—the ears not filled, some of the capsules quite empty,

and several others containing only withered hungry grain, inferior to the appearance of rye. My

best ears and grains were not fine; never had I grain of so low a quality—yet I sold one load for

21l. At the same time I bought my seed wheat (it was excellent) at 23l. Since then the price has

risen, and I have sold about two load of the same sort at 23l. Such was the state of the market

when I left home last Monday. Little remains in my barn. I hope some in the rick may be better;

since it was earlier sown, as well as I can recollect. Some of my neighbours have better, some

quite as bad, or even worse. I suspect it will be found, that wherever the blighting wind and those

frosts at blooming time have prevailed, the produce of the wheat crop will turn out very

indifferent. Those parts which have escaped, will, I can hardly doubt, have a reasonable produce.

As to the other grains, it is to be observed, as the wheat ripened very late, (on account, I

conceive, of the blights) the barley got the start of it, and was ripe first. The crop was with me,

and wherever my enquiry could reach, excellent; in some places far superior to mine.

The clover, which came up with the barley, was the finest I remember to have seen.

The turnips of this year are generally good.

The clover sown last year, where not totally destroyed, gave two good crops, or one crop and a

plentiful feed; and, bating the loss of the rye-grass, I do not remember a better produce.

The meadow-grass yielded but a middling crop, and neither of the sown or natural grass was

there in any farmer’s possession any remainder from the year worth taking into account. In most

places, there was none at all.

Oats with me were not in a quantity more considerable than in commonly good seasons; but I

have never known them heavier, than they were in other places. The oat was not only an heavy,

but an uncommonly abundant crop. My ground under pease did not exceed an acre, or

thereabouts, but the crop was great indeed. I believe it is throughout the country exuberant.

It is however to be remarked, that as generally of all the grains, so particularly of the pease,

there was not the smallest quantity in reserve.

The demand of the year must depend solely on it’s own produce; and the price of the spring-corn

is not to be expected to fall very soon, or at any time very low.

Uxbridge is a great corn market. As I came through that town, I found that at the last market-

day, barley was at forty shillings a quarter; oats there were literally none; and the innkeeper was

obliged to send for them to London. I forgot to ask about pease. Potatoes were 5s. the bushel.

In the debate on this subject in the House, I am told that a leading member of great ability, little

e 47 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

conversant in these matters, observed, that the general uniform dearness of butcher’s meat,

butter, and cheese, could not be owing to a defective produce of wheat; and on this ground

insinuated a suspicion of some unfair practice on the subject, that called for enquiry.

Unquestionably the mere deficiency of wheat could not cause the dearness of the other articles,

which extends not only to the provisions he mentioned, but to every other without exception.

The cause is indeed so very plain and obvious, that the wonder is the other way. When a properly

directed enquiry is made, the gentlemen who are amazed at the price of these commodities will

find, that when hay is at six pound a load, as they must know it is, herbage, and for more than

one year, must be scanty, and they will conclude, that if grass be scarce, beef, veal, mutton,

butter, milk, and cheese, must be dear.

But to take up the matter somewhat more in detail—if the wheat harvest in 1794, excellent in

quality, was defective in quantity, the barley harvest was in quality ordinary enough; and in

quantity deficient. This was soon felt in the price of malt.

Another article of produce (beans) was not at all plentiful. The crop of pease was wholly

destroyed, so that several farmers pretty early gave up all hopes on that head, and cut the green

haulm as fodder for the cattle, then perishing for want of food in that dry and burning summer. I

myself came off better than most—I had about the fourth of a crop of pease.

It will be recollected, that, in a manner, all the bacon and pork consumed in this country, (the far

largest consumption of meat out of towns) is, when growing, fed on grass, and on whey, or

skimmed milk; and when fatting, partly on the latter. This is the case in the dairy countries, all of

them great breeders and feeders of swine; but for the much greater part, and in all the corn

countries, they are fattened on beans, barley meal, and pease. When the food of the animal is

scarce, his flesh must be dear. This, one would suppose, would require no great penetration to

discover.

This failure of so very large a supply of flesh in one species, naturally throws the whole demand

of the consumer on the diminished supply of all kinds of flesh, and, indeed, on all the matters of

human sustenance. Nor, in my opinion, are we to expect a greater cheapness in that article for

this year, even though corn should grow cheaper, as it is to be hoped it will. The store swine,

from the failure of subsistence last year, are now at an extravagant price. Pigs, at our fairs, have

sold lately for fifty shillings, which, two years ago, would not have brought more than twenty.

As to sheep, none, I thought, were strangers to the general failure of the article of turnips last

year; the early having been burned as they came up, by the great drought and heat; the late,

and those of the early which had escaped, were destroyed by the chilling frosts of the winter, and

the wet and severe weather of the spring. In many places a full fourth of the sheep or the lambs

were lost, what remained of the lambs were poor and ill-fed, the ewes having had no milk. The

calves came late, and they were generally an article, the want of which was as much to be

dreaded as any other. So that article of food, formerly so abundant in the early part of the

summer, particularly in London, and which in a great part supplied the place of mutton for near

two months, did little less than totally fail.

e 48 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

All the productions of the earth link in with each other. All the sources of plenty, in all and every

article, were dried or frozen up. The scarcity was not as gentlemen seem to suppose, in wheat

only.

Another cause, and that not of inconsiderable operation, tended to produce a scarity in flesh

provision. It is one that on many accounts cannot be too much regretted, and, the rather, as it

was the sole cause of scarcity in that article, which arose from the proceedings of men

themselves. I mean the stop put to the distillery.

The hogs (and that would be sufficient) which were fed with the waste wash of that produce, did

not demand the fourth part of the corn used by farmers in fattening them. The spirit was nearly

so much clear gain to the nation. It is an odd way of making flesh cheap, to stop or check the

distillery.

The distillery in itself produces an immense article of trade almost all over the world, to Africa, to

North America, and to various parts of Europe. It is of great use, next to food itself, to our

fisheries and to our whole navigation. A great part of the distillery was carried on by damaged

corn, unfit for bread, and by barley and malt of the lowest quality. These things could not be

more unexceptionably employed. The domestic consumption of spirits, produced, without

complaints, a very great revenue, applicable, if we pleased, in bounties

to the bringing corn

from other places, far beyond the value of that consumed in making it, or to the encouragement

of it’s encreased production at home.

As to what is said, in a physical and moral view, against the home consumption of spirits,

experience has long since taught me very little to respect the declamations on that subject—

whether the thunder of the laws, or the thunder of eloquence, “is hurled on gin, ”

always I am

thunder-proof. The alembic,

in my mind, has furnished to the world a far greater benefit and

blessing, than if the opus maximum

had been really found by chemistry, and, like Midas, we

could turn every thing into gold.

Undoubtedly there may be a dangerous abuse in the excess of spirits; and at one time I am ready

to believe the abuse was great. When spirits are cheap, the business of drunkenness is atchieved

with little time or labour; but that evil I consider to be wholly done away. Observation for the last

forty years, and very particularly for the last thirty, has furnished me with ten instances of

drunkenness from other causes, for one from this. Ardent spirit is a great medicine, often to

remove distempers—much more frequently to prevent them, or to chase them away in their

beginnings. It is not nutritive in any great degree. But, if not food, it greatly alleviates the want of

it. It invigorates the stomach for the digestion of poor meagre diet, not easily alliable to the

human constitution. Wine the poor cannot touch. Beer, as applied to many occasions, (as among

seamen and fishermen for instance) will by no means do the business. Let me add, what wits

inspired with champaign and claret, will turn into ridicule—it is a medicine for the mind. Under the

pressure of the cares and sorrows of our mortal condition, men have at all times, and in all

countries, called in some physical aid to their moral consolations—wine, beer, opium, brandy, or

tobacco.

I consider therefore the stopping of the distillery, oeconomically, financially, commercially,

medicinally, and in some degree morally too, as a measure rather well meant than well

e 49 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

considered. It is too precious a sacrifice to prejudice.

Gentlemen well know whether there be a scarcity of partridges, and whether that be an effect of

hoarding and combination. All the same race of birds live and die as the wild do.

As to the lesser articles, they are like the greater. They have followed the fortune of the season.

Why are fowls dear? was not this the farmer’s or jobber’s fault. I sold from my yard to a jobber,

six young and lean fowls, for four and twenty shillings; fowls, for which, two years ago, the same

man would not have given a shilling a-piece. He sold them afterwards at Uxbridge, and they were

taken to London to receive the last hand.

As to the operation of the war in causing the scarcity of provisions, I understand that Mr. Pitt has

given a particular answer to it—but I do not think it worth powder and shot.

I do not wonder the papers are so full of this sort of matter, but I am a little surprised it should

be mentioned in parliament. Like all great state questions, peace and war may be discussed, and

different opinions fairly formed, on political grounds, but on a question of the present price of

provisions, when peace with the regicides is always uppermost, I can only say, that great is the

love of it.

After all, have we not reason to be thankful to the giver of all good? In our history, and when

“The labourer of England is said to have been once happy,” we find constantly, after certain

intervals, a period of real famine; by which, a melancholy havock was made among the human

race. The price of provisions fluctuated dreadfully, demonstrating a deficiency very different from

the worst failures of the present moment. Never since I have known England, have I known more

than a comparative scarcity. The price of wheat, taking a number of years together, has had no

very considerable fluctuation, nor has it risen exceedingly until within this twelvemonth. Even

now, I do not know of one man, woman, or child, that has perished from famine; fewer, if any, I

believe, than in years of plenty, when such a thing may happen by accident. This is owing to a

care and superintendance of the poor, far greater than any I remember.

The consideration of this ought to bind us all, rich and poor together, against those wicked writers

of the newspapers, who would inflame the poor against their friends, guardians, patrons, and

protectors. Not only very few (I have observed, that I know of none, though I live in a place as

poor as most) have actually died of want, but we have seen no traces of those dreadful

exterminating epidemics, which, in consequence of scanty and unwholesome food, in former

times, not unfrequently, wasted whole nations. Let us be saved from too much wisdom of our

own, and we shall do tolerably well.

[It is one of the finest problems in legislation, and what has often engaged my thoughts whilst I

followed that profession, “What the State ought to take upon itself to direct by the public wisdom,

and what it ought to leave, with as little interference as possible, to individual discretion.”

Nothing, certainly, can be laid down on the subject that will not admit of exceptions, many

permanent, some occasional. But the clearest line of distinction which I could draw, whilst I had

my chalk to draw any line, was this: That the State ought to confine itself to what regards the

State, or the creatures of the State, namely, the exterior establishment of its religion; its

magistracy; its revenue; its military force by sea and land; the corporations that owe their

e 50 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

existence to its fiat; in a word, to every thing that is truly and properly public, to the public

peace, to the public safety, to the public order, to the public prosperity. In it’s preventive police it

ought to be sparing of its efforts, and to employ means, rather few, unfrequent, and strong, than

many, and frequent, and, of course, as they multiply their puny politic race, and dwindle, small

and feeble. Statesmen who know themselves will, with the dignity which belongs to wisdom,

proceed only in this the superior orb and first mover of their duty, steadily, vigilantly, severely,

courageously: whatever remains will, in a manner, provide for itself. But as they descend from

the state to a province, from a province to a parish, and from a parish to a private house, they go

on accelerated in their fall. They cannot do the lower duty; and, in proportion as they try it, they

will certainly fail in the higher. They ought to know the different departments of things; what

belongs to laws, and what manners alone can regulate. To these, great politicians may give a

leaning, but they cannot give a law.

Our Legislature has fallen into this fault as well as other governments; all have fallen into it more

or less. The once mighty State, which was nearest to us locally, nearest to us in every way, and

whose ruins threaten to fall upon our heads, is a strong instance of this error.

I can never quote

France without a foreboding sigh—!

Scipio said it to his recording Greek friend amidst the flames

of the great rival of his country.

That state has fallen by the hands of the parricides of their

country, called the Revolutionists, and Constitutionalists, of France, a species of traitors, of whose

fury and atrocious wickedness nothing in the annals of the phrenzy and depravation of mankind

had before furnished an example, and of whom I can never think or speak without a mixed

sensation of disgust, of horrour, and of detestation, not easy to be expressed. These nefarious

monsters destroyed their country for what was good in it: for much good there was in the

constitution of that noble monarchy, which, in all kinds, formed and nourished great men, and

great patterns of virtue to the world. But though it’s enemies were not enemies to it’s faults, it’s

faults furnished them with means for it’s destruction. My dear departed friend,

whose loss is

even greater to the public than to me, had often remarked, that the leading vice of the French

monarchy (which he had well studied) was in good intention ill-directed, and a restless desire of

governing too much. The hand of authority was seen in every thing, and in every place. All,

therefore, that happened amiss in the course even of domestic affairs, was attributed to the

Government; and, as it always happens in this kind of officious universal interference, what

began in odious power, ended always, I may say without an exception, in contemptible

imbecillity. For this reason, as far as I can approve of any novelty, I thought well of the Provincial

Administrations. Those, if the superior power had been severe, and vigilant, and vigorous, might

have been of much use politically in removing government from many invidious details. But as

every thing is good or bad, as it is related or combined, government being relaxed above as it

was relaxed below, and the brains of the people growing more and more addle with every sort of

visionary speculation, the shiftings of the scene in the provincial theatres became only

preparatives to a revolution in the kingdom, and the popular actings there only the rehearsals of

the terrible drama of the republic.

Tyranny and cruelty may make men justly wish the downfall of abused powers, but I believe that

no government ever yet perished from any other direct cause than it’s own weakness. My opinion

is against an over-doing of any sort of administration, and more especially against this most

momentous of all meddling on the part of authority; the meddling with the subsistence of the

people.]

e 51 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

FINIS

ENDNOTES

[1.] Farmhand.

[1.]

Corn, as a general term, includes all the cereals, wheat, rye, barley, oats, maize, rice, etc.

[2.]

To “forestall” is to intercept goods before they reach the public market, to buy them up

privately and keep them off the market with a view to raising the price. Until 1772 it had been

forbidden by law.

[1.]

William Pitt the Younger, First Lord of the Treasury (Prime Minister) since 1784.

[2.]

In December 1795, “it was announced that a letter from Burke to Young on agricultural

wages would shortly appear.” W&S 9:119, headnote. This was a more precise description of the

subject of the memorandum than “rural oeconomics,” as this Preface calls it.

[1.]

The overtures for peace with Revolutionary France that occasioned Burke’s Letters on a

Regicide Peace, for which see volume 3.

[2.]

These interpolations have been placed in brackets for the convenience of the reader.

[1.]

See note on p. 77.

[1.]

The purchase of grain abroad by the British government to feed the poor at home.

[2.]

In June 1795, the distillation of spirits from wheat, barley, or malt was prohibited until

February 1796 in order to increase the supply of those grains to feed the population; in December

1796, the prohibition was extended to February 1797. W&S 9:141, n. 1.

[1.]

Badger: one who buys corn and other commodities and carries them elsewhere to sell—

more broadly, an itinerant middleman between producers and consumers; jobber: a piece-

worker, one employed by the job—more broadly, a middleman, broker, or small trader or

salesman; mealman: one who deals in meal, the edible part of any grain or pulse ground to a

powder, e.g., oatmeal, Indian cornmeal.

[1.]

Toll: a charge levied by a lord for the privilege of bringing goods to a market for sale;

stallage: a charge for the privilege of setting up a stall at a fair or market.

[2.]

Raw: raw silk, drawn from the cocoons by the process of reeling; organzine: the strongest

and best kind of silk thread, formed of several strands twisted together in the direction contrary

to that in which their component filaments are twisted.

[3.]

An old spelling for women engaged in the manufacture, use, or sale of silk.

[1.]

Burke may have mistakenly written Norfolk when he meant Suffolk, where the Justices of

e 52 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

the Peace recommended that the wages of laborers should be adjusted in proportion to the price

of corn. W&S 9:122–23.

[1.]

The reference is to the so-called Speenhamland system, which inspired Burke to write this

memorandum to William Pitt. In 1782, Parliament had enacted Gilbert’s Act, which authorized

local governments to grant allowances in aid of wages. Subsidizing the wages of the poor was not

even then a new departure in English law. On this basis, in 1795 the magistrates of Berkshire, a

county adjacent to Burke’s Buckinghamshire, met in the Pelican Inn in Speenhamland, and

adopted a scheme to ensure laborers a living wage. A minimum wage was fixed, which varied

with the price of corn; if the wages actually paid fell below that, they would be supplemented

from the poor rates.

[1.]

Instrumentum vocale, the tool that speaks; semivocale, the tool that utters sounds but not

words; mutum, the tool that is inanimate, hence mute.

[1.]

Samuel Pufendorf (1632–94), whose The Whole Duty of Man was used as a textbook at

Trinity College, Dublin, when Burke was a student there. It was a translation of Pufendorf’s De

officio hominis et civis, which in turn was an epitome, made by Pufendorf himself, of his famous

De jure gentium et naturae (1672).

[2.]

“Born to consume the fruits [of the earth].” Horace Epistles 1.2.27.

[1.]

To drill is to sow seeds or seedlings along a shallow furrow.

[1.]

One who acts for another as an agent, deputy, or representative; more narrowly, an agent

who buys or sells for another; a commission merchant.

[1.]

A circular letter sent by the Council through the Home Secretary to the Lords Lieutenant

asking them to hold magistrates’ meetings in their counties to ascertain the produce of the recent

harvest. W&S 9:133, n. 1.

[1.]

Bounty: a sum of money paid by government to merchants or manufacturers to encourage

an industry or trade. It could be a sum paid to exporters of corn because exports produced a

favorable balance of trade or, as here, to importers to encourage buying grain abroad in a time of

scarcity of corn at home. Burke was obviously not opposed to all government intervention in the

economy.

[2.]

See Alexander Pope’s Epilogue to the Satires, deploring the presumptuousness of the lower

classes in imitating the vices of their social superiors:

This, this, my friend, I cannot, must not bear;

Vice thus abused demands a nation’s care;

This calls the Church to deprecate our sin,

And hurls the thunder of the laws on gin.

Dialogue 1, lines 129–31.

[3.]

An apparatus used in distilling spirits.

e 53 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

[4.] The greatest work or art, that of realizing alchemy’s dream of turning base metals into gold.

[1.]

That of the fixing of prices by government.

[2.]

The first words of a passage in Homer, in which Hector tells his wife that he knows that Troy

is doomed:

The day will come when sacred Troy will perish,

And Priam and his people shall be slain.

Iliad 6.448–49.

[3.]

The Roman general Scipio, who had finally and fully conquered Carthage, repeated Hector’s

words, “The day will come,” when his Greek friend, the historian Polybius, asked him why he wept

when he saw Carthage in flames. He feared for Rome, too, says Polybius, “when he reflected on

the fate of all things human.” Histories 38.22.1–3.

[4.] His son Richard, who had died the year before, on August 2, 1794.

SPEECH ON FOX’S EAST INDIA BILL

[December 1, 1783]

Between 1773 and 1783, Burke’s thinking on the problem of British government

in India went through a radical change. The East India Company had been

chartered in 1600 as a commercial company with a monopoly of British trade

with India. As such Burke and the Rockingham Whigs still regarded it in 1773. In

their eyes, efforts to extend the control of government over the Company were

an attack on private property and chartered rights, and a dangerous extension of

the power of the Crown. They did not sufficiently attend to the fact that the

Company was no longer merely a trading enterprise. By its involvement in Indian

wars, it had become the ruler of extensive Indian territories, of which Bengal was

the principal one, and a major military and political power that controlled a

number of nominally independent states.

After 1773, Burke gradually became convinced that the Company was not only

exercising political power but was abusing it badly, to the detriment of the people

of India. He made himself as well versed as he could in Indian affairs, and when

he was appointed in 1781 to the House of Commons Select Committee on

Bengal, he had access to a steady flow of privileged information.

In April 1783, his party, the Rockingham Whigs, led since Rockingham’s death by

Charles James Fox, came into power in coalition with Lord North, whom they had

long opposed as George III’s prime minister during the greater part of the

American crisis. The Coalition submitted two bills in the Commons, one of which

would effectively put the political government of India under the control of a

commission appointed by Parliament. The other bill would put the management

e 54 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

of the Company’s commerce under another commission. The first, and more

important, of the bills was drafted and introduced by Fox but incorporated many

of Burke’s ideas; Burke is the acknowledged author of the second bill.

The present speech, made on a motion for the House of Commons to go into

committee to consider the first bill, was Burke’s major contribution to the debate

on it. Burke’s enlightened imperialism in regard to Britain’s government of India

may have been unduly idealistic in several ways. Many of his charges against the

Company, and against Governor-General Warren Hastings in particular, have

been controverted by historians on factual grounds. But the speech reflects his

conception of the proper role of Britain in governing other countries, his sincere

concern for the just treatment of the people of India, and his genuine sympathy

with their sufferings.

MR. BURKE’S SPEECH, ON THE 1ST DECEMBER 1783

[Upon the Question for the Speaker’s Leaving the Chair, in Order for the House

to Resolve Itself into a Committee on Mr. Fox’s East India Bill]

. S

PEAKER

I THANK YOU for pointing to me. I really wished much to engage your attention in an early stage of

the debate. I have been long very deeply, though perhaps ineffectually, engaged in the

preliminary enquiries, which have continued without intermission for some years. Though I have

felt, with some degree of sensibility, the natural and inevitable impressions of the several matters

of fact, as they have been successively disclosed, I have not at any time attempted to trouble you

on the merits of the subject; and very little on any of the points which incidentally arose in the

course of our proceedings. But I should be sorry to be found totally silent upon this day. Our

enquiries are now come to their final issue: It is now to be determined whether the three years of

laborious parliamentary research, whether the twenty years of patient Indian suffering, are to

produce a substantial reform in our Eastern administration; or whether our knowledge of the

grievances has abated our zeal for the correction of them, and whether our very enquiry into the

evil was only a pretext to elude the remedy which is demanded from us by humanity, by justice,

and by every principle of true policy. Depend upon it, this business cannot be indifferent to our

fame. It will turn out a matter of great disgrace or great glory to the whole British nation. We are

on a conspicuous stage, and the world marks our demeanour.

I am therefore a little concerned to perceive the spirit and temper in which the debate has been

all along pursued, upon one side of the House. The declamation of the Gentlemen who oppose the

bill has been abundant and vehement, but they have been reserved and even silent about the

fitness or unfitness of the plan to attain the direct object it has in view. By some gentlemen it is

taken up (by way of exercise I presume) as a point of law on a question of private property, and

corporate franchise;

by others it is regarded as the petty intrigue of a faction at court, and

argued merely as it tends to set this man a little higher, or that a little lower in situation and

power. All the void has been filled up with invectives against coalition; with allusions to the loss of

America; with the activity and inactivity of ministers. The total silence of these gentlemen

concerning the interest and well-being of the people of India, and concerning the interest which

e 55 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

this nation has in the commerce and revenues of that country, is a strong indication of the value

which they set upon these objects.

It has been a little painful to me to observe the intrusion into this important debate of such

company as Quo Warranto, and Mandamus, and Certiorari; as if we were on a trial about mayors

and aldermen, and capital burgesses; or engaged in a suit concerning the borough of Penryn, or

Saltash, or St. Ives, or St. Mawes. Gentlemen have argued with as much heat and passion, as if

the first things in the world were at stake; and their topics are such, as belong only to matter of

the lowest and meanest litigation. It is not right, it is not worthy of us, in this manner to

depreciate the value, to degrade the majesty of this grave deliberation of policy and empire.

For my part, I have thought myself bound, when a matter of this extraordinary weight came

before me, not to consider (as some Gentlemen are so fond of doing) whether the bill originated

from a Secretary of State for the home department, or from a Secretary for the foreign; from a

minister of influence or a minister of the people; from Jacob or from Esau.

I asked myself, and I

asked myself nothing else, what part it was fit for a member of parliament, who has supplied a

mediocrity of talents by the extreme of diligence, and who has thought himself obliged, by the

research of years, to wind himself into the inmost recesses and labyrinths of the Indian detail,

what part, I say, it became such a member of parliament to take, when a minister of state, in

conformity to a recommendation from the throne,

has brought before us a system for the better

government of the territory and commerce of the East. In this light, and in this only, I will trouble

you with my sentiments.

It is not only agreed but demanded, by the Right Honourable gentleman,

and by those who act

with him, that a whole system ought to be produced; that it ought not to be an half measure;

that it ought to be no palliative; but a legislative provision, vigorous, substantial, and effective. I

believe that no man who understands the subject can doubt for a moment, that those must be

the conditions of any thing deserving the name of a reform in the Indian government; that any

thing short of them would not only be delusive, but, in this matter which admits no medium,

noxious in the extreme.

To all the conditions proposed by his adversaries the mover of the bill perfectly agrees; and on his

performance of them he rests his cause. On the other hand, not the least objection has been

taken, with regard to the efficiency, the vigour, or the completeness of the scheme. I am

therefore warranted to assume, as a thing admitted, that the bills accomplish what both sides of

the House demand as essential. The end is completely answered, so far as the direct and

immediate object is concerned.

But though there are no direct, yet there are various collateral objections made; objections from

the effects, which this plan of reform for Indian administration may have on the privileges of

great public bodies in England; from its probable influence on the constitutional rights, or on the

freedom and integrity of the several branches of the legislature.

Before I answer these objections I must beg leave to observe, that if we are not able to contrive

some method of governing India well, which will not of necessity become the means of governing

Great Britain ill, a ground is laid for their eternal separation; but none for sacrificing the people of

that country to our constitution. I am however far from being persuaded that any such

e 56 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

incompatibility of interest does at all exist. On the contrary I am certain that every means,

effectual to preserve India from oppression, is a guard to preserve the British constitution from its

worst corruption. To shew this, I will consider the objections, which I think are four.

1st. That the bill is an attack on the chartered rights of men.

2dly. That it increases the influence of the crown.

3dly. That it does not increase, but diminishes, the influence of the crown, in order to

promote the interests of certain ministers and their party.

4thly. That it deeply affects the national credit.

As to the first of these objections; I must observe that the phrase of “the chartered rights of

men,” is full of affectation; and very unusual in the discussion of privileges conferred by charters

of the present description. But it is not difficult to discover what end that ambiguous mode of

expression, so often reiterated, is meant to answer.

The rights of men,

that is to say, the natural rights of mankind, are indeed sacred things; and if

any public measure is proved mischievously to affect them, the objection ought to be fatal to that

measure, even if no charter at all could be set up against it. If these natural rights are further

affirmed and declared by express covenants, if they are clearly defined and secured against

chicane, against power, and authority, by written instruments and positive engagements, they

are in a still better condition:

they partake not only of the sanctity of the object so secured, but

of that solemn public faith itself, which secures an object of such importance. Indeed this formal

recognition, by the sovereign power, of an original right in the subject, can never be subverted,

but by rooting up the holding radical principles of government, and even of society itself. The

charters, which we call by distinction great, are public instruments of this nature; I mean the

charters of King John and King Henry the Third. The things secured by these instruments may,

without any deceitful ambiguity, be very fitly called the chartered rights of men.

These charters have made the very name of a charter dear to the heart of every Englishman—

But, Sir, there may be, and there are charters, not only different in nature, but formed on

principles the very reverse of those of the great charter. Of this kind is the charter of the East

India Company. Magna charta is a charter to restrain power, and to destroy monopoly. The East

India charter is a charter to establish monopoly, and to create power. Political power and

commercial monopoly are not the rights of men; and the rights to them derived from charters, it

is fallacious and sophistical to call “the chartered rights of men.” These chartered rights, (to speak

of such charters and of their effects in terms of the greatest possible moderation) do at least

suspend the natural rights of mankind at large; and in their very frame and constitution are liable

to fall into a direct violation of them.

It is a charter of this latter description (that is to say a charter of power and monopoly) which is

affected by the bill before you. The bill, Sir, does, without question, affect it; it does affect it

essentially and substantially. But, having stated to you of what description the chartered rights

are which this bill touches, I feel no difficulty at all in acknowledging the existence of those

chartered rights, in their fullest extent. They belong to the Company in the surest manner; and

they are secured to that body by every sort of public sanction. They are stamped by the faith of

the King; they are stamped by the faith of Parliament; they have been bought for money, for

money honestly and fairly paid; they have been bought for valuable consideration, over and over

e 57 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

again.

I therefore freely admit to the East India Company their claim to exclude their fellow-subjects

from the commerce of half the globe. I admit their claim to administer an annual territorial

revenue of seven millions sterling; to command an army of sixty thousand men; and to dispose,

(under the control of a sovereign imperial discretion, and with the due observance of the natural

and local law) of the lives and fortunes of thirty millions of their fellow-creatures. All this they

possess by charter and by acts of parliament, (in my opinion) without a shadow of controversy.

Those who carry the rights and claims of the Company the furthest do not contend for more than

this; and all this I freely grant. But granting all this, they must grant to me in my turn, that all

political power which is set over men, and that all privilege claimed or exercised in exclusion of

them, being wholly artificial, and for so much, a derogation from the natural equality of mankind

at large, ought to be some way or other exercised ultimately for their benefit.

If this is true with regard to every species of political dominion, and every description of

commercial privilege, none of which can be original self-derived rights, or grants for the mere

private benefit of the holders, then such rights, or privileges, or whatever else you choose to call

them, are all in the strictest sense a trust; and it is of the very essence of every trust to be

rendered accountable; and even totally to cease, when it substantially varies from the purposes

for which alone it could have a lawful existence.

This I conceive, Sir, to be true of trusts of power vested in the highest hands, and of such as

seem to hold of no human creature. But about the application of this principle to subordinate

derivative trusts, I do not see how a controversy can be maintained. To whom then would I make

the East India Company accountable? Why, to Parliament

to be sure; to Parliament, from whom

their trust was derived; to Parliament, which alone is capable of comprehending the magnitude of

its object, and its abuse; and alone capable of an effectual legislative remedy. The very charter,

which is held out to exclude Parliament from correcting malversation with regard to the high trust

vested in the Company, is the very thing which at once gives a title and imposes a duty on us to

interfere with effect, wherever power and authority originating from ourselves are perverted from

their purposes, and become instruments of wrong and violence.

If Parliament, Sir, had nothing to do with this charter, we might have some sort of Epicurean

excuse to stand aloof, indifferent spectators of what passes in the Company’s name in India and

in London. But if we are the very cause of the evil, we are in a special manner engaged to the

redress; and for us passively to bear with oppressions committed under the sanction of our own

authority, is in truth and reason for this House to be an active accomplice in the abuse.

That the power notoriously, grossly, abused has been bought from us is very certain. But this

circumstance, which is urged against the bill, becomes an additional motive for our interference;

lest we should be thought to have sold the blood of millions of men, for the base consideration of

money. We sold, I admit, all that we had to sell; that is our authority, not our controul. We had

not a right to make a market of our duties.

I ground myself therefore on this principle—that if the abuse is proved, the contract is broken;

and we re-enter into all our rights; that is, into the exercise of all our duties. Our own authority is

e 58 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

indeed as much a trust originally, as the Company’s authority is a trust derivatively; and it is the

use we make of the resumed power that must justify or condemn us in the resumption of it.

When we have perfected the plan laid before us by the Right Honourable mover, the world will

then see what it is we destroy, and what it is we create. By that test we stand or fall; and by that

test I trust that it will be found in the issue, that we are going to supersede a charter abused to

the full extent of all the powers which it could abuse, and exercised in the plenitude of despotism,

tyranny, and corruption; and that, in one and the same plan, we provide a real chartered security

for the rights of men cruelly violated under that charter.

This bill, and those connected with it, are intended to form the Magna Charta of Hindostan.

Whatever the treaty of Westphalia

is to the liberty of the princes and free cities of the empire,

and to the three religions there professed—Whatever the great charter,

the statute of tallage,

the petition of right,

and the declaration of right,

are to Great Britain, these bills are to the

people of India. Of this benefit, I am certain, their condition is capable; and when I know that

they are capable of more, my vote shall most assuredly be for our giving to the full extent of their

capacity of receiving; and no charter of dominion shall stand as a bar in my way to their charter

of safety and protection.

The strong admission I have made of the Company’s rights (I am conscious of it) binds me to do

a great deal. I do not presume to condemn those who argue a priori, against the propriety of

leaving such extensive political powers in the hands of a company of merchants. I know much is,

and much more may be said against such a system. But, with my particular ideas and sentiments,

I cannot go that way to work. I feel an insuperable reluctance in giving my hand to destroy any

established institution of government, upon a theory, however plausible it may be. My experience

in life teaches me nothing clear upon the subject. I have known merchants with the sentiments

and the abilities of great statesmen; and I have seen persons in the rank of statesmen, with the

conceptions and character of pedlars. Indeed, my observation has furnished me with nothing that

is to be found in any habits of life or education, which tends wholly to disqualify men for the

functions of government, but that, by which the power of exercising those functions is very

frequently obtained, I mean, a spirit and habits of low cabal and intrigue; which I have never, in

one instance, seen united with a capacity for sound and manly policy.

To justify us in taking the administration of their affairs out of the hands of the East India

Company, on my principles, I must see several conditions. 1st. The object affected by the abuse

should be great and important. 2d. The abuse affecting this great object ought to be a great

abuse. 3d. It ought to be habitual, and not accidental. 4th. It ought to be utterly incurable in the

body as it now stands constituted. All this ought to be made as visible to me as the light of the

sun, before I should strike off an atom of their charter. A Right Honourable gentleman

has said,

and said I think but once, and that very slightly (whatever his original demand for a plan might

seem to require) that “there are abuses in the Company’s government.” If that were all, the

scheme of the mover of this bill, the scheme of his learned friend,

and his own scheme of

reformation (if he has any) are all equally needless. There are, and must be, abuses in all

governments. It amounts to no more than a nugatory proposition. But before I consider of what

nature these abuses are, of which the gentleman speaks so very lightly, permit me to recall to

your recollection the map of the country which this abused chartered right affects. This I shall do,

that you may judge whether in that map I can discover any thing like the first of my conditions;

that is, Whether the object affected by the abuse of the East India Company’s power be of

e 59 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

importance sufficient to justify the measure and means of reform applied to it in this bill.

With very few, and those inconsiderable intervals, the British dominion, either in the Company’s

name, or in the names of princes absolutely dependent upon the Company, extends from the

mountains that separate India from Tartary, to Cape Comorin, that is, one-and-twenty degrees of

latitude!

In the northern parts it is a solid mass of land, about eight hundred miles in length, and four or

five hundred broad. As you go southward, it becomes narrower for a space. It afterwards dilates;

but narrower or broader, you possess the whole eastern and north-eastern coast of that vast

country, quite from the borders of Pegu. Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, with Benares (now

unfortunately in our immediate possession) measure 161,978 square English miles; a territory

considerably larger than the whole kingdom of France. Oude, with its dependent provinces, is

53,286 square miles, not a great deal less than England. The Carnatic, with Tanjour and the

Circars, is 65,948 square miles, very considerably larger than England; and the whole of the

Company’s dominion comprehending Bombay and Salsette, amounts to 281,412 square miles,

which forms a territory larger than any European dominion, Russia and Turkey excepted. Through

all that vast extent of country there is not a man who eats a mouthful of rice but by permission of

the East India Company.

So far with regard to the extent. The population of this great empire is not easy to be calculated.

When the countries, of which it is composed, came into our possession, they were all eminently

peopled, and eminently productive; though at that time considerably declined from their antient

prosperity. But since they are come into our hands !— — —! However if we take the period of our

estimate immediately before the utter desolation of the Carnatic, and if we allow for the havoc

which our government had even then made in these regions, we cannot, in my opinion, rate the

population at much less than thirty millions of souls, more than four times the number of persons

in the island of Great Britain.

My next enquiry to that of the number, is the quality and description of the inhabitants. This

multitude of men does not consist of an abject and barbarous populace; much less of gangs of

savages, like the Guaranies and Chiquitos, who wander on the waste borders of the river of

Amazons, or the Plate; but a people for ages civilized and cultivated; cultivated by all the arts of

polished life, whilst we were yet in the woods. There, have been (and still the skeletons remain)

princes once of great dignity, authority, and opulence. There, are to be found the chiefs of tribes

and nations. There is to be found an antient and venerable priesthood, the depository of their

laws, learning, and history, the guides of the people whilst living, and their consolation in death;

a nobility of great antiquity and renown; a multitude of cities, not exceeded in population and

trade by those of the first class in Europe; merchants and bankers, individual houses of whom

have once vied in capital with the Bank of England; whose credit had often supported a tottering

state, and preserved their governments in the midst of war and desolation; millions of ingenious

manufacturers and mechanicks; millions of the most diligent, and not the least intelligent, tillers

of the earth. Here are to be found almost all the religions professed by men, the Bramincal, the

Mussulmen, the Eastern and the Western Christians.

If I were to take the whole aggregate of our possessions there, I should compare it, as the

nearest parallel I can find, with the empire of Germany. Our immediate possessions I should

e 60 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

compare with the Austrian dominions, and they would not suffer in the comparison. The Nabob

of Oude might stand for the King of Prussia; the Nabob of Arcot I would compare, as superior in

territory, and equal in revenue, to the Elector

of Saxony. Cheyt Sing, the Rajah

of Benares,

might well rank with the Prince of Hesse at least; and the Rajah of Tanjore (though hardly equal

in extent of dominion, superior in revenue) to the Elector of Bavaria. The Polygars

and the

northern Zemindars,

and other great chiefs, might well class with the rest of the Princes, Dukes,

Counts, Marquisses, and Bishops in the empire; all of whom I mention to honour, and surely

without disparagement to any or all of those most respectable princes and grandees.

All this vast mass, composed of so many orders and classes of men, is again infinitely diversified

by manners, by religion, by hereditary employment, through all their possible combinations. This

renders the handling of India a matter in an high degree critical and delicate. But oh! it has been

handled rudely indeed. Even some of the reformers seem to have forgot that they had any thing

to do but to regulate the tenants of a manor, or the shopkeepers of the next county town.

It is an empire of this extent, of this complicated nature, of this dignity and importance, that I

have compared to Germany and the German government; not for an exact resemblance, but as a

sort of a middle term, by which India might be approximated to our understandings, and if

possible to our feelings; in order to awaken something of sympathy for the unfortunate natives,

of which I am afraid we are not perfectly susceptible, whilst we look at this very remote object

through a false and cloudy medium.

My second condition, necessary to justify me in touching the charter, is, Whether the Company’s

abuse of their trust, with regard to this great object, be an abuse of great atrocity. I shall beg

your permission to consider their conduct in two lights; first the political, and then the

commercial. Their political conduct (for distinctness) I divide again into two heads; the external,

in which I mean to comprehend their conduct in their federal capacity, as it relates to powers and

states independent, or that not long since were such; the other internal, namely their conduct to

the countries either immediately subject to the Company, or to those who, under the apparent

government of native sovereigns, are in a state much lower, and much more miserable, than

common subjection.

The attention, Sir, which I wish to preserve to method will not be considered as unnecessary or

affected. Nothing else can help me to selection out of the infinite mass of materials which have

passed under my eye; or can keep my mind steady to the great leading points I have in view.

With regard therefore to the abuse of the external federal trust, I engage myself to you to make

good these three positions: First, I say, that from Mount Imaus, (or whatever else you call that

large range of mountains that walls the northern frontier of India) where it touches us in the

latitude of twenty-nine, to Cape Comorin, in the latitude of eight, that there is not a single prince,

state, or potentate, great or small, in India, with whom they have come into contact, whom they

have not sold. I say sold, though sometimes they have not been able to deliver according to their

bargain. Secondly, I say, that there is not a single treaty they have ever made, which they have

not broken. Thirdly, I say, that there is not a single prince or state, who ever put any trust in the

Company, who is not utterly ruined; and that none are in any degree secure or flourishing, but in

the exact proportion to their settled distrust and irreconcileable enmity to this nation.

e 61 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

These assertions are universal. I say in the full sense universal. They regard the external and

political trust only; but I shall produce others fully equivalent, in the internal. For the present, I

shall content myself with explaining my meaning; and if I am called on for proof whilst these bills

are depending (which I believe I shall not) I will put my finger on the Appendixes to the Reports,

or on papers of record in the House, or the Committees, which I have distinctly present to my

memory, and which I think I can lay before you at half an hour’s warning.

The first potentate sold by the Company for money was the Great Mogul

—the descendant of

Tamerlane. This high personage, as high as human veneration can look at, is by every account

amiable in his manners, respectable for his piety according to his mode, and accomplished in all

the Oriental literature. All this, and the title derived under his charter, to all that we hold in India,

could not save him from the general sale. Money is coined in his name; In his name justice is

administered; He is prayed for in every temple through the countries we possess—But he was

sold.

It is impossible, Mr. Speaker, not to pause here for a moment, to reflect on the inconstancy of

human greatness, and the stupendous revolutions that have happened in our age of wonders.

Could it be believed, when I entered into existence, or when you, a younger man, were born, that

on this day, in this House, we should be employed in discussing the conduct of those British

subjects who had disposed of the power and person of the Grand Mogul? This is no idle

speculation. Awful lessons are taught by it, and by other events, of which it is not yet too late to

profit.

This is hardly a digression; but I return to the sale of the Mogul. Two districts, Corah and

Allahabad, out of his immense grants, were reserved as a royal demesne to the donor of a

kingdom, and the rightful sovereign of so many nations. After withholding the tribute of

£.260,000 a year, which the Company was, by the charter they had received from this prince,

under the most solemn obligation to pay, these districts were sold to his chief minister Sujah ul

Dowlah;

and, what may appear to some the worst part of the transaction, these two districts

were sold for scarcely two years purchase. The descendant of Tamerlane now stands in need

almost of the common necessaries of life; and in this situation we do not even allow him, as

bounty, the smallest portion of what we owe him in justice.

The next sale was that of the whole nation of the Rohillas,

which the grand salesman, without a

pretence of quarrel, and contrary to his own declared sense of duty and rectitude, sold to the

same Sujah ul Dowlah. He sold the people to utter extirpation, for the sum of four hundred

thousand pounds. Faithfully was the bargain performed upon our side. Hafiz Rhamet, the most

eminent of their chiefs, one of the bravest men of his time, and as famous throughout the East

for the elegance of his literature, and the spirit of his poetical compositions (by which he

supported the name of Hafiz) as for his courage, was invaded with an army of an hundred

thousand men, and an English brigade. This man, at the head of inferior forces, was slain

valiantly fighting for his country. His head was cut off, and delivered for money to a barbarian.

His wife and children, persons of that rank, were seen begging an handful of rice through the

English camp. The whole nation, with inconsiderable exceptions, was slaughtered or banished.

The country was laid waste with fire and sword; and that land distinguished above most others,

by the chearful face of paternal government and protected labour, the chosen seat of cultivation

and plenty, is now almost throughout a dreary desart, covered with rushes and briars, and

e 62 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

jungles full of wild beasts.

The British officer who commanded in the delivery of the people thus sold, felt some compunction

at his employment. He represented these enormous excesses to the president of Bengal, for

which he received a severe reprimand from the civil governor; and I much doubt whether the

breach caused by the conflict, between the compassion of the military and the firmness of the

civil governor, be closed at this hour.

In Bengal, Seraja Dowla was sold to Mir Jaffier; Mir Jaffier was sold to Mir Cossim; and Mir Cossim

was sold to Mir Jaffier again. The succession to Mir Jaffier was sold to his eldest son; another son

of Mir Jaffier, Mobarech ul Dowla, was sold to his step-mother

—The Maratta empire

was sold

to Ragoba;

and Ragoba was sold and delivered to the Peishwa

of the Marattas. Both Ragoba

and the Peishwa of the Marattas were offered to sale to the Rajah of Berar. Scindia,

the chief of

Malva, was offered to sale to the same Rajah; and the Subah

of the Decan was sold to the great

trader Mahomet Ali, Nabob of Arcot.

To the same Nabob of Arcot they sold Hyder Ali

and the

kingdom of Mysore. To Mahomet Ali they twice sold the kingdom of Tanjore. To the same

Mahomet Ali they sold at least twelve sovereign princes, called the Polygars. But to keep things

even, the territory of Tinnivelly, belonging to their Nabob, they would have sold to the Dutch; and

to conclude the account of sales, their great customer, the Nabob of Arcot himself, and his lawful

succession, has been sold to his second son, Amir ul Omrah, whose character, views, and

conduct, are in the accounts upon your table. It remains with you whether they shall finally

perfect this last bargain.

All these bargains and sales were regularly attended with the waste and havoc of the country,

always by the buyer, and sometimes by the object of the sale. This was explained to you by the

Honourable mover,

when he stated the mode of paying debts due from the country powers to

the Company. An Honourable gentleman, who is not now in his place, objected to his jumping

near two thousand miles for an example. But the southern example is perfectly applicable to the

northern claim, as the northern is to the southern; for, throughout the whole space of these two

thousand miles, take your stand where you will, the proceeding is perfectly uniform, and what is

done in one part will apply exactly to the other.

My second assertion is, that the Company never has made a treaty which they have not broken.

This position is so connected with that of the sales of provinces and kingdoms, with the

negotiation of universal distraction in every part of India, that a very minute detail may well be

spared on this point. It has not yet been contended, by any enemy to the reform, that they have

observed any public agreement. When I hear that they have done so in any one instance (which

hitherto, I confess, I never heard alledged) I shall speak to the particular treaty. The governor

general has even amused himself and the Court of Directors in a very singular letter to that

board, in which he admits he has not been very delicate with regard to public faith; and he goes

so far as to state a regular estimate of the sums which the Company would have lost, or never

acquired, if the rigid ideas of public faith entertained by his colleagues had been observed. The

learned gentleman over against me has indeed saved me much trouble. On a former occasion he

obtained no small credit, for the clear and forcible manner in which he stated what we have not

forgot, and I hope he has not forgot, that universal systematic breach of treaties which had made

Bri

h f

l in

ast

e 63 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

It only remains, Sir, for me just to recapitulate some heads. The treaty with the Mogul,

by which

we stipulated to pay him £.260,000 annually, was broken. This treaty they have broken, and not

paid him a shilling. They broke their treaty with him, in which they stipulated to pay £.400,000 a

year to the Soubah of Bengal. They agreed with the Mogul, for services admitted to have been

performed, to pay Nudjif Cawn

a pension. They broke this article with the rest, and stopped also

this small pension. They broke their treaties with the Nizam,

and with Hyder Ali. As to the

Marattas, they had so many cross treaties with the States General of that nation, and with each

of the chiefs, that it was notorious, that no one of these agreements could be kept without grossly

violating the rest. It was observed, that if the terms of these several treaties had been kept, two

British armies would at one and the same time have met in the field to cut each other’s throats.

The wars which desolate India, originated from a most atrocious violation of public faith on our

part. In the midst of profound peace, the Company’s troops invaded the Maratta territories, and

surprised the island and fortress of Salsette. The Marattas nevertheless yielded to a treaty of

peace, by which solid advantages were procured to the Company. But this treaty, like every other

treaty, was soon violated by the Company. Again the Company invaded the Maratta dominions.

The disaster that ensued gave occasion to a new treaty. The whole army of the Company was

obliged, in effect, to surrender to this injured, betrayed, and insulted people. Justly irritated

however, as they were, the terms which they prescribed were reasonable and moderate; and

their treatment of their captive invaders, of the most distinguished humanity. But the humanity of

the Marattas was of no power whatsoever to prevail on the Company to attend to the observance

of the terms dictated by their moderation. The war was renewed with greater vigour than ever;

and such was their insatiable lust of plunder, that they never would have given ear to any terms

of peace, if Hyder Ali had not broke through the Gauts, and rushing like a torrent into the

Carnatic, swept away every thing in his career. This was in consequence of that confederacy,

which by a sort of miracle united the most discordant powers

for our destruction, as a nation in

which no other could put any trust, and who were the declared enemies of the human species.

It is very remarkable, that the late controversy between the several presidencies, and between

them and the Court of Directors, with relation to these wars and treaties, has not been, which of

the parties might be defended for his share in them; but on which of the parties the guilt of all

this load of perfidy should be fixed. But I am content to admit all these proceedings to be

perfectly regular, to be full of honour and good faith; and wish to fix your attention solely to that

single transaction which the advocates of this system select for so transcendant a merit as to

cancel the guilt of all the rest of their proceedings; I mean the late treaties with the Marattas.

I make no observation on the total cession of territory, by which they surrendered all they had

obtained by their unhappy successes in war, and almost all that they had obtained under the

treaty of Poorunder.

The restitution was proper, if it had been voluntary and seasonable. I

attach on the spirit of the treaty, the dispositions it shewed, the provisions it made for a general

peace, and the faith kept with allies and confederates; in order that the House may form a

judgment, from this chosen piece, of the use which has been made (and is likely to be made, if

things continue in the same hands) of the trust of the federal powers of this country.

It was the wish of almost every Englishman, that the Maratta peace might lead to a general one;

because the Maratta war was only a part of a general confederacy formed against us on account

of the universal abhorrence of our conduct which prevailed in every state and almost in every

ouse

in In

. Mr. H

ast

ged

ete

acqu

esce

e 64 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

and rational desire. He therefore consented, in order to satisfy the point of honour of the

Marattas, that an article should be inserted to admit Hyder Ali to accede to the pacification. But

observe, Sir, the spirit of this man (which if it were not made manifest by a thousand things, and

particularly by his proceedings with regard to Lord Macartney)

would be sufficiently manifest by

this—What sort of article think you does he require this essential head of a solemn treaty of

general pacification to be? In his instruction to Mr. Anderson,

he desires him to admit “a vague

article” in favour of Hyder. Evasion and fraud were the declared basis of the treaty. These vague

articles, intended for a more vague performance, are the things which have damned our

reputation in India.

Hardly was this vague article inserted, than, without waiting for any act on the part of Hyder, Mr.

Hastings enters into a negociation with the Maratta Chief, Scindia, for a partition of the territories

of the prince

who was one of the objects to be secured by the treaty. He was to be parcelled out

in three parts—one to Scindia; one to the Peishwa of the Marattas; and the third to the East India

Company, or to (the old dealer and chapman) Mahomet Ali.

During the formation of this project, Hyder dies; and before his son could take any one step,

either to conform to the tenour of the article, or to contravene it, the treaty of partition is

renewed on the old footing, and an instruction is sent to Mr. Anderson to conclude it in form.

A circumstance intervened, during the pendency of this negociation, to set off the good faith of

the Company with an additional brilliancy, and to make it sparkle and glow with a variety of

splendid faces. General Matthews

had reduced that most valuable part of Hyder’s dominions

called the Country of Biddenore. When the news reached Mr. Hastings, he instructed Mr.

Anderson to contend for an alteration in the treaty of partition, and to take the Biddenore country

out of the common stock which was to be divided, and to keep it for the Company.

The first ground for this variation was its being a separate conquest made before the treaty had

actually taken place. Here was a new proof given of the fairness, equity, and moderation, of the

Company. But the second of Mr. Hastings’s reasons for retaining the Biddenore as a separate

portion, and his conduct on that second ground, is still more remarkable. He asserted that that

country could not be put into the partition stock, because General Matthews had received it on

the terms of some convention, which might be incompatible with the partition proposed. This was

a reason in itself both honourable and solid; and it shewed a regard to faith somewhere, and with

some persons. But in order to demonstrate his utter contempt of the plighted faith which was

alledged on one part as a reason for departing from it on another, and to prove his impetuous

desire for sowing a new war, even in the prepared soil of a general pacification, he directs Mr.

Anderson, if he should find strong difficulties impeding the partition, on the score of the

subtraction of Biddenore, wholly to abandon that claim, and to conclude the treaty on the original

terms. General Matthews’s convention was just brought forward sufficiently to demonstrate to the

Marattas the slippery hold which they had on their new confederate; on the other hand that

convention being instantly abandoned, the people of India were taught, that no terms on which

they can surrender to the Company are to be regarded, when farther conquests are in view.

Next, Sir, let me bring before you the pious care that was taken of our allies under that treaty

which is the subject of the Company’s applauses. These allies were Ragonaut Row,

for whom we

had engaged to find a throne; the Guickwar, (one of the Guzerat princes) who was to be

e 65 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

emancipated from the Maratta authority, and to grow great by several accessions of dominion;

and lastly, the Rana of Gohud, with whom we had entered into a treaty of partition for eleven

sixteenths of our joint conquests. Some of these inestimable securities, called vague articles,

were inserted in favour of them all.

As to the first, the unhappy abdicated Peshwa, and pretender to the Maratta throne, Ragonaut

Row, was delivered up to his people, with an article for safety, and some provision.

This man,

knowing how little vague the hatred of his countrymen was towards him, and well apprised of

what black crimes he stood accused (among which our invasion of his country would not appear

the least) took a mortal alarm at the security we had provided for him. He was thunderstruck at

the article in his favour, by which he was surrendered to his enemies. He never had the least

notice of the treaty; and it was apprehended that he would fly to the protection of Hyder Ali, or

some other, disposed or able to protect him. He was therefore not left without comfort; for Mr.

Anderson did him the favour to send a special messenger, desiring him to be of good cheer and to

fear nothing. And his old enemy, Scindia, at our request, sent him a message equally well

calculated to quiet his apprehensions.

By the same treaty the Guickwar was to come again, with no better security, under the dominion

of the Maratta state. As to the Rana of Gohud, a long negotiation depended for giving him up. At

first this was refused by Mr. Hastings with great indignation; at another stage it was admitted as

proper, because he had shewn himself a most perfidious person. But at length a method of

reconciling these extremes was found out, by contriving one of the usual articles in his favour.

What I believe will appear beyond all belief, Mr. Anderson exchanged the final ratifications of that

treaty by which the Rana was nominally secured in his possessions, in the camp of the Maratta

chief, Scindia, whilst he was (really, and not nominally) battering the castle of Gualior, which we

had given, agreeably to treaty, to this deluded ally. Scindia had already reduced the town; and

was at the very time, by various detachments, reducing, one after another, the fortresses of our

protected ally, as well as in the act of chastising all the Rajahs who had assisted Colonel Camac in

his invasion.

I have seen in a letter from Calcutta, that the Rana of Gohud’s agent would have

represented these hostilities (which went hand in hand with the protecting treaty) to Mr.

Hastings; but he was not admitted to his presence.

In this manner the Company has acted with their allies in the Maratta war. But they did not rest

here: the Marattas were fearful lest the persons delivered to them by that treaty should attempt

to escape into the British territories, and thus might elude the punishment intended for them, and

by reclaiming the treaty, might stir up new disturbances. To prevent this, they desired an article

to be inserted in the supplemental treaty, to which they had the ready consent of Mr. Hastings

and the rest of the Company’s representatives in Bengal. It was this, “That the English and

Maratta governments mutually agree not to afford refuge to any chiefs, merchants, or other

persons, flying for protection to the territories of the other.” This was readily assented to, and

assented to without any exception whatever, in favour of our surrendered allies. On their part a

reciprocity was stipulated which was not unnatural for a government like the Company’s to ask; a

government, conscious that many subjects had been, and would in future, be driven to fly from

its jurisdiction.

To complete the system of pacific intention and public faith, which predominate in these treaties,

Mr. Hastings fairly resolved to put all peace, except on the terms of absolute conquest, wholly out

e 66 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

of his own power. For, by an article in this second treaty with Scindia, he binds the Company not

to make any peace with Tippoo Saheb, without the consent of the Peishwa of the Marattas; and

binds Scindia to him by a reciprocal engagement. The treaty between France and England obliges

us mutually to withdraw our forces, if our allies in India do not accede to the peace within four

months; Mr. Hastings’s treaty obliges us to continue the war as long as the Peishwa thinks fit. We

are now in that happy situation, that the breach of the treaty with France, or the violation of that

with the Marattas, is inevitable; and we have only to take our choice.

My third assertion, relative to the abuse made of the right of war and peace is, that there are

none who have ever confided in us who have not been utterly ruined. The examples I have given

of Ragonaut Row, of Guickwar, of the Ranah of Gohud, are recent. There is proof more than

enough in the condition of the Mogul; in the slavery and indigence of the Nabob of Oude; the

exile of the Rajah of Benares; the beggary of the Nabob of Bengal; the undone and captive

condition of the Rajah and kingdom of Tanjour; the destruction of the Polygars; and lastly, in the

destruction of the Nabob of Arcot himself, who when his dominions were invaded was found

entirely destitute of troops, provisions, stores, and (as he asserts) of money, being a million in

debt to the Company, and four millions to others; the many millions which he had extorted from

so many extirpated princes and their desolated countries having (as he has frequently hinted)

been expended for the ground-rent of his mansion-house in an alley in the suburbs of Madras.

Compare the condition of all these princes with the power and authority of all the Maratta states;

with the independence and dignity of the Soubah of the Decan; and the mighty strength, the

resources, and the manly struggle of Hyder Ali; and then the House will discover the effects, on

every power in India, of an easy confidence, or of a rooted distrust in the faith of the Company.

These are some of my reasons, grounded on the abuse of the external political trust of that body,

for thinking myself not only justified but bound to declare against those chartered rights which

produce so many wrongs. I should deem myself the wickedest of men, if any vote of mine could

contribute to the continuance of so great an evil.

Now, Sir, according to the plan I proposed, I shall take notice of the Company’s internal

government, as it is exercised first on the dependent provinces, and then as it affects those under

the direct and immediate authority of that body. And here, Sir, before I enter into the spirit of

their interior government, permit me to observe to you, upon a few of the many lines of

difference which are to be found between the vices of the Company’s government, and those of

the conquerors who preceded us in India; that we may be enabled a little the better to see our

way in an attempt to the necessary reformation.

The several irruptions of Arabs, Tartars, and Persians, into India were, for the greater part,

ferocious, bloody, and wasteful in the extreme: our entrance into the dominion of that country

was, as generally, with small comparative effusion of blood; being introduced by various frauds

and delusions, and by taking advantage of the incurable, blind, and senseless animosity, which

the several country powers bear towards each other, rather than by open force. But the

difference in favour of the first conquerors is this; the Asiatic conquerors very soon abated of

their ferocity, because they made the conquered country their own. They rose or fell with the rise

or fall of the territory they lived in. Fathers there deposited the hopes of their posterity; and

children there beheld the monuments of their fathers. Here their lot was finally cast, and it is the

natural wish of all, that their lot should not be cast in a bad land. Poverty, sterility, and

e 67 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

desolation, are not a recreating prospect to the eye of man; and there are very few who can bear

to grow old among the curses of a whole people. If their passion or their avarice drove the Tartar

lords to acts of rapacity or tyranny, there was time enough, even in the short life of man, to bring

round the ill effects of an abuse of power upon the power itself. If hoards were made by violence

and tyranny, they were still domestic hoards; and domestic profusion, or the rapine of a more

powerful and prodigal hand, restored them to the people. With many disorders, and with few

political checks upon power, Nature had still fair play; the sources of acquisition were not dried

up; and therefore the trade, the manufactures, and the commerce of the country flourished. Even

avarice and usury itself operated, both for the preservation and the employment of national

wealth. The husbandman and manufacturer paid heavy interest, but then they augmented the

fund from whence they were again to borrow. Their resources were dearly bought, but they were

sure; and the general stock of the community grew by the general effort.

But under the English government all this order is reversed. The Tartar invasion was mischievous;

but it is our protection that destroys India. It was their enmity, but it is our friendship. Our

conquest there, after twenty years, is as crude as it was the first day. The natives scarcely know

what it is to see the grey head of an Englishman. Young men (boys almost) govern there, without

society, and without sympathy with the natives. They have no more social habits with the people,

than if they still resided in England; nor indeed any species of intercourse but that which is

necessary to making a sudden fortune, with a view to a remote settlement. Animated with all the

avarice of age, and all the impetuosity of youth, they roll in one after another; wave after wave;

and there is nothing before the eyes of the natives but an endless, hopeless prospect of new

flights of birds of prey and passage, with appetites continually renewing for a food that is

continually wasting. Every rupee of profit made by an Englishman is lost for ever to India. With us

are no retributory superstitions, by which a foundation of charity compensates, through ages, to

the poor, for the rapine and injustice of a day. With us no pride erects stately monuments which

repair the mischiefs which pride had produced, and which adorn a country out of its own spoils.

England has erected no churches, no hospitals,

no palaces, no schools; England has built no

bridges, made no high roads, cut no navigations, dug out no reservoirs. Every other conqueror of

every other description has left some monument, either of state or beneficence, behind him.

Were we to be driven out of India this day, nothing would remain, to tell that it had been

possessed, during the inglorious period of our dominion, by any thing better than the ouran-

outang or the tiger.

There is nothing in the boys we send to India worse than the boys whom we are whipping at

school, or that we see trailing a pike, or bending over a desk at home. But as English youth in

India drink the intoxicating draught of authority and dominion before their heads are able to bear

it, and as they are full grown in fortune long before they are ripe in principle, neither nature nor

reason have any opportunity to exert themselves for remedy of the excesses of their premature

power. The consequences of their conduct, which in good minds, (and many of theirs are probably

such) might produce penitence or amendment, are unable to pursue the rapidity of their flight.

Their prey

is lodged in England; and the cries of India are given to seas and winds, to be blown

about, in every breaking up of the monsoon, over a remote and unhearing ocean. In India all the

vices operate by which sudden fortune is acquired; in England are often displayed, by the same

persons,

the virtues which dispense hereditary wealth. Arrived in England, the destroyers of the

nobility and gentry of a whole kingdom will find the best company in this nation, at a board of

elegance and hospitality. Here the manufacturer and husbandman will bless the just and punctual

e 68 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

hand, that in India has torn the cloth from the loom, or wrested the scanty portion of rice and salt

from the peasant of Bengal, or wrung from him the very opium in which he forgot his oppressions

and his oppressor. They marry into your families; they enter into your senate; they ease your

estates by loans; they raise their value by demand; they cherish and protect your relations which

lie heavy on your patronage; and there is scarcely an house in the kingdom that does not feel

some concern and interest that makes all reform of our eastern government appear officious and

disgusting; and, on the whole, a most discouraging attempt. In such an attempt you hurt those

who are able to return kindness or to resent injury. If you succeed, you save those who cannot so

much as give you thanks. All these things shew the difficulty of the work we have on hand: but

they shew its necessity too. Our Indian government is in its best state a grievance. It is necessary

that the correctives should be uncommonly vigorous; and the work of men sanguine, warm, and

even impassioned in the cause. But it is an arduous thing to plead against abuses of a power

which originates from your own country, and affects those whom we are used to consider as

strangers.

I shall certainly endeavour to modulate myself to this temper; though I am sensible that a cold

style of describing actions which appear to me in a very affecting light, is equally contrary to the

justice due to the people, and to all genuine human feelings about them. I ask pardon of truth

and nature for this compliance. But I shall be very sparing of epithets either to persons or things.

It has been said (and, with regard to one of them, with truth) that Tacitus and Machiavel, by their

cold way of relating enormous crimes, have in some sort appeared not to disapprove them; that

they seem a sort of professors of the art of tyranny, and that they corrupt the minds of their

readers by not expressing the detestation and horror that naturally belong to horrible and

detestable proceedings. But we are in general, Sir, so little acquainted with Indian details; the

instruments of oppression under which the people suffer are so hard to be understood; and even

the very names of the sufferers are so uncouth and strange to our ears, that it is very difficult for

our sympathy to fix upon these objects. I am sure that some of us have come down stairs from

the committee-room, with impressions on our minds, which to us were the inevitable results of

our discoveries, yet if we should venture to express ourselves in the proper language of our

sentiments, to other gentlemen not at all prepared to enter into the cause of them, nothing could

appear more harsh and dissonant, more violent and unaccountable, than our language and

behaviour. All these circumstances are not, I confess, very favourable to the idea of our

attempting to govern India at all. But there we are; there we are placed by the Sovereign

Disposer: and we must do the best we can in our situation. The situation of man is the preceptor

of his duty.

Upon the plan which I laid down, and to which I beg leave to return, I was considering the

conduct of the Company to those nations which are indirectly subject to their authority. The most

considerable of the dependent princes is the Nabob of Oude. My Right Honourable friend, to

whom we owe the remedial bills on your table, has already pointed out to you, in one of the

Reports, the condition of that prince, and as it stood in the time he alluded to. I shall only add a

few circumstances that may tend to awaken some sense of the manner in which the condition of

the people is affected by that of the prince, and involved in it; and to shew you, that when we

talk of the sufferings of princes, we do not lament the oppression of individuals; and that in these

cases the high and the low suffer together.

In the year 1779 the Nabob of Oude represented, through the British resident at his court, that

e 69 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

the number of Company’s troops stationed in his dominions was a main cause of his distress; and

that all those which he was not bound by treaty to maintain should be withdrawn, as they had

greatly diminished his revenue, and impoverished his country. I will read you, if you please, a few

extracts from these representations.

He states “that the country and cultivation are abandoned; and this year in particular, from the

excessive drought of the season, deductions of many lacks

having been allowed to the

farmers,

who are still left unsatisfied”; and then he proceeds with a long detail of his own

distress, and that of his family, and all his dependants; and adds, “that the new-raised brigade is

not only quite useless to my government, but is moreover the cause of much loss, both in

revenues and customs. The detached body of troops under European officers bring nothing but

confusion to the affairs of my government, and are entirely their own masters. ” Mr. Middleton,

Mr. Hastings’s confidential Resident, vouches for the truth of this representation in its fullest

extent. “I am concerned to confess, that there is too good ground for this plea. The misfortune

has been general throughout the whole of the Vizier’s [the Nabob of Oude] dominions, obvious to

every body; and so fatal have been its consequences, that no person, of either credit or

character, would enter into engagements with government for farming the country.” He then

proceeds to give strong instances of the general calamity, and its effects.

It was now to be seen what steps the governor general and council took for the relief of this

distressed country, long labouring under the vexations of men, and now stricken by the hand of

God. The case of a general famine is known to relax the severity even of the most rigorous

government. Mr. Hastings does not deny, or shew the least doubt of the fact. The representation

is humble, and almost abject. On this representation from a great prince, of the distress of his

subjects, Mr. Hastings falls into a violent passion; such as (it seems) would be unjustifiable in any

one who speaks of any part of his conduct. He declares “that the demands, the tone in which they

were asserted, and the season in which they were made, are all equally alarming, and appear to

him to require an adequate degree of firmness in this board, in opposition to them.” He proceeds

to deal out very unreserved language, on the person and character of the Nabob and his

ministers. He declares, that in a division between him and the Nabob, “ the strongest must

decide. ” With regard to the urgent and instant necessity, from the failure of the crops, he says,

“that perhaps expedients may be found for affording a gradual relief from the burthen of which he

so heavily complains, and it shall be my endeavour to seek them out”: and, lest he should be

suspected of too much haste to alleviate sufferings, and to remove violence, he says, “that these

must be gradually applied, and their complete effect may be distant; and this I conceive is all he

can claim of right.”

This complete effect of his lenity is distant indeed. Rejecting this demand (as he calls the Nabob’s

abject supplication) he attributes it, as he usually does all things of the kind, to the division in

their government; and says, “this is a powerful motive with me (however inclined I might be,

upon any other occasion, to yield to some part of his demand) to give them an absolute and

unconditional refusal upon the present; and even to bring to punishment, if my influence can

produce that effect, those incendiaries who have endeavoured to make themselves the

instruments of division between us. ”

Here, Sir, is much heat and passion; but no more consideration of the distress of the country,

from a failure of the means of subsistence, and (if possible) the worse evil of an useless and

e 70 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

licentious soldiery, than if they were the most contemptible of all trifles. A letter is written in

consequence, in such a style of lofty despotism, as I believe has hitherto been unexampled and

unheard of in the records of the East. The troops were continued. The gradual relief, whose effect

was to be so distant, has never been substantially and beneficially applied—and the country is

ruined.

Mr. Hastings, two years after, when it was too late, saw the absolute necessity of a removal of

the intolerable grievance of this licentious soldiery, which, under a pretence of defending it, held

the country under military execution. A new treaty and arrangement, according to the pleasure of

Mr. Hastings, took place; and this new treaty was broken in the old manner, in every essential

article. The soldiery were again sent, and again set loose. The effect of all his manoeuvres, from

which it seems he was sanguine enough to entertain hopes, upon the state of the country, he

himself informs us, “the event has proved the reverse of these hopes, and accumulation of

distress, debasement, and dissatisfaction to the Nabob, and disappointment and disgrace to me.

—Every measure [which he had himself proposed] has been so conducted as to give him cause of

displeasure; there are no officers established by which his affairs could be regularly conducted;

mean, incapable, and indigent men have been appointed. A number of the districts without

authority, and without the means of personal protection; some of them have been murdered by

the Zemindars, and those Zemindars, instead of punishment, have been permitted to retain their

Zemindaries, with independent authority; all the other Zemindars suffered to rise up in rebellion,

and to insult the authority of the Sircar,

without any attempt made to suppress them; and the

Company’s debt, instead of being discharged by the assignments and extraordinary sources of

money provided for that purpose, is likely to exceed even the amount at which it stood at the

time in which the arrangement with his Excellency was concluded. ” The House will smile at the

resource on which the Directors take credit as such a certainty in their curious account.

This is Mr. Hastings’s own narrative of the effects of his own settlement. This is the state of the

country which we have been told is in perfect peace and order; and, what is curious, he informs

us, that every part of this was foretold to him in the order and manner in which it happened, at

the very time he made his arrangement of men and measures.

The invariable course of the Company’s policy is this: Either they set up some prince too odious to

maintain himself without the necessity of their assistance; or they soon render him odious, by

making him the instrument of their government. In that case troops are bountifully sent to him to

maintain his authority. That he should have no want of assistance, a civil gentleman, called a

Resident, is kept at his court, who, under pretence of providing duly for the pay of these troops,

gets assignments on the revenue into his hands. Under his provident management, debts soon

accumulate; new assignments are made for these debts; until, step by step, the whole revenue,

and with it the whole power of the country, is delivered into his hands. The military do not behold

without a virtuous emulation the moderate gains of the civil department. They feel that, in a

country driven to habitual rebellion by the civil government, the military is necessary; and they

will not permit their services to go unrewarded. Tracts of country are delivered over to their

discretion. Then it is found proper to convert their commanding officers into farmers of revenue.

Thus, between the well paid civil, and well rewarded military establishment, the situation of the

natives may be easily conjectured. The authority of the regular and lawful government is every

where and in every point extinguished. Disorders and violences arise; they are repressed by other

disorders and other violences. Wherever the collectors of the revenue, and the farming colonels

e 71 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

and majors move, ruin is about them, rebellion before and behind them. The people in crowds fly

out of the country; and the frontier is guarded by lines of troops, not to exclude an enemy, but to

prevent the escape of the inhabitants.

By these means, in the course of not more than four or five years, this once opulent and

flourishing country, which, by the accounts given in the Bengal consultations, yielded more than

three crore of Sicca rupees, that is, above three millions sterling, annually, is reduced, as far as I

can discover, in a matter purposely involved in the utmost perplexity, to less than one million

three hundred thousand pounds, and that exacted by every mode of rigour that can be devised.

To complete the business, most of the wretched remnants of this revenue are mortgaged, and

delivered into the hands of the usurers at Benares (for there alone are to be found some lingering

remains of the ancient wealth of these regions) at an interest of near thirty per cent. per annum.

The revenues in this manner failing, they seized upon the estates of every person of eminence in

the country, and, under the name of resumption, confiscated their property. I wish, Sir, to be

understood universally and literally, when I assert, that there is not left one man of property and

substance for his rank, in the whole of these provinces, in provinces which are nearly the extent

of England and Wales taken together. Not one landholder, not one banker, not one merchant, not

one even of those who usually perish last, the ultimum moriens

in a ruined state, no one farmer

of revenue.

One country for a while remained, which stood as an island in the midst of the grand waste of the

Company’s dominion. My Right Honourable friend, in his admirable speech on moving the bill, just

touched the situation, the offences, and the punishment, of a native prince, called Fizulla Khân.

This man, by policy and force, had protected himself from the general extirpation of the Rohilla

chiefs. He was secured (if that were any security) by a treaty. It was stated to you, as it was

stated by the enemies of that unfortunate man— “that the whole of his country is what the whole

country of the Rohillas was, cultivated like a garden, without one neglected spot in it.” Another

accuser says, “Fyzoolah Khan though a bad soldier [that is the true source of his misfortune] has

approved himself a good aumil;

having, it is supposed, in the course of a few years, at least

doubled the population, and revenue of his country.” In another part of the correspondence he is

charged with making his country an asylum for the oppressed peasants, who fly from the

territories of Oude. The improvement of his revenue, arising from this single crime, (which Mr.

Hastings considers as tantamount to treason) is stated at an hundred and fifty thousand pounds a

year.

Dr. Swift somewhere says,

that he who could make two blades of grass grow where but one

grew before, was a greater benefactor to the human race than all the politicians that ever existed.

This prince, who would have been deified by antiquity, who would have been ranked with Osiris,

and Bacchus, and Ceres,

and the divinities most propitious to men, was, for those very merits,

by name attacked by the Company’s government, as a cheat, a robber, a traitor. In the same

breath in which he was accused as a rebel, he was ordered at once to furnish 5,000 horse. On

delay, or (according to the technical phrase, when any remonstrance is made to them) “ on

evasion, ” he was declared a violator of treaties, and every thing he had was to be taken from

him. Not one word, however, of horse in this treaty.

The territory of this Fizulla Khân, Mr. Speaker, is less than the county of Norfolk. It is an inland

e 72 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

country, full seven hundred miles from any sea port, and not distinguished for any one

considerable branch of manufacture whatsoever. From this territory a punctual payment was

made to the British Resident of £.150,000 sterling a year. The demand of cavalry, without a

shadow or decent pretext of right, amounted to three hundred thousand a year more, at the

lowest computation; and it is stated, by the last person sent to negotiate, as a demand of little

use, if it could be complied with; but that the compliance was impossible, as it amounted to more

than his territories could supply, if there had been no other demand upon him—four hundred and

fifty thousand pounds a year from an inland country not so large as Norfolk!

The thing most extraordinary was to hear the culprit defend himself from the imputation of his

virtues, as if they had been the blackest offences. He extenuated the superior cultivation of his

country. He denied its population. He endeavoured to prove that he had often sent back the poor

peasant that sought shelter with him. I can make no observation on this.

After a variety of extortions and vexations, too fatiguing to you, too disgusting to me, to go

through with, they found “that they ought to be in a better state to warrant forcible means”; they

therefore contented themselves with a gross sum of 150,000 pounds, for their present demand.

They offered him indeed an indemnity from their exactions in future, for three hundred thousand

pounds more. But he refused to buy their securities; pleading (probably with truth) his poverty:

but if the plea were not founded, in my opinion very wisely; not choosing to deal any more in that

dangerous commodity of the Company’s faith, and thinking it better to oppose distress and

unarmed obstinacy to uncoloured exaction, than to subject himself to be considered as a cheat, if

he should make a treaty in the least beneficial to himself. Thus they executed an exemplary

punishment on Fizulla Khân for the culture of his country. But, conscious that the prevention of

evils is the great object of all good regulation, they deprived him of the means of encreasing that

criminal cultivation in future, by exhausting his coffers; and, that the population of his country

should no more be a standing reproach and libel on the Company’s government, they bound him,

by a positive engagement, not to afford any shelter whatsoever to the farmers and labourers who

should seek refuge in his territories, from the exactions of the British Residents in Oude. When

they had done all this effectually, they gave him a full and complete acquittance from all charges

of rebellion, or of any intention to rebel, or of his having originally had any interest in, or any

means of rebellion.

These intended rebellions are one of the Company’s standing resources. When money has been

thought to be heaped up any where, its owners are universally accused of rebellion, until they are

acquitted of their money and their treasons at once. The money once taken, all accusation, trial,

and punishment ends. It is so settled a resource, that I rather wonder how it comes to be omitted

in the Directors account; but I take it for granted this omission will be supplied in their next

edition. The Company stretched this resource to the full extent, when they accused two old

women, in the remotest corner of India (who could have no possible view or motive to raise

disturbances) of being engaged in rebellion, with an intent to drive out the English nation in

whose protection, purchased by money and secured by treaty, rested the sole hope of their

existence. But the Company wanted money, and the old women must be guilty of a plot. They

were accused of rebellion, and they were convicted of wealth. Twice had great sums been

extorted from them, and as often had the British faith guaranteed the remainder. A body of

British troops, with one of the military farmers general at their head, was sent to seize upon the

castle in which these helpless women resided. Their chief eunuchs, who were their agents, their

e 73 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

guardians, protectors, persons of high rank according to the Eastern manners and of great trust,

were thrown into dungeons, to make them discover their hidden treasures; and there they lie at

present. The lands assigned for the maintenance of the women were seized and confiscated. Their

jewels and effects were taken, and set up to a pretended auction in an obscure place, and bought

at such a price as the gentlemen thought proper to give. No account has ever been transmitted of

the articles or produce of this sale. What money was obtained is unknown, or what terms were

stipulated for the maintenance of these despoiled and forlorn creatures; for by some particulars it

appears as if an engagement of the kind was made.

Let me here remark, once for all, that though the act of 1773 requires that an account of all

proceedings should be diligently transmitted, that this, like all the other injunctions of the law, is

totally despised; and that half at least of the most important papers are intentionally withheld.

I wish you, Sir, to advert particularly, in this transaction, to the quality and the numbers of the

persons spoiled, and the instrument by whom that spoil was made. These ancient matrons called

the Begums or Princesses, were of the first birth and quality in India, the one mother, the other

wife, of the late Nabob of Oude, Sujah Dowlah, a prince possessed of extensive and flourishing

dominions, and the second man in the Mogul empire. This prince (suspicious, and not unjustly

suspicious, of his son and successor) at his death committed his treasures and his family to the

British faith. That family and household, consisted of two thousand women; to which were added

two other seraglios of near kindred, and said to be extremely numerous, and (as I am well

informed) of about fourscore of the Nabob’s children, with all the eunuchs, the ancient servants,

and a multitude of the dependants of his splendid court. These were all to be provided, for

present maintenance and future establishment, from the lands assigned as dower, and from the

treasures which he left to these matrons, in trust for the whole family.

So far as to the objects of the spoil. The instrument chosen by Mr. Hastings to despoil the relict of

Sujah Dowlah was her own son, the reigning Nabob of Oude. It was the pious hand of a son that

was selected to tear from his mother and grandmother the provision of their age, the

maintenance of his brethren, and of all the ancient household of his father. [Here a laugh from

some young members] —The laugh is seasonable, and the occasion decent and proper.

By the last advices something of the sum extorted remained unpaid. The women in despair refuse

to deliver more, unless their lands are restored and their ministers released from prison: but Mr.

Hastings and his council, steady to their point, and consistent to the last in their conduct, write to

the Resident to stimulate the son to accomplish the filial acts he had brought so near to their

perfection. “We desire,” say they in their letter to the Resident (written so late as March last)

“that you will inform us if any, and what means, have been taken for recovering the balance due

from the Begum [Princess] at Fizabad; and that, if necessary, you recommend it to the Vizier to

enforce the most effectual means for that purpose.”

What their effectual means of enforcing demands on women of high rank and condition are, I

shall shew you, Sir, in a few minutes; when I represent to you another of these plots and

rebellions, which always, in India, though so rarely any where else, are the offspring of an easy

condition, and hoarded riches.

Benares is the capital city of the Indian religion. It is regarded as holy by a particular and

e 74 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

distinguished sanctity; and the Gentûs

in general think themselves as much obliged to visit it

once in their lives as the Mahometans to perform their pilgrimage to Mecca. By this means that

city grew great in commerce and opulence; and so effectually was it secured by the pious

veneration of that people, that in all wars and in all violences of power, there was so sure an

asylum, both for poverty and wealth, (as it were under a divine protection) that the wisest laws

and best assured free constitution could not better provide for the relief of the one, or the safety

of the other; and this tranquillity influenced to the greatest degree the prosperity of all the

country, and the territory of which it was the capital. The interest of money there was not more

than half the usual rate in which it stood in all other places. The reports have fully informed you

of the means and of the terms in which this city and the territory called Gazipour, of which it was

the head, came under the sovereignty of the East India Company.

If ever there was a subordinate dominion pleasantly circumstanced to the superior power, it was

this; a large rent or tribute, to the amount of two hundred and sixty thousand pounds a year, was

paid in monthly instalments with the punctuality of a dividend at the Bank. If ever there was a

prince who could not have an interest in disturbances, it was its sovereign, the Rajah Cheit Sing.

He was in possession of the capital of his religion, and a willing revenue was paid by the devout

people who resorted to him from all parts. His sovereignty and his independence, except his

tribute, was secured by every tie. His territory was not much less than half of Ireland, and

displayed in all parts a degree of cultivation, ease, and plenty, under his frugal and paternal

management, which left him nothing to desire, either for honour or satisfaction.

This was the light in which this country appeared to almost every eye. But Mr. Hastings beheld it

askance. Mr. Hastings tells us that it was reported of this Cheit Sing, that his father left him a

million sterling, and that he made annual accessions to the hoard. Nothing could be so obnoxious

to indigent power. So much wealth could not be innocent. The House is fully acquainted with the

unfounded and unjust requisitions which were made upon this prince. The question has been

most ably and conclusively cleared up in one of the Reports of the Select Committee, and in an

answer of the Court of Directors

to an extraordinary publication against them by their servant,

Mr. Hastings. But I mean to pass by these exactions, as if they were perfectly just and regular;

and, having admitted them, I take what I shall now trouble you with, only as it serves to shew

the spirit of the Company’s government, the mode in which it is carried on, and the maxims on

which it proceeds.

Mr. Hastings, from whom I take the doctrine, endeavours to prove that Cheit Sing was no

sovereign prince; but a mere Zemindar or common subject, holding land by rent.

If this be

granted to him, it is next to be seen under what terms he is of opinion such a land-holder, that is

a British subject, holds his life and property under the Company’s government. It is proper to

understand well the doctrines of the person whose administration has lately received such

distinguished approbation from the Company. His doctrine is— “that the Company, or the person

delegated by it, holds an absolute authority over such Zemindars;—that he [such a subject] owes

an implicit and unreserved obedience to its authority, at the forfeiture even of his life and

property, at the

DISCRETION of those who held or fully represented the sovereign authority;—and

that these rights are fully delegated to him Mr. Hastings.”

Such is a British governor’s idea of the condition of a great Zemindar holding under a British

authority; and this kind of authority he supposes fully delegated to him; though no such

e 75 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

delegation appears in any commission, instruction, or act of parliament. At his discretion he may

demand, of the substance of any Zemindar over and above his rent or tribute, even what he

pleases, with a sovereign authority; and if he does not yield an implicit unreserved obedience to

all his commands, he forfeits his lands, his life, and his property, at Mr. Hastings’s discretion. But,

extravagant and even frantic as these positions appear, they are less so than what I shall now

read to you; for he asserts, that if any one should urge an exemption from more than a stated

payment, or should consider the deeds, which passed between him and the board, “as bearing

the quality and force of a treaty between equal states,” he says, “that such an opinion is itself

criminal to the state of which he is a subject; and that he was himself amenable to its justice, if

he gave countenance to such a belief. ” Here is a new species of crime invented, that of

countenancing a belief—but a belief of what? A belief of that which the Court of Directors,

Hastings’s masters, and a Committee of this House, have decided as this prince’s indisputable

right.

But supposing the Rajah of Benares to be a mere subject, and that subject a criminal of the

highest form; let us see what course was taken by an upright English magistrate. Did he cite this

culprit before his tribunal? Did he make a charge? Did he produce witnesses? These are not

forms; they are parts of substantial and eternal justice. No, not a word of all this. Mr. Hastings

concludes him, in his own mind, to be guilty; he makes this conclusion on reports, on hear-says,

on appearances, on rumours, on conjectures, on presumptions; and even these never once hinted

to the party, nor publicly to any human being, till the whole business was done.

But the governor tells you his motive for this extraordinary proceeding; so contrary to every

mode of justice towards either a prince or a subject, fairly and without disguise; and he puts into

your hands the key of his whole conduct: “I will suppose, for a moment, that I have acted with

unwarrantable rigour towards Cheit Sing, and even with injustice.—Let my

MOTIVE be consulted. I

left Calcutta, impressed with a belief that extraordinary means were necessary, and those exerted

with a steady hand, to preserve the Company’s interests from sinking under the accumulated

weight which oppressed them. I saw a political necessity for curbing the overgrown power of a

great member of their dominion, and for making it contribute to the relief of their pressing

exigencies. ” This is plain speaking; after this, it is no wonder that the Rajah’s wealth and his

offence, the necessities of the judge, and the opulence of the delinquent, are never separated,

through the whole of Mr. Hastings’s apology. “The justice and policy of exacting a large pecuniary

mulct. ” The resolution “ to draw from his guilt the means of relief to the Company’s distresses. ”

His determination “to make him pay largely for his pardon, or to execute a severe vengeance for

past delinquency.” That “as his wealth was great, and the Company’s exigencies pressing, he

thought it a measure of justice and policy to exact from him a large pecuniary mulct for their

relief. ” “The sum (says Mr. Wheler,

bearing evidence, at his desire, to his intentions) to which

the governor declared his resolution to extend his fine, was forty or fifty lacks, that is four or five

hundred thousand pounds; and that if he refused, he was to be removed from his zemindary

entirely; or by taking possession of his forts, to obtain, out of the treasure deposited in them, the

above sum for the Company.”

Crimes so convenient, crimes so politic, crimes so necessary, crimes so alleviating of distress, can

never be wanting to those who use no process, and who produce no proofs.

But there is another serious part (what is not so?) in this affair. Let us suppose that the power,

e 76 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

for which Mr. Hastings contends, a power which no sovereign ever did, or ever can vest in any of

his subjects, namely, his own sovereign authority, to be conveyed by the act of parliament to any

man or body of men whatsoever; it certainly was never given to Mr. Hastings. The powers given

by the act of 1773 were formal and official; they were given, not to the governor general, but to

the major vote of the board, as a board, on discussion amongst themselves, in their public

character and capacity; and their acts in that character and capacity were to be ascertained by

records and minutes of council. The despotic acts exercised by Mr. Hastings were done merely in

his private character; and, if they had been moderate and just, would still be the acts of an

usurped authority, and without any one of the legal modes of proceeding which could give him

competence for the most trivial exertion of power. There was no proposition or deliberation

whatsoever in council, no minute on record, by circulation or otherwise, to authorize his

proceedings. No delegation of power to impose a fine, or to take any step to deprive the Rajah of

Benares of his government, his property, or his liberty. The minutes of consultation assign to his

journey a totally different object, duty, and destination. Mr. Wheler, at his desire, tells us long

after, that he had a confidential conversation with him on various subjects, of which this was the

principal, in which Mr. Hastings notified to him his secret intentions; “and that he bespoke his

support of the measures which he intended to pursue towards him (the Rajah.)” This confidential

discourse, and bespeaking of support, could give him no power, in opposition to an express act of

parliament, and the whole tenor of the orders of the Court of Directors.

In what manner the powers thus usurped were employed, is known to the whole world. All the

House knows, that the design on the Rajah proved as unfruitful as it was violent. The unhappy

prince was expelled, and his more unhappy country was enslaved and ruined; but not a rupee

was acquired. Instead of treasure to recruit the Company’s finances, wasted by their wanton wars

and corrupt jobbs, they were plunged into a new war, which shook their power in India to its

foundation; and, to use the governor’s own happy simile, might have dissolved it like a magic

structure, if the talisman had been broken.

But the success is no part of my consideration, who should think just the same of this business, if

the spoil of one Rajah had been fully acquired, and faithfully applied to the destruction of twenty

other Rajahs. Not only the arrest of the Rajah in his palace was unnecessary and unwarrantable,

and calculated to stir up any manly blood which remained in his subjects; but the despotic style,

and the extreme insolence of language and demeanour, used to a person of great condition

among the politest people in the world, was intolerable. Nothing aggravates tyranny so much as

contumely. Quicquid superbia in contumeliis

was charged by a great man of antiquity, as a

principal head of offence against the governor general of that day. The unhappy people were still

more insulted. A relation, but an enemy to the family, a notorious robber and villain, called

Ussaun Sing, kept as a hawk in a mew, to fly upon this nation, was set up to govern there,

instead of a prince honoured and beloved. But when the business of insult was accomplished, the

revenue was too serious a concern to be entrusted to such hands. Another was set up in his

place, as guardian to an infant.

But here, Sir, mark the effect of all these extraordinary means, of all this policy and justice. The

revenues which had been hitherto paid with such astonishing punctuality, fell into arrear. The new

prince guardian was deposed without ceremony; and with as little, cast into prison. The

government of that once happy country has been in the utmost confusion ever since such good

order was taken about it. But, to complete the contumely offered to this undone people, and to

e 77 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

make them feel their servitude in all its degradation, and all its bitterness, the government of

their sacred city, the government of that Benares which had been so respected by Persian and

Tartar conquerors, though of the Mussulman persuasion, that, even in the plenitude of their pride,

power, and bigotry, no magistrate of that sect entered the place, was now delivered over by

English hands to a Mahometan; and an Ali Ibrahim Khân was introduced, under the Company’s

authority, with power of life and death, into the sanctuary of the Gentû religion.

After this, the taking off a slight payment, chearfully made by pilgrims to a chief of their own

rites, was represented as a mighty benefit. It remains only to shew, through the conduct in this

business, the spirit of the Company’s government, and the respect they pay towards other

prejudices not less regarded in the East than those of religion; I mean the reverence paid to the

female sex in general, and particularly to women of high rank and condition. During the general

confusion of the country of Gazypore, Panna, the mother of Cheit Sing, was lodged with her train

in a castle called Bidgé Gur, in which were likewise deposited a large portion of the treasures of

her son, or more probably her own. To whomsoever they belonged was indifferent; for, though no

charge of rebellion was made on this woman (which was rather singular, as it would have cost

nothing) they were resolved to secure her with her fortune. The castle was besieged by Major

Popham.

There was no great reason to apprehend that soldiers ill paid, that soldiers who thought they had

been defrauded of their plunder on former services of the same kind, would not have been

sufficiently attentive to the spoil they were expressly come for; but the gallantry and generosity

of the profession was justly suspected, as being likely to set bounds to military rapaciousness.

The Company’s first civil magistrate discovered the greatest uneasiness left the women should

have any thing preserved to them. Terms, tending to put some restraint on military violence,

were granted. He writes a letter to Mr. Popham, referring to some letter written before to the

same effect, which I do not remember to have seen; but it shews his anxiety on this subject.

Hear himself: “I think every demand she has made on you, except that of safety and respect to

her person, is unreasonable. If the reports brought to me are true, your rejecting her offers, or

any negotiation, would soon obtain you the fort upon your own terms. I apprehend she will

attempt to defraud the captors of a considerable part of their booty, by being suffered to retire

without examination. But this is your concern, not mine. I should be very sorry that your officers

and soldiers lost any part of the reward to which they are so well entitled; but you must be the

best judge of the promised indulgence to the Ranny: what you have engaged for I will certainly

ratify; but as to suffering the Ranny

to hold the purgunna of Hurlich, or any other zemindary,

without being subject to the authority of the Zemindar, or any lands whatsoever, or indeed

making any condition with her for a provision, I will never consent. ”

Here your governor stimulates a rapacious and licentious soldiery to the personal search of

women, lest these unhappy creatures should avail themselves of the protection of their sex to

secure any supply for their necessities; and he positively orders that no stipulation should be

made for any provision for them. The widow and mother of a prince, well informed of her

miserable situation, and the cause of it, a woman of this rank became a suppliant to the domestic

servant of Mr. Hastings (they are his own words that I read); “imploring his intercession, that she

may be relieved from the hardships and dangers of her presant situation; and offering to

surrender the fort, and the treasure and valuable effects contained in it, provided she can be

assured of safety and protection to her person and honour, and to that of her family and

e 78 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

attendants.” He is so good as to consent to this, “provided she surrenders every thing of value,

with the reserve only of such articles as you shall think necessary to her condition, or as you

yourself shall be disposed to indulge her with.—But should she refuse to execute the promise she

has made, or delay it beyond the term of twenty-four hours, it is my positive injunction, that you

immediately put a stop to any further intercourse or negociation with her, and on no pretext

renew it. If she disappoints or trifles with me, after I have subjected my Duan

to the disgrace of

returning ineffectually, and of course myself to discredit, I shall consider it as a wanton affront

and indignity which I can never forgive; nor will I grant her any conditions whatever, but leave

her exposed to those dangers which she has chosen to risque, rather than trust to the clemency

and generosity of our government. I think she cannot be ignorant of these consequences, and will

not venture to incur them; and it is for this reason I place a dependance on her offers, and have

consented to send my Duan to her.” The dreadful secret hinted at by the merciful governor in the

latter part of the letter, is well understood in India; where those who suffer corporeal indignities,

generally expiate the offences of others with their own blood. However, in spite of all these, the

temper of the military did, some way or other, operate. They came to terms which have never

been transmitted. It appears that a fifteenth per cent. of the plunder was reserved to the

captives, of which the unhappy mother of the prince of Benares was to have a share. This antient

matron, born to better things [a laugh from certain young gentlemen] —I see no cause for this

mirth. A good author of antiquity reckons among the calamities of his time, Nobilissimarum

faeminarum exilia et fugas.

I say, Sir, this antient lady was compelled to quit her house with

three hundred helpless women, and a multitude of children in her train; but the lower sort in the

camp it seems could not be restrained. They did not forget the good lessons of the governor

general. They were unwilling “to be defrauded of a considerable part of their booty, by suffering

them to pass without examination.” They examined them, Sir, with a vengeance, and the sacred

protection of that awful character, Mr. Hastings’s maitre d’hotel, could not secure them from

insult and plunder. Here is Popham’s narrative of the affair: “The Ranny came out of the fort, with

her family and dependants, the 10th at night, owing to which such attention was not paid to her

as I wished; and I am exceedingly sorry to inform you, that the licentiousness of our followers

was beyond the bounds of controul; for, notwithstanding all I could do, her people were

plundered on the road of most of the things which they brought out of the fort, by which means

one of the articles of surrender has been much infringed. The distress I have felt upon this

occasion cannot be expressed, and can only be allayed by a firm performance of the other articles

of the treaty, which I shall make it my business to enforce.

“The suspicions which the officers had of treachery, and the delay made to our getting

possession, had enraged them, as well as the troops, so much, that the treaty was at first

regarded as void, but this determination was soon succeeded by pity and compassion for the

unfortunate besieged.” After this comes, in his due order, Mr. Hastings; who is full of sorrow and

indignation, &c. &c. &c. according to the best and most authentic precedents established upon

such occasions.

The women being thus disposed of, that is, completely despoiled, and pathetically lamented, Mr.

Hastings at length recollected the great object of his enterprize, which, during his zeal lest the

officers and soldiers should lose any part of their reward, he seems to have forgot; that is to say,

“to draw from the Rajah’s guilt the means of relief to the Company’s distresses.” This was to be

the strong hold of his defence. This compassion to the Company, he knew by experience would

sanctify a great deal of rigour towards the natives. But the military had distresses of their own,

e 79 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

which they considered first. Neither Mr. Hastings’s authority, nor his supplications, could prevail

on them to assign a shilling to the claim he made on the part of the Company. They divided the

booty amongst themselves. Driven from his claim he was reduced to petition for the spoil as a

loan. But the soldiers were too wise to venture as a loan, what the borrower claimed as a right. In

defiance of all authority, they shared amongst themselves about two hundred thousand pounds

sterling, besides what had been taken from the women.

In all this there is nothing wonderful. We may rest assured, that when the maxims of any

government establish among its resources extraordinary means, and those exerted with a strong

hand, that strong hand will provide those extraordinary means for itself. Whether the soldiers had

reason or not (perhaps much might be said for them) certain it is, the military discipline of India

was ruined from that moment; and the same rage for plunder, the same contempt of

subordination, which blasted all the hopes of extraordinary means from your strong hand at

Benares, have very lately lost you an army in Mysore. This is visible enough from the accounts in

the last Gazette.

There is no doubt but that the country and city of Benares, now brought into the same order, will

very soon exhibit, if it does not already display the same appearance with those countries and

cities which are under better subjection. A great master, Mr. Hastings, has himself been at the

pains of drawing a picture of one of these countries, I mean the province and city of Farruckabad.

There is no reason to question his knowledge of the facts; and his authority (on this point at

least) is above all exception, as well for the state of the country, as for the cause. In his minute

of consultation, Mr. Hastings describes forcibly the consequences which arise from the

degradation into which we have sunk the native government. “The total want (says he) of all

order, regularity, or authority, in his (the Nabob of Farruckabad’s) government, and to which,

among other obvious causes, it may no doubt be owing that the country of Farruckabad is

become almost an entire waste, without cultivation or inhabitants; that the capital, which, but a

very short time ago, was distinguished as one of the most populous and opulent commercial cities

in Hindostan, at present exhibits nothing but scenes of the most wretched poverty, desolation,

and misery; and that the Nabob himself, tho’ in the possession of a tract of country which, with

only common care, is notoriously capable of yielding an annual revenue of between thirty and

forty lacks, (three or four hundred thousand pounds) with no military establishment to maintain,

scarcely commands the means of a bare subsistance. ”

This is a true and unexaggerated picture, not only of Farruckabad, but of at least three-fourths of

the country which we possess, or rather lay waste, in India. Now, Sir, the House will be desirous

to know for what purpose this picture was drawn. It was for a purpose, I will not say laudable, but

necessary, that of taking the unfortunate Prince and his country out of the hands of a

sequestrator

sent thither by the Nabob of Oude, the mortal enemy of the Prince thus ruined, and

to protect him by means of a British Resident, who might carry his complaints to the superior

Resident at Oude, or transmit them to Calcutta. But mark, how the reformer persisted in his

reformation. The effect of the measure was better than was probably expected. The Prince began

to be at ease; the country began to recover; and the revenue began to be collected. These were

alarming circumstances. Mr. Hastings not only recalled the Resident, but he entered into a formal

stipulation with the Nabob of Oude, never to send an English subject again to Farruckabad; and

thus the country, described as you have heard by Mr. Hastings, is given up for ever to the very

persons to whom he had attributed its ruin, that is to the Sezawals or sequestrators of the Nabob

e 80 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

of Oude.

Such was the issue of the first attempt to relieve the distresses of the dependent provinces. I

shall close what I have to say on the condition of the northern dependencies, with the effect of

the last of these attempts. You will recollect, Sir, the account I have not long ago stated to you as

given by Mr. Hastings, of the ruined condition of the destroyer of others, the Nabob of Oude, and

of the recal, in consequence, of Hannay, Middleton, and Johnson.

When the first little sudden

gust of passion against these gentlemen was spent, the sentiments of old friendship began to

revive. Some healing conferences were held between them and the superior government. Mr.

Hannay was permitted to return to Oude; but death prevented the further advantages intended

for him, and the future benefits proposed for the country by the provident care of the council

general.

These three gentlemen were accused of the grossest peculations. The Court of Directors were

informed, by the governor general and council, that a severe enquiry would be instituted against

the two survivors; and they requested that court to suspend its judgment, and to wait the event

of their proceedings. But no enquiry has been instituted, nor any steps taken towards it. By

means of the bland and conciliatory dispositions of the charter governors, and proper private

explanations, the public enquiry has died away, the supposed peculators and destroyers of Oude

repose in all security in the bosoms of their accusers; whilst others succeed to them to be

instructed by their example.

It is only to complete the view I proposed of the conduct of the Company, with regard to the

dependent provinces, that I shall say any thing at all of the Carnatic, which is the scene, if

possible, of greater disorder than the northern provinces. Perhaps it were better to say of this

center and metropolis of abuse, whence all the rest in India and in England diverge; from whence

they are fed and methodized, what was said of Carthage— de Carthagine satius est silere quam

parum dicere.

This country, in all its denominations, is about 46,000 square miles. It may be

affirmed universally, that not one person of substance or property, landed, commercial, or

monied, excepting two or three bankers, who are necessary deposits and distributors of the

general spoil, is left in all that region. In that country the moisture, the bounty of Heaven, is

given but at a certain season. Before the aera of our influence, the industry of man carefully

husbanded that gift of God. The Gentûs preserved, with a provident and religious care, the

precious deposit of the periodical rain in reservoirs, many of them works of royal grandeur; and

from these, as occasion demanded, they fructified the whole country. To maintain these

reservoirs, and to keep up an annual advance to the cultivators, for feed and cattle, formed a

principal object of the piety and policy of the priests and rulers of the Gentû religion.

This object required a command of money; and there was no Pollam, or castle, which in the

happy days of the Carnatic was without some hoard of treasure, by which the governors were

enabled to combat with the irregularity of the seasons, and to resist or to buy off the invasion of

an enemy. In all the cities were multitudes of merchants and bankers, for all occasions of monied

assistance; and on the other hand, the native princes were in condition to obtain credit from

them. The manufacturer was paid by the return of commodities, or by imported money, and not,

as at present, in the taxes that had been originally exacted from his industry. In aid of casual

distress, the country was full of choultries, which were inns and hospitals, where the traveller and

the poor were relieved. All ranks of people had their place in the public concern, and their share

e 81 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

in the common stock and common prosperity; but the chartered rights of men, and the right

which it was thought proper to set up in the Nabob of Arcot, introduced a new system. It was

their policy to consider hoards of money as crimes; to regard moderate rents as frauds on the

sovereign; and to view, in the lesser princes, any claim of exemption from more than settled

tribute, as an act of rebellion. Accordingly all the castles were, one after the other, plundered and

destroyed. The native princes were expelled; the hospitals fell to ruin; the reservoirs of water

went to decay; the merchants, bankers, and manufacturers disappeared; and sterility, indigence,

and depopulation, overspread the face of these once flourishing provinces.

The Company was very early sensible of these mischiefs, and of their true cause. They gave

precise orders, “that the native princes, called Polygars, should not be extirpated. —That the

rebellion [so they choose to call it] of the Polygars, may (they fear) with too much justice, be

attributed to the mal-administration of the Nabob’s collectors.” That “they observe with concern,

that their troops have been put to disagreeable services.” They might have used a stronger

expression without impropriety. But they make amends in another place. Speaking of the

Polygars, the Directors say, that “it was repugnant to humanity to force them to such dreadful

extremities as they underwent. ” That some examples of severity might be necessary, “when they

fell into the Nabob’s hands,” and not by the destruction of the country. “That they fear his

government is none of the mildest; and that there is great oppression in collecting his revenues.”

They state, that the wars in which he has involved the Carnatic, had been a cause of its

distresses. “That these distresses have been certainly great; but those by the Nabob’s

oppressions we believe to be greater than all. ” Pray, Sir, attend to the reason for their opinion

that the government of this their instrument is more calamitous to the country than the ravages

of war. Because, say they, his oppressions are “ without intermission. —The others are

temporary; by all which oppressions we believe the Nabob has great wealth in store.” From this

store neither he nor they could derive any advantage whatsoever, upon the invasion of Hyder Ali

in the hour of their greatest calamity and dismay.

It is now proper to compare these declarations with the Company’s conduct. The principal reason

which they assigned against the extirpation of the Polygars was, that the weavers were protected

in their fortresses. They might have added, that the Company itself, which stung them to death,

had been warmed in the bosom of these unfortunate princes: for, on the taking of Madras by the

French, it was in their hospitable Pollams, that most of the inhabitants found refuge and

protection. But, notwithstanding all these orders, reasons, and declarations, they at length gave

an indirect sanction, and permitted the use of a very direct and irresistible force, to measures

which they had, over and over again, declared to be false policy, cruel, inhuman, and oppressive.

Having, however, forgot all attention to the princes and the people, they remembered that they

had some sort of interest in the trade of the country; and it is matter of curiosity to observe the

protection which they afforded to this their natural object.

Full of anxious cares on this head, they direct, “that in reducing the Polygars they (their servants)

were to be cautious, not to deprive the weavers and manufacturers of the protection they often

met with in the strong holds of the Polygar countries”; and they write to their instrument, the

Nabob of Arcot, concerning these poor people in a most pathetic strain. “We entreat your

Excellency (say they) in particular, to make the manufacturers the object of your tenderest care;

particularly when you root out the Polygars, you do not deprive the weavers of the protection

they enjoyed under them. ” When they root out the protectors in favour of the oppressor, they

e 82 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

shew themselves religiously cautious of the rights of the protected. When they extirpate the

shepherd and the shepherd’s dogs, they piously recommend the helpless flock to the mercy, and

even to the tenderest care, of the wolf. This is the uniform strain of their policy, strictly

forbidding, and at the same time strenuously encouraging and enforcing, every measure that can

ruin and desolate the country committed to their charge. After giving the Company’s idea of the

government of this their instrument, it may appear singular, but it is perfectly consistent with

their system, that, besides wasting for him, at two different times, the most exquisite spot upon

the earth, Tanjour, and all the adjacent countries, they have even voluntarily put their own

territory, that is, a large and fine country adjacent to Madras, called their Jaghire,

wholly out of

their protection; and have continued to farm their subjects, and their duties towards these

subjects, to that very Nabob, whom they themselves constantly represent as an habitual

oppressor, and a relentless tyrant. This they have done without any pretence of ignorance of the

objects of oppression for which this prince has thought fit to become their renter; for he has

again and again told them, that it is for the sole purpose of exercising authority he holds the

Jaghire lands; and he affirms (and I believe with truth) that he pays more for that territory than

the revenues yield. This deficiency he must make up from his other territories; and thus, in order

to furnish the means of oppressing one part of the Carnatic, he is led to oppress all the rest.

The House perceives that the livery of the Company’s government is uniform. I have described

the condition of the countries indirectly, but most substantially, under the Company’s authority.

And now I ask, whether, with this map of misgovernment before me, I can suppose myself bound

by my vote to continue, upon any principles of pretended public faith, the management of these

countries in those hands. If I kept such a faith (which in reality is no better than a fides latronum)

with what is called the Company, I must break the faith, the covenant, the solemn, original,

indispensable oath, in which I am bound, by the eternal frame and constitution of things,

to the

whole human race.

As I have dwelt so long on these who are indirectly under the Company’s administration, I will

endeavour to be a little shorter upon the countries immediately under this charter government.

These are the Bengal provinces. The condition of these provinces is pretty fully detailed in the

Sixth and Ninth Reports,

and in their Appendixes. I will select only such principles and instances

as are broad and general. To your own thoughts I shall leave it, to furnish the detail of

oppressions involved in them. I shall state to you, as shortly as I am able, the conduct of the

Company; 1st, towards the landed interests; next, the commercial interests; 3dly, the native

government; and lastly, to their own government.

Bengal, and the provinces that are united to it, are larger than the kingdom of France; and once

contained, as France does contain, a great and independent landed interest, composed of princes,

of great lords, of a numerous nobility and gentry, of freeholders, of lower tenants, of religious

communities, and public foundations. So early as 1769, the Company’s servants perceived the

decay into which these provinces had fallen under English administration, and they made a strong

representation upon this decay, and what they apprehended to be the causes of it. Soon after Mr.

Hastings became president of Bengal. Instead of administering a remedy, upon the heels of a

dreadful famine, in the year 1772, the succour which the new president and the council lent to

this afflicted nation was—shall I be believed in relating it?—the landed interest of a whole

kingdom, of a kingdom to be compared to France, was set up to public auction!

They set up (Mr.

Hastings set up) the whole nobility, gentry, and freeholders, to the highest bidder. No preference

e 83 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

was given to the ancient proprietors.

They must bid against every usurer, every temporary

adventurer, every jobber and schemer, every servant of every European, or they were obliged to

content themselves, in lieu of their extensive domains, with their house, and such a pension as

the state auctioneers thought fit to assign. In this general calamity, several of the first nobility

thought (and in all appearance justly) that they had better submit to the necessity of this

pension, than continue, under the name of Zemindars, the objects and instruments of a system,

by which they ruined their tenants, and were ruined themselves. Another reform has since come

upon the back of the first; and a pension having been assigned to these unhappy persons, in lieu

of their hereditary lands, a new scheme of oeconomy has taken place, and deprived them of that

pension.

The menial servants of Englishmen, persons (to use the emphatical phrase of a ruined and patient

Eastern chief) “ whose fathers they would not have set with the dogs of their flock, ”

entered

into their patrimonial lands. Mr. Hastings’s banian

was, after this auction, found possessed of

territories yielding a rent of one hundred and forty thousand pounds a year.

Such an universal proscription, upon any pretence, has few examples. Such a proscription,

without even a pretence of delinquency, has none. It stands by itself. It stands as a monument to

astonish the imagination, to confound the reason of mankind. I confess to you, when I first came

to know this business in its true nature and extent, my surprise did a little suspend my

indignation. I was in a manner stupified by the desperate boldness of a few obscure young men,

who having obtained, by ways which they could not comprehend, a power of which they saw

neither the purposes nor the limits, tossed about, subverted, and tore to pieces, as if it were in

the gambols of a boyish unluckiness and malice, the most established rights, and the most

ancient and most revered institutions, of ages and nations. Sir, I will not now trouble you with

any detail with regard to what they have since done with these same lands and land-holders; only

to inform you, that nothing has been suffered to settle for two seasons together upon any basis;

and that the levity and inconstancy of these mock legislators were not the least afflicting parts of

the oppressions suffered under their usurpation; nor will any thing give stability to the property of

the natives, but an administration in England at once protecting and stable. The country sustains,

almost every year, the miseries of a revolution. At present, all is uncertainty, misery, and

confusion. There is to be found through these vast regions no longer one landed man, who is a

resource for voluntary aid, or an object for particular rapine. Some of them were, not long since,

great princes; they possessed treasures, they levied armies. There was a Zemindar in Bengal (I

forget his name) that, on the threat of an invasion, supplied the Soubah of these provinces with

the loan of a million sterling. The family this day wants credit for a breakfast at the bazar.

I shall now say a word or two on the Company’s care of the commercial interest of those

kingdoms. As it appears in the Reports, that persons in the highest stations in Bengal have

adopted, as a fixed plan of policy, the destruction of all intermediate dealers between the

Company and the manufacturer, native merchants have disappeared of course. The spoil of the

revenues is the sole capital which purchases the produce and manufactures; and through three or

four foreign companies transmits the official gains of individuals to Europe. No other commerce

has an existence in Bengal. The transport of its plunder is the only traffic of the country. I wish to

refer you to the Appendix to the Ninth Report for a full account of the manner in which the

otected

l in

ests

mini

ast

e 84 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

As to the native government and the administration of justice, it subsisted in a poor tottering

manner for some years. In the year 1781, a total revolution took place in that establishment. In

one of the usual freaks of legislation of the council of Bengal, the whole criminal jurisdiction of

these courts, called the Phoujdary Judicature, exercised till then by the principal Mussulmen, was

in one day, without notice, without consultation with the magistrates or the people there, and

without communication with the directors or ministers here, totally subverted. A new institution

took place, by which this jurisdiction was divided between certain English servants of the

Company and the Gentû Zemindars of the country, the latter of whom never petitioned for it, nor,

for ought that appears, ever desired this boon. But its natural use was made of it; it was made a

pretence for new extortions of money.

The natives had however one consolation in the ruin of their judicature; they soon saw that it

fared no better with the English government itself. That too, after destroying every other, came

to its period. This revolution may well be rated for a most daring act, even among the

extraordinary things that have been doing in Bengal since our unhappy acquisition of the means

of so much mischief.

An establishment of English government for civil justice, and for the collection of revenue, was

planned and executed by the president and council of Bengal, subject to the pleasure of the

Directors, in the year 1772. According to this plan, the country was divided into six great districts,

or provinces. In each of these was established a provincial council, which administered the

revenue; and of that council one member, by monthly rotation, presided in the courts of civil

resort; with an appeal to the council of the province, and thence to Calcutta. In this system

(whether, in other respects, good or evil) there were some capital advantages. There was in the

very number of persons in each provincial council, authority, communication, mutual check, and

controul. They were obliged, on their minutes of consultation, to enter their reasons and dissents;

so that a man of diligence, of research, and tolerable sagacity, sitting in London, might, from

these materials, be enabled to form some judgment of the spirit of what was going on on the

furthest banks of the Ganges and Burrampûter.

The Court of Directors so far ratified this establishment, (which was consonant enough to their

general plan of government) that they gave precise orders, that no alteration should be made in

it, without their consent. So far from being apprised of any design against this constitution, they

had reason to conceive that on trial it had been more and more approved by their council general,

at least by the governor general, who had planned it. At the time of the revolution, the council

general was nominally in two persons, virtually in one.

At that time measures of an arduous and

critical nature ought to have been forborne, even if, to the fullest council, this specific measure

had not been prohibited by the superior authority. It was in this very situation, that one man had

the hardiness to conceive, and the temerity to execute, a total revolution in the form and the

persons composing the government of a great kingdom. Without any previous step, at one stroke,

the whole constitution of Bengal, civil and criminal, was swept away. The counsellors were

recalled from their provinces. Upwards of fifty of the principal officers of government were turned

out of employ, and rendered dependent on Mr. Hastings for their immediate subsistence, and for

all hope of future provision. The chief of each council, and one European collector of revenue, was

left in each province.

But here, Sir, you may imagine a new government, of some permanent description, was

e 85 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

established in the place of that which had been thus suddenly overturned. No such thing. Lest

these chiefs without councils should be conceived to form the ground plan of some future

government, it was publicly declared, that their continuance was only temporary and permissive.

The whole subordinate British administration of revenue was then vested in a committee in

Calcutta, all creatures of the governor general; and the provincial management, under the

permissive chief, was delivered over to native officers.

But, that the revolution, and the purposes of the revolution, might be complete, to this committee

were delegated, not only the functions of all the inferior, but, what will surprize the House, those

of the supreme administration of revenue also. Hitherto the governor general and council had, in

their revenue department, administered the finances of those kingdoms. By the new scheme they

are delegated to this committee, who are only to report their proceedings for approbation.

The key to the whole transaction is given in one of the instructions to the commitee, “that it is not

necessary that they should enter dissents.” By this means the ancient plan of the Company’s

administration was destroyed; but the plan of concealment was perfected. To that moment the

accounts of the revenues were tolerably clear; or at least means were furnished for enquiries, by

which they might be rendered satisfactory. In the obscure and silent gulph of this committee

every thing is now buried. The thickest shades of night surround all their transactions. No

effectual means of detecting fraud, mismanagement, or misrepresentation, exist. The Directors,

who have dared to talk with such confidence on their revenues, know nothing about them. What

used to fill volumes is now comprised under a few dry heads on a sheet of paper. The natives, a

people habitually made to concealment, are the chief managers of the revenue thoughout the

provinces. I mean by natives, such wretches as your rulers select out of them as most fitted for

their purposes. As a proper key-stone to bind the arch, a native, one Gunga Govind Sing, a man

turned out of his employment by Sir John Clavering, for malversation in office, is made the

corresponding secretary; and indeed the great moving principle of their new board.

As the whole revenue and civil administration was thus subverted, and a clandestine government

substituted in the place of it, the judicial institution underwent a like revolution. In 1772 there

had been six courts formed out of the six provincial councils. Eighteen new ones are appointed in

their place, with each a judge, taken from the junior servants of the Company. To maintain these

eighteen courts, a tax is levied on the sums in litigation, of 2½ per cent. on the great, and of 5

per cent. on the less. This money is all drawn from the provinces to Calcutta. The chief justice

(the same who stays in defiance of a vote of this House, and of His Majesty’s recal) is appointed

at once the treasurer and disposer of these taxes, levied, without any sort of authority, from the

Company, from the Crown, or from Parliament.

In effect, Sir, every legal regular authority in matters of revenue, of political administration, of

criminal law, of civil law, in many of the most essential parts of military discipline, is laid level

with the ground; and an oppressive, irregular, capricious, unsteady, rapacious, and peculating

despotism, with a direct disavowal of obedience to any authority at home, and without any fixed

maxim, principle, or rule of proceeding, to guide them in India, is at present the state of your

charter-government over great kingdoms.

As the Company has made this use of their trust, I should ill discharge mine, if I refused to give

my most chearful vote for the redress of these abuses, by putting the affairs of so large and

e 86 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

valuable a part of the interests of this nation and of mankind, into some steady hands, possessing

the confidence, and assured of the support of this House, until they can be restored to regularity,

order, and consistency.

I have touched the heads of some of the grievances of the people, and the abuses of government.

But I hope and trust, you will give me credit, when I faithfully assure you, that I have not

mentioned one fourth part of what has come to my knowledge in your committee; and further, I

have full reason to believe, that not one fourth part of the abuses are come to my knowledge, by

that or by any other means. Pray consider what I have said only as an index to direct you in your

enquiries.

If this then, Sir, has been the use made of the trust of political powers internal and external,

given by you in the charter, the next thing to be seen is the conduct of the Company with regard

to the commercial trust. And here I will make a fair offer: If it can be proved that they have acted

wisely, prudently, and frugally, as merchants, I shall pass by the whole mass of their enormities

as statesmen. That they have not done this their present condition is proof sufficient. Their

distresses are said to be owing to their wars. This is not wholly true. But if it were, is not that

readiness to engage in wars which distinguishes them, and for which the Committee of Secrecy

has so branded their politics, founded on the falsest principles of mercantile speculation?

The principle of buying cheap and selling dear is the first, the great foundation of mercantile

dealing. Have they ever attended to this principle? Nay, for years have they not actually

authorized in their servants a total indifference as to the prices they were to pay?

A great deal of strictness in driving bargains for whatever we contract, is another of the principles

of mercantile policy. Try the Company by that test! Look at the contracts that are made for them.

Is the Company so much as a good commissary to their own armies? I engage to select for you,

out of the innumerable mass of their dealings, all conducted very nearly alike, one contract only,

the excessive profits on which during a short term would pay the whole of their year’s dividend. I

shall undertake to shew, that upon two others, that the inordinate profits given, with the losses

incurred in order to secure those profits, would pay a year’s dividend more.

It is a third property of trading men, to see that their clerks do not divert the dealings of the

master to their own benefit. It was the other day only, when their governor and council taxed the

Company’s investment with a sum of fifty thousand pounds, as an inducement to persuade only

seven members of their board of trade to give their honour that they would abstain from such

profits upon that investment as they must have violated their oaths if they had made at all.

It is a fourth quality of a merchant to be exact in his accounts. What will be thought, when you

have fully before you the mode of accounting made use of in the treasury of Bengal? I hope you

will have it soon. With regard to one of their agencies, when it came to the material part, the

prime cost of the goods on which a commission of fifteen per cent. was allowed, to the

astonishment of the factory to whom the commodities were sent, the accountant general reports

that he did not think himself authorized to call for vouchers relative to this and other particulars,

because the agent was upon his honour with regard to them. A new principle of account upon

honour seems to be regularly established in their dealings and their treasury, which in reality

amounts to an entire annihilation of the principle of all accounts.

e 87 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

It is a fifth property of a merchant, who does not meditate a fraudulent bankruptcy, to calculate

his probable profits upon the money he takes up to vest in business.

Did the Company, when

they bought goods on bonds bearing 8 per cent. interest, at ten and even twenty per cent.

discount, even ask themselves a question concerning the possibility of advantage from dealing on

these terms?

The last quality of a merchant I shall advert to, is the taking care to be properly prepared, in cash

or goods, in the ordinary course of sale, for the bills which are drawn on them.

Now I ask,

whether they have ever calculated the clear produce of any given sales, to make them tally with

the four million of bills which are come and coming upon them, so as at the proper periods to

enable the one to liquidate the other? No, they have not. They are now obliged to borrow money

of their own servants to purchase their investment. The servants stipulate five per cent. on the

capital they advance, if their bills should not be paid at the time when they become due; and the

value of the rupee on which they charge this interest is taken at two shillings and a penny. Has

the Company ever troubled themselves to enquire whether their sales can bear the payment of

that interest, and at that rate of exchange? Have they once considered the dilemma in which they

are placed—the ruin of their credit in the East Indies, if they refuse the bills—the ruin of their

credit and existence in England, if they accept them? Indeed no trace of equitable government is

found in their politics; not one trace of commercial principle in their mercantile dealing; and

hence is the deepest and maturest wisdom of Parliament demanded, and the best resources of

this kingdom must be strained, to restore them; that is, to restore the countries destroyed by the

misconduct of the Company, and to restore the Company itself, ruined by the consequences of

their plans for destroying what they were bound to preserve.

I required, if you remember, at my outset a proof that these abuses were habitual. But surely this

it is not necessary for me to consider as a separate head, because I trust I have made it evident

beyond a doubt, in considering the abuses themselves, that they are regular, permanent, and

systematical.

I am now come to my last condition, without which, for one, I will never readily lend my hand to

the destruction of any established government; which is, That in its present state, the

government of the East India Company is absolutely incorrigible.

Of this great truth I think there can be little doubt, after all that has appeared in this House. It is

so very clear, that I must consider the leaving any power in their hands, and the determined

resolution to continue and countenance every mode and every degree of peculation, oppression,

and tyranny, to be one and the same thing. I look upon that body incorrigible, from the fullest

consideration both of their uniform conduct, and their present real and virtual constitution.

If they had not constantly been apprized of all the enormities committed in India under their

authority; if this state of things had been as much a discovery to them as it was to many of us;

we might flatter ourselves that the detection of the abuses would lead to their reformation. I will

go further: If the Court of Directors had not uniformly condemned every act which this House or

any of its Committees had condemned; if the language in which they expressed their

disapprobation against enormities and their authors had not been much more vehement and

indignant than any ever used in this House, I should entertain some hopes. If they had not, on

the other hand, as uniformly commended all their servants who had done their duty and obeyed

e 88 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

their orders, as they had heavily censured those who rebelled; I might say, These people have

been in an error, and when they are sensible of it they will mend. But when I reflect on the

uniformity of their support to the objects of their uniform censure; and the state of insignificance

and disgrace to which all of those have been reduced whom they approved; and that even utter

ruin and premature death have been among the fruits of their favour; I must be convinced, that

in this case, as in all others, hypocrisy is the only vice that never can be cured.

Attend, I pray you, to the situation and prosperity of Benfield,

Hastings, and others of that sort.

The last of these has been treated by the company with an asperity of reprehension that has no

parallel. They lament, “that the power of disposing of their property for perpetuity, should fall into

such hands.” Yet for fourteen years, with little interruption, he has governed all their affairs, of

every description, with an absolute sway. He has had himself the means of heaping up immense

wealth; and, during that whole period, the fortunes of hundreds have depended on his smiles and

frowns. He himself tells you he is incumbered with two hundred and fifty young gentlemen, some

of them of the best families in England, all of whom aim at returning with vast fortunes to Europe

in the prime of life. He has then two hundred and fifty of your children as his hostages for your

good behaviour; and loaded for years, as he has been, with the execrations of the natives, with

the censures of the Court of Directors, and struck and blasted with resolutions of this House, he

still maintains the most despotic power ever known in India. He domineers with an overbearing

sway in the assemblies of his pretended masters; and it is thought in a degree rash to venture to

name his offences in this House, even as grounds of a legislative remedy.

On the other hand, consider the fate of those who have met with the applauses of the Directors.

Colonel Monson, one of the best of men, had his days shortened by the applauses, destitute of

the support, of the Company. General Clavering, whose panegyric was made in every dispatch

from England, whose hearse was bedewed with the tears, and hung round with eulogies of the

Court of Directors, burst an honest and indignant heart at the treachery of those who ruined him

by their praises. Uncommon patience and temper, supported Mr. Francis a while longer under the

baneful influence of the commendation of the Court of Directors. His health however gave way at

length; and, in utter despair he returned to Europe. At his return the doors of the India House

were shut to this man, who had been the object of their constant admiration. He has indeed

escaped with life, but he has forfeited all expectation of credit, consequence, party, and following.

He may well say, Me nemo ministro fur erit, atque ideo nulli comes exeo.

This man, whose deep

reach of thought, whose large legislative conceptions, and whose grand plans of policy, make the

most shining part of our Reports, from whence we have all learned our lessons, if we have

learned any good ones; this man, from whose materials those gentlemen who have least

acknowledged it have yet spoken as from a brief; this man, driven from his employment,

discountenanced by the Directors, has had no other reward, and no other distinction, but that

inward “sunshine of the soul”

which a good conscience can always bestow upon itself. He has

not yet had so much as a good word, but from a person too insignificant to make any other return

for the means with which he has been furnished for performing his share of a duty which is

equally urgent on us all.

Add to this, that from the highest in place to the lowest, every British subject, who, in obedience

to the Company’s orders, has been active in the discovery of peculations, has been ruined. They

have been driven from India. When they made their appeal at home they were not heard; when

they attempted to return they were stopped. No artifice of fraud, no violence of power, has been

e 89 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

omitted, to destroy them in character as well as in fortune.

Worse, far worse, has been the fate of the poor creatures, the natives of India, whom the

hypocrisy of the Company has betrayed into complaint of oppression, and discovery of peculation.

The first woman in Bengal, the Ranni of Rajeshahi, the Ranni of Burdwan, the Ranni of Amboa, by

their weak and thoughtless trust in the Company’s honour and protection, are utterly ruined: the

first of these women, a person of princely rank, and once of correspondent fortune, who paid

above two hundred thousand a year quit-rent to the state, is, according to very credible

information, so completely beggared as to stand in need of the relief of alms. Mahomed Reza

Khân, the second Mussulman in Bengal, for having been distinguished by the ill-omened honour

of the countenance and protection of the Court of Directors, was, without the pretence of any

enquiry whatsoever into his conduct, stripped of all his employments, and reduced to the lowest

condition. His ancient rival for power, the Rajah Nundcomar,

was, by an insult on every thing

which India holds respectable and sacred, hanged in the face of all his nation, by the judges you

sent to protect that people; hanged for a pretended crime, upon an ex post facto British act of

parliament, in the midst of his evidence against Mr. Hastings. The accuser they saw hanged. The

culprit, without acquittal or enquiry, triumphs on the ground of that murder: a murder not of

Nundcomar only, but of all living testimony, and even of evidence yet unborn. From that time not

a complaint has been heard from the natives against their governors. All the grievances of India

have found a complete remedy.

Men will not look to acts of parliament, to regulations, to declarations, to votes, and resolutions.

No, they are not such fools. They will ask, what is the road to power, credit, wealth, and honours?

They will ask, what conduct ends in neglect, disgrace, poverty, exile, prison, and gibbet? These

will teach them the course which they are to follow. It is your distribution of these that will give

the character and tone to your government. All the rest is miserable grimace.

When I accuse the Court of Directors of this habitual treachery, in the use of reward and

punishment, I do not mean to include all the individuals in that Court. There have been, Sir, very

frequently, men of the greatest integrity and virtue amongst them; and the contrariety in the

declarations and conduct of that Court has arisen, I take it, from this: That the honest Directors

have, by the force of matter of fact on the records, carried the reprobation of the evil measures of

the servants in India. This could not be prevented, whilst these records stared them in the face;

nor were the delinquents, either here or there, very solicitous about their reputation, as long as

they were able to secure their power. The agreement of their partizans to censure them, blunted

for a while the edge of a severe proceeding. It obtained for them a character of impartiality,

which enabled them to recommend, with some sort of grace, what will always carry a plausible

appearance, those treacherous expedients, called moderate measures. Whilst these were under

discussion, new matter of complaint came over, which seemed to antiquate the first. The same

circle was here trod round once more; and thus through years they proceeded in a compromise of

censure for punishment; until, by shame and despair, one after another, almost every man, who

preferred his duty to the Company to the interests of their servants, has been driven from that

Court.

This, Sir, has been their conduct; and it has been the result of the alteration which was insensibly

made in their constitution. The change was made insensibly; but it is now strong and adult, and

as public and declared, as it is fixed beyond all power of reformation. So that there is none who

e 90 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

hears me, that is not as certain as I am, that the Company, in the sense in which it was formerly

understood, has no existence. The question is not, what injury you may do to the proprietors of

India stock; for there are no such men to be injured. If the active ruling part of the Company who

form the general court, who fill the offices, and direct the measures (the rest tell for nothing)

were persons who held their stock as a means of their subsistence, who in the part they took

were only concerned in the government of India, for the rise or fall of their dividend, it would be

indeed a defective plan of policy. The interest of the people who are governed by them would not

be their primary object; perhaps a very small part of their consideration at all. But then they

might well be depended on, and perhaps more than persons in other respects preferable, for

preventing the peculations of their servants to their own prejudice. Such a body would not easily

have left their trade as a spoil to the avarice of those who received their wages. But now things

are totally reversed. The stock is of no value, whether it be the qualification of a director or

proprietor; and it is impossible that it should. A director’s qualification

may be worth about two

thousand five hundred pounds—and the interest, at eight per cent. is about one hundred and

sixty pounds a year. Of what value is that, whether it rise to ten, or fall to six, or to nothing, to

him whose son, before he is in Bengal two months, and before he descends the steps of the

council chamber, sells the grant of a single contract for forty thousand pounds? Accordingly the

stock is bought up in qualifications. The vote is not to protect the stock, but the stock is bought to

acquire the vote; and the end of the vote is to cover and support, against justice, some man of

power who has made an obnoxious fortune in India; or to maintain in power those who are

actually employing it in the acquisition of such a fortune; and to avail themselves in return of his

patronage, that he may shower the spoils of the East, “barbaric pearl and gold,”

on them, their

families, and dependents. So that all the relations of the Company are not only changed, but

inverted. The servants in India are not appointed by the Directors, but the Directors are chosen

by them. The trade is carried on with their capitals. To them the revenues of the country are

mortgaged. The seat of the supreme power is in Calcutta. The house in Leadenhall Street

nothing more than a change for their agents, factors, and deputies to meet in, to take care of

their affairs, and support their interests; and this so avowedly, that we see the known agents of

the delinquent servants marshalling and disciplining their forces, and the prime spokesmen in all

their assemblies.

Every thing has followed in this order, and according to the natural train of events. I will close

what I have to say on the incorrigible condition of the Company, by stating to you a few facts,

that will leave no doubt of the obstinacy of that corporation, and of their strength too, in resisting

the reformation of their servants. By these facts you will be enabled to discover the sole grounds

upon which they are tenacious of their charter. It is now more than two years that, upon account

of the gross abuses and ruinous situation of the Company’s affairs, (which occasioned the cry of

the whole world long before it was taken up here) that we instituted two Committees

to enquire

into the mismanagements by which the Company’s affairs had been brought to the brink of ruin.

These enquiries had been pursued with unremitting diligence; and a great body of facts was

collected and printed for general information. In the result of those enquiries, although the

Committees consisted of very different descriptions, they were unanimous. They joined in

censuring the conduct of the Indian administration, and enforcing the responsibility upon two

men, whom this House, in consequence of these reports, declared it to be the duty of the

Directors to remove from their stations, and recal to Great Britain, “ because they had acted in a

manner repugnant to the honour and policy of this nation, and thereby brought great calamities

on India, and enormous expences on the East India Company. ”

e 91 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

Here was no attempt on the charter. Here was no question of their privileges. To vindicate their

own honour, to support their own interests, to enforce obedience to their own orders; these were

the sole object of the monitory resolution of this House. But as soon as the general court

could

assemble, they assembled to demonstrate who they really were. Regardless of the proceedings of

this House, they ordered the Directors not to carry into effect any resolution they might come to

for the removal of Mr. Hastings and Mr. Hornby.

The Directors, still retaining some shadow of

respect to this House, instituted an enquiry themselves, which continued from June to October;

and after an attentive perusal and full consideration of papers, resolved to take steps for

removing the persons who had been the objects of our resolution; but not without a violent

struggle against evidence. Seven Directors went so far as to enter a protest against the vote of

their court. Upon this the general court takes the alarm; it re-assembles; it orders the Directors

to rescind their resolution, that is, not to recal Mr. Hastings and Mr. Hornby, and to despise the

resolution of the House of Commons. Without so much as the pretence of looking into a single

paper, without the formality of instituting any committee of enquiry, they superseded all the

labours of their own Directors, and of this House.

It will naturally occur to ask, how it was possible that they should not attempt some sort of

examination into facts, as a colour for their resistance to a public authority, proceeding so very

deliberately; and exerted, apparently at least, in favour of their own? The answer, and the only

answer which can be given, is, that they were afraid that their true relation should be mistaken.

They were afraid that their patrons and masters in India should attribute their support of them, to

an opinion of their cause, and not to an attachment to their power. They were afraid it should be

suspected, that they did not mean blindly to support them in the use they made of that power.

They determined to shew that they at least were set against reformation; that they were firmly

resolved to bring the territories, the trade, and the stock of the Company, to ruin, rather than be

wanting in fidelity to their nominal servants and real masters, in the ways they took to their

private fortunes.

Even since the beginning of this session, the same act of audacity was repeated, with the same

circumstances of contempt of all the decorum of enquiry, on their part, and of all the proceedings

of this House. They again made it a request to their favourite, and your culprit, to keep his post;

and thanked and applauded him, without calling for a paper which could afford light into the merit

or demerit of the transaction, and without giving themselves a moment’s time to consider, or

even to understand, the articles of the Maratta peace. The fact is, that for a long time there was a

struggle, a faint one indeed, between the Company and their servants. But it is a struggle no

longer. For some time the superiority has been decided. The interests abroad are become the

settled preponderating weight both in the Court of Proprietors, and the Court of Directors. Even

the attempt you have made to enquire into their practices and to reform abuses, has raised and

piqued them to a far more regular and steady support. The Company has made a common cause,

and identified themselves, with the destroyers of India. They have taken on themselves all that

mass of enormity; they are supporting what you have reprobated; those you condemn they

applaud; those you order home to answer for their conduct, they request to stay, and thereby

encourage to proceed in their practices. Thus the servants of the East India Company triumph,

and the representatives of the people of Great Britain are defeated.

I therefore conclude, what you all conclude, that this body, being totally perverted from the

purposes of its institution, is utterly incorrigible; and because they are incorrigible, both in

e 92 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

conduct and constitution, power ought to be taken out of their hands; just on the same principles

on which have been made all the just changes and revolutions of government that have taken

place since the beginning of the world.

I will now say a few words to the general principle of the plan which is set up against that of my

Right Honourable friend. It is to re-commit the government of India to the Court of Directors.

Those who would commit the reformation of India to the destroyers of it, are the enemies to that

reformation. They would make a distinction between Directors and Proprietors, which, in the

present state of things, does not, cannot exist. But a Right Honourable gentleman says he would

keep the present government of India in the Court of Directors; and would, to curb them, provide

salutary regulations; wonderful! That is, he would appoint the old offenders to correct the old

offences; and he would render the vicious and the foolish wise and virtuous, by salutary

regulations. He would appoint the wolf as guardian of the sheep; but he has invented a curious

muzzle, by which this protecting wolf shall not be able to open his jaws above an inch or two at

the utmost. Thus his work is finished. But I tell the Right Honourable gentleman, that controuled

depravity is not innocence; and that it is not the labour of delinquency in chains, that will correct

abuses. Will these gentlemen of the direction animadvert on the partners of their own guilt?

Never did a serious plan of amending of any old tyrannical establishment propose the authors and

abettors of the abuses as the reformers of them. If the undone people of India see their old

oppressors in confirmed power, even by the reformation, they will expect nothing but what they

will certainly feel, a continuance, or rather an aggravation, of all their former sufferings. They

look to the seat of power, and to the persons who fill it; and they despise those gentlemen’s

regulations as much as the gentlemen do who talk of them.

But there is a cure for every thing. Take away, say they, the Court of Proprietors, and the Court

of Directors will do their duty. Yes; as they have done it hitherto. That the evils in India have

solely arisen from the Court of Proprietors, is grossly false. In many of them, the Directors were

heartily concurring; in most of them they were encouraging, and sometimes commanding; in all

they were conniving.

But who are to choose this well-regulated and reforming Court of Directors? Why, the very

proprietors who are excluded from all management, for the abuse of their power. They will

choose undoubtedly, out of themselves, men like themselves; and those who are most forward in

resisting your authority, those who are most engaged in faction or interest with the delinquents

abroad, will be the objects of their selection. But Gentlemen say, that when this choice is made,

the proprietors are not to interfere in the measures of the Directors, whilst those Directors are

busy in the control of their common patrons and masters in India. No, indeed, I believe they will

not desire to interfere. They will choose those whom they know may be trusted, safely trusted, to

act in strict conformity to their common principles, manners, measures, interests, and

connections. They will want neither monitor nor control. It is not easy to choose men to act in

conformity to a public interest against their private: but a sure dependance may be had on those

who are chosen to forward their private interest, at the expence of the public. But if the Directors

should slip, and deviate into rectitude, the punishment is in the hands of the general court, and it

will surely be remembered to them at their next election.

If the government of India wants no reformation; but gentlemen are amusing themselves with a

theory, conceiving a more democratic or aristocratic mode of government for these dependances,

e 93 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

or if they are in a dispute only about patronage; the dispute is with me of so little concern, that I

should not take the pains to utter an affirmative or negative to any proposition in it. If it be only

for a theoretical amusement that they are to propose a bill; the thing is at best frivolous and

unnecessary. But if the Company’s government is not only full of abuse, but is one of the most

corrupt and destructive tyrannies, that probably ever existed in the world (as I am sure it is) what

a cruel mockery would it be in me, and in those who think like me, to propose this kind of remedy

for this kind of evil!

I now come to the third objection, That this bill will increase the influence of the Crown. An

Honourable gentleman has demanded of me, whether I was in earnest when I proposed to this

House a plan for the reduction of that influence.

Indeed, Sir, I was much, very much, in earnest.

My heart was deeply concerned in it; and I hope the public has not lost the effect of it. How far

my judgment was right, for what concerned personal favour and consequence to myself, I shall

not presume to determine; nor is its effect upon me of any moment. But as to this bill, whether it

encreases the influence of the Crown, or not, is a question I should be ashamed to ask. If I am

not able to correct a system of oppression and tyranny, that goes to the utter ruin of thirty

millions of my fellow-creatures and fellow-subjects, but by some increase to the influence of the

Crown, I am ready here to declare, that I, who have been active to reduce it, shall be at least as

active and strenuous to restore it again. I am no lover of names; I contend for the substance of

good and protecting government, let it come from what quarter it will.

But I am not obliged to have recourse to this expedient. Much, very much the contrary. I am sure

that the influence of the Crown will by no means aid a reformation of this kind; which can neither

be originated nor supported, but by the uncorrupt public virtue of the representatives of the

people of England. Let it once get into the ordinary course of administration, and to me all hopes

of reformation are gone. I am far from knowing or believing, that this bill will encrease the

influence of the Crown. We all know, that the Crown has ever had some influence in the Court of

Directors; and that it has been extremely increased by the acts of 1773 and 1780. The gentlemen

who, as part of their reformation, propose “a more active controul on the part of the Crown,”

which is to put the Directors under a Secretary of State, specially named for that purpose, must

know, that their project will increase it further. But that old influence has had, and the new will

have, incurable inconveniences, which cannot happen under the parliamentary establishment

proposed in this bill. An Honourable gentleman

not now in his place, but who is well acquainted

with the India Company, and by no means a friend to this bill, has told you that a ministerial

influence has always been predominant in that body; and that to make the Directors pliant to

their purposes, Ministers generally caused persons meanly qualified to be chosen Directors.

According to his idea, to secure subserviency, they submitted the Company’s affairs to the

direction of incapacity. This was to ruin the Company, in order to govern it. This was certainly

influence in the very worst form in which it could appear. At best it was clandestine and

irresponsible. Whether this was done so much upon system as that gentleman supposes, I greatly

doubt. But such in effect the operation of Government on that court unquestionably was; and

such under a similar constitution, it will be for ever. Ministers must be wholly removed from the

management of the affairs of India, or they will have an influence in its patronage. The thing is

inevitable. Their scheme of a new Secretary of State, “with a more vigorous control,” is not much

better than a repetition of the measure which we know by experience will not do. Since the year

1773 and the year 1780, the Company has been under the control of the Secretary of State’s

office, and we had then three Secretaries of State. If more than this is done, then they annihilate

e 94 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

the direction which they pretend to support; and they augment the influence of the Crown, of

whose growth they affect so great an horror. But in truth this scheme of reconciling a direction

really and truly deliberative, with an office really and substantially controlling, is a sort of

machinery that can be kept in order but a very short time. Either the Directors will dwindle into

clerks, or the Secretary of State, as hitherto has been the course, will leave every thing to them,

often through design, often through neglect. If both should affect activity, collision,

procrastination, delay, and in the end, utter confusion must ensue.

But, Sir, there is one kind of influence far greater than that of the nomination to office. This

gentlemen in opposition have totally overlooked, although it now exists in its full vigour; and it

will do so, upon their scheme, in at least as much force as it does now. That influence this bill

cuts up by the roots; I mean the influence of protection. I shall explain myself: The office given to

a young man going to India is of trifling consequence. But he that goes out an insignificant boy, in

a few years returns a great Nabob. Mr. Hastings says he has two hundred and fifty of that kind of

raw materials, who expect to be speedily manufactured into the merchantable quality I mention.

One of these gentlemen, suppose, returns hither, loaded with odium and with riches. When he

comes to England he comes as to a prison or as to a sanctuary; and either are ready for him,

according to his demeanor. What is the influence in the grant of any place in India, to that which

is acquired by the protection or compromise with such guilt, and with the command of such

riches, under the dominion of the hopes and fears which power is able to hold out to every man in

that condition? That man’s whole fortune, half a million perhaps, becomes an instrument of

influence, without a shilling of charge to the Civil List; and the influx of fortunes which stand in

need of this protection is continual. It works both ways; it influences the delinquent, and it may

corrupt the minister. Compare the influence acquired by appointing for instance even a governor

general, and that obtained by protecting him. I shall push this no further. But I wish gentlemen to

roll it a little in their own minds.

The bill before you cuts off this source of influence. Its design and main scope is to regulate the

administration of India upon the principles of a Court of Judicature; and to exclude, as far as

human prudence can exclude, all possibility of a corrupt partiality, in appointing to office or

supporting in office, or covering from enquiry and punishment, any person who has abused or

shall abuse his authority. At the board, as appointed and regulated by this bill, reward and

punishment cannot be shifted and reversed by a whisper.

That commission becomes fatal to

cabal, to intrigue, and to secret representation, those instruments of the ruin of India. He that

cuts off the means of premature fortune, and the power of protecting it when acquired, strikes a

deadly blow at the great fund, the Bank, the capital stock of Indian influence, which cannot be

vested any where, or in any hands, without most dangerous consequences to the public.

The third and contradictory objection, is, That this bill does not increase the influence of the

Crown. On the contrary, That the just power of the Crown will be lessened, and transferred to the

use of a party, by giving the patronage of India to a commission nominated by parliament, and

independent of the Crown.

The contradiction is glaring, and it has been too well exposed to

make it necessary for me to insist upon it. But passing the contradiction, and taking it without

any relation, of all objections that is the most extraordinary. Do not gentlemen know, that the

Crown has not at present the grant of a single office under the Company, civil or military, at

home or abroad? So far as the Crown is concerned, it is certainly rather a gainer; for the vacant

offices in the new commission are to be filled up by the King.

e 95 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

It is argued as a part of the bill, derogatory to the prerogatives of the Crown, that the

commissioners named in the bill are to continue for a short term of years (too short in my

opinion) and because, during that time, they are not at the mercy of every predominant faction of

the court. Does not this objection lie against the present Directors; none of whom are named by

the Crown, and a proportion of whom hold for this very term of four years? Did it not lie against

the governor general and council named in the act of 1773—who were invested by name, as the

present commissioners are to be appointed in the body of the act of parliament, who were to hold

their places for a term of years, and were not removable at the discretion of the Crown? Did it not

lie against the reappointment, in the year 1780, upon the very same terms? Yet at none of these

times, whatever other objections the scheme might be liable to, was it supposed to be a

derogation to the just prerogative of the Crown, that a commission created by act of parliament

should have its members named by the authority which called it into existence? This is not the

disposal by parliament of any office derived from the authority of the Crown, or now disposable

by that authority. It is so far from being any thing new, violent, or alarming, that I do not

recollect, in any parliamentary commission, down to the commissioners of the land tax, that it

has ever been otherwise.

The objection of the tenure for four years is an objection to all places that are not held during

pleasure; but in that objection I pronounce the gentlemen, from my knowledge of their

complexion and of their principles, to be perfectly in earnest. The party (say these gentlemen) of

the minister who proposes this scheme will be rendered powerful by it; for he will name his party

friends to the commission. This objection against party is a party objection; and in this too these

gentlemen are perfectly serious. They see that if, by any intrigue, they should succeed to office,

they will lose the clandestine patronage, the true instrument of clandestine influence, enjoyed in

the name of subservient Directors, and of wealthy trembling Indian delinquents. But as often as

they are beaten off this ground, they return to it again. The minister will name his friends, and

persons of his own party. Who should he name? Should he name his adversaries? Should he

name those whom he cannot trust? Should he name those to execute his plans, who are the

declared enemies to the principles of his reform? His character is here at stake. If he proposes for

his own ends (but he never will propose) such names as, from their want of rank, fortune,

character, ability, or knowledge, are likely to betray or to fall short of their trust, he is in an

independent House of Commons; in an House of Commons which has, by its own virtue,

destroyed the instruments of parliamentary subservience.

This House of Commons would not

endure the sound of such names. He would perish by the means which he is supposed to pursue

for the security of his power. The first pledge he must give of his sincerity in this great reform will

be in the confidence which ought to be reposed in those names.

For my part, Sir, in this business I put all indirect considerations wholly out of my mind. My sole

question, on each clause of the bill, amounts to this: Is the measure proposed required by the

necessities of India? I cannot consent totally to lose sight of the real wants of the people who are

the objects of it, and to hunt after every matter of party squabble that may be started on the

several provisions. On the question of the duration of the commission I am clear and decided.

Can I, can any one who has taken the smallest trouble to be informed concerning the affairs of

India, amuse himself with so strange an imagination, as that the habitual despotism and

oppression, that the monopolies, the peculations, the universal destruction of all the legal

authority of this kingdom, which have been for twenty years maturing to their present enormity,

combined with the distance of the scene, the boldness and artifice of delinquents, their

e 96 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

combination, their excessive wealth, and the faction they have made in England, can be fully

corrected in a shorter term than four years? None has hazarded such an assertion—None, who

has a regard for his reputation, will hazard it.

Sir, the gentlemen, whoever they are, who shall be appointed to this commission, have an

undertaking of magnitude on their hands, and their stability must not only be, but it must be

thought, real; and who is it will believe, that any thing short of an establishment made,

supported, and fixed in its duration, with all the authority of parliament, can be thought secure of

a reasonable stability? The plan of my Honourable friend is the reverse of that of reforming by the

authors of the abuse. The best we could expect from them is, that they should not continue their

ancient pernicious activity. To those we could think of nothing but applying control; as we are

sure, that even a regard to their reputation (if any such thing exists in them) would oblige them

to cover, to conceal, to suppress, and consequently to prevent, all cure of the grievances of India.

For what can be discovered, which is not to their disgrace? Every attempt to correct an abuse

would be a satire on their former administration. Every man they should pretend to call to an

account, would be found their instrument or their accomplice. They can never see a beneficial

regulation, but with a view to defeat it. The shorter the tenure of such persons, the better would

be the chance of some amendment.

But the system of the bill is different. It calls in persons no wise concerned with any act censured

by parliament; persons generated with, and for the reform of which, they are themselves the

most essential part. To these the chief regulations in the bill are helps, not fetters; they are

authorities to support, not regulations to restrain them. From these we look for much more than

innocence. From these we expect zeal, firmness, and unremitted activity. Their duty, their

character, binds them to proceedings of vigour; and they ought to have a tenure in their office

which precludes all fear, whilst they are acting up to the purposes of their trust; a tenure without

which, none will undertake plans that require a series and system of acts. When they know that

they cannot be whispered out of their duty, that their public conduct cannot be censured without

a public discussion; that the schemes which they have begun will not be committed to those who

will have an interest and credit in defeating and disgracing them; then we may entertain hopes.

The tenure is for four years, or during their good behaviour. That good behaviour is as long as

they are true to the principles of the bill; and the judgment is in either House of Parliament.

This

is the tenure of your judges; and the valuable principle of the bill is, to make a judicial

administration for India. It is to give confidence in the execution of a duty, which requires as

much perseverance and fortitude as can fall to the lot of any that is born of woman.

As to the gain by party, from the Right Honourable gentleman’s bill, let it be shewn, that this

supposed party advantage is pernicious to its object, and the objection is of weight; but until this

is done, and this has not been attempted, I shall consider the sole objection, from its tendency to

promote the interest of a party, as altogether contemptible. The kingdom is divided into parties,

and it ever has been so divided, and it ever will be so divided; and if no system for relieving the

subjects of this kingdom from oppression, and snatching its affairs from ruin, can be adopted,

until it is demonstrated that no party can derive an advantage from it, no good can ever be done

in this country. If party is to derive an advantage from the reform of India, (which is more than I

know, or believe) it ought to be that party which alone, in this kingdom, has its reputation, nay

its very being, pledged to the protection and preservation of that part of the empire. Great fear is

expressed, that the commissioners named in this bill will shew some regard to a minister out of

e 97 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

place. To men made like the objectors, this must appear criminal. Let it however be remembered

by others, that if the commissioners should be his friends, they cannot be his slaves. But

dependants are not in a condition to adhere to friends, nor to principles, nor to any uniform line

of conduct. They may begin censors, and be obliged to end accomplices. They may be even put

under the direction of those whom they were appointed to punish.

The fourth and last objection is, That the bill will hurt public credit. I do not know whether this

requires an answer. But if it does, look to your foundations. The sinking fund

is the pillar of

credit in this country; and let it not be forgot, that the distresses, owing to the mismanagement

of the East India Company, have already taken a million from that fund by the non-payment of

duties.

The bills drawn upon the Company, which are about four millions, cannot be accepted

without the consent of the treasury. The treasury, acting under a parliamentary trust and

authority, pledges the public for these millions. If they pledge the public, the public must have a

security in its hands for the management of this interest, or the national credit is gone. For

otherwise it is not only the East India Company, which is a great interest, that is undone, but,

clinging to the security of all your funds, it drags down the rest, and the whole fabric perishes in

one ruin. If this bill does not provide a direction of integrity and of ability competent to that trust,

the objection is fatal. If it does, public credit must depend on the support of the bill.

It has been said, if you violate this charter, what security has the charter of the Bank, in which

public credit is so deeply concerned, and even the charter of London, in which the rights of so

many subjects are involved? I answer, In the like case they have no security at all—No—no

security at all. If the Bank should, by every species of mismanagement, fall into a state similar to

that of the East India Company; if it should be oppressed with demands it could not answer,

engagements which it could not perform, and with bills for which it could not procure payment;

no charter should protect the mismanagement from correction, and such public grievances from

redress. If the city of London had the means and will of destroying an empire, and of cruelly

oppressing and tyrannizing over millions of men as good as themselves, the charter of the city of

London should prove no sanction to such tyranny and such oppression. Charters are kept, when

their purposes are maintained: they are violated when the privilege is supported against its end

and its object.

Now, Sir, I have finished all I proposed to say, as my reasons for giving my vote to this Bill. If I

am wrong, it is not for want of pains to know what is right. This pledge, at least, of my rectitude I

have given to my country.

And now, having done my duty to the Bill, let me say a word to the author. I should leave him to

his own noble sentiments, if the unworthy and illiberal language with which he has been treated,

beyond all example of parliamentary liberty, did not make a few words necessary; not so much in

justice to him, as to my own feelings. I must say then, that it will be a distinction honourable to

the age, that the rescue of the greatest number of the human race that ever were so grievously

oppressed, from the greatest tyranny that was ever exercised, has fallen to the lot of abilities and

dispositions equal to the task; that it has fallen to one who has the enlargement to comprehend,

the spirit to undertake, and the eloquence to support, so great a measure of hazardous

benevolence. His spirit is not owing to his ignorance of the state of men and things; he well

knows what snares are spread about his path, from personal animosity, from court intrigues, and

possibly from popular delusion. But he has put to hazard his ease, his security, his interest, his

e 98 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

power, even his darling popularity, for the benefit of a people whom he has never seen. This is

the road that all heroes have trod before him. He is traduced and abused for his supposed

motives. He will remember, that obloquy is a necessary ingredient in the composition of all true

glory: he will remember, that it was not only in the Roman customs, but it is in the nature and

constitution of things, that calumny and abuse are essential parts of triumph. These thoughts will

support a mind, which only exists for honour, under the burthen of temporary reproach. He is

doing indeed a great good; such as rarely falls to the lot, and almost as rarely coincides with the

desires, of any man. Let him use his time. Let him give the whole length of the reins to his

benevolence. He is now on a great eminence, where the eyes of mankind are turned to him. He

may live long, he may do much. But here is the summit. He never can exceed what he does this

day.

He has faults; but they are faults that, though they may in a small degree tarnish the lustre, and

sometimes impede the march of his abilities, have nothing in them to extinguish the fire of great

virtues. In those faults, there is no mixture of deceit, of hypocrisy, of pride, of ferocity, of

complexional despotism, or want of feeling for the distresses of mankind. His are faults which

might exist in a descendant of Henry the Fourth of France,

as they did exist in that father of his

country. Henry the Fourth wished that he might live to see a fowl in the pot of every peasant of

his kingdom. That sentiment of homely benevolence was worth all the splendid sayings that are

recorded of kings. But he wished perhaps for more than could be obtained, and the goodness of

the man exceeded the power of the King. But this gentleman, a subject, may this day say this at

least, with truth, that he secures the rice in his pot to every man in India. A poet of antiquity

thought it one of the first distinctions to a prince whom he meant to celebrate, that through a

long succession of generations, he had been the progenitor of an able and virtuous citizen, who

by force of the arts of peace, had corrected governments of oppression, and suppressed wars of

rapine.

Indole proh quanta juvenis, quantumque daturus

Ausoniae populis, ventura in saecula civem.

Ille super Gangem, super exauditus et Indos,

Implebit terras voce; et furialia bella

Fulmine compescet linguae.— —

This was what was said of the predecessor of the only person to whose eloquence it does not

wrong that of the mover of this bill to be compared. But the Ganges and the Indus are the

patrimony of the fame of my Honourable friend, and not of Cicero. I confess, I anticipate with joy

the reward of those, whose whole consequence, power, and authority, exist only for the benefit of

mankind; and I carry my mind to all the people, and all the names and descriptions, that,

relieved by this bill, will bless the labours of this Parliament, and the confidence which the best

House of Commons has given to him who the best deserves it. The little cavils of party will not be

heard, where freedom and happiness will be felt. There is not a tongue, a nation, or religion in

India, which will not bless the presiding care and manly beneficence of this House, and of him

who proposes to you this great work. Your names will never be separated before the throne of the

Divine Goodness, in whatever language, or with whatever rites, pardon is asked for sin, and

reward for those who imitate the Godhead in his universal bounty to his creatures. These honours

you deserve, and they will surely be paid, when all the jargon, of influence, and party, and

patronage, are swept into oblivion.

e 99 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

of L...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

I have spoken what I think, and what I feel, of the mover of this Bill. An Honourable friend of

mine, speaking of his merits, was charged with having made a studied panegyric. I don’t know

what his was. Mine, I am sure, is a studied panegyric; the fruit of much meditation; the result of

the observation of near twenty years. For my own part, I am happy that I have lived to see this

day; I feel myself overpaid for the labours of eighteen years, when, at this late period, I am able

to take my share, by one humble vote, in destroying a tyranny that exists to the disgrace of this

nation, and the destruction of so large a part of the human species.

FINIS

ENDNOTES

[1.] In 1773 and earlier, Burke and the Rockingham Whigs had strenuously objected on much

the same grounds to bringing the East India Company under government control: it was an attack

on private property and chartered rights. In later years, Burke did not disguise his earlier position

but said that he had changed his mind in the light of better information.

[1.] Thomas Powys, M.P., had made this allusion, meaning that in the bill the voice was Fox’s

but the hand that wrote the measures it proposed expressed Lord North’s view of royal

prerogative.

[2.]

The bill was only formally a recommendation from the throne. George III had only

reluctantly accepted the Fox-North Coalition in April 1783 because he had no other leader who

could attract the support of a majority in the Commons. He now saw the India bills as an occasion

for getting rid of it. When the bills passed the Commons and were before the Lords, the king

privately let his opposition to them be known, the Lords defeated them, and the king dismissed

the Coalition and brought in the younger William Pitt as head of a minority government. Pitt’s

Tories won a resounding electoral victory in the following year, 1784.

[1.]

William Pitt the Younger (1759–1806).

[1.]

Burke was aware of the revolutionary theory of “the rights of men” well before the French

Revolution, as his Speech on the Reform of the Representation in the year preceding this speech

shows. But Burke’s objection was not to the idea of natural rights, as he clearly states in the

present passage, but to a particular radically democratic version of it.

[2.]

Burke here denies any inherent conflict between nature and convention. Nature is the norm

of convention; therefore convention is good insofar as it embodies or supports natural right and

natural rights.

[1.]

In Burke’s political theory, all men are equal inasmuch as no men are endowed by nature

with a right to exercise political authority over other men. Political authority in this sense is

artificial and established by convention. But the convention is subject to natural law and is

established to serve the natural needs and protect the natural rights of mankind. It is therefore a

trust for the benefit of those who are subject to it.

[1.]

Therefore not to the Crown, whose power the Rockingham Whigs had no desire to augment.

e 100 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

[2.] Epicurus (342/1–270 B.C.) was a Greek philosopher who taught a hedonistic ethic that held

pleasure to be the highest good. But the greatest pleasure was health of body and tranquillity of

mind, enjoyed in the company of friends. Understanding this, the wise man would not get

involved in politics, which disturbs inner tranquillity.

[1.]

Of 1648, which ended the Thirty Years’ War in the Holy Roman Empire and legally

established the three religions of Calvinism, Catholicism, and Lutheranism.

[2.]

Magna Carta (or Charta), a charter of liberties to which the English barons forced King John

to assent in 1215.

[3.]

Tallage was a levy exacted by a lord from the boroughs in his domain, hence by a king from

the boroughs in his personal domain. In 1297, in a document called by a misnomer de tallagio

non concedendo, the king renounced for himself and his heirs the right to levy any general tax

without the consent of the estates of his whole kingdom. In later centuries, this document

became called a statute, and was cited as such in the Petition of Right (for which see the next

note).

[1.]

A petition of Parliament in 1628 complaining of a series of breaches of law and asserting a

right not to be subjected to arbitrary taxation and imprisonment, martial law, and the billeting of

soldiers on private citizens against their will, to which Charles I was forced to assent.

[2.]

A declaration which accompanied the crown offered to William and Mary in 1689. It pledged

the monarchs to observe laws passed by Parliament and provided that the monarch could not be

a Catholic.

[1.]

William Pitt, who in fact carried through his own East India Bill when he became First Lord

of the Treasury after the fall of the Fox-North Coalition in the following year.

[2.]

Henry Dundas (1742–1811), close friend and political associate of the younger Pitt, and at

this time chairman of the House of Commons Secret Committee on Indian affairs. (The original

purposes of the Secret and Select Committees were limited and distinct, but the scope of their

investigations tended over time to merge.)

[1.]

Nabob or nawab was the title (equivalent to subahdar) of Muslim officials who governed

provinces or districts in the Mogul Empire. As the empire weakened they became more

independent rulers.

[2.] A prince or prince-bishop entitled to vote in the election of an Emperor of the Holy Roman

Empire.

[3.]

A title originally given in India to a king or prince and later extended to lesser chiefs or

dignitaries.

[1.]

Minor chieftains holding small territories, whom Burke mistakenly takes for “great chiefs”

and “sovereign princes.”

e 101 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

[2.] Persons who held the right to collect rents and dues from the cultivators of the soil, in

return for which they were obliged to turn a proportion of the revenue over to the Mogul emperor.

When the emperor granted the right to the revenues of Bengal to the East India Company, the

zemindars owed the proportion to the Company. Depending on the amount of land and revenue

they controlled, zemindars could be rich and powerful. The Annual Register in 1787 (vol. 24, p.

177) called them “the present great landholders of India” and “a sort of hereditary princes of the

country.”

[

1.] Title of the emperor of the Mogul Empire, held by a Muslim dynasty descended from

Tamerlane and Genghis Khan. By the eighteenth century, the Company was acquiring territorial

sovereignty in parts of the Empire, and particularly in Bengal, where, with the decline of the

Empire, the local nabobs had become practically independent, and the Mogul was forced to ratify

the Company’s acquisitions.

[1.]

The Nabob of Oude, who also held the title of the Great Mogul’s Vizier or chief minister.

[2.]

Afghan invaders who, earlier in the century, had seized the rulership of a fertile district

populated by Hindus.

[1.]

The names in the above lines are those of nabobs of Bengal whom the British set up and

deposed in order to keep Bengal and its revenues under the Company’s control.

[2.]

A powerful confederacy of native states in west-central India.

[3.]

Referred to later as Ragonaut Row.

[4.]

Title of the chief minister of the Maratta princes, who became rois fainéants, so that in 1749

the then peishwa made himself the hereditary sovereign of the Maratta state, but without

changing his title.

[5.]

A powerful chieftain in the Maratta confederacy who, along with other chieftains, had

become almost completely independent of the Confederacy’s titular head and his hereditary chief

minister, the peishwa.

[1.]

A subah was a province of the Mogul Empire or the title of the ruler thereof. On p. 158

below, Burke uses Soubah as the title of the Nabob of Bengal.

[2.]

Arcot was a territory adjacent to the Company’s presidency of Madras in South India. Its

nabob was heavily in debt to both the Company and certain of its individual officials for military

aid and large loans to further his own ambitions. In his great Speech on the Nabob of Arcot’s

Debts in 1785, Burke charged that these debts were a major cause of corruption in the British

government both in India and in England.

[3.]

The ruler of Mysore, a kingdom adjacent to Madras, and the most formidable foe of the

British in South India.

[4.]

Fox.

e 102 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

[1.] A footnote in the original publication identifies “the learned gentleman” as “Mr. Dundas,

Lord Advocate of Scotland,” but in the speech referred to here, he had spoken from the

knowledge he had gained as chairman of the Secret Committee.

[2.]

The Treaty of Allahabad, to which the Mogul was forced to agree after his defeat at Buxar in

1764.

[1.]

“A soldier of fortune who had sided with the British.” W&S 5:395, n. 4.

[2.]

Title of the hereditary rulers of Hyderabad.

[1.]

Hyder Ali, the Nizam, and the Marattas.

[2.]

The Peace of Salbai in 1782 and subsequent agreements in 1783.

[3.]

In 1776, after the first and successful British invasion of the Maratta territories.

[1.]

Warren Hastings (1782–1818) had been appointed Governor of Bengal by the East India

Company in 1771. Parliament’s Regulating Act of 1773 created a Supreme Council of Bengal with

five members named in the Act itself. They were Hastings as Governor-General (with a casting

vote in case of ties), General Sir John Clavering, Colonel George Monson, Richard Barwell, and

Philip Francis, who was to become Hastings’s bitterest enemy and Burke’s closest ally in the

impeachment of Hastings. Replacements and successor members to the original five were to be

appointed by the Company’s Court of Directors, with confirmation by the Crown.

[2.]

George Macartney, first Earl Macartney, whom the East India Company appointed governor

of the presidency of Fort St. George (Madras). He arrived there in June 1781, but after a

prolonged and bitter quarrel with Warren Hastings over matters of policy, he resigned his post in

1785 and returned to England. He refused the post of Governor-General in succession to

Hastings; it was ultimately given to Lord Cornwallis.

[3.]

David Anderson, close friend and associate of Warren Hastings, with whom in later years he

worked on the latter’s defense in his impeachment trial.

[1.]

Hyder Ali (who died in 1782 and was succeeded by his son, Tipu Sahib, or, as Burke called

him, Tippo Saheb).

[2.]

Richard Matthews.

[1.]

He became Peishwa of the Marattas in 1773 but was later deposed in favor of his infant

great-nephew.

[2.]

He was to receive an allowance from the Maratta chief, Scindia, if he took up residence with

him.

[1.]

Colonel Jacob Camac had led a British expedition against Scindia and had taken the fortress

of Gualior from him. It was then given to the Rana, but when Scindia switched sides and joined

e 103 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

the British, he was allowed to retake the fortress.

[1.]

A footnote in the original publication remarks, “The paltry foundation at Calcutta is scarcely

worth naming as an exception.”

[

1.] Booty.

[2.]

The English “nabobs,” so called because of the wealth that they brought back from India.

[1.]

One lack (lakh) = 100,000 units; thus a lack of rupees is 100,000 rupees. On p. 165 below,

Burke mentions transactions in which the value of the rupee is taken as two shillings and one

pence.

[2.]

Tax farmers, to whom the collection of the revenue was sold in return for a stipulated sum

to be turned over to the government. Because of the drought and the consequent drop in the

revenue, the sum they owed was reduced by many lacks of rupees.

[3.] Nathaniel Middleton, on whom see note 2 on p. 150.

[1.]

A subdivision of a province for the collection of the revenue or, as here, the title of the

administrator of the district.

[1.]

The last one to die.

[1.]

A revenue administrator.

[2.]

Jonathan Swift in Gulliver’s Travels, part 2, chap. 7.

[3.]

Egyptian god who protected the dead, Greek god of wine, Roman goddess of agriculture.

[1.]

Hindus.

[1.]

Earlier in 1783, the Court of Directors of the East India Company had censured Hastings for

his treatment of the Rajah of Benares. Hastings published the letter to the Court in which he

defended his conduct, and the Court published the answer to it referred to here.

[2.]

“In this and the following paragraphs Burke made extensive use of A Narrative of the

Insurrection which happened in the Zemindary of Benaris, which Hastings had published in

Calcutta in 1782.” W&S 5:413, n. 5.

[1.]

Hastings contested this right, asserting that when Benares came under the Company’s

control, the Rajah’s possessions were held from the Company as the sovereign authority.

[1.]

Edward Wheler, who was sent to India (he arrived in 1777) to take Colonel Monson’s place

on the Supreme Council when the latter died.

[1.]

“Arrogance in insults,” with which Cicero charged Verres, the governor of Sicily, in his

e 104 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

speech Contra Quintum Caecilium 3.

[1.]

William Popham.

[1.]

Ranny, roughly correspondent to “queen,” used here of the Rajah’s mother.

[1.]

The head financial minister of a Muslim state. In Bengal, a native servant in charge of the

affairs of a house of business or a large domestic establishment; a steward or master of the

household.

[1.]

“The flight and exile of so many women of the highest rank.” Tacitus Agricola 45.

[1.]

The London Gazette had reported that an army of the late Hyder Ali’s kingdom of Mysore

had defeated a British army after a British victory had led to disputes among the troops over

plunder.

[1.]

Sequestration was the practice of diverting the income of an estate, temporarily or

permanently, from its owner to other persons or institutions. A sequestrator therefore had control

of property on which others, such as creditors, had claims which he was to satisfy.

[2.]

Colonel Alexander Hannay, chief British military collector in Oude; Nathaniel Middleton, the

British Resident in Oude; and Robert Johnson, his deputy Resident.

[1.]

“Of Carthage it is better to say nothing than to say too little.” Sallust Jugurthine War 19.2.

[1.]

The East India Company’s officials were formally called servants.

[1.]

The assignment of a government’s share of the produce of a district to a person or persons

for private use, or for the maintenance of a public establishment; or the district so assigned.

[2.]

Honor among thieves.

[3.]

The natural law.

[1.]

Of the Select Committee.

[2.]

Regarding the zemindars as tax farmers who worked for the government under private

contracts rather than as hereditary landholders, Hastings opened up zemindaries to public bidding

in order to extract more revenue for his government.

[3.]

Burke’s Whig soul, which saw old landed property as the principal bulwark of liberty against

the expansive power of government, was revolted by Hastings’s contempt for the zemindars’

hereditary right to collect the rents and dues, which, in India as in England, he regarded as

private property in land.

[1.]

Job 30:1.

e 105 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

[2.] A native broker attached to a house of business, or a person similarly employed by a

private gentleman.

[1.]

Burke was the author of the Select Committee’s Ninth Report. It reflects his concern for

maintaining intermediaries between governments and individuals, and expresses his severe

judgment of the Company’s policy of using territorial revenues instead of commercial profits as

the capital with which to buy goods in India for export to Britain.

[1.]

At that time, in 1781, Hastings was the only one left of the five original Supreme Council

members appointed in 1773. General Clavering and Colonel Monson had died, Barwell had

resigned, and Philip Francis, after a duel with Hastings, was on his way back to England. General

Sir Eyre Coote, who had taken Clavering’s place as commander-in-chief of the Company’s army

and member of the Council, was off fighting a war in the South of India; John Macpherson, who

was appointed to the Council in 1781, had not yet arrived; and the final replacement, John

Stables, was not appointed until 1782. Hastings and Wheler were thus the only councillors on the

scene in Bengal—and Hastings had a casting vote.

[1.]

As a purely commercial enterprise, the Company had had to calculate carefully whether the

goods it bought for export would earn a profit when sold. But when the Company acquired

sovereignty in Indian territories and the right to tax them, it began to use those revenues as its

“investment” for the purchase of goods, and became careless about commercial considerations of

profit and loss.

[2.]

Bills payable by the Company, either for the purchase of goods not yet paid for or for

money it had borrowed.

[1.]

Paul Benfield, who had gone to India at the age of twenty-one and had become a servant of

the East India Company in 1765. He is reported to have amassed a fortune there exceeding half a

million pounds, partly by lending money at high rates of interest. He made huge loans to the

Nabob of Arcot, for which Burke denounced him in his Speech on the Nabob of Arcot’s Debts, but

was exonerated of wrongdoing by the Company’s Court of Directors.

[1.]

“No one will be a thief with my help, and therefore I go abroad on no [governor’s] staff.”

Juvenal Satires 3.46–47.

[1.]

Quoted from memory and inexactly by Burke from Alexander Pope’s Essay on Man, epistle

4, sec. 6:

What nothing earthly gives or can destroy,

The soul’s calm sunshine and the heartfelt joy,

Is Virtue’s prize. . . .

[1.]

A Brahmin and one of the wealthiest men in Bengal. He accused Hastings of having

accepted bribes, and the majority of the Supreme Council, consisting of Clavering, Monson, and

Francis, supported him in pressing the charge. Nundcomar was then charged with forgery and

tried in the Supreme Court of Bengal, which found him guilty. Since the Court decided that he

should be sentenced under English law, in which forgery was a capital offense, he was sentenced

e 106 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

to death. When the Council majority refused to intercede on Nundcomar’s behalf, he was hanged.

Burke here takes his execution as a judicial murder to save Hastings.

[1.]

The minimum qualification for a director of the Company was ownership of £2000 of East

India stock.

[2.]

In Paradise Lost, book 2, lines 1–4, Milton has Satan seated

High on a Throne of Royal State . . .

Where the gorgeous East with richest hand

Shows her Kings Barbaric Pearl & Gold.

[1.]

Location of East India House, the Company’s headquarters in London.

[2.]

The Secret and Select Committees; Burke was a leading member of the latter.

[1.]

The Court of Proprietors, that is, shareholders.

[2.]

William Hornby, Governor of Bombay.

[1.]

In Burke’s speech in the Commons in February 1780, he had proposed “a plan for the better

security of the independence of Parliament, and the oeconomical reformation of the civil and

other establishments.” The purpose was to reduce the ability of the Crown to influence Parliament

by patronage appointments in the royal household and to control the king’s expenditure of the

money voted for his civil list so that it would not be used to influence parliamentary elections. The

plan failed in large measure to be adopted on that occasion.

[1.]

George Johnstone, commonly called Governor Johnstone because of his brief appointment

in 1763 as governor of West Florida. A rather disreputable character, he served as both a naval

commander and a member of Parliament.

[1.]

The commission to be established by the East India Bill was “to investigate every charge

and complaint made against the Company’s servants. Reasons had to be publicly stated if no

action was to be taken on the complaints.” W&S 5:444, n.1.

[1.]

The first members of the commission were named in the Bill and were all supporters of the

Fox-North Coalition. They were to serve four-year terms, but vacancies would be filled by the

king, as Burke explains.

[1.]

Earlier in 1783, the Fox-North Coalition having come to power, Burke finally succeeded in

getting an “economical reform” bill passed. But it was not so sweeping in its scope that it

destroyed all “the instruments of parliamentary subservience,” as his rhetoric here suggests.

[1.]

Either the Lords or the Commons could act to remove delinquent commissioners.

[1.]

A fund formed by periodically setting aside revenue to accumulate at interest in order to

reduce the principal of a debt. The British government had established one in 1716 to reduce the

e 107 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

national debt.

[2.]

The government had already helped the Company in its financial difficulties by a remission

of customs duties.

[1.]

Fox was a remote descendant of Henry IV of France.

[1.]

“How noble was his youthful promise, and how great a citizen he was to give in coming

centuries to the peoples of Italy. He will be heard beyond the Ganges and the peoples of India; he

will fill the earth with his voice, and with the thunder of his tongue will quell the frenzy of war.”

Said of Cicero in Silius Italicus Punic Wars 8.406–10.

A LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE ON THE CATHOLICS OF IRELAND

[January 3, 1792]

Sir Hercules Langrishe (1731–1811) was a younger Irish contemporary of

Edmund Burke and, like him, a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin. He was a

member of the Irish House of Commons from 1761 to the Union with Great

Britain in 1800, after which he ceased to take an active part in politics. While the

Irish House lasted, however, he was one of its most independent members, as he

could afford to be, since he was virtually the sole proprietor of the borough he

represented.

During the American crisis he advocated a conciliatory policy toward the colonies.

An early friend of Burke’s, he was well aware of Burke’s views on the Penal Laws

against Catholics, and to some extent shared them. At the time of this letter from

Burke, the Catholic Relief Acts of 1778 and 1782 had repealed certain of those

laws. But in the early 1790s, the growth of sympathy with the French Revolution

among the Dissenters in the North of Ireland and the cordial relations between

them and some Catholics seem to have prompted Langrishe to seek Burke’s

views on a petition by the Irish Catholic Committee for further relaxation of the

Penal Laws. Burke replied on January 3, 1792, in the letter here published. It was

a veritable pamphlet, evidently designed to be passed around. After it had

appeared in print in Dublin in February 1792, Burke had it published by Debrett

in London as it appears here.

A LETTER FROM THE RIGHT HON. EDMUND BURKE, M.P. IN THE KINGDOM OF GREAT

BRITAIN, TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE, BART. M.P.

[On the Subject of Roman Catholics of Ireland, and the Propriety of Admitting

Them to the Elective Franchise, Consistently with the Principles of the

Constitution as Established at the Revolution]

MY DEAR SIR,

YOUR REMEMBRANCE OF ME, with sentiments of so much kindness, has given me the most sincere

e 108 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

satisfaction. It perfectly agrees with the friendly and hospitable reception which my son and I

received from you, some time since, when, after an absence of twenty-two years, I had the

happiness of embracing you, among my few surviving friends.

I really imagined that I should not again interest myself in any public business. I had, to the best

of my moderate faculties, paid my club to the Society, which I was born, in some way or other to

serve; and I thought I had a right to put on my night-gown and slippers, and wish a cheerful

evening to the good company I must leave behind. But if our resolutions of vigour and exertion

are so often broken or procrastinated in the exertion; I think we may be excused, if we are not

very punctual in fulfilling our engagements to indolence and inactivity. I have indeed no power of

action; and am almost a cripple, even with regard to thinking: but you descend with force into the

stagnant pool; and you cause such a fermentation, as to cure at least one impotent creature of

his lameness, though it cannot enable him either to run or to wrestle.

You see by the paper I take

that I am likely to be long, with malice prepense.

You have

brought under my view, a subject, always difficult, at present critical. It has filled my thoughts,

which I wish to lay open to you with the clearness and simplicity which your friendship demands

from me. I thank you for the communication of your ideas. I should be still more pleased if they

had been more your own. What you hint, I believe to be the case; that if you had not deferred to

the judgment of others, our opinions would not differ more materially at this day, than they did

when we used to confer on the same subject, so many years ago. If I still persevere in my old

opinions, it is no small comfort to me, that it is not with regard to doctrines properly yours, that I

discover my indocility.

The case upon which your letter of the 10th of December turns, is hardly before me with precision

enough, to enable me to form any very certain judgment upon it. It seems to be some plan of

further indulgence proposed for Catholics of Ireland. You observe, “that your general principles

are not changed, but that times and circumstances are altered. ” I perfectly agree with you, that

times and circumstances, considered with reference to the public, ought very much to govern our

conduct; though I am far from slighting, when applied with discretion to those circumstances,

general principles and maxims of policy. I cannot help observing, however, that you have said

rather less upon the applicability of your own old principles to the circumstances that are likely to

influence your conduct against these principles, than of the general maxims of state; which I can

very readily believe not to have great weight with you personally.

In my present state of imperfect information, you will pardon the errors into which I may easily

fall. The principles you lay down are, “that the Roman Catholics should enjoy every thing under

the state, but should not be the state itself. ” And you add, “that when you exclude them from

being a part of the state, you rather conform to the spirit of the age, than to any abstract

doctrine”; but you consider the constitution is already established—that our state is Protestant.

“It was declared so at the revolution. It was so provided in the acts for settling the succession of

the Crown:—the King’s coronation oath was enjoined, in order to keep it so. The King, as first

magistrate of the state, is obliged to take the oath of abjuration, and to subscribe the declaration;

and, by laws subsequent, every other magistrate and member of the state, and legislature and

executive, are bound under the same obligation.”

As to the plan to which these maxims are applied, I cannot speak, as I told you, positively about

e 109 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

it. Because, neither from your letter, nor from any information I have been able to collect, do I

find any thing settled, either on the part of the Roman Catholics themselves, or on that of any

persons who may wish to conduct their affairs in Parliament. But if I have leave to conjecture,

something is in agitation towards admitting them, under certain qualifications, to have some

share in the election of members of parliament. This I understand is the scheme of those who are

intitled to come within your description of persons of consideration, property, and character: and

firmly attached to the king and constitution as by “law established, with a grateful sense of your

former concessions, and a patient reliance on the benignity of parliament, for the further

mitigation of the laws that still affect them.” As to the low, thoughtless, wild and profligate, who

have joined themselves with those of other professions, but of the same character;

you are not

to imagine, that, for a moment, I can suppose them to be met, with any thing else than the

manly and enlightened energy of a firm government, supported by the united efforts of all

virtuous men, if ever their proceedings should become so considerable as to demand its notice. I

really think that such associations should be crushed in their very commencement.

Setting this, therefore, out of the question, it becomes an object of very serious consideration,

whether, because wicked men of various descriptions are engaged in seditious courses, the

rational, sober, and valuable part of one description should not be indulged their sober and

rational expectations? You, who have looked deeply into the spirit of the Popery laws, must be

perfectly sensible, that a great part of the present mischief, which we abhor in common, has

arisen from them. Their declared object was to reduce the Catholics of Ireland to a miserable

populace, without property, without estimation, without education. The professed object was to

deprive the few men who, in spite of those laws, might hold or obtain any property amongst

them, of all sort of influence or authority over the rest. They divided the nation into two distinct

bodies, without common interest, sympathy or connexion; one of which bodies was to possess all

the franchises, all the property, all the education: The others were to be drawers of water and

cutters of turf for them. Are we to be astonished that when, by the efforts of so much violence in

conquest, and so much policy in regulation, continued without intermission for near an hundred

years, we had reduced them to a mob; that whenever they came to act at all, many of them

would act exactly like a mob, without temper, measure, or foresight? Surely it might be just now

a matter of temperate discussion, whether you ought not apply a remedy to the real cause of the

evil—to raise an aristocratic interest; that is, an interest of property and education amongst

them: And to strengthen by every prudent means, the authority and influence of men of that

description. It will deserve your best thoughts, to examine whether this can be done without

giving such persons the means of demonstrating to the rest, that something more is to be got by

their temperate conduct, than can be expected from the wild and senseless projects

of those,

who do not belong to their body, who have no interest in their well being, and only wish to make

them the dupes of their turbulent ambition.

If the absurd persons you mention

find no way of providing for liberty, but by overturning this

happy constitution, and introducing a frantic democracy, let us take care how we prevent better

people from any rational expectations of partaking in the benefits of that constitution as it stands.

The maxims you establish cut the matter short. They have no sort of connexion with the good or

ill behaviour of the persons who seek relief, or with the proper or improper means by which they

seek it. They form a perpetual bar to all pleas and to all expectations.

You begin by asserting that “they ought to enjoy all things under the state, but that they ought

e 110 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

not to be the state. ” A position which, I believe, in the latter part of it, and in the latitude there

expressed, no man of common sense has ever thought proper to dispute: because the contrary

implies, that the state ought to be in them exclusively. But before you have finished the line, you

express yourself as if the other member of your proposition, namely, that “they ought not to be a

part of the state,” were necessarily included in your first—Whereas I conceive it to be as different,

as a part is from the whole; that is just as different as possible. I know indeed that it is common

with those who talk very different from you, that is with heat and animosity, to confound those

things, and to argue the admission of the Catholics into any, however minute and subordinate

parts of the state, as a surrender into their hands of the whole government of the kingdom. To

them I have nothing at all to say.

Wishing to proceed with a deliberative spirit and temper in so very serious a question, I shall

attempt to analyze, as well as I can, the principles you lay down, in order to fit them for the

grasp of an understanding so little comprehensive as mine— “State” — “Protestant” —

“Revolution” —These are terms, which if not well explained, may lead us into many errors. In the

word State, I conceive there is much ambiguity. The state is sometimes used to signify the whole

common-wealth, comprehending all its orders, with the several privileges belonging to each.

Sometimes it signifies only the higher and ruling part of the common-wealth; which we commonly

call the Government. In the first sense, to be under the state, but not the state itself, nor any

part of it, is a situation perfectly intelligible: but to those who fill that situation, not very pleasant,

when it is understood. It is a state of civil servitude by the very force of the definition. Servorum

non est respublica,

is a very old and a very true maxim. This servitude, which makes men

subject to a state without being citizens, may be more or less tolerable from many

circumstances: but these circumstances, more or less favourable, do not alter the nature of the

thing. The mildness by which absolute masters exercise their dominion, leaves them masters still.

We may talk a little presently of the manner in which the majority of the people of Ireland (the

Catholics) are affected by this situation; which at present undoubtedly is theirs, and which you

are of opinion, ought to continue for ever.

In the other sense of the word State, by which is understood the Supreme Government only, I

must observe this upon the question: that to exclude whole classes of men entirely from this part

of government, cannot be considered as absolute slavery. It only implies a lower and degraded

state of citizenship; such is (with more or less strictness) the condition of all countries, in which

an hereditary nobility possess the exclusive rule. This may be no bad mode of government;

provided that the personal authority of individual nobles be kept in due bounds, that their cabals

and factions are guarded against with a severe vigilance: and that the people, (who have no

share in granting their own money) are subjected to but light impositions, and are otherwise

treated with attention, and with indulgence to their humours and prejudices.

The republic of Venice is one of those which strictly confines all the great functions and offices,

such as are truly state functions and state-offices, to those who, by hereditary right or admission,

are noble Venetians. But there are many offices, and some of them not mean nor unprofitable,

which are reserved for the Citadini.

Of these all citizens of Venice are capable. The inhabitants

of the Terra firma,

who are mere subjects of conquest, that is, as you express it, under the

state, but “not a part of it,” are not, however, subjects in so very rigorous a sense as not to be

capable of numberless subordinate employments. It is indeed one of the advantages attending

the narrow bottom of their aristocracy (narrow as compared with their acquired dominions,

e 111 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

otherwise broad enough) that an exclusion from such employments cannot possibly be made

amongst their subjects. There are, besides, advantages in states so constituted, by which those

who are considered as of an inferior race, are indemnified for their exclusion from the government

and from noble employments. In all these countries, either by express laws, or by usage more

operative, the noble casts are almost universally, in their turn, excluded from commerce,

manufacture, farming of land, and in general from all lucrative civil professions. The nobles have

the monopoly of honour. The plebeians a monopoly of all the means of acquiring wealth. Thus

some sort of a balance is formed among conditions; a sort of compensation is furnished to those,

who, in a limited sense, are excluded from the government of the state.

Between the extreme of a total exclusion, to which your maxim goes, and an universal

unmodified capacity, to which the fanatics pretend, there are many different degrees and stages,

and a great variety of temperaments, upon which prudence may give full scope to its exertions.

For you know that the decisions of prudence (contrary to the system of the insane reasoners)

differ from those of judicature: and that almost all the former are determined on the more or the

less, the earlier or the later, and on a balance of advantage and inconvenience, of good and evil.

In all considerations which turn upon the question of vesting or continuing the state solely and

exclusively in some one description of citizens; prudent legislators will consider, how far the

general form and principles of their commonwealth render it fit to be cast into an oligarchical

shape, or to remain always in it. We know that the government of Ireland (the same as the

British) is not in its constitution wholly Aristocratical; and as it is not such in its form, so neither is

it in its spirit. If it had been inveterately aristocratical, exclusions might be more patiently

submitted to. The lot of one plebeian would be the lot of all; and an habitual reverence and

admiration of certain families, might make the people content to see government wholly in hands

to whom it seemed naturally to belong. But our constitution has a plebeian member, which forms

an essential integrant part of it. A plebeian oligarchy is a monster in itself: and no people, not

absolutely domestic or predial slaves,

will long endure it. The Protestants of Ireland are not

alone sufficiently the people to form a democracy; and they are too numerous to answer the ends

and purposes of an aristocracy. Admiration, that first source of obedience, can be only the claim

or the imposture of the few. I hold it to be absolutely impossible for two millions of plebeians,

composing certainly a very clear and decided majority in that class, to become so far in love with

six or seven hundred thousand of their fellow-citizens (to all outward appearance plebeians like

themselves, and many of them tradesmen, servants, and otherwise inferior to them) as to see

with satisfaction, or even with patience, an exclusive power vested in them, by which

constitutionally they become their absolute masters; and by the manners derived from their

circumstances, must be capable of exercising upon them, daily and hourly, an insulting and

vexatious superiority; nor are they indemnified (as in some aristocracies) for this state of

humiliating vassalage (often inverting the nature of things and relations) by having the lower

walks of industry wholly abandoned to them. They are rivalled, to say the least of the matter, in

every laborious and lucrative course of life: while every franchise, every honour, every trust,

every place down to the very lowest and least confidential (besides whole professions), is

reserved for the master cast.

Our constitution is not made for great, general, and proscriptive exclusions; sooner or later, it will

destroy them, or they will destroy the constitution. In our constitution there has always been a

difference made between a franchise and an office, and between the capacity for the one and for

e 112 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

the other. Franchises were supposed to belong to the subject, as a subject, and not as a member

of the governing part of the state. The policy of Government has considered them as things very

different: for whilst Parliament excluded by the test acts (and for a while these test acts

were

not a dead letter, as now they are in England) Protestant dissenters from all civil and military

employments, they never touched their right of voting for members of Parliament, or sitting in

either House; a point I state, not as approving or condemning the measure of exclusion from

employments, but to prove that the distinction has been admitted in legislature, as, in truth, it is

founded in reason.

I will not here examine, whether the principles of the British [the Irish] constitution, be wise or

not. I must assume that they are; and that those who partake the franchises which make it,

partake of a benefit. They who are excluded from votes (under proper qualifications inherent in

the constitution that gives them) are excluded, not from the state, but from the British

constitution. They cannot by any possibility, whilst they hear its praises continually rung in their

ears, and are present at the declaration which is so generally and so bravely made by those who

possess the privilege—that the best blood in their veins ought to be shed, to preserve their share

in it; they cannot, I say, think themselves in an happy state, to be utterly excluded from all its

direct and all its consequential advantages. The popular part of the constitution must be to them,

by far the most odious part of it. To them it is not an actual, and, if possible, still less a virtual

representation.

It is indeed the direct contrary. It is power unlimited, placed in the hands of an

adverse description, because it is an adverse description. And if they who compose the privileged

body have not an interest, they must but too frequently have motives of pride, passion,

petulance, peevish jealousy, or tyrannic suspicion, to urge them to treat the people with

contempt and rigour.

This is not a mere theory; though whilst men are men, it is a theory that cannot be false. I do not

wish to revive all the particulars in my memory; I wish them to sleep for ever; but it is impossible

I should wholly forget, what happened in some parts of Ireland, with very few and short

intermissions, from the year 1761 to the year 1766, both inclusive. In a country of miserable

police, passing from the extremes of laxity to the extremes of rigour, among a neglected, and

therefore disorderly populace—if any disturbance or sedition, from any grievance real or

imaginary happened to arise, it was presently perverted from its true nature (often criminal

enough in itself to draw upon it a severe appropriate punishment), it was metamorphosed into a

conspiracy against the state, and prosecuted as such. The object was, that those persons in the

obnoxious description (in which all offenders will be most commonly found, because the most

numerous and the most wretched) who could not easily, from their character and property, be

suspected of the crimes of the lowest people, might be involved in the odium, in the suspicion,

and sometimes in the punishment, of a higher and far more criminal species of offence. This did

not arise from any one of the Popery laws since repealed, but from this circumstance, that the

people of that description had no hold on the gentlemen who aspired to be popular

representatives; and that the candidates neither loved, nor respected, nor feared them

individually or collectively. I do not think this evil (an evil amongst a thousand others) at this day

entirely over; for I conceive I have lately seen some indication of a disposition perfectly similar to

the old ones; that is, a disposition to carry the imputation of crimes from persons to descriptions,

and wholly to alter the character and quality of the offences themselves.

This universal exclusion seems to me a serious evil—because many collateral oppressions,

e 113 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

besides what I have just now stated, have arisen from it. In things of this nature, it would not be

either easy or proper to quote chapter and verse: but I have great reason to believe, particularly

since the octenial act,

that several have refused at all to let their lands to Roman Catholics;

because it would so far disable them from promoting such interests in counties as they were

inclined to favour.

They who consider also the state of all sorts of tradesmen, shopkeepers, and

particularly publicans in towns, must soon discern the disadvantages under which those labour

who have no votes. It cannot be otherwise, whilst the spirit of elections, and the tendencies of

human nature continue as they are. If property be artificially separated from franchise, the

franchise must in some way or other, and in some proportion, naturally attract property to it.

Many are the collateral disadvantages, amongst a privileged people, which must attend those who

have no privileges. Among the rich, each individual is of importance; the poor and the middling

are no otherwise so, than as they obtain some collective capacity, and can be aggregated to some

corps. If legal ways are not found, illegal will be resorted to; and seditious clubs and

confederacies, such as no man living holds in greater horror than I do, will grow and flourish, in

spite, I am afraid, of any thing which can be done to prevent the evil. Lawful enjoyment is the

surest method to prevent unlawful gratification. Where there is property, there will be less theft;

where there is marriage, there will always be less fornication.

I have said enough of the question of state, as it affects the people, merely as such. But it is

complicated with a political question relative to religion, to which it is very necessary I should say

something; because the term Protestant, which you apply, is too general for the conclusions

which one of your accurate understanding would wish to draw from it; and because a great deal

of argument will depend on the use that is made of that term.

It is not a fundamental part of the settlement at the revolution, that the state should be

protestant without any qualification of the term. With a qualification it is unquestionably true; not

in all its latitude. With the qualification, it was true before the revolution. Our predecessors in

legislation were not so irrational (not to say impious) as to form an operose ecclesiastical

establishment, and even to render the state itself in some degree subservient to it, when their

religion (if such it might be called) was nothing but a mere negation of some other—without any

positive idea either of doctrine, discipline, worship, or morals, which they professed themselves,

and which they imposed upon others, even under penalties and incapacities—No! No! This never

could have been done even by reasonable Atheists. They who think religion of no importance to

the state have abandoned it to the conscience, or caprice of the individual; they make no

provision for it whatsoever, but leave every club to make, or not, a voluntary contribution

according to their fancies. This would be consistent. The other always appeared to me to be a

monster of contradiction and absurdity. It was for that reason, that some years ago I strenuously

opposed the clergy who petitioned, to the number of about three hundred, to be freed from the

subscription to the 39 Articles, without proposing to substitute any other in their place. There

never has been a religion of the state (the few years of the Parliament only excepted) but that of

the church of England; the church of England, before the reformation, connected with the See of

Rome, since then, disconnected and protesting against some of her doctrines, and the whole of

her authority, as binding in our national church: nor did the fundamental laws of this kingdom (in

Ireland it has been the same) ever know, at any period, any other church as an object of

establishment; or in that light, any other Protestant religion. Nay our Protestant toleration itself at

the revolution, and until within a few years, required a signature of thirty-six, and a part of a

thirty-seventh, out of the thirty-nine Articles. So little idea had they at the revolution of

e 114 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

establishing Protestantism indefinitely, that they did not indefinitely tolerate it under that name. I

do not mean to praise that strictness, where nothing more than merely religious toleration is

concerned. Toleration being a part of moral and political prudence, ought to be tender and large,

and not too scrupulous in its investigations; but may bear without blame, not only very ill-

grounded doctrines, but even many things that are positively vices, where they are adulta et

praevalida.

The good of the common-wealth is the rule which rides over the rest; and to this

every other must completely submit.

The church of Scotland knows as little of Protestantism undefined, as the church of England and

Ireland do. She has by the articles of union

secured to herself the perpetual establishment of the

Confession of Faith, and the Presbyterian church government. In England, even during the

troubled interregnum, it was not thought fit to establish a negative religion; but the Parliament

settled the Presbyterian, as the church discipline; the directory, as the rule of public worship; and

the Westminster catechism, as the institute of faith. This is to shew, that at no time was the

Protestant religion undefined, established here, or any where else, as I believe. I am sure that

when the three religions were established in Germany, they were expressly characterized and

declared to be the Evangelic and Reformed, and the Catholic; each of which has its confession of

faith, and its settled discipline; so that you always may know the best and the worst of them, to

enable you to make the most of what is good, and to correct or qualify, or guard against

whatever may seem evil or dangerous.

As to the coronation oath, to which you allude as opposite to admitting a Roman Catholic to the

use of any franchise whatsoever, I cannot think that the king would be perjured if he gave his

assent to any regulation which Parliament might think fit to make, with regard to that affair. The

king is bound by law, as clearly specified in several acts of Parliament, to be in communion with

the church of England. It is a part of the tenure by which he holds his crown; and though no

provision was made till the revolution, which could be called positive and valid in law, to ascertain

this great principle; I have always considered it as in fact fundamental, that the king of England

should be of the Christian religion, according to the national legal church for the time being. I

conceive it was so before the reformation, and that since the reformation it became doubly

necessary; because the king is the head of that church; in some sort an ecclesiastical person; and

it would be incongruous and absurd, to have the head of the church of one faith, and the

members of another. The king may inherit the crown as a Protestant, but he cannot hold it

according to law, without being a Protestant of the church of England.

Before we take it for granted, that the king is bound by his coronation oath, not to admit any of

his Catholic subjects to the rights and liberties, which ought to belong to them as Englishmen (not

as religionists) or to settle the conditions or proportions of such admission by an act of

Parliament; I wish you to place before your eyes that oath itself, as it is settled in the act of

William and Mary.

“Will you to the utmost of your power maintain— The laws of God— the true Profession of the

gospel—and The protestant reformed religion as it is established by law. —And will you preserve

unto bishops and clergy, and the churches committed to their charge, all such rights and

privileges as by law do, or shall appertain to them, or any of them.—All this I promise to do.”

Here are the coronation engagements of the King. In them I do not find one word to preclude his

e 115 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

Majesty from consenting to any arrangement which Parliament may make with regard to the civil

privileges of any part of his subjects.

It may not be amiss, on account of the light which it may throw on this discussion, to look a little

more narrowly into the matter of that oath—in order to discover how far it has hitherto operated

as a bar to any proceedings of the Crown and Parliament, in favour of those against whom it may

be supposed that the king has engaged to support the Protestant church of England in the two

kingdoms, in which it is established by law. First, the king swears he will maintain to the utmost

of his power, “the laws of God.” I suppose it means the natural moral laws. Secondly, he swears

to maintain “the true profession of the Gospel.” By which I suppose is understood affirmatively

the Christian religion. Thirdly, that he will maintain “the Protestant reformed religion.” This leaves

me no power of supposition or conjecture; for it is defined and described by the subsequent

words, “established by law,” and in this instance to define it beyond all possibility of doubt, he

“swears to maintain the bishops and clergy, and the churches committed to their charge,” in their

rights, present and future.

This oath as effectually prevents the King from doing any thing to the prejudice of the church in

favour of Sectaries, Jews, Mahometans, or plain avowed Infidels; just as if he should do the same

thing in favour of the Catholics. You will see, that it is the same Protestant Church, so described,

which the King is to maintain and communicate with, according to the act of settlement of the

12th and 13th of William III. The act of the 5th of Anne, made in prospect of the union, is entitled

“An act for securing the Church of England as by law established.” It meant to guard the church

implicitly against any other mode of Protestant religion which might creep in by means of the

union. It proves beyond all doubt, that the legislature did not mean to guard the church on one

part only, and to leave it defenceless and exposed upon every other. This church, in that act, is

declared to be “fundamental and essential” for ever, in the constitution of the united kingdom, so

far as England is concerned; and I suppose as the law stands, even since the independence,

it is

so in Ireland.

All this shews, that the religion which the King is bound to maintain, has a positive part in it as

well as a negative; and that the positive part of it (in which we are in perfect agreement

with

the Catholics and with the Church of Scotland) is infinitely the most valuable and essential. Such

an agreement we had with Protestant Dissenters in England, of those descriptions who came

under the toleration act of King William and Queen Mary; an act coeval with the revolution; and

which ought, on the principles of the gentlemen who oppose the relief to the Catholics, to have

been held sacred and unalterable. Whether we agree with the present Protestant Dissenters in the

points at the revolution held essential and fundamental among Christians, or in any other

fundamental, at present it is impossible for us to know; because, at their own very earnest

desire, we have repealed the toleration act of William and Mary, and discharged them from the

signature required by that act; and because we know that, for the far greater part, they publicly

declare against all manner of confessions of faith, even the consensus.

I dwell a little the longer upon this matter, and take the more pains, to put us both in mind that it

was not settled at the revolution, that the state should be protestant, in the latitude of the term,

but in a defined and limited sense only, and that, in that sense only, the King is sworn to maintain

it, for reasons forcible enough at all times, but at this time peculiarly so. To suppose that the King

has sworn with his utmost power to maintain what it is wholly out of his power to discover, or

e 116 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

which, if he could discover, he might discover to consist of things directly contradictory to each

other, some of them perhaps, impious, blasphemous, and seditious upon principle, would be not

only a gross, but a most mischievous absurdity. It would make a merit of dissenting from the

church of England, because the man happens to dissent from the church of Rome also; for a man

is certainly the most perfect Protestant, and the most perfect Dissenter, who protests against,

and dissents from the whole Christian Religion. Whether a person’s having no Christian Religion,

be a title to favour in exclusion to the largest description of Christians who hold all the doctrines

of Christianity, though holding along with them some errors and some superfluities, is rather

more than any man who has not become recreant and apostate from his baptism, will, I believe,

choose to affirm. The countenance given from a spirit of controversy to that negative religion,

may, by degrees, encourage light and unthinking people to a total indifference to every thing

positive in matters of doctrine; and, in the end, of practice too. If continued, it would play the

game of that sort of active, proselytizing, and persecuting atheism, which is the disgrace and

calamity of our time, and which we see to be as capable of subverting a government, as any

mode of misguided zeal for better things.

Now let us fairly see what course has been taken relative to those, against whom, in part at least,

the King has sworn to maintain a church, positive in its doctrine and its discipline. The first thing

done, even when the oath was fresh in the mouth of the sovereigns, was to give a toleration to

Protestant Dissenters, whose doctrines they ascertained. As to the mere civil privileges which the

Dissenters held as subjects before the revolution, these were not touched at all. The laws have

fully permitted, in a qualification for all offices, to such Dissenters, an occasional conformity; a

thing I believe singular, where tests are admitted. The act called the Test Act itself, is, with

regard to them, grown to be hardly any thing more than a dead letter. Whenever the Dissenters

cease by their conduct to give any alarm to the government, in church and state, I think it very

probable that even this matter, rather disgustful than inconvenient to them, may be removed, or

at least so modified as to distinguish the qualification to those offices which really guide the state,

from those which are merely instrumental; or that some other and better tests may be put in

their place.

So far as to England. In Ireland you have outran us. Without waiting for an English example, you

have totally, and without any modification whatsoever, repealed the test as to Protestant

Dissenters. Not having the repealing act by me, I ought not to say positively that there is no

exception in it; but if it be, what I suppose you know very well, that a Jew in religion, or a

Mahometan, or even a public, declared Athiest, and blasphemer, is perfectly qualified to be lord

lieutenant, a lord justice, or even keeper of the king’s conscience; and by virtue of his office (if

with you it be as it is with us) administrator to a great part of the ecclesiastical patronage of the

crown.

Now let us deal a little fairly. We must admit, that Protestant dissent was one of the quarters

from which danger was apprehended at the revolution, and against which a part of the coronation

oath was peculiarly directed. By this unqualified repeal, you certainly did not mean to deny that it

was the duty of the crown to preserve the church against Protestant Dissenters; or taking this to

be the true sense of the two revolution acts of King William, and of the previous and subsequent

union acts of Queen Anne, you did not declare by this most unqualified repeal, by which you

broke down all the barriers, not invented, indeed, but carefully preserved at the revolution; you

did not then and by that proceeding declare, that you had advised the king to perjury towards

e 117 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

God, and perfidy towards the church. No! far, very far from it! you never would have done it, if

you did not think it could be done with perfect repose to the royal conscience, and perfect safety

to the national established religion. You did this upon a full consideration of the circumstances of

your country. Now if circumstances required it, why should it be contrary to the king’s oath, his

parliament judging on those circumstances, to restore to his Catholic people, in such measure,

and with such modifications as the public wisdom shall think proper to add, some part in these

franchises which they formerly had held without any limitation at all, and which, upon no sort of

urgent reason at the time, they were deprived of? If such means can with any probability be

shewn, from circumstances, rather to add strength to our mixed ecclesiastical and secular

constitution, than to weaken it; surely they are means infinitely to be preferred to penalties,

incapacities and proscriptions continued from generation to generation. They are perfectly

consistent with the other parts of the Coronation Oath, in which the king swears to maintain “the

laws of God and the true profession of the gospel, and to govern the people according to the

statutes in Parliament agreed upon, and the laws and customs of the realm.” In consenting to

such a statute, the Crown would act at least as agreeable to the laws of God, and to the true

profession of the gospel, and to the laws and customs of the kingdom, as George I. did when he

passed the statute which took from the body of the people, every thing which, to that hour, and

even after the monstrous acts of the 2d and 8th of Anne, (the objects of common hatred) they

still enjoyed inviolate.

It is hard to distinguish with the last degree of accuracy, what laws are fundamental, and what

not. However there is a distinction authorized by the writers on jurisprudence, and recognized in

some of our statutes. I admit the acts of King William and Queen Anne to be fundamental, but

they are not the only fundamental laws. The law called Magna Charta, by which it is provided

that, “no man shall be disseized of his liberties and free customs but by the judgment of his

peers, or the laws of the land” (meaning clearly for some proved crime tried and adjudged), I

take to be a fundamental law. Now, although this Magna Charta, or some of the statutes

establishing it, provide that that law shall be perpetual, and all statutes contrary to it shall be

void: yet I cannot go so far as to deny the authority of statutes made in defiance of Magna Charta

and all its principles. This however I will say, that it is a very venerable law, made by very wise

and learned men, and that the legislature in their attempt to perpetuate it, even against the

authority of future parliaments, have shewn their judgment that it is fundamental, on the same

grounds, and in the same manner that the act of the fifth of Anne has considered, and declared

the establishment of the church of England to be fundamental. Magna Charta, which secured

these franchises to the subjects, regarded the rights of freeholders in counties to be as much a

fundamental part of the constitution, as the establishment of the church of England was thought

either at that time, or in the act of King William, or in the act of Queen Anne.

The churchmen, who led in that transaction, certainly took care of the material interest of which

they were the natural guardians. It is the first article of Magna Charta, “that the church of

England shall be free,” &c. &c. But churchmen, and barons, and knights, took care of the

franchises and free customs of the people too. Those franchises are part of the constitution itself,

and inseparable from it. It would be a very strange thing if there should not only exist, anomalies

in our laws, a thing not easy to prevent, but, that the fundamental parts of the constitution

should be perpetually and irreconcilably at variance. I cannot persuade myself that the lovers of

our church are not as able to find effectual ways of reconciling its safety with the franchises of the

people, as the ecclesiastics of the thirteenth century were able to do; I cannot conceive how any

e 118 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

thing worse can be said of the Protestant religion of the church of England than this, that

wherever it is judged proper to give it a legal establishment, it becomes necessary to deprive the

body of the people, if they adhere to their old opinions, of “their liberties and of all their free

customs,” and to reduce them to a state of civil servitude.

There is no man on earth, I believe, more willing than I am to lay it down as a fundamental of the

constitution, that the church of England should be united and even identified with it: but allowing

this, I cannot allow that all laws of regulation, made from time to time, in support of that

fundamental law, are, of course, equally fundamental and equally unchangeable. This would be to

confound all the branches of legislation and of jurisprudence. The Crown and the personal safety

of the monarch are fundamentals in our constitution: Yet, I hope that no man regrets, that the

rabble of statutes got together during the reign of Henry the Eighth, by which treasons are

multiplied with so prolific an energy, have been all repealed in a body; although they were all, or

most of them, made in support of things truly fundamental in our constitution. So were several of

the acts by which the crown exercised its supremacy; such as the act of Elizabeth, for making the

high commission courts,

and the like; as well as things made treason in the time of Charles II.

None of this species of secondary and subsidiary laws have been held fundamental. They have

yielded to circumstances: particularly where they were thought, even in their consequences, or

obliquely, to affect other fundamentals. How much more, certainly, ought they to give way, when,

as in our case, they effect, not here and there, in some particular point, or in their consequence,

but universally, collectively, and directly, the fundamental franchises of a people, equal to the

whole inhabitants of several respectable kingdoms and states; equal to the subjects of the kings

of Sardinia or Denmark; equal to those of the United Netherlands; and more than are to be found

in all the states of Switzerland. This way of proscribing men by whole nations, as it were, from all

the benefits of the constitution to which they were born, I never can believe to be politic or

expedient, much less necessary for the existence of any state or church in the world. Whenever I

shall be convinced, which will be late and reluctantly, that the safety of the church is utterly

inconsistent with all the civil rights whatsoever of the far larger part of the inhabitants of our

country, I shall be extremely sorry for it; because I shall think the church to be truly in danger. It

is putting things into the position of an ugly alternative, into which, I hope in God, they never will

be put.

I have said most of what occurs to me on the topics you touch upon, relative to the religion of the

king, and his coronation oath. I shall conclude the observations which I wished to submit to you

on this point, by assuring you, that I think you the most remote that can be conceived from the

metaphysicians of our times, who are the most foolish of men, and who, dealing in universals and

essences, see no difference between more and less; and who of course would think that the

reason of the law which obliged the king to be a communicant of the church of England, would be

as valid to exclude a Catholic from being an exciseman, or to deprive a man who has five hundred

a year, under that description, from voting on a par with a factitious Protestant Dissenting

freeholder of forty shillings.

Recollect, my dear friend, that it was a fundamental principle in the French monarchy, whilst it

stood, that the state should be Catholic; yet the edict of Nantz gave, not a full ecclesiastical, but

a complete civil establishment, with places of which only they were capable, to the Calvinists of

France; and there were very few employments indeed of which they were not capable. The world

praised the Cardinal de Richlieu, who took the first opportunity to strip them of their fortified

e 119 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

places and cautionary towns.

The same world held and does hold in execration (so far as that

business is concerned) the memory of Louis the Fourteenth, for the total repeal of that favourable

edict; though the talk of “fundamental laws, established religion, religion of the prince, safety to

the state,” &c. &c. was then as largely held, and with as bitter a revival of the animosities of the

civil confusions during the struggles between the parties, as now they can be in Ireland.

Perhaps there are those who think that the same reason does not hold when the religious relation

of the sovereign and subject is changed; but they who have their shop full of false weights and

measures, and who think that the adding or taking away the name of Protestant or Papist, Guelph

or Ghibelline,

alters all the principles of equity, policy, and prudence, leave us no common data

upon which we can reason. I therefore pass by all this, which on you will make no impression, to

come to what seems to be a serious consideration in your mind; I mean the dread you express of

“reviewing, for the purpose of altering, the principles of the Revolution. ” This is an interesting

topic; on which I will, as fully as your leisure and mine permits, lay before you the ideas I have

formed.

First, I cannot possibly confound in my mind all the things which were done at the Revolution,

with the principles of the Revolution. As in most great changes many things were done from the

necessities of the time, well or ill understood, from passion or from vengeance, which were not

only, not perfectly agreeable to its principles, but in the most direct contradiction to them. I shall

not think that the deprivation of some millions of people of all the rights of citizens, and all

interest in the constitution, in and to which they were born, was a thing conformable to the

declared principles of the Revolution. This I am sure is true relatively to England (where the

operation of these anti-principles comparatively were of little extent), and some of our late laws

on that subject admit it. But the Revolution operated differently in England and Ireland, in many,

and these essential particulars. Supposing the principles to have been altogether the same in

both kingdoms, by the application of those principles to very different objects, the whole spirit of

the system was changed, not to say reversed. In England it was the struggle of the great body of

the people for the establishment of their liberties, against the efforts of a very small faction, who

would have oppressed them. In Ireland it was the establishment of the power of the smaller

number, at the expence of the civil liberties and properties of the far greater part; and at the

expence of the political liberties of the whole. It was, to say the truth, not a revolution, but a

conquest; which is not to say a great deal in its favour. To insist on every thing done in Ireland at

the Revolution, would be to insist on the severe and jealous policy of a conqueror, in the crude

settlement of his new acquisition, as a permanent rule for its future government. This, no power,

in no country that ever I heard of, has done or professed to do—except in Ireland; where it is

done, and possibly by some people will be professed. Time has, by degrees, in all other places

and periods, blended and coalited the conquered with the conquerors. So, after some time, and

after one of the most rigid conquests that we read of in history, the Normans softened into the

English. I wish you to turn your recollection to the fine speech of Cerealis

to the Gauls, to

dissuade them from revolt. Speaking of the Romans, “ Nos quamvis toties lacessiti, jure victoriae

id solum vobis addidimus, quo pacem tueremur; nam neque quies gentium sine armis; neque

arma sine stipendiis; neque stipendia sine tributis, haberi queant. Caetera in communi sita sunt:

ipsi plerumque nostris exercitibus praesidetis: ipsi has aliasque provincias, regitis: nil seperatum

clausumve —Proinde Pacem et urbem, quam victores victique eodem jure obtinemus, amate,

colite.”

You will consider, whether the arguments used by that Roman to these Gauls, would

apply to the case in Ireland; and whether you could use so plausible a preamble to any severe

e 120 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

warning you might think it proper to hold out to those who should resort to sedition instead of

supplication, to obtain any object that they may pursue with the governing power.

For a much longer period than that which had sufficed to blend the Romans with the nation to

which of all others they were the most adverse, the Protestants settled in Ireland, considered

themselves in no other light than that of a sort of a colonial garrison, to keep the natives in

subjection to the other state of Great Britain. The whole spirit of the revolution in Ireland, was

that of not the mildest conqueror. In truth, the spirit of those proceedings did not commence at

that aera, nor was religion of any kind their primary object. What was done, was not in the spirit

of a contest between two religious factions; but between two adverse nations. The statutes of

Kilkenny

shew, that the spirit of the popery laws, and some even of their actual provisions, as

applied between Englishry and Irishry, had existed in that harassed country before the words

Protestant and Papist were heard of in the world. If we read Baron Finglas, Spenser, and Sir John

Davis,

we cannot miss the true genius and policy of the English government there before the

revolution, as well as during the whole reign of Queen Elizabeth. Sir John Davis boasts of the

benefits received by the natives, by extending to them the English law, and turning the whole

kingdom into shire ground. But the appearance of things alone was changed. The original scheme

was never deviated from for a single hour. Unheard of confiscations were made in the northern

parts, upon grounds of plots and conspiracies, never proved upon their supposed authors. The

war of chicane succeeded to the war of arms and of hostile statutes; and a regular series of

operations were carried on, particularly from Chichester’s

time, in the ordinary courts of justice,

and by special commissions and inquisitions; first, under pretence of tenures, and then of titles in

the crown, for the purpose of the total extirpation of the interest of the natives in their own soil—

until this species of subtile ravage, being carried to the last excess of oppression and insolence

under Lord Stafford,

it kindled at length the flames of that rebellion which broke out in 1641. By

the issue of that war, by the turn which the Earl of Clarendon

gave to things at the restoration,

and by the total reduction of the kingdom of Ireland in 1691; the ruin of the native Irish, and in a

great measure too, of the first races of the English, was completely accomplished. The new

English interest was settled with as solid a stability as any thing in human affairs can look for. All

the penal laws of that unparalleled code of oppression, which were made after the last event,

were manifestly the effects of national hatred and scorn towards a conquered people; whom the

victors delighted to trample upon, and were not at all afraid to provoke. They were not the effect

of their fears but of their security. They who carried on this system, looked to the irresistible force

of Great Britain for their support in their acts of power. They were quite certain that no

complaints of the natives would be heard on this side of the water, with any other sentiments

than those of contempt and indignation. Their cries served only to augment their torture.

Machines which could answer their purposes so well, must be of an excellent contrivance. Indeed

at that time in England, the double name of the complainants, Irish and Papists (it would be hard

to say, singly, which was the most odious) shut up the hearts of every one against them. Whilst

that temper prevailed, and it prevailed in all its force to a time within our memory, every measure

was pleasing and popular, just in proportion as it tended to harass and ruin a set of people, who

were looked upon as enemies to God and man; and indeed as a race of bigotted savages who

were a disgrace to human nature itself.

However, as the English in Ireland began to be domiciliated, they began also to recollect that they

had a country. The English interest at first by faint and almost insensible degrees, but at length

openly and avowedly, became an independent Irish interest; full as independent as it could ever

e 121 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

have been, if it had continued in the persons of the native Irish; and it was maintained with more

skill, and more consistency than probably it would have been in theirs. With their views, they

changed their maxims—it was necessary to demonstrate to the whole people, that there was

something at least, of a common interest, combined with the independency, which was to become

the object of common exertions. The mildness of government produced the first relaxation

towards the Irish; the necessities, and, in part too, the temper that predominated at this great

change, produced the second and the most important of these relaxations. English government,

and Irish legislature felt jointly the propriety of this measure. The Irish parliament and nation

became independent.

The true revolution to you, that which most intrinsically and substantially resembled the English

revolution of 1688, was the Irish revolution of 1782. The Irish Parliament of 1782, bore little

resemblance to that which sat in that kingdom, after the period of the first revolution;

it bore a

much nearer resemblance (though not at all in its temper) to that which sat under King James.

The change of the Parliament in 1782 from the character of the Parliament which, as a token of

its indignation, had burned all the journals indiscriminately of the former Parliament in the council

chamber,

was very visible. The address of King William’s Parliament, the Parliament which

assembled after the Revolution, amongst other causes of complaint (many of them sufficiently

just), complains of the repeal by their predecessors of Poyning’s law;

no absolute idol with the

Parliament of 1782.

Great Britain finding the Anglo-Irish highly animated with a spirit, which had indeed shewn itself

before, though with little energy, and many interruptions, and therefore suffered a multitude of

uniform precedents to be established against it, acted in my opinion, with the greatest

temperance and wisdom. She saw, that the disposition of the leading part of the nation, would

not permit them to act any longer the part of a garrison. She saw, that true policy did not require

that they ever should have appeared in that character; or if it had done so formerly, the reasons

had now ceased to operate. She saw that the Irish of her race, were resolved, to build their

constitution and their politics, upon another bottom. With those things under her view, she

instantly complied with the whole of your demands, without any reservation whatsoever. She

surrendered that boundless superiority, for the preservation of which, and the acquisition, she

had supported the English colonies in Ireland for so long a time, and at so vast an expence

(according to the standard of those ages) of her blood and treasure.

When we bring before us the matter which history affords for our selection, it is not improper to

examine the spirit of the several precedents, which are candidates for our choice. Might it not be

as well for your statesmen, on the other side of the water, to take an example from this latter,

and surely more conciliatory revolution, as a pattern for your conduct towards your own fellow-

citizens, than from that of 1688, when a paramount sovereignty over both you and them, was

more loftily claimed, and more sternly exerted, than at any former, or at any subsequent period?

Great Britain in 1782, rose above the vulgar ideas of policy, the ordinary jealousies of state, and

all the sentiments of national pride and national ambition. If she had been more disposed than, I

thank God for it, she was, to listen to the suggestions of passion, than to the dictates of

prudence; she might have urged the principles, the maxims, the policy, the practice of the

revolution, against the demands of the leading description in Ireland, with full as much

plausibility, and full as good a grace, as any amongst them can possibly do, against the

supplications of so vast and extensive a description of their own people. A good deal too, if the

e 122 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

spirit of domination and exclusion had prevailed in England, might be excepted against some of

the means then employed in Ireland, whilst her claims were in agitation; they were, at least, as

much out of ordinary course, as those which are now objected against admitting your people to

any of the benefits of an English constitution.

Most certainly, neither with you, nor here, was any one ignorant of what was at that time said,

written, and done. But on all sides we separated the means from the end: and we separated the

cause of the moderate and rational, from the ill-intentioned and seditious; which on such

occasions are so frequently apt to march together. At that time, on your part, you were not afraid

to review what was done at the revolution of 1688; and what had been continued during the

subsequent flourishing period of the British empire. The change then made was a great and

fundamental alteration. In the execution, it was an operose business on both sides of the water.

It required the repeal of several laws, the modification of many, and a new course to be given to

an infinite number of legislative, judicial, and official practices and usages in both kingdoms. This

did not frighten any of us. You are now asked to give, in some moderate measure, to your fellow-

citizens, what Great Britain gave to you, without any measure at all. Yet, notwithstanding all the

difficulties at the time, and the apprehensions which some very well-meaning people entertained,

through the admirable temper in which this revolution (or restoration in the nature of a

revolution) was conducted in both kingdoms; it has hitherto produced no inconvenience to either;

and I trust, with the continuance of the same temper, that it never will. I think that this small

inconsiderable change relative to an exclusion statute (not made at the revolution) for restoring

the people to the benefits, from which the green soreness of a civil war had not excluded them,

will be productive of no sort of mischief whatsoever. Compare what was done in 1782, with what

is wished in 1792; consider the spirit of what has been done at the several periods of

reformation; and weigh maturely, whether it be exactly true, that conciliatory concessions, are of

good policy only in discussions between nations; but that among descriptions in the same nation,

they must always be irrational and dangerous. What have you suffered in your peace, your

prosperity, or, in what ought ever to be dear to a nation, your glory, by the last act by which you

took the property of that people under the protection of the laws? What reason have you to dread

the consequences of admitting the people possessing that property to some share in the

protection of the constitution?

I do not mean to trouble you with any thing to remove the objections, I will not call them

arguments, against this measure, taken from a ferocious hatred to all that numerous description

of Christians. It would be to pay a poor compliment to your understanding or your heart. Neither

your religion, nor your politics consist “in odd perverse antipathies.” You are not resolved to

persevere in proscribing from the constitution, so many millions of your countrymen, because, in

contradiction to experience and to common sense, you think proper to imagine, that their

principles are subversive of common human society. To that I shall only say, that whoever has a

temper, which can be gratified by indulging himself in these good-natured fancies, ought to do a

great deal more. For an exclusion from the privileges of British subjects, is not a cure for so

terrible a distemper of the human mind, as they are pleased to suppose in their countrymen. I

rather conceive those privileges to be itself a remedy for some mental disorders.

As little shall I detain you with matters that can as little obtain admission into a mind like yours;

such as the fear, or pretence of fear, that in spite of your own power, and the trifling power of

Great Britain, you may be conquered by the Pope; or that this commodious bugbear (who is of

e 123 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

infinitely more use to those who pretend to fear, than to those who love him) will absolve his

Majesty’s subjects from their allegiance, and send over the cardinal of York to rule you as his

viceroy; or that, by the plenitude of his power, he will take that fierce tyrant, the king of the

French, out of his jail, and arm that nation (which on all occasions treats his Holiness so very

politely) with his bulls and pardons, to invade poor old Ireland, to reduce you to popery and

slavery, and to force the free-born, naked feet of your people into the wooden shoes of that

arbitrary monarch. I do not believe that discourses of this kind are held, or that any thing like

them will be held, by any who walk about without a keeper. Yet, I confess, that on occasions of

this nature, I am the most afraid of the weakest reasonings; because they discover the strongest

passions. These things will never be brought out in definite propositions; they would not prevent

pity towards any persons; they would only cause it for those who were capable of talking in such

a strain. But I know, and am sure, that such ideas as no man will distinctly produce to another, or

hardly venture to bring in any plain shape to his own mind—he will utter in obscure, ill explained

doubts, jealousies, surmises, fears, and apprehensions; and that in such a fog, they will appear to

have a good deal of size, and will make an impression; when, if they were clearly brought forth

and defined, they would meet with nothing but scorn and derision.

There is another way of taking an objection to this concession, which I admit to be something

more plausible, and worthy of a more attentive examination. It is, that this numerous class of

people is mutinous, disorderly, prone to sedition, and easy to be wrought upon by the insidious

arts of wicked and designing men; that conscious of this, the sober, rational, and wealthy part of

that body, who are totally of another character, do by no means desire any participation for

themselves, or for any one else of their description, in the franchises of the British constitution.

I have great doubt of the exactness of any part of this observation. But let us admit that the body

of the Catholics are prone to sedition (of which, as I have said, I entertain much doubt), is it

possible, that any fair observer or fair reasoner, can think of confining this description to them

only? I believe it to be possible for men to be mutinous and seditious who feel no grievance: but I

believe no man will assert seriously, that when people are of a turbulent spirit, the best way to

keep them in order, is to furnish them with something substantial to complain of.

You separate very properly the sober, rational, and substantial part of their description from the

rest. You give, as you ought to do, weight only to the former. What I have always thought of the

matter is this—that the most poor, illiterate, and uninformed creatures upon earth, are judges of

a practical oppression. It is a matter of feeling; and as such persons generally have felt most of it,

and are not of an over-lively sensibility, they are the best judges of it. But for the real cause, or

the appropriate remedy, they ought never to be called into council about the one or the other.

They ought to be totally shut out; because their reason is weak; because when once roused, their

passions are ungoverned; because they want information; because the smallness of the property

which individually they possess, renders them less attentive to the consequence of the measures

they adopt in affairs of moment. When I find a great cry amongst the people, who speculate little,

I think myself called seriously to examine into it, and to separate the real cause from the ill

effects of the passion it may excite; and the bad use which artful men may make of an irritation

of the popular mind. Here we must be aided by persons of a contrary character; we must not

listen to the desperate or the furious; but it is therefore necessary for us to distinguish who are

the really indigent, and the really intemperate. As to the persons who desire this part in the

constitution, I have no reason to imagine that they are persons who have nothing to lose and

e 124 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

much to look for in public confusion. The popular meeting from which apprehensions have been

entertained, has assembled.

I have accidentally had conversation with two friends of mine, who

knew something of the gentleman who was put into the chair upon that occasion; one of them

has had money transactions with him; the other, from curiosity, has been to see his concerns:

they both tell me he is a man of some property; but you must be the best judge of this, who by

your office, are likely to know his transactions. Many of the others are certainly persons of

fortune; and all, or most, fathers of families, men in respectable ways of life; and some of them

far from contemptible; either for their information, or for the abilities which they have shewn in

the discussion of their interests. What such men think it for their advantage to acquire, ought not,

prima facia, to be considered as rash or heady, or incompatible with the public safety or welfare.

I admit, that men of the best fortunes and reputations, and of the best talents and education too,

may, by accident, shew themselves furious and intemperate in their desires. This is a great

misfortune when it happens; for the first presumptions are undoubtedly in their favour. We have

two standards of judging in this case of the sanity and sobriety of any proceedings of the subject

proceeding; of unequal certainty indeed, but neither of them to be neglected: the first is by the

value of the object sought, the next is by the means through which it is pursued.

The object pursued, I understand, and have all along reasoned as if it were so, is in some degree

or measure to be admitted to the franchises of the constitution. Men are considered as under

some derangement of their intellects, when they see good and evil in a different light from other

men; when they choose nauseous and unwholesome food; and reject such as to the rest of the

world seems pleasant, and is known to be nutritive. I have always considered the British

constitution, not to be a thing in itself so vitious, as that none but men of deranged

understanding, and turbulent tempers could desire a share in it: on the contrary, I should think

very indifferently of the understanding and temper of any body of men, who did not wish to

partake of this great and acknowledged benefit. I cannot think quite so favourably either of the

sense or temper of those, if any such there are, who would voluntarily persuade their brethren

that the object is not fit for them, or they for the object. Whatever may be my thoughts, I am

quite sure, that they who hold such language, must forfeit all credit with the rest. This is

infallible—If they conceive any opinion of their judgment, they cannot possibly think them their

friends. There is, indeed, one supposition, which would reconcile the conduct of such gentlemen

to sound reason, and to the purest affection towards their fellow-sufferers; that is, that they act

under the impression of a well-grounded fear for the general interest. If they should be told, and

should believe the story, that if they dare attempt to make their condition better, they will

infallibly make it worse—that if they aim at obtaining liberty, they will have their slavery

doubled—that their endeavour to put themselves upon any thing which approaches towards an

equitable footing with their fellow-subjects, will be considered as an indication of a seditious and

rebellious disposition—such a view of things ought perfectly to restore the gentlemen, who so

anxiously dissuade their countrymen from wishing a participation with the privileged part of the

people,

to the good opinion of their fellows. But what is to them a very full justification, is not

quite so honourable to that power from whose maxims and temper so good a ground of rational

terror is furnished. I think arguments of this kind will never be used by the friends of a

government which I greatly respect; or by any of the leaders of an opposition whom I have the

honour to know, and the sense to admire. I remember Polybius tells us,

that during his captivity

in Italy as a Peloponesian hostage—he solicited old Cato to intercede with the senate for his

release, and that of his countrymen: this old politician told him that he had better continue in his

e 125 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

present condition, however irksome, than apply again to that formidable authority for their relief;

that he ought to imitate the wisdom of his countryman Ulysses, who, when he was once out of

the den of the Cyclops, had too much sense to venture again into the same cavern. But I

conceive too high an opinion of the Irish Legislature

to think that they are to their fellow citizen,

what the grand oppressors of mankind were to a people whom the fortune of war had subjected

to their power. For though Cato could do so with regard to his senate, I should really think it

nothing short of impious, to compare an Irish Parliament to a den of Cyclops. I hope the people,

both here and with you, will always apply to their representatives with becoming modesty; but at

the same time with minds unembarrassed with any sort of terror.

As to the means which they employ to obtain this object, so worthy of the sober and rational

minds; I do admit that such means may be used in the pursuit of it, as may make it proper for

legislature, in this case, to defer their compliance until the demandants are brought to a proper

sense of their duty. A concession in which the governing power of our country loses its dignity, is

dearly bought even by him who obtains his object. All the people have a deep interest in the

dignity of Parliament. But, as the refusal of franchises which are drawn out of the first vital

stamina of the British constitution, is a very serious thing, we ought to be very sure, that the

manner and spirit of the application is offensive and dangerous indeed, before we ultimately

reject all applications of this nature. The mode of application, I hear, is by petition. It is the

manner in which all the sovereign powers of the world are approached, and I never heard (except

in the case of James the second) that any prince considered this manner of supplication to be

contrary to the humility of a subject, or to the respect due to the person or authority of the

sovereign. This rule, and a correspondent practice, are observed, from the Grand Seignior, down

to the most petty Prince, or Republic in Europe.

You have sent me several papers, some in print, some in manuscript. I think I had seen all of

them, except the formula of association. I confess they appear to me to contain matter

mischievous, and capable of giving alarm, if the spirit in which they are written should be found

to make any considerable progress. But I am at a loss to know how to apply them, as objections

to the case now before us. When I find that the general committee which acts for the Roman

Catholics in Dublin, prefers the association proposed in the written draft you have sent me,

to a

respectful application in Parliament, I shall think the persons who sign such a paper, to be

unworthy of any privilege which may be thought fit to be granted; and that such men ought, by

name, to be excepted from any benefit under the constitution to which they offer this violence.

But I do not find that this form of a seditious league has been signed by any person whatsoever,

either on the part of the supposed projectors, or on the part of those whom it is calculated to

seduce. I do not find, on enquiry, that such a thing was mentioned, or even remotely alluded to,

in the general meeting of the Catholics, from which so much violence was apprehended. I have

considered the other publications, signed by individuals, on the part of certain societies—I may

mistake, for I have not the honour of knowing them personally, but I take Mr. Butler and Mr.

Tandy not to be Catholics, but members of the established church.

Not one that I recollect of

these publications, which you and I equally dislike, appears to be written by persons of that

persuasion. Now, if, whilst a man is dutifully soliciting a favour from Parliament, any person

should chuse, in an improper manner, to shew his inclination towards the cause depending; and if

that must destroy the cause of the petitioner; then, not only the petitioner, but the legislature

itself is in the power of any weak friend or artful enemy, that the supplicant, or that the

Parliament may have. A man must be judged by his own actions only. Certain Protestant

e 126 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

Dissenters make seditious propositions to the Catholics, which it does not appear that they have

yet accepted. It would be strange that the tempter should escape all punishment, and that he

who, under circumstances full of seduction and full of provocation, has resisted the temptation,

should incur the penalty. You know, that, with regard to the Dissenters, who are stated to be the

chief movers in this vile scheme of altering the principles of election to a right of voting by the

head, you are not able (if you ought even to wish such a thing) to deprive them of any part of the

franchises and privileges which they hold on a footing of perfect equality with yourselves. They

may do what they please with constitutional impunity; but the others cannot even listen with

civility to an invitation from them to an ill-judged scheme of liberty, without forfeiting, for ever,

all hopes of any of those liberties which we admit to be sober and rational.

It is known, I believe, that the greater, as well as the sounder part of our excluded countrymen,

have not adopted the wild ideas, and wilder engagement, which have been held out to them; but

have rather chosen to hope small and safe concessions from the legal power, than boundless

objects from trouble and confusion. This mode of action seems to me to mark men of sobriety,

and to distinguish them from those who are intemperate, from circumstance or from nature. But

why do they not instantly disclaim and disavow those who make such advances to them? In this

too, in my opinion, they shew themselves no less sober and circumspect. In the present moment,

nothing short of insanity could induce them to take such a step. Pray consider the circumstances.

Disclaim, says somebody, all union with the Dissenters;—right—But, when this your injunction is

obeyed, shall I obtain the object which I solicit from you?—Oh, no—nothing at all like it!—But, in

punishing us by an exclusion from the constitution, for having been invited to enter into it by a

postern, will you punish by deprivation of their privileges; or mulct in any other way, those who

have tempted us?—Far from it—we mean to preserve all their liberties and immunities, as our life

blood. We mean to cultivate them, as brethren whom we love and respect—with you, we have no

fellowship. We can bear, with patience, their enmity to ourselves; but their friendship with you,

we will not endure. But mark it well! All our quarrels with them, are always to be revenged upon

you. Formerly, it is notorious, that we should have resented with the highest indignation, your

presuming to shew any ill-will to them. You must not suffer them, now, to shew any good-will to

you. Know—and take it once for all—that it is, and ever has been, and ever will be, a fundamental

maxim in our politics, that you are not to have any part, or shadow, or name of interest

whatever, in our state.

That we look upon you, as under an irreversible outlawry from our

constitution—as perpetual and unalliable aliens.

Such, my dear Sir, is the plain nature of the argument drawn from the revolution maxims,

enforced by a supposed disposition in the Catholics to unite with the Dissenters. Such it is, though

it were clothed in never such bland and civil forms, and wrapped up, as a poet says, in a

thousand “artful folds of sacred lawn.”

For my own part, I do not know in what manner to

shape such arguments, so as to obtain admission for them into a rational understanding. Every

thing of this kind is to be reduced, at last, to threats of power. I cannot say vae victis,

and then

throw the sword into the scale. I have no sword; and if I had, in this case most certainly I would

not use it as a make-weight, in politic reasoning.

Observe, on these principles, the difference between the procedure of the Parliament and the

Dissenters, towards the people in question. One employs courtship, the other force. The

Dissenters offer bribes, the Parliament nothing but the front negative of a stern and forbidding

authority. A man may be very wrong in his ideas of what is good for him. But no man affronts

e 127 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

me, nor can therefore justify my affronting him, by offering to make me as happy as himself,

according to his own ideas of happiness. This the Dissenters do to the Catholics. You are on the

different extremes. The Dissenters offer, with regard to constitutional rights and civil advantages

of all sorts, every thing —you refuse every thing. With them, there is boundless, tho’ not very

assured hope; with you, a very sure and very unqualified despair. The terms of alliance, from the

Dissenters, offer a representation of the Commons, chosen out of the people by the head. This is

absurdly and dangerously large, in my opinion; and that scheme of election is known to have

been, at all times, perfectly odious to me. But I cannot think it right of course, to punish the Irish

Roman Catholics by an universal exclusion, because others, whom you would not punish at all,

propose an universal admission. I cannot dissemble to myself, that, in this very kingdom, many

persons who are not in the situation of the Irish Catholics, but who, on the contrary, enjoy the full

benefit of the constitution as it stands, and some of whom, from the effect of their fortunes, enjoy

it in a large measure, had some years ago associated to procure great and undefined changes

(they considered them as reforms) in the popular part of the constitution. Our friend, the late Mr.

Flood

(no slight man) proposed in his place, and in my hearing, a representation not much less

extensive than this, for England; in which every house was to be inhabited by a voter— in

addition to all the actual votes by other titles—all those (some of the corporate) which we know

do not require a house, or a shed. Can I forget that a person of the very highest rank, of very

large fortune, and of the first class of ability,

brought a bill into the House of Lords, in the head-

quarters of aristocracy, containing identically the same project, for the supposed adoption of

which by a club or two, it is thought right to extinguish all hopes in the Roman Catholics of

Ireland? I cannot say it was very eagerly embraced or very warmly pursued. But the Lords

neither did disavow the bill, nor treat it with any disregard, nor express any sort of disapprobation

of its noble author, who has never lost, with king or people, the least degree of the respect and

consideration which so justly belongs to him.

I am not at all enamoured, as I have told you, with this plan of representation; as little do I relish

any bandings or associations for procuring it. But if the question was to be put to you and me—

universal popular representation, or none at all for us and ours —we should find ourselves in a

very awkward position. I don’t like this kind of dilemmas, especially when they are practical.

Then, since our oldest fundamental laws follow, or rather couple, freehold with franchise; since no

principle of the Revolution shakes these liberties; since the oldest and one of the best monuments

of the constitution, demands for the Irish the privilege which they supplicate; since the principles

of the Revolution coincide with the declarations of the Great Charter; since the practice of the

Revolution, in this point, did not contradict its principles; since, from that event, twenty-five years

had elapsed, before a domineering party, on a party principle, had ventured to disfranchise,

without any proof whatsoever of abuse, the greater part of the community; since the King’s

coronation oath does not stand in his way to the performance of his duty to all his subjects; since

you have given to all other Dissenters these privileges without limit, which are hitherto withheld,

without any limitation whatsoever, from the Catholics; since no nation in the world has ever been

known to exclude so great a body of men (not born slaves) from the civil state, and all the

benefits of its constitution; the whole question comes before Parliament, as a matter for its

prudence. I do not put the thing on a question of right. That discretion which in judicature is well

said by Lord Coke

to be a crooked cord, in legislature is a golden rule.

Supplicants ought not to

appear too much in the character of litigants. If the subject thinks so highly and reverently of the

sovereign authority, as not to claim any thing of right, that it may seem to be independent of its

e 128 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

power and its free choice: and the sovereign, on his part, considers the advantages of the

subjects as their right, and all their reasonable wishes as so many claims; in the fortunate

conjunction of these mutual dispositions are laid the foundations of a happy and prosperous

commonwealth. For my own part, desiring of all things that the authority of the legislature under

which I was born, and which I cherish, not only with a dutiful awe, but with a partial and cordial

affection, to be maintained in the utmost possible respect, I never will suffer myself to suppose,

that, at bottom, their discretion will be found to be at variance with their justice.

The whole being at discretion, I beg leave just to suggest some matters for your consideration—

Whether the government in church or state is likely to be more secure by continuing causes of

grounded discontent, to a very great number (say two millions) of the subjects? or, Whether the

constitution, combined and balanced as it is, will be rendered more solid, by depriving so large a

part of the people of all concern, or interest, or share, in its representation, actual or virtual? I

here mean to lay an emphasis on the word virtual. Virtual representation is that in which there is

a communion of interests, and a sympathy in feelings and desires between those who act in the

name of any description of people, and the people in whose name they act, though the trustees

are not actually chosen by them. This is virtual representation.

Such a representation I think to

be, in many cases, even better than the actual. It possesses most of its advantages, and is free

from many of its inconveniences: it corrects the irregularities in the literal representation, when

the shifting current of human affairs, or the acting of public interests in different ways, carry it

obliquely from its first line of direction. The people may err in their choice; but common interest

and common sentiment are rarely mistaken. But this sort of virtual representation cannot have a

long or sure existence, if it has not a substratum in the actual. The member must have some

relation to the constituent. As things stands, the Catholic, as a Catholic and belonging to a

description, has no virtual relation to the representative; but the contrary. There is a relation in

mutual obligation. Gratitude may not always have a very lasting power; but the frequent

recurrency for favours will revive and refresh it, and will necessarily produce some degree of

mutual attention. It will produce, at least, acquaintance; the several descriptions of people will

not be kept so much apart, as if they were not only separate nations, but separate species. The

stigma and reproach, the hideous mask will be taken off, and men will see each other as they are.

Sure I am, that there have been thousands in Ireland, who have never conversed with a Roman

Catholic in their whole lives, unless they happened to talk to their gardiner’s workmen, or to ask

their way, when they had lost it, in their sports; or, at best, who had known them only as

footmen, or other domestics of the second and third order: and so averse were they, some time

ago, to have them near their persons, that they would not employ even those who could never

find their way beyond the stable. I well remember a great, and, in many respects, a good man,

who advertised for a blacksmith; but, at the same time, added, he must be a Protestant. It is

impossible that such a state of things, though natural goodness in many persons would

undoubtedly make exceptions, must not produce alienation on one side, and pride and insolence

on the other.

Reduced to a question of discretion, and that discretion exercised solely upon what will appear

best for the conservation of the state on its present basis, I should recommend it to your serious

thoughts, whether the narrowing of the foundation is always the best way to secure the building?

The body of disfranchised men will not be perfectly satisfied to remain always in that state. If

they are not satisfied, you have two millions of subjects in your bosom, full of uneasiness; not

that they cannot overturn the act of settlement, and put themselves and you under an arbitrary

e 129 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

master; or, that they are not permitted to spawn an hydra of wild republics, on principles of a

pretended natural equality in man; but, because you will not suffer them to enjoy the ancient,

fundamental, tried advantages of a British constitution: that you will not permit them to profit of

the protection of a common father, or the freedom of common citizens: and that the only reason

which can be assigned for this disfranchisement, has a tendency more deeply to ulcerate their

minds than the act of exclusion itself. What the consequence of such feelings must be, it is for

you to look to. To warn, is not to menace.

I am far from asserting, that men will not excite disturbances without just cause. I know that

such an assertion is not true. But, neither is it true that disturbances have never just complaints

for their origin. I am sure that it is hardly prudent to furnish them with such causes of complaint,

as every man who thinks the British constitution a benefit, may think; at least, colourable and

plausible.

Several are in dread of the manoeuvres of certain persons among the Dissenters, who turn this ill

humour to their own ill purposes. You know, better than I can, how much these proceedings of

certain among the Dissenters are to be feared. You are to weigh, with the temper which is natural

to you, whether it may be for the safety of our establishment, that the Catholics should be

ultimately persuaded that they have no hope to enter into the constitution, but through the

Dissenters.

Think, whether this be the way to prevent, or dissolve factious combinations against the church,

or the state. Reflect seriously on the possible consequences of keeping, in the heart of your

country, a bank of discontent, every hour accumulating, upon which every description of seditious

men may draw at pleasure. They, whose principles of faction would dispose them to the

establishment of an arbitrary monarchy, will find a nation of men who have no sort of interest in

freedom; but who will have an interest in that equality of justice or favour, with which a wise

despot must view all his subjects who do not attack the foundations of his power. Love of liberty

itself may, in such men, become the means of establishing an arbitrary domination. On the other

hand, they who wish for a democratic republic, will find a set of men who have no choice between

civil servitude, and the entire ruin of a mixed constitution.

Suppose the people of Ireland divided into three parts; of these (I speak within compass) two are

Catholic. Of the remaining third, one half is composed of Dissenters. There is no natural union

between those descriptions. It may be produced. If the two parts Catholic be driven into a close

confederacy with half the third part of Protestants, with a view to a change in the constitution in

church or state, or both; and you rest the whole of their security on a handful of gentlemen,

clergy, and their dependants; compute the strength you have in Ireland, to oppose to grounded

discontent; to capricious innovation; to blind popular fury, and to ambitious turbulent intrigue.

You mention that the minds of some gentlemen are a good deal heated: and that it is often said,

that, rather than submit to such persons having a share in their franchises, they would throw up

their independence, and precipitate an union with Great Britain.

I have heard a discussion concerning such an union amongst all sorts of men, ever since I

remember any thing. For my own part, I have never been able to bring my mind to any thing

clear and decisive upon the subject. There cannot be a more arduous question. As far as I can

form an opinion, it would not be for the mutual advantage of the two kingdoms; but persons

e 130 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

more able than I am, think otherwise. But, whatever the merits of this union may be, to make it a

menace, it must be shewn to be an evil; and an evil more particularly to those who are

threatened with it, than to those who hold it out as a terror. I really do not see how this threat of

an union can operate, or that the Catholics are more likely to be losers by that measure than the

churchmen.

The humours of the people, and of politicians too, are so variable in themselves and are so much

under the occasional influence of some leading men, that it is impossible to know what turn the

public mind here would take in such an event. There is but one thing certain concerning it: that

this union would excite a strong ferment on both sides of the water, with strong animosities and

violent passions, whilst the arrangement continued in agitation. Great divisions and vehement

passions would precede this union, both on the measure itself and on its terms; and particularly,

this very question of a share in the representation for the Catholics, from whence the project of

an union originated, would form a principal part in the discussion; and in the temper in which

some gentlemen seem inclined to throw themselves, by a sort of high indignant passion, into the

scheme, those points would not be deliberated with all possible calmness.

From my best observation, I should greatly doubt, whether, in the end, these gentlemen would

obtain their object, so as to make the exclusion of two millions of their countrymen a fundamental

article in the union. The demand would be of a nature quite unprecedented. You might obtain the

union: and yet, a gentleman who, under the new union establishment, would aspire to the honour

of representing his county, might possibly be as much obliged, as he may fear to be, under the

old separate establishment, to the unsupportable mortification of asking his neighbours, who have

a different opinion concerning the elements in the sacrament, for their votes.

I believe, nay, I am sure, that the people of Great Britain, with or without an union, might be

depended upon, in cases of any real danger, to aid the government of Ireland with the same

cordiality as they would support their own against any wicked attempts to shake the security of

the happy constitution in church and state. But, before Great Britain engages in any quarrel, the

cause of the dispute would certainly be a part of her consideration. If confusions should arise in

that kingdom, from too steady an attachment to a proscriptive monopolizing system, and from

the resolution of regarding the franchise, and, in it the security of the subject, as belonging rather

to religious opinions than to civil qualification and civil conduct, I doubt whether you might quite

certainly reckon on obtaining an aid of force from hence, for the support of that system. We

might extend your distractions to this country, by taking part in them. England will be indisposed,

I suspect, to send an army for the conquest of Ireland. What was done in 1782 is a decisive proof

of her sentiments of justice and moderation. She will not be fond of making another American

war in Ireland. The principles of such a war would but too much resemble the former one. The

well-disposed and the ill-disposed in England, would (for different reasons perhaps) be equally

averse to such an enterprize. The confiscations, the public auctions, the private grants, the

plantations, the transplantations, which formerly animated so many adventurers, even among

sober citizens, to such Irish expeditions, and which possibly might have animated some of them

to the American, can have no existence in the case that we suppose.

Let us form a supposition (no foolish or ungrounded supposition) that in an age, when men are

infinitely more disposed to heat themselves with political than religious controversies, the former

should entirely prevail, as we see that in some places they have prevailed, over the latter: and

e 131 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

that the Catholics of Ireland, from the courtship paid them on the one hand, and the high tone of

refusal on the other, should, in order to enter into all the rights of subjects, all become Protestant

Dissenters; and as the others do, take all your oaths. They would all obtain their civil objects, and

the change; for any thing I know to the contrary, (in the dark as I am about the Protestant

Dissenting tenets) might be of use to the health of their souls. But, what security our constitution,

in church or state, could derive from that event, I cannot possibly discern. Depend upon it, it is as

true as nature is true, that if you force them out of the religion of habit, education or opinion, it is

not to yours they will ever go. Shaken in their minds, they will go to that where the dogmas are

fewest; where they are the most uncertain; where they lead them the least to a consideration of

what they have abandoned. They will go to that uniformly democratic system, to whose first

movements they owed their emancipation. I recommend you seriously to turn this in your mind.

Believe that it requires your best and maturest thoughts. Take what course you please—union or

no union; whether the people remain Catholics, or become Protestant Dissenters, sure it is, that

the present state of monopoly, cannot continue.

If England were animated, as I think she is not, with her former spirit of domination, and with the

strong theological hatred which she once cherished for that description of her fellow-christians

and fellow-subjects; I am yet convinced, that, after the fullest success in a ruinous struggle, you

would be obliged finally to abandon that monopoly. We were obliged to do this, even when every

thing promised success in the American business. If you should make this experiment at last,

under the pressure of any necessity, you never can do it well. But if, instead of falling into a

passion, the leading gentlemen of the country themselves should undertake the business

cheerfully, and with hearty affection towards it, great advantages would follow. What is forced,

cannot be modified; but here, you may measure your concessions.

It is a consideration of great moment, that you may make the desired admission, without altering

the system of your representation in the smallest degree, or in any part. You may leave that

deliberation of a parliamentary change or reform, if ever you should think fit to engage in it,

uncomplicated and unembarrassed with the other question. Whereas, if they are mixed and

confounded, as some people attempt to mix and confound them, no one can answer for the

effects on the constitution itself.

There is another advantage in taking up this business, singly and by an arrangement for the

single object. It is, that you may proceed by degrees. We must all obey the great law of change,

it is the most powerful law of nature, and the means perhaps of its conservation. All we can do,

and that human wisdom can do, is to provide that the change shall proceed by insensible

degrees. This has all the benefits which may be in change, without any of the inconveniences of

mutation. Every thing is provided for as it arrives. This mode will, on the one hand, prevent the

unfixing old interests at once; a thing which is apt to breed a black and sullen discontent, in those

who are at once dispossessed of all their influence and consideration. This gradual course, on the

other side, will prevent men, long under depression, from being intoxicated with a large draught

of new power, which they always abuse with a licentious insolence. But, wishing, as I do, the

change to be gradual and cautious, I would, in my first steps, lean rather to the side of

enlargement than restriction.

It is one excellence of our constitution, that all our rights of election regard rather property than

person. The standard may be so low, or not so judiciously chosen, as in some degree to frustrate

e 132 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

the end. But all this is for your prudence in the case before you, You may rise, a step or two, the

qualification of the Catholic voters. But if you were, to-morrow, to put the Catholic freeholder on

the footing of the most favoured forty-shilling

Protestant Dissenter, you know that, such is the

actual state of Ireland, this would not make a sensible alteration in almost any one election in the

kingdom. The effect in their favour, even defensively, would be infinitely slow. But it would be

healing; it would be satisfactory and protecting. The stigma would be removed. By admitting

settled permanent substance in lieu of the numbers, you would avoid the great danger of our

time, that of setting up number against property. The numbers ought never to be neglected;

because, (besides what is due to them as men) collectively, though not individually, they have

great property: they ought to have therefore protection: they ought to have security: they ought

to have even consideration: but they ought not to predominate.

My dear Sir, I have nearly done; I meant to write you a long letter; I have written a long

dissertation. I might have done it early and better. I might have been more forcible and more

clear, if I had not been interrupted as I have been; and this obliges me not to write to you in my

own hand. Though my hand but signs it, my heart goes with what I have written. Since I could

think at all, those have been my thoughts. You know that thirty-two years ago they were as fully

matured in my mind as they are now. A letter of mine to Lord Kenmare, though not by my desire,

and full of lesser mistakes, has been printed in Dublin. It was written ten or twelve years ago, at

the time when I began the employment, which I have not yet finished, in favour of another

distressed people, injured by those who have vanquished them, or stolen a dominion over them.

It contained my sentiments then; you will see how far they accord with my sentiments now. Time

has more and more confirmed me in them all. The present circumstances fix them deeper in my

mind.

I voted last session, if a particular vote could be distinguished, in unanimity, for an establishment

of the Church of England conjointly with the establishment which was made some years before by

act of parliament, of the Roman Catholic, in the French conquered country of Canada.

At the

time of making this English ecclesiastical establishment, we did not think it necessary for its

safety, to destroy the former Gallican church settlement. In our first act we settled a government

altogether monarchical, or nearly so. In that system, the Canadian Catholics were far from being

deprived of the advantages or distinctions, of any kind, which they enjoyed under their former

monarchy. It is true, that some people, and amongst them one eminent divine, predicted at that

time, that by this step we should lose our dominions in America. He foretold that the Pope would

send his indulgences thither; that the Canadians would fall in with France; declare their

independence, and draw or force our colonies into the same design. The independence happened

according to his prediction; but in directly the reverse order. All our English Protestant colonies

revolted. They joined themselves to France; and it so happened that Popish Canada was the only

place which preserved its fidelity; the only place in which France got no footing; the only peopled

colony which now remains to Great Britain. Vain are all the prognostics taken from ideas and

passions, which survive the state of things which give rise to them. When last year we gave a

popular representation to the same Canada, by the choice of the landholders, and an aristocratic

representation, at the choice of the crown, neither was the choice of the crown, nor the election

of the landholders, limited by a consideration of religion. We had no dread for the Protestant

church, which we settled there, because we permitted the French Catholics, in the utmost latitude

of the description, to be free subjects. They are good subjects, I have no doubt; but I will not

allow that any French Canadian Catholics are better men or better citizens than the Irish of the

e 133 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

same communion. Passing from the extremity of the west, to the extremity almost of the east; I

have been many years (now entering into the twelfth) employed in supporting the rights,

privileges, laws and immunities of a very remote people. I have not as yet been able to finish my

task. I have struggled through much discouragement and much opposition; much obloquy; much

calumny, for a people with whom I have no tie, but the common bond of mankind. In this I have

not been left alone. We did not fly from our undertaking, because the people were Mahometans or

Pagans, and that a great majority of the Christians amongst them were Papists. Some gentlemen

in Ireland, I dare say, have good reasons for what they may do, which do not occur to me. I do

not presume to condemn them; but, thinking and acting, as I have done, towards these remote

nations, I should not know how to shew my face, here or in Ireland, if I should say that all the

Pagans, all the Mussulmen, and even Papists (since they must form the highest stage in the

climax of evil) are worthy of a liberal and honourable condition, except those of one of the

descriptions, which forms the majority of the inhabitants of the country in which you and I were

born. If such are the Catholics of Ireland; ill-natured and unjust people, from our own data, may

be inclined not to think better of the Protestants of a soil, which is supposed to infuse into its

sects a kind of venom unknown in other places.

You hated the old system as early as I did. Your first juvenile lance

was broken against that

giant. I think you were even the first who attacked the grim phantom. You have an exceeding

good understanding, very good humour, and the best heart in the world. The dictates of that

temper and that heart, as well as the policy pointed out by that understanding, led you to abhor

the old code.

You abhorred it, as I did, for its vicious perfection. For I must do it justice: it was a

complete system, full of coherence and consistency; well digested and well composed in all its

parts. It was a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance; and as well fitted for the oppression,

impoverishment and degradation of a people, and the debasement, in them, of human nature

itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man. It is a thing humiliating enough,

that we are doubtful of the effect of the medicines we compound. We are sure of our poisons. My

opinion ever was (in which I heartily agreed with those that admired the old code) that it was so

constructed, that if there was once a breach in any essential part of it; the ruin of the whole, or

nearly of the whole, was, at some time or other, a certainty. For that reason I honour, and shall

for ever honour and love you, and those who first caused it to stagger, crack, and gape. Others

may finish; the beginners have the glory; and, take what part you please at this hour, (I think

you will take the best) your first services will never be forgotten by a grateful country. Adieu!

Present my best regards to those I know, and as many as I know in our country, I honour. There

never was so much ability, or, I believe, virtue, in it. They have a task worthy of both. I doubt not

they will perform it, for the stability of the church and state, and for the union and the separation

of the people: for the union of the honest and peaceable of all sects; for their separation from all

that is ill-intentioned and seditious in any of them.

Beaconsfield,

January 3, 1792

FINIS

ENDNOTES

e 134 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

[1.] A footnote in the original publication explains: “The letter is written on folio sheets.”

[

2.] With premeditated malice.

[1.]

The reference is to Catholics who have sought relief from their oppressed state by joining

with Dissenters and Deists imbued with the principles of the French Revolution.

[1.]

Of bringing the French Revolution to Ireland with the military aid of France, as happened

(unsuccessfully) in 1798, the year after Burke’s death.

[2.]

Probably such Irish revolutionary leaders as Theobald Wolfe Tone (1763–98) and James

Napper Tandy (1740–1803), who were among the founders of the Dublin branch of the United

Irishmen, an organization that aimed to unite Irish Catholics and Dissenting Protestants for the

reform and, a few years later, for the overthrow of British rule in Ireland.

[1.]

“Slaves are not members of the commonwealth.”

[

1.] Citizens.

[2.]

The solid ground; that is, that part of the mainland owned by the island republic.

[1.]

Predial slaves are those who work on the land, as distinguished from those who work in the

house.

[1.]

Test Acts were those designed to keep all but members of the Established Church from

being eligible for public office, proscribing both Catholics and Dissenters. In England and Ireland,

the tests included such requirements as receiving the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper according

to the rite of the Church of England and subscribing to a declaration against the Catholic doctrine

of transubstantiation.

[1.]

For the meaning of virtual representation, see p. 240 below.

[1.]

An Act of 1768 that provided for a general election every eight years.

[2.]

The greater frequency of parliamentary elections was an incentive for Protestant landlords

not to rent land to Catholics, because by making Protestant tenants freeholders with the right to

vote, the lords could promote their political interests in elections.

[1.] Burke has reversed the order of Tacitus’s words, which should be praevalida et adulta vitia,

“prevalent and full-blown vices.” Annales 1.3.53.

[2.]

The articles concerning religion in the Act of Union of 1707, which merged England and

Scotland into one kingdom with one Parliament.

[1.]

The independence of the Irish Parliament since 1783, when the British Parliament

acknowledged the right of the people of Ireland “to be bound only by laws enacted by his Majesty

and the Parliament of that kingdom, in all cases whatever.”

e 135 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

[2.] Burke always assumed that there were fundamental doctrines on which all the principal

religions of Christendom agreed, but he never stated what they were.

[1.]

It was, in fact, an Act of George II in 1728 that provided that “no papist . . . shall be intitled

or admitted to vote at the election of any member to serve in Parliament.” W&S 9:570, n. 1; 610,

n. 1.

[1.]

Courts created to exercise the Crown’s ecclesiastical jurisdiction.

[1.]

Places de sûreté: towns held by French Protestants for their security and garrisoned at the

king’s expense.

[1.]

Partisans respectively of the Pope or of the Holy Roman Emperor in the struggles between

the two potentates in medieval Italy.

[1.]

The Roman general Cerialis Petilius.

[2.]

“Although often provoked, the only use we have made of our right of conquest has been to

impose on you the necessary costs of maintaining peace; for tranquillity among nations cannot be

had without arms, nor arms without soldiers’ pay, nor pay without taxes. Everything else we have

in common. You often command our armies, you rule these and other provinces; no privileges are

set aside for us or closed to you. . . . Therefore love and cherish peace and the city wherein we,

conquerors and conquered alike, enjoy an equal right.” Tacitus Histories 4:74.

[1.]

A Parliament held in Kilkenny in 1366 attempted to cut English losses and keep as much of

Ireland as possible under English control. It decreed that, within the pale of English law, the

English and the Irish who lived among them must use English surnames, speak English, and

follow English customs. They were forbidden to marry “the Irish enemies” who remained outside

the pale or to follow Irish law or customs. The Irish from beyond the pale were to be unable to

plead in the courts or to purchase or inherit land among the English.

[2.]

Patrick Finglas and Sir John Davies held high offices in Ireland in the reigns of Henry VIII

and James I, respectively. Edmund Spenser, the poet, held minor offices there in the reign of

Elizabeth I. All of them wrote at some length about conditions in Ireland under English rule.

[1.]

Sir Arthur Chichester, Lord Deputy of Ireland from 1604 to 1616, carried out a policy of

coercing Catholics into conforming to the religion by law established.

[2.]

Sir Thomas Wentworth, created Lord Deputy of Ireland in 1632 and Lord Lieutenant and

Earl of Stafford in 1639. He was zealous in raising revenue for the Stuart monarchy.

[3.]

Edward Hyde, first Earl of Clarendon, as Charles II’s Lord Chancellor of England, presided

over the Restoration settlement. Although Clarendon was eager to restore and support the

Anglican establishment, certain harsh measures adopted by Parliament, which became known as

the Clarendon Code, did not reflect the conciliatory spirit he favored in England and Ireland.

[1.]

The Irish Parliament in 1782 had taken the initial step toward legislative independence; the

e 136 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

one that met in 1695 after the defeat of James II was entirely Protestant in membership, frankly

subordinate to England, and determined to crush any possibility of another Irish Catholic uprising.

[2.]

When James II fled to Ireland, he called a Parliament in Dublin in 1689. The great majority

of its members were Anglo-Irish Catholics who attempted to reverse many of the results of the

English and Protestant conquest of Ireland.

[3.]

The Irish Parliament of 1695 declared the acts of the Parliament held under James II in

1689 null and void, and had all of its records burned.

[4.]

In 1468, the Irish Parliament had asserted that acts of the English Parliament were not valid

in Ireland unless ratified by the Irish Parliament. In 1494, Henry VII sent Sir Edward Poynings to

Ireland as Lord Deputy with orders to reduce the country to “whole and perfect obedience” to the

English Crown. Poynings pushed through a Parliament held in Drogheda a series of statutes for

that purpose, the most famous of which became known as Poynings’ Law.

This law provided that the Irish Parliament could not meet unless it was so authorized by the

English lord chancellor, could act only on topics approved beforehand by the king and his English

council, could enact legislation only after it had been sent to the king and council, and could not

amend the legislation from the form in which it was sent back to Ireland.

Burke erred regarding the Address presented to William and Mary in 1692. It did not mention

Poynings’ Law, and the Parliament held by James II in 1689 had not repealed it. W&S 9:617, n. 3.

[1.]

A meeting of the Catholic Committee of Ireland. The Committee had been led by Thomas

Browne, Lord Kenmare (1726–95), one of those few who remained of the old Catholic aristocracy

and gentry of Ireland. When he was defeated in a vote on policy by a majority led by John Keogh,

a wealthy Dublin silk merchant, Kenmare and his followers seceded from the Committee. The

majority then restructured it on a wider and more popular basis by adding two members elected

from each county and borough of Ireland. But, as Burke points out, the “popular” members were

respectable, and many of them were well-to-do.

[1.]

Lord Kenmare and his followers, who were more eager to be accepted by the Protestant

ruling class than desirous of winning Catholic representation in Parliament.

[2.]

Histories 35.6. Burke’s memory of this passage is faulty, but his recollection of Cato’s

remark about entering the den of the Cyclops again is reasonably accurate.

[3.]

In fact, Burke had a very low opinion of the Irish Legislature, which, in the same year,

1792, he described in a private letter as “the curse, scourge, and bane of the Irish nation.” Corr.

1844 4:66.

[1.]

Burke may refer here to the Declaration of the Catholic Society of Dublin, issued toward the

end of 1791, in which the Society asserted that its members were justified in associating with the

aim of attaining the repeal of the Catholic disabilities by all the constitutional means at their

disposal. W&S 9:624, n. 2.

[2.]

Simon Butler (1757–97) and James Napper Tandy were both members of the United

Irishmen and, at least nominally, Anglicans.

e 137 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

[1.] After the Battle of the Boyne, a Test Act of 1691 excluded Catholics from membership in the

Irish Parliament, and an Act of 1728 deprived them of the franchise.

[2.]

Sacred lawn: a bishop’s linen.

[3.]

Woe to the conquered. Livy 5.48.9.

[1.]

Henry Flood (1732–91), Irish M.P. from 1759 to 1783, in which year he bought a seat in the

British House of Commons. An accomplished orator and leader of the opposition in the Irish

House, he advocated parliamentary reform there. In the British Commons, on March 4, 1790, he

introduced (unsuccessfully) the bill for parliamentary reform that Burke describes here.

[1.]

Charles Lennox, third Duke of Richmond (1735–1806), brought in the bill described here on

June 3, 1780. As a leading member of the Rockingham Whigs, he was a close political associate

of Burke, who nonetheless once remarked of him in a private letter, “The Duke of Richmond, with

the best parts, as well as the best intentions in the world, has some singular opinions, of which he

is extremely tenacious.” Corr. 2:544.

[1.]

Sir Edward Coke (1552–1634), commonly called Lord Coke, Chief Justice of the King’s

Bench (1613–16) and a leading authority on English law.

[2.]

Burke insisted that the exercise of prudence and discretion in applying the norms of justice

or natural law is a legislative, not a judicial, function.

[1.]

It often happens, even in present-day democracies, that a particular legislator represents

the views and interests of people in constituencies other than his own better than the elected

representatives of those constituencies do.

[1.]

An Act of Union, which merged the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland into one and

absorbed the Irish Parliament into the British one, was carried through in 1800, after Burke’s

death and after the unsuccessful Irish uprising of 1798. Ironically, one of Prime Minister William

Pitt’s motives for promoting that Act was that only by means of it could Catholics safely be given

the right to vote for members of Parliament.

[1.]

A freehold could be a lifelong or even a heritable tenancy, or an estate held in fee simple. A

freehold worth forty shillings a year carried with it the right to vote for members of Parliament.

[1.]

The people of India who were under British rule.

[2.]

The Quebec Act of 1774 allowed the exercise of the Roman Catholic religion and authorized

the Catholic Church in Quebec to continue to collect the tithe. By waiving the Test Acts and

substituting an oath of allegiance, it allowed Catholics to hold public office. The Canada Act of

1791 provided for the establishment of the Church of England in Canada.

[1.]

This may refer to a speech that Langrishe gave in 1772 in favor of a bill to enable papists to

take building leases.

e 138 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

[2.] The Penal Laws against Catholics that Burke described in his never-completed Tracts,

relative to the Laws against Popery in Ireland. Most of them had been repealed by the Catholic

Relief Acts of 1778 and 1782. The franchise was conceded to a very limited number of Catholics

in 1793, the year after this letter was written, but they were not made eligible to sit in

Parliament.

SKETCH OF THE NEGRO CODE

[1780]

Burke’s covering letter to Henry Dundas, dated April 9, 1792, explains that he

had written his sketch of a code for the regulation and eventual suppression of

both the slave trade and slavery itself in the British West Indian colonies “near

twelve years ago,” in the first half of 1780. When he wrote the sketch, Burke was

ahead of his times, since organized efforts to abolish the slave trade did not

begin until the second half of that decade, when William Wilberforce and Thomas

Clarkson founded the Abolition Society in 1787, and the Crown in 1788 appointed

a committee of the Privy Council to inquire into the trade.

Henry Dundas (1742–1811) was Home Secretary in William Pitt the Younger’s

government when he asked Burke for a copy of the sketch, with a view to

introducing legislation to regulate and ameliorate the harsh conditions of the

slave trade. Partial abolition of the trade in the British dominions did not begin,

however, until 1806, and complete abolition was enacted only in 1811. Partial

abolition of slavery itself began in 1823; complete abolition was enacted in 1833,

but was intended to be achieved gradually through a period of apprenticeship for

the slaves, not all of whom were set free until 1838.

This gradualist approach to freeing the slaves was much in Burke’s way of

thinking. Carl Cone remarks in his Burke and the Nature of Politics: The French

Revolution (p. 388): “On July 9, 1823, Lord Bathurst, as Colonial Secretary,

transmitted instructions for the more humane treatment of slaves. His dispatch

reads like an expansion of Burke’s ‘Sketch.’ ” It was typical of Burke that he

would not change even so evil an institution as slavery suddenly and drastically,

but only prudently and through planned stages. But it was also typical of him

that he recognized the evil as such and proposed to rid the British Empire of it. It

should also be noted that he did not regard the long continuance and legal

acceptance of the institution as having created a prescriptive right to it on the

part of slave-owners.

It may be that the end of slavery in the United States could have been achieved

only through a long and bloody war, as great historical changes so often have

been, and that Burke’s program of gradual and progressive abolition was unduly

idealistic in American circumstances. Yet emancipation à la Burke surely would

have been a better way of doing it, if it were possible. In any case, this Sketch of

the Negro Code once again demonstrates Burke’s sincere concern for the

downtrodden and oppressed.

e 139 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

A LETTER TO THE RIGHT HON. HENRY DUNDAS, ONE OF HIS MAJESTY’S PRINCIPAL

SECRETARIES OF STATE

[With the Sketch of a Negro Code]

EAR

I SHOULD HAVE BEEN PUNCTUAL in sending you the Sketch I promised of my old African Code, if

some friends from London had not come in upon me last Saturday, and engaged me till noon this

day; I send this pacquet by one of them, who is still here. If what I send be, as under present

circumstances it must be, imperfect, you will excuse it, as being done near twelve years ago.

About four years since I made an abstract of it; upon which I cannot at present lay my hands; but

I hope the marginal heads will in some measure supply it.

If the African Trade could be considered with regard to itself only, and as a single object, I should

think the utter abolition to be, on the whole, more advisable, than any scheme of regulation and

reform. Rather than suffer it to continue as it is, I heartily wish it at an end. What has been lately

done, has been done by a popular spirit, which seldom calls for, and indeed very rarely relishes, a

system made up of a great variety of parts, and which is to operate its effect in a great length of

time. The people like short methods; the consequences of which they sometimes have reason to

repent of. Abolition is but a single act. To prove the nature of the trade, and to expose it properly,

required, indeed, a vast collection of materials, which have been laboriously collected, and

compiled with great judgment. It required also much perseverance and address to excite the

spirit, which has been excited without doors, and which has carried it through. The greatest

eloquence ever displayed in the House has been employed to second the efforts, which have been

made abroad. All this, however, leads but to one single resolve. When this was done, all was

done. I speak of absolute and immediate abolition, the point, which the first motions went to, and

which is in effect still pressed; though in this Session, according to order, it cannot take effect. A

remote, and a gradual abolition, though they may be connected, are not the same thing. The idea

of the House seems to me, if I rightly comprehend it, that the two things are to be combined;

that is to say, that the trade is gradually to decline, and to cease entirely at a determinate period.

To make the abolition gradual, the regulations must operate as a strong discouragement. But it is

much to be feared, that a trade continued and discouraged, and with a sentence of death passed

upon it, will perpetuate much ill blood between those, who struggle for the abolition, and those,

who contend for an effectual continuance.

At the time when I formed the plan, which I have the honour to transmit to you, an abolition of

the Slave Trade would have appeared a very chimerical project. My plan, therefore, supposes the

continued existence of that commerce. Taking for my basis that I had an incurable evil to deal

with, I cast about how I should make it as small an evil as possible, and draw out of it some

collateral good.

In turning the matter over in my mind, at that time, and since, I never was able to consider the

African Trade upon a ground disconnected with the employment of Negroes in the West Indies,

and distinct from their condition in the plantations, whereon they serve. I conceived, that the true

origin of the trade was not in the place it was begun at, but at the place of its final destination. I

therefore was, and I still am, of opinion, that the whole work ought to be taken up together; and

e 140 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

that a gradual abolition of Slavery in the West Indies ought to go hand in hand with any thing,

which should be done with regard to its supply from the Coast of Africa. I could not trust a

cessation of the demand for this supply to the mere operation of any abstract principle, (such as,

that if their supply was cut off the Planters would encourage and produce an effectual

population,) knowing that nothing can be more uncertain than the operation of general principles,

if they are not embodied in specifick regulations. I am very apprehensive, that so long as the

Slavery continues some means for its supply will be found. If so, I am persuaded that it is better

to allow the evil, in order to correct it, than by endeavouring to forbid, what we cannot be able

wholly to prevent, to leave it under an illegal, and therefore an unreformed, existence. It is not

that my plan does not lead to the extinction of the Slave Trade; but it is through a very slow

progress, the chief effect of which is to be operated in our own plantations; by rendering, in a

length of time, all foreign supply unnecessary. It was my wish, whilst the Slavery continued, and

the consequent commerce, to take such measures as to civilize the Coast of Africa by the trade,

which now renders it more barbarous; and to lead, by degrees, to a more reputable, and,

possibly, a more profitable, connection with it, than we maintain at present.

I am sure that you will consider, as a mark of my confidence in yours and Mr Pitt’s honour and

generosity, that I venture to put into your hands a scheme composed of many and intricate

combinations, without a full explanatory preface, or any attendant notes, to point out the

principles, upon which I proceeded, in every regulation, which I have proposed towards the

civilization and gradual manumission of Negroes in the two hemispheres. I confess, I trust

infinitely more (according to the sound principles of those, who ever have at any time meliorated

the state of mankind) to the effect and influence of religion, than to all the rest of the regulations

put together.

Whenever, in my proposed reformation, we take our point of departure from a state of Slavery,

we must precede the donation of freedom by disposing the minds of the objects to a disposition

to receive it without danger to themselves or to us. The process of bringing free Savages to order

and civilization is very different. When a state of Slavery is that, upon which we are to work, the

very means, which lead to liberty, must partake of compulsion. The minds of men being crippled

with that restraint can do nothing for themselves; every thing must be done for them. The

regulations can owe little to consent. Every thing must be the creature of power. Hence it is, that

regulations must be multiplied; particularly as you have two parties to deal with. The Planter you

must at once restrain and support; and you must control, at the same time that you ease, the

servant. This necessarily makes the work a matter of care, labour, and expense. It becomes in its

nature complex. But I think neither the object impracticable, nor the expense intolerable; and I

am fully convinced, that the cause of humanity would be far more benefited by the continuance of

the trade and servitude, regulated and reformed, than by the total destruction of both or either.

What I propose, however, is but a beginning of a course of measures, which an experience of the

effects of the evil and the reform will enable the Legislature hereafter to supply and correct.

I need not observe to you, that the forms are often neglected, penalties not provided, &c. &c. &c.

But all this is merely mechanical, and what a couple of days application would set to rights.

I have seen what has been done by the West Indian Assemblies.

It is arrant trifling. They have

done little; and what they have done is good for nothing; for it is totally destitute of an executory

principle. This is the point, to which I have applied my whole diligence. It is easy enough to say

e 141 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

what shall be done: to cause it to be done, Hic labor, hoc opus.

I ought not to apologize for letting this scheme lie beyond the period of the Horatian keeping—

I ought much more to entreat an excuse for producing it now. Its whole value (if it has any) is the

coherence and mutual dependency of parts in the scheme; separately they can be of little or no

use.

I have the honour to be, with very great respect and regard,

EAR

YOUR MOST FAITHFUL, AND

OBEDIENT

HUMBLE

ERVANT

EDMUND BURKE

Beaconsfield,

Easter-Monday Night, 1792

SKETCH OF THE NEGRO CODE

THIS CONSTITUTION CONSISTS OF four principal members.

I. The rules for qualifying a ship for the African Trade.

II. The mode of carrying on the Trade upon the Coast of Africa, which includes a plan

for introducing civilization in that part of the world.

III. What is to be observed from the time of shipping Negroes to the sale in the West

India Islands.

IV. The regulations relative to the state and condition of Slaves in the West Indies,

their manumission, &c.

HEREAS IT IS EXPEDIENT, and conformable to the principles of true religion and morality,

and to the rules of sound policy, to put an end to all traffick in the persons of men,

and to the detention of their said persons in a state of slavery, as soon as the same

may be effected without producing great inconveniences in the sudden change of

practices of such long standing; and, during the time of the continuance of the said

practices, it is desirable and expedient, by proper regulations, to lessen the

inconveniences and evils attendant on the said traffick and state of servitude, until

both shall be gradually done away: And whereas the objects of the said trade, and

consequential servitude, and the grievances resulting therefrom, come under the

principal heads following, the regulations ought thereto to be severally applied; that is

to say, that provision should be made by the said regulations,

e 142 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

1st. For duly qualifying ships for the said traffick;

2d. For the mode and conditions of permittin

the said trade to be carried

on upon the Coast of Africa;

3d. For the treatment of the Negroes in their passage to the West India

Islands;

4th. For the government of the Negroes, which are or shall be employed

in His Majesty’s Colonies and Plantations in the West Indies:

Be it therefore enacted, that every ship or trading vessel, which is intended for the

Negro Trade, with the name of the owner or owners thereof, shall be entered and

registered as ships trading to the West Indies are by law to be registered, with the

further provisions following:

1. The said entry and register shall contain an account of the greatest

number of Negroes, of all descriptions, which are proposed to be taken

into the said ship or trading vessel; and the said ship, before she is

permitted to be entered outwards, shall be surveyed by a Ship-Carpenter

to be appointed by the Collector of the Port, from which the said vessel is

to depart, and by a Surgeon, also appointed by the Collector, who hath

been conversant in the service of the said trade, but not at the time

actually engaged or covenanted therein; and the said Carpenter and

Surgeon shall report to the Collector, or, in his absence, to the next

principal Officer of the Port, upon oath (which oath the said Collector or

principal Officer is hereby empowered to administer) her measurement,

and what she contains in builder’s tonnage, and that she has feet of

grated port-holes between the decks, and that she is otherwise fitly found

as a good transport-vessel.

2. And be it enacted, that no ship employed in the said trade shall upon

any pretence take in more Negroes than one grown man or woman for

one ton and half of builder’s tonnage, nor more than one boy or girl for

one ton.

3. That the said ship or other vessel shall lay in, in proportion to the

ship’s company of the said vessel, and the number of Negroes registered,

a full and sufficient store of sound provision, so as to be secure a

ainst all

probable delays and accidents; namely, salted beef, pork, salt-fish,

butter, cheese, biscuit, flour, rice, oatmeal, and white peas; but no horse-

beans, or other inferiour provisions; and the said ship shall be properly

provided with water-casks or jars, in proportion to the intended number

of the said Ne

roes; and the said ship shall be also provided with a proper

and sufficient stock of coals or fire-wood.

4. And every ship, entered as aforesaid, shall take out a coarse shirt, and

a pair of trowsers, or petticoat, for each Negro intended to be taken

aboard; as also a mat, or coarse mattress, or hammock, for the use of

the said Negroes. The proportions of provision, fuel and clothing, to be

regulated by the Table annexed to this Act.

e 143 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

5. And be it enacted, that no ship shall be permitted to proceed on the

said voya

e or adventure, until the Searcher of the Port, from whence the

said vessel shall sail, or such person as he shall appoint to act for him,

shall report to the Collector, that he hath inspected the said stores, and

that the ship is accommodated and provided in the manner hereby

directed.

6. And be it enacted, that no guns be exported to the Coast of Africa, in

the said or any other trade, unless the same be duly marked with the

maker’s name on the barrels before they are put into the stocks, and

vouched by an Inspector in the place where the same are made, to be

without fraud, and sufficient and merchantable arms.

7. And be it enacted, that before any ship as aforesaid shall proceed on

her voyage, the owner or owners, or an Attorney by them named, if the

owners are more than two, and the master, shall severally give bond, the

owners by themselves, the master for himself, that the said master shall

duly conform himself in all things to the regulations in this Act contained,

so far as the same regards his part in executing and conforming to the

same.

II. And whereas in providing for the second object of this Act, that is to say, for the

trade on the Coast of Africa, it is first prudent not only to provide against the manifold

abuses, to which a trade of that nature is liable, but that the same may be

accompanied, as far as it is possible, with such advanta

es to the Natives as may tend

to the civilizing them, and enabling them to enrich themselves by means more

desirable, and to carry on hereafter a trade more advantageous and honourable to all

parties: And whereas religion, order, morality and virtue, are the elemental principles,

and the knowledge of letters, arts and handicraft trades, the chief means of such

civilization and improvement; for the better attainment of the said good purposes,

1. Be it hereby enacted, that the Coast of Africa, on which the said trade

for Negroes may be carried on, shall be and is hereby divided into Marts

or Staples

as hereafter follows [here name the Marts.] And be it

enacted, that it shall not be lawful for the master of any ship to purchase

any Negro or Negroes, but at one of the said Marts or Staples.

2. That the Directors of the African Company

shall appoint, where not

already appointed, a Governour, with three Counsellors, at each of the

said Marts, with a salary of to the Governour, and of to each of the said

Counsellors. The said Governour, or in his absence or illness, the senior

Counsellor, shall and is hereby empowered to act as a Justice of the

Peace, and they or either of them are authorized, ordered and directed, to

provide for the peace of the Settlement, and the good regulation of their

station and stations severally, according to the rules of justice, to the

directions of this Act, and the instructions they shall receive from time to

time from the said African Company: and the said African Company is

hereby authorized to prepare instructions, with the assent of the Lords of

e 144 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

His Majesty’s Privy Council, which shall be binding in all things not

contrary to this Act, or to the Laws of England, on the said Governours

and Counsellors, and every of them, and on all persons acting in

commission with them under this Act, and on all persons residing within

the jurisdiction of the Magistrates of the said Mart.

3. And be it enacted, that the Lord High Admiral, or Commissioners for

executing his office, shall appoint one or more, as they shall see

convenient, of his Majesty’s ships or sloops of war, under the command

severally of a Post Captain, or Master and Commander, to each Mart, as a

naval station.

4. And be it enacted, that the Lord Hi

h Treasurer, or the Commissioners

for executing his office, shall name two Inspectors of the said trade at

every Mart, who shall provide for the execution of this Act, according to

the directions thereof, so far as shall relate to them; and it is hereby

provided and enacted, that as cases of sudden emergency may arise, the

said Governour or first Counsellor and the first Commander of his

Majesty’s ship or ships on the said station, and the said Inspectors, or the

majority of them, the Governour having a double or casting vote, shall

have power and authority to make such occasional rules and orders

relating to the said trade, as shall not be contrary to the instructions of

the African Company, and which shall be valid until the same are revoked

by the said African Company.

5. That the said African Company is hereby authorized to purchase, if the

same may conveniently be done, with the consent of the Privy Council,

any lands adjoining to the Fort or principal Mart aforesaid, not exceeding

acres, and to make allotments of the same. No allotment to one person to

exceed (on pain of forfeiture) acres.

6. That the African Company shall, at each Fort or Mart, cause to be

erected, in a convenient place, and at a moderate cost, the estimate of

which shall be approved by the Treasury, one church, and one school-

house, and one hospital; and shall appoint one principal Chaplain, with a

Curate or Assistant in holy orders, both of whom shall be recommended

by the Lord Bishop of London; and the said Chaplain, or his Assistant,

shall perform Divine Service, and administer the Sacraments, according

to the usage of the Church of England, or to such mode, not contrary

thereto, as to the said Bishop shall seem more suitable to the

circumstances of the people. And the said principal Chaplain shall be the

third Member in the Council, and shall be entitled to receive from the

Directors of the said African Company a salary of and his Assistant a

salary of and he shall have power to appoint one sober and discreet

person, white or black, to be his Clerk and Catechist, at a salary of

7. And be it enacted, that the African Company shall appoint one

sufficient schoolmaster, who shall be approved by the Bishop of London,

e 145 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

and who shall be capable of teaching writing, arithmetick, surveying, and

mensuration, at a salary of and the said African Company is hereby

authorized to provide, for each Settlement, a Carpenter and Blacksmith,

with such encouragement as to them shall seem expedient; who shall

take each two apprentices from amongst the Natives, to instruct them in

the several trades, the African Company allowing them, as a fee for each

apprentice, And the said African Company shall appoint one Sur

eon, and

one Surgeon’s Mate, who are to be approved on examination at Surgeon’s

Hall, to each Fort or Mart, with a salary of for the Surgeon, and for his

Mate and the said Sur

eon shall take one native apprentice, at a fee to be

settled by the African Company.

8. And be it enacted, that the said Catechist, Schoolmaster, Surgeon,

and Surgeon’s Mate, as well as the tradesmen in the Company’s Service,

shall be obedient to the orders they shall from time to time receive from

the Governour and Council of each Fort; and if they, or any of them, or

any other person, in whatever station, shall appear, on complaint and

proof to the majority of the Commissioners, to lead a disorderly and

debauched life, or use any profane or impious discourses, to the danger

of defeating the purposes of this institution, and to the scandal of the

Natives, who are to be led, by all due means, into a respect for our holy

religion, and a desire of partaking of the benefits thereof, they are

authorized and directed to suspend the said person from his office, or the

exercise of his trade, and to send him to England (but without any hard

confinement, except in case of resistance) with a complaint, with inquiry

and proofs adjoined, to the African Company.

9. And be it enacted, that the Bishop of London for the time being shall

have full authority to remove the said Chaplain, for such causes as to him

shall seem reasonable.

10. That no Governour, Counsellor, Inspector, Chaplain, Surgeon, or

Schoolmaster, shall be concerned, or have any share, directly or

indirectly, in the Negro Trade, on pain of

11. Be it enacted, that the said Governour and Council shall keep a

journal of all their proceedings, and a book, in which copies of all their

correspondence shall be entered, and they shall transmit copies of the

said journals and letter-book, and their books of accounts, to the African

Company, who, within of their receipt thereof, shall communicate the

same to one of His Majesty’s principal Secretaries of State.

12. And be it enacted, that the said Chaplain, or principal Minister, shall

correspond with the Bishop of London, and faithfully and diligently

transmit to him an account of whatever hath been done for the

advancement of religion, morality and learning, amongst the Natives.

13. And be it enacted, that no Negro shall be conclusively sold until he

shall be attested by the two Inspectors and Chaplain; or in case of the

e 146 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

illness of any of them, by one Inspector, and the Governour, or one of the

Council; who are hereby authorized and directed, by the best means in

their power, to examine into the circumstances and condition of the

persons exposed to sale.

14. And, for the better direction of the said Inspectors, no persons are to

be sold, who, to the best judgment of the said Inspectors, shall be above

thirty-five years of age, or who shall appear, on examination, stolen or

carried away, by the dealers, by surprise; nor any person, who is able to

read in the Arabian or any other book; nor any woman, who shall appear

to be advanced three months in pregnancy; nor any person distorted or

feeble, unless the said persons are consentin

to such sale; or any person

afflicted with a grievous or contagious distemper. But if any person so

offered is only lightly disordered, the said person may be sold; but must

be kept in the Hospital of the Mart, and shall not be shipped until

completely cured.

15. Be it enacted, that no Black or European Factor or Trader into the

interiour country, or on the coast, (the Masters of English ships only

excepted, for whose good conduct provision is otherwise herein made)

shall be permitted to buy or sell in any of the said Marts, unless he be

approved by the Governour of the Mart, in which he is to deal, or, in his

absence or disability, by the senior Counsellor for the time being, and

obtaining a license from such Governour or Counsellor: and the said

Traders and Factors shall, severally or jointly, as they shall be concerned,

before they shall obtain the said license, be bound in a reco

nizance, with

such Surety for his or their

ood behaviour, as to the said Governour shall

seem the best, that can be obtained.

16. Be it enacted, that the said Governour, or other authority aforesaid,

shall examine, as by duty of office, into the conduct of all such Traders

and Factors, and shall receive and publickly hear (with the assistance of

the Council and Inspectors aforesaid, and of the Commodore, Captain, or

other principal Commander of one of His Majesty’s ships on the said

station, or as many of the same as can be assembled, two whereof, with

the Governour, are hereby enabled to act) all complaints a

ainst them, or

any of them; and if any black or white Trader or Factor, (other than in

this Act excepted) either on inquisition of office, or on complaint, shall be

convicted by a majority of the said Commissioners present of stealing or

taking by surprise any person or persons whatsoever, whether free, or

the Slaves of others, without the consent of their masters; or of wilfully

and maliciously killing or maiming any person; or of any cruelty,

(necessary restraint only excepted) or of firing houses, or destroying

goods, the said Trader or Factor shall be deemed to have forfeited his

recognizance, and his Surety to have forfeited his; and the said Trader or

Factor, so convicted, shall be for ever disabled from dealing in any of the

e 147 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

said Marts, unless the offence shall not be that of murder, maiming,

arson, or stealing or surprising the person, and shall appear to the

Commissioners aforesaid to merit only, besides the penalty of his bond, a

suspension for one year: and the said Trader or Factor, so convicted of

murder, maiming, arson, stealing or surprising the person, shall, if a

Native, be delivered over to the Prince, to whom he belongs, to execute

further justice on him. But it is hereby provided and enacted, that if any

European shall be convicted of any of the said offences, he shall be sent

to Europe, together with the evidence against him; and on the warrant of

the said Commissioners the Keeper of any of His Majesty’s Jails in

London, Bristol, Liverpool, or Glasgow, shall receive him, until he be

delivered according to due course of law, as if the said offences had been

committed within the cities and towns aforesaid.

17. Be it further enacted, that if the said Governour, &c. shall be satisfied

that any person or persons are exposed to sale, who have been stolen or

surprised as aforesaid, or are not within the qualifications of sale in this

Act described, they are hereby authorized and required, if it can be done,

to send the persons so exposed to sale to their original habitation or

settlement, in the manner they shall deem best for their security (the

reasonable char

es whereof shall be allowed to the said Governour by the

African Company) unless the said persons choose to sell themselves; and

then, and in that case, their value in money and goods, at their pleasure,

shall be secured to them, and be applicable to their use, without any

dominion over the same of any purchaser, or of any master, to whom

they may in any Colony or Plantation be sold, and which shall always be

in some of his Master’s Colonies and Plantations only. And the Master of

the ship, in which such person shall embark, shall give bond for the

faithful execution of his part of the trust at the Island where he shall

break bulk.

18. Be it further enacted, that besides the hospitals on shore, one or

more hospital-ships shall be employed at each of the said chief Marts,

wherein Slaves taken ill in the trading ships shall be accommodated until

they shall be cured; and then the owner may reclaim, and shall receive

them, payin

the char

es, which shall be settled by re

ulation to be made

by the authority in this Act enabled to provide such regulations.

III. And whereas it is necessary that regulations be made to prevent abuses in the

passage from Africa to the West Indies;

1. Be it further enacted, that the Commander or Lieutenant of the King’s

ship on each station shall have authority, as often as he shall see

occasion, attended with one other of his Officers, and his Surgeon or

Mate, to enter into and inspect every trading ship, in order to provide for

the due execution of this Act, and of any ordinances made in virtue

thereof and conformable thereto, by the authorities herein constituted

e 148 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

and appointed: and the said Officer and Officers are hereby required to

examine every trading ship before she sails, and to stop the sailing of the

said ship, for the breach of the said rules and ordinances, until the

Governour in Council shall order and direct otherwise; and the Master of

the said ship shall not presume, under the penalty of — — — to be

recovered in the Courts of the West Indies, to sail without a certificate

from the Commander aforesaid, and one of the Inspectors in this Act

appointed, that the vessel is provided with stores and other

accommodation sufficient for her voyage, and has not a greater number

of Slaves on board than by the provisions of this Act is allowed.

2. And be it enacted, that the Governour and Council, with the assistance

of the said Naval Commander, shall have power to give such special

written instructions, for the health, discipline, and care of the said Slaves,

during their passage, as to them shall seem good.

3. And be it further enacted, that each Slave, at enterin

the said ship, is

to receive some present, not exceeding in value — — —, to be provided

according to the instructions aforesaid, and musical instruments,

according to the fashion of the country, are to be provided.

4. And be it further enacted, that the Negroes on board the transports,

and the seamen, who navigate the same, are to receive their daily

allowance, according to the Table hereunto annexed, together with a

certain quantity of spirits to be mixed with their water. And it is enacted,

that the Table is to be fixed, and continue for one week after sailing, in

some conspicuous part of the said ship, for the seamen’s inspection of the

same.

5. And be it enacted, that the Captain of each trading vessel shall be

enabled, and is required, to divide the Slaves in his ship into crews of not

less than ten, nor more than twenty persons each, and to appoint one

Negro man to have such authority severally over each crew, as according

to his judgment, with the advice of the Mate and Surgeon, he and they

shall see good to commit to them, and to allow to each of them some

compensation, in extraordinary diet and presents, not exceeding [ten

shillings.]

6. And be it enacted, that any European Officer or seaman, having

unlawful communication with any woman Slave, shall, if an Officer, pay

five pounds to the use of the said woman, on landing her from the said

ship, to be stopped out of his wages; or if a seaman, forty shillings; the

said penalties to be recovered on the testimony of the woman so abused,

and one other.

7. And be it enacted, that all and every Commander of a vessel or

vessels employed in slave trade, having received certificates from the

port of the outfit, and from the proper Officers in Africa and the West

Indies of their having conformed to the regulations of this Act, and of

e 149 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

their not having lost more than one in thirty of their Slaves by death,

shall be entitled to a bounty or premium of [ten pounds.]

IV. And whereas the condition of persons in a state of slavery is such that they are

utterly unable to take advantage of any remedy, which the laws may provide for their

protection, and the amendment of their condition, and have not the proper means of

pursuing any process for the same, but are and must be under guardianship; and

whereas it is not fitting that they should be under the sole guardianship of their

Masters, or their Attornies and Overseers, to whom their grievances, whenever they

suffer any, must ordinarily be owing;

1. Be it therefore enacted, that His Majesty’s Attorney General for the

time being successively shall, by his office, exercise the trust and

employment of Protector of Negroes within the island, in which he is or

shall be Attorney General to His Majesty, His Heirs and Successors: and

that the said Attorney General, Protector of Ne

roes, is hereby authorized

to hear any complaint on the part of any Negro or Negroes, and inquire

into the same, or to institute an inquiry ex officio into any abuses, and to

call before him, and examine, witnesses upon oath, relative to the sub

ect

matter of the said official inquiry or complaint; and it is hereby enacted

and declared, that the said Attorney General, Protector of Negroes, is

hereby authorized and empowered, at his discretion, to file an information

ex officio for any offences committed a

ainst the provisions of this Act, or

for any misdemeanors or wrongs against the said Negroes, or any of

them.

2. And it is further enacted, that in all trials of such informations, the

said Protector of Negroes may and is hereby authorized to challenge,

peremptorily, a number not exceeding — — — of the Jury, who shall be

impannelled to try the charge in the said information contained.

3. And be it enacted, that the said Attorney General, Protector of

Negroes, shall appoint Inspectors, not exceeding the number of — — —,

at his discretion; and the said Inspectors shall be placed in convenient

districts in each island severally, or shall twice in the year make a circuit

in the same, according to the direction, which they shall receive from the

Protector of Negroes aforesaid; and the Inspectors shall, and they are

hereby required, twice in the year, to report in writing to the Protector

aforesaid the state and condition of the Negroes in their districts, or on

their circuit severally, the number, sex, age, and occupation of the said

Negroes on each plantation; and the Overseer, or chief manager on each

plantation, is hereby required to furnish an account thereof, within [ten

days] after the demand of the said Inspectors, and to permit the

Inspector or Inspectors aforesaid to examine into the same; and the said

Inspectors shall set forth, in the said report, the distempers, to which the

Negroes are most liable, in the several parts of the island.

4. And be it enacted, that the said Protector of Negroes, by and with the

e 150 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

consent of the Governour and Chief Judge of each Island, shall form

instructions, by which the said Inspectors shall dischar

e their trust in the

manner the least capable of exciting any unreasonable hopes in the said

Negroes, or of weakening the proper authority of the Overseer, and shall

transmit them to one of His Majesty’s Principal Secretaries of State; and

when sent back with his approbation, the same shall become the rule for

the conduct of the said Inspectors.

5. And be it enacted, that the said Attorney General, Protector of

Negroes, shall appoint an office for registering all proceedings relative to

the duty of his place, as Protector of Negroes, and shall appoint his chief

Clerk to be registrar, with a salary not exceeding — — —.

6. And be it enacted, that no Negroes shall be landed for sale in any but

the ports following; that is to say, — — —; and the Collector of each of

the said ports severally shall, within — — — days after the arrival of any

ship transporting Negroes, report the same to the Protector of Negroes,

or to one of his Inspectors; and the said Protector is hereby authorized

and required to examine, or cause to be examined, by one of his

Inspectors, with the assistance of the said Collector, or his Deputy, and a

Surgeon to be called in on the occasion, the state of the said ship and

Negroes; and upon what shall appear to them, the said Protector of

Negroes, and the said Collector and Surgeon, to be a sufficient proof,

either as arising from their own inspection, or sufficient information on a

summary process, of any contravention of this Act, or cruelty to the

Negroes, or other malversation of the said Captain, or any of his Officers,

the said Protector shall impose a fine on him or them, not exceeding — —

—; which shall not, however, weaken or invalidate any penalty growing

from the bond of the said Master or his owners. And it is hereby provided,

that if the said Master, or any of his Officers, shall find himself aggrieved

by the said fine, he may, within — — — days, appeal to the Chief Judge,

if the Court shall be sitting, or to the Governour, who shall and are

required to hear the said parties, and on hearing are to annul or confirm

the same.

7. And be it enacted, that no sale of Negroes shall be made but in the

presence of an Inspector, and all Negroes shall be sold severally, or in

known and ascertained lots, and not otherwise; and a paper, containing

the state and description of each Negro severally sold, and of each lot,

shall be taken and registered in the office aforesaid; and if on inspection

or information it shall be found that any Negroes shall have, in the same

ship, or any other at the same time examined, a wife, an husband, a

brother, sister, or child, the person, or persons so related, shall not be

sold separately at that or any future sale.

8. And be it enacted, that each and every of His Majesty’s Islands and

Plantations, in which Negroes are used in cultivation, shall be, by the

e 151 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

Governour and the Protector of Negroes for the time being, divided into

districts, allowing as much as convenience will admit to the present

division into parishes, and subdividing them, where necessary, into

districts, according to the number of Negroes. And the said Governour

and Protector of Negroes shall cause in each district a church to be built

in a convenient place, and a cemetery annexed, and an house for the

residence of a Clergyman, with — — — acres of land annexed; and they

are hereby authorized to treat for the necessary ground with the

proprietor, who is hereby obliged to sell and dispose of the same to the

said use; and in case of dispute concerning the value, the same to be

settled by a Jury as in like cases is accustomed.

9. And be it enacted, that in each of the said districts shall be established

a Presbyter of the Church of England, as by law established, who shall

appoint under him one Clerk, who shall be a free Negro, when such

properly qualified can be found; (otherwise a white man) with a salary, in

each case, of — — —; and the said Minister and Clerk, both or one, shall

instruct the said Negroes in the Church Catechism, or such other as shall

be provided by the authority in this Act named: and the said Minister shall

baptize, as he shall think fit, all Negroes not baptized, and not belonging

to Dissenters from the Church of England.

10. And the principal Overseer of each plantation is hereby required to

deliver annually unto the Minister a list of all the Negroes upon his

plantation, distinguishing their sex and age, and shall, under a penalty of

— — —, cause all the Negroes under his care, above the age of — — —

years, to attend Divine Service once on every Sunday, except in case of

sickness, infirmity, or other necessary cause to be given at the time; and

shall, by himself or one of those, who are under him, provide for the

orderly behaviour of the Negroes under him, and cause them to return to

his plantation when Divine Service, or Administration of Sacraments, or

Catechism is ended.

11. And be it enacted, that the Minister shall have power to punish any

Negro for disorderly conduct during divine Service, by a punishment not

exceeding [ten] blows, to be given in one day, and for one offence, which

the Overseer, or his under-agent or agents, is hereby directed, according

to the orders of the said Minister, effectually to inflict, whenever the same

shall be ordered.

12. And be it enacted, that no spirituous liquors of any kind shall be sold,

except in towns, within — — — miles distant of any Church, nor within

any district during Divine Service, and an hour preceding, and an hour

following, the same; and the Minister of each parish shall and is hereby

authorized to act as a Justice of the Peace in enforcing the said

regulation.

13. And be it enacted, that every Minister shall keep a register of births,

e 152 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

burials and marriages, of all Negroes and Mulattoes in his district.

14. And be it enacted, that the Ministers of the several districts shall

meet annually, on the — — — day of — — —, in a Synod of the island, to

which they belong; and the said Synod shall have for its President such

persons as the Bishop of London shall appoint for his Commissary; and

the said Synod or General Assembly is hereby authorized, by a majority

of voices, to make regulations, which regulations shall be transmitted by

the said President or Commissary to the Bishop of London; and when

returned by the Bishop of London approved of, then, and not before, the

said regulations shall be held in force to bind the said Clergy, their

Assistants, Clerks, and Schoolmasters only, and no other persons.

15. And be it enacted, that the said President shall collect matter in the

said Assembly, and shall make a report of the state of reli

ion and morals

in the several parishes from whence the Synod is deputed, and shall

transmit the same, once in the year, in duplicate, through the Governour

and Protector of Negroes, to the Bishop of London.

16. And be it enacted and declared, that the Bishop of London for the

time being shall be Patron to all and every the said cures in this Act

directed, and the said Bishop is hereby required to provide for the due

filling thereof, and is to receive from the fund in this Act provided, for the

due execution of this Act, a sum not exceeding — — — for each of the

said Ministers, for his outfit and passage.

17. And be it enacted, that on misbehaviour, and on complaint from the

said Synod, and on hearing the party accused in a plain and summary

manner, it shall and may be lawful for the Bishop of London to suspend or

to remove any Minister from his cure, as his said offences shall appear to

merit.

18. And be it enacted, that for every two districts a school shall be

established for young Negroes, to be taught three days in the week, and

to be detained from their owner four hours in each day: the number not

to be more or fewer than twenty males in each district, who shall be

chosen, and vacancies filled, by the Minister of the district; and the said

Minister shall pay to the owner of the said boy, and shall be allowed the

same in his accounts at the Synod, to the age of twelve years old, three-

pence by the day; and for every boy, from twelve years old to fifteen,

five-pence by the day.

19. And it is enacted, that if the President of the Synod aforesaid shall

certify to the Protector of Negroes, that any boys in the said schools

(provided that the number in no one year shall exceed one in the island o

Jamaica, and one in two years in the islands of Barbadoes, Antigua, and

Grenada; and one in four years in any of the other Islands) do show a

remarkable aptitude for learning, the said Protector is hereby authorized

and directed to purchase the said boy at the best rate, at which boys of

e 153 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

that age and strength have been sold within the year; and the said Negro

so purchased shall be under the entire guardianship of the said Protector

of Negroes, who shall send him to the Bishop of London, for his further

education in England, and may charge in his accounts for the expense of

transporting him to England: and the Bishop of London shall provide for

the education of such of the said Negroes as he shall think proper

subjects, until the age of twenty-four years, and shall order those, who

shall fall short of expectation after one year, to be bound apprentice to

some handicraft trade; and when his apprenticeship is finished, the Lord

Mayor of London is hereby authorized and directed to receive the said

Negro from his master, and to transmit him to the island, from which he

came in the West Indies, to be there as a free Negro; subject, however,

to the direction of the Protector of Negroes, relatively to his behaviour

and employment.

20. And it is hereby enacted and provided, that any planter or owner of

Negroes, not being of the Church of England, and not choosing to send

his Negroes to attend Divine Service in manner by this Act directed, shall

give, jointly or severally, as the case shall require, security to the

Protector of Negroes, that a competent Minister of some Christian church

or congregation shall be provided for the due instruction of the Negroes,

and for their performin

Divine Service accordin

to the description of the

religion of the master or masters, in some church or house thereto

allotted, in the manner and with the regulations in this Act prescribed

with regard to the exercise of religion according to the Church of England.

Provided always, that the marriages of the said Negroes belonging to

Dissenters shall be celebrated only in the Church of the said district, and

that a re

ister of the births shall be transmitted to the Minister of the said

district.

21. And whereas a state of matrimony, and the government of a family,

is a principal means of forming men to a fitness for freedom, and to

become good Citizens; Be it enacted, that all Negro men and women,

above ei

hteen years of a

e for the man, and sixteen for the woman, who

have cohabited together for twelve months or upwards, or shall cohabit

for the same time, and have a child or children, shall be deemed to all

intents and purposes to be married; and either of the parties is authorized

to require of the Ministers of the district, to be married in the face of the

Church.

22. And be it enacted, that from and after the — — — of — — —, all

Negro men in an healthy condition, and so reported to be, in case the

same is denied, by a Surgeon and by an Inspector of Negroes, being

twenty-one year’s old or upwards, until fifty, and not being before

married, shall, on requisition of the Inspectors, be provided by their

Masters or Overseers with a woman not having children living, and not

e 154 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

exceeding the age of the man; nor in any case exceeding the age of

twenty-five years; and such persons shall be married publickly in the face

of the Church.

23. And be it enacted, that if any Negro shall refuse a competent

marriage tendered to him, and shall not demand another specifically,

such as it may be in his Master’s power to provide, the Master or

Overseer shall be authorized to constrain him by an increase of work, or a

lessening of allowance.

24. And be it enacted, that the Minister in each district shall have, with

the assent of the Inspector, full power and authority to punish all acts of

adultery, unlawful concubinage, and fornication, amongst Negroes, on

hearing and a summary process, by ordering a number of blows, not

exceeding for each offence; and if any white person shall be proved, on

information in the Supreme Court to be exhibited by the Protector of

Negroes, to have committed adultery with any Negro woman, or to have

corrupted any Negro woman under sixteen years of age, he shall be fined

in the sum of — — —, and shall be for ever disabled from serving the

office of Overseer of Negroes, or being Attorney to any Plantation.

25. And be it enacted, that no Slaves shall be compelled to do any work

for their masters for [three] days after their marriage.

26. And be it enacted, that no woman shall be obliged to field-work, or

any other laborious work, for one month before her delivery, or for six

weeks afterwards.

27. And be it enacted, that no husband and wife shall be sold separately,

if originally belonging to the same master, nor shall any children, under

sixteen, be sold separately from their parents, or one parent, if one be

living.

28. And be it enacted, that if an husband and wife, which before their

intermarriage belonged to different owners, shall be sold, they shall not

be sold at such a distance as to prevent mutual help and cohabitation;

and of this distance the Minister shall judge, and his certificate of the

inconvenient distance shall be valid, so as to make such sale unlawful,

and to render the same null and void.

29. And be it enacted, that no Negro shall be compelled to work for his

owner at field-work, or any service relative to a plantation, or to work at

any handicraft trade, from eleven o’clock on Saturday forenoon until the

usual working hour on Monday morning.

30. And whereas habits of industry and sobriety, and the means of

acquiring and preserving property, are proper and reasonable

preparatives to freedom, and will secure against an abuse of the same;

Be it enacted, that every Negro man, who shall have served ten years,

and is thirty years of age, and is married, and has had two children born

of any marriage, shall obtain the whole of Saturday for himself and his

e 155 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

wife, and for his own benefit; and after thirty-seven years of age, the

whole of Friday for himself and his wife; provided that in both cases the

Minister of the district, and the Inspector of Negroes, shall certify that

they know nothing against his peaceable, orderly, and industrious

behaviour.

31. And be it enacted, that the Master of every plantation shall provide

the materials of a good and substantial hut for each married field Negro;

and if his plantation shall exceed — — — acres, he shall allot to the same

a portion of land not less than — — —: and the said hut and land shall

remain and stand annexed to the said Ne

ro, for his natural life, or durin

his bondage; but the same shall not be alienated without the consent of

the owners.

32. And be it enacted, that it shall not be lawful for the owner of any

Negro, by himself or any other, to take from him any land, house, cattle,

goods or money, acquired by the said Negro, whether by purchase,

donation or testament, whether the same has been derived from the

owner of the said Negro, or any other.

33. And be it enacted, that if the said Negro shall die possessed of any

lands, goods, or chattels, and dies without leaving a wife or issue, it shall

be lawful for the said Negro to devise or bequeath the same by his last

will; but in case the said Negro shall die intestate, and leave a wife and

children, the same shall be distributed amongst them, according to the

usage under the Statute, commonly called the Statute of Distributions.

But if the Negro shall die intestate without wife or children, then, and in

that case his estate shall go to the fund provided for the better execution

of this Act.

34. And be it enacted, that no Negro, who is married, and hath resided

upon any plantation for twelve months, shall be sold either privately, or

by the decree of any Court, but along with the plantation, on which he

hath resided, unless he should himself request to be separated therefrom.

35. And be it enacted, that no blows or stripes, exceeding thirteen, shall

be inflicted for one offence upon any Negro, without the order of one of

His Majesty’s Justices of Peace.

36. And it is enacted, that it shall be lawful for the Protector of Negroes,

as often as on complaint and hearing he shall be of opinion that any

Negro hath been cruelly and inhumanly treated, or when it shall be made

to appear to him that an Overseer hath any particular malice, to order, at

the desire of the suffering party, the said Negro to be sold to another

master.

37. And be it enacted, that, in all cases of injury to member or life, the

offences against a Negro shall be deemed and taken to all intents and

purposes as if the same were perpetrated against any of His Majesty’s

Subjects; and the Protector of Negroes, on complaint, or if he shall

e 156 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

receive credible information thereof, shall cause an indictment to be

presented for the same; and in case of suspicion of any murder of a

Negro, an inquest by the Coroner, or Officer acting as such, shall, if

practicable, be held into the same.

38. And in order to a gradual manumission of Slaves, as they shall seem

fitted to fill the offices of freemen, Be it enacted, that every Negro Slave,

being thirty years of age and upwards, and who has had three children

born to him in lawful matrimony, and who hath received a certificate from

the Minister of his district, or any other Christian teacher, of his re

ularity

in the duties of religion, and of his orderly and good behaviour, may

purchase, at rates to be fixed by two Justices of Peace, the freedom of

himself, or his wife or children, or of any of them separately, valuing the

wife and children, if purchased into liberty by the father of the family, at

half only of their marketable values; provided that the said father shall

bind himself in a penalty of — — — for the good behaviour of his children.

39. And be it enacted, that it shall be lawful for the Protector of Negroes

to purchase the freedom of any Negro, who shall appear to him to excel

in any mechanical art, or other knowled

e or practice deemed liberal, and

the value shall be settled by a Jury.

40. And be it enacted, that the Protector of Negroes shall be and is

authorized and required to act as a Ma

istrate, for the coercion of all idle,

disobedient, or disorderly free Negroes, and he shall by office prosecute

them for the offences of idleness, drunkenness, quarrelling, gaming, or

vagrancy, in the Supreme Court, or cause them to be prosecuted before

one Justice of Peace, as the case may require.

41. And be it enacted, that if any free Negro hath been twice convicted

for any of the said misdemeanors, and is judged by the said Protector of

Negroes, calling to his assistance two justices of the Peace, to be

incorrigibly idle, dissolute and vicious, it shall be lawful, by the order of

the said Protector and two justices of Peace, to sell the said free Negro

into slavery: the purchase-money to be paid to the person so remanded

into servitude, or kept in hand by the Protector and Governour for the

benefit of his family.

42. And be it enacted, that the Governour in each Colony shall be

assistant to the execution of this Act, and shall receive the reports of the

Protector, and such other accounts, as he shall judge material, relative

thereto, and shall transmit the same annually to one of His Majesty’s

Principal Secretaries of State.

ENDNOTES

[1.] The West Indian sugar plantations were so dependent on a steady supply of slaves from

Africa that little support for limiting the slave trade could be expected of them.

e 157 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

[2.] Burke quotes from memory the words of the Sybil to Aeneas before he goes down into

Hades. Facilis descensus Averni, she tells him—the way down is easy, but the way back is hard:

Hoc opus, hic labor est (as it is in the original)— “This is the task, this the toil.” Virgil Aeneid

7.129.

[3.]

Horace advised a writer to leave nine years between the completion of a composition and its

publication, in order to allow time for further thought and revision. Ars Poetica 388–90.

[1.]

Towns or places which were principal markets for some particular class of merchandise;

more narrowly, places in which a body of merchants was granted by the Crown the exclusive right

of purchasing certain classes of goods destined for export.

[2.]

The African Company was formed in 1671 to buy out and succeed the Company of Royal

Adventurers trading to Africa. It was given a monopoly of the African trade, consisting largely,

though not exclusively, in the slave trade.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY ON EDMUND BURKE

There is a vast literature on Edmund Burke, his life, his thought, and his times. One will find an

exhaustive bibliography of it in Edmund Burke: A Bibliography of Secondary Studies to 1982, by

Clara J. Gandy and Peter J. Stanlis (New York and London: Garland Publishers, 1983).

What is offered here is a small selection of books for the general reader who may want to fill out

the background to, and deepen his understanding of, Burke’s actual texts. It draws very heavily

on the work of Gandy and Stanlis, supplemented by this editor’s own knowledge and further help

from Professor Stanlis. It in no way pretends to be a guide to the scholarly research on Burke, for

which the full Gandy and Stanlis bibliography will be indispensable.

First, however, the reader may want to read more of Burke’s writings than are contained in these

volumes. The first set of Burke’s works was begun during the last years of his life by his disciples

and literary executors, Walker King and French Laurence. After his death, they began anew with a

set of The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke in sixteen volumes, published in London

by F. C. and J. Rivington from 1803 to 1827. According to Paul Langford, all subsequent editions

of Burke’s works, until the one of which Langford is now the general editor, derived essentially

from this Rivington edition. The best and most readily available of them are the eight-volume set

published in London by Henry G. Bohn in 1854 and the twelve-volume one published in Boston by

Little, Brown in 1901.

All of these editions are being replaced for scholarly work on Burke by The Writings and Speeches

of Edmund Burke, under Paul Langford’s general editorship, which commenced publication by the

Clarendon Press in Oxford in 1981 and is not yet complete at the time of this writing. Similarly, all

previous publications of Burke’s correspondence have been replaced by The Correspondence of

Edmund Burke, published in ten volumes, under the general editorship of Thomas W. Copeland,

by the University of Chicago Press and the Cambridge University Press from 1958 to 1970.

Those wishing to get a better acquaintance with the world in which Burke lived and wrote also

have a vast literature at their disposal. To mention but a few examples, there are Peter Laslett’s

e 158 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

touching The World We Have Lost, Further Explored (London: Methuen, 1983), which describes

life as it was in seventeenth-century England and as it remained without great change into

Burke’s lifetime, and Dorothy Marshall’s Eighteenth-Century England (New York: D. McKay,

1962). The aristocratic society that was Burke’s political milieu is described by authors whose

feelings about it range from left to right: M. L. Bush, The English Aristocracy (Manchester

University Press, 1984); John Cannon, Aristocratic Century (Cambridge University Press, 1984);

and G. E. Mingay, English Landed Society in the Eighteenth Century (London: Routledge and

Kegan Paul; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1963) and The Gentry (London and New York:

Longman, 1976).

Biographies of Burke are rather few in number, and their authors were limited in access to source

materials prior to 1949 and the early 1950s, when the Earls Fitzwilliam, the heirs of Burke’s

political patrons, put a large collection of Burke’s previously unpublished papers in the Sheffield

Central Library for use by scholars.

The best of the nineteenth-century biographies is Sir James Prior’s Memoir of the Life and

Character of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, which had five editions, the last of them

reprinted in 1967 by Burt Franklin in New York (but the second edition of 1826 is the best one).

In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the most influential biography was John Morley’s

Burke, in the English Men of Letters Series, which established the dominant utilitarian

interpretation of Burke’s thought until after World War II; first published in 1879, it has been

several times republished (e.g., London: Macmillan, 1936).

Written in the first half of the twentieth century, The Early Life, Correspondence and Writings of

Edmund Burke, by Arthur P. I. and Arthur Warren Samuels (Cambridge University Press, 1923), is

still useful for this period of Burke’s life. Bertram Newman’s Edmund Burke (London: Bell and

Sons, 1927) is not a great biography, but it is serviceable. The best political biography of Burke is

Carl B. Cone’s Burke and the Nature of Politics: vol. 1, The Age of the American Revolution; and

vol. 2, The Age of the French Revolution (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1957, 1964).

Russell Kirk’s Edmund Burke: A Genius Reconsidered (New York and New Rochelle: Arlington

House, 1967) is a more popular biography. Charles Parkin’s article “Edmund Burke” in the New

Encyclopaedia Britannica (15th ed., 1980) is a brief but excellent scholarly biography. A new

biography that surpasses all previous ones in exhaustive research and wealth of detail is Edmund

Burke, by F. P. Locke, volume 1 of which was published in 1998. Volume 2, at the time of this

writing, was still being written.

Interpretations of Burke’s thought, which encompasses not only his political principles but his

much broader philosophical and theological views, vary widely. Those who wish to get an idea of

the broad scope of these variations may read the introduction to chapter 5 of the Gandy and

Stanlis bibliography. To simplify the matter here, however, we may say that the dominant and

largely British interpretation focussed on Burke’s emphasis on concrete historical facts and

developments, on contingency in human affairs, and on “expediency” and practicality in political

judgment. In this interpretation, Burke emerges as a utilitarian who ejected from political thought

“metaphysics” and natural law in the form of natural rights. After World War II, a school of

interpretation arose, mainly on the American side of the Atlantic, that held that Burke had

inherited a classical and Christian conception of natural law that furnished him with his view of

the world, of man, and of the supreme norms of politics.

e 159 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

There are those who deny that Burke’s thought deserved to be called a political philosophy. One

example, despite the title of his book, is Frank O’Gorman, Edmund Burke: His Political Philosophy

(Bloomington: Indiana University Press; London: Allen and Unwin, 1973). O’Gorman, a Lecturer

in Modern History at the University of Manchester when he wrote the book, sees Burke as no

more than an ideologist for the Rockingham Whigs. A more recent example is Isaac Kramnick’s

The Rage of Edmund Burke (New York: Basic Books, 1977), which psychoanalyzes Burke as a

frustrated bourgeois with a love-hate relationship with the aristocracy whom he served, and

perhaps a self-suppressed homosexual. Another highly psychological examination of Burke is

Conor Cruise O’Brien’s The Great Melody (University of Chicago Press, 1992).

In the nineteenth century, works by Henry Buckle, Sir Leslie Stephen, and William Lecky placed

Burke in the empirical, pragmatic, and utilitarian school of thought. We may take John Morley’s

Burke, already mentioned, as the most influential example of this school. Burke, he says,

overthrew “the baneful superstition that politics . . . is a province of morals.” John MacCunn, in

The Political Philosophy of Burke (London: Edward Arnold, 1913; New York: Russell and Russell,

1965), emerges from this tradition by bringing out the higher and wider dimensions of Burke’s

thought, including his belief in a higher moral law.

In the post–World War II period, Charles Parkin pointed out the connection in Burke’s political

thought between natural-law morality and politics in The Moral Basis of Burke’s Political Thought

(Cambridge University Press, 1956). In 1958, there appeared a full-length account of the role

played in Burke’s thought by the classical and medieval conception of natural law: Peter J.

Stanlis’s Edmund Burke and the Natural Law (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; now

available from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, Wilmington, Del.). It was followed by Francis

Canavan’s The Political Reason of Edmund Burke (Duke University Press, 1960), which argued

that Burke’s insistence on the concrete, experiential, and variable elements in practical political

judgment was fully compatible with the older doctrine of natural law, because that doctrine

included the Aristotelian and medieval understanding of practical reason and prudence. Burleigh

T. Wilkins wrote a critical review of the clash between the utilitarian and natural-law

interpretations of Burke’s thought in The Problem of Burke’s Political Philosophy (Oxford:

Clarendon Press, 1967), and came down on the natural-law side.

Along the same line are works by Canavan, Edmund Burke: Prescription and Providence (Durham,

N.C.: Carolina Academic Press, 1987); Stanlis, Edmund Burke: The Enlightenment and Revolution

(New Brunswick, N.J., and London: Transaction Publishers, 1991); and Joseph L. Pappin III, The

Metaphysics of Edmund Burke (Bronx, N.Y.: Fordham University Press, 1993).

While one cannot identify Gerard W. Chapman simply with either the utilitarian or the natural-law

school, his Edmund Burke: The Practical Imagination (Harvard University Press, 1967) is a

valuable examination of the way in which Burke’s mind worked in making practical and prudential

political judgments.

Critiques of Burke’s criticism of the radical democratic ideology of the age of the French

Revolution may be found in R. R. Fennessy’s Burke, Paine, and the Rights of Man (The Hague:

Martinus Nijhoff, 1963) and Michael Freeman’s Edmund Burke and the Critique of Political

Radicalism (University of Chicago Press, 1980). Daniel E. Ritchie has edited a collection of essays

on Burke’s thought from different points of view, including major chapters from a number of the

e 160 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

books in this bibliography, in Edmund Burke: Appraisals and Applications (New Brunswick, N.J.,

and London: Transaction Publishers, 1990).

Monographs on the major areas of Burke’s political concern that are addressed in the documents

included in this set of volumes are surprisingly few. We do have Thomas H. D. Mahoney’s Edmund

Burke and Ireland (Harvard University Press, 1960), but there is no monograph covering Burke

on America, on India, or on France.

Harvey Mansfield, Jr., has furnished useful background to Thoughts on the Cause of the Present

Discontents in his Statesmanship and Party Government (University of Chicago Press, 1965), and

James Boulton has a chapter on that document in his The Language of Politics in the Age of

Wilkes and Burke (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul; Toronto: University of Toronto Press,

1963). George H. Guttridge’s English Whiggism and the American Revolution (Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1942) performs a similar function for Burke’s speeches on American

taxation and conciliation with the colonies, as does Stanlis’s Edmund Burke on Conciliation with

the Colonies and Other Papers on the American Revolution (Lumenburg, Vt.: The Limited Editions

Club, Stinehour Press, 1975).

Sir Ernest Barker has essays on Burke and Bristol and on Burke and the French Revolution in his

Essays on Government (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1951). Steven Blakemore has edited essays on

Burke and the French Revolution (Athens and London: University of Georgia Press, 1992), and

Peter Stanlis edited Edmund Burke, the Enlightenment and the Modern World (University of

Detroit Press, 1967), which contains essays on Burke and the American and French revolutions.

Boulton’s The Language of Politics has a chapter on Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in

France.

The Gandy and Stanlis bibliography is of the opinion that “perhaps the best general treatment of

Burke and India” is in vol. 2, pp. 95–139 and 154–256, of Carl Cone’s Burke and the Nature of

Politics, and that the most authoritative text on it is vol. 5 of The Writings and Speeches of

Edmund Burke.

There is no one book devoted to the subject of Burke and France, nor any single book in English

on Burke and the French Revolution. There are almost innumerable periodical articles, however,

and introductions to the numerous editions of Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France. For

background, one may consult Frank O’Gorman’s doctoral dissertation, The Whig Party and the

French Revolution (London: Macmillan; New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1967), which sets Burke’s

attack on the French Revolution in the British political context of that time. But all books on

Burke’s political theory must treat his criticism of the Revolution in some depth.

The only monograph on Burke’s economics is Francis Canavan’s The Political Economy of Edmund

Burke (Bronx, N.Y.: Fordham University Press, 1995), but there is a large periodical literature on

the subject. For background to the Speech on the Representation of the Commons in Parliament,

the reader may consult George Stead Veith’s The Genesis of Parliamentary Reform (London:

Constable and Co., 1913; Hamden, Conn.: Shoestring Press, 1965) and John Cannon’s

Parliamentary Reform, 1640–1832 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973).

There is a large literature on Burke’s influence on subsequent thought, a subject too large to

e 161 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

enter here, but Russell Kirk’s The Conservative Mind from Burke to Eliot, 7th rev. ed.

(Washington: Regnery Gateway, 1986), should be mentioned for its examination of Burke’s

impact on American thought, as should G. P. Gooch’s Germany and the French Revolution

(London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1927) for that country.

e 162 of 162Burke, Miscellaneous Writin

s, vol. 4 of Select Works

(

1999

)

: The Online Librar

o...

4/8/2004htt

://oll.libert

fund.or

/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/0005-04

Bk.html

Livros Grátis
( http://www.livrosgratis.com.br )
 
Milhares de Livros para Download:
 
Baixar livros de Administração
Baixar livros de Agronomia
Baixar livros de Arquitetura
Baixar livros de Artes
Baixar livros de Astronomia
Baixar livros de Biologia Geral
Baixar livros de Ciência da Computação
Baixar livros de Ciência da Informação
Baixar livros de Ciência Política
Baixar livros de Ciências da Saúde
Baixar livros de Comunicação
Baixar livros do Conselho Nacional de Educação - CNE
Baixar livros de Defesa civil
Baixar livros de Direito
Baixar livros de Direitos humanos
Baixar livros de Economia
Baixar livros de Economia Doméstica
Baixar livros de Educação
Baixar livros de Educação - Trânsito
Baixar livros de Educação Física
Baixar livros de Engenharia Aeroespacial
Baixar livros de Farmácia
Baixar livros de Filosofia
Baixar livros de Física
Baixar livros de Geociências
Baixar livros de Geografia
Baixar livros de História
Baixar livros de Línguas

Baixar livros de Literatura
Baixar livros de Literatura de Cordel
Baixar livros de Literatura Infantil
Baixar livros de Matemática
Baixar livros de Medicina
Baixar livros de Medicina Veterinária
Baixar livros de Meio Ambiente
Baixar livros de Meteorologia
Baixar Monografias e TCC
Baixar livros Multidisciplinar
Baixar livros de Música
Baixar livros de Psicologia
Baixar livros de Química
Baixar livros de Saúde Coletiva
Baixar livros de Serviço Social
Baixar livros de Sociologia
Baixar livros de Teologia
Baixar livros de Trabalho
Baixar livros de Turismo
 
 